work to do.'
'When the guests are the other grandparents of my grandson, they are, in a way, of my own flesh and blood,' Galtier replied.
Harvey O'Doull nodded. 'You are very much as my son has written of you in his letters. He says you are the finest gentleman he ever met.'
The key word was in English, but Galtier understood it. He glared at Leonard O'Doull and spoke fiercely: 'See what lies you have been spreading about me!'
Harvey O'Doull started to explain himself, thinking Lucien had misunderstood and really was insulted. Leonard O'Doull, who knew his father-in-law better, wagged a forefinger at him, a thoroughly French gesture for an Irishman to use. 'If I had not heard the words come from your lips, I would have thought Georges had spoken them.'
'Tabernac!' Galtier exploded. 'Now I am insulted!''
'So am I,' Georges said. They all laughed. Lucien had not thought his meeting with these Americans would begin so well. But then, he reflected, he had not thought his meetings with any Americans would go so well as they had. Occasionally-but only occasionally, the stubborn peasant part of him insisted- surprises were good ones.
Scipio stood in line outside the Augusta, Georgia, city hall with more worry in his heart than he let his face show. The queue of black people stretched for blocks. Every so often, a white passing by would offer a jeer or a curse. Gray-clad policemen kept the whites from doing anything worse, if they'd intended to.
Bathsheba squeezed his hand. 'Hope none o' them Freedom Party buckra come to raise a ruction.'
He nodded. 'Me, too.' That was indeed one of the worries he was doing his best to conceal. As those worries went, though, it was only a small one.
Bathsheba cheerfully went on, 'Passbooks won't be so bad. Did well enough with 'em before, an' I reckon we can again. Just a nuisance, is all.'
'I hopes you's right,' Scipio said. He had his doubts. The Freedom Party men in Congress were the ones who'd introduced the law tightening up the passbook system in the CSA, which had fallen to pieces during the Great War. He distrusted anything that had anything to do with the Freedom Party. But that worry wasn't at the top of his list, either.
The line slowly snaked forward, not toward the front entrance to the city hall-whites wouldn't have stood for blacks' impeding their progress that way-but toward a side door. Negroes newly issued passbooks went out the back way. Some of them came around to talk with friends still in line.
'Look like a police station in there,' one of them said. 'They got wanted posters up for every nigger ever spit on the sidewalk.'
A couple of blacks, hearing that, suddenly found other things to do than stand in line just then. Scipio felt like finding something else to do, too. But, from what he read in the papers, he was more likely to get in trouble without a passbook later than he was to be recognized now. Maybe a poster with his name-his real name-on it would be hanging there with all the rest. Nobody in Georgia wanted him except Bathsheba, and he was glad she had him. Everything he'd done for the Congaree Socialist Republic had been over in South Carolina. He was perfectly happy to have people beating the bushes for him there; he never intended to set foot in the state again.
Up the worn stone steps leading to the side door he and Bathsheba went. 'Glad we ain't doin' this in the summertime,' he said. 'We melt jus' as fas' as the ice under the fish over at Erasmus'place.'
'For true,' Bathsheba agreed. When they got inside, she looked along the hallway. 'That fellow weren't lyin'. Who would have thought there was so many bad niggers in this here town?'
Scipio scanned the wanted posters. Sure as hell, there was a faded one with his name on it. The poster, though, bore no picture. He'd been photographed only a couple of times in his life, and those images had gone up in smoke when Marshlands burned. He'd never had any brushes with the police, as had the men and women whose photos adorned most of the fliers. On the other hand, if caught for his political crimes, he'd face the gallows or a firing squad.
At last, he came before a sour-faced white clerk. 'Name?' the fellow asked.
'Xerxes,' Scipio answered, and then had to spell it for the clerk, who'd started it with a Z instead of anX
Being corrected by a black man made the clerk's face even more sour, but he made the change. 'Residence address?' he said, and Scipio gave him the address of the roominghouse over in the Terry. The clerk didn't have any trouble getting that down on paper. Then he asked, 'Birthplace?'
'I were borned on a plantation over in South Carolina.' Scipio hoped his sudden tension didn't show. He hadn't expected that question.
But the clerk only nodded. 'You talk like it,' he said, and wrote SOUTH CAROLINA on the passbook and on the form that would record its new owner. He asked about Scipio's age (on general principles, Scipio lied five years off it), his employer, and his employer's address. After taking all that down, he said, 'State the time and reason your previous passbook was lost.'
'Suh, it were 1916,1 reckons,' Scipio said, 'an' I were gettin' the hell out o' where I was at, on account of I didn't want to git kilt. Didn't take nothin' but de clothes on my back.'
The clerk grunted. 'Another patriotic nigger running away from the Reds,' he said. 'If I had a dime-a real silver dime, I mean-for every time I've heard that one the past couple days, I'd be a hell of a rich man.' But he was just blowing off steam in general; he didn't seem to disbelieve Scipio in particular. When Scipio didn't flinch, the clerk grunted again. 'Raise your right hand.'
Scipio obeyed.
'Do you solemnly swear that the information you have given me in regard to this book is true and complete, so help you God?' the white man droned.
'Yes, suh,' Scipio said.
Still droning, the clerk went on, 'The penalty for perjury in regard to this book may be fine or imprisonment or both, as a court of law may determine. Do you understand?'' Scipio nodded. The clerk looked miffed, perhaps at finding a black man who didn't need the word perjury explained to him. Thrusting the new passbook at Scipio, he said, 'Keep this book in your possession at all times. It must be shown or surrendered on demand of any competent official. If you move or change jobs in Augusta, you must notify city hall or a police station within five days. You must have the proper stamp in the book before you travel outside Richmond County. Penalty for violating those provisions is also fine or imprisonment or both. Do you understand all that?'
'Yes, suh,' Scipio repeated.
'All right, then,' the clerk said, as if washing his hands of him. 'Go down that hall and into one of the rooms on the left. Get yourself photographed. A copy of the photograph will be sent to you. It must go into your passbook, on the blank page opposite your personal information. If you do not receive it within two weeks, come back here to be photographed again. Next!'
Bathsheba, who'd gone to the clerk next to the one who'd dealt with Scipio, was waiting when he finished. Together, they went to get their pictures taken. The photography room was full of flash-powder smoke, as if soldiers with old-fashioned weapons had fought a battle in there.
Foomp! A photographer set off more flash powder. Scipio's eyes watered at the blast of light. 'Do Jesus!' he exclaimed. A blowing green-purple spot danced at the center of his vision before slowly fading.
'That was just like lookin' into the sun,' Bathsheba said as the two of them made their blinking way to the back door and out of the Augusta city hall.
'Sure enough was,' Scipio said. He put the passbook in the pocket of his dungarees. If he couldn't leave the county without getting the book stamped, Confederate authorities were tightening up with a vengeance. And yet, oddly, that bothered him only a little. Now he had an official document to prove he was Xerxes of Augusta, Georgia. That made it much harder for Anne Colleton-or anyone else, but he worried most about Miss Anne-to accuse him of ever having been Scipio the bloodthirsty Red.
He spotted Aurelius in the line of men and women waiting to get passbooks, and waved to the waiter with whom he'd worked at John Oglethorpe's restaurant before the white man let him go. Aurelius waved back. 'How you is?' Scipio called.
Aurelius waggled his hand back and forth. 'Same as always.' He looked from Scipio to Bathsheba and back again. 'You look like you's doin' pretty good for yourself,' he said with a smile.
'This here my intended,' Scipio answered proudly. He introduced Bathsheba and Aurelius, then asked, 'How Mistuh Oglethorpe doin'?'
'He don't change,' Aurelius said. 'Tough as rocks on the outside, sof' as butter underneath.'
