“Did Robert E. Lee have a cat? When he lived at Arlington?”
I was too tired, that was all. If I could just have gotten a nap instead of looking up Willie Lincoln and talking to reporters, I would have been able to take all this in—me asking her out when she was living with Richard, her asking me if Lee had a cat while she scrabbled in the dirt of the flowerpot as if she were trying to dig a grave.
“What kind of cat?” I said.
She had pulled the violet up by its roots and was holding it tightly in her hand. “I don’t know. A yellow cat. With darker stripes. It was there, in the dream.”
I said, “What dream?” and watched her drop the empty flowerpot. It crashed at her feet.
“I’ve been having this dream,” she said. “In it I’m at the house I grew up in, standing on the front porch, looking for the cat. It’s snowed, a wet, spring snow, and I have the idea that he has gotten buried in the snow, but then I see him out in the apple orchard, picking his way through the snow with little, high, funny steps.”
I did not know what was coming, but at the words
“I called to him, but he didn’t pay any attention, so I went after him.” She was holding the violet like a nosegay in front of her, tearing the leaves off in absent, desperate movements. “I made it out to the tree all right, and I tried to pick the cat up, but he wouldn’t let me, and I tried to catch him and I stepped on something….” She had torn all the leaves off now and was starting on the flowers. “It was a Union soldier. I could see his arm in the blue sleeve sticking out of the dirt. He was still holding his rifle, and there was a piece of paper pinned to his sleeve. Somebody had buried him in the orchard, but not deep enough, and when the snow had started to melt it had uncovered his arm. I bent down and unpinned the paper, but when I looked at it, the paper was blank. I had the idea it might be some kind of message, and that frightened me. I stepped back, and something gave under my foot.”
There was nothing left of the violet but the roots, covered in dirt, and she crushed them in her fist. “It was the cap of another soldier. I hadn’t stepped on his head, but where the snow had melted I could see him lying face down with his gun under him. He had yellow hair. The cat went over and licked his face like he used to lick mine to wake me up.
“Whoever had buried them had just shoveled sod over them where they’d fallen, and the snow had hidden them, but now it was melting. I still couldn’t see them except for a foot or a hand, and I didn’t want to step on them but everywhere I stepped I went through to the bodies underneath. And the cat just walked all over them.” She had dropped what was left of the violet and was looking past me at the door. “They were buried all over the orchard and the lawn, right up to the front steps.”
I could hear somebody clattering down the stairs, and I moved, for the first time that night, as if I were wide awake. I reached past Annie and scooped up a handful of dirt and torn leaves off the floor. When Richard came in with his coat over his arm, we were both bending down, heads together, picking up the shards, and my hands were as dirty as hers.
I straightened up with a handful of dirt and clay triangles. Did you two figure out what was causing Lincoln’s dreams?” I asked.
“No. I told you I couldn’t tell him what he wanted to know,” Richard said. He looked past me at Annie. “We’ve got to go. Get your coat.”
“I’ll get it, I said, and went out to the hall closet.
Broun came plummeting down the stairs. “Is he still here?”
I motioned toward the solarium. He hurried in, and I followed with Annie’s coat. “I’m so sorry, Dr. Madison,” Broun said. “That damned
“You asked me my opinion, and I gave it to you,” Richard said stiffly.
“That’s right,” Broun said. “I appreciate your giving it to me. And maybe you’re right, and Lincoln was heading for a psychotic break, but you have to remember, there had been a number of attempts on his life already, and it seems to me that it would be normal for him to…
Richard shrugged on his overcoat. “You want me to tell you the dreams are normal? Well, I can’t. A dream like that is obviously a symptom of a serious neurosis.”
I looked at Annie. She hadn’t moved. She was standing beside me, her hands full of leaves and pieces of flowerpot, with an expression on her face that told me she had heard all this before.
“Lincoln was in need of immediate professional help,” Richard said, “and I’m not going to stand by and say nothing. It’s my duty as a doctor to…”
“I think Lincoln is pretty much beyond help even for a doctor,” Broun said.
“We have to go,” Richard said angrily, buttoning his overcoat.
“Well, even though we disagree, I’m glad you came,” Broun said, putting his arm around Richard’s shoulder. “I’m just sorry you can’t stay and have some supper. Those shrimp doodads are wonderful.” He led Richard out into the hall.
I held the gray coat and wondered if I were really asleep and dreaming all this. Annie came and took the coat off my arm, and I helped her into it. “What was the cat’s name?” I said. “In your dream?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s not my cat.” She looked down to button her coat, and then looked back up at me. “It’s not my dream,” she said. “I know you won’t believe me because Richard doesn’t. He thinks I’m heading for a psychotic break, and you probably think I’m crazy, too, but it’s not my dream. I’m dreaming it, but it’s somebody else’s.”
“Your… he’s getting the car,” Broun said, taking in the whole scene.
“I’m sorry about your African violets,” Annie said. “I was looking at one of them and…”
“No harm done, no harm done.” He led her to the front door and out, talking the whole time. “I’m so glad you could come to our reception.”
When he came back, I was on my hands and knees in front of the bookcase, looking for volume two of Freeman. “I had a very peculiar conversation with your roommate just now,” he said. He sat down on the arm of the loveseat and looked at the pile of dirt and flowerpot fragments that had been his violet. He scratched his scruffy beard, looking more than ever like a horsetrader. “He told me that Lincoln’s dream was a symbol for some deep- seated trauma, probably in his childhood.”
I found
“I told him I thought the deep-seated trauma was probably the Civil War, and that it seemed perfectly normal for him to dream about assassinations and coffins in the White House. Did you know Willie’s coffin was put in the East Room?”
“Did Robert E. Lee have a cat?” I said.
Broun looked at me. “Lincoln had cats. Kittens. He loved kittens.”
“Lee, damn it, not Lincoln. When he lived at Arlington, did he have a cat?”
“I don’t know,” he said, and it was the same placating tone he’d used with Richard. “Maybe Freeman says something about a cat.”
“Maybe it does, but I don’t have a goddamn clue as to where Freeman is. You keep volume one in the attic, volume three under your bed, and volume four you tear up for mulch and use in your African violets. If you had a library like other people instead of this goddamned disorganized mess…”
“Your roommate said,” Broun went on, “that all the half-buried bodies in the dream showed that Lincoln was obsessed with death.”
I looked up from the book. He was watching me with his bright little horsetrader’s eyes. “Do you have any idea what he was talking about?” he asked.
“No,” I said. I picked up the scattered books and started to put them back on the shelf. “I’m going to bed. I’ve got to go out to Arlington in the morning.”
He stood up then and patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t bother with it,” he said. “It can wait. You’ve just gotten home from a long trip, and I know you’re tired. Go on to bed, son. I’ll take care of that mob upstairs.” His hand was still on my shoulder. “Did you get a chance to read that scene I gave you?”
“No,” I said.
