“Impossible? Or very difficult?”
“Um… I don't know.”
“Are you not perhaps putting the problem too abstractly? Is not perhaps your situation—your hypothetical situation—one of being accessory to wrong rather than facing an alternative which means personal unhappiness?”
Again I struggled for noncommittal words. He had formulated my dilemma about the Grand Army so far as it connected with giving up my place in the bookstore or telling him of Tyss's bias. Yet not entirely. And why could I not let Tyss know of Colonel Tolliburr's visit, which it was certainly my duty to do? Was this overscrupulousness only a means of avoiding any unpleasantness?
“Yes,” I muttered at last.
“It would be very nice if there were no drawbacks ever attached to the virtuous choice. Then the only ones who would elect to do wrong would be those of twisted minds, the perverse, the insane. Who would prefer the devious course if the straight one were just as easy? No, no, my dear Hodge, one cannot escape the responsibility for his choice simply because the other way means inconvenience or hardship or tribulation.”
“Must we always act, whether we are sure of the outcome of our action or not?”
“Not acting is also action; can we always be sure of the outcome of refusing to act?”
Was it pettiness that made me contrast his position as an official of a small yet fairly secure power, well enough paid to live comfortably, with mine where a break with Tyss meant beggary and no further chance of fulfilling the ambition every day more important to me?
“You know, Hodge,” he said as though changing the subject, “I am what they call a career man, meaning I have no money except my salary. This might seem much to you, but it is really little, particularly since protocol says I must spend more than necessary. For the honor of my country. At home I have an establishment to keep up where my wife and children live—”
I had wondered about his apparent bachelorhood.
“—because to be rudely frank, I do not think they would be happy or safe in the United States on account of their color. Besides these expenses I make personal contributions for the assistance of black men who are—how shall we say it?—unhappily circumstanced in your country, for I have found the official allotment is never enough. Now I have been indiscreet; you know state secrets. Why do I tell you this? Because, my friend, I should like to help. Alas, I cannot offer money. But this I can do, if it will not offend your pride: I suggest you live here—it will be no more uncomfortable than the arrangements you have described in the store—and attend one of the colleges of the city. A medal or an order from the Haitian government judiciously conferred on an eminent educator— decorations cut so nicely across color lines, perhaps because they don't show their origin to the uninitiated— should take care of tuition fees. What do you say?”
What could I say? That I did not deserve his generosity? The statement would be meaningless, a catchphrase, unless I explained that I'd not been open with him, and now even less than before was I able to do this. Or could I say that bare minutes earlier I had thought enviously and spitefully of him? Wretched and happy, I mumbled incoherent thanks, began a number of sentences and left them unfinished, lapsed into dazed silence.
But the newly-opened prospect cut through my introspection and scattered my self-reproaches. The future was too exciting to dwell in any other time; in a moment we were both sketching rapid plans and supplementing each other's designs with revisions of our own. Words tumbled out; ideas were caught in midexpression. We decided, we reconsidered, we returned to the first decisions.
I was to give Tyss two weeks' notice despite the original agreement making such nicety superfluous; Enfandin was to discuss matriculation with a professor he knew. My employer raised a quizzical eyebrow at my information.
“Ah, Hodgins, you see how neatly the script works out. Nothing left to chance or choice. If you hadn't been relieved of your trifling capital by a man of enterprise whose methods were more successful than subtle, you might have fumbled at the edge of the academic world for four years and then, having substituted a wad of unrelated facts for common sense and whatever ability to think you may have possessed, fumbled for the rest of your life at the edge of the economic world. You wouldn't have met George Pondible or gotten here where you could discover your own mind without adjustment to a professorial iron maiden.”
“I thought it was all arbitrary.”
He gave me a reproachful look. “Arbitrary and predetermined are not synonymous, Hodgins, nor does either rule out artistry. Mindless artistry, of course, like that of the snowflake or crystal. And how artistic this development is! You will go on to become a professor yourself and construct iron maidens for promising students who might become your competitors. You will write learned histories, for you are—haven't I said this before?—the spectator type. The part written for you does not call for you to be a participant, an instrument for—apparently— influencing events. Hence it is proper that you report them so that future generations may get the illusion they aren't puppets.”
He grinned at me. At another time I would have been delighted to pounce on the assortment of inconsistencies he had just offered; at the moment I could think of nothing but my failure to mention the Confederate agent's visit. It almost seemed his mechanist notions were valid and I was destined always to be the ungrateful recipient of kindness.
“All right,” he said, swallowing the last of his bread and half-raw meat, “so long as your sentimentality impels you to respect obligations I can find work for you. Those boxes over there go upstairs. Pondible's bringing a van around for them this afternoon.”
I've heard the assumption that working in a bookstore must be light and pleasant. Many times during the years with Roger Tyss I had reason to be thankful for my strength and farm training. The boxes were deceptively small but so heavy they could only have been solidly packed with paper. Even with Tyss carrying box for box with me I was vastly relieved when I had to quit to run an errand.
When I got back he went out to make an offer on someone's library. “There are only four left. The last two are paper wrapped; didn't have enough boxes.”
It was characteristic of him to leave the lighter packages for me. I ran up the stairs with one of the two remaining wooden containers. Returning, I tripped on the lowest step and sprawled forward. Reflexively I threw out my hands and landed on one of the paper parcels. The tightstretched covering cracked and split under the impact; the contents—neatly tied rectangular bundles—spilled out.
I had learned enough of the printing trade to recognize the brightly colored oblongs as lithographs, and I wondered as I stooped over to gather them up why such a job should have been given Tyss rather than a shop specializing in this work. Even under the gaslight the colors were hard and vigorous.
Then I really looked at the bundle I was holding. ESPANA was enscrolled across the top; below it was the picture of a man with a long nose and jutting underlip, flanked by two ornate figure fives, and beneath them the legend, CINCO PESETAS, Spanish Empire banknotes. Bundles and bundles of them.
I needed neither expert knowledge nor minute scrutiny to tell me there was a fortune here in counterfeit money. The purpose in forging Spanish currency I could not see; that it was no private undertaking of Tyss's but an activity of the Grand Army I was certain. Puzzled and worried, I rewrapped the bundles of notes into as neat an imitation of the original package as I could contrive.
The rest of the day I spent casting uneasy glances at the mound of boxes and watching with apprehension the movement of anyone toward them. Death was the penalty for counterfeiting United States coins; I had no idea of the punishment for doing the same with foreign paper, but I was sure even so minor an accessory as myself would be in a sad way if some officious customer should stumble against one of the packages.
Tyss in no way acted like a guilty man, or even one with an important secret. He seemed unaware of any peril; doubtless he was daily in similar situations. Only chance and my own lack of observation had prevented my discovering this earlier.
Nor did he show anxiety when Pondible failed to arrive. Darkness came and the gas lamps went on in the streets. The heavy press of traffic outside dwindled, but the incriminating boxes remained undisturbed near the door. At last there was the sound of uncertain wheels slowing up outside and Pondible's voice admonishing, “Wh- Whoa!”
I rushed out just as he was dismounting with slow dignity. “Who goes?” he asked. “ 'Vance and give a countersign.”
