Enemy Women (21 page)

Yes, sir, I know.

The colonel lifted his eyebrows and peered down at the papers without lowering his head; he was trying to see the print without putting on his spectacles.

Mrs. Buckley has a powerful supporter in Frank Blair, however. He blew out air through his mustaches. She is a political appointee.

Yes sir, Major Neumann said. It seems to be prevalent.

The colonel turned to the panel ranged beside him. Lieutenant Brawley?

Well, sir, the major has done this report on the inadvisability of continuing to arrest disloyal women. Brawley grinned in a loopy way as if all reports on disloyal women were hilarious.

The colonel turned back to Neumann. We appreciate your report. It is true that it is a thing that can lead to corruption, and we can see that it has. I don’t care for it either but here we are and we must do our duty. I will forward the report. At last he reached for his glasses and put them on, drawing the wire earpieces carefully over each ear. Now, this information about a secret conspiracy from this Miss Colley is scarcely credible.

The colonel picked up a page with Adair’s handwriting on it. He held it by the corner, between two fingers.

I thought it actually might be true, sir.

I think not. Knights of the Golden Whiskey Jug, wasn’t it?

The other officers on the panel laughed. Lieutenant Brawley nearly choked. He rolled up his eyes. He bit the end of his pen. He said, Sir, it is unlikely that it is anything but stoneware.

And you have applied for a transfer to a fighting unit. That was four months ago. Which has finally been granted. I understand the pressures and unpleasantries this assignment has brought on you. It cannot have been easy.

No, sir.

Very well. And Lieutenant Brawley has also been reassigned.

Brawley ducked into his collar as if there were incoming shells even now.

The two of you are both going to Mobile.

Neumann bowed slightly.

Thank you, sir.

ADAIR FELT SO
hurt that she seemed to be damaged inside. She hated herself for writing all those things, it was all sentimental and gushing. She had left out the women’s miscarriages and the animals born deformed, the drunks and floods and the crawling mold overtaking the dried fruit in an expanding gray mush. She had left out Sam Billingslea’s legs sticking out from under a hundred-foot white oak that had jumped the butt and crushed him, his face blank as the earl of hell. Her brother shooting a man for a pair of shoes. She stared at the floor of her cell for a long time. The floor was dirty with trodden straw and so she left it that way. All the stupid things she had written would come back to shame her like nasty, boisterous clowns.

She put the paper and pen and ink bottle outside her cell bars in the hallway floor, and soon one of the women trustees came and took it away and the table too.

Adair got up and took the pass from her sleeve. She put it in the pocket of the green camisette and sewed the pocket shut.

She lay down again and felt the fever beating like a hot engine in her face. She could not stop coughing and coughed until her ribs felt broken.

Adair woke up in the middle of the night, and found she was being shouted at by other women in the cells down the hall.

Sometime after that the matron came and brought to her a tin pitcher of water and a tin cup and Adair sat up and drank almost all of the water in the pitcher. It was muddy Mississippi River water. They kept trying to keep the blankets up around her. Then there were several people in her cell talking and she wished they would go away. She saw Kisia wrapping her waist purse by its strings around her wrist. Then she found herself being stuffed into some kind of a wrapper over her chemise and wavering down the hallway. Two people were helping her down the stairs, into another room.

Kisia was saying, You all are going to just let her die.

I am not unkind! shouted the matron. I am not unmindful of those who are unwell!

Then she was in the sickroom. Adair sat up in bed and said, Don’t let the matron get my Log Cabin quilt.

I’ll look after it, Miss Adair, said Kisia.

Adair said, Promise me you will not let them take me to the city hospital.

Then she turned on one side before Kisia could say anything and lay looking at the wallpaper. What time of day is it? she asked. Her teeth chattered of their own accord.

Adair, it is the latest watch of the night, said Kisia. Better eat this.

Adair lifted the tin spoon to her lips but that was as far as she got. Without warning she seemed to be blooming into a very large red flower that was made of blown glass. She dropped the spoon. She felt she was being annealed in a glass furnace. Her hair slid and pooled on her shoulders. She felt no need of either food or sleep. Now the heavy blankets were a trouble to her. It was like being flattened in a cotton press. She shoved them down and away.

I want some water, please, she said. Adair took the cup of brownish water that was handed to her and drank it off and then another and another. She lay back and drifted.

Another time came when the major opened the door. Before him stalked Mrs. Buckley, who pulled the blankets and sheet up to Adair’s shoulders and went to stand picket at the open doorway.

She has been given the very best of medicines! cried the matron. She has not been unattended!

The major took up a chair and sat it beside the bed. He wavered in and out of focus, but there was no mistaking the touch of his hand and the glint of his hair in the lamplight which gave it reddish tones. His round hazel eyes and his intense gaze.

I love you, she said. But I am in such terrible trouble.

Major William Neumann took her hand in both of his.

Your hands are hot.

I have to get home.

He sat and said nothing and seemed to be waiting for her to continue. She closed her eyes. The major said, Adair?

That’s me, she said. I think. What do you think?

Have you seen a doctor? He reached out, felt of her forehead and her cheeks with his other hand. You have an excessive temperature.

And also, I dreamed the fire tongs came walking up the stairs. To us girls’ room. They were coming for me.

Mrs. Buckley said from the doorway, That must have been when she was screaming. I asked that watch be kept on her
day
and
night
!

Where? said the major. He held on to Adair’s hand and turned to look at the matron. When was she screaming?

In her cell, said Mrs. Buckley. It took her a while to get this sick. We can’t just run people down here whenever they have a little sniffle!

Call Dr. Stilman, he said.

When our boys are dying in Mobile without doctors or hospitals, said Mrs. Buckley. I’m to run get the best for this little secessionist gal.

The major stood up and Adair saw him smile at the matron. He said, Mrs. Buckley, we have a sick girl on our hands. Let’s you and I try to forget our differences and get along for once.

Well, Major, glad to see you can accommodate a little. Mrs. Buckley nodded and took a comb out of her thick hair and combed back a side wave and stuck the comb in again. Time you learned to be more accommodating.

Shake on it? Major Neumann held out his hand, and his broad-brimmed hat was in the other. Mrs. Buckley’s smile was thin, but she held out her hand, and Major Neumann took it. He crushed down with all his strength and the tall woman cried out and tried to pull loose but she could not. Neumann took a long step backward, and with a strong jerk threw her to the floor.

Mrs. Buckley shouted and struck the stone floor with the heels of her hands. She struggled to get up in a welter of plaid skirts, caught her skirt hem under her knee and ripped loose some of it from the bodice. The glass and pitcher on the nightstand chimed and spouted drops.

Major Neumann dropped his hat and bent down and lifted Mrs. Buckley by the collar of her dress.

I will hurt you very badly if she’s not taken care of. He pressed two thumbs into her neck. I will draw my revolver and blow you through.

I am going for the doctor, said the matron. To protect me. If that’s how you’re going to do a person. Let go of me.

Neumann didn’t say anything but turned her and shoved her toward the door. She went out the door and shut it quickly behind her.

He stood for a moment watching the door to see that she was well gone and then came and sat down beside Adair again. Adair’s throat was aflame and she needed to swallow and then could not. She began to choke. The major poured a cup of beige water from the pitcher, and sat on the bed. He put his hand behind her head and lifted her upright, held her against his chest. She took the tin cup in both hands and drank all of it down. Strands of her hair caught on his sleeve buttons and he gently drew them loose. He held her in the crook of his arm.

You look like a mezzotint, he said. He held her burning hand.

I’ll have nothing to do with those foreigners, she whispered.

That mezzotint
The Lady of Shalott.

The one where she’s wallowing around in that tiny boat?

The very one. He stroked her hair away from her face. Get well. Get over the wall. Then show the guard one of those twenty-five-
dollar gold pieces in your hand, and then say there is something down
the street that needs his attention. She could smell the freshness of his snowy coat and the good strong male smell of his skin. Drops sparkled on his shoulder bars. He kissed her lightly on the cheek and then eased her down onto the bed again. He sat back. That would get me a court-martial. He regarded her. You’ve worn me down. Just go home. I’ll find you.

She fell asleep suddenly, into a profound and quenching sleep. When she woke up again he was there, and another man as well. A man in a long black coat. The doctor asked the major to leave. With the matron standing by, the doctor began to thump on her narrow breastbone. He lifted her lids and looked into her eyes. He made her sit up and listened with his instrument and its chill, coin-size head, to her breathing.

I have no idea, he said. Maybe consumption. I hear rales.

Adair saw them evaporate out the door into the square of light. The major stood beside her once again. He held her hand and shook it slightly to get her attention.

I want a promise, he said.

What?

That you won’t run off and marry some hillbilly until after you see me again. Then if I am missing a leg or something you can marry any hillbilly you want.

I don’t know, she said. I might die. My mother died of a fever too.

That is all I am asking. Promise.

All right.

She focused on his face. He took the signet ring from his left ring finger and held it between his thumb and forefinger.

Can you see this?

Yes. It’s your ring.

I’m leaving it with you as a fee, that I mean what I say.

They’ll steal it.

He unbuttoned her nightgown to her waist. Spread it apart. Inside the printed flannel her body lay as white as bone, her nipples, like her
lips, bright red with fever. He drew up the ribbons that tied her drawers, untied them, and threaded the ring onto the ribbon and tied the ends again.

Then when you are dressed, keep it tied to your stays.

He drew his hand down over her body with fingers spread and then buttoned her nightgown again. Slowly, button by button.

All right.

To leave you like this is the worst thing that has ever happened to me, he said. I do not believe the war could be any worse.

Where are you going?

I told you. Alabama.

All right, Major. She was whispering. She had round red spots on her cheeks.

Call me William. I want to hear you say it before I get my head shot off. Or you could call me Major Stick.

She gripped his hand. William, she said.

Adair.

Then he bent to pick up a valise or portfolio or some carryall from the floor and then he was gone.

16

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