The Resurrectionist: A Novel Part 12

But the dean seems unconcerned. "We're well past confidentiality now. Besides, I want you to know what kind of man you're dealing with." With the dean facing out the window, Jacob can see only half his face. It is expressionless.

"John Beauregard handled the physical plant thing, if I'm remembering it right," McMichaels says.

"That was before my time."

"Yes it was. Beauregard was an a.s.set to the school."

Jacob shifts in his chair, remembering Beauregard's retirement party, when Jacob had been officially introduced as the old man's replacement. He'd felt like a usurper all evening among the old guard gathered over c.o.c.ktails to wish Beauregard a fond farewell. Six months later Beauregard was dead of an embolism that laid him out on the ninth fairway of Augusta National, midway through another sub-par round.

McMichaels steps back to his leather chair and bends behind it. When he rises, Jacob sees with a sinking sensation that he holds a plain manila folder. "And he didn't have this." He drops the folder in Jacob's lap, where it rests with a leaden weight. "Use it only if you have to. Otherwise, we're going strictly by the book on this."

McMichaels crosses the room to his mahogany desk and opens a drawer. He takes something out of it and pulls the chain on his desk lamp. Under the green light of the banker's shade, Jacob sees that it is a checkbook.

"Reparation march, my a.s.s," he says. "Don't fall for the man-of-G.o.d routine, Jake. This Greer is a petty hustler, a shakedown artist. Lucky for you, Beauregard got his number ten years ago." He begins to scribble on the checkbook as though writing out a prescription. "I'm writing you a check from the dean's discretionary fund. I want you to go see this reverend, get this taken care of."

Jacob looks down at the folder in his lap, and at the gla.s.s in his hand, realizing he had forgotten it. He takes a long drink from it before he speaks.

"I don't think I can do that, sir."

McMichaels waves a hand in the air as he might swat at a mosquito. "Nonsense. It must be done." He looks over the green lampshade at Jacob intently. "It's a tax-deductible donation. If I can't rely on you, Jake, who have I got?"

"You're talking about a bribe, sir."

McMichaels's eyes flash as he comes around the desk. He jabs a finger at Jacob, the check held loosely in his hand as he points toward Jacob's chest. "You never use that word around me, son. Never. Spend a few more years in this business and you'll see there's no such thing. Do you think a school gets built-clinics, hospitals set up-without quid pro quo? This is the rule, Jake, not the exception."

"I still think we should take this head-on. I've been finding things in the archives, Jim, about this slave named Nemo Johnston. Amazing stuff. He was likely the first black anatomy professor in the South. Or h.e.l.l, the country. If we've got this money, we can afford a symposium on this Nemo Johnston, maybe even a center. You know Sanburn would eat it up. We'd be beating Greer at his own game."

"Nemo Johnston?" McMichaels said, shaking his head. "No, no. Sanburn is gone now. And so is the past. Stand up, son. I want to show you something."

McMichaels has moved to the window again, and he motions Jacob over to him. "Let me tell you what I've learned in my time, Jake. It's all about end results, long-range thinking. That's how you build a legacy. And I'll be absolutely G.o.dd.a.m.ned if my part of that legacy should end up in a scandal. I'll retire in two or three years, Jake. I will not be remembered by what's in that bas.e.m.e.nt."

McMichaels gestures toward the window, the flush on his face beginning to fade. "Take a look out there. Just take a look at this place."

Jacob looks out over the rear grounds in the twilight. The exterior lights have been turned on, all of them, from the ground lamps along the brick pathways to accent lighting under the c.r.a.pe myrtles, spotlights in the live oaks. It looks like a vision of the Old South set up by a Hollywood scene artist.

"All of this was started with slave labor, then carried on through Reconstruction and into this century by workers paid d.a.m.n near slave wages. No point in dredging all that up again. But just look at it now. Now it's maintained by tax dollars, for the greater good. Today, anybody in South Carolina who can make the academic grade is welcomed to this medical school. Black or white, rich or poor, it belongs to them. h.e.l.l, even foreign students. And that overrides whatever concessions were made to get us here."

McMichaels reaches out an arm and hooks it around Jacob's shoulder. "You're one of those people, Jake. Do you think I don't remember you from years ago? I do. I remember Jacob Thacker, up from West Columbia to make something better for himself. I remember reading through your admissions file and saying to myself, Sweet Jesus, we've got somebody here who'll crawl through broken gla.s.s to be a doctor, somebody with real guts." He hands Jacob the check. "You still want to be a doctor, don't you, Jake? Do what you need to do."

Jacob looks down at the check, all the zeros in its sum, the dean's scrawled signature. McMichaels has written "501 (c) (3)" in the memo line. "You didn't make it out to Greer. That line is blank."

"Talk to the man. See if he wants it made out to the church, to a scholarship fund, whatever. I'll leave that part of it to your discretion."

Jacob is about to speak when he hears a soft knock at the door. Bitsy enters with a tray of cheese and crackers and smiles as she sets it on the coffee table. McMichaels moves to help her. His face seems to light up in her presence.

"What a woman, huh, Jake? Still as beautiful as the day I met her on the beach at Edisto," McMichaels says, stuffing a cracker in his mouth and putting an arm around his wife.

Bitsy blushes and laughs shyly. "And he's still carrying on like a fool," she says.

Jacob stuffs the check in the pocket of his jacket and sets his drink on the table, then reluctantly picks up the folder. He smiles and reaches out a hand to the dean. "You are a very lucky pair of people," he says.

"Can't you stay a while longer, Jacob?"

"No, ma'am. But I'll be back tomorrow night with everyone else. Thank you for your hospitality."

And with that he leaves them, standing together in front of the cold fireplace as though posing for a portrait in one of the southern lifestyle magazines, the expensive ones, as modern-day exemplars of a kind of feudal grace, long ago lost. A couple from another time, in whose kingdom he has briefly interloped.

Fernyear: 1866.

NEMO STOOD IN DOCTOR JOHNSTON'S DOORWAY with the bloodied handkerchief pressed against his face, as he had for nearly five minutes now, with his shoulder leaning against the jamb and his eyes on the doctor, who had not yet looked up from the clutter of papers on his desk. Beneath the handkerchief his nose still throbbed, but the sharp pains had ebbed and he was nearly certain the bleeding had stopped. Nevertheless, he kept the stained cloth in place. He wanted Johnston to see it.

As though finally giving up on the problem before him, Johnston shuffled the papers into a single stack and set them aside. He looked up at Nemo wearily, then ducked his head an inch to peer over his spectacles at the man in his doorway. His eyes narrowed.

"Nemo, my heavens. Have you been in some kind of a sc.r.a.pe?"

"Same kind of sc.r.a.pe I've been having. Albert Fitzhugh."

Johnston rose from behind the desk and stepped up to Nemo's face. He lowered the slave's hand and touched the nose gently, squinting at the clotted blood in each nostril. His fingers pressed gently against the bridge of the nose, testing it. "Not broken," he said. "But we should get you a cool cloth for the swelling."

"Albert Fitzhugh fell out in the surgery theater not halfway through an amputation. Fainted dead away. Mrs. Harris lying there on the table, half asleep with the ether, and him just cutting his eyes from the saw to her thigh. Doctor Evans telling him to go on and make the cut and Mrs. Harris starting to cry and Mister Fitzhugh's eyes cutting back and forth like a possum's. So Doctor Evans takes his arm to guide him, and when the saw blade makes the first cut he's greening up around the gills, and when he hits the bone he faints and falls right on top of Mrs. Harris. I laid him out on the floor and commenced to patting his cheeks. Minute later he wakes up and c.o.c.ks me across the face." Nemo raised a finger of his own to the injury. "You seen what he done."

Johnston turned and walked back to his desk. He sat down heavily, and Nemo could hear the leather seat of his chair creak as he leaned back in it.

"I apologize on behalf of Mister Fitzhugh," he said after a long pause.

Nemo said nothing. His hand clenched and unclenched around the handkerchief.

"This is unprecedented," Johnston went on, "and unacceptable. Perhaps it might alleviate your anger to know that Mrs. Fitzhugh is down with her rheumatism and a grave case of the flux. Her situation is dire. Could it not be that the mother's illness is weighing heavily on her son?"

Nemo stuffed the handkerchief in his pocket, next to his knife. He looked down at the floor for a moment before he spoke.

"If it were Mrs. Fitzhugh would be one thing. But this ain't a matter of one thing. This is his second year here, sir. He ain't never going to pa.s.s the obstetrics course. He failed the cesarean practical last week. Tore old Addie Kennedy's uterus all to pieces. And you know what he told me? Told me to bring him a white cadaver and he wouldn't have no problems. Said a n.i.g.g.e.r cadaver's naturally defective."

Johnston was staring at a spot on the ceiling when he spoke. "Could you get him a white cadaver?"

Nemo felt like laughing. "I could get him Helen of Troy, he'd still botch that surgery. Can't even do a basic amputation. What happened in the theater today, most of the students could make that cut with one eye closed. You and me could do it in our sleep."

Nemo thought he saw the doctor stiffen slightly at the last phrase, but he could not help himself from speaking once more. "Why can't he just go?"

Johnston leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desk, then removed his spectacles and rubbed the red spots where the gla.s.ses had been resting. "I am afraid it is not so simple as that," he said. "There are financial exigencies involved." He sighed. "Let us see what changes another month will bring."

"That's what you told me in February, sir. And February last year."

"Well, he cannot keep repeating the course in perpetuity, can he?"

Nemo arched an eyebrow, and Johnston caught the gesture. "No," he said, in answer to his own question. "He cannot. Twice is the most I can allow him to repeat and still live with myself." He turned his spectacles in his hand and stared at them, bemused. "But there should be some recompense for this indignity you have endured. I will raise your salary two dollars a week, Nemo, in lieu of a more formal apology. I would do more, but that is all I can manage at present." He looked up at Nemo with a weak smile.

"Didn't come asking for a raise, sir."

Johnston set the spectacles back on his nose, tucked their wire loops behind his ears, and pulled the stack of papers to him. "Two dollars a week it is, then. That will surely make matters more tolerable for you."

He pulled a sheet of paper covered with figures from among the others and tapped it with his forefinger. "This is a notice from the Roth Brothers' apothecary supply house in Charleston. It is on the brink of receivership and financial ruin, it says, and is no longer able to offer delivery service to the Midlands." The doctor sighed. "Carolina may never recover from last year's destruction, Nemo. We are still feeling it. These are hard times for all of us. But we must take them as our portion and persevere."

"I guess I'm dismissed, then?"

But Johnston seemed not to have heard the question. He only stared down at the invoice, the shadow of a smile starting around the corners of his mouth.

"Say, perhaps there is a silver lining here after all," he said, lifting the paper. "How would you like to go down to Charleston in my stead, to gather up our supplies? The scenery would do you good, and a few days' vacation would allow matters with Mister Fitzhugh to cool somewhat. Yes indeed, this sweetens the deal considerably. I would make the journey myself, but Mrs. Fitzhugh's condition truly is dire. From what Ballard tells me, I doubt if she will last the night." Johnston paused and cleared his throat. "A delegation from the school will be expected at the funeral. So, what do you say to a trip to the coast?"

"Supply house still down on Queen Street?"

"Indeed it is. The address is here on the letterhead. I shall attach Doctor Evans's requisition list and write out a pa.s.s for you if you agree. I think it would be a capital diversion."

Fifteen minutes later Johnston had completed a draft of the pa.s.s a.s.suring any and all interested white men that he allowed and guaranteed Nemo Johnston's free pa.s.sage from Columbia to Charleston and back, for this second week of March in the Year of Our Lord 1866. He signed the paper with a flourish and escorted the Negro to the door with his papers. At the threshold he paused and rested a hand on Nemo's shoulder.

"The world moves at its own pace, Nemo, however we wish it to proceed. Someday Mister Fitzhugh will be gone, and you will still be with us. In the meantime I advise forbearance and patience. Patience, Nemo, for this too will pa.s.s."

Nemo took the papers and nodded, eager to be gone. His footsteps sounded dully on the floorboards of the empty hallway. He was at the front door when he heard a soft voice behind him: "You should go away."

He turned and saw Nurse Thacker leaning against the foyer wall, deep in the shadows, with a bundle of linens under one arm. One of her feet was propped up against the wall behind her, like a girl would stand, making her look even younger in the dim light than she did in the daytime.

"Yes, ma'am," Nemo said. "Going now. Don't you fret it."

She came off the wall and closed the distance between them in an instant, then took hold of his arm with a nervous strength.

"Don't play the Negro with me, Nemo," she said, her grip on him tensing. "When have I ever talked down to you?"

"You haven't, ma'am."

Her voice softened. "Then hear me now," she said, pulling him toward one of the front windows. "Look around this place. Do you remember what it was like before?"

He remembered much from the years before she came: the foot-deep mud right up to the Negro hospital's front door where now there burned twin gaslights over a path of pea gravel, flanked by azaleas beginning to bloom; remembered the scant candlelight that once flickered in the gloomy interior, now flooded with light that gleamed on the hard-polished windows.

"Do you think Doctor Johnston remembers? It is not in his nature to remember. And so we do the work and the fruits of it pa.s.s us by. You really should go."

"All due respect, Miss Sara, some ain't as free to come and go as others."

Her eyes drifted away from the hospital toward some undefined point in the darkness. "And others," she said, "are not as free as they seem."

Her fingers fell away from his arm and he stepped away from her toward the door, taking a long look at this strange white woman who stood like a daydreaming child in the two-story foyer, a bundle of linens pressed tight against her belly.

Outside, he patted the papers in his coat pocket, thinking of destinations farther than Charleston, wondering if Nurse Thacker dreamed as he did of places beyond the reach of the mapped world's compa.s.s, where all the men like Albert Fitzhugh might find their authority revoked, stranding them in some new realm of justice and reckoning.

CHARLESTON, AS EVER, sang with a level of activity that beggared belief, even at suppertime on the last day of the week. Nemo's ears rang with the din as he and Ben Joyner loaded up his wagon at the curb in front of the supply house. Traffic thundered against the paving stones as delivery wagons like his hurried to complete the day's runs with their red-faced drivers yelling at their horses for more speed. The racket echoed off the storefronts and mingled with the cries of the fishmongers who had taken their carts in hand to roll them inland from the street corners at the harbor, anxious to be rid of the last of the day's catch before it spoiled. On this block alone, three taverns had thrown open their doors to the street. The raucous sounds from within them seemed to be intensifying by the minute.

As Ben loaded the last clinking crate of medicine bottles onto the wagon, a jet-black barouche flew by with its iron-rimmed wheels clattering against the cobblestones. The pair of white faces in the back seemed especially pale in the bracing late-winter air. Their Negro chauffeur rode high above the pavement, haughty in his livery, and cracked his whip over the horses' heads as they pa.s.sed. Nemo watched the fine carriage speed eastward down Queen Street, at the end of which he could see the two-story Slave Market standing tall. It was now home to the Reconstruction government of the city, Ben had said, but it still looked as evil as the day Nemo first saw it. Its whitewashed stucco walls reflected the pastels of the setting sun in the gloaming, the colors shifting slowly.

"You needing anything else?"

Nemo turned back to the wagon bed, then looked at Ben. "Got enough in there to dope up Columbia till July. What else I be needing?"

Ben smiled slyly. "Oh, something under the table. Something else a medical school might need." He leaned in close. "Specimens, you know."

"I reckon they still dying in Columbia, Ben." He held out his hand, and Ben took it.

"I'm talking about a white one," Ben said. His grip was firm and insistent. Nemo nodded and Ben leaned a little closer.

"Man come by here this morning wanting to unload a white woman. Old man Roth run him off, said he ain't in no body-s.n.a.t.c.hing business. Heard him say something about the Grand Mark Hotel. Ain't but two blocks over, on Broad Street."

"Why you telling me this?"

Ben smiled as broadly as a child. "Always ready to help out a friend, brother. And plus, I hear some coin jangling in your pocket." His smile narrowed. "Them Roths don't pay me enough to starve proper."

Nemo took a gold dollar from his pocket. Ben looked intently at the Indian head balanced on the broad palm and reached for it. The hand clenched shut.

"You got me a name?"

"Pollard. Don't know no first name, but you won't need it. Everybody knows Pollard. He's around town right regular."

Nemo placed the dollar in Ben's hand. Ben stepped off the curb and started toward the tavern nearest them, his gait sprightly as he spoke over his shoulder.

"Pleasure doing business with you, Mister Nemo. Anybody asks me, I tell them Nemo Johnston's first-rate, yes I do."

Nemo climbed up to the buckboard wearily and shook the reins. The horses started forward, toward Meeting Street, where he would take a right over to Broad. The Slave Market glowed ahead of him, its rainbow hues fading now as the sun departed, leaving the facade only coral against the blackness of Charleston Harbor, and beyond that, the blue Atlantic.

HE SAT ON the cold marble floor of the Grand Mark's lobby with his back against a stone column and his hands dangling between his knees, only half interested in the desk clerk, who kept his eyes on the black man as though he might steal the great column itself the moment his back was turned. Twice the man had told him there were no rooms here for colored before he had heard the name Pollard and sent a bellhop upstairs to summon the guest. Now Nemo sat a full five yards from the warmth of the roaring hearth fire as he counted off the minutes of his wait.

The bellhop reappeared at the counter, a little breathless, and pointed out Nemo to the white man who followed him. Nemo felt his stomach tighten as the man started across the lobby, his boot heels clicking on the marble. He was white trash, no doubt, no matter the bright pattern of the satin vest he wore. His hair was black, long, and thinning, with a mustache of the same color drooping around the corners of his small mouth. When he was close enough, Nemo could see that the toes of his boots were scuffed through the polish and that the vest was frayed at the seams. He looked down at Nemo for a long moment before he spoke.

"You here for the package?"

"I reckon I am."

"Well, come on, then. Ain't got all night to stand around jawing."

He turned and started toward the grand stairwell, his heels tapping fast on the marble before Nemo could get to his feet.

"I say again, the boy can't have a room here," the desk clerk called after them.

"It's all right. He's just going to haul some luggage for me," Pollard said without turning, then, under his breath, "So shut the h.e.l.l up."

Nemo followed him up three flights of carpeted stairs, then down a gaslit hallway that was close with the fumes from the lamps. Pollard stopped at the last room and opened it with an iron key, a few stray hairs dangling over his forehead as he worked the lock. "This is going to be forty dollars," he said as he turned the k.n.o.b. "You got that kind of money, boy?"