[What Might Have Been 02] Alternate Heroes Read online

  Arnoldsburg, D.C., was sweltering in a humid haze, worsened by exhaust fumes from the taxis that seemed the city’s main occupants. Eyes burning, lungs fighting against collapse, he and his guide crawled from taxi after taxi and plunged into cool marble corridors reeking of urine and crowded with black youths selling or buying opiates. It was hard not to mock the great figures of American history, thus surrounded and entrapped by the ironic fruits of their victories. The huge seated figure of Burgoyne looked mildly bemused by the addicts sleeping between his feet; the bronze brothers Richard and William Howe stood back to back embattled in a waist-high mob, as though taking their last stand against colonial Lilliputians.

  His host, David Mickelson, was a transplanted Irishman. He had first visited America as a physician with the Irish Royal Army, and after his term expired had signed on for a stint in the Royal American Army. He had since opened a successful dermatological practice in Arnoldsburg. He was a collector of native American art, which practice had led him to deal with Grant Innes. Mickelson had excellent taste in metalwork, but Grant chided him for his love of “these marble monstrosities”.

  “But these are heroes, Grant. Imagine where England would be without these men. An island with few resources and limited room for expansion? How could we have kept up the sort of healthy growth we’ve had since the Industrial Revolution? It’s impossible. And without these men to secure this realm for us, how could we have held onto it? America is so vast—really, you have no concept of it. These warriors laid the way for peace and proper management, steering a narrow course between Spain and France. Without such fine ambassadors to put down the early rebellion and ease the co-settling of the Six Nations, America might still be at war. Instead its resources belong to the crown. This is our treasure house, Grant, and these are the keepers of that treasure.”

  “Treasure,” Grant repeated, with an idle nudge at the body of an old squaw who lay unconscious on the steps of the Howe Monument.

  “Come with me, then,” Mickelson said. “One more sight, and then we’ll go wherever you like.”

  They boarded another taxi which progressed by stops and starts through the iron river of traffic. A broad, enormous dome appeared above the cars.

  “Ah,” said Grant. “I know what that is.”

  They disembarked at the edge of a huge circular plaza. The dome that capped the plaza was supported by a hundred white columns. They went into the lidded shadow, into darkness, and for a moment Grant was blinded.

  “Watch out, old boy,” Mickelson said. “Here’s the rail. Grab on. Wouldn’t want to stumble in here.”

  His hands closed on polished metal. When he felt steady again, he opened his eyes and found himself staring into a deep pit. The walls of the shaft were perfectly smooth, round as a bullet hole drilled deep into the earth. He felt a cold wind coming out of it, and then the grip of vertigo.

  “The depths of valour, the inexhaustible well of the human spirit,” Mickelson was saying. “Makes you dizzy with pride, doesn’t it?”

  “I’m … feeling … sick…” Grant turned and hurried towards daylight.

  Out in the sunshine again, his sweat gone cold, he leaned against a marble podium and gradually caught his breath. When his mind had cleared somewhat, he looked up and saw that the podium was engraved with the name of the hero whose accomplishments the shaft commemorated. His noble bust surmounted the slab.

  BENEDICT ARNOLD

  First American President-General, appointed such by King George III as reward for his valiant role in suppressing the provincial revolt of l776-79.

  David Mickelson caught up with him.

  “Feeling all right, Grant?”

  “Better. I—I think I’d like to get back to my rooms. It’s this heat.”

  “Surely. I’ll hail a cab, you just hold on here for a minute.”

  As Grant watched Mickelson hurry away, his eyes strayed over the circular plaza where the usual hawkers had laid out the usual souvenirs. Habit, more than curiousity, drove him out among the ragged blankets, his eyes swiftly picking through the merchandise and discarding it all as garbage.

  Well, most of it. This might turn out to be another fortunate venture after all. His eyes had been caught by a display of absolutely brilliant designs done in copper and brass. He had never seen anything quite like them. Serpents, eagles, patterns of stars. The metal was all wrong, but the artist had undoubtedly chosen them by virtue of their cheapness and could be easily convinced to work in gold. He looked up at the proprietor of these wares and saw a young Indian woman, bent on her knees, threading coloured beads on a string.

  “Who made these?” he said, softening the excitement he felt into a semblance of mild curiosity.

  She gazed up at him. “My husband.”

  “Really? I like them very much. Does he have a distributor?”

  She didn’t seem to know what he meant.

  “That is … does anyone else sell these pieces?”

  She shook her head. “This is all he makes, right here. When he makes more, I sell those.”

  In the distance, he heard Mickelson shouting his name. The dermatologist came running over the marble plaza. “Grant, I’ve got a cab!”

  Grant gestured as if to brush him away. “I’ll meet you later, David, all right? Something’s come up.”

  “What have you found?” Mickelson tried to look past him at the blanket, but Grant spun him around in the direction of the taxis—perhaps a bit too roughly. Mickelson stopped for a moment, readjusted his clothes, then stalked away peevishly towards the cars. So be it.

  Smiling, Grant turned back to the woman. His words died on his tongue when he saw what she was doing with beads she’d been stringing.

  She had formed them into a noose, a bright rainbow noose, and slipped this over the head of a tiny brown doll.

  He knew that doll, knew its tough leathered flesh and pierced limbs, the apple cheeks and teeth of rice. The cross from which she’d taken it lay discarded on the blanket, next to the jewellery that suddenly seemed of secondary importance.

  While he stood there unspeaking, unmoving, she lifted the dangling doll to her lips and daintily, baring crooked teeth, tore off a piece of the leg.

  “What … what…”

  He found himself unable to ask what he wished to ask. Instead, fixed by her gaze, he stammered, “What do you want for all of these?”

  She finished chewing before answering. “All?”

  “Yes, I … I’d like to buy all of them. In fact, I’d like to buy more than this. I’d like to commission a piece, if I might.”

  The squaw swallowed.

  “My husband creates what is within the soul. He makes dreams into metal. He would have to see your dreams.”

  “My dreams? Well, yes, I’ll tell him exactly what I want. Could I meet him to discuss this?”

  The squaw shrugged. She patiently unlooped the noose from the shrivelled image, spread it back onto its cross and pinned the three remaining limbs into place, then tucked it away in a bag at her belt. Finally, rising, she rolled up the blanket with all the bangles and bracelets inside it, and tucked the parcel under her arm.

  “Come with me,” she said.

  He followed her without another word, feeling as though he were moving down an incline, losing his balance with every step, barely managing to throw himself in her direction. She was his guide through the steaming city, through the crowds of ragged cloth, skins ruddy and dark. He pulled off his customary jacket, loosened his tie, and struggled after her. She seemed to dwindle in the distance; he was losing her, losing himself, stretching into a thin strand of beads, beads of sweat, sweat that dripped through the gutters of Arnoldsburg and offered only brine to the thirsty…

  But when she once looked back and saw him faltering, she put out her hand and he was standing right beside her, near a metal door. She put her hand upon it and opened the way.

  It was cool inside, and dark except for the tremulous light of candles that lined a descending
stairway. He followed, thinking of catacombs, the massed and desiccated ranks of the dead he had seen beneath old missions in Spanish Florida. There was a dusty smell, and far off the sound of hammering. She opened another door and the sound was suddenly close at hand.

  They had entered a workshop. A man sat at a metal table cluttered with coils of wire, metal snips, hand torches. The woman stepped out and closed the door on them.

  “Good afternoon,” Grant said. “I … I’m a great admirer of your work.”

  The man turned slowly, the metal stool creaking under his weight, although he was not a big man. His skin was very dark, like his close-cropped hair. His face was soft, as though made of chamois pouches; but his eyes were hard. He beckoned.

  “Come here,” he said. “You like my stuff? What is it that you like?”

  Grant approached the workbench with a feeling of awe. Samples of the man’s work lay scattered about, but these were not done in copper or brass. They were silver, most of them, and gleamed like moonlight.

  “The style,” he said. “The … substance.”

  “How about this?” The Indian fingered a large eagle with spreading wings.

  “It’s beautiful—almost alive.”

  “It’s a sign of freedom.” He laid it down. “What about this one?”

  He handed Grant a small rectangular plaque inscribed with an unusual but somehow familiar design. A number of horizontal stripes, with a square inset in the lower right corner, and in that square a wreath of thirteen stars.

  “Beautiful,” Grant said. “You do superior work.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Do you know the symbol?”

  “I … I think I’ve seen it somewhere before. An old Indian design, isn’t it?”

  The Indian grinned. Gold teeth again, bridging the distance between London and Arnoldsburg, reminding him of the jerked beef martyr, the savage Christ.

  “Not an Indian sign,” he said. “A sign for all people.”

  “Really? Well, I’d like to bring it to all people. I’m a dealer in fine jewellery. I could get a very large audience for these pieces. I could make you a very rich man.”

  “Rich?” The Indian set the plaque aside. “Plenty of Indians are rich. The tribes have all the land and factories they want—as much as you have. But we lack what you also lack: freedom. What is wealth when we have no freedom?”

  “Freedom?”

  “It’s a dim concept to you, isn’t it? But not to me.” He put his hand over his heart. “I hold it here, safe with the memory of how we lost it. A precious thing, a cup of holy water that must never be spilled until it can be swallowed in a single draft. I carry the cup carefully, but there’s enough for all. If you wish to drink, it can be arranged.”

  “I don’t think you understand,” Grant said, recovering some part of himself that had begun to drift off through the mystical fog in which the Indians always veiled themselves. He must do something concrete to counteract so much vagueness. “I’m speaking of a business venture. A partnership.”

  “I hear your words. But I see something deeper in you. Something that sleeps in all men. They come here seeking what is lost, looking for freedom and a cause. But all they find are the things that went wrong. Why are you so out of balance, eh? You stumble and crawl, but you always end up here with that same empty look in your eyes. I’ve seen you before. A dozen just like you.”

  “I’m an art dealer,” Grant said. “Not a—a pilgrim. If you can show me more work like this, I’d be grateful. Otherwise, I’m sorry for wasting your time, and I’ll be on my way.”

  Suddenly he was anxious to get away, and this seemed a reasonable excuse. But the jeweller now seemed ready to accommodate him.

  “Art, then,” he said. “All right. I will show you the thing that speaks to you, and perhaps then you will understand. Art is also a way to the soul.”

  He slipped down from the stool and moved towards the door, obviously intending Grant to follow.

  “I’ll show you more than this,” the Indian said. “I’ll show you inspiration.”

  After another dizzying walk, they entered a derelict museum in a district that stank of danger. Grant felt safe only because of his companion; he was obviously a stranger here, in these oppressive alleys. Even inside the place, which seemed less a museum than a warehouse, he sensed that he was being watched. It was crowded by silent mobs, many of them children, almost all of them Negro or Indian. Some sat in circles on the cement floors, talking quietly among themselves, as though taking instruction. Pawnee, Chickasaw, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Comanche … Arnoldsburg was a popular site for tourists, but these didn’t have the look of the ruddy middle-class traveller; these were lower-class ruddies, as tattered as the people in the street. Some had apparently crossed the continent on foot to come here. He felt as if he had entered a church.

  “Now you shall see,” said the jeweller. “This is the art of the patriots. The forefathers. The hidden ones.”

  He stopped near a huge canvas that leaned against a steel beam; the painting was caked with grease, darkened by time, but even through the grime he could see that it was the work of genius. An imitation of da Vinci’s Last Supper, but strangely altered…

  The guests at Christ’s table wore not biblical attire, but that of the eighteenth century. It was no windowed building that sheltered them, but a tent whose walls gave the impression of a strong wind beating against them from without. The thirteen were at table, men in military outfits, and in their midst a figure of mild yet radiant demeanour, humble in a powdered wig, a mere crust of bread on his plate. Grant did not recognize him, this figure in Christ’s place, but the man in Judas’s place was recognizable enough from the numerous busts and portraits in Arnoldsburg. That was Benedict Arnold.

  The Indian pointed at several of the figures, giving them names: “Henry Knox, Nathaniel Greene, Light-Horse Harry Lee, Lafayette, General Rochambeau—”

  “Who painted this?”

  “It was the work of Benjamin Franklin,” said his guide. “Painted not long after the betrayal at West Point, but secretly, in sadness, when the full extent of our tragedy became all too apparent. After West Point, the patriots continued to fight. But this man, this one man, was the glue that held the soldiers together. After His death, the army had many commanders, but none could win the trust of all men. The revolution collapsed and our chance for freedom slipped away. Franklin died without finishing it, his heart broken.”

  “But that man in the middle?”

  The Indian led him to another painting. This was much more recent, judging from the lack of accumulated soot and grease. Several children stood gazing at it, accompanied by a darkie woman who was trying to get them to analyse the meaning of what was essentially a simple image.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  Several hands went up. “The cherry tree!” chimed a few voices.

  “That’s right, the cherry tree. Who can tell us the story of the cherry tree?”

  One little girl pushed forward. “He chopped it down and when He saw what He had done, He said, ‘I cannot let it die.’ So He planted the piece He cut off and it grew into a new tree, and the trunk of the old tree grew too, because it was magic.”

  “Very good. Now that’s a fable, of course. Do you know what it really means? What the cherry tree represents?”

  Grant felt like one of her charges, waiting for some explanation, innocent.

  “It’s an English cherry,” the teacher hinted.

  Hands went up. “The tree!” “I know!” “It’s England.”

  “That’s right. And the piece He transplanted?”

  “America!”

  “Very good. And do you remember what happened next? It isn’t shown in this painting, but it was very sad. Tinsha?”

  “When His father saw what He had done, he was very scared. He was afraid his son was a devil or something, so he tore up the little tree by the roots. He tore up America.”

  “And you know who the father really
was, don’t you?”

  “The … king?” said Tinsha.

  Grant and his guide went on to another painting, this one showing a man in a powdered wig and a ragged uniform walking across a river in midwinter—not stepping on the floes, but moving carefully between them, on the breast of the frigid water. With him came a band of barefoot men, lightly touching hands, the first of them resting his fingers on the cape of their leader. The men stared at the water as if they could not believe their eyes, but there was only confidence in the face of their commander—that and a serene humility.

  “This is the work of Sully, a great underground artist,” said the jeweller.

  “These … these are priceless.”

  The Indian shrugged. “If they were lost tomorrow, we would still carry them with us. It is the feelings they draw from our hearts that are truly beyond price. He came for all men, you see. If you accept Him, if you open your heart to Him, then His death will not have been in vain.”

  “Washington,” Grant said, the name finally coming to him. An insignificant figure of the American Wars, an arch-traitor whose name was a mere footnote in the histories he’d read. Arnold had defeated him, hadn’t he? Was that what had happened at West Point? The memories were vague and unreal, textbook memories.

  The jeweller nodded. “George Washington,” he repeated. “He was leading us to freedom, but He was betrayed and held out as an example. In Philadelphia He was publicly tortured to dispirit the rebels, then hung by His neck after his death, and His corpse toured through the colonies. And that is our sin, the penance which we must pay until every soul has been brought back into balance.”

  “Your sin?”

  The Indian nodded, drawing from the pouch at his waist another of the shrivelled icons, Christ—no, Washington—on the cross.

  “We aided the British in that war. Cherokee and Iroquois, others of the Six Nations. We thought the British would save us from the colonists; we didn’t know that they had different ways of enslavement. My ancestors were master torturers. When Washington was captured it fell to them—to us—to do the bloodiest work.”