All Other Nights (11 page)

I
N THE HOURS AND DAYS THAT FOLLOWED, JACOB’S VAGUE SENSE
of dread crystallized into a pure animal terror. William Wilhelm Williams the Third held his death warrant. It occurred to Jacob that he needed the man dead. But how? He didn’t even know where William lived, and he certainly couldn’t ask. In the meantime there was Jeannie. Since their betrothal she had become almost motherly toward Jacob: withholding all but the most familial touches, replenishing his plate at the table, greeting him in the morning and asking after his dreams. It comforted him, and frightened him. In the front room of the house he once again sensed her murdered mother’s presence, the ghost’s disdain poisoning every word between them. He felt the dead woman’s eyes on him each time he approached her daughter. Her gaze was unforgiving, fierce with the knowledge of the future bestowed upon the dead.

“Something seems different about you tonight,” Jeannie said to him as they sat on the veranda together, on the evening of the day he discovered William’s letter. He had been grateful to leave the front room, where, he had noticed upon returning home from the office, the riding crop had disappeared. Outside the house darkness had fallen, and the floorboards of the porch groaned slightly beneath them. The house, Jeannie had once told him, had been built fifty years earlier by her mother’s father, who had run it as an inn. The floorboards near the threshold seemed to exude a bitter triumph about returning to their original purpose, welcoming strangers. They creaked as Jacob waited for Jeannie to sit down on the old wicker bench. Taking his seat on the bench beside her, Jacob listened to the crickets and rustling leaves and felt a profound unease seeping into his body, surrounded by wild and primal darkness. Before he left New York, he had never known that a summer evening could be so devoid of the clop of horses’ hooves, so bereft of human voices, so ink-black, so terrifying. Without thinking, he slid closer to Jeannie, his trousers pressed against her skirt. As his leg touched hers, he sensed his fears receding, the warmth of her body against his spreading over him like a peaceful shelter.

“What is it?” Jeannie asked.

He watched her brush a curl behind her ear. For an instant he imagined revealing everything to her, falling on his knees and begging for her forgiveness. The image lingered in his mind like a perverse fantasy, seared with desire and longing. He wanted to confess to her almost more than he wanted to peel off her dress. Instead he straightened on the bench and resumed his role. “Only nerves, I suppose,” he said. “I am getting married, after all.”

“Who are you afraid of? Me?” She laughed. “I’m not any more frightening now than I shall be in ten days.”

Jacob swallowed, and attempted a joke. “On the contrary,” he told her. “Every good man lives in fear of his wife.”

“In that case, you have nothing to be concerned about,” she said, and smiled.

He tried to laugh, and failed. But she was still waiting for him to say more. He felt the tug of confession again, and fought hard to resist it. “I suppose that everyone who gets married is concerned about—about becoming trapped somehow,” he said. He had meant it as a distraction, but as the words came out he pictured his own parents standing before him: his mother’s hand caught in the crook of his father’s elbow, unable to move except through his will.

“I wouldn’t think that would worry you at all, considering how you ran away from that poor lady in New York,” Jeannie said. He thought it was an insult, but she laughed again, a friendly laugh. “It seems to me that I ought to be the one concerned about being trapped.”

Sweat gathered under his arms. Sometimes he was sure she knew who he was. But her generosity seemed genuine, her friendship real. She was smiling at him now, her hands open on her lap, offering kindness.

“That was different,” he said softly. “It was a business arrangement, for my father’s benefit. The lady was an imbecile. It had nothing to do with her wishes or mine.”

A light seemed to pass across Jeannie’s eyes, genuine empathy. She winced, and tried to hide it with a grin. “Surely I ought to be worried about you fleeing nonetheless,” she insisted. Her voice sounded playful this time, a laugh made of words. But she spoke more quickly, her spirited tone edged with fear. “At some point you are bound to become homesick for New York, and to leave me behind for the British bankers’ daughters and their elegant balls.”

Jacob pictured the house where he had grown up, and noticed that the image meant nothing to him. Everything that had happened in his father’s house meant nothing to him. He looked down at the floorboards of the veranda, hearing them creak as he shifted on the bench. “I feel more at home here than I ever felt at home,” he said.

She glanced at him, incredulous. “Here, in Virginia?”

“Here, with you.”

For the first time, in the dim lamplight on the veranda, he saw Jeannie blush. She looked down at her lap, her lips pursed as her face reddened, vulnerable. The evil of what he ultimately planned to do shadowed him, the dark summer night tightening around his throat. He tried to distract her. “You must be at least a bit anxious about the wedding, too. Aren’t you?” he asked.

The distraction worked. She looked back at him with a slight smile, and then sat straighter, brushing a dark curl behind her ear. A long moment passed before she spoke. “I don’t think I ever told you that I’ve performed as an escape artist,” she said at last. “I was in a show in Petersburg where I pried myself out of coffins and that sort of thing. It’s a talent I developed out of necessity. My father was always trying to keep me in the house.”

Jacob tried once more to smile, wondering if she were changing the subject. But then she took his hand in hers. “You shall never be trapped with me, Jacob. I promise you that,” she said. “Because I can get us out of anything.” Then she held up her other hand, revealing a metallic glint of something in her palm: his key to the house. Jacob touched the pocket of his own vest, where he kept his key. It was empty, of course. He finally laughed.

He felt her fingers on his neck, creeping up into his hair. “Please, Jacob, please trust me,” she said. Her voice was honest, her breath hushed in his ear. “I want someone to trust me. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“I trust you,” he said. As he kissed her, dark liquid beauty spilling between his lips, he believed that it wasn’t a lie.

THERE IS A HEBREW
custom of separating the bride and groom during the week before the wedding—to heighten the anticipation, Jacob supposed, though his heart was racing enough already. Every day he searched the streets for William Williams, keeping watch, making contingency plans, ciphering optimistic messages for the command.
WEDDING DATE APPROACHING; FURTHER CONFIDENCES IMMINENT
, he wrote, and wondered whether he would make it to his wedding day alive. It was with great trepidation that he was shepherded out of the Levy house to the home of one of Philip’s former colleagues, an old Hebrew widower named Solomon Isaacs.

Jacob had met Isaacs a few times; apparently he had been a friend of Philip’s father, years ago. He was a tiny elderly man, a traditional sort who always seemed to be reading an old book and who always kept his head covered, even in the house. He had a thin face and thin hands, and he wore the same black suit every day, along with a monocle tucked beneath one of his enormous white eyebrows. He lived alone, his children having all moved to Washington or to Richmond, and he seemed worn down by life. Jacob saw him and imagined Philip Levy in twenty years.

During most of that week, he and Isaacs saw each other little. By day Jacob was at the office, and in the evenings he roamed the neighborhood, watching for William Williams and his minions on their hunt for him. But the night before the wedding, Jacob returned to the widower’s home at suppertime, where Isaacs had been dining alone. He seemed delighted to have Jacob join him. Their conversation was awkward throughout the meal, until he invited Jacob to have some ale with him in the parlor. As Jacob sat down with him, tankard in hand, Isaacs asked him if he spoke German, and Jacob said yes.

Speaking German felt to Jacob like a relief, as though he had been unburdened of a great secret. He hadn’t spoken German to his parents since he was a boy; after he turned thirteen, he had insisted on answering them in English. In German he was a child, protected and innocent. The old man’s personality was different in German, too. In English he had been formal, stiff. But in German he embraced Jacob like a father embracing a son, his words rich with advice and love.

“Jacob, I cannot tell you how blessed your arrival here has been,” Isaacs told him as they drank. “Philip’s father, Joseph, and I were friends since we were boys. Ever since Joseph passed away, I have felt as though Philip has been my own child. And these past eight years have been so very painful for him. Nothing has caused Philip more heartache than trying to care for those girls after their mother died, and as the girls have gotten older, his heartache has only grown worse.”

He paused, took a sip of ale. He was one of those old Jewish men, Jacob noticed, who grow harder and sturdier as they get older, becoming more solid, their remorse and sadness steadying them, rooting them like trees. “There is simply no one suitable here for them to marry,” he continued. “There are so few Jews here, and even fewer young men, and since the war started, almost none. In Prussia we had other problems, but finding a match for a young lady—well, it was nothing! Believe me, if Philip were in Koenigsburg with those beautiful girls, every one of them would have ten young men lined up at the door for her, and Philip’s only trouble would be choosing the best among the best.” Jacob thought of Lottie’s engagements, and wondered how much Isaacs knew. Very little, he suspected. But even very little was surely too much. “Living here is like living in the wilderness, with no pillar of fire to lead us.” He leaned toward Jacob, and put his hand on his. “You may not know it, Jacob, but you were sent here by God.”

Jacob thought of the three officers at the table at headquarters, pipe smoke smoldering between his eyes and theirs. He was the only one who saw the pillar of fire coming. But the old man was expecting him to reply.

“I—I feel blessed to have found Jeannie,” Jacob stammered.

“The blessing is hers, and Philip’s,” Isaacs said, and returned his hand to his own lap. “I only pray that God will provide for her sisters as well.”

Jacob took another sip of ale, wondering if he dared to say what he needed to say. He looked up, and for an instant he thought he saw something of his own father in the way Isaacs smiled at him as he raised his glass again. It was how his father had looked to him when he was a child: a person to respect, to aspire to. And he decided to speak.

“Herr Isaacs,” he said, “I must tell someone this. I am very worried about—about tomorrow. Almost afraid.”

Isaacs put down his drink, still smiling. “It’s good that you are nervous,” he said. “It means that you are honest. Just be kind to her. And patient.”

Jacob could hardly bear to listen to this, but Isaacs wasn’t done; there was more to endure.

“Be patient with her, during the day as well as at night. Christian men think that when they marry, they are buying a slave—someone to love them, honor them, obey them,” Isaacs said. “But you’ve read the marriage contract for tomorrow. You know that you are the slave, not she. Remember that. You have to let her rule you, guide you. It’s the secret of every happy Jewish family for the past three thousand years. There is nothing more manly in the world than serving her. You will be the better for it, and so will your children.”

Jacob drank more ale, but it didn’t help. The thought of actually marrying Jeannie, of living with her the way Isaacs assumed he would, was too painful. Aware of the risks, he changed the subject, too afraid to go on with the charade.

“Herr Isaacs, it isn’t that,” he said, his voice low. “Well, it is, of course, I’m sure it is for everyone, but it’s something else too that worries me.”

Isaacs squinted at him through his monocle. “Money, then,” he guessed. “Philip tells me you’re a talented businessman, even at your age. Give it time.”

“No, that’s not what I mean either.” Jacob swallowed. “Herr Isaacs, have you ever—have you ever been afraid for your life?”

Isaacs looked at him for a long time. Then he took a breath, and spoke. “Young man,” he said slowly, “this is not my first war.”

Jacob watched as Isaacs coughed, then drank more ale. For a long time neither of them spoke. Just when Jacob was about to stammer out some platitude, Isaacs spoke again. “I was married once before I came here, in East Prussia. When I was your age the Russians burned through the town as they defeated Napoleon. That was my first war,” he said. He paused again. Jacob fidgeted with his watch chain, glancing around at the bare painted walls, until Isaacs continued. “Some soldiers made a game of capturing Jewish girls and taking them as slaves. My wife and I had just gotten married then, and they took her and her sister. I—I pleaded with them to release her, I begged them on my knees, I offered them everything I owned, but—well, it was a comedy to them. Her sister endured it, and later she was set free, pregnant. She told me how my wife took her own life instead.” He stared at the back of his hand for a long time before returning to look at Jacob again. “Wars come and go, young man. They come and go, and you come and go with them. It’s like the weather, like a storm or a drought. All you can do is take shelter and wait for them to pass.”

Jacob saw then that they were speaking across oceans, across centuries. There was simply no way to tell him, no way to make him understand that in this new wilderness, wars were no longer like the weather—that he and Jeannie weren’t victims but perpetrators, that they were causing it, that the very battle he feared the most would be taking place in bed with his new bride, tomorrow night, if he made it through the wedding day. But tonight, Solomon Isaacs, man of the past, was his only shelter.

“Thank you, Herr Isaacs,” Jacob said, and bowed his head.