Clock Without Hands (5 page)

"It's not the Bible—Shakespeare."

"Anyway I'm not your child. I'm your grandson and my father's child."

The fan turned in the breathless afternoon and the sun shone on the dining table with the platter of carved chicken and the butter melted in the butter dish. Jester held the cool tea glass to his cheek and fondled it before he spoke.

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm not beginning to suspect why my father—did what he did."

The dead still lived in the ornate, Victorian house with the cumbersome furniture. The dressing room of the Judge's wife was still kept as it was in her lifetime with her silver appointments on the bureau and the closet with her clothes untouched except for occasional dusting. And Jester grew up with his father's photographs, and in the library there was the framed certificate of admittance to the bar. But though all through the house there were reminders of the lives of the dead, the actual circumstance of death was never mentioned, even by inference.

"What did you mean by that?" the old Judge asked with apprehension.

"Nothing," Jester said. "Except it is natural to wonder about my father's death under the circumstances."

The Judge tinkled the dinner bell and the sound seemed to gather the tension in the room. "Verily, bring a bottle of that elderberry wine Mr. Malone brought me for my birthday."

"Right now, today, sir?" she asked, as wine was usually served only at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. She took the wineglasses from the sideboard and wiped off the dust with her apron. Noticing the platter of uneaten food, she wondered if a hair or a fly had been cooked in the candied yams or dressing. "Is anything wrong with the dinner?"

"Oh, it's delicious. I just have a mite of indigestion, I suppose."

It was true that when Jester talked of the mixing of races his stomach seemed to chum and all appetite had left him. He opened and poured the unaccustomed wine, then drank as soberly as if he had been drinking at a wake. For the break in understanding, in sympathy, is indeed a form of death. The Judge was hurt and grieving. And when hurt has been caused by a loved one, only the loved one can comfort.

Slowly he put his right hand palm upward on the table toward his grandson, and after a moment Jester placed his own palm on his grandfather's. But the Judge was not satisfied; since words had hurt him, his solace lay in words. He grasped Jester's hand in desperation.

"Don't you love your old grandfather any more?"

Jester took his hand away and drank some swallows of wine. "Sure I do, Grandfather, but—"

And though the Judge waited, Jester did not finish the sentence and the emotion was left qualified in the strained room. The Judge's hand was left extended and the fingers fluttered a little.

"Son, has it ever occurred to you that I am not a wealthy man any longer? I have suffered many losses and our forebears suffered losses. Jester, I'm worried about your education and your future."

"Don't worry. I can manage."

"You've heard the old saw about the best things in life are free. It's both true and false like all generalizations. But this one thing is true: you can get the best education in this country absolutely and entirely free. West Point is free and I could get you an appointment."

"But I don't want to be an army officer."

"What do you want to be?"

Jester was perplexed, uncertain. "I don't know exactly. I like music and I like flying."

"Well go to West Point and enter the Air Corps. Anything you can get from the Federal Government you ought to take advantage of. God knows the Federal Government has done enough damage to the South."

"I don't have to decide about the future until I graduate from high school next year."

"What I was pointing out, Son, is my finances are not what they used to be. But if my plans materialize, then one day you will be a wealthy man." The Judge had often made vague hints from time to time of future wealth. Jester had never paid much attention to these intimations, but now he asked:

"What plans, Grandfather?"

"Son, I wonder if you are old enough to understand the strategy." The Judge cleared his throat. "You're young and the dream is big."

"What is it?"

"It's a plan to correct damages done and to restore the South."

"How?"

"It's the dream of a statesman—not just a cheap political scheme. It's a plan to rectify an immense historical injustice."

Ice cream had been served and Jester was eating, but the Judge let it melt in his saucer. "I still don't get the drift, sir."

"Think, Son. In any war between civilized nations what happens to the currency of the country who didn't win? Think of World War I and World War II. What happened to the German mark after the armistice? Did the Germans burn their money? And the Japanese yen? Did the Japanese make bonfires of their currency after their defeat? Did they, Son?"

"No," Jester said, bewildered by the vehemence of the old man's voice.

"What happens in any civilized nation after the cannons are silenced and the battlefields are quiet? The victor allows the vanquished to rest and restore in the interests of the common economics. The currency of a conquered nation is always redeemed—devalued, but still redeemed. Redeemed: look what is happening now in Germany—in Japan. The Federal Government has redeemed the enemy money and helped the vanquished restore itself. From time immemorial the currency of a defeated nation has been left in circulation. And the lira in Italy—did the Federal Government confiscate the lira? The lira, the yen, the mark—all, all were redeemed."

The Judge was leaning forward over the table and his tie brushed his saucer of melted ice cream, but he did not notice.

"But what happened after the War Between the States? Not only did the Federal Government of the United States free the slaves which were the
sine qua non
of our cotton economy, so that the very resources of the nation were gone with the wind. A truer story was never written than
Gone With the Wind.
Remember how we cried at that picture show?"

Jester said: "I didn't cry."

"You certainly did," the Judge said. "I wish I had written that book."

Jester did not comment.

"But back to the issue. Not only was the economy of the nation deliberately wrecked, but the Federal Government completely invalidated all Confederate currency. Not one cent could be redeemed for the wealth of the entire Confederacy. I have heard of Confederate bills used as kindling for fires."

"There used to be a whole trunk of Confederate bills in the attic. I wonder what happened to them."

"They're in the library in my safety box."

"Why? Aren't they worthless?"

The Judge did not answer; instead, he pulled from his vest pocket a Confederate thousand-dollar bill. Jester examined it with some of the wonder of his attic-playing childhood. The bill was so real, so green and believable. But the wonder illumined him only for a few instants, then was extinguished. Jester handed the bill back to his grandfather.

"It would be a lot of money if it was real."

"One of these days it might be 'real' as you say. It will be, if my strength and work and vision can make it so."

Jester questioned his grandfather with his cold clear eyes. Then he said: "The money is nearly a hundred years old."

"And think of the hundreds of billions of dollars squandered by the Federal Government during those hundred years. Think of the wars financed and public spending. Think of the other currencies redeemed and put back into circulation. The mark, the lira, the yen—all foreign currencies. And the South was, after all, the same flesh and blood and should have been treated as brothers. The currency should have been redeemed and
not
devalued. Don't you see that, Lamb?"

"Well it wasn't and it's too late now."

The conversation made Jester uneasy and he wanted to leave the table and go away. But his grandfather held him with a gesture.

"Wait a minute. It's never too late to redress a wrong. And I am going to be instrumental in allowing the Federal Government to redress this historic and monumental wrong," the Judge stated pontifically. "I am going to have a bill introduced in the House of Representatives if I win the next election that will redeem all Confederate monies, with the proper adjustment for the increase of cost-of-living nowadays. It will be for the South what F.D.R. intended to do in his New Deal. It will revolutionize the economy of the South. And you, Jester, will be a wealthy young man. There are ten million dollars in that safety box. What do you say to that?"

"How did that much Confederate money accumulate?"

"There are ancestors of vision in our family—remember that, Jester. My grandmother, your great-great-grandmother, was a great lady and a woman of vision. When the war was over she traded for Confederate money, swapping now and then a few eggs and produce—once I remember her telling me she even swapped a laying hen for three million dollars. Everybody was hungry in those days and everybody had lost faith. All except your great-great-grandmother. I will never forget her saying: 'It will come back, it's bound to.'"

"But it never has," Jester said.

"Until now—but you wait and see. It will be a New Deal for the economy of the South and benefit the nation as a whole. Even the Federal Government will be benefited."

"How?" Jester asked.

The Judge said calmly, "What benefits one benefits the whole. It's simple to understand; if I had a few million, I would invest, employ a lot of people and stimulate local business. And I'm just one individual to be reimbursed."

"Another thing," Jester said. "It's been about a hundred years. And how could the money be traced?"

The Judge's voice was triumphant. "That's the least of our worries. When the Treasury announces that Confederate money is being redeemed, the money will be found all right. Confederate bills will be cropping up in attics and barns all over the South. Cropping up all over the nation and even in Canada."

"What good would it do to have money cropping up in Canada?"

The Judge said with dignity: "That's just a figure of speech—a rhetorical example." The Judge looked hopefully at his grandson. "But what do you think of the legislation as a whole?"

Jester avoided his grandfather's eyes and did not answer. And the Judge, desperate for his approval, persisted. "What, Lamb? It's the vision of a great statesman," he added more firmly. "The
Journal
has many times referred to me as a 'great statesman' and the
Courier
always speaks of me as the first citizen of Milan. Once it was written I was 'one of the fixed stars in that glorious firmament of Southern statesmen.' Don't you admit I am a great statesman?"

The question was not only a plea for reassurance, but a desperate command for emotional annealment. Jester could not answer. For the first time he wondered if his grandfather's reasoning power had been affected by the stroke. And his heart balanced between pity and the natural instinct for separation that divides the sound from the infirm.

The veins of age and excitement crawled in the Judge's temple and his face flushed. Only twice in his life had the Judge suffered from rejection: once when he was defeated in an election for Congress, and again when he sent a long story he had written to the
Saturday Evening Post
and it was returned to him with a form letter. The Judge could not believe this rejection. He read the story again and found it better than all the other stories in the
Post.
Then, suspecting that it had not been properly read, he glued certain pages of the manuscript together and when it was returned another time he never read a
Post
again, and never wrote another story. Now he could not believe that the separation between himself and his grandson was a reality.

"Do you remember how, when you were a little boy, you used to call me Grandy?"

Jester was not moved by the recollection and the tears in his grandfather's eyes irritated him. "I remember everything." He rose and stood behind the Judge's chair, but his grandfather would not get up and would not let him leave. He grasped Jester's hand and held it to his cheek. Jester stood stiff with embarrassment and his hand did not respond to the caress.

"I never thought I'd hear a grandson of mine speak as you have done. You said you didn't see why the races shouldn't mix. Think of the logical outcome. It would lead to intermarriage. How would you like that? Would you let your sister marry a Nigra buck if you had a sister?"

"I'm not thinking of that. I was thinking of racial justice."

"But if your so-called 'racial justice' leads to intermarriage—as it will according to the laws of logic—would you marry a Nigra? Be truthful."

Involuntarily, Jester was thinking of Verily and the other cooks and washwomen who had worked at home, and of Aunt Jemima of the pancake ads. His face flushed bright and his freckles darkened. He could not answer immediately, so much did the image appall him.

"You see," the Judge said. "You were only making empty lip-service—for the Northerners, at that."

Jester said: "I still think that as a judge you judge one crime in two different ways—according to whether it is done by a Negro or a white man."