Heartfire

Chapter 6 -- Names

Margaret did not waste time worrying about when-- or if-- her promised audience with the Queen might happen. Many of the futures she found in other people's heartfires led to such a meeting, and many more did not, and in neither case did she see such an audience leading to the prevention of the bloody war she dreaded.

In the meantime, there were plenty of other activities to fill her time. For she was finding that Camelot was a much more complicated place than she had expected.

During her childhood in the North she had learned to think of slavery as an all-or-nothing proposition, and in most ways it was. There was no way to half-permit it or half-practice it. Either you could be bought and sold by another human being or you couldn't. Either you could be compelled to labor for another man's profit under threat of death or injury, or you couldn't.

But there were cracks in the armor, all the same. Slave owners were not untouched by the normal human impulses. Despite the most stringent rules against it, some Whites did become quite affectionate in their feelings toward loyal Blacks. It was against the law to free a slave, and yet the Ashworths weren't the only Whites to free some of their slaves and then employ them-- and not all those manumitted were as old as Doe. It might be impossible to attack the institution of slavery in the press or in public meetings, but that did not mean that quiet reforms could not take place.

She was writing about this in a letter to Alvin when someone knocked softly at her door.

"Come in?"

It was Fishy. Wordlessly she entered and handed Margaret a calling card, then left almost before the words "Thank you, Fishy" were out of Margaret's mouth. The card was from a haberdasher in Philadelphia, which puzzled her for a moment, until she thought to turn it over to reveal a message scrawled in a careless childish hand:

Dear Sister-in-law Margaret, I heard you was in town. Dinner? Meet me downstairs at four. Calvin Miller

She had not thought to check his heartfire in many days, being caught up in her exploration of Camelot society. Of course she looked for him at once, his distinctive heartfire almost leaping out to her from the forest of flames in the city around her. She never enjoyed looking into his heartfire because of all the malice that was constantly harbored there. Her visits were brief and she did not look deep. Even so, she immediately knew about his liaison with Lady Ashworth, which disgusted her, despite her long experience with all the sins and foibles known to humankind. To use his knack to provoke the woman's lust-- how was that distinguishable from rape? True, Lady Ashworth could have shouted for her slaves to cast him from the house-- the one circumstance in which slaves were permitted to handle a White man roughly-- but Lady Ashworth was a woman unaccustomed to feeling much in the way of sexual desire, and like a child in the first rush of puberty she had no strategies for resistance. Where the patterns of society kept girls and boys from being alone together during that chaotic time, preventing them from disastrous lapses in self-control, Lady Ashworth, as an adult of high station, had no such protection. Her wealth bought her privacy and opportunity without giving her any particular help in resisting temptation.

The thought crossed Margaret's mind: It might be useful to know of Lady Ashworth's adultery.

Then, ashamed, she rejected the thought of holding the woman's sin against her. Margaret had known of other people's sins all her lifeand had also seen the terrible futures that would result if she told what she knew. If God had given her this intense knack, it was certainly not so that she could spread misery.

And yet... if there was some way that her knowledge of Calvin's seduction of Lady Ashworth might help prevent the war...

How bitter it was that the most guilty party, Calvin, was untouchable by shame, and therefore could not have his adultery used against him, unless Lord Ashworth was a champion dueler (and even then, Margaret suspected that in a duel with Calvin, Lord Ashworth would find that his pistol would not fire and his sword would break right off). But that was the way of the world-- seducers and rapists rarely bore the consequences of their acts, or at least not as heavily as the seduced and the brokenspirited.

Dinner would be at four o'clock. Only a couple of hours away. Fishy had not waited for a return message, and in all likelihood Calvin wasn't waiting either. Either she would meet him or she would not-- and indeed, his heartfire showed him unconcerned. It was only a whim for him to meet her. His purpose was as much to find out who she was as to cling to her skirts in order to get in to see the King.

And even the wish to meet King Arthur contained no plan. Calvin knew Napoleon-- this exiled king would not impress him. For a moment Margaret wondered if Calvin planned to kill King Arthur the way he had murdered-- or, as Calvin thought of it, executed-- William Henry Harrison. But no. His heartfire showed no such path in his future, and no such desire in his heart at present.

But that was the problem with Calvin's heartfire. It kept changing from day to day, hour to hour. Most people, limited as they were by the circumstances of their lives, had few real choices, and so their heartfires showed futures that followed only a handful of probable paths. Even powerful people, like her husband Alvin, whose powers gave him countless opportunities, still had their futures sorted into a wider but still countable number because their character was predictable, their choices consistent.

Calvin, on the contrary, was whim-driven to a remarkable extent. His attachment to this French intellectual had shaped his life lately, because Balzac had a firm character, but once Calvin's futures diverged from Balzac's, they immediately branched and rebranched and forked and sprayed into thousands, millions of futures, none more likely than the others. Margaret could not possibly follow them all and see where they led.

It was in Alvin's heartfire, not Calvin's, that she had seen Alvin's death caused by Calvin's machinations. No doubt if she followed every one of the billion paths of Calvin's future she would find almost as many different ways for Calvin to achieve that end. Hatred and envy and love and admiration for Alvin were the one consistency in Calvin's inconstant heart. That he wished harm for Alvin and would eventually bring it to pass could not be doubted; nor could Margaret find any likely way to prevent it.

Short of killing him.

What is happening to me? she wondered. First I think of extortion by threatening to expose Lady Ashworth's sin, and now I actually think of murdering my husband's brother. Is the mere exposure to Calvin a temptation? Does his heartfire influence mine?

Wouldn't that be nice, to be able to blame Calvin for my own failings?

One thing Margaret was sure of: The seeds of all sins were in all people. If it were not so, how would it be virtue when they refrained from acting on those impulses? She did not need Calvin to teach her to think of evil. She only needed to be frustrated at her inability to change events, at her helplessness to save her husband from a doom that she so clearly saw and that Alvin himself seemed not to care about. The desire to force others to bend or break to her will was always there, usually hidden deeply enough that she could forget she had that wish within her, but occasionally surfacing to dangle the ripe fruit of power just out of her reach. She knew, as few others did, that the power to coerce depended entirely on the fear or weakness of other human beings. It was possible to use coercion, yes, but in the end you found yourself surrounded only by the weak and fearful, with all those of courage and strength arrayed against you. And many of your strong, brave enemies would match you in evil, too. The more you coerced others, the sooner you would bring yourself to the moment of your doom.

It would even happen to Napoleon. Margaret had seen it, for she had examined his hot black heartfire several times when she was checking on Calvin during his stay in France. She saw the battlefield. She saw the enemies arrayed against him. No coercion, not even fueled by Napoleon's seemingly irresistible knack, could build a structure that would last. Only when a leader gathered willing followers who shared his goals could the things he created continue after his death. Alexander proved that when his empire collapsed in fragments after his death; Charlemagne did little better, and Attila did worse-- his empire evaporated upon his death. The empire of the Romans, on the other hand, was built by consensus and lasted two thousand years; Mohammed's empire kept growing after his death and became a civilization. Napoleon's France was no Rome, and Napoleon was no Mohammed.

But at least Napoleon was trying to create something. Calvin had no intention of building anything. To make things was his inborn knack, but the desire to build was foreign to his nature; the persistence to build was contrary to his temperament. He was weak himself, and fearful. He could not bear scorn; he feared shame more than death. This made him think he was brave. Many people made that mistake about themselves. Because they could stand up to the prospect of physical pain or even death, they thought they had courage-- only to discover that the threat of shame made them comply with any foolish command or surrender any treasure, no matter how dear.

Calvin, what can I do with you? Is there no way to kindle true manhood in your fragile, foolish heart? Surely it's not too late, even for you. Surely in some of the million divergent paths of your heartfire there is one, at least, in which you find the courage to admit Alvin's greatness without fearing that others will then scorn you for being weaker. Surely there's a moment when you choose to love goodness for its own sake, and cease to care about what others think of you.

Surely, in any heap of straw, there is one strand which, if planted and tended, watered and nurtured, will live and grow.

Honor‚ de Balzac trotted along behind Calvin, growing more annoyed by the moment. "Slow down, girder-legs, you will wear me down to a stub trying to keep up with you."

"You always walk so slow," said Calvin. "Sometimes I got to stride out or my legs get jumpy."

"If your legs are jumpy then jump." But the argument was over-- Calvin was walking more slowly now. "This sister-in-law of yours, what makes you think she'll pay for dinner?"

"I told you, she's a torch. The Napoleon of torches. She'll know before she comes downstairs to meet us that I don't have a dime. Or a shilling. Whatever they call it here."

"So she'll turn around and go back upstairs."

"No," said Calvin. "She'll want to meet me."

"But Calvin, my friend, if she is a torch then she must know what is in your heart. Who could want to meet you then?"

Calvin rounded on him, his face a mask of anger. "What do you mean by that?"

For a moment, Honor‚ was frightened. "Please don't turn me into a frog, Monsieur le Maker."

"If you don't like me, why are you always tagging along?"

"I write novels, Calvin. I study people."

"You're studying me?"

"No, of course not, I already have you in my mind, ready to write. What I study is the people you meet. How they respond to you. You seem to wake up something inside them."

"What?"

"Different things. That is what I study."

"So you're using me."

"But of course. Were you under some delusion that I stayed with you for love? Do you think we are Damon and Pythias? Jonathan and David? I would be a fool to love you like such a friend."

Calvin's expression grew darker yet. "Why would you be a fool?"

"Because there is no room for a man like me in your life. You are already locked in a dance with your brother. Cain and Abel had no friends-- but then, they were the only two men alive. Perhaps the better comparison is Romulus and Remus."

"Which one am l?" asked Calvin.

"The younger brother," said Honor‚.

"So you think he'll try to kill me?"

"I spoke of the closeness of the brothers, not the end of the story."

"You're playing with me."

"I always play with everybody," said Honor‚. "It is my vocation. God put me on the earth to do with people what cats do to mice. Play with them, chew the last bit of life out of them, then pick them up in my mouth and drop them on people's doorsteps. That is the business of literature."

"You take a lot of airs for a writer who ain't had a book printed up yet."

"There is no book big enough to contain the stories that fill me up. But I will soon be ready to write. I will go back to France, I will write my books, I will be arrested from time to time, I will be in debt, I will make huge amounts of money but never enough, and in the end my books will last far longer than Napoleon's empire."

"Or maybe it'll just seem that way to the folks who read them."

"You will never know. You are illiterate in French."

"I'm illiterate in most every language," said Calvin. "So are you."

"Yes, but in the illiteracy competition, I will concede to you the laurels."

"Here's the house," said Calvin.

Honor‚ sized it up. "Your sister-in-law is not rich, but she spends the money to stay in a place that is respectable."

"Who says she ain't rich? I mean, think of it. She knows what folks are thinking. She knows everything they've ever done and everything they're going to do. She can see the future! You can bet she's invested a few dollars here and there. I bet she's got plenty of money by now."

"What a foolish use of such a power," said Honor‚. "The mere making of money. If I could see into another person's heart, I would be able to write the truest of novels."

"I thought you already could."

"I can, but it is only the imagined soul of the other person. I cannot be sure that I am right. I have not been wrong yet about anyone, but I am never sure."

"People ain't that hard to figure out," said Calvin. "You treat it like some mystery and you're the high priest who has the word straight from God, but people are just people. They want the same things."

"Tell me this list as we go inside out of the sun."

Calvin pulled the string to ring the doorbell. "Water. Food. Leaking and dumping. Getting a woman or a man, depending. Getting rich. Having people respect you and like you. Making other people do what you want."

The door opened. A Black woman stood before them, her eyes downcast.

"Miz Larner or Miz Smith or whatever name she's using, Margaret anyway, she's expecting to meet us downstairs," said Calvin.

Wordlessly the Black woman backed away to let them come in. Honor‚ stopped in the doorway, took the woman by the chin, and lifted her head till their eyes met. "What do you want? In the whole world, what do you want most?"

For a moment the woman looked at him in terror. Her eyes darted left, right. Honor‚ knew she wanted to look down again, to get back to the safe and orderly world, but she did not dare to turn her face away from him as long as he held her chin, for fear he would denounce her as insolent. And then she stopped trying to look away, but rather locked her gaze on his eyes, as if she could see into him and recognized that he meant her no harm, but only wanted to understand her.

"What do you want?" he asked again.

Her lips moved.

"You can tell me," he said.

"A name," she whispered.

Then she tore herself away and fled the room.

Honor‚ looked after her, bemused. "What do you suppose she meant by that?" he asked. "Surely she has a name-- how else would her master call her when he wanted her?"

"You'll have to ask Margaret," said Calvin. "She's the one who sees what's going on inside everybody's head."

They sat on the porch, watching bees and hummingbirds raid the flowers in the garden. Soon Calvin began to amuse himself by making the bees' wings stop flapping. He'd point to a bee and then it would drop like a stone. A moment later, dazed and annoyed, it would start to buzz again and rise into the air. By then Calvin would be pointing to another bee and making it fall. Honor‚ laughed because it was funny to see them fall, to imagine their confusion. "Please don't do it to the hummingbirds," Honor‚ said.

He regretted at once that he had said such a foolish thing. For of course that was exactly what Calvin had to do. He pointed. The hummingbird's wings stopped. It plummeted to the ground. But it did not buzz and rise back into the sky. Instead it struggled there, flapping one wing while the other lay useless in the dirt.

"Why would you break such a beautiful creature?" said Honor‚.

"Who makes the rules?" said Calvin. "Why is it funny to do it to bees but not to birds?"

"Because it doesn't hurt the bee," said Honor‚. "Because hummingbirds don't sting. Because there are millions of bees but hummingbirds are as rare as angels."

"Not around here," said Calvin.

"You mean there are many angels in Camelot?"

"I meant there are thousands of hummingbirds. They're like squirrels they're so common."

"So it is all right to break this one's wing and let it die?"

"What is it, God watches the sparrows and you're in charge of hummingbirds?"

"If you can't fix it," said Honor‚, "you shouldn't break it."

Calvin glowered, then pushed himself out of his chair, vaulted the railing, and knelt down by the hummingbird. He fiddled with the wing, trying to straighten it. The bird kept struggling in his grasp.

"Hold still, dammit."

Calvin held the broken wing straight, closed his eyes, concentrated. But the fluttering of the bird kept annoying him. He made an exasperated gesture, as if he were shaking a child, and the bones of the wing crumbled in his fingers. He took his hands away and looked at the ruined wing, a sick expression on his face.

"Is this a game?" asked Honor‚. "See how many times can you break the same hummingbird wing?"

Calvin looked at him in fury. "Shut your damn mouth."

"The bird is in pain, Monsieur le Maker."

Calvin leapt to his feet and stomped down hard on the bird. "Now it's not."

"Calvin the healer," said Honor‚. Despite the jesting tone he was sick at heart. It was his goading that had killed the bird. Not that there was any hope for it. It was doomed to die as soon as Calvin made it fall from the air. But even that had been partly Honor‚'s fault for having asked Calvin not to do it. He knew, or should have known, that would be a goad to him.

"You made me do it," said Calvin. He couldn't meet Honor‚'s gaze. This worried Honor‚ more than a defiant glare would have. Calvin felt shamed in front of his friend. That did not bode well for that friend's future.

"Nonsense," said Honor‚ cheerfully. "It was your own wise choice. Do not kill bees, for they make honey! But what does a humming bird make? A splash of color in the air, and then it dies, and voila! A splash of color on the ground. And where is color more needed? The air is full of bright color. The ground never has enough of it. You have made the world more beautiful."

"Someday I'll be sick of you and your sick jokes," said Calvin.

"What's taking you so long? I'm already sick of me."

"But you like your jokes," said Calvin.

"I never know whether I will like them until I hear myself say them," said Honor‚.

He heard footsteps inside the house, coming to the door. He turned. Margaret Smith was a stern-looking woman, but not unattractive. Au contraire, she was noticeably attractive. Perhaps some might think her too tall for Honor‚'s comfort, but like most short men, Honor‚ had long since had to settle for the idea of admiring taller women; any other choice would curtail too sharply the pool of available ladies.

Not that this one was available. She raised one eyebrow very slightly, as if to let Honor‚ know that she recognized his admiration of her and thought it sweet but stupid of him. Then she turned her attention to Calvin.

"I remember once," she said, "I saw Alvin heal a broken animal."

Honor‚ winced and stole a glance at Calvin. To his surprise, instead of exploding with wrath, Calvin only smiled at the lady. "Nice to meet you, Margaret," he said.

"Let's get one thing straight from the start," said Margaret. "I know every nasty little thing you've ever done. I know how much you hate and envy my husband. I know the rage you feel for me at this moment and how you long to humiliate me. Let's have no pretenses between us."

"All right," said Calvin, smiling. "I want to make love to you. I want to make you pregnant with my baby instead of Alvin's."

"The only thing you want is to make me angry and afraid," said Margaret. "You want me to wonder if you'll use your powers to harm the baby inside my womb and then to seduce me the way you did with another poor woman. So let me put your mind at rest. The hexes that protect my baby were made by Alvin himself, and you don't have the skill to penetrate them."

"Do you think not?" said Calvin.

"I know you don't," said Margaret, "because you've already tried and failed and you don't even begin to understand why. As for wanting to seduce me-- save those efforts for someone who doesn't see through your pretenses. Now, are we going to dinner or not?"

"I'm hungry," said Honor‚, desperate to turn the conversation away from the dangerous hostility with which it had begun. Didn't this woman know what kind of madman Calvin was? "Where shall we eat?"

"Since I'm expected to pay," said Margaret, "it will have to be in a restaurant I can afford."

"Excellent," said Honor‚. "I am ill at the thought of eating at the kind of restaurant I can afford."

That earned him a tiny hint of a smile from the stern Mrs. Smith. "Give me your arm, Monsieur de Balzac. Let's not tell my brother-in-law where we're going."

"Very funny," said Calvin, climbing over the railing and back onto the porch. The edge of fury was out of his voice. Honor‚ was relieved.

This woman, this torch, she must truly understand Calvin better than Honor‚ did, for Calvin seemed to be calming down even though she had goaded him so dangerously. Of course, if she was protected by hexes that might give her more confidence.

Or was it hexes she was counting on? She was married to the Maker that Calvin longed to be-- maybe she simply counted on Calvin's knowledge that if he hanned her or her baby, he would have to face the wrath of his brother at long last, and he knew he was no match for Alvin Maker. Someday he would have it out with him, but he wasn't ready, and so Calvin would not harm Alvin's wife or unborn baby.

Certainly that was the way a rational man would see it.

Calvin tried to keep himself from getting angry during the meal. What good would it do him? She could see everything he felt; yet she would also see that he was suppressing his anger, so even that would do no good. He hated the whole idea of her existence-- someone who thought she knew the truth of his soul just because she could see into his secret desires. Well, everyone had secret desires, didn't they? They couldn't be condemned for the fancies that passed through their mind, could they? It was only what they acted on that counted.

Then he remembered the dead hummingbird. Lady Ashworth naked in bed. He stopped himself before he remembered every act that others had criticized-- no reason to list the catalogue of them for Margaret's watchful eye. For her to report to Alvin with, no doubt, the worst possible interpretation. Alvin's spy--

No, keep the anger under control. She couldn't help what her knack was, any more than Calvin could, or anybody else. She wasn't a spy.

A judge, though. She was clearly judging him, she had said as much. She judged everybody. That's why she was here in the Crown Colonies-- because she had judged and condemned them for practicing slavery, even though the whole world had always practiced slavery until just lately, and it was hardly fair to condemn these people when the idea of emancipation was really just some fancy new trend from Puritan England and a few French philosophers.

And he didn't want to be judged by what he did, either. That was wrong, too. People made mistakes. Found out later that a choice was wrong. You couldn't hold that against them forever, could you?

No, people should be judged by what they meant to do in the long run. By the overarching purpose they meant to accomplish. Calvin was going to help Alvin build the Crystal City. That was why he had gone to France and England, wasn't it? To learn how people were gathered to one purpose and governed in the real world. None of this feeble teaching that Alvin did back in Vigor Church, trying to turn people into what they were not and never could be. No, Alvin would get nowhere that way. Calvin was the one who would figure it all out and come back and show Alvin the way. Calvin would be the teacher, and together the brothers would build the great city and the whole world would be ruled from that place, and even Napoleon would come and bow to them, and then all of Calvin's mistakes and bad thoughts would be forgotten in the honor and glory that would come to him.

And even if he never succeeded, it was his purpose that counted. That's who Calvin really was, and that was how Margaret should judge him.

Come to think of it, she had no business judging him at all. That's what Jesus said, wasn't it? Judge not lest ye be judged. Jesus forgave everybody. Margaret should take a lesson from Jesus and forgive Calvin instead of condemning him. If the world had a little more forgiveness in it, it would be a better place. Everybody sinned. What was Calvin's little fling with Lady Ashworth compared to Alvin killing that Slave Finder? What was a dead hummingbird compared to a dead man? Margaret could forgive Alvin, but never Calvin, no, because he wasn't one of the favored ones.

People are such hypocrites. It made him sick, the way they were always pretending to be soooo righteous...

Except Balzac. He never pretended at all. He was just himself. And he didn't judge Calvin. Just accepted him for the man he was. Didn't compare him with Alvin, either. How could he? They had never met.

The meal was almost over. Calvin had been so busy brooding that he hadn't noticed that he was almost completely silent. But what could he say, when Margaret thought she already knew everything about him anyway?

Balzac was talking to her about the slavegirl who opened the door for them at the boardinghouse. "I asked her what she wanted most in all the world, and she told me what she wanted was a name. I thought people named their slaves."

Margaret looked at him in surprise, and it took a moment for her to respond. "The girl you talked to has two names," she finally said. "But she hates them both."

"Is that what she meant?" asked Balzac. "That she didn't like her name? But that's not the same as wishing she had one."

Again Margaret looked contemplative for a few moments.

"I think you've uncovered something that I was having trouble understanding. She hates her name, and then she tells you she wishes she had one. I can't decipher it."

Balzac leaned over the table and rested his hand on Margaret's. "You must tell me what you are really thinking, madame."

"I am really thinking you should take your hand off mine," said Margaret mildly. "That may work with the women of France, but uninvited intimacies do not work well with me."

"I beg your pardon."

"And I did tell you what I really thought," said Margaret.

"But that is not true," said Balzac.

Calvin almost laughed out loud, to hear him front her so bold.

"Is it not?" asked Margaret. "If so, I am not aware of what the truth might be."

"You got a look in your eyes. Very thoughtful. Then you reached a conclusion. And yet you told me that you can't decipher this girl's wish for a name."

"I said I can't decipher it," said Margaret. "I meant that I can't find her real name."

"Ah. So that means you have deciphered something."

"I've never thought to look for this before. But it seems that the two names I had for her-- the name her mother called her, which was awful, and her household name, which is hardly better; they call her 'Fishy'-- neither of those is her true name. But she thinks they are. Or rather, she knows of no other name, and yet she knows there must be another name, and so she wishes for that true name, and-- well, as you can see, I haven't deciphered anything."

"Your decipherment is not up to your own standard of understanding maybe," said Balzac, "but it is enough to leave me breathless."

On they blathered, Balzac and Mrs. Smith, trading compliments. Calvin thought about names. About how much easier his life might have been if his own name had not been shared with Alvin, save one letter. About how Alvin resisted using the name Maker even though he had earned it. Alvin Smith indeed. And then Margaret-- why did she decide to stop being Peggy? What pretension was she nursing? Or was Margaret the true name and Peggy the disguise?

Chatter chatter. Oh, shut up, both of you. "Here's a question," Calvin asked, interrupting them. "Which comes first, the name or the soul?"

"What do you mean?" asked Balzac.

"I mean is the soul the same, no matter what you name it? Or if you change names do you change souls?"

"What do names have to do with..." Margaret's voice trailed off. She looked off into the distance.

"I think decipherment happens before our eyes," said Balzac.

Calvin was annoyed. She wasn't supposed to take this seriously. "I just asked a question, I wasn't trying to plumb the secrets of the universe."

Margaret looked at him with disinterest. "You were going to make some foolish joke about giving Alvin the C from your name and you could be the one that everybody likes."

"Was not," said Calvin.

She ignored him. "The slaves have names," she said, "but they don't, because the names their masters give them aren't real. Don't you see? It's a way of staying free."

"Doesn't compare with actual freedom," said Calvin.

"Of course it doesn't," said Margaret. "But still, it's more than just a matter of the name itself. Because when they hide their names, they hide something else."

Calvin thought of what he had said to start this stupid discussion. "Their souls?"

"Their heartfires," she said. "I know you understand what I'm talking about. You don't see into them the way I do, but you know where they are. Haven't you noticed that the slaves don't have them?"

"Yes, they do," said Calvin.

"What are you talking about?" said Balzac.

"Souls," said Calvin.

"Heartfires," said Margaret. "I don't know if they're the same thing."

"Doesn't matter," said Calvin. "The French don't have either one."

"Now he insults me and my whole country," said Balzac, "but you see that I do not kill him."

"That's because you've got short arms and you drink too much to aim a gun," said Calvin.

"It is because I am civilized and I disdain violence."

"Don't either of you care," said Margaret, "that the slaves have found a way to hide their souls from their masters? Are they so invisible to you, Calvin, that you haven't ever bothered to notice that their heartfires are missing?"

"They still got a spark in them," said Calvin.

"But it's tiny, it has no depth," said Margaret. "It's the memory of a heartfire, not the fire itself. I can't see anything in them."

"Seems to me that they've found a way to hide their souls from you, said Calvin.

"Doesn't he ever listen to anybody?" Margaret asked Balzac.

"He does," said Balzac. "He hears, but he doesn't care."

"What am I supposed to be caring about that I'm not?" asked Calvin.

"What the Black girl said she wished for," said Balzac. "A name. She has hidden away her name and her soul, but now she wants them back and she doesn't know how."

"When did you two figure this out?" asked Calvin.

"It was obvious once Madame Smith made the connection," said Balzac. "But you are the most knowledgeable people I know of, when it comes to hidden powers. How could you not know of this?"

"I don't do souls," said Calvin.

"The powers they bring from Africa work differently," said Margaret. "Alvin tried to figure it out, and so did I, and we think that everybody is born with hidden powers, but they learn from the people around them to use them in different ways. We White people-- or at least English people-- but Napoleon's like this too, so who knows-- we learn to use these powers individually, binding them tightly to some inborn talent or preference or need. A little bit of it we can put outside ourselves, in hexes, but the real power is held in each person. While the Reds, they open their powers to the world around them, becoming less and less alone, more and more tied to the power of nature. It gives them great powers, but cut them off from the natural world and it's gone."

"And Blacks?" asked Balzac.

"They learn to put it into objects, or perhaps they find it there, I don't know. Since I've never done it myself, nor has Alvin, we could only speculate. Some things I've seen in Black folks' heartfires, though-- I could hardly believe it. Yet it's so. Arthur Stuart's mother-- she had extraordinary power, and by making something, she gave herself wings. She flew."

Balzac laughed, then realized she wasn't joking or even speaking metaphorically. "Flew?"

"At least a hundred miles," said Margaret. "Not far enough, not entirely in the right direction, but it was enough to save her baby, though her own strength and life were spent."

"This Arthur Stuart, why don't you ask him how the power of Black people works?"

"He's just a boy," said Calvin scornfully, "and he's half-White anyway."

"You don't know him," said Margaret. "He doesn't know how the powers of Blacks work because it isn't carried in the blood, it's taught from parent to child. Alvin learned the greensong of the Reds because he became like a child to Tenskwa-Tawa and Ta-Kumsaw. Arthur Stuart grew up with his power shaped into a knack, like Whites, because he was raised among Whites. I think Blacks have a hard time holding on to their African ways. Maybe that's why Fishy can't remember her real name. Someone took her name from her, took her soul, to keep it in hiding, to keep it safe and free. But now she wants it back and she can't get it because she's not African-born, she's not surrounded by a tribe, she's surrounded by beaten-down slaves whose heartfires and names are all in hiding."

"If they got all these powers," said Calvin, "how come they're slaves?"

"Oh, that's easy," said Balzac. "The ones who capture them in Africa, they are also African, they know what the powers are, they keep them from having the things they need."

"Blacks against Blacks," said Margaret sadly.

"How do you know all that?" Calvin asked Balzac.

"I was at the docks! I saw the Blacks being dragged off the ships in chains. I saw the Black men who searched them, took away little dolls made of cloth or dung, many different things."

"Where was I when you were seeing this stuff?"

"Drunk, my friend," said Balzac.

"So were you, then," said Calvin.

"But I have an enormous capacity for wine," said Balzac. "When I am drunk I am at my best. It is the national knack of the French."

"I wouldn't be proud of it if I were you," said Margaret.

"I wouldn't be sanctimonious about our wine, here in the land of corn liquor and rye whiskey." Balzac leered at her.

"Just when I think I might like you, Monsieur Balzac, you show yourself not to be a gentleman."

"I don't have to be a gentleman," said Balzac. "I am an artist."

"You still walk on two legs and eat through your mouth," said Margaret. "Being an artist doesn't give you special privileges. If anything, it gives you greater responsibilities."

"I have to study life in all its manifestations," said Balzac.

"Perhaps that is true," said Margaret. "But if you sample all the wickedness of the world, and commit every betrayal and every harm, then you will not be able to sample the higher joys, for you will not be healthy enough or strong enough-- or decent enough for the company of good people, which is one of the greatest joys of all."

"If they cannot forgive me my foibles, then they are not such good people, no?" Balzac smiled as if he had played the last ace in the deck.

"But they do forgive your foibles," said Margaret. "They would welcome your company, too. But if you joined them, you would not understand what they were talking about. You would not have had the experiences that bind them together. You would be an outsider, not because of any act of theirs, but because you have not passed along the road that teaches you to be one of them. You will feel like an exile from the beautiful garden, but it will be you who exiled yourself. And yet you will blame them, and call them judgmental and unforgiving, even as it is your own pain and bitter memory that condemns you, your own ignorance of virtue that makes you a stranger in the land that should have been your home."

Her eyes were on fire and Balzac looked at her with rapt admiration. "I always thought I would experiment with evil, and imagine good because it was easier. Almost you convince me I should do it the other way around."

Calvin was not so entranced. He knew that this little sermon was directed at him and he didn't like it. "There's no such secret that the good people know," said Calvin. "They just pretend, to console themselves for having missed out on all the fun."

Margaret smiled at him. "I took these ideas from your own thoughts of only a few minutes ago, Calvin. You know that what I'm saying is true."

"I was thinking the opposite," said Calvin.

"That's what you thought you were thinking," said Margaret. "But you wouldn't have had to think such thoughts if that was what you really thought about it."

Balzac laughed aloud, and Calvin joined him-- albeit halfheartedly.

"Madame Smith, I could have labored all my days and never thought of a conversation in which someone was able to deliver such a sentence and have it mean anything at all. 'That's what you thought you were thinking.' Delicious! 'You would not think these thoughts if you really thought what you think you thought' Or was it 'thought you think.'"

"Neither one," said Margaret. "You are already preparing to misquote me."

"I am not a journalist! I am a novelist, and I can improve any speech."

"Improve this," said Margaret. "You two play your foolish games-- Calvin playing at being powerful, Monsieur de Balzac playing at being an artist-- but around you here is real life. Real suffering. These Black people are as human as you and me, but they give up their heartfires and their names in order to endure the torment of belonging to other people who despise and fear them. If you can dwell in this city of evil and remain untouched by their suffering, then it is you who are the trivial, empty people. You are able to hold on to your names and heartfires because they aren't worth stealing."

With that she rose from the table and left the restaurant.

"Do you think we offended her?" asked Calvin.

"Perhaps," said Balzac. "But that concerns me a great deal less than the fact that she did not pay."

As be spoke, the waiter was already approaching them. "Do the gentlemen wish to pay in cash?"

"It was the lady who invited us," said Balzac. "Did she forget to pay?"

"But she did pay," said the waiter. "For her own meal. Before you sat down, she wrote us her check."

Balzac looked at Calvin and burst out laughing. "You should see your face, Monsieur Calvin!"

"They can arrest us for this," said Calvin.

"But they do not wish to arrest a French novelist," said Balzac. "For I would return to France and write about their restaurant and declare it to be a house of flies and pestilence."

The waiter looked at him coldly. "The French ambassador engages us to cater his parties," he said. "I do not fear your threat."

A few moments later, up to his arms in dishwater and slops, Calvin seethed in resentment. Of Margaret, of course. Of Alvin, whose fault it was for marrying her. Of Balzac, too, for the cheerful way he bantered with the Black slaves who would otherwise have done all the kitchen work they were doing. Not that the Blacks bantered back. They hardly looked at him. But Calvin could see that they liked hearing him from the way more and more of them lingered in the room a little longer than their jobs required. While he was completely ignored, carrying buckets of table scraps out to be composted for the vegetable garden, emptying pails of dishwater, hauling full ones from the well to be heated. Heavy, sweaty labor, filth on his hands, grime on his face. He thought last night's urine-soaked sleep was as low as he could get in his life, but now he was doing the work of slaves while slaves looked on; and even here, there was another man that they all liked better than him.

Calvin returned to the kitchen just as a Black man was carrying a stack of clean plates to put back on the shelves. The Black man had just a trace of a smile on his face from something Balzac had said, and it was just too much after all that had happened that night. Calvin got his bug inside the dishes and cracked them all, shattered them in his arms. Shards sprayed out everywhere.

The crashing sound immediately brought the White chef and the overseer, his short, thick rod already raised to beat the slave; but Balzac was already there, throwing himself between the slave and the rod. And it was, truly, a matter of throwing himself, for the slave and the overseer were both much taller than Balzac. He leapt up and fairly clung to the slave like a child playing pick-a-pack.

"No, monsieur, do not strike him, he was innocent. I carelessly bumped into him and dropped all the plates on the floor! I am the most miserable of men, to take a dinner I could not pay for and now I have break all these plates. It is my back that deserves the blows!"

"I ain't going to whip no White man like a buck," said the overseer. "What do you think I am?"

"You are the arm of justice," said Balzac, "and I am the heart of guilt."

"Get these imbeciles out of my kitchen," said the chef.

"But you are French!" cried Balzac.

"Of course I am French! Who would hire an English cook?"

Immediately Balzac and the chef burst into a torrent of French, some of which Calvin understood, but not enough to be worth trying to hear any more of it. Balzac had taken all the fun out of it, of course, and the slaves were looking at him-- sidelong, lest they be caught staring at a White man-- as if he were God himself come to lead them out of captivity. Even when Calvin was annoyed and tried to get even a little, it ended up making Balzac look good and Calvin look like nothing.

Lead them out of captivity. God himself. His own thought of a moment before echoed in his mind. Margaret says they've lost their names and their heartfires. She hates slavery and wants it done away. They need someone to get their souls back and lead them out of captivity.

Balzac can't do that for them. What is he? A prawn of a Frenchman with ink on his fingers. But if I free the slaves, what will Alvin be then, compared with me?

For a moment he thought of striking the overseer dead and getting the slaves to run. But where would they run? No, what was needed was a general uprising. And without souls, the Blacks could hardly be expected to have the gumption for any kind of revolt.

So that was the first order of business. Finding souls and naming names.