The Long Utopia

20

IN THE COLD of Datum London, in dusty archives, in badly heated hotel rooms hunched over elderly tablets connected to an unstable web, Nelson Azikiwe continued to follow the tangled story of the Valienté family.

Followed it back more than two centuries, to 1852, and New Orleans …

Luis Valienté had never known a city like ‘Orlins’, as he heard the natives call it. But then, before his first entanglement with Oswald Hackett and his Knights of Discorporea four years ago, he had visited few cities away from his native London: Manchester where he had played a few shows before mobs of mill workers who made Lambeth’s costermongers look like refined gentlemen, and Paris where he had wasted one particularly lavish booking fee on a week of rather bewildered holiday-making.

Now, in the August of 1852, as he and Oswald Hackett and Fraser Burdon strolled through the city, heading for their lodgings with their bits of luggage, he had trouble sorting out his impressions. The heat and the noise, the music and the smiling faces, the stink of the river and the sheer chaos of it all – as a dowdy Englishman he had never felt more out of place in his life.

‘It is like Paris,’ he said at last, reaching for one of the few comparison references he had available. ‘In a way. Look at the architecture; some of it is quite elegant. Spacious and shady – adapted to the climate, of course. And then there’s all the French you hear.’

‘To me it’s more like London,’ Burdon said. ‘Take away the nice weather and ladle on a few centuries of soot, and you might have the East End.’

‘Pah,’ said Hackett, dismissive. ‘To me the whole town is like one ongoing riot. The noise, the colour, the music that blares everywhere – if I could remember my Dante I would probably map it on to one circle of hell or another. One must always remember that none of this existed four hundred years ago. And this is slaving country, and never forget it – why, the largest slave market in America is here. A land of slave-holders and slave-hunters with their Bowie knives and their revolvers, and their bloodhounds and their scourging and their lynching.’

Burdon frowned. ‘We don’t need the piety, thank you, Hackett; we’ve had enough of that from the Prince these last four years. We’re here, aren’t we? We know the job – the mission, as ye call it. Let’s stick to our purpose.’

‘Yes,’ Hackett said somewhat coldly, ‘let’s.’

They turned on to a grand and very lively street called the Vieux Carré, crowded with bars, hotels, cafés and establishments with less obvious identities which it seemed to Luis that Hackett knew rather too well. For all his pompous lecturing, Luis remembered what Hackett had told him of his rakish exploits as a young Waltzer. Hackett certainly had the look to fit in here; he was wearing a broadcloth coat, an embroidered waistcoat, a fine shirt, and a silk neckerchief. Fraser Burdon and Luis, both shabbily dressed by comparison, looked on rather enviously.

Luis was not very surprised when the establishment to which Hackett led them for their overnight lodging, on a slight rise at the heart of this district, turned out to be a bawdy house. It was something like a town house realized in an overwrought classical style – and it was chock full of young women, remarkably beautiful in Luis’s eyes, all elegantly dressed.

‘My word!’ said Burdon, staring around. ‘It’s like a display of exotic birds at Albert’s blessed Exhibition.’

‘But,’ Hackett murmured, ‘bawdy houses are often surprisingly sympathetic to the cause we serve today.’

He brought them into the presence of the madam of the house. Luis never learned her name. She was small, a little plump, her jet black hair streaked with grey and tied back neatly. Her complexion was dark; no doubt she was a product of the great mixing-up of peoples in this port – but aside from that, with her stature and her air of bossiness she reminded Luis uncomfortably of an older version of the Victoria he had glimpsed at Windsor.

She smiled at Hackett. ‘You’re the conductors, sir?’

‘We are. And you have our passengers, with their tickets?’

‘I do indeed. This way.’

Burdon cocked an eyebrow at this exchange. Both he and Luis by now recognized the peculiar jargon of the Underground Rail Road: a rail system that did not exist literally, but whose ‘passengers’ were escaping slaves.

The madam led them through gaudy reception halls. Luis never glimpsed the back rooms where the true and grubby trade of the place was transacted. The madam’s own office was a kind of drawing room, not pretentiously decorated, but with a desk heaped with papers and studded with ink wells, a glass cabinet in one corner with a range of medicines – and, ominously, a rack of guns, from revolvers to hunting rifles, all looking well tended and no doubt loaded.

And a secret panel at the back of the office, opened by a catch worked by one of the madam’s polished fingernails, revealed another room, lit by a single gas lamp, entirely enclosed. The madam allowed the three of them inside, then backed out gracefully, closing the door behind them.

Luis glanced around. After the brilliance of the day the gaslight seemed dim indeed. There were no other doors, no windows, no furniture. But he could guess why they were here. This entirely sealed-up room was a gateway to the widdershins world, a place through which Waltzers could pass without fear of observers.

Hackett grinned at them both. ‘Leave your bags here; you’ll not be needing them where we’re going. I just want to make sure our precious cargo is safe, for we leave tonight, with our friends, on the River Goddess bound upstream for Memphis. All set? If you need a puking pill I’ve got some to spare. Widdershins we go. One, two, three—’

The site of this parallel New Orleans struck Luis as not much different from the regular version – given the absence of all the works of mankind, of course – and he wondered how dissimilar the details were of the braiding of the great river as it poured sluggishly across this flat, marshy landscape. But Luis’s feet were dry, more or less; the slight rise on which the bawdy house stood evidently persisted here, a scrap of ground marginally higher and drier than the rest.

Still, they were all sweating immediately.

And Hackett slapped his neck. ‘Got you, you swine! Further north of here, you know, there are all sorts of exotic beasts to be seen – and to run from. Giant camels, horses the size of big dogs, cave bears, lions: critters from which modern Americans have evidently been spared acquaintance by the veil of extinction. But here, nothing but mosquitoes, and they seem to persist everywhere. Oh, and alligators; don’t go near the water.’ He pointed west. ‘There are our passengers.’

Luis saw what appeared to be an old army field tent, battered, roomy, its heavy canvas held in place with ropes and pitons driven into the soggy ground. A small fire smoked near an open doorflap, and shirts and trousers and greyed underwear were laid out on the spine of the tent, drying out after a washing.

And in the shade of a kind of porch, under a spread-out mosquito net, two men were sitting. They were both black. As the three Englishmen approached, one of them whipped aside the mosquito net, stood, and faced them armed with a kind of improvised club. The other, evidently older, stayed sitting, his back against a heap of blankets.

Hackett spread his hands. ‘It’s only me, Simon. Oswald Hackett at your service. Well, who else would it be? And these two fine fellows are here to help you make your journey north, beginning tonight.’

The younger man lowered the club and smiled. ‘Mr Hackett. So good to see you again.’

Luis was surprised at the man’s accent: well spoken, even refined, at least given Luis’s limited experience of American intonation. But this man, Simon, had evidently been used brutally; one cheek bore an ugly-looking scar, badly stitched, and the opposite eye was closed by swollen flesh.

The older man, meanwhile, his hair and ragged beard streaked with grey, barely stirred.

There was a round of introductions. It turned out that Simon and the other man were grandson and grandfather respectively.

Hackett bent to speak to the old fellow, doffing his hat. ‘And you, Abel. Do you remember me? I carried you over from New Orleans.’

‘F’om tha’ cat house,’ Abel said. ‘Haw haw! Shoulda lef’ me there and the gels wudda finish’ me off.’

‘Then I came back with Simon … You remember?’

‘Sho I ’member, Massa Hackett.’

‘Please don’t call me massa.’

‘No, massa.’

‘Come,’ Simon said. ‘Sit in the shade with us. We have root beer and I can brew a coffee …’

It was a strange gathering that they made in the shade of that antiquated tent, Luis thought, three Englishmen and two runaway slaves, drinking root beer and eating hard-tack biscuits – five men all alone in this widdershins world, he supposed, save for the cave bears and the dog-sized horses (which he wasn’t entirely sure he believed in), and any other Waltzer who might be popping back and forth for his or her own purposes.

Hackett was quick to reassure the men that the plan he had made for their escape was still in place. ‘We steam upstream as far as Memphis on the Goddess, and then change. At Cairo we change again and steam up the Ohio to Evansville, Louisville, Portsmouth. Then it’s overland to Pittsburgh—’

Simon smiled. ‘And across Mason and Dixon’s Line to the free states.’

‘And you’re home and dry,’ Hackett said.

‘If all goes well.’

‘Much can go wrong,’ Hackett conceded. ‘I wouldn’t hide that from you. On the steamer you’ll be huddled close to the boiler; it will be warm enough for you, and you’ll be pitched about in the dark. And you may know that the slave-catchers nowadays have a way of smoking out the holds of boats like this, to be sure there are no stowaways. We have gear for you agin that threat – oilskin hoods, and wet towels for your mouths. But to ride a steamer is still better than walking all the way to the free states through this widdershins world, which is the only alternative. And we three will be with you all the way; we can always Waltz you out of trouble, wherever we are.’

Simon said, ‘I could work in the open if you like. Pose as your servant. I can play the poor ignorant, like Grandfather. Roll my eyes and blubber for Jesus’s mercy.’

‘I’ve no doubt you can, and most convincingly. But you’re runaways, Simon. And everyone knows how the Rail Road works; they’ll be looking out for you all the way up the river. Why, given the Fugitive Slave Law the slave-catchers have the power to cross the Line itself, and the law says they’re not to be impeded in their filthy work, even in free state territory. They even work in cities like Boston and Philadelphia, I’m told.’

‘True, is true,’ murmured the old man. ‘Tha’s why I’m a’goin’ all’a way to Canada. Queen Victoria’s Promised Land. Follow th’ drinking gourd to th’ North Star.’

Hackett nodded. ‘That’s it.’ He glanced at Luis. ‘The “drinking gourd” is the Big Dipper, which points to the pole star.’

‘I’m a’goin’ to shake the paw of th’ British Lion, yes suh.’

‘Yes, you are. But until we’re home free you just stay out of sight as much as you can.’

Luis thought Simon, meanwhile, looked as nervous at the whole prospect as he might have been himself had their roles been reversed – as he had a right to be, of course.

Burdon said, ‘Forgive me for saying this, Simon. You aren’t quite—’

‘What you expected?’ Simon grinned easily, but showed cracked teeth. ‘My background is somewhat unusual. Whether you judge that my subsequent experiences have been the worse for me because of that is up to you …’ He sipped his coffee. ‘As a little boy I was clever and good-looking – that’s not bragging, consider it a fair description of the merchandise. I was befriended by the younger son of the master of the house – this was a cotton plantation in the wilds of Louisiana, with a hundred or so head of slaves – when you’re children, you see, even such categories as slave and master blur into insignificance compared with the vividness of the game of the day. I was four years old.

‘Well, when Alexander – the young master – began his schooling, he was something of a restless soul, and his father, observing I was bright and a calming influence on him, brought me into the house as a companion. Even by then I was aping the masters’ speech, you see, and they would probably say “aping” is an appropriate term. But they dressed me up and encouraged me to speak well and mind my manners, and I became a study companion for Alexander – only at home, of course, never at school or beyond the bounds of the house. And in the process, naturally, I learned a good deal myself. I was brighter than Alexander but not markedly so; of course I knew not to outshine him overmuch in our shared work, but to let him think he could beat me at it – as often, indeed, he could. I was a happy child, sirs, unaware of my unholy indenture. It shames me to say that I was even unperturbed when my mother and my little brothers and sisters were sold on by the master – though later I would be enraged to learn from the other slaves that it was because my mother had refused the master’s lustful designs.

‘This went on as I grew up. Past the age of twelve or so Alexander was increasingly distracted by the company of his own sort, particularly the young ladies, but I was still useful as a companion at home. And I was given work around the house – and not just serving and cleaning and so on; past sixteen I was entrusted with some routine aspects of the plantation’s accounts. It amused the master to have me wait at table for his fancier friends: a skinny slave who had the manners and the speech of an English lord, as he liked to boast, if inaccurately.’

He seemed nostalgic as he spoke of these times, though to be treated as a pet, a toy, however kindly, struck Luis as ghastly.

‘Well, all things have their time. Alexander reached the age of eighteen and was sent off to a fancy college in New York. As for me, as I grew older I had no place in the household. A slave boy of twelve with fine manners is cute, but a man of twenty seems ever on the verge of insolence.’

Hackett said, ‘And so he was turned out of the house. Just like that, after a lifetime of decent living, even if he was wholly owned. Cast down among the field hands.’

‘You may imagine my fate,’ Simon said, his eyes averted. ‘To those men it was as if a white man had been cast among them. I was beaten, stripped, robbed of all I had, in the first hours. I fought back, oh, I fought back, but I was alone.’

‘No,’ Abel said now, stirring. ‘Not ’lone. Had me, his gran’pappy. But his daddy dead. His mommy sol’. Other fam’ly kep’ away. I fought ’em. Tha’s my gran’chile, I told ’em. But I’s old, suh, old and broken …’

‘All of this I could have borne,’ Simon said now, eyes closed, his voice steely. ‘I would have grown stronger. I would have found my place. But then I learned that the master decided I was a troublemaker – rather than the victim of the trouble, you see – and he intended to sell me on.’ He opened his eyes and looked straight at Hackett. ‘And that I could not bear, sir. I have seen the auction block – the slaves stripped naked male and female, grease rubbed into the skin to make it shine, the coarse inspection by the potential owners – the language of the stockyard.’

‘You cun see why we’s run,’ Abel said.

Hackett grasped their hands, both of them; Luis thought he had tears in his eyes. ‘Oh, I see it, sirs, I see it. And we will see you safe in the free states – where your learning and character, Simon, will be a boon, not a curse. Now, Burdon, Valienté – a word on tactics.’

He led the two of them outside. Luis found himself swatting mosquitoes immediately.

‘Slavery!’ Hackett began. ‘What an institution. To own a human being from cradle to grave, to use as you wish – and then you own the children too, and the grandchildren off into perpetuity, like the offspring of some prize racehorse. I don’t know which is the crueller – a life of grinding work, such as has broken poor Abel, or to be given a bit of kindness, a bit of civilization, then to have it arbitrarily swept away, like poor Simon.’

Burdon grunted. ‘It’s a devilish business either way if you’re on the receiving end of it, and no wonder they will take such risks to escape it. Why, I’ve heard of fellows posting themselves to Philadelphia in boxes and crates! But let’s not be too pious, Parson Hackett. After all, we British brought the institution to these shores.’

‘Yes, but at least we’re trying to put it right now, man. You know that Albert himself encourages us to work closely with the Underground Rail Road, even while the government has to turn a blind eye for fear of offending our American cousins. The slave-hunters with their whips and guns actually have the law on their side, of course, and a strong buck like Simon there might be worth a thousand dollars or more. Odd thing for a prince to be involved in, you might think – a secret network of safe houses and transport routes, and communication by nods and winks. But Albert did take great delight when freed slaves promenaded around his Exhibition, causing a few purple faces among the exhibitors from the American South!’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Which isn’t to say that, while the assignment we’re taking on is a noble one, it won’t be difficult. You can see how we’re fixed. Poor old Abel will be a burden. Whereas Simon—’

‘Raised above his station,’ Burdon said. ‘He’s going to be too clever by half, all the damn way to Pittsburgh.’

Hackett glared at him, disgusted. ‘And is that how you think of him – even you? Well, thank God that in the free states there is a place even in America where a man like that can never be called “above his station”.’

Now Simon called over, politely enough. ‘Dr Hackett? My grandfather is asking for you. Wonders if Prince Albert has made any new speeches.’

‘At once, at once.’ And Hackett walked off to the tent.

Burdon growled to Luis, ‘Well, I’ll do my duty to Queen, country and my fellow man, and it pleases me to put one across those slave-catchers – though I’m getting deuced sick of Hackett. The man doesn’t have a monopoly on conscience, y’know. But putting that aside, Valienté – what are your plans after this jaunt is done?’

Luis shrugged. ‘Perhaps see more of America. First time I’ve travelled further than France.’

‘How do you fancy making a bit of money? More than a bit, actually.’

Luis frowned. ‘You’re not talking about anything illegal, are you?’

‘Of course not. Just listen. Even you must have heard of the Gold Rush. In the last few years half the population of this benighted young nation has scarpered for the hills of California, shovels in hand, drooling for gold.’

‘And most of them have earned nothing but a ruined back, and poverty.’

‘True enough. But a handful have become rich – very rich.’

Luis shrugged. ‘Good luck to them. What’s it to us? I’m no prospector.’

Burdon rolled his eyes. ‘But I am. Studied rocks at college, remember? And besides, we don’t need to be prospectors. Think about it, man. God! – why are we Waltzers always so blind to the possibilities before us? Suppose we picked one of those prospectors, one of the more successful fellows. We investigate his claim – study his reports, his maps. Even go see the shafts, the mine workings themselves, if we can get close enough. And then—’

Luis saw it in a flash. ‘We step widdershins. And there’s the same mine, the same seam—’

‘As unworked as if America had never been peopled at all, and us with the maps in our hands. Of course there are practical difficulties, the worst being we can’t carry iron-headed spades and picks across. But we can get around that. Why, we could just pick a site where we can pan it from the streams. And we’ll have it all to ourselves, with none of the risks and uncertainties of prospecting, for all that will have been done for us. Now – tell me what’s unethical.’

Luis had to grin. ‘Feels like cheating, somehow.’

‘I know! But it’s not! Isn’t it grand? We’ve spent four years already following Hackett around on these humanitarian chores of his. Don’t you think, for all the risks we run on stunts like this, we deserve something more for ourselves than occasional pats on the head from old sausage-eater Albert? Not to mention the lingering suspicion that always hangs over us …’

Luis knew what he meant. He thought of Radcliffe, the secretive agent who was never far from Albert’s side in their presence, and at their meetings with representatives of the government. While Albert, something of a visionary dreamer, enthused about the strange powers and benevolent deeds of ‘my Knights’, as he called them, others were evidently a good deal more suspicious of a bunch of such elusive characters, with access and influence in such high places. Maybe it was all too good to last; maybe it would end in tears for them, some day, and Luis, nearly thirty years old now, should think about his own future.

‘I’ll consider it,’ he said.

Burdon slapped his own forehead. ‘Ah, man! Don’t consider, do.’

But Luis would not be swayed, not on the spur of the moment.

They returned to the tent, where Hackett, reading from a bit of paper, repeated in sonorous tones a speech of Albert’s on slavery: ‘“I deeply regret that the benevolent and persevering exertion of England to abolish that atrocious traffic in human beings, at once the desolation of Africa and the blackest stain upon civilized Europe, has not as yet led to any satisfactory conclusion …”’

On old Abel this seemed to have the effect of an incantation. He grasped Simon’s wrist with one arthritic hand. ‘Simon, you listen to dem wuds. “De des’la-shun of Afric’ … de blackes’ stain.” Don’ you forget dem wuds, don’t evvuh.’