Thoreau in Love (24 page)

“Specters do not appear to everyone,” said the baby’s father.

“Oh, please, Mr. James. Not specters!” cried the Irish girl.

“Give it a rest, girl.”

“Sorry, sir.”

And Henry James was done with the girl, who, uncomfortably, didn’t know whether to stay or go. “Henry,” he said. “Do you know that baby Harry’s given name is Henry?” Henry gulped and looked down at little Henry, who broke into a smile so mirthful that the three of them burst into joyous laughter. And then Henry James Sr. said, “Three Henry’s. And for the Lord’s sake, Henry, stop calling me Mr. James. I’m only six years older than you. It’s Henry, Henry.”

“Henry Henry it is,” said Henry. And the two of them burst again.

“Let me ask you, though. Have you ever seen into the abyss, the darkness on the other side?” His eyebrows leapt up. “I have. Scared me half to death. And not just one quick sighting. This thing, this specter, whatever it was, it haunted me for weeks. Day and night. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. The darkness. I couldn’t get away from it. I nearly fell in the abyss.”

“I nearly fell in myself,” said Henry. “After John died.”

Seeming oblivious to what Henry said, Henry James went on. “The darkness, it had the most awful stench; it was enveloping me, wouldn’t let me go. I
nearly
died. The most horrible time of my life. Worse even than when I lost my leg.

“But I made it through.” Henry didn’t know what to say. And then Henry James smiled cheerily and said, “So, tell me what the rest of those Concord folk are doing.”

Happy for the change of subject, Henry said, “Well, Margaret Fuller still has her headaches, but she went off to Buffalo, and Niagara Falls. Alcott, as you can imagine, spouts about his utopia, while Theo Parker goes on and on in German to anyone who will listen. Cranch pontificates his poetry. Whom have I left out?”

“Jones Very?”

“How could I forget Jones Very, the most transcendental of them all? As Margaret says, he’s off in the clouds. At least he’s no longer trying to convince everyone he’s the messiah. Elizabeth Peabody puts all her efforts into Brook Farm. We spoke for hours about how best to educate. She believes, as I do, that students should live life, not merely play at it or study it.”

“Absolutely! No, question. But now it’s time for you to go.”

“Oh. Yes. Of course.”

Henry James nodded thoughtfully and, as he saw Henry out the door, he said, “One thing I don’t get about you, Henry. You go on and on about Concord, the people there, the intellectual life, and what I can’t figure is, if it’s so wonderful, so inspiring as you say, why did you leave?”

Standing in the open air on the brownstone landing, Henry was stumped. “Good question. Why did I leave?” Looking up to Henry James in the doorway, Henry said, “I wanted to see what else life had to offer.”

“Have you seen it? For God’s sake, tell me if you have.”

“I thought Emerson had the answer I was looking for. I hung on his every word. Expecting, hoping he would give it up. But he doesn’t know it himself. I was looking for someone else to give me the answer. As are you, it seems. What are you searching for? You’ve got this beautiful house, these lovely children. Maybe the answer’s not out there, not in some religion or philosophy, not in someone else, but in you. Maybe what I’m looking for is in me. Maybe what Emerson knows is that the answer is in him, and in him alone. The answer you’re searching for, it’s in you, Mr. James. And the answer I’m searching for is in me. We are the answer.”

Snorting dismissively, Henry James said, “Godspeed, Mr. Thoreau.”

“Thank you, sir. It was a pleasure.” Henry said goodbye, descended the steps and immediately felt he’d made an ass of himself, the way he’d pretentiously gone on about this and that and interrupted Mr. James just as he was saying interesting things. But then he was distracted from his thoughts by a bugle sounding off to his right, from the Washington Military Parade Ground. Wishing to escape, he started west but stopped when, putting his hands in his jacket pockets, he found the letter from Ellery.

My dearest Friend
,

I miss you every day. When will you return to Concord? You know New York is not for you. The woods miss you, the bubbling streams miss you, Emerson and Hawthorne miss you, that hell of a human many call my wife misses you, even her sister Margaret misses you. That city holds nothing for you. The winds blow from west to east. Let Aeolus lift you and carry you back. Your devoted friend, Ellery

Henry snickered, looked up and glimpsed a young man leaning against a lamp post, wearing a broad brim hat very much like his own. The hat obscured his face. Henry felt strangely drawn to the young man and wanted to cross to connect with him, but he was afraid Henry James might be watching and get the wrong idea. Or, understand more than he wanted him to. Instead, he just nodded to the young man, put Ellery’s letter back in his pocket and walked back to the Broad Way, where he boarded an omnibus stopped at the corner. Rather than try to find a seat inside, he climbed up top, where he’d seen young men riding. Two young men were squeezed into the driver’s box, one slim, the other large. The slim driver looked back, waved at Henry and said a drawn out, “Hello.”

Henry nodded. The driver smiled goofily and mumbled something to his mate, clearly about Henry.

The more substantial driver, who wore a beard and a wide-brim black hat, looked back and nodded. “He
is
a well-made man.” Henry was taken aback by the man’s kind eyes, which seemed to see through to Henry’s core. And then the bearded driver smiled the kindest, knowing smile and said, “Excuse my friend, he’s had a wee too much drink.” And then he put an arm around the slim driver and said, “There, there, Pete. Let me take the reins.”

Holding tight to where he could on the roof, Henry nodded and smiled to himself, feeling good about this strange but wonderful human contact. But then he was undone by the thought, I wish Ben had been with me. “Ben?” he muttered. “Where did that come from? Bea. I wish Bea had been with me.” But the thought wouldn’t go away, and Henry wondered if he would ever again see Ben. Behind him, someone else climbed to the roof.

As the omnibus finally began to move, the thought that the drivers were more than friends passed through Henry’s mind, and he said softly, “Would that were Ben and me.”

From behind him, a voice said, “Me too,” and Henry turned and there was Ben, beaming under his broad-brim hat. Henry screamed “Ben!” and they greeted and hugged each other as best they could with awkward joy. “That was you leaning against the lamp post.”

“I wanted to surprise you.”

“There you go, boys,” said the black-hatted driver. “That’s what I like to see.”

“I can’t believe you’re here,” said Henry, shifting to sit beside Ben.

“I saw you this morning,” explained Ben. “I called out, but you didn’t hear me.” He took off his hat and ran his hand through his wild, wavy hair. The daggers of soft whiskers Henry loved so ran down his cheeks.

“That was you?” said Henry.

“I followed you, and I’d nearly caught up when you went into that house. I’m so glad to see you. I watched you read my letter.”

“Your letter? No, it’s from Ellery Channing.”

“Didn’t you get my letter?”

“Your letter?”

“As soon as I got here I dropped it off with Mr. Emerson, at his firm.”

“You dropped a letter off with Mr. Emerson?” Henry blanched with anger.

“It was just yesterday. He didn’t give it to you?”

“Argh! No, he didn’t.”

“I told him I’d only be here a day and that I very much wanted to see you.”

“Damn him. What if you hadn’t seen me on the Broad Way?”

“But I did. And now we’re together. Do you like my hat?”

“It’s just like mine.” The omnibus lurched, then stopped. Henry said, “I don’t think we’re making much progress.”

“I think we’re making lots,” said Ben and he gave Henry’s arm a squeeze. “I’d forgot how handsome you are.”

Henry laughed. “You are crazy.” After a few moments of looking into one another’s eyes, Ben said, “Have you ever seen so many people?”

“Never,” said Henry, not taking his eyes off Ben.

“No, look.” Ahead, behind and beside them, horse carts and wagons and pedestrians jammed the wood-planked Broad Way, while on both sides of the street, workmen unloaded wagons, pushed wheelbarrows, hammered nails, cussed one another, carried lumber and hoisted bricks and barrels and lumber by squealing pulleys to the upper floors of the city they were building. And in among the workers and horses and wagons, well-dressed men in beaver top hats conversed and crossed and walked and called for cabs. Soon they were all just indistinguishable dark splotches. But then six proud black steeds with plumes of purple feathers rising from their magnificent heads emerged from the side street just ahead of them, reined tightly to an ornate, shiny black-and-gold-gilt hearse. “That must be some rich man,” said Ben.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Henry, at once impressed and horrified at the ostentation. “And for what? Whoever it is, is deader than a doornail.” Though no one on the street voluntarily gave way, the cortege slowly nudged through the omnium-gatherum and disappeared across the way.

The omnibus lumbered downtown, sometimes standing for minutes at a time, and just when Henry and Ben were sure they’d seen everything, the black-hatted driver called back, “Oh, whoa, look at that, boys.” Henry and Ben got on their knees and watched as the crowd ahead parted and stood silent for the crossing of a slow moving horse cart.

“What is it? Why would they move for him?” asked Henry.

“I don’t know,” said Ben. “It’s just a butter-and-milk man.”

The driver piped in, “Just a butter-and-milk man? Why, look at him, young fellow. He is every one of us. Splendid. Beautiful. Stately. The Soul of America.” Ben and Henry shared amused glances at the driver’s enthusiasm, but then they were taken by the incredibly serene face of the huge black man standing astride the slow-moving cart. Wearing bright orange-and-white striped trousers, a white shirt and short apron, he held a buggy whip in one hand, the reins in the other, as if he were a magnificent god made man for a day. And as Henry and Ben marveled at the way the people parted to give the slow moving milk cart the space and reverence they hadn’t given to the gaudy cortege, Henry realized that once again the world seemed right. He looked at Ben and smiled and put his arm around him. Well, just for a moment. And the two of them laughed joyously and grabbed what they could to steady themselves.

Yes, life seemed fine again. Ben was beside him, and it was as if they’d never parted. He told Ben about Henry James and his two sons, and how strange it was that little William James should have been born just hours after John died, and how little William immediately took to Henry, and Henry to him. But then Henry noticed a dozen women crossing the street, dressed in dazzling pinks and yellows and greens. “Look at those ladies. So unlike the drab ladies of Boston and Concord.” Henry thought of the commotion his mother had caused when she dared to wear a yellow ribbon around her black hat. “My mother would love this. I can just see her, dressed like these ladies, promenading these colorful streets.”

“My mother would love it too,” said Ben.

“New York is volcanic.”

“I knew you’d love it. And Henry, about your story.”

“Please,” said Henry, feeling self-conscious, nodding toward the driver and his mate. “When we’re alone.”

And then Henry saw ahead a building he’d been looking for. “Oh, look, the Society Library.” Henry and Ben bid farewell to the drivers and climbed down off the moving omnibus.

The Society Library, often called the city library, stood at the corner of Leonard and the Broad Way. With his introduction from Emerson, Henry was given free access to the library’s ornamental environs and thousands of books. He found Emerson’s corner and took a book off the shelf, telling Ben, “This is my favorite of Emerson’s works.”

“
Nature
? But I thought Plotinus wrote that.”

“Plotinus?”

“Henry, I love this book. ‘Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchers of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes.’ Look, see, right here.” Ben opened to the title page, and in this first edition Emerson’s name did not appear. Instead, there was an epigraph signed Plotinus.

“So you do know Emerson!”

“Well, if this is Emerson, of course.”

“Plotinus was a follower of Plato. Well, he followed him by several hundred years. I forgot Emerson didn’t sign his first book. Afraid he’d be vilified.”

“But would you have cared less if I didn’t know Emerson?”

Henry looked at Ben, and melted. “No. You’re perfect just as you are.”

“It’s such a beautiful day, do you mind if we go back out?”

Henry didn’t mind at all. And right beside the library, a vendor had a crowd in thrall, selling little red fruits he called bananas, which Henry had never heard of, much less seen.

As if he were displaying a fruit from the Garden of Eden, the vendor said in a hushed tone, so the interested had to gather closer, “Take a look for yourself. Beautiful little red fruits. Straight from the tropical island of Cuba! Only twenty-five cents a finger.”

“Twenty-five cents? For one?” asked Henry, incredulously; the steam ferry cost four cents. A penny bought a newspaper or six clams.

“Oh yes,” said the vendor. “They’re not for everybody. Only the most discriminating households.”

Mockingly, Ben pulled in his chin and said, “Only the most discriminating households,” and the vendor, so mellifluous till then, screamed, “Get oudda heah, you rodden kid!” He swatted at Ben, who Henry at that moment loved so dearly, who could do no wrong, who lived life like no one else Henry ever knew, always full-steam ahead.

“Don’t you love this city?” said Ben. And Henry did, because they were seeing it together. Henry loved watching Ben’s face go from one rubbery expression to the next, his hands flying through the air, as he described
Dahlia
’s voyage south. And Henry told Ben all about Staten Island—well not all. He made no mention of Beatrice. Henry had no idea where they were, then they stepped off the wood planks of the Broad Way into the ankle deep mud on a side street, where, to keep the way clear they swatted flies and mosquitoes. Twenty yards in, just by a gunsmith’s shop, a piglet came tearing round a corner, screaming like a baby, chased by a pack of dogs. Ben kicked the lead dog with his heel, sending the dogs a-tumbling, giving the pig a bit of a chance. Life and death was fun and laughter for Henry and Ben, even when they had to hold their noses so they wouldn’t puke from the overpowering stench of offal and human excrement. They were in love, and that’s all that mattered. They stumbled on, bumping into each other and grabbing one another’s arms, anything to feel for a moment the other’s touch, and eventually came to the wharfs on the East river. But then Ben stopped Henry dead in his tracks. “Henry, let’s run away. Just you and me. We could go west. Ohio. St. Louis. Oregon. Can we?”