Free Bring the Jubilee by Ward W. Moore Page B

sometimes blameless vice."
     
    I wanted anxiously to speak of Tirzah, not only because it is an urgent necessity for lovers to mention the name at least of their beloved a hundred times a day or more, but in the nebulous hope he could somehow give me an answer to her as well as to her question. I approached the topic in a number of different ways; each time our conversation moved on without my having told him about her.
     
    Often, after I had delivered an armful of books to the consulate and we had talked of a wide range of things— for, unlike me, he had no self-consciousness about what interested him, whether others might consider it trivial or not—he would walk back to the bookstore with me, leaving a note on his door. The promise that he would be "Back in ten minutes" was, I'm afraid, seldom fulfilled, for he became so deeply engrossed that he was unaware of time.
     
    The occasion which was to be so important to me sprang from a discussion of nonresistance to evil, a subject on which he had much to say. We were just passing Wanamaker & Stewarts and he had just triumphantly reviewed the amazing decision of the Japanese Shogun to abolish all police forces, when I became conscious that someone was staring fixedly at me.
     
    A minibile, high slung and obviously custom built, moved slowly down the street. Its brass brightwork, bumpers like two enormous tack heads, hub rims like delicate eyelets in the center of the great spokes, rococo lamps, rain gutters, and door handles, was dazzling. In the jump seat, facing a lady of majestic demeanor, was Tirzah. Her head was turned ostentatiously away from us.
     
    Enfandin halted as I did. "Ah," he murmured, "you know the ladies?"
     
    "The girl. The lady is her employer." "I caught only a glimpse of the face, but it is a pretty one."
     
    "Yes. Oh yes . . ." I wanted desperately to say more, to thank him as though Tirzah's looks were somehow to my credit, to praise her and at the same time call her cruel and hard-hearted. "Oh yes. .
     
    "She is perhaps a particular friend?"
     
    I nodded. "Very particular." We walked on in silence.
     
    "That is nice. But she is perhaps a little unhappy over your prospects?"
     
    "How did you know?"
     
    "It was not too hard to infer. You have been concealed from the mistress; the young lady is impressed by wealth; you are the idealistic one who is not."
     
    At last I was able to talk. I explained her indenture, her ambitious plans, and how I expected her to end everything between us at any moment. "And there's nothing I can do about it," I finished bitterly.
     
    "That is right, Hodge. There is nothing you can do about it because— You will forgive me if I speak plainly, brutally even?"
     
    "Go ahead. Tirzah"—what a joy it was just to say the name—"Tirzah has told me often enough how unrealistic I am."
     
    "That was not what I meant. I would say there is nothing you can do about it because there is nothing you wish to do about it."
     
    "What do you mean? I'd do anything I could . . ."
     
    "Would you? Give up books, for instance?"
     
    "Why should I? What good would that do?"
     
    "I do not say you should or that it would do good. I only try to show that the young lady, charming and important as she is, is not the most magnetic or important thing in your life. Romantic love is a curious by-product of Western European feudalism that Africans and Asians can only criticize gingerly. You shake your head with obstinacy; you do not believe me. Good, then I have not hurt you."
     
    "I can't see that you've helped me much, either."
     
    "Ay! What did you expect from the black man of Haiti? Miracles?"
     
    "Nothing less will do any good, I'm afraid. Now I suppose you'll tell me I'll get over it in time; that it's just an adolescent languishing anyway."
     
    He looked at me reproachfully. "No, Hodge. I hope I should never be the one to think suffering is tied to age or time. As for getting over it, why, we all get over everything in the end,