Breakthroughs (72 page)

Three privates in green-gray surrounded a tall, skinny U.S. captain McGregor had never seen before. Without preamble, the officer snapped, “Where were you last night?”

“Here at home in bed,” he answered. He felt drunk with joy now, and had to work hard to make sure it didn’t show on his face. If he’d failed, Major Hannebrink would have been the one to bark questions at him. But sending sullen looks toward the occupiers wasn’t hard, not even a little. “Why? What are you going to try and blame on me this time?”

“Somebody set off a bomb in Rosenfeld,” the captain said. “A lot of good men died. Somebody’s set off a lot of bombs in this part of the country since your son received military justice. A fair number of hostages have died on account of them, too.”

“You Yanks have murdered a lot of people in this part of the country besides my son—including those hostages,” McGregor returned. “I don’t love you, but I haven’t bombed you. Major Hannebrink turned this place upside down trying to show different, but he couldn’t show what wasn’t there.”

“Major Hannebrink is dead,” the U.S. captain told him.

“I’ll not shed a tear,” McGregor said. Again, he had to remind himself not to exult. “I wish I had settled him, but I didn’t.” That lie came easy. He’d had lots of practice using it. His conscience, which had once sickened at any untruth, troubled him not at all.

“Shall we search the house and barn again, Captain Fielding?” one of the privates asked.

McGregor waited for the tall officer to say yes. If the Yanks found what he’d hidden under the old wagon wheel, he could die content now. But Fielding shook his head. “No evidence,” he said. “Nothing but Hannebrink’s suspicions, and I can’t see that he had anything more than suspicions to go on. You keep your nose clean, McGregor, and you can help us put this country back together again.”

He gestured to his men. They and he got into the Ford and drove away. McGregor stared after them. He’d won his battle, and cherished that: the man who’d ordered his son executed was dead himself. But the Americans had won the war, and still aimed to reshape Canada to suit themselves. If he was going to keep on resisting, he had to get ready for the long haul. Grimly, he resolved to do just that.

Nellie Semphroch came downstairs to start another day at the coffeehouse. She smiled at the plate-glass windows replacing the boards that had fronted on the street. Once word got around that President Roosevelt had given her and Edna medals, people started going out of their way to do them favors, as people had gone out of their way to cut them when they’d thought them collaborators.

Across the street, Hal Jacobs’ cobbler’s shop still presented boards to the world. Nellie didn’t think that was fair. Jacobs had done much more than she had to hurt the Rebels inside Washington. If Roosevelt had given him a medal, Nellie didn’t know about it. Maybe he was naturally modest. Maybe being self-effacing went into making a good spy. Whatever the reason, Jacobs had let no one know he’d done anything out of the ordinary during the war.

Nellie unlocked the door and turned the sign in the window so it read
OPEN
. As she was doing that, Jacobs opened his own door and came out onto the sidewalk. Seeing Nellie through the window, he waved to her.

A little reluctantly, she waved back. She knew how much she owed him. The coffeehouse never would have made a go of it, let alone flourished, without his help. But, very likely, she never would have had to set eyes on Bill Reach again if not for his dealings with Hal Jacobs. As far as she was concerned, that went a long way toward canceling her debt.

Edna came downstairs. “Morning, Ma,” she called as she started making the day’s first coffee.

“Morning,” Nellie answered. Edna had been subdued since Roosevelt put the medal she did not deserve around her neck. Maybe that was because she realized she didn’t deserve it, and appreciated the contribution her mother had made toward a U.S. victory. More likely, Nellie judged, Edna missed the handsome young Confederate officers who’d filled the coffeehouse for most of three years. That might not have been charitable, but Nellie reckoned it close to the mark.

A U.S. officer came in. He was neither handsome nor young. When he ordered a fried-egg sandwich and a mug of coffee, though, Nellie looked on him with benevolent eyes. When he left a quarter for a tip on top of his tab, she reckoned him a paragon among men.

Another officer came in a few minutes later. All he wanted was coffee. Nellie served him with the best smile she could muster. Business was better than it had been when people shunned Edna and her, but not what it had been when the Confederates held Washington. She didn’t suppose it would ever be that good again, and was glad she’d managed to save some of what she made.

Hal Jacobs walked into the coffeehouse as that second officer was leaving; they did a little dance in the doorway to keep from bumping into each other. Jacobs asked for a cup of coffee, too. When he set a nickel on the table, Nellie shoved it back at him. “Your money’s no good here, Hal,” she said. “You ought to know that by now.”

“This is foolishness,” Jacobs said. “You can use this no matter where it comes from.”

“Like you can’t?” Nellie answered. “I know how many people go in and out of your place every day. It’s a wonder you’ve got any money to spend at all, if you ask me. But even if you had plenty, I wouldn’t take it from you.”

“You are more generous than I deserve,” the shoemaker said. “I was happy to help you and help our country at the same time.”

“Well, you did, and now I’m going to help you, too,” Nellie said. From behind the counter, Edna gave her a look that meant,
We
can
use every nickel we get.
She ignored her daughter, as Edna was in the habit of ignoring her.

Jacobs said, “I know how you can help me, Nellie.”

“How’s that?” Nellie asked cautiously. She thought she knew what kind of thing the shoemaker would say. Sooner or later, every man in the world said that kind of thing. Edna leaned forward so as not to miss a word. By the leer on her face, she thought she knew what kind of thing the shoemaker would say, too. And, by that leer, she wouldn’t let her mother forget it after he said it, either.

Then, to Nellie’s surprise, Hal Jacobs slipped out of the chair in which he was sitting. To her even greater surprise, he went down on one knee before her and took her hands in his before she could pull away. “Nellie, will you please marry me and make me a happy man for all the rest of my days?” he asked.

Nellie’s face heated. She was sure her cheeks had to be red as raw meat. She glanced over at Edna, whose jaw had fallen and whose eyes were wide and staring. Whatever else her daughter might do, Edna wouldn’t be able to tease her about getting a lewd proposition.

She’d been ready to deal with—to deal forcefully with—a proposition. A proposal was something else again. A man who wanted her enough to ask to marry her without even trying to sample the merchandise first? She’d never known—indeed, never imagined—such a thing. Her experience had always been that men were a lot longer on sampling than on proposing.

And so, after a silence that stretched longer than it should have, she could only stammer, “Mr. Jacobs, I—I don’t know what to say. This is so sudden.”

“Not when we have worked side by side for so long,” Jacobs said, still on his knees. “I know what I would like. I can only hope and pray you would like it, too.”

Before Nellie could find any way to respond to that, Edna hissed, “Say yes, Ma! Where are you going to do better?”

Unlike a good many from her daughter, that was a good question. Nellie looked down at Hal Jacobs. He wasn’t too young and he wasn’t too handsome, but she knew he had a good heart. She’d never tried living with a man with a good heart. Maybe it would make a difference.

And maybe, on their wedding night, he would show his heart wasn’t so good after all. She had seen how men who outwardly were pillars of respectability could turn into animals, brutes, when they found themselves alone with a woman. If she said yes and Jacobs turned out to be that kind of man, what would she do? What could she do then? Maybe one fine morning he would wake up dead, in as inconspicuous a manner as she could arrange.

Even if he wasn’t an animal, did she want him in her bed? No man had been to bed with her in a lot of years, and she hadn’t felt that to be a lack: on the contrary, if anything. But, when he’d kissed her the year before back in his shop, she’d been glad to have the kiss—and astonished that she was glad. What, exactly, did that mean? Did she want to take a chance and find out?

If she didn’t, what would she do? Stay the way she was and try to keep an eye on Edna till her daughter found another young man and moved away? Knowing Edna, that might happen in a matter of weeks, maybe even days. What then? Spend the rest of her life alone and getting more sour by the day? That didn’t sound like such a good bargain, either.

She looked down at Hal Jacobs again. She wished he’d never asked her. By asking her, he was making her think about things she would sooner have ignored. No matter what she did now, no matter what she said now, it would irrevocably change her life. She hated having to make choices that big, and hated having to do it on the spur of the moment even more.

Or perhaps it wasn’t exactly on the spur of the moment. Edna said, “Come on, Ma—you’ve got to tell the poor man
something
.”

With a sigh, Nellie realized her daughter was right. With another sigh, a longer and deeper one, she said, “I’ll marry you, Hal. Thank you for asking me.” She wondered how much she would regret that. More or less than saying no? One way or the other, she’d find out.

Edna let out a cheer that sounded almost like the yells with which Confederate soldiers went into battle. An enormous smile spread over Hal Jacobs’ face. He squeezed her hands and said, “Oh, Nellie, thank you so much. You have made me the happiest man in the world.”

“Don’t be silly,” Edna said. She came out to the front of the coffeehouse as Jacobs was getting to his feet. Kissing him on the cheek, she went on, “Teddy Roosevelt’s got to be the happiest man in the world now that the Rebs have quit. But if you want to say you’re running second, that’s all right.”

Jacobs laughed. Edna laughed. After a moment, Nellie laughed, too. She felt giddy and foolish, as if she’d been drinking whiskey, not coffee. Was that happiness? Or was it just surprise at what she’d gone and done? For the life of her, she couldn’t tell.

A customer came in then, distracting her. He wasn’t a military man, and he wasn’t one of the locals Nellie knew, either. He wore a black suit, a black cravat, and a black homburg, and carried a black leather briefcase. “Ham and eggs and coffee,” he said, like a Confederate plantation owner giving orders to his house niggers. “Eggs over medium, not too hard.”

“Yes, sir,” Nellie said; some of the Rebel officers who’d frequented the coffeehouse had been that peremptory, too. “Would you like your coffee now, or with the ham and eggs? And would you like toast to go with that? Like the menu says, an extra ten cents.”

“Coffee now. No toast. Had I wanted it, I should have requested it.” The newcomer looked around. “This is one of the few places I’ve seen since coming here that we won’t have to tear down and start over from the ground up.”

A light went on in Nellie’s head. “You’re from—” she began.

“Philadelphia?” the newcomer broke in. “Of course. You wouldn’t think I’d live in Washington, would you?”

“
We
manage,” Nellie said. The Philadelphia—lawyer?—sniffed. People from the
de facto
capital of the United States were in the habit of sneering at those from the legal capital. Nellie got him his coffee as Edna started the ham and eggs. His money would spend as well as anyone else’s.

“I am going back to my work, dear Nellie,” Jacobs said. “Thank you again. We will talk more of these arrangements as soon as we can.” He blew her a kiss as he went out the door.

Over the pleasant hiss and crackle of frying food, Edna spoke to the man from Philadelphia: “Mr. Jacobs there just asked my ma to marry him, and she said yes.”

“How nice,” the fellow said. “Given the way the tax laws are, it will likely prove an advantageous move for both of them.”

Nellie had worried about a lot of things before saying yes. Taxes weren’t one of them. Maybe she didn’t need the cold-blooded Philadelphian’s money so badly after all. Maybe, on the other hand, he was trying—coldbloodedly—to do her a favor.

Edna gave her the plate of ham and eggs, and she set it in front of the man who was helping decide how to restore, or whether to restore, Washington. She didn’t know a whole lot about taxes and how they worked. Maybe she should ask him for more good advice. About one thing she needed no advice whatever. Hal Jacobs, she resolved, would never, ever learn how Bill Reach had died.

Lieutenant Crowder was lecturing the crew of the depth-charge projector, which meant he was also lecturing George Enos, who, standing nearby at the one-pounder, could hardly escape the officer’s words. “We must maintain our vigilance,” Crowder declared, as if someone had suggested that the whole crew of the USS
Ericsson
should lie down and go to sleep. “The Confederate States may be out of the fight, but the Royal Navy is still in it.”

Carl Sturtevant’s sigh was visible but not audible. Out of the side of his mouth, he muttered, “Good thing he gives us the news, ain’t it, Enos?” George’s nod was half amused, half annoyed.

Crowder didn’t notice. When he was talking, he didn’t notice anything but the sound of his own voice. “And we must remain alert against submersibles from the C.S. Navy even now,” he said. “Some of them may have defective wireless gear, and so be ignorant that their government has at last given up its hopeless fight. And others may claim ignorance and seek to strike one last blow against the United States in spite of the armistice now in force.”

It was Enos’turn to roll his eyes. Sturtevant’s answering snort was almost as quiet as his sigh had been. As far as George was concerned, the lieutenant hadn’t a clue about how to keep the men wary. Talking about the Royal Navy was a decent idea, because England was still in the war. Talking about imaginary Confederates who wouldn’t surrender, though, made no sense at all. And, if the sailors decided Crowder didn’t make sense about one thing, they were apt to decide he didn’t make sense about anything, and so not keep an eye peeled for the limeys.