Friday Fiction: Slavery's Ghost (Part Six; Concluded)

The next morning when we awoke, I was silent. While Frobisher chattered on about the comforts of the great house and wondered how long we would enjoy them, I got dressed, mulling over my task at hand. At the breakfast table I was courteous but curt, and Jefferson, who had arrived a little late, seemed content to let the old lawyer compliment him on his furnishings and design with little comment. When at last there was nothing else to do, the lanky grey man turned to me.

          "Well? What shall you do today, Mr. Jandt?"

          "Nothing," I said. I put my napkin down. "There is nothing more to do. I have seen the Slave's Ghost, and I know why he has been walking."

          "What!" Frobisher banged his hands to the table. For the first time in Jefferson's presence, he showed his own authority. "When? Where?" he said sharply.

          "Last night, at the bedside," I said calmly. "He was as close to you as I am now."

          "Why didn't you tell me this morning?"

          "There seemed little point. It spoke to me. It gave me a message for you, Mr. President. It will not come again."

          Jefferson looked around. For the first time I became aware of the half-dozen servants all about us.

          "I think we should retire to the library once more. That is, after all, where your investigation began."

          Mr. Jefferson rose and led the way. Some steps behind him Frobisher grabbed my arm and began berating me in a low voice.

          "What do you mean by this, Jandt? Why didn't you let me review the findings first? Because I warn you, if he doesn't like what he hears --" his voice went lower, his voice hoarser -- "and he can be one of the most tetchy of men on earth-- I will not have to suffer the unpleasantness of firing you, because the Bureau will be sunk!"

          I pulled my arm away.

          "It would have made no difference, Ballantine. I have been charged with a message, and if I do not deliver it, that thing will haunt me, perhaps till my death. And the President deserves the truth."

          We caught up with Jefferson as he reached the doors and opened them. He went and sat at his desk, and I stood before it. I felt as if I were standing before a judge. Frobisher stood to one side, arms crossed, looking uncommonly like a prosecuting attorney.

          The President pulled out a sheet of paper, dipped a pen, and started writing.

          "Report," he said.

          "This creature appeared to me, looking exactly as described. I charged it to speak, and it spoke. It told me that what I had guessed was true, and that I must tell you. It said it would return no more, when you had been warned."

          Jefferson continued writing and did not look up.

          "And? What had you guessed, Mr. Jandt?"

          "It is somewhat hard to explain clearly. Have your religious studies ever touched on the far east, on India or the Hindoo religion?"

          "Yes, but in no great detail."

          "There is a belief there, that if one concentrates enough on an idea, it begins to gain substance. Think of it this way. Before there was the United States, you and men like you had the idea for it. By belief it came into being. And now it has a kind of momentum, a life of its own. I understand there is even a figure now, like England's John Bull, called Brother Jonathon. People speak as if he were real."

          Jefferson looked up at me.

          "You don't mean to tell me that this ghost is like a newspaper cartoon come to life?"

          "No, no." I rubbed my eyes. "How to explain? There is a dark part of the mind, that no-one wants to look at. Hatred, anger, fear, guilt; they all roil there. When we look away from them, deny them, they grow strong. The country -- yes! Our country -- is like one mind, and there is a dark spot festering away in it. And it is causing this nightmare. But it is a nightmare that wants to wake up."

          "I see." Jefferson bent down and continued writing. "And why does it appear here at Monticello?"

          "I believe it is because of the law of correspondences. You draw it here, like a lightning rod, and something in your brain makes it welcome. You built Monticello. In many ways, you built the country. And -- I beg your pardon, sir, -- you have allowed slavery to continue in both."

          "And what should I do at this point? I am not in the center of power anymore. What can I do against half a country?"

          "There must be some hope. You can speak out against it, muster your old eloquence, free your own slaves as an example. I sincerely hope something can be done, otherwise I foresee harsh consequences for all. Shall I diagnose your case, Mr. President?"

          "Please do."

          "Your father, as you told me, wanted you to be one way, but you wanted to be something else. This made you feel angry and guilty, and when he died, there was no way to salve this guilt. You tried to remove it, not by conforming to his wishes, but by trying to remove the possibility of a judge who might condemn you. Hence you developed your Enlightenment principles, with a distant god and no final judgement. But even under Natural Law, there are elements of your behavior that are condemned, thus leaving you with an irreducible element of guilt."

          "Interesting theory."

          "I believe you founded the Bureau as something of a last-ditch effort to explain the ‘mysteries of life’ by finding that they are either frauds or have a natural cause; you take comfort in the frauds, but over the years you have been quietly plagued by the cases we find true."

          "I think perhaps you have strayed from the subject."

          "Slavery is such a monstrous wrong, there can be no secular forgiveness. You might free their descendants, you might give recompense to people who have been slaves, you might apologize again and again, but nothing material can wash that dark blot away. There is no way, within history, to redeem it, for those that suffered it. I think you realize this; perhaps that's why you haven't freed your slaves. Because even that is not adequate. There can be no forgiveness without redemption, and the system of government you have set up, the empty heaven you have erected over it, has no provision for that. No simply material cork is big enough to plug the hole.

          "And this legacy of your compromise with the dirty devices of this world, along with your genius, must be passed along to the Republic, in an almost voodoo exchange. The ghost was not a real slave that died, it is the Ghost of Slavery itself that lives, which unless you help to lay it, now, is destined to haunt these United States down the ages. There must be a change of heart and satisfaction made. You must get a new soul and give it to your country."

          Jefferson looked at me. His eyes gleamed under craggy brows. He turned to Frobisher.

          "Your best man, eh?"

          I drew myself up.

          "I aspire to be better than the best man, sir. I aspire to be a good man."

          "Hm." He shook his head and looked down at the paper under his hand. He wrote a few more words, sanded it, and handed it to Frobisher.

          "Thank you. That will be all, Mr. Jandt."

          Frobisher accepted the document with a trembling hand. He glanced down at it glumly, and his eyes widened. He held it up and read it through quickly, and he brightened.

          "Thank you, Mr. President! Thank you! I will get this to Mr. Monroe as soon as possible. Look, Jandt! Our endorsement! Come, pack your bags and we'll be on our way. We are most pleased to have done anything that could help you!"

          He pulled me to the door, but I stopped and turned back.

          "Have I helped you, Mr. Jefferson?"

          "You've delivered your message, Belteshazzar. What else can you do?" He smiled bleakly.

          "You have mentioned your study of the New Testament. Are you as familiar with the Old?"

          "A grab-bag of violence and fables. Not worth my time."

          "Then let me quote you a little. It comes to me that it may be applicable. 'Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and, lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar: Say unto them which daub it with untempered mortar, that it shall fall: there shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it. Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it?

          'Therefore thus saith the Lord God; I will even rend it with a stormy wind in my fury; and there shall be an overflowing shower in mine anger, and great hailstones in my fury to consume it. So will I break down the wall that ye have daubed with untempered mortar, and bring it down to the ground, so that the foundation thereof shall be discovered, and it shall fall, and ye shall be consumed in the midst thereof: and ye shall know that I am the Lord.

          'Thus will I accomplish my wrath upon the wall, and upon them that have daubed it with untempered mortar, and will say unto you, The wall is no more, neither they that daubed it.'"

          I bowed my head.

          "He that hath ears, let him hear."

          As Frobisher and I went down the dim hallway to pack, he chuckled and patted me on the back.

          "Jandt, you are my best man, if a little ... visionary, let's say."

          When we had returned to the Bureau at last, I sat down to write up my report. Frobisher came over, took my notebook, and tossed it in the fire.

          "This one shall be off the books, I think. It is too personal, and too outré, in my judgement. And it does not reflect well on a certain friend in high places."

          I agreed at the time but have since wondered if I had a greater duty. Now I have written it all up again, to get it clear in my head. Perhaps I will destroy it once more, or someone shall find it when I am gone, and the story passed on. Only time will tell, I suppose, if I was a prophet or a fool.

 

          Bob shut the file and looked once more at the cover. Burn This. So Jandt must have come to some final decision at last. Or had he? After all, here was the tale. He looked at his watcher. It had stopped spinning and was inert once more.

          He walked over to the little stove and opened the pipe. Curiosity had been satisfied. Now, decency or duty? He looked at the folder and its urgent red letters. He opened the stove door. Yes. If the Bureau needed this, it was in his head now. He pulled out his matches.

          When he left the room with the bundles of books and papers, a little pile of ashes steamed a bit in the grate, joining its acrid smell to the gunpowder tang of the July air.