"Bookman's promise" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dunning John)

On the train for Richmond I asked where we were going and Burton, without hesitation, said, “Charleston.”

My question had been rhetorical. I didn’t care where we went: I was in the throes of a glorious sense of freedom and excitement the like of which I had not known since my graduation from college, long before my marriage and the commencement of my career. If Burton had said “Africa,” I swear I’d have gone, even though I was still thinking like a tourist. I had assumed we’d be going by steamer only because that way was easier. The railroads in 1860 were still fragmentary, with many lines incomplete. An overland passage would require connections on stagecoaches, along roads that could turn impossible in even a moderate rainfall. A ship would avoid most of that. We could board at once, steam down the Potomac, catch the train at Acquia Creek, board another steamer at Wilmington, and go the rest of the way in relative ease. But Richard wanted to see the land. He was not interested in ease for its own sake, or in traveling as a tourist—after all, what fears could even the worst travel in America hold for a man who had just survived that horrific two-year trek across unknown Africa? So we would take the train to Petersburg, on into North Carolina, and from Wilmington depart from the recommended route and instead go inland, into South Carolina.

During this time Burton was a most affable companion. We had many mutually interesting conversations, but there were also times when we each left the other to his private thoughts. At every stop on the long rail journey, Burton sought out the local newspapers and devoured them before passing them on to me. There were tiny towns where the train stopped to take on water and coal, and smaller hamlets through which we sped in the blink of an eye. People everywhere came out to watch us: fools who stood so close to the track that they took their lives in their hands, laughing and refusing to step back even at the angry blast from the engineer. In the smallest towns children and old men gathered and gawked as we whipped through in what must have been a blur. Occasionally I would pick out an individual face and get some notion of character, or perhaps make one up, in the half second it filled my window and then vanished forever. A general impression of poor simpletons began forming in my mind, and in the years since the journey I have often thought of those people and the injustice I did to them. We underestimated them. They were the heart and backbone of the South, and I now believe that my Yankee condescension, repeated on a broad national scale, was a factor in the near-destruction of our great Union.

Whenever our stop was of sufficient duration, we would get off the train and mingle with the natives, who were noisy and anxious to share their outrage at the national government. Often we were challenged on our political beliefs, but Burton billowed among them like a kite of many colors, always getting more than he gave, and I had at least enough good sense not to stir them up with my opinions on their peculiar institution and their absurd noises of secession and war. I had never been south of Fredericksburg and I found the press full of rabble-rousing nonsense. But as we went deeper into the country, I began to understand a little of what they cherished and why. The landscape was singularly beautiful. I saw peach orchards and cotton farms stretching away in the distance, and now and then we came upon the edges of a great plantation with long dusty roads and enormous live oaks and slaves working in the fields. But much of our journey was through dense wilderness, across vast pine forests with occasional swamps.

Everywhere we went Burton used up all his spare moments making notes.

At Wilmington we bought our passage only as far as the village of Marion, which I remembered as a spot on the map about thirty miles into South Carolina. Soon we were in a dismal swampy area of lower North Carolina. I couldn’t help seeing the land in terms of cartography, but I quickly realized that Burton had also studied his maps and had committed them to memory. Until now I had said nothing: I had come as his traveling companion, content to let him plot our course. But this stoppage in such a small hamlet seemed curious and at last I said so. “What’s in Marion?” I asked. “And why are we taking such a roundabout route?” For the first time, I had begun to feel slightly superfluous, almost enough to laughingly add, “And by the way, why am I here?” But this would have been much too pointed, even as a jest: there would be time enough later if the notion persisted. I do remember it was in that swamp, a few miles from the Rebel state, when the thought first crossed my mind that I might have a purpose other than what had been stated, to be merely a friend for the road. Burton gave my question a halfhearted reply.

“I imagine there’s a tavern and an inn at Marion, where we can stay and browse among the people, get a tolerable supper, and then get pleasantly drunk together. In the morning, or the next day, we can go on to Florence.”

I must have still had a quizzical look on my face, for Burton then said, “Are you getting impatient, Charlie? Are you becoming anxious to see the nest of rebellion that is about to bring so much grief to your country?” In fact, I was curious, and a year later when Burton sent me the two volumes of The Lake Regions of Central Africa just before the war broke, I found an amusing handwritten footnote in one of the page margins that I believe refers obliquely to Speke: You reminded me, but only briefly, of another traveler I knew, who always wanted to get there, wherever there happened to be, and as a result missed what was all around him at the time.

There wasn’t much to see of Marion. My memory is of a muddy street and a collection of crude buildings along it, but Burton found it satisfactory. As he predicted, we did find an inn, taking a pair of rooms upstairs facing the street, and that evening we had a surprisingly good supper. It took Burton no time at all to become acquainted with other travelers and with the town’s natives: he was extremely gregarious, but again I noticed his way of telling them nothing about himself, of asking questions and becoming alert whenever the volatile issues of slavery and secession arose. He had also begun speaking in a much more Americanized English. Completely gone was his British accent, and when I remarked on it later, he said, “That’s just my way. Wherever I go, I make an attempt to learn the language.” We shared a laugh, but then he said, “Don’t be surprised if I change even more as we go along. I like to experiment with words, and these crackers, as they are called down here, do have a language of their own.”

It was at that moment when I had the first vague thought that would change things between us. I suddenly wondered if he was slipping into some kind of disguise. After a while this led to a far more unsettling thought, that I might somehow be an unwitting part of it. Years later, in biographies by his widow, Isabel, by his niece Georgiana Stisted, and by a man named Thomas Wright, there were references to the nature of his intelligence work in India. He alludes to this in his own early books: how he would pass among the people as one of them, having fluently learned their language in a few weeks or even days, darkened his skin, made himself up to look the part, and ply his secret service work. And already in print, of course, was his account of the epic journey, in the flawless disguise of an Arab, to Mecca and Medina. Richard could be anyone, and this fact led to a disturbing new thought. Could he now be spying on my country—was that what this journey was? Had he been sent here to assess the likelihood of civil war, when it might come, and how England could exploit it? Such a mission made chilling sense. On the surface, relations between England and the United States had been warm enough since our last war had ended in 1814, but it was common knowledge that many in the British government still seethed with anger and wished us ill. Lord Palmerston, for one, had never forgiven us for that last defeat, when he had been secretary of war. Now that he was prime minister, was he plotting, after all these years, to get his revenge, and was Burton the advance scout for his ambitions?

I felt a great anger come over me at such a thought, and I decided to confront Richard and have it out. I was ready to declare our brief friendship finished if he had undertaken such a deception, and to catch the next steamer north out of Wilmington. But when the moment came, I wavered. As we sat over dinner, I tried and failed to formulate the question, which could result in a grave insult and ruin a friendship that might in fact be innocent. Burton had said or done nothing specific to justify my suspicion: only what he always did, as he said himself. By the end of the evening I had decided to say nothing. But I remained uneasy and several times I caught him watching me, as if he had read my thoughts and suddenly knew what I suspected.

There was one incident worth noting in the tavern that night. It almost seems superfluous but its importance came to bear much later. We were sitting with a small group of new acquaintances near the bar when a large, boisterous man named Jedro Fink joined our group. He was clearly a Yankee hater, already well fortified with ale, and the more he drank, the more he seemed to take offense at whatever I said. It was my accent: no one could ever mistake me for anything but a Northerner. Once in the general babble, the phrase “Yankee dogs” floated over my head, and when I looked, his bleary eyes were fixed on mine.

Richard had also consumed a vast amount of ale but his eyes were clear. I gave him an apologetic look and began seeking an out. At the first lull in the conversation I said, “I think I’ll retire, gentlemen,” but our Yankee hater said, “What’s your hurry, mate, are we not good enough for Yanks to drink with?”

I felt two sharp stabs, anger and fear. I had never been in any kind of fight, and what frightened me most was not the prospect of being hurt but the spectacle of being beaten in front of the crowd. Still, I could not let this pass. I said, “That’s an offensive thing to say, sir,” and I steeled myself for whatever might come. But in the same moment Richard said, “I think I’ll join you, Charlie. It is getting late.”

The fellow across the table smirked as we pushed back our chairs.

Richard leaned forward. “You have something else to say, mate?”

The man scoffed again and Burton said, “Be careful, sir.”

Fink made as if to laugh. “Maybe you’re the one who should be careful. In case you don’t know it, we have harsh ways of settling things here when insults arise.”

Burton smiled warily out of his deeply scarred cheeks. “No one’s been insulted…yet. We can all still go to bed and be on our way in the morning.”

“That’s true enough.” Fink pushed himself back, slightly but ominously, from the table. “Unless we choose not to.”

The smile faded from Burton’s face. “That would be unfortunate, but it would be your choice. And I believe under your own code I would have the choice of weapons in any dispute that can’t be resolved. And for what that’s worth, I would choose swords.”

Fink sat back. “What the hell, who carries a sword around?”

“I do.”

They stared at each other. “Well, I don’t have one,” Fink said.

“I could provide a pair. If the occasion arose. Which it hasn’t. Yet.”

Suddenly the man laughed, not derisively as he had before but with a tavern laugh, in uneasy fellowship. Burton remained stoic, waiting.

“You’re all right with me, mate. It’s a good thing for all of us that we know where lines are drawn, eh?”

And on that nervous note, we went upstairs.

In the hallway, I said, “I would have fought him if it came to that.”

“I know you would. I never had any doubt.”

“You don’t have to hold my hand, Richard. It’s important that you know that.”

“I do know it. And I apologize if that’s how it appeared.”

“Of course it is. How else would it appear? You don’t have any swords at all.”

“No. But he didn’t know that.”

“My God, what if he had called you on it?”

“Then the matter would have become far more serious, and the choice of weapons would have passed to him.”

In my room I lay awake staring up at the black ceiling. All my thoughts of the afternoon came flooding back, and my anger returned with great, yawning doubts about the nature of our journey. I saw Richard on my ceiling and he was always making his notes. These I had assumed were for a new book but now I wondered what he was actually writing in that notebook. I felt our friendship had been seriously compromised—perhaps, maddeningly, by nothing more than my own imagination—and I knew then that at some point it must be discussed. I dreaded Richard’s reaction, for in fact I did not know him well enough to initiate a talk of such sensitivity. I personally had never held any grudge against England, I had accepted Richard with wholehearted delight as my friend, but my years in the War Department had given me access to certain intelligence and rumors that had received little or no attention in the press. Now in my dark room all this intrigue swirled across the canvas of the ceiling. The sun never sets on empire, I thought, calling up an old quotation; the sun never sets on England. The only reason we are not serving the queen today is because of those long-dead boys in places like Bunker Hill and Saratoga and New Orleans. Were we really at peace now? Friction between our nations had never actually ceased since 1815, and Palmerston, that old devil, always seemed to be at the root of it. In his forty-year political career he had never ceased agitating. I could almost feel his acrimony invading my room, disrupting my sleep, and now I remembered incidents from my reading, from reports that had circulated through our government. I knew that years ago England had arbitrarily seized our ships and had forced our boys to serve in her navy. I had heard she had given aid and support to our Indians, encouraging them to attack our frontier settlements. Everyone knew how she had tried to keep Texas out of the Union, and there had been persistent rumors that she had helped finance Mexico’s war against us. It was certainly no secret that England had had serious designs on South America since our Revolution, and she had always resented and tried to undermine our Monroe Doctrine. Why should she now turn timid when the upstart nation that so seriously rankled her was heading into deep trouble?

I felt a flush of shame at my suspicion, but it grew into the early morning, until sometime before the dawn, when I finally fell asleep.

I was in poor spirits in the morning: a lack of sleep had combined with my increasing doubts to put me on edge again. I would be much happier, I thought, when Marion, this mud hole of a village, was behind us. The train to Florence had been delayed, but Richard had arranged for passage on a coach, which would put us there late that afternoon. As we left the inn another tense incident occurred. Coming to the bottom of the stairs I turned to say something to Richard and collided with someone coming through on my blind side. At once I begged his pardon, then saw that it was Fink, my antagonist from last night. Suddenly, as if in the grip of some demon, I said, “Mr. Fink, I am sorry I jostled you, but at the same time I must tell you that your behavior last night was inexcusably rude. I can be good-natured enough at being made the goat of the evening, but your repeated insults to my country were intolerable.”

He looked up at Richard, who stood behind me.

“Please speak to me, sir. Mr. Burton is not involved in this.”

For a moment he wavered. I was certain we would come to battle, but he grinned and said, “It was the ale talking, mate. I get that way when I drink too much.”

I took that as my apology and we left for Florence an hour later.

Another mud hole. What Burton saw in such places, or what he was learning from them, remained a mystery as we put up in another inn. But the inn was a pleasant surprise, a rambling building at least sixty years old, showing its age on the outside but warm and tidy within. It was called Wheeler’s Crossing.

We had a marvelous dinner, a simple quail dish with wild rice and various ordinary accompaniments but prepared with such care that it was outstanding. It was easily the best meal I had had in any eating establishment in recent memory, beating the finest restaurants of Washington hands down. “Wonderful food,” Burton said, and he called for the innkeeper to compliment the cook. The man was gracious but said we could tell her ourselves. A woman was summoned from the kitchen, and as she came through the doors I felt Burton sit up straighter beside me. She was truly a beautiful young lady. “This is my daughter Marion,” the inn master said. Burton and I both stood and she gave a little curtsy, and Richard stepped away from his side of the table. He reached out with perfect propriety and took her hand. “Mr. Wheeler,” Richard said without ever taking his eyes from her face, “your daughter is a national treasure. The town we just passed through must be named after her.”

“After Francis Marion, more likely,” she said impishly. “Our hero of the Revolution. My name came from my mother’s side.”

“Wherever it came from,” Burton said, “the best establishments in London can barely do you justice.”

She accepted this politely but as if she had heard it all before. Richard asked where she had learned her cooking and she said, “From Mrs. Simmons and Mrs. Randolph—from our servant Queenie, and from my grandmother.” Mrs. Simmons and Mrs. Randolph turned out to be the authors of popular cookery books, which Marion had on her shelf in a back room. “We buy them for her whenever we can,” her father said. “And my mother left her many good menus and recipes in an old notebook. She uses them all. An establishment like ours is only as good as its victuals.” Burton, ever the charmer, said, “Yours is very good indeed,” and Marion gave another bow and retreated into the back room.

“That’s one reason why I stop in these little places,” Richard said as we settled in again. “You never can tell what you might find.”

It never occurred to me that we had “found” anything, certainly not in the sense that Richard obviously meant it. I was happily married: I would never have betrayed my wife by chasing around after other women, even such a lovely one as Marion. But I was no prude either, and I was anxious in my recent discontent not to be a wet blanket. Richard, in his thirty-ninth year, was still unattached, and a striking vision of bold manhood. Indeed, though he had already formed a strong bond with Isabel Arundell in England and would marry her before the year was out, I had no way of knowing this and in fact I had not yet heard her name. We sat in Richard’s room and enjoyed a small brandy and he looked like the soul of contentment. “This really is a wonderful little inn,” he said. “There’s even a bath out behind the house, and that is not a luxury one takes lightly. I’m tempted to stay over for a day or two. Would you mind?”

I was actually warming to the place myself. “Not at all,” I said. “Don’t worry about me any: I’ll find things to do.”

I retired but again sleep was difficult. At midnight I awoke for the third time, burning with a thirst that comes over me when I drink too much alcohol. I got out of bed and groped my way into the darkened hall, hoping someone would still be downstairs who could fetch me a glass of water. I had just reached the top of the stairs when I heard their voices: Richard’s soft laugh followed almost at once by hers. I moved to join them, then stopped short on the top step. I could see them from there: they were alone, seated at a table over cups of smoking bishop, Burton sprawled in his chair, Marion beside him in a pose that changed from moment to moment, servant, companion, and hussy all at once. His right hand clutched his drink; his left covered hers with such easy intimacy that I was shocked by the quickness of it. We had met her just six hours ago, yet there was an assumption between them that no one could miss. Already they were like old lovers together.

I began to creep back down the hall but a short snatch of their talk followed me. Marion had mentioned my name.

“Wouldn’t your friend Charlie be shocked if he saw us now.”

Burton laughed. “It’s not Charlie I worry about. Your father is another matter.”

“He’s gone to bed hours ago. An earthquake wouldn’t wake him once he hits the pillow, and he’s a late riser as well. I can’t remember when he slept less than ten hours.”

“Well, if Charlie were shocked he’d get over it soon enough.”

“If you say so. He still strikes me as a bit of a pill.”

“Your mistake,” Richard said. “He’s a grand fellow, one of the best I’ve known. He has a lion’s heart, even if he doesn’t always know what to do with it. And the keenest sense of honor.”

“I’ll take your word for that. Even so, it’s not him I’m interested in.”

“My good fortune, I hope.”

“And mine.”

“Marion.” Richard kissed her hand. “It is the fairest name, and you wear it like a birthright. As if Maid Marion of Robin Hood had suddenly been reborn.”

“Oh, Sir Richard, you are such a shameless liar.”

“Not Sir Richard…please, not that. You’ll never hear that honor attached to my name. If the queen knows no better than to approve that coveted title so carelessly, there are many who have her ear and will be happy to tell her why not.”

“Why not is clear enough. It is because you are a scoundrel.”

“So they say.”

Whatever honor Richard had seen in me would not let me eavesdrop another moment and I left them then. I lay in the dark, inflated with pride at his words. Conceit and a vivid imagination kept me awake for the second night running.

At first light I heard a noise outside my half-opened window. My room looked down into the yard, and the bath stall Richard had mentioned was directly below. It was a crude little wooden cage, circular with a canvas draped around it, a perforated steel tank suspended overhead, a pull rope that would open the vents and rain water down on anyone inside, and a set of makeshift steps for a ser-vant to climb up and pour the water in. Now came a real shock! Richard appeared in the yard totally nude, a pale blur in the hour before the sunrise. He parted the canvas and stepped into the stall, and a moment later Marion, still wearing her dress of last night but with a far more disheveled look, came out carrying a large pot of steaming water. She climbed the stairs and dumped in the water, and I heard the tank open as Burton pulled the rope. He sighed deeply and she laughed at his pleasure. When he came out she was there with a blanket, draping it over his shoulders and rubbing him gently, affectionately, sensually.

We stayed in Florence another day, and another, and on after that. On the third day we walked over to the little cemetery together, Richard and Marion and I, and there we saw the plot where her mother rested. Jennie Marion Wheeler, the stone said simply: Beloved Wife and Mother, 1812-1843. “She died giving me life,” Marion said, and something about her face, etched with deep sadness for a woman she had never known, moved me almost to tears. “What a damned shame!” I said in a trembling voice. “That’s what happens with too many women. We’re supposed to be so advanced, yet medical science hasn’t come an inch in women’s health since Caesar’s day.”

She looked at me and smiled tenderly, then reached out and squeezed my hand. That’s what I remember best about her: aside from her liaison with Richard, the warmth of her, the feel of her hand and a smile that has followed me across three decades.

That night we sat on the back porch listening to the Negroes singing. The Wheelers had half a dozen blacks who worked around the inn, whether in bondage or as freemen, I never learned, though the father did not strike me at all as a slaveholder. Burton in particular was enchanted by these melodies: “Some of them are very similar to tunes of tribal songs I heard in Africa,” he said. “The only difference here is the white man’s addition, the inclusion of the Christian spiritual aspect.” He wrote quickly by the firelight, trying to capture the words and compare them with his memory of their African origins. He came out every night to scribble down the lyrics, and in odd moments throughout the trip I would hear him humming them softly, comparing them with others he was picking up across the Southern states.

We left early the following week. I looked back and saw Marion and her father watching our departure, but Richard never gave them a wave or a backward glance. I found that rather cold, considering the kind of friendship they must have had, and the certainty that they would never see each other again. “I said my good-byes earlier,” he told me. “There’s no sense going on about it.”

Charleston now seemed close at hand. But we had to endure another night, and a wretched one it was, on the road. It was too much to expect another grand inn in backwoods country, and we stayed in the worst place ever imagined by the angels of hell. The road from Florence to Charleston was a hundred miles of near-total wilderness. I had never seen its like; the choking thickness of it was unbroken except for an occasional settlement with a few scruffy citizens and the equally unkempt shanties they lived in. There were moss-draped trees, swamps, and all around them that brooding black pine forest: vast, unrelenting, increasingly intimidating. I have forgotten the name of the place where we put up that last night before Charleston. Burton seemed satisfied with it, and I had to be, for darkness was falling rapidly and even he did not wish to be caught on the road in such a night as these trees would bring down on us.

The inn was run by an old woman and two hulking simpletons who were apparently her sons. She had a hag’s face, gaunt and full of gaps where presumably teeth had once been; the men conversed in grunts and were well on the way to losing their teeth as well. The only name I heard for any of them was that one of the boys was called Cloyd. The woman tried to appear friendly but this had an effect that I found chilling. We were given a very poor stew, made of some mysterious stringy meat that I could barely manage to taste and Burton ate not at all. He had his suspicions even then, and we retired soon after our arrival.

“I don’t trust these people,” Richard said. “I think we should bunk together tonight and one of us stay awake at all times.”

This was alarming and what he said next was even more so. “I’ll bet there’s more than one sinkhole, each about the size of a man, out in that swamp.”

“What are you saying?” I asked stupidly. “That they would murder us?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time an innkeeper has done away with a guest to steal his purse.”

He volunteered to take either watch. It didn’t matter: I was tired from my restless nights but unlikely to sleep after that. I took the first six hours, abandoning my own room to sit on a chair in Richard’s. “If you get tired, wake me,” he said. “Don’t worry about the time. Six hours from now or six minutes, I don’t care.” By the light of a coal-oil lamp, he produced a gun from one of his bags. He slapped it into my hand and went to bed while I sat at the door and blew out the lamp. This was going to be a long, long night and I took my responsibility seriously. I must not, must not, fall asleep!

Richard was asleep at once. I sat in the most incredible black void listening to him breathe. He snored briefly and the minutes dragged by. I had no idea what time it was, and after a while time stood still.

At some point much later I heard the noise in the hall: a single footstep and the slight creaking of the floor. I stood with the gun in my hand. There was a bump outside the door and I turned the knob and opened it so slightly—just enough for a look into the hallway. I could see nothing at first, then the two hulks and the smaller one nearby. I heard them whisper, though what they said was much too faint to make sense. I pulled the door wider and cocked the gun. Its sound was loud and unmistakable in that quietude, and suddenly everything froze, all of us where we stood, except Richard, who was just as suddenly out of the bed and at my side. We waited but nothing happened: they had faded away and disappeared.

Inside again with the door closed, Richard lit the lamp. “Well, that settles that. We’ll have to stay alert.” I asked if he had slept, and he said, “Like a baby.” I felt a great sense of camaraderie and pride in his trust. I asked if he had any idea what time it was—my watch had stopped at half past eight. “My sense of things tells me it’s near midnight,” he said. “Your turn to rest.” I protested—I was not at all tired—but fair was fair and he insisted that I take the bed. So I lay down in the recess, still warm from his body, closed my eyes, and did sleep, soundly, for several hours. When the dawn broke I still felt that sense of kinship in what I foolishly imagined lingered from Richard’s body heat.

The proprietress and her sons were nowhere to be seen as we left. “They have no real courage,” Richard said. “They know we’ve figured them out and they will only return like vermin of the night, after we’ve gone. They remind me of Burke and Hare, the infamous Scottish murderers. One held while the other smothered, but I suspect these three had far quicker and more violent deaths in store for us.”

So we were on the road again. I had already studied my maps: I knew that Charleston was located at the end of a long, crooked peninsula, with wide rivers on both sides emptying into a spectacular harbor. It was easy for a mapmaker to visualize it as an eagle might see it, like a long buzzard’s neck. I was not surprised to learn that the upper peninsula was in fact called the Neck. We came down east of the river, on a road that would take us through the village of Mount Pleasant and within a few miles of Fort Moultrie. The road was alternately hard earth and planked, and I suppose we made good time by the standard of the travel Richard had chosen for us. The train would have avoided all this and got us there a day earlier, but this was so obvious I kept it to myself. When you traveled with Burton, this was what you did.

The skies threatened rain, which would have added greatly to our misery, for the road was rough and sloppy in places from another rain two days earlier. Charleston was on the horizon: Richard said that more than once, but in fact we now headed into the deepest forest on the trip and I saw nothing on the horizon but more of the same. There was a river crossing before we came out into land that telegraphed an approach to the sea. Richard spent the time talking earnestly to the ferryboat owner, about what I could only guess. “That was the east branch of the Cooper River,” he said when our coach was under way again. “We are almost there.”

I was ready to believe this, so delighted was I to be out of the dark and dreary forest. “Our luck is changing,” I said: “It didn’t rain after all.” Richard smiled, noncommittally, as if it didn’t matter to him either way. We had to cross again at the Wando River, with its broad expanses of marshlands, and now I saw the unmistakable signs of the sea: sloughs and creeks thick with sea oats, and there was a salty tang in the air. But night was coming and I feared we would still not arrive until tomorrow, an awful prospect. The sunset was spectacular, lighting up the cloud-streaked horizon as we put in at Mount Pleasant.

We managed to catch the ferry to the city. I stood out on the deck and watched the lights draw closer, but Burton seemed restless, circling, looking out to sea, making his notes in light almost too dim to see. He spent his time on the port deck, watching the dark, empty hulk of Fort Sumter, and aft, where he could see Fort Moultrie and the lights of the lonely federal garrison stationed there.

We got in at eight o’clock. “No more backwoods inns for us, Charlie,” Richard said merrily. “Now we go first-cabin.”

He instructed our driver to take us to the best hotel and soon we were on Meeting Street in front of an elegant blockwide, four-story building, gas-lit, with a marvelous facade. I had studied Greek architecture briefly in college, and immediately I loved that hotel and its magnificent colonnade: fourteen great white Corinthian pillars that reached from the second-floor balcony to the roof. The Charleston Hotel. That night I slept the sleep of the dead.

* * *

All the next day we were like tourists, walking the streets, talking to people we met, probing the babble of the marketplace not far from our door, strolling along the Battery. The Battery is a walled promenade around the tip of the city with a green behind it and some of the town’s finest old houses in the background. The view of the harbor is spectacular. One elderly gentleman offered the pompous opinion that this was where the Cooper and Ashley rivers met to form the Atlantic Ocean. We should all have shared a hearty laugh except that the old bird seemed absolutely serious and might have been offended. Richard listened politely but I knew he was far more interested in the geography than in any local silliness advancing this city, as lovely as it was, as the center of the Western world. From any point on the Battery we could see Fort Sumter, that brick fortress sitting on its man-made shoal in the mouth of the harbor. On both sides the land curved in tight, with Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island to our left and Fort Johnson on James Island to the right, giving Sumter the appearance of a cork in a bottle. “Exactly right,” Burton said when I put it that way. “It’s a cork in a bottle.”

“When it’s finished it will make the city pretty much impregnable,” I said.

“If they finish it. And if they get the guns mounted, and if all three forts are controlled by the same side.”

“A lot of ifs.”

“Indeed. And if the wrong side had it, speaking from their viewpoint, its guns could easily be turned on the city it was built to protect.”

The fort was just a speck from there and I doubted that even the most powerful guns could reach that far. But Richard looked askance and said, “You don’t know much about modern warfare, my friend,” and I had to admit the truth of that.

We walked around the point and back again. The sun was warm and bright, a blessed relief from the miseries of the road, and again I was so delighted I had come. I was in the company of an extraordinary man and he liked me: what else mattered? But then as I stood watching the waterbound fortress, Richard moved away, and when I looked around for him he was standing off at a distance, scribbling in that damned notebook. All my suspicion came back in a gush. What was he doing? If he wanted to spy, why bring me along? That part made no sense. But my doubt magnified and doubled again, and abruptly I walked up to him, quickly enough that I could see he was not making notes but a sketch of some kind.

“What are you doing there?” I asked, making the question sound as much as possible like idle curiosity.

“Just drawing a picture.” He snapped his book shut. “To remember the day.”

Again this was so plausible that it had to be real. Unless it wasn’t.

We walked up East Bay, turned in to Chalmers Street, and saw a slave auction. The building had a platform on its second story where the Negroes were paraded and sold. Richard, who must have seen other such events in his travels around the world, still stood mesmerized for an hour as a family of blacks was broken apart and sent off with their separate masters. The pain in the mother’s face was heartbreaking and I was angry and indignant on her behalf. “You must write about this,” I said, but Richard only watched and kept his thoughts to himself. “These men are beasts,” I said, none too quietly, and Richard gave me a withering look and said, “Try to remember, Charlie, you are in their country now.”

We moved on. On East Bay near Queen Street we saw a photographer’s studio—barney stuyvessant, the sign said—and I asked if we might get a real picture made. “Something that will capture this day.”

Burton’s inclination was to dismiss this as silly, but before he could seriously object I went inside and made the arrangements. I didn’t want a trumped-up studio shot; something on the street would be much better, a picture that captured some semblance of the city and her architecture. Burton did protest then—he wanted no part of it—but the photographer was so young and eager for the business that his equipment was already out on the sidewalk, and I so clearly wanted it done that he stood still for it at last. The photographer fussed over the light: it was high noon and the sun was harsh, and Burton was such a reluctant subject that the young man knew he couldn’t keep us waiting long. He tried to chase away two little colored boys but Burton insisted they be left alone, and he gave each of them a penny. At last the photographer stood us on the walk near a palmetto tree, with the old Exchange Building rising dramatically behind us: Richard smiled and draped his arm over my shoulder, and there we were. The picture we took that day long ago was perfect, and remains one of my dearest possessions.

We lunched at the hotel, and I finally broached the dreaded subject. “You must know Lord Palmerston well.” I said this innocently, I thought, but Richard looked hard in my eyes: there was no fooling him, and his answer was vague. “We’ve met a few times in social gatherings.”

I pushed the point. “What do you think of him?”

“A colorful man. Not one you’d want to trifle with or have as an enemy. Rather like Calhoun was, I would imagine, like some of your fire-eating Southerners of today when he’s opposed.” A long moment passed while he leveled me with those eyes. “Why do you ask?”

Another long moment, and I saw that there could be no lying or evasion. “Richard,” I said, looking straight at him.

He waited.

“I’ve become uneasy about a few things.”

“I could sense as much.”

I felt my insides trembling: my God, I did not want to lose him! In those few seconds a dozen thoughts flooded through my mind. I imagined him taking dire offense, wounded in the heart. I saw him getting up from the table, walking away without a word, checking out of the hotel and disappearing into the bright sunlight. I saw myself rushing along beside him, pleading, I didn’t mean it, you’ve taken me wrong! But in fact if I offended him, he would be taking me exactly right.

I mustered myself and as calmly as I could said, “I would rather cut out my tongue than say this.”

Then to my amazement, he said it for me. “You are worried that I am spying against your country.”

“No,” I lied quickly. “No, no, nothing like that.”

“Please…Charlie.”

“All right, yes. I can’t help it, the thought crossed my mind and it won’t go away. I just wouldn’t have put it so bluntly.”

“Sometimes bluntness is the best way. The only way.”

“The thought never once occurred to me until we were in the backwoods, and you seemed so preoccupied with everything and everybody.”

“I told you, I do that everywhere. It’s my way.”

“Of course it is and I know that. I know as well as anyone how your books were compiled and written. I know these things and yet…”

“No,” he said. “You may think you know them, but you can’t understand the volume of material that runs through my mind in the course of a work. In India, just as an example, I had to make my notes in conditions that only one writer in ten thousand would endure. Impossible working conditions, yet there I worked, sitting under a table in an endless rain, the air so hot I could barely breathe, the paper shredding and falling apart even as I wrote on it.”

“You’re right, I don’t understand that. What’s the point of it?”

“Discipline, Charlie, discipline! And it did serve its purpose. Once I had written it down I had it committed to memory, even if the notes themselves didn’t survive.”

Well, at least I could believe that. I smiled wanly and said, “All right,” and we ate for a time in silence. I thought the discussion was over: if so, it had been wholly unsatisfactory from my point of view, for Richard had not yet answered the most difficult question in plain language. I decided to say no more about it, to forget it, but I had made such resolutions before and what had they come to? Once a dark thought crosses the mind, it is there forever.

Then Richard said, “I sympathize with your worry. This is a very bad time for your young nation, more so than I imagined from the other side of the sea. Anything could tip you into war.”

England, for instance, I thought: Britannia, who could not defeat us in two staunch attempts when we were united but might have far easier pickings if we so stupidly divided ourselves. But I said, “Nothing will come of this. These people are noisy braggarts but they are not going to destroy the Union.”

“If you think that, you are naive.”

I shook my head. “In fact, I don’t think that.”

“No. This is a powder keg. It will take just one incident, and these people are itching for that excuse. It is inevitable.”

I shivered at his words, knowing how right he was. Richard had coffee and I joined him across another silence. Eventually he said, “I will give you an answer, but for your ears only.”

I felt myself blush again. “Richard, you know I can’t accept that.”

“Then let’s put it another way. You must never divulge anything of what I say unless it compromises your own sense of loyalty to your country.”

“And then?”

“Then you are free to do or say whatever you wish.”

I was still uneasy. He smiled and said, “That leaves an awful lot to your own discretion, Charlie. I can’t be much fairer or more trusting than that. And if you think about it, this says a good deal about my faith in your honor.”

I was moved by his words, but I knew what he was really saying. My honor could be clear, for any reason of my own choosing, but I knew our friendship would be lost.

Burton sipped his coffee and said, “I’m not spying on you, my friend. It’s just that there are personalities involved. Issues unresolved in England. Things I still haven’t decided how to deal with— personal things that influenced my decision to come here. I don’t want my business scattered about for everyone to know. Isn’t that reasonable?”

“Of course it is,” I said, but I knew my tone was unconvincing.

He made a small gesture of impatience and lit a smoke. “Damn it, you brought this up and now it must be dealt with. The alternative is fairly unattractive for both of us. We must part company in distrust.”

“I cannot accept that. I won’t.”

“Then what do you say?”

I nodded warily.

For a time I thought he still would not tell me. Even when he did speak his talk was rambling and not obviously to the point.

“You may have heard that I came home from Africa as something of an outcast. If that sad news hasn’t yet reached America, it will. And it will only get worse as Speke publishes his opinions. In my own forthcoming book I mention our differences only briefly. But Speke and I are at impossible odds: he has made his claim to the discovery of the big lake, insisting that this alone must be the source of the great Nile River. Never mind that he has no scientific evidence: he saw nothing more than a vast body of water, not even a visual sighting of a river flowing outward, to the north or any other direction. So it all remains unproved, unprovable, really, without another expedition. None of that mattered in the jubilation of the moment. People wanted a hero, and Speke rushed to get home first and give them one. At my expense, if that’s how it had to be.”

He sniffed derisively but there was no missing the hurt in his face. “We had an agreement: discussion first, before any publication or speech making. We would decide together what we had found and what it meant. But I was burning up with fever and Speke hurried home alone. His book, if he writes one, which I can’t imagine—my God, the man is almost illiterate—but you watch, publishers will wheedle it out of him, and such a book will be calculated for one effect above all others: the glorification of Jack Speke. The public already believes it, hook and sinker, so what more does a publisher need? Damn the truth.”

His eyes took on a faraway look. “The Nile,” he said, almost wistfully. “Do you know how many centuries people have been wondering where it comes from? But no one could penetrate that wilderness until Speke and I did it.”

He sipped his coffee. “I have many enemies in London, Charlie. One has to choose what to believe, and a great number chose to believe Speke’s accounts. And his slanders.”

“I believe you,” I said. “I don’t think it’s in you to write an untrue word.”

He smiled gratefully. “I’ll tell you one of the truest and ugliest things about human nature. If a man betrays a friend, even a little, he must then turn completely on that friend and destroy him. That’s what Speke must now do to me. I alone know what happened. I’m the greatest threat in his life so there’s no other way to validate himself. And maybe get rid of a little self-loathing.”

He looked down at his cup. “I swore I would never trust another man after Speke, but here I am, trusting you.”

Yet another long silence passed, as if he of all people could not find the words he sought. “Listen, Charlie. This must not sound like any form of self-pity.”

At once I said, “I would never suspect you of any such thing. Never, Richard.”

He cocked his head slightly. “There is a woman I have decided to marry.”

I gave him a heartfelt congratulation and predicted that he would greatly enjoy his wedded life. But he looked doubtful and said, “Her family is furiously opposed. Her mother is impossible.”

My look told him how sorry I was.

He said, “This is how things are. If I had returned a hero, many things might have been different. But getting back to the prime minister.”

“Yes.”

“Lord Palmerston was not unkind to me, as some were. I was invited to his home. We had several confidential chats. It was he, in fact, who suggested that I come here.”

I felt suddenly alarmed: we had moved perilously close to that point of leeway Richard had given me. But he said, “There was no intrigue about it. Palmerston simply said that in my shoes, under the circumstances, he would undertake a new journey, something completely unexpected. To the States, for instance.”

He lit another smoke. “That was the first thought I had of it. But I warmed to the idea at once. Suddenly it felt very right. I couldn’t bear London any longer.”

“And that’s all there was to it?”

“Almost all. The prime minister summoned me to his home again, just before I left, to say he’d be anxious to hear my impressions of America when I returned.”

“But no specific expectations—no assignments, so to speak?”

He laughed softly. “No assignments, Charlie. I do have a list of people he wants me to see. To convey his respects.”

“Southern people, you mean. Charleston people.”

“And others. I am going on to the frontier. Your secretary of war was very helpful to me in that regard. He also gave me a letter to the commander at Fort Moultrie.”

I let that pass. There was no use telling Burton of my own personal disdain toward Mr. Floyd. What difference did it make what I suspected or thought?

“But in the main this journey is for my own self-renewal,” Richard said. “Something I needed badly. And am finding, by the way.”

Pointedly he said, “I hope that satisfies you.”

“Of course.”

It had damned better, I thought.

With that we dropped it. But it never really went away.

Richard.

His eyes were so full of mystery, his presence so quietly formidable. He was nothing like I had imagined him to be. With me he was always gentle and respectful, and I found it difficult to imagine him as the intimidating and often feared presence that others saw in him. The pictures drawn by his biographers, by accounts in the press before and after his death, and even in the writings of his widow more than thirty years past the events I am describing, miss much of the Burton I knew. I cannot challenge them: Who am I to challenge anyone? What was I compared with Isabel, or with men who spent years studying his life? I was at best a shirtsleeve authority. Our time together was so brief, and all I can ever be is the authority on those few weeks. Today I see how random it all was: how easily we might have failed to meet and never known what each of us would bring to the other. But we did meet, and I know I had at least a small effect on Richard’s life, and it would be impossible to overstate the vast effect he has had on mine. There has never been a day in forty years that I have not thought of him, written to him, reread favorite passages from his work.

It was only by chance, browsing through a dusty used bookstore in New York, that I first became aware of his name. There I saw in a bargain bin a small volume bound in red cloth: his 1853 book on bayonet exercise. Today it is a rare piece, but then it looked like just another book of narrow interest, to be thrown down among the sales items. What was it about this little book that drew me to him and ultimately led me to this marvelous journey? Was some hand of Providence at work? I remember thumbing through it, ambivalent, waiting for my companion to finish her Christmas buying from a shelf of leather-bound items behind the counter. I looked at the plates and, caring nothing about the subject, tossed it back in its place. I walked away and browsed the shelves, but eventually some compelling force—how else can I put this?—drew me back to the sales bin. I could see from the title page that the author was then a lieutenant in the Bombay army, that he had written of his travels in the Scinde, in Goa and the Blue Mountains. None of that had interested me then, but Burton had also written a book on falconry, and I was a birdman, so that did have some appeal. I bought the bayonet book on a whim, and as we left the bookshop my soon-to-be-wife looked at my purchase and said, “What on earth are you doing with that awful thing?” I joined her in a laugh at Burton’s expense, saying, “It’s no great loss, it only put me half a dime down.” What I could never make her understand was how quickly and deeply my involvement with Burton grew. Even when she knew how and why, years later, she had no idea. Some things, like Burton making his notes under impossible conditions in India, simply can’t be shared. A friend can be told, as I was told, of the table and the rain and the paper shredding as he wrote on it, but no one can ever truly know the experience of another. In the beginning I made light of it, but almost at once I searched out and read his falconry book, then his works on Goa and the Scinde. There was something bigger than life in his words, some mysterious sense of things, an attitude that drew me from one book to another. I sent away to his publisher, John Van Voorst in England, and obtained my own copies of the falconry title. But it was the monumental achievement of his travels to Mecca and Medina that captured my mind and thrilled my imagination. That’s when I became a serious Burton collector.

The hand of Providence guided me to him, then him to me. Call me a self-serving sentimentalist, call me a fool, but that’s what I believe.

We stayed in Charleston a week. On the third day Richard disappeared and was gone almost thirty-six hours.

He had complained of a headache after a night of too much alcohol, and I had gone walking on the Battery alone. In fact I went far beyond the Battery, around the entire city and out on a footpath that ran along the Ashley River. I spent hours walking, watching the people, talking to strangers, and soaking up the sun. I lost track of time with a gang of pickaninnies crabbing from the riverbank, fascinated by their strange language and delighted with their catch. The sun was low over the river when I finally turned back to the city: suddenly I realized I had been gone all day.

At the hotel there was a message in my box: Looked for you and waited as long as I could. Gone to meet some people. Hoped you would return to join us. Opportunity arose suddenly and might not come again. Will see you tomorrow. Richard.

This was disappointing but I had only myself to blame. Never mind: I would enjoy the evening without Richard’s company. The city was exotic; I would explore its tastes and sounds and sights on my own. I dressed for an occasion and was determined to find one. At the desk I asked the clerk what entertainments might be available and he suggested a musicale and a melodrama, both within walking distance. I could catch either of these and still have time for a good dinner before curtain. He gave me the names of several restaurants; then, as I was turning to leave, he said, “There was a message for you from Mr. Burton this morning. Did you get it?” I said I had and thanked him. “It’s too bad,” he said. “You just missed him.”

I was already out on the street when what he’d said brought me up short. I returned to the desk and asked him to elaborate. He said, “I only meant because he left immediately after you did,” and my heart sank.

I was crushed by this proof that Richard had lied. He hadn’t looked for me at all; he had watched for me to leave. If there was any truth in his note, it was only that he had gone to see some people. Yes, I thought bitterly. He’s seeing some people he doesn’t want me to meet or even know he’s met.

I had opted for the melodrama but now I was in too sour a mood to enjoy it. I wasn’t hungry either—normally I am a three-a-day man and I hadn’t eaten since morning, but at that point the prospect of a meal was, to say the least, unappetizing. I walked the streets and I could see only one possible course of action. I must cut the trip short. No more fencing: I would remove even the possibility of further lies by removing myself from Richard’s game, whatever it was. I would simply say that something about the Southern climate had begun to affect my health and I must catch the steamer north at my first opportunity—tomorrow if possible. I could lie if he could, I thought childishly. Richard, of course, would know the reason; he was far too intelligent to be fooled by such a lame excuse, but that was the best I could come up with. The alternative—to remain under pretense—would be intolerable.

I was bitterly disappointed, but once I had decided I felt surprisingly better. Not that I wanted to leave—far from it. I would have given much to have Richard appear that moment with a credible reason for his deception, but I couldn’t imagine what that would be. What I now wanted was to salvage whatever I could of my personal regard for Richard and take my leave while I could still give him some benefit of the doubt.

But out on the street a new thought hit me. I would have to warn someone. Someone had to be told that England was already making plans against us. Someone in our government, high enough to matter, must be told.

Not the treasonous Secretary Floyd, that much was certain.

In the morning I walked to the offices of the steamship company and obtained a schedule. I could get a boat for Wilmington within the hour. But Richard had still not returned; I couldn’t leave without at least saying good-bye, and so I lounged around the hotel waiting until long after the steamer had departed for Wilmington. I was quite hungry: I had not eaten since yesterday, and now I had a substantial lunch at the hotel, then waited over a glass of ale in the bar across the street. Well, I was stuck for another day. This fact brought an odd mix of clashing emotions—anger, dismay, anxiety, along with relief and a wild hope that at times overrode all the others. I was anxious to have it all behind me and be away from here but the thought of what must come filled me with despair. Above all I still wished desperately for some word or act that would save us from the ugly split that seemed inevitable.

I had another ale and sometime later, on my third, I felt my limit and switched to sarsaparilla. My anger had again dissipated, and again I sat groping for some innocent reason behind Richard’s actions. There was none: he had lied, there was no doubt about that, there could be no excuse for it, I had to go, I should have gone at once and left him a note. But that would be a coward’s way and we both deserved better. So I waited.

I saw him arrive at three o’clock. I crossed the street and came into the hotel behind him, but again I wavered. How could I do this? What could I say? I stood in the lobby and watched him skip jauntily up the stairs, and only when he had gone did I go up at a far slower gait. I walked softly past his room and went into my own. I lay on the bed in a state of deep trouble, and after a while I fell asleep.

I opened my eyes at his knock on my door. I didn’t move.

He rapped again. He said nothing but I knew who it was. I heard him walk away, down the hall, down the stairs. I couldn’t keep him waiting much longer.

At last I went down and saw him sitting alone at the far end of the lobby. He was reading a newspaper: the Charleston Mercury, Rhett’s rabble-rousing sheet of traitorous innuendo and sedition. He looked over the edge of the paper as I approached.

“Charlie. I’ve been looking for you.”

Immediately I started my lie. “I haven’t been feeling well,” I said, but my voice faltered and I knew I could not continue with it. How could I chastise Richard for lying if I was doing the same? Before I could go on, he said, “Sit down here, talk to me,” and I sat in the lounge chair facing his. He looked in my eyes. “I want to tell you something.”

I almost brushed him off in a wave of impatience. Please, I thought, no more lies. I felt my hands tremble as I prepared to speak. But he spoke first, offering a surprising confession. “I didn’t tell you the truth in that note I left you.”

I nodded.

“You guessed as much?”

Nodded again.

He regarded me for a long moment. “I don’t lie easily to any man. It’s almost impossible when that man is a close friend.”

Please, Richard, I thought, how close can we be? We barely know each other. I wanted to say it but didn’t.

“The fact is, I had to be away from you for a day. So I waited until you left the hotel. Then I left and called on some people.”

“Am I allowed to ask why?”

“Because you would not have approved of what I did. And it had become necessary for me to play a role.”

I looked up, met his eyes, and suddenly I found my voice, surprising myself at the strength of it. “You must know how this seems to me. You must know I can’t sit still for it. I think under the circumstances—”

“At least hear me out. Then do what you must.”

He spent no time gathering himself. He knew what he had to say, and at his first words I felt my anger melting away. Suspicion remained: it would take years for that bitter pill to completely dissolve. But what I thought I now heard in his voice was truth.

“I have been up to Mr. Rhett’s plantation. I went at the request of Lord Palmerston, who had paved my way in a secret communication.”

He looked at me directly. “There were many ultrasecessionists on hand, and a number of state officials, with lots of heated balderdash thrown about. Charlie, these fools are having the time of their lives. Strutting like cocks in a barnyard. So much self-aggrandizement, so much egotism, no regard at all for the tragedy they are about to rain down on their country. They have no idea how quickly the world is turning against state-sponsored slavery, and how difficult it will soon be for them to function with that as their calling card. They can’t imagine how many of their boys will die for their foolish pride.”

He took a deep breath. “Your presence would have been impossible.”

Softly, I said, “What did they all think, having Richard Burton among them?”

“I didn’t go as Richard Burton. To them I was a friend of a friend of the prime minister whose name they will quickly forget.”

“Richard…”

“My only lie was the manner of my escape yesterday, and I intended to set that straight between us, whether you had guessed it or not.”

“There’s more to it than that. I asked you specifically whether you are on a spying mission.”

“And I told you I’m not.”

“I asked you specifically if you are under any instructions from Palmerston.”

“Lord Palmerston asked me to make this call only as a courtesy and I’ve done that. When I return to England he will want my impression of the overall situation here and I shall give it to him. That’s hardly what anyone would call grand intrigue.”

He gestured impatiently. “I can’t tell you what England will do when your war comes. I’m not the prime minister. All I can do is tell him what I think.”

“Which is?”

“That we would be ill-advised to get involved in this conflict in any way. That the American spirit will not be defeated. That even if the South should somehow prevail—it won’t—but even then there would be resistance groups at work to restore the Union, and that intervention or tampering by any foreign power, especially one based thousands of miles away, would be insane. That such a foreign power can expect fierce guerrilla warfare, perhaps for years, with many casualties. The day is coming when no power, not even England, will be able to sustain such a war. If Palmerston brings us into it, it will be a quagmire and history will remember his name for that above all else. That’s what I’ll tell him.”

He cleared his throat. “I apologize for the small deception.”

“Richard…”

I think he knew then what I had to ask but he waited politely.

“Why did you bring me into it?” I said. “Why involve me in something that could only turn out badly for both of us?”

He smiled dolefully. “Charlie, don’t you know that?”

I blinked at him and gestured impatiently. “Know what?”

“I came to America hoping for self-renewal. You gave it to me. You restored my spirit, almost completely, on the first day we met.”

I couldn’t imagine. I felt numb with surprise, and a flush of—oh God, was that love growing in my heart? I recoiled at once from such a thought.

“I was a wounded man when I left England. My spirits have never been lower, and by the end of that first day with you I felt like my old self again. You were a stranger, a strong and intelligent man far from my own land, who had collected and read my books, and even took time out from his day to come say hello.”

“But that seems…” I groped for the words. “God, that seems so…small.”

“Big gifts often seem small to those who dispense them.”

A minute passed. Then he said, “I shall never forget that week we spent together in your home. You have a rare ability to make a man feel like a hero without pandering to him.”

“How could I possibly have done all that?”

“Just being your own man. You had intelligent opinions and you stood up to me. That’s how I came to value your opinion. And your company.”

“Well, Richard,” I said, still numbly. “I’ve never been much for glaring hero worship. To me, of course, you were a hero, and still are. But there had to be something more than that to create a friendship. I had to bring something of my own to it.”

“Isn’t that what I’m saying? I meet enough kowtowing idiots to know the difference.”

He turned his palms up, the universal gesture for “That’s all there is,” and said, “So why did I bring you? You can be sure I never would have suggested it if I had been sent here on some spying mission. I brought you because I wanted you with me. And I thought I could slip away for a day without offending you.”

He got up and squeezed my shoulder. “Give it some thought, Charlie.”