Then, like the fog in the tube, it all goes away. The music stops and Lord Barton is speaking, raising a glass. He’s toasting me — Immari’s new head of shipping, his daughter’s husband, and a war hero. Heads nod around the room. There’s some joke about a modern day Lazarus man, back from the dead. Laughter. I smile. Helena hugs me closer. Barton’s finally finished, and around the room, revelers are downing champagne and nodding at me. I make a silly little bow and escort Helena back to our table.
At that moment, for some reason I can’t understand, all I can think about is the last time I saw my father — the day before I shipped off to the war. He got drunk as a sailor that night and lost control — the first, last, and only time I ever saw him lose control. He told me about his childhood that night, and I understood him, or so I thought. How much can you ever really understand any man?
We lived in a modest home in downtown Charleston, West Virginia, alongside the homes of people who worked for my father. His peers, the other business owners, merchants, and bankers, lived across town, and my father liked it that way.
He paced in the living room, spitting as he spoke. I sat there in my pristine tan US Army uniform, the single brass bar of a second Lieutenant’s rank hanging on my collar.
“You look as foolish as another man I knew who joined an American army. He was almost giddy as he ran back to the cabin. He waved the letter in the air like the King himself had written it. He read it to us, but I didn’t understand it all then. We were moving down to America — a place called Virginia. The war between the states had broken out about two years earlier. I can’t remember exactly when, but it was getting pretty bloody by this point. And both sides needed more men, fresh bodies for the grinder. But if you were rich enough, you didn’t have to go. You just had to send a substitute. Some rich southern planter had hired your grandfather as his substitute. A substitute. The idea of hiring another man to die in the war in your place, just because you have the money. When they start the conscriptions this go round, I’ll see to it in the Senate that no man can send a replacement.”
“They won’t need conscripts. Brave men are joining by the thousands—”
He laughed and poured another drink. “Brave men by the thousands. Fools by the train car load — joining because they think there’s glory in it, maybe fame and adventure. They don’t know the cost of war. The price you pay.” He shook his head and took another long pull, almost emptying the glass. “Word will get around soon, and then they’ll have to draft, just like the states did during the Civil War. They didn’t at first, this was years after the war started, when people got a taste of it, that’s when they began the conscriptions and rich men started writing to poor men like my father. But the post runs slow in the Canadian frontier, especially if you’re a logger living way out of town. By the time we got down to Virginia, this planter had already hired another substitute, said he hadn’t heard from your grandfather, was scared he’d have to show up himself, heaven forbid. But we were in Virginia, and he was hell bent on fighting for a fortune — up to $1,000 — that’s what the substitutes were paid, and it was a fortune, if you could collect it. Well he didn’t. He found another planter who was up against it, and he wore that wretched gray uniform and died in it. When the South lost, society crumbled, and the huge track of land promised to your grandfather as payment was bought by some northern carpet bagger on the steps of the county courthouse for pennies on the dollar.” He finally sat down, his glass empty.
“But that was the least of the horror of Reconstruction. I watched my only brother die of typhoid while the occupying Union soldiers ate us out of house and home, what home there was — a small run-down shack on the plantation. The new owner kicked us out, but my mother made a deal: she’d work the fields if we could stay. And she did. Worked those fields to death. I was twelve when I walked off the plantation and hitched my way to West Virginia. Work in the mines was hard to get, but they needed boys, the smaller the better — to crawl through the narrow spaces. So that’s the cost of war. Now you know. At least you don’t have a family. But that’s what you have to look forward to: death and misery. If you’ve ever wondered why I was so hard on you, so frugal, so demanding — there it is. Life is hard — for everyone — but it’s hell on earth if you’re foolish or weak. You’re neither, I’ve seen to it, and this is how you repay me.”
“This is a different war—”
“It’s always the same war. Only the names of the dead change. It’s always about one thing: which group of rich men get to divvy up the spoils. They call it ‘The Great War’ — clever marketing. It’s a European Civil War, the only question is which kings and queens will divvy up the continent when it’s all over. America’s got no business over there, that’s why I voted against it. The Europeans had the good sense to stay the hell out of our civil war, you’d think we might do the same. Whole affair is practically a family feud between the royal families, they’re all cousins.”