31
Half a Lie
—1892, August 11: 12-Hour 22—
On balance, it is clear that other Ages love their gardens more. Nochtland, the capital of the Baldlands, would be aptly dubbed “a city of gardens.” Even the Papal States, asphyxiated as it is by the plague, pays more consistent care to the fountain gardens of its cities. Travelers to New Occident often remark that the rural areas are lovely enough, but the cities are choked with bad construction, cobbled streets, and too few trees. Boston has its Public Garden, but apart from that, the largest parks are cemeteries. As one illustrious visitor remarked, “Wouldn’t it be better to have more gardens for the living and fewer for the dead?”
—From Shadrack Elli’s History of the New World
SHADRACK HAD RACED back to Inspector Grey’s office; he had persuaded the inspector and twenty of his men to follow him to Lexington; he had compelled Grey to guarantee Sorensen and his family police protection; he had convinced Sorensen to wake the two Weatherers; and he had taken charge of the Weatherers himself, placing them with a friend in Concord so they could recover fully from their long winter sleep. Then he returned to East Ending Street, exhausted, and reported to the plotters what had happened. Winnie and Nettie were furious, but they forgave him when he explained what was likely to happen next. At last, his tasks completed, satisfied that he had done all he could, he waited.
He half expected that Broadgirdle would knock on his door that very evening. But the confrontation occurred the next afternoon, several hours into the workday. Shadrack had spent the morning gathering his papers, and now he stood at the window of his office, looking out at the Public Garden. He was remembering how, as a child, he would walk there with his parents on Saturday mornings. The roses seemed as tall as trees, and the air was filled with the quiet conversations of other people walking past. Boston had seemed like a winking jewel to him then, full of brilliant light and unexpected treasures.
Broadgirdle did not knock. He burst through the door and slammed it closed behind him. Shadrack took in one last lingering view of the garden and turned, somewhat reluctantly. He could see the man making an effort to rein in his anger, and it struck him as interesting that the prime minister had accosted him in a fury instead of waiting to bring himself in check. “This will cost you,” Broadgirdle finally said, his voice strangled.
Shadrack paused, reminding himself that there was nothing to gain by provoking the man further. “I’ve done only what seemed necessary,” he said. “The Weatherers and Dr. Sorensen had suffered enough at your hands, it seemed to me.”
Broadgirdle sneered. “You imagine yourself a man of the world, with your maps and your exploring friends—but you are as narrow-minded as the most provincial man in Boston. You cannot see the forest for the trees.”
“And what is the forest that I cannot see?”
“The purpose. The purpose of it all.” He waved his hand around the room, ending at the windows and all of Boston beyond them. “The purpose of our Age. Of what we do in it. Of the Disruption.”
Shadrack clasped his hands before him patiently. “You see your plans as part of a larger purpose,” he said.
“Of course they are,” Broadgirdle said, planting his fists on Shadrack’s desk and leaning forward. “It’s not just about fulfilling our Age’s destiny and expanding westward. It’s about who wins and who loses. Who will triumph and who will be extinguished. Would you want this hemisphere overrun by raiders? Or Indians?”
Shadrack raised his eyebrows. “I was not aware that either was interested in overrunning the hemisphere.”
“You are a fool,” Broadgirdle said dismissively. “You know quite well that its fate hangs in the balance. We can follow the path we are on, into greater and greater disintegration, or we can follow the path set out for us in the Age of Verity: Unity. Cohesion. Progress.”
“I do know that there are several possible directions for our Age,” Shadrack replied in a measured tone. “But I do not see them as you do.”
Something in Broadgirdle seemed to crest and fall. He stepped back from the desk, and his tone now was cold, almost indifferent, as if he had abandoned the prospect of persuading someone so dim. “This Age of Delusion is so misguided. The extent of the derailment is”—he shook his head—“tragic. Hopeless. And yet . . . and yet. This is the only Age we have. We will save this Age or we will not. Do you see?” He smiled grimly. “There is no other possible solution. I lament that you have failed so utterly to understand this.”
Shadrack heard the Nihilismian logic in Broadgirdle’s words, and he realized, as if he had ever doubted, that reasoning with him would be impossible. “Well,” he said, “then you are right—I do not see the forest. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that I see a different forest.”
“The cost of your failure will be high,” Broadgirdle said. His voice was ice. “I warned you, and I am true to my word. Those threats were not made idly. Sissal Clay and Theodore, if he survives this war, will be deported. And when she returns to Boston, Sophia will be arrested for fraud. I hear juvenile prisons are no better than adult prisons—lack of funds, no doubt. And that’s where you will be, of course,” he finished triumphantly, “for having planned this war under Bligh’s nose. The evidence is at a warehouse near the wharf.” He grinned, his white teeth gleaming.
“I am aware of it,” Shadrack said calmly.
To Broadgirdle’s credit, he did not seem in the least surprised. “Then you are even more of a fool than I thought.”
Shadrack turned back to the window. “I hear that in the Age of Verity, Boston is not this nation’s capital.”
Broadgirdle took a moment to reply. “That is correct.”
“I can imagine such a world. In which Boston is not the center, but a place on the edges. How I love this city,” he said quietly. “Its crooked streets and absurdly cold winters and absurdly hot summers. Its face of brick, its heart of green grass. But it has changed. With the border closure, it has become a pale ghost of itself. I have the sense that it is already gone. Even living here, I already miss it.” He turned back to the other man. “Perhaps this will make it a little easier to leave. Not so much an exile as a journey to find a city like the one Boston once was.” He smiled sadly. “Nochtland perhaps, or the distant cities of the Pacific. I have never seen them.”
Shadrack had placed all his effort into planning that journey, and the destination seemed strangely secondary. He had not allowed himself to imagine what it would look like when they were all safely reunited somewhere: Mrs. Clay, Theo, Sophia, and himself. There were too many things yet to plan and too many things that might yet go wrong before tomorrow, when he closed the door of the house on East Ending Street behind himself for the last time.
Broadgirdle’s gaze was heavy with disdain. “You put safety above principle, do you? You have a small mind, Shadrack.”
Shadrack still smiled. “I believe it is principle that has urged me to take this course, Gordon. Had I been more concerned for my safety, I would have left the Eerie where they lay, in their coffins filled with earth. But I am glad I did not. When we are all together, my family and I, somewhere far from here, I will have nothing on my conscience as I explain my actions.”