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America, you know, citizens from the north describe their last great conflict as ‘the Civil War,’ a term
citizens in from the south shall never accept. They prefer ‘the War Between the States’ or even,
among the exceptionally bitter, ‘the War of Northern Aggression.’ History shall eventually declare that
one version of events is the accepted norm, but in the meantime, the words we use to define an event
matter greatly. They become our interim history in a way, what we must make do with until the true
historical muse finds her branch and perches there.”
These last lines struck Trevor as far more intelligent and fair-minded than the others
circulating around the table, so of course their speaker was promptly ignored. A general
conversational hubbub engulfed the table. The martyrs. The bodies. The memorials. The fact that
none of them could ever be quite so comfortable again. This country was frightening enough on its
own with the monsoons and storms, all the bugs and germs and snakes, but there had been a time when
they did not have to fear the Indian people themselves. But now even that comfort was gone.
It is their nightly song, Trevor thought. They should call in the violinist and set it to
music. As the voices swirled around him, Trevor leaned out in his seat to determine the identity of
the last speaker, the man who had spoken so eloquently about interim history.
To his vast surprise, he found it was Jonathan Benson.
***
“Will you be visiting the Taj Mahal during your visit?” Amy Morrow asked Tom, for she
was thoroughly tired of hearing talk of an event which, while admittedly ghastly, had taken place
years before she was born.
“I would love to,” Tom said. “But Agra lies three days travel to the north, or so I’m
told, and we are here on business. I doubt we shall have the time.”
“But you must see some of India,” Amy persisted. “That true and lovely India that exists
just beyond the cities. We go strawberry picking in the spring in the hills, you know, and no more than
an hour past the walls of Bombay, it is like another world. A paradise of green and pink.”
“I suppose it is too late for strawberries.”
“Far too late. But we can have a proper picnic.”
“I’d much prefer an improper one.”
“Oh dear,” said the girl, drawing back in mock alarm. “Are you one of those smooth city
men that Granny is always warning me about? It would be so lovely if you were.” She sighed and
stretched her arms above her head as if she had been traveling a great distance, then nodded in the
direction of the man on her other side, the bloodless young fellow Everlee had introduced as his
attaché.
“What do you make of this one?” Amy said in a lower voice. “He has scarcely said a
word all night beyond hello and that last strange outburst about the American War. I have tried twice
to engage him in flirtatious banter and he has ignored me most completely.”
“Then he must be blind as well as mute,” Tom said. “But why are you sinking so in your
seat? Have I bored you with my own attempts at conversation?”
“It’s the ice,” she said with a giggle. “As it melts, my feet lower in turn and I must slide
ever forward in my chair to keep contact with the last shards. It is delightfully cool, is it not?”
“Cool and almost gone, for I can feel none within my feet at all,” Tom said, but as he
moved to lift the tablecloth and look, the girl grabbed his wrist with faux alarm.
“A gentleman would never look beneath the table,” she said. “Especially if he knew that
a certain lady had slipped her shoes off and buried her bare feet in what’s left of the ice. It is like
immersing one’s toes into a lovely alpine lake at just the point in the evening when intoxication is at