American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold by Harry Turtledove Page B

you go.”
        “Merci, chère Maman.  I’ll do that quick as a wink.” Georges still looked as if he didn’t trust his ears.
      He went off to the kitchen to take the hot water to the bathroom, still scratching his head.
      When he was, or at least might have been, out of earshot, Marie said, “High time he got married. I began to worry about Charles when he waited so long.”
      “Madeleine Boileau is a nice girl, and she made him a good match this past winter,” Galtier said. His wife nodded. He went on, “She is a better match than we could have got without our American doctor son-in-law, or without the money from the Americans for the property on which the hospital stands.”
      “I know that,” Marie said. “You must know it, too. Why bring it up now? We’ve had these things for some time.”
      “Why bring it up now?” Galtier echoed. “To convince myself what we’ve done is worthwhile, that’s why. Because there are times when I feel our money is like Judas’ thirty pieces of silver, that’s why.
      Because I almost envy the Canadians for rising, that’s why.” Marie eyed him. “Would you disown your grandson?”
      “No. Never.” Lucien didn’t hesitate. He did laugh. “All right. You have me.”
      “I should hope so,” Marie said.
     

    III
      A cold, nasty rain poured down on Augusta, Georgia. Had the town been up in the USA, Scipio suspected it would have got snow, even though this was only the end of October. He’d seen snow a few times, here and in South Carolina, where he’d lived most of his life. He didn’t like it a bit.
      The rain drummed on his cheap black umbrella. Some of the Negroes in the Terry, Augusta’s black quarter, had no umbrellas. They dashed through the streets on the way to work, water splashing up under their galoshes—when they had galoshes. Scipio did. He was fastidious about his person. Part of that was personal inclination, part habit ingrained in him by more than half a lifetime spent as Anne Colleton’s butler. She’d always insisted on perfection in everything, and she’d known how to get what she wanted.
      His foot slipped out from under him. He had to make a mad grab for a lamppost with his free hand. That kept him from falling on his backside, but the desperate embrace left his arm and one side of his chest almost as wet as if he had fallen.
      He muttered under his breath all the way to Erasmus’ fish market and restaurant. YOU BUY—WE FRY! was painted on the window in big letters. The front door was unlocked. Scipio gladly ducked inside, closing the umbrella as he did so.
      Erasmus, as always, had got there before him. The gray-haired black man was sipping on a steaming cup of coffee almost white with cream—he’d already been to the fish market alongside the Savannah River to get the best of the day’s catch and put it on ice here.
      “Mornin’,” he said to Scipio, and then, “Wet out.” He got the most mileage from every word he used.
      “Do Jesus, sho’ is!” Scipio exclaimed. “I’s soaked clean through.” His accent was that of the Congaree, thicker and more ignorant-sounding than Erasmus’. He could also use the English of an educated white man—again, Anne Colleton’s doing—but he had nothing between the one and the other.
      “Can’t be helped.” Erasmus took another sip of coffee. He pointed to the pot. “Pour yourself some if you got a mind to, Xerxes.”
      “I do dat,” Scipio said. No one in Augusta, not even Bathsheba, his wife, knew his rightful name. He’d used several aliases since escaping from the wreckage of the Congaree Socialist Republic. His passbook said he was Xerxes, and he wasn’t about to argue with it. Xerxes was as free as a black man in the Confederate States could be. Scipio still had a large price on his head back in South Carolina.
      He poured less cream —the pitcher sat on ice next to some catfish— into his coffee than Erasmus used, but added a