Soulcatcher by Charles Johnson

came for them to apply. His investments were performing better than expected, given the country's delicate political situation (but when, after all, was politics not a delicate matter?). Added to which, he'd worked hard all throughout 1850 to beat his competitors in neighboring cities along the eastern seaboard for a few lucrative contracts that would further industrialize his own city, which would assure his reelection, and he was meeting with representatives of those companies in the morning. Furthermore, his Wife of twenty years seemed pleased with her personal affairs, the charity work she and her friends did each weekend, and particularly with her abolitionist activities. He, being a progressive man, supported fully this cause of Negro manumission, both in his role as Mayor and, even more importantly, in his home, where he employed five free Negroes as servants. Indeed, he had cheered on and publicly supported the recent Compromise that abolished the slave trade in the District of Columbia. He treated his black help royally, or so the Mayor believed, and he overlooked what everyone in his social circle agreed were inherent and unfortunate deficiencies in colored people. These shortcomings, after all, were not
their
fault, but rather the unjust distribution of talent, beauty, and intelligence by Nature, so that those more generously endowed by Providence were duty bound to help them. Without white men, the Negro would be lost. They were like children in their dependency. The Mayor paid his servants handsomely and on time, was lavish with tips, inquired frequently into their health and well-being, told them repeatedly they were an important part of his family, and he proudly pointed them out when his friends, business associates, and political colleagues dined with his family or dropped by. And, as if that were not enough, the Mayor had a lovely, new mistress—a young singer of thirty (which was half his age), who gave him good reason to look forward to those weekends his Wife and her friends were away.
    "Yes, all was well—as well as a civilized man might expect—in the world on Wednesday, January 1, 1851.
    Thursday, however, was quite another story. When he opened his eyes and stretched, having slept well—the sleep of the just, he'd say—the Mayor felt as rested as he did on Saturday, the day he normally slept in. But this wasn't the weekend. Or was it? For a moment he wasn't sure. He shook his Wife's shoulder, rousing her awake, and she said, "Why are you still here? Aren't you supposed to be at City Hall?" Like Immanuel Kant, the Mayor preferred his life "to be like the most regular of regular verbs." So he was at first bewildered, then upset, by this disruption of his schedule. He stumbled from bed, his bare feet landing on a floor so cold its chill went through him like a shock, squeezed a whoop from his lips, and sent him hopping around the room for his slippers. He found his wire-rim spectacles on a nightstand, then shivering so badly his teeth chattered, he bent over to better see the small, wooden clock. It was quarter past eleven. He'd slept all morning, missing at least five appointments.
    And all the fireplaces were dark and cold.
    The Mayor rang for his butler, Henry, who always awoke him and had each fireplace blazing by 5 A.M. No answer. He rang again, waiting and watching his breath steam the bedroom air as if he were standing outside on the ice-cold street. "Please get him to light the fireplaces
now!
" wailed his Wife. "I'm not leaving this bed until the house is warm! And tell the maid I'm
hungry!
" The Mayor sighed and said, "Yes, dear, I ... I will. Henry must be sick this morning—he's never been remiss in his duties before, you know." He hurried to dress himself, and found to his great dismay that not only had his personal servant foiled to wake him, but Henry had not prepared or set out his clothing for the day either. Because he was so late and had no idea where Henry put