This was the place into which Nickelberry took me; the place he'd been brought by his.guide and advocate Olivia, who was but one of a dozen or so people who occupied this unlikely palace.

It seems Nub had accepted the bounty of the place without questioning it (such is a cook's nature, perhaps; especially during times of scarcity). I, on the other hand, began to interrogate Olivia immediately. How had all this sickly magnificence been accrued, 1 demanded to know. The woman was black, and ill-educated (she'd been a slave, though she was now dressed in a gown, and draped in jewelry, that would have been the envy of any fine woman on Meeting Street): she could not answer me coherently. I became frustrated with her, but before my agitation grew too great a white woman, much older than Olivia, appeared at my side. She introduced herself as the widow of General Walter Harris, a man under whose command I had fought in Virginia. She seemed quite happy to answer my questions. None of the luxuries in the midst of which we stood had been pirated or looted, she explained, but given freely to the man who lived here, the aforementioned Galilee. I expressed surprise at this, for besides the great treasure-house of valuables here there was also food and drink in an abundance I think no Charlestonian has seen since the beginning of the siege. I was invited by the ladies to sit and eat, and after so many months in which the best fare available was fried biscuits

in bacon fat could not restrain myself. I was not alone at the table. There was a Negro boy, no more than twelve, and a young man from Alabama by the name ofMaybank and a fourth woman, very pale and elegant, whom this fellow Maybank fed with his fingers, as though he were enslaved to her. I ate gingerly at first, overwhelmed by what was before me, but my appetite grew rather than diminishing, and I ate enough for ten men; was then sick to my stomach; and, having vomited, came back to the table quite refreshed, and partook again. Sweetbreads with sherry, thick slices of a baked calf's head, oysters and mushrooms, a fine she-crab soup and a brown oyster stew with benne seeds. There was a wine souffle for dessert, and huckleberry pie and conserved peaches-what we used to call peach leather when I was young-and fruit candy such as we would have for Christmas. Nickelberry, Olivia and the general's widow ate with me, while the younger woman, one Katherine Morrow, made herself very drunk with brandy, and at last took herself off in search of our host, then promptly passed out on the floor next door. The young man Maybank declared suddenly that he wished to have congress with the woman while she was in this state, and called for the Negro boy Thaddeus to help him undress the woman.

I protested, but Nickelberry advised me to hold my tongue. They had a perfect right to pleasure themselves with the drunken Miss Morrow if they so chose, he said; such was the law of this place. Olivia confirmed the fact. If I was to intervene, she warned me, and Galilee chanced to hear of it, he would kill me…

Rachel had not noticed the journey back to the apartment; nor the trip in the elevator. Now she was sitting at the window, with the glory of New York before her, and she didn't see it. All she saw was the house in the East Battery, its rooms a catalog of excesses; and the captain, sitting at the table, gorging himself-

I asked what manner of man this Galilee was, and Olivia smiled at me. You 'II see, she said. And you 'II understand, when he starts to speak to you, what kind of king he is.

King? I said, of what country? Of every country, Olivia replied; of every city, of every stone.

He's black, the widow Harris said, but he was never a slave. I asked her how she knew this, and she answered, simply, that there was not a man on earth who could put Galilee in chains.

All, needless to say, strange talk; and while it was going on the sounds from the adjacent room growing louder, as Maybank and the boy violated Miss Morrow.

Nickelberry left the table, and went to watch. He called me presently to join him, and to my shame I picked up the bottle of wine I had all but emptied and went to see.

Miss Morrow was no longer incapacitated, but responding to her violations with vigor. The boy was naked by now, and straddled her, rubbing his little rod between her breasts, while Maybank took the route between her legs, which he had made available by tearing her fine silk dress apart.

The scene was entirely bestial, but I will not lie: I was aroused. Fiery, in fact.

After years of sickness and corpses, I was glad to see healthy flesh sweating healthy sweat. The din of their mutual pleasuring filled the room, echoing back and forth between the bare walls so that it was as though there were not three but ten lovers before me. I began to feel giddy, my head pounding, and I turned away to find that Nickelberry was back at the table with Olivia, who had bared herself for his perusal. He looked like a greedy child, his hands plunged into plates of creamy dessert, which he then smeared upon the woman's handsome bosom. She seemed quite happy at this, and pressed his face against her, so he might lick the cream off her body.

The widow Harris now came to me, and offered her own flesh for my pleasure. I declined. She promptly told me I

could not. If I was capable of giving her the pleasure of love, then I was obliged to do so. This too was the law.

I told her that I was a married man, at which she laughed, saying that in this place it mattered not at all what a man or woman had been before they entered; that all histories were forgotten here, and a person became what suited them.

Then I do not belong here, I told her. Are you so proud of what you were out there? she said to me, her face all flushed. You fled your duty; you lost your family and your house. You're less than me, out there. Imagine that! You who were so fine, less than an ugly old widow.

She angered me, and I struck her, drunk as I was, I struck her hard across her painted face. She fell back against the wall, shrieking at me now-obscenities I would not have believed she knew, except that she was spitting them at me in a vile stream. I threw down the bottle I'd been drinking from, and for a moment, thinking perhaps I meant to do her more serious harm, she ceased to shriek. But then I turned from her, and she began again, following me like a fury, berating me.

In my drunken desire to get away from the woman I became lost. The route I had supposed would take me out into the street brought me instead to a darkened flight of stairs. I ascended them stumbling, and crouched in the gloom halfway up. The widow had not seen me ascend; she passed below, cursing me.

I waited there in the darkness, shuddering. Not from fear of the widow, but from grief at what she'd said. The woman was right, I knew. I'm nothing now. Less than nothing.

And then, as if my sorrow had been spoken, a man appeared at the top of the stain and looked down at me. No, not at me; into me. I never felt such a gaze as this. I was in fear of it at first. I felt he might kill me with it, as readily as a man who reached into another's body and took hold of his heart.

But then he came down the stairs a little way, and sat

there, and quietly said: "A man who is nothing has nothing to lose. I am Galilee. Welcome," and I felt as though I had a reason to live.

A reason to live. Rachel put the journal down and stared out across the darkened park. It was impossible that this Galilee be the same man as she'd met, but it was so easy to imagine him there on the stairs, imagine him speaking those words of welcome, imagine him being the man who'd given the captain reason to live.