“I don’t see it,” Gretchen said. She spun on her heel to join a waving Tante Klegg. Their grouping was the next to enter the statehouse.
Karl jogged to catch up. “Don’t see what? That’s my name. You can’t say you don’t see it; it just is.”
Gretchen’s mouth was a thin line.
Tante Klegg snatched Gretchen and Karl by their shoulders, whipping them around. She would hear nothing about Karl’s newfound memories. She refused to hear his name or how he took a photo with that stranger’s equipment but almost knocked it over. She pushed them forward so they would not lose their place.
“Aren’t you the least bit interested?” Gretchen said.
Tante Klegg glared at her. “We are not here to play detective, liebchen—”
“Stop calling me that.”
“We are here to pay our respects to our president,” Tante Klegg said. “Have you no shame?”
Tante Klegg was right. Gretchen needed to focus on mourning the president. She had left little time for mourning while trying to determine Karl’s identity. And here Karl had discovered his identity without her help. Gretchen huffed. Some detective nursemaid she was.
Karl was silent as they approached the statehouse’s west gate. An arch loomed overhead, inscribed with the words, “Ohio Mourns.” Above the black striped columns hung a banner with a quote from Mr. Lincoln’s last inaugural address: “With malice to no one. With charity for all.”
It was a misquote. Mr. Lincoln’s second inaugural speech had said, “With malice to none.” None. Gretchen closed her eyes and inhaled.
So many thoughts jumbled around. Karl fought to make heads or tails of them. Some memories felt so clear, like seeing that boy’s body, or watching his employer fall over dead. Others were hazy. He remembered the feel more than the look his mother gave him when he announced his intentions to become a war photographer. He would not fight for states that had never fought for them.
He was a Confederate photographer, but he was no more Confederate than Gretchen. With each step, he felt memories shuffle into place. His family had been farmers in Tennessee, but they were poor. They did not have slaves. They did not have money. His brother went to war to show that a poor farmer could shoot as well as a rich one.
A lot of good that did, since the Confederacy had lost. Those graybacks were not any good now.
“I don’t understand why you’re not more excited about Karl knowing he’s one of those picture men,” Gretchen said.
“Do you never stop and think, child?” Tante Klegg said from between clamped lips. “This is not the time or place to discuss Confederate sympathies.”
Karl frowned. “Ain’t no Confederate sympathies here. I took photos for my boss, that’s all.”
Gretchen gestured at him, glad he proved her point.
Tante Klegg ignored him. “He did not kill the president, but he could have killed others to avoid dying. Does he remember his family? Does he remember a girl?” Tante Klegg shook her head. “Headstrong, foolish, enthusiastic for no reason…”
Gretchen was ready to fight back, but the door opened. Black curtains covered every window of the statehouse so they could not peek inside. Above the door sat an inscription carved into wood: “God moves in a Mysterious Way.”
Soldiers ushered them inside.
Mourners shuffled with tiny steps. Hoop skirts ballooned against each other. Men struggled not to trip over the voluminous fabrics. Gretchen craned her neck again, trying to see the president’s casket. She could see the bier covered with piles and piles of lilacs. The casket crushed them; their sweet smell overpowered the room.
“Smart,” Tante Klegg said.
Karl and Gretchen looked at her, aghast. What could be smart about viewing a dead body?
“The lilacs,” she whispered, gesturing ahead of them. “They hide the smell of the president. They tried a new method, which they call ‘embalming,’ but it cannot be good yet. It is too new. He decays before our eyes.”
Gretchen put her hand over her mouth. This was not what she had imagined. She wanted to see a serene president, not a decaying one. It would be better to not smell anything than to smell lilacs and know they hid putridity. She began to shrink back, no longer sure she wanted to pay her last respects.
“I didn’t like him,” a woman whispered to her companion nearby, “but he didn’t deserve to go out like that.”
“What a blessing that the rains broke as the president arrived at the statehouse,” a woman replied. “It is sure to be ordained that this man has reached the heavenly gates.”
Tears gathered in Gretchen’s eyes. This was too much and not enough. Coming to Columbus and seeing the president in person was her life’s adventure. And now that Gretchen was steps away from Mr. Lincoln’s casket, she realized she did not want to do this at all. She wanted to go home, but she did not have a home. She wanted to hold her papa’s hand, but she did not have a papa. She wanted to breathe, but the flowers were choking her. Or her corset was choking her. Gretchen’s hair was pulled back and up high. She looked like a young woman rather than the girl she had been last week.
She could not breathe. She could not move.
Karl grabbed her hand and squeezed, hard. Gretchen made a strangled little noise that grabbed the attention of those around them.
Tante Klegg moved past them as if she had no idea who they were.
“Don’t know if it helps, but you can lean on me,” Karl whispered, not daring to look at her with his hand holding hers.
Gretchen nodded, grateful that he had distracted her panic.
Karl pulled her hand through his arm and patted it in place as he stepped forward. Gretchen hesitated, but feeling Karl’s gentle pull allowed her feet to fall in step with his. She could see the end of the bier where “LINCOLN” was written in large white letters.
White bunting draped the sides of the bier. A large rug buffered the echoing of everyone’s muddied boots across the rotunda’s marble floor. They could see the foot of the casket. A large floral arrangement sat above Mr. Lincoln’s stomach.
“We’re almost through,” Karl whispered.
Gretchen nodded, her mouth dry. They approached the head of the casket. She dreaded seeing Mr. Lincoln’s face. They shuffled forward to find the casket was not open at all. A large white cross lay on top of the casket in stark relief.
Tante Klegg waited for them outside the doors on the other side of the rotunda. “Satisfied?” she asked.
Now that she was away from the cloying lilacs, Gretchen released Karl’s arm. She squared her shoulders. “Not yet. We haven’t found Papa.”
Tante Klegg’s eyes narrowed. “Gregory Miller is not your father, my Alric was. It is the errand of a fool errand to search for him.”
“What’s the harm?” Karl asked. “We take a look at the lists, he’s either on them or he isn’t, and we go back to Werner’s farm.”
Gretchen stomped away from them. “It isn’t Werner’s farm, and I’m going to find my father.”
When Gretchen was out of earshot, Tante Klegg pushed Karl. “This is your opportunity.”
Karl watched Gretchen’s receding back and swaying skirts.
“Leave now or never leave her side. You must decide now,” Tante Klegg said.
Karl shrugged and loped after Gretchen.
“Interesting,” Tante Klegg mused.