Delinda's Gardens books and advocacy
  • Home About Delinda
  • Lies That Bind
  • M'TK Sewer Rat: End of an Empire
  • M'TK Sewer Rat: Birth of a Nation
  • Power and Circumstance
  • Something About Maudy
  • Summer Chaos
  • Janette
  • Blog
  • Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Advocacy
  • Contact Delinda
  • Enchanted Forest Florals/Calico Gardens
  • Road Trips
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Advocacy

Betrayal by Delinda McCann

3/28/2016

0 Comments

 
PictureJacob Jaconovich on a small Gerry
​Betrayal
 
“I still remember the day after the emperor set fire to my portion of the city as if it were yesterday” – Philippe Rouseff on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday.
 
***
 
I took my wife to Mass more to please her than from any desire of my own.  I watched as the priest lifted the loaf and intoned the words, “On the night in which he was betrayed…” Bile rose up in my throat at the words.  I knew betrayal.
 
The Emperor, one of my closest associates--a cousin even, had struck at the heart my railroad operation in an effort to destroy my family business.  I pressed my lips together to stifle the urge to cry out in anger as the priest held up the cup.  When Christ was betrayed, only one man died.  I wondered how many thousands burned when I was betrayed. 
 
As the faithful shuffled forward to take their bread and sip from the cup, I shifted in my seat and pondered why that bastard crime boss, Wu, a better man than my cousin, had sent his wife to my offices to warn one of the bookkeepers about the impending purge.  As the bookkeeper raced from the building, she screamed, “Fire! The army is coming! Fire! Flee!”  Who else had been warned that the emperor’s army marched against the city?  Who had time to flee? 
 
I had no desire to spend a Sunday afternoon working, but at three in the afternoon, I met with two railroad supervisors to survey the damage to almost a square kilometer of the city.  I expected to find tall burned skeletons of tenement buildings.  Nothing remained but stone foundations and ash. The emperor had been thorough.
 
We drove up to the deserted M’TK station.  Blowing ash shifted and settled after the passage of my car.  My stomach churned wondering how many of my employees’ ashes mixed and blew among the debris of burned buildings.
 
The brick and slate train station still huddled beside the tracks the lone survivor in a wasteland.  Soot now stained the red bricks the same black as the rest of the borough.  We stood and looked over the desolation—nothing moved, nothing lived.  I wanted to hope that some of my people survived, but hope refused to kindle here among the ruins.  The workers were only indigenous northerners, laborers, but they stocked my warehouses and loaded my trains.
 
The Central Region supervisor looked up. “What the hell?” 
 
I followed his eyes and soon made out a string of boxcars pulled by the station’s yard-gerry slowly rolling toward the station.  Filled with the horror that lay around me, I stared transfixed at the approaching apparition.  If I were a superstitious man, I’d have turned and fled in fear of death and ghosts.  I refused to take my eyes off of this small sign of life.  
 
When the gerry with it’s string of boxcars towering above it, rolled to a stop at the station, the operator dressed in railroad coveralls lifted a woman down from the first boxcar.  A young boy about ten jumped to the ground.  This family appeared to be like any other of the northern poor—dirty and ragged.
 
The man introduced himself as the assistant stationmaster.  He unlocked the station for us and assured us that he had locked the station’s ticket money in the safe.  He seemed respectful enough.  He kept his eyes lowered as custom dictated for a man of his station. 
 
I heard the eagerness in my voice,  “Have you seen signs that some of my people survived?”
 
“I haven’t seen anybody within a kilometer of the station.  Wu warned me, so I had time to move the equipment.  I suppose others had time.”
 
I shook off my melancholy for a moment.  “Listen, you saved my equipment and the money in the station.  I must give you a reward.  What do you want?”
 
The man answered immediately.  “The Stationmaster ran away when he heard about the army.  I stayed long enough to save your equipment.  Give me the stationmaster’s job and let me live here with my family.”  For the first time, the man looked me in the eye. The sharp intelligence I saw in the eyes of a northerner surprised me.  The man’s humility returned when he asked for help to assist his cousin from the train. 
 
Curious about the new stationmaster, I helped lift his cousin in a wheelchair from the boxcar.  I almost recoiled from the reek that still clung to the air inside the car.  I recognized the stench that is created when many unwashed bodies are packed close together.  I picked up a small piece of waste paper flecked with fish scales.  The evidence before my eyes and nose told me that many people, probably northerners with their love of fish, had very recently been packed into this car.  In my mind, I saw people filling the boxcars to flee from the fire.  I suspected that my new stationmaster had his own reasons for his secrecy, but the knowledge that some of my workers had survived revived a hope that settled into my heart.
 
I turned to the humble man beside me and forgot a lifetime of lessons about the indigenous people from the north.  I suddenly saw not a worthless, northern laborer but a man created in the image of God.  I saw the man who had saved my people, a man of honor and compassion.  I wondered if he thought of me as just an oppressive Southerner.
 
How did laborers see the elite?   Did they think all of us are as cruel and evil,  as I now saw my cousin the emperor to be? I reached out to shake the stationmaster’s hand, fearful for the first time in my life of being rejected.  –
 
***
This story is told from the perspective of the young boy mentioned here in the book M’TK Sewer Rat: End of an Empire. This is the first record of Mr. Rouseff’s side of the story of the day he met his longtime friend Jacob Jaconovich then the assistant stationmaster. 
 http://www.amazon.com/MTK-Sewer-Rat-Empire-ebook/dp/B00APRA4NG 

 
 
 
 


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Delinda McCann is a social psychologist, author, avid organic gardener and amateur musician.

    Archives

    November 2021
    October 2021
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    October 2012

    Categories

    All
    Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders
    Gardening
    Politics
    Social Justice
    Writing

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly