Reconstruction
a historical flash fiction
Savannah, 1866
My dear Aunt Ellen,
I have been greatly put to it to know how to answer your generous offer of a home. It is indeed magnanimous of you to extend forgiveness to me for my nearer relations’ ‘secessionist sentiments.’ I do not know what is a greater matter of curiosity to me: that you believe I must be forgiven for their sentiments, or that you persist in imagining that I never had any sentiments of my own. Perhaps maintaining that polite fiction would have been necessary, at least for you, to enable us to live together. But permit me to say that I doubt you would have extended such forgiveness either directly or by proxy if you were now writing to a neighboring country rather than a conquered territory. And how much easier to forgive those who have offended when they are no longer alive to offend.
Do not be greatly disappointed by my refusal—for having read this far, you must have gathered that a refusal it must be. I would be no ornament to your household or to Philadelphia society. I am grown too thin, much too thin and brown to be fashionable. Do you know it is possible to survive on one egg and a serving of rice a day? It has been done. My hands are work-roughened, and my conversation and tone of mind would discomfort you. I should probably shock my cousins by a reference to the smell of blood, or the difficulty of removing lice. I am sure I have shocked you already. Doubtless you consider a familiarity with lice to be no fit acquaintanceship for a lady. I will set your mind at rest: it is not a personal acquaintance—let us call the vermin the friends of friends.
You see, aunt, I believe I understand you better than you understand me. The word ‘reconstruction’ has been so much in the air; and it has suggested to you the possibility of reconstructing a niece. You fancy I must have been broken down to the foundations by war, and that the resulting heap of bricks may be rebuilt into something nearer to the heart’s desire. But I have already been reconstructed into something quite different by war itself. I am something much older, and bolder, and soberer, at the same time. I grow vegetables and kill chickens—I shall earn my bread by sewing, or teaching—or killing chickens, if needs must—once anybody in these parts has any money to pay for such things again. I do not think you would be comfortable with the new Eliza or the old Eliza, dear aunt, and so it is in charity to us both that I decline.
Do not think I am bitter. I can smile as I write, at the curious changes that life works in us. I realized some time ago that if I were to retain bitterness at all the things that have happened to me in these last few years, it would kill me. If there are any lingering traces of bitterness in me, I hope they have all drained out through my pen onto this sheet of paper. You may attribute the odd color of my ink to that, if you will, and not the fact that it is very poor ink, stretched to its last drops.
I do comprehend your kindness, and am grateful for it. I am only also grateful that so long as I have the wits and health to support myself, I need not accept any kindness that comes burdened with contempt. I am free. And freedom was the object of all of us, was it not?
Your obedient and affectionate niece,
Elizabeth Bellcourt
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