Disclaimer, Summary & Rating: see Chapter 1
FALSE MEMORY
Chapter 11
However, both Shay and Missouri had beamed at the opportunity to talk about the man they obviously held in such affection…
Missouri explained that her husband's grandfather had been the genesis for the achievements of later generations. Back in the days of Prohibition, Obadiah Moseley had been a cleaner/handyman in a library, but long after the white staff had gone home, he had been reading his way through the stacks, obsessively determined to better himself; entirely self-taught he had eventually become fluent in eight modern and three ancient languages, and able to quote the great writers, thinkers and works of literature of almost any culture verbatim. He and his wife Judith Jefferson – a direct descendent of the American president who had had several children by 'relationships' (not that they had any choice in the matter) with slave-women - had brought their two sons to the library as Obadiah had determined that his family should be similarly erudite.
Obadiah had named his elder son, Winston's father, Spartacus, the significance of which was not lost on anyone, black or white. His younger son he had named Joseph. Both Sam and Dean had made encouraging sounds, understanding the significance of the names – Spartacus and Joseph had each been young men who overcome slavery to achieve positions of great power and influence1. Obadiah had died of TB when Spartacus was only eight, and Judith had had to move north, eventually finding employment as a housekeeper for a wealthy white Old Blue Chip Stock family in Connecticut. Judith had been determined that her sons would have the opportunities Obadiah had desired; the family had been so elite they had private tutors for their children and they never knew that curled up in the attic directly above the schoolroom, two little boys assiduously followed every lesson.
Judith Jefferson Moseley had died of TB when Spartacus turned eighteen, and the Connecticut family immediately cast out the boys, but by then Spartacus spoke fluent French, German, Italian, Spanish and Russian as well as Latin, Classical and Common Greek. He could read Hebrew, ancient Aramaic and Egyptian Hieroglyphics. Spartacus had joined the US Army in order to enable his brother Joseph to continue attending what was then America's elite blacks-only college as a boarder.
'Joining the military changed Spartacus's life,' Missouri explained, 'because he was a GI in World War II and was sent to Great Britain.'
'That's where he met his wife?' Sam remembered that Shay's grandmother was English.
Racism certainly existed in Britain, Missouri admitted, many boarding houses had signs banning Irish and Negro callers, but the virulent hatred towards blacks evinced by so many white Americans was absent, and indeed, racism towards non-white GIs had often been dissolved by the poor conduct of the white GIs. The tart British phrase about American GIs being 'overpaid, oversexed and over here' had been aimed at the white GIs. Most of the American GIs had never seen active combat when they arrived in England and were rapidly viewed with irritation by the war-toughened young women they fondly imagined would swoon over them, women who at 20 had survived the Blitz and lived with half of their families – husbands, fathers, brothers – being far away and in horrific danger of death.
In stark contrast, the black and Indian GIs, toughened by adversity and relentless bigotry, were courteous and respectful where the white GIs were vulgar, brash and impolite. Outrage rapidly spread amongst white American soldiers when the British proved oblivious to the tenets of Segregation. For the first time, many black Americans found that they were served when their place in the queue got to the counter, not immediately expected to step back if a white person came into the store. There was no having to travel many extra miles to a black only hospital or another bus-stop. There was no fear of being lynched or being forced to give up seats on a bus to a white person simply because they were white.
"Spartacus had only been in London a week when he was queuing in a bakery for a loaf of bread," Missouri told them, "and a white American officer came in and just went straight past the Negro GIs to the counter. The shopkeeper was a white middle-aged woman and she sent him to the back of the queue. He said, "'But they're niggers,'" and she replied, "'And you're a rude queue-jumper. Wait your turn or leave.'" So he left and that was when the American brass tried to get Churchill to impose Segregation on areas of London."
"He didn't though," Dean guessed shrewdly.
Missouri grinned. "Nope; already at that point President Roosevelt was trying to elbow Churchill to the sidelines for his own political ambitions – as if Winston Churchill couldn't see through him and Joseph Stalin like glass – he'd held three of the four great offices of the British State for goodness sake. Churchill squashed that game like a bug but for the first time Spartacus saw that another way of life was possible. That store owner lady's brother was a man named Harold Hodkin, who owned a London bar – Public House, as they call them – called the Lion's Heart."
It transpired that whilst Hodkin's father's family were as 'English as John Bull' his mother's family had a solid Jewish strain and his late wife's family had strong Irish and Romany Gypsy connections. Hodkin had caused outrage by making his 'pub' open to blacks only. The sight of black American GIs drinking and eating and dancing with white women – and more pertinently pretty young women – as equals had driven the white American brass into a frenzy and though Hodkin was prevailed upon to remove the "BLACK AMERICANS ONLY ALLOWED" signs, the ban stayed in practice. One of Hodkin's children, his only daughter Alma, was a barmaid at the Lion's Heart, and worked every night the first week Spartacus attended.
The rest was history, but due to the bigotry of Spartacus's fellow Americans, the couple were extremely circumspect in their meetings. They would arrange meetings to exact times and places, often when Alma walked the family dogs in the local parks. One day they were walking through some local woods when they heard approaching vehicles and hid. The cars turned out to be none other than a convoy carrying Winston Churchill, and the cars stopped when one of the dogs got away from Alma and bounded out into the road. The cars had stopped and the great man himself had got out of the car. Alma had gone out after the dog but one of Winston's aides had sharp eyes and spotted the hiding figure. Left with no choice, Spartacus had stepped out and Alma had blandly introduced Winston Churchill to her fiancé Mr Spartacus Moseley.
Churchill had actually spent five minutes talking to the couple and boldly Alma invited him to her and Spartacus' wedding. In response, Churchill had given her a code to put on the envelope so it would get straight to him unopened rather than being diverted to some under-secretary's desk.
"Spartacus never expected anything, he believed the Prime Minister was merely being polite," Missouri admitted, "and he forgot all about the code, but Alma didn't. She arranged for her and Spartacus to marry in a Registry Office in London and on the morning in question sent a coded telegram to the Prime Minister, inviting him to attend."
"Did he?" Dean asked, curious despite himself.
In response, Missouri pointed to the mantelpiece further along, where there was a large framed photograph and several framed letters with different heraldic crests. At the same time, she got up and went to a cupboard, carefully bringing out a large, leather-bound book.
Sam peered closely at the old sepia photograph. "Er…is that woman wearing a crown?"
Missouri's grin threatened to swallow her face. "Well, the code next to the address meant the telegram was delivered personally to Winston Churchill wherever he was and on that day he and his wife Lady Clementine Churchill happened to be at Buckingham Palace in London, briefing the King and Queen on the war progress. The Prime Minister received the telegram and asked to be excused to attend the wedding – but the King, Queen and Clementine came too. In those days there were no 'paparazzi' and the media still understood that there was a line between public and private, so they could get away with it in a way they couldn't today."
Both Sam and Dean nodded their understanding – at least three of America's most loved presidents, including JFK, had suffered serious illnesses or health conditions that nobody had known about at the time. More than one had also been one of the most able presidents the USA had ever had, yet ironically, in today's goldfish bowl world of media intrusion where the press mercilessly hounded anyone tinged with celebrity, none of them would have had a chance of being elected to the White House.
Shay added in eagerly, "By that time President Roosevelt had really started exasperating the British Government, and the Royal Family, by being happy to accept British advice in private but trying to make himself into some sort of global President publicly – as if he were waging war all on his own. It was considered not just rude but what the English call extremely déclassé – bad form and just not cricket and all that. Especially so after the British had warned America that Pearl Harbour was going to happen six months in advance and were basically laughed at for their trouble."
"These aren't the originals either, like those on the mantel – the originals are in a bank vault," Missouri informed, "but look…" she opened the book which proved to be a blank-paged tome to which people had stuck photographs and captions. The initial photographs dated back to pre-Civil War America and were of a variety of black people, presumably Obadiah Moseley and Judith Jefferson's families. Right at the front was an impressively done letter-sized oil painting of President Thomas Jefferson standing on the balcony of his plantation, surrounded by a variety of young adults, teenagers and children, some of whom were white, others black and others obviously mulatto, with the provocative caption: President Thomas Jefferson and his children.
Further on there were black cowboys riding for The Wedge2, a famous Texan trail-drive crew, and a young black man in a Bugler's uniform – of Confederate Grey, not Union Blue. Flicking over these, Missouri showed them another copy of the large photograph on the mantelpiece, which took an entire left hand page. Centre were a black man and a white woman, the man in an American military uniform, the woman in a modest white jacket-and-skirt "suit", carrying a small posy of red roses and Baby's Breath flowers.
A stout, florid middle-aged man and several young men of similar looks to be his sons stood stiffly to attention, clearly Harold Hodkin and Alma's brothers, obviously uncomfortable in their Sunday best suits. But most striking were the four people who surrounded the bride and groom. On the right of the bride stood a thin man in a suit, smiling but with a face already tinged with ominous gauntness; the woman next to him wore what was obviously a silk dress and sported a small tiara-type crown.3 next to the groom stood a thickset, bullish-faced man and a handsome woman also wearing jewellery.
On the next page was the marriage certificate. Like all English marriage certificates it comprised the name, age, occupation of the bride and groom, plus the name and occupations of their fathers. Under his own father, Spartacus had written, Obadiah Moseley, Classical Scholar, deceased. On the lines for "Witnesses", were written:
Sir Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the British Empire
Elizabeth, Queen-Empress Consort of the British Empire
"Oh wow!" Sam breathed, reading the caption under the photograph which was simply listed as left to right: Master Leonard Hodkin, Lieutenant Marcus Hodkin, Life Guards, Captain Arthur Hodkin, Coldstream Guards, Mr Harold Hodkin, Lady Clementine Churchill, Sir Winston Churchill, Sergeant Spartacus Obadiah Moseley, groom, Miss Alma Lily Hodkin, bride, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, Empress of India, His Majesty King George VI, Emperor of India…followed by the names of the best man and family friends in the photograph. "No wonder you've got the originals locked away in a bank vault. They must be worth a fortune."
Shay put in "My grandfather's plan was for he and Alma to return to America after they married, get my great-uncle Joseph and go back to England, but things didn't work out that way, regrettably and they stayed."
"That was Alma's doing." Missouri conceded. "If I had one wish, it would be to go back in time and see the reaction when Winston's mother walked down the street of Spartacus' home town; Spartacus returned to the United States in 1945 with a white wife and a newborn son. You know…I really wish you could have met Alma…everyone in the world ought to have met her. When I first met Winston, I had a boulder on each shoulder about white folks and racism and my psychic abilities. I really thought I knew it all."
"I'm sure you weren't that bad, mom." Shay bolstered loyally.
Missouri snorted, "Nope, I was worse. After Winston, Alma and Spartacus had twins – George Sixth Moseley and Elizabeth Queenie Moseley, and then they had Clementine. Each time they sent a message to the King and Queen and to Lord and Lady Churchill telling them and got a nice card back. Now, to understand this fully, you have to know that my Winston was like me – blacker'n molasses at midnight in a cave. George and Queenie had the colourin' like milky coffee but Clem could 'pass' for white – like that boy, whatshisname, on that TV show as a cop, Tallulah Finn or something…Iced Coffee or some such silly name…"
"Ice-T?" put in Dean.
"That's him!" confirmed Missouri. "Now, when Winston took me home for dinner with his family, that was the Big Event, and the only other person in his family I'd met was George. So there I am, sailing up the porch steps into this house, full of myself and my "white people are all evil bigots" riff, and I walk into the living room to see a white woman sat at the head of the table. You could have knocked me down with a feather. Five minutes with Alma and I knew that I knew nothing of what it was like to experience – and to beat – real hatred and bigotry."
"Spartacus had passed away?" Dean interposed, alerted by the way she described Alma as seated at the table head, something unknown in a Southern family if the husband were alive.
Missouri's face darkened with something like genuine anger. "He had been killed a couple of years afore I met Winston. When Spartacus and Alma came back to the USA, Joseph had just left his seminary training but it was a while before he obtained a diocese on account of him being black. Spartacus left the Army in 1946 and got a job as a schoolteacher at a local black school – it paid a pittance but the Great Depression followed by the Blitz in Britain had taught Alma everything about frugality, plus Spartacus had a private income. But when Joseph finally became Pastor of a well-to-do Presbyterian Congregation in Kansas, Alma refused to go back 'home'."
"Why?" Sam asked for both of them, not needing to exchange a look with Dean to know that his brother was of the same mind as himself – in Alma's place they would have been on the first available transportation to Britain like their butts were on fire.
"Since the day she walked down the street of that town, Alma daily faced all manner of insults and offence not fit to be spoken of in polite company." Missouri explained. "Every white person in the state viewed her as evil incarnate; a lot of black folks thought Spartacus had betrayed them by marrying a white person. But Alma set them back by the ears. The one thing that English people do real well is play aristocrats and hoity-toity types – most of the population are descended from one king or another anyway cause those Royal types are just like Hollywood heartthrobs today – not one any good at keepin' it in their pants."
"Mom," Shay rolled her eyes at this.
With a sniff, Missouri went on, "Anyhow, the second day she was at Spartacus's home, she framed the copies of her marriage certificate, the wedding photograph and the letter signed by Lord and Lady Churchill congratulating her on Winston's birth and put them on the mantelpiece. When the local sheriff – a big ole fat, smirking bigot - came swaggering in about a week later, Alma 'graciously' received them in her 'front parlour' as she insisted on calling it and sat them down with a bird's eye view of the photograph over tea and cakes served in one of those solid silver and bone china tea services that the English have –"
"That look like a deep breath will shatter them into a million pieces, and only a toddler can get hold of the handle properly?" Sam grinned at the image of some sweaty, obese middle-aged sheriff perched on the edge of an expensive couch in a formal parlour trying to grip a tiny fragile teacup in one sausage-fingered mitt.
"Exactly," concurred Missouri. "An hour later the sheriff slunk out like a mangy polecat with his tail firmly between his legs."
"Sounds like one hell of woman," Dean praised.
"She was. She told Spartacus that to up sticks and leave for England would make everyone think that they had succeeded in causing them to run away, and Alma wouldn't have it. "'Not one grain of satisfaction shall I give them, Spartacus, and that is final.'" And it was. Alma wouldn't be budged." Missouri said. "Do you know, Winston told how one day when he was young she dressed in her best church silk suit and went into town, and she just stood outside the general store, like a statue? Five minutes, ten, twenty, while all these white folks walked past her inside the store. Finally one local man couldn't take it anymore and went over and asked her what she was doing. She said she was waiting. He asked what for and she replied, "'A gentleman, who always holds the door for a lady. It appears this town is particularly lacking in them, however.'" He was so flustered he held the door open for her and she stepped through. And she did it on the way out. Standing inside the store until someone held the door open for her. But she'd made her point and oh, how they writhed. She used to look at people down her nose and raise her eyebrows and talk in that English accent that sounds as if you've got a mouthful of plums. She enunciated every syllable and rolled her vowels like she was caressing them."
"How was Spartacus killed?" Dean put in as he saw the moisture in Missouri's eyes and the way she was blinking rapidly as she reminisced; it was clear she had had great affection for her long-dead mother-in-law. "It wasn't an accident?" He knew both he and Sam were thinking of one thing: Cassie Robinson's father, and Cyrus Dorian's murderous rampage.
"A hit and run." Missouri bit out the words like they were sour lemons. "Spartacus was immensely learned, but also very worldly wise. He knew how white men tended to look at pretty black girls, and how white men viewed young black men taller, handsomer, brighter than they. So his school was slightly different. The children went there as kindergarteners but by the time they left they were giants. He taught them everything he knew – but what they learned by rote was the American constitution and criminal law. His PT lessons were the martial arts and self-defence and hand-to-hand combat techniques he'd learned in the Army. He was directly by his teachings and indirectly by what his pupils in turn taught their children, responsible for preventing nearly two dozen rapes and almost as many lynching attempts. He also prevented over thirty 'show' trials intending to incarcerate black youths because the young men in question represented themselves and tied the prosecution and judge and juries in knots."
"Most history books just write that the Civil Rights Movement started in the Sixties," Shay put in at that point, "but I don't believe that. The seedling may have broke through the surface then, but I think that black equality was started with the black and American Indian GIs who came back from Britain and Europe after World War II, who had spent several years in places where black people had voting rights and were able to go about freely and where a black man didn't risk being summarily shot on the spot for just looking at a woman who was white. They knew things could be different, and they didn't keep quiet about it."
"Eventually Spartacus was fired from being a schoolteacher, so he just switched to being a Sunday school teacher – which was voluntary and unpaid." Missouri put in. "He just carried on as normal. The kids loved him, parents loved him. When Martin Luther King and Malcolm X got started and Cassius Clay converted to Islam as Mohammed Ali along with Cat Stevens as Yusuf Islam, people saw that Spartacus had been leading by example. That made some racists so angry and afraid that they tried to put the genie back in the bottle. One afternoon Spartacus never came home from Sunday school and they found his body at the side of the road – he'd been hit from behind by a car."
"Mercifully he was killed instantly on impact," Shay's eyes flashed with fury, "he never knew what hit him, because the scum who did it then drove over his body to make sure he was dead."
"The killer was never caught." Sam made it a statement.
"It was a Sunday afternoon in rural Kansas. There was nobody around for miles at the time, though when Winston checked he found broken bushes and cigarette butts about a hundred yards back – the killer sat in his car and waited for Spartacus to walk past but as long as the car's engine was off Spartacus wouldn't have heard or seen anything. Winston told me his father had also been going deaf at that point, damage from shelling during the war," Missouri told them. "According to Alma, Spartacus didn't want to admit it, so any conversation he had with anyone could be heard two streets away like bull moose bellowing at each other across tundra. He would never have heard the car coming behind him."
"I know I never knew my dad's papa, but it makes me so angry - the very next year, man walked on the moon, and segregation was ended in America." Shay pointed out, "Everything my grandfather had been working towards and one evil bigot robbed of the opportunity to see that."
Continued in Chapter 12…
© 2007, Catherine D. Stewart
NB:
1a Spartacus was a Greek-born slave-gladiator trained in the Thracian school of gladiatorship. He and about 70 others revolted against the Romans in 72 B.C. (72 years before the birth of Christ). An intelligent, cultured strategist, Spartacus won several repeated victories against not just overconfident, poorly prepared Roman troops but well-organised legions. Eventually his army increased to about 5,000 plus 10,000 women, children and elderly followers. He came within a hair's breadth of escaping Rome into Gaul but was persuaded against his better judgement to turn back south. He was killed in battle against 8 Roman legions though his body was never found. The commander of the legions, Marcus Licinius Crassus viciously ordered the infamous impalement of 6,000 Spartan enemy soldiers after the battle despite discovering over 3,000 unharmed Roman prisoners of war Spartacus had spared, but Roman General Pompey managed to claim credit for ending the war and Crassus got his just desserts by being robbed of the "credit" for his crime. Most people today remember the glamorised Stanley Kubrick film of 1960, starring Kirk Douglas as Spartacus and co-starring Laurence Olivier, Tony Curtis, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov and Jean Simmons. The film is notorious for the (usually edited out) homoerotic bathing scene between Tony Curtis and Laurence Olivier.
1b Joseph was one of 2 sons born to the Jewess Rachel and her husband, the Hebrew Patriarch Jacob (also known as Israel) whose 12 sons founded what is now the modern nation of Jews. Jacob and his elder twin Esau were born in 1858 B.C. the only 2 children of Isaac (1918-1738 BC) & Rebekah after 20 years of marriage. Isaac was the son of the Patriarch Abraham (2018-1843 BC) and his sister/wife Sarah (2008-1881 BC). Possibly fertility problems were hereditary in the family. Isaac had been Sarah's only child after many decades of infertility. Rebekah her daughter-in-law was also her great-niece through her much older half-brother Nahor. Rebekah's daughter-in-law Rachel was also her niece through her brother, Laban. Jacob married his maternal cousins Leah and her sister Rachel in 1773 B.C. He also took 2 concubines, Bilhah and Zilpah a few years later. Jacob had at least 20 children, but his favourite wife, Rachel, had great fertility problems and produced only 2 children, both boys, 12 years apart – Joseph in 1767 BC, and Benjamin, who killed her in childbirth, in 1757 BC. Joseph featured his mother and was Jacob's favourite son, (hence the famous coat of many colours), but roused great jealousy amongst Jacob's other children due to this unwise favouritism. Eventually his half-brothers sold him into slavery at 17 in 1750 BC and he was sent to Egypt, but in 1737 BC he was elevated to Grand Vizier of Egypt under the Pharaoh, after warning the monarch that a severe famine was going to strike the country. He eventually encountered his brothers again around 1721 BC and determined they had repented of their actions. He obtained permission for his family to move to Egypt, and they settled in the Nile Delta. Joseph died in 1657 BC as Egypt's Grand Vizier, second only in power to the Pharaoh himself.
According to "traditional" chronology, the Pharaoh in 1750 BC was either Sebekhotep III of the 13th (Theban) Dynasty or Nehasi of the 14th (Xoite), and the Pharaoh in 1657 BC was either Sekhaenre Shalik of the 15th (Hyksos) Dynasty or Sebekemsaf I of the 17th (Theban Dynasty) or Nubuserre of the 16th (Hyksos) Dynasty. Ancient Egyptian history is notoriously unreliable – pharaohs commonly sought to co-opt credit for achievements of previous rulers or expunge these from history altogether, and grossly exaggerated the period of reigns, etc; sometimes two, three or even more rival "pharaohs" ruled parts of the country from different capitals. E.g, only Nehosi of the 14th Xoite Dynasty is known to Egyptology, but there were 75 other Pharaohs.
2 The Wedge trail-drive crew were Texan cowboys featured in the Western series of author J.T. Edson, particularly his Floating Outfit series. Ironically, Edson was English and viewed horses, 'cowhanding' etc, with about as much enthusiasm as Dean Winchester viewed plane travel. Rumour had it that Edson passed away, but this is actually not the case as of 2007.
3 For the benefit of American readers, King George VI was the son of King George V and Queen Mary. When his father died in 1936, Edward became the next monarch. Although the heir to the throne became King (or Queen) upon the death of their parent, their first year of 'reign' did not begin until their coronation; though King Edward VIII for almost a year, Edward was never crowned (the other two English monarchs who reigned uncrowned were Jane and Edward V). At the time of his father's death he was deeply involved with Wallis Simpson, who was an unacceptable Queen Consort due to being a double-divorceé. George V had been deeply worried about the situation because he himself had not been heir to the throne – his elder brother, Prince Albert, Duke of Clarence & Avondale, would have been King Albert had he not died of syphilis and pneumonia at 28 in 1892 stemming from him being a bisexual alcoholic junkie. In all other respects, Edward VIII was a sound monarch – he had seen military action (winning the Military Cross in 1916) in World War I, and was an intelligent and learned man, but Edward VIII finally abdicated the throne in order to marry Wallis Simpson in December 1936. His sister-in-law, Elizabeth, Duchess of York, never forgave him for this action because she knew the damage the kingship would do to her husband, Prince Albert George, Duke of York. In 1937, the Duke and Duchess of York became King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. Their daughter Elizabeth is now Queen Elizabeth II. Despite being 18 months younger than Edward VIII, George VI died 20 years earlier due to the stress of the kingship. Edward VIII died of throat cancer in 1972, and had never achieved real rapprochement with his family. In the era before World War II, like many celebrities, (including P. G. Wodehouse) he and his wife had met Hitler and Nazi officials, but ever after were hounded and accused of actually being Nazis by various factions, who ridiculously even attempted to blame the disaster of Dunkirk on Wallis Simpson.