Riders in the Chariot (63 page)

"Some people," said Mrs Flack, "do not like to hear the good."

Mrs Jolley stroked the water.

"I was only thinking," said Mrs Jolley.

She was not all that grey.

"I was thinking of his poor mother," she said.

Nor was she reproachful, only sympathetic.

"What was the name," she asked, "of your sister, Mrs Flack, that passed on?"

Mrs Flack grew dreamier.

"Eh?" she said. "My sister. My sister Daisy. Daisy," she said.

"I was thinking," said Mrs Jolley, "it will be lovely for your sister to know as her boy has struck lucky."

Usually when others expressed suitable sentiments, Mrs Flack would be at a loss how to bridge the gap. If she were unable to prevent the moment occurring, she would find herself, as now, squinting down her front into--nothing.

On that most brilliant of mornings Mrs Jolley had elected for darkness. Her friend suspected she might even be concealing some long-range plan for breaking open safes, and thieving old letters and deeds.

So Mrs Flack arranged her spotless front, and waited.

"I bet your hubby, too, was fond of such a sturdy boy. As much an uncle as you an aunt."

"Will?" Mrs Flack answered from very far. "Will died when Blue was still a little kiddy."

Mrs Jolley sucked her gums.

"It was not my intention," she said, "to bring it up. And such a dreadful end."

But Mrs Flack could not in every way agree; death is so practical.

"I will not deny," she said, "that the manner of it was unexpected, Will being so well thought of in the trade, so well remunerated, a first-class tiler. But it is not the manner of it, Mrs Jolley, that matters--whether a man slips off the roof, or snuffs out in 'is own lounge-room, in an easy chair. The end, why, the
end
_ is the same."

Mrs Jolley began to see plainly there might be no escaping from out of that cube of kitchen.

"Well," she cried, "are we a pair of crows!"

"It was not me that chose to enter into morbid speculation," said Mrs Flack, loftier.

Mrs Jolley struck the surface of the water with her hand.

"And on such a day!" she shrieked, looking at the clock. "I bet that nephew of yours will be full as a piss-ant by eleven!"

"Blue is a good boy," claimed Mrs Flack.

"No one ever," conceded Mrs Jolley.

"Blue never got into trouble. Or not much."

"I do not know what I do not know!" Mrs Jolley laughed.

"Blue never killed a soul," said Mrs Flack.

"Who killed who?" asked Mrs Jolley, her neck turning on a steel spring.

"It happens every day. A person has only to read the papers."

"You cannot take the papers for true."

"Only a person can know the truth, and then not always."

There the two ladies were caught up in the morning. Their actions were no longer their own because severed from their bodies by thought and light.

Himmelfarb, who had retired late, rose early on that day. Whatever its conditions were to be, he refused, as always, to allow himself to speculate before he had laid the phylacteries on. Only when he was girt with the Word, and the shawl, covering his shoulders, excluded with its fringes those other desires of heart and eyes, had his own day begun, or was again created, sanctified, and praised. As he stood, reciting the Shema and Benedictions, from behind closed lids, from the innermost part of him, the face began again to appear in the divine likeness, in the clouds of the little mirror, offering itself for an approval that might always remain withheld.

But the Jew prayed: "Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who hast given to the cock intelligence to distinguish between day and night...."

And the light was poured into the four corners of the room, though silently at Sarsaparilla, for man had known better than God or Lévite, and had operated on the cock. But the purest leaf touched the Jew's eyelids; his lids were shaped in gold. His veins were lapis lazuli in a sea of gold, the thongs of the phylacteries were turned to onyx, but the words that fell from his mouth were leaping crystals, each reflecting to infinity the words contained within the words.

The Jew prayed, and the statue which had been broken off the pediment of time, and set down on the edge of the morning, became a man. The rather chapped lips were forming words of their own flesh: "Let us obtain this day and every day, grace, favour, and mercy in thine eyes, and in the eyes of all who behold us, and bestow lovingkindnesses upon us. Blessed art Thou, O Lord..."

And the light which, until now, had been of a mineral order, a matter of crumbling gold, together with the cold slips of elusive feldspar, forming upon the deposits of porphyry and agate with which the solid firmament was streaked, dissolved at last into a sea of moving crimson. The crimson sea lapped at the skin of the man as he stood at prayer, the tips of his ears and the hollows of his temples grew transparent, his cheeks were flushed with crimson, or the intensity of his petition.

The Jew affirmed: "I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah, and, though he tarry, I will wait daily for his coining. For Thy salvation I hope, O Lord! I hope, O Lord, for Thy salvation! O Lord, for Thy salvation I hope!"

And the shawl fell back from his shoulders in the moment of complete union, and the breeze from the window twitched at the corner of his old robe, showing him to be, indeed, a man, made to suffer the torments and indignities. The hair lay in thin, grizzled wisps in the hollow between his breasts; the thongs of veins which bound his scraggy legs, from the ankles to the knees, were most arbitrarily, if not viciously entangled.

When he had finished praying, Himmelfarb looked out of the window of his fragile house. Because he had not slept, each act that he observed was of the most innocent, each line the cleanest, each form the simplest. On a ridge the other side of the street, white hens were already picking amongst the black trunks of the wattles. In the street itself, an old man, after unfolding his newspaper, was preparing to read with unconcern of the worst that could have happened. The stream of milk was transfixed between the milkman's measure and the billy-cans. The Jew stood rubbing the stubble on his cheek. Since all was obviously logical, now he could only be prepared.

And went about getting himself ready. He could not prevent his hands fumbling and trembling at times, not only because he was moved by the purity of certain objects which he had to touch, but because these were attached by strings of memory to incidents experienced. He did, however, attempt to eat. He drank part of a cupful of coffee, which on that morning tasted peculiarly bitter in his mouth. From the wreckage of his Seder table he tasted a little of the bitter parsley. He pulled splinters from each of the identical shankbones. Only after they had been chewed, moistened in humility and longing, did the splinters begin to suggest meat. Then he had to swallow the fragments in great, hot, sounding lumps.

At the usual hour, he packed the
tallith
_ and
tephillin
_ into his small fibre case. Although officially excused by Herr Rosenbaum from appearing during Pesach, he knew, of course, that his attendance was virtually expected. By others. Even, perhaps, by Rosenbaums. Himmelfarb would not allow himself to remember the threatened expression of his employer's eyes, but walked up the hill, in the shadow of the grey paling fences, to catch the bus for Barranugli.

The morning soon turned grey and resistant, movement rubbery, either slack and disinclined, or taut and desperate. At Rosetree's the machines were already limber. As they ran, they sucked and breathed, but grudgingly. Ladies at their trays were mopping themselves with complaints. One was showing how the night had bruised her. All was as usual. Except everybody knew that this morning would be different.

It was, for one thing, the eve of Good Friday, and who was gunna work when Easter had as good as come? Better to close down was the general opinion, and see to it that the meat was got home, and enough booze to last the holidays. But in the absence of common sense and justice, everybody sat and expected. Or toyed slightly with the metal parts which it was the habit of their second natures to put together. Today the hinges were resentful, spikes inclined to pierce the flesh. Moisture gathered in smears on the brilliant plating.

Then it was realized Blue was absent from the plating-shop, and that several of the boys were not showing up, or only by fits and starts, shoving their dials round the door, and going, and coming, always grinning elastically. It was the Lucky Sevens, of course. One or two of the less lucky had been better informed from the beginning. Mr Theobalds was laughing as he played with the hair of his armpits and awaited developments. He appeared to be a man the softer for experience. Soon it had passed along the lines of grannies and sulkier girls that some of the blokes had pulled off the Lottery. Well, good on 'em! But there were some could have cried. And one lady produced from her pocket a whistle of the postman type, which she had found that morning on her bedside table, and blew it until the veins were ugly at her temples, and her lips had turned pale and cracked in spite of the layers of pillar-box red.

It was humid down on the work-floor. Who was gunna work? Though a few inveterates dabbled. It would be possible very soon to detach from the arms, all of a piece, the films of moisture, or long gloves of greasy skin.

Only the Jew remained dry, and unaffected by the outward situation. His hands were tingling but prepared as he sat down at his drill and proceeded to bore the hole, and bore the hole, as would be expected of him, until he was called. In the circumstances, his concentration was distasteful, abominable to many, who could not prevent themselves glancing, however, at the bloody foreign Jew, and especially when he got up and stamped around his drill, to restore circulation, drive out the pins and needles. When he rubbed his hands together, they sounded sandpapery and dry, unlike the soapy streaming skins of people. To some it is always unendurable to watch the antithesis of themselves.

But the Jew returned to his stool, and did try to cause as little pain as possible. Though he nodded once at the blackfellow, in spite of their unexpressed agreement not to recognize each other.

The abo did not recognize now.

Although the latter had evidently been sick, and had lost weight to the extent of looking emaciated, he continued to strip to the waist on account of the excessive humidity. If nobody commented on his appearance, not even those who were most disgusted by the presence of sickness, or blacks--antithesis in its extremest forms--it was because he had become by now the abstraction of a man. The eyes of the talkers lingered only absently on the construction of ribs. These had no connection with the life of brick homes and washing machines which is led by human beings.

At times the abo would shiver, though. Especially when recognized by the Jew. He did not want that. He did not wish to become involved in a situation which he might not have the strength to endure. But which he must learn ultimately to express.

So he shivered, and at one stage the salient ribs appeared to grow convulsed and separate, in spite of their attachment to one another in his sides.

Round about ten, Mr Rosetree himself came out of his office, after first glancing through the hatchway at the workshop, and deciding that a personal appearance was at least theoretically appropriate. Nobody cared, though. So Mr Rosetree strutted worse than ever on the balls of his rather small feet. And addressed one or two of the absent-minded ladies.

Harry Rosetree was very jolly that day, even when the sweat trickled down his delicatessen skin, at the back of his carefully clipped neck. The sweat trickled under the collar. But Mr Rosetree laughed, ever so jolly, and said what a day it was for the factory, for seven mates to pull the lottery off. And just at Easter. Then he looked at the clock. And laughed again, right back to his gold tooth. The radio was straining all the time from the wall, and one day, if not actually that morning, it would tear itself free at the very moment strangulation was promised.

Just then, one of the Lucky Sevens looked in before returning to the pub across the street. The boys were celebrating, he reported, and his smile produced dimples such as are reserved for mention of beer, Old Ireland, or mothers. There had never been another Easter like it. They were pissed as flies.

Mr Rosetree laughed fit to stagger the machines.

But frowned at the Jew Himmelfarb.

The whole human mechanism of the boss was threatened by events that were developing in his own establishment, and for which he must blame somebody. Of course the mates were out of the question; they were sacrosanct. There remained Harry Rosetree himself, or his conscience Haïm ben Ya'akov, or its goad, Himmelfarb. Blood pressure, heat, noise, all contributed to his distress, and confused his attempts to distinguish a cause.

"What for you come when I told you to lay off over Pesach?" Mr Rosetree sputtered.

Himmelfarb replied, "I have never escaped the consequences by avoiding them."

"Eh?" shouted Harry Rosetree.

But by now there was too much noise.

Over and above the repeated statement of Himmelfarb's drill, and general emotional jamboree of machinery, something was happening in the street. There were drums, and cornets, and probably one fife. A sharp stench of animals began to mingle with the blander smell of oil.

In the outer office Miss Whibley, who had been powdering herself all the morning, paused and exclaimed, "Oh, I say, a circus!"

Miss Mudge agreed that it was, and together they flung themselves at the window, with the object, it seemed, of widening the hole, and thus penetrating farther into what they hoped to see.

At the same time, there was such a squealing of stools and thumping of tables in the workshop, as a scaffolding was erected from which to view the spectacle through the rather high-set louvres. Certain gentlemen took advantage of the situation to squeeze close to certain young ladies. Everything so contiguous, the summer blouses grew as unconscious as blancmange. Although the owner of the whistle did not stop blowing.