Watch that Ends the Night

by Hugh Maclennan

  It must have been half an hour before anyone noticed the dirty-faced boy huddled in the corner. An old sweeper came slowly up the floor pushing his wide broom ahead of him, and whenever he had a big enough pile of peanut shells and candy papers and orange peels he bent down and swept the debris into a wide dustpan which he then emptied into a tin pail. When he reached Jerome’s corner he stopped and looked at the boy and Jerome hung his head. Then the sweeper passed and the thought came to the boy that this old man was as lonely and wretched as himself.

  “Hullo,” he said to the old man.

  But the old man did not turn around, and after a while he finished his job and went off with his pail and pan and broom and disappeared.

  Now the station was settling down for the night. The coffee stall went dark, some of the overhead lights went out and a stout woman appeared from behind the coffee stall, walked briskly across the floor and out of the station. There were two lighted windows at the far end and Jerome could see the eyeshade of a man sitting behind one of them and was afraid the man would see him.

  From watching the people he had guessed where the men’s room was, so now he went into it and let out a deep breath when he found himself alone. There were half a dozen wash basins instead of the single one he had used in the little station up the line and most of them were fairly clean. He ran water and cleansed his hands and once the dirt was off they did not look so bad: they were pitted with tiny red specks but they did not bleed. He used one of the toilets, washed his hands again and made his hair as tidy as possible by using his fingers as combs, then he left the men’s room and wandered about the station alone. He stared through the windows of the doors at the lights of the town and they seemed marvellous to him, the shabby buildings splendid as palaces, the street lights amazing as they shone over the empty sidewalks and against the fronts of locked stores. Soon he felt tired and returned to his corner where he sat with his back against the wall and his feet stretched out along the bench.

  It was then that the wretchedness of his life finally overwhelmed him. He longed for the camp and the dog beside the stove and the warmth of his mother’s body as he lay beside her in the bed. He whispered the word “Mama” over and over like a litany and his eyes were hot with tears as he sat in that dark lysol-and-cuspidor-smelling waiting room not knowing anyone, or where he was, or what would happen to him, or anything at all. His final night on the river had gone away like a ghost and with it the exhilaration of his escape. “Mama, come back!” he whimpered. And then he screamed as loudly as he could, “Mama, Mama, Mama come back!” There was no answer and not even the man in the ticket office moved. At last the boy’s exhaustion was merciful to him and he fell into such a deep sleep that he was unconscious of any of the trains that passed in the night.

  When Jerome awoke it was bright day and the station hummed with movement and a man and a woman were looking down at him. The man smiled and Jerome, rubbing his eyes as he came out of sleep, smiled back. He was a thin little man with the kindliest, funniest face Jerome had ever seen, with crowsfeet smiling out from the corners of his blue eyes and a gray goat’s tuft on a pointed chin. His suit was of pale gray serge, his waistcoat a shiny black bib and his collar white, round and without a tie. On his head was a soft black hat and his long hands were thin, graceful and astonishingly white and clean. Beside him was a woman as short as himself, but plump, with wide apple cheeks, a smiling mouth, hair flecked with gray and a straw hat square on the top of her head.

  “Now then, little man, and what may your name be?”

  The man said this so pleasantly, the pompousness of his words sounding so fresh because Jerome had never been spoken to in such tones, that he lost all his fear and smiled back.

  “Jerome,” he said.

  “Are you all by yourself, Jerome?” asked the woman.

  “Yes.”

  “No mother or anything like that?” asked the man. “No father? No uncle? No brothers or sisters? Nobody at all?”

  “My Mama’s dead.”

  “So is mine,” said the man. “Ah well!”

  The kindly wrinkles about the clergyman’s eyes never altered, but when he glanced at his wife he ceased smiling and Jerome knew with a child’s intuition that this strange little person might be willing to help him. Even more certain was he that this funny little woman would be his friend. Her lips were so warm looking and soft, when she smiled she was like a gentle bird, and that hat of hers …

  “You’ve got a dishpan on your head,” the boy said suddenly.

  “By Jove, but so she has!” said the man. “Jo, this is a clever boy.”

  “You must be hungry if you’re all alone,” she said. “How would you like something to eat? How would you like a nice cup of tea?”

  “Cocoa, my dear,” the man said. “There’s so much more food in cocoa.”

  “What would you like, Jerome – cocoa or tea?”

  He was afraid of offending one or the other, but the word “cocoa” sounded so nice he said he would like it.

  “Then cocoa you shall have,” the woman said, and her husband went up and crossed to the coffee stall to get it.

  It was then that the gentle care in her voice reached down inside of him, touched the hard knot and dissolved it, and in a passion of sobbing he scrambled off the bench and buried his face against her shoulder. He threw his arms around her small, plump body and she smelled clean and fresh to him, and all the while he hid his face against her he felt her short little fingers stroking his hair and heard her voice soothing him. At last she forced him gently back and when he looked up she was bending down – she was so small she did not have far to bend – and the brim of her straw hat scratched his forehead as she dabbed his eyes with her handkerchief. She took a comb from her bag and brushed his hair, and then she stood back, smiled and said, “There now!”

  The tears had ceased, leaving Jerome hungry. He scrambled back onto the bench and smiled at her. He looked around for her husband but all he could see was his narrow back at the coffee stall.

  “My husband has gone to get food for us. We’re hungry ourselves, you know. We’ve been up half the night in a train. I do so dislike railway stations. They’re so dirty and noisy. You poor little boy – are you lost?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you live here in Moncton?”

  He shook his head and looked across to the coffee stall where the clergyman was gesticulating to a big woman behind the counter. His goat’s tuft was waggling and Jerome, thinking he was quarreling with the woman, was afraid he might get hurt, for he remembered what happened to the men who had quarreled with his mother.

  “What’s your other name, Jerome?” the clergyman’s wife asked him.

  His face remained blank and she added: “All little boys have more names than one, don’t they? Don’t you have more names than just Jerome? Tell me.”

  “My name’s Jerome.”

  “Dear me!” said the woman.

  Now the little clergyman approached with a tray in his hands and a pleased look on his thin white face. He set the tray down on the bench, rubbed his hands and smiled at his wife.

  “Jo, you should be proud of me. You’ve always told me that women take advantage of me, but this morning I have outfaced a battle-axe and come off victorious. That female standing in receipt of custom for food which is both flyblown and over-priced denied me a tray. But I insisted. I even pointed to a tray in her lair, and after a time she yielded, and here it is, so we all shall breakfast together. What’s this little man’s name?”

  “He says it’s Jerome,” said the man’s wife.

  The clergyman beamed at Jerome. Then he removed his hat and became solemn.

  “Now my boy, close your eyes while I say grace. Come now, close them tight. It won’t take long.”

  Jerome did not understand why he should close his eyes, but he closed them and at once the clergyman began to pray.

  “Most merciful God, we thank Thee for this food, such as it is. Most
humbly do we beseech Thee to bless it to our use and us to Thy service. We pray Thee also to guard us against the seeds of indigestion we suspect lurk within it. And especially do we pray that we may be guided to help this lost child, who from his appearance and general plight seems to have been conceived in sin somewhat grosser than most, and we ask Thee also to tell us what to do with him, Amen. Now Jerome, open your eyes and eat.”

  The boy instantly closed his eyes lest the clergyman should see that he had opened them too soon, then he opened them again and took the heavy mug of cocoa and drank half of it down.

  “Giles,” said the woman mildly, “when you said grace, you didn’t have to put all that in about Jerome.”

  “More cocoa, Jerome?” said the clergyman.

  The sweet warmth of cocoa and the filling solidity of ham and buttered bread began to make strength in Jerome. He ached all over from his efforts of the day before and the night on the river, his hands were painful and the splinter in his knee had begun to fester, but now he could smile because he was with friends. The clergyman ate and talked simultaneously, now praising the ham, now blaming the poor quality of the bread, and when the food was consumed, he wiped his hands on a white handkerchief, crossed his short, thin legs, put his fingertips together and cleared his throat.

  “Jerome, we shall now introduce ourselves. Our name is Martell – M-A-R-T-E-double-L, Martell. I’m Giles Martell and this woman is my wife whom I call Jo. Do you know what a clergyman is, Jerome?”

  The boy shook his head.

  “I rather suspected that might be the case,” said the clergyman. “Well, I am one of the species. It is a most unpopular calling and its chief disadvantages lies in the fact that one’s parishioners have such a poor view of their Master’s intelligence that they deny in their minds that he was in earnest when he performed the miracle at Cana.”

  “Giles!” said his wife.

  “Now Jerome, if we are to help you we must know more about you. Your first name you have told us, but not your second. Don’t you have a second name?”

  “My name is Jerome,” the boy said.

  “I have heard of such cases in London,” said the clergyman to his wife. He pressed his fingertips so hard that the lean fingers bent, and again he looked at the boy. “You must know where you come from, Jerome. Tell us where you come from.”

  “The camp.”

  “Ah, the camp! Now where might this camp be?”

  Jerome stared and said nothing.

  “Was it a lumber camp, by any chance?”

  Jerome nodded.

  “Now how did you get to Moncton?”

  Again the boy stared.

  “This place here” – the clergyman waved his arm round about him – “is Moncton. We must not be harsh in our judgments, so we will let it go at that – the place is called Moncton. But how did you get here?”

  “I jumped a freight.”

  “You what a freight?”

  “Giles,” said the woman, “please! You know perfectly well what Jerome means.”

  “You did this thing alone? Not with your father or mother?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Well, to be sure you must have come a long way.” Looking into the boy’s eyes, one hand stroking his goat’s beard, the little man said gently: “Tell us all about it.”

  “I was scared.” Suddenly Jerome burst into tears and began talking wildly. “He was going to kill me so I ran away from him in my canoe.”

  “Who was going to kill you?”

  “He killed my Mama.”

  The two older people stared at each other and Jerome felt the woman’s arm come about his shoulder and press him against herself.

  “There now!” she murmured. “There now! There now!”

  “He was the Engineer and I saw him.”

  At that moment a short, stout figure in a blue suit with a blue cap encircled with silver braid entered from the platform, cupped his hands about his mouth and brayed that the train for Halifax was ready and would depart in ten minutes. The clergyman groaned and got to his feet.

  “It’s the way of the world,” he said, “that when nothing important is happening there is all the time possible for it to happen in, while if anything important is afoot there is none. Here we are with this –”

  “Go see to our bags, Giles,” the woman said, “while I stay and talk to Jerome.”

  The clergyman crossed the floor to the baggage room, and when he was gone, Jerome understood something in the way children do: of these two people the woman was the stronger. This seemed natural enough because in the camp his mother had been the queen, yet this woman was utterly different from his mother. She was soft, warm and gentle and still she was strong.

  “Jerome dear,” she said quietly, “we haven’t much time. Mr. Martell and I must take that train for Halifax and it leaves in a few minutes. The thing you just told us is so terrible we must be very sure you are telling the truth. So now you must look into my eyes, Jerome, and tell it to me all over again.”

  He did so and saw the woman’s gray eyes kind and earnest.

  “You must tell me how this awful thing happened. Or” – she smiled – “if it didn’t happen, then you must also tell me that.”

  Jerome was terrified that she would be displeased and leave him. He felt he would have to make her believe he was telling the truth.

  “He was screwing my mother and she said he was no good, so he got mad and he hit her and he killed her and there was blood.”

  A blush struck the woman’s face like a blow and Jerome saw her mouth drop open and his terror grew, for now he had certainly displeased her and now she would certainly leave him.

  “He was screwing her,” he repeated desperately, “and then he hit her and he killed her.”

  The woman’s hand came over his mouth and closed it. “Child, do you know what you’re saying?”

  He nodded desperately and watched her, seeing the flush change to the color of chalk. Then she took away her hand and surveyed him calmly.

  “What you have just told me is the most terrible thing anyone has ever told me,” she said. “It is so terrible a thing that I know you have spoken the truth, for a little boy like you would never have been able to make up a thing like that.” Tears welled into her eyes. “You poor child! And I suppose there are thousands of other little children just like you in the world!” He looked up at her dumbly.

  “I must ask you a few more questions, Jerome, just to make sure. What about the other men in the camp? Where were they when this awful thing happened?”

  “Asleep.”

  “I see.” And quietly: “Was this man your father, Jerome?”

  He shook his head. “I got no father.”

  The little clergyman was returning, his narrow shoulders bowed under the weight of the two bags he carried. As he deposited them the stout man in the blue uniform came inside and again cupped his hands about his mouth.

  “Alla-booooard for Sackville, Amherst, Truro, New Glasgow, Sydney and Halifax! Alla-bo-o-oard!”

  People began moving toward the doors. A man and a woman embraced and exchanged a quick kiss. Children toddled doorwards holding the hands of their parents and Mrs. Martell rose from the bench and smoothed down her skirt.

  “Jerome has been telling me what happened,” she whispered to her husband. “We mustn’t ask him any more questions now.”

  The clergyman looked at his wife, then over his shoulder, then at Jerome, and seemed worried about something.

  “The train is leaving,” he said. “I suppose I should speak to the police or the station-master before we go.”

  In terror Jerome scrambled off the bench and clutched the woman’s hand, pressing it against his cheek.

  “Please don’t leave me! Please don’t leave me!”

  The two older people looked at each other again, and the little woman bent down and kissed the child on the forehead.

  “Jerome dear, we will never leave you unless the time comes when you may w
ish to leave us.”

  Then a feeling of joy filled the child so that he could not speak. He took the woman’s hand and went out to the platform with her just like any other child who was getting onto the train with his parents. The conductor took the clergyman’s bags and hoisted them up to the platform of the car and the three of them climbed aboard. The clergyman found two empty seats in the middle of the car, swung one of the backs over to make a space for four and they sat down together, just as other families were sitting in other parts of the car. The train started and pulled out of Moncton, and looking out the window Jerome saw the station and the shunting yards and the lines of box cars slowly disappear, soon they were running smoothly through a green countryside. Jerome stayed awake until after they crossed the isthmus into Nova Scotia, where he saw the prairie-like expanse of the Tantramar Marshes with hawks and gulls flying over it and the sleek, brown mud-banks in the grass where the long tides of the Fundy came up salting the land, but after Amherst he fell asleep for several hours.

  Coming out of sleep somewhere between Truro and Halifax, eyes closed and his mind half dozing, he heard the two older people talking.

  “He has a good face,” the little clergyman was saying. “He’ll be a strong, handsome man. Isn’t it strange? So long as he lives, he’ll probably never know who his real parents were.”

  “One can hope he doesn’t.”

  “Jerome?” the little man said reflectively. “Generally only Roman Catholics are called Jerome. I wonder if there’ll be any difficulty about that? I wonder if some priest will hear his name and decide he was born a Roman Catholic and should be taken away from us? Ah well, one should always remember to stand up to the Romans, whom actually I prefer to so many of – by Jove, that boy is dirty. I think he’s the dirtiest boy I’ve ever seen in my life. I admire your fortitude, Jo. He’s been sleeping on your shoulder for hours and he smells quite fearfully. Even from here I can smell him. I think they can smell him all over the car. Do you think he’s lousy as well?”