Syme sat still in the bottom of the boat, neither moving nor speaking, a very grave look on his face. I wondered briefly if he had a terror of water, though he had the air, I must say, rather of a two-penny prophet, who discovers to his horror that his vision of apocalypse has proved true. A sniff of ‘I told you so’ wrinkled his nose. The river filled the vessel and swelled gradually above his head.
He is a big-boned man and sank easily, with folded arms – the river swallowed him in a little gasp of bubbles. Tom lay panting and laughing in the earthy grass at the riverside – the laughter subsiding to pants, the pants giving way to caught breath. We peered into the thick green water and saw nothing, waited in growing apprehension, white with a fear that justified itself by its own increase. Tom perched at the edge, prepared to dive. ‘Damn him,’ Tom said, and then again, ‘damn him.’ Peace returned to the slow stream. A century of obscurity seemed to flow over Sam’s head, a green reflection of the branched sky above. Nothing. And then again, ‘Damn him.’
Why does he not dive, I thought, myself frozen to the bank – why does he not leap in? Perhaps because there was nothing but impenetrable quiet to explore, a smug green passage of water that dared us to dispute its innocence. Perhaps because the act of rescue itself proves the moment’s desperation. Why did I not stir from the spot, where my elbows made a wet scrape in the steep verge? Surely, it was Tom’s place at his side, I thought – as if I had not yet earned the right to protect him! How a thought swells the space of a second, and expands it, across ages, it seems; till time itself loses its elastic virtue and begins to droop, fail. Tom did not jump. I did not jump. We both – looked on – at nothing.
A minute later – I suppose, it seemed like hours, days, years – a grey shape loomed like a fish and then like a shadow that deepened our reflections rising against us in the water; a curious phenomenon, as if he emerged from our own fearful images, staring back at us – and Syme broke the water and clawed at the bank.
‘Damn you,’ Tom cried again.
‘I strode it underwater,’ Sam boasted between thick pants. ‘A difficult business, I tell ye.’ He heaved himself out, leaving deep hand prints in the earth, and wiped his paws on his white trousers. ‘A lesson, I believe – that the easiest gait – retards us – on certain roads.’
‘You are a rare fool,’ Tom said, as his fear ebbed into bubbling exasperation, ‘and make a great fuss to discover what a child knows full well’
But Sam hardly listened and lay on his back in the mud, his broad ribs heaving at the good fat air they gulped again. And Tom, having partly recovered his humour – no great trick, given the sight of us – lay down at Sam’s side, where the pair of them dried slowly in the fumy sun. (I dared not join them, but crouched, holding my cold feet in dirty hands, at the river’s edge.) For an afternoon at least that swift dousing in wet luck lifted our spirits and the three of us talked in better fellowship afterwards. (Tom and I were bound now, lightly, by a guilty secret – that we were content in the end to look on together while Sam … well, we shall mark the progress of his burrowing. Yet the incident proved a too faithful emblem of what was to come, if indeed I have read it right.)
The sweet day gave way to a sullen night. Syme sat at the table writing. I lay on the ottoman reading Waverley, and bored at length with the hero’s iressolution, rose to give Syme some companionship in his solitary labour and stood over his shoulder. Certain figures he had consulted me upon lay scattered over the rough table, lying across a well-thumbed map of the globe.
‘Phidy,’ he said in a still small voice, sensing the weight and heat of my presence at his shoulder. I placed my palm in the softness of his hair. He sat staring at the map, spread beneath his hands. ‘Have a look at this.’ And he traced his fingers along the edge of Africa, lovingly bending with the curve. ‘Does nothing strike you?’
‘Of course,’ I answered. ‘An old … coincidence, I suppose, is the best word,’ as I touched my own thumb lightly along the pregnant swell of Brazil. ‘The Americas and Africa might once almost have been lovers, along the lines of Aristophanes’ account, of a split self, searching for its dislocated half.’
‘Suppose the shell had cracked …’ he said, in a voice as quiet as blown dandelions.
‘Yes,’ I prompted …
‘Lay floating,’ he said, trailing off into the mists of a speculation. Then Tom asked, looking up, ‘Have you prepared the acid of sulphur for the volcano – for tomorrow’s lecture?’
Sam remained silent, the butt of his palm banging against his stubborn chin, as if to dislodge an Idea.
‘Go on,’ I said.
The banging stopped. ‘Suppose a great eclipse – along the lines we’ve discussed – had at some point – inconceivably distant – only suppose …’ And resumed.
‘Have you prepared the acid of sulphur for the volcano,’ Tom repeated, ‘for tomorrow’s lecture?’
‘Hush, Tom,’ I whispered, mostly to myself. Perhaps he envied my place at Sam’s shoulder; but, to do Tom justice, Sam could be most wonderfully slack in his own cause, forgetful of anything that did not serve his present thought, never mind his future honour. While Tom himself laboured in a swarm of minor perplexities, just such niggling considerations – as time and place, engagements, equipment, lodgings, etc. – as Sam delighted to neglect.
‘Just so,’ Sam said. ‘Now, Phidy, give heed. Consider the eclipse – overlapping cracks in the concentric spheres, etc.’ He took my hand in his and squeezed it, once, as if to relieve the pressure of his thought. ‘But suppose now that currents in the fluvia itself – occasioned by these flaws – produced a friction – that in turn …’ He released it again – I touched the palm, involuntarily, with the tip of my finger – and the banging resumed.
‘I am not in the habit’, Tom said, in a passion at the edge of tears, ‘of being ignored, for this,’ he added, sniffing and squinting at me. Then louder: ‘Have you prepared the acid of sulphur for tomorrow’s lecture?’
There was to be no more speculation that evening.
‘No,’ Syme said at last, and Tom rose to his feet.
‘What are you about?’ he asked in a tight voice. Another storm was brewing, not to be put off by Syme’s silence. ‘Turn to me when I speak to you. What are you about?’
‘I need not account – for my every thought, my dear Tom,’ Sam answered in a light tone, too weak for its purpose. Then he added more heavily, ‘You are here on sufferance only – all of you – on sufferance only.’
‘Turn to me when I speak to you!’ Tom said again, in a voice I had never heard. Syme turned, somewhat cowed. ‘These are only some calculations – Phidy and I sketched between us – concerning an eclipse,’ he answered more gently. ‘It occurred to me – we could apply a similar logic – to the outer sphere itself, which might explain …’
Tom was strangely agitated. ‘What right have you to speak to me of sufferance, knowing as you do the daily sacrifices – daily – I make for you in my absence, and all that absence necessitates, from my home?’
‘Hush,’ I urged again, more boldly now; and I ventured a word between them for the first time. ‘I have never heard you speak this way. Do not speak this way to him. Not now, Tom.’
He never so much as glanced at me. Sam turned and said, ‘Sit down, Phidy. This does not concern you.’ And I sat down.
Tom swayed somewhat on his feet, and his voice had a thin rasp in it, like the rattle of a cracked coin. The first cloud of a fever flew over his head. He continued in a very bitter spirit that overleapt its cause, pricked by some fear I could not see. ‘If it pleases you to plot palaces and kingdoms with this weak-kneed calf of a German schoolboy, do not expect my patience. I have come for your triumph, which you seem so willing to exchange for the easy admiration of children and the dying lust of a sailor’s widow. You have a speech to make tomorrow afternoon, a speech attended (through my exertions) by a man named Ezekiel Harcourt, who is in the way of doing you a power of good. If you intend to read
a list of numbers at this gathering, you may continue. If not, TURN TO THE WORK AT HAND.’
Syme did turn, but not towards his desk. ‘If you wish to speak – of the easy admiration of schoolboys – how would you call the calf love of a gullible young journalist – whom I took on at his own request – out of my forbearance?’
‘Your salvation. Now turn to the work at hand.’
‘No,’ Sam said, instantly childish, and flung himself on the ottoman in a heap.
Tom strode towards his bedchamber, and I shuffled aside to let him pass. His coldness stung me deeply (‘this’, he called me, wrinkling his nose) and I blushed at the recollection, but the rush of blood brought with it a secret joy.
At dawn, in a chill fever, Tom pasted pamphlets advertising Sam’s presence around the town, on lamp-posts and public trees. Few were out to see them. Those who were saw the ink smeared in the heavy air and a flaccid sheet of grey paper announcing:
The town hall, a cavern of a place, was filled with chairs from the local school, at Tom’s arrangement. Naturally, given the subject of Syme’s discourse, we could rarely avail ourselves of the church for a platform; but the church came to us, as was not infrequently the case. They formed a solitary battalion. No one else challenged to meet them, except a spreading widow who thought Doomsday was to be preached and a tottering old man with a sparse beard, like grey sticks of straw, and afoul breath, who came for the relative coolness of the great hall and the promise of refreshments.
The local chapter of the Oceanic Society provided red punch on the neighbouring tables. Its chairman, Mr Cooling (the famous nephew), met us in great apology. ‘It is too bad. I know it, I feel it strongly, sir, but the truth of the matter is that old Mrs Cumberland cannot venture out in the heat (her doctor wouldn’t hear of it), can indeed scarcely lift her feet from basins of water without someone upbraids her, at her age and girth. And she is by way of being the leading light of our little organization. I am, as it were, a lieutenant-commander, on board a vessel where the admiral presides. I have preached and begged, sir – yes sir! – to little effect, for we are no better than schoolchildren when the master is away. And as I said, sir, poor Mrs Cumberland; and to do my poor flock (yes, that’s what I call them, between ourselves, sir, and Mrs Cumberland) justice it is a whacking great heat to be going on with. I can scarcely stand myself. Yes, I will take an early dip in the punch if it’s all the same. We might as well ladle it out now to keep the congregation happy. It is a great shame, sir, but as you can see we should have a very warm, warm response, ha!, from the Reverend Mr Kirkland’s flock. A great shame.’ There were nine of us in all.
Mr Cooling bent a long leg and rose to the dusty platform, walked over to the pulpit and began banging it. ‘Order, order, the two hundred and sixteenth meeting of the Middletown Chapter of the Oceanic Society is called to order, order.’ The fat lady sat up very straight at that, but the Reverend’s congregation barely stirred, leaned like horses towards the table of punch. No one had been talking. Tom glanced slyly at me, from his chair on the corner of the platform, and winked. (An apology?) I sat alone in a row of otherwise empty chairs.
There was no order or disorder to be called. We were all too hot for either. Even Mr Cooling was too hot. His notes stuck under his damp thumbs and his jumbled words fell in the heavy air almost before they reached us, like dropped sheets of paper:’… rose to the rank of lieutenant in the 53rd, before being called to God’s greater army … among the scientists battling … if I might have a drink … having found the trapdoor into this little planet of ours … Mr Mooler, if it wouldn’t trouble you … now proposes, in short … yes, NOW, Mr Mooler, if you please … from a dizzying height of intellect, perhaps I should say depth [chuckling], perhaps I should say depth indeed … thank you very much, it is a trifle hot … proposes to open that door … yes, if you would be so kind … MOOLER.’
Here he peers at a note from Tom. ‘Oh, I see, open that trapdoor and descend like a thief into the, yes, into the heat of Nature. Into the heart. Order Mr Syme a warm round. Samuel Syme.’ And he went to the edge of the platform and lowered a stiff leg and sat down beside me, whispering, ‘Most kind.’
Syme rose from his seat beside Tom and walked to the pulpit. He drew inward at such shrunken occasions as these. Then he appeared to me in his plainest dress, in the open, unmarked by grandness or falseness or failure. Nothing remained but the scars of thought in his features, the dignity of his figure, and the disappointment in his address. He was heavy-hearted; still heavy with last night’s anger, though a forgotten weight; heavier still with the heat and the meagre crowd and the hopelessness of it all. But he was a brave man. Perhaps more than anything else, he was a brave man. For once he rose not to but above the occasion. ‘Ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure to see such a fine representation of the Middletown elite here today – despite the heat – particularly Reverend Kirkland himself – another expert, I believe – in internal fires.’ He always began a lecture to a small audience with a dig at the Church, to agitate interest among them. ‘To you,’ he continued, in a phrase I had heard a dozen times before, ‘I have a most particular proposition.’
It was slow work and he worked on. The sweating widow soon recognized her error, that no damnation was to come, though Sam preached underground flames in abundance. She rose abruptly and left; returned a minute later and ladled a dose of punch into one of the glasses, drank it noisily, set it down noisily, and said noisily, ‘I’m sorry to interrupt,’ before departing once more. ‘Hell-fire; indeed they’ll see Hell-fire,’ Tom says he heard her mutter.
Syme soldiered on. ‘Between the second and the third spheres – no, that is to say (yes, you’re quite right, Tom), I was about to mislead you, gentlemen – between the fifth and the sixth spheres – that must have puzzled you for a moment …’ I ceased to hear him as I shifted to one side, stretched my tired legs and gazed out of the heavy windows into the white summer air. I heard silence surround us like sea-noise, larger than any stir we could muster.
Syme buzzed on. ‘Volcanic eruptions – once ascribed to the anger of gods – must now be seen in their true light – free of their hideous mythological drapings – like nothing so much as the costumes of an amateur theatrical society. They must now be seen as the product of gases – released when – in inverted eclipse – two vacuii of the outer crowns overlap. What is at stake, gentlemen? Why have I troubled you on this heavy afternoon – a fly in your midst – buzzing, settling and unsettling, buzzing, ever disturbing? Why can’t I rest? Why have I kept you from the cool waters waiting on the table – so generously provided by Mr Cooling – that on a day like this must have drawn more of your glances – and more of mine, I’m afraid …’
Here a small boy slithered from his father’s lap and dipped a quick cup into the silver bowl, while his father hissed, ‘Henry!’ only to take a long draught when the boy returned to him, carefully balancing the heavy drink. ‘He said there was going to be volcanoes,’ the boy announced, to no one in particular, in obscure apology.
Syme had lost his place on the page. ‘An omission – my dear boy – entirely of my own neglect, I’m afraid. But to proceed – I will not detain you much longer – indeed, I have said more than I had come to say. My passion carries me with it.’ Never to me did a man’s passion seem capable of so little weight, and he smiled wearily as he said it. ‘The objection to my theories – theories that, if we are to believe them, earnestly, with more than a mere religious faith, would shake the very ground we stand on to its core – the objection that I have heard more than any other is not scientific – as indeed it could not be, since the theories themselves bear no scientific refutation – but psychological, or moral, if you prefer such a term.’ He had lost us all by now, though he rose to what followed, and I thought he could never lose me again.
‘Churchmen, widows, children, sailors, newspapermen, professors, schoolteachers, wives – all reproach me with one thing. “From what arrogance do you speak?” they
ask. “From what high arrogance do you preach – against the thousand-year-old traditions of your people – your universities – and your God? Have you alone seen the truth – where so many great men have been blind?” And I answer them: “From the courage of my two eyes – my thoughts – and the hands He has given me for digging.” I ask instead, “With what arrogance dare I refuse? With what arrogance dare I deny the only gifts I am certain of – the gifts of our great God – contenting me with another man’s answers – as I rely on the cook to buy the butter or dress a roast?”’
(I should say now that we have never had a cook; have never known a cook; and that Sam for one has never bought the butter, nor dressed a roast. I was charmed, however, at the thought of it.)
‘These are not household duties,’ he continued, ‘accomplished smoothly and cheaply at their best. Our birth is awkward – our lives short – our death unpleasant, too often desired. If in the meantime I look around – let me not belong to those wealthy men who pay their servants to attend to the tasks they should perform themselves. Let me belong to the servants, if you grant me leave to go over even old ground with afresh hand, a clear head, and a curious heart. I have done so – and this is what I have found.’
A muffled applause, as ten men, myself among them, smote perspiring red hands, swollen with blood in the heat, and shuffled immediately after to the punch table and began drinking silently.
Syme limped to where Tom was sitting and sat down beside him. Tom put an arm around Syme’s neck, briefly. He was well pleased, for he had seen towards the end of Syme’s peroration a tall, complacent man enter the back of the large hall to listen silently, slinking out when the punchbowl was invaded. His name was Ezekiel Harcourt, and he became an important figure in our lives over the next year. But Syme had no hope of the good things to come. Nor did I after such a discouraging day. He turned to Tom only briefly in his great fatigue. Their anger had not yet dried – how could it in the soaking air? – and he soon rose to his feet, stepped slowly down the platform stairs and walked out between the rows of chairs, a solitary, disappointed, but most of all bone-weary figure, turning to his temporary bed. Mr Cooling did not see him go.
The Syme Papers Page 41
