by George Hagen
As his exposed sleeve became wet, Tom drew his hand back inside the cab and imagined Arthur in his uniform, staggering through the mud somewhere in France.
The clouds passed as the cab approached Hyde Park. He noticed a few street performers trying to draw an audience from the passing crowd. There was a juggler and a weathered old woman offering palm readings. Farther on, two elderly men were drawing a chalk circle on the pavement. The first fellow had an enormous, sphinxlike head with a grave expression, thick lips, and a mane of graying hair that fell to narrow shoulders. His body, enveloped in a tattered brown woolen coat, seemed absurdly small for such a large head. The other fellow was tall, gaunt, with a straight, narrow nose and a darting smile. His hair was silvery white, and one of his legs was a wooden peg.
Tom stopped the cab, paid his fare, and approached the performers.
The two men abruptly donned tin helmets and began to march on the spot like infantrymen. In moments, a large crowd gathered as the two started singing “Pack Up Your Troubles” in wavering baritones.
After the song was finished, the crowd applauded, and the sphinx addressed them. “Ladies and gentlemen, we stand here, proud to remind you of the gallant spirit of our fighting men in France—”
“Belgium!” said the other fellow.
“Greece!” said the sphinx.
“Africa!”
“And other points across the globe.”
“And before we go out, we'd like to sing one more song.”
Tom watched Paddy Pendleton begin singing new lyrics to “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”
When this lousy war is over, no more soldiering for me, When I get my civvy clothes on, oh how happy I shall be. No more church parades on Sunday, no more begging for a pass. You can tell the sergeant major to stick his passes up his—
At this moment, Bedlam broke in with the refrain—
When this lousy war is over, no more soldiering for me, When I get my civvy clothes on, oh how happy I shall be …
Some onlookers laughed, others frowned, but everybody threw money when the old men offered their tin hats.
As the crowd broke up, both men relaxed from their poses to count the change earned from the performance.
Suddenly, Bill Bedlam's eyes strayed to Tom, who was exposed by the thinning crowd. “Good heavens!” he murmured. “Pinch me, Pendleton, I believe I see my son!”
Pendleton answered reproachfully. “I've been pinching you black and blue for a quarter century, Bedlam. For once there is no need. This is most definitely your boy—a man, I should say, salted and peppered with age.”
“Thank heaven!” cried Bedlam, embracing Tom, tears rolling down his face, which he buried in his son's shoulder, making such a spectacle of himself that even Pendleton became disdainful.
“Bill Bedlam,” he remarked, “not content with chewing half of London's scenery, must you now overact your own family reunion?”
The old man released his son and, with much dabbing of eyes, declared: “My boy you must be starving. Where would you care to go for a meal? Name it, and I'll take you immediately!”
“Perhaps you know a place?” Tom replied.
“Of course, of course!” Bedlam cried, adding, “It's a good thing we found each other, or you'd be victim to the worst scoundrels in the city. There are places with fine service but small helpings, and places with large helpings and poor service, but Bill Bedlam knows where generosity and goodwill converge.”
“Yes,” murmured Pendleton. “In his son's purse strings.”
Bedlam shot his companion a reproachful glance. “Don't mind him, Tom,” he said. “His liver's playing up.”
“Better the liver,” retorted Pendleton, sharply, “than the entire man.”
A SMOKY PUBLIC HOUSE lay below the street; it was a busy place, made popular perhaps by the combination of good service and heaped plates. The diners were a boisterous lot with napkins stuffed into their collars. There was a bar dispensing ale in the dark rear of the room. The floor was gritty with salt, sprinkled to prevent the staff from slipping on the greasy boards. The establishment drew most of its light from several windows up by the rafters, which offered a view of the ankles and shins of passing Londoners. When a brief shaft of sunlight struck the glasses, tableware, and cutlery, Tom was inspired to wipe the grease from his glass and give his knife and fork a careful polish with his handkerchief.
“Three girls and a boy? How lucky you are,” Bedlam sighed as Tom explained the past twenty-odd years as best he could. “And may your wife rest in peace, poor dear,” he continued. “I'd have sent a wedding present if I'd known of the wedding, and my condolences if I'd known of her demise.”
Pendleton twisted his neck clear of his collar in reaction to Bedlam's sentiment. “I daresay ignorance is always bliss in your case,” he muttered.
“Silence, ruffian,” snapped Bedlam.
Tom addressed Pendleton. “Any ignorance on his part is my fault too,” he said. Then, turning to Bedlam, “Father, I know that I have been an ungrateful son, and I can't hope to make up for it.”
For once, Bedlam seemed not to know how to react. Before his son's eyes, the man's worn features shifted from shock to dignified entitlement. He must have imagined such a moment but never expected it to come, for he became confused. “All is forgiven, my boy” he said finally, in a half sob, and began to dab his eyes with a handkerchief.
The sphinx's enormous head bobbed with irritation. “Oh, for heaven's sakes,” he cried. “Bedlam, spare us the waterworks!”
“I weep with sincerity, Pendleton!” said Bedlam.
“You wouldn't know the meaning of the word,” muttered his friend.
A commotion outside suddenly interrupted all conversation. There was the crash of a bass drum and the cry of trumpets. The dining room suddenly grew dark as gathering spectators blocked the windows while the music boomed, shaking the table settings.
To the kingdom of our savior we devoutly wish to go,
For the righteous and the meek have a place up there, I know,
The apostate and the pagan shall be burned in fires below,
His truth is marching on!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on!
The tune prompted the strangest response in Pendleton: the man's stately features began to quiver and contort with fury.
“Thieves!” he cried. “How dare you parade about under my name! Impostors!” Rising from his seat, Pendleton staggered up the stairs of the restaurant and roared, raising his arm in outrage, spittle flying from his uneven teeth.
From their chairs, Tom and his father could see only the old man's heels rising with every expostulation while spectators edged nervously away from him to reveal the marchers in their black jackets with lavender piping. A banner read, JOIN US FOR THE END—BE BLESSED!
“Pendletons?” said Tom.
Bedlam nodded. “Do you remember the thin fellow who was staying with us a long time ago? Isaiah Pound?”
“Yes, I remember,” said Tom. “He opened the door when I first arrived.”
“Aye,” said Bedlam. “Well, he stole Pendleton's livelihood.”
“How could he possibly have done that?”
Pendleton was now addressing the crowd with his orator's baritone: “Don't listen to them! They're frauds!” he cried. Tom had forgotten what a voice Pendleton had—the windowpanes rattled with each word he uttered.
“One day,” Bedlam explained, “Isaiah Pound offers Paddy an arrangement. He wants to start a society dedicated to the arrival of the Apocalypse; wants to call it the Pendletons after Paddy. Well, Paddy's getting used to being waited on by this fellow, so he says yes, thinking that the boy's plan will never amount to anything. But a few weeks later, people are coming to my house. Y'see, Pound's been handing out leaflets, making his own speeches, so folk come visit, and stare at old Paddy like he's the Second Coming! A
nd Isaiah has picked a date off the calendar, see, and promises that that's the end of it all.”
“My God,” said Tom, “November eleventh, nineteen eighteen?”
Bedlam nodded. “Which Paddy doesn't like, see, because once you write it down, people are going to remember, and you'll look like a fool come November twelfth. But Isaiah keeps making his speeches and plastering his ideas on poles, and he expects Pendleton to hold court and not to go out on the street anymore. Poor old Paddy's never been told what to do by anybody before, and he misses his freedom, misses his pint, and even misses getting out there for a good rant. So he gets tanked, announces at the next meeting that the Pendletons are frauds, and Isaiah hires a few brutes to rough him up.”
The wind must have changed direction, because suddenly the marchers' voices seemed to carry through the restaurant with rousing clarity:
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on!
The other diners looked up. Nobody was eating now. Down in the dark and pungent confines of the restaurant, the jubilant chorus sounded like the peal of angels.
“You see,” said Bedlam, “Isaiah knew a thing or two from working in the novelty business. Cheap nickel crucifixes, clay nativity scenes—he sold hundreds of these things, but boxes and boxes of them added up to a small fortune just as pennies add up to pounds. Made in a factory, stamped out of a sheet, hundreds, thousands of them! Everybody's got a crucifix somewhere, y'see. Thanks to Paddy, he's founded a club, and to join the club you have to buy the suit, the badges, the Bibles, the banners. All made in a factory. All for sale. He's making a fortune. All over the world.”
“What happens when it's over?” Tom wondered.
“God willing, not the end of the world.” His father winked. “Paddy says—”
“Paddy says what?” growled Pendleton. The sphinx had returned, flushed and breathless, to finish his meal.
“I was just explaining how you were cast off by your own admirers,” Bedlam replied.
Pendleton's stone-cut features assumed a grave sneer. “Cast off, indeed, like Jonah from the ship, by my so-called shipmates,” he growled. “Lazy, he called me! I was out there exhorting the throng when he was in his nappies.” Paddy leaned forward to Tom. “Of course, when the war started, people really stopped to listen. Suddenly, he was credible! He was sharp! Membership swelled. Isaiah Pound had become God's holy trousers. And the money came rolling in. Do you know how much he's got?”
“How much?” asked Tom.
Pendleton narrowed his eyes. “A lot more than he made selling trinkets. His people are all over the world. And he goes around giving his sermon, most of it nicked from me! He took my name, my sermon, and he's collecting money by the sackful!”
“For what?”
“Well,” Pendleton snorted, “that's the question, isn't it? Who needs money in heaven?”
after tom had paid for the meal and left a tip on the table, they rose to leave. He picked up his father's hat; this appeared to displease Bedlam, who accepted it, frowning. When they reached the door of the restaurant, Bedlam slipped back to the table for his gloves, though Tom didn't recall him wearing any. From the corner of his eye, though, he noted that Bedlam gathered up the tip he had left for the waiter.
“We must go, my boy” said Bedlam, as they stood on the street, “but I shall insist that you let me take you to dinner when next we meet.”
When Tom asked if his father still resided at his old house, Bedlam nodded, took Tom's address at the hotel, and they parted ways.
BÉTHUNE
THE BATTERY COMPANY MOVED ITS POSITION TO THE SHATTERED town of Béthune, which had been almost entirely deserted by its inhabitants. An estaminet remained; it was run by two women, a mother and daughter, who served the soldiers fried eggs, chips, or wine in china cups (all the glasses had been broken). The mother was small, dark, and taciturn. Arthur greeted her once in his fluent French, and she smiled, revealing a chipped tooth, and asked if he was Bretagne. The daughter would not meet his eye; like her mother, she had shiny black hair, a high waist with full hips, and elegantly tapered ankles. Her eyes were impenetrably dark; Arthur couldn't help but be hypnotized by them.
“A bit horsy for my taste,” remarked Garson later. “Not enough bosom and too much arse,” he added. “She could show off her legs, and an occasional smile wouldn't spoil her chances.” The other soldiers agreed with this critique, which only increased Arthur's sympathy for her.
The soldiers slept on beds of chicken netting in a cellar that was fortified against shellfire by layers of brick and corrugated iron. Arthur's days could be tedious, long periods spent waiting by the telephone for orders from headquarters, then frantic hours of shouting target coordinates to the bomb crews as the howitzers blasted away. In their spare moments, Arthur and Hartwell hopped on bicycles and explored the cellars of the deserted buildings in town. Once, Hartwell stumbled on a cache of champagne and vintage cognac while Arthur discovered a treasure trove of cheese. The soldiers rode back with baskets balanced on their handlebars and passed the two French women—they were dressed in black and walking to mass. Arthur felt a wave of shame as he rode with this bounty of theft on his handlebars.
He tipped his hat to the mother, who replied with her chipped smile. The younger woman avoided his glance. Arthur noted that her black hair was braided and bound by a tricolor ribbon. After they had passed the women, he muttered to Hartwell, “Look at us, we're thieves. And on Sunday, no less.”
“Aye, and for them we risk getting our heads blown off every day. Sundays included” his companion replied. “I wouldn't put it past those ladies to steal from their own neighbors. Where do you think they get the wine they serve at the estaminet, eh?” He laughed carelessly and struck a bump, knocking a chunk of Mimolette into the bushes. Arthur stopped to retrieve the cheese. He glanced back at the women; the mother had paused to remove a pebble from her shoe. Her daughter folded a strand of hair behind her ear and surveyed the fields, the sun, and the swoop of a magpie. As Arthur admired her shiny black hair and narrow waist, she sensed his gaze and raised her chin defiantly at him. This is my land, she seemed to be thinking. And you'll all be gone soon.
ARTHUR MADE MANY subsequent visits to the café in spite of the weak coffee and weaker tea. Once, when the daughter dropped change into his palm, their eyes met briefly. A few days later she murmured a wary greeting to him, her voice low and raspy.
One evening, a soldier refused to leave at closing time. Sensing the women's anxiety, Arthur talked the fellow out of his chair. “Come,” he said, “I'll walk home with you.”
The soldier was too drunk to move. “Don't touch me,” he warned. “I'll kill anyone who touches me. I want another drink.”
“Come, I'll walk with you,” said Arthur. “Let the women go to sleep. They're not running a hotel. Look at them, they're exhausted. You're keeping them up.”
These gentle reproaches eventually prompted the soldier to go back to his barracks. The next time Arthur visited the estaminet, he was welcomed with gratitude.
The mother introduced herself as Madame d'Usseau. Her daughter's name was Martine. Martine's father had been a farmer; he'd died of pneumonia when she was five. Madame d'Usseau had sold the property and bought the small town house with the estaminet below it. The furniture from her sprawling farmhouse was stacked in the small rooms—a sewing table balanced upon a bureau, which rested upon a linen chest. Dining chairs hung from the walls. The furniture had been from her dowry and Madame d'Usseau couldn't bear to part with any of it.
One evening Arthur went upstairs for more teacups and discovered a toy piano atop the china cabinet. He brought it down and played “The Marseillaise” while Martine sang the words. Her deep, gravelly voice against the plinkety-plunkety sound of the toy piano gave the song a haunting dissonance.
The next morning a salvo of shells began bursting around the howitzers, so the gun crews were sent out into the fields until things quieted down. Arthur spent his
shift beside the telephones at the command post. He tried to make a call to Martine, but the lines were damaged. As plaster and wood splinters showered around him, his knees shook, and a chill crawled up his back and around his neck. There was a rattling sound on the desk, which turned out to be his hand, trembling as it held a pencil. Shells seemed suddenly to fall in a rhythm, boom-boomity-boomity—boom. Perhaps it was just his fear, seeking rationality in the terrifying chaos. Suddenly the Number 1 gun, which lay nearest to the command post, blew to pieces.
When the bombardment stopped, Arthur burst out of the office and asked permission to check the estaminet. His CO. assured him that the attack had not reached Béthune, then remarked tactfully on the wet stain between Arthur's legs and dismissed him for twenty-four hours.
That night Arthur buried his face in his pillow for shame. His body had failed him; he was in love with Martine and fearful of losing her. He had found something to believe in, but it had nothing to do with war or politics. It was the love of a raspy-voiced French girl in Béthune. Without the war, he would never have found her, and because of the war, he feared losing her at any moment.
The bombardment of the German guns commenced every night. Arthur comforted himself with the thought of Martine's dark, soulful eyes. As the shells whistled overhead, he imagined her low voice whispering in his ear. When mustard gas was detected, he slept with his gas mask on. Stifled by the oppressive rubber cocoon, Arthur pictured himself in Martine's naked embrace; the thought of her wide hips and deep voice could distract him from almost any discomfort.
Over several days he woke from these fantasies with his underpants sticky from a wet dream, while the buttons of his tunic were tarnished green from the mustard gas and his clothing covered with toxic yellow dust.
ONE AFTERNOON ANDREW BOYLE appeared with supplies. The two giants, Cargill and Markham, were working for him now. Arthur guessed that the former schoolmaster had taken them under his wing as hopeless cases. Boyle considered him thoughtfully. “Everything all right, Chapel?”
