Tom Bedlam

by George Hagen

  The captain granted him five minutes to find the man and ordered a crew to rig the central columns with explosives.

  It took the sergeant fifteen minutes to reappear. And when he did, he was flushed and in despair.

  “He's inside. He refuses to leave. He says we cannot touch the church. ‘It's a sanctuary’ he says.”

  “Take two men and carry him out!”

  “Impossible, sir. He is upstairs playing the organ. The stair doors are thick and old, locked from inside the stairwell.”

  The captain drew his pistol and entered the church, with the sergeant following anxiously behind him.

  The interior was dark and grand, and the low hum of the organ sent a chill up the captain's spine. A few bare lightbulbs hung from the ceiling—the ugly intrusion of modernity on a Baroque masterpiece. Yes, he admitted that it was a masterpiece—the vaulted ceilings; the dark chapels with their sleeping lords, recumbent hounds at their feet; the anguished monsters peeking from their stone pillars; the heartbreaking splendor of the stained-glass saints, their beatific faces and beseeching palms—all Christian hokum.

  The agonized Christ stared reproachfully at the captain's piercing footsteps.

  Forgive me, thought the captain, but I'm a disciple of Dieter Weeks now. I'll take your priest as my first sacrifice.

  The priest sat before the Baroque organ, with its carved wooden façade and vast array of tin pipes. He pressed a key. A deep note echoed through the church, and the electric lights dimmed.

  The captain raised his gun, preparing to fire a bullet through the man's head.

  Then a melody emerged from the organ, and the captain gasped.

  It was a Schubert impromptu. Strange to hear it played on an organ, especially such a familiar melody; the captain was used to hearing it whistled crudely by the second lieutenant, but it was unmistakable. The phrases sprang sweetly into the vaulted ceiling, and the grandeur of the organ's resonant notes drew the strength from the captain's legs. He sank into a pew, lips trembling.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur saw the captain lower his pistol. He hadn't performed this piece in years; he couldn't even call it to mind, but it seemed to leap from his fingers the moment he touched the keys. Arthur didn't know any church music, that was Charity's domain. But this melody always reminded him of church. It was the piece his mother used to play most often, the piece Charity had played at the wake. That was the amazing thing about music. It could reside, dormant, in one's fingertips. Arthur couldn't remember his mother's last day clearly, just a glimpse of the doorway to her bedroom and the knowledge that she was gone. But he knew the feeling—the grief bursting out of his chest in helpless sobs, his loneliness, the ache of wishing to see her face again at his bedside, or beckoning to him from the dogcart in her white linens, or smiling with astonishment when he first played the piano for her. In the same way that his fingers had never forgotten this melody, his eyes still expected to see his mother again.

  As the German captain sat in his pew, rigid and still, Arthur stole a glance at him and wondered if he was to be shot as he played the impromptu's last note. Perhaps these last minutes were a gift from his mother and the music had prolonged his life a few moments longer. Perhaps life is just a series of last chances.

  When the organ music subsided, the young priest turned cautiously to the captain below.

  “Play!”

  Arthur glanced briefly at the captain. The man looked haggard; the expression on his face was stricken and miserable. To his left, two soldiers were wrapping sticks of dynamite on the church's columns. Suddenly, one man dropped his pliers on the stone floor; the echo provoked the captain to dismiss them with an angry wave. He gestured for Arthur to continue.

  As the second impromptu began, the captain sat back against his seat and gazed at the vaulted ceiling. The melody was another of the second lieutenant's favorites. But the priest couldn't have known this. Was it a message? The captain was not a superstitious man, but how many coincidences could he ignore? He looked at Christ's anguished face: he saw no reproach there this time. It seemed kindly now—an expression of condolence, perhaps.

  The captain noticed that the priest was almost a boy yet he seemed gripped by emotion, as if he too were moved to tears for this fallen soldier. So be it, he decided. Dieter Weeks had received his memorial in a church. To destroy the site would be sacrilege.

  When Arthur finished the piece, he kept staring forward, expecting that the bullet from the captain's gun would strike the back of his head. But all he heard were footsteps, and the sound of the great doors closing.

  WHEN IT SEEMED CLEAR that he had been permitted to live, Arthur unbolted the door and walked down the steps. Through the leaden panes he saw that the truck had driven away. He knocked at the hatch behind the altar and heard a bolt being slid aside. The faces of about twenty people appeared, blinking in the light of the stained-glass window above them.

  “Martine?” he asked. He repeated her name a few times until one woman replied.

  “Martine d'Usseau? Her house was destroyed two days ago in a bombing raid. She was found with her mother. Both dead.”

  Arthur staggered away from the hatch. How could Martine be dead? He loved her so much. He had believed that his bond with her would deter bombs and bullets, just as his thoughts of her had tided him through the gas attacks. What power was stronger than their love? Even when she had sent him away, he'd been sure the bond between them was immutable. He sank to the floor.

  The refugees assumed that the priest was now praying for them. They clambered out of the crypt, thirty of them, some carrying children.

  Oh, Martine. If there were forces more powerful than love, if a person could be snuffed out like a candle flame, what was the point of living? Arthur looked up at the Christ and understood what he looked so upset about: he was writhing at the agony of existence. That was life: pain in an indifferent world.

  What was he to do now? The one thing he believed in was gone. He was marooned.

  A man in a postman's uniform shuffled towards him. “Are you our new priest? We've been waiting for weeks.”

  Arthur didn't answer. He unbuttoned the cassock.

  Another man approached, carrying a blanketed bundle in his arms. “Please, Father,” he appealed, in French, “do you know of a doctor nearby? My baby is sick.”

  Arthur gazed into the man's imploring face. “What's the point?” he replied bitterly.

  The man didn't understand him but smiled hopefully and unwrapped the bundle to reveal the baby.

  Arthur looked at the child. “When did she last eat?”

  The man stared, confused.

  Arthur repeated his words in French, adding, “Perhaps there is some condensed milk in the kitchen next door.” As he examined her, another woman brought her two children for him to see. Then an old woman moved behind them, and the postman took a place in line behind her.

  THE GOAT'S HEAD

  ALTHOUGH LONDONERS WERE SWAYED DAILY BY THE WAR HEAD-lines and accommodated the marching doomsayers on their streets with mounting concern, the partners of Griff & Winshell remained unimpressed. The law was their Bible; the courts were their battlefield; and the gavel was more powerful than any cannon. The clerks remained perched at their desks (now equipped with typewriters rather than inkwells and blotting sand), their spines still arched like those of jockeys atop steeds. The atmosphere of urgency remained, as did the crackling inferno tended by Mr. Tobias Griff with his shining brass goat-headed tongs. The only obvious change was that Mr. Griff's divergent eyebrows were now snowy white, as was his goatee.

  When Tom requested a private moment, Mr. Griff deposited a lump of coal on the fire and led him to his office, leaning against the brass tongs for support.

  “Perhaps you don't remember me,” Tom began.

  “On the contrary, it is my curse to remember everything, Tom Bedlam or, I should say, Dr. Chapel?” muttered Mr. Griff. “Though I cannot remember where I put my spectacles five minutes ago
, I do recall the breakfast I enjoyed moments before you first walked into my office. I believe—”

  “Then you may recall,” Tom interrupted, “that a baby was brought to you by my father, William Bedlam, about fifty-two years ago. I wish to know what became of him.”

  The old solicitor looked momentarily shaken by Tom's inquiry.

  “It was half of a cold meat pie, peppered until it was black,” he murmured, for this was the answer to the question he had expected—he prided himself on anticipating his clients' questions.

  “Please, I need to confirm the identity of my brother!” Tom cried.

  Mr. Griff embarked on a complicated justification for the necessity of privileged information, but Tom cut him short. “Surely you have wished, on occasion, to unburden yourself of the many secrets you carry with you?”

  “I have, yes!” replied Mr. Griff. Raising his tongs, he struck the floorboard, and Tom noticed that the floor was pitted with scores of little indentations from such a gesture. “Nevertheless, such information is sacrosanct. My practice depends upon it. My reputation!”

  Tom sighed. “Mr. Griff, please. I must know what happened to my brother. Are you aware of his identity?”

  Mr. Griff nodded. “I sympathize deeply,” he replied. “But as I said, I have sworn not to let such information pass my lips.”

  “I see,” Tom replied, and he sank miserably into his chair.

  Mr. Griff turned the tongs in his hand, glanced briefly at his interlocutor, and wrapped his hand below the brass goat's head.

  “Imagine if this fellow could talk; there'd be no stopping him. Oh, the things he's heard. Shocking things. Deplorable things. And, of course, things of great illumination”

  Tom looked grimly at Mr. Griff, then down at the goat's head. What nonsense was this?

  “Of course, goats cannot talk,” Mr. Griff added casually, “though I've heard tell of animals that could signify an aye or a no with one tap or two taps of the hoof.”

  The lawyer raised the tongs and struck the floor loudly. Tom looked down at the indentations. There were hundreds, perhaps even thousands. It was a wonder that the boards remained intact. Then it occurred to him that these were not exclamations of Mr. Griff's reputation at all but perhaps the ayes and nos of the past fifty or sixty years.

  “Mr. Griff,” Tom began, “would this fellow happen to know the identity of my brother?”

  The lawyer peered through the glass window of his door at the clerks bent over their desks. He stroked his chin and slowly grasped the goat's head.

  Suddenly the tongs struck the floor with a loud thump.

  “Was his name Arthur Pigeon?” Tom asked.

  The tongs rose and struck the floor twice.

  Tom gasped. “Not Arthur Pigeon? Then he was someone else?”

  Another tap from the tongs indicated the affirmative.

  Not Arthur Pigeon? Then who could it be? Tom wondered. How could he possibly pose the question in such a way as to discover the truth? He was baffled.

  “Is he alive?”

  The tongs struck the floor once.

  “Have I ever met this man?”

  The goat's head repeated its answer.

  Tom put his hands to his head in frustration. Griff sat back in his seat, his hand wrapped firmly around the goat's head. Tom thought of Tod-derman & Sons, the billowing smoke, the fiery furnaces, and his acquaintances in the tenement building.

  “Brandy Oxmire?”

  The tongs struck the floor twice.

  “Oscar Limpkin?”

  The previous answer was repeated.

  Forgetting London, Tom thought of all the boys at Hammer Hall, but it seemed too much of a coincidence for any boy there to have been his brother. He thought of his peers at Holyrood; was it possible that he and his brother shared the same occupation? Then he considered Mr. Griff's role in his life. If Bill Bedlam had been a client of Griff & Win-shell, perhaps the recipient of the baby had been a client too, and there was only one other client Tom was aware of The man with wiry black muttonchops who had swept out of the establishment like a tornado in a black morning coat, the man who had paid for Tom's education as a bribe for remaining silent about the murder of Arthur Pigeon, the magnate who had thought nothing of using his influence for the benefit of his son.

  “Is my brother Geoffrey Mansworth?”

  THE REVELATIONS

  THAT EVENING, AFTER AN ENORMOUS RALLY IN MANCHESTER, THE Pendletons waited for the crowds to dissipate before making their trip back to London. The theater was still hot with the energy of so many bodies in such an enclosed space. Charity stood by the open door at the back of the stage as a breeze swept by. For a moment, she imagined herself carried off by the wind, free from the gravity of her brothers and sisters and their mission. Suddenly Isaiah Pound slipped his hand around Charity's arm and steered her swiftly past his circle of admirers.

  She was terrified. What had she done wrong? She wondered if he might even have sensed her rebellious thoughts. Perhaps her tailored skirt and jacket had given her away. “We are Pendletons, Sister Charity, not peacocks,” the hall sister had once reminded her. His grip remained strong and steady as he took Charity into the cool alley behind the building.

  “Sister Chapel, may I tell you something?” he said quietly.

  Charity hesitated, her heart turning leaden.

  “If all of our members had your devotion, your virtue, your spirit, I have no doubt that we could make every man, woman, and child on this earth a Pendleton. You see, I believe we teach by example. I've watched you over this past year, and you are a beacon—” He paused, withdrawing his hand from her arm. “Does this seem rude or unseemly?”

  “Not at all,” gasped Charity. “I'm very flattered.”

  “It pleases me to hear you say so,” he replied. “Of course, it is my wish not to flatter you but to speak of my admiration and respect.”

  He presented her with a pendant—a silver symbol of the illuminati, the all-seeing eye—and asked her to wear it from now on. Charity kept it buttoned beneath her blouse. This token changed everything. Starved by the cold, impersonal atmosphere of her lodgings, she took Isaiah Pound's gesture as a sweet, consoling indication of his friendship.

  In subsequent days, as they conducted rallies in smaller towns, Pound made a point of visiting Charity in the late evening in her hotel room. He would chat for ten minutes, sharing some detail of his day, then leave. Though these visits were as innocent as they were brief, she became sleepless with anticipation of his next appearance. In Newcastle he knocked just before dawn. She was furious with him for making her wait but almost immediately felt gratitude, relief, even, for the consummation of her evening—she felt special, distinct, chosen.

  Once she wore the pendant to bed and lay there naked, thinking of him. She imagined sleeping with him, and although ashamed of such thoughts, she couldn't resist them.

  Pound was not a conventionally attractive man. His features were gaunt, and his hair, prematurely gray, was dyed a deep black, which contrasted unnaturally with his face. But there was no doubting his powerful charisma. He drew attention whenever he entered a room, his potency fueled by self-assurance and the awesome horror of his predictions of the Apocalypse.

  He had once touched the arch of her back, and she felt an electric jolt through her body. Was it the touch of a prophet or her own fearful passion for him?

  The cycle of anticipation, anxiety, and relief at his visits caused her appetite to vanish, and though she reminded herself to be strong, her dependence on seeing him became overwhelming. At the rallies, she wept as she played the organ, exhausted, smitten, and bereft.

  Pound's visits stretched to an hour; he flattered her by sharing his personal concerns. “Oh, these newspaper reporters, Sister Chapel,” he muttered. “They seem more interested in putting their own opinions into their articles. They never quote me accurately.”

  “At least the rallies allow you to make your point directly to people,” she replied.


  “Our point, Charity. Our point,” he corrected her.

  He admitted that he had doubts, that his calculations indicated November 11 to be the day of reckoning, but God hadn't spoken to him with clarity. “Perhaps the day will fall later, perhaps if we enroll enough souls in God's army, we may forestall Armageddon. Wouldn't that be an achievement?”

  “I wouldn't have imagined it possible to forestall such a thing,” Charity replied.

  “One cannot imagine the unimaginable,” he replied.

  Charity veered between awe at his confidence and admiration for his humility. These rendezvous convinced her that she was, in some way, his partner. And she felt gratitude for this. She was fortunate, she reminded herself, perhaps the most fortunate woman on earth.

  BROTHERS

  TOM TROD A STUNNED AND BITTER PATH BACK TO HIS HOTEL, BY turns feeling sick then perplexed by the certainty of Mr. Griff's information. William Bedlam had been right, the truth of the matter was a disappointment. All his life he had yearned for a brotherly alliance, but Geoffrey Mansworth was more of a Cain to his Abel.

  He felt compelled to reveal this news to Mansworth, but before he did, he took steps to confirm the facts. The next day he visited the General Register Office. He waited another day, expecting to savor the satisfaction of a mystery solved, but his disgust grew all the more intense in consideration of this kinship. It was bad enough to be related by blood to a murderer, but this murderer had been blessed with all the advantages of wealth and class. Geoffrey Mansworth's privilege, his education, even the fatherly efforts of Bronson Mansworth (a more doting parent, indeed, than William Bedlam) had produced a villain with the blackest heart.

  TOM SENT MANSWORTH a telegram asking to see him. The reply came quickly.

  As he hailed a cab to Bedford Park, he noticed a man pacing outside the hotel. His loud, checkered suit was familiar.

  “Oscar? What are you doing here?”