Potato Factory

by Bryce Courtenay

However, this did not overly concern them, they simply assumed that the words were written on Ikey’s flesh, as all the other information made sense, and worked on the second line for the numbers they were now convinced it contained.

  Both Mary and Hawk were practised in leaps of logic and exceedingly good at numbers, and they soon worked out a logical way of converting the line ‘To my one and only blue dove’ into numbers. They took each letter and equated it with its number in the alphabet, for example the letter A = 1, B = 2, Z = 26, and so on. They gave each letter in the line its appropriate number and the total came to 276. If they reduced this number down to the next lowest it became 2 + 7 + 6 = 15 and if they reduced this further, it became 1 + 5 = 6. As they already knew the final result must have three digits the combination number could only be 276.

  But they were both too logical of mind to believe this, for it made the final line ‘then add roses ringed to love’ redundant to the solution. Both knew Ikey’s mind was too tidy for this and he would not simply add a gratuitous line to complete the rhyme. The final line must be one of great importance to the whole.

  But they could go no further and after a few more weeks were forced to abandon their efforts, almost convincing themselves that the number must be 276. Finally Mary capitulated and gave Hawk permission to ask Ikey if the number was 276. Though she insisted he tell Ikey that he had reached this conclusion on his own, and if Ikey asked if she was involved to deny it. This way, Mary concluded, Ikey would tell the truth.

  It was now six months since Ikey had posed the riddle and he was most impressed when Hawk told him he had solved it.

  ‘I hope you are right, my dear!’ Ikey said.

  Hawk was ready to listen to his stomach, hear with his eyes and see with his ears. He handed Ikey a piece of paper with the numbers 276 written on it and Ikey laughed and shook his head slowly. ‘No, my dear, you are quite wrong!’

  Hawk, close to tears from frustration, bowed his head in bewilderment.

  ‘I told you, the answer be at arm’s length,’ Ikey said, smiling. But again he would say no more.

  At about this time a misfortune struck Mary, for she could not obtain sufficient hops from local sources to meet her needs and she was forced to buy expensive imported hops from Kent. This meant she must put up her beer prices, which was very much to her disadvantage, for times were still hard in the colony and competition most keen.

  At first Mary believed it was the local brewers trying to make things difficult for her, but eventually she discovered it was yet another of Hannah’s tricks. During this period when the supply of local hops had dried up, even though the season had been a good one, Ikey made yet another visit to New Norfolk and was depressed for days after his return. Mary then discovered that George Madden had cornered the entire market for the distribution of hops in the colony and it was he who would not sell to her. Mary was quick enough to realise that this decision was yet another pressure from Hannah for Ikey’s half of the combination. Mary confronted Ikey with the reason for his visit and he admitted that this was what had happened, but again avoided the issue of the combination and explained that Hannah was still avenging herself on Mary for stealing the affection of her children and the love of her husband. Though he conceded that, under the circumstances, this was a somewhat bizarre explanation, he insisted it was true.

  Mary, who was never easily beaten, determined that she would rent land and grow her own hops. She made the decision to use what few assets she had to send Hawk to England, to the county of Kent, so he could learn the most superior method of growing hops and return with all the varieties of seed he could obtain. She had only the money to pay his fare but if, when he returned, she could rent land with an agreement to buy it one day, she would never again be compromised by the likes of George Madden. Hawk was nearly fifteen years old and Mary had no hesitation in placing her trust in him, though she had a second reason for sending him to England.

  Hawk still carried an absolute conviction in his heart that Tommo was alive.

  ‘If Tommo were dead, Mama, I should know!’ he would insist, and as he grew older the certainty that his brother was alive became even stronger. On several occasions he had ‘spoken’ to Mary about going to find him. Hawk now stood well over six feet and was enormously strong, and Mary knew that he was old enough to leave her. This single determination, to find his brother, was more powerful than anything else in his life. Hawk was all Mary had and loved and she thought that by sending him over to England for two years she would delay losing him.

  Mary also had a plan which she revealed to Hawk on the morning of his departure. She handed him a brass key, a duplicate of one she had found some years before in Ikey’s overcoat, which she knew to be the key to Ikey’s Whitechapel home. She urged Hawk to use it to enter the house.

  ‘We must determine whether a safe exists beneath the floor,’ Mary said.

  Hawk sighed and then signalled, ‘But, Mama, we have come to a dead end, what is the use? We do not know Ikey’s numbers, and if we did, it is only half the combination.’

  Mary touched him on the sleeve. ‘Ikey is not a young man and I believe he will give me his part of the combination if he thinks he is going to die. If there be a treasure he will do anything so as to avoid Hannah having it all, that much I know for certain.’ She suddenly paused and announced dramatically, ‘And I has the second half!’ Mary relished the look of amazement which appeared on Hawk’s face. ‘That’s right, I knows Hannah’s combination, Ann give it to me when she were a little ‘un in the orphanage! David Solomon were always writing it on his slate and working with it on the abacus. Ann told me it were a number their mother give them what they must never, never forget in case she should die! The number eight hundred and sixteen!’

  Hawk signalled the numbers, ‘816?’

  Mary nodded. ‘Just you make sure there be a safe in that house, lovey.’

  Ikey was terribly distraught at the news of Hawk’s departure to England, for he was convinced he would not live long enough to see Hawk again.

  Hawk was able to comfort him a little by promising to spend his last day helping Ikey at the Saturday races, even though he would rather have climbed the mountain and spent time with Mary. Hawk was by now doing most of the work at the races and he knew Ikey could not manage without him. This would be Ikey’s last day as a bookmaker. Poor Ikey had given up his nocturnal wandering, unable to manage the walking. The races were his only remaining pleasure.

  Hawk would take a sad memory away with him of this last day with Ikey. Late in the afternoon, while Hawk’s back was turned, a drunken punter accosted Ikey, accusing him of cheating, and knocked him to the ground. Hawk arrived moments later and picked the drunk off Ikey’s prostrate and squealing body, giving the man a cuff across the side of the head which sent him spinning to the ground. Hawk picked up the sobbing Ikey. The shoulder of his ancient coat and also the sleeve of his shirt had been torn in the struggle so that his thin white arm hung bare. It was then that Hawk saw the tattoo. It was of two blue doves surrounded by a garland of red roses, and in a ribbon across the top of the circle of roses was the legend, To my one and only blue dove.

  Hawk took scant notice of this at the time, being more concerned for Ikey’s welfare. Later, when he thought about it, he simply concluded that their guess had been correct and Ikey wore a tattoo with words from the poem. He told Mary of his findings and they congratulated each other on their perspicacity, but otherwise decided the information was of no additional help.

  With Hawk away, Ikey seemed to fade and in the next year he progressively became an old man much dependent on his daughter Sarah, and on Mary, who was increasingly under pressure as local hops were being denied her and imported stock was not always available.

  Ikey decided to relent, and acknowledged that one-eighth of his fortune was still sufficient to buy a large tract of land and give Mary the financial independence she desperately needed if she were to survive. He felt it was time to settle his moral debts bef
ore he died and though he was deeply humiliated that Hannah and David Solomon had finally beaten him, Ikey’s love for Mary was such that he was prepared to compromise. But he decided not to tell Mary until he had the one-eighth portion safely deposited in her bank account.

  Ikey proposed that one of Hannah’s sons, he preferred it to be Mark, should take a ship to England with her combination to the safe, while he would instruct Hawk by letter of his combination and the whereabouts of the safe.

  Hannah was adamant that David go. It delighted her to think that he was to be pitted against a fifteen-year-old nigger mute, and she felt sure David would not allow Hawk to win even an eighth of the value of the treasure. But she insisted that David leave immediately, that was in two days’ time, when the Midas, a convict ship, was leaving Hobart bound for London.

  Hannah’s reason for this was so that Ikey’s letter to Hawk could not arrive in London before David and thus allow Hawk to get to the safe first and have it removed, or worse, attempt to open it. Ikey argued that the safe could not be opened without the combination, even if it were given over to the Bank of England. Its removal would involve the demolition of a wall of the house and, as the safe was set in concrete, it would require a very large dock crane and a gang of men to lift it out of the ground. Nevertheless, Hannah was resolute that Ikey’s letter must go on the same ship as David Solomon so that the two could meet and visit the Whitechapel house on the same day and simultaneously open the safe.

  Ikey smelt a rat and thought David would bribe the captain to give him Ikey’s letter, so he did not entrust it to the captain but gave it instead to the ship’s chaplain whom he swore to secrecy and added further to the man of God’s integrity with a nice little stipend for his ministry.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  On a day of persistent drizzle, with swirling clouds obscuring the top of the great mountain, the Midas sailed from the river port bound for London. On board was Mr David Solomon, who had been carefully drilled in the description of each item in the safe and the value of the gem stones. Though Hannah was not as expert as Ikey in this she had a keen eye for appraisal and knew each precious stone individually. Also in his luggage was a set of scales for weighing gold and a new pistol of American design.

  The voyage home to England was uneventful and the Midas berthed at Gravesend, where David immediately sent a letter by courier to Hawk at the hop farm where he worked asking him to come to London at once to meet him on board the Midas. On the same day Hawk received a message from the ship’s chaplain that a letter awaited him from Mr Ikey Solomon which he was instructed to hand over to him personally on board.

  When Hawk opened the letter Ikey was already dead. He had passed away not two weeks previously. His funeral had been a mixed affair, one of the first few to take place in the Hobart synagogue which had been open for five years. One hundred and eighty of the male Jews in Hobart Town attended Ikey’s funeral and filled the tiny synagogue to overflowing. As well, standing outside, was a crowd which the polite society of Hobart found most undesirable. Publicans and whores, touts, con men, cock fight proprietors, sly grog merchants and most of the racing fraternity of Hobart Town stood outside the little synagogue.

  The minyan of ten good men consisted of Hobart’s most prominent Jews: Philip Levy, Samuel Moses, Jacob Frankel, Abraham Reuban, Judah Solomon, Isaac Feldman, Edward Magnus, Abraham Wolff, Isaac Marks and Philip Phillips. Ikey was buried in the Jewish cemetery according to the ancient rites and beliefs of his own people and though Mark and Moses attended, as only men are allowed to attend an orthodox funeral, Sarah stood outside the cemetery with Mary and both wept, while Hannah stood apart with Ann, dry-eyed and triumphant.

  What transpired between Hawk and David is best revealed in the account David Solomon gave to his mother on his return to Van Diemen’s Land. He told how the dumb nigger nodded in agreement when he asked if Ikey’s letter contained his half of the combination to the Whitechapel safe. Then he proposed they both inspect and test the safe to ensure it had not been tampered with, and then remain present to observe while each worked his part of the combination. Finally, that the coin in the form of gold sovereigns be divided with one in eight going to Hawk, while the gold and silver ingots be weighed and that Hawk should receive one-eighth part of the total weight of each. The gem stones would be divided into lots of eight and then they would toss a coin to see who would have the first pick from each lot. To all this the schwarzer had silently agreed.

  David then told of how they had set out in a carriage to the house in Whitechapel in the company of the shipwright from the Midas and his bag of tools. The shipwright had removed the heavy planking from the front door and then left. It was a miserably cold February day when the two men, each carrying a bull’s eye lamp, entered the house, which had stood empty for over twenty years.

  They moved along the dusty hallway, brushing aside cobwebs and going straight to the scullery, for both had a location plan, Hawk from Ikey and David from Hannah. David opened the closely fitted scullery door with a key given to him by his mother which had hung about her neck as long as he could remember.

  The room contained no windows and the air within it was most stale, though surprisingly free of dust. While Hawk Solomon held the bull’s eye lamp, David read the instructions which triggered the false nails in the floorboards, and carefully lifted each board until the door of the huge safe beneath was clearly exposed. David stooped down and tested the handle of the safe, giving it a firm pull. It was obviously locked. He rose and allowed Hawk to do the same.

  David confessed that at this point his heart was pounding and his face must have shown his excitement, though he couldn’t speak for the nigger, ‘it being dark an’ all’. His hands shook as he tried to hold the torch steady for Hawk as the black boy’s numbers were the first part of the combination. Hawk had dialled quickly, his huge hands graceful to the touch and the numbers 690 appeared and then a distinct click sounded. Then Hawk rose and placed his torch on a shelf so that the room was dimly lit and then held David’s torch directed at the wheels of the combination lock. David, his hands trembling, dialled 816 whereupon there was another click. For a moment all that could be heard was their rapid breathing, Hawk’s steady and David’s coming fast as though he were short of breath. Hawk tapped David on the shoulder and indicated that he should be the one to open the safe. David pulled, but nothing happened, the door remained shut.

  ‘Oh Jesus!’ David exclaimed.

  Hawk pushed him aside and handed him back his bull’s eye lamp, then he took the handle in both hands and pulled the safe open in a single jerk.

  David would tell Hannah how he was not sure what might meet his eyes, perhaps small boxes and rotting canvas bags spilling over with gold and silver and precious jewels. But what they both witnessed was an empty safe, except for a single envelope sealed with red wax. It was addressed to ‘The Solomon Family’.

  Hawk, in his ‘telling’ of the same story to Mary, told how David was the first to react, dropping the lamp and commencing to hop from one foot to the other, wailing and moaning and tearing at his hair, while Hawk stood silent, his head bent, one hand covering his face though he continued to follow David by looking through his fingers.

  Hawk told how he finally went down on one knee and reached into the empty safe to retrieve the envelope which he handed to David, whose hands were shaking so that he could barely break open the seal. Hawk had noticed a slight bulge in the envelope and now David removed from it a man’s gold signet ring heavily crusted with diamonds and rubies. Then he withdrew the note and attempted to open its careful folds, but his fist had tightened around the ring and his remaining hand was shaking too violently to do so.

  David, sobbing, handed the note to Hawk.

  ‘Read it! Fer Chrissakes, read it!’ he screamed at Hawk, forgetting that Hawk was a mute. Hawk slowly opened the note and held it up to David to read, without looking at it. In Ikey’s handwriting were the words:

  Remember, always lea
ve a little salt on the bread.

  ‘What can it mean?’ David sobbed. ‘Whatever can it mean?’ Then he fell on his knees. ‘We are done for! My family is destroyed!’ he wailed. ‘Ikey Solomon has beaten us all hands up!’

  Later that evening, Hawk wrote a letter to Mary.

  My Ever Dear Mama,

  Today I have met David Solomon, the son of Mistress Hannah Solomon of New Norfolk, whom I know to be Ikey’s estranged wife. With him we have visited the premises of Ikey’s old residence in Petticoat Lane, Whitechapel, on an errand entrusted to me by Ikey in a letter received this day of which he tells me you are unaware and in which he begs me now to acquaint you of the contents, as he is not sure that he will remain alive in the many months for it to arrive in England. Ikey is ever the pessimist and I expect he is as well as ever.

  However, I am happy to inform you that the letter instructed me to go with Master David Solomon, recently embarked from the ship, Midas, to the house in Whitechapel where Master Solomon had been acquainted by his mother as to the whereabouts of a certain safe hidden beneath the scullery floor.

  Included in Ikey’s letter was the combination number which I was to use upon the safe. Whereupon Master David, also bearing a number given to him by Mistress Solomon, would add his to make the complete combination, the two numbers to effect the opening of the safe.

  Ikey’s letter further instructed me to take a one-eighth share of the contents of the safe and then to return to Van Diemen’s Land where I was to bring this portion to you. Though none of this is to be known by you. Alas, I cannot conceal it from you and I have not given Ikey my word that I would not tell you first in a letter, as he wishes me simply to arrive home as a surprise.

  Ikey’s letter also included the deeds of the house and instructed that I should sell the property and also return the money to you keeping a ten percentum for myself for expenses while I remain in England. A most generous offer which I shall accept with gratitude.