(2007) The Pesthouse

by Jim Crace

  What was it that stopped Franklin from running back to that small group of emigrants who were waiting, helpless, at the ferry point, watching the mud-charged, storm-flushed river, the water almost thick enough to plow, it seemed, but sadly — they'd tested it — too thin to walk across? What stopped him telling them that there was a bridge that they could use for free? He wasn't good at keeping secrets, usually. He'd always be quick to pass on anything he'd spotted, even if, actually, it would have benefited from a blind eye. He was not devious but naively straightforward. That made him enemies, not friends. But on this occasion — revenge, perhaps; the small wound on his ear; the threats they'd made — he instinctively felt that salvation was in short supply, that the world was in such a state of anarchy and spite that it might allow nobody to escape, and that his and Margaret's best option was to slip across the river unnoticed and unannounced. If he ran back down toward Ferrytown calling out 'A bridge, a bridge', who could tell what forces might be listening, what demons might rush ahead with their thin hands to tear away the bridge and throw its timbers into the stream?

  No, Franklin's head was full of warring flies. Their clamor was deafening. He forced himself to concentrate on the now unwieldy, human weight of the boat barrow and on the awkward balance it demanded as they progressed upstream, avoiding chokes of rock and finding routes around the thickest undergrowth. Then, once he had reached the wider, beaten path above the cascades where the ground was flatter and easier, he busied himself with an inventory of everything in their possession that might help them on their way.

  What could they sell? The silver cup, certainly. Finding that had been a piece of luck. The silver cup could make them rich. It could secure them places on a boat. And there was his coat — yes, his coat now, perhaps, though parting with it would seem like a further act of treachery. He shook the thought away. There were the partly prepared skins. It was likely, too, that the carved dining platters he had rescued from Margaret's family compound would be attractive, if not here in this land where everybody seemed to be on the move, then possibly across the sea, where there were doubtless many opportunities to feast and many reasons to celebrate.

  Then, of course — besides the few clothes he'd brought for Margaret and his own two pairs of everything — there was, or he hoped there was, though he could not remember where he had packed it, the little cedar box containing her three lucky things: the silver necklace that she had shown him as he drew the flux out from her feet, the square of musty, colored cloth, too delicate for him to touch with his big hands, she'd said, and the coins from the old America. The necklace might be valuable, but would she want to part with it? Would he even dare to say she should? What price good luck? Margaret ought to wear the necklace, he decided, and let it hang well out of sight (between her breasts), where it could work its charms without attracting pilferers. In fact, she ought to let him hang it there himself. He could imagine working the chain around her shaven head, lifting it over her exposed ears and guiding it down to settle at her throat. He would find the cedar box and pull out the necklace for her to wear, as soon as they were settled.

  They had their riches, then, to trade. And in the meantime they would not starve, not for a while or two. He'd filled their four water bags in the river from the fishing platform where he'd left Margaret earlier that afternoon. It would be enough for several days, if they were moderate. Besides they had the three flagons of pressed fruit juice that he had rescued from her house. And there was honey to eat — or sell! — and enough dried or salted blocks of meat to see them to the coast, surely, and possibly beyond. He even had a scrap of salted pork left over from the provisions that Jackson had entrusted to him all those days ago, and a handful of dried fruit, the final edible reminder of home and Ma.

  Thirst and hunger seemed unlikely, and, anyway, in this relatively undamaged land, more forested and fertile than the country he had fled, only the sick and lazy could easily starve. He was well equipped to find their dinner, if there was any dinner to be had. He was a farm boy, after all, even though he had mostly been an unenthusiastic one. He knew what was welcome in a pot and what was poisonous; he knew which parts of plants were tasty in the fall and which were fibrous and troubling. He knew his mushrooms pretty well.

  Again he made a list. What had they got to help them eat? They had a good-sized weighted net to fish with. (He even had the fisherman's wading boots to make the task a dry one.) He had a bow and good arrows, should they chance upon deer, game birds or rock goats. There was enough rope somewhere on the barrow, under Margaret's body, to make lassos or trip-snares. Anything they caught or trapped could be butchered and prepared with his two knives. And anything they cooked and ate would have the garnish of some fine fresh mint.

  He could imagine it, the two of them, their faces warm around a fire, their backs defended from the cold by Margaret's blankets, dining on some venison he'd caught and butchered. And then, when they retired to sleep, they'd have the barrow as their raised cot, too high for dew to bother them as they held hands beneath the tarps, their bodies separated only by the necklace at her throat.

  'We have enough,' he told himself out loud as he proceeded on an easy but narrowing path into the woodlands on the high bank of the river. Soon they'd be across, and they could rest. His dream became more complicated and more comfortable, more settled, oddly. No huddling round a makeshift fire, no venison, no cold night air, no boat barrow. Instead, there was a clearing in the trees, a little soddy built of boulders and wood and earth, a narrow bed, and just the two of them, asleep, a curl of smoke from their shared hearth, his fingers wrapped around her toes.

  THE LIGHT WAS weakening when they reached the bluffs where the falling torrent from the lake had etched a deep, unclimbable gulch into the hillside. They could go no farther on this bank of the river. Franklin, not wanting to wake Margaret before he'd delivered her to a safe place, left her sleeping in the barrow while he went in search of access to the bridge. He'd spotted its slatted, wooden sides from lower down the path, swaying high above the water. A fall from it would be fatal. But once he'd reached its level, the bridge itself seemed to have disappeared. He had to clear away some wood and debris from the deep undergrowth and pull aside a screen of branches. It could not have had much use in recent months.

  Thankfully, the bridge was wide enough for the two wheels of the barrow and it seemed firm, too, despite the swaying. A little weight would steady it. The crossing, actually, was easier than he had feared. The planking of the bridge was smooth, and sagged slightly downward toward a lower mooring on the far bank. Franklin had to concentrate only on keeping a good line with the leading tip of the barrow and trying not to let himself or his load tilt to the side. He was not fond of heights. He'd never been a boy for conquering trees or swinging out on ropes. He counted heartbeats as they went across, taking one step for every other beat, and hadn't reached a hundred before he was able to bump his load over the last impediment, a strut of raised wood, and put his feet and the barrow wheels on solid ground. His first step in the east. He should have felt proud of himself. Triumphant. Mightily relieved. He should have felt brave. But he did not. Rather, now that he no longer needed to be determined, he counted himself weak, dishonest, craven and troubled by disloyalty.

  Something had happened that he did not truly understand. Not the slaughter in the village — he'd never have an explanation for that, except what he had always known, that life hangs on a spongy spider's thread that can stretch only so far but then is bound to snap. Not his own unexpected secrecy about the bridge, his failure to inform the other travelers. Not even the likelihood that, even if Jackson had managed to survive, he would never take another step at his brother's side, or slip his long arms into the sleeves of his own goat coat. No, what troubled Franklin from the moment he reached the east side of the bridge was the fear that he had made a big mistake, that where he truly should be traveling was westward, back to the family hearth, back to mother waiting at the center of abandoned fields.
If, instead of taking the path eastward down Butter Hill that morning, he and Margaret had fled westward, heading back to his mother's house, then his brother — and all the people of Ferrytown — could be alive in their imaginations, at least. They could forward him by their best hopes to the coast and then propel him by wishful-thinking (quite a gusty friend) toward the new lands over there. If Franklin still hoped to be a true and dutiful son, he should take Margaret back home with him to introduce her to his ma, to have those ancient hands touch his and hers and give their blessing. A mother could expect no less. How had they ever left her there?

  Franklin looked back along the woodwork of the bridge. For the moment, it seemed to him that crossing the river had been an act of abandonment. Certainly, he was not able to contemplate his own journey eastward anymore with much degree of hope or self-respect. But, equally, he recognized the non-negotiable truth. Going home was not an option. It's fearful men who go back home to be with Ma. 'Only the crazy make it to the coast.'

  Franklin shook himself. So he'd be crazy, then. He'd force himself to be. He'd not allow himself to fail. He had — again — to do the mean and foolish thing. Not out of spite — more spite — toward the other travelers. What did it matter to him whether their journey to the coast was easy or hard? Not simply to protect the safe side of the river from the burning one and keep the flames from skipping across the bridge like imps. He meant to cut himself off from his own timidity.

  He took the sharper of his two knives and went back to the bridge. It was slung across the river and tethered only, on the eastern side at least, to several sturdy tree trunks. It would not be a complicated task to cut it loose. The mooring ropes were thick and greasy, toughened by the weather, but they responded to his blade, each strand and ligament springing back as Franklin severed its tension. The whole bridge slumped to one side when he had entirely cut through the first rope. Anyone crossing it would have been tipped into the waters far below. The second rope was easier and springier, as the weight on it had doubled. Soon the secret bridge was freed from its eastern shorings. With a little help from Franklin's powerful shoulders, it slithered and bounced down the rocky bluff above the river, breaking up a little as it fell and then finally settling in the water.

  There was no longer a secret bridge from Ferrytown. There was, instead, a steep, timbered slide into the river on the western side of its coulee. A dangling trail of timber. But not even that for long. The racing waters began to tug on the severed end of the bridge, smashing the planks against the rocks. Within a month, much of the debris would be swept away.

  'We have enough,' Franklin said aloud again. He was thrilled and appalled in equal measure by what he'd done. But he did not want to examine his feelings too deeply. He'd have to put his doubts behind him and concentrate only on the journey. There was a job to be done: to find a safe place in the forest or beyond where they could pass the night. He had to make the most of what little light remained. Once more, he put his weight behind the barrow with its obliging, well-oiled wheels and made good their escape from Ferrytown by climbing up through sunshine along the river bluffs until he reached the eastern shoreline of the lake, the silver pendant that he'd only glimpsed before from Butter Hill. He'd never seen a spot more beautiful.

  8

  THIS WAS NO PLACE for a barrow, especially such a heavy one with a fragile, human cargo. A sledge would have been better — a sledge loves mud. Or even a rowboat, though preferably one with oars — and an oarsman — tough enough to scull through mud and leaves.

  The downpours that only three nights previously had shaken the vapors out of Ferrytown lake might have dried out in the open country around the settlements and on sloping ground. But on the east bank of the river, where the water table was high, the going was wet. The flat forest paths beyond the wooden bridge and the lakeside were still drenched and swollen. Here, away from the thin, rolling soil of the mountain passes and the well-drained scrubland of stocky junipers and tangled laurels that labored for existence on the lower slopes, any rain could not drain easily or quickly. Where could it go? It had to settle in and spread itself and deepen.

  These wetland, silt-rich forests — a mixture of chestnuts, marsh oaks, maples and hickories, which at this time of the year were exchanging green for oranges and reds — were distended with water and, therefore, so fertile and tightly undergrowthed in places that not even a mule could pass. What might look from a distance like startled outstretched hands were antlers of pink lichen, a breathtaking and a magical sight, especially in this dusk, with the sun finding angles through the hammock to pick out strips of foliage and blaze its reflection in puddles. Even this late in the day and this late in the year, the sun's heat was strong enough to coax a gauzy vapor from the forest floor.

  Margaret was still too exhausted and unwell to pay attention to her grief let alone to notice the beauty all around. And Franklin, after all his efforts, hardly had the strength to lift his head from his hard work and waste himself on leaves. The barrow, with its two thickly rimmed wheels and hefty, shallow-sided deck, had been designed only to transport skiffs the hundred paces between the boathouse and the fishing jetty. And it was meant, too, to be managed by two men, not one. It certainly was not intended to be both an emigrant wagon and transport for the sick, especially in soil so soft and giving that Franklin feared that if he stopped pushing for only an instant the ground beneath would swallow the barrow whole, and Margaret with it — but that if he continued pushing he'd only be plowing furrows, deep enough to plant potatoes. The countryside appeared to him, in fact, not in the least beautiful. He was more used to the wide lit, open country of the plains. Such a crowded mass of trees did not seem natural. It did seem sinister. Here was just another challenge to be braved.

  His knee had noticeably improved. It shifted in its socket once in a while. But it was much less painful. And it was hardly swollen. Nevertheless, every step Franklin took still seemed burdened not only by the weight of his own body and the lesser weight of Margaret and their possessions but also by the load of sorrow that finally began to take its toll on him. He had been too shocked and overcome by disbelief when he'd first observed the many dead. Then he'd been too busy in Ferrytown itself to feel much more than numb docility. But here — now that he was rid of Ferrytown and the sight of any corpses — the grief was overwhelming. Brother. Ma. He bore the weight and pushed against the water and the mud. He also wept. Just tears, no sobbing, no heaving chest. He felt as inundated as the landscape he was pushing through. The tears leached from his eyes, drawn out by gravity alone, it seemed.

  Franklin could not tell if Margaret was watching him. Her eyes seemed wet as well, and hardly shut. He knew he ought to care if he was being observed by a woman, but he did not.

  'I'm unhappy for my brother,' he explained to the body in the barrow. He could not use the word crying, although he was certain now that Margaret had been watching him. Such feebleness as his could never pass unwitnessed.

  Jackson would have been appalled, especially as this display of weakness and emotion was partly in his name. His death or disappearance had occasioned some of the tears. No, Jackson would have said that weeping was undignified and cowardly. It showed a lack of self-respect.

  When he'd been small and keen to keep up with his brother, Franklin had submitted himself to all the usual boyish rituals: allowing himself to be cut to bond a friendship with blood, submitting to being marked on the forearm with a smoldering twig, letting the dogs take meat scraps from his lips, handling ill-tempered snakes. Risks without purpose, he had thought. But Jackson and his comrades, quick to intimidate the smaller, well, the younger boy, had always warned him against refusing or admitting pain, or flinching. 'Be calm and silent. Be undismayed,' they'd said, the last word being one they'd heard the adult men use approvingly. Dismay was something for the girls. If you could cause dismay in girls, then that was satisfying. But Franklin could not be calm and silent in the face of dogs and twigs and snakes and knives. He could n
ot bully girls. And certainly he was never undismayed. He had let Jackson down too often. He had always been dangerously close to tears. He still had the all-too-minor burn marks on his arm to remind himself of that.

  Margaret, in fact, had hardly paid any attention to Franklin or anything he'd said since the middle of the afternoon. She was recovering in sleep. She would not even remember crossing to the east bank of the river. She had not heard the crashing and the splintering of the bridge. The boat barrow had been too safe and — nearly — comfortable. Franklin's hand was steady, his voice was soothing, and consciousness was hardly bearable, so she had clung to sleep. She could not say exactly what her dream had been, but this was certain: when she woke, the bridge and village were far behind and marked only by distant plumes of smoke. Her head was full of animals and frights and characters: three beds confused (the one at home, now ash; the Pesthouse bunk; the barrow, bucking like a ship, her feet caressed, her scalp torn free of hair by devils with wooden hands, the smell of death and vinegar); two bearded men (that Abraham, and that other, younger one but just as tall, her toes pressed into him); two birds (one pigeon burdened by the weight of plague, tumbling with its failing wings to crash among the sleepers at the foot of Butter Hill, and one of her neighbors doves, its neck broken, and black blood crusting on its beak).

  But now that she had slept enough, Margaret could hear Franklin's voice, driving her beds and men and birds away. His word unhappy — 'I'm unhappy for my brother' — had woken her. Her eyes were open slightly more, he noticed at once. Her chin was pointing at him attentively, and so he raised his voice a little. 'If he was here, if he was still alive — he might be still alive — he'd tell us what we need to do. He'd know the way.' She almost seemed to move and nod. 'And you're unhappy for your whole family More unhappy than I could ever be. For just one brother. I still have a little hope. I understand.'