(2007) The Pesthouse

by Jim Crace

  The determined survivors — fewer than twenty in number — were allowed through the smaller door into a courtyard between the inner and the outer palisades. There they had to form another line, which passed between two long, timber tables minded by devotees with the now familiar white tape around their shoulders and carefully expressionless faces. Were these the Finger Baptists, Margaret wondered.

  'Nothing metal, nothing metal,' one of them was commanding, walking up and down the line, repeating his instructions and devotions to every group. 'Remove all metal from your hair, no antique combs, no knives at all, no silverware, no ear or finger rings, no pans. Metal is the Devil's work. Metal is the cause of greed and war. In here we are, like air and water, without which none of us can live, the enemies of metal. Check your pockets. Shake out all your rust. Remove your shoes. Unlace your bags.'

  Margaret watched as one of the two families ahead of her in line was frisked by devotees in gloves and then required to empty out their bags, every single item, and put their shoes and belts onto the tables. A spoon and a bracelet, wrapped in felt, clearly valuable and probably loved, were thrown into woven baskets under the tables. The father of the family shook his head, hardly able to control his mounting anger when the buckle was snapped off his belt. A coat whose buckle would not tear free from its cloth was thrown out entirely. Their shoes were inspected, and any brass eyelets or clips were either pulled free and jettisoned or, if they would not loosen readily, the whole shoe was thrown out and replaced by a pair of stitched moccasins. Metal buttons were snapped off their coats and pants by expert gloved hands. Seams and hems were checked for hidden metal valuables. The children had to part with toys that they had made from found scrap, and the family dog — a cousin, in looks at least, to Becky, Margaret's missing terrier — was stripped of its studded collar.

  The father, though, was keen to preserve at least a little of his dignity. He was not prepared, he said, to lose the short sword that he had hidden among his blankets and that had been discovered by the sorters with a look of disapproval and triumph. Losing it and any ability to defend his family in the future was too great a price to pay, he argued. It was wrong of them to insist, even though there'd be winter feed and accommodation as recompense. 'We've already given up our few valuables. Enough's enough.'

  'It's your decision,' he was told. 'If you don't like us, you can go.'

  'I like you well enough. But you're robbing us. What you're doing isn't much different from stopping us on the road and holding knives to our throats—'

  'We never have knives.'

  'I know that, yes...' The father was getting exasperated. 'A wooden stick, then, if you held that to our throats,' he added hastily, trying to be sarcastic, and then realized how foolish he must have sounded. 'Well, something sharp at least, for heck's sake!' He glanced at his short sword, still lying on the table and within easy reach. His wife put her hand on his arm, a gesture of both solidarity and restraint. She could see how tempted he was — and not for the first time — to support his indignation with a blade. She could also see that these Baptists were fit young men who seemed ready to defend their high principles with their fists and feet.

  The white-taped man who had been walking up the line listing forbidden objects and giving instructions to the applicants and who had seemed to be the most senior of the devotees now approached the family at the table, clapping his hands for silence. 'Enough's enough, indeed,' he said, spreading his arms to show that the way ahead was now barred to them. 'Please gather your possessions and leave. We have no place for you.'

  'Who'll sew the buckles back? You've damaged everything. Who'll mend the shoes?' the father asked.

  The man shook his head, entirely calm. 'No one,' he said, making his meaning very clear — their metal already in the baskets would not be returned.

  'Hand me back my mother's bracelet, then.' The emigrant's wife hoped to salvage what she could. 'And let us have the silver spoon. That's all the currency we have.'

  'And give me back my sword.'

  The calm man shook his head again. 'Metals equal weapons equal death,' he said.

  Now the wife was heated, too. 'Then you're thieves, for all your piety.'

  'We don't steal from anyone. We put the metal back into the soil. We bury it. That's not theft. That's restitution. We require our winter residents to observe our practices. Neither your sword nor your arguments are welcome in the Ark.' He took the father's sword from the table and dropped it into a basket with as much ceremony and measured finality as he could. 'You should leave now. The inner door is closed to all of you.'

  The next family were careful to cooperate and not argue. A much loved, battered cooking pot and their leather-working needles plus their wrap of bone-handled tools — scissors, cutters, blades — which might have provided them with a livelihood on the far side of the ocean, all ended up among 'the stones of hell' in the wastebaskets with every other scrap of pewter, copper, battered steel or rusty iron, gold or silver, lead or tin. They had made their minds up swiftly. On the whole their sacrifice was worth it. They'd not survive the winter on the cold side of the palisades. They could survive without their tools.

  Margaret offered Franklin's bag. She could not think that there was any metal inside. Her comb and hairbrush passed inspection. They were wood and bone. They checked the pot of died-back mint for staples, too, but found none, though for a moment Margaret feared that they intended to tip out the earth and check for hidden scraps, but clearly soil was something that these devotees approved of. Nothing grew in metal, but any soil was natural and sanctified.

  Perhaps it was just as well that the Boses had stolen Franklin's knife and that she had lost or left her cedar box in Ferrytown. It would have been heartbreaking for her to see two of her lucky things, the coins and the necklace, flicked away as if they were as worthless and unpleasant as ticks. Now the devotees checked her body and the clothes she was wearing, her hems, her seams, her tucks, her folds. It was a humiliation that was only partly eased by the fact that the checker closed his eyes while doing so and repeated his apologies. He felt her head through her blue scarf but did not require her to remove it, nor did he seem to detect the shortness of her hair. He then examined Bella, though he smiled and stood back as soon as she grasped his little finger in her wet fist.

  'These two are untarnished,' he said finally.

  Margaret, then, had nothing to declare, not even a brass button. She was, they let her understand, the perfect applicant for entry to the Ark. She and 'her son, Jackson' registered their names and birthplace (Ferrytown), and were allocated lodgings in the Kindred Barn for Women and given a wooden token to exchange for food.

  Now they were free to go ahead as residents through a second wooden gate into the inner courtyard. Inside there was another long, timber table on a roofed terrace loaded with bedding, towels, bone spoons and water jugs, and black head scarves for any woman whose hair was still on immodest display. An older devotee gave one of each to Margaret, his hands arthritic and trembling, his voice constricted. Bella was too small and young to warrant a set of her own, he explained, and then examined the signage on their token, before directing Margaret across the open ground toward the sleeping sheds. 'The farthest to the right is yours. Take any bed and crib that's not in use,' he said. 'These are the rules. Exchange the token for your meal. Reclaim the token when you have completed your tasks tomorrow evening. You will not be able to eat again without handing over a token. You will not be able to depart from the Ark without presenting a token. You will not receive a token unless we are satisfied. We will not be satisfied unless you work well. You will not work well unless you eat.' He waited while the logic and neatness of her new regime sank in, and then he added, 'Yes, we have devised a circle of effort and reward. And if you provide good service within the circle, you may be asked to help the Helpless Gentlemen themselves.'

  Margaret was too exhausted to inquire further. Her daily tasks? The Helpless Gentlemen? The Finger Baptists? S
he would find out in due course. At least, for the first time since the onset of her flux, she was not even vaguely fearful. You will be safe, the goose man had said. And she believed that to be true. Here was an odd but organized community. She could smell roasting meat. She could not see anybody running. There were no raised voices. The wind and, therefore, much of the winter cold, was blocked out by the palisades. The loss of metal was no great sacrifice to those who did not mind cooking without pans or sleeping without a knife at their side.

  Margaret walked across the great paved courtyard, soothing the now fretful and always hungry Bella, toward the place where they would spend the winter. Now that she could see the Ark's inner courtyard in detail, she could only stare open-mouthed at the half-completed, low stone building at its center. Never in her dreams had she seen a place more decorated or more beautiful. The finished stone itself was grained and worked as intricately as a wood carving, with images of animals and plants and the round faces of people who looked as wide-eyed, calm and expressionless as the devotees. The wooden window frames were glazed with pieces of colored glass, stained with the reds, greens and blues of blood, sky and moss. The entry was an archway with a capstone that seemed too heavy to be so far from the ground. At least ten masons and carpenters, all with the white tapes of devotees, were working on the buttresses and doors, and a dozen or so other men and boys, evidently winter guests like Margaret, were earning their keep, helping with the unskilled labor or holding the timbers steady while artisans fixed them into place with trunnels instead of metal nails. She raised a hand in greeting and, though no one called out in reply, she was responded to with several honest smiles. Now she relaxed. The Ark, whatever its purpose might be, would rescue her and Bella. It would be their first home together.

  The women's sleeping shed was cobble floored and timber sided, with loose roof planks protected from the mischief of the wind by stone weights. It creaked as she entered, a sort of greeting to the newcomers but a nailless greeting, as, once again, the building was pegged and framed with wooden joints and hinges. There were no windows. The only light came from the open door and through gaps in the timber. There was no fire or grate, but it was warmer inside than outside, and certainly drier. She recognized the homely smells of women, washing, tobacco and hog-fat candles.

  Margaret chose a bed that was not already made up with a blanket and covered with possessions. She found a crib for Bella. The hut was empty of other residents. All were working, she presumed, maintaining their circles of effort and reward. The mattress was a luxury that she had almost forgotten, cotton ticking stuffed with chaff and moss. She fell asleep at once, with Bella on her chest, and neither woke until the daylight had gone entirely, robbing the shed of any definition. They slept until someone passed by with a mallet, beating on beams and doors, and calling out between the drumming of wood on wood, 'Let's eat. Let's eat.'

  It was not hard to find the dining hall, even though it looked exactly the same as the sleeping huts. Everyone was going there, holding their bone spoons. She followed, keeping her distance, not yet wanting to talk to anyone or introduce herself, but once she had handed over her token, climbed the three steps and was inside the hall, she found a decent smile to wear and tried to look as if she belonged and was not at all embarrassed by the company of so many strangers, divided as usual into tables for men and tables for women and a circle of low planks for the children. The two tables nearest the door were reserved for pilgrims, devotees and anyone entitled to a loop of white tape.

  Margaret should have known that her discomfort could not last. A woman with a baby, especially one as beautiful as Bella, is always welcome at a table of other women. Within a moment she had been summoned by another mother, whose own child was old enough to handle his own spoon, and she was sitting among friends, with Bella on her lap. There was more good food in front of her than she had seen since Ferrytown. But no one was eating yet. One higher table at the side of the building was still unoccupied. They would have to wait, it seemed, for the latecomers.

  When she saw them it was not immediately clear how the Finger Baptists had earned their name. They wore long sleeves, long hair and long beards, and seemed to have trouble walking with any strength or commitment. There were exactly twenty of them. One had to die before another devotee could be elected to their group. Twenty was the holy maximum. They took their seats at the higher table, paying no attention to the crowded hut, and one of the attendants struck his mallet on their table to beat out the blessing — wood on wood — and to indicate that dining could begin. Margaret mashed some of the softer food for Bella first, and added a little milk to make it into a digestible paste. She broke up a piece of chicken into safe shreds and let the girl suck it while the paste was cooling and then she took her too-large spoon and began to feed the stolen child, her boy Jackson, her girl Bella.

  It was only once Bella was eating that Margaret looked up across the room and saw that what she was doing was mirrored at the higher table. The twenty Finger Baptists were the Helpless Gentlemen. They did not want to feed themselves, it seemed. They sat before their food, their arms hanging loosely at their sides, their beards and hair pushed back, while devotees — one each — spooned food into their mouths and wiped their lips with cloths. The devotees lifted cups of water and juice and waited for their masters to sip. One was holding up a chicken leg for his Gentleman to gnaw. Another offered dry beans, one at a time, as if he were hand-feeding a turkey. 'What are they doing?' Margaret asked the mother who had befriended her.

  'The very same as you.'

  'So I see. But why?'

  'Has no one told you yet? They're not allowed to use their hands. The hands do Devil's work.' The Devil's work, Margaret soon found out, included not only fighting and stealing, both of which indisputably required dishonest hands, but also art, craft, cooking, working, and the age-old and best-forgotten practices of technology for which all metal was the chilling evidence. The Helpless Gentlemen had set their minds and bodies against the country's ferrous history. Wingless and with withered arms, they'd earn their places at the side of God.

  SO THE WINTER PASSED. It was an oddly comfortable existence for Margaret and Bella. Much of the doubt, regret and danger had been removed from her life, though what replaced them was mostly dull. In this respect, the Finger Baptists were proved correct — No Blades, No Blood. The emigrants were honest, because there was nothing to steal; sharing, because there was plenty to eat; sober, because there was no liquor; there were no misers, because there was no wealth to hoard; they were industrious, because it was Work or Starve.

  As the mother of an infant, Margaret's duties were long but light. It was her job to sit from sunup to sundown at the Ark's water supply, a shallow well, protected from the cold by a three-sided shelter. For most of the time there was nothing for her to do except be patient and keep Bella amused and out of mischief. The girl was an adventurous crawler and then a reckless walker, who, like the worst puppy, would take any opportunity to slip away behind Margaret's back to investigate and taste anything that caught her eye, whether it be a dangerous splinter of wood or a shard of ice or a scrap of crust or mud. Then Margaret had to clean out Bella's mouth with her finger and force open her fists to remove any trophy. The child was growing, becoming more interesting and more difficult, first learning to recognize the word no and then learning to resist it. Once she had discovered how to pick things up and use them without help — her cup, for example, her spoon — it was not long before she devised the game of throwing things down for Margaret to fetch or simply to enjoy the sound of tumbling, rolling and breaking.

  There were busy times when Margaret had no choice but to strap Bella to her back and deal with the peak demands for water. The first to arrive were those emigrants whose duty it was that day to fill their family water jugs. There were eighty-two over-wintering families in all, including Margaret and Bella, and so the line for water was often long and unruly, with impatient boys trying to jump the line and older m
en demanding precedence, especially as the first waters of the morning were the least cloudy and the sweetest. Margaret had instituted the Ferrytown method to prevent arguments. As people arrived at the well, they threaded a loose rope through the handles of their jugs. That fixed the line beyond question. Then they had no choice but to be patient and talk to each other rather than argue, or to play with the child.

  Margaret's still-short hair was long enough by now to be revealed to the women in her sleeping shed. She could safely recount to them the story of her illness and some details of her journey to the Ark. She could relive out loud and weep again at the horrors of Ferrytown, that rock-hard memory: every member of her family dead in sleep. Now she appeared to the women as a survivor, as someone who had once been alarmingly dangerous but was no longer. They were the only ones who saw her bareheaded, though, and they were the only ones, too, who inevitably saw Bella naked. So Margaret's pretense that Bella was a boy called Jackson was short-lived. No, Jackson was a girl's name in her family, she explained, despite the sound of it, its final unfeminine consonant. So she began calling Bella Bose 'little Jackie'. It was more convincingly girlish. Bella did not seem to notice the change. Indeed, it wasn't very long before she did not even respond to the word 'Bella'. She became Jackie to herself. And Margaret was known to her as 'Ma', a not entirely dishonest pretense, given her first name. Ma for Margaret. Ma for make-believe.

  'Jackie' was not a predictable baby. She was ready to grant broad smiles to any woman or child who paid attention to her but was more reticent with men, especially the workmen and the craftsmen from the half-completed tower who came throughout the day, smelling of sweat, stone dust and timber, to fill their buckets. And when any of the twenty Finger Baptists came and required Margaret to draw water for them, 'Jackie' was prone to burst into tears and hold onto her ma as if these Helpless Gentlemen meant to do her harm.