Fools' Gold

by Wiley, Richard

The reverend found Henriette in her long dark dress standing among the Eskimos, looking at him. Her hands were clasped in front of her and she leaned forward against them strangely, as if they belonged to someone else who stood behind.

  “As I read this second book I was struck by the fact that I could not understand much that the dead man found so important to say during the last moments of his life.” The reverend opened the thin volume and read at random.

  “Kimie … Kimie … Gomennasai. Boku no yakusoku…” The old man looked up, peering at the reverend as if he’d been struck. From where he stood he could see only the edge of the coffin, but he had heard the voice of Fujino calling to his daughter. He should have taken her photograph back from Phil. It should be inside the coffin riding on the boy’s dead chest. With that photograph as his guide he would have been able to work his way back to Japan, to find her, to float about her and protect her when the news of his death arrived.

  “Who knows,” asked the reverend, “what those strange sounds might mean?” He looked at Henriette again, at the way her hands protected her stomach. It always amazed him, the things he was able to think of during these pauses in his sermons. He sensed that the audience stood there as much to feel the earth beneath their feet, as much to feel the warm wind coming off the recently liquid sea, as to hear him. He saw cumulus clouds being pushed about above him and he sighed and raised his hands to the sky.

  “Isn’t it a beautiful day?” he asked. “Only the tedium of winter can give us a day such as this.”

  He saw people twist their necks skyward, like sunflowers.

  The sun ran through the clouds a moment, lighting up all their faces and letting the reverend see, momentarily, the scrawny face of Hummel, the man whose pebble walkway they had stood on when entering the city. Though the others looked skyward, this man looked, from where he stood, directly at Henriette, directly at the reverend past her.

  “Behind you I see the frames of buildings,” said the reverend. “Look at them. The reason we see them so easily from this distance is that one story is built upon another and another is built upon that, and so on until we have a structure that will house our needs and keep us warm when winter comes once again.” It was always at this point, when he was just a few moments into what he was saying, that the reverend had misgivings about his calling, that he believed he should have done something else with his life. He knew it was only a matter of time before other preachers arrived in Nome. And with other preachers would come the hampering of his tongue. His place was in the village and after this he would go back there and would not come out again. Perhaps he was having trouble getting started because he had heard that there were preachers in Nome already and he feared that someone from the crowd would step forward and scream, “No! That is not the way it is at all, this man is a phony, an imposter!” He looked once more from Henriette to the coffin that lay in the hole in front of him.

  “What do you suppose would happen if we did not stop with the second or third floor of those buildings back there? What would happen if we built our houses higher and higher without regard to our needs? There was a people once who were so ambitious that they thought they would build a tower all the way up to the heavens and one at a time climb it and stare straight into the eyes of God. Remember? Oh they were a strong and wonderful lot. They understood each other and used their voices as tools, like hammers.”

  The reverend stopped again and looked around him. Now that he had started how was he going to tie this in with the poor dead Japanese? He could tell by looking that the old man had not understood a word of what he said. Among the faces of the crowd only Finn’s looked at him brightly, as if he were anxious to determine what the point might be, what lesson might be lodged between the teeth of it. He held the Bible and the diary high in the cool air above his head.

  “This city was called Babel and the people believed that they could do anything. After they built their tower to such a height that it shifted and leaned dangerously with each breath of wind, God got angry and had them open their mouths to that wind and from then on they could not speak to each other again. Can you imagine it? Each in his mind had a language that was clear and full, one that allowed him to think and sing, but when he turned to his neighbor he sounded foreign, like the Japanese I just read sounded to all of us. Each to himself must have seemed light and clever, but to the others was dull as molasses, thick-tongued as taffy, un-understandable and alone.”

  “Praise the Lord!” said a voice from the field and the reverend searched the faces before him. Were there other missionaries listening in? Shaking their heads in disgust?

  “Babbling brook, babbling idiot, stop your babbling, et cetera, et cetera. Such expressions as these are the legacies of that people. With phrases such as these we remember them. How many times have you stood in a merchant’s tent and heard such sounds coming from the mouths of the men and women standing next to you? When the people of Babel understood that they could no longer understand they left their tower and town, giving up their tower and their climb toward God. Across the globe they went, not stopping until they were away from all those they knew, not stopping until each was alone in a wilderness of his own. They moved, some to the larger plains, others to dense woods or mountains, and there they built cities where everyone spoke the language of the founder, and for centuries they stayed that way and did not try to remember or to communicate with those others who had left Babel as they had.”

  The reverend felt that this time he was not making it. He was not turning the corner that was necessary if he was going to include the dead man in his ramblings, in this babbling of his own.

  “It strikes me,” he said, “that we are descendants of those who left that city and that we are those whom God has chosen to finish it. We have come back, arrived from all parts of the world and built this new Babel and have learned our lesson well.” He pointed again at the building frames. “Our towers are squat and flat-topped. Rather than looking to the sky and trying to build our way up to it, we look to the ground and dig our way down. We search not for His eyes, but for His golden veins.”

  The reverend heard himself laugh. “This young man is dead and has spoken his dying words in the language of his ancestors. Most of us are taken now with English, making English the language that will once again tie us together, make us one and understandable. This young man took his life and even from the grave has preserved the language that was brought to him out of the streets of Babel.”

  The reverend opened the book and read again. “‘Kimie … Kimie … Boku no yakusoku … ‘ Perhaps he is telling us that the world was small, became large, and now is getting small again. This man’s death signifies for us here the death of one of the languages given us by God. When all but one language is finally gone, perhaps we will once again try to reach God by mechanical means and perhaps we will once again be banished into unknown tongues.”

  The reverend turned to the grave and pushed some dirt in upon the coffin with his hand. He was deeply worried about what he had said and knew that before him in the audience there were those who might question him on it later. It was bewildering. For the first time he’d failed to understand the point he was making himself. Only Finn nodded enthusiastically, from among the number below.

  “We return this man to the earth from which he came,” he said quietly. “Those of you wishing to share in the covering may now come forward.”

  Fujino was buried and people walked back toward the town in groups of three and four. Phil and the other Eskimos surrounded the old man, peering into his face to see what they could see. They spoke in their languages, telling him again parts of the story of Phil’s father’s death, of how the village felt the same pain he was feeling now and how they covered their faces with ice so that their tears would come into a world of their own. The old man asked Phil about the photograph of his daughter in a quiet voice, and Phil nodded slowly and patted him on the shoulder.

  Finn and Ellen and Henriette waited for the
long moments it took the reverend to step down off the grave mound and walk toward them. Finn shaded his eyes and looked at the building frames, stunned at the closeness of the reverend’s thoughts to his own. He felt the presence of God now in his theory about language and communication, and he clasped the reverend on the shoulder like a brother, feeling he had verified it, feeling he had given him a sign. If there was beauty in all men speaking one tongue then there was as much in all men speaking differently, that was the point. He’d learned that coming down from Topcock Creek. He laughed. They had been like the small blisters on the rump of his dead mule, those igloos of his, yet he’d been born of them as surely as he had from the warmer bump of his mother’s middle. Forty-five years old. Forty-six. He knew now that he’d spend his days here, adding what he could to the general confusion, watching everyone fix his sights on unity and doing what he could to prevent it. That everyone should have the kind of experience he’d had with the old man and Phil, that would be his goal. Finn looked around to see Nanoon among those surrounding the old man. She was the one for him, for as far as he knew she didn’t speak English and hadn’t she had the same experience with her coming of age? He put his arms around the reverend’s shoulder and called him a man of God.

  Ellen took the Bible and the diary out of the reverend’s hands and handed the one back to Henriette. “It was as if winter would have stayed upon us forever had we not buried him,” she said.

  Ellen pushed Finn forward, making him walk quickly with her, up a few paces, so that the reverend and Henriette were left alone. She held the flesh on the back of Finn’s arm between thumb and finger, pinching it tightly if he tried to turn or resume the conversation. She guided him between building frames and around several tents toward the bath. From here and there they could see the gray bay before them and were surprised by its jerky movement, by its choppy waves rising.

  “And now those bulbous clouds will cushion us all spring, I suppose,” said Finn. “It will be all too short a time before winter sets in.”

  Ellen looked at him and heard the matter-of-factness in his voice, saw as he did the brevity of this warm respite. Finn had turned a corner, could no longer see back around the bend, she could tell that by looking at him.

  “Finn, you won’t be surprised, I hope, to hear that one winter is enough for me. I’ll be leaving while I can slide out smoothly, before there’s ice bobbing in the bay again.”

  Finn pulled the soft flesh around his eyes into a squint and peered at her.

  “If you’ve a mind to try to talk me out of it you’d best save your breath,” she said. “You’ll be losing a critic but gaining a bath.”

  The two of them walked down upon the softening sand of the beach. Everything was as it had been when winter surprised them all. It looked as if the beach strike was still alive, and indeed they saw prospectors peeking over the mounds of earth, wondering if the ground would move again, if the sea in its fresh churning had salted the sand once more. They walked into Finn’s tent and looked at the frozen bed from which they’d pulled the dying Fujino. Food lay edible and forgotten on the floor. The mercury frypan poked its curious hose into the ruffled blankets. Everything showed a softer edge.

  “I’m not giving you the bath,” Ellen said. “You can send me half the profits every half year for my trouble.”

  “Half the profits for a prescribed period,” said Finn. “Every year’s too much to ask.”

  Finn and Ellen stayed in the shambles of his tent, talking hard business for an hour, until evening came. Fool’s gold winked at them from the dirty upturned sand at their feet. When they left it was dark and grimly cold, but they saw others and could hear surf sounds coming from the senile sea. Ellen held a shawl close around her neck and touched the back of Finn’s shoulder on the blind path. She kept her eyes closed and could imagine once more the stony fields of Ireland coming up to meet her feet. She could see the dim lights of her house above the knoll and knew that to go inside would mean looking into the face of her father, avoiding the rooster hands of her grandmother, seeing her own face sliced thin by the passing pendulum of time. Even the wind was Ireland at her back. Even the sea was tall grass blown flat. One hand on Finn, she walked near the house and saw through the window the scene: her grandmother and herself at different stages, her father, and the knitting circle of talking women, tongues clicking, voices soft as wool. Ellen stumbled on the rough road, letting her hand slip from the ridges of Finn’s jacket. She opened her eyes and touched the ground, nearly falling. She would carry them all, like luggage, when she left: Finn and the reverend and Henriette too. Finn turned to help her, so she brushed the dirt from her hands and thanked him, this time taking a firm hold of the sleeve of his coat. Clouds parted and she now saw constellations pointing toward home. She laughed and asked Finn if he thought he might ever go back. And as she stepped to the rhythm of his answer she knew very clearly that like the rest of them it was only convention that kept her from seeing into the future, that kept her from predicting the rest of her life.

  One of the gray-suited Eskimos weighed his golden snowflake at the assayer’s office, sold it, and bought several large packages of goods. He toured with the others through the narrow paths but was at once aware of a lightness around his neck and turned to take the goods back and to retrieve the snowflake. The rest of them watched him go. Though spring had broken it was only late afternoon and already dark. The Eskimos stood across from the Gold Belt, their snowflakes still visible, but dim. After a few moments they broke into small groups and separated. Phil and the old man moved out of the darkness and into the saloon. Only Nanoon stood where she’d been, watching the others leave her. She saw them rushing away, darting through alleys and into narrow passageways like tourists.

  John Hummel sat in his spotless tent, the twelve-hundred-dollar canvas sack wound tightly around his neck. Before him on the neat dirt floor Fujino’s feet bled darkly, thin red lines overflowing the ankles. He had been ready for anything but nothing had happened and he had not been ready for that. The feet appeared to him to be in excellent shape. Around him nothing was out of place. There was a setting for two at the table. There was no ice in the harbor now so he could expect his mother any time. Everything was packed and ready for her to take back.

  John Hummel reached down and removed his own heavy shoes. They were warm and thick and had lasted him easily through the winter. He sucked hard on both his lips and spit into his hand, but there was still no trace of red; the disease was completely gone. He looked across the room at the shoelaced entrance and could see a single remaining candy stalk growing like a long, thin finger from his old spittoon.

  John Hummel had written a note, which swung from a single piece of twine, turning slightly before him in the breezeless room. He had taken his time with his note, giving it his finest hand. It was addressed to his mother and was an inventory of exactly what he had placed inside which box. Hummel picked up Fujino’s feet and held them gingerly, trying not to touch the lines of blood. He slid them slowly into the warm pockets of his shoes then placed them out in the middle of the room and stood barefooted upon the edge of the couch he’d been sitting on. He attached the canvas bag to a hook that was looped up over the stovepipe that stretched across the ceiling of the tent. He had tested it several times, was sure it would hold. He decided to use the couch as a starting place because he did not want a chair directly under him, or worse, tipped over by his swinging legs and messing up the room. He had arranged things so that his note, his inventory, swung not too far from him. With luck he would be able to read it; it would appear large and clear to his bulging eyes, his fine lettering his last vision.

  John Hummel did not want to wait long after things were ready. He had hoped to figure a way to use the canvas sack so that the twelve-hundred-dollar sign would be visible and right side up, but he’d had to settle for it this way; the metal hook connected the bottom of the sack, upside down. When he stepped off the couch he tried to do so lightly, for he knew th
at to jump would lessen the strength of the stovepipe and that he might fall. He stepped off, looking toward his note, and was aware of the flapping of his arms and the sharp kicking of his feet as he rode across the small room for the first time. He did not know whether his eyes were open or not but he was aware of the sensation of looking directly into bright sunlight. And there was noise, a continuous single and disorganized blare that was of a pitch and intensity equal to the brightness of the light. And there was pain. There was a burning at an exact spot at the back of his neck, the point where the pursed mouth of the canvas bag sucked at his skin.

  John Hummel’s mind pitched. Thoughts, like people evacuating a burning building, ran wildly about. He lost most of them but others came clear to him before disappearing, screaming into the sun. He was aware of the swinging and slowing of his body and concentrated on the quick opening of his eyes, on getting one look at the perfection of his lettering. When finally he was able to open them he was aware of the familiar taste of blood and was looking up into men’s faces. He could not see them clearly but he could hear them as if they spoke from within his own head. They were fishermen and he was a fish and the blood he tasted was at the spot where they had removed the hook from his mouth. They seemed pleased with the size of him, with the fight he had given them and with the clean landing. After they removed the hook they walked forward, away from him, to cast their lines once again onto a cloudy sea. They fished like cowboys, and from his place in the dirty bottom of the boat he could see them swinging ropes over their heads, throwing them out as far as they could, using no bait at all. John Hummel felt his body stiffen and shudder. He heard the noises that he made thumping against the boat’s wet bottom.

  John Hummel’s body slowed as his mind did. He hung with his long back to the inventory, his eyes opened but attached somewhere else. His muscles were slack and his feet stretched down, toes pointing, directly over the tops of his foot-filled shoes. The conversation of the fishermen was no longer audible to him. He had not expected to grow in death, but he did and his long toes now entered the shoes and dipped themselves into the thawing blood of Fujino. The slight swaying of his body pushed at the edges of the shoes, and both of them, at the same instant, fell over and spilled their stored blood onto his clean floor. His toes hung red and drying, like the thick pens of a sloppy printer. He had lost the image of the fishing boat entirely now and opened his dead eyes to the tent. He swung around so that he faced his inventory, though he could not see it, and drops of blood from both his toes fell to the ground, punctuating the room.