Something Short and Sweet

by H. E. Bates

  ‘But you didn’t do it,’ I said. ‘You haven’t done anything. Just because somebody steals books and then brings them to you to sell doesn’t mean you’re a criminal. You didn’t do anything.’

  But it was a plant! They put it up. Didn’t I see? They knew he was a communist. It was a political case. The books were just a blind. They had to get him somehow. It was political. It was political.

  Then Oscar’s solicitor came up and asked me to step on one side with him. He was piteously nervous, more nervous than Oscar himself, as though he didn’t like being mixed up with the case of an alien who was also a communist, a man caught between the twin fires of the English police and Hitlerism.

  ‘Oscar has made a statement,’ he said.

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘Can I do anything? Give evidence?’

  ‘That’s what I wanted to say. Will you just give some evidence – just formal evidence – as to character?’

  I said I would. When I looked round again Oscar had gone. Over against the wall Oscar’s wife and her mother were still lost in a Jewish luxury of anguish. I went over to them and said:

  ‘It’ll be all right. They can’t convict a man for something he didn’t do. They can’t do it.’

  ‘It isn’t that!’ Oscar’s wife said. ‘It’s intrigue, I tell you! It’s political. The communists hate him and the Nazis think he’s a communist. He’s got nobody. He’s got nobody. They’re all against him! It’s put up! It’s put up!’

  ‘Ach!’ the old woman wailed, softly. ‘Don’, don’, Iss all ri’. Iss all ri’. Iss will be all ri’.’

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ I said.

  Then, quite suddenly, the court door was flung open and the usher bawled my name. I went into the court where Oscar was. It was a small court. It was like a schoolroom, bare-walled, hard. I looked at once for Oscar. There, in the dock, he seemed not only doomed but already dead. His face had gone beyond yellow to dead whiteness, beyond fear of not knowing into the terror of knowledge. Standing very erect, he looked very German.

  Taking the oath, I looked from Oscar to the magistrate. He was small and fat, like a polished bladder of pink lard.

  ‘Well? What’re you – what’re you – what’s this man here to tell us?’

  ‘He is here to give evidence, sir, as to the character of the defendant.’

  ‘Is he? H’m. Well, come on – let’s hear it. Who is he? What is he, eh?’

  ‘He is a literary man, sir.’

  ‘Eh? What? A what?’

  ‘A literary man, sir. Books, sir.’

  ‘Oh! books. Books, eh?’

  As though to say mumps, or as though books were some childish complaint of the human mind. And suddenly he turned about savagely on me:

  ‘You know something about books? What about these books? On this table. You ever seen these books before?’

  Many books were stacked and strewn on the table before him, the stolen books of the case. I had not seen them before. ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Oh! Not seen them? Anywhere? At all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh! H’m.’

  As though to say lucky for you.

  Then, after a moment, the solicitor began to ask me questions. How long had I known Oscar? What was he like? What sort of man? Did I buy books from him? Did I sell books to him?

  But suddenly the magistrate was bored or sickened or tired of it all. ‘That’ll do for you. Stand down. Write books, eh? Well, you must write a book about this some day. Eh?’

  Laughter in court. It was annihilated, suddenly, by the smashing of questions at Oscar.

  ‘Well, Obermann? What about you? What have you got to say? You have told us you are a German. You’re not naturalised?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Still a German?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘What? No nationality? Is that it? No country?’

  ‘No, sir. No country.’

  Sitting at the back of the court, I could see the round pink bladder of the magistrate’s face in full, but only the back of Oscar’s head.

  ‘When did you first come to London?’

  ‘In 1907, sir.’

  ‘What did you do then for a living?’

  ‘I peddled scissors, sir.’

  ‘Eh? What? Speak up. What did you do?’

  ‘I peddled scissors, sir.’

  ‘You what? I can’t hear? What’s he say?’

  They all explained, clerk, court missionary, solicitor: ‘He peddled scissors, sir.’

  ‘Oh! Scissors.’ As though to say bombs, or balloons. The contempt made his face gross and sulky. ‘Yes. And then what? After that? When did you begin the bookselling?’

  ‘After the war, sir. I—’

  ‘War? What happened to you in the war? What did you do?’

  ‘I was interned.’

  ‘Interned? Oh!’ He made a note, as though that also were a bad mark against Oscar. ‘Well, and after that? How did you get this shop? Save up?’

  ‘I got married.’

  ‘Eh?’ Then it dawned on him. ‘Oh! I see. Got married. Married the girl and the shop too. Is that it?’

  Laughter in court again. And again silence.

  ‘Well, and about these books? Eh? You say, here, in the statement, that it was very silly of you, that you must have known they were stolen. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You were in difficulties? Trade was not good?’

  ‘It was the slump, sir.’

  ‘Slump, eh?’ As though he had never heard of it. ‘I don’t want to know about that. What I want to know, Obermann, is this. What I want to know is – why didn’t you go to the wife about it? Eh?’

  Saying it, he looked very smart, most triumphant, as though he had heard, at some time, that there is always a woman in the case. He smiled with beautiful bitterness, with nice cruelty, as though to say: ‘That’s got you, Obermann. Cherchez la femme. You can’t get away from that, Obermann, my friend.’

  And strangely, Oscar had nothing to say. He stood staring, not so much at a loss as like a man who realises, suddenly, that the end has come. He stood like that all the time his solicitor was making his plea.

  It was a short plea, plain, a mere formality. There was something in it about Oscar’s being a good father and a good husband and something else about Oscar being sorry. I forget what else. There was nothing about fascism or communism or Germany or beating up or hatred or intrigue or politics or deportation. Nothing at all.

  And if the magistrate heard it he did not show it. He sat like a man carved out of pink lard, a man without feeling. He sat like that until there was silence. Then, as though his mind had been made up from the very beginning and as though all the rest had really been silence, he said:

  ‘I have no option, Obermann, but to send you to prison. You must pay the penalty. You will go to the second division for twelve months. You must pay the penalty. Take him away.’

  They took him away. Oscar did not look at me. He did not look at anyone. And I saw him, in that moment, not as a man wanted by the factions of two countries and hated by both, but as a man apart from us, a man of no country at all.

  Breeze Anstey

  I

  The two girls, Miss Anstey and Miss Harvey, had been well educated; but it was another matter getting a job. They first came together one summer, quite casually, and in the August of the same year, having no prospects, began farming together. In this they felt shrewd; their farm was to be so different. Not a common farm, with pigs or corn, sheep or poultry, but a farm for herbs. ‘Where you will find’, they said, ‘a thousand people farming the ordinary things, you won’t find one farming herbs.’ There was something in this. But in their hearts they liked it because they felt it to be different, a little poetical, charged with some unspecified but respectable romance. They had ideals. And that autumn, when they rented a small cottage in Hampshire, with an acre of land, on the edge of the forest, they felt existence for the first time very keenly;
they felt independent; they had only to stretch out and pick up handfuls of sweetness and solitude.

  The forest opened into a clearing where their house stood, and oak and rhododendron and holly pressed in and down on them and their land, securing their world. The plot was already cultivated, and they intended to grow the herbs, at first, in small lots, taking variety to be salvation. For the first year they would work hard, cultivating; after that they would advertise; after that sell. They divided responsibility. Miss Harvey, the practical one, took charge of the secretarial work and kept accounts and made plans. Miss Anstey had imagination and knew a little botany; she could talk of carpel and follicle, of glandulosa and hirsutum. In late August, in a world still warm and dark and secure in leaf, the first bundles of herbs began to arrive; and pressing out the small rare sweetnesses and joyfully smelling each other’s hands, they felt sure of everything. Above all, they felt very sure of each other.

  From the first they were devoted. Miss Anstey was the younger, twenty-three. Miss Harvey was twenty-eight. They called each other Breeze and Lorn. No one seemed clear about the origins and reasons of Miss Anstey’s name, which did not express her small, slimmish, very compact and not at all volatile figure. Her hair was almost white; her nostrils were rather arched; she looked Scandinavian. She had a beautiful way of smiling at nothing, absently. She had another way of smiling at Miss Harvey, chiefly when she was not looking. It was a kind of mouse smile, furtive and timid, not fully expressed. It had in it the beginnings of adoration.

  Miss Harvey was heavily built, with thick eyebrows and black short hair. She was very strong and wore no stockings and her legs went red, almost ham-coloured, in the sun. She was attractive in a full-blooded, jolly way. She was like some heavy, friendly mare, with her black mane falling over her face, and her thick strong thighs, and her arched way of walking with her shoulders back. Nothing was too much trouble for her, nothing daunted or depressed her.

  The two girls at first worked hard, scorning outside help, happy together. They began with three hundred pounds. Breeze said: ‘We should be very strict and apportion everything out and pay weekly.’ They did this. Rent would cost them fifty a year, so they opened a new account at the bank, paid in a year’s rent and signed a banker’s order. That settled, they hoped to live on a hundred a year, the two of them. That left a hundred and fifty for seeds and plants, expenses and saving. ‘We should save seventy-five,’ Lorn said. All this was theory. In practice it did not turn out so well.

  It was a long time, almost a whole winter and a spring, before they noticed it. In autumn they were pre-occupied. The autumn went on, that year, a long time, drawn up into some too-dreamy twilight of mild airs and leaves that hung on and kept out the low sunlight like blankets of dark leaf-wool. August and September were hot. Planted too soon, their first plants died. In a panic they ordered more, then kept the water bucket going. Their well got low. That was a real problem. They could not bathe. Lorn made little portable tents of lath and newspaper to shade the plants, and by September they had learnt to wash hair, face and feet in one kettle of water. Up to that time they had not worn stockings, and often not shoes. They had to give that up. They wore shoes and washed their feet twice a week. That was real hardship.

  But they were not troubled about it. They liked it. It was part of the new life, more still of the new independence. It was fun. It was hardship only by comparison. Instinctively they felt that cleanliness and godliness were one, perhaps, after all. They longed for water, not seeing until then how much life might depend on it.

  Then Breeze made a discovery. They felt it to be miraculous. Wandering off the forest path to look for sweet chestnuts, she came upon a pond, not a hundred yards from the house. Shaded by trees, it was quite deep. Round it marsh and sedge were dry, the earth cracked in thick crust blisters, and she could see where wild ponies had broken it up, coming down to drink. She fetched Lorn, who said: ‘We could fetch twenty buckets in an hour and then bathe.’ Breeze got some water in her hands. ‘Why carry it?’ she said. The water was brownish, leaf-stained, but clear. ‘Why take the mountain to Mahomed? We could come down here and bathe.’

  ‘Not in daylight.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t we? We would have costumes on. Who’s to say anything?’

  ‘Nobody. But this is the forest. You know people are always wandering about.’

  ‘All right. Then we could come when the sun’s gone down. It’s warm enough.’

  It was too good to miss. After sunset they took soap and towels and costumes and went into what was already half darkness under the trees. The pond was black, unreflective, and there was some sense, under the pitch dark roof of forest branches, of peculiar secrecy. As she took off her clothes, Breeze said: ‘I’m going in without anything on.’ She stood undressing, feet in the water. ‘It’s warm,’ she said. ‘It’s wonderfully warm. Don’t put anything on. It’s warm and like silk. It would be wicked to put anything on.’

  She went in naked, swam round and looked back to Miss Harvey. She was putting her costume on.

  ‘Oh! Don’t!’

  ‘What do you think I am?’ Lorn said. ‘Venus?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s the feeling. It’s wonderful. And it’s quite warm.’

  ‘Is it swimmable?’

  ‘It’s about four feet. Look.’

  She swam off, turning, breasting back. When she stood up again she saw Lorn knee-deep in water. She had nothing on. Looking at her the girl was struck by an odd spasm of pleasure. It ran up her legs like a hot current of blood and pounded up, finally, in her chest. She felt, for about a second, strange and weak. There was aroused in her an unconscious exquisite capacity for pain and she did not know what to do with it. It was like a shock.

  ‘I thought you said it was warm?’

  ‘Go under.’

  It was all she could say. She did not know why, but the sight of Lorn filled her with a queer excitement. Lorn was bigger than she had imagined, more mature, more ripe. She felt absurdly young beside her. She looked at her large brown-nippled breasts and saw in them the potential beauty of motherhood. The thick smooth flesh of the whole body had some beautiful power to attract and comfort. Lorn went under, up to her neck. She came up heavily, dripping, to stand in water up to her knees. The girl looked at her again, in a spell of adoration.

  ‘It’s muddy!’ Lorn said.

  ‘No. Not here. Come over here. It’s lovely. Like sand. Why don’t you swim?’

  ‘I’ll walk. I’m not certain of it.’

  She took heavy water-bound strides across the pond, arms folded under breasts.

  ‘Shall we wash each other?’ Breeze said.

  ‘Puzzle, find the soap.’

  ‘I brought it.’

  ‘Good. Wash me. Wash my sins away. Wash my back.’

  The younger girl stood with her habitual absent smile of adoration, rubbing the soap in her hands. ‘Swim round while I get some lather.’

  Lorn swam, heavy and white, in a ponderous circle, then came back to Breeze. The water was up to their middles. The young girl’s hands were white with the lather. Lorn bent her back. She put her hands on her knees and the girl began to soap her back, absently tender.

  ‘Oh! that’s lovely. Lovely. Wash up as far as possible and down as far as possible. Why is it so nice to have your back rubbed?’

  ‘I don’t know, why is it? Have the soap and rub your front.’

  Lorn made lather and rubbed it over her chest, until her breasts were snow bubbles with the brown mouth of nipple alone uncovered. Then she turned, and Breeze stared at her.

  ‘What are you looking at?’

  ‘You’re so big. I didn’t think you were so big, Lorn.’

  ‘Well, I like that! Big. You mean fat.’

  ‘No. Lorn, I like it. You look like a woman. Not half of one. Look at me. You could hold what there is of me in one hand.’

  She looked down at her small, almost stiff breasts, her slight figure.

  ‘I ought to wear more s
upport,’ Lorn said. ‘I shall be all over the place. Look at you. You’re the ideal of every female in Christendom. All you need wear is half a yard of silk. Turn round and let me scrub you, child.’

  Breeze turned, bent her back and Lorn rubbed her with large soap-soft hands. The sensation of the soft drawn-down palms was something exquisite, physically thrilling to the girl.

  ‘Harder. I want to get really clean. Harder. Wash me all over. Everywhere.’

  ‘Anything else, Madam?’

  ‘Your hands are bigger than mine. Soap me all over.’

  ‘Extra charge.’ They both laughed. ‘Front portion extra. Owing to my sensibility, Madam.’

  ‘Oh! Lorn, you’re a dear. It’s a grand feeling to be washed again.’

  She stood with arms over her head, hands clasped on her hair, and turned round, and Lorn soaped her chest and shoulders. Her hands took wide strong sweeps across and down the girl’s body. The soap covered the small almost absurd bust in snow froth.

  ‘Oh! it’s grand, Lorn. Lovely!’

  ‘We must get out.’

  ‘Oh! must we? Need we?’

  ‘I can hardly see you. It must be awfully late.’

  ‘It’s nice in the twilight. It’s warm. That’s all that matters. One swim.’

  She swam round the darkening pond. Above, when she turned and floated, she could see the autumn evening sky colourless beyond the forest branches. The trees seemed very near, the sky correspondingly far off. She felt extraordinarily happy, her mind quiet, the exquisite sensation of shock gone. She floated serenely on the memory of emotions. She could smell the forest, dampish, closed-in, the sweetish odour of living and falling leaves, and she felt almost like crying.

  Then she stood in shallow water and, looking up, saw that Lorn was out. She saw the white flap of the towel. Something made her hurry out too, some sudden and not quite conscious impulse to be near her.

  She ran out, splashing. She stood quivering on the cracked mud among the sedge, and got her towel. She looked at Lorn and in a moment the sensation of physical shock, like some electric start of nerves, struck her again. She rubbed her body hard, trembling.