The Red Door

by Iain Crichton Smith

  ‘They say it is the fastest fish in the sea,’ said William.

  ‘They say seals turn into women,’ said Allan, polishing his glasses. They watched the speedboats drilling through the water. The town with its spires, halls, houses, pubs, rose from the edge of the sea, holding out against the wind. It was what there was of it. Nothing that was not unintelligible could be said about it.

  Joseph

  1

  It was in the morning that Joseph told his two dreams. Outside the tent, deserts and mountains could be seen in the distance.

  His dreams were about stars and corn, familiar images.

  His brothers and father ate heavily and rapidly, belching now and again. There were three brothers in particular, Simeon, Reuben and Judah. When he told his dreams he was hated by his three step-brothers but not by Benjamin, who listened spellbound. Benjamin was younger than the others and was his real brother.

  Joseph’s dreams were beautiful and gay but to his brothers they were dreams of power. And as well as that he had his coat which showed that Jacob, his father, had made him his heir. Jacob listened sadly to the dreams for he himself had cheated his own brother many years before. He knew that in the world one must survive if one can. At night one heard the roar of the lion and the cry of the hyena. Inside the mind and the heart there were wild animals as well. But he was now growing old and wished for peace. Not only had he cheated his own brother Esau by putting on the skin of an animal, but he had himself been cheated by his father-in-law, whom he had cheated in turn. He remembered, however, meeting Rachel – Joseph’s mother – at the well in the morning of the world, and falling out of the earth into the sky when he saw her standing there. A gift.

  Joseph’s dreams were beautiful and his brothers hated him.

  2

  That same day Joseph made his way to where his brothers were guarding the sheep from the wild animals. They wore long cloaks and carried sticks.

  When he made his way across the hot country towards them he met a man and asked him where his brothers were. The man pointed but said nothing. Then he turned sadly away as if he had done more and less than enough. When Joseph looked back he couldn’t see him.

  The sky was clear and blue and there were birds flying about. Joseph was carrying food to his brothers, cheese and bread. When he reached them, Simeon said: ‘Here is our brother.’

  Judah, the brutal one, was playing monotonously on a pipe. He had once fought a lioness and the scar remained near his heart. He was almost howling with boredom, for guarding sheep all day in the heat of the sun among stones and thirsty land is not a very interesting job.

  Simeon sat on the ground drawing diagrams with a stick. He said without looking up:

  ‘I have had a marvellous dream. In the dream I saw our brother Joseph being stripped of his cloak and sold to the merchants who go down into Egypt.’

  ‘Ah, Egypt,’ said Judah, dreaming of brothels. ‘That is a good dream,’ he said aloud.

  Reuben, who was a liberal, said: ‘What will our father say? He will kill us all for though he is old he is still strong.’

  ‘Are you on our side or not?’ said Judah carelessly. Reuben knew that Judah might kill him, so he said, ‘I protest against this on moral grounds but I cannot save Joseph by dying myself.’

  Simeon laughed. They stripped Joseph of his cloak and when the merchants came they sold him.

  Joseph didn’t know what was happening. He was being sold for his gay dreams. He listened in the caravan to the sad romantic songs of the camel drivers. In the morning he arrived in Egypt where there was the Nile and the Pyramids and a sense of movement combined with massive power.

  3

  He was sold at the market place along with some apes, a few Negroes from the south, and a dwarf who would dance if you poked at him through the bars with a pointed stick. He was sold to Potiphar, a small bald man who was chief executioner to Pharaoh. Potiphar was always cracking nuts with his teeth and telling broad jokes, which were not at all funny. After some time, Joseph was made a steward over the household, in charge of the servants and everything to do with the house. Potiphar’s wife was sultry and lovely. Joseph was tall, handsome and had eyes the colour of figs. He wore the Egyptian white tunic which was rather like that of a Greek. He was clever and competent and he had almost ceased to dream, mainly because he was in a foreign country but also because he didn’t have the time.

  4

  One day he and Potiphar’s wife were sitting in the garden where there grew a lot of flowers, including poppies and forget-me-nots. She was sitting in the green shade of a tree. Because of the lack of water trees had to be imported, but Potiphar and his wife were rich and had a big white house with colonnades and porches. Joseph, of course, was used to tents and to deserts.

  Potiphar’s wife suddenly said:

  ‘I am bored. Potiphar is away from home all day and he comes home worried at night. He is no use to me. He takes his work too seriously. Who would have thought there would be so much documentation connected with hanging? In the old days we used to hunt in the marshes with cats. Now my husband has no time for anything. He is afraid all the time. Are you afraid?’

  ‘Afraid?’ said Joseph. ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘You are more intelligent than my husband. When you came here you were illiterate. Now you can read and speak our language, and you can also count. Tell me, do you still write poetry?’

  ‘Not much now, madam,’ said Joseph correctly, looking at a bird which had perched on a branch beside him, its little body expanding and contracting as it sang.

  ‘Oh, I’m bored,’ said Potiphar’s wife. ‘In the old days I used to be a dancer. Now I am nothing. Nothing at all. I am surrounded by flowers when I should be surrounded by people who would offer me drinks and admire my beauty. Also, I would be happily drunk.’ Joseph said nothing. She continued, ‘Joseph, I have a fine dream. My husband is away from home. There is a cool room upstairs and a big bed. I dream that I am sleeping there with a handsome young foreigner called Joseph.’

  Joseph felt a sudden coldness at his heart as cold as the water in a very deep well.

  But she was attractive. She was tall and dark-haired and she had beautiful long legs and her eyes were brown.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I must be loyal to your husband.’

  ‘Honour,’ she laughed. ‘What a strange word! In another fifty years we will both be dead. My cheeks have fallen in. I will not dare to look in my copper mirror. You will have died of servitude for I can tell that you do not really like to be a slave. There is something about the way you speak and the way you walk. You will never learn to be a slave. In any case, the trees and the flowers will be here and the sun will shine. But we will both be dead. Our heads will be reduced to their skulls. Do you never think of that?’

  ‘I never used to do,’ said Joseph.

  ‘Come,’ she said rising, ‘let us go to bed together. The servants will say nothing. I shall see to that.’

  Her perfume almost overwhelmed him, but he remained faithful to his honour learned in the desert. He did not move.

  She said: ‘Do not antagonise a bored woman. I will give you one more chance.’

  ‘My answer, madam, has to be no,’ he said.

  ‘I see,’ she said contemptuously. ‘So that is the kind you are. Afraid of living.’ She tore at her clothes and began to scream. Servants came running. In a short while Joseph found himself in prison.

  5

  When he got there the governor interviewed him. He was a fat man with fat jowls and had large rings on his fingers. He studied Joseph as if he were a bull at a fair. He said, picking delicately at a sweetmeat:

  ‘I try to do my best here. I think the prisoners like me. You have offended a great man or at least a man in a high position. You are lucky not to be dead. The régime here is not harsh. I pride myself on that. The man before me was brutal but things are changing. There are political prisoners who are confined to their cells most of the time. You are a sexual
prisoner, if I may so refer to you. Some time when we get to know each other better you may tell me why you did not go to bed with Potiphar’s wife. If I had been in your place I would have done so. In order to get promotion I might even go to bed with Potiphar.’

  He laughed shortly, his belly bubbling up and down. He did not offer Joseph a sweetmeat. He continued:

  ‘Everyone knows about Potiphar’s wife. She is bored and beautiful. I am a lazy man myself. I hear that you are intelligent, so if I like you you can do a lot of useful work for me. I want the prisoners to like me. I want everybody to be happy. That makes less work for me. My hobby is collecting old pottery. I also like fishing. Is it a bargain?’

  Joseph nodded and was taken to a cell.

  6

  All that night he sat in his cell and brooded. He thought as follows: During the period when I had my gay dreams and when I was innocent and happy I was envied and yet I harmed no one. Then I was sold into slavery along with apes and a dancing dwarf. When I was sold to Potiphar I did my best to be useful and efficient. I forgot my dreams because I was too busy learning how to read and how to count. Then, because of my sense of honour, I was put in prison. He stopped and considered.

  My counting tells me as follows. If I had not done all the right things then I would not be in prison. Therefore there must be some reason why I am here, since my counting tells me that there is a logical reason for everything. I have a destiny. This I must believe since any other course would lead to suicide. My star, though broken, is shining. I have come a long way in a short time from the desert into a foreign prison. So be it. I shall wait and I shall study. The governor seems to be a fool, and since power seems to be the only important thing in life I shall gain it. However, I may be here for a long time. I shall therefore have to be patient, where once I was gay. That is the difference between a pool which reflects and a stream which runs.

  The night was cold and he wrapped himself in his cloak and lay down on the floor. In the sky there shone a star named Joseph.

  7

  One day, after he had been in prison for some years, he was sitting in the garden watching a little bird. He was saying:

  ‘All you have to do is fly over that hedge and you will be free. Why do you haunt a prison of all places?’

  As he watched it and philosophised he saw two men walking up and down in the garden. One looked well and the other ill. Finally, the well one made the ill one sit down on a bench.

  Joseph said to the ill one:

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  The well one said:

  ‘I am a butler and my friend here is a baker. We were put in prison by the Pharaoh.’

  ‘I haven’t seen you before,’ said Joseph. ‘Are you political prisoners?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the butler. ‘You know what powerful men do. Powerful men are unpredictable, especially if they are gods as well. One day the Pharaoh thought that the two of us were poisoning him, so he said, “Take these men to prison”. He did this while cleaning his teeth with a toothpick. Immediately he had condemned us he had forgotten us. He sent us to prison because he was bored.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’ said Joseph.

  ‘Because soon we’ll be dead anyway. I will tell you something. We both have dreams. My dream is as follows. I see myself picking grapes from a tree and handing them to the Pharaoh. My friend also has dreams.’

  ‘Tell me your dreams,’ said Joseph to the baker who was sitting white-faced and silent on a bench.

  The baker said, ‘I’m frightened. I feel that my dream will doom me. I have a wife and two children and I am afraid to die.’

  ‘I am not afraid to die,’ said the butler. ‘Death is better than the life we lead.’

  The baker said, ‘I dream that I have a basket on my head and the birds of the air peck at the bread inside it.’ His head sank listlessly on his chest.

  Joseph studied the two of them for some time, the ruddy butler and the white faced baker and then said:

  ‘The dreams mean that the butler will be saved and the baker will die.’

  The butler said to him: ‘You shouldn’t have said that. You have taken away his hope.’

  ‘The truth must prevail,’ said Joseph. ‘It’s like counting. It has nothing to do with hope.’

  The butler began to comfort the baker but in his heart he was glad. In any case, he had always had the feeling that he wouldn’t be put to death.

  ‘One thing,’ said Joseph suddenly, turning away from the bird and twitching a little as if he were swallowing something distasteful, ‘when you meet the Pharaoh tell him about me.’

  The butler said nothing and finally the two of them left, the butler supporting the baker as before, and Joseph sitting there in a terrible dream of betrayal.

  8

  One day shortly after this the governor sent for him. He said:

  ‘You’ll have to wear fine clothes and make sure that you are clean shaven. The Pharaoh has sent for you. I don’t know why this is so. In any case it is a great honour. You have been very competent in your work in the prison and I will give you good references. Everyone likes you, mainly because you have learnt not to speak too much and therefore you don’t make enemies. Please tell the Pharaoh if you have a chance, what a competent man I am and how enlightened my régime is. Tell him that I love my prisoners and that they love me. My wife would like it if I was promoted.’

  Joseph said: ‘I will do that,’ looking around the office which was cluttered with papers, and at the governor whose garment was in disarray.

  9

  The Pharaoh was sitting on his throne and around him were his wizards and magicians. They were saying:

  ‘We cannot tell the meaning of the dream, lord. We have tried divining bowls and have read many books but we confess ourselves baffled.’

  The Pharaoh regarded them contemptuously, his little eyes bright as those of a snake, and said:

  ‘I should throw you all into the Nile to feed the crocodiles, for if you cannot divine dreams what else are you fit for? But as the crocodile is an ancestor of mine I won’t throw him corrupt flesh.’ Noticing Joseph, he said:

  ‘Approach, foreigner. Listen carefully. If you can’t tell me the answer to my dreams you will die.’

  Joseph noticed the butler standing beside the king, secure and untroubled.

  The Pharaoh said:

  ‘When I say that I will have you executed, I am telling the truth. Now then, listen. Every night I dream two dreams. Whenever I go to my bed I dream them. Firstly, I see the Nile untroubled and calm. Then, grazing by the Nile, I see seven fat cows, smooth and shining. Everything is peaceful. The cows are grazing by the river. The sky looks blue and everything appears idyllic. Then slowly I see rising out of the Nile seven other cows, so emaciated that every bone in their bodies is visible. They are like mechanical skeletons, toys. They have hungry red eyes. And then in my dream I see them attacking the seven fat cows and ripping at their live flesh. I see their mouths working like machines. And yet the sky is blue and the Nile is calm.’

  The Pharaoh passed a hand over his brow. ‘Some more wine,’ he said to the butler without looking round. ‘But that is not all,’ he continued. ‘I also see seven sheaves of corn in a field. Fat and prosperous and innocent and golden. It is harvest time. Then I see seven thin sheaves, like dancers, moving towards them and devouring them all. In the silence. It’s strange. It’s like nothing anyone would ever like to see, because of the silence. I dream these dreams every night. If you tell me their meaning I will offer you anything. Even a god should not have nightmares all the time.’

  Joseph thought: This is the time. To sell my dreams for money and for power. This is the time. If this is the time.

  He said, ‘I know what your dreams mean, O Pharaoh.’

  The Pharaoh told the rest to leave and Joseph told what the dreams meant.

  ‘How do I know whether you are right?’ said the Pharaoh.

  ‘I am right because you will c
ease to dream them. That is all.’

  The Pharaoh closed his eyes and went to sleep while Joseph stood there as if carved from rock. His hands did not shake and he knew that he was in the hands of destiny. He knew now that destiny was on his side, but he wasn’t happy.

  After a while, the Pharaoh woke up clear-eyed and said: ‘I did not dream the dreams this time. Now what will we do about the famine?’

  Joseph said:

  ‘You should appoint a man and he would gather in the corn and you would save it for the time of the famine.’

  ‘Where will I find such a man? Most of my administrators are fools, and you have seen what my magicians are like.’

  He considered. Finally he said:

  ‘You.’

  ‘Me?’ said Joseph.

  ‘Yes, you. It came into my mind now.’ He shouted joyfully. ‘All you others come in!’

  And they did, cringing and hoping that Joseph had failed. The Pharaoh said:

  ‘I have an announcement to make. This is it. This man Joseph will be my right hand man from now on. Do you see this ring? I put it on his finger. And this cloak. I place it on his shoulders. You will accept orders from him as you would from me. The cloak and the ring will be sufficient.’

  There were no comments, naturally. Joseph stood in his new cloak and with his new ring and knew he was hated again. But this time he did know it.

  10

  He took his chariot one morning when the sun was up and he went to where some workmen were working. They were making a sculpture of the Pharaoh in a rock tomb, and fitting up mirrors so that it could be clearly seen.

  Joseph wondered at the majesty and power of the work of art, so solid and lasting and showing such insight and artistry. He said to one of the workmen:

  ‘Which do you think more important, the making of this statue or having enough to eat?’

  The workman laughed as if Joseph had made a joke.

  Joseph sent for the foreman who was in charge of the whole operation. He was a short, sturdy, busy-looking man with broad shoulders and a practical air about him. His eyes twinkled and he seemed to enjoy life and his work. He wore a blue smock.