The Red Door

by Iain Crichton Smith

  Joseph said to him:

  ‘I have a job for you.’

  While he was speaking he was looking at the sculpture, showing the Pharaoh seated in all his power and massive glory. The rising sun flashed directly into the hollow eyes, seeming to animate them with commanding intellect.

  ‘What job is that?’ said the foreman. Joseph noticed that he didn’t say ‘sir’, though he probably knew who he was.

  Speaking carefully and slowly, Joseph said, ‘I want you to leave this and build barns, at a higher salary of course.’

  ‘Barns?’ said the man incredulously, looking down at his stubby fingers covered with a fine powder. The hammers resounded through the air of the still morning.

  ‘There is going to be a famine,’ said Joseph, ‘and many people will die. We want to bring in the corn and store it in barns. We will need large ones and many of them. Will you do that?’

  ‘No,’ said the foreman. ‘Anyone can build a barn. Only I can create this sculpture.’

  ‘I see,’ said Joseph enviously, feeling the cloak heavy round his shoulders like stone. ‘You refuse, even though many people will die? Can you not imagine the starvation and the deaths?’

  ‘The world is full of people,’ said the sculptor. ‘Most of them are not of the slightest importance. I, on the other hand, am a genius. I cannot waste my time building barns. That would be ridiculous.’

  ‘You are sure?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘You think that art is more important than the saving of life?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Joseph went away, thinking to himself, deeply and rancorously.

  11

  So the corn poured into the granaries. Rats were killed and doors were padlocked. The corn mounted up all golden. There was an enormous documentation to be done. Squads of collectors had to be sent out to examine the land and make sure that the farmers didn’t cheat by withholding too much of the corn for themselves. The whole operation required an administrator of genius, which Joseph was. People came from everywhere as the famine spread. Also, there was dissension among the peasants whose corn was being taken from them, sometimes without payment. But Joseph was inflexible, though he was called ‘The Foreigner’.

  One day he looked up and there was Potiphar’s wife in front of him. She looked like a cheap prostitute, which she probably was. She also looked thin. At first she did not recognise Joseph, but then she did. She ogled him and said:

  ‘Can I have some corn? I have already pawned all my jewels. The only thing I have left is my marriage ring.’ It came off quite easily and while she was disengaging it from her finger, she made a pitiful attempt to show him her breasts.

  ‘How happy we might have been,’ she said, ‘the two of us. How much you missed,’ she said, almost defiantly. But she lacked the suave confidence of former days. He handed her back the ring and said to an attendant,

  ‘Give this woman corn.’ Then he turned away and looked all round him at the golden sheaves.

  Food. He had taken food to his brothers but they had rejected it. He in turn had turned down what might have been a form of life.

  ‘Goodbye,’ he said over his shoulder, for after all she had gone down in the world. He felt dirty and longed for Benjamin. ‘Of course I’m older now,’ she said. ‘My husband put me out. He was going to kill me but I got away just the same. There was another servant you didn’t know about.’

  When she had gone a prince from the north came. He had five slaves with him. He said:

  ‘I offer you these five slaves for some corn.’ He looked fastidious and talked loudly as if he were the only important person there.

  ‘We have enough people here already,’ said Joseph, amazed at his stupidity.

  Finally after all the people – the women with the children dead at the breast, the hollow-cheeked proud men, the pale adolescents – came the governor.

  ‘What happened to you?’ said Joseph. ‘I told a lie on your behalf.’

  ‘I was promoted,’ said the governor, ‘but I wasn’t so happy.’

  ‘You are speaking the truth at last,’ said Joseph, and he ordered corn to be given to him.

  12

  His wife was an Egyptian woman and she was proud of her husband. She was also religious and told stories to their children about Osiris and Anubis and the rest of the gods. While she talked and as they sat in the garden Joseph said nothing and looked at the star which was his own and which had shone over desert, prison and palace. He never cared much for the Egyptian gods for they seemed absurd and incestuous and not mathematical. They were the sort of gods that might have been created by children and for children. The world of number wasn’t as untidy as that: it was clear and accurate and pure.

  ‘I’m tired of this weight of responsibility,’ he would say. ‘There must be a reason for it.’

  Day after day he stood there saying, ‘No.’ If he had not been sold by his brothers and if he hadn’t been imprisoned then he wouldn’t now be the Pharaoh’s right-hand man. So everything had worked out well after all. But he was sad just the same, for his dreams were all about the dying and the dead, about refusals and denials, about starving people and tons of golden corn.

  But he loved his life in a way, though some nights he felt he did not belong to that country. Its language was not his. Its customs were not his. He couldn’t speak as he wished. But the world of number was common to all. It transcended nationality.

  13

  The day his brothers came he regarded them out of the shadows. They did not recognise him, though he recognised them. Probably the reason they didn’t recognise him was that he was clean shaven as was the custom of the Egyptians. And they could not see him very well in the shadow.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked roughly.

  ‘Food,’ said Simeon, who was the spokesman.

  They looked rustic, that was what astonished him. He was not at all frightened of them. They looked exactly what they were, uneducated peasants from the hills, with large hands and large feet.

  ‘You are spies,’ he said. ‘You come from the north. I can tell by your speech. You people think that because we have a famine we are weak and can be overthrown. You are making a big mistake.’

  ‘We’re not spies,’ said Simeon, truthfully.

  Judah said nothing, looking around him contemptuously. Reuben looked this way and that like a cornered rabbit.

  ‘I will have you all thrown in jail,’ Joseph shouted. ‘On second thoughts, you,’ pointing to Simeon, ‘will stay here as hostage for the others. I want to hear your story.’

  Simeon said:

  ‘We have been sent by our father to get food, because we are starving.’

  ‘Are you the only members of the family?’ said Joseph.

  ‘We have a younger brother,’ said Simeon.

  ‘Right,’ said Joseph, ‘I want him here.’

  Simeon smiled gently and cunningly:

  ‘If that is your wish, sir.’ Joseph cut him off and then said to Judah:

  ‘You, sir, had better change the expression on your face or you will be beheaded. And you, what are you?’ he said to Reuben.

  ‘I am a liberal, sir. I do not believe in violence or spying. I know that you are a great man and I love power though I often affect to despise it.’

  ‘I see. You heard what I said. This brother of yours stays in prison.’

  Simeon was put in prison but quickly learned to ingratiate himself with the guards and taught them how to play cards, a pastime in which he had often indulged when watching the sheep. Soon he would be able to pick up the language and count.

  14

  Joseph came home to dinner.

  ‘Are they here?’ he asked his wife. She looked at him doubtfully.

  ‘They are my brothers,’ he said. ‘They sold me into slavery. How many are there?’

  ‘Four,’ she said. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I shall offer them food,’ he said. ‘They have the smell of my own l
and.’ She turned away as if about to cry. He put his arms around her.

  ‘But destiny brought me here,’ he said.

  ‘Destiny?’ she said. ‘What’s that?’

  He went inside. They were all sitting down very quietly, overawed. He shouted to the servants to bring in their food, and he served them himself, giving more to Benjamin than to the others. He noticed how greedily Benjamin ate. But after all he’s a growing boy, he thought.

  When they were finished eating, he said, ‘I will leave you for a few moments.’

  He went into an adjoining room and changed quickly. When he came back he was wearing a shepherd’s cloak and carrying a stick.

  ‘Do you not know me?’ he asked.

  Something about the cloak and the stick and the way in which he spoke in their own language recalled him to Simeon, who was the first to speak.

  ‘You are Joseph,’ he said in astonishment, his face whitening.

  ‘And you are next to the Pharaoh,’ said Reuben, in equal astonishment.

  ‘Our brother has made good,’ said Judah mockingly.

  Joseph looked at Benjamin but Benjamin could not remember him very well.

  This made him extremely sad, sadder than he had been for a long time.

  ‘We were envious of you in those days,’ said Simeon quickly. ‘It was because your father had chosen you as the heir and you were only the second youngest; and, after all, it was we who looked after the sheep. Isn’t that right, Judah?’

  ‘I hated him,’ said Judah. ‘He was a horrible little bastard.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ said Reuben. ‘He might have acted a bit arrogant now and again but we must always make allowances for the young.’

  ‘In any case,’ said Simeon, his eyes darting hither and thither, ‘you’ve got a high position now and you’ve got to admit that if it hadn’t been for us you wouldn’t have got it.’

  Joseph gritted his teeth but said nothing. They hadn’t changed. But they were still his own people. He thought: Local Boy makes good. From Poet to Administrator.

  He thought of the day not so long before when the foreman had come to him looking half starved. He had brought him a small replica of Joseph which he had designed.

  ‘I have spent a year on this,’ he said to Joseph. ‘It’s very valuable. I will give it to you for six bags of corn.’

  ‘Six bags of corn?’ said Joseph. He looked at the replica which was green in colour and beautifully made.

  ‘You haven’t flattered me,’ he said.

  ‘No, that is not my job,’ said the foreman. ‘Do you want it? It is a portrait of my opposite, the administrator of genius whom I hate. I am an artist of genius.’

  ‘You should have built the barns,’ said Joseph. ‘Now you wouldn’t be starving.’

  ‘I don’t regret anything,’ said the foreman, looking round the barns. ‘I did what I had to do. Do you want the replica?’

  ‘Three bags,’ said Joseph, looking at him keenly.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Seven then.’

  ‘No, I want six. It’s worth exactly six, neither more nor less.’

  ‘In that case I won’t take it,’ said Joseph firmly.

  The foreman picked up the replica and turned away. ‘I don’t blame you. We think differently. However, I had thought you would have respect for number.’

  ‘All right,’ said Joseph. ‘I’ll take it though you haven’t flattered me.’

  ‘I would have asked more for it,’ said the foreman, ‘only my wife died when I was working on it, and I don’t need so much food now.’

  ‘I see,’ said Joseph. ‘Goodbye.’

  The foreman turned away, his clothes loose on him but his eyes still twinkling.

  Joseph seemed to wake up and said to his brothers:

  ‘You will have to stay here now and I will find jobs for all of you. You can all do something. Even Judah could wrestle for money.’

  ‘That’s very realistic of you,’ said Simeon, rubbing his hands.

  ‘It will be a good thing to be the brother of so important a man,’ said Benjamin.

  Joseph left them whispering together and sought his wife whom he kissed fondly.

  15

  When his father came they talked together in the garden. His father was bearded and weaker than he had been. Joseph said to him:

  ‘I know now what my destiny has been. Everything led to you being here. I was destined to save my tribe. And the dream came true.’

  His father nodded.

  Joseph added:

  ‘I find it strange that I have saved you by becoming corrupt. I hate it and I don’t know whether I shall be able to bear it.’

  ‘We all become corrupt,’ said his father. ‘That is the penalty of living. I too am corrupt. Once I betrayed my brother. Later I had to bribe him with camels. He was stronger than me physically but I was more astute than he was. Also in order to gain my wife, whom I truly loved, I was betrayed and then I betrayed my father-in-law in turn. That is the way the world is. Even God accepts that or we wouldn’t have been so successful.’

  ‘What I miss most are my dreams,’ said Joseph. ‘The famine will soon be over and my work done.’

  He banged his hand on a stone.

  ‘But what I miss most are my dreams. When I was innocent they served me nothing. Then I sold them and here I am surrounded by furniture, riches and food.’

  ‘That is so,’ said his father nodding. ‘I don’t understand it either but that is the way it is.’

  ‘I loved my dreams,’ said Joseph, ‘and now I love number. Soon perhaps I won’t love even that. Perhaps I will be like Judah, bored to death watching the sheep. And all I shall have left will be my furniture. Sometimes I feel it is eating me up.’

  ‘Furniture will not kill you,’ said his father, ‘though the wild beasts will. You have more than survived.’

  A bird flew out of the garden carrying a worm in its beak like a dangling necklace. The beak was black and the worm red.

  ‘I am here,’ said Joseph slowly, ‘and what we call destiny has put me here. That is what we say.’

  ‘That is right,’ said his father, thinking of Rachel standing by the well years ago, the camels’ shadows slanting along the ground and his father-in-law coming out to meet him, rubbing his hands briskly and smiling above his beard.

  Life is good, he thought, but this is a strange land. We desert folk miss the desert, its purity and its treachery.

  Nevertheless, with the greed of an old man he thought: I shall have plenty to eat now.

  The Idiot and the Professor and some others

  The idiot stood on the pavement. In his right hand he had a tube which looked like a recorder. Absently he scratched the left ear of his crew-cut head. He turned his head to the right, jutting his lips out. Then he turned his head to the left. He sighted along the recorder as if it were a gun. He put it down by his side and ran it along his thigh. Then he absently scratched his crotch, looking up into the sky. His face was young and brick-red in colour, like that of a Nazi who had drunk too much. He was fifty years old and boyish. He knelt down and tapped the recorder against his shoe. He tried to drill his shoe with the recorder. He stood up and looked about him. He scratched his left ear again.

  The professor walked up the road, one hand swinging free. He stopped beside the idiot. The idiot looked up at the professor, stroking the recorder. The professor spoke to the idiot, putting his hand on the idiot’s shoulder. The idiot looked at him unblinkingly. The professor tried to take the recorder from the idiot, but the idiot at first wouldn’t give it to him. Finally he gave it to him. The professor put the recorder to his lips. He played the recorder standing on one leg. He made some music with it. The idiot looked at him in amazement. Then he scratched his crotch again.

  Two girls passed, arm in arm, giggling. The idiot looked away from the professor, after the two girls. They waved to him and he nodded his head vigorously. The professor turned the recorder up towards the sky as if he wer
e examining it for stars. The idiot watched him carefully. The books the professor was carrying fell to the ground. A boy and a girl who were passing bent down and picked them up. The idiot bent down also. The girl was wearing a yellow miniskirt like a flower. The idiot could see the backs of her thighs. The professor took the books and picked up his hat which had fallen down. He crammed the latter on his head. He looked vaguely at the nearby church and crooned to himself. He wasn’t a tall man, perhaps five foot four, and he had a small white beard. The idiot took the recorder and marched up and down like a sergeant major on parade, swinging his left arm. The professor took the recorder from him and marched up and down, twirling it like a drum majorette. They laughed together.

  The tanned visitors came home from the sea and the glens. They stood and watched the idiot and the professor. Some were in sandals, others were naked above the waist. They looked happy and tired, having built sandcastles all day. There were countless numbers of them, and they all stopped to look at the idiot. The idiot snatched the recorder from the professor and the professor made a face and stalked off.

  A drunk came weaving up the road, dodging the cars which were honking furiously at him. He put his arm round the idiot’s shoulders and began to speak to him. The idiot listened, gazing impassively ahead of him. Suddenly he brought the recorder down on the drunk’s head. The drunk nodded his head like a boxer after a heavy punch and moved on, swaying from side to side. The idiot jutted his lips.

  The people looked at him, not knowing what to say to him. He looked back at them. The sun briefly dazzled along his recorder. He pointed it at them as if he were going to shoot them. They giggled among each other and pointed at him.

  A policeman came and began to move them along. The idiot stood stout and firm, facing the traffic with the recorder in his mouth, his face expressionless. He looked like an American.

  The professor had gone home. He took from his bookcase a monograph he had written about Descartes many years before. He read it every night. This was only another night he was reading it.