The Englishman's Boy (44 page)

He liked to give her presents. Her face lit like a lamp. She spread them buttons on the table, where the sun danced on them. Counted them into her hand. Closed that hand tight as a strongbox. Smiled and beckoned him.

He followed her up the stairs, three flights to a dusty attic. They stood face to face; he felt a purpose in it. She started to kiss him, lightly, a good many times. He didn’t hold her; he didn’t know how. Maybe she thought it his preference.

She shucked his pants. Smiling that smile, on her knees, just stroking him, passing her hand lingering and gentle over his buttocks, down the back of his legs, down his calves. Stroking him as he shivered, near swooned, as he tugged his shirt front down to hide from her what was happening to him.

“No, no,” she whispered, caught his hand, getting to her feet. She stood and pulled her dress over her head. There was little light but he could see her, pale and thin, stooping to lay her buttons on her dress.
She moved back to him, kissed him, and he held her this time. Soon they was laying on the floor. The sun broke in a frosted window and she burst white in his eyes, white as snow except for the dark twigs of her nipples. He just kissed her; he didn’t know what else to do.

She guided him into her. He lay there lost in the pleasure of the slick heat, stunned. He didn’t ask for more, only to rest there, sucking her little teats. Something was passing between them in this melting, he felt as if his darkness was drawing light from her body.

She began to flex her hips under him and he hugged her. He could feel her trying to rise up into him, and he yearning to press down into her. He’d heard the rutting men with the whores, groaning as they pushed the need of their bodies into another body, forcing a black shameful exchange. But this was not the same. He was taking light.

A flush was creeping up her white shoulders, her neck, her cheeks. She arched suddenly and he held his breath, what he passed to her, passing in silence into the deaf girl’s silent world.

He looked up now and saw the Indian girl had turned her face to him, saw a world silent and blind. Nothing was reflected in the dark, unseeing, empty eyes. When he spoke, her face, like Selena’s, registered nothing. Nothing moved in that face except swollen lips, opening and closing, opening and closing.

The Englishman’s boy rose from the stool, flung aside the blanket and went into the other room. Hardwick said, “You done your business? We thought you might need help with your buttons. It was silent as a tomb in there.”

“I ain’t a hog,” he said.

“Who’s ready for seconds?” said Hardwick. “I always like two pieces of pie myself.”

“Scotty don’t want his – I’ll take it,” said Bell.

“I wouldn’t if I was you,” said the Englishman’s boy. Their faces lifted in surprise. It was the harshness of his voice and the wound stoking fever in his eyes, so that they glittered like isinglass in the tormented face. “Look at me.” His urgency stilled the rattling dice. “Don’t you recognize me?”

They all stared at him. Then Hardwick said quietly, “Who you supposed to be?”

“A curse.” He pointed to the corpse on the floor. “Ask Grace. Ask my dead Englishman. Farmer Hank … Lord knows his fate.” He pitched his voice to the corner of the room. “You know me, don’t you, Scotchman? The Scotchman knows there ain’t no bad luck blacker than the seed the Devil cursed.” He turned to Bell. “Go on in there, lie with her, stir Satan’s spunk, let it touch you. See what befalls.”

Bell cleared his throat, sat back down on the floor.

“That’s right,” he said. “You don’t want no portion of me. Who did you think I am? Nobody asked my name. I’ll tell you who I am. I’m what the black belly of the whale couldn’t abide. I’m your Jonah.” He looked around the room. “Any of you wants to test what I say, go on in there and mix your seed with mine, see if it’s a lie.”

Nobody moved. He walked across the room, his shadow breaking on the walls, pushed open the door. The rush of cool air did nothing for his fever, nothing for his lust. He was fumbling with his pants buttons, burning. I ain’t no different. I ain’t no different. I wanted her every bit as bad as any of them. Quick and savage he used himself, fell back against the wall of the post, ending it like all the rest had, with a cry.

The Red River carts stood stacked with goods, waiting to pull south to Fort Benton. The mounted wolfers were bound northwest, up the Whoop-Up Trail, to pursue their stolen horses. The Englishman’s boy had told Hardwick he would not go with him. He would push in the opposite direction, northeast.

“Good riddance,” said Hardwick.

“I’m taking the horse,” the Englishman’s boy said.

Hardwick had only jerked the cinch on his saddle a little tighter.

“I earned it,” the boy said.

Hardwick walked away from him.

Now there was only one thing left to do. They had buried Ed Grace under the floorboards of the fort and were going to burn it down over him. If they didn’t, said Hardwick, the Assiniboine would
find the body, maul and mutilate it so his own mother wouldn’t know him.

They all sat their horses in expectation of the torching. Hardwick doused the floorboards with kerosene, came out and splashed the remainder of the can up and down the outside walls. Just as he struck a match, the Englishman’s boy darted his eyes frantically over the assembly and shouted, “Where’s the girl?”

Hardwick touched the match to the doorsill. There was a whoosh like a passing train and blue flame shot out around the sill, then sucked back into the mouth of the door like a fiery tongue. The Englishman’s boy threw himself off his horse and ran to the post, snatched at Hardwick’s arm, screaming, “Where’s the girl?”

Hardwick yanked his arm free and walked to his horse.

He stumbled to a door framed like a picture in wreaths of fire, tried to drive through it, but the furnace-blast sent him reeling back. He tore his jacket off, held it up to shield his face, and threw himself blind at the doorway. For a moment, he teetered on the threshold, then staggered back whimpering, the tweed singed and smoking. Tossing aside the jacket he peered into the rippling air and curling smoke. She was crouched on the countertop like a cat in a flood, the floorboards beneath her awash in fire. Briefly, smoke glutted the doorway; he lost sight of her. He wiped his eyes. The door cleared. She was drawing herself up to spring, spring down into the flames. He aimed and fired the pistol empty. Reloaded mechanically and emptied it again into the billowing smoke, even though there was nothing to see.

Outside he ran in circles, yelling for Hardwick. The grass, the trees, the creek were his only company and they could not be killed. He sank to the ground and watched the post burn to nothing. When night came down he walked among the glow of the dying embers, boots smoking. Of Grace and the Indian girl he found nothing.

Hours later, he mounted his horse and three times circled the ruins of the post, dabbed here and there with sparks like the sky was dabbed with stars. A dumb, holy prayer for the two of them. Then he turned his horse northeast, like an Indian, to seek in the wilderness.

30
 

T
wo days after Chance and Fitz pay me their nocturnal visit I go to see Rachel Gold. It’s been a long time since we have had any contact. I think she has phoned several times; the telephone rang so persistently, so doggedly, I concluded it had to be either her or Fitz, and I didn’t want to speak to either of them. But now, cornered by my conscience, I ride a streetcar to her pink stucco apartment building with its Spanish courtyard. It’s as if when my illness, my fever broke, something broke loose in me too, sending things floating to the surface, things I have to deal with.

My knock gets no answer, despite the fact I can hear somebody moving around inside. I bang the door, loudly.

“Pedlar begone!” she shouts imperiously.

“It’s me, Rachel. Harry. Open up.”

The sound of rapid, thudding footsteps and the door is flung open. She’s wearing a Chinese-looking robe, red dragons on a black satin ground. She is barefoot and the famous black hair is alive. So is her face, registering shock at my appearance.

“God, Harry, where’ve you been? Why haven’t I heard from you? What’s happened? You look like hell.”

“I’ve been sick,” I say curtly, inviting myself in, walking past her.

She trails concern after me into the living room. “You look like you could use something to eat. I’ll make you something to eat.”

“No, I don’t want anything to eat.” I sag down into an armchair. I’m nervous because of what I’ve come to say; my eyes drift around the apartment, avoiding hers, the anxiety in her face. “This won’t take long. I have something to tell you. And a favour to ask.”

“Shoot,” she says. I hear her settling on the sofa across from me. I’m reluctant to start; a strained, expectant silence forms.

“Harry, look at me.”

I do.

“What’s the matter?”

I begin, “Remember that day on the beach? When you told me I had to decide? Well, I’ve decided.”

“What have you decided, Harry?”

“I acted on impulse that day and I made a fool of myself. I’m sorry, but I’m acting on impulse again. There’s something that’s been eating at me. Something I didn’t tell you. About Chance.”

She shoots me a penetrating look. “What didn’t you tell me about Chance?”

I want to make this clear. “I’m not taking revenge on him,” I continue awkwardly, “and the last thing I want to do is hurt you, but I think you have a right to know.”

“Forget the pussyfooting. Out with it.”

“Remember what you said about Fitz in the Cocoanut Grove -that he was an anti-Semite?” I hesitate. “Well, so is Chance. In earnest. I’ve heard him say things.”

Rachel stiffens visibly, someone prepared for a slap in the face. She knows what is coming. “What kind of things?” she demands, voice brittle.

“Don’t ask me to spell it out. Take it from me. You don’t want to hear.”

Rachel draws the robe a little tighter around her shoulders. “A drink might help take the bad taste out of my mouth,” she says disgustedly. “Unfortunately for me, I quit drinking.” Her lips twist slightly, struggling to summon up an ironic smile. “But looking on the lighter side, maybe this cloud has a silver lining. When I hand the
son of a bitch my resignation, I’ll be free to write that novel I’ve been threatening the public with for as long as you’ve known me.”

“Sure.”

“But I won’t,” she says quietly, more to herself than me.

I don’t contradict her. We both know she’s right on that score. Rachel says nothing else, sits absolutely still and quiet.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

She glances up at me. “That’s the second time you’ve said sorry this afternoon, Harry. Don’t be a parrot.” She moves now, abruptly, leans over and plucks a cigarette from a lacquer box on the coffee table, lights it with a flick of a match. Rachel back to business, the decisive close to a distasteful subject. Chance dismissed like a fly. “You mentioned a favour,” she says, shaking out the match, tossing it into an ashtray. “What is it?”

“I want you to visit my mother.”

Her eyes lift quizzically. “Of course. When would you like to go?”

“Not the both of us. Just you.”

She scrutinizes me closely. “Now what the hell is all this about?”

It seems lately there are no clear explanations. The best I can offer is, “I can’t face her right now.” I lay my hands on my kneecaps and watch them shake there uncontrollably.

“You’re a
mensch
, Harry. A
mensch
doesn’t abandon his mother,” she says sternly.

That word, whenever she used to apply it to me, would make me angry and envious. I would have preferred to be one of her gigolos. Now it fills me with despair. The debris of a lot of mistakes has floated to the surface in the past couple of days. It seems I have a long history of betrayals. “I let her down once before, Rachel,” I whisper without lifting my eyes. “You know what she asked me just before I left to come down here? To buy her a new dress so I could pick her out from all the rest of those drab women on the ward the next time I visited. She sensed I was running out on her. Knew it.”

“Or you think she did.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to let her down again. My money’s going fast. What if she ends up in one of those goddamn state-run asylums?”

“Stop this, Harry,” she says.

“But don’t you see?” I look up, plead with her to understand. “I can’t let that happen.”

“I told you before,” she says impatiently, “if you need money, I’ll lend it to you. Take my word on it.”

“She’s my mother. My responsibility. I’m going to do my best to take care of her. But I just can’t face her now.”

Rachel isn’t about to relent. “Go and see her, Harry.”

“Believe me, she’d rather see you.” I’m begging, desperate. “You said I was abandoning her. I’m not abandoning her, I’m just asking for a reprieve, a little time to get things straight in my mind. Is that so much to ask? Look at me, for Christ’s sake! Do you think she should see me looking like this?” I hold up my trembling hands as testimony.

She studies my face, my hands. They are the only arguments which have any effect. “Sure I’ll go visit your mother,” she says at last, gently. “But what about you? When will I see you again?”