Anna watched Vassiliki’s face as she drank the coffee. She looked like she appreciated the heat and even the flavour, but didn’t look particularly impressed.
“Too thin?” Anna asked her.
“Hmm?”
“Too much like water – not thick enough?”
Vassiliki grinned sheepishly. “Not thick, no. But good.”
Anna drank her coffee slowly, which was uncharacteristic of her, as drinking coffee fast was both characteristic of her people and a means by which delays in her long working nights were kept down. But tonight, wanting to learn more from the girl and to put off, for once, the inevitable urgent efforts, she savoured it – thin as it might be.
Vassiliki turned to her again.
“Family poor. With goats, earth no good for grow. You want to know why we come.”
Anna nodded.
“That is why. Simple. I tell you more of family. My family, I told to you, have a small world – even in America. They cross the world, and are today… in the village.”
Vassiliki snapped her fingers twice. “They are still in the village.” She smiled with triumph.
Anna found the way she clicked her fingers to help her remember endearing, and even felt a kind of warmth when she saw how happy she was with her realisation. She saw through the smoke caught in the artificial light, two dim electric globes augmented by candles lest they go blind by their labours, for the first time, that the girl was beautiful – not just pretty, which had been apparent from the start. Beautiful and fierce. Anna knew she’d adapt to this new habitat, for better or for worse.
Vassiliki flicked the cigarette and it landed in a bucket of water on the other side of the room, sizzling for a split, barely discernible moment. Anna knew she should tell her not to do that - that it was dangerous, but instead she couldn’t help but be a little bit impressed.
* * *
Robert sat at his typewriter like the accused before the judge.
He questioned his own past and it collapsed under interrogation. His script seemed trivial. Mexico was, of course, never trivial – but no longer seemed inevitable. He had assumed it was destiny, in a materialist sense. The tide of history was not a force of nature, as the mystics cast fate, but a scientific power. Now, that power waned. As for writing, how could he write at a time like this?
He pushed away from the table, the cheap chair shuddering, screeching to the floor with a loud clatter as he stood up. He worried, briefly, about waking his neighbours and guessed, correctly, they’d be too tired to be roused by anything less than an earthquake.
Robert grabbed his coat and was out the door without a second thought, flying down the protesting stairwell he wondered if he’d been better off brushing his teeth after that instant coffee. Too late, he concluded as he bounded past the Welshman’s room and into the night.
He saw the street prophet with his sign over his shoulder, walking home – whatever home was – and couldn’t make out what he’d proclaimed today. He stopped. Mrs Cottlesbridge – he’d not seen her in days and the thought just occurred to him. ‘Damn, I told myself to look after that old duck, and I’ve not even checked in on her once.’ He turned tail and made good time, but stopped at the base of the stairs to cough. The Welshman, Jones, emerged. He held, as always, a paperback in his hand. His face, as always, seemed carved from marble. He was not one man, he was one thousand years of Jones men. Even in this new world city he was every Jones, but also the last.
Robert stopped to talk to him very briefly and despite his concern for the old lady, he was trying to catch a glimpse of the spine – The Possessed. Robert knew the book as a cruel satire of revolutionaries, written with a venom only a former radical could muster. Jones saw that Robert had noticed the book.
“It’s a good ‘un.” He offered quietly, in a matter of fact way, as though pre-empting the usual question.
“I’ve heard that.”
“You’ve read him?”
“House of the Dead.”
Jones’s face, always as dour as an expressionless face can be, showed a flicker of enthusiasm.
“Like it?”
“Very good. Very interesting.”
“Could you identify with it?”
Jones shifted his weight from one foot to the other and folded his hands behind his back, taking the book from sight.
“How…” Robert felt troubled. “Not particularly.”
“I’m surprised. Man like you, an educated man, here.”
“In this building or in this city?” Robert tried to laugh.
“Both.” Jones remained marble-faced. Robert remained silent before opening his mouth to change the subject.
“Have y-”
“I identify with it. Oh I’m no nobleman, and no intellectual – perhaps not even a discontent. But, certainly, I do reside in the House of the Dead - (he grinned) – in a sense.”
“Do you write, Mr Jones?”
Jones laughed. “Everybody writes, Mr Hart – but badly. We write dialogue, which is a short cut for thinking that never quite gets us there.”
Jones looked around and his smile vanished into his usual stoicism.
“Mrs Cottlesbridge is quite alright, to the best of my knowledge, but I am sure she would appreciate a visit or a kind word. Good day.”
He vanished into his apartment and, uncharacteristically, closed the door completely.
Robert checked his watch, it was far earlier than he imagined and he was wracked with guilt over his stagnating script. He moved quickly up the stairs and to her apartment, knocking gently once and waiting. He didn’t want to wake her and went to the stairs but stalled on the landing, considering a return to his room and typewriter. ‘Fuck it,’ he concluded, surprised by his own profanity – even though it was only within his head. ‘I can finish it when I’m gone – that I know, what I don’t know is…’ And he hurtled back down the stairs and out into the street after what he didn’t know. At that moment, it occurred to Robert that he had not asked Jones about Mrs Cottlesbridge, but the caretaker had told him anyway.
As he approached Anna’s store he slowed down, noticing what he first took to be two customers in the store. As he came closer he saw that it was too men. He thought nothing of it – buying for their wives, he assumed. He hovered at a distance, absent-mindedly reading the front pages of the papers in the stand. He looked up at the newsagent who, instead of producing the ‘this ain’t a public library’ face, smiled. Robert smiled back and was still smiling when he said “damn terrible news mostly, isn’t it?” and the man nodded. “It’s just getting started Mac” he said, still smiling himself. The news agent thought ‘I thank God my grandparents came to Cali in ’49 and didn’t stay in Albania… I wonder why he’s smiling’. Robert simply assumed the old man was in love, as people in love are prone to do about any happy person they see.
Robert turned to see the two men emerge and he realised it was the two vagrants, their names slipped his mind again… Shanks and ‘The something’. Buying for their wives? Robert knew then he’d been profoundly foolish. These two men were, to his knowledge, completely harmless – but if it had been two Feds or worse – far worse – GPU, he’d have assumed the same thing and loitered outside with Anna at their mercy. ‘Ridiculous idiot!’ – he felt that growing hot panic and self-loathing that afflicts a person looking for something terribly important to no avail. He burst into the store.
Anna looked up at him, startled.
“Here is a surprise.” She put down her work.
Robert smiled awkwardly. “I thought I would drop by. How… is work?”
“Busy. There is much work. Why are you never at work?” She seemed to shoot this at him. Robert considered it – he realised it was Monday.
“Comely gave me the day off,” he lied uncomfortably. “Though I probably should go… down to the yard to check on things.”
Anna looked at the clock and moved out from behind her work counter.
&
nbsp; Every surface in the small room was her work counter, in truth, but she’d been behind the official one that was host to a seemingly Civil War era cash register.
“I will be here late, very late. I took on too much, then Vasiliki said she needs to go for her parents are sick, so now I do work of two women, no, really three women.”
“Vasiliki? Who is that?”
“The girl who works for me.”
“Since when? When did she start?”
“More than two weeks now, before.” Anna waved her right hand as if gently swatting at something over her right shoulder.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“Hm.” Anna shrugged.
“Are you…” Robert paused. He was a little upset, foolishly, that Anna had not mentioned that she had hired someone. It was none of his business of course, but it reminded him she had a life outside him, which was an offensive revelation only to the divinely obsessed. He, on the other hand, had, while telling her everything about himself, concealed almost everything about his life. ‘Such hypocrisy’ – he analysed himself fairly and suppressed a funny kind of smile. “Are you… well?”
She burst into a nervous, startling laugh and he held both of her shoulders gently.
“Finally you touch me,” she said, with an urgency he was not used to. “What is wrong with you?”
He pulled her into a hug and she buried herself in it.
“Now you ask if I am well. I will be and that is enough.”
“Those two men, who are they?”
Anna shook her head.
“It is not the fault of those men. They are old friends of mine and do no trouble.”
She cried for only a moment, barely one sob, then pushed away from him and laughed as she wiped her face with her bare hands.
“I am well, you should go to your yard. I know Comely did not give you a day – he is not the kind for that, not without a reason, and you gave me no reason. You lost the day – I do that now that I have my own…” She spun a hand in the air with one finger pointing up.
Vasiliki burst in at this stage, hair everywhere and a wild grin on her face.
“Father and mother good – too much spice and it, how do I say… They eat bad meat, and not know because of spice – to hide taste! So they get sick, but not bad sick.” She spoke loudly and excitedly, she’d been terrified when a young boy – a cousin – had come in a panic to fetch her, and her relief burst over into joy. She then noticed Robert and grinned.
“ ‘Ello.”
He wanted to offer his hand and an introduction, but didn’t want to move from Anna’s side.
“Hello, I’m Robert.”
“Vasiliki.”
“Robert was just to go to his work, and we too have to do our work Vasiliki. I am happy your parents will survive – ah – are good.”
Vasiliki hurtled past them both and into a back storeroom. Robert turned to Anna and kissed her on the mouth, quickly but not in a rushed or contrived way. She smiled and shut her eyes.
“It will be all okay, Robert. Go go.”
He hurried out and glanced at the clock. Three pm. It had seemed like night when he spoke to Jones, and a Sunday when he’d awoken. He shook his head as he walked briskly towards the nearest station entrance. ‘This is not good. Still, if things had turned sour Comely would have found me. One of his messenger boys would have found me – he has a way of doing that.’ He comforted himself with that thought, despite suspecting things had gone as bad as the lunch responsible for felling Mr and Mrs Kalassis.
* * *
Kristian wanted to push further north, but Mrs Hatfield saw Rosti was in more discomfort than he was prepared to admit and they decided the next town they reached would be the last for the day. Watson was awake and chatting with Kristian cheerfully. Mrs Hatfield was in the back seat still, keeping a close eye on Rosti and talking to him whenever he roused. He was worsening each conversation, and sleeping worse at each attempt. It was twilight, and from what Kristian knew of small towns it would be hard to get rooms after dark, not out of unavailability but a tendency to close the check-ins at sundown, to dissuade undesirables ‘blowing in’; as though decent people planned their trips to arrive exclusively during day-light hours, even at unplanned stops. This practice infuriated Kristian, in part because it was bad business and in part because it had seen him sleep in barns, work sheds and worse. Then there was Watson. They’d need a mixed hotel, which of course meant a coloured hotel, and that meant a lot of attention while the sun was up. ‘Damn these people,’ Kristian thought.
The land leading to a town talks to the traveller. The land leading to Heathridge said virtually nothing, and in that it said enough. To Kristian, the absence of junk and derelict homes spoke of civic pride, the absence of advertising and signs of farming activity indicated an atrophied economy. It was dry – Spring could be cruel out here, but there would be more to it, he imagined.
‘Know anything about Heathridge, Mr Watson?” He asked.
“No. Heathridge. Unusual name, really. I mean, we speak English – but it’s more English than usual, if you know what I mean.”
“It just so happens that I know exactly what you mean. And there’s not a ridge in sight, so that’s less usual still.”
Rosti stirred.
“Heathridge,” he rasped, then yawned. “God I am tired. We staying here?” He tried to move but it was a short-lived attempt. “Do they have a hospital? To be perfectly frank, my leg is troubling me.”
Mrs Hatfield, who’d been trying to offer him the canteen, picked up one hand and forced it into Rosti’s grip. “Drink some water.” She ordered and he did, with a smile.
As they rattled past the welcome sign Rosti held the canteen up in salute to the good people of Heathridge, whomever they may be.
Kristian scanned the street as they drove through. He stopped beside a black man who was reading a newspaper outside a closed barber shop. The paper was folded a few times and he focussed on one story with great interest, while smoking a cigarette. He seemed about 45, with a closely cropped greying beard and short still mostly black hair. His shirt – brilliant white – was spotless, sleeves rolled to the elbow under dark brown braces and pin striped charcoal slacks with one-tone wingtips. He was hatless, which struck Kristian as unusual. It was his barber shop, Kristian deduced - and took as a good sign. The windows seemed old, which meant that if they’d ever been smashed it had been a long time ago. He noticed the man’s belt, it featured small loops where scissors, brush and straight razor could sit. He smiled a self-congratulatory smile.
“Excuse me Sir. Nice shop you have there.”
The man started, then noticed Watson in the front seat alongside Kristian and eased.
“Thank you.”
“How do we get to the nearest hospital?”
“Well, the closest thing we have to that is a clinic on this street – which is the main street – and that is open for another three hours at least. If it’s urgent and Doctor Eugene isn’t there, the Sister will telephone him and get him in. He’s a good man, and they run a solid operation there.”
“Thank you very much for that Sir – so we just keep on down this street? What should we look out for?”
“Red cross. They’re not a Red Cross outfit, as far as I know, but everyone recognises a red cross. On the left.”
Kristian looked up at the sign.
“So you’re… (he paused) Mr Jensen?”
The man laughed.
“Carter. I worked for Henrik Jensen since I was a kid, sweeping the floors in here. He didn’t have children and taught me his trade. At first it cost him a few customers. When he died, he left me this shop. By that time, I suppose people had gotten used to the idea. Or at least, had given up on opposing it. No one makes anyone come in here.”
“Mr Jensen sounds like a fine man,” Mrs Hatfield offered.
“The finest. I better not keep you longer, but feel free to visit tomorr
ow.”
They rattled on and soon the red cross loomed on the corner – like the crown jewel on the front awning of a squat white art deco building on the corner.
“Seems out of place,” Mrs Hatfield murmured.
“Inconsistent architecture is not my main worry at the moment,” Rosti said with as much good humour as he could manage.
Kristian and Mrs Hatfield helped Rosti to the door as he was too exhausted to use a cane properly. He stumbled and his head rolled a little and Mrs Hatfield suppressed a cry of dismay. A nurse burst from the green wood and glass door and took her place, hurrying in with Kristian. Mrs Hatfield was not quite as experienced as Kristian in such things, though far more than someone who was not a medic or ambulance driver of some kind ought to have been, but her nerves and tiredness had made the skills gap grow. She turned back and waited with Mr Watson, standing beside him. They waited in silence, neither having anything to say and neither inclined to speak about nothing – but it was a silence they welcomed, and when Kristian returned there was no sudden rush of words. He looked at them both.
“The doc is already here. They’ve given Mr Rosti a shot. They’re going to have a look, clean him up if need be, re-cast. He’ll stay over-night. ‘pparently they’re cheap.” He shrugged.
Watson spoke clearly.
“I believe we ought to see if Mr Carter knows of a good place in which we can stay. I imagine it will be faster to ask him for assistance than simply drive around.”
Kristian turned to Mrs Hatfield and jumped into the car. “All aboard.”
Within seconds they were retracing their tracks.
“Think he’d put us up for the night?” Kristian asked no one in particular.
“Most likely his place is too small, but I’m just guessing.” Watson laughed.
“Mr Watson is probably right. I don’t mind sleeping on floors. When I was a child, having a wood floor to sleep on was quite a luxury,” said Mrs Hatfield.