Enoch's Folly

  “Mr Rosti are you having a religious experience?”

  He snapped back into English. “What? Why?”

  “You sound like you’re talking in tongues.”

  Rosti looked troubled.

  “What?”

  The driver heard this somehow over the rattle of the engine and interjected.

  “He was speaking Italian. Well, not quite Italian. It’s a dialect; like Cajun Creole but… There are more than 20 languages spoken in that country.”

  Judy raised an eyebrow. The driver never looked back while talking nor changed his expression, as far as anyone could tell under those goggles.

  “That’s quite fascinating,” Watson said genuinely.

  The driver gripped the wheel a little tighter and considered this. ‘Trauma has connected him with his childhood memories; disconnected him from the here and now and gone looking for safety and security, finding it in the past’ he thought, but kept the theory to himself.

  They rattled on in silence.

  Rosti rolled his eyes some and set them upon the driver’s back. He stayed awake but slipped in and out of awareness (as we know it). In the moments where the communication and knowledge of the present vanished, a different kind of understanding took its place, one possibly capable of reaching conclusions closer to profundity than those waking thoughts hampered and hectored by the flotsam of daily existence, even in Paradise.

  He watched the sky and found it uncommonly clear, as it had been just before he fell from the roof, and focussed on a single point that remained identical regardless of distance travelled by the motorcar. Rosti found that by focussing on this one place, he could seal off his mind from the pain in his leg made worse by every jarring pot hole. He found he could seal off the physical world and this enabled him to freely explore every thought – ranging from points of obsession through matters diligently ignored to those thoroughly repressed – that he had had or had tried not to have over the past eight years. Rosti found his life play before his eyes in truncated, staccato form, images appearing and conveying the entire story connected to the image, and only certain images and their certain stories, and everything that meant anything to Rosti that had been lost – which was everything beyond Watson and the café – appeared before him in undeniable stark colour. The feeling it aroused in him was one of deepest dread, of the worst nauseating realisation that puts heat in the neck and thumping in the ears – the surge of blood which brought sweat to his forehead and a horrible jingle-jangle to his jaw and hands. He reached and held Watson’s arm (what he thought to be) tightly, and the weakness and coldness of his grip alarmed the old man.

  “I think we ought to stop for a moment, just a moment, I do believe Mr Rosti may be suffering from a motion sickness made all the worse by his injury.”

  The driver glanced at Judy, who looked back over her shoulder.

  “Mr Rosti?”

  He did not answer, staring up at his unmoving, immovable point in the sky.

  Mrs Hatfield too had looked and looked closely.

  “He is not well; perhaps a pause would be a sound move.”

  The driver slowed down and applied the breaks gently, timing the manoeuvre to bring the truck to a halt under the shade of a large tree.

  Judy provided Rosti some water and Watson stepped off the truck to lap it slowly, once. He was in unfamiliar ground and kept close to the motorcar as he stretched his legs.

  Rosti, his spot in the sky obscured by the vastly over-handing tree, stared about for his friend and muttered his name weakly. Watson came to his side at once. Rosti smiled.

  “It’s not too late is it Mr Watson?”

  “For what Mr Rosti?”

  “It’s not too late at all, not at all Mr Watson. It’s not too late is it?”

  “No Mr Rosti. You can bet it’s not even close to too late.”

  Rosti smiled and held his hands together over his chest.

  “Thank God for that.”

  *

  The road was rough but Rosti had been sleeping for more than 20 minutes. He’d done most of the talking until mercifully slipping into a relatively natural sleep encouraged by the opiate. Watson, glad to see Rosti peacefully resting and out of pain, held him as steady as possible and smiled beneficently down on him. Mrs Hatfield watched Watson and marvelled. He knew where Rosti lay, knew where his face was and turned his own towards it and was smiling. Mrs Hatfield smiled at the love between the two men, and she watched Watson care for Rosti while Sister Judy read some kind of pamphlet and the driver stayed with the stony silence to which he had returned.

  Mrs Hatfield turned back to Judy.

  “How many nurses in Havana?”

  “We’ve the one hospital and about 20 in total, we work long hours so you’ll find 10 or 15 on at any given time.”

  “Is Havana your home town?”

  Judy laughed. “You’d think so, it’s not like someone comes there for the opportunities!”

  “Or the night life,” the driver muttered.

  “But,” Judy smiled. “It isn’t. I come from Baltimore.”

  “Baltimore?”

  Judy looked out and over the woods that now crept close to the rail line along side the road ran at a safe distance. Mrs Hatfield knew it would be easy to ask ‘what brought you to Havana’ but decided against it. The nurse would talk if she wanted to. Mrs Hatfield looked and didn’t find a ring and wondered. Had it been love? She was not a gossip, and she hoped that whatever had brought the nurse to Havana had made her happy, or at least hadn’t left her incapable of finding happiness again.

  The town appeared at first in bits and pieces, scattered unplanned and sometimes what seemed unwanted along the rail line and the road, then it was upon them almost in a sudden and bigger than Mrs Hatfield expected. The road was smooth and, strangely, the transition to an easy path woke Rosti up. Before he’d made a sound, the driver said “How’s the leg?” without turning around.

  “Not bad.” Rosti said, still groggy. “I mean, it’s not bad at all.” He smiled appreciatively at Watson and reached for the old man’s hand – patting it without the least sense of condescension.

  “How are you feeling Mr Watson?”

  “Oh me? What a question Mr Rosti – I’m just fine.”

  “And Mrs Hatfield?” He couldn’t see her properly and tried to crane his neck, then yelped and went back to laying straight.

  “I am very well Mr Rosti.”

  Rosti spoke, more thinking aloud than telling anyone in particular.

  “I think the bleeding, such as it was, stopped long ago. To be honest it hurts some but the fact I’m not crying and rolling around means I am prepared to say it’s ‘not bad’. I broke the other one once, a long time ago and it was worse, I think, or maybe just the surprise was. Came off a bike.”

  The driver suddenly sparked up, taking his eyes off the road.

  “A motorbike?”

  “You don’t break your leg coming off a push bike do you?”

  “What model?”

  “It was a Haden - The New Comet. I think it was the De Luxe… a 293cc Climax two-stroke engine with internal fly-wheels, and the A1 frame. It used parts from Villiers, PeCo, JAP, and Precision like some Frankenstein’s monster.”

  “You’re kidding me. That would have been brand new in 1920 – and made the world record speed in Brooklands the next year. How many of those even made it to the States?”

  “At least one.”

  Rosti smiled.

  “I worked on a dock back then. There was an importer exporter by the name of… I can’t recall now. He was young, in fact, just arrived in the city with a whole bundle of cash, probably from his daddy – though he never mentioned it. Anyway he was importing and exporting just about everything you can think of and we became quite good friends. One day he asks me, he says “what is the greatest velocity at which you have travelled, Mr Rosti?” and that’s just how he talked too. I told him I once ran 120 yards in 13 sec
onds. He laughed and said that was a good time! Well, he takes me into one of his warehouses near by, I was working late shift and never did figure out what he was doing there at that time, and opens this huge wooden crate real easy, like he was born with a crow-bar in his hand. It’s full of hay and he throws it everywhere like a mad man and then wheels out this bike. It looks shiny like it’s just been washed and he says “do you ride, Mr Rosti?”. I said “hell yes”.” Rosti paused, flushed, “excuse me ladies”.

  They told him it was fine and he continued.

  “But, I tell him this has just come off the ship and needs oiling, needs gas. Well would you believe he starts servicing the thing then and there. It must have been about half past one in the morning. In no time at all it was ready to go. He went and fetched his own bike from near by, said he’d driven it that night but I swear I hadn’t heard a thing and would have. It’s a make I don’t recognise and he throws me his helmet – one a lot like yours son. So soon we’re off the docks and in the streets. They’re empty, badly lit, don’t believe what you hear about that city never sleeping because in 1920 – it slept now and then! He leads the way and he’s reaching crazy speeds for those city roads, no helmet either, and I’m struggling to keep up because I don’t want to push it too hard, because I’m not used to the way the Comet handles. I can hear him laughing – he must have been laughing loud even though I was just three lengths behind – and he takes her up on the sidewalk, dodging and weaving garbage cans. I stayed on the road and didn’t even think to slow down or stop, like I was hooked on his craziness. I had those flaps down over my ears but could hear the wind roaring now, whipping past me and I squinted even though I had his goggles. We found a long stretch, and he’s pushing it and pushing it. I see that there’s side streets and lanes and all manner of things out of which anything could come at any time but I just blast along with him, just two or three lengths back. He slows down some and gets along side me and yells out “Rosti! What do you think?” And I have no idea what to say. He laughs and takes off again and I am telling myself to stop, to stop right now but I can’t do it. We’re now in a straight line, a perfect straight line and travelling as fast as God would permit a man. No one who hasn’t done it knows what I am talking about when I say you are not quite on Earth at that point – you’re so finely tuned to the whole, to the whole universe you’re more than on Earth. You feel like you exist in the present, past and future all at once and like nothing can touch you. Would you believe, a street light explodes right above us – showering sparks and making this strange kind of whomping sound and I even feel pressure on my chest as there’s a flash of light. He just rockets through those sparks but the broken glass falls right after him and under me, causing some kind of slip and the smallest error where there’s no room for error at all. Then there was just a blur of slick black light. I was on 70 mile per hour before and felt like 100 now. They say never let go of the bike but this one was heading to Hell and I let go, clipping what they told me later was a hydrant and snapping my leg. The bike turned into a wreck, hammering a building and breaking the windows a foot above just from the shock.”

  Mrs Hatfield, the nurse and the driver but more than anyone else Watson was agape. Three of them in shock - the driver in awe.

  “He came round like the Devil was at his heels and somehow – I still don’t know how – carried me on his bike to hospital. I think I was passed out then but I was patched up well – got my own room and everything. I think he had a role in that. I couldn’t work on the docks ‘til I healed so a friend of his lined me up some clerical work for a few months. I found out later he fixed that wrecked bike and sold it for a small fortune. Not long after that he moved on to some other business elsewhere in the city and I didn’t see him again.”

  They had reached the hospital and Judy went in to get an orderly. At the door, the guard stopped Watson who was holding Mrs Hatfield’s arm for guidance.

  “No coloreds.”

  Mrs Hatfield’s face went purple, then snow white.

  “Excuse me, son?” She asked crisply.

  “You heard me ma’am. That’s the rule.”

  Watson wasn’t shocked, though the years in Paradise meant it was the first time for a long time.

  “Then I will remain here with Mr Watson.”

  “I will too,” Rosti shouted, having struggled to control himself for the first three seconds. “You no-good bastard!” He was bright red and pointed at the guard wildly. “You worthless piece of shit!”

  Watson was shocked to hear Rosti’s language. Judy and the orderly tried to carry him in and he swung his arms wildly, grabbing at the door frame. The driver stood back, listening with interest though still thinking about Rosti’s Comet.

  “I’d sooner be operated on by a blacksmith than go into this cesspit! You, guard – hired thug! Who are you protecting? Fuck you and your whole family!” He cursed him in his language too – horrible curses, the most depraved and inventive abuse on Earth; enough to peel the paint off walls. He switched back to English and told the guard he was a sick freak and a monster; the kind to pull the wings off butterflies for a laugh, that he would be better working as a hangman and that he hoped the guard would never have children for their sake. More hospital staff tried to intervene, and two young nurses, pretty and apparently innocent, succeeded in calming Rosti. It was Watson, however, who convinced him to go in while Mrs Hatfield convinced the guard not to call the police.

  In a sudden change of subject and humour, Rosti smiled and called out to the driver, who he could see through the open doors, still with his helmet on though his dark goggles up, showing one blue eye a little lighter than the other.

  “If you ever want to buy a bike like that go find him in New York City! I just remembered his name – Arturo. Arturo Como.”

  * * *

  Isabel Romero awoke at two am for the third consecutive morning. It was uncommonly hot but it was not the heat that drove the old woman from her sleep. She wiped the sweat from her brow and wandered slowly through her small home, groping for the front door in the dark and stepping out into the street in her night dress.

  The dirt road, bathed in a frail yellow light, was abandoned, silent… even the insects quiet. She looked desperately across the sky and could not find the moon. She turned south and breathed deeply – no one in sight. To the north, she made out only the faintest glimmer of the horizon.

  The dream had been the same again – at first identical to the pattern she had just followed in life; the walk through her home and into the street, the stillness and quiet, the heat… but in the dream it was neither day nor night, and when she turned south – a man was walking silently, even his steps making no sound, in the distance towards her. His gait was smooth, slow – perfectly uniform, as he came closer his physique struck her as familiar, then his clothing, but she could not make out his face. As he drew closer still, she tried to draw away but could not move – she opened her mouth to scream and made no sound. The man had no face. He came closer, terribly certain, relentless, finally stopping two paces from her. She stared at his featureless olive visage under crumpled black hair, a single drop of blood ran down what could have been called a forehead and stopped to the left of where there should have been a nose. The man pointed, slowly but strongly, past her – to the north. Isabel turned and saw the sky was blood red, then like fire – she turned back, and the man was her husband, dead 29 years. And, again, she awoke. Now, standing in the street – she returned inside and found a lantern. She began to write.

  * * *

  Anna waited on the corner as the locals surged around her for the celebrations of the festival of Sant’Agata, three of them trying their charm in as many minutes despite the ostensible piety of the occasion; which was already drowned out by the rippling of fireworks. The street was awash with people, confetti, streamers, petals – kids throwing strings of firecrackers at random, police horses snorting and stomping nervously, a small army of altar boy
s struggling to keep the road clear. The first of three marching bands was clattering past, exquisitely talented and remarkably precise in their playing despite the trying conditions. It was just the beginning; the parade would last hours as it snaked around the lower East Side, more than fifty parishioners hauling a steel replica of the silver carriage through Catania, Sicily on the same day. The duplicate, polished to shine like the sun, was not as heavy as the original article but nevertheless moved slowly as the believers pinned money to it and rubbed their children on it, bringing a strangely pagan edge to the event.

  She almost blended in with the teeming masses; her features much like theirs but for her light eyes, her height just a little above the average in that part of town. A boy stopped beside her and looked up, she noticed him immediately despite the crowds.

  “Are you lost?” He asked.

  “No. How about you?”

  He grinned. “You are not like everyone here; I thought you might need… help.”

  Anna noticed that the boy looked familiar in an unusual way; not like anyone she knew but much like everyone she once knew – back home.

  “Where are you from?”

  He turned and pointed. “I live two streets down, one block up – not far. You do not live near here, where are you from?”

  She smiled. “Not too far, just a few streets to the west.”

  “Nice area.”

  “You think so eh?”

  “To me – nice. There is much… interest.” He smiled, pleased with himself.

  “You are right – there is. Where were you going?”

  “Here. When we come, first time – we land the day before Santa Lucia. It was very cold, first night – the next day was like summer for us. Many people were very friendly. Today, I am here to see it again.”