After the Snow (14 page)

Authors: S. D. Crockett

BOOK: After the Snow

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The room look tired and broke and dusty in the light. The old woman still snoring a bit. On the stove’s a good pot of last night’s stew and I get a plateful.

There’s a sound from the other room. Old man Jacob sitting at a workbench under the window. The cuffs of his sweater fraying over his wrists. The weak morning light fall across his thinning hair and strong gnarled hands. He got himself bent over. A soft white fur in his hands, his square fingers disappearing in it.

The shelves on the wall been crammed with tools and rolls of leather and sheets of metal all covered in dust and boxes of nails and bits of wire and pipes and old boots and jars of fruit and pickled vegetables. Just like at home. It aint too cold in here cos the stovepipe come through the wall. Jacob got it tied to the ceiling with bits of wire. There’s a door half boarded over and through the door a small balcony deep in snow, a pigeon making a little dance with its feet on the ice.

Jacob look up.

“Look!” I point quiet as can be to the bird.

“Very good. But, no no, we don’t eat him now, boy. In the spring he’ll build a nest out there and we’ll have lots of pigeons. Not just one. No no, patience is a virtue. A virtue.”

“What you making?” I say. Still got my eye on the pigeon though.

“A coat. Mmm. Coat for Dorothy Bek-Murzin.”

“Can I see?”

“Certainly, certainly.”

I come over. Outside the pigeon flap into the air. I get the skins off the table and have a look at the seam. It’s a soft white fur, well-cured. It aint too big, two pieces together look like the pattern for a sleeve.

“I thought you might like to earn your breakfast. Lend me a hand,” he say.

“I’ll help stitch it up if that’s what you want. I need a needle. And a sharp knife too.”

“Yes yes. Got one somewhere.” Jacob start poking about in a small wooden box. I got to lean over and find them for him. He’s gonna be looking all morning.

I got his work in my hands. Turn it over.

“See this aint the way I’m gonna stitch a sleeve,” I say. “You aint stitched it close enough.”

“No, no—it’s my eyes. Bad eyes now.”

I lay out the pieces, feeling the good fur in my hands like I been sitting at home with Dad.

First I cut the seams fresh. Stitch them up careful. When I done that, I brush out the fur on the other side and pick it through the threads. It look alright. Won’t be able to see where the two skins been put together when I finish it up. It’s good to be working quiet. I hold it up to him.

“See? Can’t see the join now.”

“Yes yes, mmm very good indeed.”

“But this sleeve gonna be stiff as a board if you don’t slash it,” I say.

“Slash it?”

I take the knife. “You got to know where to do it.”

Jacob grab my arm. “You’ll ruin it. I’ll never afford fur like this again.”

“No I won’t. I done this before. Watch.”

I make the cuts careful where they got to be. Then I stitch them up neat in my softest stitch, brushing the fur and teasing it through the threads again.

“See?”

Jacob hold it up. The fur fall soft and supple. He play it through his old hands.

“Yes yes. I see now.”

I can hear stirrings from the other room.

“How about you stay here with me and Elizabeth awhile, mmm? Just awhile. You finish this coat and you can sleep here and we’ll feed you. Yes food and a warm fire. Mmm? What do you say to that. You just finish the stitching and you can stay.”

I look out the window at the cold day and the gray smoking city. My guts filled with food. Warm fire burning in the other room. Good piece of fur in my hands.

I can hear the old woman awake. Jacob get up. “You think about it, Willo.” He shuffle off into the other room. I hear him fussing about, scraping some of the stew onto a plate for his wife.

“Bring me a spoon, Jacob.”

“Yes, my dear, a spoon.” Jacob riddle the fire. The pots clang. “Willo, bring that sleeve in here. Look what the boy did with Bek-Murzin’s coat, my dear. Mmm, as soft as if it was still alive.”

I come to the door, hand her the sleeve. The old lady feel it and hold it up.

“Oh yes, very good.”

Jacob turn and look at me.

“So, what is it to be, mmm? You stay and finish this coat, and I’ll give you a hundred yuan when it’s finished and food and lodging too. That’s all right, Elizabeth, isn’t it, dear?”

“How long will it take you, boy?” she ask.

“If you got the skins cured already and the pattern fixed I reckon a few weeks.”

“A few weeks, my dear. Did you hear that? A few weeks.”

Jacob bend down. Get down on his knees slowly, kneel on the floor and pull a wooden chest out from under the bed. I help him get it out. Inside the chest wrapped in oiled paper are the cured skins. All soft and white, small skins, some of them with a black leg or streak of brown I reckon got to be cut out if he want this coat all white. I aint never seen this sort before.

“What are they?” I say.

“Cat. Fine white cat for the most part, mmm. You’ve nearly finished the embroidery on the collar, haven’t you, my dear? Mmm, yes, Willo. My wife still makes fine embroidery.”

There’s a little parcel tucked down the side of the chest. Jacob lay it open. It’s a scrap of stuff, soft and fine, like nothing I seen
before—the color of the sky on a clear day. And all over it that old woman stitched a sea of snowdrops. I can’t believe her old hands gonna be so able. The snowdrops been done so clever they look like they just stuck their heads out of the snow. Better stitching even than Magda do. Flower heads and blades of grass bending and twisting as they catch in the light. Threads so fine they shine out.

“This is the lining for the collar. Snowdrops are Bek-Murzin’s favorite. Oh, yes, her favorite. She’ll pay a fortune for this coat if you can make the furs fall softly without a seam in sight. We won’t go hungry this winter. Not hungry this winter, my dears. What do you say, Willo? Eat some stew, stitch up this coat for a week. It won’t hurt you to stay a bit.”

“What else is he going to do?” say the old woman. “Have you got papers?”

“No. I just come off the hill then I got a truck ride here. I aint got no papers.”

“You just came down from the hills. How did that happen?”

“They took my dad away.”

“Who?”

“Government trucks. Up on the mountain.”

“Well, I don’t know how you got into the city with no papers. It’s been such a cold winter, hasn’t it, Jacob? You won’t get out in a hurry, boy.”

“That’s what I been worrying about,” I tell her.

“Worrying won’t help you much,” she say. “Everyone’s got something to worry about. You’re not the only one.”

She’s got a point. There aint nowhere else for me to go. Don’t know no one in this city except Mary. And I don’t know where Mary is.

The old man pull out the skins from his trunk. Carry them into the workroom and lay them out on the table, muttering to himself. “Now. I’ll cut the pattern. Yes yes. I can cut a good pattern. Come on, boy. I’ll show you.”

I look at the old woman sitting up in the bed.

“Help him. It won’t hurt you, will it?” She put out her weathered little hand. Hold it out. “Please.”

So I get to stay with that old couple. It’s good to get my hands deep in some work with Jacob spouting on like the grown-ups around the fire giving a Tell back home. It been hard to think that those two old people aint been old people all their life.

They show me a picture they got of themselves. Jacob standing in a garden of flowers and it must be the old woman beside him—just she got lots of dark hair then and look pretty happy. So I know they been young once.

The way I understand it, when Jacob get all fired up rattling on to me, is that in the old days, people been too busy to know how lucky they been. He sound a bit like my dad when he go on like that about how people just got to
get back to making things with their own hands
and
thinking with their brains
.

I don’t say much, same as when my dad spout on. And working on the coat stop me thinking too hard on all the bad things rattling in my head—the snow and wind blowing cold outside and
the words of my dog. Can’t forget them either.
You’re on your own now, Willo.

Slowly over the weeks that coat come together. Jacob cut the pattern out of old paper first. He say he know what he been doing, but I tell him, it aint practical what he been cutting out. Aint gonna keep the snow out. Jacob say Dorothy Bek-Murzin aint so worried about practical—it’s just got to look good. He say I got to go with him when he brings it to her. Says she’s gonna give me money to make her lots of things when she sees how fine my stitching been.

Jacob keep forgetting that I got to get back to the mountain. I aint staying here to make coats forever, I say. “Well, you aren’t going to be going anywhere soon, are you?”

Jacob come back from the market one evening with a worried look on his face.

“There’s trouble in the settlements. Gangs barricading the roads. They’ve blown the lock gate at the quays. Dear oh dear. Flooded the canal. Soldiers everywhere. Very bad. Mmm, very bad this winter.”

“What do you mean?” I say.

“Can’t get in or out of the city. No one can now. There won’t be much power this winter. Very bad.”

I think of Mary.

Think of Dad.

“I got to find my family.”

“You won’t be able to get into the settlements until they lift the roadblocks,” Jacob say.

“How long’s that gonna be?”

“Well. Not until the melt. No no, not until then. And you wouldn’t want to be there, Willo. There are things you wouldn’t want to see.”

My heart beat fast. I just gone and left Mary down in that dread place. Down in the canal with the old rat catcher. With the bad and the hungry and the stench and the smog and she aint got me and aint got no da or no Tommy either.

I go to the window. Look out over the city. Down below huddled figures trudge along the roads. A truck rumble around the tower block. The air been so cold and still these last days. Smoke twisting from every gray chimney hanging heavy over the bricks and stone and snow and ice. The smog thick in the air. Somewhere out there been my dad and Magda and the others. They can’t just disappear. Just got to be out there somewhere. Maybe far off across the hills.

“You’re lucky you’re here with us, boy,” say Elizabeth from the bed.

I turn away from the window. I don’t feel lucky. Not one bit.

Magda always say sadness and love and pain, they’re easy to feel—but not luck.

We got the coat wrapped up in oiled paper tied tight, and rolled in a canvas pack. Ready to take to Dorothy Bek-Murzin. The old man fussing over it getting creased or wet.

“You mustn’t talk to her unless she asks. No no, let me do the talking. You stay quiet. Mmm, can you do that?”

I nod.

It been the most fantastic coat I ever see after I got it finished to his pattern. Over fifty skins I got cut up and stitched together. The body tight and close flaring out from the waist in a wide skirt. All white fur from head to toe, and the collar lined with stiff cow hide so that it stand up tall—gonna come up as high as the lady’s head and keep the wind out, with that pale-blue silk embroidered with snowdrops fanning out behind her hair. Gonna look mighty fine if the lady been as beautiful as Jacob say.

The rest of the coat Elizabeth line inside with soft white wool. Jacob sit at the table for two days hammering and tooling the brass buttons. He spend the last bit of money he got buying all the brass and the wool and the satin thread that come all the way from China. It probably been the most beautiful bit of clothing anyone ever saw.

Jacob tell me he been making coats and gloves since the troubles and he aint never made anything so good as the way I
done this one cos his eyes aint good no more. He say we gonna get a big heap of money for this coat. I feel pretty good inside when he say that even though I been tired from sitting in that room stitching for weeks worrying about how I’m gonna get back to the mountain.

Jacob say Dorothy Bek-Murzin know all the government people and everyone, cos they all come and
see
her.

“Why?” I say.

“Because she’s beautiful,” say the old woman.

“She grew up in the settlements,” say Jacob, “and sometime she helps the little people—if you’ve done something good for her, mmm.”

“Like this coat,” I say.

“Yes,” say Jacob, “maybe this coat’s going to get her to notice you. Just got to be patient. Let me do the talking. That’s how you’ll get money for your papers, boy.”

The stink of slop been hanging about the stairwell. A fat brown rat just sitting on the stairs. Jacob shout at it, and it slink off along the wall. The gray light of the day come filtering through the broken windows. Below us, someone come out of their door too, great coat pulled over their head, trudging down the dirty stairs below us, carrying their slop bucket.

“Where are we going?”

“It’s not far. Chinatown. Yes yes, that’s where her house is. Mmm, now don’t get dirty boots. Oh no, she won’t like that. We’ll take a cart today. Yes yes, too dangerous for walking with this valuable package, eh?” Jacob got a smile on his old face.

I follow him as he hobble down the thousand steps and out onto the road. Shadow from the tower fall over us. All along the street women in shapeless coats shovel the snow into dirty piles. Jacob find a gap in the banks and shout out at a cart. The limping horse pull up.

“Where to?” say the driver, looking down.

“Chinatown.”

“Three quid.”

Jacob count out some coins from his pocket and hand them over.

“Each,” say the driver.

Jacob sigh but count out three more coins and we climb up onto the old wooden cart. Two women huddled under a blanket been sitting all glum up there with a basket of eggs at their feet.

“Heeyup,” say the driver, and the horse lurch out into the road among the handcarts and people and snow and ice, the snow shovelers shouting out all angry as we pass by splattering them in dirty slush, the driver slashing down on that poor old horse with a long whip even though it been plain to see that horse doing his best already.

It aint a quick journey but it been good not to have wet feet. Good to sit up above the people haggling over a sack of wool or a bucket of coal down on the road. Most of them dressed head to toe in canvas with rags against the cold around their hands. From every building wisps of dirty smoke feed up into the gray sky. The cart trundle on, the blackened buildings closer and taller at each turn of the road.

City aint like the mountain one bit. It aint good and clean here. You can feel it. It fill my head looking at all the people and things and buildings like I aint never seen before. It got something about it make you want to know where all those people going to and coming from and what they all doing. Aint like back home where you never gonna see a stranger one year to the next and got to get over to Barmuth just to smoke some fish and have a dance and a big Meet.

“Look!” I say to Jacob.

Up ahead, above the street, all red and gold and shining with carved dragons glinting and bells chiming. A great shining archway towering over the road.

The street seem to glow behind that archway. Windows lit up either side of the road, colored cloth flutter outside the shops, drums of burning coals smoke into the air and everywhere a sea of people, strange-looking people dressed in fur and silk and the smell of food on the air.

“Chinatown,” say the driver.

“Come on, Willo. We’re here. Yes yes, we’re here.” Slowly Jacob climb down from the cart.

“I aint got all day, old man,” the driver grunt. We hardly got our feet on the ground, and he raise his whip and that poor old horse got to jolt up and move on.

“Stay close,” Jacob say.

“What is it, this place? And all the people so strange-looking.”

“Heart of the city, Willo. Oh yes, the heart of the city. They’re Chinese.”

He seem to know where we got to go. I follow close. The street been scraped clear of snow and covered in sand. We pass a shop that sell knives. Every kind of knife you gonna dream of. Long ones, short ones, ones got sharp points on the blade for sawing, slim ones with painted handles. I stop and look at them.

“Come on, Willo. No time, no time for looking. We’re nearly there.”

In the open doorways, dark-haired men hold out cabbages and squawking chickens and silken scarves and dainty slippers. Old women walk through the crowd selling bunches of tiny paper flowers. “Hua, hua,” they shout.

On the other side of the street, I see a bright building. CHEUNGS KINO painted in red and gold letters above the doors. A queue of people waiting along the front of the building. NEWSREELS FROM AFRICA it say on a wooden stand outside.

Jacob turn around. “You should see it all at night, Willo. Lights burning in every window. Electric lights and music. But come on, we’re here.”

We stop beside a door. Jacob pull on a chain in the wall. Far off a bell jangle.

The girl who open the door got dark hair and strange eyes pretty like a doll.

“I’m the furrier. Come to bring a coat,” Jacob say to her.

The girl smile with a little nod of the head and let us into a big room with stairs sweeping up on one side. Jacob take off his boots, and I got to do the same. The girl give us a pair of felt slippers to wear.

The floor been covered in rugs, deep-red patterned rugs and animal skins all mixed up together. It been warm underfoot. A small fire burning in the corner.

“Madame has just finished breakfast. You can come up,” the girl say.

Padding in our slippers, we follow her up the great tall staircase. Up to a pair of carved wooden doors. The girl knock. Open the doors.

The warmth of a well-kept fire hit my face. Jacob come in with a low bow.

“Jacob! My dear. You have come at last. You promised me a coat six months ago, you naughty man. You’ve left poor Dorothy with nothing warm to wear all winter. You should be punished. But come, come in by the fire, and let’s see what you have for me this time. Oh but you’ve brought a boy! Let me see him.”

Jacob push me forward. “He stitched your coat. Very skilled, yes yes. A very skilled boy.”

“It’s been such a cold winter. When will it ever end? I haven’t even been hunting in the Peaks this year. None of them will go. The roads are too deep in snow.”

“Yes yes. Very cold this winter. Mmm.”

“Come closer, boy,” she say. “What’s your name?”

But I been staring all around at the room. Two tall windows look down over the street outside. Aint boarded or nothing. Just sparkling glass panes. Thick goatskin curtains falling down to the floor. A great fire glowing in a large fireplace. On the dark red walls, heavy cloths hang down on chains. All about been soft-looking chairs covered in
colored cushions and little tables piled high with books and bottles and bowls. Candles burning on every surface. She musta spent near all summer making candles if she gonna burn so many. And in the middle of the day too. I aint never seen such a place of comfort and warmth filled with so many things. But the thing that catch my eyes the most been the person lying all lazy on a seat beside the fire.

She been looking at me through sleepy gray eyes.

Hair dark and shiny as a deep pool of water. Piled up high on top of her head. Face as smooth as an egg, lips touched with red, cheeks pink like a baby. Body soft and round and womanly.

She probably been the most beautiful thing I ever seen.

All I can do is stare.

A little laugh been growing at her mouth. My face feel like burning cos she been laughing at me I reckon. All dirty and wrapped in ragged old sweaters. I pull my hat off. Hold it in my hands.

“Is he a mute Jacob?” she say.

A glinting nest of stones been tied around her neck on a ribbon. Her dress been tight to the waist, then it spread out around her in folds of soft green cloth. Tiny pale hands stick out like mice from the end of her long sleeves. Hands covered in shining rings.

“I’m Willo.” I stare at my feet.

“Well, Willo. Let’s see what you’ve made.”

Jacob kneel down onto the carpeted floor and start unwrapping the package with his fumbling shaking hands.

The coat fall out as Jacob untie the strings on the oiled paper. He brush it out and hold it up. The white fur fall soft down to the floor.

“Please. You must try it on. Feel how soft it is. Look at the collar.”

Dorothy Bek-Murzin drop her slippered feet down off the seat and reach out for the coat.

She stroke the fur with her delicate fingers. Turn it over in her hands.

“It’s a fine piece of work. The seams are good. Oh! The collar! Snowdrops—my favorite.” With a lively step, she’s up. Jacob hold the coat over her back, and she slip her arms into the close-fitting sleeves.

“See how the collar stands up behind your hair. If you do up the buttons you will see the fit. You look exquisite. Yes, yes, exquisite.”

She step over to a long mirror and brush her delicate hands down the front of the soft white fur, arranging the folds and buttoning the buttons around her neat waist. Admiring herself.

“But you can hardly feel you’ve got it on. It hangs so—so perfectly.” She turn around then with a smile across her face. “It is a beautiful coat, Jacob. And you say this boy here stitched it?”

“Yes, yes. He is very skilled.”

She been staring at me now. Jacob standing awkward in the room like a stalk of grass. Wringing his hat in his hands.

Dorothy Bek-Murzin turn to the girl waiting by the door. “Mei-Li, bring us some warmed chocolate. We’ll drink it by the fire. Now, Willo. Can you make other things as well as this coat?”

“Well, I … I reckon I can make a good pair of gloves and some hareskin socks if you want to keep the cold out,” I say.

“Hareskin socks! Wonderful. What about a pair of lined boots? Can you do that?”

“Reckon I can do most things with fur and leather,” I say. “If Jacob cut the pattern for me.”

I look at Dorothy Bek-Murzin standing by the mirror like a
painting. She aint big but she fill up that room with dreams. Her body soft and round under her dress. Underneath all the clothes and the paint on her face I guess she just been a person like anyone else. But it been hard to imagine. She been like a flame glowing in the hearth. Can’t take your eyes off her.

I seen Magda sometimes, tying her hair in the little bit of mirror we got by the fire. “What do you want with that?” my dad gonna say. “You aint a girl anymore.” He turn to me. “Women always wanting to dress themselves up, Willo—vain like butterflies.” Magda elbow him in the ribs. “And men are like moths, beating themselves against every flame, Robin.” She laugh. “And that til the day they die!”

The girl Mei-Li come back in the room carrying three cups on a little tray.

She hand them out. They smell sweet.

“So where did you find this boy, Jacob?”

“The thing is, Dorothy mmm, the thing is … the boy has
no papers
. He’s from the hills.”

“Is he really?” Dorothy move back to her seat. “You can go now, Mei-Li.” The girl leave the room.

“Yes. Yes he came down from the hills.”