The Good Thief (13 page)

From this mass of ironwork Mrs. Sands dragged out a cauldron that was the size and shape of a fattened pig. “I
WAS
HEATING
THIS
WATER
FOR
MYSELF
,” she said, “
BUT
IT
WILL
DO
FOR
YOU
.”

Ren had never seen a pot so large, and before he knew it he was sitting inside, Mrs. Sands having stripped him down, smacking his bottom when he hesitated stepping in. Now she pulled up a bench, settled herself, and took a knife to an enormous basket of potatoes. Ren could still smell the roast in the air and his stomach growled.

She said, “WE
NEED
TO
FATTEN
YOU
.”

Ren kept his stump tucked underneath his armpit, his legs crossed, and his knees pulled in tight. He knocked his elbow and the pot echoed with a bong. The inside of the cauldron was rough, the water only slightly warm.

Mrs. Sands squinted at Ren, then reached into the pot and took hold of his left arm and examined the scar again. “WHAT’S
YOUR
MUM’S NAME?”

Ren looked down into the water and pretended not to hear her.

“WHO’S
YOUR
FATHER?”

Ren shrugged his shoulders.

“DON’T
ROLL
YOUR
ELBOWS
AT ME.” Mrs. Sands slapped at the water. “
AND
DON’T
PRETEND
NOT
TO
KNOW
THE
THINGS
THAT
YOU
DO.”

Ren sank halfway down into the pot.

“
NOW
,” she said, putting down her slick, half-peeled potato and leaning over until Ren could feel her breath on his cheek. “IS
THIS
MISTER
NAB
YOUR
UNCLE
FOR
SURE?”

Ren dug his nails into his stump and nodded his head.

“
AND
YOUR
FOLKS
ARE
TRULY
DEAD?”

Ren nodded at this more forcefully.

Mrs. Sands squeezed the potato in her lap. The boy felt that he was done for. But just then Benjamin and Tom returned, with a set of the drowned boy’s clothes.

Mrs. Sands gave the men a suspicious look, then snatched the trousers from Tom’s hand, inspected them for moth holes, and declared, “
THESE
WILL
DO
FOR
NOW
.” She gestured to the fire, and Ren saw that his own clothes were on the logs. They were smoking and coming apart in the flames—orange strands sparkling in the dark. The boy watched the pieces unraveling and thought of when he’d first put them on—it was at least two years before—a gift from one of the grandmothers who scrubbed the orphans twice a month. Ren had been proud of the clothes, the stitches new in some places and the legs long. He had not realized they were bad enough to be burned. But there they were, smoking on the logs, and here he was, in a pot before the fire, watching them go, as naked as he could ever be.

Benjamin took a seat beside Mrs. Sands on the bench. He asked her permission to remove his boots, and when she nodded he put them next to the fire. He had thick woolen socks on with holes in the heels and toes, and they were sour with sweat. Ren could smell them from the pot. Tom stood by uncomfortably until Mrs. Sands shouted for him to sit for God’s sake, and she would find them something to eat.

From the kitchen she produced a loaf of brown bread, some sliced ham, a pitcher of milk and coffee. She set it on the table, handed a piece of bread and ham to the boy in the tub, and went back to peeling her potatoes. It had been nearly a day since they’d eaten, and the group tore into the food with a fury.

“WHERE’S
YOUR
HOME
,
MISTER
NAB?”

“I’ve spent most of my life as a sailor. First on a merchant ship, sailing the East Indies, and then later I did some whaling. I’d still be out on the water if I hadn’t heard about my sister’s illness.”

“THAT’S
DANGEROUS
WORK
.”

Benjamin slurped his coffee. “And lonely.”

Tom rolled his eyes.

“
AND
YOUR
FRIEND?”

“Unemployed,” said Tom.

“He’s a schoolteacher,” said Benjamin.

“
SOME
TEACHER
.”

Tom got to his feet. “What do you mean?”

But Mrs. Sands had her back to him, and so continued on, not hearing. “A
TEACHER
SHOULD
KNOW
IT’S
TOO
LATE
FOR
A
CHILD
TO BE
OUT
. A
TEACHER
SHOULD
KNOW
NOT
TO
LET
A
BOY
RUN
ABOUT
IN
RAGS
.”

“I’ll tell you what,” said Tom, but he didn’t finish the sentence. He just stared at the landlady, and then at his half-finished dinner, until finally he said, “I’m going to bed.” He snatched his plate, put two more pieces of ham and bread upon it, and stomped away up the stairs.

“You’ll have to forgive him,” said Benjamin. “He used to be in love with my sister.”

“
SHE
WAS
SMART
NOT
TO
MARRY
HIM
.”

“I suppose she was,” said Benjamin, looking thoughtful and a little sad. He fished into his pocket for his pipe, and removed a stick from the fire to light it. Then he picked up a potato and took out his knife. He started peeling, and together with Mrs. Sands went forth with the work, not speaking.

Ren was chilled and wanted another piece of bread, but he was afraid to break the silence or attempt to leave the cauldron without the approval of Mrs. Sands. His toes were shriveling. One side of the pot was warmer, facing the fire, and he leaned his body against it.

Mrs. Sands was watching Benjamin’s face. In the firelight, with his shirt collar unbuttoned and hair pushed back, he looked younger than he was. When he finished the potato he was working on, Benjamin leaned forward and took a long pull from his pipe. The smoke smelled like sugar. Ren inhaled deeply. Then he watched as Benjamin lifted a fold of Mrs. Sands’s brown dress and slipped his fingers onto her knee. With his other hand Benjamin continued smoking his pipe, and Mrs. Sands turned back to her potato, diligently removing the skin. A light pattern of red spread its way across her cheeks.

Ren rested his chin against the lip of the cauldron. The fire was beginning to die. The logs had caved in from the middle, blackened with ash. The boy’s clothes were finished. There were only a few small scraps smoldering beneath the grate. He watched them until he couldn’t bear it any longer, then held his breath and ducked under the water. He was submerged for only a moment before he heard a knock on the side of the cauldron. He raised his head, blinking against the bathwater. Benjamin still had a hand in Mrs. Sands’s skirts, but he was winking at Ren and motioning with his head toward the door.

“I need to get out,” Ren said. Mrs. Sands looked up at him strangely. She closed her eyes, and then suddenly Benjamin had two hands again, and he was using them to pick up his boots.

Mrs. Sands put her work aside and stood. She lifted Ren in one swift movement onto the hearth and began to rub the back of his neck with a small hand towel, as if she were angry with him. He was not prepared for the cold air. His skin rippled in goose bumps and his teeth chattered until Mrs. Sands said, “
KEEP
STILL!”

“You should be kind to him,” Benjamin said, “or my sister will haunt us.”

Mrs. Sands smacked Ren once with the towel, to make it clear that she was not afraid of ghosts. Then she pulled a wool undershirt over his head and forced his body into the clothes the men had brought.

He was smaller than the drowned boy. The trousers went past his feet and his arms were lost in the sleeves. Mrs. Sands rolled up the cuffs, measured the collar with her finger, then yanked the clothes off. She jammed a nightdress over his head that was more like a blanket—fabric that itched with buttons to the neck and a hem that trailed behind him. She gathered the boy in her arms as if he were an infant and carried him up the stairs.

“
HERE
NOW
,” said Mrs. Sands, kicking open a door. It was a small space, with two beds pushed into the corners. Tom was snoring away in one, and Mrs. Sands dumped Ren into the other. At Saint Anthony’s Ren had often thought of a mother putting him to bed at night. But it was not anything like this. In his dream the mother was quiet and beautiful. She smoothed his hair and gently kissed his cheek. Mrs. Sands pounded the pillows as if they had wronged her, and tucked Ren in so tightly he could barely breathe.

“
WELL
, DO
YOU
KNOW
PRAYERS
OR NOT?” Mrs. Sands shouted at him.

This he could do. Ren pushed his way quickly through a decade of the rosary and a benediction for Mrs. Sands for giving them shelter and for good measure his parents supposedly dead from the fever and his newfound “uncle” Benjamin. This seemed to please Mrs. Sands, although Ren noticed that she did not say the words along with him.

“Do you have any children?” Ren asked.

“
GOOD
GOD
, NO.
WHAT
DO I
NEED
A
CHILD
FOR?”

“But your friend sent you the drowned boy’s clothes.”

“
SHE
DID
.” Mrs. Sands gazed out the window, her face suddenly drained.

Ren huddled under the blankets. He felt that he had said something wrong. “You would have been a good mother,” he offered.

“I’M
NOT
CERTAIN
ABOUT
THAT
.” Her hands floated to her hair. She tucked a few stray curls back into her cap, then pinched him on the arm. “
BUT
I
FOUND
A
USE
FOR
THOSE
OLD
CLOTHES
, DIDN’T I?”

“I guess so,” said Ren, rubbing the place where she’d pinched him.

“I hope you said my prayers too,” said Benjamin. He was standing in the door frame, his boots in his hand. He put the shoes in the closet, then started to remove his shirt.

All at once Mrs. Sands seemed in a hurry. She put the key on top of the dresser and stepped out of the room. Then she burst back through the doorway with a pile of towels and left them on the bureau. A few moments later she returned with three extra pillows and threw them into the rocking chair in the corner. Then she came in once more with a mountain of blankets—crocheted and knitted and patchworks of quilts—all of which she dumped on top of Ren’s head.

“
GOOD
NIGHT
,” she shouted.

“Good night,” said Benjamin, and turned the lock when she was gone.

“How long do we have to stay here?” Ren asked, pushing aside the blankets.

Benjamin slipped off his suspenders. “For now.”

“I don’t like her.”

“Really?” Benjamin said. “I thought you were in love with her.”

“I thought you were.”

“I was just making her happy a little.”

Ren imagined night after night of tub washings. He kicked the base of the bed and something heavy fell onto the floor. Benjamin leaned over and lifted it with his hand. It was a hot water bottle, made of thick brown pottery and stopped with a cork.

Ren had always dreamed of having one.

“Can I fill it?” he asked.

“Suit yourself,” said Benjamin. “But don’t wake Mrs. Sands.”

Ren slipped out of bed and, after unlocking the door, made his way cautiously down the stairs, the hot water bottle under his arm and the long hem of the nightgown clutched in his fingers. In the kitchen the fire was finished, nothing but small bits of cinder in the dark. Ren quickly filled the hot water bottle from the cauldron, then pushed it into the embers. The stones of the hearth were still warm, and the boy rubbed his feet against them. He looked over the tidy kitchen, the shiny copper pots hanging from the wall, the painted pineapples along the edge of the molding, the wood stacked neatly in a basket. It felt like a real home, the kind he’d always imagined.

On a table beside the fireplace was a tray covered with a napkin. Ren peeked under a corner and discovered a complete meal—not the simple bread and ham served earlier, but sliced beef with potatoes and carrots and gravy. The same roast Ren had smelled cooking when he’d first walked into the kitchen. There was a fork and knife beside it, and a mug filled with beer. And an apple. And also a small piece of cake.

The boy’s mouth watered. The cake, the perfect slice of it, was lying on its side, just waiting for him to reach forward and stuff it into his mouth. He could not get his teeth to work fast enough to get it down, the taste of lemon and sugar and poppy seeds melting on his tongue. He brushed the crumbs from the plate and covered the tray again with the napkin.