Youth Without God (14 page)

“More cheerful?”

“Yes. So you should be, after speaking up about the broken box, even if the world does malign you. I’ve often thought of you, although you once told me that you didn’t believe in God—or perhaps that was the reason. Meanwhile, perhaps you’ve started to have a rather different idea of God …”

I looked at him mistrustfully. What did he want with me?

“I’ve something of importance to tell you, but first of
all, will you be so good as to answer two questions? In the first place, I suppose you’re wide awake to the fact that even if the case against you should be dropped, you will never be allowed to teach again in any high school in the country?”

“Yes, I was well aware of that before I made my statement.”

“I’m very glad. And now—how do you propose to live? I take it you aren’t one of the shareholders in the saw-mills, since on one occasion you spoke so fervently for the piece-workers and the children in the windows—do you remember?”

Yes! The children in the windows. I’d forgotten them. And the saw-mill that lay idle. How far away it all seemed now, like part of another life!

“I’ve nothing,” I said. “And I have to support my parents.”

“I’ve got something for you,” he said, after a short pause.

“What? A job?”

“Yes, but abroad.”

“Where?”

“In Africa.”

“With the negroes?”

I smiled—I, “the Nigger.”

The priest did not smile.

“What do you find so comical in that? Negroes are men too.”

You needn’t have told me that, I smiled to myself. But I didn’t say anything, and listened to his proposal. I could become a teacher in a mission school.

“Should I have to take orders?” I asked.

“Not necessarily.”

I was thoughtful for a moment. Now I believed in God,
but I didn’t believe that white men brought any blessing to black: they brought God, but only as a part and parcel of a thousand dubious gifts. I told the priest so. His calm remained.

“It depends upon you entirely, whether you misuse your mission or not.”

“My mission?”

“Yes, every one has a mission,” he said.

Right! But I had to find the truth in those round bright eyes of T. I must catch the fish first.

I told the priest I’d go to Africa, but only when I’d succeeded in freeing the girl. He listened closely. Then he gave me this advice:

“If you really think that this other boy did it, then you must tell his mother. A mother must hear everything. Go to her straight away.”

I WAS ON MY WAY TO T’S MOTHER.

The school secretary had given me the address—but very reluctantly, for I was supposed to keep away from the high school. I had passed its threshold for the last time: soon I should be in Africa.

My tram rattled on through streets of smart houses, which slowly gave way before ugliness and poverty. Beyond, lay the villas of the rich.

“Terminus!” shouted the conductor. “Terminus. All change.”

I was his only fare.

The air was much fresher here than in my own neighbourhood. The gardens were well kept, and here there were no garden dwarfs, no reclining fawns, no mushrooms.

At last I found the number I wanted—thirty-one. The gate was high and the house hidden in its grounds.

My ring brought out an old porter, but he did not immediately open up.

“Yes, sir?”

“I’d like to see Mrs. T.”

“On what business?”

“I’m her son’s teacher.”

“Certainly.”

He opened the gate and we walked up the drive. As we
passed a black fir-tree, I caught sight of the house. A palace, almost. A servant was waiting, and I was handed over to his charge.

“The gentleman would like to see the lady. He’s the young gentleman’s teacher.”

The footman nodded.

“That might be difficult, sir,” he said politely. “We have visitors just now.”

“I’m afraid it’s extremely important,” I said.

“Could you arrange to come to-morrow?”

“No. It’s about her son.”

He smiled, with a slight, negative gesture.

“Even so—my mistress often hasn’t got time for her son. Even the young gentleman himself generally has to send in his name first.”

“Look here,” I said with a dangerous look, “send in mine now, or you’ll answer for the consequences.”

He stared at me quite whitely for a second, and then bowed.

“Well, we’ll try! Excuse me if I lead the way.”

I went in. Through a splendid hall and up the staircase. We encountered a woman who as she went downstairs smiled at the footman and me.

“That was the film-star X,” whispered the footman.

Of course, I’d seen her quite recently—as a little factory girl who married the boss. She was a friend of the Chief Plebeian. Poetry and Justice! I thought.

“She’s a divine artist,” murmured the footman as we reached the first floor. Through an open door, I heard women laughing—from the third room, I thought. And then the chink of tea-cups. The footman took me into a little drawing-room and asked me if I would please wait,
he would do all he could, and take the first opportunity on my behalf. He closed the door as he left me.

It was afternoon, and by no means late, but the days were growing shorter.

I looked at some old prints on the walls. Jupiter-Jove, Amor, Psyche. Marie Antoinette. The room was rose and gold. How old were those chairs that stood around the table? Nearly two hundred years, perhaps. Those who’d sat in them might have gone to the execution of Marie Antoinette.

Where was Eve now? Still in the prison hospital, I hoped. There at least she’d have a bed.

Unless she’d got well again!

I went over to the window and looked out.

The fir-tree shadow stood blacker in the twilight.

At last the door slowly opened. I turned round: now I should see T’s mother. But it wasn’t T’s mother who stood there. It was the boy himself.

“My mother sent me to you,” he said courteously, “when she heard you were here, sir. She’s sorry she has no time—”

“Oh? When will she have time?”

He shrugged his shoulders wearily.

“I don’t know. She never has time.”

Never has time. What has she to do, then? She must think of no one but herself. My thoughts went back to the priest, and our conversation about human ideals. Was it true that victory always lay with the rich? Could not the wine turn to water?

“If your mother’s always occupied,” I said, “perhaps I could see your father?”

“My father? But he’s never at home. I scarcely ever see him. He’s got his business.”

His business?

I thought of the saw-mill that sawed no longer, and the children sitting in the windows painting dolls. They were saving light: they had no light.

God goes through every street. God sees the children and the saw-mill. God might have come here, to be faced by the old porter and the same questions at that high gate. The porter would inquire why He wanted to see T’s parents. Perhaps they knew: but they never expected Him.

“Why do you wish to see my parents, sir?”

I looked at T as he spoke, and waited for his smile to return. But T did not smile. He only stared. There was a shimmer of sudden terror in his eyes.

“I wanted to have a word with your parents about you,” I said, “but unfortunately they’ve no time.”

“About me?”

He grinned.

An empty grin.

The boy who had wanted to steal the secrets of life and death stood there like an idiot—and as if he were listening to something.

What could he hear?

The creaking flight of madness?

I hurried away.

AT HOME ANOTHER BLUE ENVELOPE AWAITED ME.

Nothing special to report again?

I opened it and read:

I grinned. T was getting gay. But it wasn’t that which interested me. Why should she have made a face at him? Of course she was no lady! But why did she spit?

I’d go and ask her. For now I was determined to follow up the slightest, silliest incident.

If he wasn’t to be hooked, we’d catch him in a net, a fine-meshed net that he couldn’t slip through.

I went to 67 Y-Street and asked the woman who came to the door if I might see a blond lady—

“Miss Nelly has room seventeen,” she interjected.

The other people in the house were honest folk of the lower middle-class.

I rang at door number seventeen.

It was opened by a blonde.

“Hallo! Come in!” she said.

I’d never seen her before.

In the room I could see the dark green coat hanging up, and the red hat lying on the table. This was the woman. She was angry when she found that I’d only come for information. When I promised to pay her for it, her resentment gave way to distrust. No, I wasn’t the police, I told her, in an attempt to remove it. I only wanted to know why she’d spat after that boy yesterday.

“Let’s see the money,” she said.

I gave it to her. She made herself comfortable on the sofa and offered me a cigarette. We smoked.

“I don’t want to rake it up again,” she said, and then paused.

Suddenly she came out with it.

“I’ll soon tell you why I spat at him. It made me sick, I couldn’t stand him.”

She shuddered.

“How d’you mean?”

“How would you like it? He was laughing!”

“Laughing?”

“It gave me the creeps. And then I got so wild I boxed his ears. He ran across to the mirror. ‘It isn’t red!’ he says. He was just watching all the time, to see what it was like. If I had my way, I wouldn’t touch that fellow with a bargepole, but I’m sorry to say I shall have the pleasure once more—”

“Are you forced to, then?”

“You don’t force Nelly to nothing. I’m just doing somebody a favour of my own sweet will in going with that lousy cur again—I’ve got to act as if I was in love with him this time—”

“You’re doing somebody a favour?”

“Yeah. It’s somebody I owe a lot to.”

“Who?”

“Oh, you don’t get no more change out of me. Somebody you wouldn’t know.”

“What’s he want, then, this somebody?”

She fixed her eyes on mine, and drawled:

“He wants to catch a fish!”

I sprang up at the word.

She went white.

“What’s up?” she gasped, stubbing out her cigarette. “That’s all the talking I’m going to do to you. Looks like you’re crazy. You get out of here. Good-bye.”

I staggered out, my brain whirling with questions. Who’ll catch the fish? What’s happened now? Who’s this stranger that’s mixed up in it?

I WENT BACK TO MY LODGINGS. MY LANDLADY met me with a worried look.

“There’s a gentleman here I don’t know. He’s been waiting half an hour for you. There’s something strange about him that gave me quite a turn. He’s in the drawing-room.”

I went in. My visitor was sitting in the dark, for it was evening now. I switched on the light.

Julius Caesar!

He and his death’s head greeted me.

“Now prick up your ears, colleague.”

“What is it?”

“I’ve got the fish.”

“You’ve got—?”

“Yes. He’s been swimming nearer and nearer to the bait—and to-night he’ll bite. Come on, we’ll have to hurry. The line’s baited and it’s high time we were moving.”

“What d’you mean?—the bait?”

“All in good time.”

We started at once.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“To ‘The Lily.’ ”

“Where?”

“How shall I put it, child? ‘The Lily’ is just a low dive.”

He had set a good pace. It began to rain.

“Good.” He chuckled. “When it rains, they bite better.”

“What have you got up your sleeve?”

“I’ll tell you everything over a drink. Come on, we’re getting wet.”

“But how does it happen that you’re catching the fish without saying a word to me?”

“I wanted to surprise you. Leave me that pleasure, please.”

Suddenly he halted—in spite of his haste and the fact that it was pouring by now. He gave me a long look, and spoke slowly, seeming to emphasize every word.

“You ask me why I’m catching the fish? You told me about him a day or two ago—d’you remember? Then you moved off to another table, and suddenly it struck me how wretched you were over that girl, and I felt I had to help you. Do you remember sitting down at that table—I think you wrote a letter?”

Yes, the letter to my parents. The letter in which I at last managed to write that phrase about God.

I tottered.

“What’s the matter?” I heard Caesar say. “You’ve gone dead white.”

“Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“It’s high time you put a schnapps down.”

Perhaps he was right. I was shivering. For one tiny moment I saw the net.

“THE LILY” WAS VERY HARD TO FIND, SO DARK was the whole neighbourhood. And inside, it was little brighter. But at least it was warmer, and there was no rain.

“The ladies are here already,” said the hostess, indicating the third box.

“Bravo,” smiled Caesar. He turned to me. “The ladies are my bait. Lob-worms!”

In the third box sat Nelly with a buxom girl who might have been a waitress. Nelly recognized me at once, but habit kept her greeting silent. She just smiled wryly.

Caesar frowned, puzzled.

“Where’s the fish?” he asked quickly.

“Ain’t shown up,” droned Nelly’s companion in a dreary monotone of a voice.

“I’m sitting waiting for him,” said Nelly with a gracious smile.

“She waited two hours for him in front of the cinema.”

“Two and a half”—and the smile dropped suddenly from Nelly’s face. “I’m jolly glad that slime didn’t turn up.”

Caesar introduced me to the two women.