Dan Vyleta - Smoke

“You must learn to master yourself,” says Julius, says it very gently, angling away the light. “You may go now. It is well.”

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There is no punishment, or rather none that Julius need administer. The stains on Collingwood’s shirt can be washed out only by soaking them for hours in concentrated lye. The only lye in the whole school is held by the school laundry and is tightly guarded. When he hands over his linen the next morning, as he must, the shirt will be identified by his monogram; his name taken down. The Master of Smoke and Ethics will have a conversation with Collingwood, not entirely dissimilar in nature to the proceedings of this late-night court. A report will be written and sent to his parents, and sanctions imposed upon him. Perhaps he will lose his badge and the privileges of a prefect; perhaps he will be sent to scrub the teachers’ lavatory, or spend his free time in the library cataloguing books. Perhaps he won’t be allowed to join the other schoolboys on the Trip. He shows no anger as he stands up trembling from the chair, and his look at Julius is like a dog’s that has been beaten. It wants to know if it’s still loved.

Thomas gazes after him longer than most as Collingwood slinks from the room. If he was free to go he would go after him; would sit with him, though not speak. He wouldn’t find the words. Charlie might: he’s good with words, and more than that. He has a special talent, a gentleness of the heart. It allows him to feel what others feel and speak to them frankly, as an equal. Thomas turns to his friend, but Charlie’s eyes are on Julius. More boys are to be examined tonight. A second piece of paper is about to be picked from the sack; a second name about to be read.

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They call him Hum-Slow, though his real name is Hounslow, the ninth Viscount of. He can’t be twelve yet if he’s a day. One of the youngest boarders, thin but chubby-faced, the way the young ones sometimes are. As he arrives at the chair and turns to sit down on it, his fear wrests wind from his bowels, long and protracted, like it will never stop. Imagine it: the endless growl of a fart, in a room full of schoolboys. There are some giggles yet hardly a jeer. One does not need Charlie’s talent to feel sorry for Hounslow. His body shakes so, he can barely manage his opening line.

“Please, sir. Examine me.”

His voice, not yet broken, tends towards a squeal. When he tries to “thank the Smoke,” he mangles it so badly that tears of frustration roll down his plump cheeks. Thomas starts forward, but Charlie stops him, gently, unobtrusively, takes hold of him by the arm. They exchange looks. Charlie has a peculiar way of looking: so simple, so honest, you forget to hide behind your own little lies. For what would Thomas do, if Charlie let him go? To interfere with the examination would be tantamount to rebelling against the Smoke itself. But Smoke is real: you can see and smell it every day, if you like. How do you rebel against a fact? And so Thomas must stay and watch Hounslow be thrown to the wolves. Though this wolf wears white and angles a lamp into which the child blinks blindly.

“Tell me,” Julius begins, “have you been a good boy?”

Hounslow shakes his head in terror, and a sound runs through the room very close to a moan.

But, strange to say, the little boy survives the procedure without a single wisp. He answers all questions, answers them slowly, though his tongue seems to have gone thick with fear, and sticks out of his mouth in between answers.

Does he love his teachers?

Yes, he does.

Love his peers, his books, his dormitory bed?

Oh yes, he does, he does, and school most of all.

What sins, then, weigh on his conscience?

Sins too great and numerous to name.

But name them he does, taking upon himself all the weight of guilt he can conceive of, until he is quite flattened. If he has failed his Latin test this Monday past, it is because he is “indolent” and “stupid.” If he has fought in the school yard with a classmate called Watson, it is because he, Hounslow, is “vicious” and a “little brute.” If he has wet his bed, it is because he is “vile” and has been so from birth, his mother says so herself. He is a criminal, a retrograde, a beast. “I am dirt,” Hounslow shouts, near-hysterical, “dirt,” and all the while his nightshirt stays clean, its little lace ruffles free of all Soot.

It’s done in under ten minutes. Julius lowers the lamp and kisses the boy’s head, right on the crown, like they have seen the bishop do with the school chaplain. And when he gets up, there is something more that shows in Hounslow’s face other than relief. A note of triumph. Today, this night, he has become one of the elect. He has abased himself, admitted to all he’s ever hidden in his conscience (and some more besides), and the Smoke has judged him pure. If he gives Watson a bloody nose on the morrow, it will be with the sense of administering justice. Julius looks after him with proud amusement. Then he digs within the sack. And reads a third name, the last one. It won’t be Cooper, Charlie’s last name. Charlie is a future earl, one of the highest in the land. The powerful, Thomas has been given to understand, are rarely chosen for examination.

“Argyle,” Julius reads, slowly and diligently, not without pleasure.

Argyle.

Thomas’s name.

It would be false to say he did not expect it.

As though split by an oar, the sea of boys now parts for him. Charlie’s hand squeezes his arm, then he’s walking. He’ll wonder at it later, this undue haste, the absence of any real will to resist, and will berate himself for cowardice. But it isn’t cowardice that shows on his face but the opposite: he’s itching to do battle. From the way he raises his chin into the light, you would have thought he was climbing into a boxing ring. Julius notices it too.

And smiles.

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The light is blinding. Behind it, the room ceases to exist. He cannot look to Charlie for guidance or assurance, for Charlie is lost in the darkness while he, Thomas, is bathed in yellow light. Even Julius, who stands not two steps away, is but a shadow from the world beyond.

There is something else Thomas realises. The light makes him feel naked. Not exposed, or vulnerable, but quite literally parted with his clothing, every stitch so flimsy it has turned into thin air. In itself it might not have meant that much to him. At home, he stripped many times to swim the river with his friends, and when he changes every night into his nightshirt, he does so with little thought to modesty. This is different though. The light singles him out. He is naked in a room full of people who are not. He is not prepared for how angry it makes him.

“Start,” he growls, because Julius doesn’t, he just stands there, waiting, steadying the lamp. “Go on. I submit to the exam. And thank the Smoke. Now: ask me a question.” The chair, Thomas realises, slopes under his bottom. His feet have to push into the ground to keep himself stable.

Julius greets his outburst calmly.

“Impatient, are we? Though you were tardy enough about coming to school. And are slow enough about learning your lessons.”

He unhooks the lamp and carries it closer, stands over him, bathing him in the beam.

“You know,” Julius mouths, so quietly only Thomas can hear, “I think I can see your Smoke even now. Steaming out of every little pore. It’s disgusting.

“But if you are so very impatient,” he goes on, louder again, his orator’s voice self-possessed and supple, “very well. I will make it easy for you. Your examination will be a single question. Does that suit you?”

Thomas nods, bracing himself, like you do when you expect to be punched. It is Charlie who later explains to him that it is better to unclench, absorb the hit like water.