Jeffery Allen - Song of the Shank

Eliza and Mr. Bethune continued on, enjoying the walk and the view, letting the features gather. Things had been arranged to be gazed on. Endless brilliances planned, tidied up, and straightened out to the last square corner. She drew his attention to one sight after another. Slim rippling trees with heavy bunches of flowers. Sparkling lagoons. Gardens with birdbaths, fountains, and paved watercourses. A three-mile-long central lawn. Gazebos with mosque-like domes. A marble pavilion stretching almost four city blocks. A paved path, climbing in four or five levels to a shelf of pale crags. A hilltop edged with a castle, a modern structure trying to create an element of medieval intrigue, add something old to the new. This place returning to them a sense of their own motion through it, their limbs growing progressively warmer from the movement. He seemed interested in what he saw, awed even at times — was he really, or is she supplying this impression years after the fact? — but had nothing to say, at least about this. Words were bound to come. (Of course, he must take the lead, draw her into conversation, Eliza showing restraint, holding true tongue back, determined — however difficult — to move within the parameters of convention lest she give him the wrong introductory impression.) What would it take?

They walked another mile or two before he responded to her with something more than a barely perceivable nod of the head. He asked her about the orphanage. Getting on all right there?

Yes.

I take it you enjoy your position?

As much as one might.

It’s not too much for you? It would be for me.

It’s too much.

So why do it? he asked. Why work there? His question was so quiet she had to watch his lips to understand. He did not wait for an answer but carried on talking. It’s too much to bear, but you stay on because of what you can produce in the children.

She explained that the best children — those clever enough — would take up positions of indenture, mostly on farms in the city’s (four) outer boroughs, where skin prejudice held less sway. What better way for independence than through entry to a trade.

He nodded slightly, approvingly.

They walked over the narrow spine of a bridge. The sun shone so warm that Mr. Bethune chose to remove his hat and carry it beside him. It seemed to her of particular significance that he showed an interest in her life. Her life at the Asylum against his life abroad: the South, Britain, the Continent. Her years (twenty) against his (thirty-five, her estimation). Her innocence against his experience.

A figure shot from the brush two yards ahead and stopped dead center in the path observing them. Jolted, they stopped too, registering the danger. A cur, mangy, unwashed, cut and bitten, obscene. Showing worth, it opened its mouth, flashing yellow teeth, only to sit back on its hind legs, exposing two egg-red testicles, this display of maleness portending that a violent attack might be the least of their concerns. Indeed, the animal began trembling from tongue to toe as if fully anticipating what was to come next. The muscles went still. The frame shuddered. A lengthy turd began squeezing out the rump. Eliza turned her body 180 degrees away from the sight. Only when she heard the animal lope off, panting, a sure indication that it was done, did she turn around. They stepped around the small steaming volcano, at once cautious and oblivious — cancel height, stench, texture, color — and resumed their walk.

Mr. Bethune looked unashamedly at her and uttered something, Eliza numbed by guilt, helpless to compel an order to the rush of sounds. Took another sentence or two for her to realize that he — his sharp bright eyes restlessly on the lookout — was now talking about his vocation. The forthcoming season would carry them east for the first time. Prague and Belgrade, Kraków and Bucharest, Oulu and Ekaterinburg, Turku and Split, Tirana and Trieste, Skopje and Saint Petersburg, Ljubljana and Riga, Tartar and Tallinn, Helsinki and Kiev, Warsaw and Pristina, Gdańsk, Tbilisi, Dubrovnik, Heart, Bukhara, Sarajevo, Uzbeki, Kirgisi, and Sofia. Places on the edge of imagination. (Last year, a Mediterranean circuit — Bastia, calvi, Cagliari, Alassio, Sartène, and Sassari — streaks of color — pastel-colored stone houses, whitewashed stone buildings, blackened stone forts — dancing on waves.)

This sudden leap to a new topic — where had they left off? — was its own explanation, for she recognized with shamed certainty his effort to allay her embarrassment. How noble, his at-the-ready responsiveness to her feelings gaining him favor in her eyes. Such luck, she said. Excitement. To be sped from town to town, city to city, adventure to adventure. (The concerts in fashionable metropolises, before fashionable audiences, including the private commissions and gatherings for city burghers; Russian czars and nobility; landed earls, ladies, and dukes; and the Continent’s kings, princes, and queens.) And the music, night after night.

He maintained his gaze on the path before them, but his face grew active with thought, trying out one idea after another, only for him to nod his head in affirmation, giving up all hope of constructing a reply.

Will you give me a full report? I need to see something of life.

He smiled. Perhaps you will get your request sooner than you imagine. You might find us as your neighbors.

Eliza made a soft incredulous noise, tagging the idea with melodramatic amazement. You don’t expect me to believe that could actually happen?

It could. He went on to explain. Since home was now in the heart of the war zone, the family — his father, mother, sisters — had already left the main estate for another property. But what was the difference really? Commerce and culture have already vanished in the South — his sentiments not exactly in those words but something like them.

You plan to resettle?

Yes, we do. Tom, myself, and Warhurst, the manager.

Was he implying some divide within the Bethune family?

My father has his own direction.

She felt embarrassed for bringing forth this secret. Here she was leading him to places he would not have ventured to on his own. How had she gotten so ahead of herself?

But perhaps this is not about my father, he said, taking any accusation out of his voice. All of the traveling can make you feel something different.

She did not understand.

There are other things.

When she glanced at him, she found that his face was transformed. Was he about to take her in confidence? If so, she would be careful not to accuse, to judge.

He expressed that yesterday at the orphanage she had picked up perfectly on his desperation. How satisfied he was to abandon his affairs for a few hours, to detach himself from Tom and Warhurst, to get clear of promoters and agents and schedules and journalists and reports and wires, and join her.

I understand something of what you’re going through, she said. It was a lie put out there to bait him. Where had she found the strength to act this way? And how so quickly, so spontaneously? Would it cost her in the end?

Yes, you would understand, he said, given the responsibilities and directions of your work.

Already you know me so well. Her eyes slanted upward toward him in that accepted female way considered both coy and inviting. Go further. Try more.

He smiled. Are you telling me that I’m wrong?

No, I cannot call you wrong. Indeed, in my position at the Asylum, there might be the chance occasion when I experience feelings identical to yours.

But you make it seem wonderful, your work.

Do I?

Yes. That and more.

Nothing is special about my condition. This is simply where life has found me.

I would put it down to more than that. Your affairs are positive and important but fraught with worry and complication, as is any career completely devoted to either maintaining or uplifting a weaker party.