Jim Crace - The Pesthouse

This was the worst night of her life, hollower even than her first night in the Pesthouse, more despairing even than the night of the Ferrytown dead, when at least she had had the company of Franklin. She had not brought her bedclothes with her, or the tarp or anything to eat. She wrapped Bella in her blue scarf and cradled her, tucking her tiny feet inside her tunic top, and waited for the time to pass.

After she saw the two horsemen returning in the last light of the day to their house, Margaret pushed as deeply as she dared into the trees, far enough for Bella’s now constant crying to be deadened by the trunks. The darkness was blinding. She could not see a star. Even the moon had been blocked out by the thick hammock and canopy. The trees were less than silhouettes. But Margaret would not allow herself to disappear. The child would not allow it, either. Margaret knew — had not the nursery rhymes told her so when she was just a few years on from Bella’s age? — that if there was no light, still she could create a candle in her heart and with that candle she could “beam her meanings/On eternity/And shine a purpose/On the Night.”

She whispered all the rhymes she knew to Bella, and when the girl finally fell asleep, exhausted by her own hunger, Margaret, too gripped by darkness, cold, and fear to sleep, forced herself to light that candle in her heart and make its meanings and its purposes envelop her in light. Now for a few moments, despite the awful immensity of her troubles, she could still pretend to be an optimist. In that imagined brightness, she could picture, beyond the nighttime and the trees, beyond the horses and the men, a place of greater safety, but not outside America. There were no saltwater boats or gulls. There was no Promised Land. Her place of greater safety was a soddy on a hill. She could envisage dying there, an ancient girl, her hair as long as the bed beneath her, with hands — more hands than she could count — in touch with her, and faces she could recognize and name, all saying Margaret, sweet Margaret, you loved us, and we loved you in return .

Her eyes were now accustomed to the night, and she could see. She could see the child’s face. She could see her own tough hands. She could see the fretwork of the trees, and finally a moon and owls for company. She could not stop the tears from flowing then, nor could she keep her hands and shoulders from shaking. She made owl sounds herself, sniffing and gasping for air. She felt expended and ashamed.

But weeping was a speedy sedative. Soon Margaret was calm enough to take stock of her situation. It had been a frightening day, certainly. But nothing irreparable had happened. As the night deepened, she ran each detail through her head. Apart from that scratch on the back of her hand, she’d hardly hurt herself. That idiot of a man, who’d presumed to frighten her and who would have forced himself on her given half a chance, had actually not even succeeded in touching her. The only body he had damaged had been his own, when he tumbled over, snared by his own dog leash. Now all she had to do was take good care of Bella, remain patient until the very first light, and then get back to the Boses and away to safety before anyone else was out of bed.

The rest of the night passed more quickly than Margaret had feared it would. She even dozed, although by the time dawn came she was so cold and stiff from standing with a tree trunk as her backboard that moving at all was difficult. Finding a sure route was impossible. It was easy to tell east from west, even before the first sun rays had penetrated the woods, but anything more precise than that eluded her. Besides, knowing east from west was not a lot of use for someone who could not precisely remember the position of the sun the previous afternoon when she had gone into the woods. She should have paid more attention and marked her route in some way.

Margaret studied the ground at her feet, expecting to find evidence of her walking, footprints and snapped twigs, but if they were there she couldn’t see them, not in that half-light, anyway. She was a town girl, not a countryman’s daughter. She’d not had to track any animal before. But still she could not stay where she was. She would, she decided, head east. That at least would take her in the direction of the ocean and ships. She would still be sharing a destination with Bella’s grandparents, even if their paths did not cross at once. As soon as she reached open ground, she could take stock of the landscape and any buildings that she found and get back to the Boses before they were sent crazy with anxiety. She could imagine their anger. But what else could she have done but make sure that their granddaughter was safe?

Margaret was oddly calm. She felt for the first time in her life as if she were impregnable and strong. There was so much evidence. Only she from Ferrytown had survived the flux. Only she of all the younger and fitter travelers of their campfire group on the highway had not been taken by the rustlers. And yesterday, unlike the woman displayed on the deck of the cart, she had not been raped. She was still alive, and only lost. What was more, she had an independent purpose in her arms, a girl too small and young to walk or talk or even feed herself. She didn’t need a cedar box of lucky things. Bella was her priceless talisman.

Margaret was so composed and certain of herself that she did not mind that she wasted the greater part of the morning reaching the edge of the woods, for they were beautiful, and that once she broke through to a clearing, nothing familiar was in sight, not a single building, not a reminiscent shape, not even any cultivated land, and only the footings of ancient walls and lines of metal spikes, rusted thin, as evidence that this had once been farmed many years before but now was wilderness. People had been there in better times, had lived there possibly, had died, but there was little chance that anyone would come again. People were becoming scarce. America was emptying. The land was living only for itself.

The clearing sloped a little to her right. She would not climb. That made no sense. The ocean was at sea level, as low as anyone could go. Even the place where the Boses had spent the night was on a track lower than these forests and lower than the group of treacherous farm buildings where Margaret had almost been attacked. She turned downhill, and even though she hadn’t eaten or slept, she had the energy and spirit to walk pretty fast, bouncing Bella as she went and crooning to her all the songs she’d ever learned and some she hadn’t. To be alone would have been frightening and miserable, but having Bella made her strong.

Margaret suspected the extent of her mistake only when she reached a low ridge with good views across the territory. Now she could see what seemed to be the rooftop outline of the cottage she had visited, but it was far away. She must have walked at right angles to where she’d wanted to go. Now she’d have to make up the distance. It could take another half day if the going was complicated. But she set her sights on the rooftop and struck out for it, determined to get back to the Boses by sundown. She had not counted on the snow. It offered only flakes at first, too wet to settle. But soon the flakes lightened and fattened and fell so thickly that it was hard to see ahead. Clear landmarks disappeared. That distant roof was whited out. The track was filled with snow, and when the wind came up in the afternoon, the open ground ahead of her changed shape. It would be crazy to labor on against the weather. And end up where? Again Margaret and Bella would have to spend the night away from the Boses. At least they had meltwater and some mashed berries for their supper, and an overhang of wind-bent conifers to give them shelter and a roof. Margaret lit the candle in her heart again, and slept.