Jim Crace - The Pesthouse

Margaret saw the Ark way before she and Bella reached it. At first it seemed to be little more than a massive palisade made out of cut but unworked tree trunks and arranged in a perfect rectangle, too high and smooth for anyone to climb. But as they drew closer, the roof planks and roof weights of several long buildings could be seen, and a half-constructed stone tower at their center, with scaffolding and men at work. It did not look entirely welcoming. The palisade was defensive and discouraging.

And this was odd: in the approaches to the Ark, great trenches had been dug and mostly filled in again, as if there had been an epidemic and a thousand bodies were being buried, had been buried, there. The trenches were not graves but dumping grounds, as far as Margaret could tell, for objects that these Finger Baptists evidently did not want. In the one open trench within sight, she could see some harnesses, a beaten copper tray, and some cans, as well as something small and silvery. Such waste was unnerving. Had she been less tired and dispirited, she might have turned away and gone elsewhere. But she walked on. “It’s not long now,” she said to Bella. “Then we’ll be safe.” What could they hope to find inside, she wondered, apart from not being touched? Free food, at least. The goose man had said there’d be free food. A bed? A winter roof? A place out of the wind, that was for sure. And time, finally, to teach the girl to walk.

. .

There was a single entry to the Ark, a great timber gate, closed but with a smaller door set into it. All who sported the loop of white tape came and went as they pleased, but Margaret and Bella had to get in line. They joined about thirty other travelers who were seeking shelter until the spring and, not daring to sit and sleep, waited their turn. Two keepers moved among the hopefuls, turning away anybody wearing jewelry who would not agree to throw it out or any man wearing a sword or knife or hoping to enter the Ark with any kind of vehicle. A family with a short barrow hung with tools and implements salvaged from their abandoned cart chose to press on and find other winter quarters rather than sacrifice their forage tines, a drag chain, an ax, a kettle, a shovel, clouts, and linchpins, as well as sufficient nails and hames to equip another cart if only they had horses. Another who had hoped to take his horse into the Ark for stabling was told he either had to stay outside or lose his metaled saddle, the horse’s shoes, and his bit and bridle, which had been handed on to him through generations of riders. He chose to stay outside.

The determined survivors, fewer than twenty in number, were allowed through the smaller door into a courtyard between the inner and outer palisades. There they had to form another line, which passed between two long timber tables minded by devotees with the now familiar white tape around their shoulders and carefully expressionless faces. Were these the Finger Baptists? Margaret wondered.

“Nothing metal, nothing metal,” one of them was commanding, walking up and down the line, repeating his instructions and devotions to every group. “Remove all metal from your hair — no antique combs — no knives at all, no silverware, no ear or finger rings, no pans. Metal is the Devil’s work. Metal is the cause of greed and war. In here we are, like air and water, without which none of us can live, the enemies of metal. Check your pockets. Shake out all your rust. Remove your shoes. Unlace your bags.”

Margaret watched as the members of one of the two families ahead of her in line were frisked by devotees in gloves and then required to empty out their bags, every single item, and put their shoes and belts onto the tables. A spoon and a bracelet, wrapped in felt, clearly valuable and probably loved, were thrown into woven baskets under the tables. The father of the family shook his head, hardly able to control his mounting anger when the buckle was snapped off his belt. A coat whose buckle would not tear free from its cloth was thrown out entirely. Their shoes were inspected, and either any brass eyelets or clips were pulled free and jettisoned or, if they would not loosen readily, the whole shoe was thrown out and replaced by a pair of stitched moccasins. Metal buttons were snapped off their coats and pants by expert gloved hands. Seams and hems were checked for hidden metal valuables. The children had to part with toys that they had made from found scrap, and the family dog — a cousin, in looks at least, to Becky, Margaret’s missing terrier — was stripped of its studded collar.

The father, though, was keen to preserve at least a little of his dignity. He was not prepared, he said, to lose the short sword that he had hidden among his blankets, which was discovered by the sorters with a look of disapproval and triumph. Losing it and any ability to defend his family in the future was too great a price to pay, he argued. It was wrong of them to insist, even though the family would have winter food and accommodation as recompense. “We’ve already given up our few valuables. Enough’s enough.”

“It’s your decision,” he was told. “If you don’t like us, you can go.”

“I like you well enough. But you’re robbing us. What you’re doing isn’t much different from stopping us on the road and holding knives to our throats.”

“We never have knives.”

“I know that, yes.” The father was getting exasperated. “A wooden stick, then, if you held that to our throats,” he added hastily, trying to be sarcastic, and then realized how foolish he must sound. “Well, something sharp at least, for heck’s sake!” He glanced at his short sword, still lying on the table and within easy reach. His wife put her hand on his arm, a gesture of both solidarity and restraint. She could see how tempted he was — and not for the first time — to support his indignation with a blade. She could also see that these Baptists were fit young men who seemed ready to defend their high principles with their fists and feet.

The white-taped man who had been walking up the line listing forbidden objects and giving instructions to the applicants and who had seemed to be the most senior of the devotees now approached the family at the table, clapping his hands for silence. “Enough’s enough, indeed,” he said, spreading his arms to show that the way ahead was now barred to them. “Please gather your possessions and leave. We have no place for you.”

“Who’ll sew the buckles back? You’ve damaged everything. Who’ll mend the shoes?” the father asked.

The man shook his head, entirely calm. “No one,” he said, making his meaning very clear. Their metal already in the baskets would not be returned.

“Hand me back my mother’s bracelet, then.” The emigrant’s wife hoped to salvage what she could. “And let us have the silver spoon. That’s all the currency we have.”

“And give me back my sword.”

The calm man shook his head again. “Metals equal weapons equal death,” he said.

Now the wife was heated, too. “Then you’re thieves, for all your piety.”

“We don’t steal from anyone. We put the metal back into the soil. We bury it. That’s not theft. That’s restitution. We require our winter residents to observe our practices. Neither your broad sword nor your arguments are welcome in the Ark.” He took the father’s sword from the table and dropped it into a basket with as much ceremony and measured finality as he could. “You should leave now. The inner door is closed to all of you.”

The next family was careful to cooperate and not argue. A much-loved, battered cooking pot and their leather-working needles plus their wrap of bone-handled tools — scissors, cutters, blades — which might have provided them with a livelihood on the far side of the ocean, all ended up among “the stones of hell” in the wastebaskets, with every other scrap of pewter, copper, battered steel or rusty iron, gold or silver, lead or tin. They had made up their minds swiftly. On the whole their sacrifice was worth it. They’d not survive the winter on the cold side of the palisades. They could survive without their tools.