Jim Crace - The Pesthouse

Almost everybody else was being marked in red — a large cross on both arms — and turned away. They went back to the body of the crowd, crestfallen but ready to try again (once they’d scratched away all evidence of red), though next time with a different story or a different hat or more convincing tears.

Margaret did not see the guard approaching. He was almost invisible against the mud in his dark uniform. He had hold of her wrist — checking for a blue tick, perhaps — before she noticed him, and for a moment her cry of alarm made her the center of attention for the front rows of the crowd. They saw her being pulled down from her metal perch and heard his gibberish commands that she should move away and put an end to her mopery. They saw her being roughly sent back to the riverbank, though she was more prodded than kicked by the guard’s boot. When finally, out of reach, she threw a scoop of mud at him, the unsuccessful emigrants cheered for her. It didn’t matter that her missile had fallen short by a dozen paces. They were just glad that someone other than themselves had shown a little reckless fortitude. Throwing mud was not the most persuasive application for a berth.

At least now, during this brief celebrity, strangers were returning Margaret’s greetings with a smile of recognition. “Good work, sister,” they called out, especially the ones whose failure was already marked in red. And, “Step a little closer next time.” So she was able to get replies to her questions from those rejected families who were peeling off the back of the crowd, despondent, bewildered, and angry. “They say we have to wait until the summer for the family ships,” one woman told Margaret, rubbing at her arm with spittle but seeming to make no impact on the dye. “These sailings are for workers only. They’ll take my sons at once, but won’t touch me.” It was the same story that Margaret had heard from Joanie: mother and son, wife and husband, divided. Another said that she had heard that there were already family sailings farther down the coast, in a much larger port with thirty boats a month for emigrants—“Only a three-or four-day walk, if you can afford the services of a pathfinder to show the best route. They’ll take everybody there. Women. Kids. Dogs, they say. We’re packing up and moving on today, if we can get our horses back.”

Margaret listened to their plans but recognized the bleakness in their voices. They were exhausted by their disappointment. Now they had to split their families or move on to another place or stay here for the season, living on salt and wind. She turned around and walked back toward the woods and the coastal path. She wouldn’t waste a moment standing in that line, just to have her hopes and patience crossed out in red. A woman with a child and nothing to her name except a set of spy pipes would never be accepted on those boats. There had to be another dream.

No sooner had she made up her mind to return at once to Jackie and Franklin than she found an even better reason to hasten away from the anchorage. There, among the abandoned carts, just a few paces off, sitting on a crate and wearing the green-and-orange woven top that Margaret’s sister had made, was Melody Bose, looking very cross indeed.

Margaret only just remembered to retrieve the spy pipes as she hurried up the path. She used them when she reached the spot where the two women from the fishing cottages had enhanced themselves for work. She focused the pipes on the carts and then the crowd and then the market area and then the encampments, but she could not see her stolen top or any further sign of Melody. She spotted the two women, though, standing by the horse corral, dwarfed by three mounted men in quarrelsome dress, their beards tied with ribbons. One had what looked like a severed hand dangling from his saddle as a trophy. Behind them, turning his horse impatiently and calling to his comrades to hurry up, was Captain Chief, unmissable and unmistakable — as Melody had been — in his stolen clothes, a flag to the eyes in goatskin.

“Back already? Quick work. No tick or cross, I see,” said Joanie when the dogs barked Margaret’s return to the cottages. “I’ll walk with you a little way. I like the company of someone new.” So the two of them continued up the rise into the higher dunes above the shore, with four or five of the dogs running ahead of them. “We understand each other now,” Joanie said. “You’ve seen how it is down at the anchorage. There’s no way out of here for women like us. Now you know how truthful I’ve been with you.”

“There are other ships and other ports. Ships for families. Farther down…”

Joanie chuckled. “Ha, so they claim. That’s what they want you to believe. They don’t want you hanging around this anchorage, causing trouble, spreading discontent. They’ll say, ‘That’s it, my darling jetsams, we’ll take care of your husband and your strapping sons. Leave them here in our good hands. Now off you go, down south. Good girls. There’s boats with fur-lined cabins waiting for the married women there, and all the old folks and the kids.’ And when you arrive at the next port, well, it’s all the same old dance. No moms and kids. No grandparents. ‘Try even farther south for better luck.’ You swallow that? Well, more fool you. You’ll be chasing south until you run out of south and start coming up the other side until there’s no north left, and still you won’t have found a ship that’ll let you board. At this rate, in a season or two there’ll be more turn-me-downs on the shores and beaches of this country than there are gulls, I promise you. There’ll be no standing room. They’ll all be scrapping over bits of kelp and sleeping on one leg. No, listen to me, Margaret. Margaret, isn’t it? Your husband, is he fit and strong?”

Margaret nodded, smiled, held her hand above her head. “He’s this tall, as strong as a bear. He’s big and beautiful.”

“What kind of man is he?”

“He’s shy, I think, and not uncaring, and—”

Margaret could have made a better list, but Joanie quickly interrupted her. “Well, then, you are unfortunate,” she said. She took Margaret by the upper arm. Too fierce a grip, tighter even than the black-uniformed guard’s. “Listen to me, sweet. If you’re sensible, you’ll go back to your shy and not uncaring man and you’ll lie to him. Tell him that there are no ships, or that the berths are full, or that men have got to have their balls cut off before they’re let on board. Say anything except the truth. Because as soon as he knows that they’re looking for anyone with muscles and hardly anyone with breasts, he won’t be shy of leaving you behind. Your man will take the ship and leave you here, leave you with your little girl. Trust me. And you’ll encourage him, because you love the man, you want him to be free. Women are such knuckleheads.”

“I do love him,” Margaret said, her voice unexpectedly small.

“Will you love him when he’s gone? Will you love him when there is no loving to be had?”

Margaret did not know the answer. She only felt tight-chested and angry. She tried to shake the woman off, but Joanie pressed her face close to Margaret’s and said, “Let him go, then. Come to us. We’ll find a place for you. You’re a handsome woman, in your way. Now just suppose, when you get back to him, your husband wants to take the ships. No one wishes that on you, but just suppose that he’s gone and you’re alone. Then come back here and we can find a place for you, a bed for you, so long as you’re prepared to work with us and do your share. We’d have to dye your hair, of course. Some men are fearful of the red. We’d have to find you better clothes. You understand? Come to us. Come to us.”

Finally the woman let her go, although the dogs stayed with Margaret for a little while before returning to their owners and their suppers and their fires. Margaret hurried on, running almost. She was soon breathless from exertion and anxiety. But she slowed her steps when she could see the cabins and the flock of frenzied gulls. She needed time to think. She speeded up again only when she could smell the meat.