Jim Crace - The Pesthouse

Everybody died at night. Most were sleeping at the time, the lucky ones who were too tired or drunk or deaf or wrapped too tightly in their spreads to hear the hillside, destabilized by rain, collapse and slip beneath the waters of the lake. So these sleepers (six or seven hundred, at a guess; no one ever came to count or claim the dead) breathed their last in passive company, unwarned and unexpectedly, without any fear. Their final moments, dormant in America.

But there are always some awake in the small times of the morning — the lovemakers, for instance, the night workers, the ones with stone-hard beds or aching backs, the ones with nagging consciences or bladders, the sick. And animals, of course.

The first of that community to die were the horses and the mules, which the travelers had picketed and blanketed against the cold out in the tetherings, between the houses and the lake and beyond the human safety of stockades. They must have heard the landslide — they were so close and unprotected — though it was not especially bulky, not bulky enough, probably, to cause much damage on its own. In the time that it would take to draw a breath and yawn, there was a muted stony splash accompanied by a barometric pop, a lesser set of sounds than thunder but low and devious nevertheless, and worrying — for how could anyone not know by now how mischievous the world could be? The older horses, connoisseurs of one-night stands when everything was devious and worrying, were too weary after yet another day of heading dawnways, shifting carts, freight, and passengers, to do much more than tic their ears and flare their nostrils. Even when, a moment later, the displaced waters of the lake produced a sloshing set of boisterous waves where there had not been any waves before, the full-growns would not raise their heads. But the younger horses and the ever-childish mules tugged against their ropes, and one or two even broke free but hadn’t the foresight to seek high ground in the brief time that remained.

What happened next was almost silent. The landslip had hit the deepest side of the lake and therefore took some moments to reach the bottom, ten man heights from the surface, and then it took some moments more for the avalanche of stone, earth, swarf, and ancient buried scrap to show how heavy it was and squeeze the life out of the gas-rich sediments, the volatile silt and compacted weeds, the soda pockets, which had settled on the bed through centuries and were now ready — almost eager — for this catalyst. Shaken up and shaken out in one great flatulence, the water fizzed and belched until all the gases were discharged, to form a heavy, deadly, surface-hugging cloud, not as high as the pines but higher, certainly, than animals. There wasn’t any wind that night to thin the suffocating vapors and there was no longer any rain to wash the poison from the air, but there was gravity to direct them down, beyond the rapids and cascades, along the valley, past the tetherings, past the secret wooden bridge, past the metal fields, past the stone footings of the onetime shoe factory and tanning works, to seep between the palings of the pine stockades and settle on the town at the river’s crossing point, where almost everyone was sleeping and dreaming of the ruined, rusty way ahead and all the paradise beyond.

Too near the lake and not sleeping was the boy called Nash, whose job that night was to protect the animals from cougars, wolves, or thieves — or bush fish such as rattlers, possibly — though there’d be nothing he could do but shout and draw attention to himself if any of these many perils did approach the tetherings. He’d been too cold and wet even to doze, but not as cold and wet as usual. He huddled over his stove stones — which, following the midnight downpour, produced more smoke than heat — in his new and somehow terrifying coat. He’d traded for it only that day (with a man half his height again and three times his weight), giving a good supply of dried fruit, some pork twists, and a leather water bag, hardly distinguishable from one another in taste or texture, and a flagon of apple juice that the giant, like a giant, had dispatched on the spot. So when the boy heard the landslip and the waves and stood to hear them better should they come again, his coat spread out around him on the ground like chieftain robes intended for display but — at least for anybody as short as he was — not ideal for walking.

Now Nash spotted the two loose mules and hurried out into the night to picket them again. He was not surprised when the coat snagged around his ankles and feet and brought him down. The coat had already toppled him several times that night. He didn’t hurt himself — boys bounce — but he felt more winded than made sense, more dislocated than he should, and stayed on the ground for a few moments to catch his breath and find his balance. His coat of farm-goat skins and hair was as good as a bed and thick enough to keep the moisture out for a while. He’d have to shorten it, he thought. He’d have to cut off half a goat and turn the trimmings into belts or gloves, turn the trimmings into profit, actually. When he had time.

But for the moment, unaccountably, he was too comfortable to move. He had no time or energy for anything, not even sleep. He lost himself in the hairs and skins, forgot the nighttime and the mud. He did feel sleepy, finally, but not alarmed. Too lost to be alarmed. The air was weighty, and its smell was stupefying, somewhere between the smell of mushrooms, eggs, and rotting, clamped potatoes. He’d stand up in a moment, shuck off his dreams of belts and gloves, remove the coat, and catch the mules. He’d be in trouble otherwise. A mule was wealth. But though his dreams soon ended, he never caught his breath and never caught the mules and never found out what had happened at the lake. This wasn’t sleep oppressing him. He dimly recognized as much himself. He was the victim of magic, possibly, or fever — there was already fever in the town, he had heard — or a curse, the sort that storytellers knew about, or else some dead air from the grave, encouraged by the rain, had come to press its clammy lips on his. He’d tasted it. His lungs were rigid suddenly. He was in the gripping custody of hair and skins. He’d been a fool to trust a giant. It must have seemed the coat had always meant to smother him, was trained to kill. This was a homing coat that now would flee, as loyal and cunning as a dog, to rejoin the tall man who had traded it and no doubt would trade it many times again, exchanging death for apple juice.

Down in Ferrytown, not sleeping either, were two passengers from ten days west, a beauty boy — no beard, not twenty yet — and his slightly older wife. They’d found a berth in the loft of the dormitory, against the guesthouse rules that naturally put the women behind locked doors in different quarters from the men, but two-a-bed nevertheless. It was less comfy and colder than those first-floor beds where his parents and his sisters were, but more private and consoling. These newlyweds didn’t have to share their air with anyone. No wonder they’d been making love, as usual. Moving on each day and spending every night in some new space was oddly stimulating, they’d found, as was having sex as quietly as they could in sleeping company, against the rules. But now that lovemaking was concluded, they were quarreling in whispers, despite the likelihood that everything they said could be heard by strangers. The consolations of lovemaking don’t last long when you are fearful, regardless of the massive hope beyond the fears. How many days would it be before they reached the ocean and the ships? The beauty boy thought one more month. He’d not pretend that things were better than they were. The far side of the river was an odd, perplexing place, he’d heard, haunted, wrecked, and hard underfoot, with prairies of rubble where people had once lived in bastions and towers. The way ahead would be difficult beyond imagining. His wife did not believe such stories. She was uncompromisingly optimistic, hopeful beyond reason. The rain that night had been saltier than she’d expected. When the rain tastes like tears, the sea is close. She’d seen a white bird (“That’s a sign”), and she’d heard another passenger say they’d reach the shore, the mighty river with one bank, in just three more days. Then the future could begin. So much for rubble, bastions, and towers. Her husband was too easily impressed. She drifted off to thoughts of boarding ship in three days’ time, and no more quarreling…