Bryce Courtenay - The Potato Factory

Mary could feel her temper rising, the heat of her anger suffusing her entire body. She rose without haste from where she was seated and, taking up her abacus from the table, moved in slow, deliberate steps towards where Ikey sat smiling triumphantly at the counting desk. She came to a halt in front of the desk and it seemed that she was about to beg him for his mercy, but instead she lifted the abacus above her head and swung it as hard as she might at the grinning little fence. The abacus caught him on the side of the head and sent him sprawling from the high chair onto the floor. Ikey's spectacles launched from his head and landed with a clatter in the corner behind him.

'You can keep your poxy job, you bastard!' she cried. 'Fuck you!'

'No, no! Please! Don't 'it me! Please, no violence! I beg you, missus! Anythin', take anythin', but don't beat me!' Whereupon he began to sob loudly.

'You shit!' she said disgusted, though the anger had already gone half out of her voice as she looked at the pathetic, whimpering weasel cowering at her feet.

Ikey, sensing the danger was over, let go of her leg. He scrambled frantically to his haunches and with his arms propelled himself backwards into a corner. He sat down hard upon his spectacles which promptly broke and pierced through his breeches and cut into his scrawny bum.

'Ouch! Fuck!' he yelled, then lifting his arse he felt frantically at the damaged area and his hand came away with blood on the tips of his fingers. He looked down at his bloody paw, his expression incredulous. 'Blood! Oh, oh, I shall faint! Blood!' he sobbed. 'I shall bleed to death!'

Mary moved towards him, the abacus raised above her shoulders ready to strike him again. Ikey, sobbing, pulled up his knees and covered his head with his arms.

'No, no! I'll pay you! Don't 'urt me! For Gawd's sake, I beg you! Don't 'it a poor man what's bleedin' to death!' Ikey, cringing in the corner with his arms about his head, waited for the blow to come.

'Get up, you gormless lump!' Mary snapped.

Ikey scrambled hurriedly to his feet, sniffing and sobbing, snot-nosed and flushed with fright. Mary grabbed him by his scrawny neck and steered him towards the counting desk, bending him over it so that his arms hung over the front and his head lay upon its writing surface. Then she placed the abacus on the floor beside the desk.

'Now be a man and don't cry while I remove the glass from your arse,' she laughed.

It was at that precise moment, crouched with his bleeding bum facing her and his miserable head face downwards on the desk that Ikey knew for certain he was deeply and profoundly in love for the first and only time in his life.

Ikey found Mary to be a studious and diligent clerk, quick to learn even if somewhat lacking in experience. He also knew that working for him was Mary's only chance to make something of her life and that consequently she would work tirelessly to bring her change of fortune about. Ikey exploited the situation and he paid her little and worked her late with no thought of gratitude for her services, though, each week, he paid her the agreed sum without demurring.

Mary was content with such an arrangement. An amorous Ikey was only acceptable if the experience was infrequent and she soon realised that her skill at numbers made her indispensable to him and that she need no longer show her gratitude to him on her back. It did not take long for Mary's quick mind to grasp the peculiar language of Ikey's ledgers and to learn the ways of disposing stolen goods throughout Europe and America. She soon showed that her bookkeeping skills extended to a good head for business. Ikey found himself possessed of a clerk who managed his affairs exceedingly well, though it concerned him greatly that Mary had come in the process to know a disconcerting amount about his nefarious dealings.

It was time to put a little salt on the bread but he could not embrace the idea of raising her salary. Not only because he was exceedingly mean, but also because it involved the idea that he was pleased with her progress, or even that he admitted to himself that Mary had become indispensable to his well-being. To Ikey, who could flatter a penny out of a pauper's hand, the notion of openly caring for another human was the most dangerous idea he could conceive of, a weakness which would, he felt certain, lead inevitably to his demise.

As Mary's confidence grew her natural impetuosity returned and with it her lively temper which caused her to argue with Ikey, for she found him stuck in his ways and not readily open to new suggestions. She became convinced that Ikey's connections in Amsterdam and Brussels were cheating him in the melting down of silver and gold and the resetting and re-cutting of diamonds.

Ikey would say, 'It is appropriate that those who cheat should also be cheated. It is in the nature of thievin', my dear. There is a saying among my people, "Always put a little salt on the bread." It means, always leave a little something for the next man, leave a little extra, a little taste on the tongue, a reason to return. It is true in business and it is even more true in the business o' fencin'!'

How curious it was then that Ikey, who understood this principle so well, could not see how to bring it about with Mary, that is without perceiving himself as made impossibly vulnerable in his emotions.

Mary's mind lacked the subtlety of her opponent but she was not entirely without gall. She knew herself to be worked hard for very little remuneration and she expected no less. But by showing her concern for Ikey's interest in other matters, she was proving her loyalty to him.

Besides, she had a plan which concerned the house in Bell Alley and so she worked without complaint, becoming more and more indispensable to Ikey until she perceived his concern that he could no longer afford to be without her. Then she made the suggestion to Ikey that she work without salary at his bookkeeping and that, in addition, she be allowed to open a brothel in Bell Alley in partnership with him.

Ikey was delighted. It meant that she was fully compromised. She would do his bookkeeping and add even further to his gain and, at the same time, completely negate his fears. Mary, he told himself, knew decidedly more of whoring than of clerking, and as the mistress of a brothel as well as his bookkeeper she would be tied to him for ever. Greed was the only emotion Ikey trusted in himself as well as in others. An agreement was struck between them whereby Ikey would put up the capital for the brothel for which he would receive seventy percent and Mary thirty percent after the deduction of running expenses. Moreover, the house would still be a repository of stolen goods, it being possessed of a large attic, and the dry and commodious cellar would also be in Ikey's sole possession.

The last point was a master stroke on Ikey's part. Through Hannah he had met a notorious Belgian forger who had been forced to escape from the authorities in several European countries and had proposed a business deal. The forger, a man named Abraham Van Esselyn, was also a Jew. Moreover he was deaf and dumb and, if he was to make a living at his craft, needed a partner. Ikey was ideally suited to this purpose, for he could procure all the materials needed for a sophisticated forgery operation through his various contacts and had an established network of fellow Jews in Europe and America through whom the fake banknotes could be laundered. He would set up a printing operation in the cellar at Bell Alley.

Ikey now had the premises in Bell Alley working to his complete satisfaction. He hated waste and now he had turned every inch of space to profit – the cellar turning out counterfeit notes and, in daylight hours, printing handbills and pamphlets; the centre of the house supplying the physical and fantastical needs of bankers, lawyers, judges, magistrates and toffs in general; the attic serving as a counting house and storage for the rich fruits of his nocturnal harvesting.