Rose

by Martin Cruz Smith

  “Served them right.”

  “When the raiders hid behind the captives, Rowland had his men shoot the captives, too, until the raiders tried to run and he finished them off. The rest of the captives were overjoyed about going home, but Rowland insisted they keep going to the coast so they could report to the governor and ask for British protection. It’s a glorious story, isn’t it?”

  “It is.” Rose refilled his glass.

  “When the chief objected, Rowland shot him and named a new chief. So they went on to the coast. The guide released the women and sneaked them off at night. Rowland kept the men yoked, but every day a few escaped, and he shot some to keep the rest in line. About twenty made it to the governor on the coast to beg for English care, which is why Rowland’s reputation has such shine. I was the guide, so I enjoy the darker, more African version of the tale.”

  “And he’s t’be the next Lord Hannay?”

  “It seems that way.”

  There was a masklike quality to Rose’s face, only betrayed by the glint and roundness of her eyes. “Maybe you’re just envious,” she said, “because you don’t have a name like Hannay.”

  “Rowland and Hannay. He’ll have two names. Why shouldn’t I be envious?”

  “Blair isn’t a Wigan name.”

  “Blair was the man who took me when my mother died.”

  “You don’t talk about him.”

  “He was a gold miner who wore a beaver coat and a bowler hat, confused Shakespeare and the Bible when he was drunk, and was silent when sober. I don’t know why he took me when we got to New York, though I’m sure the shipping company was happy to have me off their hands. I think I was like a stray dog to him, and as long as I didn’t cry too much or cost too much, he’d keep me. At that time, people with nothing to lose were going to California. He went and I went with him.”

  “And struck it rich?”

  “Not quite. He was a good enough miner, but it was as if he lived under a dark star. He staked a creek claim when he should have filed for the hillside, and filed for the hillside when he should have dug on the flat. Scientific principles stood on their head to spite him. Quartz led to gravel banks, and when he sold the gravel banks a flood would wash the gravel off a mother lode. That was a good time to steer clear of him. But I wouldn’t see him for months at a time, once for a year.”

  “A year? How did you live?”

  “There were Chinese in the camp and he paid them to feed me. For a long time I thought my name in Chinese was ‘Hih!’ Then I found out it meant ‘Eat!’ ”

  “He was mean t’leave you.”

  “I didn’t mind. The Chinese were a big family, and the big brothers were explosives experts for the railroad. They were my idols. Then there were the crib girls across the road, which was a Home for Women Who Fall Hourly. It was fairly entertaining, and Blair was okay as long as I returned his books to the shelf after I read them and made him coffee when he was drunk. He gave me and the dog equal attention.”

  “Did you love him? Blair, I mean.”

  “Sure. I loved the dog too, and to be fair, I have to say the dog was more lovable than Blair or me. The old man took me to the School of Mines the last time I saw him, and then he went back to California and blew his brains out with a Colt.”

  “You’re hard.”

  He could be harder. He had never pressed her on the issue of her house rent, how she and Flo managed on the wages of pit girls. The money came from somewhere, and Bill Jaxon—with bets won on purring matches—was a likely source. Blair realized that he was willing to preserve the illusion of her independence and the unreal quality of the house because he was afraid that one wrong word would drive her away.

  “So you’re going to be Mrs. Bill Jaxon.”

  “Bill thinks so.”

  “Bill’s still hiding outside my hotel. He’d make a good newel-post.”

  “Do you envy Bill?”

  “A bit.”

  “What I mean is, he’s real, isn’t he? You’re some creature from the papers. From the shipping news.”

  “I am.”

  “Sprung from nothing, you say.”

  “Self-created out of my severely limited social exposure to Chinese, whores and miners.”

  “No home.”

  “Always moving, out of place, sui generis.”

  “Is that Latin for lonely?”

  “Miss Molyneux, you could have made a lawyer.”

  She topped his glass. “What do you call your daughter, the one in Africa?”

  “Ah. Her mother and I went around on that. She wanted something English and I wanted something African. We compromised on something biblical.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Keziah. It means ‘Rainbow.’ From the Book of Job.”

  “It’s a beautiful name,” Rose said.

  “A beautiful girl. We’re pretty far from Reverend Maypole.”

  “I hope so.”

  An unbidden image of George Battie and his two girls came to mind. Blair had assumed plainness in Battie’s life, and out of a black hole George had scooped up doves.

  “You’ll be leaving us soon,” Rose said. “What do you miss most about the Gold Coast, the women or the gold?”

  “Hard to say.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Blair picked up the orange ball of yarn from the bag, pulled free a foot of wool shot through with brilliant aniline dye, and tied the yarn into a series of knots. “They’re hard to separate.”

  “Knots?”

  “Women and gold.”

  He cut the knotted yarn with his pocketknife, slid the shawl off Rose’s shoulders and tied the yarn around her upper arm. In the light of the fire, with her skin shadowed by coal dust, the bright yarn stood out.

  “From top to bottom, a headband of royal purple and golden cloth, necklaces of gold filigree, breastplates of gold threads, armlets and bracelets of glass beads and gold, a skirt of pink, black and gold thread, and anklets of amber beads and golden wires. We’ll simply have to use our imagination.”

  He cut another length of yarn, knotted it and tied it to her other arm, then cut and knotted more and tied them around her wrists.

  “Some of the gold is gold thread and some of it is cast. Some into chains, some into shapes of disks, bells, shells, seeds, cocoons.”

  He untied and slipped off her clogs and tied yarn around her bare ankles. He helped her stand. “Completely covered,” he said.

  Her dress was cotton with a vestigial print and shell buttons, as many split as whole. He undid the buttons carefully, not to break them, and revealed a chemise of thin muslin. He slipped his fingers through the shoulder loops and slid the dress and chemise down.

  With longer yarn he tied thicker knots. “Think of a mass of golden necklaces with amulets and Dutch glass beads so heavy that with every move they sway. Strings of golden talismans and animals, and in the middle, large as a lump of coal, a golden nugget.”

  “My hair?” she asked.

  “Your hair’s already gold.”

  She had a single petticoat of muslin, the meanest cloth of all. She stepped out of that and spread her arms. Someone could look in the window anytime, Blair knew. If they squinted, they could see. He tied a final strand around her waist as a golden belt and stood back.

  “Am I naked?” she asked.

  “To someone else. Not to me.”

  He carried her upstairs. He sensed that she wanted no man who couldn’t do that much. Their faces and mouths pressed together, he tasted gin and salt and coal dust that made him take the steps two at a time. She held him and wrapped around him like a knot. Then they were in bed, his face hot against her belly. Wrapped in gold. She arched and stretched across the bed so that they traveled together and as one.

  In Rose, hard work had created grace, the curved muscularity of a wild animal, the lightness and, for her size, the strength. More lithe than thick, steel like a dancer through the legs, an arch to lift both their bodies. Then she turned
and devoured him as he devoured her, demanding that nothing be held back. He was besotted with her, soaked, gilt in her black dust, her breasts washed pink from his mouth.

  What were they now? English? Africans?

  Lost, Blair thought. Something about making love muddled time and space, rearranged them like limbs. No past, no future, and the present so attenuated that he could breathe fifty times within a second. Bent over her, running his finger between her shoulder blades and down her spine, he could feel time shudder to a halt.

  She turned. Her hair, a mop dark with sweat, swept back. The glint of coal dust on her face, her lips swollen, her brow white. Despite her darkness she was lit by a faint reflection of lamplight from his body, the way the moon was sometimes lit only by reflection from the earth, a ghostly illumination called an “ashen glow.” In that faint light appeared—for a moment—a disturbing, secondary image of someone finer.

  “You call this love?” Blair asked.

  “I call it fair and equal,” Rose said. “You’re a mess, Mr. Blair. You need someone like me.”

  “And what would Bill Jaxon do?”

  “Bill wouldn’t know till we were gone. Then he could kick in somebody else’s head for spite.” The flame guttered. She slipped from the bed, knelt by the nightstand and lit a new candle. She didn’t move like a woman who wore bustles. It was a paradox that hard work had given her so much grace. Fresh wick light in her hair, she jumped back on the bed. “We could be gone before anyone knew.”

  “Gone? I thought you were happy here.”

  “I was until you dressed me all in gold. What do I need t’know for Africa?”

  “Some pidgin English.”

  “Not what we talk in Wigan?”

  “Not really. Swahili for general travel. Twi is what the Ashanti speak. If you can read a map, shoot the sun and stay dry in the rainy season, you’ve pretty much got it licked. Then it’s largely a matter of knowing the difference between pyrite and gold and taking quinine in every conceivable form.” He touched the stitches on his head. “The surgery you’ve got. You’d do fine in Africa. You could be an Amazon.”

  “Then I don’t need you? I could go without you.”

  “Of course. Just follow the trade winds. That’s what trade is, just winds and currents.” He put his hand on her heart and slid his palm down. “Coal south from Liverpool on the Canary current.” Diagonally up. “Palm oil west from Africa on the equatorial current.” Across. “Gold east from the Americas on the Gulf Stream.”

  “It’s very simple when you put it that way.”

  “That’s about all I know,” Blair said.

  “And you know other routes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Take me.” She placed her hand on his. “Take me from Wigan, Mr. Blair, and I’ll love you t’the day I die.”

  The furnace was as yellow as the vent of a volcano, its light so intense that Blair pulled down the brim of his hat to shield his eyes. The design was plain, a fire grate in an arch of bricks mortared three deep in the stone, an approach ramp lined in brick to separate the fire from a tunnel that ran to seams of Hannay coal. Although the furnace was half a mile underground, its dimensions were outsized: two men abreast could have walked onto the grate, and the fire sucked air with a thirst that tugged at Battie and Blair.

  Battie shouted, “It always seems a contradiction to burn oxygen to build a draft, but that’s what draws more air from the cage shaft and blows the foul air out. We have to draw fresh. If we introduced foul air full of gas directly into the fire the furnace would explode.”

  “You drift it?”

  “Right. We channel foul air in a shaft we call the dumb drift that joins well up the chimney, where the updraft’s cool enough so gas won’t ignite. Good air in, foul air out—that’s our ventilation. Twenty-four hours we have to keep it going or the pit stops breathing, and then any man down here would be dead.”

  A golden plasma floated over a bed of brilliant coals that themselves seemed to shift as if animated by the heat. The furnace fed on Hannay coal mined from the Hannay seam, a dragon that thrived by consuming itself. A coal bunker had been hacked out of stone at the end of the ramp, where two stokers in gauntlets and sacks with holes cut for their arms waited with a tub of coal. There were always two stokers in case one swooned, Battie had explained.

  “Six tons of coal a day we burn in there,” Battie said. Once again the underlooker had left his hat in his office and tied a handkerchief on his head.

  Blair squinted, trying to look into the furnace and protect his eyes at the same time. “The ashes?”

  “Fall through the grate to be collected and dumped. It’s been emptied twice since the accident.”

  “Could we look anyway?”

  “For what?”

  “Buttons, bones. Clogs would be burned, but clog irons might be caught in the grate. Maybe nails.”

  Battie looked at the stokers, just out of earshot. “That would be wonderful news down pit, that the Bishop’s man is sifting for bodies.”

  “Tell them whatever you want.”

  Battie motioned Blair to follow him down the ramp to the stokers, who had been watching with gaping curiosity.

  “Men, this is Mr. Blair, a special visitor to the mine. He’s an American who likes to examine every cranny and stir every pot. Do we have a spoon?”

  The “spoon” was a long shovel. Battie took off Blair’s hat and replaced it with a canvas hood with a view plate of smoked mica. “Mr. Blair, you are a great pain in the fundament,” he muttered. He shoved onto Blair’s hands a pair of padded canvas gloves that reached to the elbow. “You’re going to have to do this alone. I won’t roast a man for a lunatic whim. Wait.” He picked up a wooden bucket and poured water over Blair’s hood and gloves.

  Dripping, Blair took the shovel and climbed back up the ramp. Despite the view plate the coals burned white, too bright to look at directly. Like the sun. The heat was stunning, a physical blow.

  When stokers threw coal they did it from a safe distance. Blair stabbed the fire directly at the grate. Superheated air forced itself down his throat. Coals rang like glass bells under the shovel’s blade. Within his shirt, he felt the hairs of his chest stand and curl. But the beauty was overwhelming. Molten gold shimmering in its own consummation, fold lapping over radiant fold, sparking as he thrust the shovel, looking for what on the dragon’s tongue? A gleaming thighbone, a well-picked rib? Vapor exploded around him and he realized that someone had thrown water at him from behind. He dug away, trying to scratch down to the red of the grate. There was a tug at his arm, and at his side he found Battie in hood and gloves wrapped in steam. Battie pointed. What he was saying, Blair couldn’t tell until the underlooker dragged him from the furnace and Blair realized that the shaft of his shovel was on fire and the iron of the blade was a dull, angry red.

  The stokers met them halfway down the ramp, doused Blair’s shovel and his hood with water. Only when he took off his gloves did he notice that they and his shirt-front were scorched.

  “Have you been to Hell before?” Battie asked. “You seem used to the work.”

  “I didn’t find anything.”

  “Nor will you, not without shutting down the fire. Is insanity a requirement for an explorer?”

  Blair staggered down the ramp, dizzy from the flames, almost hilarious. “Now I know what toast feels like.”

  Battie followed. “Absolutely mad. Mr. Blair, I’ll keep my eyes open. If I find anything more suspicious than the cinder of a cricket’s dick, you’ll be the first to know.”

  * * *

  A morning downpour greeted Blair at the surface, and for once he didn’t care because he felt as if he were still smoldering. The yard was an inky pond. Steam hung over engines and horses and the sorting shed, obscuring the screens and pit girls under the overhang. Smoke emanated from kiln, forge and engine chimneys. Devil’s weather, he thought, and welcome.

  He found his mackintosh under the carriage seat, pulled the coat arou
nd himself and staggered to the lampman’s shed. Battie had said that after the explosion all the lamps had been accounted for. Blair didn’t doubt him, but there was a way to check. He didn’t remember all the safety lamp numbers listed in the coroner’s report but he recalled two: 091 signed for by Bill Jaxon and 125 by Smallbone. What if either lamp had never been signed out again? It was just an idea and he didn’t know where it led, but he went through the lampman’s ledger until the pages were almost as wet as he was. Safety lamps 091 and 125 had been signed out every working day since the explosion. Blair decided he was about as good a detective as Maypole was a miner.

  The window of the shed streaked with rain, and this reminded him of Maypole’s journal, the lines reading down as well as across. What was it the poor son of bitch wrote the day before he disappeared? “Tomorrow is the great adventure!”

  Blair found Leveret at Hannay Hall, in the stables, a brick court with a tower and a portcullis, like a defendable castle. The estate manager was in the courtyard, kneeling on wet cobblestones in gum boots and duster, intent on the task of grooming a giant Shire mare, combing mud from her “feathers,” the long hair around the hoof. The giant horse rested her muzzle on Leveret’s back. Despite the rain, beast and man both looked content.

  In a corner, a farrier hammered a red ribbon of iron on an anvil. As stalls were mucked out, horses clopped across open passageways; one side seemed given to workhorses, the other to hunters. It was a scene stately and bucolic, Blair thought. Where gentry massed in hunting pink to ride to hounds. Maybe where generations of Hannays had deflowered maids. It was odd how he now looked at things through Rose’s eyes.

  He was feverish, whether from malaria or the furnace he couldn’t tell. Rose kept coming unbidden to his mind because he didn’t know if she had been serious or playing when she suggested leaving with him. It wasn’t only his feeling responsible for someone’s rash decision. It made her real. Perhaps what made her more than a series of moments all in the present was—because of her suggestion—a sense of her future. If it took the setting of her bed and a smudge of coal transferred from her skin to his—well, that was the coarse nature of man. He had promised nothing. Perhaps it had all been a joke of hers. Or a mystery, like her house. It left him distracted. Stabbing at the furnace, he had thought of her. He tipped his head back and let rain cool his face. “ ‘The deeper the shaft, the greater the heat’ is a miner’s rule.”