The Potato Factory

by Bryce Courtenay

  Hawk became immediately interested, for not only did he sense that Ikey had never been more serious, but that he was about to give him a riddle. There was nothing he loved more than solving one of his mentor's riddles. His eyebrow arched and his hands motioned Ikey to continue.

  'Here is a riddle made to a poem to test you beyond all solving, my dear. But should you solve it, it be half o' the key to a great fortune.'

  'And then shall I have the other half when I have solved this riddle?' Hawk asked wide-eyed.

  Ikey shook his head. 'I cannot say, but without the answer to my riddle you have no hope. With it, there be a great chance that you will gain the fortune for Mary and yourself.'

  'Will you give it to me then?' Hawk's hands shook with excitement as he made the words with his fingers.

  Ikey cackled the way he had done when Hawk and Tommo were young and a new lesson was about to come from him, and he clapped his hands and rolled his eyes in secret congratulation at his own cleverness, just like old times, then he began to recite.

  If perchance I should die

  And come to God's eternal rest

  Let me in plain pine coffin lie

  Hands clasped upon my breast.

  Let a minyan say kaddish for me in words ancient and profound

  In a chapel white, there safe it be 'neath familiar English ground.

  On my flesh these words be writ: 'To my one and only blue dove'

  To this cipher be one more to fit then add roses ringed to love.

  Hawk had never before been confronted with a riddle so elaborate or beautiful of rhyme and he fetched quill and paper and made Ikey write it down so that he knew every word was correct.

  'Remember always,' Ikey chuckled as he read what he'd written, 'the answer is at arm's length and words can have two meanings!'

  'Numbers from the words and words what has two meanings?' Hawk signalled, wanting to be sure he had it right.

  'Aye, words what mean other things and numbers from words, if all is done properly you will be left with a three digit number! There be three more to come, six in all!' With this said, Ikey would cooperate no further.

  Hawk worked for several weeks in what time he could spare on the riddle, but came no closer to solving it. Finally he had returned to Ikey, but he was evasive, other than to say, 'It be about London'.

  This helped Hawk very little, for while Ikey had talked a great deal to the two boys about London when they'd been younger, he had only the knowledge of what he'd read about the great city and no more.

  Finally, one evening when he and Mary were walking home from Strickland Falls after work, ashamed at his ineptitude, Hawk begged Mary to help him, telling her about the riddle and explaining what Ikey had said about it being half of a great treasure.

  Hawk at fourteen was considered a grown man. He already towered above Mary and stood fully six feet. With his serious demeanour, many took him to be much older. He worked a full day with Mary at the Potato Factory and was reliable and hardworking, though Mary sometimes wished he were not quite so serious-minded for a young lad.

  Hawk handed her the slip of paper with the poem and Mary, who had much on her mind, read it somewhat cursorily and was unable to venture an opinion so she simply said, 'It be a nice poem, lovey.' Though in truth she thought it somewhat maudlin and typical of Ikey's increasing preoccupation with his own demise.

  'What's a minyan and kaddish?' Hawk signalled.

  'It's Jewish religion, a minyan be ten men what's got to be present when a Jew dies and kaddish, that be the prayer they says at the funeral,' Mary replied.

  'Ikey said it be about London and a treasure, a treasure in London,' Hawk repeated and then asked with his hands, walking backwards so that Mary could plainly see his fingers, 'Did he ever say anything about a treasure to you?'

  Mary shook her head. 'Careful, you'll fall,' she cautioned, then with Hawk once again at her side added, 'Ikey be very tight-fisted about money, tight-mouthed too, tight everything!' She laughed. 'He often stored stolen goods in all sorts o' places when he was prince o' all of London's fences.' Mary stopped, her head to one side and seemed to be thinking. 'Maybe it be the number of a house where he's got something stashed?' Then she added ruefully, 'Well, it ain't much use to him now. He can't go back to find it and he won't trust any o' his sons not to tell Hannah, so he might as well…' She stopped suddenly in mid-sentence and pointed to Hawk and said softly, '… send you!'

  Hawk looked startled at the idea. 'What do you mean?'

  Mary did not answer for a moment, then she shrugged. 'I don't know, lovey, I'll think about it tonight. Make a copy o' this for me, will you?' She handed the poem back to Hawk.

  Hawk nodded though he looked anxious. 'You'll tell me what you thinks, won't you? I be most anxious to be the one to work out the riddle.'

  Mary laughed. 'Don't worry, lovey, it be more'n a mouthful, believe me. My stomach tells me Ikey be onto something what ain't no nursery rhyme.'

  'A three digit number has to come out of all this,' Hawk said finally, folding the poem and placing it back in his pocket.

  That night, after she had made Ikey his tea, Mary sat at the kitchen table with the poem and read it more carefully. The first incongruity which struck her were the words 'chapel white'. In the context of a Jewish funeral these seemed strangely Christian. Why would someone of the Jewish persuasion use them about his funeral?

  'Chapel white?' she said aloud. She had passed the Duke Street synagogue a thousand times as a child and chapel to her was a word used by the Wesleyans and not at all appropriate to the ancient, gloomy building the Jews used as their church. Almost the moment she thought this the words transposed in her mind. 'White-chapel!' she exclaimed triumphantly, clicking her fingers. Mary's nimble mind now began to sniff at the words in quite a different way. Long after her usual time for bed she had isolated a group of words which could have a double meaning or be fitted together: safe, beneath, familiar and finally, ground. She was too tired to continue and finally went to bed.

  The next morning after breakfast, when Ikey had left to totter down to his cottage in Elizabeth Street to sleep, she gave the words to Hawk.

  'Work with these, there may be something,' she said explaining the link between the words 'chapel' and 'white', into the word Whitechapel. Several days passed and one morning Hawk came into Mary's office at Strickland Falls and gave her his brilliant smile. Then he started to signal, his fingers working frantically.

  'The safe in Whitechapel containing Ikey's fortune is within the house beneath the ground!'

  'Huh?' Mary said, taken aback. 'What you mean, lovey?'

  Hawk handed Mary a piece of paper and Mary saw that it was written somewhat as an equation. But first he had transcribed the lines: In a chapel white, there safe it be 'neath familiar English ground Safe = Safety + Iron box. 'Neath = under. Familiar = family. English = London. Ground = soil + below surface.

  Beneath these careful notations Hawk had written in his beautiful hand.

  Translation: The treasure be in a safe below the ground in the family home in Whitechapel.

  'Good boy!' Mary beamed, delighted with her son's tenacity and careful analysis. But then she added, 'That be the second verse, what of the first and the third?'

  Hawk signalled that he was convinced that the first verse was meant to deflect any suspicion of a hidden meaning and meant exactly what it said. Then he frowned. 'Last verse be most difficult, Mama.'

  Mary set aside her barley mash register, a ledger in which she kept the temperature of the barley mash as it came out of the crusher. 'Here, let me see that poem again?' she asked.

  Hawk produced the poem and Mary read the first and the last verse. She agreed that with the first verse Ikey had meant to mislead by the very fact that there was no ambiguity within it. But the last verse sounded very strange and she read it aloud.

  On my flesh these words be writ: 'To my one and only blue dove'

  To this cipher be one more to fit then add roses
ringed to love.

  Mary pointed to the word 'cipher'. 'This verse is where the numbers be,' then added, 'but what numbers? Why does we need numbers?'

  Hawk smiled and Mary was delighted at his sudden lightness of mood. 'Like the safe you bought, Mama, they be a combination!' he signalled.

  'Oh my Gawd!' Mary cried. 'You're right, you're dead right!' Her heart started to beat so loudly that she could hear the thumping of it in her throat. 'If we can get the numbers from the verse then we've got the combination to the safe, the fortune!'

  Hawk shook his head slowly.

  'What you mean?' Mary cried, disappointment written on her face.

  Hawk's fingers spoke. 'Half, we got half the combination.'

  'Half?'

  'Ikey said the poem only be half, three digits. Six is what's needed.'

  Mary had in the past often wondered about Ikey's persistence with his family, for whom, with the exception of Sarah and perhaps Ann, she knew he had a general dislike, as well as a great loathing for Hannah and in recent years David. His periodical visits to New Norfolk, taken with their history with the Newmans and the debacle when he had come out of Port Arthur, had never made any sense. Ikey was a loner by nature and his pretence at being a diligent and caring family man had never convinced Mary in the least. She had often urged him, for his own peace of mind, to cut his ties completely, but he had always made the same reply: 'We have unfinished business, my dear.'

  Now Mary knew what it was. Hannah had one half of the combination to the safe in their home in White-chapel and would not part with it.

  Mary urged Hawk to keep trying to isolate the numbers as she herself would, but admitted, 'Alas, I doesn't know nothing useful about the last verse, save that it should lead to three numbers, but if we should somehow find them then you must not tell Ikey!'

  Mary realised that if she had half of the combination she had the means to avenge herself on Hannah Solomon. But she simply told Hawk of the probability that Hannah possessed the second set of numbers. Hawk looked disappointed. 'It don't matter, lovey. We will find a way. Trust Mama! It be most terrible important you stay stum! Ikey must not know, we tell him nothing, all right?'

  Hawk nodded, his fingers working fast and his face took on a look of determination. 'I shall solve it or die!'

  Mary grabbed him and kissed him. 'Life is too precious that you should die for money, lovey. If you has to die, then die for love!'

  'Like you was prepared to do for me?' Hawk's fingers spoke and his eyes were serious.

  Tears rolled down Mary's cheeks. 'You and Tommo, gladly,' she whispered.

  'Mama, we shall find Tommo too!' Hawk's fingers said. 'And I shall never tell Ikey if we should find the numbers.'

  Mary and Hawk became obsessed with solving the riddle of the last verse and were hardly able to wait for Ikey to go to his ledgers before they began each evening. The third line in the last verse, 'To this cipher be one more to fit', seemed at first obvious to Mary. The second set of numbers, Hannah's set, were the one more to fit, which would give them the total combination. Hawk agreed that this might be so, but then logically the numbers must come from the first two lines in the last verse and, in particular, from the second line, 'To my one and only blue dove', as the first line of the last verse was simply a location of some sort and the final line, 'then add roses ringed to love', was an addition to whatever discovery or number they would make in the second line.

  On my flesh these words be writ: = location 'To my one and only blue dove' = key to numbers To this cipher be one more to fit = Hannah's combination then add roses ringed to love = additional information.

  It did not take them long to realise that the line 'On my flesh these words be writ' must represent a tattoo worn by Ikey, and while Mary had slept with Ikey perhaps a dozen times while they were joint owners of Egyptian Mary's she did not remember any such tattoo. However, she admitted to herself that the dreaded deed took place in the dark and that he might quite possibly have obtained the tattoo while a convict in Van Die-men's Land, in which case she would know nothing about it.

  However, this did not overly concern them, they simply assumed that the words were written on Ikey's flesh, as all the other information made sense, and worked on the second line for the numbers they were now convinced it contained.

  Both Mary and Hawk were practised in leaps of logic and exceedingly good at numbers, and they soon worked out a logical way of converting the line 'To my one and only blue dove' into numbers. They took each letter and equated it with its number in the alphabet, for example the letter A = 1, B = 2, Z = 26, and so on. They gave each letter in the line its appropriate number and the total came to 276. If they reduced this number down to the next lowest it became 2 + 7 + 6 = 15 and if they reduced this further, it became 1 + 5 = 6. As they already knew the final result must have three digits the combination number could only be 276.

  But they were both too logical of mind to believe this, for it made the final line 'then add roses ringed to love' redundant to the solution. Both knew Ikey's mind was too tidy for this and he would not simply add a gratuitous line to complete the rhyme. The final line must be one of great importance to the whole.

  But they could go no further and after a few more weeks were forced to abandon their efforts, almost convincing themselves that the number must be 276. Finally Mary capitulated and gave Hawk permission to ask Ikey if the number was 276. Though she insisted he tell Ikey that he had reached this conclusion on his own, and if Ikey asked if she was involved to deny it. This way, Mary concluded, Ikey would tell the truth.

  It was now six months since Ikey had posed the riddle and he was most impressed when Hawk told him he had solved it.

  'I hope you are right, my dear!' Ikey said.

  Hawk was ready to listen to his stomach, hear with his eyes and see with his ears. He handed Ikey a piece of paper with the numbers 276 written on it and Ikey laughed and shook his head slowly. 'No, my dear, you are quite wrong!'

  Hawk, close to tears from frustration, bowed his head in bewilderment.

  'I told you, the answer be at arm's length,' Ikey said, smiling. But again he would say no more.

  At about this time a misfortune struck Mary, for she could not obtain sufficient hops from local sources to meet her needs and she was forced to buy expensive imported hops from Kent. This meant she must put up her beer prices, which was very much to her disadvantage, for times were still hard in the colony and competition most keen.

  At first Mary believed it was the local brewers trying to make things difficult for her, but eventually she discovered it was yet another of Hannah's tricks. During this period when the supply of local hops had dried up, even though the season had been a good one, Ikey made yet another visit to New Norfolk and was depressed for days after his return. Mary then discovered that George Madden had cornered the entire market for the distribution of hops in the colony and it was he who would not sell to her. Mary was quick enough to realise that this decision was yet another pressure from Hannah for Ikey's half of the combination. Mary confronted Ikey with the reason for his visit and he admitted that this was what had happened, but again avoided the issue of the combination and explained that Hannah was still avenging herself on Mary for stealing the affection of her children and the love of her husband. Though he conceded that, under the circumstances, this was a somewhat bizarre explanation, he insisted it was true. Mary, who was never easily beaten, determined that she would rent land and grow her own hops. She made the decision to use what few assets she had to send Hawk to England, to the county of Kent, so he could learn the most superior method of growing hops and return with all the varieties of seed he could obtain. She had only the money to pay his fare but if, when he returned, she could rent land with an agreement to buy it one day, she would never again be compromised by the likes of George Madden. Hawk was nearly fifteen years old and Mary had no hesitation in placing her trust in him, though she had a second reason for sending him to England.

&nbs
p; Hawk still carried an absolute conviction in his heart that Tommo was alive.

  'If Tommo were dead, Mama, I should know!' he would insist, and as he grew older the certainty that his brother was alive became even stronger. On several occasions he had 'spoken' to Mary about going to find him. Hawk now stood well over six feet and was enormously strong, and Mary knew that he was old enough to leave her. This single determination, to find his brother, was more powerful than anything else in his life. Hawk was all Mary had and loved and she thought that by sending him over to England for two years she would delay losing him.

  Mary also had a plan which she revealed to Hawk on the morning of his departure. She handed him a brass key, a duplicate of one she had found some years before in Ikey's overcoat, which she knew to be the key to Ikey's Whitechapel home. She urged Hawk to use it to enter the house.

  'We must determine whether a safe exists beneath the floor,' Mary said.

  Hawk sighed and then signalled, 'But, Mama, we have come to a dead end, what is the use? We do not know Ikey's numbers, and if we did, it is only half the combination.'

  Mary touched him on the sleeve. 'Ikey is not a young man and I believe he will give me his part of the combination if he thinks he is going to die. If there be a treasure he will do anything so as to avoid Hannah having it all, that much I know for certain.' She suddenly paused and announced dramatically, 'And I has the second half!' Mary relished the look of amazement which appeared on Hawk's face. 'That's right, I knows Hannah's combination, Ann give it to me when she were a little 'un in the orphanage! David Solomon were always writing it on his slate and working with it on the abacus. Ann told me it were a number their mother give them what they must never, never forget in case she should die! The number eight hundred and sixteen!'

  Hawk signalled the numbers, '816?'