“I’m so tired,” admitted Joseph, his legs trembling.
“Can you walk back to the station?” asked Baruch. “We’ll take a beer and get a bus from the station. Your own bus will land us on the other side of St Mary’s Cathedral; we’ll walk from there. The fresh air of the Domain will do you good.”
“Right-o.”
As they came back past the Technical College a short dark man with a high boot hailed them from the other side of the archway.
“Hullo, comrades!”
“Who is it?” asked Joseph.
“Winter, librarian at the Communist Library,” explained Baruch, as he hurried delightedly across and shook hands with the man.
The man was thin, ill-looking, poor; his face gave him thirty-five years of labour, but his voice and manner showed him to be only twenty-five, or even less.
“Coming home with us?” asked Baruch hospitably.
“Not me; I’m going to a lecher on experimental psychology; Hewitt’s.”
“What’s he like?” asked Baruch.
“He’s the son of a working-man: he’s worked his way up in the University. He lechers with a real Australian twang: he ain’t ashamed of it; we workers understand things better in it. He not only gives us the whole thing from Munsterberg to Binet-Simon, Yerkes, Taylor, Ford and Bedaux, form-boards, puzzle-boxes, traffic-signals, reaction-times, colour-wheels and all, but he lets yew see, although he can’t go too far, that the whole science only sprang from the need for rationalisation and saving on workers. Gods, it’s fascinating; come along.”
“We haven’t eaten,” said Baruch, “otherwise we would: and Joseph here is tired.”
“Yes, I’m tired.”
“What’s your job?” asked Winter passionately.
“I’m a printer: I work with Mendelssohn.”
“Gods, that dump. Do you belong to the Union?”
“Eh—no.”
“I don’t understand yew, Mendelssohn, why aren’t yew fellers organised? Yer a bloody intellectual, yew ain’t got no class consciousness. And why aren’t yew?”
“I’m an intellectual,” said Baruch firmly; “and I want to be a scholar: there’s no disgrace in it. Besides, I’m a Union man.”
“Yer clever,” said Winter angrily, “and the masters make use o’ yew to subject the workers. Yew’ll be a scholar and yew’ll leave us behind. The mind even in poverty, misery and slavery rises superior to its material conditions, that’s the old gag. ‘The clever child,’ says Goddard, that feller that works for the corporations, ‘will always rise, however many obstacles he has to encounter; we should not waste too much time worrying about his difficulties of temperament or family situation.’ Those who dew arise are the smart ones; those who don’t are the duffers. Yew would arise whatever yer conditions, and yew’ll believe their bloody propaganda before yer much older. I only believe in the workers, and in the Australian workers, the first sons of ‘the first sons of modern capitalism’, as Marx said. Yer no more good to the proletariat than a beautiful girl who’s so swell that she can live off of men without workin’ is good to her workin’-class sisters. She don’t know their problems, and no more dew yew know our problems. One of these days yew’ll be seein’ yer name, Dr Mendelssohn, and yew’ll be lechering on Social Theory, and sayin’, I was onst a workin’-man, comrades, and they’ll be cheerin’ yew. If yew don’t look out yew’ll be a traitor to the workin’-class.”
“What makes you think so?” inquired Baruch anxiously. The brown evening gathered round them under the archway. The light shone at each end. Working-men with shoulders slightly stooped and with serious faces passed them on the way to the Technical College, now brightly lighted.
“You’ve heard me speak,” continued Baruch warmly; “you know it isn’t in me to betray the working-classes, even if I’d been born in the lap of luxury. I’m a natural Communist; everyone is my brother.”
“That’s what’s the matter,” said Winter bitterly, “yew orter hate the upper classes; they’re our natural enemy. Can you imagine chaps goin’ to war and sittin’ in the front trenches and saying ‘I haven’t got any warrior feelin’, I love the Huns like I love my brother. Suppose yew do, yew get shell-shock, or yew desert, or yew fraternise on yer own before the rest o’ the army’s ready, or yew get safe through the war and fer the rest o’ yer life tell the folks back home that the system is wrong, but the Huns are nice people. No, yew got to be uncommunist towards the capitalists: yew got to hate the capitalists. That’s just it; that’s just it. Yew want to make the workin’-class movement respectable by fraternity, by sincerity, by scientific socialism, by ease, by opportunist pacifism. But worst of all, yer on the make. Yew want to be a scholar. Am I a scholar? Er all them thousans and thousans of miners an’ dairy-farmers an’ boundary-riders an’ painters an’ truck-drivers an’ wharfies scholars. There’s only one book yew need to know, an’ that’s Marx, an’ only one exegesis yew want to read an’ that’s Lenin on Marx. Yew don’t have to read Greek to know the shadder o’ the Acropolis fell on slaves, or Latin to know that when the Roman grandees left off studyin’ geography an’ began to study astrology, Alaric wasn’t far off. Yew don’t have to read Hebrew to know why no rich Jews are killed in pogroms, or French to know why the aristocrats were scared shitloose an’ began givin’ away their privileges on the eve of the Revolution. Yew only got to read Marx, and study what’s under yer nose.”
“But,” said Joseph indignantly, “Marx studied it all for you, and that’s why you know all those things. Marx didn’t do a thing for thirty years but read in the British Museum.”
“Are you a Marxian, comrade?” asked Winter, his face beaming.
“No, he told me that.”
“Well, so yer teachin’ your feller-workers,” said Winter, turning to Baruch. “That’s all right: if yew do that, it’s all right. But I’m suspicious o’ all intellectuals, and we got a right to be. We been betrayed too often. It’s too easy for yew fellers to pass over into the other camp, an’ be a barrister, a writer, a historian, a clever journalist. Wot’s the fate o’ so many labour-leaders? the whole world is acquainted with them; the upper classes laugh themselves sick over them. They rat: like MacDonald. And then, are they ashamed? No; they are lonely, misunderstood spirits, self-sacrificed to duty. Well, I got to go. Ross is havin’ a few o’ us at his house next week: do you want to go? I’ll call for yew after work?”
“Thanks,” cried Baruch; “I’d be delighted to meet Ross, and Joseph will come too.”
Winter scurried along the street towards the College.
“I feel so sick when I look at the College,” said Joseph. “I’ll never get through. I’ve failed twice, in two courses, the last three years. I’m a dunce all right.”
“You’d be less of a dunce, and feel less sick if you had some supper. Come along, step out, make it lively, old boy, we’ll soon get home.”
“Who’s Ross?”
“You don’t know Ross, the secretary of the Miners’ Federation?”
“Oh, Faker Ross?”
“Yes, want to meet him?”
“Oh, I—if you like,” said Joseph dismally.
“We’ll go to the Castle-Palace pictures to-night if you like,” suggested Baruch.
“O.K.”
But after supper Joseph went home. He took the bus and arrived in the Bay after nine. He was so tired that he did not even turn to look out of the bus at a garage on fire. He was awakened at the Bay by the people pushing past him. As he passed the confectionery shop on the beach-path the little girls were still skipping on the step, saying, “Tinker, tailor . . .”Joseph stopped a moment to look in at the pastry and fruit: would he take his mother a tart? The little girls stopped and peered at Joseph: his drawn face with his hat stuck on slightly askew made him look very funny. They began their song again softly, and when they came to “beggarman . . .” giggled! Joseph took no notice of them; as he went on they started to cry in their thin voices, “Jo, Jo, beggarman, thief.”
“Why should he?”
“But those little wretches . . .”
“Aw. Kids will be kids.”
5
A southerly buster. Baruch at home. The tongue’s ephemeridae.
Baruch in love. A patriotic demonstration. Catherine in love.
A female argument. Withers kicked out. Defence of murder.
Baruch is very sentimental.
In the offices of the International Worker, in George Street, journalists and typists raced each other over the typewriter keys, tired irregulars, come with special reports, walked along the corridors and peeked through doors saying, “Sorry,” and a visitor took off his hat and sat down on the one chair in the waiting-room. He stared fixedly at the banners standing against the wall, spelling out each letter as if he could not read. They were the placards recently used in a procession of striking seamen. When he had finished with the banners the visitor found obscure names in the map of Australia on the wall and fidgeted. Catherine Baguenault loitered about the corridor and peeped into the room from time to time with affection. She had made up the banners and printed them by hand. Fulke Folliot, the editor, presently came to a door and said:
“Can you wait another minute or two, Kate? Marion’s doing some shopping with some friend of her mother’s, and I am up to my neck in it. Liffle’s drunk and has sent in some first-class material on the seamen’s strike, but I have to make head or tail of it. James hasn’t sent his telegram on the Melbourne strike yet. I’ve got a police inspector coming at 2.30—nice of him to let me know, at any rate. Winterbaum will be in later; he’s laid up. I’ll be late going to press, I know it.”
“Why can’t I help, Fulke?”
“Oh no, thanks. You can’t invent details of the strike, can you? You rest, you’re worn out. We want you to conserve your energy for when it’s really essential. My trouble is all absences. Marion’ll be back soon. Liffle’s actually here, sobering up, with a towel round his head in the wash-room. But you can do something, if you’ll take a toddle,” added Fulke, seeing Catherine looking grey, and standing against the wall as if her legs were going to give way. “I knew I wanted to ask you something. Go out and get Dr Plato Lerne’s article on the Playway. I want to slash it. In last Wednesday’s Herald, I think.”
Catherine started up and made for the door. Fulke dismissed the visitor in a word and added to Catherine:
“We’ll see you to-night at the meeting, comr’de! Marion feels there is something missing if you’re not there.”
“You know you’ll see me, comr’de,” answered Catherine, with smothered impatience, but in a moment flashing a bright smile at Fulke. Her white good teeth were a surprise in her worn face. Heinrich Winterbaum came plodding in, untidy, rolling with a slight sea-gait under his great barrel. His uncombed greasy hair fell down under his hat put on awry. He had a puffed, stupid look, for his eyes with long lashes, usually very lively, were now sunk wearily in his head, and his small, Mongolian forehead, compressed at the temples, was drawn with exhaustion. In the office, every third day, Winterbaum was laid up and Fulke was in a pickle, shorthanded. Winterbaum was his assistant-editor and represented on his own account the professional photographic workers. He had stomach and intestinal ulcers, and drank too much for his condition, although, he was always sober. Fulke looked after him when he had time. They took it in turns to relieve him when he was ill. Heinrich was an art photographer himself, had two rooms in a condemned building in Phillip Street, and got paying effects in his good moments by making portraits in which eminent men looked haggardly with one eye from a superfinished photographic haze. Heinrich could invent a profile, cure baldness, give a complexion like a peach. Heinrich held the swing-door for Catherine and smiled tenderly at her. He said softly:
“How are you, Kate? How are you personally? I’m not asking after the movement when I ask after our Catherine. I am glad to see you. Do have lunch with me to-morrow. I want to see you oftener—talking with you straightens out my ideas. My brains are wool and yours are a bobbin. Or do you know what I feel? I only photograph Reality with studio-light and art effects, and you perceive it stark, harsh. And we will talk about your reality, to-morrow, comrade. You avoid us. You live in your cave of the winds. The undercurrent is not carrying you away? No? You’re a raft, not a straw. We know, eh? I’m your friend, Catherine? It’s agreed on, then; to-morrow at ‘The Black Cat’.”
“Ah, no, Heinrich,” cried Catherine, who was now halfway down the outside corridor. “That’s so devilish arty. Can’t you pick somewhere else? The ‘Medina’ at noon. I’ll be there if I can.”
Winterbaum followed her towards the lift. She went down the stairs, being too impatient to wait for the lift, although it was coming up. Heinrich leaned over the stairhead and breathed down at her,
“Certainly; wherever you like. And by the way, I want you to read over an article I have on the bourgeois origins of Freudian analysis. Your experience with these lay confessors would be most valuable.”
“All right. Till to-morrow, Heinrich. Auf wiedersehn!”
“Auf wiedersehn, liebe freundin!”
His soft voice finished, he heard her laugh down the stairs. He smiled again gently and padded towards Fulke’s office. An early baldness made him appear older than he was. He was poor, and his only comfort in life was to dabble in the private affairs of his wide circle of acquaintances. He never took liberties; he had an affection for them all and a passionate love for his closest friends. His intrusion was with pure altruistic intent. He sorrowed over the sins and sorrows of the world, and tried to fish his friends out of what he called “the undercurrents”. He now turned quickly, hearing a firm light step at the door. There was Marion Folliot, Fulke’s wife. Heinrich made the German bow he always affected, which gave him dignity although he was so fat. He went into his own room. Marion had no troubles she could not solve, and she discussed them without mystery or coaxing: not his meat. He stayed in his office for half an hour, although he was anxious to see Fulke. At the end of thirty minutes he appeared in Fulke’s office. Marion picked up her scarf and put it down again.
“Fulke,” she cried, “Mrs Baguenault met us in Farmer’s. She spoke so timidly, so tremulously, of our trying to get Michael a job. She looked me all over, found me exceptionally respectable for a Communist’s wife, warmed up to me and in a low voice begged me to tell her if there was anything wrong with Catherine that I knew, that she found her so queer and the family could do nothing with her. Then she looked Patty over, admired her style, as it appeared, and kept us fully ten minutes telling us what a trial Catherine and Michael are to a modest and respectable family. But about Michael, it was funny. She dared not say, ‘I don’t want him to work on your paper,’ but she said, ‘He should do, preferably, very sober, steady work, in an office where there are a lot of hardworking busy men he can take an example from, for he easily gets depressed and excited.’What do you think, Fulke? Can you get him on something? Do you think Beresford would get him on the Guardian, or Smith’s? No, he’s not live enough for them. What about Oxton’s wire-netting periodical, or one of the country papers?”
Fulke was typing all the time she was speaking, and went on typing as he replied:
“I’ll see, I’ll see. Leave me alone at present, darling, and I’ll be with you at lunch; then you’ll go over it with me. You know I’ll try to think up something for your Michaels, for all your protégés. But tell Michael, no job unless he stops giving you the glad eye.”
She laughed.
“Imagine calling such a dismal expression the glad eye.”
“I’ll send him up country so that he can’t be hanging around you!”
“Silly, I see him not more than once a month; and I like him, he’s quite kind and interesting.”
“Why don’t you marry him then?”
“Oh, you’re stupid. Send him up country then on
a country newspaper. As if I cared! But I do; I’m sorry for the poor boy.”
“He’s thirty-two.”
“Oh, it would rebuild that boy,” cried Heinrich joyfully, “and yet I don’t know. Something in Michael is unhinged or missing, and I think for good; perhaps it never was there. He’s one of the derelicts left by the flood-tide of war. Since he tried to be a teacher in that private school and got into such a mess, with his classes running wild, and had his nervous breakdown, he seems paralysed. He’s a clinging vine that someone has always supported, I imagine, anyhow. He must have been a soft forest ivy even in his best days. His only real resort at present is Kol Blount. He doesn’t care for women very much, despite your charm, Marion. He hasn’t Kol’s impotent passion, Kol’s hardness or ability. If Kol could be cured of his paralysis, you’d see they have nothing in common. I’ve often thought personally,” continued Winterbaum in a confidential tone, “that Michael was nothing but a shadow of Catherine. What a picture! The shadow of a vagabond on a wormy wall!—there, there you have it! They are like twins. They are shadows of each other, close shadows, warm shadows, one of those with whom the master exchanges his personality. Still, Catherine is a fine soul, a vagabond queen. Catherine is the firebell clanging, and Michael is its echo in an empty house.”
“Hey, get out of my office with your clatter, will you?” cried Fulke with good-humoured irritation.
They went out into the hall, as Marion was saying impatiently, “But all this doesn’t get Michael a job,” when they found Catherine at the door. Catherine looked maliciously at them, pleased to have overheard their remarks. She said in a ringing voice:
“No, Winterbaum, you’re sometimes right and more often wrong—you see a single gesture and you build a saga out of it; you see a person faint and you invent a debile universe; a toothache and humanity, a lazaret: from a crooked bone invent a crooked genus! You’re no naturalist. Michael is better than I, but it is all overlaid, and by all you chatterers. You tear each other to pieces, and all in kindness. Michael burrows into the earth, and he might go too deep. I fly off the handle. You’re killing us both!”
Seven Poor Men of Sydney Page 16