Refiner's Fire

by Mark Helprin

  “Thir!” Baruch said. “I reqetht permithon to thpeak.” He saluted smartly, eyes straight, like a trooper.

  “You shut up, you fat little Turkish bastard, and get back in line,” said the Major, with great hatred. Baruch stepped back, the others with him.

  It was nearly midnight and they were very cold by the time they were divided into platoons of fifty and marched up a hill past dozens of whitewashed rectangular buildings which shone in the moonlight. In front of each building, guards stood in fatigues, caps, and blankets, automatic rifles slung over their shoulders.

  They passed a group of fully armed shock troops who were eating a late meal after a night exercise. The shock troops began to insult them; Marshall felt pieces of food hitting him; and he passed on amid curses that he did not understand. In his third night without sleep all he wanted was a blanket and a chance to lie down.

  Because they were marching in a maze of barracks, he assumed that they would soon reach one of their own, and that there he would find a clean, simple bed. Perhaps, he thought, there might even be a campfire, something to eat, or hot showers.

  In his platoon were three little Bengalis in whose eyes were stars of suffering, like those Marshall had seen in the liquid gaze of the Moroccan criminals. The Bengalis were so practiced upon resignation that, despite their adoption of Marshall and the other two Americans as protectors (the biggest Bengali was four foot eight, and he weighed a crushing seventy-nine pounds), they were able to give Marshall and the others great comfort. They said gentle things in chirping gentle voices. They were used to sickness and starvation, and fed on winds and constellations as if they had been mariners in the Bay of Bengal, or pearl fishermen.

  “What do you care,” they said to Marshall, as the dark grouping of men marched upward on a star-shattered hill, “if you die? To die is tranquil. You see the fine clear light. It is heaven, ecstatic, perfect.”

  “Are you Jews?” he asked.

  “Yes. We are Jews,” one of them answered.

  They halted before beds of straw in an enormous room illuminated by four candles. The whitewash was like rising smoke, and through broken windows soon closed by those who preferred to breathe their own foul breath, Marshall could see Rigel, Aldebaran, and the Pleiades. His pupils were immobile and he felt that he had fallen irreparably into the East. Though he smarted, he stayed still. As images of these battered Moroccans raked by centuries of absolutes began to assault him, he learned to daven. He had already been assaulted. The robbers thought he was rich. The homosexuals desired him. The rest were mesmerized by his coloring and the gold in his glasses. His mouth was dry. His vision swam. Sergeants paraded them in a circle around and around the barracks, handing them equipment—packs, grenades, rifles, bandoliers, helmets, bandages, cutlery, aluminum bowls, blankets, and shovels. The sun began to rise. Marshall found himself swaying back and forth, davening, moved by waves of energy which swept past the dawn in a great crackling storm.

  They did not sleep. As the light flooded in the small windows, Marshall discovered that half of the things he had been issued just a few hours before, and all of his money, had been stolen. “Where do they keep it?” he asked Lenny, who also had been fleeced.

  “Look,” said Lenny, “if they can steal it that fast, they can probably sell it that fast.”

  “But the sun hasn’t even come up!”

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with the sun.”

  In bright dawn, fully equipped, they began a long march. “Fifty kilometers,” the sergeants (new ones were delivered by jeep every four or five hours) would say. “Fifty kilometers. The Army will teach you how to behave.” They marched carrying unloaded weapons across the dustiest, airiest series of whitened hills that can be imagined. Each ridge of bleached rock was immersed in bright sun and shadow. Their spirits were lying prone, but they continued until they enjoyed the waterlessness, the dryness, the pain, and the burning sun circle. A sweet perfumed smell arose from the bright eyes of the Bengalis. Marshall struggled to look back at them, sighting their slight forms over the kingdoms of hallucinated green which his bloody mind had set all about him. “That is history. That is history,” they said, and smiled.

  They walked, and they walked, and they continued to walk, and they made twenty dazed circles around Ramallah, the white towers of which arose in front of them like ice. When soldiers collapsed, others carried them. The water was restricted until the column of one hundred and fifty struggling men, twenty on stretchers, began to imagine a world of bone, which they deduced from the link they made between their innards and the never-ending dry rock and dust. They marched on, as if they were ascending.

  The soldiers began to foul their own clothing as they walked. They marched about the hills in circles as if they were climbing a ziggurat. Marshall had several spasms of inchoate joy. For a moment of perhaps minutes or hours, he loved the dust, exploding in love of the dust. He let the sun in past his eyes. Soon he fell, but was taken up, and he was kept moving as if on a tide, and, in nearunconsciousness, he walked again. Then, with the suddenness of a door slamming shut, they arrived at their barracks and collapsed on the beds of straw.

  “Three hours,” said the sergeants. “Three hours, and then you will arise and work in the kitchen.”

  In full battle gear, his mouth full of straw, someone’s foot across his back, Marshall slept for three hours. In those hours, the stars swept by him. They were cold and they spoke directly from darkened faces. “You have died,” they said. “You have died, and are with us. Finally and forever, you have died.”

  “I have not died,” he answered back, laughing at them. “I have not died. I am just sleeping, and dreaming of sweeping starlight.” The little crying faces could not lead him beyond. In his sleep, he reckoned the breathing of the fifty. He was seized. He doubled over. He tightened harder than steel, as sparks and light and lingual noises fled past on a wave of stars. The gold burned. The silver was white fire.

  5

  AT THREE in the morning two sergeants in sunglasses kicked open the steel barracks doors and strutted up and down the urine-stained aisle, bending over sleeping forms and screaming savagely, “Arise! Arise!” It was great pain to be wrested from deep sleep and dreams, and the soldiers would not move until they were kicked. The worst criminals began to follow the sergeants, imitating them. They not only kicked the stomachs of sleeping men and ripped off their blankets, but they grabbed their genitals, stuck fingers in their eyes, and pulled their hair. The sergeants took note, and immediately promoted their imitators to the position of “drill leader.”

  Lenny smiled bravely as a fleet of devils rampaged above them in the stinking darkness, dressing, fighting, stealing. Everyone was subject to human touch at any moment, and explosive voices detonated ceaselessly. When the criminals spoke, Marshall could always smell their horrible breath, and they sprayed him with saliva, barking like mad dogs. If he turned away, they became offended, and threatened or manifested violence.

  The sergeants screamed, “Shave!” and there was a rush for the doors. Everyone wanted to be first at the cold water taps a little way up the hill. After he had pulled on his boots, Marshall groped in his kitbag for his razor, toothpaste, and shaving cream, which were gone.

  “Did you have American toothpaste?” Robert asked.

  “Yes. I did. Why?”

  “Last night before the candles burned out, I saw one of them eating it. If I’d known it was yours, I woulda got it for you.”

  “Thank you,” said Marshall dazedly. “I appreciate that.”

  They told the sergeants that their razors had been stolen. The sergeants looked at them and said one word: “Shave!”

  They found some rusty razor blades, and, after splashing their faces with freezing cold water, they scraped off beard and skin until their cheeks burned.

  “Let’s try to stay together in the kitchen,” said Robert. “We can help each other, and maybe we’ll have some quiet. Let those bastards kill themselves off. If we
conserve energy and spot for each other, we’ll have a great advantage. Also, we’ve grown up on highprotein diets. We’re stronger than they are.”

  “Where do they get all that energy?”

  “I don’t know. I think it’s because they’re crazy.”

  “We’re smarter than they are, too.”

  “But they have street wisdom.”

  “Bullshit. They’re morons. The only advantage they have is that they’re immoral. That’s a short-term advantage.”

  “We’re only going to be here for a month.”

  “A month for those guys is like a decade for us. If we keep our heads, we’ll be all right. We’ve got to remember a couple of things. One: when you’re in the kitchen, steal as much protein as you can. They haven’t fed us yet, but I have a feeling that it’ll be swill. Eat raw eggs, raw chicken, cheese—anything except raw meat, because of trichinosis. But if you see some good lean beef, hell, eat that as well.

  “Two: don’t let them push you an inch. If there’s a threat, we’ll group together. I think the three of us plus the three Bengalis can hold off anything they can give, and there will doubtless be others who will come to our side.”

  “The Bengalis are terrified. They’ve already been beaten.”

  “What do you expect? They only weigh seventy pounds. Three: be inventive. I’m sure ways will turn up in which we can avoid what they plan to do—which is to pound these vermin into the ground until they’re worn out and quiet enough to post to various commands, where they’ll wash dishes and clean garbage cans. I saw it in the American Army. First they take them in together and knock the crap out of them. Then they isolate them and keep them down by making them clean latrines all day. We can beat the criminals and the guards. We’re older. Were stronger. We’re smarter.”

  They went to the barracks, where the others were formed up in rows of three, and formed their own row of three. The platoon was counted and marched double-time through the dark to the kitchens. Marshall’s hair had been cut short; he was cold and hungry; he was lost in the resounding boot-steps of fifty men; he breathed the fresh night air, as clear up there in the mountains above Jerusalem as winter amber.

  In the officers’ kitchen they were mustered into various detachments. A dozen unfortunates were given refrigerator duty stacking cheese and counting celery sticks. Some sat around huge vats of hardboiled eggs and took off the shells. Some swept the floors or cleaned ranges and cutlery. Some set table. The three Americans were ushered into a great room in which were a dozen stainless-steel carts each loaded with filthy dishes from dinner the previous night.

  “Wash those dishes,” the sergeant ordered. “Its three forty-five. I’ll be back when the sun comes up. You should be finished by then.”

  “Two hours?”

  “Two hours, and maybe fifteen minutes. I’ll come back at six. I want every dish clean, the floor clean, the walls washed. Understand?”

  The minute he left they bolted the door and went to work at triple speed. It was a three-hour job, but they had plans. First they organized their approach. Then they attacked the trolleys, clearing off all the dishes, scraping the food into garbage cans, etc. They consolidated everything into neat stacks on two trolleys and started to draw the hot water. Working the way Americans can when they want to—in speed, enjoyment, and rhythm—they didn’t rest for a second. As they drew the water they washed the ten empty trolleys and arranged them in a corner. Then they attacked the dishes in assembly-line fashion. Marshall supplied Robert with stacks of dishes. Robert scrubbed them clean and flipped them into the next sink, where Lenny rinsed them and stacked them on the work-board. Marshall then emptied them of excess water and placed them on a clean cart.

  “You guys like country music?” asked Lenny, his hands rinsing and stacking so fast that they looked like an automatic loom.

  “I do,” answered Marshall.

  “Sort of,” said Robert.

  “Want me to sing some?”

  “Go ahead.”

  As Lenny sped through the rinsing he sang beautifully, and the room echoed with lyrical music.

  “Where’d you learn to sing like that, Lenny?”

  “I don’t know. L.A.”

  They loved it. They really loved it, and they washed so fast and so well that all the dishes were done by 4:30. They hosed down the remaining carts at the same pace, scrubbed the stainless-steel sinks and counters until they sparkled, washed the walls and windows, cleaned behind the window bars, washed the floor, and put everything in perfect order. By ten of five they were completely finished, had drawn the two big sinks full of steaming clear water, and stacked all the trolleys in front of the door.

  They took off their clothes and put them down in the order in which they would pull them on again. Marshall spread himself over the carts and went to sleep. Robert and Lenny climbed into the sinks and eased themselves into the wonderful water. With just their heads showing, they broke into clean sweats and strings of pleasant exclamations. Soon, Robert got out and drew fresh water for Marshall. They alternated sleeping on the carts or in the baths. Bathed, warm, and relaxed, they dressed at five of six, let out the water, and stood waiting for the sergeant.

  He came in exactly at six and saw them pretending just to have finished. He thought that they were suffering. “Now you come with me,” he said. “You will do the breakfast, lunch, and dinner dishes. But in between, you keep busy.” The sun was climbing over the rocky hills, bright and sharp. He led them into a shadowy room where the three exhausted Bengalis were standing next to what seemed like twenty million cans of sardines. The Bengalis were in tears.

  “Why are you weeping?” asked Marshall.

  Wilson (their spokesman) answered. “That man,” he said in the hypnotizing gait of subcontinent English, “told us to open all these sardines!”

  “So?”

  “There are too many. For there is only one machine to open the cans. Oh God in heaven, how we open a thousand cans in two hours, good God, with one damned little machine!” He stamped his foot in rage and frustration. They had been taking turns, going through every step of the process individually.

  “Look,” said Marshall. “We’ll set up an assembly line.”

  “What is that?”

  Soon they had a little sardine factory humming along at an astounding pace. Robert turned the big crank to power the machine. Lenny placed the cans in position. One Bengali handed him cans. Another Bengali received the cans. Marshall arranged them on trays, stacked the trays, and put full cartons next to the supplier Bengali. The third Bengali rested, relieving the other two at turns. They took sardine breaks, during which the Americans would eat. “Eat up,” said Robert to the Bengalis. “Its good protein.”

  “Protein?”

  “Jesus,” said Robert. “No wonder you guys are shrimps. You don’t even know what protein is.”

  “Shrimps?” said Wilson, looking at himself, highly amused. “You call us shrimps? Why? Shrimps are animals that live in the sea. Many legs.” He looked at his own legs and held up two fingers. “Just two.”

  “I mean that you are so little, because you never had any protein.”

  “We are not little,” said the littlest one with evident sincerity. “You, though, are ab-normally large.”

  “Then why is it that it takes two of you to carry a rifle; you can’t get over walls and big rocks unless we throw you; your uniforms are four sizes too big; and your heads fit inside your helmets like bell clappers? It must be dark in there. Maybe we should drill holes near the top so you can see out.”

  “It is not our fault,” answered Wilson, “if the Army makes all these stupid things for great big giants.” They went back to opening cans, and devised a plan whereby the Bengalis could take a bath.

  “You foolish Americans!” said Wilson as Marshall and the other two Americans were ordered back to the kitchen. “You are a great imperial power, but God makes you wash dishes. Good. Good good good!”

  It worked. The sergean
t did as expected and ordered the Bengalis into the dishroom. But in twenty minutes the Americans heard shouts and high-pitched screams. Then they saw the Bengalis being marched down a corridor, naked, crying, their clothes in their hands. The worst criminals—who had been given the better jobs of setting table and sweeping the dining room—clustered about and derided the Bengalis. Then Marshall, Robert, and Lenny were taken back to the dishes. The sergeant propped open the door and said, “I look in every ten minutes, criminals.”

  Lenny slipped out and spoke to an egg peeler. “It seems,” he reported, “that the Bengalis decided to take a bath first, and jumped in the sink immediately. The sergeant came back to give them fresh scour sand, and there they were, the three of them, naked as the day they were born, curled up in one steaming sink, fast asleep.”

  “What happened to them? It looked as if they were being marched out to be shot.”

  “There was some sort of a mini-trial in which an officer sat on an upside-down cooking cauldron. They have to work in the refrigerator, stacking cheese. They’re completely unaccustomed to cold, and the blocks of cheese are much too heavy for them. The stacks have to be seven feet high. How are they going to lift a thirty-pound block of cheese seven feet in the air?”

  Marshall began to feel all his days without sleep. His body ached, and time seemed to have fashioned itself after infinity.

  6

  THE FIRST day in the kitchen they worked from 3:45 in the morning until 10:30 the next night. They helped the Bengalis stack the cheese, and washed walls between rounds of dishes. When there was nothing to do, a sergeant dumped garbage on the floor and made them pick it up. When that was done, he took them outside in the rain and ordered them to sweep the mud. Staggering as he served dinner, Marshall thought that perhaps he was dreaming when officers overturned plates of food and demanded that the company of misfits clean up the mess.

  The dining hall smelled like wet wool, and the rain poured down outside in the dark. Officers and drill sergeants shouted as they ate; they had wet, shiny black hair; they seemed to hold all the power in the world. It was they, after all, who had denied Marshall sleep for four days. Reeling from table to kitchen for food, retching as he cleared off plates, tripping over deliberately outstretched feet and then being forced to apologize, Marshall began to conceive an active dislike for nearly everyone around him.