The Resurrection Fireplace

by Hiroko Minagawa

  He headed straight back to Matthew’s, where he hoped to meet his two friends.

  On the way, he recalled something he had read by Montesquieu: “Friendship is an arrangement by which we seek to exchange small favours for large ones.” His friendship with Edward and Nigel, too, had begun with small favours on their part. But they had never expected a large one in return. Perhaps lending Edward that book on heraldry had counted as a favour. Edward had returned the book the following day as promised, and Nathan had never expected anything else from him. Nevertheless, seeing them both was somehow comforting. He knew they were unlikely to let him form a particularly close bond with them, but that, he told himself, could not be helped.

  He still had not told them about Elaine. Having concealed the matter early in their friendship, it was now difficult to find the right time to bring it up. Nor did he wish to be teased about it. Nigel would be straightforwardly happy on his behalf, no doubt, but Edward? Nathan rather suspected that he would find the affair something to poke fun at. Edward had a tendency towards sarcastic quips, and sometimes recited lines from unexplained sources that sapped Nathan’s confidence. “Do not trust yourself, young dreamer! Fear inspiration like an ulcer; it is the drowsy delusion of a sick soul, the irritation of imprisoned thoughts.” Or “Love is a flower which must needs have thorns. But what is friendship? A turnip, nothing more.” Who had said that one? He had read it in a book somewhere.

  He was waiting at a table in Matthew’s when his two turnips arrived. He chuckled and leapt to his feet, hugging Nigel and patting Edward on the back.

  “Anyone would think you had not seen us in a decade,” said Edward. “Why such emotion? We met just two days ago.”

  Nathan himself knew that he was excited for no particular reason. Most likely it was due to his arrangement with Elaine.

  “I was paid today,” he said. “Today shall be my treat.”

  All thought of room and board had vanished from his mind.

  It was the middle of May.

  The foliage in the parks and squares had a seasonal freshness, though the buildings still wore their coat of soot and the skies were blurred with dust and smoke.

  He had finished reading and translating Manon Lescaut aloud, but before he could offer to read his own poetry, Elaine had given him another book to translate for her. This one, too, was bound in deep crimson French morocco, with a gilt border in the dentelle style. It was a French edition of Defoe’s Moll Flanders—the book’s lurid content had made the original difficult to obtain.

  In London, theft was a felony. However trifling the amount, anyone found guilty of it faced the gallows. Only women who were with child could have the sentence commuted to extradition, which was carried out after the child was born. Moll Flanders described a woman who was caught picking pockets in a crowd but escaped hanging at Tyburn for this reason. She gave birth in prison and before long was put on board a ship bound for the other side of the Atlantic, her baby torn from her arms. That baby was the titular Moll Flanders. When Moll escaped from the orphanage where she had been placed, she was rescued and raised by a wealthy mayor, in whose household she was treated as something between a maid and an adopted daughter.

  “I read this years ago,” said Nathan, frowning. “It is surprisingly immoral.”

  “So they say,” said Elaine with a giggle. “I asked Mr. Tyndale to procure and bind a copy for me because I heard it was diverting. When I told my tutor to translate it aloud for me, she refused, and scolded me. The book has stood unopened on my shelf—until now, I hope, with your assistance.”

  After making his reluctance clear with a look, Nathan began to translate the story for her. Soon other patrons near their table were listening, stifling laughter and even nudging each other occasionally.

  After an hour, Elaine’s nurse arrived to put an end to their enjoyment.

  “I hear there will be some kind of public unrest,” said Norma in her Irish lilt. “We had better hurry home.”

  “Are you going to the coffee-house ?” Elaine asked Nathan. He had told her about working on his poetry at Matthew’s.

  “No, today I am due at the newspaper.”

  “You have finished a poem?”

  “Not yet.”

  “A Shakespearean sonnet?”

  “Older than that,” he said, producing the manuscript of his Elegy. He did not want her to read what he wrote for the paper, but the Elegy he could proudly reveal as his own work.

  Elaine scanned the poem briefly. “It is rather difficult to follow,” she said, smiling uncertainly. “Harder than French.”

  “Come along, Miss Elaine,” said Norma.

  After helping her into the carriage, Nathan made his way to the offices of the Public Journal.

  John Wilkes, that fierce critic of Britain’s unprincipled administrators, had returned from exile in the colonies two years ago, whereupon he ran for office and was promptly elected to the House of Commons. In due course, however, he was condemned to the King’s Bench Prison for almost another two years. There he had continued his anti-government activities, and had been expelled from Parliament as a result, immediately after his release in April of this year. Nevertheless, he enjoyed wide support by the general public.

  One week earlier, a member of the House of Lords had moved to repeal the decision to expel Wilkes from Parliament, but the motion had failed. The newspapers had eagerly taken up the cause, and the citizenry was brimming with pent-up anger.

  Walking through the city, he could feel ferment in the air. In squares, on street corners, people were beginning to gather.

  He arrived at the newspaper offices and handed in his poem. Harrington seized him by the arm. “We must away!” he cried. He and his employees had broken out the gin to fire themselves up. “Drink!” he ordered, shoving the bottle into Nathan’s mouth.

  Nathan felt the stuff trickle down his throat and kindle a flame in his stomach. “Go where?” he asked.

  “To protest,” said Harrington. “A march. Demanding freedom and justice! Smash the Parliament of Deceit!”

  “I have little interest in—”

  “You wrote that manifesto last week, did you not?”

  As far as Nathan was concerned, he had only restated Harrington’s own arguments with some rhetorical flourishes tacked on. But his editor was drunk and determined, leaving him no choice but to go along.

  The crowd had swollen to hundreds, even thousands of people, and was headed for the Houses of Parliament.

  “Reinstate Wilkes!”

  “Repeal the expulsion!”

  Nathan had no idea why people supported this Wilkes so strongly, or why they heaped such abuse on Parliament. The throng pressed in so closely that he could barely move, let alone extricate himself, and he was aggravated by the way this crowd shouting for freedom restricted his own.

  Dark smoke rose into the sky.

  “They’re burning down the distillery!” someone shouted.

  With cries of “Quick!” “Gin!” part of the mob changed course. Caught up in the current, Nathan was forced to run with it. If he had stopped, he would have been knocked over and trampled.

  People picked up buckets, jugs, feed troughs—anything that could hold liquid—from houses they passed on the way to the distillery. Arriving as the fire still raged, they surged into the cellar and filled their containers with gin. Some drank it on the spot. Some forced their way out with barrels on their backs. Nathan managed eventually to crawl out of the place himself. At least, he reflected, he had left the manuscript of his Elegy at the newspaper’s offices, along with his writing materials, rather than carry them with him.

  There was a roar like a powder magazine exploding. A column of fire rose up.

  Later, he learnt that the still had burst in the intense heat.

  Pickpockets used their wits to profit from people as they panicke
d and fled. Some of the mob took advantage of the disturbance to spread the fire to wealthy households. Before long, mounted police were on their way.

  The King’s men are being sent in too!

  The rumour spread without any identifiable source, but the prospect of facing actual soldiers was alarming.

  The magistrate’s officers seized and handcuffed whoever was in reach, and pushed their captives into a wagon they had brought with them.

  “Let me out!” yelled Nathan. “I have not done anything!”

  But no one heard him.

  Above the central arch of Newgate Prison was a bas-relief sculpture of Dick Whittington with his cat at his feet; one of the many tales still told about the legendary London mayor was that he had provided for the prison’s renovation out of his own pocket. Nathan, however, failed to see the sculpture from inside the wagon, which passed through the gate once the portcullis had been raised. Whittington’s funds turned the prison into a fine building, and it had been rebuilt on an even grander scale after burning down in the Great Fire of London, but the treatment of those immured there remained as grim as ever.

  Nathan was taken from the wagon, stripped naked, and subjected to a humiliating search while a guard watched, before being put in heavy iron fetters. He was then escorted forcefully through the darkness, his shackles biting into his ankles with every step.

  The candles and torches on the walls gave a little light, but Nathan felt as if he had gone blind. By the time they put him in a cell, his eyes had finally adjusted, and he could dimly discern the forms around him.

  It smelt worse than a farmer’s stable. There were no windows, so the odours that filled the place simply accumulated, pressing on one’s lungs. Rather than pay the window tax, the administrators had chosen to let the inmates gasp for air.

  Those already inside stirred like penned cattle, faces hidden behind unkempt hair so that Nathan could not even tell if they were male or female. The constables’ sweep had caught too many, and prisoners were crammed into the space.

  “Let’s have your chummage!” shouted an old-timer.

  “Cash or clothes, but pay up,” another told the new arrivals.

  Those who refused were beaten and kicked.

  Those who had no money were stripped.

  They went through Nathan’s pockets and robbed him of a purse containing several shillings. His fetters had already robbed him of his freedom. Every time he moved, the chains clanked and he felt the bones in his ankles might break.

  Some of the prisoners were left unshackled. Nathan later learnt that one could obtain this privilege by bribing the guards.

  The three-tiered bunks attached to the walls were already occupied, leaving newcomers like Nathan to curl up on a floor that differed in no significant way from the bare ground outside. There was not even room to stretch out. Again, Nathan learnt later that only those who paid the guards for the privilege could use the bunks. Two shillings and sixpence a week would buy you the right to a bed—but not the exclusive right. Each was sold to two or three people at a time.

  The guards were also at liberty to sell liquor to both inmates and visitors. As Nathan watched, the old-timers exchanged the money they had just extorted for food and drink and began to celebrate. Cards and dice were produced.

  Lacking even the will to feel self-pity, Nathan could only blankly stare.

  He was pushed aside, shoved close to a wall. There lay a prisoner wrapped in what looked like cleaning rags. Squashed against this unfortunate, he was shocked by the chilliness of his skin.

  What time was it? He didn’t know. The sound of snoring here and there suggested that night had fallen, but Nathan himself was unable to sleep. He heard the faint rustle of cockroaches, and fleas and lice were at work on him.

  In the darkness, someone wrapped his arms around him from behind. The smell grew worse.

  He spent the night unable even to turn over.

  He felt as if he were marooned on an island, surrounded by beings with whom he shared no common language, a separate race from the people he was familiar with.

  For breakfast, they were given stale black bread with a thin layer of mould, and a swallow of water to wash it down. Then they were turned out into the yard.

  When they were taken back in at noon, the body against the wall had been removed, leaving only a stain that did not bear thinking about. It was time to eat again. Nathan was handed a tin plate with a few beans and a boiled potato on it. The potato had begun to go bad. Supper was more stale bread, another bad potato, and the day’s final, meagre allowance of water. If you were still thirsty, you had to buy more from the guards. In fact, the guards could procure not just water but almost anything you wished—as long as you could pay. In exchange for this service, they charged several times more than the prices one would pay outside the prison walls, and lined their pockets with the difference.

  Nathan was accustomed to frugal meals, but this was pitiful. At least the black bread sold in the market had been relatively fresh. All his money was gone, and he had no family to bring him anything.

  After nightfall, someone grabbed him from behind again. When he struggled, the man began to throttle him. Fearing for his life, he stopped resisting, and was violated.

  By day the prisoners were driven out into the yard, where gambling continued as the pastime of choice.

  Some old-timers played a game of “ninepins,” bowling a wooden ball at a group of nine stray children they used as a target.

  Fights erupted over the tiniest of offences.

  Nathan crouched in a corner, trying to escape notice.

  He heard someone whimpering. Glancing to one side, he saw a scrawny boy sitting there with his face buried in his knees.

  Nathan put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, which shook with sobs.

  The boy looked up. “I’ve done no crime,” he said, perhaps relieved that Nathan did not look menacing.

  “Neither have I,” said Nathan.

  “’Ave you been sentenced?”

  “Not yet. I expect to be released.”

  The boy shook his head firmly. “I’m innocent, too, but the court found me guilty. They ain’t interested in the truth. They just do as they please… . I’m bein’ transported. The ship leaves tomorrow.”

  He had a London accent. The back of his hand had been marked to show he was a criminal.

  “There was a shillin’ lyin’ in the street. I picked it up. A man in fancy clothes saw me do it. He dragged me to the magistrate, sayin’ as how it was his money.”

  “They sentenced you to transportation… for a shilling?”

  “The judge did it out of pity, he said, me bein’ still a minor. Thieves are usually hung. Doesn’t matter how small the theft. But transportation ain’t much better anyway. They use you hard over there—even strong men get worked to death. And I done nothin’ but pick it up!”

  “Was there no lawyer to argue your case?”

  “Does it look like I ’ave that kind of money?”

  Nathan was probably the first person prepared to listen to him, because he began to grow animated.

  “The man who turned me in didn’t need no shillin’. He just wanted to bully me. You could tell by lookin’ at ’im that he was some rich man’s spoilt son.”

  Nathan remembered the cold treatment he had received from passers-by when he first arrived in London. Refusing to give him directions, kicking his luggage… .

  But there were decent people, too, like Nigel and Edward. He wondered where Edward was from; he had no London accent.

  “The courts ain’t good for nothin’,” the boy declared. “Nothin’. The jury, the lawyers, the judge, they’re all on the side of the rich. People like us are a pox to them. They need workers in America, the public’s all for hanging, the jury just wants to get it over with—so when the courts are dealin’ with the poor,
it’s ‘Guilty,’ ‘Guilty,’ one after another. They wouldn’t get no thank-you present from me if they found me innocent, so why bother? But when a rich man gets off, he makes it worth everybody’s while. The rich can get to the jury, too.”

  The boy fell silent and looked despondently at the sky.

  “God ain’t watchin’ a bit of all this,” he murmured, and buried his face in his knees again.

  That was the last Nathan saw of him.

  At supper a few days later, he was served an unidentifiable hunk of fat along with his potato. Made from the suet around a sheep’s kidney, one of his fellow prisoners informed him. Served every Wednesday by generous order of ’is Majesty the King. You can’t eat it? ’Ad a more refined upbringing than that, did we? The man grabbed Nathan’s piece and popped it in his mouth. Was this the one who came for him at night? He fought a rising urge to vomit.

  Time passed, but events in prison merely repeated themselves again and again. He had sneered at Moll Flanders once; now he was just the same.

  He felt that he had changed, become someone strange even to himself.

  How long had it been when they called him out of the cell?

  First he was made to wash himself with vinegar. Then he was escorted under guard to the Old Bailey, the court to which Newgate was attached.

  The building overlooked a small square with stocks and whipping pillars where sightseers flocked in the hope of catching a glimpse of the offenders.

  With each step Nathan took up the stone staircase, his heavy fetters rattled noisily, and hurt him when they struck the stairs. They had already made scars on his ankles that he suspected would never fade.

  A dozen or so prisoners awaited trial. Every one of them was dirty, with long hair and nails. They must have washed, too, but the grime and stink of gaol had not come off. Their eyelids drooped, their faces had prominent chins and cheekbones.

  Noticing his own fingernails, Nathan realized that he must look much the same.

  His name was called and he was led inside the court to the defendant’s stand.