by June Hutton
The white miners, he said, turning. The rest live in Lousetown.
He slapped the dust from his arms.
Let’s hope it was a child, he said. One of the miners’ progeny.
And where on earth have you been? What have you been up to?
Oh, here and there, this and that.
I had hoped you might come along after the explosion to see if the shop was damaged.
I knew you’d send word if it was.
To where? I didn’t know where you were and if you’re going to be a partner I should know, and besides that Vincent was surrounded by the crowd, with that filthy deputy shouting accusations, all because we had worked on the press all night, and I felt wretched about that—
Not your fault, dear girl.
Yes, it was. Because of that article I wrote about his leader.
You were doing your job.
I was, I said, nodding and gobbling up his willingness to find me faultless.
Morris hooked his thumbs under his arms and expanded, his voice loud and ragged: It was nothing new to our Vincent. When he was a child he learned French by sitting in on the lessons given to the bosses’ children. Yanks, I believe. He was quick at languages, so he was welcomed to join the children on outings, as long as they spoke French. This one time in the park the nanny charged over to them, seeing that he and the girl were holding hands as they ran about. All very innocent, they were children, but children who were growing up quickly. His father lost his job because of it.
I saw with new eyes the moment Vincent extended his hand to me in Lousetown, then pulled it back. I had pulled back, too.
That’s when he decided to grow his hair, I said, for his father.
I suppose.
The significance silenced us both for a moment. Then I pointed at the hole.
What were you doing down there?
Studying for signs, he said.
Signs of what? You dropped something. There, behind you.
He bent to retrieve it, presenting a trousered bottom ridiculously white and streaked in grey.
Of treasures the earth gives up from time to time, he said.
He straightened, took my arm and turned me around.
They drill these holes, he continued, and sometimes don’t go deep enough. They give up and move on to another find.
Exploratory digs. I know.
His eyes darted toward my other hand as it pulled the notebook from my pocket. It was a relief to be back to the familiar.
I wouldn’t want everyone to know about this. Because everyone is reading your fine newssheets. Our fine newssheets, he added. It’s what everyone’s talking about.
Do you read The Bugle? I asked.
I had looked at one more copy and the only piece that qualified as news, about the explosion, contained several spelling mistakes. I supposed the article was included because the disaster affected numbers, and The Bugle was all about numbers.
Yes, he said, but our Bullet is better. And when you listed the dead you listed the Chinese, too. How did you get their names?
Vincent, I said.
Yes, yes, Vincent, Morris said.
I had no idea what he meant by that until he added, He was not happy that The Bugle made no mention of the Chinese. He said it was tempting to refuse to print it.
He runs their machine, too?
I just know he prints the paper. Their machine. His machine. Does it matter?
I stared off into the grey distance, seeing the giant paper roll snap free, a ragged strip of it slithering through the machine that pounded and shrieked until we brought it to a hammering stop, and then the two of us grappling with its parts all night in the steam and oil and ink.
Morris then asked a question that jerked my attention back to the present. Have you heard of the coal mines of Africa? Let me explain. Wherever you have coal deposits and running streams, he said, you have this too.
I peered into his open palm at something that sparkled.
Just a sample diamond. Thank you for spotting it just now. I must have dropped it. Well, go ahead and write that down. It’s not as though I found any here. But if they’re in Africa, then you can bet they’re in other places, too. Just be so kind as to not give away the exact location.
Of what?
The stream. Listen.
And I heard it gurgling, close by, in the grass. I made a mental note of the foot trail toward it, how it curved to the left, ending in a hole.
Coal and water, he continued. Perhaps diamonds. As your source said, coal likes company.
This is what your brandy and cigars meeting was about.
Yes. May I escort you back to town?
I’ve only just set out for a walk.
Walk with me, then! He grabbed my elbow and turned me, again. You’ve got me thinking of Lousetown. There is, he said, a small cantina where they serve a delicious hoisin duck with vegetables.
Lousetown. He had my interest, now.
Duck? I asked.
Pigeon for all I know. Some sort of bird.
And let me guess. Canned peas.
Oh, no. Crisp greens.
Here?
We had some back at the doctor’s. Oh—that’s right, you weren’t hungry then. Are you, now? Come, he said. Be my guest. I hate to dine alone.
I should change my clothes.
Yes, there you are in camouflage again, my dear girl. An army term. A bit of visual deception—you blend right into the grey town in that grey fabric. The better for prowling about, unnoticed, while you gather news. And look at my suit. It has seen brighter days. No, your outfit will be just fine where we are going. And your beauty will shine above it. Please, join me.
He didn’t need to ask again. I was limping alongside him, quickly. Fresh greens, yes, but no choice in the matter, either. He had my elbow in his big paw, still, and although I told him of my stitches he did not slow his pace, nor did his response have any bearing on my injury.
Excellent, he said. Now, let’s put away your notebook. We are done with work for the day.
I already had put it away but he was distracted, looking up and down the narrow lane as he talked. For the curious child, he added at last.
*
Morris led me along a jumble of shacks crouched at the stream’s edge and connected by a crooked boardwalk. The sun was setting, I was certain. To the west there was a faint glimmer you would never see on the other side of the pithead, and it gave the water a molten sheen.
This time not a single door slammed. Neither had they when the three of us walked back from the doctor’s, but there had been silence. It had been late, so we were simply left to ourselves. Or maybe they hadn’t recognized the friend of the Chinese with his face black and blue, maybe I hadn’t seen them, my head shielded under a newspaper much of the time.
But I didn’t need to see them this night. I heard them, the high-low pitch of their language, the excitement in their voices as they called out, Morris! Mister Kow-hen!
He put his arm through mine and patted my hand with the plump pads of his fingers.
The gathering residents breathed ah-h-h-h, and added something that sounded like, Missy Kow-hen.
I suppose I responded predictably, pulled my arm away, twisting my head back and forth like an ostrich’s, that bird-beak of a smile my brothers claim I wear when tense. I’m not your missy, I hissed. Tell them.
Enjoy the spectacle, he said, tightening his grip. How often in this life are we welcomed so warmly? This, he said, could be your future.
His free hand waved at the crowd.
Mine?
Yours, mine, ours. This is the new world, new times, with all types mingling together.
Well, if they had accepted me, perhaps it was because of him. Again I was seeing that open face of the solar dish, the stamen toward the sky or, given the angle of our approach, toward me. I was someon
e important. The newspaper publisher. Another friend of the Chinese, the one who listed their deaths as I would anyone’s. The fact that I was walking with Morris must have put me in particularly good light.
The new world. I repeated it to myself, rolling the words over my tongue. The newly arrived metal plate embossed with the airship, that had since inked itself into a paying advertisement in my paper, hovered in my thoughts.
Morris, I asked. Have you ever travelled by air?
I have, indeed. From Paris to London.
Morris described the finest crystal, a private smoking room, luxurious furnishings, until I grew impatient.
But what is it like to fly in one?
You barely know you’re up in the air.
But what’s the point of that? I want to feel the wind in my hair.
You want to be sailing on the open seas, my dear.
I mentioned the ad for the Zeppelin, and he said he had seen it.
The advertisement itself, excellent, my dear. It’s money for our newspaper. But for the town? Landing will be difficult. It would have to attach itself to something. I’ve seen pictures where they tie up to the mast of a ship that’s docked.
Our ship arrives at midnight, I said, and then I sighed deeply.
The advertisement didn’t state a time. They must figure we’ll know it when we see it. That would be a waste, to arrive and depart in the middle of the night. It could hitch itself to the coal hulk. But who’d want that?
His grip loosened and he patted my hand, again. You and I could travel the world, my dear, and never have a dull moment together. We are ideally suited. Opposites in every way but our thirst for something new. We have identical curiosities. We are explorers.
I flashed a smile, despite myself.
We had reached our destination, an old lopsided boardwalk, and reeled over the slats that dipped and groaned beneath the weight of each step.
The cantina shack was made from graying driftwood and other scavenged pieces. A window from a house, a wooden door from a boat that forced us to duck our heads. Over the door hung a lopsided sign: The Lonesome Café. Inside, two oil lamps glowered, one by a coal stove, the other over a long, wide board that spanned the width of the shack and served as a counter.
Several Chinese sat at the board, miners, perhaps. Some of the opera troupe were at the counter, too: Ben, once again, his old friend, the big-chested singer, and two of the men. The musicians, I presumed. They had discovered in mere days what it had taken me weeks to find. An establishment that served fresh food.
A large, brown-skinned man in knitted cap and sleeveless white undervest stood at the stove, spooning breaded oysters into a buttered pan. For an apron he wore a striped tea towel tucked into his trousers. The oysters sizzled as they landed and a smell of ocean filled the small room.
Sit, he said.
I did as Morris showed me, dragged a stump forward and sat at the board like we were at a café counter.
Our cook poured us each a mug of tea, then slammed a bowl of sugar and tin of condensed milk onto the board. The holes in the tin had congealed with old milk the colour of glue. He leaned over and aimed a yellowed fingernail at each hole, jabbing once to break the seal.
Wolf, Morris said, my lovely acquaintance here didn’t know you serve delicious greens, or how you come by them. Go ahead and show her. I can see to the drinks myself.
I sat up, curious, imagining a giant warehouse of greens.
The aproned Wolf scooped fried oysters onto a plate, added a slice of buttered bread, a brilliant clump of green, like spinach, speared by a single blade of asparagus, and sent it sliding down the counter to someone who had just entered by way of a back door.
Marcel! I called out.
Mademoiselle! he called back, doffing his cap.
I would ask why he cooked at the hotel instead of here, but we were shouting as it was, and I imagined his answer would be similar to Vincent’s, that they paid twice what anyone in Lousetown would.
I bent my head in greeting to Ben and his old friend. Ben lifted his chin and smiled. The old one lifted his stem of asparagus and waggled it at me.
I turned back to Wolf. He finished smoking a stub of a cigarette till it was a pinch between his fingers, then dropped it and ground it into the boards with his boot.
You’re the one who runs the newspaper? He leaned forward, his fishy tobacco breath and dark eyes roaming over my face. Thought so, he said. None of this goes in it. Agreed?
I sighed. Agreed.
He looked at Morris, and then raised his eyes to the shelves above the stove with rows of bottles of every amber-coloured liquid I could name, bourbon, rye, rum, tequila, brandy, and some clear ones as well, gin, vodka, schnapps. There was no attempt to hide spirits here. I knew what he was thinking, though, and soon he pointed a brown-stained finger at Morris.
I’m staying right here, he said, to watch my stock. You take her. You know the way. Take a basket while you’re at it.
Morris rose, and I got up to follow him. Why were the best news stories unprintable?
*
The boat jerked with each dip of the oars, darting forward like a water bug.
We crossed what Morris described as cranberry flats. Beads of brilliant red bobbed in the cloudy water and tumbled against my fingertips as we glided over. The prow ground into gravel and Morris clambered out, lifted the basket and set it on the ground, then dragged the boat up onto the beach of an island of sorts, a mound of earth in the middle of the stream, hidden by the pithead, or I would’ve seen it from the top of the mountain. The wicker handle over his arm, he led me straight ahead to a gate of woven vines and branches within a wall of green growth. It swung open as though on oiled hinges.
We found ourselves in a fog thicker than any I had seen in Black Mountain, obscuring my sight until we shut the gate behind us and stepped through it. Directly before us, a fountain bubbled and steamed vigorously from a white bathroom basin on a gleaming white pedestal. A row of office fans on tall stilts spun their blades and aimed their silver snouts in a variety of directions, scattering the steam.
The coal dust dries out the air, Morris explained, so some plants need misting. Others don’t like it damp. They need it redirected. The gardeners have thought of everything.
Tomato plants were trellised over two car doors and an engine hood that leaned against the green wall. The gardeners had obviously visited the dump.
For added warmth, Morris said. The metal heats up and gives them a boost.
Heats up? How?
We get the morning sun, he said.
I nodded to myself, thinking of Vincent’s rooftop dish. The Times must be close by.
A coal cart brimming with leafy greens and onions rolled past on a track.
Gents, Morris greeted as we walked. Two Chinese men pedalled furiously on stationary bicycles.
They give us a power boost, Morris said, along with that up there.
His fingertips indicated another solar dish like Vincent’s, nestled amongst the green growth but pointed upward. Running out from below dish and bicycles were cables and wires that connected to black boxes, and from there more cords that appeared to stretch from one end of the garden to the other.
We could have light all night long if we wanted, he said. We could build a crystal garden for the winter. But either would give us away. You’d be able to see us glowing and twinkling all the way to Black Mountain, even through the fog.
So what will they do in winter? Close the garden?
Vincent’s working on it. Radiators, he said. Over there.
Two cast iron radiators leaned against the green wall, waiting, as he explained it, to be hooked up to the existing pipe work that fed the fountain. I knew where they got at least one of those radiators. I’d just been there, looking around the abandoned house.
He’s a goddamned genius, Morris said.
Yes, I
said. He told me he likes to make things.
That chandelier at the hotel made of radio tubes? Most of what you’ve seen so far? All his.
Glorious heads of roses glowed in the evening air. I bent to breathe in their perfume.
These are lovely, I said.
Miners’ helmets with headlamps nestled in the dirt of the rose bed, and lit up the blooms, turning the petals sheer as silk.
Like the tomato, Morris said, roses like a good drink of water, but need well-drained soil. Even tomatoes can’t touch those heated metal doors, or they’ll blister, but roses are even more delicate. We’re experimenting with these lamps. I’ve also suggested a stone wall to retain the heat without hurting the blooms. An upcoming project.
And then he added, These roses remind Vincent of home. Shanghai.
These are his, too? I asked. I’ve never seen—
And then I stopped. Because why would I?
He sells them. Always doing something to make money. That’s a secret, remember. He shot a dark look toward my pocket and the notebook it held. I nodded my understanding. Mostly, he continued, the girls at The Saloon buy them. Says it gives a boudoir smell to the place.
The word boudoir rumbled in his throat.
He says that?
I couldn’t contain the venom behind my question. My mouth filled with a bitter taste. I had literally spat the question at Morris.
No, he said. The girls do.
This is a secret? None of their customers demand to know where the flowers come from? They might want to buy some for their wives, too!
My temper scorched the very words that left my lips. I said the word customers as though it were a cuss word, and then stepped to the side to let a coal cart of rutabagas trundle past. My chest heaved and I could feel my cheeks flame.
Morris turned slowly, his eyebrows arched above the rolling mound of yellow roots. Perhaps my outburst was the last thing he expected from a newspaper publisher.
My dear, he said, anyone going there has other things to think about.
Up ahead, the bent backs of workers emerged, their straw hats bobbing like pinwheels in the grey air, illuminated here and there by embedded miner’s lights. The sight soothed me and I felt my pulse slow. Rotten tomatoes had been thrown to the ground, a clotted carpet that stuck to the passing feet of the pickers, of each of us. I paused to wipe a heel against a rock, the pungent smell of tomato as rich as its colour, especially so, wrapped as it was in the damp, metallic grey of the air.