(2007) The Pesthouse

by Jim Crace

  'I did everything. There's not a sound. There's no one there.'

  'A woman and a baby just don't disappear without a trace. Something bad's happened, I'm sure of it now—'

  'There were horsemen there.'

  'There were horsemen? Andrew, you never mentioned horsemen. Did you speak to them?'

  'I didn't see them. Just fresh marks.'

  'They're lost. I know it in my heart. They're lost.' We all of us are lost, she thought, unless we make it to the boats.

  MARGARET HADN'T had to run like this for years, not since she'd been a girl and dodging boys in games of Free 'n' Freeze or taking part in races to and from the lake. She'd never had to run with a baby in her arms, taking care not to let the child's head bang against branches or walls but still not slowing down to pay attention to her distress. But she was younger than the two giving chase and marginally more desperate.

  Before the first man at the front of the building had managed to grab hold of her arm, she had instinctively run forward and to the side of him. If she had turned and run away, he would have caught her at the gate and hauled her back onto his land. Then what? But he was not expecting her to rush toward him and then take off just out of reach. Now he had to waste a few moments of advantage to turn himself around and take stock.

  Margaret headed for the cottage door. The second man, a little younger than the first and simple-minded to all appearances or maybe half asleep, just stood and watched. He hadn't any idea who she was or why his elder was now calling out, 'Bring her down!'

  Margaret veered again and took the path that led around the east side of the house and into a horse paddock. A dog, which had been sleeping, shot out at her on its leash and missed her calf with its teeth by the thickness of a reed. She felt its breath. A moment later the first man cleared the corner, too, but snagged his ankles in the leash and hit the earth. The simpleton followed after, just sauntering, in time to see his buddy rolling on the ground, the dog beside itself with fury, and the fur-haired woman climbing the back fence, already too far gone to hear him say, 'Blue devils, Charlie, what's goin' on?'

  Charlie soon explained. 'You'd better wake up, boy. We missed our chance there. We'll get her, though. She owes us now.'

  'She's got a kid.'

  'So it won't be nothing new for her.' Any woman was a rare commodity for squatters like them. A beauty was too good to lose. They wanted her.

  It did not take them long to saddle up their horses, equip themselves with cattle prods and rope, and ride around behind the house in search of Margaret. The men spread out, riding fifty paces or so apart, close enough to shout out to each other and to control a wide stretch of the land. Margaret, with Bella wailing, more frightened by the dog than by anything else, had scrambled through a choke of rocks and ended up above the house, looking down on the roof timbers. She was breathless, and angry, mostly with the men but partly with herself for having been so dangerously and laughably ambiguous. 'Anything at all.' Not the wisest of remarks. She'd cracked her knee during the climb and caught the back of her hand on a thorn. She sucked the blood away, quieted Bella with a little finger in her mouth, and tried to think what she should do.

  It was tempting, actually, to pick up several rocks and see if she could put some holes in their thin roof, or even damage their milk cows. She thought that probably her dangers would prove to be brief and somewhat comical. Perhaps her only problem now would be getting back to the Boses by a circuitous route, though the thought of trying to amuse them with an account of her adventures was not promising.

  It was only then that Margaret saw that the two men had mounted up and armed themselves. They had not spotted her yet, but there is a golden rule of hunting that says that nothing from a bee to a buffalo can evade two mounted men for long, except three mounted men. Her first thought was to try to reach one of the other habitations in the neighborhood and beg for help. A young woman with a child, escaping from two likely rapists, could surely expect the offer of help and safety from any normal home, if there were other women, anyway. She could see the roofs of two small steads within easy reach, though no sign of people. If she could see another woman or a child, then she would head that way. But there was no one. There wasn't even any smoke. For all she knew, all these places might be abandoned. Most places were abandoned nowadays. Perhaps these two men were simply passing through. Their high-tacked horses seemed to suggest so. Maybe they had rustled their three cows and moved into the empty cottage for a day or so of butchery. Salt beef would see them and their dog safely and fatly through the winter. Perhaps the other buildings were harboring similar men, from the same band of riders possibly. Margaret did not need reminding how cruel and murderous such groups could be. She'd seen them take her Pigeon away. She'd seen the woman on the Highway, raped and stoned to death. No, Margaret dare not take her chances at another house. The best thing she could do was get away from humankind and horses altogether. She had her breath back now. She made a sling out of her blue scarf, wrapped it round Bella, and tied the child to her back. She'd carry the baby how Franklin had carried her down Butter Hill.

  This would be a game of hide and seek. Margaret's best plan was to avoid open ground entirely. A stand of trees reached into the flatland around the farmsteads and spread along the low escarpment in patchy clumps, not thick enough to frustrate horses but offering shade and camouflage. But then again, she thought, that is exactly what the men would expect her to do — run for cover. She'd do the opposite.

  The countryside was undulating rather than hilly, and the undergrowth was thick though low, so it was good for riding and not so good for walking. There was an open meadow just before the trees, cleared by farmers years before but long disused. Margaret looked behind her to see if she was in sight of the horsemen, but they had not cleared the escarpment yet. She ran into the middle of the meadow and, after some long moments of panic, found a hollow big enough to lie down in. She pulled as much dry vegetation and dry foliage as she could find within reach over the two of them and lay on her side, cradling Bella. With one eye, she watched the sky for shadows. She was good at lying still and breathing silently. All she could hope for now was that Bella didn't cry and didn't want to play.

  As she had hoped, Charlie and the simpleton kept to the edge of the trees, peering in among the trunks and pursing their lips to make those Come to me, Cat noises that men seem to think are flirty and seductive but that are menacing for women. The nearest they came to Margaret and Bella was forty or so horse lengths away, but the baby, placated first by a finger and then by a little sweet ear wax, kept quiet, happy, it seemed, to stay in the undergrowth and watch the clouds with Margaret.

  Margaret had no comfort for herself, nothing sweet to take her mind off the fear that raced her heart and cramped her stomach and seemed to want her both to weep and to belch. She could not say exactly what she feared. Rape and death were only words to her. Pain she understood a little more. But there was something in the faces of those men that she'd been born to be frightened of. She was shaking and could not steady herself. She held the baby far too firmly, until Bella opened up her mouth to cry in protest. But by that time Margaret could hear the horses heading away, growing fainter. Their hoof treads on the snapping twigs and dry fall leaves would mask Bella's noise, so Margaret let the baby cry a little and allowed herself to shake and weep and belch.

  It was tempting to take this opportunity to break cover and run back toward the Boses. Her hide was damp, cold and uncomfortable. But Margaret's legs were jelly. And she could hardly breathe. Besides, she knew enough about horses to realize that a woman with a child to carry would be seen and caught up with before she had a chance to reach the hem of the meadow. Even if she did reach the Boses, that would be no guarantee of safety. Those men could knock them all aside like corn stalks if they wanted to; Andrew and Melody had only sharp tongues with which to defend themselves.

  Margaret had no choice but to wait until sundown, when the light would be more on her side, and
then, skirting the cottage and the cows, to stumble back down to the track and the company, if not the safekeeping, of Bella's grandparents. They'd have to move on straight away. In these circumstances, none of them would want to spend the night in such a risky spot. They'd be dreaming horses. She could almost hear Franklin's voice, saying to her, You'd have been better off sticking to the open Highway.

  Late in the afternoon, just about the time that Andrew was checking on the farm cottage, when the shadows of the trees lengthened to reach the place where Margaret had gone to ground, she decided it was time to move. She listened carefully, distinguishing the natural creaking of the trees from any human voices or horse sounds before judging it safe to make a dash with Bella for the forest edge. She peered through the gloaming down the slight incline and beyond the roof of the cottage, hoping to recognize the route she had followed earlier that day when she had left the Boses under a rendezvous tree on her usual quest for milk. The quickest way to safety, she saw, was to drop into the small pasture where the three cows were kept, pass close to the house and then follow the shared path between the group of mostly uninhabited buildings. She held her breath and tried to steady her eyes. She was hoping to see no horses. No horses probably meant that the men themselves had not returned, that they'd probably lost interest in their hunt for her and gone after fur of some other kind. They'd certainly be back by nightfall, so now was definitely the time for Margaret to run for it.

  She and Bella had reached the choke of rocks above the house before Margaret heard a sound below and immediately took cover again. A small man, not young, was peering through the shutter-boards of one of the rear windows. The light would have been too poor in the shadow of the house to see him clearly even if her eyesight had been good, but he was not large enough to be one of the horsemen, she thought. That did not mean that he wasn't just as dangerous, however. Margaret would have to retreat. She waited until the man walked around the house and through the side gate to the front. When he went inside, she came out of her hiding place among the rocks, noisily dislodging a scree of small stones. The dog, still tied at the side of the house, began to bark. She had not been careful enough. The dog could have seen her, smelled her, heard her.

  Now Bella started to protest, a cry of complaint. She had had nothing to eat or drink since the morning, her eyes and mouth were full of undergrowth, she hadn't played all day, she hadn't been allowed to crawl. There was milk to be had just a short distance away, but this was no time to be a milkmaid. Margaret hurried back the way she'd come. This time, protected by the deepening twilight, she kept to the edge of the trees, her finger in Bella's mouth. If she was spotted by the horsemen now, she could at least disappear into the trees and hope to find a narrow trail that horses could not follow.

  This was the worst night of her life, hollower even than her first night in the Pesthouse, more despairing even than the night of the Ferrytown dead, when at least she had had the company of Franklin. She had not brought her bedclothes with her or the tarp or anything to eat. She wrapped Bella in her blue scarf and cradled her, with her tiny feet tucked inside her tunic top, and waited for the time to pass.

  After she saw the two horsemen returning in the last light of the day to their house, Margaret pushed as deeply as she dared into the trees, far enough for Bella's now constant crying to be deadened by the trunks. The darkness was blinding. She could not see a star. Even the moon had been blocked out by the thick hammock and canopy. The trees were less than silhouettes. But Margaret would not allow herself to disappear. The child would not allow it, either. She knew (had not the nursery rhymes told her so when she was just a few years on from Bellas age?) that if there was no light, still she could create a candle in her heart and with that candle she could 'Beam her meanings, On eternity, And shine a purpose, On the Night'.

  She whispered all the rhymes she knew to Bella, and when the girl finally fell asleep, exhausted by her own hunger, Margaret — too gripped by darkness, cold and fear to sleep — forced herself to light that candle in her heart, and make its meanings and its purposes envelop her in fight. Now for a few moments, despite the awful immensity of her troubles, she could still pretend to be an optimist. In that imagined brightness, she could picture, beyond the night-time and the trees, beyond the horses and the men, a place of greater safety, but not outside America. There were no salt-water boats or any gulls. There was no Promised Land. Her place of greater safety was a soddy on a hill. She could envisage dying there, an ancient girl, her hair as long as the bed beneath her, with hands — more hands than she could count — in touch with her, and faces she could recognize and name, all saying Margaret, sweet Margaret, you loved us, and we loved you in return.

  Her eyes were now accustomed to the night, and she could see. She could see the child's face. She could see her own tough hands. She could see the fretwork of the trees — and, finally, a moon and owls for company. She could not stop the tears from flowing then, nor could she keep her hands and shoulders from shaking. She made owl sounds herself, sniffing and gasping for air. She felt expended and ashamed.

  But weeping was a speedy sedative. Soon Margaret was calm enough to take stock of her situation. It had been a frightening day, certainly. But nothing irreparable had happened. As the night deepened, she ran each detail through her head. Apart from that scratch on the back of her hand, she'd hardly hurt herself. That idiot of a man, who'd presumed to frighten her and who would have forced himself on her given half a chance, had actually not even succeeded in touching her. The only body he had damaged had been his own, when he tumbled over, snared by his own dog leash. Now all she had to do was take good care of Bella, remain patient until the very first light, and then get back to the Boses and away to safety before anyone else was out of bed.

  The rest of the night passed more quickly than Margaret had feared it would. She even dozed, although by the time dawn came she was so cold and stiff from standing with a tree trunk as her backboard that moving at all was difficult. Finding a sure route was impossible. It was easy to tell east from west, even before the first sun rays had penetrated the woods, but anything more precise than that eluded her. Besides, knowing east from west was not a lot of use for someone who could not precisely remember the position of the sun the previous afternoon when she had gone into the woods. She should have paid more attention and marked her route in some way.

  Margaret studied the ground at her feet, expecting to find evidence of her walking, footprints and snapped twigs, but if they were there she couldn't see them, not in that half-light anyway. She was a town girl, not a countryman's daughter. She'd not had to track any animal before. But still she could not stay where she was. She would, she decided, head east. That at least would take her in the direction of the ocean and ships. She would still be sharing a destination with Bella's grandparents, even if their paths did not cross at once. As soon as she reached open ground, she could take stock of the landscape and any buildings that she found and get back to the Boses before they were sent crazy with anxiety. She could imagine their anger. But what else could she have done but make sure that their granddaughter was safe?

  Margaret was oddly calm. She felt for the first time in her life as if she were impregnable and strong. There was so much evidence. Only she from Ferrytown had survived the flux. Only she of all the younger and fitter travelers of their campfire group on the Highway had not been taken by the rustlers. And yesterday, unlike the woman displayed on the deck of her cart, she had not been raped. She was still alive, and only lost. What was more, she had an independent purpose in her arms, a girl too small and young to walk or talk or even feed herself. She didn't need a cedar box of lucky things. Bella was her priceless talisman.

  Margaret was so composed and certain of herself that she did not mind that she had wasted the greater part of the morning reaching the edge of the woods — for they were beautiful — and that once she broke through to a clearing there was nothing familiar in sight, not a single building, not a reminiscent sh
ape, not even any cultured land, and only the footings of ancient walls and lines of metal spikes, rusted thin, as evidence that this had once been farmed many years before but now was wilderness. People had been there in better times, had lived there possibly, had died, but there was little chance that anyone would come again. People were becoming scarce. America was emptying. The land was living only for itself.

  The clearing sloped a little to her right. She would not climb. That made no sense. The ocean was at sea level, as low as anyone could go. Even the place where the Boses had spent the night was on a track lower than these forests and lower than the group of treacherous farm buildings where Margaret had almost been attacked. She turned downhill, and, even though she hadn't eaten or slept, she had the energy and spirit to walk pretty fast, bouncing Bella as she went and crooning to her, all the songs she'd ever learned and some she hadn't. To be alone would have been frightening and miserable, but having Bella made her strong.

  Margaret suspected the extent of her mistake only when she reached a low ridge with good views across the territory. Now she could see what seemed to be the rooftop outline of the cottage she had visited, but it was far away. She must have walked at right angles to where she'd wanted to go. Now she'd have to make up the distance. It could take another half-day if the going was complicated. But she set her sights on the rooftop and struck out for it, determined to get back to the Boses by sundown. She had not counted on the snow. It offered only flakes at first, too wet to settle. But soon the flakes lightened and fattened and fell so thickly that it was hard to see ahead. Clear landmarks disappeared. That distant roof was whited out. The track was filled with snow, and when the wind came up in the afternoon, the open ground ahead of her changed shape. It would be crazy to labor on against the weather. And end up where? Again, Margaret and Bella would have to spend the night away from the Boses. At least they had melt water and some mashed berries for their supper, and an overhang of wind-bent conifers to give them shelter and a roof. Margaret lit the candle in her heart again, and slept.