The Boatmaker

by John Benditt

  CHAPTER 24

  An angry howl goes up from the crowd. The horses whip around the first turn again, slowing with each stride, jockeys standing in the stirrups. They come to a walk in the middle of the straightaway before the jockeys turn them back toward the main building. Grooms run out to lead the horses to the safety of the barns.

  As horses and riders vanish, the entire racecourse bursts open like the mouth of a volcano. Out of the opening comes a molten wave of sound, different, louder than the first angry cry. The royal guard, their bayonets fixed, surround the king and his guests and lead them from the royal box to the carriages.

  At the other end of the track and outside the iron fence, the boatmaker cannot make out individuals, but he knows Jacob Lippsted is within the wall of scarlet. Rachel must be nearby, among the gentry scrambling for their horses and carriages.

  The whirlwind of sound fills and overflows the racecourse, like lava rolling down the slopes of a volcano. It begins to harden, take shape. Words rise out of the chaos. “Death,” the chant goes up. “Death to the Jews!” Then it finds its rhythm and begins repeating: “Death, death to the Jews! Death, death to the Jews!”

  The crowd of workingmen pours out of the entrances and away from the track. The boatmaker threads his way among them. Here and there men are clustered around someone speaking the words of The Brotherhood’s handbills. The boatmaker stops at each speaker, expecting to see Rademacher, but the very dangerous man is nowhere to be seen.

  The boatmaker hurries through the streets, sometimes stepping out of the way to allow shouting men to run by. He smells smoke.

  He leaves the crowd on the boulevards and takes a route that leads him down narrow streets and alleys, pausing at the intersections with the major streets to let a flood of angry workingmen stream by, whipped into a rage by the speakers. As it moves, the angry crowd has settled on its destination: the Old Quarter.

  As he enters the streets of the Old Quarter, the boatmaker sees the mob has been there before him. Pushcarts are overturned. Fruits and vegetables spill out onto the pavement, crushed to pulp. From under one or two carts he sees legs outstretched.

  All around him, armed with sticks and cobbles, the men of the Mainland are breaking the fronts of stores owned by Jews. All the stores are closed, and most have their shutters down. But the mob knows which stores have Jewish owners. Glass breaks, wood splinters, locks and hinges groan before giving way. Once the façade is broken, men rush in to grab and carry out whatever they can lay their hands on: barrels of pickles, cheeses, pots and pans. The boatmaker sees two men running, holding up a side of beef, one at the front, the other at the rear. They are giddy, laughing and running away before stronger predators arrive to snatch their prey.

  As he makes his way through the mob to the boardinghouse, the smell of smoke thickens. Yellow flames curl up inside smashed storefronts, tearing at walls and floors. The boatmaker feels the heat on his hands and face.

  Freed of the crowd, he is moving swiftly over the last few blocks to the boardinghouse when he stops and presses himself against the side of a building. Two familiar figures are coming down the steps of the once-elegant townhouse. He has imagined them at his door so many times that they do not seem real now that they are actually there. The blond priest built like a wrestler and the misshapen man in the woolen robe hurry down the steps and disappear into the crowd. They give no sign that they have seen the man pressing himself into the brick of the wall, his heart pounding so hard it might explode.

  In his room the boatmaker stands looking out the window over the Old Quarter watching orange columns shoot up over the crooked line of roofs and dormers. Through the open window he hears shouting in narrow streets and running on cobbles. After watching for a long time he lies down and waits while the sky coagulates and the fires burn themselves out. The sounds of running and glass breaking finally exhaust themselves. What is left is a smoky night different from all other nights.

  He wakes in his clothes to a knock at his door. He gets up without lighting his candle and and opens the door.

  The landlady stands in the doorway, an ancient paisley shawl wrapped around her shoulders. For once she has no cigarette, no book, no cats. But the smell of whiskey accompanies her. She sways like a pine tree in a strong breeze, tilting away from the wind, then back to center.

  “Let me in,” she says. “And close the door.”

  The boatmaker stands back. The landlady enters the room, bracing herself against the washstand. Reaching under her shawl, she pulls out two envelopes and hands them to him. One is long, rectangular and official-looking. The other is smaller, squarer, more personal. Each bears his name in a different well-educated hand. He takes the envelopes, looks at them and tosses them on the bed, where they land side by side, face up.

  The landlady makes no move to leave. He wonders whether she is waiting for him to open the envelopes and read the letters in her presence. Or perhaps, after climbing the stairs in her drunken state, she has reached the point where she is afraid that if she moves, she will fall. Or perhaps, on this night of nights, she is afraid to be alone in her room with only black-and-white cats for company.

  He points her to the worn country chair where Rachel Lippsted has sat many times.

  “I thought our kingdom was past this,” the landlady says, sitting and reaching under her paisley shawl for a flask. She offers it to the boatmaker. When he refuses, she takes a long pull before replacing it.

  “Has it happened before?”

  “Has it happened before? Where were you born? Oh, I forget. Small Island. No doubt such things don’t happen there. They do here. The last time was more than fifty years ago, under the old king.”

  She takes out the flask and drinks, this time not bothering to offer any to the boatmaker.

  “The smell,” she says. “The smell is always the same. You smell it as a girl. You think you will never have to smell it again—and that you will forget. But certain things you can’t forget. The noise perhaps, even the blood on the pavement the next morning. But you do not forget the smell.”

  Her head falls forward. She is silent. The boatmaker looks at the top of her gray head, assuming she has passed out. He wonders how he will get her down the stairs to her room. But then her head comes up.

  “No matter what those letters say, do not go out tonight. Wait ’til tomorrow. By then it will be over. The anger will be gone, for a while. They will no longer know who they hate more—the Jews or themselves. Then you can go out. Tomorrow. Even early. But not tonight. Understand?”

  Much as he wants to go and find out whether certain people are safe, the boatmaker cannot argue with her; she has seen all this before.

  The landlady raises herself slowly, drawing her shawl close and listing like a schooner under full sail, leaving a cloud of whiskey in her wake.

  As she opens the door, the cats leap up the stairs and rub against her legs, purring loudly. Without acknowledging them, she pulls the door closed and makes her dignified way down the stairs.

  The boatmaker stands in the middle of the room looking at the envelopes on his bed. He opens the larger one. Inside is a letter in a firm black hand. The controlled handwriting covers two large cream-colored sheets of heavy paper.

  My brother in Christ,

  I believe I can still call you that, even though you have deserted us and the New Land for reasons I can only surmise; only Our Father can fully penetrate the mystery of another man’s heart. But that does not prevent us here below from trying to understand. We must try, brother. We have no choice but to act, even though we know His Truth only in brief flashes of illumination.

  Since your departure, I have prayed many nights on my knees for acceptance of His will and for clarity regarding your behavior. I know that Jesus, the first Christ, was afraid of His destiny. Even near the end He prayed that the cup might pass from Him. I am sure that you—only human after all—have made the same request many times. What is more, since leaving us I know that you have b
ecome entangled with the Jews in ways I can only speculate upon. I have spent many nights on my knees asking for guidance in understanding these matters with, I admit, limited success.

  I remain convinced, however, that you are the one I believed you to be: an essential part of the New Son of Man. The one who was the fourth, sent to complete the circle. And that by balking your fate, as our brother Jesus contemplated but refrained from doing out of His deep love for the world, and His compassion for our suffering, you have interfered with the will of Our Father and jeopardized His plan for the rebirth of the Mainland—indeed, of the entire world.

  In sum, my brother, I cannot help but hold you personally responsible for much of the evil that has come to pass in these painful days. A deep change was intended for our Mainland: a cleansing and renewal, a purification and return to our roots. But it was meant to be peaceful, without unnecessary shedding of blood. If you had followed through in the part that has been ordained, I believe that our king, and many others, would have had their eyes opened in a gentle manner, without the violence of these last days. Many now lying dead in the streets of the capital would be alive, the possibility of Salvation before them.

  I have great sadness from all this, brother; my heart is sore, torn in half. And I believe that because you have flinched and let the cup pass from you, you bear much responsibility. Yet such is His mercy that, if you are willing to return to the New Land and join, as you were meant to join, with your three brothers, a great deal of bloodshed may still be avoided, and the great renewal returned to its original, peaceful course.

  At the New Land we are on our knees, brother, awaiting your return, arms and hearts open, our love for you unchanged despite your abandonment of us and our sacred cause.

  Father Robert’s signature is large and strong, underscored with a flourish. The priest’s last name, which the boatmaker had not known, is the name of a family as old and noble as the landlady’s. Below the signature, the priest has added:

  For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is the Christ. For by one spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one spirit.

  The boatmaker drops the priest’s letter on the bed and opens the smaller envelope. As he lifts the flap the scent of Lily of the Valley rises from light blue sheets with a message in dark blue.

  My sweet Small Island man,

  What the rabbi feared has come to pass. We are leaving for such safety as we can find. I scrawl to you in haste. By the time this reaches you, we shall be gone. Should you wish to join me, I have enclosed a map. If you choose to come, commit the map to memory. Whether you intend to join us or not, destroy the map after you have looked at it. Do not leave it behind. I know you too well and I love you too much to ask you for anything, but under these circumstances there are two things I would make known more directly than I would at another time. The first is that if you want me, I would be your wife. I belong to you. I have known this for some time. I believe you know it too. The second thing I must tell you is that there will be a child. Even in the face of these facts, I demand nothing. I write only to share what I know with you and allow you to make your decision. Should you wish to join me and the child that is to be, this map will show you the way. Joining this family is no simple matter. But I have no doubt you are capable of it—and of much more. If you choose to join me, I wait for you with more than love. If you do not, or cannot, for whatever reason, I will still wish you well: on the Mainland, on Small Island or on the sea. I shall bear you no ill will. On the contrary, regardless of your choice, part of me will always be in your little room up the stairs, with just enough space between us for the moon.

  Your Rachel

  Beyond the boatmaker’s window the fires have died down. The streets are quiet. The landlady was right: Tomorrow he will be safe. After the bloodletting, the men of the Mainland will wake in a stupor of self-hatred. He stands at his window, knowing it is the last time he will see this view.

  When the sky begins to lighten, he goes to his cache, removes his money, the sealskin bag and Crow’s notebook. He sits on his bed with the letters beside him and thumbs through the notebook one last time. Now he realizes that R, the letter that has puzzled him for many months, must stand for Rademacher. Rademacher and The Brotherhood were one of Crow’s sources of income, along with White’s pay and, if he wasn’t losing, his gambling. Rademacher’s corrupt little agents, Rachel had said. Crow and White must have been two of those corrupt little agents. Certainly they were corrupt. Crow at least; White simply loved Crow.

  Crow must have told Rademacher about the boatmaker, his name being part of the fascination. Rademacher ordered the beating. Afterward, Rademacher had him delivered to the hospital, into the hands of Father Robert, who would also have been fascinated by his name. Despite its appearance, the beating was not a robbery: It was a way for Rademacher to get him to the New Land. The shouts of “Where is the money?” must have been an attempt to confuse him—or perhaps just a private joke of Crow’s, a reference to the boatmaker’s obsession. After the boatmaker was safely on the New Land, Rademacher must have delivered Crow and White to Father Robert, to shut them up—and impress the boatmaker with how far the New Land was willing to go on his behalf.

  As these puzzle pieces fall into place, another memory rises to the surface of the boatmaker’s mind. He remembers Father Robert telling him about how the Crown’s debt to the House of Lippsted had been split up into many slivers to conceal it from the people. He recalls how excited and angry the priest was as he talked about the connivance between the king and Jacob Lippsted. Now he realizes the priest was sharing secrets that must have come from the network of spies and informers run by Rademacher. And he sees that the New Land and The Brotherhood are closely joined in a dangerous conspiracy that reaches all the way to the palace itself.

  Now that his eyes have been opened, the boatmaker would like to stay and think over everything he’s learned. But he can’t. He must move. Though the city is quiet in its hangover of self-loathing, this calm won’t last.

  He undresses and straps the sealskin bag to his body before putting his clothes back on. He goes to the wardrobe, opens it and takes out the black suit, shirt, tie and the strangely feminine shoes and socks. He wraps the suit in one of his sheets and knots the sheet in a bundle.

  The map on the back of the second page of Rachel’s letter is drawn with Eriksson’s mathematical precision. They are in a forest located to the south and east, toward the European border, in a region where the boatmaker has never been. He memorizes the map before gathering up the envelopes and the closely written pages that were delivered in them.

  He kneels on the floor, puts the letters down and lights them. They blaze in a tiny holocaust, words vanishing into transparent blue, yellow and white flame. He makes sure nothing in the room catches fire, then crushes the ash.

  He picks up Crow’s notebook, which is too big to burn. He will find a place to drop it in the river and let the brown tide of Vashad carry Crow’s scratches—his calculations of loyalty and its opposite—to the sea.

  He goes down the stairs between the ancestors of this house and out into a city sleeping off its blood sacrifice and burnt offerings.

  On the wall around the Lippsted compound someone has written in red paint Our sacred land. Scattered around the large red letters are offensive names for Jews. Down in one corner of the wall the boatmaker sees The Sons of Vashad, written in yellow paint. It must be another organization, one whose name he hasn’t heard before.

  In the compound the ashes are smoking. The warren of workshops clustered around the townhouse is gone. The workshops were wood. They burned easily, leaving nothing but foundations, in some places not even those. The boatmaker can see clear across to the rear wall, ordinarily a ten-minute walk through a tangle of outbuildings. On the ground, from one wall to the other, a layer of f
ine gray ash covers remnants of what would not burn: tools, glass, metal. The façade of the townhouse is still standing. Through openings where the windows were, the boatmaker can see the endless summer sky.

  Careful to avoid the smoldering rubble, he picks his way through to where his storeroom was, feeling the heat through the soles of his boots. The storeroom is gone, only an outline of the foundation remaining. Where he left the secretary, he sees bits of burned canvas and a few gray outlines of the desk. He touches the gray with the toe of his boot and it dissolves into ash, lifted across the compound by the breeze.

  The boatmaker wonders whether Eriksson saw his work before it burned. Probably not. There was the commotion around the race, and afterward the mob. The foreman could hardly have had time to go into the storeroom and examine the boatmaker’s personal project. The boatmaker feels a deep disappointment, thinking of all the work that went into the secretary and the fact that Sven Eriksson will never see it to give it his blessing.

  Then his disappointment lifts. What he made was good. He doesn’t need anyone’s approval to know that.

  From outside the wall come voices, low and rough, of men recovering from the convulsion of the night before. He walks through the gap in the wall where the gate stood. He looks both ways and sets out, boots on a street of the capital, where a thousand cords of wealth and power are braided into one.

  CHAPTER 25

  The city the boatmaker passes through as he leaves is mostly empty. But here and there groups of men roam the streets, some looking for stores to loot, others wandering, looking for leaders to tell them what to do next on this unsettled morning. Some of the men wear black armbands with a symbol the boatmaker hasn’t seen before. Inside a white disc sits a crimson triangle. At each of its three corners is one of Vashad’s blackbirds, dark and crude.