by L. A. Lewis
I was “travelling’ in the neighbourhood, as I have already stated, one of the numerous things I had tried since the War with fairly consistent non-success.
My parents had been killed in an air-raid, and the paternal capital, once of comforting dimensions, was brightening the life of Russia hence a series of diverse and badly-paid jobs, the one of the moment happening to be salesmanship. Like the rest, it appeared almost to have run its course, and, with about one order to my credit for a three weeks’ tour, I was anticipating the firm’s valediction at any moment. There was one more call to be made to complete my list for the district, and through it “The Tower of Moab” was first mentioned to me. I was directed to take a bus and dismount there for the shop I wanted. Feeling curious about the odd title of the place, I asked the conductor what it was, and was informed that some obscure, religious sect had started to build it, less than a century ago, with the idea of continuing its elevation until like Babel it should reach heaven. By all accounts funds had become exhausted and the monument was discontinued after attaining to a height of some two hundred feet. The cult had also died out, ostensibly for the same reason, but, owing to the phenomenal strength and massiveness of their handiwork, the cost of clearing the site for new buildings would not be justified. More than this my informant could not tell me, and having alighted there I caught my first glimpse of the Tower through a narrow alley between two blocks of houses - just the top part with its uneven sky-line, dentured as the workmen had left it, and with not even the dignity of age to tone down its crude yellow tint.
I had little difficulty’ in finding the required address, and encountered the usual reception. The proprietor was too busy to see me. Now, in my probationary week at the show-rooms I had been schooled in various methods of dealing with this form of passive resistance, and by the exercise of ‘Blandishments 1 to 5 on the Syllabus’ I finally succeeded in entering the Presence, who, clearly annoyed by the failure of his assistant to get rid of me, wasted some ten minutes of his valuable time in telling me that he was perfectly satisfied with existing supplies and was damned if he would open any fresh accounts - all with the most deliberate offensiveness. And this after I had toiled from place to place in grilling heat, lugging a heavy case of samples! Undoubtedly someone had upset the man earlier in the day, and I only mention him to illustrate how the reaction of one temperament to another may in turn affect a third, and how he was thus the unwitting link joining my former purely material life to that menacing shadow realm in which I now walk.
Thoroughly disgusted with his disheartening treatment, sick of genuine endeavour, and weary to the depths of my soul at the everlasting uncharitableness of mankind, I responded to an inherited trait which never obtruded itself on me in moments of success.
I walked straight from that shop into the nearest public house, threw my bag on a settee in the saloon bar and began to drink.
The room into which I had rather unnoticingly wandered was admirably suited to the mood that possessed me. In the first place it was empty, and, in the second its one tall window faced the counter, whilst in the corner between it and the fireplace was one of those rail backed, leather-covered settees, long enough to accommodate about three people. By occupying one end of this and using the other as a leg-rest I could enjoy the combined privileges of having the light at my back, standing my glass on the window-sill, commanding a good view of the barmaid for purposes of effortless replenishment, and deterring any chance newcomer from sitting sufficiently near me to start a conversation. Though by no means a misanthrope, I was never one of those gregarious souls who expand in direct ratio with the number of their immediate neighbours.
That day in particular, discouraged by years of drudgery, and furiously angry7 with the object of my last visit, I wanted above all things to be left alone, and it was with relief that I saw the barmaid surreptitiously produce some paper-backed ‘thriller’ from under the counter, as soon as she had served me my drink. I had chosen to sit with my face in the shadow because I realised that I was in all likelihood scowling like a stage villain, and it would have upset me inordinately had I thought the girl would observe it and imagine I was being theatrical. Neither did I wish her to see some unconscious mannerism displayed, leading to the suspicion that I was a common toper. I was sensitive on the point, for normally I had the craving well in hand until some rebuff brought out a spirit of savage recklessness from below the surface.
That Saturday morning in July I sat in the grimy little bar, gradually stimulating myself to the pitch when I could put away the petty irritations of my job, my lack of capital, and general burden of ill-luck, and rise into the Nirvana of concentrated, objective thought. Eight or nine double Scotches served to bring this about, save for a dull resentment that fate should compel me to take my pleasures in so squalid a place, instead of in the dignity and comfort of some stately country home. I glanced furtively at my reflection in the overmantel mirror to make sure that my features were suitably composed and showed no trace of what I had consumed before strolling to the counter to study a time-table. As I did so, I caught a reflection on the opposite pavement, and above, through the same alley I had previously noticed, an angle of The Tower of Moab, shining vivid yellow in a watery gleam of sunlight.
What an extraordinary conception it was, to be sure, for a group of almost present-day people to indulge. I thought over the bus conductor’s summary and half decided to broach the subject to Hebe in the hope of gleaning further data, but decided that it would probably elicit more small-talk than I wanted. Anyway, I already possessed the main facts, which were enough food for speculation. I tried to recall the story of Babel from the Old Testament, but found that, after the fashion of post-war Europe, I had so long neglected church-going and religious discourse that most of it had faded from my memory in common with Jonah, David and Goliath, and the rest of the Sunday School favourites. Assuming, though, that Babel was historical fact and not a myth, I could fancy the relatively ignorant people of that time attempting to reach the sky under the impression that it was solid, but how anyone could entertain such a notion after balloonists had disproved it, was beyond my comprehension. I myself had been a scout pilot in the Flying Corps, and in the habit of flying at altitudes of more than twenty thousand feet, and the whimsical idea struck me that plans for a tower at least fifty thousand feet in height would be needed to persuade an airman that there was still territory to explore. Though no architect, I realised the hopelessness of designing a base that would stand the weight, and further supposed that the Earth’s rotation would bend such an edifice like a whisker. No doubt, though, there had been and still were plenty of fools who would give money for a project of this kind through their ignorance of mechanical laws, especially in the name of a religious belief. One could, in fact, picture the founder of the creed. Elder, or whatever he called himself (almost certainly in the building and contracting line), collecting subscriptions with his tongue in his cheek and telling his disciples that in a matter of fortz years they could enter Paradise without the painful necessity of dying.
I decided to go out and have a closer look at the means.
When I finally stood at the base of the Tower and gazed up at it, I was chiefly struck by the incongruity of its surroundings. It was the sort of erection one would have looked for on some windswept and desolate hill where its devotees could get the atmosphere of walking with God in the high places; and yet here, once approached, it was even more arresting in its ability to preserve a very real dignity, despite its prosaic background. Almost, indeed, one ceased to hear the traffic or to see anything beyond the mass of this gigantic hollow pillar. For that was its simple form - four walls with a base perhaps fifty yards square and forming a plain, vertical shaft. It had no interior decoration, neither was there evidence of galleries nor even a stairway. I wondered how the builders had raised the large blocks of masonry, and supposed they had hauled them up with ropes and pulleys.
If the inside of the shaft was uninterest
ing, the exterior most certainly made up for it; and passing out through one of the small archways in the base of the walls I crossed to one side of the island of wasteland in which it stood, and made a slow circuit of it.
Groups of dirty children were playing here and there among piles of old tins and rubble, and I saw a few slatternly women looking down at me from the windows of tenements which backed on to the shops and better-class houses of the street; but these hardly penetrated my consciousness, so absorbed was I in the huge scale designs which began nearly a hundred feet above my head. The ugly yellow colour that had first caught my eye was, I found, the pigment of some kind of cement, presumably very hard, since it showed little sign of cracking after seventy or eighty years of weather, and with this the whole was covered, forming a medium of tiers of elaborate moulding and scroll-work at intervals of ten feet. The upper portion of each wall blossomed into a panel at least fifty feet high, representing some scene out of Biblical history or The Revelations and executed in the same cement modelling. One looked like the Archangel Gabriel sounding the Last Trump with an immense horn, out of which poured a volume of Hebrew script, whilst round the comer on the next face, was a tumultuous scene so crowded with figures as to defy interpretation, but probably depicting the Day of Resurrection. What the others were I forget, but at all events each had the quality of impressing, partly by reason of its height from the ground, its gargantuan execution, and its literal reading of what I had always vaguely regarded as allegorical One gets something of this feeling from the prints in an old Family Bible in which the air is full of the most substantial-looking winged angels, and there is a pit full of demons in the foreground. I think that young children, being shown such things, go about thereafter expecting to meet them.
I had been gazing up at the figures and ruminating along such lines for longer than I realised when the Tower of Moab worked its first spell on me. The sun was now shining with considerable heat and brilliance after a mostly overcast and showery morning, and if it was this, coupled with the amount of whisky I had consumed, or was just the effect of staring too long against the bright sky, I did not know, but I experienced one of those alarming optical phenomena which one associates with liver disorders, and found a sort of blackness descending on all objects to left and right, bringing an instant feeling of faintness and causing my eyes to water violently. It only lasted a moment, during which I steadied myself on my stick with the natural instinct not to attract attention by collapsing in public. But in that instant came a swiftly passing and awful sense of despair, and the words rushed into my head, ‘My God. It does reach to Heaven!’
Exactly why that thought arose I cannot possibly say, for at that time I am positive my eyes had registered nothing supernatural. Most probably it was the inner working of intuition warning me of something monstrous and intimately bound up with my life.
Having now missed two trains and feeling that one place was as good as another for a lonely weekend, I decided to remain where I was until the Monday morning and then catch an early train to get me to the office by nine o’clock. This move would save me the trouble of posting the firm that night, as I should be able to forestall the mail and make my report personally.
I may as well also admit to a desire to complete what I had begun in the public-house without the staling effect of an interruption, for it has always been my way after starting an orgy to finish the job properly. The craving, in fact, which is non-existent for the first three or four drinks, appears strongly after half a dozen.
My problem was to secure a room at a place where I could get as much as I wanted to drink without having to fetch it, and without the necessity of smuggling it to bed and pleading sickness. The notion of lying in bed to take whisky robs the beverage of its whole charm, nor do I care about having it in a bedroom at all, even sitting up and fully dressed. A licensed hotel, therefore, appeared the best solution, and, at that, one of the largest places, where an ample staff would supply me legally at any hour without raising its eyebrows. But, as it transpired, I was saved the bother of a search, for, on returning to my first port of call in time to ‘wedge a couple’ before the closing hour, the landlord said he could give me a top room for as long as I liked, with access to his second floor private sitting-room which, he told me, he never used. Of course, the place was not residential, but this suited me all the better, as I ran no risk of bumping into acquaintances, whilst the saving of money was a consideration, the landlord being a sportsman and agreeing to the moderate figure of three shillings for the night. Being, moreover, a publican, he would not care what I drank provided that I did not become a nuisance.
Having heard a few tap-room customers depart and seen all the street doors locked, I followed him up to the sitting-room, which proved to be quite a comfortable place, well carpeted and with some good armchairs, where I proceeded to establish myself in the right way by ordering a bottle of whisky and two glasses. My normal manner of reserve being now dissipated by my previous potations, I was able to keep him thoroughly amused for quite an hour, and I feel sure he took it in the right spirit, when, at the end of that period, I tactfully explained that I did a lot of writing in my spare time and would like to be left pretty much alone for the rest of that day and Sunday. This would allow me full rein for my greatest relaxation, slowly stimulating my thoughts to farther and farther flights till I felt like a colossus of wisdom dominating the Globe, but with no fear of those irritating interruptions occasioned, for instance, by well-meaning people saying it is cold for the time of year just when I am nearing a conclusion on the possibilities of Mormonism as a workable social basis.
As my new friend went out, I asked him with studied casualness to send me up another bottle, adding that I was accustomed to it, and that it clarified my mind wonderfully for my work. I think he was sincere in replying that he took his hat off to a gentleman who could put it away like me, and reflected that the barmaid must have mentioned my morning session, since I had only had half a bottle in his company. This, I admit, tickled my vanity, for I consider fighting the stupefying effect of alcohol to be about the finest test of will-power.
Hitherto, I had had no ill results, my constitution throwing off a carouse reliably and well. Hence, it annoyed me to find on crossing the room that, on this occasion, there was evidently something wrong with my liver.
The Tower of Moab loomed in full view above the opposite house by reason of my two-storey climb, and, as I glanced across and took in a general impression of its yellow mass against an indefinite blue background streaked with smoke, once more the pall of blackness crept in from the tail of my eyes, leaving nothing else in the picture. Then a great flash of brilliant white light seemed to spread fan-wise from the bridge of my nose, and through it and among it, to my distorted vision, the Tower seemed to grow beyond all dimensions of human conception, until it reared its ragged neck illimitably into the sky’s vault. Next, numberless bright stars fell slowly, curtain like, between me and it, and the moment after, I was back in a chair, seeing the room as usual and controlling, for the benefit of the girl who appeared with my next bottle, a desire to breathe gustily through the mouth. I fancied, however, that she looked at me queerly as she withdrew, as though awaiting something, and my next actions would, I think, have proved interesting to any observer. They fascinated one half of my own mind, which was just then studying my body’s movements with an introspective, but amazingly lucid detachment.
I waited until the servant’s footfalls had receded into the distance, and then walked quietly up to my bedroom, where I carefully washed my face and hands in cold water before returning to the sitting-room and uncorking the fresh bottle of whisky. This done, I poured out a tumbler full of the neat spirit, placed it carefully on the table, and moved across to a hanging mirror in which I studied myself, and more particularly my eyes, for several minutes. The mirror reflected my face clearly without blurring, and showed that the eyes were steady and the pupils neither unduly dilated nor contracted. Next, I pick
ed up a newspaper and methodically read a paragraph of small type while holding it at arm’s length. Satisfied with the result of these tests, I recrossed to the window, where I must have remained staring upwards for at least ten minutes, at the end of which I again seated myself, picked up my glass of whisky and settled down to face the greatest problem of my life.
And it was a problem indeed, for, whilst after my strange optical illusion all other objects within the room and outside had resumed their usual aspect. The Tower of Moab had not! It remained, as in that revealing moment it had grown, a colossal fantastic thing, rising infinitely high into the blue upper air from its foundations among the commonplace brick buildings and roofs of slate. And past it, to and fro along the drab pavements, went the inevitable crowd of shoppers and idlers - seeing nothing new. And to and fro likewise, in the midway of the road, went trams, buses, taxis and private cars, their occupants intent upon their immediate purposes, moving as ever importantly about their business, unaware of the great unearthly column that now towered above them like the finger of God uplifted in warning.
I forget whether it was that evening or in the small hours of the Sunday morning that I reached my decision to stay on and learn more of this awful and stupendous thing of which I had been granted vision. Certainly it was on the Sunday afternoon that I took pen and paper and wrote to my employers, furnishing an account of my calls for the week and pointing out that I had realised my incompetence for the task which they had set me, and therewith tendering my resignation in fairness to themselves. As a sop to my conscience, and to carry out the gesture which it seemed essential to their recognition of my integrity, I enclosed a cheque to the value of two weeks’ wages with an apology for leaving them without due notice. This they returned, as I supposed, in that spirit of pique which is even more peculiar to the dignity of a limited liability company than to that of an individual. To my landlord I explained that my departure would be indefinitely postponed owing to the praiseworthy privacy of his rooms which permitted me to concentrate on my literary work better than I had been able to do elsewhere. I fancy he was flattered, and, in any case, he was not likely to wish me to go, since I had paid a week in advance and was at pains to see that no disturbance took place even when, at intervals, alcohol got the better of me, as it was bound to do under such conditions of mental strain.