The Red Door

by Iain Crichton Smith

  They locked him up in an asylum and because he could not bear to be parted from his case they let him have it. Now and again he will set off with it on a journey to the centre of the room or round the walls but always he will come back to the centre and sit down on the case. They haven’t even bothered to remove the clothes from it though they did in fact take away the razor which was a cut-throat one and which, of course, he is never allowed to use now.

  The Old Man

  In our village there lived an old man who had a white beard and the apparent peace and tranquillity of a character out of the Bible. He stayed by himself and as far as one could tell never read books or did physical work. Over the years he had been accepted as the wisest man in the village, though no one quite knew how old he was or even much about his past. People used to take their problems to him and if he solved them, as he nearly always did one way or another, they would bring him gifts such as crowdie or butter or fish or meat. In fact, I think that he lived entirely off these presents. He didn’t seem at all concerned with material things and unlike the rest of the villagers did nothing to improve his house which was simple, unpretentious, and always clean. His solutions to problems were often surprising and I often felt that behind his serene look there lay a joker who contrived to create interesting situations out of sheer high-spirited devilment. At other times his solutions had an interesting severity and rigour and contained an element of the unexpected. For instance . . .

  There was another village beside ours. Our principal source of fuel was peat which was cut in the spring and stacked later. These peat banks were situated on the boundaries between the villages and the other village often claimed that by cutting peats we were in fact invading their territory. Sometimes for one reason or another there were quarrels between the villages and the men of the other village would wage a war of nerves saying that they wouldn’t allow us to have any peat. In actual fact, I think that the other village was right in its claims and that all the peat banks did belong legally to them though the case was never judged.

  One particular spring there was a lot of rancour and it looked as if there might be a physical battle. The men in our village who had a sense of responsibility were worried as the people in the other village were threatening that they would come out in strength to defend their peat banks to the death, and use force if necessary. Naturally in this situation it was decided that we should go and consult the Old Man who would advise us, as we knew that he had a trick of turning a problem over on itself so that it sparkled with a novel solution. So a group of us went to see him. He listened to us for a long time as we explained what he already knew, that without peat the village would be in extreme difficulty in the winter when the cold weather came. On the other hand we did not want to pay money to the people of the other village for the peat, as that would create a precedent, and suggest that they were wholly in the right. Also we didn’t want any violence which might be repeated every year if it happened once. We put our arguments at great length for we were really worried.

  There was with us at the meeting a little man called Tommy who was slightly touched in the head and who suffered intensely from the cold. Even on the hottest days he would sit by the fire and we knew that he would suffer the most of all. He lived with his sister in a dirty house in apparent harmony for his sister was more sensible than he was, though she has a habit of wearing fishermen’s jerseys. During the meeting Tommy kept muttering, shrugging his shoulders as he did so (for this was a nervous habit that he had), ‘What will I do? What will I do? I will die of the cold.’ Though we suspected that what he was saying was the truth we also found him funny and there were smiles on the grave faces round the room.

  After a while the Old Man said, ‘When two forces which are both aggressive meet each other there is only one thing that can solve the problem without bloodshed.’ He looked at us as if he wondered whether we ourselves had seen the solution but all of us gazed at him with blank faces. Eventually he said, ‘That thing is the comic. What you must do is make the other side laugh.’

  We stared at each other in amazement till one of us said, ‘How can we do that? We don’t feel like laughing.’

  ‘I will tell you,’ said the Old Man, ‘what you must do. As the two groups approach each other, you from one side and the people from the other village on the other side, and as you threaten each other and appear very frightening, and as you may even be carrying weapons, what you will do is this. You will instruct Tommy here to remove his trousers in full view of all. The other side will be so flummoxed by this comic answer to their threats and will grow so confused that first they will not know what to do (since who would attack a man without trousers?), then they will burst into laughter for, as anyone can see, Tommy has particularly knobbly knees and one can see from the clothes line that his sister puts out that he wears very long woollen drawers with patches on them. That’s my answer to the problem. You will have to persuade Tommy to do this yourselves.’

  Naturally Tommy was indignant and shaking his shoulders and thrusting forward his red nose like a cockerel he maintained that he would do no such thing. The minister also at first appeared to think that the whole suggestion was immoral, but when it was pointed out that neither of them, in common with the rest of the village, would get any heat for the following year if they did not give the help that was required they both eventually agreed.

  The following day everything turned out as the Old Man had forecast. We, that is the men of the village, went out with our peat cutters across the moor but when we arrived at the banks we found drawn up against us a long line of grim silent men determined to defend their territory to the end. It was, I remember, a fine spring morning with a lot of dew sparkling on the blades of grass and when one looked at the works of nature around one felt it silly that men should constitute such a disharmony as to be acting in such a childish manner, since after all there was enough peat for everybody. But of course human kind is made in this fashion that at certain times it wishes to quarrel and if it can’t find a reasonable bone to quarrel over will invent an imaginary even spiritual one.

  Now there emerged from the opposing group a big big man who looked very frightening indeed and who told us in a very loud voice, after first drawing his hand across his nose and wiping it in an insulting manner, that it was time that we went home and that if we didn’t do so we would be dealt with in a very drastic not to say brutal mode. At that very moment Tommy ran forward from our group and faced him, looking up at him as if from a great depth, shrugging his shoulders and twitching his neck. He looked so comic that we could see some of the people on the other side smiling and really it was very funny. Tommy shrugging his shoulders and seeming so daft staring up at this huge boulder of a man like a hen looking up at a mountain. But when the Goliath took a threatening step forward and Tommy began to dance a mocking dance which concluded with his removing his trousers to show very long dirty woollen pants with holes in them, the men on both sides were rolling about, some of them clutching their bellies in actual pain from the laughter. Then we knew that the quarrel was over, at least for the time, and indeed it was. For that year at least we were allowed to carry on with our peat cutting. Perhaps next year again we would have to invent something new, but on that morning we didn’t think as far ahead as that, as we cut the life-saving peat. Tommy of course was given extra peat since after all he had placed its acquisition before his honour, and the Old Man was supplied with all his needs for a whole year as well.

  Another problem that was brought to him he tackled in a different though perhaps less successful manner. There lived in our village a handsome schoolteacher who was married to a large-breasted serene girl who had very little to say for herself. The schoolteacher was dark-haired and smooth and had a suave manner of talking such that he could have charmed, as they say, the birds off the trees. Indeed before he got married he was in the habit of going about with a lot of girls and many of the fathers had written him letters at various times telling him
that if he didn’t lay off their daughters he would be beaten up one dark night. After his marriage he seemed to have quietened down and led as far as one could judge an exemplary life. He no longer went to dances and confined his work to the school. His wife too seemed happy in her own quiet way. His wife was the daughter of a Roddy Macleod who worked on the roads, hammering away at stones contentedly all the day long. There was some difficulty however with the couple as they didn’t have any children and this set some of the tongues of the villagers wagging, wondering which of the two was to blame for this. However, as I said, they seemed quite happy though it was often wondered why he had married her in the first place since she didn’t have much to say for herself. She spent a lot of her time working at a loom making woollen things which she sold to the villagers. She also had a cow from which she got milk, and her house was always spick and span.

  However, this idyll was to end, for there returned to the village after a long absence at university a clever handsome girl who took a post at the school. She was a very blonde, beautiful girl who liked to be in the limelight and who was a considerable number of years younger than the schoolmaster. It was noticeable after a while that the two of them spent a lot of their time after school together on what the schoolmaster said was necessary documentation though in fact up till the time of her arrival he had been one of the first out of the gates when the final whistle went. This girl, I must say, though beautiful, had a very bright calculating mind and she must have decided that if she could take the schoolmaster away from his wife she could make something of him and that the two of them would go away together. The problem was that it would be difficult for either of them to be long enough together to get to know each other well since, as one must understand, in a village everyone watches everyone else under a very intense neighbourly microscope.

  But it was quite clear to everyone that the schoolmaster still retained a great deal of his charm which had a slight air of dissoluteness about it, and that this girl had been attracted by it like a butterfly to an old lamp. After all there was no one in the village as clever as she and the other girls didn’t like her, so she had to have someone to be with. Furthermore she had a certain position in the village which made the girls doubly jealous, both of her beauty and her superior rank.

  The wife one day came along to see the Old Man and placed the problem before him. He listened gravely especially after she had laid an offering on the table for him. This was a beautiful blue jersey that she had knitted.

  ‘Tell me, Helen,’ he said, ‘how far would you go to keep your husband?’

  ‘As far as possible,’ she answered serenely, and with total faith. ‘There is nothing that I would not do to keep him.’

  ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘there is one thing that you can do. You have no children and the people of the village gossip about it. Tell me, is it your fault or his?’

  She blushed and then said, ‘I think it must be his.’

  ‘I suspected as much,’ said the Old Man. ‘These rakes are always the same. What therefore you must do is put about the village the story that your husband is impotent. The other woman will hear of this and will have nothing to do with him. He is impotent, I take it?’ he said.

  ‘He is,’ said Helen. ‘I will do that for I do not want anyone else to have him.’ The Old Man looked at her sadly for she appeared serene and in her way beautiful. Her eyes however had a strong resolute look such as he had often seen in the eyes of children.

  The story was put about the village as the Old Man advised. The schoolteacher heard it naturally but the result was not to make things harmonious or return the marriage to its original state. The beautiful girl did in fact leave the village which she should have done long before since her open ruthless intelligence was not suited to the subtle deviousness of village ways, but the husband at first took to drink and then left the village as well. Helen was left alone but later married a large serene fisherman, and had three children in as many years.

  I often wondered about this solution but the Old Man would never discuss any of his judgments and I never found out the thinking behind this one except that he once said, ‘Any woman who could say that her husband was impotent was obviously not happily married in the first place no matter whether she thought she was or not. She had clearly mistaken habit for happiness.’ And since he was the Old Man, no one questioned him further. I must say that for myself I have a sneaking feeling of pity for the husband who had obviously not known his wife at all and had mistaken serenity for acceptance. People who talk as much as he did should obviously listen more.

  I shall give one more example of his solutions to problems. One winter there happened to ravage the whole island an epidemic of ’flu. So bad was it that no house was exempt; any house might have three or four cases. The one district doctor was exhausted racing from one house to another, being called in the middle of the night, lacking a sufficient supply of medicines. One day in a hurry and looking pale he came to the Old Man and laying his bag on a chair said: ‘I do not know what to do. This plague has reached crisis proportions and as you know it is a killer. People are dying all over the place. I have to decide which houses I shall go to first and I’m reaching the stage that I’m getting more and more confused. Some may have to die in order that others may live. I need advice. Perhaps if I told you of two cases you could tell me which one ought to survive. Well, for instance, there is that old woman Mrs Stewart whose husband has been dead, as you know, for many years. In spite of this she has been helpful, cheery and useful. She is, however, seventy years old and lives alone. She is friendly with everyone and all are astonished at her resilience. On the other hand there is young Fred Macrae whose father is an alcoholic, who is moody and depressed. His mother is a slatternly woman who seems totally unable to manage the house. These two are the most critical patients on my list at the moment, but which should I pay more attention to since there are so many more on my books? I am merely giving you two instances since I have other examples in other villages in my district. But the thing is that I’m getting confused. Sometimes I stagger about when I wake up in the morning and I don’t know where I am and I can’t think straight. I am tired all the time.’

  The Old Man said, ‘You want me to tell you which of these two to save since after all you may have to make a decision between the two of them? Justice is very hard and harder than mercy. Let me tell you a story about justice. Once upon a time there was a state called Sparta in Greece. Don’t look so impatient. It may save time in the long run. The Spartans of course were very fierce warriors with a high sense of honour and they would not return from defeats alive but rather dead on their shields. However once one of them did and he stayed in the village ostracised by the others. However when the Spartans went to war again he was the first to volunteer and fought like a madman. Everyone agreed that he had fought the most bravely but the prize was given to the second bravest man since after all he didn’t have the same motivation. That is an example of justice. The Greeks of course lived in smallish groups and didn’t romanticise as we do. If you ask me which of these two to save I would say the old woman.’

  The doctor looked at him in astonishment. ‘The fact is,’ said the Old Man, ‘that that boy will have a miserable unhappy life, son of an alcoholic and a slatternly mother. He will not recover from this upbringing. I’ve seen it happening before. So have you. The old woman on the other hand though she has been alone and widowed has never become embittered and has remained cheery and helpful. If she recovers from this ’flu she may live a good many years yet. Without doubt the villagers will look at her and say, “What a marvellous thing human nature is! There’s this old woman who has remained cheerful after bitter loss. Not only that, but she has recovered from ’flu. God must therefore be on her side.” ’

  ‘You at least are,’ said the doctor. The Old Man smiled but said little. ‘Anything,’ he said, ‘that helps to comfort our fallen nature is good, anything else is bad. That is why you should save the
old woman. She is a sign of hope.’

  The doctor looked at him for a long time and then said, ‘You are the wisest man I know, if you are a man at all. I will do that.’ Then, tired but not so confused, he almost ran out of the room. The Old Man poured himself out a small glass of wine and drank it slowly. His face seemed to become haggard and worn and he looked very old indeed. But when a knock came to the door he put the wine away in the cupboard, adjusted his expression, as it were, to one of serenity and said, ‘Come in.’ He did not wish people to know that he drank much wine for they would not respect him afterwards. That was why he smashed all the empty bottles before putting them in the bucket so that people would not know that they had been bottles at all. The poor people needed all the help and illusion they could get after the mess that had been made of things.

  The Prophecy

  I may say at the very beginning of this story that I am a very worried man for it had never occurred to me before that what is up there or somewhere around may very well be a joker. In fact to be perfectly honest I hadn’t believed that there was anything much around at all. Some years ago I came to live in this village in Scotland (I am by the way an Englishman and my name is Wells). I have no connection at all with the Highlands: I am not an alien exploiter either. I am just a man who like others was fed up of the rat race as it is called reasonably correctly. In fact I am (or perhaps was) a psychologist. I am not very much now. Brilliance in psychology as in everything else belongs to a youth of energy and fire and by leaving the rat race I suppose I was signalling those days were over for me even though I thought of myself somewhat in the manner of those Chinese exiles from court who used to drink wine and write little poems in the cold mountains while they gazed at the road they would never travel again. I am also unmarried.