Bellefleur (76 page)

The hellish thing is, they arrived late. The telegram said they were unavoidably delayed but I suspected fraud at once—
unavoidably delayed,
what kind of language is that for fruit pickers!

Sam picked it out, leafing through one of his magazines.

I
didn’t think they were behaving normally, when they first arrived. Wouldn’t look me in the eye. I’m out there in my overalls bare-headed in the sun, shaking hands and welcoming them back, making a fool of myself, ice water for everyone, noon meal ready, and they told me Barker wasn’t with them any longer, they mumbled and giggled and wouldn’t look me in the eye, then this cocky little bantam in the crimson shirt comes up to me, I’d noticed him watching me, whispering with his friends, he comes up and introduces himself, he’s Sam, he’s their elected representative, doesn’t even want to use the word
foreman
, he sticks out his hand and forces me to shake it . . .
he
sticks out
his
hand. . . .
Crimson
shirt, crinkly little mustache, hairs growing out of his nostrils and ears. I don’t suppose Ewan could arrest him?

Not until there’s violence. Until the fighting begins.

Is there going to be fighting?

Oh, they’ll attack our own workers—they’ll set fire to the barns—what the hell, they know we can’t stop them—they can sense the attitude you are all taking. Nothing escapes someone like Sam.

I think you are exaggerating. For one thing—

The negotiations are a ruse. What they really want is to bring us to our knees. The Bellefleurs, on our knees. They want to see us beg. Because they know they’ve got us: the fruit is ripe, the fruit is going to rot, we can’t handle things the way we used to.

Remove Sam, and they’d be as docile as ever.

It’s more than Sam, as I pointed out. It isn’t just Sam. There are even
women,
for Christ’s sake, who are angry about the situation. That jabbering, that shouting you hear—

I don’t hear anything.

But it isn’t just Sam. They want him to speak for them. It isn’t just Sam.

You exaggerate everything.

You
exaggerate.

There was a sound from the doorway, and they all glanced around to see, peering into the smoky room, old Jean-Pierre himself. He looked somewhat dazed; he was wearing a badly soiled silk dressing gown that hung loose on his emaciated body. Noel stood quickly, to offer his brother a chair, but the old man remained motionless, blinking.

Is there trouble? he whispered, clutching at the neck of his robe. Are we in danger?

Jean-Pierre, don’t be distressed. There isn’t any trouble, there isn’t any danger, nothing we can’t handle. Don’t upset yourself.

Fire? Someone is going to set a fire? To the castle? To us? Why? What will happen? What can we do?

There
isn’t
any trouble, Noel said, patting his brother’s shoulder. We have everything under control.

Jean-Pierre’s jaw trembled almost convulsively, and his clawlike fingers shook. His rheumy eyes darted from place to place but came to rest on no one, as if there were no one in the room he recognized.

Danger . . . ? he whispered. Here in Bellefleur Manor?

And then, to everyone’s surprise, the negotiations went fairly well.

Sam and two of his lieutenants came to the coachman’s lodge, and from 4:30 until well past midnight the situation was discussed: the demands for better living quarters, for better sanitation, for better food and drinking water, a legal contract, attorneys on both sides and a legal contract; and of course more money. One by one the points were contested and one by one they were conceded. It was only on the issue of money that they seriously disagreed: for Sam claimed that his people wanted a 200 percent increase in their hourly wage, and the Bellefleurs claimed that this was a lie.

That would break us, Noel said. You know that would break us.

Certainly it wouldn’t! Not
Bellefleur,
said Sam with a quick warm flashing smile.

So they argued, and occasionally raised their voices, and one of the Bellefleurs left the table snorting with disgust, and Sam himself, lightheaded with exhilaration, or audacity, or from having gone too long without eating, pounded on the table so hard his fake-gold ring left a mark on its gleaming surface. I will pay for this, he said wildly, I will buy a new table. . . . Don’t be absurd, one of the Bellefleurs said.

By 12:45 they had agreed on 160 percent. Which was very high. Which, Noel kept intoning, with as much grief as if it were true, will break us.

So they agreed, and shook hands, and Sam said he would call for a vote among his people in the morning, though he was absolutely certain the result would be positive (and then, he said with his leaping glinting smile, we can at last get to work—which is after all why we came); and the Bellefleurs promised to have their attorney on hand, and to arrange for another attorney, a presumably disinterested party, to represent the workers. By 1:00 
A.M.
Sam and his lieutenants had left, and the Bellefleurs went to the main house to drink themselves to sleep. Gideon, though he drank the most, was awake the longest, until nearly 5:00 
A.M.

He contemplated his maimed right hand. Was that the correct term,
maimed?
The little finger was missing; it was decidedly missing; one’s eye kept worrying the empty space, knowing something was wrong. There was ugly scar tissue where the dwarf had bitten him. It had been healing, like an ordinary scab, and should have simply flaked away, but for some reason it had turned into a substantial scar. It seemed, Gideon sometimes thought, as if it were growing.

Still, it was fascinating. What perverse little miracles the body could provide. . . .

THEN IN THE
morning Sam, with a mock-apologetic smile, announced that his people had vetoed the offer of a wage increase.

They had accepted, of course, the other offers; which were in fact their own demands; but they had refused the offer of 160 percent, and had instructed Sam to tell the Bellefleurs they would go no lower than 185 percent.

Vetoed the offer, Noel said faintly, and Hiram said in a jerky, incredulous voice, Vetoed! . . . that offer! Those scrubs and derelicts and whores and halfwits. . . .

Not only did they want higher wages, Sam said, his darkly tanned hands clasped before him, but they wanted several more things: free medical service on demand, insurance policies, private lavatories
in
the barracks and not outside, and ice water available in the orchards. He had had, he said with a droll smile, to talk them out of demanding a percentage of the Bellefleur’s profits—their net profits. They had been noisy about it, but he had overcome their wishes, as he’d overcome what he considered to be trivial demands (for telephones, stoves with ovens, refrigerators, swimming privileges in Lake Noir, the use of the Bellefleurs’ boats); but I was able to do so, he said, only by promising them that next year’s contract would include such things.

Next year’s contract! Noel said, pressing his hand to his chest.

—for after all, as I explained to them, raising my voice to them, Sam said, we have come here to
pick fruit,
and the fruit will soon rot or the birds will get it. Those lovely pears and peaches . . . and even the apples, too, are getting ripe. Not an hour to lose, when there are so many acres! I was very stern with them, Sam said.

Hiram staggered so that Jasper had to catch him in his arms. A percentage of the profits, Hiram whispered. The net profits. . . .

This will break us, Noel said. It has already broken us.

Gideon stood over Sam. He said, Now you know you’re lying: you don’t really expect us to believe this.

Sam pretended to cringe, grinning up at him.

You
know
this is absurd, Gideon said.

They are excited, they’ve been drinking, they have a will of their own, Sam said with a shrug of the shoulders.

It’s your will, it isn’t theirs—

See for yourself! Go and ask them yourself, if you know so much!

A percentage of the profits, Hiram whispered. The net profits. . . .

We don’t believe that vote, said Jasper. We challenge that vote.

Then you’ll see! Sam said. He waved his arms about, and his smile widened and contracted without ever deepening. He gave off a tart odor, wine and heat and sweat. The people have their own will, I am not their leader but only their spokesman,
I
can’t control them—I am the last person you should blame!

Gideon seized him by the shoulders and walked him to the door and shoved him out. Liar, Gideon said, extortionist.

Sam’s knees buckled and he nearly pitched forward into the drive. But he regained his balance, and straightened, and made a flurried little obscene gesture at Gideon.

Extortionist,
Gideon said.

Bellefleur,
Sam muttered, walking away without haste.

BUT IT SEEMED
that the workers were in earnest, and some of them believed that the strike had already begun; a small gang of children ran wild in the pear orchard, knocking pears off trees with clubs, trampling them underfoot, throwing them at one another. There were high shrill shrieks and outbursts of laughter and many of the workers, even those as young as twelve or thirteen, appeared to be half-intoxicated by nine in the morning.

They’re going to destroy us, Noel said.

It would only be the fruit harvest, wouldn’t it, Cornelia said. But she was white-faced, and sat huddled in her chair, an unconvincing wig slightly askew on her head. It needed a firm brushing: it looked as if mice were nesting in it.

The first loss will be the fruit, Noel said tonelessly, and then the wheat, and then the others, and the dairy farm too, and the property in Rockland, and the Falls, and the gypsum mine is a demonstrable failure, and the titanium may run out . . . or the miners will go on strike . . . yes, surely, they will go on strike . . . when they hear . . . when . . . when they hear of . . . when they hear of our humiliation.

If only Leah were well, Cornelia whispered.

Leah! Noel said. He blinked stupidly, as if, for some queer old-man reason, he had already given her up for dead.

WHEN THEY HEARD
of the workers’ astonishing decision, the young people announced at once that
they
would pick the fruit. Let the buses load up and haul those fools away, those lazy sons of bitches, the Bellefleurs would pick their own fruit, it was obviously such easy work.

Garth was most enthusiastic, but there were a number of others, many of them city children, houseguests for the summer, who crowded about him shouting with excitement. Nearly all the servants volunteered, as well, except of course for those who were too old; even Nightshade, despite his hump and his caved-in chest (which would, one might think, make reaching up to pick fruit a torture) seemed eager to begin. With rabble it is important to hold fast and never to surrender, not even an inch, he said excitedly, to whoever would listen.

So the young people led the way, trooping off into the orchards, not bothering with sun hats or gloves, making a game of it, whistling and singing and feinting at one another with the ladders as if they were battering rams. Their zeal was such, as they shouted up and down the rows of trees, and tossed fruit at one another, and climbed up into perilous positions high in the creaking limbs, that it was a full forty-five minutes (and the sun, though still far from noon, was blistering hot) before the first of them weakened: a Cinquefoil girl with a chubby high-colored skin that had gone alarmingly white. Oh, I think I’m going to faint, she murmured, dropping her quart basket of peaches so that it bounced on the rungs of her ladder.

And then rather quickly Vida grew faint (for it
was
terribly warm, and the sun beat so mercilessly through the leaves); and the younger Rush boy, who had overheated himself by scrambling up and down ladders, grabbing at ankles in play; and one of the kitchen girls, though she looked hearty and tireless as a young ox. They dropped their containers and let the peaches roll where they would, while the others jeered. Aren’t they lazy! Look at them! Aren’t they
soft!

But the sun was ferocious and no one was accustomed to such strangely hard work, for hadn’t picking fruit from a tree seemed easy, but then you were always reaching overhead, and your shoulder began to ache so quickly, and your hand, and then your legs, and sweat ran down your sides in trickles, and odd black blotches floated in the sunshine, and soon—and soon only Garth and Nightshade and a half-dozen of the domestic help remained in the orchard, grimly picking, hand over hand, as the sun climbed toward noon—and then only Garth and Nightshade remained—and then suddenly, at about three o’clock, Garth was seized by a terrible spell of vomiting, and that was the end for Garth. Nightshade would have probably continued to pick until dusk except for a misstep as he climbed his ladder, so that his right foot slipped forward and his left backward, and with a high-pitched terrified cry the poor little man fell into his ladder face-first and brought both ladder and container (and it was three-quarters filled with peaches) down on top of him. So that was the end of the picking for Nightshade.

What a disappointment it was, to see how little fruit they had picked . . . ! When the bushel baskets were emptied into one another, and lined up, there couldn’t have been more than three dozen of them; and much of the fruit, as Gideon saw, examining it, had been bruised.

Folly, thought Gideon. He straightened, the small of his back aching, and stared for a long moment into the massed foliage of the orchard, where so many hundreds, so many thousands, of ripe peaches hung. Folly, he thought, staring sightless at the sky.

HE FLED BELLEFLEUR.
He drove off in his dirt-splattered white Rolls coupe, accelerating at every turn, leaning over to rummage through the glove compartment for his flask. Though of course it was dangerous, though of course he could hear there was something wrong with the engine, something alarmingly wrong, but what folly, he thought, as the wind rushed against his face and whipped his hair back.