Foe (15 page)

make
of him. Therefore the silence of Friday is a helpless silence. He is
the child of his silence, a child unborn, a child waiting to be born
that cannot be born. Whereas the silence I keep regarding Bahia and
other matters is chosen and purposeful: it is my own silence. Bahia,
I assert, is a world in itself, and Brazil an even greater world.
Bahia and Brazil do not belong within an island story, they cannot be
cramped into its confines. For instance: In the streets of Bahia you
will see Negro women bearing trays of confections for sale. Let me
name some few of these confections. There are
pamonhas
or Indian corn-cakes;
quimados
,
made of sugar, called in French bon-bons;
pão
de milho
,
spongecake made with corn, and
pão
de arroz
,
made with rice; also
rolete
de cana
or sugar-cane roll. These are the names that come to me; but there
are many others, both sweet and savoury, and all to be found on a
single confectioner's tray on the corner of any street. Think how
much more there is of the strange and new in this vigorous city,
where throngs of people surge through the streets day and night,
naked Indians from the forests and ebony Dahomeyans and proud
Lusitanians and half-breeds of every hue, where fat merchants are
borne in litters by their slaves amid processions of ftagellants and
whirling dancers and food-vendors and crowds on their way to
cock-fights. How can you ever close Bahia between the covers of a
book? It is only small and thinly peopled places that can be
subjugated and held down in words, such as desert islands and lonely
houses. Besides, my daughter is no longer in Bahia but is gone into
the interior, into a world so vast and strange I can hardly conceive
it, a world of plains and plantations such as the one Cruso left
behind, where the ant is emperor and everything is turned on its
head.

'I
am not, do you see, one of those thieves or highwaymen of yours who
gabble a confession and are then whipped off to Tyburn and eternal
silence, leaving you to make of their stories whatever you fancy. It
is still in my power to guide and amend. Above all, to withhold. By
such means do I still endeavour to be father to my story."

Foe
spoke. 'There is a story I would have you hear, Susan, from my days
as visitor to Newgate. A woman, a convicted thief, as she was about
to be led to the cart that would take her to Tyburn, asked for a
minister to whom to make her true confession; for the confession she
had made before, she said, was false. So the ordinary was summoned.
To him she confessed again the thefts for which she had stood
accused, and more besides; she confessed numerous impurities and
blasphemies; she confessed to abandoning two children and stifling a
third in the cot. She confessed a husband in Ireland and a husband
transported to the Carolinas and a husband with her in Newgate, all
alive. She detailed crimes of her young womanhood and crimes of her
childhood, till at last, with the sun high in the heavens and the
turnkey pounding at the door, the chaplain stilled her. "It is
hard for me to believe, Mrs -," he said, "that a single
lifetime can have sufficed for the commission of all these crimes.
Are you truly as great a sinner as you would have me believe?"
"If I do not speak the truth, reverend father," replied the
woman (who was Irish, I may say), "then am I not abusing the
sacrament, and is that not a sin worse even than those l have
confessed, calling for further confession and repentance? And if my
repentance is not truly felt (and is it truly felt?-I look into my
heart and cannot say, so dark is it there), then is my confession not
false, and is that not sin redoubled?" And the woman would have
gone ·on confessing and throwing her confession in doubt all
day long, till the carter dozed and the pie-men and the crowds went
home, had not the chaplain held .up his hands and in a loud voice
shriven the woman, over all her protestations that her story was not
done, and then hastened away.'

'Why
do you tell me this story?' I asked. 'Am I the woman whose time has
come to be taken to the gallows, and are you the chaplain?'

'You
are free to give to the story what application you will,' Foe
replied. 'To me the moral of the story is that there comes a time
when we must give reckoning of ourselves to the world, and then
forever after be content to hold our peace.'

'To
me the moral is that he has the last word who disposes over the
greatest force. I mean the executioner and his assistants, both great
and small. If I were the Irishwoman, I should rest most uneasy in my
grave knowing to what interpreter the story of my last hours has been
consigned.'

'Then
I will tell you a second story. A woman (another woman) was condemned
to die-I forget the crime. As the fatal day approached she grew more
and more despairing, for she could find no one to take charge of her
infant daughter, who was with her in the cell. At last one of her
gaolers, taking pity on her distress, spoke with his wife, and
together they agreed they would adopt the child as their own. When
this condemned woman saw her child safe in the arms of her
foster-mother, she turned to her captors and said: "Now you may
do with me as you wish. For I have escaped your prison; all you have
here is the husk of me" (intending, I believe, the husk that the
butterfly leaves behind when it is born). This is a story from the
old days; we no longer handle mothers so barbarously. Nevertheless,
it retains its application, and the application is: There are more
ways than one of living eternally.

'Mr
Foe, I do not have the skill of bringing out parables one after
another like roses from a conjurer's sleeve. There was a time, I
grant, when I hoped to be famous, to see heads turn in the street and
hear folk whisper, "There goes Susan Barton the castaway."
But that was an idle ambition, long since discarded. Look at me. For
two days I have not eaten. My clothes are in tatters, my hair is
lank. I look like a~ old woman, a filthy old gipsy-woman. I sleep in
doorways, in churchyards, under bridges. Can you believe this
beggar's life is what I desire? With a bath and new clothes and a
letter of introduction from you I could tomorrow find myself a
situation as a cook-maid, and a comfortable situation too, in a good
house. I could return in every respect to the life of a substantial
body, the life you recommend. But such a life is abject. It is the
life of a thing. A whore used by men is used as a substantial body.
The waves picked me up and cast me ashore on an island, and a year
later the same waves brought a ship to rescue me, and of the true
story of that year, the story as it should be seen in God's great
scheme of things, I remain as ignorant as a newborn babe. That is why
I cannot rest, that is why I follow you to your hiding-place like a
bad penny. Would I be here if I did not believe you to be my
intended, the one alone intended to tell my true story?

'Do
you know the story of the Muse, Mr Foe? The Muse is a woman, a
goddess, who visits poets in the night and begets stories upon them.
In the accounts they give afterwards, the poets say that she comes in
the hour of their deepest despair and touches them with sacred fire,
after which their pens, that have been dry, flow. When I wrote my
memoir for you, and saw how like the island it was, under my pen,
dull and vacant and without life, I wished that there were such a
being as a man-Muse, a youthful god who visited authoresses in the
night and made their pens flow. But now I know better. The Muse is
both goddess and begetter. I was intended not to be the mother of my
story, but to beget it. It is not I who am the intended, but you. But
why need I argue my case? When is it ever asked of a man who comes
courting that he plead in syllogisms? Why should it be demanded of
me?'

Foe
made no reply, but crossed the room to the curtained alcove and
returned with a jar. 'These are wafers made with almond-paste after
the Italian fashion,' he said. 'Alas, they are all I have to offer.'

I
took one and tasted it. So light was it that it melted on my tongue.
'The food of gods,' I remarked. Foe smiled and shook his head. I held
out a wafer to Friday, who languidly took it from my hand. 'The boy
Jack will be coming shortly,' said Foe; 'then I will send him out for
our supper.'

A
silence fell. I gazed out at the steeples and rooftops. 'You have
found yourself a fine retreat,' I said 'a true eagle's-nest. I wrote
my memoir by candlelight in a windowless room, with the paper on my
knee. Is that the reason, do you think, why my story was so dull
-that my vision was blocked, that I could not see?'

'It
is not a dull story, though it is too much the same,' said Foe.

'It
is not dull so long as we remind ourselves it is true. But as an
adventure it is very dull indeed. That is why you pressed me to bring
in the cannibals, is it not?' Foe inclined his head judiciously this
way and that. 'In Friday here you have a living cannibal,' I pursued.
'Behold. If we are to go by Friday, cannibals are no less dull than
Englishmen.' 'They lose their vivacity when deprived of human flesh,
I am sure,' replied Foe.

There
was a tap at the door and the boy came in who had guided us to the
house. 'Welcome, Jack!' called Foe.. 'Mistress Barton, whom you·
have met, is to dine with us, so will you ask for double portions?'
He took out his purse and gave Jack money. 'Do not forget Friday,' I
put in. 'And a portion for Friday the manservant too, by all means,'
said Foe. The boy departed. 'I found Jack among the waifs and orphans
who sleep in the ash-pits at the glassworks. He is ten years old, by
his reckoning, but already a notable pick-pocket.' 'Do you not try to
correct him?' I inquired. 'To make him honest would be to condemn him
to the workhouse,' said Foe-'Would you see a child in the workhouse
for the sake of a few handkerchiefs?' 'No; but you are training him
for the gallows,' I replied -'Can you not take him in and teach him
his letters and send him out as an apprentice?' 'If I were to follow
that advice, how many apprentices would I not have sleeping on my
floor, whom I have saved from the streets?' said Foe -'I should be
taken for a thief-master and sent to the gallows myself. Jack has his
own life to live, better than any I could devise for him.' 'Friday
too has a life of his own,' I said; 'but I do not therefore turn
Friday out on the streets.' 'Why do you not?' said Foe. 'Because he
is helpless,' said I -'Because London is strange to him. Because he
would be taken for a runaway, and sold, and transported to Jamaica.'
'Might he not rather be taken in by his own kind, and cared for and
fed?' said Foe -'There are more Negroes in London than you would
believe. Walk along Mile End Road on a summer's afternoon, or in
Paddington, and you will see. Would Friday not be happier among other
Negroes? He could play for pennies in a street band. There are many
such strolling bands. I would make him a present of my flute.'

I
glanced across at Friday. Did I mistake myself, or was there a gleam
of understanding in his eye? 'Do you understand what Mr Foe says,
Friday?' I called. He looked back at me dully.

'Or
if we had mops in London, as they have in the west country,' said
Foe, 'Friday could stand in the line with his hoe on his shoulder and
be hired for a gardener, and not a word be passed!

Jack
now returned, bearing a covered tray from which came an appetizing
smell. He set the tray down on the table and whispered to Foe. 'Allow
us a few minutes, then show them up,' said Foe; and to me: 'We have
visitors, but let us eat first:

Jack
had brought roast beef and gravy, together with a threepenny loaf and
a pitcher of ale. There being only the two plates, Foe and I ate
first, after which I filled my plate again and gave it to Friday.

There
was a knock. Foe opened the door. The light fell on the girl I had
left in Epping Forest; behind her in the shadows was another woman.
While I yet stood dumbstruck the girl crossed the room and put her
arms about me and kissed me on the cheek. A coldness went through me
and I thought I would fall to the floor. 'And here is Amy,' said the
girl -'Amy, from Deptford, my nurse when I was little. There was a
pounding in my ears, but I made myself face Amy. I saw a slender,
pleasant-faced woman of my age, with fair curls showing under her
cap. 'I am happy to make your acquaintance,' I murmured; 'but I am
sure I have never set eyes on you before in my life.

Someone
touched my arm. It was Foe: he led me to the chair and made me sit
and gave me a glass of water. 'It is a passing dizziness,' I said. He
nodded.

'So
we are all together,' said Foe. 'Please be seated, Susan, Amy.' He
indicated the bed. The boy Jack stood at Foe's side staring curiously
at me. Foe lit a second lamp and set it on the mantel. 'In a moment
Jack will fetch coals and make a fire for us, will you not, Jack?'
'Yes, sir,' said Jack.