Every Man for Himself

Salim Awad smiled. He softly patted Tommy Hand’s broad young shoulder. “I weel have,” said he, slowly, desperately struggling with the language, “look out for heem. I am not can,” he added, with a little laugh, “do ver’ well.”

“Oh,” said the cook, patronizingly, “you’re able for it, Joe.”

“I am can try eet,” Salim answered, courteously bowing, much delighted. “Much ’bliged.”

Meantime Tommy had, of quick impulse, stripped off his jacket and boots. He made a ball of the jacket and tossed it to his father.

“What you about, Tommy?” the cook demanded. “Is you goin’ t’ swim?”

Tommy answered with the boots; whereupon he ran up and down the edge of the pan, and, at last, slipped like a reluctant dog into the water, where he made a frothy, ineffectual commotion; after which he sank. When he came to the surface Salim Awad hauled him inboard.

“You isn’t goin’ t’ try again, is you, Tommy?” the cook asked.

“No, sir.”

Salim Awad began to breathe again; his eyes, too, returned to their normal size, their usual place.

“No,” the cook observed. “’Tis wise not to. You isn’t able for it, lad. Now, you sees what comes o’ not mindin’ your dad.”

The jacket and boots were tossed back. Tommy resumed the jacket.

“Tommy,” said the cook, severely, “isn’t you got no more sense ’n that?”

“Please, sir,” Tommy whispered, “I forgot.”

“Oh, did you! Did you forget? I’m thinkin’, Tommy, I hasn’t been bringin’ of you up very well.”

Tommy stripped himself to his rosy skin. He wrung the water out of his soggy garments and with difficulty got into them again.

“You better be jumpin’ about a bit by times,” the cook advised, “or you’ll be cotchin’ cold. An’ your mamma wouldn’t like that,” he concluded, “if she ever come t’ hear on it.”

“Ay, sir; please, sir,” said the boy.

They waited in dull patience for the wind to blow the floe against the coast.

It began to snow – a thick fall, by-and-by: the flakes fine and dry as dust. A woolly curtain shut coast and far-off sea from view. The wind, rising still, was charged with stinging frost. It veered; but it blew sufficiently true to the favorable direction: the ice still made ponderously for the shore, reeling in the swell… The great pan bearing Salim Awad and Tommy Hand lagged; it was soon left behind: to leeward the figures of the skipper, the cook, the first hand, and the crew turned to shadows – dissolved in the cloud of snow. The cook’s young son and the love-lorn peddler from Washington Street alone peopled a world of ice and water, all black and white: heaving, confined. They huddled, cowering from the wind, waiting – helpless, patient: themselves detached from the world of ice and water, which clamored round about, unrecognized. The spirit of each returned: the one to the Cedars of Lebanon, the other to Lobster Cove; and in each place there was a mother. In plights like this the hearts of men and children turn to distant mothers; for in all the world there is no rest serene – no rest remembered – like the first rest the spirits of men know.

When dusk began to dye the circumambient cloud, the pan of ice was close inshore; the shape of the cliffs – a looming shadow – was vague in the snow beyond. There was no longer any roar of surf; the first of the floe, now against the coast, had smothered the breakers. A voice, coming faintly into the wind, apprised Tommy Hand that his father was ashore… But the pan still moved sluggishly.

Tommy Hand shivered.

“Ah, Tom-ee!” Salim Awad said, anxiously. “Run! Jump! You weel have – what say? – cotch seek. Ay – cotch thee seek. Eh? R-r-run, Tom-ee!”

“Ay, ay,” Tommy Hand answered. “I’ll be jumpin’ about a bit, I’m thinkin’, t’ keep warm – as me father bid me do.”

“Queek!” cried Salim, laughing.

“Ay,” Tommy muttered; “as me father bid me do.”

“Jump, Tom-ee!” Salim clapped his hands. “Hi, hi! Dance, Tom-ee!”

In the beginning Tommy was deliberate and ponderous; but as his limbs were suppled – and when his blood ran warm again – the dance quickened; for Salim Awad slapped strangely inspiring encouragement, and with droning “la, la!” and sharp “hi, hi!” excited the boy to mad leaps – and madder still. “La, la!” and “Hi, hi!” There was a mystery in it. Tommy leaped high and fast. “La, la!” and “Hi, hi!” In response to the strange Eastern song the fisherboy’s grotesque dance went on… Came then the appalling catastrophe: the pan of rotten, brittle salt-water ice cracked under the lad; and it fell in two parts, which, in the heave of the sea, at once drifted wide of each other. The one part was heavy, commodious; the other a mere unstable fragment of what the whole had been: and it was upon the fragment that Salim Awad and Tommy Hand were left. Instinctively they sprawled on the ice, which was now overweighted – unbalanced. Their faces were close; and as they lay rigid – while the ice wavered and the water covered it – they looked into each other’s eyes… There was, not room for both.

“Tom-ee,” Salim Awad gasped; his breath indrawn, quivering, “I am – mus’ – go!”

The boy stretched out his hand – an instinctive movement, the impulse of a brave and generous heart – to stop the sacrifice.

“Hush!” Salim Awad whispered, hurriedly, lifting a finger to command peace. “I am – for one queek time – have theenk. Hush, Tom-ee!”

Tommy Hand was silent.

And Salim Awad heard again the clatter and evening mutter of Washington Street, children’s cries and the patter of feet, drifting in from the soft spring night – heard again the rattle of dice in the outer room, and the aimless strumming of the canoun – heard again the voice of Khalil Khayyat, lifted concerning such as lose at love. And Salim Awad, staring into a place that was high and distant, beyond the gaudy, dirty ceiling of the little back room of Nageeb Fiani’s pastry-shop near the Battery, saw again the form of Haleema, Khouri’s star-eyed daughter, floating in a cloud, compassionate and glorious. “‘The sun as it sets,’” he thought, in the high words of Antar, spoken of Abla, his beloved, the daughter of Malik, when his heart was sore, “‘turns toward her and says, “Darkness obscures the land, do thou arise in my absence.” The brilliant moon calls out to her: “Come forth, for thy face is like me, when I am in all my glory.” The tamarisk-trees complain of her in the morn and in the eve, and say: “Away, thou waning beauty, thou form of the laurel!” She turns away abashed, and throws aside her veil, and the roses are scattered from her soft, fresh cheeks. Graceful is every limb; slender her waist; love-beaming are her glances; waving is her form. The lustre of day sparkles from her forehead, and by the dark shades of her curling ringlets night itself is driven away!’”… They who lose at love? Upon what quest must the wretched ones go? And Khalil Khayyat had said that the Thing was to be found in this place… Salim Awad’s lips trembled: because of the loneliness of this death – and because of the desert, gloomy and infinite, lying beyond.

“Tom-ee,” Salim Awad repeated, smiling now, “I am – mus’ – go. Goo’-bye, Tom-ee!”

“No, no!”

In this hoarse, gasping protest Salim Awad perceived rare sweetness. He smiled again – delight, approval. “Ver’ much ’bliged,” he said, politely. Then he rolled off into the water…

One night in winter the wind, driving up from the Battery, whipped a gray, soggy snow past the door of Nageeb Fiani’s pastry-shop in Washington Street. The shop was a cosey shelter from the weather; and in the outer room, now crowded with early idlers, they were preaching revolution and the shedding of blood – boastful voices, raised to the falsetto of shallow passion. Khalil Khayyat, knowing well that the throne of Abdul-Hamid would not tremble to the talk of Washington Street, sat unheeding in the little back room; and the coal on the narghile was glowing red, and the coffee was steaming on the round table, and a cloud of fragrant smoke was in the air. In the big, black book, lying open before the poet, were to be found, as always, the thoughts of Abo Elola Elmoarri.

Tanous, the newsboy – the son of Yusef, the father of Samara, by many called Abosamara – threw Kawkab Elhorriah on the cook’s counter.

“News of death!” cried he, as he hurried importantly on. “Kawkab! News of death!”

The words caught the ear of Khalil Khayyat. “News of death?” mused he. “It is a massacre in Armenia.” He turned again, with a hopeless sigh, to the big, black book.

“News of death!” cried Nageeb Fiani, in the outer room. “What is this?”

The death of Salim Awad: being communicated, as the editor made known, by one who knew, and had so informed an important person at St. John’s, who had despatched the news south from that far place to Washington Street… And when Nageeb Fiani had learned the manner of the death of Salim Awad, he made haste to Khalil Khayyat, holding Kawkab Elhorriah open in his, hand.

“There is news of death, O Khalil!” said he.

“Ah,” Khayyat answered, with his long finger marking the place in the big, black book, “there has been a massacre in Armenia. God will yet punish the murderer.”

“No, Khalil.”

Khayyat looked up in alarm. “The Turks have not shed blood in Beirut?”

“No, Khalil.”

“Not so? Ah, then the mother of Shishim has been cast into prison because of the sedition uttered by her son in this place; and she has there died.”

“No, Khalil.”

“Nageeb,” Khayyat demanded, quietly, “of whom is this sad news spoken?”

“The news is from the north.”

Khayyat closed the book. He sipped his coffee, touched the coal on the narghile and puffed it to a glow, contemplated the gaudy wall-paper, watched a spider pursue a patient course toward the ceiling; at last opened the big, black book, and began to turn the leaves with aimless, nervous fingers. Nageeb stood waiting for the poet to speak; and in the doorway, beyond, the people from the outer room had gathered, waiting also for words to fall from the lips of this man; for the moment was great, and the poet was great.

“Salim Awad,” Khayyat muttered, “is dead.”

“Salim is dead. He died that a little one might live.”

“That a little one might live?”

“Even so, Khalil – that a child might have life.”

Khayyat smiled. “The quest is ended,” he said. “It is well that Salim is dead.”

It is well? The people marvelled that Khalil Khayyat should have spoken these cruel words. It is well? And Khalil Khayyat had said so?

“That Salim should die in the cold water?” Nageeb Fiani protested.

“That Salim should die – the death that he did. It is well.”

The word was soon to be spoken; out of the mind and heart of Khalil Khayyat, the poet, great wisdom would appear. There was a crowding at the door: the people pressed closer that no shade of meaning might be lost; the dark faces turned yet more eager; the silence deepened, until the muffled rattle of trucks, lumbering through the snowy night, and the roar of the Elevated train were plain to be heard. What would the poet say? What word of eternal truth would he speak?

“It is well?” Nageeb Fiani whispered.

“It is well.”

The time was not yet come. The people still crowded, still shuffled – still breathed. The poet waited, having the patience of poets.

“Tell us, O Khalil!” Nageeb Fiani implored.

“They who lose at love,” said Khalil Khayyat, fingering the leaves of the big, black book, “must patiently seek some high death.”

Then the people knew, beyond peradventure, that Khalil Khayyat was indeed a great poet.

IX – THE REVOLUTION AT SATAN’S TRAP

Jehoshaphat Rudd of Satan’s Trap was shy – able-bodied, to be sure, if a gigantic frame means anything, and mature, if a family of nine is competent evidence, but still as shy as a child. Moreover, he had the sad habit of anxiety: whence tense eyelids, an absent, poignant gaze, a perpetual pucker between the brows. His face was brown and big, framed in tawny, soft hair and beard, and spread with a delicate web of wrinkles, spun by the weather – a round countenance, simple, kindly, apathetic. The wind had inflamed the whites of his eyes and turned the rims blood red; but the wells in the midst were deep and clear and cool. Reserve, courageous and methodical diligence at the fishing, a quick, tremulous concern upon salutation – by these signs the folk of his harbor had long ago been persuaded that he was a fool; and a fool he was, according to the convention of the Newfoundland outports: a shy, dull fellow, whose interests were confined to his punt, his gear, the grounds off the Tombstone, and the bellies of his young ones. He had no part with the disputatious of Satan’s Trap: no voice, for example, in the rancorous discussions of the purposes and ways of the Lord God Almighty, believing the purposes to be wise and kind, and the ways the Lord’s own business. He was shy, anxious, and preoccupied; wherefore he was called a fool, and made no answer: for doubtless he was a fool. And what did it matter? He would fare neither better nor worse.

Nor would Jehoshaphat wag a tongue with the public-spirited men of Satan’s Trap: the times and the customs had no interest, no significance, for him; he was troubled with his own concerns. Old John Wull, the trader, with whom (and no other) the folk might barter their fish, personified all the abuses, as a matter of course. But —

“I ’low I’m too busy t’ think,” Jehoshaphat would reply, uneasily. “I’m too busy. I – I – why, I got t’ tend my fish!”

This was the quality of his folly.

It chanced one summer dawn, however, when the sky was flushed with tender light, and the shadows were trooping westward, and the sea was placid, that the punts of Timothy Yule and Jehoshaphat Rudd went side by side to the Tombstone grounds. It was dim and very still upon the water, and solemn, too, in that indifferent vastness between the gloom and the rosy, swelling light. Satan’s Trap lay behind in the shelter and shadow of great hills laid waste – a lean, impoverished, listless home of men.

“You dunderhead!” Timothy Yule assured Jehoshaphat. “He’ve been robbin’ you.”

“Maybe,” said Jehoshaphat, listlessly. “I been givin’ the back kitchen a coat o’ lime, an’ I isn’t had no time t’ give t’ thinkin’.”

“An’ he’ve been robbin’ this harbor for forty year.”

“Dear man!” Jehoshaphat exclaimed, in dull surprise. “Have he told you that?”

“Told me!” cried Timothy. “No,” he added, with bitter restraint; “he’ve not.”

Jehoshaphat was puzzled. “Then,” said he, “how come you t’ know?”

“Why, they says so.”

Jehoshaphat’s reply was gently spoken, a compassionate rebuke. “An I was you, Timothy,” said he, “I wouldn’t be harsh in judgment. ’Tisn’t quite Christian.”

“My God!” ejaculated the disgusted Timothy.

After that they pulled in silence for a time. Jehoshaphat’s face was averted, and Timothy was aware of having, in a moment of impatience, not only committed a strategic indiscretion, but of having betrayed his innermost habit of profanity. The light grew and widened and yellowed; the cottages of Satan’s Trap took definite outline, the hills their ancient form, the sea its familiar aspect. Sea and sky and distant rock were wide awake and companionably smiling. The earth was blue and green and yellow, a glittering place.

“Look you! Jehoshaphat,” Timothy demanded; “is you in debt?”

“I is.”

“An’ is you ever been out o’ debt?”

“I isn’t.”

“How come you t’ know?”

“Why,” Jehoshaphat explained, “Mister Wull told me so. An’ whatever,” he qualified, “father was in debt when he died, an’ Mister Wull told me I ought t’ pay. Father was my father,” Jehoshaphat argued, “an’ I ’lowed I would pay. For,” he concluded, “’twas right.”

“Is he ever give you an account?”

“Well, no – no, he haven’t. But it wouldn’t do no good, for I’ve no learnin’, an’ can’t read.”

“No,” Timothy burst out, “an’ he isn’t give nobody no accounts.”

“Well,” Jehoshaphat apologized, “he’ve a good deal on his mind, lookin’ out for the wants of us folk. He’ve a wonderful lot o’ brain labor. He’ve all them letters t’ write t’ St. John’s, an’ he’ve got a power of ’rithmetic t’ do, an’ he’ve got the writin’ in them big books t’ trouble un, an’ – ”

Timothy sneered.

“Ah, well,” sighed Jehoshaphat, “an I was you, Timothy, I wouldn’t be harsh in judgment.”

Timothy laughed uproariously.

“Not harsh,” Jehoshaphat repeated, quietly – “not in judgment.”

“Damn un!” Timothy cursed between his teeth. “The greedy squid, the devil-fish’s spawn, with his garden an’ his sheep an’ his cow! You got a cow, Jehoshaphat? You got turnips an’ carrots? You got ol’ Bill Lutt t’ gather soil, an’ plant, an’ dig, an’ weed, while you smokes plug-cut in the sunshine? Where’s your garden, Jehoshaphat? Where’s your onions? The green lumpfish! An’ where do he get his onions, an’ where do he get his soup, an’ where do he get his cheese an’ raisins? ’Tis out o’ you an’ me an’ all the other poor folk o’ Satan’s Trap. ’Tis from the fish, an’ he never cast a line. ’Tis from the fish that we takes from the grounds while he squats like a lobster in the red house an’ in the shop. An’ he gives less for the fish ’n he gets, an’ he gets more for the goods an’ grub ’n he gives. The thief, the robber, the whale’s pup! Is you able, Jehoshaphat, t’ have the doctor from Sniffle’s Arm for your woman! Is you able t’ feed your kids with cow’s milk an’ baby-food?”

Jehoshaphat mildly protested that he had not known the necessity.

“An’ what,” Timothy proceeded, “is you ever got from the grounds but rheumatiz an’ salt-water sores?”

“I got enough t’ eat,” said Jehoshaphat.

Timothy was scornful.

“Well,” Jehoshaphat argued, in defence of himself, “the world have been goin’ for’ard a wonderful long time at Satan’s Trap, an’ nobody else haven’t got no more’n just enough.”

“Enough!” Timothy fumed. “’Tis kind o’ the Satan’s Trap trader t’ give you that! I’ll tell un,” he exploded; “I’ll give un a piece o’ my mind afore I dies.”

“Don’t!” Jehoshaphat pleaded.

Timothy snorted his indignation.

“I wouldn’t be rash,” said Jehoshaphat. “Maybe,” he warned, “he’d not take your fish no more. An’ maybe he’d close the shop an’ go away.”

“Jus’ you wait,” said Timothy.

“Don’t you do it, lad!” Jehoshaphat begged. “’Twould make such a wonderful fuss in the world!”

“An’ would you think o’ that?”

“I isn’t got time t’ think,” Jehoshaphat complained. “I’m busy. I ’low I got my fish t’ cotch an’ cure. I isn’t got time. I – I – I’m too busy.”

They were on the grounds. The day had broken, a blue, serene day, knowing no disquietude. They cast their grapnels overside, and they fished until the shadows had fled around the world and were hurrying out of the east. And they reeled their lines, and stowed the fish, and patiently pulled toward the harbor tickler, talking not at all of the Satan’s Trap trader, but only of certain agreeable expectations which the young Timothy had been informed he might entertain with reasonable certainty.

“I ’low,” said Jehoshaphat, when they were within the harbor, “I understand. I got the hang of it,” he repeated, with a little smile, “now.”

“Of what?” Timothy wondered.

“Well,” Jehoshaphat explained, “’tis your first.”

This was a sufficient explanation of Timothy’s discontent. Jehoshaphat remembered that he, too, had been troubled, fifteen years ago, when the first of the nine had brought the future to his attention. He was more at ease when this enlightenment came.

Old John Wull was a gray, lean little widower, with a bald head, bowed legs, a wide, straight, thin-lipped mouth, and shaven, ashy cheeks. His eyes were young enough, blue and strong and quick, often peering masterfully through the bushy brows, which he could let drop like a curtain. In contrast with the rugged hills and illimitable sea and stout men of Satan’s Trap, his body was withered and contemptibly diminutive. His premises occupied a point of shore within the harbor – a wharf, a storehouse, a shop, a red dwelling, broad drying-flakes, and a group of out-buildings, all of which were self-sufficient and proud, and looked askance at the cottages that lined the harbor shore and strayed upon the hills beyond.

It was his business to supply the needs of the folk in exchange for the fish they took from the sea – the barest need, the whole of the catch. Upon this he insisted, because he conscientiously believed, in his own way, that upon the fruits of toil commercial enterprise should feed to satiety, and cast the peelings and cores into the back yard for the folk to nose like swine.

Thus he was accustomed to allow the fifty illiterate, credulous families of Satan’s Trap sufficient to keep them warm and to quiet their stomachs, but no more; for, he complained: “Isn’t they got enough on their backs?” and, “Isn’t they got enough t’ eat?” and, “Lord!” said he, “they’ll be wantin’ figs an’ joolry next.”

There were times when he trembled for the fortune he had gathered in this way – in years when there were no fish, and he must feed the men and women and human litters of the Trap for nothing at all, through which he was courageous, if niggardly. When the folk complained against him, he wondered, with a righteous wag of the head, what would become of them if he should vanish with his property and leave them to fend for themselves. Sometimes he reminded them of this possibility; and then they got afraid, and thought of their young ones, and begged him to forget their complaint. His only disquietude was the fear of hell: whereby he was led to pay the wage of a succession of parsons, if they preached comforting doctrine and blue-pencilled the needle’s eye from the Testament; but not otherwise. By some wayward, compelling sense of moral obligation, he paid the school-teacher, invariably, generously, so that the little folk of Satan’s Trap might learn to read and write in the winter months. ’Rithmetic he condemned, but tolerated, as being some part of that unholy, imperative thing called l’arnin’; but he had no feeling against readin’ and writin’.

There was no other trader within thirty miles.

“They’ll trade with me,” John Wull would say to himself, and be comforted, “or they’ll starve.”

It was literally true.

In that winter certain gigantic forces, with which old John Wull had nothing whatever to do, were inscrutably passionate. They went their way, in some vast, appalling quarrel, indifferent to the consequences. John Wull’s soul, money, philosophy, the hopes of Satan’s Trap, the various agonies of the young, were insignificant. Currents and winds and frost had no knowledge of them. It was a late season: the days were gray and bitter, the air was frosty, the snow lay crisp and deep in the valleys, the harbor water was frozen. Long after the time for blue winds and yellow hills the world was still sullen and white. Easterly gales, blowing long and strong, swept the far outer sea of drift-ice – drove it in upon the land, pans and bergs, and heaped it against the cliffs. There was no safe exit from Satan’s Trap. The folk were shut in by ice and an impassable wilderness. This was not by the power or contriving of John Wull: the old man had nothing to do with it; but he compelled the season, impiously, it may be, into conspiracy with him. By-and-by, in the cottages, the store of food, which had seemed sufficient when the first snow flew, was exhausted. The flour-barrels of Satan’s Trap were empty. Full barrels were in the storehouse of John Wull, but in no other place. So it chanced that one day, in a swirling fall of snow, Jehoshaphat Rudd came across the harbor with a dog and a sled.

John Wull, from the little office at the back of the shop, where it was warm and still, watched the fisherman breast the white wind.

“Mister Wull,” said Jehoshaphat, when he stood in the office, “I ’low I’ll be havin’ another barrel o’ flour.”

Wull frowned.

“Ay,” Jehoshaphat repeated, perplexed; “another barrel.”

Wull pursed his lips.

“O’ flour,” said Jehoshaphat, staring.

The trader drummed on the desk and gazed out of the window. He seemed to forget that Jehoshaphat Rudd stood waiting. Jehoshaphat felt awkward and out of place; he smoothed his tawny beard, cracked his fingers, scratched his head, shifted from one foot to the other. Some wonder troubled him, then some strange alarm. He had never before realized that the lives of his young were in the keeping of this man.