The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips [23]
Paul was—except for one quirk—nothing special at school, according to Ronald Barry, his schoolmaster. He kept quiet. Filthy, of course, like most of the very poorest kids, but disciplined enough to sit still and do as he was told. “Mostly we were just trying to move the poor bastards along and keep them out of trouble,” said Ronald. “Not permitted to educate them at all, really. Just oppression by other means, pretending to teach them something, to dull them enough to accept the conditions the owning class had in mind for them.”
Then one day they do a little lesson on Egypt. Egypt’s a place in the desert, very old and pointy buildings, and the pagans in the old days, they didn’t know about Our Lord yet, so when their kings died, they wrapped them up in bedsheets and said they lived forever. “I probably added something along the lines of ‘The pyramids were built by working folk, forced to labour for their brutal kings,’ ” says Red Ron. And then they pass around a little picture book, and then on to the day’s arithmetic.
Well, end of the day comes and the ragamuffins head out the door, and Ronald Barry is tidying up, and he can’t find the picture book about Egypt, too bad, since he’d borrowed it from his sister at the public library. Clearly, one of the scoundrels had swiped it, and next morning, Ronald’s thinking about how to conduct his investigations when little Paul Caldwell comes in early. The boy looks worse than usual, but he hands back the missing book. Turns out he hadn’t gone home the night before, had stayed out all night long just looking at this book, actually slept outdoors. He doesn’t say just what made it such a ripping read, doesn’t say much at all, “doesn’t even apologise, the little thief,” says Mr. No-Private-Property. Then the boy asks, under his breath, might there be other books like this one?
“Mr. Ferrell, there are few moments in my career when I felt real pride in what I was doing. But I remember clearly how I felt that moment. This little child wanted to learn. I forgot at once about the theft: this one was going to be one we could save. Of course, if I knew then what I know now, I would have throttled the viper when I could still get my hands round his neck.”
That afternoon, Ronald Barry takes his prized pupil to one of the smaller branches of the public library. And which librarian greets him that day but Catherine Barry, the teacher’s lovely sister. “Sis, here’s a young fellow with real promise who wants to learn how to get more books about ancient Egypt, of all things.” “Hello, Paul Caldwell,” Miss Barry says sweetly, a little twinkle in her eye saying, “Don’t take me too seriously, I’m a good chum if you want one,” all misleading kindness and appropriately red curly hair and a sweet face. (Even by ’22, even after what she’d been through, I must confess she was a lovely thing. Treacherous, appearances.) The boy has no social graces, can barely speak, looks at the ground, has probably never been in a building as clean and official as our little library, has probably never been spoken to as kindly by anyone, has probably never seen anyone as beautiful and apparently friendly as Miss Barry. All because he’d been taken by something in a picture book.
“Well, Mr. Ferrell, we decided to take the little fellow under our wing,” Catherine Barry told me with flirtatious pride. “Let’s see about making you a member of our library,” says the Red agent to the little boy. That first day, Miss Barry showed him all around, and though he barely spoke, she was encouraged to see his eyes widen at the sight