The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips [24]
“He was heartbreaking,” she told me, and I wrote that down and underlined it, noting, “Why no children of her own?” “This boy had been betrayed by everyone—family, state, church. It was all I could do to get the poor fellow to speak to me, and no surprise. Even then, the only thing he would really talk about was Egypt. Something about that book Ronnie had shown him just tickled him. Well, first things first: I found him a different one, A Boy’s Own Book of Egypt, I remember the cover. He immediately took one of the chairs in the corner and did not look up again until I came over to tell him the library was closing, but he could come back tomorrow after school, and read some more, if he liked. ‘Is no one waiting for you at home, then?’ I asked. Poor creature. You could see that home held no meaning for him, even at that tender age.
“He did not want to go home, or say why not. So I asked him, ‘Would you eat a piece of kidney pie, then?’ and the poor little fellow practically jumped out of his skin.” I can imagine that boy, Macy, with her standing behind him, gently placing her hands on his shoulders, looking over his reading, smelling so nice, all false promise. “Mr. Ferrell, it was a class crime, a fine young boy, starved by devilish church and corrupted state. I showed him how to shelve the book, and then I led him back to the office. He was not such a fool as to turn down food, probably more than he saw in a week, more than he could steal in days. Oh, yes, have no illusions, he was already stealing at that age. The rich need thieves, Mr. Ferrell, and they are careful to breed them young. ‘It’s customary to thank someone,’ I told him. He managed to mutter a ‘thank you, ma’am,’ as he stuffed his face.
“Ronnie and I discussed it next day, and we were of one mind. As charitable people, we would do what we could for this little one God had sent our way. As political people, we owed it to him and to the future to prove that the working class had as much brain and worth as the moneyed. And as educators, well, there could be no question: this one wanted learning as much as he wanted food. We would feed him, Ronnie and I, and split the expense.”
(Ronald’s words on the matter: “Cassie decided, Cassie dictated. The Pygmalion Fallacy, if you ask me, but she didn’t. Party warns against this.”)
Ask me, Paul Caldwell didn’t have a chance to escape her lures, Macy. He met Catherine Barry when she was probably twenty-six, and he was a little boy. I met her in 1922, and even at forty-five or so, she was a powerful charmer, smelled nice, smiled sweet. I was a man of the world, had my choice of lady friends, you know, and I knew just how her sort used its wiles for nefarious purposes, but even I found her something potent to sit near, nearly found myself begging her to discuss my questions with me over a supper. Her smile—of course, I could resist it, but a little boy? No hope. It’s a very certain smile, the smile of someone who thinks they’re so much smarter than you that they think they can see and steer your very thoughts. They toy with you, make you jump to amuse them. Women have it. Reds have it. Red women are the worst.
“ ‘Home doesn’t appeal? Is that why you sit here at all hours reading about pyramids?’ I asked him a few days later when he was back, still shy. He had run up to me and asked for the same book without looking me in the eye, as if he’d never met me. I gave him the book, and after he read, I fed him again. And I offered to see him home, it was late, but he said no, and was off.
“After three or four weeks he had come a dozen times and read nearly everything we had on ancient Egypt, which was hardly so very much. Each time he would read until closing, and then I would feed him, and each time he refused to be walked home. He was growing friendlier, but not quickly. Whatever had been done to him was enough to keep him suspicious of people for some time.