The Scapegoat Part 19

"Sweetheart," he said again, "what is darkness?"

"Oh, darkness is cold," said Naomi promptly, and she seemed to s.h.i.+ver.

"Then the light must be warmth, little one?" said Israel.

"Yes, and noise," she answered; and then she added quickly, "Light is alive."

Saying this, she crept closer to his side, and knelt there, and by her old trick of love she took his hand in both of hers, and pressed it against her cheek, and then, lifting her sweet face with its motionless eyes she began to tell him in her broken words and pretty lisp what she thought of night. In the night the world, and everything in it, was cold and quiet. That was death. The angels of G.o.d came to the world in the day. But G.o.d Himself came in the night, because He loved silence, and because all the world was dead. Then He kissed things, and in the morning all that G.o.d had kissed came to life again. If you were to get up early you would feel G.o.d's kiss on the flowers and on the gra.s.s. And that was why the birds were singing then. G.o.d had kissed them in the night, and they were glad.

One day Israel took Naomi to the mearrah of the Jews, the little cemetery outside the town walls where he had buried Ruth. And there he told her of her mother once more; that she was in the grave, but also with G.o.d; that she was dead, but still alive; that Naomi must not expect to find her in that place, but, nevertheless, that she would see her yet again.

"Do you remember her, Naomi?" he said. "Do you remember her in the old days, the old dark and silent days? Not Fatimah, and not Habeebah, but some one who was nearer to you than either, and loved you better than both; some one who had soft hands, and smooth cheeks, and long, silken, wavy hair--do you remember, little one?"

"Y-es, I think--I _think_ I remember," said Naomi.

"That was your mother, my darling."

"My mother?"

"Ah, you don't know what a mother is, sweetheart. How should you? And how shall I tell you? Listen. She is the one who loves you first and last and always. When you are a babe she suckles you and nourishes you and fondles you, and watches for the first light of your smile, and listens for the first accent of your tongue. When you are a young child she plays with you, and sings to you, and tells you little stories, and teaches you to speak. Your smile is more bright to her than suns.h.i.+ne, and your childish lisp more sweet than music. If you are sick she is beside you constantly, and when you are well she is behind you still.

Though you sin and fall and all men spurn you, yet she clings to you; and if you do well and G.o.d prospers you, there is no joy like her joy.

Her love never changes, for it is a fount which the cold winds of the world cannot freeze. . . . And if you are a little helpless girl--blind and deaf and dumb maybe--then she loves you best of all. She cannot tell you stories, and she cannot sing to you, because you cannot hear; she cannot smile into your eyes, because you cannot see; she cannot talk to you, because you cannot speak; but she can watch your quiet face, and feel the touch of your little fingers and hear the sound of your merry laughter."

"My mother! my mother!" whispered Naomi to herself, as if in awe.

"Yes," said Israel, "your mother was like that, Naomi, long ago, in the days before your great gifts came to you. But she is gone, she has left us, she could not stay; she is dead, and only from the blue mountains of memory can she smile back upon us now."

Naomi could not understand, but her fixed blue eyes filled with tears, and she said abruptly, "People who die are deceitful. They want to go out in the night to be with G.o.d. That is where they are when they go away. They are wandering about the world when it is dead."

The same night Naomi was missed out of the house, and for many hours no search availed to find her. She was not in the Mellah, and therefore she must have pa.s.sed into the Moorish town before the gates closed at sunset. Neither was she to be seen in the Feddan or at the Kasbah, or among the Arabs who sat in the red glow of the fires that burnt before their tents. At last Israel bethought him of the mearrah, and there he found her. It was dark, and the lonesome place was silent. The reflection of the lights of the town rose into the sky above it, and the distant hum of voices came over the black town walls. And there, within the straggling hedge of p.r.i.c.kly pear, among the long white stones that lay like sheep asleep among the gra.s.s, Naomi in her double darkness, the darkness of the night and of her blindness was running to and fro, and crying, "Mother! Mother!"

Fatimah took her the four miles to Marteel, that the breath of the sea might bring colour to her cheeks, which had been whitened by the heat and fumes of the town. The day was soft and beautiful, the water was quiet, and only a gentle wind came creeping over it. But Naomi listened to every sound with eager intentness--the light plash of the blue wavelets that washed to her feet, the ripple of their crests when the Levanter chased them and caught them, the dip of the oars of the boatman, the rattle of the anchor-chains of s.h.i.+ps in the bay, and the fierce vociferations of the negroes who waded up to their waists to unload the cargoes.

And when she came home, and took her old place at her father's knees, with his hand between hers pressed close against her cheek, she told him another sweet and startling story. There was only one thing in the world that did not die at night, and it was water. That was because water was the way from heaven to earth. It went up into the mountains and over them into the air until it was lost in the clouds. And G.o.d and His angels came and went on the water between heaven and earth. That was why it was always moving and never sleeping, and had no night and no day.

And the angels were always singing. That was why the waters were always making a noise, and were never silent like the gra.s.s. Sometimes their song was joyful, and sometimes it was sad, and sometimes the evil spirits were struggling with the angels, and that was when the waters were terrible. Every time the sea made a little noise on the sh.o.r.e, an angel had stepped on to the earth. The angel was glad.

Israel had begun to listen to Naomi's fancies with a doubting heart.

Where had they come from? Was it his duty to wipe out these beautiful dream-stories of the maid born blind and newly come upon the joy of hearing with his own sadder tales of what the world was and what life was, and death and heaven? The question was soon decided for him.

Two days after Naomi had been taken to Marteel she was missed again.

Israel hurried away to the sea, and there he came upon her. Alone, without help, she had found a boat on the beach and had pushed off on to the water. It was a double-p.r.o.nged boat, light as a nutsh.e.l.l, made of ribs of rush, covered with camel-skin, and lined with bark. In this frail craft she was afloat, and already far out in the bay not rowing, but sitting quietly, and drifting away with the ebbing tide. The wind was rising, and the line of the foresh.o.r.e beyond the boat was white with breakers. Israel put off after her and rescued her. The motionless eyes began to fill when she heard his voice.

"My darling, my darling!" cried Israel; "where did you think you were going?"

"To heaven," she answered.

And truly she had all but gone there.

Israel had no choice left to him now. He must sadden the heart of this creature of joy that he might keep her body safe from peril. Naomi was no more than a little child, swayed by her impulses alone, but in more danger from herself than any child before her, because deprived of two of her senses until she had grown to be a maid, and no control could be imposed upon her.

At length Israel nerved himself to his bitter task; and one evening while Naomi sat with him on the roof while the sun was setting, and there were noises in the streets below of the Jewish people shuffling back into the Mellah, he told her that she was blind. The word made no impression upon her mind at first. She had heard it before, and it had pa.s.sed her by like a sound that she did not know. She had been born blind, and therefore could not realise what it was to see. To open a way for the awful truth was difficult, and Israel's heart smote him while he persisted. Naomi laughed as he put his fingers over her eyes that he might show her. She laughed again when he asked if she could see the people whom she could only hear. And once more she laughed when the sun had gone down, and the mooddin had come out on the Grand Mosque in the Metamar, and he asked if she could see the old blind man in the minaret, where he was crying, "G.o.d is great! G.o.d is great!"

"Can you see him, little one?" said Israel.

"See him?" said Naomi; "why yes, you dear old father, of course I can see him. Listen," she cried, ceasing her laughter, lifting one finger, and holding her head aslant, "listen: G.o.d is great! G.o.d is great!

There--I saw him then."

"That is only hearing him, Naomi--hearing him with your ears--with this ear and with this. But can you see him, sweetheart?"

Did her father mean to ask her if she could _feel_ the mooddin in his minaret far above them? Once more she laid her head aslant. There was a pause, and then she cried impulsively--

"Oh, _I_ know. But, you foolish old father, how _can_ I? He is too far away."

Then she flung her arms about Israel's neck and kissed him.

"There," she cried, in a tone of one who settles differences, "I have seen my _father_ anyway."

It was hard to check her merriment, but Israel had to do it. He told her, with many throbs in his throat, that she was not like other maidens--not like her father, or Ali, or Fatimah, or Habeebah; that she was a being afflicted of G.o.d; that there was something she had not got, something she could not do, a world she did not know, and had never yet so much as dreamt of. Darkness was more than cold and quiet, and light was more than warmth and noise. The one was day--day ruled by the fiery sun in the sky--and the other was night, lit by the pale moon and the bright stars in heaven. And the face of man and the eyes of woman were more than features to feel--they were spirit and soul, to watch and to follow and to love without any hand being near them.

"There is a great world about you, little one," he said, "which you have never seen, though you can hear it and feel it and speak to it. Yes, it is true, Naomi, it is true. You have never seen the mountains and the dangerous gullies on their rocky sides. You have never seen the mighty deep, and the storms that heave and swell in it. You have never seen man or woman or child. Is that very strange, little one? Listen: your mother died nine years ago, and you had never seen her. Your father is holding your head in his hands at this moment, but you have never seen his face.

And if the dark curtains were to fall from your eyes, and you were to see him now, you would not know him from another man, or from woman, or from a tree. You are blind, Naomi, you are blind."

Naomi listened intently. Her cheeks twitched, her fingers rested nervously on her dress at her bosom, and her eyes grew large and solemn, and then filled with tears. Israel's throat swelled. To tell her of all this, though he must needs do it for her safety, was like reproaching her with her infirmity. But it was only the trouble in her father's voice that had found its way to the sealed chamber of Naomi's mind.

The awful and crus.h.i.+ng truth of her blindness came later to her consciousness, probed in and thrust home by a frailer and lighter hand.

She had always loved little children, and since the coming of her hearing she had loved them more than ever. Their lisping tongues, their pretty broken speech, their simple words, their childish thoughts, all fitted with her own needs, for she was nothing but a child herself, though grown to be a lovely maid. And of all children those she loved best were not the children of the Jews, nor yet the children of the Moorish townsfolk, but the ragged, barefoot, black and olive-skinned mites who came into Tetuan with the country Arabs and Berbers on market mornings. They were simplest, their little tongues were liveliest, and they were most full of joy and wonder. So she would gather them up in twos and threes and fours, on Wednesdays and Sundays, from the mouths of their tents on the Feddan, and carry them home by the hand.

And there, in the patio, Ali had hung a swing of hempen rope, suspended from a bar thrown from parapet to parapet, and on this Naomi would sport with her little ones. She would be swinging in the midst of them, with one tiny black maiden on the seat beside her, and one little black man with high stomach and shaven poll holding on to the rope behind her, and another mighty Moor in a diminutive white jellab pus.h.i.+ng at their feet in front, and all laughing together, or the children singing as the swing rose, and she herself listening with head aslant and all her fair hair rip-rip-rippling down her back and over her neck, and her smiling white face resting on her shoulder.

It was a beautiful scene of sunny happiness, but out of it came the first great shadow of the blind girl's life. For it chanced one day that one of the children--a tiny creature with a slice of the woman in her--brought a present for Naomi out of her mother's market-basket.

It was a flower, but of a strange kind, that grew only in the distant mountains where lay the little black one's home. Naomi pa.s.sed her fingers over it, and she did not know it.

"What is it?" she asked.

"It's blue," said the child.

"What is blue?" said Naomi

"Blue--don't you know?--blue!" said the child.

"But what is blue?" Naomi asked again, holding the flower in her restless fingers.

"Why, dear me! can't you see?--blue--the flower, you know," said the child, in her artless way.

Ali was standing by at the time, and he thought to come to Naomi's relief. "Blue is a colour," he said.

"A colour?" said Naomi.

"Yes, like--like the sea," he added.