Dreams Ltd (24 page)

I rubbed my aching hands and looked around - judging by the empty plains, everyone was here. All the men were now standing around the table, looking at me cautiously with metal bowls in their hands.

I took a deep breath, opened an aluminium lid, picked up a ladle from the table (it was scratched so badly as if it’s been scrubbed with some sand) and stretch out my hand to take the first bowl.

Then I started handing out the food.

Sitting in the far corner on the bench, I watched these dirty malnourished people in rags eating. Although it was not forbidden to speak, all of them were quiet, rarely exchanging a word or two. They ate greedily and quickly, resembling vultures, gulping down the soup straight from their bowls; bread was being torn apart and pushed into their mouths so it could be swallowed in second without chewing.

The wind got stronger and it was now ruffling the hair stuck to their dusty foreheads and howling somewhere in the canyons. There was not a sound to be heard over the plain, except scraping of the spoons in metal bowls, a rare sniff or the sound of the dull distressed cough. Here, at the foot of the mountains, where the soil wasn’t at all fertile, everything seemed bleak and inhospitable. The grass was stunted and was barely making its way through the rocky crust; the grass that managed to surface through looked brown dry and burnt out. Only the sound of melancholically howling wind and sometimes rolling down the hill stones were breaking up the silence. Human faces blended into a muted landscape as if two images - the stones and the people have merged, becoming a sole faded dreary canvas.

The soup and bread was gone and it was time for me to leave, yet I couldn’t force myself to get up watching the men licking off last droplets of soup, picking up the fallen crumbs from the table, looking greedily at those who were still was slurping, chewing and cleaning their plates with tongues.

A big lump came up in my throat as I was absorbing what I’ve just seen as if it was acid which was eroding me inside.

Tabitha, why didn’t you fill this barrel with soup up to the lid and why didn’t you put a couple more loafs of bread in the sack? How are these men who wave their picks and pushing the trolleys full of rocks from dusk till dawn, supposed to be full up with a single bowl of a lean broth and a piece of bread? Has anyone seen how hard they work and how little they eat? Does anyone think of these people here?

Quietly sobbing, I got up and wandered to the cart, picked up the wooden handle and pulled it back. This time it was empty and the cart moved easily, chirring and creaking from all the sand stuffed inside the wheels. Somewhere behind me I heard the men cleaning the table - rare voices and tinkling of the glassware intertwined with the wind’s howling. I shook my head trying to erase the memory of bleeding palms holding rusty spoons and walked on faster. Now the cart was light but my heart was heavy.

After I washed my clothes I sat by the window, gazing at the stars, hoping that one day I’ll get the key from the door leading to the porch and will be able to spend an evening outside enjoying the fresh air.

That night I was thinking about what I saw during the day and the more I was thinking about it the clearer was the plan that was forming in my head. The main thing was - I have to stay responsible for the food delivery to the quarry and back. Even though it was a long distance to walk, I’d give everything up to have it on the list of my everyday duties. Again and again I mentally kept going through the details and options of my idea, and my palms were itching in anticipation.

One part of my plan was easy enough to implement, but another...

I needed to get some medicine as well as plasters. If I can’t get plasters, then I need to think of something else to help with healing of their palms. I knew where the infirmary was but the hardest part was to get in there and grab everything I need without being caught by the doctor. Slowly chewing a piece of sweet pie that Tabitha saved for me, I couldn’t get rid of the bitter taste remembering the resentful faces in the stone-pit. However, now finally I had something in my life that I’ve been missing all these days - the idea, the spark, the meaning. Instead of feeling sorry for myself and seeing nothing ahead but a gloomy horizon, I could think about someone else, I could make someone's life a little easier. And it’s OK if I had to take a risk - firstly it was worth it and secondly it would add some diversity into my dull daily life.

I finished my cake, rolled up an oily wrap full of crumbs into a tight ball and threw into a small plastic bin by the table - judging by sound I hit the target precisely. After that, for the first time in a long time, I went to bed in a peaceful state of mind without worrying for the safety of my flat pillows.

The next day I was standing at the stove, jumping with impatience, waiting for Tabitha to finish pouring the soup into a barrel. As soon as she added the last portion and disappeared into the pantry to fetch the bread, I quickly looked around making sure that nobody was here to see my and immediately grabbed the ladle. Gritting my teeth from the effort, I pulled the barrel up to another pot with simmering soup (the same soup but intended for somebody else), opened the lid and began filling up my barrel. It turned out that my barrel could fit around ten more ladles of soup which according to my calculations was about half a bowl more for each quarry worker. Feeling happy and quite fortunate (because the kitchen was almost never empty), I quickly threw the scoop into the empty pot, where it was resting before, closed the lid of the tank and pushed it back to its previous position. Tabitha was back thirty seconds later, holding the sack with bread. I put an expression of a scattered serenity on my face and pretended to admire the lawn from the window, at the same time desperately hoping that Tabitha won’t notice any changes in the pot on the stove. Knowing that my actions could cost me not only the precious points but also my relationship with Tabitha, which I valued even more, I couldn’t forget the hungry men in the stone-pit.

Keeping the casual look on my face, I pulled the cart outside and as soon as the kitchen was left behind, I pushed it into the bushes and hid it there, while ran I back to the house through the closest to the pantry door.

The corridor was empty. Trying not to breathe loudly, I carefully crept along the wall to the stairs that were going down. Fortunately for me the pantry wasn’t locked and one of my worst nightmares didn’t materialise. As soon as I got in, I closed the door behind me and found the switch on the wall - a dim light flooded the wide squat room filled with rows of shelves and a whole flock of bags sitting on the floor.

It took me a minute to find some bread - I wrapped two loaves into a coarse cloth and was ready to leave when I suddenly noticed some cheese heads piled on top of one another. I could ignore such a godsend and I bundled one of them together with the bread and then rushed to the exit.

This time there were someone’s footsteps in the corridor. A few people, perhaps sous-chiefs passed me by, discussing a prank on some poor guy Charlie, who a day earlier mixed up the spices, replacing oregano with black pepper and then was chased by the guards who suffered from indigestion. Listening to my heart beating, I was waiting for them to go away - if any of the working personnel saw me in here I’d be guaranteed a meeting with Greg if not with the Lord.

But today it was my day.

No one noticed the cart hidden in the bushes and as soon as I got back to it, I untied the sack, put my findings in there and tied it up again. When everything was done, I rolled the cart back to the main road surrounding the mansion and carried on walking towards the fields.

Fifteen minutes later when the cobbles path was replaced with a dusty lane, my heart was still beating franticly and my legs were still shaking. Perhaps I should have asked myself - why am I doing this and what for? But strangely enough, I was certain of my actions. Today quarry workers won’t starve and that’s what matters. Maybe they won’t get full-up from this amount of food but at least they won’t be hungry as they were on other days.

The mere anticipation of the surprised faces when they see the cheese, made me push the cart faster.

Sweat? Yes, it was pouring down my face like rain. My palms? Yes, they were hurting.

But I was going step by step and for the first time in a long time I had a smile on my face.

Things continued the same way for four more days.

Four more fortunate days I was able to feed stony-pit workers with more soup, bread, cheese and whatever else I managed to steal from the pantry. The memory of those men’s happy faces when they saw the cheese head for the first time will always be the reward for the risk I was taking. Perhaps my actions were not noble but in my opinion they were justified. I can’t express how happy I felt when instead of the starving beggars, fighting for every crumb, I saw almost normal men who could occasionally crack a joke and even smile. Making them happy made me happier too, and I was ready to take any risk for that.

However, one’s luck must come to an end one day and it happened very unexpectedly.

That day, as usual, I made sure that the kitchen was empty and then began topping up the barrel with soup, when suddenly I felt someone staring on the back of my head. I turned around slowly and saw Tabitha standing in the doorway.

She was saying nothing, holding an empty bag which she was going to put the bread in. She was looking straight at me. I stalled with the ladle full of soup looking back at her. The heavy ladle was pulling my hand down and at this point I needed to make a decision to either pour the soup back into the pot or into the barrel but I did not dare to move. My legs immediately and rather unpleasantly filled up with lead and sweat ran down my back. It felt like even my face got numb.

Not knowing what to say in such an awkward situation and not being sure if there was anything I could say condone my actions, I continued standing like a statue shivering from just the thought about the consequences that would follow this incident.

Oh, God - please help her understand me, I don’t want to lose the only friend and I don’t have anyone else I like here. Please make her understand...I was shaking inside from the fear and my lips started trembling.

Finally, Tabitha managed to regain her senses and slowly folded her arms across her chest. At the same time I poured the soup back to the pot on the stove.

“Do you know who this food is for?” she asked me in an unpleasant voice.

“Tabitha, but they eat so little...”

“Do you know...”

“They will rot there. They’re so skinny, barely alive...”

“...whose food is that?”

“All day long they carry their picks and drag the rocks. They can’t possibly go on for much longer!”

Tabitha’s eyes flashed menacingly. Not letting her say a single word I began gibbering on as fast as my numb lips and tripping from the nerves tongue would allow me.

“They are treated worse than cattle, they don’t have enough food or water, their clothes is completely worn out and their hands are bleeding. How are they going to heal if they are starving?”

“Honey, have you forgotten they all are criminals?”

“Yes, they are, I remember! But I can’t see them falling over from exhaustion by noon! Who will benefit from it if they kick the bucket and can’t work anymore?”

“And have you ever thought about who you are stealing from?”

I went quiet, feeling low and not knowing how to object to Tabitha’s statement. Frankly, I have thought about it many times before - if I steal for them, somebody else might starve, but every time I thought about it, my inner voice was telling me that I actually witness the stone-pit workers not eating properly but I don’t see those who starve. Feeling extremely desperate, I just begged Tabitha for understanding and forgiveness silently by just looking at her.

For a while she was staring at me and the pot. Her look was still expressing an utmost dissatisfaction but now something else was mixing into it. Finally she looked at the pot again, from which I was sneaking the soup and put her hands on her hips.

“Actually, my dear, this food was for the guards.”

As I comprehended the meaning of what she’d just said and who was hungry because of me, I went completely speechless and Tabitha burst into laughter. Now she was laughing so loudly that her plump shoulders were jumping up and down, and her white apron was bouncing over her belly. I couldn’t work out what had struck me more - the weight that just slipped off my shoulders after her words, or the fact that she was laughing instead of telling me off. But in the end it didn’t really matter, I almost gasped with a sense of relief when I finally realised that she wasn’t angry at me and were still friends. It meant I still had a friend and I’m not alone, and that meant everything to me at that moment.