The Devil - XV

Section of a Novella from Tarot Blanco

Time, he etches destitute each vagrancy in living. The rain came down from clouded pustules and the sun had recently set. Hour after hour the traces of memory squeezed of all but red the colorization that is drawn on the pavement. The boy drew on the slate and looked up across the lane as a few people were lining up to pump out the water for their evening. It was a short line because many families had already departed.

The young boy was small and blonde and he was drawing to himself. With a very naughty grin, he smiled and put whiskers on a goat's face. But no one who was as high up as any adult would have seen what he was drawing so delicate were the strokes with the pen that he purloined from a deceased body.

The dying man was taking a count of all of the corpses in Broad St. but then kneeled to the ground and within an hour he was bloated and feces spread out from his trousers and spilled over into the drain and then down into a cesspit where all of the washing was done. It had happened so quickly. But such was the opportunity that the boy took his pen because it was a fountain-tipped pen imported from France. Of course, the dead men had not purchased it but were given the privilege by the doctor, who had given him the task of counting up the dead. He knew that the man could not have afforded the founding tip pen because his boots were worn to the nub, and had the right one almost torn through leaving only a bit of leather that barely did not make a hole.

The only other thing that he caught was this morning’s newspaper, not to read because he could barely do that, but to hide his drawings if he seemed he was going to be caught. He looked over at the newspaper and read the date: “September 10, 1854.” The date meant nothing to the boy because none of the people that he knew owned a sewing machine. But then over and above him a shadow dimly lit by a gaslamp came down.

And then he heard a voice: “What is your name pray tell?” Before anything else, he moved the newspaper over the devil and then looked up, though he knew that it would be someone who was somewhat important from the look of his boots. He stared upwards and saw a distinguished-looking gentleman with a proper waistcoat and jacket. The gentleman looked down at him but in a kindly way. “I see you’re trying something a trifle dastardly.” He pulled away the newspaper with his foot and could see a man and a woman with horns on their heads and not a scrap of clothing. This was just barely visible from the white heat from the lamp.

“My friends call me Andy, though I suppose that Andrew would be more formal.” And then he quickly added: “Sir.”

“Well Andrew, my name is Dr. John Snow, and of course, I am very pleased to meet you. May I trouble you for the pen that you have absconded? Please.” It was a gentle face but there was a coldness in his manner. There was no point, Andrew realized, in attempting to negate the obvious, because it was obvious that such a pen would not fall into a ruffian's hands.

Then the gentleman continued: “What are you doing on Broad Street, if I might ask?”

“There are three gas lamps and a pair in the windows, and I am staying out for the last few minutes before my mama calls me in.”

The man looked up and down Broad Street, which was indeed broad but not very long. Then he stood Andrew up and pointed across the street. “Do you see the pump?” Andrew only nodded. Snow continued: “What do you think is causing all the fatalities here?”

But the boy only shrugged: “I know that you find gentlemen are talking about the miasma but most people here think, as my mama does, that it is the work of Satan himself.” After that Andrew stared into Dr. John Snow's eyes with a defiant glance.

However, Snow did not answer the boy's implied question instead he asked: “And does your mother take water from the pump?”

Andrew’s face grew red, and he looked down over his shoes. Still looking down: “She used a year ago but that was before she started letting a man who works around over at the Broad St. brewery.” Then Andrew stopped but went on again: “Since then we have had beer rather than water and she takes the leftovers from the hotel where she works at. And actually, we have moved to the downstairs since many of the people have left this area.” This had taken all of Andrew’s honesty, which was in very short supply in this rather low-end place. While they were only half a mile from Piccadilly Circus and Hyde Park, there was some place nearby for the servant class to live and this was that and was especially that, if you know what I mean.

It was at this point that John Snow stood up and a broad smile crossed his face, but it was not happiness that brought it but a kind of grim determination. Then quickly crossing the street was another man less well dressed than Dr. Snow. He was considerably older with a long white beard which was scraggly, a long church robe, and he wore on his head a zucchetto, that Andrew knew only because he had asked a parishioner once, and somehow remembered.

“John, whatever are you doing out so late?”

Doctors Snow faced the curate. “I was just talking to Andrew here,” He then pointed at the boy. “We were talking about the conditions around the pump. I think I can get the handle removed, and thus show it is not some miasma that’s causing the deaths. It is not the devil with his bat wings and inverted pentagram which claims so many lives… But the water from the Thames.”

“Piped in from Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks Company. You’ve talked to me about this before, what gives you the additional confidence to ask this time?”

“Most of the families have left, and the ones who remain are often drinking beer from the local brewery. And I think that that is the last piece of the puzzle: when making the beer they heat it up and that makes the water safe to drink.”

However, Snow did not get the pump removed because in 1858 he died at age 45 from a hemorrhage on his brain. But the parish authorities eventually did so.