Marvin and the Poils
When he was thirteen and big for his age, Marvin got a part-time job stringing pearls. Not in a factory but a basement room where what natural light there was, was a thin undernourished light that seeped into the basement area, down the basement wall, and pressed ineffectually against the grime-smudged window panes. (They had the look of having been breathed upon by a large mouth full of carious teeth and the misting had stayed put.) Anyway, he’s there one day stringing away with the other almost-slaves when he looks at the pearls in the little pot which contained just the right number for each string, counted out there by Mr Brudski himself, and he asks, ‘Are these real pearls?’ And old Ambramsky, who had been in the business of stringing longer than he could or cared to remember, said: ‘These poils? Each one comes from an oister so big you wouldn’t believe.’
And everyone sniggered in their noses, but Marvin didn’t notice because as soon as his ears heard they were real, they were closed to all other sounds except the chink of coins and the rustle of dollar bills as he exchanged them over the counter of the nearby pawnshop.
Now Marvin was no fool. He realised that if Brudski counted out the pearls, he probably wouldn’t count them in because it would take too much time. (How he arrived at such logic, only he knows.) And something else: in the middle of the string you had one big pearl, two smaller ones either side, and one smaller still on each side of those. The rest were even smaller. Marvin figured that if he took one of the big ones he would be rumbled straight away, but if you took, say, two of the very small ones from each side, who was to know? Also, after a time, you could build up a nice collection and sell by weight. At night he tried to calculate how many of the very small would make one of the bigger ones in the middle. Seven, he reckoned, for the largest; four for the smaller size; and two or three, say, for the next down.
He wouldn’t be able to put them in a pocket because there was always a chance you could be searched in a place like this. Or a hole could develop and one day, when you least expected it, they would drop to the floor and roll back and forth with the amplified sound that secrets make when discovered, and all present would watch and hear them rolling back and forth, back and forth until the last one had shivered to a stop, and Brudski would be there with a hand of iron to give a great beating before the hauling off to the constabulary station. Also Brudski knew his father, and to steal (not that he liked the word much) from someone who knew your father was like taking from him yourself. No, definitely not, an act to be eschewed – for the present, at least. Because what we decide in the present need not necessarily have a puissant effect on the future, which always remains full of possibilities and other exciting things.
But Marvin was a voracious reader and only last week had read of a poor black slave who had been forced to work in a goldmine and was not going to make his fortune in a month of Mondays, no way! So when the slave came across a nugget of the right size and one of the guards wasn’t looking, he put it in his mouth and swallowed. The writer didn’t go into too much detail about how the poor slave got hold of it out the other end, but Marvin, who was no fool when it came to such things, already had it figured out. Of course, it would be a bit more difficult separating out the pearls, which were so much smaller than nuggets of gold, but all you had to have was a knife and fork and a lot of patience. And while it couldn’t be the height of enjoyment searching your own shit for pearls, it
was better than looking for them in someone else’s. That’s for sure.
Marvin went to work each morning whistling a merry tune. His father, who never whistled, not in the morning or the evening on the return journey, or even on High Holydays, wondered if his son might not have a predilection for the fiscal life much more tenacious than his own. Meanwhile, Marvin put in his mouth one small pearl from each side of the string. This was on a Tuesday. On Wednesday he could be found out. What excuse was there that Brudski had miscounted? Each stringer had their own bowl and handed in their work at the end of each time. The bowls were unmarked, and Marvin could not see how Brudski could ever find out.
Of course, he might. He might have some devious plan up his threadbare sleeves, some mode of detection known only to the employers of pearl stringers; a device so simple, so effective, you would marvel and say to yourself, why did I not think of that? And slap yourself twice round the head out of aggravation – and possibly admiration.
But nothing happened. Not that day, nor the next, nor the one after that. Could be that Brudski considered his hand of iron a sufficient deterrent. With such a puissant reminder of honesty, who would dare eschew?
Let us jump forward a few weeks to reach a time when Marvin is swallowing two pearls a day and sometimes even more, and so deft at the stringing has he become that even Mr Brudski is constrained to remark on his natural ability for the profession, and it could be, in the fullness of time, he might go far.
At night he returns and spends much more time than usual in the bathroom. Also in the morning. Leaving behind a curious smell which no one can fail to notice. Which prompts his mother to talk of laxatives and enemas, because to have such an inside is not the best of news.
Marvin is not best pleased. It is difficult enough to spot the pearl under ordinary conditions, but with a laxative it would not be possible. They would be down in the pipes and then the sewer and away to the coast before you could say Moishe Pipik. With such a release you could lose a whole week’s work.
He bought several air-fresheners, arguing that if one didn’t work, another might. With money he could ill afford. But he told himself, it’s a business, and in a business you have to lay out as well as take in.
Mother to father: ‘You notice a different smell in the house these days?’
Father to mother: ‘Whatever it is, it’s better than before.’ Then came the day when Marvin had accumulated quite a pile of pearls. He kept them wrapped in a knotted handkerchief and in a small cardboard box he used to keep picture-cards in. These were now scattered and neglected. How can cards compete with poils?
The pawn-man opens the box and unties the handkerchief; inside the handkerchief Marvin has put the pearls on a piece of purple – for the effect of it. The man looks. He takes up a pearl in what seem to be eyebrow pluckers and regards it under a magnifying glass. Then he examines another.
‘You get these all from the same place?’ he asks Marvin.
‘I did,’ says Marvin, proudly.
‘Then I should take them back,’ the man advised. ‘They’re fake. Not worth fifty cents.’
Marvin staggered back a pace or two. He peered at the pearls. ‘Fifty cents each?’ he said, hopefully.
‘The lot,’ said the man, ‘if I was minded to buy, which I am not.’
It was no time for argument or for bargaining. It was a definitive refusal.
‘And something else,’ the man said. ‘I don’t know where you have been keeping these, but
they smell.’
Not without embarrassment does Marvin tie the corners of the, by now, soiled handkerchief over the edges of the velvet upon which the pearls are shivering back and forth, thither and hither. And all this under the eye of the pawn-man who is now regarding the whole sorry event with what might be suspicion. For all Marvin knows he could be a covert collaborator of Brudski et al, who have an arrangement in the small print, which says: ‘As the nearest broker of pawns to our esteemed factory [Esteemed! That’s a laugh!] you are likely to be approached by would-be purloiners of our poils. Should such an event occur you will be bound to inform us of such. And, of course, should such an event occur there will be a reward, neither substantial nor insubstantial to be negotiated between us, for the prompt resuscitation of our property, and for your prompt apprehension of the criminal and the passing of such information to the appropriate authorities.’
Marvin is appalled. To become a criminal before he has even the possibility of enjoying the status, let alone to relish the proceeds! He had planned to purchase a cummerbund for his father, which would cover the upper threadbare aspect of his best trousers. For his mother he had decided on a silk shawl, similar to that of Mrs Grabinski, upon whose shawl his mother had cast envious glances, which he had seen. He would buy similar, but not too similar. Because, although he was not an aficionado in such matters, his instinct for such informed him how no lady is made happy or even amused if she enters a public place only to find another of a similar gender wearing the same or too similar apparel. Whereas menfolk seem to rejoice at similar apparel, and are made ecstatic when they encounter upon the other, the same suit from identical material, and better still, from the same tailor. For what can this be if not a confirmation, a salutation of the excellent taste of each. Add to which they may saunter through the gathering and pick upon others less fortunate than they, who are wearing garments of inferior quality and cut. And say to each unfortunate, ‘That’s a splendid costume you have on. When is your second fitting?’ And rush away shrieking with guffaws.
But all this is mere speculation. A fiction writer may care to indulge himself, but I do not. Someone else in Marvin’s position may well entertain a similar scenario, even the same sentiments; but that Marvin, whoever he is, does so is controvertible. Indeed, as soon as you consider events from this stance point, a great many events fall into desuetude. Indeed, they may not have taken place at all, either in reality, fantasy or the imagination, deranged or otherwise.
And having promulgated such a perception, there remains little for me to do but to bow out or merely absent myself unobtrusively, and leave you to get on with whatever it is you are employing to banish ennui and incipient depression.
It merely remains for me to wish you Good Afternoon, Good Evening, or Goodnight. Or whatever else the time may be, wherever you are.
