what could be
more appealing than a baby on its mother’s nipple, the two most loved of natural shapes, the infant cheek, the breast? No need to look away from nakedness like that. You could study scenes
more intimate in churches or in galleries. Madonna and her Child. The Infancy of Christ. First Born. Indeed, there was a sculpture reproduced on the lower-value silver coins of that time. A woman,
Concord, held an infant to her breast, her tunic open to her waist, her thighs becoming tree trunk, tree bole, the tree becoming undergrowth, becoming Motherland. Here, then, was the sentimental
counterpart of comic, operatic drunks. Em and Victor made a wholesome sight when Victor was asleep and on her breast. Coins dropped into the mother’s palm or on her shawl were tribute tithes
for family life. Em understood. To earn the pity and the cash of citizens she had to seem respectable and, more than that, serene – a living sculpture labelled Motherhood.
2
F OR THOSE MEN who were not moved by Motherhood, Em acted Eve. She wore a mask of gormless innocence which was as challenging to them as the pouting and
the paint upon the faces of the bar girls who sold real sex for cash. The market traders who passed her frequently and saw the way her expression seemed to fluctuate haphazardly between Eve and
Motherhood thought – preferred to think, in fact – that Em was none too bright. They said she hadn’t got the sense that God gave lettuce. They labelled her ‘the
Radish’. That was the nickname that they used for girls red-faced and odorous and from-the-soil like her. These traders had good cause to doubt the sharpness of her intellect, besides the
permutations of her face. She muttered to her baby all day long, and in those slow and well-baked country tones which stretched the vowels and squashed the consonants and made the language sound
like morse. Yet there was cunning just below the widow’s skin. Alms-givers welcome gormless gratitude. They do not give to people who seem wiser than themselves, no matter whether it be Eve
or not. No, Victor’s mother was no fool, despite appearances. A fool would have an empty palm, but Em’s was always slightly curled and buttoned heavily with the copper brown of
coinage.
Her looks, of course, were helpful there. She was a radish with a round and childish face. Her breasts were high and firm with milk. Her throat and shoulders were vulnerable and bare. Her knees
were spread to make her lap a cradle for the child. Her feet and lower legs protruded from her apron skirts with the unselfconsciousness of a small girl sitting in shadow at the harvest edge. Any
man who paused to drop some coins in her palm had paid for time to stare at her – though if he stepped too close the parasol would block his view. She did not lift her face to look these men
directly in the eye. A look from her would make them hesitate, or return the coins they had found for her in the pockets of their coats. For women, though, the radish turned its chin and caught
their eyes and smiled. Most shopping women are too timid and too sociable to fail to match a freely given smile. And having smiled themselves at Em, what could they do? What else but mutter phrases
about the weather or the child, and buy escape from smiles and platitudes with coins in Em’s palm?
Sometimes the crowds which walked between the market and the garden were too dense for smiles to work. The shoppers simply dropped their eyes and let the beggar woman’s beams slip by. But
Em soon learnt the trick of targeting her smiles with words. ‘God Bless the Cheerful Giver,’ she would say. Or, ‘Lady, Lady!’ spoken urgently, as if she’d spotted
danger on the street or recognized a family friend. If Em could only stop the first one in a crowd and embarrass her to pause and give, then she could count on gifts in streams. The first fish
leads the shoal.
So Victor and his mother lived beneath the parasol by day, and slept at night
more appealing than a baby on its mother’s nipple, the two most loved of natural shapes, the infant cheek, the breast? No need to look away from nakedness like that. You could study scenes
more intimate in churches or in galleries. Madonna and her Child. The Infancy of Christ. First Born. Indeed, there was a sculpture reproduced on the lower-value silver coins of that time. A woman,
Concord, held an infant to her breast, her tunic open to her waist, her thighs becoming tree trunk, tree bole, the tree becoming undergrowth, becoming Motherland. Here, then, was the sentimental
counterpart of comic, operatic drunks. Em and Victor made a wholesome sight when Victor was asleep and on her breast. Coins dropped into the mother’s palm or on her shawl were tribute tithes
for family life. Em understood. To earn the pity and the cash of citizens she had to seem respectable and, more than that, serene – a living sculpture labelled Motherhood.
2
F OR THOSE MEN who were not moved by Motherhood, Em acted Eve. She wore a mask of gormless innocence which was as challenging to them as the pouting and
the paint upon the faces of the bar girls who sold real sex for cash. The market traders who passed her frequently and saw the way her expression seemed to fluctuate haphazardly between Eve and
Motherhood thought – preferred to think, in fact – that Em was none too bright. They said she hadn’t got the sense that God gave lettuce. They labelled her ‘the
Radish’. That was the nickname that they used for girls red-faced and odorous and from-the-soil like her. These traders had good cause to doubt the sharpness of her intellect, besides the
permutations of her face. She muttered to her baby all day long, and in those slow and well-baked country tones which stretched the vowels and squashed the consonants and made the language sound
like morse. Yet there was cunning just below the widow’s skin. Alms-givers welcome gormless gratitude. They do not give to people who seem wiser than themselves, no matter whether it be Eve
or not. No, Victor’s mother was no fool, despite appearances. A fool would have an empty palm, but Em’s was always slightly curled and buttoned heavily with the copper brown of
coinage.
Her looks, of course, were helpful there. She was a radish with a round and childish face. Her breasts were high and firm with milk. Her throat and shoulders were vulnerable and bare. Her knees
were spread to make her lap a cradle for the child. Her feet and lower legs protruded from her apron skirts with the unselfconsciousness of a small girl sitting in shadow at the harvest edge. Any
man who paused to drop some coins in her palm had paid for time to stare at her – though if he stepped too close the parasol would block his view. She did not lift her face to look these men
directly in the eye. A look from her would make them hesitate, or return the coins they had found for her in the pockets of their coats. For women, though, the radish turned its chin and caught
their eyes and smiled. Most shopping women are too timid and too sociable to fail to match a freely given smile. And having smiled themselves at Em, what could they do? What else but mutter phrases
about the weather or the child, and buy escape from smiles and platitudes with coins in Em’s palm?
Sometimes the crowds which walked between the market and the garden were too dense for smiles to work. The shoppers simply dropped their eyes and let the beggar woman’s beams slip by. But
Em soon learnt the trick of targeting her smiles with words. ‘God Bless the Cheerful Giver,’ she would say. Or, ‘Lady, Lady!’ spoken urgently, as if she’d spotted
danger on the street or recognized a family friend. If Em could only stop the first one in a crowd and embarrass her to pause and give, then she could count on gifts in streams. The first fish
leads the shoal.
So Victor and his mother lived beneath the parasol by day, and slept at night
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