by Jack Finney
The warden stood staring at what he had done. Neatly lettered in dark green at the center of the topmost board of his door, Perez had painted his name, L. Perez, the paint seemingly old and half weathered away; and the warden understood now that he was looking at a painted likeness of the door to Perez's home somewhere in Mexico. Below Perez's name, through the wide cracks between the topmost boards of the door, the warden caught a glimpse of low ceiling, and of the tops of three wide, glassless, adobe-framed windows. Through the windows and down into the room, slanted sunlight, and — somehow Perez had achieved this with paint — it was the hot yellow sun of a tropical country, pouring down from a patch of sky so blue, sunny and real that the warden's eyes smarted as he stared at it.
Below this, at eye level — through a big knothole, and the carelessly wide cracks of a door made for a hot climate — the warden caught a glimpse of a crude wooden tabletop. And bending over the table, in the act of placing upon it two plates and a bottle of wine, was a woman. He could not see her face; through the wide uneven crack he could see only her bare brown arms, and a portion of her upper body in a blue-and-yellow blouse. Through the cracks below this, the warden saw a glimpse of bright skirt, and at one end of the table a water glass filled with flowers.
Luis, do you want to talk now? the warden said gently. There won't be much time in the morning.
But Perez shook his head, not turning from his work. Thank you, but no, he said. I do not have time. I must finish.
Why the blanket, Luis?
Oh Perez lifted a shoulder in a little shrug — this is a painting of sentiment, warden; and I do not wish the others to see it. Until it no longer matters to me.
All right — the warden nodded — no one else will see it. Until after tomorrow. He glanced at his watch. But you'd better finish soon. You'll be leaving your cell tonight, you know.
Perez turned, his jaw dropping in stunned shock, and the warden knew he'd actually forgotten. A condemned man, here, is taken from his cell the night before his execution to another cell only a dozen steps from the little concrete room which contains the gas chamber. There are reasons for this. It would be a profoundly upsetting thing to the other men on the row to watch one of them led away, perhaps struggling, or collapsed and semiconscious, having to be physically carried. And for the man himself to have to walk from the row, ride down in the elevator, then walk hundreds of yards through the prison, would be a terrible ordeal; it was hard enough for a man to steel himself to walk only a dozen steps to the chamber. So men were moved from the row the night before their executions.
But now Perez — his eyes stunned, remembering this — was shaking his head in dumb appeal. No, warden, he said then. No! He gestured at the painting behind him. I've got to finish! I must work tomorrow, too, to finish! You can't move me; I must finish!
The warden did not know why it was of absolute importance for Perez to finish this painting of the door to his home, with its glimpses of the room on its other side; but he knew that somehow it was. It was not legally necessary to move Perez tonight; the rule had come out of long prison experience. Luis, how will you act tomorrow? he said, and Perez's eyes closed for a moment in relief.
Then he opened them. I will walk out, he said, without help or force. And I will walk out smiling, warden. Believe me.
The warden nodded. O.K., he said. Finish your door.
At eight-thirty Thursday morning, the block captain reported to the warden by phone that Perez had been restless in the night; the guards had heard him moving in his cell from time to time, and they doubted that he had slept much. But this wasn't unusual. He had not touched his breakfast tray, either, but this, too, surprised no one.
Just after ten, the warden and a prison chaplain arrived at Perez's cell. But from behind his blanket, Perez refused to see them. He did this respectfully, but he had to finish his painting, he explained, and did not have an instant to spare for anything else. Standing at the door of Perez's cell, the warden felt awkward and foolish; this was a ridiculous situation, the condemned man hiding behind a blanket he had rigged up in his cell. To order it pulled down now, the warden knew, would be excusable and understandable to the guards who stood watching him, and he knew the chaplain wanted to see Perez. But he felt unwilling to do this to a man in the last minutes of his life, and besides, he had given his word; so he turned away from the cell.
They came for Perez forty-seven minutes later, at ten minutes of eleven. A guard unlocked the cell, and after a moment, when Perez did not appear from behind his blanket, the warden said quietly in Spanish, All right, Luis; it's time.
A moment, warden, Perez replied. One moment longer.
The warden waited through a few seconds, looking at Perez's personal possessions. There weren't many, beyond the paints and supplies he had sent in to Perez. There was a pipe, a sack of prison tobacco, a guitar, which he had seldom played and his wife's photograph. It was the posed, stiffly smiling face of a young Mexican woman; pretty, her black hair parted in the middle and coiled in braids on the top of her head. She had never visited Perez; she had no money. But she had written often, and her letters, in their envelopes with the canceled Mexican stamps, were stacked beside her photograph.
Come on, Luis, the warden said quietly. You've got to come now. It was true; the law means what it says, and the condemned man is not allowed to anticipate or delay its sentence. Come on, Luis, the warden repeated after a moment. You don't want to make us have to bring you out.
For perhaps three seconds longer there was no response, and the warden waited that additional time, desperately hoping he would not have to signal the guards. A corner of the blanket moved and lifted, and Perez stepped out, a paint brush in his hand, and stood staring at them. Then he kept his promise. Tossing the brush to his bunk, he smiled and walked out of his cell to take his place between the two waiting guards. Thank you, he said to the warden. It is finished.
And then the warden kept his promise. Lock the cell, he said to the guard who had opened it. No one is to go into it, till afterward. Perez again smiled his thanks, and they all stepped forward.
The two guards have since said they heard this; the chaplain has said he did not. As Perez stepped forward, both guards have insisted, a sound came from the locked cell behind them. It was faint, they have said, but distinct, and it was a creaking sound, the sound of a door moving on its hinges; they insist upon that.
But the chaplain says no, and he would not lie, and the warden will still only shake his head and shrug. Perez heard it, though, the guards say. For his eyes suddenly widened in an intense realization of something, they didn't know what; and he hesitated in his stride for a second. Then, of necessity, he walked on, and the sound, if any, was lost in the murmur of farewells, mumbled good lucks, and urgings of courage from the cells they were passing.
Things move very quickly in an execution; it is no kindness to delay. The little concrete room, dominated by the windowed pastel-green gas chamber, was ready when the little party reached it. On a tier of benches facing the thick windows of the chamber sat the dozen witnesses required by law. They were prison employees in this case — there were no relatives — who were obliged to be here, and a single newspaper reporter representing all the metropolitan papers; this was not an important or newsworthy execution. The two chairs of perforated metal stood with their straps wide, a waiting guard behind one of them. But before the warden gave the signal to bind Perez into the waiting chair, he stepped, as always, to the telephone just outside the chamber door.
This phone had been installed immediately after the time, some years before, when a stay of execution had been phoned to the prison three minutes before an execution. The message had reached the prison in time, but not this room, and the man had been executed. Now this phone, as it had been for some minutes now, was an open line to the office of the governor at the state capitol eighty miles away. And as always, the warden spoke into it now, to make absolutely sure that the line was working, and that someone
of the governor's office sat at its other end. This is the warden here, he said quietly. We're ready. Do you have anything? There was no answer, and the warden spoke again. Hello, he said, louder now, this is the —
Just a second, warden, a man's voice, an assistant to the governor, replied, and there was a note of anxiety in his voice. Hold it a second! he said then, his voice fading as though he were turning from the phone, and the warden frowned, the room dead silent, everyone staring at him. Warden, said the voice at the other end again, there's an hour's stay. Don't start! Repeat, don't start! Have you started yet?
No, of course not! What —
Just a second; the governor's coming on.
There was a pause, a click, then the governor's voice said, Warden, have you started?
No, sir. I wouldn't start till we'd checked —
I know, I know; I just wanted to be sure. I'm granting an hour's stay; till twelve. As the governor continued, the warden listened, glancing up at the motionless, staring Perez, and he was sorry for him. An hour's stay of execution during the last minutes was not an infrequent occurrence. A condemned man's attorney, including Perez's state-appointed lawyer, almost automatically appealed for stays right up to the last, advancing whatever reasons he could find or think of. And if such an appeal had any possibility of solid merit, a stay of an hour, or of even a day, might be granted until it could be ruled upon or investigated. But the warden knew from long experience that these brief delays were seldom more than a postponement of the inevitable, and he sometimes wondered whether the attorneys who obtained them were doing their clients a favor at all.
It was typical of this warden that when he replaced the phone, he spoke first not to the newspaperman or the others but to Perez. You have an hour's stay, he said to the now smiling man, wondering as always at the joy of a condemned man over an additional hour of agonized waiting. The police in Chicago — now he spoke to the newspaperman as well as Perez — are on the phone to the governor. They have a man, arrested last night, who's confessing a string of robberies — the warden shrugged at this familiar phenomenon. He knows something, or seems to — again the warden shrugged — about this killing. There's no confession, but he's talking, hinting, then retracting and hedging. But of course we're going to wait.
Turning to the guards, he ordered them to take Perez, for the hour's wait, to the condemned cell just outside the room, and to get him a drink of whisky if he wanted it. To Perez he said, smiling, Good luck; here's hoping, and while he meant this — he hated executions — he didn't really hope. There are innocent men in prisons, he knew; less often than cynics might think, but more often than the gently bred might suppose. And this includes men convicted of murder, as well as of other crimes. But the warden knew also that nearly every murder brings false confessions. What had happened just now had happened before, and glancing at the waiting chair as he left the room, he did not believe Perez would escape it.
But he did. In less than fifteen minutes the phone — in his office now, where he sat waiting — rang again. The man in a Chicago police station, driven by whatever impels men to this, was confessing freely to crimes far beyond the one for which he had been arrested; including the grocery-store shooting for which Perez had been convicted upon the positive identification of three witnesses. And it was, in the words of the Chicago police lieutenant who had spoken to the governor, a “solid” confession. The man had shot a Chinese, he said, and he knew — the local police had just confirmed these facts to the governor — the location of the grocery store, the approximate date and the exact time of the shooting, the amount of money stolen; and the caliber of the pistol he said he had used was that of the bullet taken from the dead man's body. He had thrown the gun into the bay, and if it was recovered it would substantiate the confession conclusively. No one now doubted that the confession was genuine.
It was the warden, walking fast, who brought the news to Perez, waiting in the cell just across from the gas chamber. And he explained, smiling now, in full detail, as they walked with the two guards back to the row and Perez's cell; for he was still a condemned prisoner, his sentence of death stayed now for one month. Walking down the row, Perez smiling at the shouts of the men he had left an hour before, the warden said, If this holds up, Luis, you can be out in a day on a pardon. If you want another trial —
A pardon will do, warden, Perez answered, smiling. I want to get home. They stood waiting, as a grinning guard unlocked his cell. And it will stand up, Perez added. I am certain of that.
I hope so.
It will, warden; oh, it will. I've known that all morning, and he beckoned, and the warden followed him into his cell. Perez lifted a corner of his hanging blanket then, and they stepped behind it, to face the painting. It had taken Perez a week, working every daylit hour, to bring his painting to the nearly finished state in which the warden had last seen it yesterday afternoon. It was impossible, the warden knew — he knew this, he told himself — for Perez to have scraped it from the wall, and completely repainted it last night; even if he'd been able to see by the dim night light in the corridor outside the cell. Yet apparently this is what Perez had done.
For there, painted on the wall of his cell, was the miraculously real-looking door; except that it now stood open. It was opened wide, flat against the wall, its inner side now facing the warden's eyes. And beyond the now open doorway lay the entire room he had glimpsed through the cracks of the closed door on the day before. There stood the table, all of it now, set with plates, a bottle of wine and a glassful of flowers. And there, in the blue-and-yellow blouse and bright skirt, was the woman he had seen, but now he saw her fully, and saw her face. She was crying, her face contorted in an agony of joy, and she was running toward the open doorway, her arms outflung, as though it had just opened, and someone she loved were stepping through it. Her forehead, the warden saw, was lined, and there were grooves in her cheeks, and her black hair was streaked with gray. But still, he did not have to turn to the photograph on the shelf behind him, and compare it with the older face in this painting, to know who this woman was.
This is what I will see; very soon now, Perez said. This is what waited on the other side of the door you allowed me to finish.
Standing in Perez's cell, still staring, the warden knew it was impossible, no matter how terribly intense the desire behind it, to paint a door on a wall so lovingly and realistically that it would open onto what lay waiting on the other side. He knew it was impossible for a man to escape Condemned Row through a door made of paint squeezed out of tubes. He knew all these things, but — a legend had begun — he knew also that neither he nor anyone else in this prison would ever believe them.
The Saturday Evening Post, January 10, 1959, 231(28):32-33, 60-62
Bedtime Story
Lying on his side in the darkness, the blanket pulled tight over his shoulders, Mike Cutler heard his wife stir on the other side of the big double bed.
You asleep? she murmured.
No, not yet. I'm cold. Little chilly, anyway.
Turn your control up.
I did. And I'm still cold. He reached out to the table beside him and turned the electric-blanket control higher.
It's your imagination, Iris Cutler answered. It's not cold. Actually, it's rather warm.
Maybe, but why are you still awake, then?
I'm thirsty. It really is too warm.
Difference in basal metabolism. He rolled over to face her. It's a well-known scientific fact that women keep warmer than men. They've got a layer of fat just under the skin that insulates —
I'm not fat! I just don't imagine I'm cold when I'm actually roasting. She rose defiantly on one elbow, reaching out to her bedside table.
In the faint orange glow of light from the little plastic box that regulated the heat in her half of the blanket, Mike saw her turn down the control, and he grinned. Okay, you've convinced me by the sheer power of logic that I must be warm as toast. But I still imagine I'm freezing. He heard Iris s
igh as she turned away, the sound muffled by her pillow, and he knew, as though he could see her, what position she lay in. Courting sleep, she was lying on her stomach like a child, an arm dangling from the side of the bed, head half-buried in her pillow and turned toward the wall.
The idea sprang full-born, and at first, grinning in the darkness, he struggled to resist it. But the compulsion was too strong — he had to do this — and for several moments, he lay figuring how. It was impossible, he decided, to get out of bed silently, so he sighed loudly, squirming as though in restless inability to sleep. But his movements had a purpose, and when he again lay motionless, one knee and the toes of one bare foot were on the floor beside the bed.
It was an awkward position to maintain, but for a good two minutes, he lay unmoving, till his leg muscles began trembling from strain. Once more, then, thumping his pillow, he moved in apparent restlessness, and when he had finished, he was on both knees beside the bed, only his arms and upper body still on the mattress. Iris sighed in mild protest at his squirming, and he held his breath; but she did not alter her position.
With infinite care, he began lifting the weight of his upper body from the bed. Ears alert for the slightest squeak of a spring, he eased his body upward. Finally, Mike was completely out of bed, listening to the gentle sound of his wife's breathing.
He carefully lowered himself to a sitting position; then, in utter silence, hands braced on the floor behind him, he began lowering his shoulders toward the floor.
Still awake? Iris murmured, and Mike quickly raised himself till his lips were level with his pillow.
Mmm, he muttered sleepily. Sort of. He waited a dozen seconds, and when Iris made no response, he lowered himself till he lay flat on the floor. Soundlessly, he began sliding across the waxed-wood floor under the bed, careful never to bump the box springs just above him. Sliding a few inches at a time — first shoulders, then hips, then heels — he reached the opposite side of the bed, and in the dim orange light he could see Iris' relaxed hand, dangling only a few inches from his face. Grinning, he carefully raised a hand toward hers. Then, as though shaking hands, he fitted his hand into Iris', let it lie motionless for a fraction of a second, then gently squeezed her hand.