by Paul Auster
“Well, old buddy,” he said to Murks as the three of them walked across the grass, “it looks like you’ve finally put your cards on the table.”
“Cards?” Murks said, confused by the reference. “I told you yesterday I don’t play cards.”
“Just a figure of speech,” Pozzi said, smiling pleasantly. “I’m talking about that funny lollypop you’ve got there. That dingdong hanging from your waist.”
“Oh, that,” Murks said, patting the gun in its holster. “Yeah, well, I figured I shouldn’t take no more chances. You’re a crazy son of a bitch, little guy. No telling what you might do.”
“It kind of narrows the possibilities, though, doesn’t it?” Pozzi said. “I mean, a thing like that can seriously hamper a man’s ability to express himself. Curtail his First Amendment rights, if you know what I’m talking about.”
“You don’t have to be cute, mister,” Murks said. “I know what the First Amendment is.”
“Of course you do. That’s why I like you so much, Calvin. You’re a sharp customer, a real whiz and a half. No one can put anything over on you.”
“Like I said yesterday, I’m always willing to give a man a break. But only one. After that, you’ve got to take appropriate action.”
“Like laying your cards out on the table, huh?”
“If that’s how you want to put it.”
“It’s just good to keep things straight, that’s all. In fact, I’m kind of glad you put on your dress-up belt today. It gives my friend Jim here a better picture of things.”
“That’s the idea,” Murks said, patting the gun once again. “It does have a way of adjusting the focus, don’t it?”
They finished repairing the trench by the end of the morning, and after that work returned to normal. Except for the gun (which Murks continued to wear every day), the outward circumstances of their life did not seem to change much. If anything, Nashe sensed that they were actually beginning to improve. The rain had stopped, for one thing, and instead of the wet, clammy days that had bogged them down for more than a week, they entered a period of superb fall weather: crisp, shimmering skies; firm ground underfoot; the crackle of leaves scudding past them in the wind. But Pozzi seemed to have improved as well, and it was no longer such a strain for Nashe to be with him. The gun had been a turning point, somehow, and since then he had managed to recover much of his bounce and spirit. The crazy talk had stopped; he kept his anger under control; the world was beginning to amuse him again. That was real progress, but there was also the progress of the calendar, and perhaps that meant more than anything else. They had made it into October now, and all of a sudden the end was in sight. Just knowing that was enough to awaken some hope in them, some flicker of optimism that had not been there before. There were sixteen days to go, and not even the gun could take that away from them. As long as they kept on working, the work was going to make them free.
They put in the thousandth stone on October eighth, polishing off the bottom row with more than a week to spare. In spite of everything, Nashe could not help feeling a sense of accomplishment. They had made a mark somehow, they had done something that would remain after they were gone, and no matter where they happened to be, a part of this wall would always belong to them. Even Pozzi looked happy about it, and when the last stone was finally cemented into place, he stepped back for a moment and said to Nashe, “Well, my man, get a load of what we just did.” Uncharacteristically, the kid then hopped up onto the stones and started prancing down the length of the row, holding out his arms like a tightrope walker. Nashe was glad to see the kid respond in that way, and as he watched the small figure tiptoe off into the distance, following the pantomime of the high-wire stunt (as though he were in danger, as though he were about to fall from a great height), something suddenly choked up inside him, and he felt himself on the verge of tears. A moment later, Murks came up beside him and said, “It looks like the little bugger is feeling pretty proud of himself, don’t it?”
“He deserves to,” Nashe said. “He’s worked hard.”
“Well, it hasn’t been easy, I’ll grant you that. But it looks like we’re coming along now. It looks like this thing is finally going up.”
“Little by little, one stone at a time.”
“That’s the way it’s done. One stone at a time.”
“I guess you’ll have to start looking for some new workers. The way Jack and I figure it, we’re due to leave here on the sixteenth.”
“I know that. It’s kind of a shame, though. I mean, just when you boys are getting the hang of it and all.”
“Those are the breaks, Calvin.”
“Yeah, I guess so. But if nothing better comes along, you might consider coming back. I know that sounds crazy to you right now, but give it a little thought anyway.”
“Thought?” Nashe said, not knowing if he was about to laugh or cry.
“It’s really not such bad work,” Murks continued. “At least it’s all there in front of you. You put down a stone, and something happens. You put down another stone, and something more happens. There’s no big mystery to it. You can see the wall going up, and after a while it starts to give you a good feeling. It’s not like mowing the grass or chopping wood. That’s work, too, but it don’t ever amount to much. When you work on a wall like this, you’ve always got something to show for it.”
“I suppose it has its points,” Nashe said, a little dumbfounded by Murks’s venture into philosophy, “but I can think of other things I’d rather be doing.”
“Suit yourself. But just remember we’ve got nine rows left. You could earn yourself some good money if you stuck with it.”
“I’ll bear that in mind. But if I were you, Calvin, I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
7
There was a problem, however. It had been there all along, a small thing in the back of their minds, but now that the sixteenth was only a week away, it suddenly grew larger, attaining such proportions as to dwarf everything else. The debt would be paid off on the sixteenth, but at that point they would only be back to zero. They would be free, perhaps, but they would also be broke, and how far would that freedom take them if they had no money? They wouldn’t even be able to afford the price of a bus ticket. The moment they walked out of there, they would be turned into bums, a pair of penniless drifters trying to make their way in the dark.
For a few minutes, it looked as though Nashe’s credit card might rescue them, but when he pulled it out of his wallet and showed it to Pozzi, the kid discovered that it had expired at the end of September. They talked about writing to someone to ask for a loan, but the only people they could think of were Pozzi’s mother and Nashe’s sister, and that didn’t sit too well with either of them. It wasn’t worth the embarrassment, they said, and besides, it was probably too late anyway. By the time they sent off their letter and received an answer, it would already be past the sixteenth.
Then Nashe told Pozzi about the conversation he had had with Murks that afternoon. It was a terrible prospect (at one point, it even looked as though the kid was about to start crying), but little by little they came around to the idea that they would have to stay with the wall a bit longer. There just wasn’t any choice. Unless they built up some cash for themselves, there would only be more trouble after they left, and neither one of them felt equal to it. They were too worn out, too shaken to run that risk now. One or two extra days ought to do it, they said, just a couple of hundred dollars apiece to get them going. In the long run, maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as all that. At least they would be working for themselves, and that was bound to make a difference. Or so they said—but what else could they say to each other at that moment? They had drunk close to a fifth of bourbon by then, and dwelling on the truth only would have made things worse than they already were.
They talked to Calvin about it the next morning, just to make sure he had been serious about his offer. He didn’t see why not, he said. In fact, he’d already talked to Flower and Stone about i
t last night, and they hadn’t raised any objections. If Nashe and Pozzi wanted to go on working after the debt had been squared, they were free to do so. They could earn the same ten dollars an hour they had been earning all along, and the offer would stand until the wall was finished.
“We’re just talking about two or three extra days,” Nashe said.
“Sure, I understand,” Murks said. “You want to set aside a little nest egg before you leave. I figured you’d get around to my way of thinking sooner or later.”
“It has nothing to do with that,” Nashe said. “We’re staying because we have to, not because we want to.”
“One way or the other,” Murks said, “it comes down to the same thing, don’t it? You need money, and this here job is the way to get it.”
Before Nashe could answer, Pozzi broke in and said, “We’re not going to stay unless we have it in writing. The exact terms, everything spelled out.”
“What you call a rider to the contract,” Murks said. “Is that what you mean?”
“Yeah, that’s it,” Pozzi said. “A rider. If we don’t get that, then we walk out of here on the sixteenth.”
“Fair enough,” Murks said, looking more and more pleased with himself. “But you don’t have to worry. It’s already been taken care of.” The foreman then popped open the snaps of his blue down jacket, reached into the inner pocket with his right hand, and pulled out two sheets of folded paper. “Read these over and tell me what you think,” he said.
It was the original and a duplicate of the new clause: a brief, simply stated paragraph setting out the conditions for “labor subsequent to the discharge of the debt.” Both copies had already been signed by Flower and Stone, and as far as Nashe and Pozzi could tell, everything was in order. That was what was so strange about it. They hadn’t even come to a decision until last night, and yet here were the results of that decision already waiting for them, boiled down into the precise language of contracts. How was that possible? It was as if Flower and Stone had been able to read their thoughts, as if they had known what they would do before they knew it themselves. For one short paranoid moment, Nashe wondered if the trailer had been bugged. It was a gruesome thought, but nothing else seemed to explain it. What if there were listening devices in the walls? Flower and Stone could easily have picked up their conversations then—they could have been following every word he and the kid had spoken to each other for the past six weeks. Maybe that was their nighttime entertainment, Nashe thought. Turn on the radio and listen to Jim and Jack’s Comedy Hour. Fun for the whole family, a guaranteed laugh riot.
“You’re awfully sure of yourself, Calvin, aren’t you?” he said.
“Just common sense,” Murks replied. “I mean, it was only a matter of time before you asked me about it. Ain’t no other way it could have gone. So I figured I’d get ready for you and have the bosses draw up the papers. It didn’t take but a minute.”
So they put their signatures on both copies of the rider, and the business was settled. Another day went by. When they sat down to dinner that evening, Pozzi said that he thought they should plan a celebration for the night of the sixteenth. Even if they weren’t going to leave then, it seemed wrong to let the day slip by without doing something special. They should whoop it up a little, he said, throw a shindig of some kind to welcome in the new era. Nashe assumed he was talking about a cake or a bottle of champagne, but Pozzi had bigger plans than that. “No,” he said, “I mean let’s really do it right. Lobsters, caviar, the whole works. And we’ll bring in some girls, too. You can’t have a party without girls.”
Nashe couldn’t help smiling at the kid’s enthusiasm. “And what girls would those be, Jack?” he said. “The only girl I’ve ever seen around here is Louise, and somehow she doesn’t strike me as your type. Even if we invited her, I doubt she’d want to come.”
“No, no, I’m talking about real broads. Hookers. You know, juicy babes. Girls we can fuck.”
“And where do we find these juicy babes? Out there in the woods?”
“We bring them in. Atlantic City’s not far from here, you know. That burg is crawling with female flesh. There’s pussy for sale on every corner down there.”
“Fine. And what makes you think Flower and Stone will agree to it?”
“They said we could have anything we want, didn’t they?”
“Food is one thing, Jack. A book, a magazine, even a bottle of bourbon or two. But don’t you think this is pushing it a bit far?”
“Anything means anything. There’s no harm in asking, anyway.”
“Sure, you can ask all you want. Just don’t be surprised when Calvin laughs at you.”
“I’ll bring it up with him first thing tomorrow morning.”
“You do that. But just ask for one girl, all right? Old grandpa here doesn’t know if he’s up for that kind of celebrating.”
“Well, this little boy is up for it, I can tell you that. It’s been so long now, my pecker’s about ready to explode.”
Contrary to what Nashe had predicted, Murks didn’t laugh at Pozzi the next morning. But the look of confusion and embarrassment that swept across his face was almost as good as a laugh, perhaps even better. He had been prepared for their questions the day before, but this time he was stumped, could scarcely even take in what the kid was talking about. After the second or third go-through, he finally caught on, but that only seemed to add to his embarrassment. “You mean a hoor?” he said. “Is that what you’re trying to tell me? You want us to get you a hoor?”
Murks did not have the authority to handle such an unorthodox request, but he promised to take it up with the bosses that night. Unbelievably, when he came back with the answer the next morning, he told Pozzi it would be taken care of, he would have his girl on the sixteenth. “That was the deal,” he said. “Whatever you want, you can get. I can’t say they looked too happy about it, but a deal’s a deal, they said, and there you have it. If you ask me, it was kind of big of them. They’re nice fellas, those two, and once they give their word about something, they’ll bend over backwards to make it good.”
It felt all wrong to Nashe. Flower and Stone weren’t the kind of men who threw away their money on parties for other people, and the fact that they had gone along with Pozzi’s request immediately put him on his guard. For their own sakes, he thought, it would have been better to push on with the work and then creep out of there as quickly and quietly as possible. The second row was proving less difficult than the first, and the work was advancing steadily, perhaps more steadily than ever before. The wall was higher now, and they no longer had to put their backs through the multiple contortions of bending and squatting to push the stones into place. A single, economical gesture was all that was required, and once they had mastered the finer points of this new rhythm, they were able to increase their output to as many as forty stones a day. How simple it would have been to go on like that to the end. But the kid had his heart set on a party, and now that the girl was coming, Nashe realized there was nothing he could do to prevent it. If he spoke up, it would only sound as if he were trying to spoil Pozzi’s fun, and that was the last thing he wanted. The kid deserved to have his little romp, and even if it led to more trouble than it was worth, Nashe felt a moral obligation to play along with him.
Over the next few nights, he assumed the role of caterer, sitting in the living room with a pencil and jotting down notes as he helped Pozzi work out the details of the celebration. There were endless decisions to be made, and Nashe was determined that the kid be satisfied on every point. Should the meal begin with shrimp cocktail or French onion soup? Should the main course consist of steak or lobster or both? How many bottles of champagne should they order? Should the girl be there for dinner, or should they eat alone and have her join them for dessert? Were decorations necessary, and if so, what color balloons did they want? They handed the completed list to Murks on the morning of the fifteenth, and that same night the foreman made a special trip to the meadow to
deliver the packages. For once he came in the jeep, and Nashe wondered if that wasn’t an encouraging sign, a token of their impending freedom. Then again, it could have meant nothing. There were many packages, after all, and he could have driven there simply because the load was too big to carry in his arms. For if they were about to become free men, why would Murks bother to go on wearing the gun?
They put in forty-seven stones on the last day, surpassing their previous record by five. It took an enormous effort to pull it off, but they both wanted to end with a flourish, and they worked as if they were out to prove something, never once slackening their pace, wielding the stones with an assurance that bordered on contempt, as if the only thing that mattered now was to show they had not been defeated, that they had triumphed over the whole rotten business. Murks called them to a halt at six sharp, and they put down their tools with the cold autumn air still burning in their lungs. Darkness came earlier now, and when Nashe looked up at the sky, he saw that evening was already upon them.
For several moments he was too stunned to know what to think. Pozzi came over to him and pounded him on the back, chattering with excitement, but Nashe’s mind remained curiously empty, as if he were unable to absorb the magnitude of what he had done. I’m back to zero, he finally said to himself. And all of a sudden he knew that an entire period of his life had just ended. It wasn’t just the wall and the meadow, it was everything that had put him there in the first place, the whole crazy saga of the past two years: Thérèse and the money and the car, all of it. He was back to zero again, and now those things were gone. For even the smallest zero was a great hole of nothingness, a circle large enough to contain the world.