by Conrad Aiken
He turned away from the defenseless face, with the firm little mouth and fringed eyes, and closed his own eyes only to open them again. Lucky unconscious Gil, the poor lamb! But let him sleep. Let the poor devil sleep. For him, even more perhaps than for himself and Noni, a bad time was coming, all the misery of awakening that comes to the unconscious. Suspicious he might be, just a little—surely, however, no more than that—and everything had been so gay, so good—the reading of the absurd guidebook, with its atrocious style, which Gil had found so amusing, and the names, and Noni’s mad description of the floods in the Connecticut valley—and then, suddenly, Albany and the long platform, and the attempt to buy a drinking cup for the whisky. Of the whisky Gil had seemed a little disapproving. A little stiff. Maybe just the idea of drinking it so unashamedly in public, out of paper cups—handing the bottle over the chair back—he had given Noni a quick and queer look when she first took it out of the hatbox—but afterwards, in the diner, as they sped in the gathering darkness along the Erie Canal—Schenectady, Utica, Syracuse, Rome—how magical the time change had been, with its bizarre marriage of present and past! Red and green lights of barges on the dark water, the dim towpath, a woman hanging washing on the stern deck in the twilight, a cat beside her, Noni telling about the cry of “Low Bridge!” with which in the old days the helmsman warned his crew, and everywhere the wonderfully fertile country with its fantastic baroque suburban houses, huge filigreed and porticoed façades, like the County Street houses of the Victorian period in New Bedford. He closed his eyes again, and all the voices rose in a chorus, rose all at once—here’s to the bride, here’s to the groom—here’s to the best man—there’s nothing like getting divorced and married in the same place—when you do that, it takes—but who said we had to change at Galion, there’s nothing about it—well, we’re off to Clixl Claxl, Ixl Oxl, and Popocatepetl—that’s where Hart Crane went, just before he drowned himself in the Caribbean—they say it’s a death country, a murder country, and the buzzards—
He opened his eyes to see the tall conductor leaning over him, one hand on the corner of the seat, looking for the voucher—it was the conductor for the new section, different, but generically the same. The dried leather face, pallid and ascetic, tall and stooped.
“Change at Galion.”
“How long do we have to wait there.”
“The St. Louis train will be waiting for you. Through train to St. Louis.”
“Thanks. Will somebody let us know, or wake us——”
“You don’t need to worry. The brakeman will put you off.”
“Thank you.”
Galion, at four-forty. A head had turned, a bland face, the figure was rising, approaching.
“Did I hear you say you were going to Galion?”
“No—we change there, for St. Louis—”
“Because I used to be a citizen of Galion—”
“Is that so—no, we only change there——”
“In fact I was born there, but I haven’t been there for a long time and I thought maybe I might have found a fellow citizen—”
“No, I’m sorry—”
“Well, not at all—”
The heavy figure lurched along the aisle to the ice-water tap, swayed as it bent to extract a cup, filled the cup and drank. A citizen of Galion. But what was Galion? Galion, Galion, Galion. The whistle cried mournfully into the night, cried again; far ahead on the long train, with all its Pullman cars full of sleeping people, the lost voice could be heard, as the engine sped blindly, cometlike, through the night. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois—even now the pioneers were crossing these in their covered wagons, building their homesteads, their snake fences against the snow, laying the broadax to the foot of the tree, felling the savage forests. But what home now was here, what home for Noni? A spiritual drought only, an unconquered and savage land, a bloodsucking land, which had slowly but surely taken the souls from the people who lived upon it. The wilderness was coming back, here as in the Berkshires the melancholy waste would return, the towns would be invaded by marching trees, grass would grow over the doorsill. There was no home here, could never be, it was as well that Noni would only pause here, in the dark, to change from one motion to another, touch the alien earth only in transit.
The book had slid from his knee to the floor, slid from darkness into light, and with it himself from sleep to waking. Rising with it, he turned and saw that Noni’s eyes were open, that she was smiling. Smiling sleepily and peacefully. He got up, went to her softly, leaned over her. She put her fingers to her lips, motioning towards Gil.
“Asleep!” she whispered.
“Yes, and why aren’t you!”
“How much time.”
Her eyes fluttered, didn’t quite focus on his own, the pupils were wide and dark, near but unseeing, she was barely conscious.
“Lots. Hours, Noni. The brakeman’s going to call us.”
“Oh.”
“Do you want anything. A drink of water.”
“No.”
“All right, then; go to sleep!”
The blue eyes fluttered and closed, opened, then closed again. Perhaps now she would really sleep, really let go and be taken downward—he straightened up, giving the raincoat on her knee a pat, looked along the aisle of the deserted car, turned and saw Gil’s open mouth, his hand crumpled against his cheek, the loose head nodding with the motion of the train, the spectacles folded on the window sill. Sleep, that knits up the raveled sleeve—but not this sleep, not this, by God, nor any such sleeve as this! For what was at work even now in Noni’s golden head——?
He pressed his hands hard to his forehead as he sat down, leaned into the corner by the window, willed himself to sleep. Sleep, Blom; sleep. You must sleep. And what better than a train, a day coach, with that nostalgic whistle, far ahead, for a lullaby. And these square wheels, these octagonal wheels. And Noni lying there, looking so extraordinarily well, so young and pretty, as if nothing in the world was the matter!
Footsteps passing, and a change of light through the closed eyelids.
“Can’t help it if she did.”
“By no means.”
Steps, voices, wheels, and in no time at all to an accompaniment of wind sound, a prolonged wind sound, he crossed the Texas desert on foot, up and down the sand hills, through ravines of rock and sage, and then more precipitately into Mexico, but repeatedly lost. No road, no path, no guide. But at last a single sign post, a finger of wood, woebegone in the wilderness, and on it in almost obliterated letters the one word Mexico. Southward, timelessly southward once more, through the wilderness of rock and sand, day after day and night after night; and over the bronze mountains, the eagle-haunted sierras, sawtoothed and jagged against the sky, and then at last the long descent into the fertile valley. Now before him, far down, he could see the city itself, the strange city; light flashed from the bright roofs and domes; light flashed too from something else—was it water? He could not be sure, but already now he was in a house of his own in the old city, he had been a citizen in this strange place for a long time, he knew it well. And nevertheless, it was with surprise—although also with familiarity—that he found the house to be built in water, for lifting a trap door in the floor he stared straight down through a water so marvelously pure and clear, and so deep, that it seemed to him he was looking into the very center of the earth. Like a crystal it was, and as he gazed into its wonderful depths, lucid and sunlit, and yet somehow also dark, he had the feeling that here below him was a profound meaning, something that he had come a long way to find. This was Mexico, this underworld sea, it was this he had come to live in, this was his soul’s dwelling place, and Noni’s too—he was holding a candle up now, and looking down in the less light, wondering what creatures inhabited this dark water, when abruptly the walls of the house began to shake, everything shook violently as if in an earthquake, the breath suddenly left his body——
Angry and dismayed, he saw the brakeman’s hand just leaving his shoulde
r; the brakeman’s hand had been shaking his shoulder; the brakeman was still standing before him, lantern in hand. He blinked at the white-gloved hand, felt as if he were still being shaken. And the brakeman was still saying—or saying again:
“Galion in five minutes; change for St. Louis.”
“Galion——”
He jumped up, turned, saw Gil just rising also, with his spectacles in his hand. Noni, on the other side of the aisle, lay exactly as she had before, but now her eyes were open, she looked from one to the other of them with a sleepy half-smile.
“Five minutes, my lambs; we’ve got to hustle! We’ve got to get a move on! This is no less than Galion, believe it or not; Galion: and God help us if we don’t find that train to St. Louis. Come on, shake a leg, Noni! Wake up!”
“I am awake!”
“Gil, you’d better spank the gal.”
“Of all the unearthly hours to make poor long-suffering travelers change—it’s peonage, that’s what it is, Blom, to push the coach passengers off—you notice the Pullmans go right through!”
Gil reached up to the rack for his suitcase, Noni for her hat. The engine’s quadruple cry, far ahead, came softly and unevenly back to them; all three looked out into the starless and lightless night, the unbroken dark. One after the other, the six salesmen, their coats neatly folded over their arms, their smart bags in their hands, passed them, going forward into the vestibule. A feeling of departure was in the air, a severance, a feeling of hurry—the future was reaching back to them with secret and powerful hands, they must bend their wills to it. Out into the unknown, bag in hand—but Gil, characteristically, had quite forgotten Noni’s hatbox and gladstone, Noni was climbing up on to the seat——
“Stop that, Noni—you let me do that——”
Too late, Gil stepped forward, peering and smiling, apologetic; Noni half fell, half jumped, the train swaying suddenly, and flung her arms round him laughing, while Blomberg reached over their heads for the shiny hatbox.
“Can I have this dance, Noni?”
“I suppose we ought to make it a rhumba! or a toltec, or something.…”
The train sounds were changing, changing and slowing, the car lurched and shuddered, its speed resisting the brakes, it seemed to balloon and sway like a zeppelin. Blomberg said, looking down at Noni’s blue wings, and below them the now sobered blue eyes:
“Now have you got everything? What you fellers need to learn is organization.”
He smiled grimly and consciously straight into Noni’s eyes, looked for a moment deep down into them—for all the world as he had looked into the mysterious water in his dream—and sought there an answer to the question which he dared not ask. Far and faint, too, the signal came—like a tiny light at the very horizon’s edge, seen once, seen twice, then gone. It was both reassurance and reproach, a “yes, I’m all right,” but also a “now you must stop looking at me like that, or Gil will guess.” The eyes wavered aside then, shyly, the lips were half parted, as if she had thought to say something but had changed her mind. She turned quickly then to Gil, behind her, touched the tweed sleeve.
“My book,” she said.
“Gosh, yes! Where is it?”
“Can you put it in your pocket. I forgot to pack it.”
The sound of time grew louder, a bell rang with two-voiced melancholy across a roar of steam, the forward door was slammed open, and in it stood the brakeman with his lantern. Galion, he was singing; Galion! They had come to Galion; this point in chaos and eternal night was Galion. To get off. To go out into the night and look for another train, or wait for it, or miss it! To hurry! And with sleep still blinding one’s eyes—
“Come on,” he said.
He took Noni’s gladstone, and his own bag; Gil had his broken suitcase and an armload of coats; Noni had the hatbox. The train shuddered and slowed, gave a final prolonged squeal, and stopped. In the unnatural silence, they stepped down the steep lamplit stairs into the featureless black of night, found themselves walking stiffly on gravel. The six salesmen had vanished into the profound gloom, only their footsteps could be heard dying away somewhere ahead. The brakeman was saying:
“Straight on, St. Louis train on the other side, you’ll have to walk round both trains, and cross the tracks up ahead—straight ahead——”
“Good heavens,” Gil said, “there’s nothing here——!”
Noni lifted her face to the starless sky—he could just see her.
“It’s the Black Hole of Calcutta,” she said.
They walked quickly into the night, past the lighted car which they had just left, and another, and, reaching the end of the train, crossed the track to the mysterious new train which stood beyond. Somber and unlit, save for a faint glow from the vestibules, the interminable row of dark sleeping cars stretched ahead of them, apparently for miles. The salesmen had disappeared entirely, not a sound was to be heard save their own quick footsteps on the dry gravel. Suppose they took too long in getting round—suppose the train started—how could anyone possibly tell whether all the passengers had found their way from one train to the other? A feeling of panic hurried his heart’s beating, he thought he heard Noni give a little gasp, peered sidelong toward her but could see nothing of her expression. He said:
“I guess we’d better step on it. If those travelers get there without us, they might just think——”
“Damndest thing I ever saw,” said Gil. “Not even a light. And as for porters——”
Another sleeper, and another, and another; the green curtains drawn, the sleeping humans lying there in unconscious tiers under the sky, men, women and children; while outside, unknown to them, Blomberg and Gil and Noni walked anxiously past them on the gravel, staring ahead for a glimpse of the engine. The express car, the mail car, and at last—the great monster breathed softly above them, gleamed, vibrated. The cab seemed to be empty. The driver would of course be at the other side. Suppose he got the signal to start just as they were crossing——
Without a word they crossed, close to the hot headlight and the blunt angry-looking cowcatcher, found themselves squeezed between a wooden level-crossing guard arm and the engine, so close that they could touch it, and began the long journey back to the day coach, which of course would be at the very end of the train. Now there was a row of dim lights, each showing a little are of dirty wooden pillar; they hurried up the worn wooden ramp to a low platform, and it was here that Noni suddenly stopped, stood still, let the hatbox fall from her hand.
“Ohhhh,” she wailed, “I can’t! Someone please—”
She blew out a long breath, clapped her hands against her breast, looked comically from one to the other of them. She seemed to be swaying slightly, she was out of breath. Was it possible that her heart——
“Here, Gil,” he said quickly, “throw those coats over my left arm and take Noni’s hatbox. And hurry, my lad! And Noni, you take it easy, follow us, don’t worry, we’ll keep a piece of the train for you!”
“Thanks, Blom dear!”
She was still standing motionless, as they hurried off ahead, standing there with her hands lightly crossed on her breast, looking amusedly after them—he could see the smile on the half-averted and half-lamplit face—but then he heard her steps slowly begin, heard them follow more firmly, and he listened to them as he might have listened to the beating of his own heart. She was coming; she was all right. To Gil he said:
“I’m afraid she’s tired. Couldn’t sleep.”
“Yes. Guess she’ll be all right. She worries too much!”
The thick spectacles flashed, the mouth looked somewhat prim. Before them the conductor waited by the train, his hand on the handhold, the lantern on the splintered platform.
“Is this the coach for St. Louis?”
“Yes, sir; through car to St. Louis.”
“Good. There’s a lady coming, just behind us.… Guess we’d better get the bags aboard, Gil——”
“Okay.”
Brown seats instead of g
reen, and pale green metal walls, and an almost empty car, except for the six salesmen who were already composing themselves for what was left of the night. Time with a hundred hands, time with a thousand mouths! A man drinking water, a man in his shirt-sleeves, a man taking his shoes off. Poised for departure in the extraordinary stillness of the night, poised in a wilderness without shape or sound, placeless and nameless—(but no, Galion!)—they waited for Noni. And now Noni’s light steps came up the echoing stairs, and along the littered aisle, and she walked towards them, taking off the blue-winged hat and brushing the fair hair back from her forehead with a white ringless hand. She came towards them gravely, said simply, “I’m tired”—and sank into the seat beneath the rack with the hatbox. Gil, his battered felt hat still on, took her hand in his, sat down beside her, said something to her; she was staring out of the window, her shoulder against his. What did she see there? And what was Gil saying? They sat very still together; and then, subtly, softly, the train had begun to move, the murmur of time had resumed its everlasting monotone.