The Walled City

by Marcel Clouzot

  It was quite late by the time she reached home, her arms weighed down with boxes and bundles. She was dazzling, bursting with joy and reduced to very little cash.

  Her husband's welcome was disappointing; it lacked response, admiration. He just said with a suspicious glare:

  "Where did you get all that?"

  She gave him a brief, vague account of what had happened. He exhausted her with stupid questions about the nature of her work, what is was exactly, how come she had all that money. She answered simply that she wasn't allowed to say more but if he was so determined to find out, he could go ask Commissioner Baudruche.

  Before, she had always spoken his name with contempt; now he was all she could talk about. Emil watched the sudden metamorphosis of his wife with bewilderment. He tried to guess at the amount of money Baudruche had given her, but even more, the reason why.

  Emil spent the night on the edge of the connubial bed to show his disapproval. But when morning came, he lunged at Elisa before she was fully awake. She fought him in a rage, wrenched his hands off her, and screamed, "Don't touch me! You disgust me!"

  Finally, she was mistress of her terrain. She eyed the pathetic figure standing there, stooped, beaten, accepting his defeat without a word.

  When Emil and Sophie finally left that morning, she didn't feel like her usual caper around the apartment. Instead, she decided to start dressing. She opened wide the doors of her closet and examined its contents with disgust. She disavowed the woman who had made do with such a pathetic display, who had spent twelve interminable years with that contemptible fool of an engineer with no talent or future and who had never given her anything except a daughter she didn't know what to do with. Her mind turned to Baudruche; he was even less handsome and less young, but at least he was somebody.

  At the Commissioner's home, the master was engaged in interrogating his wife about every last detail of the previous day's shopping expedition.

  "Why are you interested in such nonsense, dear Robert? This is very unlike you."

  "Don't I have a right to know where the City’s money is going?"

  "See! I was right, wasn't I?" Labrique was pointing to the paving stones on the sentry walk. They were alive with swarming black patches.

  "You're right, Labrique. It's worse than I thought, though it's still no great calamity. But I'll alert the Sanitation Department. It must lie within their jurisdiction."

  "Remember, this is no ordinary situation. It's not normal for ants to take over the ramparts. And that isn't all: I want you to take a look at the Church. It's a different situation, but I don't like the looks of it either. I've been complaining about it for a long time, but the Prefecture refuses to do anything about it. It may already be too late."

  Baudruche stopped at the Hotel to leave an envelope in number 23's box. Then a half hour later, he was in front of the Church. Labrique was right; it was not a pretty sight. It had been years since Baudruche had felt like visiting the old monument. But the Church had been there in the middle of the City for so long that he, along with everyone else, thought of it as eternal.

  The immense edifice had been put together with so many disparate elements that he could no longer make out its original form. Now the rubble of different stones at its feet were like so many reproaches aimed at the City. "We're all a little guilty," Baudruche said to himself. "It was what it was, but still, it had its place in the City. The carcass must be saved." As he walked nearer, an old woman leaned out of a window.

  "Don't get too close ! It's dangerous ! "

  Baudruche kept on going until he reached a large Gothic window. A stone fell behind him with a thud. He put his head through the window; the glass had long since gone. The walls might have started to crumble, but the interior seemed to be holding up. He recognized the unlikely jumble of decorations on the inside walls and the funny, childish figures scattered around. Had they removed all that junk, they would have seen what was happening to the structure. But, as usual, nobody wanted to take on the responsibility. On one of the rare undecorated expanses, Baudruche noticed a long deep crack. That was serious.

  He toured the whole building and everywhere there was the same decay. Suddenly he caught sight of a child leaning through one of the gaping windows. Baudruche said, "What are you doing there? Don't you know it's dangerous?"

  "I don't care. It's fun watching."

  "Watching what?"

  "Look, over there," and the boy pointed toward the far end of the Church where two men in black were sitting on broken-down chairs, arguing and gesticulating.

  "That's all they do, sir. They never stop."

  Baudruche took out his distance glasses and looked again. The two puppets took shape: one was dressed in a long robe, the other in something not unlike the regulation dress worn by the City's inhabitants. He recognized the one in the long robe as someone he'd seen often in his youth. The man hadn't changed: the same indefinable smile, the same look of belonging to another world. Things didn't change much around this place!

  He strained his ears to hear what they were saying. They were using an old-fashioned language which sounded absurd. It was incomprehensible. A second stone came loose, this one from an arch, and fell at his feet. Baudruche cupped his hands around his mouth and called out:

  "You mustn't stay there! It's dangerous. Please leave!"

  The two men continued their discussion, paying him no heed. Baudruche called louder. Still no reaction. He took the child by the hand and left.

  Some people from the neighborhood had recognized him and now stood expectantly on the sidewalk across from the Church. He walked toward them.

  The people who lived around the Church remained aloof from the rest of town, thinking themselves different if not actually superior. They had preserved some of the old ways—at least, the less inconvenient ones. When people from other parts of town wandered into the area, they were politely received but treated as strangers.

  Baudruche spotted a man of about fifty and asked, "Why do those two men stay inside the Church? Don't they realize it's dangerous?"

  "We don't know. They never come out, and when we speak to them, they don't answer."

  "Are you sure they hear you?"

  "We don't know that either."

  "How do they get food?"

  "We keep an eye on them, and when we see they're getting low, we throw them some more. One must have pity."

  "Why don't you go up to them and explain that the Church is crumbling and they must leave?"

  "We don't know if we have the right. I don't think we do."

  Baudruche felt he was treading on delicate ground. The faces around him froze and, one by one, his audience moved away.

  "Are we going back to them, sir?" the child asked him.

  "You stay and wait for me."

  Baudruche went through an opening that had once been a door and walked up to the two men.

  "You must leave right away; you cannot stay here. It isn't safe."

  But they continued their discussion without seeming to take in his presence. So he grabbed the arm of the man in the long black robe, shook it and pointed to the exit. The man rubbed at his sleeve as if it had been touched by a tainted hand, rose to his feet and addressed him angrily in his incomprehensible language while pointing to the same exit. There was a small avalanche of rubble behind them, followed by a cloud of dust. Baudruche shrugged his shoulders and left.

  He had barely returned to his office when Miss Bourrot came in to announce that there was a young engineer who wanted to see him immediately.

  "What does he want? Did he give you his name?"

  "It's Poulet, I think. I don't know what he wants. He said it was personal. He doesn't look happy; he might be dangerous."

  "Emil Poulet dangerous? You make me laugh. Show him in."

  It was exactly the kind of visit Baudruche liked at the end of a morning's work. It would be good for his nerves.

  Poulet entered.

  "What the hell are you doing h
ere at this hour?"

  Poulet was disconcerted. He had been prepared to see the unmasked and humiliated Baudruche grow pale face to face with his victim and ready to atone for his sins. Yet here instead was a calm and confident opponent.

  "Did you hear my question? I asked why you weren't at the Factory during working hours? Have you Mr. Leponte's authorization? He will hear of this. O.K.; quickly, tell me what brings you here. It must be something very important."

  Emil Poulet finally found his tongue.

  "You know perfectly well . . ."

  "If I knew perfectly well, you wouldn't have needed to go to the trouble of coming. Now be off with you."

  Emil Poulet was seized with rage. He shouted:

  "You want to know what I have to say? Well, it's that last night, my wife was much too elegant and much too beautiful, that's what!"

  "So the idiot is complaining that his wife is too beautiful!"

  "Right. And I'm here because she's married to me and not to you."

  "I'm still in the dark. If you're going to be obscure as well as foolish . . ."

  "You're making a mistake if you take me for a fool! If you think I don't know she's your mistress and that you bought her with money . . ."

  The game was almost too easy.

  "Why should I buy what I could have had for nothing? No, Mr. Poulet, I'm not sleeping with your wife, and for one simple reason: I don't want to. She's all yours. It's entirely possible that she's been unfaithful, but not with me."

  "Well, whether she has or not, I don't want her working outside my house, for you or anybody else. I have my rights."

  "Yes, Mr. Poulet, and it's my right to send you back where I found you, before I put you on the City's payroll. If I remember correctly, you were sitting on some cloud, doing a treatise on the social significance of the abstract line? Well, I'm sending you right back there. And I'll telephone your boss to that effect right away; he'll be delighted to see the last of you."

  Baudruche got up, pressed his buzzer, and walked slowly up to Elisa's husband, who backed away, stammering:

  "Maybe I didn't understand. Maybe I was wrong."

  Baudruche cornered him by the leather couch and yanked his ear like a child. Miss Bourrot entered.

  "Please remove this joker and see him to the street."

  He dragged him to the door, but before he let him go, pity got the better of him.

  "Send me a letter of apology and I'll reconsider your fate."

  "Was he an anarchist?" Miss Bourrot asked when she returned.

  "No, much worse than that. A technocrat!"

  During the course of the afternoon, Baudruche paid a visit to the newspaper. Although he was well aware of the controls over its editorial policy, he was still smarting from the previous day's interview. All too often his words had been mutilated or soft-pedaled, but never before had he been quoted as saying the direct opposite of what he had said.

  "To what do I owe the honor of this visit, Mr. Commissioner?" the Editor-in-Chief asked.

  "Yesterday's edition, Mr. Newman."

  "You weren't pleased?"

  "Even less than usual."

  "What didn't you like? The layout of the front page?"

  "I didn't like what it said I said."

  "But it was the text of your interview, Mr. Commissioner."

  "It was not what I said to the young reporter you sent me, Mr. Newman."

  "A boy with a brilliant future. I have no idea what you said to him. I know only the text of your interview as it was printed in the paper."

  "I'd rather you printed the truth from time to time."

  "I know only one truth: the one imposed on me. I have orders, Mr. Commissioner. . ."

  "What was that story your man told me yesterday? Something about a series on the rats?"

  "They're all ready, Mr. Commissioner. They start today. Would you like to see them?"

  "Not especially. Just give me the general idea in a few words."

  "We are to remind the people over and over again that rats are beings like us, like you and me, Mr. Commissioner, and that consequently they have their right to a place in the sun."

  "We don't have any sun anymore, Mr. Newman."

  "It was a figure of speech, Mr. Commissioner. Sun means civilization, culture, or perhaps—to be more precise—one's standing, one's status. We can't say it often enough, but thank God, our readers have already taken a big step in the right direction. The letters we receive daily reflect that. And, actually, Mr. Commissioner, do you feel so very different from a rat?"

  "Absolutely, Mr. Newman. Don't you?"

  "I, no. I have orders . . . Allow me to finish; it won't take long. In addition, we must impress on our people the need to make our underdeveloped neighbors forget the selfish policies of our forebears, and prevent them from succumbing to a discredited paternalism. An end to elitism! We must have cordial human relations! Believe me, the people will understand. Be sides, that's what we're here for. I know I'm preaching to a convert, Mr. Commissioner, for you are already a partisan to these reforms."

  "I am?"

  "Of course. It was in your interview."

  "While we're on the subject," Baudruche pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, "I wonder if you could do me a small favor. . . ."

  "Your word is my command, Mr. Commissioner."

  Newman read over the note Baudruche had given him.

  "A denial? Out of the question, Mr. Commissioner. I have orders."

  It was what he'd expected . . . with the Prefecture next door, dominating the whole City, including The Newspaper.

  Years before, when he was young, newsboys went around calling out "The Union," "The Independent," "The Conservative," and many others. Now there was only one: The Newspaper, which, by its very name, indicated it was the only one. It had eaten up all the others; they had floundered, then been digested, one after the other.

  For a while, the victim's name still appeared—in smaller letters—under the victor's, not unlike the outline of the rabbit in the snake after it is swallowed. Then, little by little, the letters diminished in size until, one day, they disappeared altogether. The rabbits had been digested and The Newspaper gained a bigger circulation.

  Things being what they were, he would have liked, if not exactly to control it, at least to prevent its spreading so many lies. But that was beyond hope: the paper had been created by the Prefect, belonged to the Prefect, and allowed no other master.

  These bitter reflections occupied him all the way to the Factory gate. As he passed by the custodian's hut, he heard the usual greeting of "Good evening, Mr. Commissioner," but it sounded odd. He looked up and saw that it was a rat instead of old Smitty raising his cap in greeting. He looked inside the hut and saw another dozen rats sitting around.

  "What are you doing here?"

  "We are guarding the Factory, Mr. Commissioner. We are protecting the workers' security. The Director has given his approval."

  Baudruche rushed into Leponte's office.

  "What do you mean, letting the rats guard the gates?"

  Leponte smiled at Baudruche, but his smile had changed. It had lost its mockery. At first Baudruche was surprised, then he understood: fear, which changes so many men, had left its mark on the Director. As long as the danger lasted, Baudruche was no longer his enemy but a potential protector who must be flattered in case of need. Mesmerized, Baudruche watched him ring for his new secretary and ask her to bring in refreshments.

  A rather vulgar-looking girl with pale blonde hair came in, filled his glass and disappeared.

  "Leponte, I still want to know what the hell those rats are doing here."

  Mr. Leponte answered that he was actually quite pleased with the development. Admittedly, the day before, he had been afraid of violence against the workers and even the Factory. In the eyes of the Prefect and the City, he was responsible for both them and it. But the rats weren't enemies. Not at all. He didn't need the articles in the newspapers to convince him of that! T
herefore he'd been delighted to receive the rat who had signed the agreement with Mr. Commissioner the day before. The rat repeated what he had said to the Commissioner, then offered to set up a guard at the Factory entrance. A most gracious act. . . ."They do have a way with them, don't they, Mr. Commissioner?"

  Baudruche said that henceforth he would take charge of the situation, and he left with the daily report the new secretary put lingeringly in his hand. He had no time for her today.

  As he came abreast of the guards' hut, the rats rose to their feet, abandoning the game of dominoes they'd been playing among the bread crumbs and puddles of wine.

  "I would like to speak to your representative."

  Nothing easier; he was only a stone's throwaway, at the Social Progress. One of them offered to accompany him.

  "No need. I know the way."

  As he walked in, he recognized the representative sitting at a table reading the paper, the owner looking over his shoulder. Half a dozen rats in a far corner got up when they saw the Commissioner. The noise caught the representative's attention; he looked up and noticed Baudruche. He dismissed the other rats with a motion of the head. Turning to Baudruche, he was as amiable and deferential as on the previous day, but there was a new note of confidence and a certain crispness in his speech.

  Yes, what the Director had told Baudruche was correct: all he had in mind was helping maintain order in the City, a modest attempt to supplement the Commissioner's efforts. Besides, he could tell Baudruche what he had not dared to tell the Director—who was a little nervous—that there was an element among his people-as in all groups, the Commissioner knew better than anyone-an extremist faction with little real influence so far, but capable (yesterday was an example which he deplored) of fomenting considerable disorder in the City.

  "I will see to the order," Baudruche said.

  "But you run the danger of enlarging the racial conflict, Mr. Commissioner I Whereas, together, we can achieve reconciliation and understanding." The rat pointed to the newspaper in his hand. "You keep order among your people, and I'll see to it that order is maintained among mine."

  Screwing up his eyes, he added, "I'm sure the Prefect would approve if he were here."