"That's her!" a boy said to his girl, pointing to Elisa and his newspaper at the same time.
Intrigued, Elisa bought a copy at a newsstand but couldn't find what the boy was referring to. Farther along, she saw another paper in a child's hand—one she had never seen before. Her first name and the first letter of her last name jumped at her from the front page. She took the paper from the child, gave him a penny and raced off with it to a nearby bench.
It was gratifying, even flattering, but why hadn't they printed her full name? How would people know it was her? She must mention it to the Commissioner—after thanking him for the article, of course. She put the paper in her bag and set off again.
The crowd was getting thicker and thicker. She was having difficulty squeezing through when a woman pointed her out to two of Baudruche's men near the gate. Payne and Revere came running and, to her astonishment, led her to the official stand where they found her a place among the members of the Academy of Moral Sciences. They knew the chief would be grateful to them, since it was now virtually official.
She sat and waited, surrounded by men in strange uniforms. At last she saw Baudruche in the distance. What better time to thank him? She leaped up from her chair and, waving her arm, cried out, "Yoo-hoo! I'm here!" To her great disappointment, Baudruche didn't seem to notice. She sat down in confusion.
The Director of Civilian Defense appeared, walking through the narrow path the police forced through the crowd. Fisher climbed to the top of a high wooden platform built just for him. Baudruche watched him from his vantage point by the main gate. Fisher pulled some sheets of paper from his pocket and walked up to a microphone. Elisa heard little, as most of the members of the Academy of Moral Sciences were deaf and preferred discussing their heal tho Over their voices, she caught words like progress, democracy, science, the future—enough to make her think she wasn't missing much. Anyway, she could read it in the next morning's paper.
A wave of applause indicated that the speech was over. She saw Fisher move away and push a button to his right. Elisa's heart beat faster; she was watching the top of the main gate, as was Baudruche. With the roar of an exploding rocket, a huge, blinding, multicolored flame leaped into the sky and a shower of sparks fell outside the walls. The crowd roared with joy and wonder as the fire sizzled along its preordained route around the vast enclosure.
Fisher was only half satisfied; something wasn't quite right. True, the walls had proved indestructible, but out of some incomprehensible contrariness, the flame had moved toward the left instead of the right, as expected.
The audience looked at the giant fireworks in the sky and decided that all that money they'd paid in taxes had not been in vain. Good-bye, fear. The City was still strongest because it had the know-how. Then, spontaneously, the national hymn rose from every throat:
"Children of this City with its glorious past,
Should the enemy ever defy our borders . . ."
The first verse came on strong, then the voices gradually died out; only those too old to sing knew how the rest of the song went. The flame returned, as lively and luminous as when it started, and flickered out as it reached the main gate. Baudruche let out a sigh of relief. The City had survived.
Then a thick, black, nauseating smoke slowly wafted into the sky, forming a huge crown above the City. Darker than the clouds stagnating overhead, the miasma plunged the town into semidarkness. Baudruche gave orders to turn on the street lights.
Everyone raced for the rampart stairs and fanned out on the sentry walk to look over the ramparts. The ants had gone. Down in the moat, they could just make out the piles of corpses. Cries of joy went up.
The crowd's enthusiasm focused on Fisher as he climbed down from his aerie. A group of muscular young men lifted him to their shoulders and a roar went up: "Hurray for Fisher!" and "Hurray for the Prefect" and "On to the Prefecture!"
A procession formed and started up Prefect Avenue, with Director Fisher borne like a banner. The procession made its way to the large square in front of the Prefecture to the strains of the national hymn whose first verse started over and over again, augmented by onlookers who joined as the people filed by. Shouts of "The Prefect!", "The Prefect!" rose from the crowd. Thousands of hands shook the iron gate in front of the Prefecture. Baudruche struggled to restrain the mob for fear the gates would cave in.
The shouts grew louder, calling for the Prefect to appear. Newsboys inched through the crowd with the evening's last edition. They'd made quick work of it: all the details of the ceremony and the explosion were there. Of course it had all been printed ahead of time. The shouts now came in rhythmic, imperative waves: "We want the Pre-fect!" "We want the Prefect! "
The sea of eyes fixed on the tower saw a light turn on, outlining a silhouette with its arm outstretched. It was he. Just as quickly, the light turned off and the silhouette disappeared. At that same moment, every light in the City went out.
Was it a bad joke? Sabotage? Incompetence? These possibilities raced through Baudruche's mind as he ran into the Prefecture to telephone the electric power plant. What was going on? The Director of the plant had no idea. Ever since the explosion, something had gone haywire with the generators. Unforeseeable side effects from the test. But no fear, it would be repaired. How long would it take? No knowing, but at a minimum. . .
Outside, the crowd's enthusiasm had collapsed. Euphoria does not thrive on darkness: people see things that aren't there.
Suddenly there came the sound of heavy raindrops. Could it be true? The rain they'd been waiting for so long had finally come! But a moment later, they realized it was a kind of black mud which spattered their clothes. The crowd broke up and started running in all directions. The shops closed their doors against the invading mob. People squeezed under any available shelter. Fear spread like a plague; people lost each other, unable to see. Some women fell and were trampled underfoot.
Baudruche felt what was happening, but was powerless to act. Only one shelter was available to him—the Prefecture—but he wasn't allowed to open its door. Standing under the portico, he watched as the heavens opened and poured down a liquid mud, at long last released from the gray clouds that had so long hung over the City like a threat.
Elisa had no desire to join the mob in front of the Prefecture and was returning home by way of Prefect Avenue when the lights went out and the first drops of rain fell. "My white suit!" she shrieked as she felt the sticky spots. In search of shelter she tried the doors of several stores, but they had all shut tight in fear of thieves. But the Hotel wasn't far away. She started running; the rain was coming down harder and harder. Finally she reached the Hotel entrance, covered with mud, her suit ruined.
She took off her shoes which were oozing mud and went up to her room in her stockinged feet. She decided to try number 23. He was stretched out on his bed, reading by the light of a candle. It was always the same! He was indifferent to everything. The world could go to pieces . . .
"Have you seen what's happening outside?"
Without taking his eyes off his book, he answered, "Sure. It's raining."
"That's not what I mean. Look at my suit; it's a wreck!"
The man looked up from his book and saw the black spots.
"Say, that's weird."
The rain was falling even harder now and coming in the open window. The man got up and closed it, and the drops beat against the panes, leaving dark circles as big as saucers. They overlapped, converged, covering the entire window with a thick mud which closed off the room from what little light remained outside.
The man resumed his reading, but Elisa didn't return to her room. She was afraid to be alone. She took off her spattered clothes, lay down next to her lover and covered herself with a quilt. She was shivering.
He kept on reading, as oblivious to her as to what was going on outside. He was exasperating. She broke in:
"What are you reading?"
"An old legend, The Pied Piper of Hamelin."
"What
's it about?"
"It's the story of a man who gets all the rats to leave a city. They follow when he plays his flute."
"Are you going to get the rats to leave the City that way?"
He laughed. "They're not that stupid anymore."
She put her arm around his neck.
"I want you to pay attention to me."
He removed her arm.
"I want to read."
Just then, the rain stopped. She got up, wrapped in the quilt, and opened the window. The silent street below came back to life, reverberating with the sound of running feet. In the dim light, the street looked like an endless stretch of gray mud. There were shapes of the same dirty gray, sliding, falling, getting up again, some disappearing altogether in the mud. Suddenly the air filled with hysterical cries of "The rats!" "The rats!" There were shrill cries, then others that sounded like cries of pain, then galloping feet and long small shapes wiggling through the muck. A terrible fear gripped her and she returned to the bed.
"It's ghastly! What is going on? You must do something!"
Her lover put down his book with a weary sigh.
"What do you want me to do?"
"I don't know, but I'm frightened."
"You think that will change anything?"
She curled up against him and at last he put his arms around her. Her panic gave way to violent desire. Only one thing could calm her. . .
Baudruche heard the same sounds under the portico of the Prefecture where he had found shelter with a few of his men.
"You hear that! Go do what you can."
"What are our orders?"
"No orders. Just do what I said—the best you can."
His men went off and Baudruche was left alone.
The rats crept out of the shadows and bit people's ankles. Trying to defend themselves, the people slipped in the sticky mud and fell. The rats went to work with glee. One of Baudruche's men heard screams, ran to the rescue and tried to wrest the rat off a writhing body, but the rat slid from between his hands and ran off with a little cry of triumph.
In the tightly closed Public Library, Labrique was making the rounds, a candle in one hand and old Pholio's cane to feel his way in the other. He knew that rats loved paper.
The rats were trying to force the doors of the shops; more often than not, they succeeded. Unable to break the windows, they went after the wooden frame of Linon Taffeta's door. With a crash of broken glass, the door caved in. The rats swept in, grabbed the flashlight with which Madame Taffeta had helplessly watched their invasion and set about clearing the shelves. The petrified saleswomen watched, huddled in a corner of the store.
Most of the shops along Prefect Avenue suffered the same fate. Used to living in the dark, the rats moved about with ease. Clutching at shelves or perched on counters and chairs, they set up a chain to speed up the emptying of the stores. Each rat had been given his assignment and knew exactly what he was to do. Everywhere, it was bite, gnaw, steal. . . . The proprietors stood about, rigid and speechless with fright. The whole City was at the rats' mercy.
Baudruche felt in his pockets for his pad of cigarette papers and a few shreds of tobacco, then rolled a cigarette as calmly as if he were sitting of an evening in front of his fire. He lit it, threw the match in the mud, then hands in his pockets and hat down over his eyes, headed for his office.
Suddenly all the lights went on again, blinding everybody with the unaccustomed brightness.
The power plant was back in commission. Here and there, scattered lights shone in the houses, and once again the streetlights defined the thoroughfares. On every side came sounds of hurried scampering and sliding. Put to rout by the lights, the rats were going home. Baudruche hurried down the almost-deserted streets. Occasionally he crossed paths with a mud-covered citizen trying to reach his house.
The guard was still standing by the entrance. Looking up, Baudruche saw that the windows seemed to be intact: the rats had respected his building. Inside the courtyard, a glance through the interior windows indicated that everybody was at work in spite of the late hour. They would have been crazy to try to leave.
Miss Bourrot was stammering with emotion. "This is terrible! What are we going to do, Mr. Commissioner?"
"Why, the report, of course!"
Baudruche telephoned Martha to reassure her then, still spattered with mud, started his dictation. With his accustomed calm and precision, he informed the Prefect on all the essentials: his conversation with the President, the explosion, and, of course, what he knew of the invasion and sacking of the City.
". . . the looting was considerable and the damage will be serious. It is of course too early to give anything but an approximate idea of the extent.
"I trust you will understand, Mr. Prefect, if I forgo a report on such problems as the Rathouse and your desire to give official recognition to the Women's League. Tonight, I cannot help but think them of secondary importance.
"The Weather Bureau is unable to make any predictions, in view of the atmospheric perturbations caused by the test.
"No enemy has appeared on the horizon.
"Respectfully yours, etc."
Baudruche opened a closet and took out a strong walking stick.
The Commissioner felt less discouraged than usual when he reached home. He was finally doing something. Perhaps he and his men had put up a weak defense, but at least they had indicated the right direction to take. He had floundered home without falling, thanks to his stick, although the mud must have been at least eight inches thick—too thick to run off into the sewers. The streetlights were a blessing, not only because they had put the rats to rout, but because it was now possible to navigate without colliding with the wreckage of abandoned machines, furniture and whatever else the rats had dropped in their frantic flight.
Never had they eaten so late. Everything was out of kilter. Martha had reassured him that all was well and that the rats had respected his house. No question about it: the President had his people under tight control.
"Anything new?" Labrique asked the Commissioner when he had finally changed out of his muddy clothes.
"Nothing much. Just the usual. . . ."
"Well, I have some news for you. I had a reader at the Library today. A man who is staying at the Hotel—a charming guy. Your mistress's lover."
15
O N T H E ramparts, the sentries were talking.
"Did you get bitten?"
"No, but I saw some people who were."
"By the rats, of course."
"What makes you so sure, Beagel?"
"Who else, Shell?"
"I saw people who were bitten and they thought it was the rats too. But when I asked them if they had really seen them, they said, 'No, how could you? It was too dark.' So I told them maybe it wasn't the rats, that you shouldn't talk that way if you weren't sure, you shouldn't accuse the rats that way without proof. That made them think twice, and they said maybe it wasn't the rats after all. I told them what I thought—and I'm not the only one who thinks so—that it was a plot, and the rats weren't real rats but agents in disguise."
"You really think so, Shell?"
"I'm not absolutely sure, but it's likely, it's even more than likely: it's logical. Think it through. How else do you explain the blackout? It was a reactionary racist plot because they're mad that we're getting along with the rats."
"You do have ideas, Shell"
"Listen, I'm not the only one. There are others, and at the very top too. You know what? My wife's cousin who works at the paper was saying the same thing last night. There are still a few of us who haven't been brainwashed."
"Was there much damage at your house?"
"Sure, but the government's going to have to pay for it. After all, they were responsible."
"Hey, look, Shell I can see now the light's getting stronger. I told you: he's still there."
Beagel pointed to the soldier who was just emerging from the shadows.
"I thought for sure he'd
been done in like the ants."
"No, he's still alive. See, he's moving."
"Does that mean the powder won't destroy everything?"
"Of course it destroys everything or they wouldn't have made it. Listen: the first one died; this is another one who's come back."
"Just so long as there aren't two of them at the same time!"
Martha barely closed an eye that night in her worry over her husband, herself, everything. She had finally dropped off when she was awakened by the sound of Baudruche stirring in the next room. She opened the door; he was standing in the middle of the room.
"What are you doing, Robert?"
"As you see, I'm getting up."
"But it isn't time. It's barely daylight."
"This day will never be long enough for me."
She put on her dressing gown and went down in the silent house to heat up some coffee.
"Find me my boots, Martha—the ones I used to wear for hunting when we lived in the villages. . . ."
Baudruche sank up to his calves in the mud. He had to hold tight to the railing as he climbed the ramparts. He leaned over. It was hard to see anything. Yes, the walls were still there, unharmed, but who knew what might be lying under that layer of mud? It would be impossible to tell until later. He left.
The inhabitants were timidly opening their shutters. A few picked their way down the street in rubber boots; those who had none went barefoot. Groups formed, people talked in hushed voices, trying to fathom what had happened. They were sure the rats weren't responsible: they lived on good terms with their new neighbors, with never a sharp word, no fighting, nothing. A very few—those who had abandoned their homes rather than live next door to rats—complained in low voices. But nobody knew what had happened in the vicinity of the Factory. It was probably the work of troublemakers who wouldn't accept the rats. They must have been plotting; otherwise how could you explain it? The proof was clear when they began to discover the bodies of rats in the mud.
The Walled City Page 20