The Walled City

by Marcel Clouzot

  She caught up with him in the hall.

  "Tell me, Commissioner, what about my widow's pension? About how much will it be?"

  "Let's get on with it, Miss Bourrot; we're almost there."

  Baudruche had expressed his distress over the fate of the Poulet mission and his hope that the Prefect would use his ample leverage to force the release of the team. Now he was trying once again to convey his general anxiety.

  "Without going so far as to encourage the population to acts of violence or war, I think the time has come to make our people understand what has been happening in the City. In my view, the situation is becoming more disturbing with every passing day.

  "I have just learned that the Women's League has decided to hold a banquet for the benefit of our government and a number of representatives from our neighboring state. I think it would be wise to find some plausible pretext to forbid this ill-timed demonstration, as it might appear as an insult to the memory of Emil Poulet, his colleagues and the City's entire past.

  "That's all I can say. I can't go beyond that."

  Miss Bourrot looked up.

  "Is it as bad as that, Mr. Commissioner?"

  "Much worse, I'm afraid, Miss Bourrot."

  "I'm not worried. I feel confident so long as you're here."

  Baudruche left without a word. Her confidence gave him a pain. As he reached his own door, he heard a newsboy shouting:

  "Read all about it! Eighth and last edition. . . . Traitors convicted! "

  He took out his key and opened the door. Labrique was sitting talking to Martha in the dining room. He raised his head when the Commissioner entered the room.

  "Know what? My reader came again—the man from the Hotel. He'd like to see you, privately—at the Library, for instance. He wants to talk to you about the City's problems."

  "Maybe."

  He had spoken too soon. He should have said "no" outright.

  17

  "H E L P ! H E L P ! "

  Beagel was stretched out his full length on the sentry walk. Stones were falling into the moat and on the pavement, City side. He felt someone grab his legs.

  "Please don't hurt me!"

  "Why should I hurt you? I just don't want you disturbing the stones."

  "Oh, it's you, Shell?"

  "Who did you think it was?"

  "I thought the enemy had climbed up the walls."

  "But what were you doing there on the ground?"

  "It's too dangerous to stay upright. And anyway, you can see everything this way since there's no parapet anymore."

  "You're right. There's no point taking needless risks."

  "You can lie down next to me. There aren't any ants."

  Shell stretched out cautiously next to his comrade.

  "Look at him, Shell. What's he making all those motions for?"

  "Who?"

  "The soldier, you stupid jerk! Can't you see him in front of his fire, moving his arms around? Look, he's signaling for them to come."

  "Who?"

  "The enemy, you pinhead! Who else? He's calling to them. It's a good thing we're here to see this. I always told you it would end this way."

  "Signaling the enemy! . . . But those guys are all buddy-buddy."

  "And you can bet they're well paid! But they won't be paying this one much longer."

  Beagel stood up.

  "What are you doing, Beagel?"

  "I'm going to kill the snake! Hand me a rock."

  Shell gave him a few small stones off the wall and Beagel threw them at the soldier.

  "They're too small; they don't go far enough; I can't reach him. Give me a bigger one. . . . We're heroes, Shell! We'll be decorated and promoted to chief sentry."

  "But that's dangerous what you're doing. He might get angry and climb up the wall."

  "We can escape down the stairs. Give me another one, Shell."

  "You're going to strain your back."

  A large section of wall fell away. Shell and Beagel watched as part of it rolled down into the moat and the rest fell on the street side. The soldier turned around and called out, "More!" and continued walking back and forth and beckoning with his arms. Finally, tired from his efforts, he stretched out by his fire. On the other side of the walls, a few lights appeared in the windows. One of them opened and a voice called out:

  "Come back to bed, Ernest. It's not them yet; it's only the falling rock."

  Baudruche arrived at the walls earlier than usual. He had let Edge off, since it was now a waste of the architect's time. There wasn't anything that could be done.

  He tapped the stones in front of him with his thick walking stick. Little by little, the sickness had spread to all the stones. Then he reached a stretch where there had been so many rock slides that the walk was reduced to a narrow ridge. He had to smile: if he were still a child, he'd have risked it on all fours.

  Less brave now, he turned back, went down the nearest stairs and climbed up the next one. Things were no better there. Large sections of the parapet were gone; what spy holes remained looked like gaping wounds. Most of the turrets had fallen into the still-soft mud of the moat. The last paving stones on the walk were coming loose and cracking.

  And everything everywhere was swarming with ants. Baudruche leaned out over the outside wall; they were scurrying up, much faster than their predecessors, and so much larger. A number of them had infiltrated the lower cracks and from there, from hole to hole and passage to passage, had worked their way through the rotten stone until they reached the other side.

  Baudruche turned around and saw a mirror image of the scene on the City side. Thin columns of millions of small shiny bodies extended from the bottom of the walls to the first houses. Baudruche went down.

  His attention was drawn to a sizable bump made by a mass of swarming ants on top of a mound of dried mud. Curious, he scattered them with the tip of his stick and saw that they had been feasting on a dead rat. Undiscouraged by the interference, the ants returned to the attack.

  He stood watching them. No doubt about it, they would win in the end. Yes, one day they'd be Number One. What could one rat do against a thousand ants?

  "Mr. Commissioner! If it isn't too much trouble . . . would you come and see?"

  A woman was pointing to her house a few feet away. He followed her and, as he entered, the sound of a child screaming assaulted his ears.

  "What's the matter?"

  She had left to do her shopping, as she did every day, but she'd been late coming home because the lines were even longer than usual. When she returned, she was greeted by this terrible screaming. She ran to the crib and saw that her baby was covered with large red ants—the same kind that were on the ramparts. The child was trying to fight them off. The mother tried to pluck them off with her fingers, but they resisted with all the strength of their tiny jaws. The child was now safe in the kitchen.

  "But listen to him," she said, "he won't stop screaming."

  Yes, she had called the doctor but there'd been similar cases nearby, and the neighborhood doctor was running from one to the next.

  Baudruche looked closely at the child. It was covered with ugly sores and dried blood. The ants had attacked its eyelids, its eyes; its nose was partly eaten away. He couldn't bear the sight.

  "After I called the doctor, I came back into the room with my broom and killed them all, every last one. Come and look."

  Already new ants were coming in through the cracks in the closed window. They set about eating the corpses of their kin, on the floor, along the wall, in the empty crib.

  ""Where is your telephone, madam?"

  The number of the nearest fire station was on the dial. He called. The captain was categorical: the best he could do was try to drown them. He'd be there right away. The woman wanted to save her furniture, her most precious belongings.

  Her neighbors made a chain as the firemen directed the water through the window. The woman was running around in circles. She stopped, hesitated for a moment—there
were so many people around—then decided she had to open her secret cupboard. She had mislaid the key, so she pulled on the door with all her strength until it suddenly gave way. An avalanche of flour, dried beans, sugar, crackers poured forth, carrying bottles of oil and pots of jam in its wake. As bottles and pots broke, an agitated red blotch spread over the mess. Baudruche looked inside the cupboard; the interior was infested with ants. At that moment, a stream of water hit the Commissioner's head, carrying his hat with it. The water pressure doubled. Soaked to the skin, the women sought refuge on the hall stairs, taking the screaming baby with them. Baudruche walked out to the street to contemplate the scene.

  A river was flowing into the street. The current carried bits of food, ants, small objects, then the water turned dark as it mixed with the dried mud on the ground. The river grew as neighboring houses were hosed down. All ground-floor apartments were evacuated. But once they had cleaned out the apartments, what then? They couldn't keep on drowning them forever. No, the solution wasn't there but, as usual, on the other side of the walls. Baudruche hailed a fireman and pointed to the walls behind him now alive with ants.

  "Give them a hosing down, will you?"

  The fireman dutifully aimed his hose at the ramparts. Large pieces of stone flew off in all directions.

  "Hey, stop! It's wrecking the walls!"

  Attacked at their base, the walls threatened to cave in in whole sections, endangering the houses opposite.

  The Commissioner ordered the firemen to stop all hosing. The water drained out of the apartments; the ants seemed to have disappeared. Baudruche called his office for reports. Ants had invaded the houses near the walls in several parts of town. He gave orders that they try the same remedy.

  The doctor finally arrived to examine the child who was now reduced to whimpers. He ordered it removed to the Hospital along with three other babies who had undergone the same ordeal.

  The woman returned to her devastated home with empty arms. She looked at her furniture in the street outside, the bedding floating in the muck. Her neighbors were whispering. She'd been hoarding food! Henceforth, she'd be ostracized.

  "Just go back and market again, little one," an old woman cackled as she passed by.

  The neighbors dispersed without speaking to her. When they had gone, the woman fell sobbing into Baudruche's arms. Automatically, he took out his wallet and handed her a few bills, but she refused them with outraged pride.

  "You mustn't let it happen again, Mr. Commissioner! Are they going to do another explosion?"

  Baudruche walked away. If only he could do something about the stupidity! This everlasting stupidity that the people had been clinging to for so long. These people could have been alerted to the danger; their natural instincts hadn't rotted away completely.

  In his irritation, he kept poking at the mudbanks with his cane—and in the process damaging the mudbanks he himself had ordered made. He leaned down. No, he wasn't mistaken: the mudbank enclosed an endless passageway. He stooped down to listen and heard the sound of scurrying feet. He stood up. ran along the mudbank and pierced it at random until he heard a small cry. Touché!

  Baudruche looked around him. Thank heavens the street was deserted. People would have thought he'd gone mad.

  The mudbanks lined almost every street in the City. The rats must have burrowed through them to establish a secret network of tunnels—connecting basements and sewers to the delegation at the other end of the City. A whole impregnable underground city was beginning to take shape, forming numberless roots and muddy tentacles reaching into the City—his City.

  Baudruche was very late returning to his office. He immediately asked for the Prefect's letter and read it through at a glance. The Prefect found Baudruche's assertions about Emil Poulet's trial and subsequent fate gratuitous. Why should the rats want to kill or imprison people who were devoted to them? Obviously the men were guilty and the Prefect was gratified that they had been suitably punished. But one important question remained. Whom were they working for? There must still be a hidden but powerful opposition to the Prefect's policies. The Prefect was astonished that Baudruche had failed to find any trace. "I must have the guilty men, Mr. Commissioner."

  "You don't need me anymore, Mr. Commissioner? Can I go to lunch now?"

  Baudruche raised his head at the sound of Miss Bourrot's voice. He looked at the clock. It was well past noon. He had no time to waste, for the dread banquet was taking place in a half hour and Baudruche was eager to be on hand. He walked down to the courtyard where the men he had chosen for the assignment awaited him.

  The Museum of Man was a large, square, handsome building set in a small garden surrounded by a low iron fence. It had been designed to instruct the City’s inhabitants on their origins, their habits and characteristics—that which distinguished them from the animals. At the beginning, a few visitors had come to look around, cast a vacant eye on the glass cases and left soon after, unimpressed. Ever since, a lone guard had meticulously dusted each object and document once a year and returned to sleep in his chair by the entrance. Now the building belonged to the rats.

  Baudruche ordered his men to disperse discreetly around the garden. If they heard him whistle, they were to run back. He kept Revere and Payne by his side.

  The three men stood on the sidewalk opposite the entrance, watching and waiting. Baudruche's eyes wandered over the facade of the building and was shocked to see that a new flag had replaced the City’s. Those rats wasted no time !

  Suddenly, the door opened wide and two hundred rats crossed the garden and took up positions around the iron fence as if to protect the building. Where had they come from? No one had seen a group of such size enter the Museum that morning or the night before. Baudruche guessed they had dug a passage between the building and the sewers. But why this deployment of forces, and all these precautions? "Not a good sign," Baudruche said to himself.

  "Hi, Mr. Commissioner!"

  Baudruche turned at the sound of the voice. It was Posey, a large basket in her arms which she was delivering for the head table's repast. Baudruche was surprised. Didn't she work upstairs and not in the kitchens? She laughed at his question: she had simply offered to help the baker's assistants. Besides, it was fun and the banquet had made a lot of extra work for the Hotel. She had only to provide for the representatives of the new government and the board of the Women's League. The other tables, those for the league's rank and file and the lower echelons of the neighboring government, would be taken care of by the rats themselves.

  Baudruche kept his eyes on the entrance where two fat rats now emerged—he remembered them from the old ex-Social Progress—and took their place. They were soon joined by two women, one of them small and thin with glasses, the other large and powerfully built—two militants who had given him special trouble at Esther Labrique's lecture.

  The rest of the women arrived alone or in groups. They exchanged a few words with the guards and went in. Finally, a woman appeared who was of particular interest to Baudruche. She entered into a discussion with the two guards and they motioned her away. The Commissioner swore under his breath: the guards had refused to recognize Delilah Spier as one of their own. She was Baudruche's best female agent and represented his only chance to find out what was going to be said or done at the banquet. After all, the building and its garden were on foreign soil, hence forbidden to him. Once again, things were going against him.

  Finally, Esther Labrique and her band of faithfuls arrived. She threw him a disdainful look, passed through the gate and the doors closed.

  The rats kept to their stations along the fence, making it impossible for Baudruche to see what was happening behind the windows. Then he had an idea. He alerted Revere and Payne and entered the house next door.

  He climbed to the third floor, rang, gave his name, entered and asked permission to take up his position by the window. With his binoculars Baudruche could just make out what was going on in the banquet room. He could see the head tabl
e on the platform, the other tables lined up at right angles to it. At the center, Esther Labrique and the President sat in state. They were talking to each other and making friendly gestures. Perhaps Esther was plotting a splendid revenge for the Commissioner's humiliation and her husband's abandonment. As wife of the President, she would cut quite a figure in the City. That is, if the President would consent. . . . Baudruche was quite certain he wouldn't refuse.

  Then the scandal would be official: a monstrous couple, legally united, making a frightful example for the City, an example which inevitably would be followed. When that day came, the racial problem would be resolved for all time.

  Esther got up, spoke, sat down again. The President got to his feet, replied, and sat down. Everybody was eating greedily; the more their hunger was appeased, the more Baudruche felt his own pangs.

  His eyes moved to the rats policing the Museum who were distributing copies of The Rodent to passersby. A crowd formed in front of the iron fence. Baudruche looked back toward the banquet. Something was wrong. The guests at the head table were getting to their feet, then falling down and writhing on the floor, while rats and women from the other tables ran to them. He could hear sounds of commotion. He left abruptly, hurried down to the street and blew his whistle.

  Baudruche could no longer see but he heard much more clearly. There were assorted sounds of scuffling, small squeaks from the rats and shrieks from the women (which could mean anything . . .). His men looked at him questioningly, then asked timidly if they weren't to do something. Baudruche had to remind them that the Museum and its surrounding garden were no longer part of the City; they couldn't enter legally without an invitation from the rats, which they didn't have.

  Revere spoke up.

  "There are women in there. Things don't seem to be going well, and we can't let them fend for themselves."

  Baudruche looked unconvinced. Besides, the women in there weren't much to his liking. Revere continued:

  "I'd like to do something, Mr. Commissioner. They are our women after all, and there are others there besides rats."

  Some of his colleagues seemed to agree with Revere, even Payne, who was the most circumspect of the lot. A number of them broke away and went over to the fence to try to discuss matters. Baudruche hesitated, but he didn't dare call them back. He just didn't want to be identified with what they were doing.