"The warehouse?"
"Yes: the military warehouse, the one they've been using as an auxiliary barracks."
"No," the soldier says, "it's not a barracks I'm looking for, and not a warehouse either."
"Well, barracks or not, that doesn't change where the street is." Suddenly getting an idea, he drums his fingertips on the table and speaks to the woman: "Let the boy take him there, that would be easiest."
Without changing her adamant expression, she shrugs her shoulders as she answers: "You know I don't want him to go out."
A new argument begins between them, if it was the same man the first time. Contrary, in any case, to the dialogue which took place in the next room, it is now the man who does most of the talking, asking for precise reasons why the child should be shut up, scarcely listening to the answers, repeating peremptorily that no one runs any danger crossing the city, especially a child, that it will not take him long anyway, that it will not even be dark by the time he gets back. The woman answers him with short, irritated, insistent sentences: "You just said it was far away."
"Far away for someone who doesn't know where it is. But not for the boy, he'll get there by the shortest route and come back again right away."
"I'd rather he didn't go out," the young woman says.
This time the man calls the visitor to witness: what danger would there be in going out today? Aren't the streets absolutely calm? Could anything happen before nightfall? . . . etc.
The soldier answers that he doesn't know. As for the streets being calm, for the moment it is certainly incontestable.
"But they might come any minute," the woman says.
The lame man does not agree with her: "Not before tomorrow night," he declares, "or even the day after. Otherwise do you think he'd just be standing here waiting for them?" He is referring to the soldier now, with a broad, vague gesture in his direction, across the table; but the latter personally does not find the argument very convincing, for he should not be here in any case. When the man appeals to him again, he can only make an evasive gesture with his hand which he barely lifts from his knee:
"I don't know," he says.
Besides, he is not at all eager to be taken to the other side of town, although he no longer knows now what else he could do. Far from feeling rested by this pause, an even greater lassitude has now come over him. He looks at the young woman with her pale eyes, her set face, her black hair, her wide apron tied around her waist; he looks at the lame man whose infirmity does not seem to tire him, since he remains standing, supported by his crutch, although there is an empty chair nearby; the soldier wonders whether his useless leg is resting on the floor, but he cannot tell, for the man, leaning on the other end of the table, is visible only above the thighs: he would therefore have to lean forward, raise the edge of the oilcloth, and look under the table, between the four square legs that taper toward the bottom—or else, tapering toward the bottom, but made out of turned, fluted wood, becoming cylindrical and smooth at the upper end, terminating at the top in four cubes with a carved rose on two of their sides —or else ... ; the soldier looks again at the portrait on the rear wall: at this distance, the features of the face are quite indistinct; as for the details of the uniform, they would have to be already familiar in order to be visible: the two straps crossing each other over the chest, the dag- ger-bayonet with its black leather sheath attached to the belt, the overcoat with its front flaps folded back, the leggings . . . unless the latter are puttees, or even boots . . .
But now the child is coming in to the left of the chest, through the vestibule door. He is being pushed forward toward the soldier who is still sitting at the table. It is the lame man who pushes him from behind with his free hand while the crutch makes tiny quick movements in virtually the same place, for the boy does not move forward. The wounded leg is slightly shorter than the other one, or else slightly bent, so that the foot hangs about an inch or so above the floor.
The child has changed clothes, probably to go outside: he is now wearing long narrow trousers, out of which appear his high shoes, and a heavy wool turtleneck sweater that comes down to the hips; a cape, not closed, hangs from his shoulders to his knees; his head is covered with a beret pulled down on each side over his ears. Everything is of the same navy blue color, or, more exactly, of the various shades associated with this color.
The lame man having exerted a firmer pressure on the child's back, the latter advances a step towards the soldier; at the same time he draws tight the two flaps of his cape, holding the edges with both hands from the inside. Then the man speaks a sentence already heard a few seconds before: "He'll find your Rue Bouvard for you, he'll find it." The child stubbornly looks down at his heavy shoes whose rubber soles are a yellow line on the floor.
Has the woman finally given in? Yet the soldier has not noticed that she has given her consent, in his presence, for the child to go out. Had this scene taken place out of his sight? But where and when? Or was her consent not being considered? She is standing a little to one side, in the shadowy frame of the wide-open door. She is motionless, her arms hanging stiffly at her sides. She says nothing, but she has probably just said something, which might have attracted the soldier's attention in this direction. Her clothes too have been changed: she no longer wears an apron over her full gray skirt. Her face retains the same hostile expression, though perhaps it is gentler, more remote now. Her eyes are larger in the darkness; she looks across the table, where the empty glass is set, at the child, himself motionless in the dark cape which completely conceals him from neck to knees; the location of his invisible hands inside the cape is indicated at two different levels near the neck and toward the middle of the cape by a gathering of the edge of the material. Behind the child, the man with the crutch has also stopped moving entirely; he is leaning forward, his back bent, his balance, which seems precarious, made possible by the crutch held obliquely to support his body and firmly grasped in his hand, his arm extended, his shoulder high, his other free arm moving forward toward the boy's back, his hand partly open, his forefinger and middle finger almost straight while the other two are closed over the palm which is turned upward. The expression on his face has frozen into a kind of smile, a "kind smile" perhaps, that the stiffness of the features transforms, however, into a grimace: one corner of the mouth twisted, one eye more nearly closed than the other, and the cheek half contracted.
"He'll find your Rue Bouvard for you, he'll find it."
No one says anything. The child looks at his shoes. The lame man's body is still leaning forward as though about to fall, his right arm half extended, his mouth distorted by what was a smile. The woman seems to have stepped back still farther into the shadow of the next room, and her eyes look still larger, fixed now, perhaps, on the soldier.
And afterwards there is the street, the night, the falling snow. The soldier, hugging his package under his arm, his hands thrust into his overcoat pockets, laboriously follows the boy who is three or four yards ahead of him. The tiny dense flakes are driven horizontally by the wind, and the soldier, in order not to receive them full in the face, bends his head down farther; he also squints as much as he can without closing his eyes completely. He can scarcely see, vanishing and reappearing at the bottom of the overcoat, the two black shoes which alternately advance and retreat over the snow.
When he passes through the light of a street light, he sees the tiny white specks rushing toward him, quite distinct against the dark leather of his shoes, and, higher up, clinging to the material of his overcoat. Since he is then illuminated himself, he tries to raise his head at that moment in order to catch a glimpse of the boy in front of him. But the latter, of course, has already vanished into the darkness; and the many white flakes interposed between them are, on the contrary, illuminated by the street light, which prevents anything outside the zone of light from being distinguished. Soon blinded by the tiny crystals which whip against his face, the soldier must lower his eyes again to the overcoat, which
is gradually being covered with snow, the badly tied package, and the heavy boots which continue their alternating movement like two pendulums making parallel, identical oscillations side by side but in the opposite directions.
It is only a few steps farther on, once out of the circle of light, that he can again ascertain the boy's presence, a wavering shadow, the cape fluttering in the wind against the bright background of the next street lamp, five or six yards ahead.
And the child has disappeared for good. The soldier is alone, standing stock still. This is a street like the others. The child has brought him here and left him alone, in front of a house like the others, and has told him: "It's here." The soldier has looked at the house, the street, from one side and then from the other, and the door. It was a door like the others. The street was long and black with only the series of lighted areas beneath the same cast-iron lampposts with their old-fashioned ornaments.
The boy has left again; but instead of turning back, he has continued straight ahead in the same direction. He has covered about a dozen yards and then, suddenly, has begun running. His cape was fluttering behind him. He has continued straight ahead, soon vanishing, appearing again under each street light, disappearing, and again, smaller and smaller, shapeless, blurred by the night and the snow . . .
The soldier is alone, he looks at the door in front of which he is standing. Why has the child shown him this house rather than any other, since he was told only to take him to this street? Which street is this anyway? Is it really the one they were talking about just now? The soldier can no longer remember the name the lame man insisted on so much: it was something like Mallart or Malibar, Malardier, Montoire, Moutardier . . . No, it didn't sound like that.
Against the part of the doorway perpendicular to the wall of the building, on the side receiving a little light from the nearest street light, a small plaque is attached at eye level: some identification concerning the tenant of the building, or at least one of the tenants. There is not enough light for the soldier to read. He puts his hand on it, having stepped onto the stoop, where he balances as well as he can, hampered by its narrowness. The letters are stamped on a cold polished substance, but they are too small and the soldier cannot make out a single word. He notices at this moment that the door is ajar: door, hallway, door, vestibule, door, then finally a lighted room, and a table with an empty glass with a circle of dark-red liquid still at the bottom, and a lame man leaning on his crutch, bending forward in a precarious balance. No. Door ajar. Hallway. Staircase. Woman running from floor to floor up the spiral staircase, her gray apron billowing about her. Door. And finally a lighted room: bed, chest, fireplace, table with a lamp on its left corner, and the lampshade casting a white circle on the ceiling. No. Above the chest is a print framed in black wood . . . No. No. No.
The door is not ajar. The soldier moves his finger across the polished plaque, but his hand is already numb with cold and he no longer feels anything at all. Then the door suddenly opens wide. The hallway is still the same, but this time it is lighted. There is the naked bulb at the end of its wire, the civil defense bulletin against the brown wall near the door, the closed doors to the right and left, and the staircase at the end rising in a spiral towards successive walls and dark corners.
"What do you . .
It is another soldier, or rather half a soldier, for he is wearing a field cap and military jacket, but black trousers and gray suede shoes. Arms and legs spread slightly, eyes squinting, mouth half open, the figure has frozen, startled, threatening, terrified, it retreats down the hallway, gradually at first, then more and more quickly but without the feet moving in relation to each other, the limbs and the whole body remaining rigid as if the whole figure were set on a rail and drawn backward by a thread. No.
While the soldier, having stepped onto the narrow stoop where he balances as well as he can, half leaning against the closed leaf of the door which restricts his movements and compels him to twist his body, his left hand still thrust into the overcoat pocket and his left arm still hugging the package wrapped in brown paper against the hollow of his hip, the other hand raised to the polished plaque attached to the left jamb—while the soldier vainly tries to make out the letters with the tips of his forefinger, middle finger, and ring finger, the door opens so suddenly that he has to grasp the jamb in order not to fall, in order not to be swallowed up by this yawning hallway in the middle of which, just inside the door, stands a man wearing a field cap and military jacket, but civilian trousers and low sport shoes; they probably have rubber soles, for there has been no sound of steps down the hallway. On the collar of the jacket, the two colored diamonds showing the serial number have been removed. In one hand the man is still holding the edge of the door which he has just pivoted on its hinges. His free right hand rises to shoulder height in an uncompleted gesture of welcome, then falls back.
"Come in," he says, "this is the place."
The soldier crosses the threshold, takes three steps down the hallway lit by a naked bulb at the end of a long twisted wire. The soldier stops. The other man has closed the door again. The gust of air has made the lamp move and it now continues to sway at the end of its wire.
The man in the military jacket is again standing motionless in front of the closed door, his arms and legs spread slightly, his hands dangling, in an attitude that is both irresolute and stiff. All the identifying insignia on his clothes have been removed: not only those on the collar, but also the stripes on the sleeves and on the cap, revealing, where they had been, small areas of new material softer and brighter than the faded surrounding areas dirtied by long wear. The difference is so evident that there can be no doubt about the shape of the missing insignia: the infantry diamond, the two parallel, slender, oblique rectangles indicating the rank of corporal; only the colors are missing (bright red, garnet, purple, blue, green, yellow, black . . .) which would furnish precise information as to regiment, duty, etc. The face, in full light now, seems tired, drawn, shrunken, the cheekbones too prominent, the cheeks grayish, the eyes deep in their sockets. The man's shadow is cast against the door to the right, then to the left, then to the right, to the left, to the right, according to the position of the electric bulb swaying at the end of its long wire perpendicular to the direction of the hallway. (The draft from the open door must have moved the lamp longitudinally, but the plane of the oscillations has gradually turned without their amplitude diminishing perceptibly, and the man's foreshortened shadow appears and disappears, now on the right, now on the left, alternately.)
"Are you wounded?" he asks at last.
The soldier shakes his head.
"Sick?"
"No . . . only tired."
"All right, come on up."
But neither one moves, and the man's shadow continues to sway. Then he says: "What do you have in your package?"
The soldier, after a moment's hesitation, looks down toward the brown spotted paper and the distended string.
"Some things."
"What kind of things?"
"My things." He raises his head. The man is still looking at him with the same weary, almost vacant expression.
"Do you have your identification papers?"
"No . . ." The soldier makes a half smile or a fleeting grimace which momentarily distorts his mouth; then his eyebrows rise to indicate his astonishment at this foolish request.
"No, of course not," the other man repeats, and after a few seconds: "All right, come on up."
At this moment the light goes out. Complete darkness replaces the pale, thin face, the dangling hands, and the swaying shadow. At the same time, the ticking, which had been regularly audible without the soldier's being aware of it since the beginning of the scene, has stopped.
And the scene is silent when the light comes on again. The setting is apparently the same: a narrow hallway painted dark brown halfway up the walls, the rest of the walls and the high ceiling being pale beige. But the doors, on the left as on the right, are more numerous. They
are, as before, painted dark brown and are of identical dimensions: quite high for their width. The hallway is doubtless longer. The electric bulb is the same: round, quite weak, and hanging at the end of a twisted wire. The light switch, made of white porcelain, is placed just above the stairs at the corner of the wall. The two men are walking slowly, without speaking, one behind the other. The first, the one wearing what was once a corporal's jacket, has just pressed the light switch in passing (was there no switch on the first floor, since they climbed the stairs in darkness?); but the fact that the system is functioning is revealed only by a simple click; the ticking is too faint to be heard over the noise of heavy hobnail boots on the last steps, which the soldier climbs with less difficulty now that he sees clearly. His guide, in front of him, is wearing rubber-soled gray suede shoes; the whisper of his steps is scarcely audible. One behind the other, the two men pass in front of the high, narrow, closed doors on the right and left, one after the other, with their shiny white porcelain knobs that stand out against the dark paint, an egg-shaped object in which the image of the electric bulb makes a luminous speck repeated on the right and the left, in each doorknob, one after the other.
At the very end of the hallway is a last door that resembles the others. The soldier sees the man stop in front of him, his hand on the porcelain knob. When the soldier reaches him, the man quickly opens the door to let the soldier in first, walks in after him and closes the door behind them.
They are standing in a small room, its only illumination a bluish gleam which comes from outside through the six panes of a window that has neither shutters nor curtain. The soldier walks over to the bare panes. He sees the empty street, uniformly white with snow. His hand is resting on the porcelain window fastening which is smooth and cold under his palm. The fastening is not closed, the two leaves of the French window are only pushed shut. They open of their own accord without any effort, by the mere weight of the arm pressing against them. The soldier leans out. It is no longer snowing. The wind has fallen. The night is calm. The soldier leans out a little farther. He sees the sidewalk, much farther down than he expected. Clinging to the sill, he sees beneath him the vertical series of successive windows, and at the bottom the doorway to the building, and the white stoop lighted by the nearby street lamp. The door itself, slightly recessed, is not visible. There are footsteps in the fresh snow, tracks of heavy boots which, coming from the left along the buildings, lead to the doorway and end there just beneath his eyes. A vague mass moves in the doorway. It looks like a man in a cloak or a military overcoat. He has stepped onto the stoop and his body is pressed against the door. But the part of his body outside the doorway clearly reveals a shoulder with a buttoned tab, a bent arm holding under the elbow a rectangular package the size of a shoe box.
Jealousy and in the Labyrinth Page 19