He has approached the soldier, he has held out his hand. Hesitating at first, the soldier has grasped his hand and has managed to stand up, leaning one shoulder against the door.
The same sputtering of a motor has begun again in the silence, swelling in volume, this time much more distinctly. The man and the child have stepped back together into the doorway. The noise has soon come so close that they have stepped up onto the stoop and are flattened against the wood of the door beside each other. The staccato racket echoing in all directions against the housefronts unmistakably came from the adjacent street, the one forming the crossroads some ten yards from their hiding place. They have flattened themselves even more against the door. The motorcycle has appeared at the edge of the vertical wall, at the corner of the house. It was a side car with two helmeted soldiers in it; it was advancing slowly down the middle of the street, in the fresh snow.
The two men appear in profile. The driver's face, situated slightly forward, is above his companion's. They seem to have the same features: regular, drawn, perhaps shrunken by fatigue. Their eyes are hollow, their lips tight, their skin grayish. The color and shape of their jackets are like those of the familiar uniform, but the helmet is larger, heavier, protecting the ears and the back of the neck. The motorcycle itself is dirty and half covered with dry mud; it seems to be a rather old model. The man driving it sits stiffly on his seat, his gloved hands grasping the handle bars. The other man looks alternately right and left, but only ahead of the motorcycle, almost without moving his head. On his knees he holds a black machine gun whose barrel sticks out of the iron-plated car.
They have passed without turning back and have continued straight ahead past the crossroad. After about twenty yards, they have disappeared behind the corner of the apartment house forming the opposite corner.
A few seconds later the sound has suddenly stopped. Apparently the motor was turned off. Complete silence followed the racket. There remained only the two parallel lines left in the snow by the three wheels of the vehicle, drawn straight across the field of vision between the two planes of vertical stone.
Since this was taking too long, the child has lost patience and has left his hiding place. The soldier has not noticed this immediately, for previously the child had been huddled behind him; the soldier has just seen him in the middle of the sidewalk and has gestured to him to come back. But the child has taken another three steps forward, so that he is now standing against the street light, which is supposed to conceal him.
The silence persisted. The boy, who quickly grew bolder as time passed, has advanced several yards towards the crossroads. For fear of attracting the attention of the invisible motorcyclists, the soldier has not dared call him to keep him from going farther. The child has continued to the point from which he can see the entire cross street; sticking his head out, he has glanced in the direction the side car had vanished. A man's voice, some distance away, in this area, has shouted a short command. With a start, the child has turned around and begun running; he has passed the soldier again, his cape fluttering over his shoulders. Before realizing what he was doing, the soldier was already following him when the two-cylinder motor started up again, suddenly filling the air with its sputtering. The soldier too has begun running, laboriously, while the child has turned the corner of the next street.
Behind him, the racket has quickly become deafening. Then came a long grating sound: the motorcycle taking too sharp a turn and skidding on the snow. At the same time the motor stopped. The harsh voice shouted: "Halt!" twice, without the slightest trace of an accent. The soldier almost reached the corner of the street where the child himself had turned a few seconds before. The motorcycle has started up again, drowning out the powerful voice which was repeating "Halt!" for the third time. And immediately afterwards, the soldier recognized the dry staccato crackling of the machine gun which mingled with the uproar.
He has felt a violent shock on the heel of his right boot. He has kept on running. Bullets have struck the stone wall near him. Just as he was turning the corner, there was a new burst of firing. A sharp pain has pierced his left side. Then everything stopped.
He was out of reach, protected by the wall. The crackling of the machine gun had stopped. The motor had probably stopped a few seconds before. The soldier no longer felt his body, he was still running along the stone wall. The apartment house door was not closed, it opened easily when the soldier pushed it. He has gone in. He has closed it behind him gently; the bolt, as it falls back into place, has made a slight click.
Afterward he lay down on the floor in the darkness, curling up with the box in the hollow of his stomach. He has felt the back of his boot: there was a deep diagonal rent along the back and side of the heel. His foot was not touched. Heavy steps and noisy voices have echoed in the street.
The steps drew closer. A muffled blow has resounded against the wood of the door, then the voices again, rough, rather jovial, speaking an incomprehensible language with drawling intonations. The noise of one man's steps has faded away. The two voices, one quite near, the other somewhat farther away, have exchanged three or four short sentences. Someone has knocked on something, probably another door, and on this one again, with a fist, several times, but apparently without conviction. The more distant voice has shouted foreign words again and the nearer voice has begun laughing loudly. Then the other voice burst into laughter too.
And the two heavy treads have faded away together, accompanied by bursts of laughter. In the ensuing silence the sound of the motorcycle has begun again, then gradually diminished until it is no longer audible.
The soldier has wanted to change position. A sharp pain has pierced his side. A very violent but not unbearable pain. Most of all he was tired. And he felt like vomiting.
Then he heard the boy's low voice quite near him in the darkness, but he did not understand what it was saying. He felt he was losing consciousness.
A considerable crowd has gathered in the room: men, mostly in civilian clothes, talking in small groups and making many gestures. The soldier tries to make his way through them. He finally reaches a less crowded area where the people sitting at tables are drinking wine and arguing, still with many gestures and exclamations. The tables are very close together and circulation between the benches, chairs, and human backs is still difficult; but it is easier to see where one is going. Unfortunately all the chairs seem to be occupied. The tables—round, square, or rectangular —are set facing in every direction, without discernible order. Some have no more than three or four drinkers around them; the larger ones, which are long and have benches, can serve fifteen. Beyond is the bar behind which the bartender is standing, a tall, heavy-set man, made even more noticeable by his slightly raised position. Between the bar and the last tables, a very narrow space is obstructed in the center by a group of standing drinkers who are more luxuriously dressed in short overcoats or fur-collared cloaks, and whose glasses, set down within arm's reach in front of the bartender, are partially visible in the openings left here and there between the bodies and the arms in their demonstrative attitudes. One of these men, to the right and a little to the rear, instead of participating in his friends' conversation, is leaning back against the edge of the bar in order to look at the room, the seated drinkers, the soldier.
The latter finally glimpses, not far away, a small, relatively accessible table at which only two other soldiers are sitting: an infantry corporal and a cavalry corporal. Motionless and silent, both men's reserved appearance contrasts with that of the men around them. There is an unoccupied chair between them.
Having succeeded in reaching it without too much difficulty, the soldier rests one hand on its back and asks if he may sit down. It is the infantry corporal who replies: they were with a friend, but the latter, who has gone away for a minute, doesn't seem to be coming back; he has probably met someone he knows somewhere else. Why not take his place until he comes back. This is what the soldier does, pleased to find a seat free.
The two others say nothing. They are not drinking; they do not even have glasses in front of them. The racket of the room around them does not seem to affect them; they keep their eyes fixed straight ahead, as though they were sleeping without lowering their lids. If not, they are certainly not both looking so fixedly at the same thing, for the man on the right is facing the left wall, which is quite bare at this point, since the white bulletins are posted farther forward, and the man on the opposite side is facing the bar.
Halfway from the bar, over which the bartender's thickset body is leaning between his widespread arms, a young waitress is passing among the tables with her loaded tray. At least she is looking around to find a place where she is needed: having stopped for a moment, she pivots in order to glance in all directions; she moves neither her feet, her legs, nor the lower part of her body beneath the full-pleated skirt, but only her head (with its black hair in a heavy bun) and the upper part of her body; her two outstretched arms, which are holding the tray at eye level, leave the latter in virtually the same place when she turns in the other direction, remaining twisted in this way for some time.
Judging from the direction of her gaze, the soldier supposes she has noticed his presence and will therefore approach this newcomer's table to take his order, or even that she will serve him at once, for on her tray she is carrying a bottle of red wine which, moreover, she is tilting dangerously, at the risk of letting it fall off the tray, which she is not keeping horizontal. But below, in the trajectory of an imminent fall, the old, bald worker apparently suspects nothing, continuing to address the man at his right, or appealing to him, or calling him to witness, while brandishing in his right hand his still full glass, whose contents are on the point of spilling.
The soldier then remembers that there is not one glass on his own table. Yet the tray holds only the one bottle and nothing which might satisfy a new customer in the way of a glass. The waitress, moreover, has not discovered anything to attract her attention in this area, and her glance now completes its circuit of the room, having passed the soldier and his two companions, now sweeping over the other tables along the wall where the small white bulletins are attached by four tacks, then the window with its pleated curtain at eye level and its three enamel balls outside the glass, then the door, also partially curtained and with the word "Café" showing in reverse, then the bar in front of it with the five or six men in middle-class clothes, and at the far right the last of these men who is still looking toward the soldier's table.
The latter continues staring straight ahead. The cavalry corporal now fixes his eyes on the collar of the soldier's coat where the two diamonds of green felt showing the serial number are sewn.
"So you were at Reichenfels?" And at the same time his chin points forward with a short, quick movement.
The soldier replies: "Yes, I was in the area."
"You were there," the cavalry corporal corrects, repeating his gesture as though to prove the fact by indicating the regiment's distinctive insignia.
"The other one was too," the infantry corporal says. "The man who was sitting here just now."
"But he did some fighting," the cavalry corporal snaps.
Then, since he receives no answer: "I hear there were some who weren't up to it."
He turns toward the cavalry corporal who makes a vague gesture of ignorance or agreement.
"No one was up to it," the soldier says.
But the cavalry corporal protests: "Yes, some were! Ask the little guy who was sitting here before."
"Maybe you're right," the soldier admits, "it all depends what you mean by 'up to it.' "
"I mean what it means. There were some who fought and some who didn't."
"They all got out of it eventually."
"They were ordered to! Keep it straight."
"Everyone stopped fighting on orders," the soldier says.
The cavalry corporal shrugs his shoulders. He looks at the infantry corporal as though he had expected support from him. Then he turns toward the large window looking out on the street. He murmurs: "Rotten officers!"
And again, after a few seconds: "Rotten officers, that's what it was."
"I'm with you there," the infantry corporal agrees.
The soldier tries to see, to his right or farther back, if the young waitress has not started to come over to their table, but even though he half rises from his chair to see over the heads of the drinkers surrounding it, he cannot catch sight of her anywhere.
"Don't worry," the infantry corporal says, "you'll see him soon enough when he comes back." He smiles rather pleasantly and adds, still supposing that the soldier is looking for the absent friend: "He must be over there, in the poolroom. He must have found someone he knew."
"You can ask him," the cavalry corporal continues with a thrust of his chin. "He was in the fighting. You can ask him."
"All right," the soldier says, "but he's here all the same, now. He had to come here just like everyone else."
"He was ordered to, I tell you," and after a moment of silent reflection he concludes, as though to himself, "Rotten officers, that's what it was!"
"I'm with you there," the infantry corporal agrees.
The soldier asks: "Were you at Reichenfels?"
"Oh, no," the infantry corporal answers, "we were both farther west. We fell back to keep from being taken when they broke through from the rear."
"We were ordered to. Remember that. Keep it straight," the cavalry corporal corrects.
"And we moved fast," the infantry corporal says. "It was no use hanging around: the Twenty-eighth, on our left flank, waited too long and got picked off like flies."
"Anyway," the soldier says, "it all comes down to the same thing now. Sooner or later they'll get us."
The cavalry corporal glances at him, but prefers to address his remarks to an imaginary interlocutor sitting on the opposite side: "Nobody's proved that. We're not through yet."
Now the soldier shrugs his shoulders. This time he stands up completely to try to attract the waitress' attention and get something to drink. As he does so, he overhears a random sentence from the conversation at the next table: "I tell you there are spies everywhere!" A relative silence follows this declaration. Then, from the other end of the same table, comes a longer commentary in which only the words "firing squad" can be heard. The rest is lost in the general confusion. And another phrase stands out just as the soldier sits down again: "Some fought, others didn't."
The cavalry corporal immediately begins examining the green diamonds on the soldier's overcoat collar. He repeats: "We're not through yet." Then, leaning toward the infantry corporal, he says as though in confidence: "They say there are enemy agents paid to sabotage morale."
The other man shows no reaction. The cavalry corporal, who has vainly expected a reply, leaning forward across the red-and-white checked oilcloth, finally straightens up in his chair. A little later he says again: "Should take a look," but without explaining himself further, and in so low a tone that he can scarcely be heard. Both men are now silent, motionless, each one staring straight ahead into space.
The soldier has left them, intending to find the young woman with the heavy dark hair. Yet once he is on his feet among the crowded tables, he has decided he was not so thirsty after all.
On the point of leaving, already not far from the bar and the group of middle-class drinkers, he has just remembered the soldier who was also at Reichenfels and who, for one, had fought so gloriously. The important thing was to find him, to talk to him, make him tell his story. The soldier immediately turns around and crosses the room in the opposite direction between the benches, the chairs, and the backs of the seated drinkers. The two men are still alone in the same positions in which he left them. Instead of proceeding to their table, he turns directly toward the back of the room to reach an area where everyone is standing: a crowd of men gesturing and shouldering each other toward the left, but advancing very slowly because of the narrowness of the passage, which the
y nevertheless gradually approach, between a projecting angle of the wall and three large, loaded, circular coat racks standing at the end of the bar. While the soldier too is moving forward along with the crowd—even more slowly since he is on the edge—he wonders why it suddenly seemed so urgent to talk to this man who could only tell him what he already knows. Before reaching the next room where there are probably more drinkers, a pool table concealed under its tarpaulin cover, the black-haired waitress, and the hero of Reichenfels, he has given up his project.
It is probably here that the scene occurs: the silent gathering which steps back in every direction around him, the soldier finally remaining alone in the center of a huge circle of pale faces . . . But this scene leads to nothing. Besides, the soldier is no longer in the center of a crowd, neither silent nor noisy; he has left the café and is walking in the street. It is an ordinary kind of street; long, straight, lined with identical houses with flat façades and uniform doors and windows. It is snowing, as usual, in close, small, slow flakes. The sidewalks are white, as are the street, the window sills, the stoops.
When a door is not closed tight, the snow which the wind drove into the doorway during the night has been wedged into the narrow vertical slit for several inches, remaining caked against the jamb when the soldier opens the door wide. A little snow has even accumulated inside, forming on the ground a long, tapering streak which has partially melted, leaving a moist black border on the dusty wood of the floor. Other black marks occur along the hallway at intervals of about two feet, growing fainter as they continue toward the staircase, whose first steps appear at the end of the hallway. Although the shape of these puddles is uncertain, changeable, and occasionally fringed with intermediary zones, it is likely that they are footprints left by small shoes.
On the right of the hallway as on the left are lateral doors at equal and alternating intervals, one to the right, one to the left, one to the right, etc.... The series continues as far as the eye can see, or almost, for the first steps of the staircase are still visible at the end of the hallway, lit by a brighter gleam. A small silhouette, a woman or a child greatly reduced by the considerable distance, rests one hand on the large white sphere where the banister ends.
Jealousy and in the Labyrinth Page 24