Mercier and Camier (8 page)

Look at it now, said Mercier.

A silence ensued which Camier was the first to violate.

Well, he said, do we put it up now or wait for the weather to worsen?

Mercier scrutinized the inscrutable sky.

Go take a look, he said, and see what you think.

Camier again gained the corner of the street. On his return he said:

There is perhaps a little light below the verge. Would you have me go up on the roof?

Mercier concentrated. Finally he exclaimed, impulsively:

Let us put it up and pray for the best.

But Camier could not put it up.

Give it here to me, said Mercier.

But Mercier had no better success. He brandished it above his head, but controlled himself in time.

What have we done to God? he said.

Denied him, said Camier.

Don't tell me he is all that rancorous, said Mercier.

Camier took the umbrella and vanished up the stairs.

No sooner was he alone than Mercier went. His path crossed, at a given moment, that of an old man of weird and wretched aspect, carrying under his arm what looked like a board folded in two. It seemed to Mercier he had seen him somewhere before and he wondered as he went on his way where that somewhere could have been. The old man too, on whom for a wonder the transit of Mercier had not been lost, was left with the impression of a scarecrow encountered elsewhere and busied himself for a space with trying to recall in what circumstances. So, as with laboured steps they drew apart, each occupied the other's thoughts in vain. But the least little thing halts the Merciers of this world, a murmur coming to its crest and breaking, a voice saying how strange the autumntide of day no matter what the season. A new beginning, but with no life in it, how could there be? More manifest in town than in the country, but in the country too, where slowly over the vast empty space the peasant seems to stray, so aimless that night must surely overtake him far from the village nowhere, the homestead nowhere to be seen. There is no time left and yet how it drags. Even the flowers seem past their time to close
and a kind of panic seizes on the tired wings. The hawk stoops always too soon, the rooks rise from the fallows while it is still light and flock to their places of assembly, there to croak and squabble till nightfall. Then, too late, they agitate to set out again. Day is over long before it ends, man ready to drop long before the hour of rest. But not a word, evening is all fever, a scurrying to and fro to no avail. So short it is not worth their while beginning, too long for them not to begin, that is the time they are pent up in, as cruelly as Balue in his cage. Ask the hour of a passer-by and he'll throw it at you over his shoulder at a venture and hurry on. But you may be easy in your mind, he is not far wrong who every few minutes consults his watch, sets it by official astronomic time, makes his reckonings, wonders how on earth to fit in all he has to do before the endless day comes to an end. Or with furious weary gesture he gives the hour that besets him, the hour it always was and will be, one that to the beauties of too late unites the charms of prematurity, that of the Never! without more of an even dreader raven. But all day that is how it is, from the first tick to the last tack, or rather from the third to the antepenultimate, allowing for the time it needs, the tamtam within, to drum you back into the dream and drum you back out again. And in between all are heard, every millet grain that falls, you look behind and there you are, every day a little closer, all life a little closer. Joy in saltspoonfuls, like water when it's thirst you're dying of, and a bonny little agony homeopathically distilled, what more can you ask? A heart in the room of the heart? Come come. But ask on the contrary your way of the passer-by and he'll take your hand and lead you, by the warren's beauty-spots, to the very place. It's a great grey barracks of a building, unfinished, unfinishable, with two doors, for those who enter and for those who leave, and at the windows faces peering out. The more fool you to have asked.

Mercier's hand released the railing to which this attack of wind had fastened it. But he had not gone far when he stopped again to observe, advancing towards him, a ragged shaggy old man plodding along beside a donkey. The latter, unbridled, set with small steps its dainty dogged course beside the curb, unswervingly except to circumvent a stationary vehicle or a group of urchins at marbles on their hunkers in the gutter.
The man walked in the street, between the grey haunch and the hostile cars. They raised their eyes from the ground only when danger threatened, to take its measure. Mercier said to himself, disappointing again as usual, No outerness will ever disestablish that harmony. It was perhaps too great a call on his strength, this parting from Camier at so sombre an hour. Admittedly strength was needed for to stay with Camier, no less than for to stay with Mercier, but less than for the horrors of soliloquy. Yet there he is on his way again, the voice has ceased, he is over the worst of the old man and the donkey, his being fills again with that merciful fog which is the best he knows, he's good for the long road yet. His dim shape moves on, hugging the railing, in the shadow of God knows what evergreens so called, hollies perhaps, if shadow is the word for a light hardly less leaden than that of the bogland nearby. The collar of his coat is turned up, his right hand is in his left sleeve and vice versa, they lie jogging on his belly in senile abandon, now and then he glimpses as through shifting seaweed a foot dragging on a flagstone. Heavy chains, hung between small stone pillars, festoon with their massy garlands the pavement on the street side. Once in motion they swing on and on, steadily or with serpentine writhings. Here Mercier would come to play when he was small. Running along the line of chains he set them going, one after another, with a stick, then turned back to look how the great jolts shook the pavement from end to end till it seemed they would never come to rest.

Camier sat near the door at a small red table with a thick glass top. On his left hand strangers were belittling equal strangers, while to his right the talk, in undertones, was of the interest taken by Jesuits in mundane matters. In this or some cognate connexion an article was cited, recently appeared in some ecclesiastical rag, on the subject of artificial insemination, the conclusion of which appeared to be that sin arose whenever the sperm was of non-marital origin. On this angelic sex issue was joined, several voices taking part.

Change the subject, said Camier, or I'll report you to the archbishop. You're putting thoughts in my head.

He could not distinguish clearly what lay before him, all outline blurred in the smoke-laden air. Here and there emerged, rifting the haze, the unanswerable gesture complete with irrefutable pipe, the conical hat, fragments of lower limbs and notably feet, shuffling and fidgeting from one state of torment to the next, as though the seat of the soul. But behind him he had the stout old wall, plain and bare, he could feel it in his rear, he laid the back of his head against it and rubbed. He said to himself, When Mercier comes, for come he will, I know my man, where will he sit? Here, at this table? This problem absorbed him for a time. No, he decided in the end, no, he must not, he Camier could not bear it, why he knew not. What then? The better to envisage this, that is to say what then, since Mercier must not join him in his corner, Camier took his hands from
his pockets, disposed them before him on the table in a snug little heap and rested his face thereon, first gently, then with the full weight of the skull. And the vision was not long in coming of Camier seeing Mercier before Mercier Camier, rising and hastening to the door. There you are at last, he cries, I thought you had left me for ever, and he draws him to the bar-counter, or deep into the saloon, or they go out together, though this is hardly likely. For Mercier is weary, in want of rest and refreshment before going any further, and has things to tell that can ill brook delay, and Camier too has things to tell, yes, they have things of moment to tell each other and they are weary, they need to compose themselves, after this long separation, and take their bearings, determine more or less how they stand, whether the future is bright or dark or merely dim as so often, and if there is one direction rather than another in which preferably to bend their steps, in a word collect themselves sufficiently to press hotfoot on, all smiles and lucidity, towards one of the innumerable goals indulgent judgement equivails, or else all smiles (optional) do justice on this élan and admire them from a distance, one after another, for they are distant. It is then a glimpse is caught of what might have been were one not as one had to be and it is not every day such a hair is offered for splitting. For once whelped all over bar the howling. Having thus cleaned up the immediate future Camier raised his head and saw before him a creature which he took some little time, so great was the resemblance, to recognize as Mercier, whence a tangle of reflections that left him no peace (but what peace then!) till the next day but one, with the comforting conclusion that what he had so dreaded as to deem it unbearable was not to feel his friend by his side, but to see him cross the sill and tread the last stage of the great space separating them since noon.

Mercier's entry had provoked some embarrassment in the saloon, a kind of uneasy chill. And yet the company was of dockers and sailors for the most part, with a sprinkling of excisemen, such as are not easily affected, as a rule, by singularity of exterior. A hush fell none the less as voices lulled, gestures froze, tankards trembled tilted on the brink and all eyes looked the same way. An acute observer, had one been present, but none was, might well have been put in mind of a flock of sheep, or a
herd of oxen, startled by some dark threat. Their bodies rigid, drawn with fixed glare to face the common foe, they are stiller for a moment than the ground on which they graze. Then all to their heels, or full tilt at the intruder (if weak), or back to whatever they were about, cropping, chewing, coupling, gambolling. Or in mind of those walking sick who still all speech where they pass, dispel the body and fill the soul with dread, pity, anger, mirth, disgust. Yes, when you outrage nature you need be mighty careful if you don't want to hear the view-halloo or suffer the succour of some repugnant hand. For a moment it seemed to Camier that things were going to turn nasty and his hamstrings tensed under the table. But little by little a vast sigh arose, an exhalation higher and higher like a shoreward sweeping wave whose might in the end collapses in froth and clatter, for the glee of children.

What became of you? said Camier.

Mercier raised his eyes, but their stare was not at Camier, nor even at the wall. What on earth could it have been that they fixed with such intensity? One wonders.

Christ what a face, said Camier, you look straight from the infernal regions. What's that you say?

No doubt about it, Mercier's lips had moved.

I know of only one, said Mercier.

They didn't beat you? said Camier.

Across them the shadow fell of a huge man. His apron ended halfway down his thighs. Camier looked at him, who looked at Mercier, who began to look at Camier. Thus were engendered, though no eyes met, images of extreme complexity enabling each to enjoy himself in three distinct simultaneous versions plus, on a more modest scale, the three versions of self enjoyed by each of the others, namely a total of nine images at first sight irreconcilable, not to mention the confusion of frustrated excitations jostling on the fringes of the field. In all a gruesome mess, but instructive, instructive. Add to this the many eyes fastened on the trio and a feeble idea may be obtained of what awaits him too smart not to know better, better than to leave his black cell and that harmless lunacy, faint flicker every other age or so, the consciousness of being, of having been.

What will it be? said the barman.

When we need you we'll tell you, said Camier.

What will it be? said the barman.

The same as before, said Mercier.

You haven't been served, said the barman.

The same as this gentleman, said Mercier.

The barman looked at Camier's empty glass.

I forget what it was, he said.

I too, said Camier.

I never knew, said Mercier.

Make an effort, said Camier.

You intimidate us, said Mercier, good for you.

We put a bold front on it, said Camier, though actually shitting with terror. Quick some sawdust, my good fellow.

And so on, each saying things he ought not to have said, till some kind of settlement was reached, sealed with sickly smiles and scurrilous civilities. The roar (of conversation) resumed.

Us, said Camier.

Mercier raised his glass.

I didn't mean that, said Camier.

Mercier set down his glass.

But why not, after all? said Camier.

So they raised their glasses and drank, both saying, at the same instant or almost, Here's to you. Camier added, And to the success of our—. But this was a toast he could not complete. Help me, he said.

I can think of no word, said Mercier, nor of any set of words, to express what we imagine we are trying to do.

Your hand, said Camier, your two hands.

What for? said Mercier.

To clasp in mine, said Camier.

The hands fumbled for one another beneath the table, found one another, clasped one another, one small between two big, one big between two small.

Yes, said Mercier.

What do you mean, yes? said Camier.

I beg your pardon, said Mercier.

You said yes, said Camier.

I said yes? said Mercier. I? Impossible. The last time I abused that term was at my wedding. To Toffana. The mother of my children. Mine own. Inalienable. Toffana. You never met her. She lives on. A tundish. Like fucking a quag. To think it was for this hectolitre of excrement I renegued my dearest dream. He paused coquettishly. But Camier was in no playful mood. So that Mercier resumed perforce, You are shy to ask me which. Then let me whisper it in your ear. That of leaving the species to get on as best it could without me.