Jealousy and in the Labyrinth (25 page)

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.

"You don't look as if you were feeling very well," the man says as he comes toward him. The soldier has sat down on the first chair his hand encountered behind him. The man, who had gone to look for something at the back of the room, has returned holding in his arms a rather large bundle difficult to identify in this lunar half-light: cloth . . .

"You don't look as if you were feeling very well."

"I don't know . . . the soldier answers passing his hand across his face, "no . . . it's nothing." His other hand has remained in his overcoat pocket. He readjusts the package in the crook of his elbow. He sees the vertical series of successive windows, each one with a white line at the bottom of the snowy window recess, the vertical series of parallel rungs descending to the stoop—like a falling stone. He stands up and walks mechanically behind the man who is heading for the door. He is holding bedclothes under his arm. In the hallway, the light has gone out again.

They are standing in a long room lighted with blue electric bulbs. There are beds lined up on each side against both walls: on the left, a bare partition and on the right a series of equidistant windows whose six panes are covered with paper. The windows seem to be level with the wall, without the slightest inside recess; only their dark color distinguishes them; since the wall around them and the paper neatly covering each pane are of the same pale shade, in this blue light they look like imitation windows: a heavily drawn rectangle divided into six equal squares by thinner lines: a vertical central axis and two horizontals which cut it into thirds. Coming from the total darkness of the hallway, the soldier advances without difficulty between the two neat rows of metal beds; this dim lighting is enough for him to distinguish clearly the outline of things.