Jealousy and in the Labyrinth (24 page)

Only the table top under the conical lampshade is illuminated, as is the bayonet lying in the center. Its short heavy blade with two symmetrical edges reveals, on either side of the central axis, two symmetrically sloping planes of polished steel, one of which reflects the lamplight toward the middle of the room.

On the other side of the room, in the middle of the wall, the picture obscured by the darkness is nothing more than a gray oval within a vertical white rectangle, the latter framed in black.

At this moment a faint voice is heard, quite close, indistinct. The soldier lowers his gaze from the picture of the soldier fastened to the wall to the young woman sitting on her chair in front of the chest. But the voice heard just now is not hers; as low perhaps and not so young, it was certainly a man's voice this time. Besides, it is repeating a sentence of approximately the same sound, still just as incomprehensible, while the young woman remains bolt upright in her chair, her mouth closed, her eyes turned toward the corner of the room where the open door is, on the other side of the table. The dark area separating the open door from its jamb reveals nothing in the next room.

The young woman is now standing in front of this door which she has pushed farther open, wide enough to slip through it; then the door is pushed back without closing altogether, keeping the same open space as before. In the dark area which remains, the child then reappears.

At least a vertical strip of the child then reappears, consisting of an eye, the nose, three-quarters of the mouth and the chin, an elongated rectangle of blue smock, half a bare knee, a sock, a black felt slipper, remaining rigid while the man's voice repeats its same sentence for the third time, not so loud, which again keeps any sound from being recognized except the tentative noises that have no meaning. The woman's low voice answers, still more softly, almost in a whisper. The child's eye is on a level with the doorknob, a white porcelain oval. On the other side, an electric light switch also made out of porcelain is set in the wall near the jamb. An argument is going on; the young woman speaks more rapidly, giving long explanations in which the same groups of words with the same intonations seem to recur several times. The man's voice intervenes only in short sentences, or even in monosyllables, if not in snarls and grunts. The child, growing bolder, opens the door a little wider.

No, it is not the child, instead the child disappears, replaced by the young woman whose head appears a little higher in the widened opening: "It wasn't Boulard, was it?" And since the soldier looks at her questioningly, she repeats, "Rue Boulard? That isn't what you were looking for?"

"No ... I don't think so ... the soldier says in an uncertain tone of voice. Then, after a moment's thought, with a little more assurance, he shakes his head several times from right to left: "I don't think so. No." But his interlocutor is already no longer there; and now the door has been shut tight.

The white oval knob shows several shining points; the brightest point is located at the very top; another much larger but less brilliant, makes a kind of curvilinear four- sided polygon on the right side. Bright lines of various widths, lengths, and intensities follow the general contour of the rounded surface at varying distances like those customarily represented in drawings to simulate relief.

But these concentric lines, instead of according the object a third dimension, seem to make it revolve: by staring at it continuously, the soldier can see the porcelain knob move, first scarcely perceptibly, then with increasing amplitude, the axis of the oval alternately tilting ten or twenty degrees to either side of the vertical. Nevertheless the door does not open. But perhaps the child, on the other side, is playing with the handle, with the other white porcelain handle identical with this one and symmetrically placed in relation to the plane of the door.

When the door opens again, it admits neither the timid and curious child nor the young woman with pale eyes, but someone new: doubtless the person who was speaking in the next room just now; it is, in fact, a voice of similar timbre and volume which is now assuring the soldier that there is no Rue Boucharet in either this neighborhood or the whole city for that matter. It must have been "Boulard" that he heard; and the man offers to explain where this street is. "It's not very near!" he adds, examining the soldier sitting in his chair, his hands lying flat on his thighs, his back a little hunched, the battered package still tucked under his arm, scrutinizing him with an insistence which seems to be calculating the number of miles he is still capable of covering before collapsing for good.

The man himself is well within draft age, but he is lame, which explains his presence among civilians. His left leg seems unusable; he walks with the help of a wooden crutch under one armpit, using it skillfully, judging by the swift maneuver he has just made in order to come into the room and approach the table, on the edge of which his right hand is now resting, on the red-and-white checked oilcloth. Perhaps he is a war casualty: he might have been wounded at the beginning of hostilities and been sent home on foot despite his condition, before the retreat of the defeated armies and the evacuation of the military hospitals. He has a thin, carefully trimmed moustache, like the soldier in the photograph. As a matter of fact, he might resemble the latter quite closely, at least as much as a picture of that kind, after so much retouching, can resemble its model. But a picture of that kind, in fact, proves nothing. The soldier shakes his head several times to indicate his disagreement: "No," he answers, "it didn't sound like Bouchard."

"I said Bouvard."

"I don't think so. No, it was something else."

"There is nothing else."

"Besides it was around here."

"Then you know the city?"

"No ... but it's . . ."

"Well if you don't know your way, how can you tell? I know this city. My leg hasn't always been like this . . ." With his chin he indicates his crutch. "Your Rue Bouvard is at the other end of town!"

The soldier is prepared to explain his reasons for being sure of the contrary, or, more exactly, for thinking that the street he is looking for is not the Rue Bouvard, but without going into complicated details it will be difficult for him to convince the invalid who, on his part, shows so much assurance. Besides, on reflection, his own reasons already seem less convincing to him. And he is about to resign himself to listening to the information the other man is so insistent on giving him, when the young woman also returns through the door which has remained ajar. She seems displeased. She comes in hurriedly, as if she had been delayed by a sudden, urgent task which has prevented her from accompanying the man a few moments before, or even from keeping him out of the visitor's sight.

The lame man has begun his topographical explanations in which a number of street names figure: Vanizier, Vantardier, Bazaman, Davidson, Tamani, Duroussel, Dirbonne, etc. The young woman interrupts him in the middle of his itinerary: "But he already told you it wasn't Broulard."

"Not Broulard: Bouvard! I know just where it is." And, turning toward the soldier as if he were in no doubt of the answer: "You're going to the warehouse?"

"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.