The Enormous Room Read online

  Last,I found a drawing surrounded by a scrolled motto. The drawing was a potted plant with four blossoms. The four blossoms were elaborately dead. Their death was drawn with a fearful care. An obscure deliberation was exposed in the depiction of their drooping petals. The pot tottered very crookedly on a sort of table,as near as I could see. All around ran a funereal scroll. I read : “Mes derniers adieux à ma femme aimée,Gaby.” A fierce hand,totally distinct from the former,wrote in proud letters above : “Tombé pour désert. Six ans de prison—dégradation militaire.”

  It must have been five o’clock. Steps. A vast cluttering of the exterior of the door—by whom? Whang opens the door. ­Turnkey-creature extending a piece of chocolat with extreme and surly caution. I say “Merci” and seize chocolat. Klang shuts the door.

  I am lying on my back,the twilight does mistily bluish miracles thru the slit over the whang-klang. I can just see leaves,meaning trees.

  Then from the left and way off,faintly,broke a smooth whistle,cool like a peeled willow-branch,and I found myself listening to an air from Pétrouchka,Pétrouchka,which we saw in Paris at the Châtelet,mon ami et moi...

  The voice stopped in the middle—and I finished the air. This code continued for a half-hour.

  It was dark.

  I had laid a piece of my piece of chocolat on the window-sill. As I lay on my back,a little silhouette came along the sill and ate that piece of a piece,taking something like four minutes to do so. He then looked at me,I then smiled at him,and we parted,each happier than before.

  My cellule was cool,and I fell asleep easily.

  (thinking of Paris)

  ...Awakened by a conversation whose vibrations I clearly felt thru the left wall:

  Turnkey-creature : “What?”

  A moldy moldering molish voice,suggesting putrefying tracts and orifices,answers with a cob-webbish patience so far beyond despair as to be indescribable : “La soupe.”

  “Well,the soup,I just gave it to you,Monsieur Savy.”

  “Must have a little something else. My money is chez le directeur. Please take my money which is chez le directeur and give me anything else.”

  Le Gendarme de Noyon

  “All right,the next time I come to see you today I’ll bring you a salad,a nice salad,Monsieur.”

  “Thank you,Monsieur” the voice moldered.

  Klang!!—and says the t-c to somebody else;while turning the lock of Monsieur Savy’s door;taking pains to raise his voice so that Monsieur Savy will not miss a single word thru the slit over Monsieur Savy’s whang-klang:

  “That old fool! Always asks for things. When supposest thou will he realize that he’s never going to get anything?”

  Grubbing at my door. Whang!

  The faces stood in the doorway,looking me down. The expression of the faces identically turnkeyish,i.e. stupidly gloating,ponderously and imperturbably tickled. Look who’s here,who let that in.

  The right body collapsed sufficiently to deposit a bowl just inside.

  I smiled and said : “Good morning,sirs. The can stinks.”

  They did not smile and said “Naturally.” I smiled and said : “Please give me a pencil. I want to pass the time.” They did not smile and said “Directly.”

  I smiled and said “I want some water,if you please.”

  They shut the door,saying “Later.”

  Klang and footsteps.

  I contemplate the bowl which contemplates me. A glaze of greenish grease seals the mystery of its content. I induce two fingers to penetrate the seal. They bring me up a flat sliver of choux and a large,hard,thoughtful,solemn,uncooked bean. To pour the water off( it is warmish and sticky )without committing a nuisance is to lift the cover off Ça Pue. I did.

  Thus leaving beans and cabbage-slivers. Which I ate hurryingly,fearing a ventral misgiving.

  I pass a lot of time cursing myself about the pencil,looking at my walls,my unique interior.

  Suddenly I realize the indisputable grip of nature’s humorous hand. One evidently stands on Ça Pue in such cases. Having finished,panting with stink,I tumble on the bed and consider my next move.

  The straw will do. Ouch,but it’s Dirty.—Several hours elapse...

  Stepsandfumble. Klang. Repetition of promise to Monsieur Savy,etc.

  Turnkeyish and turnkeyish. Identical expression. One body collapses sufficiently to deposit a hunk of bread and a piece of water.

  Give your bowl.

  I gave it,smiled and said : “Well,how about that pencil?”

  “Pencil?” T-c looked at t-c.

  They recited then the following word : “Tomorrow.” Klang-­­andfootsteps.

  So I took matches,burnt,and with just 60 of them wrote the first stanza of a ballade. Tomorrow I will write the second. Day after tomorrow the third. Next day the refrain. After—oh,well.

  My whistling of Pétrouchka brought no response this evening.

  So I climbed on Ça Pue,whom I now regarded with complete friendliness;the new moon was unclosing sticky wings in dusk,a far noise from near things.

  I sang a song the “dirty Frenchmen” taught us,mon ami et moi. The song says Bon soir,Madame la Lune....I did not sing out loud,simply because the moon was like a mademoiselle,and I did not want to offend the moon. My friends : the silhouette and la lune,not counting Ça Pue,whom I regarded almost as a part of me.

  Then I lay down,and heard( but could not see )the silhouette eat something or somebody...and saw,but could not hear,the incense of Ça Pue mount gingerly upon the taking air of twilight.

  The next day.—Promise to M. Savy. Whang. “My pencil?”—You don’t need any pencil,you’re going away.”—When?”—“Directly.”—“How directly?”—“In an hour or two : your friend has already gone before. Get ready.”

  Klangandsteps.

  Everyone very sore about me. Je m’en fous pas mal,however.

  One hour I guess.

  Steps. Sudden throwing of door open. Pause.

  “Come out,American.”

  As I came out,toting bed and bed-roll,I remarked “I’m sorry to leave you” which made t-c furiously to masticate his unsignificant mustache.

  Escorted to bureau,where I am turned over to a very fat gendarme.

  “This is the American.” The v-f-g eyed me,and I read my sins in his porklike orbs. “Hurry,we have to walk” he ventured sullenly and commandingly.

  Himself stooped puffingly to pick up the segregated sack. And I placed my bed,bed-roll,blankets,and ample pelisse under one arm,my 150 lb. duffle-bag under the other;then I paused. Then I said “Where’s my cane?”

  The v-f-g hereat had a sort of fit,which perfectly became him.

  I repeated gently “When I came to the bureau I had a cane.”

  “Je m’en fous de ta canne” burbled my new captor frothily,his pink evil eyes swelling with wrath.

  “I’m staying” I replied calmly,and sat down on a curb,in the midst of my ponderous trinkets.

  A foule of gendarmes gathered. One didn’t take a cane with one to prison( I was glad to know where I was bound,and thanked this communicative gentleman);or criminals weren’t allowed canes;or where exactly did I think I was,in the Tuileries? asks a rube movie-cop personage.

  “Very well,gentlemen” I said. “You will allow me to tell you something.”( I was beet-coloured. )“En Amérique on ne fait pas comme ça.”

  This haughty inaccuracy produced an astonishing effect,namely,the prestidigitatorial vanishment of the v-f-g. The v-f-g’s numerous confreres looked scared and twirled their whiskers.

  I sat on the curb and began to fill a paper with something which I found in my pockets,certainly not tobacco.

  Splutter-splutter-fizz-Poop—the v-f-g is back,with my great oak-branch in his raised hand,slithering opprobria and mostly crying : “Is that huge piece of wood what you call a cane? Is it? It is,is it? What? How? Whatthe—” so on.

  I beamed upon him and thanked him,and explained that a “dirt
y Frenchman” had given it to me as a souvenir,and that I would now proceed.

  Twisting the handle in the loop of my sack,and hoisting the vast parcel under my arm,I essayed twice to boost it on my back. This to the accompaniment of HurryHurryHurryHurryHurryHurryHurry...The third time I sweated and staggered to my feet,completely accoutred.

  Le Gosse

  Down the road. Into the ville. Curious looks from a few pedestrians. A driver stops his wagon to watch the spider and his outlandish fly. I chuckled to think how long since I had washed and shaved. Then I nearly fell,staggered on a few steps,and set down the two loads.

  Perhaps it was the fault of the strictly vegetarian diet. At any rate I couldn’t move a step farther with my bundles. The sun sent the sweat along my nose in tickling waves. My eyes were blind.

  Hereupon I suggested that the v-f-g carry part of one of my bundles with me,and received the answer : “I am doing too much for you as it is. No gendarme is supposed to carry a prisoner’s baggage.”

  I said then “I’m too tired.”

  He responded : “You can leave here anything you don’t care to carry further;I’ll take care of it.”

  I looked at the gendarme. I looked several blocks thru him. My lip did something like a sneer. My hands did something like fists.

  At this crisis,along comes a little boy. May God bless all males between seven and ten years of age in France.

  The gendarme offered a suggestion,in these words : “Have you any change about you?” He knew of course that the sanitary official’s first act had been to deprive me of every last cent. The gendarme’s eyes were fine. They reminded me of...never mind. “If you have change” said he,“you might hire this kid to carry some of your baggage.” Then he lit a pipe which was made in his own image,and smiled fattily.

  But herein the v-f-g had bust his milk-jug. There is a slit of a pocket made in the uniform of his criminal on the right side,and completely covered by the belt which his criminal always wears. His criminal had thus outwitted the gumshoe fraternity.

  The gosse could scarcely balance my smaller parcel,but managed after three rests to get it to the station platform;here I tipped him something like two cents( all I had )which with dollar-big eyes he took,and ran.

  A strongly-built,groomed apache smelling of cologne and onions greeted my v-f-g with that affection which is peculiar to gendarmes. On me he stared cynically,then sneered frankly.

  With a little tooty shriek,the funny train tottered in. My captors had taken pains to place themselves at the wrong end of the platform. Now they encouraged me to HurryHurryHurry.

  I managed to get under the load and tottered the length of the train to a car especially reserved. There was one other criminal,a beautifully-smiling,shortish man,with a very fine blanket wrapped in a water-proof oilskin cover. We grinned at each other( the most cordial salutation,by the way,that I have ever exchanged with a human being )and sat down opposite one another—he,plus my baggage which he helped me lift in,occupying one seat;the gendarme-sandwich,of which I formed the pièce de résistance,the other.

  The engine got under way after several feints;which pleased the Germans so that they sent seven scout planes right over the station,train,us et tout. All the French anti-aircraft guns went off together for the sake of sympathy;the guardians of the peace squinted cautiously from their respective windows,and then began to debate on the number of the enemy while their prisoners smiled at each other appreciatively.

  “Il fait chaud” said this divine man,prisoner,criminal,or what not,as he offered me a glass of wine in the form of a huge tin cup overflowed from the bidon in his slightly unsteady and delicately made hand. He is a Belgian. Volunteered at beginning of war. Permission at Paris,overstayed by one day. When he reported to his officer,the latter announced that he was a deserter—“I said to him,It is funny. It is funny I should have come back,of my own free will,to my company. I should have thought that being a deserter I would have preferred to remain in Paris.” The wine was terribly cold,and I thanked my divine host.

  Never have I tasted such wine.

  They had given me a chunk of war-bread in place of blessing when I left Noyon. I bit into it with renewed might. But the divine man across from me immediately produced a sausage,half of which he laid simply upon my knee. The halving was done with a large keen poilu’s couteau.

  I have not tasted a sausage since.

  The pigs on my either hand had by this time overcome their respective inertias and were chomping cheek-murdering chunks. They had quite a layout,a regular picnic-lunch elaborate enough for kings or even presidents. The v-f-g in particular annoyed me by uttering alternate chompings and belchings. All the time he ate he kept his eyes half-shut;and a mist overspread the sensual meadows of his coarse face.

  His two reddish eyes rolled devouringly toward the blanket in its water-proof roll. After a huge gulp of wine he said thickly( for his huge mustache was crusted with saliva-tinted half-moistened shreds of food )“You will have no use for that machin,là-bas. They are going to take everything away from you when you get there,you know. I could use it nicely. I have wanted such a piece of caoutchouc for a great while,in order to make me an imperméable. Do you see?”( Gulp. Swallow. )

  Here I had an inspiration. I would save the blanket-cover by drawing these brigands’ attention to myself. At the same time I would satisfy my inborn taste for the ridiculous. “Have you a pencil?” I said. “Because I am an artist in my own country,and will do your picture.”

  He gave me a pencil. I don’t remember where the paper came from. I posed him in a piglike position,and the picture made him chew his mustache. The apache thought it very droll. I should do his picture too,at once. I did my best;though protesting that he was too beautiful for my pencil,which remark he countered by murmuring( as he screwed his mustache another notch )“Never mind,you will try.” Oh yes,I would try all right,all right. He objected,I recall,to the nose.

  By this time the divine “deserter” was writhing with joy. “If you please,Monsieur” he whispered radiantly,“it would be too great an honour,but if you could—I should be overcome...”

  Tears( for some strange reason )came into my eyes.

  He handled his picture sacredly,criticized it with precision and care,finally bestowed it in his inner pocket. Then we drank. It happened that the train stopped and the apache was persuaded to go out and get his prisoner’s bidon filled. Then we drank again.

  He smiled as he told me he was getting ten years. Three years at solitary confinement was it,and seven working in a gang on the road? That would not be so bad. He wishes he was not married,had not a little child. “The bachelors are lucky in this war”—he smiled.

  Now the gendarmes began cleaning their beards,brushing their stomachs,spreading their legs,collecting their baggage. The reddish eyes,little and cruel,woke from the trance of digestion and settled with positive ferocity on their prey. “You will have no use...”

  Silently the sensitive gentle hands of the divine prisoner undid the blanket-cover. Silently the long,tired,well-shaped arms passed it across to the brigand at my left side. With a grunt of satisfaction the brigand stuffed it in a large pouch,taking pains that it should not show. Silently the divine eyes said to mine : “What can we do,we criminals?” And we smiled at each other for the last time,the eyes and my eyes.

  A station. The apache descends. I follow with my numerous affaires. The divine man follows me—the v-f-g him.

  The blanket-roll containing my large fur-coat got more and more unrolled;finally I could not possibly hold it.

  It fell. To pick it up,I must take the sack off my back.

  Then comes a voice “Allow me if you please monsieur”—and the sack has disappeared. Blindly and dumbly I stumbled on with the roll;and so at length we come into the yard of a little prison;and the Divine Man bowed under my great sack...I never thanked him. When I turned,they’d taken him away,and the sack stood accusingly at my feet.

  T
hrough the complete disorder of my numbed mind flicker jabbings of strange tongues. Some high boy’s voice is appealing to me in Belgian,Italian,Polish,Spanish,and—beautiful English. “Hey,Jack,give me a cigarette,Jack...”

  I lift my eyes. I am standing in a tiny oblong space. A sort of court. All around,two-story wooden barracks. Little crude staircases lead up to doors heavily chained and immensely padlocked. More like ladders than stairs. Curious hewn windows,smaller in proportion than the slits in a doll’s house. Are these faces behind the slits? The doors bulge incessantly under the shock of bodies hurled against them from within. The whole dirty nouveau business about to crumble.

  Glance one.

  Glance two : directly before me. A wall with many bars fixed across one minute opening. At the opening a dozen,fifteen,grins. Upon the bars hands,scraggy and bluishly white. Through the bars stretchings of lean arms,incessant stretchings. The grins leap at the window,hands belonging to them catch hold,arms belonging to the hands stretch in my direction...an instant;then new grins leap from behind and knock off the first grins which go down with a fragile crashing like glass smashed : hands wither and break,arms streak out of sight,sucked inward.

  In the huge potpourri of misery a central figure clung,shaken but undislodged. Clung like a monkey to central bars. Clung like an angel to a harp. Calling pleasantly in a high boyish voice : “O Jack,give me a cigarette.”

  A handsome face,dark,Latin smile,musical fingers strong.

  I waded suddenly through a group of gendarmes( they stood around me watching with a disagreeable curiosity my reaction to this ). Strode fiercely to the window.

  Trillions of hands.

  Quadrillions of itching fingers.

  The angel-monkey received the package of cigarettes politely,disappearing with it into howling darkness. I heard his high boy’s voice distributing cigarettes. Then he leapt into sight,poised gracefully against two central bars,saying “Thank you,Jack,good boy”...“Thanks,merci,gracias...” a deafening din of gratitude reeked from within.