1
Life was very satisfactory to David Solner. To begin with, he spent
a great deal of time away from the shop, delivering bundles of basted
coat lining ... a pleasant occupation since it gave him liberty to
roam around and observe things. Then he had been specially fortunate
some time ago in witnessing the scene on the street, when the police
disbanded the gathering around the man who was peddling knives. And
lastly he had made the acquaintance of Leopold Crayle, who had been
greatly impressed with what he said, had taken his card, and came
very often to visit him. Recalling this, David stepped along briskly
and smiled to himself, hardly aware of all the complicated machinery
of his walking. He felt on playful terms with his leg, and gave it
an extra shake while he was crossing the street. But this caused him
to loose his balance, and he careened towards a team of horses that
was rounding the curb. In terror he glanced at the huge heads
tossing above him, he heard an outcry of hoofs and the voices of
people shouting. Then he felt himself thrown to the paving, where he
lay and waited. But finding that nothing happened, he righted
himself with great dignity and sat down at the curb. Slowly he
looked around. A crowd had gathered, the driver standing in the
foreground, his hands on his hips; and while the driver contemplated
him in satirical silence, a street cleaner came, brushed his paste of
manure and water under David's legs, walked around him and continued
on his way.
All this was very humiliating. The expert on authority looked as
though he might burst into tears. He lifted his hands before him,
the fingers spread wide, and with an elaborate jerk dropped his head
into his outstretched hands. Behind his fingers his eyelids quivered
like tiny wings caught behind a screen. At last he parted his
fingers a little and looked out. Everyone had gone.
And now it occurred to him that he was late, and that Anna would
scold him, and he wished he were alone in a place where he could
weep. He wished that Mirelie would see him at this moment, and pity
him ... perhaps be kind enough to talk to him. Then they would be
friends, and nothing else would matter any more. Yes, if only
Mirelie were not afraid of him, if they could only speak to each
other, then his whole life would change and he would be happy. And
he arose sadly and continued on his way, thinking of her. And now he
lifted his arm and held it bent at the elbow, with the hand drooping
piteously; and at every step he contorted his face into a grimace of
distaste. So Mirelie might see him when he came in, and comfort him
at last...
But when he entered the shop it was so dark that he could hardly tell
which of the figures sitting and sewing there was Mirelie. He could
not see the needles or thread, and the women who were sewing and Anna
and Mirelie moved their hands in the air like witches performing a
silent spell together. When his footsteps sounded in the doorway,
Anna turned her head without looking up; and while he waited for her
to speak, David made out the figure of Mirelie. She had put her
sewing aside and now looked mournfully toward the window, and by the
sad droop of her head and the listless way she held her hands in her
lap, David knew that she had been crying. Then the spell had not
been a silent one, but done to the rhythm of Anna's scolding ... her
voice always balanced on one key, yet with an overtone of hysteria,
as if at any moment it might veer away and run amuck over the scale.
"Late, my sweetheart," Anna began. "Two hours late. You take a
cripple for an errand boy and that's your reward. A pile of coats
waiting to be pressed, and it takes him two hours to run around the
corner. Well, turn on the gas..."
David almost skipped across the room, and lit the gas, and set to
work as quickly as he could. And now, as he stood on the machine,
balancing himself with one foot on the trestle, he could look his
fill at Mirelie and notice everything she did. Mirelie was a very
thin little girl, with large breasts that swung under her dress every
time she moved, and a braid of heavy black hair hanging down her
back. Her head always seemed to droop a little, as if she was
pulling forward against the weight of her braid; and when she walked
on the street she held her thin arms folded in front of her, to hide
the swinging of her breasts. Sometimes when he saw her sewing at the
table David thought she was a grown woman ... her expression was so
serious, her body looked so mature. But there would be a sound on
the street ... a hand-organ playing or the whistle of the fire
engine, or only the wind ... and she would drop her work and run to
the window. And by the way she stood there ... her knees straight
and stiff and her hands locked behind her back ... David knew she was
still a child. Even now, though he could not hear anything himself,
something seemed to startle Mirelie, and she ran to the window
listening. "It is good," David said to himself. "She has dreams,
even while she is awake."
But Anna had been silent too long. "Look," she said scornfully to
the other women, "how fast she runs. A little piece of offal, I tell
you, but it has legs."
"Leave off ... leave off, Anna," they whispered to her.
"Now to the window, now to the door, now to that corner, perhaps ...
never to the same place twice." She lifted her voice mockingly.
"Tell me, Mirelie, is he coming, your sweetheart?"
"Leave off, Anna. There are always things for a child to see."
"Then you don't believe that she has a sweetheart? Listen..." She
paused and looked around impressively. "Some day our Mirelie will
get married."
At this they all laughed, and Anna nodded her head triumphantly.
"What makes her run to the window that way? What does she think
about, all the time that she sits there sewing without saying a word?
Oh, she's a sly one, keeping him all to herself. But some day she'll
fool us all, and come marching in with a husband on her arm. Yes,
there's a mate for everyone in this world, even for Mirelie."
The others worked away silently, but Anna was not through yet. She
folded her sewing and drew the rocking chair closer to the table, and
settled herself comfortably.
"I'll tell you how it is," she began, as if it were going to be a
very long story. "All her strength goes into her hair. Hair grows
best on deformed things ... I've always noticed that. In the woods
near our town there used to be a dead tree. The lightning struck it
once and sliced right into the trunk, and it never blossomed after
that. But this very tree, mind you, had fine green hair growing out
of the trunk year after year ... so long that you could braid it.
And everything else in that forest died after a while, except the
hair growing out of the tree."
"Really, Anna ... But the hair must have died too."
"No, but it didn't," Anna retorted. "And I remember that there was a
dwarf in our town, and he had long hair hanging down his back, just
like a girl's. Yes, it's quite true," she added thoughtfully, "hair
grows best on deformed things."
Meanwhile Mirelie slipped back to her place, and sat looking at Anna
with eyes that seemed hypnotized. She pretended that all the witches
from the fairy-tales were sitting around her and sewing, and weaving
a spell upon her, and the steady flow of Anna's words was the
terrible incantation. She looked furtively at Anna's hands, and saw
the balls of her fingers like large full-fleshed petals, and it
terrified her that they were so large. It terrified her when Anna
laughed, throwing her head far back and letting it fall forward
again, as if it was too heavy with laughter. But while she watched
this Mirelie pricked her finger, and Anna noticed her sucking her
thumb.
"Handy one," she said. "Come here and let me squeeze it for you."
Timidly Mirelie extended her hand, and Anna examined it curiously.
"No blood ... not enough blood there to flow when she pricks her
thumb. Well, never mind the sewing, Mirelie, since you're so good at
it. See whether you can sweep."
But as Mirelie took the broom from the corner and began to sweep,
tears came to her eyes. Her broom turned up fine white threads that
clung to the cracks in the floor, and would not come out unless she
stooped down and plucked them with her fingers. It was as if an
invisible basting of the floor was being ripped, and she said to
herself: "The floor was only basted together and now it will come
apart. Let it." And she bent lower to hide her tears.
* * * * * * *
After a while the two women put their sewing away and went home, and
Anna and David and Mirelie had supper. Then David and Mirelie went
back to the shop and were alone there, yet they did not speak to each
other. It was as if they had started to play a game ... a silent
game, in which there was some penalty if they were caught looking at
each other. But though this was the rule of the game, Mirelie could
tell each minute exactly what David was doing. With sly glances she
followed him about the room, watched him when he lit the gas ...
turning the jet cautiously at first, so that the flame showed thin
and tight as a bud; then with a quick twist of his hand flaring it up
into a leaf, and looking at her triumphantly. All evening David was
busy pressing things, and she watched him dancing up and down on the
machine, and listened to the sound of the boards hissing against each
other. If they stayed together for a long time she could hear all
sorts of melodies coming from them, and the pressing machine seemed
like a queer hurdy gurdy that could play by shutting its lips
tightly. But if David noticed her she would look away quickly, and
amuse herself by trying to guess what sort of a person it would be to
buy each suit hanging in the window. There was one suit especially
... blue with faint gray stripes ... that made her think of David.
She could even imagine it was David hanging in the window, with his
arms drooping limply at his sides, and the short curve of hanger for
his head; and often when she was alone in the shop, she wanted to
turn down the cuff of the right trouser, and shake it in the air like
David's long leg. But after a while David would look away, and
Mirelie could watch him again as he worked and bent his head forward
into the light. Then she would notice the long coarse hairs standing
out from his eyebrows like the stringy roots of something growing
inside his head, and she would try to count them. Most of the time
David did not seem to notice her, and went about his work like a
blind person who has no need to stop and look around. But there
always came one time in the course of the evening ... and always
after he had leaped on the machine and was standing there, lightly
bouncing his body up and down ... when he would turn and survey the
shop with an air of great surprise. And that was the moment when he
looked fully at Mirelie and their eyes met, and all their careful
playing of the game was spoiled. Seeing her, David would purse his
lips and frown. But that only frightened Mirelie. At that moment
she was afraid that the machine would suddenly begin to move, and he
would ride toward her.
Tonight, however, David seemed especially preoccupied. He kept
glancing at the clock or going to the door and looking up and down
the crowded street. When at last there was a knock at the door he
bounded off the machine. Poldy came in and stood uncertainly in the
center of the room.
"I'll be ready for you in a minute," David said gaily, raising his
forefinger to Poldy. He leaped up on the machine again and nodded
brightly to his visitor. "Sit down on the couch."
Poldy sat down without a word, and after a moment's thought,
stretched himself full length and closed his eyes, conscious for the
moment before he closed them of Mirelie's solemn scrutiny. Mirelie,
noting with pleasure his dark hair and white face, wondered whether
this was the lover that Anna had foretold for her. Often she
speculated on what it was to be married, and when Anna accused her of
thinking of a sweetheart her heart thumped as if they had caught her
stealing. Now she sat stealthily watching the stranger; but as soon
as David was through with his work she was frightened of his speaking
to her, and she rose and slipped out of the room. David went over to
Poldy and tapped him on the shoulder, but Poldy did not stir.
"Asleep..." David commented, as he bent closer to look into his face.
He stood for a while frowning. "Oh, very well, then..." he said, and
shrugged his shoulders. He went to the door that separated the shop
from Mirelie's room and shut it softly, very softly. And as soon as
he had done this anger seized him. All day it had been waiting, and
the soft shutting of the door was the cue for it.
2
It burst from the swollen veins of his throat and flooded through his
body, and beat against the flesh of his palms. It set his body
trembling so that he stood with hands clenched against it, with
fingers clenched and defiant, trying to drive back the tide of his
rage. Meanwhile they ranged themselves about him ... the beings who
seek out mortals to strike bargains with them, wherever there is a
ransom to give: disease or deformity or genius ... shadows that he
could hardly see in the dark, with the naked bodies of gigantic men;
save where a focus of more ancient flesh, still virulent, gave off a
wing or a curved fin, or webbed their long toes together. They came
and alighted with the rustling motion of birds, and folded their
limbs under them, and perched in a semi-circle on the floor ...
watching him. And now he thought it must come ... that mysterious
accession of strength that he brooded over day and night. Now he
felt it was coming upon him, while the potent flow of anger was still
in his body ... a wild chaotic strength, to lift terrible weights and
hurl them great distances, so that everyone would look with
astonishment, and thousands of people would marvel at him and utter
his name with fear. "Is it too much?" he whispered scornfully, "is
it too much?" But they only shifted their limbs with a noiseless
motion, and the tide of his rage recoiled on itself, and flowed back
into its secret channels again. He stood there exhausted, peering
bewilderedly into the darkness.
After a while an idea came to him. He nodded to himself. "Yes," he
said, "I have been too hasty. I have asked for it too openly, and
besides I have asked for the impossible. Perhaps they do not know
what I mean. Perhaps I can trick them into something else. I will
be very reasonable in my demands, and I will appear innocent and take
them off their guard."
So he turned on the light and took his ocarina from the box, and sat
down on the bed, his feet curled easily round each other ... He began
to play ... sad, wayward trills that slipped impulsively from one
note to another; and while he played he watched them craftily to see
what they did, noticing how they were moved by his music, how they
shifted imperceptibly into postures of sadness. To himself, then, he
said: "To play so that everyone will listen and be unable to go away
... to play so that they will laugh or weep as I wish; or perhaps..."
he added in a conciliatory tone, "let only Mirelie hear, and look at
me solemnly. Yes, we will let it go at that ... that only Mirelie
should hear." But though he looked towards the door for a long time,
though he looked and played, Mirelie did not come in. He ended his
playing and remained sitting on the bed, resting his head in his
hands.
But now the tallest of the figures perching on the floor ... the one
who held the center of the circle and was their spokesman ... sighed
lengthily. He had been sitting with his knees drawn up and his head
sleeping on his folded arms; but now he raised his head a little so
that one bright eye was visible, looking solemnly at David. Brightly
it glowed for a long time, yet he did not speak.
"Well?" David asked impatiently.
The eye continued to regard him.
"If you've nothing to say," David began petulantly, "then why are you
here? You have no bargains to strike today, I see. No, I wouldn't
call you a generous lot. Tell me, must I think of something so small
that you will shame yourselves and give it to me? Shall I ask that
my nails be rosy or my teeth even at the edges? Such things, I've
heard, comfort some people. But thank you. I'm not so easily
satisfied."
"Why aren't you?" the spokesman asked lazily, and his eye quivered as
if he wanted to go back to sleep.
"A fine question that! Why do you pretend that you don't know?"
The spokesman closed his eye and David thought he had gone off into
deep slumber. But at length he remarked drowsily, "The trouble is,
David, you're too excited about being a cripple."
David bolted up in bed and shot a reproachful glance at him. The
spokesman opened his eye and looked back. "Yes, much too excited,"
he added. "Look at _him_..." he pointed to Poldy. "_He_ doesn't
want anything any more. He's ended ... positively ended. But you've
been too excited all your life."
"Pretending again!" David retorted. "My friend, you ought to be
quite a success at shopping. Yes, I've seen how the women sneer at
the wares they want to buy, while their fingers itch to be holding
them. Why are you here, then, if it's so little to have found me? I
suppose others have better ransoms to give. Why not go to them?"
"It's not such a wonderful ransom..."
"Oh, no ... to be the puppet of my legs, to hop along like a child's
grotesque toy. They saw it in the window with the other toys, and
brought it home because it would make them all laugh. To carry
myself down the street turning every face as I pass, leaving a smoke
of faces behind me like a peace offering to my deformity. Could I
only have had one moment of my life when I could forget that I was
different..."
The spokesman's eye opened wider as he listened. "As for your being
different," he began at once, "from the very beginning there have
been so many weird shapes on this earth that we cannot justly talk of
anything being different. Consider the deformity of all men who go
about like the trained horses at the circus reared up so as to make a
spectacle of the secret parts of their bodies, and who, because of
this vainglorious exhibition, have to twist themselves around every
time to look at their dung. Now to pursue the subject further ...
have you ever been to the circus?"
"Yes, of course..."
"You may have seen there a dog with two tongues, let us say, or a
wolf with a curved horn ... some such trifling thing for people to
gape at. Well, all that fuss is really quite ridiculous. All that
oh-ing and ah-ing with which they tickle themselves from cage to
cage. _They_, of course, cook things up in pots and let them pour to
the mould of their dishes, and so they know what to expect. But
things were never cooked up in pots to begin with. There's a
constant spilling over all the time. Your leg trickled down a little
too long. Why be so excited over it?"
"Ah ... that's all very clever. But answer this one: why did it
happen to me?"
"What makes you think it happened to you?"
"Oh, come, now..."
"No, don't be impatient. Because if that's what has been bothering
you, I think we can arrange it."
"Arrange it?"
"Yes," the spokesman winked solemnly. "If you'll be agreeable, of
course, and help me along."
"Very well, go on." David lay down and turned his face to the wall.
"Yes, you sit in the theatre and you think the actor on the stage is
looking at you. It's a natural thing now, isn't it..."
"Go on, go on..."
"Now let us assume that it happened to you."
"Nonsense! That's no assumption."
"Well, let us assume that it was _meant_ to happen to you. Is that
better?"
"Go on..."
"In that case there had to be somebody to mean it ... to correspond
to the actor, let us say."
"Yes..."
"Someone who knew he was looking at you..."
"Yes..."
"And so this glance that the actor gave you is the reason why you are
crippled. But if there's a reason for that, then there must also be
a reason for the fact, say..."
"That Mirelie has black hair."
"Precisely ... and that Anna has a mole on her face."
"And that Mirelie is thin..."
"Precisely. And that a child was run over the other day."
"In short, a reason for everything."
"Excellent! Excellent! You see it's a game you can never stop.
Each thing has a reason, as many reasons as there are separate
details which we can comprehend in this world, and yet reasons again
for all the infinite happenings that we cannot know about. Ah, but
notice. You've cooked, haven't you? You've said: here I shall salt
and here and here, until it is all salted. And then the strange
thing occurs. You taste it, and nothing is flavored because you have
salted everything. Salted, but not salty. And so with your reasons.
If everything has a reason..."
David turned around angrily. "Salted but not salty..." he mimicked.
"Keep your analogies. Was it my fault that the actor looked at me?"
"Or his fault that you sat where he looked?"
"Clever ... very clever. But I'll tell you my friend. You have
never played some of the children's games, and that's the trouble
with you. You've never looked at the pattern of the wallpaper,
saying to yourself: I can look at it this way, and see spades with
hearts between; or this way, and see only the hearts in a row. Yes,
if you had ever looked at the pattern of wall-paper both ways, you
would know what an old trick it is."
"Very well, then," the spokesman said mildly. "I'm sorry. I just
wanted to arrange it."
"Besides, since you talk of cooking so much, I'll take the same
liberty. Things must be salted and sugared. And some reasons are
salt and some are sweet ... we can tell by the flavor of things. So
that all your fine arguments only bring us to restate the question.
Why was I, so to speak, made salty?"
The spokesman stared at him ... a little stupidly, David thought.
"Salty?" he repeated.
David laughed bitterly. "Ah ... I see all this talk of cooking won't
do. Things were never cooked up in pots to begin with. We'll try
again. If there is a person who corresponds to the actor, and if he
does look at us while he's acting ... what does he want? It's his
old lust for sacrifice, and because he does not know whom to choose,
he looks and strikes someone with a sign of difference, and then
thinks he has something."
At this the spokesman looked up brightly and began to talk with
garbling rapidity. "Ah, sacrifice, to be sure. The bleeding heart
torn from the living offering by the forthright fingers of the
priest. Fire, or the spike, or the cross, as a background for the
gesture of agony. A somewhat morbid emphasis on vivisection, I
should say, yet in its way a rather pretty pantomime of the real
state of affairs. Well, it's very natural for you to feel that way
about it, especially since you have the qualification of suffering;
and, as I said, it's the right idea though very crudely expressed."
"Then you admit..."
The spokesman shook his head reproachfully. "Patience," he urged,
"we must think this out carefully. Now as I mentioned before, these
sacrificial offerings were a rather apt pantomime of the real state
of affairs. For the whole idea behind a sacrifice is to maintain a
balance. Savages, who practiced it, were still alert enough to feel
the precarious equilibrium of the universe, they glimpsed the
profound truth that everything is in a state of balance that
constantly strains towards disruption. And so they made their
infinitesimal contribution to preserving that balance ... a rather
superfluous attempt, like blowing over the scales."
David raised himself on his elbow and looked at the spokesman. "What
makes you think that all things are in balance?"
"Please," the spokesman began peevishly, "don't behave that way. We
have to start with something, don't we? I chose that point of
beginning because I thought it would be the least offensive."
"Very well, continue." David lay down again. But the next moment he
raised his head and asked: "But why was the attempt superfluous?"
"That's just the point." The spokesman's eye quivered his approval.
"Because, when the tension of things was first established, it was
not left to the accidental activities of human beings to maintain it.
All the time, subtly and imperceptibly, there is an adjustment going
on that keeps things in balance. As it applies to the human world,
we might state it crudely by saying that human beings pay for each
other. Invisible currency passes between them which settles all
their debts to each other, voids all their accounts. Savages had
some inkling of this, when, realizing that they were the debtors of
their living sacrifice, they squared their accounts by calling him a
god. A little private bribe, you understand, to put him in good
humor. And a great game, really ... this keeping things balanced,
and ideally suited as a pastime for eternity; because you can't ever
find two things that are equal, and so your left hand and your right
hand are both kept busy, forever working the scales with alternate
motions. And you can't take a rest for a minute, either..."
"I can just picture it," David said admiringly. "However, instance
... instance..."
"We shall come to that. Now let us say that the souls of people are
tiny and intricate stones, with points and facets and hollows ...
each stone marvelously small, yet convoluted a thousand different
ways. And let us say that each stone contains within itself a unique
magnetism, to attract that single other stone with which it can
articulate. And so all the souls of the world are held together in a
chain, no thread going through the chain and yet it can never fall
apart. Love is not necessary. It is only the name for a hysterical
fear that the souls may fall apart, the fear of those who do not
understand the intimate embrace of these tiny stones, who do not know
that their intercourse is more profound than the intercourse of
love..."
"Well, continue," David interrupted peevishly. "These fancies put me
to sleep. You're an ingenious one."
"Now these stones work on each other with a subtle attrition, and
though their surfaces may change, they cannot unlock themselves,
because they always change _into_ each other. And sometimes one can
feel this silent imperceptible rotation of the stones. Slowly it
works, as if they were turning in a profound dream."
"Instance..." David repeated, sighing wearily.
"Oh, very well then. Now what happened here a few days ago?"
"A child was run over."
"You remember it?"
"I saw it. The mother ran to the curb and screamed at the fellow who
was driving the truck, and shook her fist at him. He only curled his
head around and looked back curiously, but he didn't stop."
"No, he didn't..."
"She almost stepped on the little girl. Her skirt fell over the
child's face, and her foot even touched the flesh of it, but she
didn't seem to notice. Then she kept turning around, upbraiding all
those who were watching her, because they hadn't stopped the driver.
She spun herself round with her arms stretched out under her shawl,
and her fingers tearing at the fringes, pleading with them to tell
her why no one had stopped him. She only wanted the reason, she said
... that would satisfy her. Then she cursed them because no one had
thrown himself in front of the truck to _make_ it stop, and next she
asked for the number of the truck, but nobody knew it. They just
stood there and looked at her stupidly. And next she caught sight of
a little boy who had been playing with her child when it happened..."
David broke off and laughed heartily. "You remember those circle
games we used to play in kindergarten..." he said. "Somebody stands
in the center of the circle and we all sing: 'Come and choose your
partner.' For all the world it was just like one of those games."
He was silent, chuckling to himself. "Well, suddenly she ran over to
this little boy," he resumed briskly, "and stood before him begging
him to tell her the number of the truck. The poor little fellow just
looked around sheepishly..."
"And the child?"
"Somebody carried it into the house. The mother never seemed to
care, though she stopped for a moment and watched the fellow as he
picked the little girl up, and fixed her dress and put his hand
gently to the back of her head, just as if she were asleep. After a
while they brought out a chair and the mother sat down and acted very
petulant. If anyone came over to her she shook her shoulders like a
peevish young girl. And then--"
"I see that you're a very careful observer," the spokesman
interrupted politely. "And can you tell me what's happening on the
street now?"
"Why, she's been on the street almost constantly now for the last
four days."
"Four days, you say! I must see her."
"No, don't trouble yourself. I can tell you all about it. She's a
very important personage now. They say people come from blocks
around just to see her."
"Sits and mourns for her child, I suppose..."
"Oh, no, she's forgotten the child entirely. In fact she's quite
happy ... looks rosy and bright-eyed. I never thought she could look
so pretty. You see, after the child's funeral she went directly to a
sign painter, and she had him paint her two large signs. Something
to this effect: I shall give a reward to any person who can tell me
the license number of the truck that ran over and killed my
eight-year-old girl on the morning of ... I forget the date. But she
has the date and the place there and the exact time, so that there
can't be any mistake. They say that the sign painter composed it for
her, and he did a very nice job ... different sized letters, and some
letters in red and others in green. The sign is white, I think. And
she has these signs attached to her ... one in front and one in back.
And all day she parades around near the place where it happened..."
"Mm ... quite a curiosity. It's a liberal reward, I suppose?"
"No, she's poor. Not a thing to give. It's just a figure of speech,
this talk of a reward."
"Now that's very interesting ... very." The spokesman nodded
judicially. "Her whole case, in fact, hinges on that point.
Everything would be different if there _was_ a reward. You see that,
I suppose."
"Explain."
"Because," the spokesman said thoughtfully, "if she really wanted to
know that license number, there would be a real reward. Which
proves, then, that she doesn't want to know it. Looks well, you say?"
"Rises early, fixes herself carefully and dresses in her signs as if
she was an actress preparing for her entrance." David paused,
suddenly tired of his narrative and feeling very drowsy. He was
almost asleep when the spokesman's voice roused him, saying lazily,
"Well, now, doesn't that prove it?"
"Prove what..." David asked sleepily. "I've forgotten."
The spokesman's eye narrowed slyly. "That people pay for each
other," he said.
"Explain ... explain."
"Now wasn't," the spokesman began in a lazy voice, "wasn't the life
of this eight-year-old girl the price that had to be paid first,
before the mother could parade herself between her two signs? And
didn't the child's death have to come about in just this way? And
wasn't it necessary for the driver not to stop? For if he had
stopped, then the mother could not have put on her masquerade of
signs, and the child would have died for nothing. Now some would say
the driver was the villain in the case, but I don't think so, I don't
think so at all. Though of course," he added thoughtfully, "it is a
rather heavy price for such a trifle. I shouldn't want to argue the
point. Though who knows? In the balancing of all things it may not
be exorbitant, neither may the mother's parade be such a trifle as it
seems."
There was a long silence, but after a while David sat up and looked
searchingly at the spokesman.
"It's a lie," he said.
"What is?"
"It's a lie," he repeated angrily, "that people pay for each other.
And it's clever, very clever, my friend, since you cannot understand
words, but only numbers, to set yourself up in bookkeeping. If you
knew the meaning of words, if only one word could be made clear to
you, then you would laugh at your pretentious bookkeeping, you would
laugh at everything you've said tonight. A number must be balanced
all the time by another number. But a word does not need to be
balanced. Let us say it was the mother's grief."
"Now don't excite yourself. Let's remain friends. For all I know,"
the spokesman added blandly, "it may be a lie. But what makes you
think so?" His eyebrow moved toward the center of his forehead, to
meet the invisible puckering of the other eye, an effect so comical
that David had to laugh.
"Well, have you read the fairy tales?" he asked more kindly.
"Which fairy tales? Please be specific."
"All of them ... any one of them ... they're all true, any way. But
I was referring to the one where the prince is supposed to go forth
on dangerous adventures. But while he keeps in his hand a small
round mirror and gazes at his reflection in it, nothing can harm him,
neither can he see all the horrors through which he must pass."
"A very magic mirror."
"No, there you're mistaken. For the mirror is an ordinary piece of
looking-glass, a broken piece that the goose-girl in his father's
palace begged him to take. But still, while he looks into it he does
not see the terrors that surround him."
"A charming story," the spokesman yawned. "How does it apply?"
"Why, the mother," David said slowly, "has found a mirror. And while
she looks into it, she will not know that her child is dead. It was
often a plant that had to be tended..."
"Really?" The spokesman yawned again and closed his eye. "Well, I
wanted to arrange it," he said drowsily. "I heard you saying one
time, 'They owe me something."
"Ah ... that afternoon ... to him. To that fool who sleeps, and who
is, as you say, ended. Wasn't that the word?"
"Precisely..."
"Tell me, did he believe it?"
"Believe what?"
"You know what I mean," David said impatiently. "About my being an
expert on authority."
The spokesman opened his eye that quivered with sleepiness. "Do
_you_ believe it?"
David was silent, intently regarding him.
"It's confusing now, isn't it..."
David did not answer.
"You pretend to enjoy it, but you don't. And that means you don't
believe it. Isn't that so? Isn't it true," the spokesman coaxed,
"that if you don't enjoy a thing, then you really don't believe it?"
Still David was silent. At last he spoke softly. "So you too
thought of that."
"Oh, yes," the spokesman said cheerfully, "I think of everything.
But is it true?" he asked, and looked at David, his eye glistening
with eagerness ... "that you need the whole human race for a payment?
Now suppose they offered _you_ a sacrifice..."
"Well, what? What would they give me?" David asked sharply.
"You said," the spokesman continued smoothly, "that he strikes
someone with a sign of difference, and in that way he chooses a
sacrifice. Now suppose _you_ were to try it."
Again there was a long silence, the spokesman's eye closing slowly,
so that David wondered whether he had fallen asleep. At last David
broke the silence, but his voice sounded far away, as if he too were
asleep.
"Yes ... suppose it is Mirelie," he said softly. "Whom you must
strike with the sign of difference."
"But Mirelie..." David said, and his voice was troubled. "She is not
like others."
"Why not?"
"She is not like others," David repeated, a note of pleading in his
voice.
"Do you think she is too bright for you, then? Do you think she is
too proud and too free? Yet in every person in the world there is
the secret power for shame. There is no one so wilful or proud or
free that he has lost it. And in nature there is death. Death was
provided, in order that all things might be shamed. In nature there
is no bird or insect or flower so bright that it cannot die.
Besides," he added craftily, "she belongs to you."
He waited for David to speak, and when there was no answer he
continued, his voice low and thoughtful. "She belongs to you. It is
you who have the expert knowledge of degradation ... you who have
sounded the depths of it and searched through all its intricate
disguises. Each person walks before you with his entrails exposed
... a crowded, convoluted circle, like dainties in a box that one
sees through a little circle of transparent paper. I tell you that
_because_ Mirelie is so bright and free, she can be more humiliated
... she is capable of greater degradation. And then consider," the
spokesman finished with a little laugh, "she looked a long time at
your friend there. He's attractive."
David only stared at the floor and said nothing.
"Lastly," the spokesman's voice was now so drowsy that David could
hardly hear it, "as we said before, people pay for each other. It
will balance ... it will balance," the voice sang softly. "She will
even love her shame." And as he went off to sleep he mused to
himself. "For it must be that the body loves everything that happens
to it ... it must be that..."
David thought the spokesman was growing somewhat repetitious, and he
was glad when the voice stopped. He rose then and turned off the
light. "So you do strike bargains," he observed to the spokesman's
sleeping figure. In the dark he went to Mirelie's door and opened it
softly.
3
Mirelie lay in bed with her eyes wide open. She saw the bureau where
her ribbons hung, and the chair with her clothes folded away, and the
white posts of her bed; and she was terrified at the thought that she
was seeing these things in the dark, instead of being asleep.
Besides, there was a shadow swaying on the floor, that made her heart
stop beating whenever she looked at it. "Because," she said to
herself, "it might be David standing there."
"Anna," she called, when she could stand it no longer, "I'm not
asleep."
"Well, then, turn over on the other side."
Mirelie turned as quietly as she could and waited.
"Anna," she called again in a terrified whisper. "Why can't I sleep?"
Anna's voice sounded angrily from the next room. "Sleep, Mirelie,"
she said. "Your lover won't come tonight."
After that Mirelie did not dare to speak again, and she lay in bed
thinking of the day when she would be married ... wondering why Anna
always laughed when she spoke of it. It was true, of course. Some
day she _would_ get married, everyone did. Even Anna had once been
married. She wore a wide gold ring on her left hand, and whenever
she was angry she made a rapping sound with it on the table. There
was also the picture of a little man with whiskers in her bedroom....
But in the midst of these thoughts Mirelie heard the sound of music
coming from the shop. "That's David playing the ocarina," she said
to herself, and she wanted to tell someone about it. She thought it
would be a great pleasure just to say aloud that David was playing;
and at last, though she was afraid that Anna would scold her, she
remarked softly, "That's David playing..." But Anna did not answer.
How mournful it sounded and far away. Things must be very sad for
David to make him play that way, and she wished she were not afraid
of him, but could go to him and comfort him. But now the music
stopped and she heard David walking across the room to put the
ocarina away. Only it wasn't really hearing his footsteps. No, she
felt each step in her heart, as though her heart had changed its
rhythm and kept time with the swaying of David's body ... the same
thing that happens when you're walking down the street, and a friend
catches up with you, walking faster. Then your feet are confused for
a moment, but in the end they go faster too, step for step with your
friend. So it was every time Mirelie saw David walking toward her
... her heart had been marching its own way, but after its moment of
confusion it kept time with the swaying of David's body.
And now Mirelie wondered whether anyone could tell that this
happened. If David knew, what would he think of her? And if Anna
knew, she would say that David was her sweetheart. Yes, if she could
look into Mirelie's heart and see how it changed step whenever David
came near her, she would surely say, "So it is David." Yet why
should David be her sweetheart, just because her heart changed step
that way? And as Mirelie brooded over this, she understood that
David was her sweetheart because she was ashamed of that feeling; and
because she could make it come whenever she pleased, even when David
was far away; and because it went through her whole body and out at
her finger-tips. Thinking of it now in bed, Mirelie felt her cheeks
grow red, and she wished she could run away and never see David again.
Then Mirelie dozed off and had a dream of a boy and a girl she had
seen that day, jumping rope in front of the shop. They looked at
each other all the time as their bodies went up and down in the
circling frame of the rope ... and near them was an old man who was
stroking his cheeks with one hand, as if he was trying to brush away
invisible webs that kept gathering around him. Though she watched
him for a long time, never once did he stop stroking his cheeks. "He
can't stop it, I suppose," she said to herself, and that made her
afraid of the old man. But after a while Mirelie was aware that
something terrible was about to happen, and the old man also knew it,
and stroked his cheeks faster. Mirelie wanted to cry out ... to warn
the boy and the girl who were jumping rope together. But her voice
would not come and she could only stand there helplessly watching.
And at last she knew it had happened, by the way the old man's
fingers stretched themselves ... longer and longer, as long as
rulers, and laid themselves daintily and stiffly to his cheek; by the
way he smiled at the boy and the girl, and turning to Mirelie, said,
"They are married." Then she awoke, trembling and fearful, and saw
that the door to the shop was open, and David was standing there.
"Mirelie," he called softly, "Mirelie..."
But in that moment she was no longer afraid, neither afraid of David
nor of the old man in her dream. She heard David laughing with a
strange intense gaiety as he came to her. She lifted her arms to him
and felt his face close to hers, and his eyelashes fluttering against
her cheek.