Lampley knew something had broken but his fear was not absolute. He
bent his knees (go limp: drunks and babies were less liable to injury
than the stiffly erect); the drop would not be fatal, he might not
even break a leg. How far to the basement? Twenty feet at most. If
he just relaxed--or jumped to the top of the cage and clung to the
fretwork?--he would not be hurt. He must not be hurt; the implications
of the headlines would destroy him.
The elevator dived in darkness, far further than any conceivable
excavation beneath the hotel. It fell through night, blacker and more
terrifying than any moonless, starless reality. It plunged into total,
unrelieved absence of light, a devastation to the senses, a mockery to
the eyes.
Then, subtly, there was a difference. The blackness was still black but
now it could be seen and valued. It was blackness, not blindness. Then
increasingly there was a faint diminution of the darkness itself, and
the shaft changed from sable to the deepest gray.
After they had fallen still further Lampley saw the shaft was lined
with porcelain tiles, yellowed with neglect. Could it be they were no
longer falling at all, just descending normally? To where?
They flashed past doors, cavernous rectangles in the shiny wall. Shiny?
Yes, the tiles were brighter, cleaner, whiter. The cage slowed, came
to a bouncing halt. The repressed fear surged through Lampley, making
his feet and ankles weak and helpless. The clerk slid the door open
smartly, with a sharp click.
"What's here?" asked the Governor, conscious of the inadequacy of the
question.
"Odds," replied the clerk. "Odds. No ends to speak of but plenty of
odds."
He half led, half pushed Lampley out of the elevator. They were in a
great chamber, so far stretching that though it was adequately lit
the defining walls were lost, far, far off. So close to each other
that they almost touched, grand pianos with their lids thrown back
and strings exposed, stood, rank after rank. From the ceiling long
stalactites dripped on the pianos: plink plink, plink plink, plink
plunk! A thousand pianotuners might have been at work simultaneously.
"Nobody here," said the clerk. "All right." He turned swiftly back into
the elevator, slamming the door.
"Wait!" cried Lampley in panic. "Wait for me." He heard the softly
whirring mechanism as the elevator started, leaving him alone.
* * * * *
Lampley pounded the door with his fists. He shouted for the clerk to
come back, not to desert him. He kicked the door. He screamed. Plink
plink, plink plink, plink plunk.
He could die down here. He could die down here and no one would ever
know it. He dared not go away from the elevator shaft--he might never
find it again. He dared not stay--the clerk might not return until he
was dead and the flesh rotted from his skeleton.
Plink plink. No, long before he died he would be raving mad. Plink
plink. "Give us a tune at least," he pleaded. His voice produced no
echo. No echo at all. Plink plunk.
Calm, almost ease, succeeded panic. He walked between the rows of
pianos. They could not stretch to infinity, he reasoned, there must be
an end to them somewhere. But reason also argued the pianos couldn't
be here at all, there couldn't be seven or seventeen or seventy
sub-basements beneath the hotel. Once an impossibility happened there
was no limit to the impossibilities to follow.
He had been six when Miss Brewster came to give him piano lessons. And
is this our little Paderooski she asked so brightly. Do-do. C natural.
Treble clef, bass clef. Above the staff, below the staff. She smacked
his hands when Mother wasn't looking. He kicked Miss Brewster's shins.
After a while the lessons stopped.
* * * * *
A unicorn pranced out from between the pianos. His coat was white
and sleek, his mane and tail shone like coal, his eyes were blue as
sapphires. The long spiralling horn was pale gold, glistening bright.
The Governor tried to approach him, to stroke the soft nose, to clutch
the heavy mane. The unicorn stamped a nervous hoof and circled away,
always barely out of reach. Lampley followed him down the long aisle
between the pianos.
The unicorn looked back, his nostrils wide. Lampley put out his hand,
almost touched him. The animal snorted, broke into a trot, a gallop.
Its hooves pounded the hard floor: tata-rumpp, tata-rumpp, t-rump
t-rump. The Governor ran too, shouting, calling. His lungs were sawed
by jagged breaths, his heart burst through his ribs and left only a
helpless, pounding pain behind. He wanted to stop, to give up, to
faint; he kept on pursuing.
The unicorn paused, wary. He stamped a hoof, tossed his mane, pointed
his horn. Lampley, gasping, was hardly able to totter forward. He took
a step, two, leaned against the nearest piano. Plink, plink, plink,
plink, plink plunk. The unicorn suddenly ran his horn into one of the
instruments, withdrawing it to leave a splintered hole in the wood.
A man came out of the shadows with a sledgehammer over his shoulder.
He was a dwarf, naked to the waist, with writhing biceps, wearing a
grease-matted brimless cap over thick curly hair. The growth on his
chest curled also, an obscene felt. He swung the hammer down on the
piano, smashing in the top, caving in one of the legs.
"What are you doing?" demanded Lampley before he realized he didn't
care what the man was doing. "How do you get out of here?" he amended.
The dwarf went on methodically wrecking the piano. The unicorn
disappeared, the sound of its hooves growing fainter and fainter.
Lampley approached the dwarf, ready to clutch his shoulder, to extort a
way out. He was afraid. Afraid of the blunt, lethal hammer, afraid of
the strength and rage which had reduced the piano to junk. Afraid of
the answer to his question. Afraid there might be no answer.
The dwarf slung the maul back on his shoulder and walked away. The
Governor wept. There was no strength in his arms or legs. He fell down
and crawled weakly forward, sobbing and retching, the sour taste of
vomit in his mouth. Plink plink, plink plink, plink plunk. Destruction
of the offending piano made not the slightest difference in the
cacophony.
* * * * *
The weight of all the floors above him, the overwhelmingly massive
structure of steel and stone reaching to the surface, bowed him down
in lonely, strangling terror. What mind, what mathematical faculty
could estimate the thousands, the hundreds of thousands, the millions
of crushing tons overhead, malign, implacable, waiting? He closed his
eyes, moved his arms and legs convulsively. It was more than he could
bear.
He was at the elevator again. If he could pry the door open perhaps he
could climb the cables or brace himself between the rails on which the
counter-weights slid and inch his way upward. Or fall to destruction.
He knew he could never get the door open. He was condemned to stay amid
the pianos. He sobbed hopelessly.
Without belief he heard the sound of the machinery and the tip-tip-tip
of the halting car. It was the young girl who opened the door and
helped him in. She took a handkerchief, soft as fog, delicate as a
petal, smelling of herself, and wiped his tears. She held his head
between her breasts and he breathed in the scent of her untouched body.
She pressed his wrists with her fingers. She put her hands under his
arms and guided him against the wall of the cage.
"Thank you," he cried. "Oh thank you, thank you." He felt he was about
to weep again, tears of shame and weakness. He held her tightly to
reassure himself of the reality of the rescue, greedy for her gentle
soothing. "Why did he do it? Tell me, why did he leave me down here?"
"Oh," she said, as though disappointed. "You want answers."
He shrank from her disapproval. "No, no. Please. I'm satisfied to be
out of there."
She shut the door. The elevator shot upward, past the glistening white
tiles, past the yellow ones, past the area of light. It rose--more
slowly it seemed--through the darkness. The creak of machinery
increased, as though illumination were a lubricant and the deprived
dark full of grit.
His heart was full of reverence and gratitude for her rescue, for her
purity. He was bowed down by the simple fact of being alone with her
in the cage. They passed the open grillwork of the first floor and
ascended at snails' pace--no doubt now--to the second. She stopped the
car, and taking his hand, led him out. He was thankful beyond counting
when she took him to the bedroom, shutting the door behind them, and
helped him out of his jacket. She wet a towel in the pitcher and bathed
his face.
"You are very lovely," he said humbly. "As lovely as you are kind."
* * * * *
She took the paper cap from his head and smoothed his hair. If he
had been humble, now he was humiliated beyond endurance. All that
suffering, all that torture and anguish--with an absurd gaud perched
atop him. It was beyond bearing. Fear and gratitude had not deprived
him of all final dignity; the picture of the tissue paper cap jaunty
upon him was too ridiculous for contemplation.
She smiled at him, magically healing his pride. Her mouth was a flower
cut in soft pink stone. Her mouth was a velvet hope. Her mouth was
red satin. She bent and touched him with it. He held his breath, felt
himself tremble and die.
He kissed her, delicately, very delicately at first, savoring the soft,
soft lips. He was dedicated to keeping her undefiled. He put his
arms around her, touched his tongue-tip to her eyelids, her ears. He
found her mouth again, pressed it tenderly. Then fiercely, lustfully,
devouringly. She did not draw back. He lifted her shirt, intoxicating
himself upon her small, perfect breasts.
"You will not hurt me?" she pleaded. "No man has been with me before."
He swore to himself he would not hurt her; it was not in him to be
anything but loving. He would be wise, kind, compassionate; he would
sacrifice his burning lust to her timidity. He would deflower her
without rage.
He seized her, and seeing panic struggling against the consent in her
eyes, ravished her brutally, violated her without thought of anything
but his own triumph. Crying and reproaching himself, he begged her
forgiveness. When she gave it, so readily, so understandingly, he
repeated the act as heedlessly.
Remorse-stricken, he pressed his face against her knees, smoothed her
long hair, kissed her temples, touched her body pleadingly. She smiled
up at him, wound her arms around his so that their hands came together,
palm to palm.
His penitence dissolved slowly in her grace. He remembered the creature
downstairs--his son. "Are you her daughter?" he asked harshly.
She seemed to know whom he meant. "She is my sister."
"And the clerk?"
"The clerk?" She shook her head in incomprehension. She shut her eyes,
breathing evenly.
* * * * *
Without disengaging himself from her he raised his head to look around.
This was not his room. The furniture was similar, but the washstand was
where the highboy had been, the highboy in the bureau's place. And the
figures under the glass bell, the two dressed in black and white, were
not the wedding couple but two duelists, crossing swords. Their faces
were alike: father and son, older and younger brother, the same man at
different periods. The older had got under the younger's guard and was
pressing his advantage.
He should have phoned Mattie ... no, Mattie was dead, the doctor
shaking his enlightened head. The prognosis is always unfavorable
unless we get it early ... vulnerable womb.... He should have
phoned Marvin. It had been irresponsible of him to take this trip
all by himself, impulsively, secretively, as though he were hiding
something--he who could afford to have nothing to hide. And it had been
doubly foolish to take this unusual, little-traveled route, to stop on
whim at this obscure place.
He put his head down next to the girl's, feeling the comfort of her
flesh against his body. He was not sleepy, no longer tired. She
had refreshed and renewed him. He raised his head to look at her
loveliness again.
The long hair was lusterless, streaked with gray. The smooth, fresh
cheeks had relaxed into fatty lumps, coarse and raddled. The slack
mouth turned downward, the flesh of her throat was loose and crepey. He
pulled back in horror and saw that the tight, round breasts were long
and flaccid, the flat belly soft and puffy, the slender arms and legs
heavy and mottled.
Her eyes opened and looked dully into his. "What did you expect?" she
asked.
He stood trembling by the side of the bed. "Only a little while ago...."
Her lips parted to show yellow teeth with gaps between. "There is no
time here," she said and went back to sleep.
He did not look at her again, equally fearful of confirming or denying.
Instead he picked up her clothes and scrutinized them as though they
would reveal the truth. They were only the remembered white shirt and
dark skirt, the small, narrow sandals, the flimsy scrap of underwear.
By sight and scent they belonged to the girl who had brought him here,
not to the woman on the bed.
He dressed with his back to her. The paper cap was on the floor where
she had dropped it; he did not pick it up. He tip-toed out, avoiding
noise, though the woman save no sign of waking. He searched for his
own room but none of the doors he opened showed the identifying
arrangement of furniture or the wax figures of the wedding couple. He
could not have confused the floor: he had climbed one flight from the
lobby and the girl had taken the elevator only the same distance. If
the elevator and the stairs were on different sides of the hotel...?
That would account for the muddle.
The hall turned a corner. Instead of more doors it was blocked to its
full width by a stairway. He took it in preference to retracing his
steps; logically there would be a matching one back to the second floor
further along.
Now the carpet under his feet was thick and soft instead of thin and
sleazy. Strong bright light shone down from the floor above, showing
walls panelled in pale wood, clean and elegant. It was a fleeting
puzzle that this stairway should contrast so strongly--should have been
preserved so carefully--with the rest of the hotel.
The sound of many voices, the clatter and movement of people came
to him distantly. He reached the top. The third floor was decorated
in pinks and grays: pink walls and ceiling, gray carpets, doors
and woodwork. Couches and sofas occupied the wall-space not cut by
doors. On the nearest one was sprawled an oversize ragdoll onto which
pendulous blue breasts had been carelessly sewn.
The hall was a large quadrangle with a square well in the center,
guarded by a heavy wrought iron railing. The Governor rested his arms
on the rail and gazed down at a concourse thronged with people. Women
in sequined evening gowns, men in gaudy uniforms, gathered in knots,
moved briskly, or sat idly on chairs and benches. A few of the women
wore vivid strips of silk around their thighs or as skirts, the exposed
parts of their bodies tattooed in blues and reds. A bearded man with
shaggy hair had the skin of an animal caught over one shoulder. He saw
a girl in hoopskirts, another in ruff and farthingale, but most wore
the "formals" of his young manhood.
* * * * *
He had no feeling that this was a masquerade, a costume party: all wore
their clothes with the assurance of habit, without self-consciousness
or interest in the garb of others. Even at this distance he recognized
a man in the green uniform of the United States Dragoons, obsolete
since the 1840's, another in the white greatcoat of royal France. A
Californio, silver pesoed trousers and all, talked earnestly with
his companion in the dropped-waist sack of the Coolidge era while a
hobble-skirted eavesdropper hovered close.
The throng was so tightly pressed together that Lampley did not at
first make out the rococo fountain in the center. A sudden movement,
a concerted parting, revealed its marble nymphs and cherubs spouting
water in scatological attitudes. A sailor, wearing the characteristic
British dickey, climbed to embrace one of the statues. He fell into the
basin and was pulled out by an Attic shepherdess.
The Governor longed to join them, to dissolve his desires and
disappointments in their gaiety and laughter. He knew there was no hope
of happiness with them, as he knew there was no way for him to get down
to them, but the knowledge did not quench his yearning.
* * * * *
He turned away and began circling the quadrangle. The doors on his
right were all shut, no sound came from behind them. They were not
consecutively numbered, nor in any conceivable order, not even in the
same numerical system. 3103 was followed by 44, the next was XIX, then
900, 211, CCCV. One was marked with egg-shaped figures which he took to
be possibly Mayan. It was slightly ajar. He pushed it open.
It was a schoolroom. Disciplined desks marched side-by-side toward the
teacher's raised podium hemmed in by blackboards gray with hastily
erased chalk. Only the four seats in front were occupied. He tip-toed
forward and slid into the second row. The teacher was a caricature
Chinese mandarin with queue, emerald-buttoned skullcap, gold
fingernail guards, tortoiseshell spectacles, brocaded robe.
"You have brought your homework?" he inquired, peering severely over
the top of his spectacles.
"No sir," answered Lampley, getting up again.
"For what purpose does the honorable delegate arise?" mocked the
teacher.
Lampley felt himself blushing. "I--I thought it was customary."
"All is custom as Herodotus said," remarked the teacher. "Herodotus was
a barbarian," he explained genially to the class. "Sit down."
In front of Lampley sat a child with long blonde pigtails, one with a
pink, the other with a white bow. She read aloud, "See little Almon.
Little Almon lives with his mother and his uncle. Almon has the cat.
Almon wants to play with the cat. The cat--"
"Quite enough," said the teacher. "Meditate."
The pupil next to the girl was the idiot. On the other side of the
aisle were a boy of twelve and a girl a little older. When the girl
turned her head Lampley saw her face was heavily bandaged. The Governor
lifted the top of his desk and took out a book. It had no covers, the
pages were torn and thumbed.
In the fifth year of the present reign, (he read) there appeared at
court a magician from the East who claimed alcheminical learning to
such a degree he was able to divine secret thoughts. A demonstration
being required of him, he demanded that divers ladies-in-waiting who....
The Governor turned the page. The next leaf was written in runes. He
riffled swiftly through the book. None of the rest of it was in the
Latin alphabet. He turned back to the page he had read. The letters
were all jumbled together, KJDRBWLSAYPZUQMXRQOTVBFLAIH, so that they
made no sense. He held up his hand. The teacher pulled down his
spectacles nearly to the end of his nose.
"No one is excused here," he announced. "Your attention, please."
* * * * *
Lampley let his hand fall. The children rustled and squirmed.
"I have here a button," said the teacher. "It is not a true button but
a sort of courtesy button. It is in fact a mere plug, connected by the
demon of electricity to an ingenious apparatus located in the antipodes
of the Flowery, Middle or Celestial Kingdom. By pressing this button
I can cause the instant and painless demise of an anonymous foreign
devil. I repeat, the operation will cause the big-nosed one no distress
at all; he will know nothing. By pushing the button I destroy him; also
I bring untold happiness to all the sons of Han, whose ricebowls will
then be full, whose fields, wives and concubines will be fertile,
whose lords and tax-gatherers will become unbelievably merciful. My
problem: shall I press the button?"
He leaned back triumphantly in his chair and took from a desk drawer a
bowl and chopsticks. Steam ascended from the bowl as the teacher deftly
picked out long strings of noodles and sucked them into his mouth.
Lampley could smell the sharp odor of the soup in the bowl. The class
was silent while the teacher ate.
He put down the bowl and laid the chopsticks across it. "It is an
ethical problem, you understand. Luckily, since I am unfitted for
manual tasks--" he held up his fingernails for them to see "--I am
absolved from considering it. I shall never have to press the button or
not press the button."
Lampley raised his hand again.
"I told you no one is excused here," said the teacher.
"I was young," protested Lampley.
The teacher turned away disgustedly. He wrote on the blackboard in
angular, unconnected letters, "Death knows no youth."
The pupils in the front row all turned around to stare at the Governor.
The face of his son was set in a horrid grimace, teeth showing, eyes
watering gummy white in the corners.
"She was ambitious for me. It seemed best at the time," muttered
Lampley.
They all laughed together, snarling like dogs. Lampley hurled the book
at them. The pages fluttered as it fell with a thud on the floor. The
teacher wrote on the board in his singular script, Ambition, Doubt,
Subservience, Conformity, Treachery, Heat, Bravery, Murder, Hope,
Trifles, Treasure, Pity, Shame, Confession, Humility, Procreation,
Final. "No alternatives!" he shouted.