* * * * *
The wall loomed above him, smooth and grey. Dust was caked on his skin
and clothes, and as he walked he brushed at himself absently. The
suitcase dragged at his arm, thumped against his shin. He was very
hungry and thirsty. He sniffed the air, instinctively searching for the
odors of food. He had been following the wall for a long time, searching
for an opening. It curved away from him, rising vertically from the
level earth. Its surface was porous, unadorned, too smooth to climb. It
was, Brett estimated, twenty feet high. If there were anything to make a
ladder from--
Ahead he saw a wide gate, flanked by grey columns. He came up to it, put
the suitcase down, and wiped at his forehead with his handkerchief.
Through the opening in the wall a paved street was visible, and the
facades of buildings. Those on the street before him were low, not more
than one or two stories, but behind them taller towers reared up. There
were no people in sight; no sounds stirred the hot noon-time air. Brett
picked up his bag and passed through the gate.
For the next hour he walked empty pavements, listening to the echoes of
his footsteps against brownstone fronts, empty shop windows, curtained
glass doors, and here and there a vacant lot, weed-grown and desolate.
He paused at cross streets, looked down long vacant ways. Now and then a
distant sound came to him: the lonely honk of a horn, a faintly tolling
bell, a clatter of hooves.
He came to a narrow alley that cut like a dark canyon between blank
walls. He stood at its mouth, listening to a distant murmur, like a
crowd at a funeral. He turned down the narrow way.
It went straight for a few yards, then twisted. As he followed its
turnings the crowd noise gradually grew louder. He could make out
individual voices now, an occasional word above the hubbub. He started
to hurry, eager to find someone to talk to.
Abruptly the voices--hundreds of voices, he thought--rose in a roar, a
long-drawn Yaaayyyyy...! Brett thought of a stadium crowd as the home
team trotted onto the field. He could hear a band now, a shrilling of
brass, the clatter and thump of percussion instruments. Now he could see
the mouth of the alley ahead, a sunny street hung with bunting, the
backs of people, and over their heads the rhythmic bobbing of a passing
procession, tall shakos and guidons in almost-even rows. Two tall poles
with a streamer between them swung into view. He caught a glimpse of
tall red letters:
... For Our Side!
* * *
He moved closer, edged up behind the grey-backed crowd. A phalanx of
yellow-tuniced men approached, walking stiffly, fez tassels swinging. A
small boy darted out into the street, loped along at their side. The
music screeched and wheezed. Brett tapped the man before him.
"What's it all about...?"
He couldn't hear his own voice. The man ignored him. Brett moved along
behind the crowd, looking for a vantage point or a thinning in the
ranks. There seemed to be fewer people ahead. He came to the end of the
crowd, moved on a few yards, stood at the curb. The yellow-jackets had
passed now, and a group of round-thighed girls in satin blouses and
black boots and white fur caps glided into view, silent, expressionless.
As they reached a point fifty feet from Brett, they broke abruptly into
a strutting prance, knees high, hips flirting, tossing shining batons
high, catching them, twirling them, and up again ...
Brett craned his neck, looking for TV cameras. The crowd lining the
opposite side of the street stood in solid ranks, drably clad, eyes
following the procession, mouths working. A fat man in a rumpled suit
and a panama hat squeezed to the front, stood picking his teeth.
Somehow, he seemed out of place among the others. Behind the spectators,
the store fronts looked normal, dowdy brick and mismatched glass and
oxidizing aluminum, dusty windows and cluttered displays of cardboard, a
faded sign that read TODAY ONLY--PRICES SLASHED. To Brett's left the
sidewalk stretched, empty. To his right the crowd was packed close, the
shout rising and falling. Now a rank of blue-suited policemen followed
the majorettes, swinging along silently. Behind them, over them, a piece
of paper blew along the street. Brett turned to the man on his right.
"Pardon me. Can you tell me the name of this town?"
The man ignored him. Brett tapped the man's shoulder. "Hey! What town is
this?"
The man took off his hat, whirled it overhead, then threw it up. It
sailed away over the crowd, lost. Brett wondered briefly how people who
threw their hats ever recovered them. But then, nobody he knew would
throw his hat ...
"You mind telling me the name of this place?" Brett said, as he took the
man's arm, pulled. The man rotated toward Brett, leaning heavily against
him. Brett stepped back. The man fell, lay stiffly, his arms moving, his
eyes and mouth open.
"Ahhhhh," he said. "Whum-whum-whum. Awww, jawww ..."
Brett stooped quickly. "I'm sorry," he cried. He looked around. "Help!
This man ..."
Nobody was watching. The next man, a few feet away, stood close against
his neighbor, hatless, his jaw moving.
"This man's sick," said Brett, tugging at the man's arm. "He fell."
The man's eyes moved reluctantly to Brett. "None of my business," he
muttered.
"Won't anybody give me a hand?"
"Probably a drunk."
Behind Brett a voice called in a penetrating whisper: "Quick! You! Get
into the alley...!"
He turned. A gaunt man of about thirty with sparse reddish hair,
perspiration glistening on his upper lip, stood at the mouth of a narrow
way like the one Brett had come through. He wore a grimy pale yellow
shirt with a wide-flaring collar, limp and sweat-stained, dark green
knee-breeches, soft leather boots, scuffed and dirty, with limp tops
that drooped over his ankles. He gestured, drew back into the alley. "In
here."