The Erasers (19 page)

This detour takes him away from the clinic; but since he is not in any particular hurry, he turns in the direction indicated by the arrow. After having turned—following the instructions of a second sign—he discovers a shop whose ultra-modern exterior and elaborate advertising indicate a recent opening. Its elegance and its great size are surprising, moreover, in this small, rather isolated street which is located, nevertheless, not far from the main boulevards. The shopfront—plastic and aluminum—is brand new and if the left-hand window contains only a rather ordinary display of pens, note paper, and school notebooks, the one on the right is designed to attract the attention of pedestrians: it represents an
“
artist
”
drawing
“
from nature.
”
A dummy, dressed in a paint-spotted
smock and whose
face is hidden under a huge
“
bohemian
”
beard, is hard at work in front of his easel; stepping back slightly to see both his work and the model at the same time, he is putting the finishing touches on a carefully drawn landscape—which must actually be a copy of some master. It is a hill with the ruins of a Greek temple among cypress trees; in the foreground, fragments of columns lie scattered here and there; in the distance, in the valley, appears a whole city with its triumphal arches and palaces
—
rendered, despite the distance and the accumulation of buildings, with a scrupulous concern for detail. But in front of the man, instead of the Greek countryside, stands instead of the setting a huge photographic reproduction of a modern city intersection. The nature of this image and its skillful arrangement give the panorama a reality all the more striking in that it is the negation of the drawing supposed to represent it; and suddenly Wallas recognizes the place: that house surrounded by huge apartment buildings, that iron fence, that spindle-tree hedge, is the corner of the Rue des Arpenteurs. Obviously.

Wallas walks in.

“
Well,
”
he exclaims,
“
you certainly have a strange window!
”

“
It
’
s interesting, isn
’
t it?
”

The young woman greets him with a low, throaty laugh.

“
It certainly is strange,
”
Wallas admits.

“
Did you recognize it? Those are the ruins of Thebes.
”

“
The photograph is particularly surprising. Don
’
t you think so?
”

“
Oh yes. It
’
s a very fine photo.
”

Her expression actually indicates that she sees nothing remarkable about it. But Wallas would like to know more:

“
Yes, indeed,
”
he says,
“
you can tell it
’
s the work of an expert.
”

“
Yes, of course. I had the enlargement made by a laboratory that specializes in such things.
”

“
And the shot had to be extremely clear too.
”

“
Yes, probably.
”

Already the saleswoman is looking at him with a professionally friendly expression of interrogation.
“
Can I help you?
”

“
I
’
d like an eraser,
”
Wallas says.

“
Yes. What kind of eraser?
”

That
’
s just the whole point, and Wallas once again begins describing what he is looking for: a soft, crumbly gum eraser that friction does not twist but reduces to dust; an eraser that cuts easily and whose cut surface is shiny and smooth, like mother-of-pearl. He has seen one such, a few months ago, at a friend
’
s but the friend could not tell him where it came from. He thought he could find himself one of the same kind without difficulty, but he
’
s been searching in vain ever since. It looked like a yellowish cube, about an inch or two long, with the corners slightly rounded—maybe by use. The manufacturer
’
s brand was printed on one side, but was too worn to be legible any more: only two of the middle letters were still clear:
“
di
”
; there must have been at least two letters before and perhaps two or three others after.

The young woman tries to complete the name, but without success. She shows him, with mounting discouragement, all the erasers in the shop—and she has, in fact, a splendid stock
—
whose respective merits she warmly extols. But they are all either too soft or too hard:
“
breadcrumb
”
erasers, as easily kneaded as modeling clay, or else dry and grayish substances which abrade the paper—good at best for getting rid of ink blots; the rest are pencil erasers of the usual kind, more or less elongated rectangles of more or less white rubber.

Wallas hesitates to return to the subject that is plaguing him: he might seem to have come in for the sole purpose of obtaining God knows what information about the photograph of the house, without even being willing to spend the money for a little eraser—preferring to
turn the whole shop upside down
over an imaginary object attributed to a
legendary
brand whose name he could not even remember—and with good reason! His strategy would soon appear for the foolish thing it was, since by giving only the middle syllable of this name he kept his victim from questioning the existence of the brand.

He is therefore going to be obliged, once again, to buy an eraser he will not know what to do with, since it is not, apparently, the one he is looking for and since he does not need any other—despite certain resemblances—than
that one.

“
I
’
ll take this one,
”
he says.
“
It may do the trick.
”

“
You
’
ll see, it
’
s a good one. All our customers are satisfied with it.
”

What
’
s the use of explaining further? Now he must bring the conversation back to
…
But the farce goes so fast that he scarcely has time to think:
“
How much do I owe you?
”
the bill taken out of his wallet, the change ringing on the marble
…
The ruins of Thebes
…
Wallas asks:

“
Do you sell reproductions of pictures?
”

“
No, for the time being I have only post cards.
”
She points to two revolving stands.
“
If you
’
d like to look: there are a few museum paintings; all the rest are views of the city and its environs. But if you
’
re interested, there are a few that I took myself. Here, I made this one from the shot we were talking about just now.
”

She takes out a glossy-print post card and hands it to him. It is the one that was used for the window. Besides, it shows in the foreground the paving stones that form the edge of the quay and the end of the railing at the end of the little drawbridge. Wallas assumes an admiring tone:

“
It
’
s a pretty little house, isn
’
t it?
”

“
Yes it is, if you like it,
”
she answers with a laugh.

And he leaves the shop, taking the post card with him
—
whose acquisition was inevitabl
e after all his praises when he
first came in—and the little eraser which has already joined the one purchased this morning—as useless as the first.

Wallas is in a hurry; it must be almost noon. He still has time to speak to Doctor Juard before lunch. He will have to bear left to reach the Rue de Corinthe, but the first street he come to on that side leads only to a cross street where he might lose his way; he prefers to go on to the next main intersection. After his visit to the clinic, he will look for that post office at the end of the Rue Janeck; he might walk there, for it cannot be very far away. Above all, find out the exact time.

A policeman is on duty in the middle of the street, probably to control traffic in front of a school (otherwise, there are not enough cars to justify his presence at this unimportant crossing). Wallas turns back and walks over to him. The policeman salutes.

“
Can you tell me what time it is, please?
”
Wallas asks.

“
Twelve-fifteen,
”
the man answers without hesitating.

He has probably just looked at his watch.

“
Is the Rue Joseph-Janeck far from here?
”

“
That depends on what number you want.
”

“
I want to go to the end, near the Boulevard Circulaire.
”

“
Then it
’
s easy: you go straight ahead to the first intersection and turn right, and then just afterward you turn left; after that it
’
s straight ahead. It won
’
t take you long.
”

“
There
’
s a post office there, isn
’
t there?
”

“
Yes
…
On the parkway at the corner of the Rue Jonas. But you don
’
t need to go that far to find a post office
…
”

“
No, I know, but
…
I have to go to that one
…
for the
poste restante.
”

“
Well, the first right, the first left, and then straight ahead. You can
’
t miss it.
”

Wallas thanks him and co
ntinues on his way, but once he
reaches the intersection and is about to turn left—toward the clinic—he realizes that, having omitted to inform the policeman of this detail, the latter will suppose he is taking the wrong turn despite his clear and repeated explanations. Wallas turns back to see if he is being watched: the man is making wide gestures with his arm to remind him that he should turn to the right first. If he goes in the other direction now, he will look like a lunatic, an idiot, or a practical joker. Maybe the policeman will run after him to set him right. As for going back to reassure the policeman, that would be really ridiculous. Wallas has already begun walking toward the right.

Since he is so near this post office, wouldn
’
t it be better to go straight there? Besides, it is after noon and Doctor Juard is eating his lunch; while the post office does not close and he will not be disturbing anyone.

Before getting out of sight, he glimpses the policeman making a gesture of approval—to reassure him: he is going the right way.

It
’
s silly to put a traffic policeman in a place like that, where there is no traffic to control. At this hour, the schoolchildren have already gone home for lunch. Is there even a school there?

As the policeman had said, Wallas immediately reaches another intersection. If he
turned right into the Rue Berna
dotte, it would take him straight back and allow him to reach the Rue de Corinthe, after a slight detour; but now he can not be any closer to the clinic than to the post office, and besides, he does not know the neighborhood well enough: he might find himself face to face with that policeman again. His invention of the
poste restante
was not very satisfactory: if he had had mail sent to him there, he would have known the address, instead of knowing its location only approximately.

What kind of spell is it that
is forcing him to give explana
tions wherever he goes today? Is it a particular arrangement of the streets in this city that obliges him to be always asking his way, so that at each reply he finds himself led into new detours? Once before he has wandered among these unexpected bifurcations and blind alleys, where you got lost even more certainly when you happened to walk straight ahead. Only his mother was worried about it. Finally they had reached that dead end of a canal; the low houses, in the sun, reflected their old
façade
s in the green water. That must have been in summer, during the school vacation; they had stopped (on their way to the seashore, farther south, where they went every year) to visit some relative. He thought he remembered that she was annoyed, that there was something about a legacy or something of the kind. But did he ever know just what it was? He does not even remember now if they had ever found the woman, or if they had left empty-handed (they had only a few hours between trains). Besides, are these real memories? That day might have been described to him often:
“
You remember when we went…
”