The Erasers (7 page)

On the wall of a school courtyard there are three yellow posters side by side, three copies of a political speech printed in tiny letters with an enormous headline at the top:
“
Citizens Awake! Citizens Awake! Citizens Awake!
”
Wallas recognizes this poster, distributed throughout the city and already old, some kind of trade-union propaganda against the trusts, or liberal propaganda against the tariff rates, the sort of literature no one ever reads, except, occasionally, an old gentleman who stops, puts on his glasses and carefully reads the whole text through, shifts his eyes back and forth along the lines from the beginning all the way to the end, steps back a little to consider the whole poster with a shrug, puts his glasses back in their case and the case in his pocket, then goes on his way in some perplexity,
wondering if he has not missed the point. Among the usual words some suspect term occasionally stands out like a signal, and the sentence it illuminates so equivocally seems for a moment to conceal many things, or nothing at all. Thirty yards farther on can be seen the back of the plaque warning drivers of the school crossing.

The street next crosses another canal, wider than the last, along which a tug is slowly approaching, pulling two coal barges. A man in a dark blue pea jacket and a visored cap has just closed off the bridge at the opposite end and turns toward the free end where Wallas has just started across.

“
Hurry up, Monsieur, it
’
ll be openingI
”
the man shouts.

As he passes him, Wallas nods.

“
Not so warm this morning!
”

“
Winter
’
s coming,
”
the man answers.

With a low moan the tug salutes; under the cluster of metal beams, Wallas glimpses the trail of dissolving steam. He pushes the gate. An electric bell indicates that the workman at the other end is about to set the machinery in motion. At the moment Wallas closes the gate, the roadway behind him comes apart, the platform begins to tip up with a noise of motors and gears.

Wallas finally turns into a wide avenue that looks much like the Boulevard Circulaire he left at dawn, except for the canal, which is replaced here by a central sidewalk planted with very young trees; adjoining houses of five or six stories alternate with more modest structures of almost rural appearance and buildings evidently used for industrial purposes. Wallas is surprised to find more examples of this suburban mixture. Since he has crossed the street to turn right in this new direction, he reads with even more surprise the words
“
Boulevard Circu
laire
”
on the building at the corner. He turns back, disconcerted.

He cannot have been walking in a circle, since he had gone straight ahead ever since the Rue des Arpenteurs; he has probably walked too far south and bypassed a segment of the city. He will have to ask his way.

People in the street are hurrying past on their errands, Wallas prefers not to delay them. He decides on a woman in an apron who is washing the sidewalk in front of her shop on the other side of the street. Wallas approaches but he is not sure how to ask his question: for the moment he has no precise destination; as for the police station where he is supposed to go a little later, he is reluctant to mention it, less from professional discretion than because of his desire to remain in a convenient neutrality rather than carelessly inspiring fear or merely curiosity. The same is true for the courthouse which, he has been told, is opposite the police station, but whose faint artistic renown is not enough to motivate the interest he would appear to be taking in it. The woman straightens up when she sees him beside her; she stops the movement of her broom.

“
Excuse me, Madame, can you tell me how to get to the central post office?
”

After a moment
’
s reflection, she answers:

“
The central post office; what do you mean, the central post office?
”

“
I mean the main post office.
”

This does not seem to be the right question. Maybe there are several main post offices and none located in the center of town. The woman looks at her broom and says:

“
You
’
ll find a post office right near here, on the parkway.
”
She points with her chin.
“
People usually go there. But it
’
s probably closed at this hour.
”

So his question meant something: there is only one post office with a telegraph office open all night.

“
Yes, that
’
s just it, there must be a post office open for sending telegrams.
”

This remark unfortunately seems to awaken the woman
’
s interest:

“
Oh, it
’
s for sending a telegram!
”

She glances at her broom, while Wallas tries to get off with a vague
“
yes.
”

“
Nothing serious, I hope?
”
the woman says.

The question has not been asked in a specifically interrogative way, rather as a polite, slightly dubitative wish; but then she says nothing more and Wallas feels he must answer.

“
No, no,
”
he says,
“
thanks.
”

This is a lie too, since a man has died during the night. Should he explain that it is no one in his family?

“
Well,
”
the woman says,
“
if you
’
re not in a hurry, there
’
s a post office here that
’
ll be open at eight.
”

This is what making up stories gets you into. Now to whom would he send a telegram, and what about? How can he manage to get back where he started? Observing his dissatisfied expression, the woman finally adds:

“
There
’
s a post office on the Avenue Christian-Charles, but I don
’
t know if it opens before the others; besides, to get there from here
…
”

She examines him more attentively now, as if she were calculating his chances of reaching his goal before eight; then she glances down at the end of her broom again. One of the bristles, half undone, lets a few sprays of quitch grass stick out on one side. Finally she expresses the result of her scrutiny:

“
You
’
re not from around here, Monsieur?
”

“
No,
”
Wallas admits reluctantly;
“
I
’
ve been here only a little while. If you
’
ll show me how to get to the center of town, I
’
ll find my way.
”

The center? The woman tries to locate it in her own mind; she stares at her broom, then at th
e pail full of water. She turns
toward the Rue Janeck and points in the direction Wallas came from.

“
Just take that street. After the canal you turn left on the Rue de Berlin and you
’
ll come to the Place de la
Préfecture
. Then you just follow the avenues; it
’
s straight ahead.
”

The prefecture: that
’
s what he should have asked for.

“
Thank you, Madame.
”

“
It
’
s a long walk, you know. You
’
d be better off taking the streetcar over there, you see….
”

“
No, no, I
’
ll walk fast; it
’
ll warm me up! Thank you, Madame.
”

“
At your service, Monsieur.
”

She puts her broom in the pail and begins scrubbing the sidewalk. Wallas starts walking in the opposite direction.

His reassuring course has been re-established. Now the office workers are coming out of their houses, holding the imitation leather briefcases that contain the three traditional sandwiches for the noon meal. They glance up toward the sky as they come out of their doorways and walk off, winding brown knitted mufflers around their necks.

Wallas feels the cold on his face; though the season of cutting frost that freezes the face into a painful mask has not yet begun, something like a shrinking can already be felt in the tissues: the forehead contracts, the hairline draws closer to the eyebrows, the temples try to meet, the brain tends to shrink to a tiny benign mass on the surface of the skin, between the eyes, a little above the nose. Yet the senses are far from being benumbed: Wallas remains the attentive witness of a spectacle which has lost none of its qualities of order and permanence; perhaps, on the contrary, the course is growing stricter, gradually abandoning its ornaments
and its slackness. But perhaps,
too, this draftsman
’
s precision is only illusory, merely the result of an empty stomach.

The sound of a Diesel engine approaches behind Wallas
…
the vibration finally fills his head completely, and soon passes him, trailing its cloud of asphyxiating smoke—a heavy long
-
distance transport vehicle.

A bicyclist who has just got off his vehicle is waiting in front of the white barrier, at the end of the drawbridge that is just being lowered again. Wallas stops beside him and both men stare at the under side of the platform which is just disappearing. When they again see the top of the roadway, the man with the bicycle opens the gate and sets his front wheel on it. He turns toward Wallas:

“
Not so warm this morning,
”
he says.

“
Yes,
”
Wallas says,
“
winter
’
s coming.
”

“
It looks as though it were going to snow.
”

“
It
’
s still early for that.
”

“
I wouldn
’
t be surprised anyway,
”
the bicyclist says.

Both of them watch the iron edge of the platform, which gradually reaches the level of the street. At the moment it does, the noise suddenly stops; in the silence they hear the electric bell that authorizes them to cross. As he passes through the gate, the bicyclist repeats:

“
I wouldn
’
t be surprised.
”

“
Maybe you
’
re right,
”
Wallas says.
“
Good luck!
”

“
Good-bye, Monsieur,
”
the bicyclist says.

He jumps onto the seat and rides off. Is it really going to snow? It
’
s still not cold enough, probably; it
’
s only the sudden change in the weather that is surprising. Wallas, halfway across the bridge, passes the workman in the pea jacket who is about to reopen the barrier.

“
Back already, Monsieur?
”

“
Yes,
”
Wallas answers.
“
I had just time enough while the bridge was opening and closing. The prefecture is over there, isn
’
t it?
”

The other man turns back.
“
Time to do what?
”
he thinks. He says:

“
Yes, that
’
s right. Take the Rue de Berlin: it
’
s the shortest way.
”

“
Thank you, Monsieur.
”

“
Have a good walk, Monsieur.
”

Why isn
’
t that barrier controlled automatically, from the other end? Wallas realizes, now, that the Rue Janeck is not really straight: actually it curves south by a series of imperceptible angles. On the school sign showing two children carrying schoolbooks over their shoulders and holding hands, he can see the remains of a butterfly pasted on upside down and torn off. After the double door—Girls Boys—the courtyard wall disappears under the Indian chestnut trees, the reddish leaves and the split husks of the nuts; the little boys have carefully gathered the shiny kernels, the source of many games and much commerce. Wallas crosses to look at the names of the streets branching off to the left.