Hangsaman (29 page)

*   *   *

The cafeteria was filled with people wearing dark clothes and rubbers, moving in sad indecision before bright colorful counters of food. A man in a wet wool overcoat held a slice of cherry pie in his hand; a woman in a coat with a damp fur collar hesitated longingly over a tomato and pepper salad, and below the strawberry shortcake and the sliced ham and the corn muffins and the hot macaroni the floor was trampled and muddy, and the silver of the trays was tarnished and reflected unclearly the plates of food set upon them. Natalie chose cinnamon buns and three kinds of pie; Tony had one kind of pie and one kind of cake and a dish of ice cream and cinnamon buns. They sat down next to the wall, setting their trays squarely on the flat marble table-top, locating the salt and pepper and the mustard and the sugar bowl and the tin container of paper napkins and the used ashtray precisely between them, and their food, colorless and tasteless once it had been separated from its parent counter, awaited them dully on the plates which would be washed and used again when the pie and cake and even the cinnamon buns were consumed.

Their table was long enough to seat eight (crowded in, hot and thirsty after the chase, raising their glasses to salute the lord of the manor, shouting to be heard from below the salt), but they sat alone because they had chosen a table far back, and seemingly destined to be empty except for themselves. Tony said softly, “She
said
she'd be here at twelve sharp, and it's almost twenty after now.”

“She might have sent a message,” Natalie said. “You know how reliable she always is. Perhaps someone is looking for us with a message now. I'm sure there's a message on its way; it's not like Langdon to be late.”

“She wouldn't trust just
any
body, though,” Tony said. “Not with a message for us, not Langdon. We'll have to be ready to take the message no matter how strange it sounds. No matter what it sounds like, it will be of course a message for us.”

“Do you suppose she got the jewels?” Natalie asked. “And the papers and the guns?”

“Do you suppose that extraordinary woman on the other side is looking for us? What will the message be? ‘I have lived long enough, having seen one thing . . .'”

“I believe it's the boy in the black cap; he seems to have lost something. Or the old man there with the cheese sandwich.”

“Save those whereout she presses for dead men deadly wine,” Tony said happily. “
There's
a message to send someone.”

A tray was set down heavily on the table, next to Natalie, and she was silent, although she had started to tell Tony a line which began, “So Satan spake . . .” She looked across at Tony to see the reflection of the newcomer in Tony's eyes; Tony looked up once, briefly, and then down again, and Natalie had to look cautiously sideways, and saw only a checkered jacket and, presumably, a man under it. He was taking things slowly off his tray, putting them down on the table as though he liked food and even this food; he was eating the meat loaf, unbelievably checkered like his jacket, and string beans and mashed potatoes cupping gravy (Ace of cups? Natalie thought; No we've used that.) and vanilla ice cream and coffee; he could not have chosen a more disagreeable lunch, Natalie thought, even if he had said to himself, “Now let's see, what looks positively worst? What will I remember with least pleasure? What am I most likely to have for dinner tonight?” When he leaned over to set the tray on the floor his head touched against Natalie's shoulder and she moved back abruptly.

“Pardon,” the man said, and Natalie nodded, assuming that he noticed, and drew even farther away.

“Five of pentacles,” Tony said suddenly to Natalie, and Natalie, shocked, stared at her. “What?” Natalie said, thinking, Material trouble, no charity; reversed, earthly love. She looked at Tony and then looked down anxiously at the thick dirty hand maneuvering the coffee cup just beyond her own plates, where the cinnamon bun had suddenly turned stale and sticky.

“Mind?” the man said. Natalie saw that he was holding out a knife. “What?” she said again.

“I'll do it,” Tony said abruptly. She reached across the table and, astonishingly, took the knife from the man and pulled his plate of rolls toward her. When Tony had buttered the rolls and pushed the plate back across the table Natalie at last turned openly and stared at the man; he had only one arm.

Of course, Natalie thought, trying not to giggle, he couldn't butter his own rolls, and of course that's why he's eating meat loaf, but you would have thought he'd buy a jacket that didn't look
quite
so much . . .

“Always got to ask for help,” the man said genially. He smiled at Natalie around a mouthful of bread and butter. “Rather ask a nice young lady any time.”

“Knight of swords reversed,” Tony said, seemingly to her coffee.

Quarrel with a fool, Natalie thought. “It's getting late,” she said meaninglessly to Tony; it seemed the sort of thing to say to indicate to the man beside her that they were two busy persons, who had better things to do than buttering someone's rolls.

“Salt, please,” said the man to Natalie.

She wondered insanely if she would have to salt his meat for him, but, passing the grimy saltcellar, thought, It only takes one hand if he puts down his fork for a minute. “Surprised how obliging most people are,” the man said.

“You seem to get along so well,” Natalie said, watching Tony.

The man turned around in his chair and smiled at her, as though his armlessness gave him an automatic right to ask anyone he chose for help, and so begin informal relationships at a point usually achieved through many confidences and confessions, but as though, too, it was not often that he were congratulated upon this rare talent.

“It's been a long time,” he said. “You get used to it.”

“If it's been such a long time,” Tony said, “how come you never learned to butter your own bread?”

The man looked across at her and then back to Natalie. “You eat here often?” he asked. “Don't think I've ever seen you here before.”

“Not very often,” Natalie said nervously.

The man shoved away his plate and took a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket. He offered them to Natalie and, not knowing what else to do (it was a fresh pack and it occurred to her wildly that unless someone took out the first cigarette he would never be able to get it), she took one; when he reached into his pocket again and took out a package of matches Natalie waited politely, but he handed her the matches and said, as before, “Mind?”

“Here,” Tony said sharply from across the table. She held out a lighted match, first to Natalie and then to the man.

“Matter with your girl friend?” the man asked, leaning back to look at Tony and exhaling smoke while he talked. “She helpless?”

Natalie also looked at Tony and began immediately to gather her coat around her. The man helped her competently with his one arm and when Natalie rose he waved his hand at her and said, “Come back again sometime, when you haven't got your friend.”

“Goodbye,” Natalie said politely.

He laughed, and said, “So long, kid.”

*   *   *

When they came out of the cafeteria it was unusually dark for early afternoon. It seemed that the light had been withdrawn from the day, as though fearing to face a storm, as though sunlight and clear air, anticipating from several days ago the arrival of enemies, had taken long-planned steps to consolidate their positions elsewhere to visit, perhaps, others of their kingdoms, abandoning this one for a while to the forces of rain and now, this afternoon, to storm. People who ordinarily walked looking down at the sidewalk, perhaps in hopes of finding a penny, now walked looking up at the sky nervously, and the rain which had filled the air inconclusively for almost a week now took on a certain firmness with the knowledge of reinforcements in sight.

Tony and Natalie came out onto the sidewalk wearing their raincoats, but it was for the first time as though they were going somewhere, toward a place now, where before they had only wandered happily. Although they walked with their shoulders together going through the wide main street of the town, it was necessary for Natalie to put her hand under Tony's arm to keep up with her, and neither of them spoke. Natalie did not now know what Tony had thought of the one-armed man, nor did she know why Tony had spoken to him as she did; she did not know, even, where Tony was going. It was, at any rate, away from the cafeteria.

“Well?” said Tony, as they reached the first corner.

Natalie could not decide what to say. There were a number of statements which should be able to bring back their former peaceful state, but saying them consciously and with deliberation was somehow not the same, and then too said consciously and with intention they might not at all bring back the former peaceful state, but introduce rather a new state which would begin by being false. Something new, then? Previously unsaid? Previously unthought? I'm tired, Natalie told herself sadly, and was quiet.

“The question is,” Tony said slowly as they stood on the corner, “whether we can still escape, or whether they will have us after all.”

“I should think,” Natalie said tentatively, “that if we hurried . . .”

Tony laughed. “Don't you see,” she said, “if
we're
running and
they
're running, then we're not hurrying at all?”

“No, I don't see.”

“Better go slowly, anyway,” Tony said. “Not back to the college.”

“No, not back to the college.”

Tony hesitated. “Are you sure you're not tired?”

“No.”

“Will you come somewhere with me? It's a long way.”

“Yes,” said Natalie.

“You don't even know where it is.”

“All right.”

“You see,” said Tony, her voice still soft so as not to be overheard, but somehow fierce and angry, “it
frightens
me when people try to grab at us like that. I can't sit still and just let people watch me and talk to me and ask me questions. You see,” she said again, as though trying to moderate her words and explain, “they want to pull us back, and start us all over again just like them and doing the things they want to do and acting the way they want to act and saying and thinking and wanting all the things they live with every day. And,” she added her voice dropping still lower, “I know a place where we can go and no one can trouble us.”

“I want to go there, then.”

“You won't be afraid?”

“No.”

Tony stood on the street corner and looked around, looking even at Natalie. Ahead of them, there was the intersection, with its stores and streets and the natives hurrying about their concerns, gathering their wares together to be finished before sundown, or before the storm came upon them. Behind Natalie and Tony the main street ended abruptly, about two blocks down, in a sudden, insistent stopping of stores, and a beginning of railroads and country lots beyond. To their right was the Hotel Washington, with its murals in the lobby of Washington writing the Declaration of Independence, Washington making peace with the Indians, Washington—a local god—founding the city's first bank. To their left was the far-off tower of the electric company, and the beacon of the radio station. Tony saw all these things, which she had seen before, and looked again at Natalie.

“You ready?”

“Yes.”

“Come on, then.”

They crossed the main street to the spot where buses drew in and waited asthmatically for passengers. They did not usually ride on things, Tony and Natalie, and it was odd to both of them to push into the crowd of people waiting, to climb up the narrow steps and push farther into the bus even as it moved swiftly, leaving behind it still-hurrying figures on the street, raising imperative gloved hands, brandishing coins, still hurrying.

Natalie, pushing with the rest down the aisle of the bus, fell rather than sat voluntarily; there was an empty seat next to the aisle and before she could catch Tony the crowd of people had pressed her into it and Tony was gone.

For a minute she only sat, trying to draw herself in and avoid the pressures of people on all sides of her. She felt as though she could not breathe, with someone in the seat next to her, someone on the aisle beside her, someone in front of her and someone in back of her and Tony out of sight. The man on the seat next to her was large and seemed to overflow onto Natalie and she could see that he was pressed against the window as well. She thought that she might be less crushed when the bus swung into the middle of the street and the people inside settled into place, but instead they swayed against her from one side or the other. The thought of escaping from the bus came to her, and she wanted to fight and claw and scream when she realized that she could not even stand up, much less wriggle through the people to get to either door. They were holding her by sheer weight, leaning all together around her so that she might move her hands, if she liked, or turn her head, but could only tantalize herself so because beyond that she was paralyzed. She found herself hardly able to breathe and for a minute thought wildly of pushing against the man next to her until his weight broke the window.

It then became perfectly clear to her that this was the reasonable consequence of all her life, from the beginning until now. She had done so much to preserve herself from this kind of captivity and had taken inevitably one of the many roads which would lead her to the same torment; she was helpless among people who hated her and showed it by holding her motionless until they should choose to release her. All her efforts to become separate, all Tony's efforts, had brought Natalie to this bus.

*   *   *

Now, she thought, I must find Tony and get out of here. The thought of escape made her think of prisoners in fortresses, and the long years of small effort required to achieve the last simplicity of release; I could dig out through the floor of the bus, she thought, and would have smiled to herself except that she was certain the man next to her was watching her. She could not see the driver of the bus, nor the way the bus was going, but even though the bus stopped occasionally it did not seem that the pressure around her lessened. She could hear, when the bus stopped, that more people were crowding and pushing in, with ill humor and complaint. Poor things, she thought—do they have to spend all this energy just to surround me? It seemed pitiful that these automatons should be created and wasted, never knowing more than a minor fragment of the pattern in which they were involved, to learn and follow through insensitively a tiny step in the great dance which was seen close up as the destruction of Natalie, and, far off, as the end of the world. They had all earned their deaths, Natalie thought, by a job well done—the woman in the seat ahead who had never needed a face, had perhaps been given for her part only the back of a head and a dark cloth coat collar, the man in the seat next to Natalie, a full-dress part, even the watchchain and the grimy shirt collar—had not this same man, as a matter of fact, been close to Natalie in the station, memorizing her face so that although when next they met she would not know him, he would be able to identify her, winking and gesturing with his head to the others, murmuring perhaps to the bus driver, “
That
one,
there
.” The woman in the aisle, whose coat brushed maddeningly against Natalie's face—was she not the one who had held the tomato salad in the cafeteria, watching below her hat brim for Tony and Natalie to come, had she not passed them quickly on the street, glancing with a swift look to make sure of them, had she not stood, ticket in hand, before the train gate, apparently watching the clock? Perhaps, too, it had been this woman peering watchfully out through the eyes of the heroine in the movie poster, whispering, passing on the word: “There they go,
that
way—let
them
know, ahead.” And the bus driver must have slipped quickly out of the dress of the train conductor, into the white apron of a cafeteria cook, then into the uniform he wore now, timing himself to the second in order to pull up just in time as Tony and Natalie approached the bus stop. Was the boy in the black cap here on the bus? Perhaps he sat in back of Natalie and it was his breath she could hear, his knees pressing into the back of the seat. And the one-armed man, then, had been sent to spring the trap as the circle grew closer and closer; the one-armed man had been sent with the message; his speaking to them had identified them finally and been the signal for the circle to close in.