Eleven Page 2

  By now, Mr. Knoppert did not allow anyone to set foot in his study. Too many snails had the habit of crawling around on the floor, of going to sleep glued to chair bottoms, and to the backs of books on the shelves. Snails spent much of their time sleeping, especially the older snails. But there were enough less indolent snails who preferred love-making. Mr. Knoppert estimated that about a dozen pairs of snails must be kissing all the time. And certainly there was a multitude of baby and adolescent snails. They were impossible to count. But Mr. Knoppert did count the snails sleeping and creeping on the ceiling alone, and arrived at something between eleven and twelve hundred. The tanks, the bowls, the underside of his desk and the bookshelves must surely have held fifty times that number. Mr. Knoppert meant to scrape the snails off the ceiling one day soon. Some of them had been up there for weeks, and he was afraid they were not taking in enough nourishment. But of late he had been a little too busy, and too much in need of the tranquillity that he got simply from sitting in the study in his favorite chair.

  During the month of June he was so busy he often worked late into the evening at his office. Reports were piling in at the end of the fiscal year. He made calculations, spotted a half-dozen possibilities of gain, and reserved the most daring, the least obvious moves for his private operations. By this time next year, he thought, he should be three or four times as well off as now. He saw his bank account multiplying as easily and rapidly as his snails. He told his wife this, and she was overjoyed. She even forgave him the ruination of the study, and the stale, fishy smell that was spreading throughout the whole upstairs.

  “Still, I do wish you’d take a look just to see if anything’s happening, Peter,” she said to him rather anxiously one morning. “A tank might have overturned or something, and I wouldn’t want the rug to be spoilt. You haven’t been in the study for nearly a week, have you?”

  Mr. Knoppert hadn’t been in for nearly two weeks. He didn’t tell his wife that the rug was pretty much gone already. “I’ll go up tonight,” he said.

  But it was three more days before he found time. He went in one evening just before bedtime and was surprised to find the floor quite covered with snails, with three or four layers of snails. He had difficulty closing the door without mashing any. The dense clusters of snails in the corners made the room look positively round, as if he stood inside some huge, conglomerate stone. Mr. Knoppert cracked his knuckles and gazed around him in astonishment. They had not only covered every surface, but thousands of snails hung down into the room from the chandelier in a grotesque clump.

  Mr. Knoppert felt for the back of a chair to steady himself. He felt only a lot of shells under his hand. He had to smile a little: there were snails in the chair seat, piled up on one another, like a lumpy cushion. He really must do something about the ceiling, and immediately. He took an umbrella from the corner, brushed some of the snails off it, and cleared a place on his desk to stand. The umbrella point tore the wallpaper, and then the weight of the snails pulled down a long strip that hung almost to the floor. Mr. Knoppert felt suddenly frustrated and angry. The sprinklers would make them move. He pulled the lever.

  The sprinklers came on in all the tanks, and the seething activity of the entire room increased at once. Mr. Knoppert slid his feet along the floor, through tumbling snail shells that made a sound like pebbles on a beach, and directed a couple of the sprinklers at the ceiling. This was a mistake, he saw at once. The softened paper began to tear, and he dodged one slowly falling mass only to be hit by a swinging festoon of snails, really hit quite a stunning blow on the side of the head. He went down on one knee, dazed. He should open a window, he thought, the air was stifling. And there were snails crawling over his shoes and up his trouser legs. He shook his feet irritably. He was just going to the door, intending to call for one of the servants to help him, when the chandelier fell on him. Mr. Knoppert sat down heavily on the floor. He saw now that he couldn’t possibly get a window open, because the snails were fastened thick and deep over the windowsills. For a moment, he felt he couldn’t get up, felt as if he were suffocating. It was not only the musty smell of the room, but everywhere he looked long wallpaper strips covered with snails blocked his vision as if he were in a prison.

  “Edna!” he called, and was amazed at the muffled, ineffectual sound of his voice. The room might have been soundproof.

  He crawled to the door, heedless of the sea of snails he crushed under hands and knees. He could not get the door open. There were so many snails on it, crossing and recrossing the crack of the door on all four sides, they actually resisted his strength.

  “Edna!” A snail crawled into his mouth. He spat it out in disgust. Mr. Knoppert tried to brush the snails off his arms. But for every hundred he dislodged, four hundred seemed to slide upon him and fasten to him again, as if they deliberately sought him out as the only comparatively snail-free surface in the room. There were snails crawling over his eyes. Then just as he staggered to his feet, something else hit him—Mr. Knoppert couldn’t even see what. He was fainting! At any rate, he was on the floor. His arms felt like leaden weights as he tried to reach his nostrils, his eyes, to free them from the sealing, murderous snail bodies.

  “Help!” He swallowed a snail. Choking, he widened his mouth for air and felt a snail crawl over his lips on to his tongue. He was in hell! He could feel them gliding over his legs like a glutinous river, pinning his legs to the floor. “Ugh!” Mr. Knoppert’s breath came in feeble gasps. His vision grew black, a horrible, undulating black. He could not breathe at all, because he could not reach his nostrils, could not move his hands. Then through the slit of one eye, he saw directly in front of him, only inches away, what had been, he knew, the rubber plant that stood in its pot near the door. A pair of snails were quietly making love in it. And right beside them, tiny snails as pure as dewdrops were emerging from a pit like an infinite army into their widening world.

  THE BIRDS POISED TO FLY

  Every morning, Don looked into his mailbox, but there was never a letter from her.

  She hadn’t had time, he would say to himself. He went over all the things she had to do—transport her belongings from Rome to Paris, settle into an apartment which she had presumably found in Paris before she made the move, probably work a few days at her new job before she found time and inspiration to answer his letter. But finally the greatest number of days to which he could stretch all this had come and gone. And three more days had passed, and still there was no letter from her.

  “She’s waiting to make up her mind,” he told himself. “Naturally, she wants to be sure about how she feels before she puts a word down on paper.”

  He had written to Rosalind thirteen days ago that he loved her and wanted to marry her. That was perhaps a bit hasty in view of a short courtship, but Don thought he had written a good letter, not putting pressure, simply stating what he felt. After all, he had known Rosalind two years, or rather met her in New York two years ago. He had seen her again in Europe last month, and he was in love with her and wanted to marry her.

  Since his return from Europe three weeks ago, he had seen only one or two of his friends. He had quite enough to occupy himself in making plans about himself and Rosalind. Rosalind was an industrial designer, and she liked Europe. If she preferred to stay in Europe, Don could arrange to live there, too. His French was fairly good now. His company, Dirksen and Hall, consulting engineers, even had a branch in Paris. It could all be quite simple. Just a visa for him to take some things over, like books and carpets and his record player, some tools and drawing instruments, and he could make the move. Don felt that he hadn’t yet taken full stock of his happiness. Each day was like the lifting a little higher of a curtain that revealed a magnificent landscape. He wanted Rosalind to be with him when he could finally see all of it. There was really only one thing that kept him from a happy, positive rush into that landscape now: the fact that he hadn’t even a letter from her to take with him. He wrote again to Rome and put a “Please for
ward” in Italian on the envelope. She was probably in Paris by now, but she had no doubt left a forwarding address in Rome.

  Two more days passed, and still there was no letter. There was only a letter from his mother in California, an advertisement from a local liquor shop, and some kind of bulletin about a primary election. He smiled a little, snapped his mailbox to and locked it, and strode off to work. It never made him feel sad, the instant when he discovered there was no letter. It was rather a funny kind of shock, as if she had played a guileless little trick on him and was withholding her letter one more day. Then the realization of the nine hours before him, until he could come home and see if a special delivery notice had arrived, descended on him like a burden, and quite suddenly he felt tired and spiritless. Rosalind wouldn’t write him a special delivery, not after all this time. There was never anything to do but wait until the next morning.

  He saw a letter in the box the next morning. But it was an announcement of an art show. He tore it into tiny pieces and crushed them in his fist.

  In the box next to his, there were three letters. They had been there since yesterday morning, he remembered. Who was this fellow Dusenberry who didn’t bother collecting his mail?

  That morning in the office, an idea came to him that raised his spirits: her letter might have been put into the box next to his by mistake. The mailman opened all the boxes at once, in a row, and at least once Don had found a letter for someone else in his own box. He began to feel optimistic: her letter would say that she loved him, too. How could she not say it, when they had been so happy together in Juan-les-Pins? He would cable her, I love you, I love you. No, he would telephone, because her letter would have her Paris address, possibly her office address also, and he would know where to reach her.

  When he had met Rosalind two years ago in New York, they had gone out to dinner and to the theatre two or three times. Then she hadn’t accepted his next invitations, so Don had supposed there was another man in the picture whom she liked better. It hadn’t mattered very much to him at that time. But when he had met her by accident in Juan-les-Pins, things had been quite different. It had been love at second sight. The proof of it was that Rosalind had got free of three people she was with, another girl and two men, had let them go on without her to Cannes, and she had stayed with him at Juan-les-Pins. They had had a perfect five days together, and Don had said, “I love you,” and Rosalind had said it once, too. But they hadn’t made plans about the future, or even talked about when they might see each other again. How could he have been so stupid! He wished he had asked her to go to bed with him, for that matter. But on the other hand, his emotions had been so much more serious. Any two people could have an affair on a holiday. To be in love and want to marry was something else. He had assumed, from her behavior, that she felt the same way. Rosalind was cool, smiling, brunette, not tall, but she gave the impression of tallness. She was intelligent, would never do anything foolish, Don felt, never anything impulsive. Nor would he ever propose to anyone on impulse. Marriage was something one thought over for some time, weeks, months, maybe a year or so. He felt he had thought over his proposal of marriage for longer than the five days in Juan-les-Pins. He believed that Rosalind Farnes was a girl or a woman (she was twenty-six, and he twenty-nine) of substance, that her work had much in common with his, and that they had every chance of happiness.

  That evening, the three letters were still in Dusenberry’s box, and Don looked for Dusenberry’s bell in the list opposite the mailboxes, and rang it firmly. They might be in, even though they hadn’t collected their mail.

  No answer.

  Dusenberry or the Dusenberrys were away, apparently.

  Would the superintendent let him open the box? Certainly not. And the superintendent hadn’t the key or keys, anyway.

  One of the letters looked like an airmail envelope from Europe. It was maddening. Don put a finger in one of the slits in the polished metal front, and tried to pull the box open. It remained closed. He pushed his own key into the lock and tried to turn it. The lock gave a snap, and the bolt moved, opening the box half an inch. It wouldn’t open any farther. Don had his doorkeys in his hand, and he stuck one of the doorkeys between the box door and the brass frame and used it as a lever. The brass front bent enough for him to reach the letters. He took the letters and pressed the brass front as straight as he could. None of the letters was for him. He looked at them, trembling like a thief. Then he thrust one into his coat pocket, pushed the others into the bent mailbox, and entered his apartment building. The elevators were around a corner. Don found one empty and ready, and rode up to the third floor alone.

  His heart was pounding as he closed his own door. Why had he taken the one letter? He would put it back, of course. It had looked like a personal letter, but it was from America. He looked at its address in fine blue handwriting. R. L. Dusenberry, etc. And at its return address on the back of the envelope: Edith W. Whitcomb, 717 Garfield Drive, Scranton, Pa. Dusenberry’s girl friend, he thought at once. It was a fat letter in a square envelope. He ought to put it back now. And the damaged mailbox? Well, there wasn’t anything stolen from it, after all. A serious offence, to break a mailbox, but let them hammer it out. As long as nothing was stolen, was it so awful?

  Don got a suit from his closet to take to the cleaners, and picked up Dusenberry’s letter. But with the letter in his hand, he was suddenly curious to know what was in it. Before he had time to feel shame, he went to the kitchen and put on water to boil. The envelope flap curled back neatly in the steam, and Don was patient. The letter was three pages in longhand, the pages written on both sides.

  “Darling,” it began,

  I miss you so, I have to write to you. Have you really made up your mind how you feel? You said you thought it would all vanish for both of us. Do you know how I feel? The same way I did the night we stood on the bridge and watched the lights come on in Bennington . . .

  Don read it through incredulously, and with fascination. The girl was madly in love with Dusenberry. She waited only for him to answer, for merely a sign from him. She spoke of the town in Vermont where they had been, and he wondered if they had met there or gone there together? My God, he thought, if Rosalind would only write him a letter like this! In this case, apparently, Dusenberry wouldn’t write to her. From the letter, Dusenberry might not have written once since they had last seen each other. Don sealed the letter with glue, carefully, and put it into his pocket.

  The last paragraph repeated itself in his mind:

  I didn’t think I’d write to you again, but now I’ve done it. I have to be honest, because that’s the way I am.

  Don felt that was the way he was, too. The paragraph went on:

  Do you remember or have you forgotten, and do you want to see me again or don’t you? If I don’t hear from you in a few days, I’ll know.

  My love always, Edith

  He looked at the date on the stamp. The letter had been posted six days ago. He thought of the girl called Edith Whitcomb spinning and stretching out the days, trying to convince herself somehow that the delay was justified. Six days. Yet of course she still hoped. She was hoping this minute down there in Scranton, Pennsylvania. What kind of man was Dusenberry? A Casanova? A married man who wanted to drop a flirtation? Which of the six or eight men he had ever noticed in his building was Dusenberry? A couple of hatless chaps dashing out at 8:30 in the morning? A slower-moving man in a Homburg? Don never paid much attention to his neighbors.

  He held his breath, and for an instant he seemed to feel the stab of the girl’s own loneliness and imperilled hope, to feel the last desperate flutterings of hope against his own lips. With one word, he could make her so happy. Or rather, Dusenberry could.

  “Bastard,” he whispered.

  He put the suit down, went to his worktable and wrote on a scrap of paper, “Edith, I love you.” He liked seeing it written, legible. He felt it settled an important matter that had been precariously balanced before. Don crumple
d up the paper and threw it into the waste-basket.

  Then he went downstairs and forced the letter back in the box, and dropped his suit at the cleaners. He walked a long way up Second Avenue, grew tired and kept walking until he was at the edge of Harlem, and then he caught a bus downtown. He was hungry, but he couldn’t think of anything he wanted to eat. He was thinking, deliberately, of nothing. He was waiting for the night to pass and for morning to bring the next mail delivery. He was thinking, vaguely, of Rosalind. And of the girl in Scranton. A pity people had to suffer so from their emotions. Like himself. For though Rosalind had made him so happy, he couldn’t deny that these last three weeks had been a torture. Yes, my God, twenty-two days now! He felt strangely ashamed tonight of admitting it had been twenty-two days. Strangely ashamed? There was nothing strange about it, if he faced it. He felt ashamed of possibly having lost her. He should have told her very definitely in Juan-les-Pins that he not only loved her but wanted to marry her. He might have lost her now because he hadn’t.

  The thought made him get off the bus. He drove the horrible, deathly possibility out of his mind, kept it out of his mind and out of his flesh by walking.

  Suddenly, he had an inspiration. His idea didn’t go very far, it hadn’t an objective, but it was a kind of project for this evening. He began it on the way home, trying to imagine exactly what Dusenberry would write to Miss Whitcomb if he had read this last letter, and if Dusenberry would write back, not necessarily that he loved her, but that he at least cared, enough to want to see her again.