HE

Just then a chilly rain sprinkled from the sky as low-hanging clouds gathered again, and it occurred to him, leaving behind the last houses in the upper part of town and already catching sight of his goal, the nearby village in the broad valley below, that it looked like stormy weather, and it would be wiser to postpone his visit to the village until some other day. At that very moment, as he was about to slow his steps, a woman’s voice called from a house off behind him, blurting out the words in rapid succession: Don’t take this road any farther, my good man, go back, you’ll be doing yourself and all of us a favor. — That’s just what I was about to do, he replied with a smile, the way one parries a rather disarming joke. But as he turned, heading back toward town, he saw that all the houses’ windows and doors were closed, except for one dim vestibule whose door stood ajar, but there, too, not a soul was to be seen. Perhaps the woman’s voice had been a mere trick of the senses; then it was embarrassing that he’d replied out loud. But no one seems to have heard me, he told himself, and groping for the vest pocket of his coat he thought, what a good thing that I put my papers in my pocket when I left the house, the woman’s words were so sharp and arbitrary, she might just as well have ordered me to identify myself. When he looked up at the clouds, they were drifting low and dark along the downward-sloping road, over the lower part of town; several birds flying that way scudded along so arrow-swift that it looked like black wires stretched through the air beneath the sky. Though he felt he should quicken his pace, he took the time to glance over the front hedges at the exhausted stems of already-unpetalled tulips and dense lilac bushes whose purple blossoms were turning brown; in the window of one of those mansion-like houses from the time before the war, a curtain seemed to move, and he walked on, not wanting to disconcert the inhabitants by peering into their gardens. Encountering a gaggle of children at play who’d chalked large squares onto the sidewalk, he moved toward the curb so as not to step on the squares, but the children stepped in front of him. Pausing in their game, they watched him in silence, with what struck him as astonishment, and the oldest, best-dressed boy said with an utterly unchildlike severity: You’ll have to use the left side of the road, sir, you’re prohibited from walking here. — Nonplussed, though more by his hand’s involuntary fumble for his papers than by the child’s open insolence, he swallowed the retort on the tip of his tongue, noticing a barely perceptible movement in the curtain behind one of the windows; no doubt the boy reckoned on solid support from the houses’ adult inhabitants; there was nothing childish in his even, unfaltering gaze, but rather total faith in his right to make that monstrous demand. Now that the first raindrops could be felt, it was better not to linger unnecessarily, and with a rather awkward smile he headed for the left side of the road, but there the sidewalk ran atop a high embankment, climbable only by stairs a long way apart, so that he had to walk a good hundred yards in the gutter of the muddy road, and when he looked up at the houses on that side, he seemed to sense laughing faces behind the curtains. To make matters worse, an automobile came racing up the road so recklessly that his trousers and shoes were instantly spattered all over with mud. At the top of the hill the car turned sharply and returned at an even faster clip, this time in the wrong lane, spattering him to the hips again, passing so close that the wind made him stumble and catch himself in the embankment’s muddy grass to keep from falling down. And so an old fool nearly meets his death on an innocent walk, just because he stupidly used the filthy road instead of the clean sidewalk, he thought in a fury, and quickened his pace at last, driven onward by the wretched sight of his spoiled clothes, by the intensifying rain, by the people’s mocking laughter that he fancied he heard, and by a soft singing that buzzed in his ears, the hum of fine imaginary wires in the air, touched off by wind and rain, spreading the news of his plight across town. Promptly, and with still swifter strides, he turned onto the next side road, more a broad sandy path, though it would take him still farther from his home, which he meant to reach the long way around just to avoid that ill-fated road. But on the side road stood the car that had just barreled past, a broad-beamed black sedan; a door opened and a tall, youngish man hurried out; coatless, wearing a pale gray suit of a delicately shimmering plaid over a pale pink shirt, adorned with a dark red, fluttering tie, he seemed clothed with a deliberate understatement that underscored his urgent haste; but then again with an overcalculated effect as, leaving the door open, shouting inaudible instructions back at the chauffeur, he approached and, barely checking his stride and immediately heading back again, neither heeding the other man’s confusion nor seeming to expect a reply, called: You’ll have to turn back, young man, as fast as you can, you must have seen that this road is going to be blocked. — On this road there was no sign of a roadblock. Besides, young man was inappropriate; the pale gray gentleman was obviously much younger than him. — Well, get on with it, turn back, the younger man repeated, this time in a sharp, menacing tone, while yet another, older-seeming gentleman got out of the car and strode forward just as resolutely, only to stop again and wait for the first man, whereupon the two of them, glancing at each other and then shaking their heads as though at some signal, got back into the car, which drove away at once. — Now it’s too late, he thought, stopping indignantly; I really am what everyone here takes me for, a fool that any child can blindside. Why didn’t I demand an explanation. I could have demanded an apology, yes, I could even have lodged a complaint somewhere else—but apparently it’s already too late to think of that—no, I could have demanded that they show me their IDs. — But he had no idea where that somewhere else might be, the place to lodge his complaint, he sensed that the same people who’d blindsided him would be waiting for him there. — He felt he’d been standing here for longer than he could think, suddenly he found it revolting to make someone show their ID, what a revolting invasion, he thought, isn’t it bad enough to have to carry those brutal documents around with you. — These are thoughts like the movements of marionettes, he mused, and it’s scandalous, really, that we’ve come to resort, at the least provocation, to this system of revolting methods. — He was back on the road he’d just left, and after just a few steps back the way he’d come, he found himself faced with an actual roadblock. A ditch had been dug across the entire road, with several men at work in rubber raincoats, a ditch so deep that only their heads showed, and they seemed too busy to notice him. Later he couldn’t remember if he’d spoken to the workers, maybe asked them to lay a plank over the ditch to let him continue on his way, or whether his voice had caught in his throat. At any rate, the workers didn’t even seem to see him, and already it was too late. With screeching brakes the black sedan stopped behind him, and the young man in pale gray jumped out. — That’s enough now, he heard the stern voice, get in the car. — At once he saw that resistance was pointless and, trembling, awkwardly hampered by his coat, he took a seat in the back, unable to ignore the young man’s disapproving look at the dirt that his shoes left on the car’s floor mat. In the back seat he had to squeeze between the two men’s bodies, and the car leaped forward even before the door closed, hurling him against the seat back, where he felt two shoulders pinning him. Where are you taking me, he finally ventured to ask, but received no reply. Instead, the young man in pale gray leaned over him, shimmering soft jacket pressing against the dark of his coat; as that face suddenly loomed close he felt its gaze meet his, but the eyes were quickly averted when he searched them for an answer, or merely mercy, in front of his face the gray man’s slender hand executed a vague, apologetic wave before slipping lightning-quick under his lapel; in alarm he sensed the warm deft hand, felt it unerringly seize and pull out his identity papers. Without a look inside, the gray-plaid man hid them in his jacket and, leaning back in his seat, lit a long, obviously expensive cigar, sighing in relief as though an unpleasant duty had been dispatched. — Where we’re taking you, the reply came at last, when his question already seemed nearly forgotten, and the one deigning to respond was the older of the two men, whose job it must have been to do the talking now, is where the right path is, we’ll show you soon enough. — The marked irony, the bad grammar, the rude tyrannical words, all of it made him shudder; now, he realized, every protest, indeed every question would be used against him. Meanwhile, the car raced along at a furious pace, the rain came down so hard that nothing could be seen left or right beyond the streaming panes; next to the driver’s head, through the arc cleared by the windshield wipers, he saw the dark leaves of trees or bushes shoot past, now and then a house; this went on for a long while, the car’s tires singing on the asphalt like wires. Once, when the car stopped, motor running as though about to leap forward, there was a din as of great iron gates opening, and then the journey went on, helplessly, swiftly, and maybe for a long, long time.