BEFORE the telephone rang, Sam had been dreaming. He recognized himself in the dream. He was barefooted and he was wearing his policeman’s trousers. His chest was naked except for the police badge that was somehow glued to his left nipple. In each hand he was holding two or three batons. From his belt, the butts of four or five .38’s stuck out. He was parading up and down One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Street; the buildings were piles of rubble as if they had been bombed. There wasn’t a person on the street. A shining stone in the sky dazzled his eyes. He paraded up and down, searching for Marian Burrow. If only he wasn’t alone, if only he could remember. The telephone jangled and in his dream, the shining stone broke into sprays of light, and all the batons and .38’s began to shoot.
He woke up, listened to the ringing out in the foyer. On the dresser, the radio hands of his alarm clock glowed: 3.47. Who could be calling now? He knew his father and mother would never get out of bed to answer; they held the notion that no decent person called after midnight and if it wasn’t a decent person, why should anybody answer. Sam yawned and groped for his slippers. He couldn’t find them. He put on the reading lamp at the side of his bed. Already, the dream was unravelling. Who could be calling? They.
He hurried out into the foyer, to the telephone table. His mouth was clenched so tight that livid streaks, white as burn scars, zigzagged out of his lips. He picked up the receiver and a voice said, “Hello.” His lips sagged wide apart. The voice said, “Sam?”
A shocking joy roared out of the wire. He felt electrocuted by emotions that deafened and blinded and staggered. And then just as furiously, he thought: It’s a fake, it isn’t her.
“Sam, I’m on the corner of Fifty-Ninth Street — Madison Avenue — Sam — Please, darling — Sam, come — ”
“It’s you,” he babbled. “How did — When — I’ll be right over.” He ran back to his bedroom, tugged off his pyjamas. Shorts. Socks. Trousers. Shoes. He snatched his clothes, put them on, rushed down the corridor. Behind him his wakeful mother’s voice sounded; it was like an admonishing finger.
“Is that you, Sammy?”
He shut the door of the apartment, hurrying towards the elevator, and immediately as if he had been thinking about the elevator in secret, his eyes slid to the door. He shuddered. The elevator … He retreated a step and then clattered down the flights of tiled stairs to the lobby.
The street was as deserted as the street he had seen in his dream. The mighty presses of his emotions lifted up and he remembered the dream. In this black street, the windows all black, the pavements empty, he swelled with a fearful thought: Suppose they had made Suzy call him. For it was Suzy but they’d kidnapped her to get at him; they wanted him; hadn’t they threatened his life over the phone; Suzy was a come-on. “What am I thinking?” he cried aloud. He had reached Broadway and he was looking, the Sam that encased all the inner torments, was looking for a cab and there was no cab. Late stragglers drooped home shoulders bowed, the Sunday papers under their arms. Sam walked to the subway corner. Inside his head, behind the eyes searching for a cab and focusing on a cab on the corner near the news-stand, there were dozens of pairs of eyes and all the eyes were staring down their own lines of vision into: The basement. The living room with Mrs. Buckles bringing him tea. His own room with Detective Maddigan on the bed. The marihuana room.
Clair’s office. He got into the cab. “Fifty-Ninth Street and Madison. Step on it.” He hauled out his wallet, gave a dollar to the driver. “Step on it.”
“Thanks,” the driver said in an awed voice, looking from the dollar into Sam’s face. “The war must be treating you okay, mister. Thanks.”
The cab sped from the corner as if springing off a board into the avenue. Sam sat on the edge of the seat. “Faster!” he said.
“Doing forty, mister,” the driver answered as the cab went through a red traffic light between garages and automobile showrooms, down to the bottom of the hill and up again as if on a roller-coaster to the buildings of Columbia University.
“Faster!” Sam said. The apartment houses below Columbia lumped up before him like mountains; the lonely lights of all-night cafeterias and bars spotting their bases. “Cop’re all asleep.”
“Don’t gimme that,” the driver disagreed almost plaintively as if saying: I know you give a buck but don’t take advantage. “Cops got three shifts, mister, and that last night owl shift’s the meanest.”
Suzy walked to him on the corner of Fifty-Ninth Street and Madison. He wanted to say something. He couldn’t. His knees felt as if they would break under him. He rushed to her, squeezed her close. There were tears in his eyes. He held her tight and choked out, “Suzy, Suzy, baby.” Only now did time arrange itself, neat and orderly, in his consciousness; Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday; he couldn’t believe she had been gone so many days and that he had managed to exist without her, had eaten, slept, worked without her. His fingers tightened on her body.
A passer-by laughed. “What the hell’s going on in this town.”
A second passer-by remarked. “It’s anything goes these days.”
Sam looked over Suzy’s shoulders at two men on the sidewalk. Their harsh voices were the voice of the Saturday night city. He patted Suzy’s hair. She wasn’t wearing a hat and he wondered what had happened to her hat. He felt her body close to his own, he heard her sobbing and he wondered where her hat was. He touched her ear. He touched the skin of her neck. His finger tips felt cold metal and he traced the shapes of safety pins. Slowly, he realized her dress had been torn and that she had used the safety pins to keep her dress together. “Baby, baby,” he said, stricken. The pins seemed to open up, to needle into his heart. The pins were all the days she had been missing.
“Sam,” she cried.
He circled his arm around her waist. His face whitened at the joy of being with her, of hearing her voice. His feet seemed to lift off the sidewalks and he was mounting out of the days without her, up up up up into the joy of having her back again. He wanted to cry, to laugh, to shout. He was gasping as if he had really flown up from the streets of the city, up out of the basements into a clear pure innocent sky. He felt winged, on a thunderbolt, a comet, a plane. Below, below, seen and not seen was the city below, the night-birds and newspaper peddlers on the streets, the cabs circling around in the gutter, their headlights peering momentarily into the sleeping plate glass windows. She, too, was unseen by him in the sense of objective seeing. Was she tall or short? Slim or plump? Pretty or not pretty? Red of hair or black of hair? He knew her again as the shape of all his love, his girl. And he saw her, clear and pure and innocent as the emotions agitating him.
They walked by the row of hansoms, horses, coachmen at Fifty-Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue. They looked like any other pair of late-hour lovers. They sat down on a bench in front of a low stone wall; behind the wall Central Park was a blackness of tree and shrub. He folded both his arms around her. “I’ll never let you go,” he whispered. They sat that way a long time. At first, she hardly moved, her face buried in his chest. She was like a frightened child fled into the body of its mother, into the cave of mother. Then, he felt her hands stroke his cheeks. He felt her hands in his hair. He heard her short rapid breathing deepen into waves of air. “Suzy,” he said to her, “Baby, Suzy, darling.”
“Sam — ” Her voice broke.
“Don’t tell me now, honey, if — ”
“So glad, Sam — ”
He thought of the pins and bit on his lips. He kissed her as gently as he had spoken and peered through the shadow into her face, into the wide cheekboned face and he was overwhelmed by a hundred thoughts of her. She was with him on the bench. She was with him. It was real. She was with him. The way she walked, the way she laughed, the way she joked — she was with him.
“Sam — ”
“Yes?”
“Talk — to me — ”
“Hello,” he said numbly. He thought: She’s here with me; she’s alive; if she’d been killed … He lifted her fingers to his lips. He kissed her fingers in turn. He kissed her thumb, her forefinger, her middle finger, her ring finger. He kissed her end finger twice as if he needed the reality of arithmetic, the one, two, three, four, five of the count to convince himself that she was here with him on this bench. He was blinking incessantly and the dark even line of Fifth Avenue swayed in front of him. His hand glided to her shoulder, to the pins. He sank his face into the curve of her neck and shoulder. “How do you feel, Suzy?” He felt her tremble at his question. “I’m a damn fool. Don’t you worry, Suzy. You’re back. That’s the main thing! You’re back. I love you. Always. Don’t worry, Suzy, you hear?”
“I hear,” she said dutifully like a little child.
“That’s fine. Fine.” The tone of her voice frightened him. This wasn’t his Suzy. This was another Suzy, the Suzy of the pins. He looked at her. Yes, she had come back to him but it was as if he were seeing her with hair turned white.
“Sam.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Sam, it — ”
“Don’t talk if — ”
“How’s ma?”
“Fine. She was swell. I saw her — ”
“Did you?”
“The same night. I slept over. I didn’t want to leave her alone — ”
She sobbed.
“Suzy, your mother was fine. Next day I drove her out to Queens, to your cousin.” As he spoke, the thread of time was already stitching him back into what had happened and his voice steadied and he became surer of himself; time hadn’t cut her loose from him and from what they had known and felt together; they were together, this minute.
“Sam — ”
“Don’t tell me now. I’ve got you back. That’s all that counts.” He kissed her passionately and then shocked as if afraid his embrace had broken her in two, he unlocked his arms.
“I was in a bag all the way in!”
“A bag? Not now — ”
“It was so dark, Sam.” She was shaking in his arms as if she had the chills. He thought: God, what can I say.
He said, “It’ll upset you too much. Wait until you’re stronger.”
“Have you been all right?”
“Forget about me.”
“Poor Sam, you must’ve gone crazy. And ma — ”
“No!” he said and his lips were hard. “I hated them too much to go crazy.”
“Poor Sam.”
“Poor nothing. Oh, Suzy, I was broken up. I didn’t even want to see your mother. I couldn’t bear the idea. My nerves were all gone, I guess. Johnny made me.”
“How’s Johnny?”
He laughed a tearing laugh. “Wajek.”
“What did you say?”
“Wajek. He wanted your description. I gave it to him. You’re beautiful. Beautiful! I’ll phone him. Wajek, she’s beautiful.”
“They just drove me in, Sam.”
“Who did?”
“I was in that bag all the way. On the floor.”
“Where’d they drive you from?”
“I don’t know?”
“Did you call the police?”
“No. Only you. I wanted to take a cab but I was afraid.”
“Suzy, this is enough. No more.”
“I’m afraid of cars. Isn’t that silly, Sam?”
“We better let the police know.”
“Not yet. I just want to stay here.”
“I’ll take you out to your mother.”
“All right. Sam — ”
“Yes, darling.”
“We’ll have to think it out.”
“That can wait.”
“No, no. Sam, I didn’t have a nickel. Your ring’s worth a dime.”
“Go slow, I’m dumb tonight.”
“Your ring — ”
“What about my ring?”
She held up her hand. “See? It’s gone. Ten cents. I needed a nickel to phone you. I bought the pins with the other nickel.”
“From who?”
“The cashier in the cafeteria. He’s got your ring.”
“You mean you hocked it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a corker. A cop would’ve helped you out.”
“Only cop I want’s — ” And she laughed faintly.
“Sleep. You need sleep.”
“Not yet.”
“We can’t stay here all night.”
“I must tell you, Sam. When they took me out of the bag all I was thinking of was my dress was above my knees. I was so scared I jumped to my feet right away — ”
“When was this?”
“When they drove me out there.”
“There?”
“Where I was until tonight. They carried me up a flight of stairs into a room. They took the blindfold from my eyes and I almost went crazy — ”
“How about some coffee?”
“I thought I was blind. I began to cry: ‘I can’t see. What’ve you done to me.’ I thought they’d blinded me. It was stupid, wasn’t it? Then the Negro said: ‘You’re in a dark room.’ He said to behave myself and he’d bring me some food. I tried to run away. I couldn’t see where I was but neither could he. He was shouting I was trying to run out. I groped along the wall and he caught me and pushed me back into the room. He locked the door. Tonight, tonight — Sam, it was worse tonight!” She gasped. “But I must — ”
“You don’t. You don’t.”
“I didn’t sleep that first night.”
“Did you eat?”
“They brought me stuff to eat. I sat on the floor — ”
“I know,” he said. He was thinking that she better get it out of her system.
“Morning always came. I could tell. Lines of light’d show in two places in the wall. They were the windows. The lines of light were the windows.”
“Boarded up?”
“The light came through the boards. I took the food to the windows. They must have driven me over Queensboro Bridge.”
“Why do you say that?”
“In that house, I could smell the sea. I’d think of the sea and the summers my folks went out to the sea on Long Island. Dad was still alive. We went three or four summers.”
His arm was around her shoulders. His jaws were joined together like two pieces of metal. “You could’ve been near the sea somewhere else — ”
“It was Long Island.”
“How can you be sure? Because we’re near the Bridge?”
“The milk containers.”
“What about them?”
“They brought me milk in containers. Time was so long, Sam. I’d read the print over and over.”
“On the containers?”
“Yes. They came from Amityville. Poor Sam — ”
“Poor Sam nothing.”
“Wasn’t I stupid going off with that man?”
“No.”
“He came and I went. Like a movie — ”
“You’re back — ”
“I didn’t know what I was up against, Sam. The bag was awful. It was like going into a coffin and knowing you’d never come out of it. Like being buried alive.” Her hands clutched at his coat lapels. “Don’t leave me, Sam.”
“I won’t leave you.”
“The blindfold made it worse. I kept thinking that even if I freed my hands and pulled the things off my eyes it’d still be black. I still wouldn’t be able to see. It was like a double blackness.”
“They tied your hands?”
She began to cry. He patted her shoulders, glad she was crying. A drunken couple passed by, a young girl in a fluffy dress, and a soldier. The girl giggled at the soldier. “Ain’t love grand? You gonna make me weep some day, you jerk?” At last Suzy stopped crying. In a small voice she asked him for a handkerchief. He wiped her eyes and remembered the night with Johnny after he had gone to the Harlem Y.M.C.A., remembered Johnny’s handkerchief in the Harlem drugstore. “What’s been happening?” she asked.
“Let’s beat it.”
“Sam, will you stop treating me like an invalid, you lug.”
“Damn you!” he shouted happily. “I love you. Call me lug again. Call me lug all your life.” And he watched her smile and he kissed the smile from off her lips.
“Sam, we have to put on our thinking caps as my ma would say.”
“Tomorrow, Suzy. It’s tomorrow now. Please, get some sleep.”
“Sam, if I heard that man now I’d know his voice.” She stroked his hand. “I’ll never forget his voice. They chloroformed me, Sam. The man said Johnny was at his home so we went up to some apartment. I went through the door and somebody jumped on me. I came to and I thought I was dead or dreaming. You see, I was in the bag. I heard a motor so I knew I wasn’t dead. I wanted to call for help. But the gag was in my mouth — ”
“Suzy,” he cried. “You poor kid. Maybe I ought to hear it all? The papers have been full of your — The tension’s worse than when I shot Randolph. Worse. I’m going to ask you questions. I have to.” And the girl in his arms changed into another witness to be interrogated; she had taken her place after Marian Burrow, after the detectives on some witness stand. “You said you wouldn’t forget the Negro’s voice who came to Clair’s. Why?”
“He was in the car.”
“Going out to Long Island?”
“Yes. He was sitting near me.”
“Did you drive for long?”
“I don’t know. We were riding and riding and then the car stopped and I felt them carry me out of the car into some place. The light was dim in those cracks, Sam. The light only got through at certain times. I couldn’t see to read the milk containers at first. But trying to read, gave me something to do.”
He stroked the hollows under her eyes. “Amityville milk,” he said. “It’s probably distributed for miles around. But it’s something to go on. Suzy, were they all Negroes?”
“I only heard the one, Sam.”
“The Negro who came to Clair’s office?”
“Yes. He always seemed to be outside my door.”
“Did you hear or see anyone else?”
“Nobody until tonight. Tonight — They tried to — ”
“Let’s go back to that first guy. Outside your door?”
“He sat there on a chair. I could hear his chair scrape. My eyes, my ears — ” She laughed hysterically. “Talk of mice.”
“Did you talk with him?”
“Sometimes.”
“About what?”
“I’d always ask why they’d kidnapped me? But he wouldn’t answer. Except to say, shut up. But towards the fourth or fifth day — What’s today, Sam?”
“Saturday night. Sunday morning rather.”
“Anyway, later on I must have gotten under his skin for he got mad. He said I was a white, a spy, a police spy and that I’d get my medicine. I said I wasn’t a spy and that I believed in the Negro people. He only laughed.”
“And that’s the only voice you heard?”
“Until tonight.”
He held her close to him. “Let’s get out of here.” He felt her stiffening in his arms and then she seemed to be softening all over.
“They tried to — They wanted to attack me tonight — ”
He ground his teeth together.
“Sam, this is — This is what happened — A car came. A new car. It didn’t sound like the car there. That night he didn’t bring me supper — ”
“Who? That Negro?”
“Yes. Then they were coming up the stairs and somebody was yelling to me — Something about coming here, about me coming here. He said — He said, ‘White girl’ to me. It was so dark I couldn’t see — ”
“No light,” he mumbled, speaking only to delay what she was saying to him.
“No light, Sam. I couldn’t stand it. I knew they were going to attack me. I just knew it. I hollered for him to get out. I lost my nerve, Sam. I lost my nerve. I was afraid they’d attack me and put me in the bag. In the bag. I ran towards the door. Sam, I used to dream sometimes that some day the door’d be open and I’d sneak out and they’d be sleeping and I’d escape —
It’s over, now, Sam, isn’t it?”
“Over,” he said.
“I ran into another Negro in the door, Sam. I was crazy, Sam. The Negro in the room dragged me back again and I was crazy. I bit him. I wanted to kill him. He hit me. He kept on hitting me in the stomach. I was crazy, Sam.”
He groaned, unable to restrain himself.
“He hurt me, Sam, but I was so crazy he couldn’t hurt me. It was like being in the bag again. That’s how the craziness was. In a great big bag and I was in the bag with something dirty. Sam, Sam, did you ever want to kill yourself?” She pressed closer to him. “I wasn’t so afraid suddenly, Sam. I knew I could do something. Kill myself — And I began to holler I’d kill myself. To want to kill yourself … Never to see you or ma — ”
“I’d like to kill somebody.”
“But it was true, Sam?”
“It was true.”
“I don’t understand what happened now, Sam. I was too wild, I guess. But I heard the Negro in the door shouting and then I was alone. I was alone and I was awful tired. I couldn’t stand on my feet. I sat down on the floor. Then I heard them coming back. I didn’t even try to get up but when they came for me I fought them again. They tied me up, they gagged me. They put me into the bag. That’s all, Sam. I didn’t care any more if I died. I wanted to die. And the car drove and drove and I wanted to die. Then, the car stopped and they pushed me out into a street. They untied my hands and took the gag out. And they were gone. It wasn’t real, was it? No, they’re not real,” she said, her voice stronger. “They’re nightmares. They’ll go, Sam. They’ll go.”
He fingered the safety pins. “They’re real enough.”
“Did I run! I was afraid they’d come after me. I went into the cafeteria and asked him for some pins. He looked at me. You should’ve seen that look. I must have seemed like a tramp, I guess. Dress torn, everything. He said they didn’t sell pins in a cafeteria. I didn’t have a single penny. I took your ring off and said I needed a few nickels to call you up. Would he hold the ring as security.” She laughed. “So he found pins and charged me five cents and he gave me one more nickel. Oh, Sam, ten cents for your nice ring.”
“I’m taking you some place to eat,” he said.
“I’m so tired. I want to sleep. If I sleep a little, I’ll be able to think.”
“We could go to your house.”
“All right.”
“But your mother’s not there. I’ve got the keys though, but you won’t see your mother then.”
“I’m thirsty, Sam.”
They stood up and he slid his arm around her waist.
“Sam,” she whispered.
“Yes?”
“Know where I’d like to go?”
“Where?”
“To the brightest place. The place with the most lights. Bright — ”
“Grant’s Bar on Times Square,” he smiled.
“Oh, bright, Sam. Bright. The Automat.”
The great white tiled Automat on Broadway was like a vast empty aquarium when they got there; the hour was very late and there were only a few people scattered about like the last fish of the night. Sam handed a bill to the nickel changer and picked up the piles of nickels tossed into the marble grooves. He smiled at Suzy in the electric light. The safety pins held up her torn dress at both shoulders. Her face was thinner than he had ever seen it, her cheekbones bonier, her cheeks sunken. Her neck was girlishly thin and he thought that her hands had shrunken and become smaller. Abruptly, he turned away from her. “Sit down,” he said. “I’ll bring you some milk.” He marched to the lettered mottoes: COFFEE • MILK • TEA. He fetched a glass, put it under the milk spigot, dropped in a nickel. He felt a poke in the small of his back, twisted around.
“Lug,” she scolded. She looked like a wild kid who had stayed up all night except for her eyes. Her eyes weren’t wild stay-up eyes. They were shining at him; they held love for him.
“Baby.” His voice was shaky. “Here’s your milk.”
“Lug, lug.”
The glass of milk in one hand, he hugged her to him, kissed her on the cheek. She cried out. “Don’t spill the milk.”
The manager hurried over to them. “Break it up.”
“Yes, sir,” Sam said. They sat down at a table and she sipped at the milk.
“You’re tough,” he said.
“Give me your hand.”
“What about Mr. Automat?” He reached out his hand on the table and her fingers curled into his.
“That’s better,” she said. “How do I look, messy?”
“Beautiful but skinny. On the skinny side. How about some food?”
“No.”
“Yes.”
She frowned thoughtfully. “I can eat some baked beans.”
“Hell, that ain’t food.”
“Baked beans I said.”
“All right.” He brought back two brown dishes of baked beans on a tray, two plates of rolls and butter, another glass of milk. He set the tray down and she sniffed at the beans.
“Don’t they smell elegant, Sam?”
“You bet.”
Her grey eyes flashed up at him. “Did you miss me?”
“No.”
“Who’s the milk for?”
“You.”
“I don’t want it.”
“You drink it or I’ll pour it down your throat.”
“How do I look? People keep staring at me.”
“Beautiful. Drink that milk.”
She dug her fork into the dark brown savory beans. He gazed at her. It didn’t seem true to him that she had been kept in a black room like a dog punished by a mean owner. Everything she had told him seemed like the grotesque details of a nightmare: The bag. The Negroes. The ride into the city. The safety pins. He looked at her ring hand. The ring he had given her was gone. So it was true. “Here we are eating beans.”
“They’re good,” she said. “I’ll eat yours, too, if you don’t.”
He thought of Matty Rosenberg eating his food at La Palina’s. He passed her his dab of butter. “Suzy, I know a fine Italian place. We’ll go out there for dinner one of these nights.” He sighed. “I’ve got a woman on my hands, God bless her.”
She began to sniffle as soon as he unlocked the door of her apartment. He took her into his arms. He could feel her fingers pressing into his back. “It’s over,” he said. “No fooling.”
“I know but — ”
“It’s the coming home again.” They went inside into the living room. She switched on the light and sat down on the studio bed.
“I have to phone ma, Sam.”
“Sure.”
“It feels so good. Come here.”
He sat down next to her and she kissed him.
“Sam,” she whispered. “What are you scowling for?”
“The police. They’ll want to know when you got away and where you spent the night. Don’t you see?”
“I see.”
“Well?”
“Well.”
“I’m not kidding,” he smiled.
“We were going to come here and break the news to ma. Remember?”
“I told her. We love each other, I said. We had tea.”
“I hate tea.”
“That’s what we had.” He kissed her cheeks, her eyes, her lips.
She pushed him away. “Sam, I have to know what’s been happening?”
“Tomorrow.”
“No, now.”
“You daffy kid. You’re nuts but I love you.”
“Don’t put me off.”
“Tomorrow.”
“I won’t be able to sleep until you tell me.”
He stared at her, tousled her hair. “Okay.” He related everything; his talks with Marian Burrow; what Marian had said about Aden; tonight Johnny was taking in Aden’s talk; he told her about Maddigan and Blaine and Wajek; about the newspaper stories and Vine of the C.I.O. and the labor lawyers; about the new leaflets that had appeared late Saturday night. “You’re going to be headlines again,” he concluded.
“Do you like this room?”
“What’s that got to do with — ”
“I’m asking you a civil question. Do you or don’t you?”
“I like it, daffy.”
“That settles it.”
“Settles what?”
“Dopey.” She snuggled to him. “Oh, you dope.”
“You mean — ”
“We’ll get married and move right in. You won’t mind ma living with us? She’s old, Sam. She has to live with us.”
He hugged her to him. She broke from him, walked over to the end table for a cigarette. She lit the cigarette. “I take it, it’s a deal,” she said. “Oh, Sam, I wish I didn’t have to think. I don’t trust my own reactions. I wonder what Clair’d advise — ”
“About those Negro muggers?”
“They’re not muggers.”
“I know. I said that to stop myself from saying something else.”
Tears glistened in her eyes. “I better call ma. Poor ma.”
Sunday morning at twelve o’clock, they were still coming to the offices of the Harlem Equality League. The door between the two offices had been left wide open; everywhere men and women were standing, smoking and asking questions. All the people invited had been told one thing: The Suzy Buckles kidnapping will be cleared up today; if you are interested in the disclosures come to the offices of the H.E.L. at twelve sharp. The voices were buzzing.
“That’s her.”
“Where’d she come from?”
“Is that the girl up there in the yellow dress?”
“That’s Buckles, boy.”
“What’s up?”
“How did Clair dig her up?”
“The girl in the yellow dress?”
“The man next to her is Miller.”
“Miller?”
“The other guy’s Clair.”
“I see Vincent.”
“They should have hired a hall. Can’t breathe here, damn them.”
Suzy in a dark yellow dress was leaning against the far wall of Clair’s private office, Clair on her left, Sam on her right, the desk between the three of them and the crowd. All the faces began beyond the desk. Sam looked out on the faces, his heart beating. He rubbed his chin nervously. His face was closely shaven, he was wearing yesterday’s shirt and yesterday’s tie but he felt as if he had dressed up for his wedding, for some once-in-a-lifetime occasion. He glanced at Suzy’s pale profile, hoping it wouldn’t be too much of a strain on her. He stared at the crowd. Faces jerked up suddenly as some short man or woman rose on tiptoes. And from these men and women, a warm packed smell began to arise; it began to smell like a subway train. Clair called to his secretary to shut the outer door. The buzzings stopped. But as Clair turned to speak to Suzy, the voices started all over again.
“When’s it begin?”
“Don’t ask me.”
“Where was the girl anyway?”
“Ask Clair.”
“I see Detective Wajek here. I thought Maddigan was in charge.”
“Wajek looks as puzzled as anybody else.”
“Miller’s in on this — ”
“There’s a story — ”
“Telling me.”
“When did the girl get back?”
“She looks okay.”
Their voices lashed across the desk. Sam lit another cigarette. He looked at all these reporters from the newspapers, at the members of the All Harlem Negro Committee. He recognized Vine, Butch Cashman, Johnny Ellis, the labor lawyers, Wajek. At eight that morning he and Suzy had gone over to Clair’s apartment. Clair had listened to Suzy’s story and they had agreed on this conference. Clair had done all the telephoning. Detective Maddigan was away for the weekend and Headquarters had transferred Clair to Detective Wajek. Clair had notified the N.A.A.C.P., the various political parties, the unions, other organizations. There were famous individuals who had been called because of their interest in Negro-white relations. Sam wished that Clair would begin. He wanted to say a few words to Suzy but he was too conscious of all their eyes. He stood stiffly like a public school boy before making a recitation in assembly. The telephone was ringing constantly and Clair’s secretary, flustered and very nervous, was answering the calls and trying to pass them on to Clair. Clair was now speaking with Councilman Vincent. Sam wiped his forehead. He smiled as Johnny waved at him. God, when would it begin, Sam wondered. A stout Negro woman sat down on the corner of the desk. A white reporter brandished a pencil at a friend who had shouted a question at him. There were more people present than had been invited. The news had grapevined around town; there were not only reporters but free lance writers tipped off by reporters; not only the leading members of the Negro community but also a former Negro judge and a Negro writer who had written a novel about racial maladjustments. At last, Clair called for attention. “Attention, please! Please, let me have your attention! On behalf of the Harlem Equality League — ” The voices stopped, nailed in their throats. “ — I welcome you here. Before I introduce Miss Buckles — ” Excitement flared up in a dozen exclamatory: “It’s she — ” “It’s her all right — ” and subsided as Clair continued. “Before I introduce Miss Buckles, I would like to say a few words. Ladies and gentlemen, this unusual conference has been called on the express desire of Miss Buckles. Ladies and gentlemen, I will not bore you with a recital of recent Harlem history but I ought to mention the latest of the scurrilous leaflets that have appeared on our streets. One of these leaflets is a reprint of a poem originally published in the Harlem Independent News. It was reprinted without permission by the so-called United Harlem Committee. The second of these two leaflets invites a race riot. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a race riot! Against this background, we have summoned this conference. I cannot speak too highly of Miss Buckles’ motives. She believes that her kidnapping by a group of Negroes is not only her private concern but the concern of the entire community. I can inform you that she volunteered to work in these offices in order to be near Mr. Miller to whom she is engaged — I wish to thank Detective Wajek, present here today, for his cooperation — Ladies and gentlemen, I do not wish to talk endlessly. I am as excited as any of you. You have all assembled here, the representatives of the press, the political parties to hear Miss Buckles.” Sam felt all their eyes swoop at Suzy. It was as if they were seeing her again but differently as if they had met by accident on the street. “Miss Buckles believes that what has happened to her is inextricably bound up with recent Harlem history. She has asked me to impress upon you all that she herself does not want to increase the racial antagonisms that exist at present. Miss Suzy Buckles.”
Sam turned towards Suzy. Suzy seemed very small to him now, very small, only a little girl. Suzy began to speak in a low voice. “Mr. Clair has told you of my feelings — ”
“Louder please!” somebody called from the outer office.
“I do not want to help foment a race riot,” Suzy raised her head and looked straight in front of her. “This is what happened to me. Before I begin, I want to ask you reporters to please write that I believe in the complete equality of all races. That is why I am here now. To help us get such equality — To do my small share. Not, to — Not to do anything else.
This is how it was. A Negro came to these offices …” Sam, listening to Suzy, felt as he had last night; again he was sitting with her on the park bench and she was trembling in his arms; again he was listening to her speak of the room without light; the Negro who had ripped her dress. He stood next to her, chilled by what he heard. The telephone rang. Clair’s secretary whispered to Clair. Clair passed the phone to Sam. “Hello,” Sam said. “This is Miller.” “Miller,” a voice said, “the man you want’s a white man with burn scars on his face. He’s at the Hotel St. George in Brooklyn.” “Who’s this?” “The man you want’s at the St. George.” The voice stopped; the wire was dead. Suzy was still speaking. Sam whispered in Clair’s ear. Clair shrugged. Sam looked out at the audience. A reporter in the front row was smiling. Councilman Vincent was nodding to himself as if adding his own unvoiced comments. Sam thought: A white man with scars. Staring out at the faces of all these Negroes and whites, reporters, leaders, lawyers, politicians, he felt the immense city in this room; Suzy was speaking to the city, establishing contact with the presses, with the millions who would read the newspapers on Monday, contact with the union leaders and the representatives of the city’s organizations; her story would sift down to the millions of trades union members; to the Negro masses in Harlem, to the multi-millioned faceless people. He felt the people in this room, standing countless and endless-rowed behind the faces in front of him and he thought: A white man with scars at the St. George. Was that a contact, too? Maybe? It was as if the basement people had insisted on being represented, too, adding their voice to all the other voices. “That’s about all,” Suzy was saying. “I understand that there will be a mass meeting at Madison Square Garden and that I will speak there. And I will speak there. Mr. Clair will speak, Sam — Mr. Miller will speak — We will speak again!”
Questions quickened on dozens of lips. Clair interrupted. “One at a time, please. Please!”
“What were your feelings when the Negro tried to attack you?” a white woman yipped. “Be specific.”
“How many times did you get hit?”
“Why didn’t you go to the cops first?”
“When are you and the cop getting married?”
“How long have you been a friend of the colored people?”
“Are you a Red?”
“When — ”
“Where — ”
“Why did — ”
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Clair cried. “Please. One at a time. I will act as chairman. You will direct your questions at me. Yes, that gentleman near the wall.”
“Why didn’t you go to the cops first?” the gentleman near the wall asked. Clair nodded at Suzy. The telephone rang and Clair’s secretary answered and called to Sam. “For you, Mr. Miller.” Sam put the receiver to his ear and a voice said, “You’re wasting your time, Miller. The guy you want’s at the St. George. He’s aimin’ for a riot. He print the leaflets. He make the trouble. You want him.”
“Have you any idea who those Negroes were?” another questioner said to Clair and Suzy. “Were they a gang, in your opinion, who kidnap white women for Negro call houses?”
The questions pumped at Clair. “What is your politics, Miss Buckles?” “Do you believe in segregation?” “What familiarities did the Negroes take with you?” But Sam wasn’t listening to them and he didn’t hear Suzy’s answers. The Negro writer shouted, “Miss Buckles, I want you to inform the gentlemen of the press that you were not criminally assaulted. I want you to restate that fact. I don’t want to read in tomorrow’s papers that you were criminally assaulted. Will you please restate that fact.” A blond man bawled out, “Are you a Communist, Miss Buckles?”
“No.”
“Are you a fellow traveller? Did you vote for Browder? Did you or have you supported the Russians in everything they have done?” Voices broke all over the offices. Somebody was indignant. Somebody approved. Clair tried to restore order and Sam kept on thinking about the man with scars at the St. George.
“Did that Negro hit you with his fist?”
“Miss Buckles, ever been South?”
“How long have you known Miller?” A thin white man waved a finger at Sam. “I’d like to ask you a question, Mr. Miller. Is it not true that because of you the girl got tangled up? Isn’t it true that if you had observed ordinary police discipline, the girl would not have gotten tangled up?” Councilman Vincent cried out at the speaker.
“I wish there were more policemen like Miller. I wish that the police begin to recognize the fact that in a democracy, Negroes as well as whites are members of the people.”
Clair raised both hands. “Let me interrupt the questions! Let me — Please! Miss Buckles is tired. I propose that we let her rest a few minutes before resuming the question period. In the interim, I want to bring up another matter. I said before that this is a conference. It is. What are we going to do about the tension in Harlem? What positive steps can be undertaken? I have drawn up a list of suggestions that I would like to read. They are not arbitrary — ”
Sam whispered to Suzy, “I’ll be right back. Wait here for me.” “Where are you going?” “See some guy.” He moved away from the desk as Clair began to read from a sheet of paper.
“ ‘1. A committee to be sent to the Mayor tomorrow morning. This committee to be composed of both Negroes and whites to be elected today. 2. We will request loud speakers from the Mayor to be installed in key points throughout Harlem. In case the tension increases or if a riot begins, the committee will broadcast direct to the rioters and dissuade them from rioting. 3. A memorandum describing the Buckles’ talk today to be prepared and printed. This memorandum to be mailed to all organizations, to all churches. We will ask ministers, priests and rabbis to read this memorandum to their congregations at the earliest opportunity. This memorandum to be distributed all over Harlem …’ ” Clair glanced up for a second. “Ladies and gentlemen, these suggestions and the others that I will read are merely suggestions. I think that most of us are agreed that our big problem is to demonstrate that there are both Negroes and whites who have faith and belief in each other and belief in democracy, a democracy of action, not of speeches and promises — ”
Sam began to inch through the crowd towards the door. “Excuse me,” he repeated over and over again. He turned around once to look at Suzy and saw Detective Wajek and Johnny also excusing themselves as he had done. Johnny waved at Sam from the middle of the office. Detective Wajek, his bald dome shining, had just stepped on a woman’s toes and was apologizing. Sam reached the corridor. A youngish man in slacks followed him out and said. “What’s the big idea, Miller?” Wajek came up. The youngish man said. “Another conference?”
“Hello, Miller.” Wajek put his hat on his head.
Johnny Ellis joined them. Sam smiled. “I’m going for a walk with my friends,” he said to the youngish man.
“Suzy was great,” Johnny said. He was hatless, his face coppery in the light.
“Come clean, Miller,” the youngish man urged. “Give me a break. I need a story for my paper. Who are your friends?”
“Detective Wajek. Johnny Ellis.”
The youngish man nodded at the detective. “Is Maddigan really away on a week-end or has he been yanked?” He flicked a thumb at Johnny. “You on the A.H.N.C. or N.A.A.C.P.?”
“Neither.”
“Who do you represent?”
“Warehousemen’s union.”
“Your story’s in there,” Sam said to the reporter. “So long.”
Downstairs, Wajek said to Sam. “You’ve got a nice girl, Miller.”
Sam smiled at the detective. “Thanks.”
“Spunk,” Wajek said. “That’s the one thing you can be sure’s always on the up and up. That girl’s got it.” He paused on the sidewalk. “I was watching your face at that phone. What’s up?”
“Clair’s been getting a whole series of phone calls that the guy behind all the trouble is a white man. A white man with burn scars on his face. A white man from the south. Maybe it’s a tip.” He smiled again. “It’s hard to explain but this case is going to break like no other case. It’s going to break — Because, well because the people are the detective in this case.”
Wajek was staring.
“What I mean,” Sam said. “Sometimes the Department calls in the people of a neighborhood to round up a burglary mob. Isn’t that so?”
Wajek nodded.
“That’s what this case is like. Sort of. The people are in it. There’s a pressure from the people in it.”
“I don’t know about that,” Wajek said. “What else you know about the scar-face?”
“He’s at the St. George. Out in Brooklyn.”
“That where you going?”
“Yes.”
Johnny said. “I’m coming with you.”
Wajek glanced from Sam to Johnny and back again to Sam. “They give you his name on the phone?”
“No. Do you want to come along?”
Wajek’s eyes lifted to the blue cloudless sky. “Anonymous calls, dope calls, are a dime a dozen in any big show.”
“That’s right,” Sam agreed. “There’ve been dozens of calls and callers too. But this particular tip’s come in over and over again. I think it ought to be checked.”
“Maybe,” Wajek said. “Miller, this Harlem show’s going to break, if it breaks, through brain work. Through keeping at the job. It’s going to break and I’m referring to the conspiracy up there in Harlem — ”
“You believe it’s a conspiracy then?” Sam interrupted.
“I do.”
“What changed your mind?”
“Those leaflets that came out yesterday. And your girl’s story — ”
“Suzy’s story?”
“Her story proved to me that she wasn’t kidnapped by professional slavers. It was a professional job but no Negro snatch mob’d work it the way it was worked. That hideaway out on the Island, for instance. Negro snatch mobs don’t take a white girl out on Long Island. There’re no Negroes to speak of out on the Island. They’d keep her right here in Harlem, or drive her to the Negro belts in Philly or Chi. It’s a conspiracy and it’s going to break because we’re all working to break it. The Department, the F.B.I., all those people upstairs. Even you, copper, checking on the anonymouses.” He smiled.
“I was going to keep an eye on Sam,” Johnny said, “but if — ”
“Don’t let me stop you,” Wajek said hastily. “I don’t want the unions raising hell — ”
“That’s the pressure I was speaking of,” Sam said.
When they got to the Hotel St. George, Wajek showed his badge to the desk clerk. “I’m looking for a party with burn scars on his face. He’s from the South.” The desk clerk nodded at the three men in front of him. “I’m sorry I can’t help you, officer.”
“Try again,” Wajek said.
The desk clerk concentrated. “I’m sorry. But I can’t think of anyone. I better inquire — ”
“Burn scars,” Wajek said. “A Southerner.”
The desk clerk’s eyes half-closed. “Let me see — Let me see — Is he alone?”
“I don’t know,” Wajek said. “He might have a woman with him.”
“A very pretty woman?”
“Possible,” said Wajek.
The desk clerk consulted an index. “You want Mr. Bill Johnson.”
“Find out if he’s in,” said Wajek.
They all watched the desk clerk pick up the receiver. “Hello,” the desk clerk said, calling off a room number. “Hello? Mrs. Johnson? This is the Management. A routine call to see if your telephone service is in good order. Thank you.”
“Thanks,” said Wajek. “Give me the key.”
They rode up in the elevator, walked down the corridor. “This leaves us wide open for a law suit if the scar-face is on the level,” said Wajek. He passed the room key to Sam, grinning. “You’re the detective in this case, copper. All I say is give him the works. Shock him. Might as well have a good law suit while you’re playing dick.”
Sam inserted the key in the lock, turned it, pushed open the door. He stepped inside and saw a slender woman in a housecoat reading the Sunday newspapers in a chair near the open window, and on the bed, a big man in a maroon bathrobe and the big man’s face was marked with burn scars. In that instant of entry, Wajek and Johnny behind him, Sam hesitated. Against the blue sky in the window, the woman with her Sunday papers seemed as innocent as any one of a thousand housewives.
“What’s this mean?” the woman cried out, rising to her feet. Sam glanced at the man on the bed. The man had blue eyes and they were flashing over at … Sam turned around … over at Johnny. “Johnson!” Sam said. “Johnson, you’re wanted for the disturbances in Harlem!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bill said and he felt sick. They’ve come! he thought frenziedly; the niggers’ve come!
“That’s a lie!” Sam shouted. Through his consciousness, there ran a half memory, the accuser and the accused; so it had been before, somewheres, sometime.
Bill glanced at the man who had spoken, at the heavy man who had removed his hat, at the Negro. “Get out of here!”
“Johnson, you’re wanted for the disturbances in Harlem! We let you ride, Johnson! We suspected you for a long time! We let you ride!” God, Sam thought; like a movie, like a movie, the accuser and the accused.
“Don’t believe them, Isa!” Bill cried. Isabelle was looking at him. She was twisting her hands together, almost as if she were praying.
“We let you ride until we found out your contacts,” Sam said. “We know everybody in your ring — ”
“Get out of here!”
Wajek stepped forward and showed his badge. Bill gaped. The badge seemed to explode in his face; it was like the time when the tear gas bomb burst in front of him. He sucked in his breath. So it’d come, it’d come; Big Boy’d given him away and the org’d get him the best lawyers, the best hebe lawyers in the world to spring him out of the can. Oh, Christ! He steadied himself and said. “Get out of here.” And again his eyes, despite his will, as if his eyes had been magnetized by the color in the black man’s skin shifted up into the colored face and the colored face swelled before him, became a moon-face, and he saw Big Boy’s face, and he yelled. “Get out of here, you nigger!” Sam was fascinated by the fear, the hate in the scarred man’s eyes, the fear and hate in the voice.
“You printed the leaflets, Johnson!” Sam said.
“No. No.”
“What leaflets are you saying no to? You know the leaflets I mean, Johnson.” As Bill was silent, Sam pounded. “You organized the attack on the synagogue. The stink bomb raids on the Italian bars. You ordered the kidnapping of Suzy Buckles.”
“No!” Sam pivoted. It was the woman shouting no at him.
“No,” Bill echoed Isabelle. They’d gotten his name, gotten the key to his room, they’d trapped him. His burning eyes peered helplessly at Isabelle. His body slumped and he seemed to sink down into his own haunches.
“Marian Burrow’s in your mob!” Sam charged. “Aden’s in your mob!” Relentless and triumphant, he observed the scarred man’s face whiten, become whiter than the scars, or as white as them, so that the face seemed to have been cleaned up by some invisible surgeon’s knife. SO ADEN WAS IN IT, he thought. The anonymous letter about Aden’d been a real tip, he thought; a real tip sent in by a friend.
THEY KNEW ABOUT ADEN, Bill thought; they knew everything. The kidnapping! They’d frame him on the kidnapping. Send him to jail for life! For life! For life! “Who are you?”
“Miller. Sam Miller.”
“Miller!” Bill recoiled as if he had been hit. He lifted his hands in front of his face. There was so much terror in his face that Sam hesitated a second, numbed by what he saw. He saw himself as something terrible to this man; it was strange, almost eery to think that he could be so terrible to anybody.
“Do you know me?” Sam asked.
Bill was breathing convulsively. He glimpsed a shape coming to him and felt Isabelle’s arm around his shoulders and he recoiled from her, too. Christ, he was in for it! In for it! The kike had caught up with him! The jinx of a kike! For life! Life … “Go away,” he cried and the three men weren’t in the room any more for he had driven them out. Creak … and they were gone. Bill laughed. “That’s where all the niggers’ll go. All of them. Dirty niggers, kikes. I made ‘em go!”
Sam stared at the face that wasn’t terrified any more; the laughing face. “Do you know me?” he repeated in a low voice as if asking: Do you know anybody.
Bill peered at Sam. He had heard the question distinctly and he said. “No, who are you?” One Bill was speaking while the other Bill was planning: Dive through the window. The other Bill knew of a blue blue blue city of skyscrapers without niggers or kikes, a blue blue wonderful city where no niggers’d ever catch up with him, never, never, a blue wonderful city where Isabelle could never give him away. His knowledge of the secret city made him smile craftily; let her give him away and he wouldn’t take her with him, no city for her, let her give him away, he’d never trust anybody again and so he wouldn’t tell her how to dive out of the window into the blue blue, let them all stand and gibber at him but he’d tell nobody, trust himself, that’s all …
“Miller. Sam Miller.”
“I’ve read about you,” the speaking Bill said. “Get out. You need a warrant to come in. Get out. It’s the law. You can’t break in. Man’s home’s his castle. Get out.”
Both Bills stared at Isabelle rushing to the door and flinging it open. Both Bills watched Wajek shut the door.
The three men followed the woman’s flight to the bed. She took the scarred man’s hand. Sam thought of Suzy and shook his emotions out of his mind. “You kidnapped Suzy Buckles! Did you read about that, too?”
“Nigger!” Bill said.
“None of that,” said Wajek.
“Nigger!” Bill said to the bald man. His head sank on his chest. Isabelle lifted his head by the chin. “Bill, Bill,” she cried. “Did you — ”
“Bitch!” he snapped at her. “Tell them. You told Hayden! Nigger bitch!” He shook his fist at the cloud faces in the room and he imagined the clouds outside the window and the long blue blue blue drop into the blue sky city. He heard a woman crying and he lowered his head stubbornly. He wouldn’t listen to niggers any more. He was strong. Strong. “Mr. President,” one Bill was saying. “The organization isn’t strong. Ersatz. That’s all. No new order — out of Hayden. Damn them.
They work with niggers. Big Boy. Aden. Damn herd world.”
Sam was silent like the others. It was shocking to see a man who had been sane, suddenly, in minutes, begin to rant. He felt unsure of himself as if the man on the bed had spun up the madness coiled in his own heart. He was thinking of Randolph with the bundle of laundry in one hand; always the accuser and the accused, the sane and the mad, always the psychopaths, always, always until the world, until the world … Sam glanced at the sobbing woman; it was shocking to see her this way. She had been reading the Sunday newspapers only a few minutes ago. God, a few minutes.
Sam felt the weeks that had passed since he’d gone out on ambulance duty condense into minutes; those minutes had to happen; they weren’t accidental; they’d been generated out of himself, out of all of them, Johnny, Wajek, the woman, the scarred man on the bed, out of Suzy and Clair and Marian and Detective Maddigan, generated out of all of them, out of the city, out of the cities in the nation, out of the people; they’d all been twisted, worked on, urged on, led on, duped on to produce such minutes.
“Herds,” Bill said to them in a deliberately quiet voice for he had something to do and no one was going to know about his city. “You want Heney, Madame Fox, Hayden.” He pointed behind him in the direction of the window, across to the skyscrapers in Manhattan, and with sudden fear dropped his pointing hand because they mustn’t know about his city. “The niggers. The niggers, you’ve got here. Who you, boy?” he laughed gratingly. “Who you? Get them all. Darton. Get Darton.” He thought that only Dent was good and he wouldn’t give Dent — away for a million dollars, not Dent. He’d be silent as the grave about Dent. “They’re not fascists. No. Too weak. Should’ve layed the nigger girl. Should’ve. Weak. Not human. Weak. Some day, we’ll run the country.”
He shook his head and for a second he became aware of Isabelle as a person. He had known her once. She was crying, she was saying something but he didn’t want to hear what she was saying. He shut his eyes on her and felt something tear in his brain, like a newspaper tearing. “I’m strong!” he said. He leaped from the bed, strong as a madman, and the blue shone in his eyes and he hurled through the open window into the blue blue city and in the second of hurling, he thought: She’d be waiting for him in the blue city. “Christ!” he screamed as he tumbled over in space, the floor of the room no longer solid under his feet. The onrushing air choked the voice out of him and beyond madness, one Bill knew that he had killed himself; and the Bill was gone, both Bills were gone. He had at last divided himself into death. The glittering, tumbling masses of skyscrapers poured into his eyes and out of his eyes. Down …
Isabelle keeled over on the floor. Wajek and Sam lifted her to the bed. Wajek said, “That was the tip all right, all right. You remember those names?”
Sam nodded. “Yes,” said Johnny. “I’m going back to Clair’s,” said Johnny. Wajek went to the telephone. “Police Headquarters,” Wajek said. Johnny looked out of the window.
Sam walked into the bathroom, dipped a towel in cold water. His towel, Sam thought. He returned to the bed. At the phone, Wajek called to Sam, “If she don’t come to, put her head lower than her body.”
Sam looked down at the woman’s unconscious face, a face like a death mask. Gently, he applied the cold towel. She had to be brought to. She had to tell them of what she knew. There was work to be done. Work to be done in all the wide world. He stroked her brow and thought that this woman had loved the scarred man. He felt his love for Suzy and Suzy’s love for him. This woman had loved the scarred man. She was a beautiful woman. Her oval face with the black eyebrows and black hair seemed to him to be deeply sleeping. She had to be wakened. All the sleepers had to be wakened. He watched the eyelids flicker and the light come into the dark eyes. “She’s coming to,” he said.
“Close the window,” Wajek said to Johnny. “One’s enough.” Johnny shut the window.
Blue and golden, the spring sun filled the window as if nothing could keep it out, as if there were no crushed corpse far below, no crushed corpses anywhere, no madness, no horror, no terror, no sudden death in all the world.
— THE END —