‘Was he a writer?’
‘No, not even that. He just sat there all day in his barrel, and learnt a whole heap of things. He lived at Corinth, in Greece, a long time ago. He spent his time observing life, and he didn’t give a damn for anything or anybody. He went around barefoot, and slept where he felt like it, in doorways, or even in his barrel. One day he saw a child drinking from cupped hands at a fountain. He said to himself: “The child’s right. He’s taught me I’ve still got something which serves no useful purpose.” So then he broke his bowl.’
‘He must have been a queer sort of fellow,’ said the blind man. ‘Surely he was a bit cracked, though?’
‘Yes, and another time he heard a philosopher saying that man was an animal with two feet and no feathers. So he took a chicken, and plucked all its feathers, and threw it down in front of the philosopher, saying: “Look, there’s your man for you!” ’
‘Bravo,’ said the blind man. ‘That’s the sort of stuff to give ’em. But I bet the other man didn’t appreciate the joke.’
‘I must say I’d be surprised if he had.’ Besson stubbed out his cigarette on the sole of his shoe. ‘I have to be going now,’ he added.
The blind man flicked his butt-end into the road. ‘Come back one of these days,’ he said. ‘You can tell me more about this character who lived in a barrel. It sounds as though it might be amusing.’
‘I’ll be back,’ Besson promised. ‘See you.’
‘Goodbye, then,’ the man said.
‘Goodbye,’ said Besson.
Besson emerged from the doorway and took a few steps down the pavement. Then he turned back for a moment and gazed at the hunched-up figure sitting there in the shadows, with the pile of newspapers and the tin can full of coins beside him. He sat quite motionless, hands thrust in the pockets of his lumberjacket. Beneath the blue rainproof cap the face with its pointless lines was in repose, and reflections glinted from those large, opaque, impenetrable glasses. It was true, of course: this was the way he had to live, squatting on a section of pavement that was his unquestioned property, a section of property that he had bought. People might pass to and fro all day long, but he remained at home, in his own place. He had nothing to fear from the hubbub around him, or from people staring at him. His quest was over. He could settle down in his little retreat, his private, well-protected hiding-place; and there, quite unhurriedly, he would begin to play that lengthy game which can only be observed inside one’s own head.
Chapter Five
Besson at work — The games — What one sees from a window — The story of Black Oradi — How François Besson triumphed over gravity
ON the fifth day, Besson remained in his room. He sat at his table, not thinking of anything, having previously hung a placard from the outer doorhandle on which he had written, with a red ball-point pen: WORKING PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB. Then he began to examine his surroundings, in front of him and on either side. It was about three in the afternoon. Through the curtainless windows he could see the house opposite, a dirty grey building with its own lace-curtained windows, and a segment of dull, neutral-coloured sky, in which not a single bird could be seen.
The light came straight into the room, without making any shadows. Besides the drumming of the rain, various other odd noises were audible: whimperings, dull thuds, creaks, whirrs, whistles. Men’s voices, the screams of children. Bottles rattling in crates. Heavy bangs above the ceiling or under the floor. Scraping and shuddering noises of unidentifiable origin, a pebble rattling down noisily in some area, windows vibrating as a truck passed by. Susurrus of tyres. Water gurgling down the gutter, the pistol-shot banging of front doors, a self-starter coughing into life. All this was normal, absolutely normal, a rich and confused medley of sound ebbing and flowing like a pendulum. Time passed softly and easily with these noises to help it. It was rather like being asleep.
Nothing in particular happened. Out of the street or secluded behind closed doors the little sounds continued, never suggesting anything but the existence of life — life in miniature, tittuping along, nibbling at the edges of things, consumed by a vague itch yet unable to let go properly.
Above Besson’s head the ceiling stretched motionless, a sure fixed point, and in the cube of bright air below it an unlit electric light bulb hung on its cord. The walls of the room were just there, they took no action. They were quite content to be walls, good solid walls and nothing more. Yet there could be little doubt that a constant process of attrition was at work on them, crumbling away their substance, sending out clouds of white dust from them. Damp got under the yellow wallpaper and quietly worked it loose from its paste, millimetre by millimetre. Everything looked so strong and permanent, yet it was a virtual certainty that in two or three hundred years there would be no surviving trace of this room. There would just be an old hollow ruin, looking as though it had been eaten away by cancer, in the middle of a thorny, overgrown waste lot.
But for the present the room was peaceful enough, with hardly anything happening in it. Besson sat there for a while, elbows resting on the table. He carefully scrutinized each separate object, down to the last sheet of scribbled manuscript. He took in the penknife, its blade still open, and the box containing 50 drawing-pins, and the bottoms of paper cups, and the keys, and the empty inkwell. Periodicals lay about everywhere, with crumpled pages and minus their covers. A schematic swan swimming on a matchbox. Besson read everything, in an unhurried, almost hypnotic manner. Everything he looked at was strange, all the words printed on the white pages seemed full of trickery and illusion. On the left-hand corner of the table, beside a stub-crowded ashtray, a dictionary lay open at page 383. Besson began to read the catch-words, softly at first, then progressively louder and louder:
Helium
Helix
Hellene
Hellenic
Helleniser
Hellenism
Hellenist
Helminth
Helvetian (m. or f.)
Helvetian (adj.)
Hem!
Hemacyte
Hematite
Hematocele
Hematopoeisis
Hematosis
After this he leant forward and picked up a paper. He unfolded it slowly, found the Amusement Page, and then spread it out on the table. The big sheet of newsprint left smudges on his fingers. It was covered with a number of strange drawings, with captions written underneath them. Here, enclosed in their black frames, were men wearing white tunics, armed with spears and shields, or inscrutable women, draped in décolleté robes, their faces heavily made-up and their long tresses studded with outsize jewels. At the top of the page, above the drawings, was written:
The Empress of the Desert: Zenobia of Palmyra
There were other strip-cartoons running across the same page, showing bald men in space-suits shooting other men with death-ray guns. Underneath these, again, was a group of men and women standing in a sun-lounge, with lots of big windows. Two of them had white clouds billowing from their mouths, with the following legends written on them:
‘That’s great, Steve. You take Thompson in the Bentley. Sir Bernard and I will stay here and wait for instructions from the boss.’
‘O.K. We’ll go as far as Stevenage on the main road. That’s forty miles from here. By the way, what about the man watching the house?’
At the bottom of the page there were also various games and riddles and one or two jokes, this kind of thing:
‘I’m a real paragon,’ a man wrote in his private diary. ‘I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I don’t go to the theatre or the cinema, and I’m unswervingly faithful to my wife. I never so much as look at another woman. I go to bed every evening at eight o’clock, and get up and go to work at dawn. Every Sunday I attend church. But it’s all going to be very different once I get out of jail….’