The Road Through the Wall

by Shirley Jackson

  Harriet wanted to make the hole a time-capsule site. “A tin box,” she said, “and we each of us put in whatever we like best, that is, of just what we think and write and all that. Not even other people’s poems we like,” Harriet added, thinking of what her mother would say if she knew about the secret hiding place. “We don’t have to put stuff in, of course,” she went on, “but maybe things like—” she stopped helplessly.

  “We could put in things like pictures of people,” Marilyn said dreamily, “and souvenirs, and . . . like memories, and things.”

  “I don’t have any pictures of people,” Harriet said reluctantly. “Except my family, that is.”

  “I don’t really have many pictures either,” Marilyn said.

  The hole in the ground stayed empty for nearly a week, a long time in a fast-moving summer. Several times Harriet and Marilyn came to their secret place, with their library books and the notebook each had taken to carrying, and their candy bars and ice cream cones, and they sat for long afternoons on the grass, talking deeply, and opening the grass cover of the secret hiding place to make sure that no one had disturbed it, and that the sides hadn’t fallen in. Hidden by the trees, and certain they had not been followed, they told one another about their pasts, their futures, and their talents. One afternoon Marilyn said, lying with her head on her arms, looking off into the grass by her face, “Do you believe in reincarnation?” and Harriet said, looking up from The Girl Scouts at Rocky Ledge, “You mean, like turning into wolves?” and when Marilyn said scornfully, “Wolves!” Harriet fumbled with her book and then said pettishly, “You and your big ideas!”

  “Honest,” Marilyn said after a short silence. “You know, reincarnation is where you used to be someone else once, before you were born this time.”

  Harriet listened, interested. “Like what?” she asked.

  Marilyn had something she wanted to say, something burning in her mind to be told; perhaps the only reason she needed Harriet, or any friend, was to get this said, finally. “Lots of people,” she began, “think that maybe once they were like Julius Caesar or Jo March before they were . . . well, born, this time. And then when those people died they turned into the ones they are now. Like for instance you might have been—” Looking at Harriet, Marilyn sought for a word. “—Becky Sharp, before you were Harriet Merriam.”

  “Or Jo March,” Harriet supplied, fascinated.

  “Maybe we both knew each other once before,” Marilyn said. “See? That’s why we’re friends now.”

  “Maybe you were Amy,” Harriet said.

  Marilyn frowned slightly. “I know who I was,” she announced dramatically. Then, suddenly shy, as though Harriet were after all not the person to tell, as though she had come, unwilling and driven, too close to what she wanted to say, she turned quiet and sat looking down at the grass again, her wide ugly face pressed close against the fresh green.

  “You mean,” Harriet said slowly, considering, “you mean, I could be anything?” The sound of the wind moving through the trees, a distant shout from the golf course, seemed to bring her an echo of barbaric rites, clashing temple bells, perhaps from the distant, only-just-remembered past; “I bet I was Egyptian,” she said, carried away, “I always wanted to go to Egypt.”

  “I know,” Marilyn whispered softly to the grass, “I remembered a long time ago.”

  Harriet was silent, smiling faintly, lost in her dim pagan temple. “I think about it all the time now,” Marilyn said, “I remember lots.” Uneasy and reluctant, she stopped again, and then said, “I remember all the time, I lie in bed and think about it.”

  “Well, what, for heaven’s sake?” Harriet said. “I told you.”

  “I remember,” Marilyn said emphatically. “I really do.” Her voice became softer, as though she were describing a scene familiar and lovely. “There’s a very very very blue sky, and the hills and grass are so green they almost hurt your eyes and the road is white and it curves around the hill and there are flowers and trees and everything is so soft-looking, and far away beyond the hill you can see where the road leads into a little town. . . . I can see the town, too,” she added, never looking at Harriet. “It has little houses with low roofs and a bridge over a little river and all the houses are white and they have brown wood trimmings and there’s a village green in the center of the town. . . .” She was quiet, and Harriet waited breathlessly. “Then,” Marilyn said, her voice stronger and filled with longing, “there’s a little covered wagon that comes down the road and inside they’re all talking and laughing and singing. . . . There’s Pantaloon, and Rhodomont, and Scaramouche, and Pierrot, and—” She stopped again. “And Harlequin,” she said into the grass, and then began to speak very fast. “And I’m standing on top of the hill waiting for them and when I see them coming and he is standing in front beside the man who is driving—I forgot to tell you, they have an old white donkey pulling the wagon—and he is waving and calling me, and I run down the hill as fast as anything, I can feel how fast I’m running and my feet just touching the ground and the wind in my face blowing my hair back and I’m running. . . .” She stopped again; her words patently had no more power to carry her meaning.

  When Harriet saw that Marilyn was tearful she was embarrassed. “Where is all this?” she said harshly. “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  “No place,” Marilyn said. “Forget it.” She sat up, her ugly face angry. “It’s silly,” she said. “I’ll tell you all about it sometime.”

  “I think,” Harriet said, trying to look inspired, “that I was one of those people who had to take care of an idol or something. In a long white dress with jewels in my hair. And chanting.”

  “I know what let’s put in the box,” Marilyn said suddenly.

  “What we remember?”

  “That’s all over with,” Marilyn said. “Let’s put down what we think we’ll be this time. I mean, like in this reincarnation. See, in maybe ten years we’ll be grown-up and then we’ll know. What we’re going to be this time, I mean.”

  “No,” said Harriet, meaning she could not understand.

  “What I mean is,” Marilyn said carefully, “let’s both write down what we’re going to be like in maybe ten years from now.”

  “What we’ll be in ten years,” Harriet said reflectively. “I’ll be twenty-four.”

  “We’ll write it down, and we won’t look at each other’s,” Marilyn said, “and then in ten years when we meet here again we can look at it.”

  “We have to promise, though,” Harriet said; they were building it together now. “We have to promise never to look at them until ten years.”

  “Let’s write it now,” Marilyn said.

  A mystic raptness seized them. Solemnly they tore identical pages out of their notebooks, and, taking their pencils, sat down to write. Harriet wrote half a page, Marilyn only a few lines, but it took them both a long time. Then, as solemnly, each folded her own, and they opened the secret hiding place and put the papers in.

  “Rest here, all my hopes and dreams,” Marilyn said, and Harriet, a little embarrassed, said, “A curse be on whoever touches these papers.”

  Then the hiding place was covered and all traces of it effaced. Marilyn held her hand out over the hiding place and Harriet took it, and Marilyn said, “Now you’re my closest and dearest friend, Harriet.”

  “We’ll always be true friends,” Harriet said. “We’ll never separate. We will always be able to communicate in our thoughts.”

  “I’ll always know where you are and what you’re doing,” Marilyn said.

  “And each other’s most secret thoughts,” Harriet said.

  There seemed to be no way to end it. Finally Marilyn drew her hand back and Harriet dropped her hand to pick up her book. They were quiet for a while, and then Marilyn said in her normal voice,

  “Golly, if Virginia Donald ever finds this place.”
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br />   “She wouldn’t know it was us,” Harriet said. “Probably.”

  • • •

  Frederica Terrel’s family came so quietly that no one knew they were there; perhaps they stole in through a back door, or walked quickly up the street unobserved; at any rate, they came softly and invisibly, and the first anyone knew they were there was when Frederica came hesitantly down the front steps, looked up and down the street and, after standing on the sidewalk for a minute, noticed Miss Fielding sitting on her front porch and came to the foot of Miss Fielding’s walk.

  “Excuse me,” Frederica said. She blinked nervously through her glasses. “Where would I find a grocery store near here? I want to get some food and things.”

  Miss Fielding leaned forward to look over the stone railing of her porch. “A grocery store?” she asked. She went to the nearby grocery almost daily, had done so ever since moving to Pepper Street, but the fact of someone’s asking her a direct question frightened her. She thought deeply, and Frederica fidgeted nervously, blinking through her glasses. “I guess,” Miss Fielding said, “at least—do you want just plain things? Like potatoes, for instance, and bread?”

  “And canned goods,” Frederica said. “And my sister has to have milk.”

  “Well,” Miss Fielding said. She thought again. Perhaps Frederica would not be favorably impressed with Miss Fielding’s regular grocery, and then Miss Fielding would be blamed; worse still, the man in the grocery (Mr. Jowett, that would be) might find Frederica, coming with Miss Fielding’s recommendation, insolent, or demanding, or extravagant, or even, just possibly, someone who wanted to open a charge account—to buy, in other words, without paying—and the thought, in Miss Fielding’s mind, of herself facing Mr. Jowett tomorrow after having sent him such an unreliable customer. . . . “Well,” Miss Fielding said. Her face brightened and she looked beyond Frederica. “There comes Mrs. Ransom-Jones,” she said with relief. “I’m very sure she knows the best place to go.”

  Frederica turned around slowly, planting her feet one beside the other in little steps so as to pivot without losing her balance. She regarded Mrs. Ransom-Jones heavily as Mrs. Ransom-Jones came down the street, and Miss Fielding, leaning even farther forward, called out delicately, in her shrill old woman’s voice, “Mrs. Ransom-Jones? Will you come here for a moment, please?”

  Mrs. Ransom-Jones, just passing the house-for-rent, brought her eyes back guiltily from the frank stare with which she was watching the lower windows; she had, most patently, been trying to see inside, and her tone was sharp as she said, “Miss Fielding! Good afternoon.” Miss Fielding waved her hand to bring Mrs. Ransom-Jones closer and said, “This is our new neighbor, I believe. She is in trouble, and I think you can help her better than I.”

  “I want a store,” Frederica said abruptly. “I want to buy some groceries.”

  Mrs. Ransom-Jones considered prettily, trying with over-courtesy and every conceivable air of good breeding to persuade Miss Fielding and this lumpy girl that the Ransom-Joneses did not peer in windows. “There’s Delamar’s, of course,” she said. “But of course.” She laughed lightly, good breeding and all. “It’s a little expensive,” she went on. “He has things like paté de fois gras and all sorts of elaborate things like that. I really only shop there when I want something special. For dinner parties or something.”

  “I want to get some baloney,” Frederica said. “And some milk and some bread and a can of peas and a dozen eggs and probably a bag of potato chips.”

  “There’s Mr. Jowett,” Miss Fielding said. Mrs. Ransom-Jones’s recommendation would be above reproach.

  “Mr. Jowett,” Mrs. Ransom-Jones said. “Yes, Mr. Jowett would do.”

  “And I ought to get light bulbs,” Frederica said. She turned around again to Miss Fielding, quickly, with the first emotion she had shown; it seemed to be anger. “You know those damn people they took away every single light bulb?” she demanded.

  “Isn’t that nice,” Miss Fielding said, flustered, and Frederica turned back to Mrs. Ransom-Jones. “That’s cheap, isn’t it?” she said. “We’ll be in the dark.”

  Mrs. Ransom-Jones, whose good face depended on a complete lack of interest in Frederica’s family, said, “If you turn right at this corner and then left at the highway and go straight down for about three blocks you’ll find Mr. Jowett’s. In a little block of stores.”

  Frederica opened her mouth slightly to listen better, and when Mrs. Ransom-Jones had finished Frederica repeated the directions in her usual dull voice, and turned in response to Mrs. Ransom-Jones’s daintily pointing finger and trudged off down the street.

  “Not even ‘Thank you,’” Miss Fielding said in the tone of one who was not at all surprised.

  “Well. . . .” Mrs. Ransom-Jones said, in the tone of one who was used to it. She and Miss Fielding smiled at each other, and then Miss Fielding said, “You’ve got a nice day for your walk, Mrs. Ransom-Jones.”

  “I thought I’d get some air,” Mrs. Ransom-Jones said. “Lillian was asleep, so I thought I’d run out for a few minutes.”

  “How is your sister?” Miss Fielding asked immediately.

  Mrs. Ransom-Jones smiled sadly, and waved one hand. “Not very much better,” she said.

  “I am sorry,” Miss Fielding said.

  “But of course. . . .” Mrs. Ransom-Jones said.

  “You never can tell,” Miss Fielding said. “I’ve known people, people who were just like that. . . .”

  “Nothing seems to help much, one way or the other,” Mrs. Ransom-Jones said. She put one foot forward, and nodded brightly. “Such an odd girl,” she said.

  Miss Fielding stayed leaning forward for a minute and then sat back, resigned. “I imagine the whole family must be odd,” she said.

  “Indeed, yes.” Mrs. Ransom-Jones, her walk apparently over, turned to go back up the street. She waved good-bye to Miss Fielding, and, keeping her face carefully averted, started past the house-for-rent. Because Mrs. Ransom-Jones was looking steadfastly across the street at the Byrne house, and because the girl, apparently Frederica’s sister, was tiptoeing down the walk looking backward at her own house, they collided square in front of the house-for-rent, and Mrs. Ransom-Jones said, “Good heavens!” and tried to recover her balance, while the girl, with a solidness and lumpy stolidity reminiscent of Frederica, stood gaping.

  “Don’t you know how to apologize?” Mrs. Ransom-Jones said with annoyance. “Do you just stand there like an ape?”

  The girl grinned; unlike Frederica, she had strong white teeth and a great heavy unthinking face; when she grinned at Mrs. Ransom-Jones it seemed to be partly apologetic, partly complete uncomprehending bewilderment; perhaps she was dazzled by Mrs. Ransom-Jones’s smooth hair, her smartly planned linen dress, the clean white shoes. Mrs. Ransom-Jones, thinking of this in order to recover her poise, noticed that the girl was barefoot. She was a tall stout girl, taller perhaps than Frederica, and certainly barefoot. Mrs. Ransom-Jones said, “Barefoot? A girl your age?”

  The girl grinned again, but Mrs. Ransom-Jones seemed to have communicated with her, because she looked down at her feet and then back at Mrs. Ransom-Jones. It seemed to be an effort of mental enthusiasm for her to move; in order for her to hold out her hand to Mrs. Ransom-Jones she first had to think of it, then think of the hand, then send some kind of slow deliberate message down the arm to the hand, all the time regarding her hand with rapt concentration. When the hand moved and went out to Mrs. Ransom-Jones the girl was pleased; she smiled again, and Mrs. Ransom-Jones, moving back a step, said, “What—?”

  “Money,” the girl said slowly. Her voice was thick and again reminiscent of Frederica’s dull tones. “I’ve money.” Speaking seemed to be less of an effort than anything else except smiling; perhaps the girl was accustomed to sitting quietly while people took care of her when she voiced her wants. “Plenty of money.”

  “Real
ly,” Mrs. Ransom-Jones said helplessly. She was acutely conscious that Miss Fielding, somewhere behind her, was leaning forward again—leaning forward and perhaps even standing up—and that what Miss Fielding was seeing did not lend any appreciable dignity to Mrs. Ransom-Jones’s poise and graciousness. For Miss Fielding’s benefit Mrs. Ransom-Jones straightened her back, put her shoulders steady, and said carefully and emphatically, “I don’t think you ought to be out with all that money, my dear. Your mother should be with you. Now you turn right around and go back inside your house and tell your mother I—” Mrs. Ransom-Jones emphasized the “I” slightly—“said that you should not be out alone. Do you understand me?” Mrs. Ransom-Jones rested and then added, for Miss Fielding, “My dear.”

  The girl stared blankly, looking from Mrs. Ransom-Jones to the money in her hand, and, once, down at her feet again. Mrs. Ransom-Jones took a breath and said, sharpening her voice a little, “You must turn right around and go back into the house. I’m sure your mother doesn’t know you’re out here.” Finally Mrs. Ransom-Jones said, “How old are you?”