by John Collier
He spoke. His voice was not a voice; it was a mere whistling under the tongue. «Not bad, for a beginner!»
I grasped that he was complimenting me, rather satirically, on my own, more amateurish, feat of camouflage. I stuttered. I said, «I'm sorry. I didn't know anyone else lived here. »I noticed, even as I spoke, that I was imitating his own whistling sibilant utterance.
«Oh, yes,» he said. «We live here. It's delightful.»
«We?»
«Yes, all of us. Look!»
We were near the edge of the first gallery. He swept his long hand round, indicating the whole well of the shop. I looked. I saw nothing. I could hear nothing, except the watchman's thudding step receding infinitely far along some basement aisle.
«Don't you see?»
You know the sensation one has, peering into the half-light of a vivarium? One sees bark, pebbles, a few leaves, nothing more. And then, suddenly, a stone breathes — it is a toad; there is a chameleon, another, a coiled adder, a mantis among the leaves. The whole case seems crepitant with life. Perhaps the whole world is. One glances at one's sleeve, one's feet.
So it was with the shop. I looked, and it was empty. I looked, and there was an old lady, clambering out from behind the monstrous clock. There were three girls, elderly ingénues, incredibly emaciated, simpering at the entrance of the perfumery. Their hair was a fine floss, pale as gossamer. Equally brittle and colourless was a man with the appearance of a colonel of southern extraction, who stood regarding me while he caressed mustachios that would have done credit to a crystal shrimp. A chintzy woman, possibly of literary tastes, swam forward from the curtains and drapes.
They came thick about me, fluttering, whistling, like a waving of gauze in the wind. Their eyes were wide and flatly bright. I saw there was no colour to the iris.
«How raw he looks!»
«A detective! Send for the Dark Men!»
«I'm not a detective. I am a poet. I have renounced the world.»
«He is a poet. He has come over to us. Mr. Roscoe found him.»
«He admires us.»
«He must meet Mrs. Vanderpant.»
I was taken to meet Mrs. Vanderpant. She proved to be the Grand Old Lady of the store, almost entirely transparent.
«So you are a poet, Mr. Snell? You will find inspiration here. I am quite the oldest inhabitant. Three mergers and a complete rebuilding, but they didn't get rid of me!»
«Tell how you went out by daylight, dear Mrs. Vanderpant, and nearly got bought for Whistler's Mother.»
«That was in pre-war days. I was more robust then. But at the cash desk they suddenly remembered there was no frame. And when they came back to look at me —»
«— She was gone.»
Their laughter was like the stridulation of the ghosts of grasshoppers.
«Where is Ella? Where is my broth?»
«She is bringing it, Mrs. Vanderpant. It will come.»
«Tiresome little creature! She is our foundling, Mr. Snell. She is not quite our sort.»
«Is that so, Mrs. Vanderpant? Dear, dear!»
«I lived alone here, Mr. Snell, for many years. I took refuge here in the terrible times in the eighties. I was a young girl then, a beauty, people were kind enough to say, but poor Papa lost his money. Bracey's meant a lot to a young girl, in the New York of those days, Mr. Snell. It seemed to me terrible that I should not be able to come here in the ordinary way. So I came here for good. I was quite alarmed when others began to come in, after the crash of 1907. But it was the dear Judge, the Colonel, Mrs. Bilbee —»
I bowed. I was being introduced.
«Mrs. Bilbee writes plays. And of a very old Philadelphia family. You will find us quite nice here, Mr. Snell.»
«I feel it a great privilege, Mrs. Vanderpant.»
«And of course, all our dear young people came in '29. Their poor papas jumped from skyscrapers.»
I did a great deal of bowing and whistling. The introductions took a long time. Who would have thought so many people lived in Bracey's?
«And here at last is Ella with my broth.»
It was then I noticed that the young people were not so young after all, in spite of their smiles, their little ways, their ingénue dress. Ella was in her teens. Clad only in something from the shop-soiled counter, she nevertheless had the appearance of a living flower in a French cemetery, or a mermaid among polyps.
«Come, you stupid thing!»
«Mrs. Vanderpant is waiting.»
Her pallor was not like theirs; not like the pallor of something that glistens or scuttles when you turn over a stone. Hers was that of a pearl.
Ella! Pearl of this remotest, most fantastic cave! Little mermaid, brushed over, pressed down by objects of a deadlier white — tentacles — ! I can write no more.
MARCH 28 Well, I am rapidly becoming used to my new and half-lit world, to my strange company. I am learning the intricate laws of silence and camouflage which dominate the apparently casual strollings and gatherings of the midnight clan. How they detest the night-watchman, whose existence imposes these laws on their idle festivals!
«Odious, vulgar creature! He reeks of the coarse sun!»
Actually, he is quite a personable young man, very young for a night-watchman, so young that I think he must have been wounded in the war. But they would like to tear him to pieces.
They are very pleasant to me, though. They are pleased that a poet should have come among them. Yet I cannot like them entirely. My blood is a little chilled by the uncanny ease with which even the old ladies can clamber spider-like from balcony to balcony. Or is it because they are unkind to Ella?
Yesterday we had a bridge party. Tonight, Mrs. Bilbee's little play, Love in Shadowland, is going to be presented. Would you believe it? — another colony, from Wanamaker's, is coming over en masse to attend. Apparently people live in all the great stores. This visit is considered a great honour, for there is an intense snobbery in these creatures. They speak with horror of a social outcast who left a high-class Madison Avenue establishment, and now leads a wallowing, beachcomberish life in a delicatessen. And they relate with tragic emotion the story of a man in Altman's, who conceived such a passion for a model plaid dressing jacket that he emerged and wrested it from the hands of a purchaser. It seems that all the Altman colony, dreading an investigation, were forced to remove beyond the social pale, into a five-and-dime. Well, I must get ready to attend the play.
APRIL 14 I have found an opportunity to speak to Ella. I dared not before; here one has a sense always of pale eyes secretly watching. But last night, at the play, I developed a fit of hiccups. I was somewhat sternly told to go and secrete myself in the basement, among the garbage cans, where the watchman never comes.
There, in the rat-haunted darkness, I heard a stifled sob. «What's that? Is it you? Is it Ella? What ails you, child? Why do you cry?»
«They wouldn't even let me see the play.»
«Is that all? Let me console you.»
«I am so unhappy.»
She told me her tragic little story. What do you think? When she was a child, a little tiny child of only six, she strayed away and fell asleep behind a counter, while her mother tried on a new hat. When she woke, the store was in darkness.
«And I cried, and they all came around, and took hold of me. 'She will tell, if we let her go,' they said. Some said, 'Call in the Dark Men.' 'Let her stay here,' said Mrs. Vanderpant. 'She will make me a nice little maid.'»
«Who are these Dark Men, Ella? They spoke of them when I came here.»
«Don't you know? Oh, it's horrible! It's horrible!»
«Tell me, Ella. Let us share it.»
She trembled. «You know the morticians, 'Journey's End,' who go to houses when people die?»
«Yes, Ella.»
«Well, in that shop, just like here, and at Gimbel's, and at Bloomingdale's, there are people living, people like these.»
«How disgusting! But what can they live upon, Ella, in a funeral home?»<
br />
«Don't ask me! Dead people are sent there, to be embalmed. Oh, they are terrible creatures! Even the people here are terrified of them. But if anyone dies, or if some poor burglar breaks in, and sees these people, and might tell —»
«Yes? Go on.»
«Then they send for the others, the Dark Men.»
«Good heavens!»
«Yes, and they put the body in Surgical Supplies — or the burglar, all tied up, if it's a burglar — and they send for these others, and then they all hide, and in they come, the others — Oh! they're like pieces of blackness. I saw them once. It was terrible.»
«And then?»
«They go in, to where the dead person is, or the poor burglar. And they have wax there — and all sorts of things. And when they're gone there's just one of these wax models left, on the table. And then our people put a dress on it, or a bathing suit, and they mix it up with all the others, and nobody ever knows.»
«But aren't they heavier than the others, these wax models? You would think they'd be heavier.»
«No. They're not heavier. I think there's a lot of them — gone.»
«Oh, dear! So they were going to do that to you, when you were a little child?»
«Yes, only Mrs. Vanderpant said I was to be her maid.»
«I don't like these people, Ella.»
«Nor do I. I wish I could see a bird.»
«Why don't you go into the pet-shop?»
«It wouldn't be the same. I want to see it on a twig, with leaves.»
«Ella, let us meet often. Let us creep away down here and meet. I will tell you about birds, and twigs and leaves.»
MAY 1 For the last few nights the store has been feverish with the shivering whisper of a huge crush at Bloomingdale's. Tonight was the night.
«Not changed yet? We leave on the stroke of two.» Roscoe has appointed himself, or been appointed, my guide or my guard.
«Roscoe, I am still a greenhorn. I dread the streets.»
«Nonsense! There's nothing to it. We slip out by two's and three's, stand on the sidewalk, pick up a taxi. Were you never out late in the old days? If so, you must have seen us, many a time.»
«Good heavens, I believe I have! And often wondered where you came from. And it was from here! But, Roscoe, my brow is burning. I find it hard to breathe. I fear a cold.»
«In that case you must certainly remain behind. Our whole party would be disgraced in the unfortunate event of a sneeze.»
I had relied on their rigid etiquette, so largely based on fear of discovery, and I was right. Soon they were gone, drifting out like leaves aslant on the wind. At once I dressed in flannel slacks, canvas shoes, and a tasteful sport shirt, all new in stock today. I found a quiet spot, safely off the track beaten by the night-watchman. There, in a model's lifted hand, I set a wide fern frond culled from the florist's shop, and at once had a young, spring tree. The carpet was sandy, sandy as a lake-side beach. A snowy napkin; two cakes, each with a cherry on it; I had only to imagine the lake and to find Ella.
«Why, Charles, what's this?»
«I'm a poet, Ella, and when a poet meets a girl like you he thinks of a day in the country. Do you see this tree? Let's call it our tree. There's the lake — the prettiest lake imaginable. Here is grass, and there are flowers. There are birds, too, Ella. You told me you like birds.»
«Oh, Charles, you're so sweet. I feel I hear them singing.»
«And here's our lunch. But before we eat, go behind the rock there, and see what you find.»
I heard her cry out in delight when she saw the summer dress I had put there for her. When she came back the spring day smiled to see her, and the lake shone brighter than before. «Ella, let us have lunch. Let us have fun. Let us have a swim. I can just imagine you in one of those new bathing suits.»
«Let's just sit there, Charles, and talk.»
So we sat and talked, and the time was gone like a dream. We might have stayed there, forgetful of everything, had it not been for the spider.
«Charles, what are you doing?»
«Nothing, my dear. Just a naughty little spider, crawling over your knee. Purely imaginary, of course, but that sort are sometimes the worst. I had to try to catch him.»
«Don't, Charles! It's late. It's terribly late. They'll be back any minute. I'd better go home.»
I took her home to the kitchenware on the sub-ground floor, and kissed her good-day. She offered me her cheek. This troubles me.
MAY 10 «Ella, I love you.»
I said it to her just like that. We have met many times. I have dreamt of her by day. I have not even kept up my journal. Verse has been out of the question.
«Ella, I love you. Let us move into the trousseau department. Don't look so dismayed, darling. If you like, we will go right away from here. We will live in that little restaurant in Central Park. There are thousands of birds there.»
«Please — please don't talk like that!»
«But I love you with all my heart.»
«You mustn't.»
«But I find I must. I can't help it. Ella, you don't love another?»
She wept a little. «Oh, Charles, I do.»
«Love another, Ella? One of these? I thought you dreaded them all. It must be Roscoe. He is the only one that's any way human. We talk of art, life, and such things. And he has stolen your heart!»
«No, Charles, no. He's just like the rest, really. I hate them all. They make me shudder.»
«Who is it, then?»
«It's him.»
«Who?»
«The night-watchman.»
«Impossible!»
«No. He smells of the sun.»
«Oh, Ella, you have broken my heart.»
«Be my friend, though.»
«I will. I'll be your brother. How did you fall in love with him?»
«Oh, Charles, it was so wonderful. I was thinking of birds, and I was careless. Don't tell on me, Charles. They'll punish me.»
«No. No. Go on.»
«I was careless, and there he was, coming round the corner. And there was no place for me; I had this blue dress on. There were only some wax models in their underthings.»
«Please go on.»
«I couldn't help it. I slipped off my dress, and stood still.»
«I see.»
«And he stopped just by me, Charles. And he looked at me. And he touched my cheek.»
«Did he notice nothing?»
«No. It was cold. But Charles, he said — he said — 'Say, honey, I wish they made 'em like you on Eighth Avenue.' Charles, wasn't that a lovely thing to say?»
«Personally, I should have said Park Avenue.»
«Oh, Charles, don't get like these people here. Sometimes I think you're getting like them. It doesn't matter what street, Charles; it was a lovely thing to say.»
«Yes, but my heart's broken. And what can you do about him? Ella, he belongs to another world.»
«Yes, Charles, Eighth Avenue. I want to go there. Charles, are you truly my friend?»
«I'm your brother, only my heart's broken.»
«I'll tell you. I will. I'm going to stand there again. So he'll see me.»
«And then?»
«Perhaps he'll speak to me again.»
«My dearest Ella, you are torturing yourself. You are making it worse.»
«No, Charles. Because I shall answer him. He will take me away.»
«Ella, I can't bear it.»
«Ssh! There is someone coming. I shall see birds — real birds, Charles — and flowers growing. They're coming. You must go.»
MAY 13 The last three days have been torture. This evening I broke. Roscoe had joined me. He sat eying me for a long time. He put his hand on my shoulder.
He said, «You're looking seedy, old fellow. Why don't you go over to Wanamaker's for some skiing?»
His kindness compelled a frank response. «It's deeper than that, Roscoe. I'm done for. I can't eat, I can't sleep. I can't write, man, I can't even write.»
«What
is it? Day starvation?»
«Roscoe — it's love.»
«Not one of the staff, Charles, or the customers? That's absolutely forbidden.»
«No, it's not that, Roscoe. But just as hopeless.»
«My dear old fellow, I can't bear to see you like this. Let me help you. Let me share your trouble.»
Then it came out. It burst out. I trusted him. I think I trusted him. I really think I had no intention of betraying Ella, of spoiling her escape, of keeping her here till her heart turned towards me. If I had, it was subconscious, I swear it.
But I told him all. All! He was sympathetic, but I detected a sly reserve in his sympathy. «You will respect my confidence, Roscoe? This is to be a secret between us.»
«As secret as the grave, old chap.»
And he must have gone straight to Mrs. Vanderpant. This evening the atmosphere has changed. People flicker to and fro, smiling nervously, horribly, with a sort of frightened sadistic exaltation. When I speak to them they answer evasively, fidget, and disappear. An informal dance has been called off. I cannot find Ella. I will creep out. I will look for her again.
LATER Heaven! It has happened. I went in desperation to the manager's office, whose glass front overlooks the whole shop. I watched till midnight. Then I saw a little group of them, like ants bearing a victim. They were carrying Ella. They took her to the surgical department. They took other things.
And, coming back here, I was passed by a flittering, whispering horde of them, glancing over their shoulders in a thrilled ecstasy of panic, making for their hiding places. I, too, hid myself. How can I describe the dark inhuman creatures that passed me, silent as shadows? They went there — where Ella is.
What can I do? There is only one thing. I will find the watchman. I will tell him. He and I will save her. And if we are overpowered — -Well, I will leave this on a counter. Tomorrow, if we live, I can recover it.
