Page:The Enormous Room.pdf/264

Rh heavy half-darkness. People were saying good-bye to people. Saying good-bye to friends. Saying good-bye to themselves. We lay and sipped the black evil dull certainly not coffee; lay on our beds, dressed, shuddering with cold, waiting. Waiting. Several of les hommes whom we scarcely knew came up to B. and shook hands with him and said good luck and good-bye. The darkness was going rapidly out of the dull black evil stinking air. B. suddenly realized that he had no gift for The Zulu; he asked a fine Norwegian to whom he had given his leather belt if he, the Norwegian, would mind giving it back, because there was a very dear friend who had been forgotten. The Norwegian, with a pleasant smile, took off the belt and said "Certainly" ... he had been arrested at Bordeaux, where he came ashore from his ship, for stealing three cans of sardines when he was drunk ... a very great and dangerous criminal ... he said "Certainly," and gave B. a pleasant smile, the pleasantest smile in the world. B. wrote his own address and name in the inside of the belt, explained in French to The Young Pole that any time The Zulu wanted to reach him all he had to do was to consult the belt; The Young Pole translated; The Zulu nodded; The Norwegian smiled appreciatively; The Zulu received the belt with a gesture to which words cannot do the faintest justice—

A planton was standing in The Enormous Room, a planton roaring and cursing and crying, "Hurry, those who are going to go."—B. shook hands with Jean and Mexique and the Machine-Fixer and the Young Skipper, and Bathhouse John (to whom he had given his ambulance tunic, and who was crazy-proud in consequence) and the Norwegian and the Washing Machine Man and The Hat and many of les hommes whom we scarcely knew.—The Black Holster was roaring:

"Allez, nom de Dieu, l'américain!"

I went down the room with B. and Pete, and shook hands with both at the door. The other partis, alias The Trick Raincoat and The Fighting Sheeney, were already on the way downstairs. The Black Holster cursed us and me in particular and slammed the door angrily in my face—