GOOD AMERICANS GO TO PARIS WHEN THEY DIE Read Free Page A

miserable
lower-echelon servant in a voice of sky-splitting earth-shaking
thunder: “Cease and desist from the sin of Onan! Desist and cease
at once!”
     
    He heeds not the Divine Voice.
    He dares to persist in seed-spilling
Abomination.
    He shall receive the Final Warning.
     
    In the vast bureaucratic room an attentive
ear might have picked up an angry squeaking sound like that of an
incensed mouse, somewhat amplified. But no ears are attentive here.
The man on the ladder and the fussily dressed young man are all
eyes. The ears of the four last materialized are still stopped by
slumber. Maggie Williams’s ears (to mention only her ears) are
stopped too, devoted as she is to closer things.
    In response to those indignant squeakings
the stepladder starts rocking, in the grip of some mysterious
force.
    The middle-aged man in the filthy beret and
gray smock breaks off his rhythmic activity. He squawks and grips
the crazy ladder. It grows unbearably hot. It teeters. He leaps off
it and grabs the half-open drawer for salvation. The dossiers he
was holding in his inactive hand flutter down like giant drab
wounded butterflies. Papers scatter everywhere. Ten meters from the
floor, he dangles white-wristed from the drawer. His toes drum
desperately on the drawers below.
    The ladder topples and crashes to the floor
inches from the young man’s two-toned shoes, almost braining him.
He jumps back gracefully and perceives imbecilic old Henri dangling
near the ceiling. And O what else is dangling? Not at all bad for a
man his age.
    At the racket, doors burst open
simultaneously. Dusty female lower-echelon functionaries in gray
smocks gape at the disruptive things going on in the room. Aghast
at the spectacle, they emit desperate little cries. Some giggle
hysterically. Wringing their hands, they trot about jerkily in tiny
ineffectual circles like barnyard fowl with severed heads. But
their white mask-like faces express no emotion.
    Another door opens. A middle-echelon female
functionary with iron-gray hair done up in a big bun sweeps the
scene with her frigid gray gaze. Three whistles dangle from her
squat neck. Her marble-white features seem petrified into permanent
sternness. She claps her hands twice. It sounds like two blocks of
wood shocked together with splintering force.
    “ Mesdames!
Mesdemoiselles! Stop
this cackling immediately!”
    The panicked lower-echelon female functionaries
stand stock-still. The middle-echelon functionary’s voice rings out
in a tone more of vengeful satisfaction than scandal:
    “Absolutely no Arrivals were scheduled for
this date. The fourth administrative blunder in as many months! But
never as shocking as this one. Somebody will pay the piper this
time. In the meantime, find decent clothing for them all,
instantly! At least for the short time they will remain here.”
    She points at Maggie Williams and Louis
Forster who are totally lost to their surroundings.
    “Those two will be voided in minutes without
need for a high-level inquiry. And the others as well, I should not
be greatly surprised.”
    She marches over to the wall where the
lower-echelon middle-aged functionary, Henri, is still suspended
white-wristed from his drawer. She commands him to adjust his
clothing and descend, in that order. Henri obeys his hierarchical
superior but reverses the order. Using the handles of the drawers
as foot and handholds, sweating abundantly, he descends with
difficulty. Safely grounded, he turns his back a second on the
women and then faces them again, tucked in and decently buttoned
and pretexts a sudden imperious call of nature up on the ladder a
minute before. No one is taken in by the excuse.
    “You will be reported,” decrees the
stern-faced female functionary with the iron-gray bun.
    She marches over to a long gilded Empire
table. It bears three telephones. One is pale gray and of
conventional size. The second is much larger and deep gray. The
third telephone is gigantic, requiring both hands to