Changeling, and Other Stories 2 – Byrne · Verses Across
Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Changeling, and Other Stories 2Part 1 · Chapter 2
18
Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Changeling, and Other Stories 2
Part 1 · Chapter 2
ByrneEnglish
As Officer McCarthy paused for an instant in his story the eyes of the court-room seemed by common consent to turn to Anna Janssen in the dock. The jury looked at her with knitted brows; the spectators with puzzled glances. It seemed impossible that this calm, majestic figure could once have acted the siren of the streets to the officer bringing her from her Tahitian sanctuary. Immobile, somehow immaculate, with strange superhuman dignity, she did not blush, she did not smile. Only a genre shadow of pain was about her eyes, such as creeps about the eyes of some one who remembers old, all-but-forgotten painful things of phases of life long by.
Out of those firm lips like a rose in bloom could blasphemy have flowed in a sluggish lecherous stream? Out of that glorious bronze throat, fit for Magnificats? It seemed impossible, was impossible.
The judge looked at her with moved, understanding eyes. The district attorney cast at her puzzled glances. Donegan looked neither at her, nor at anything. He just drowsed like a dog....
"All next day," McCarthy went on, "the blow grew worse. They reefed down sail until we were flying along under top and foresails. The funny thing was that here and there the sky was blue. You 'd have thought all was going to get fair in an hour or two, but it did n't. And the captain stood by the man at the wheel and looked worried.
"You had to shout to make yourself heard. 'Ain't it going to calm down, Captain?' I says.
"'I don't know,' he says. 'I wish to God I was out of these islands,' he says. 'If I was all alone in the middle of the Pacific, I would n't give a damn, but these here coral insects,' he says, 'they 're always building, and they sure do bother me. And these charts of the Marquesas,' he says, 'they ain't worth a damn. I wish I was out of these islands,' he says; 'I sure do.'
"'Oh, you 'll be all right, Cap,' I says.
"'You get for'a'd out o' here,' he barks at me.
"'I 'll talk to you later about that,' I says, but I goes off, because I see he 's worried.
"All we get to eat that day is a cup of coffee and a sandwich. And night comes and we 're still plunging on.
"And then we hear thunder.
"Janssen won't turn in. She 's scared, she says, and she sticks by me. And the thunder keeps up, and comes closer, and it gets very dark.
"'What's that?' Janssen says.
"'It strikes me it is n't thunder at all. It's some boat in distress firing a gun,' I tells her. 'It's too bad we can't do anything for them. But I don't think we can.'
"'I 'm afraid, McCarthy,' Janssen says. 'That's no gun.'
"'Maybe it's a lot of guns,' I says. 'Maybe it's the French navy practising. They take a funny night for it,' I says.
"'I 'm scared, McCarthy,' she whimpers, and comes close.
"'We 'll be all right,' I tells her.
"'I 'm scared,' she cries. 'Put your arms around me, McCarthy, please.'
"'Oh, come off!' I tells her. That game don't go, Janssen. What's the use?'
"'I 'm scared, honest. They's something going to happen.' The boat does a little jazz step, and the guns is right in our ears. And overhead, Judge, the stars were out. 'Please take me in your arms, McCarthy--just like I was your sister.'
"'Well, you ain't just like you was my sister. And they 's been too many arms around you for me to put mine. But you can hold on to me,' I says.
"And then my teeth come together with a jar and my spine is near driven through my skull, and something hits me on the head. And all the water in the world comes over me. And I know nothing."
The witness, it seemed, here underwent a strange dramatic transformation. Until now in his recital, his story had been a story all could understand, a policeman's story, told in a policeman's voice, in a policeman's words. To the court-room he was a figure within their ken, a person to warm the hearts of burgesses. Honest, homely, speaking in dialect, he stood in their eyes for the typical and honored defender of city families and city homes. Great figures, those men! They make heroism casual. We may call the New York police grafters; we may call them brutes and tyrants; we may call them the scum of Ireland. We can never call them cowards.
There is on record the case of--shall I say O'Kelly? A homicidal maniac, armed to the teeth, took refuge in a cellar. "And then what?" "I goes down into the cellar and I gets him out." "Good God! You went down alone into that dark hole after--" "Oh, that was not'in'; he was easy!"
You can have your great regiments--your Old Guard at Waterloo; your Rough Riders of San Juan Hill, your Black Watch, your Bashi-Bazouks; your Bersaglieri. Give me the New York police!
Up to now McCarthy had been only a New York policeman, telling in a dry way the facts of a case. But a new dignity arose in him of a sudden. He was no longer dealing with the processes of his profession but with big human phenomena. Until now he had been deferential to court and officers, a cog in the legal machine. Suddenly he assumed individuality, poise, dignity. He became bigger than the personnel of the case, as big as the woman in the dock. And curiously his language changed to fit the newer individuality, turning from the idioms of the sidewalks of New York to what we term, in that archaic phrase which has so much of dignity, the King's English.
"I came to," he resumed. "At first it was blackness and a terrible headache, and the thought in my brain: 'Where is Janssen? I've lost Janssen.' And then my head cleared, and my eyes opened. And I was lying on the sand in the dawn, and Janssen was bathing my head.
"'So there you are!' I said.
"And then it struck me. Where 's the ship?
"I got up on my elbow and looked around. We were on a strand, with trees behind us and a bay in front and the sun just coming up, bright as a golden eagle. In front of us was a sort of bay where the water was still and sparkling, like wine sparkles. And then I look out further. And there 's a sort of wall of crags between the bay and the sea, and on the other side of it the sea is pounding, pounding, pounding, like a man crazy with anger. Swish! Crash! Boom! And then I notice pieces of timber, a bale, a piece of cloth in the lagoon.
"The schooner 's gone, I understand. There 's been a wreck.
"'Where are the rest?' I ask Janssen.
"'There are no rest.' She throws her arms out. 'Just you and I!'
"Then after a while I said: 'We 're in a pretty bad way here--shipwrecked; without anything to eat; with a very small chance of rescue. We 're up against it. There is n't even water.'
"But she only laughed.
"'We 're not so bad as you 'd think,' she says. 'There 's water. I found it when I looked for something to bathe that cut on your head. And as for food, I 'd been in these islands a while before they put me in the--place--at Papeete. There 's bananas, and there 's cocoanuts, and there 's breadfruit. And that cove is full of fish.'
"'You can't eat fish raw,' I tell her.
"I 'm turning out my pockets then, leaving things in the sun to dry--my gun, with the shells out in a row; my watch; my knife; my pocketbook. She points at the watch.
"'You can make a fire with the crystal of that,' she says. 'Your bananas 'll do for the present. I 'll go off and get some. You need n't worry,' she says as she notices me looking at her. 'I can't get off the island.'
"After a while she comes back and sits down.
"'Do you know how you got ashore, McCarthy?'
"'I don't,' I answer. 'I know nothing.'
"'When the boat struck,' she tells me, 'you and I were washed over the reef. Something hit you on the head. But I pulled you in, McCarthy. You went down. You were out cold. I had a job, too,' she laughs nervously. 'Your hair is awfully short.'
"'Well, I got to thank you,' I said.
"'Don't mind thanking me,' she said. 'Tell me this!' She 's awfully serious. 'Don't you think a life is worth a life?'
"I say nothing to that.
"'Don't you, McCarthy?' she pleads.
"'I 'm sorry,' I tell her. 'I 'm awfully, awfully sorry, but I 've got to bring you in.'
"'You 're a hard man, McCarthy.'
"'I 'm not a hard man. I 'm just a man sworn in to do my job. I 'm just a man a big trust's been put in, and I can't fall down. Sis, you missed your chance,' I told her. 'You ought to have let me go down, when you saw me going. Then you 'd have been free. You ought to have stood clear and let me drown.'
"'Oh, I could n't do that!' she says.
"'Neither could I let you go!'
"In the afternoon I go around the island to see where we are. But from no point can I see land or a sail or anything. We are just on one of those Pacific atolls, as they call them, away from the line of everything but sailing-ships trading from isle to isle. I look everywhere--north, east, south, and west--and there is nothing but boiling sea, white, muddy, with birds fluttering, or floating in the air.
"The island itself is not more than ten miles square and there are rocks everywhere about it except around the cove where we landed, and that has a coral breakwater. The sand is bright and yellow like new gold, and on the island itself there is greenness that is nearly black. And you can see cocoanut-trees and banana-trees and oranges. And while I 'm standing there a little pig breaks through the underbrush and looks at me, and then flies off with a squeal. And for a moment my heart goes pit-a-pat because I think there are people on this island. A pig is a human thing. It's always been so near humans, it's nearly human itself. But a moment later something in me tells me there 's no one here. It's been put ashore, it and others, by some of the old whaling-ships that are gone now.
"I look around and I see the island, the sand like gold, the clean wind, the water in the cove as transparent as water in a glass; the fish in the water and the animals on the island, and the fruit on the trees. And the sun is bright and warm and full of life, and in the distance I can see Janssen. She has let her hair down and it covers her to the knees in a great shining cloak, like some wonderful fur cloak.
"And I think: There's many 's the old cop in New York--there 's many 's the millionaire, even--would like to finish his life alone in this paradise island, away from all trouble and worry and having everything he needs in sunshine that's more like wine than light, and with Janssen with him, when she has let down her hair.
"But I says to myself: You needn't think that way. You 're not old, nor disappointed. You 've got no reason to idle your life away. You 've got a job on hand. You 're a detective officer, and you 've got a prisoner, and you 're going to bring her home!
"I return to where Janssen is by the cove and I look for my knife and watch and gun. But my gun is n't there.
"'Do you know where my gun is?'
"She wheels around on me suddenly and points it at my head.
"'McCarthy,' she says, 'your word's good with me. Either tell me now you 'll let me go when we 're rescued or I 'll kill you.'
"'I can't,' I said. 'I won't. Now give me my gun and be sensible.'
"'I mean it,' she said. 'Let me off or I 'll kill you.'
"'I would n't be the first.'
"'Will you?'
"'No!' I says.
"I 'm watching the gun, to grab it if I can. Then I see a spat of fire like a match lighting. Then something burns my ear like red-hot iron. I hear the shot. I 'm sprung halfway round.
"I face up again.
"'You made a better job with De Vries,' I says, stupid-like.
"I 'm expecting the finisher, but she walks up to me and hands me the gun. She just looks at me, and her throat works, and then suddenly from her eyes run two big tears down to the corners of her mouth and I turn away.
"'I 'm going to fix you a bed of banana-leaves, and then I 'm going to light a fire. Forget your troubles for a while. Think of this as a picnic.'
"But the tears still run down her face and she says nothing. I go off and get busy because I can't stand the sight of It. I 'm not feeling any too like a comedy, myself.
"'We 're sitting that night at a fire on the beach, and the thin new moon is up. A light breeze is in shore. Suddenly she turns to me.
"'You 're religious, McCarthy,' she says to me.
"'I 'm not exactly religious,' I say. 'I 'm like every one, I guess.'
"'You believe in God, McCarthy?'
"Nobody likes to talk much about things of that kind. You think about them, but you don't say them. And particularly you don't talk about them to a prisoner who 's up for murder, unless you 're one of those Holy Willie boys.
"'Who does n't?' I spars.
"'You believe--' her voice is serious--'that God takes care of you on this island?'
"That's what they say.'
"'Do you believe, McCarthy, that He knows me, takes care of me, cares for me?'
"I say nothing--because I can't see it. She 's too far out of the pale. I 'd like to tell her 'yes.' But I can't.
"'You don't believe, then, McCarthy--' her voice is just a husky whisper--'that there is any caring for me, anywhere.'
"'Oh, what's the use of bothering about that?'
"'You don't, then,' she said. 'You think I 'm too bad for--even--that.'
"I get up and shake myself. 'Maybe there's nothing to it, after all,' I tell her. But all of a sudden she is crying, her face down to the sand, as though her heart would break.
"I move away, because I 'm no good to her, and go down the strand a bit. The water laps the strand, and whispers in the trees, but I can hear Janssen crying still.
"I walk on and on. I hear the sea rumble on the rocks, and the whisper of the trees is louder. A turtle pluds into the water, and a cocoanut falls with a thud, but over it all I still can hear the voice of Janssen crying, little tearing cries, as though pieces of silk were being ripped from the main fabric with shrill protesting tragedy. It struck me that she herself was flaying her heart with brutal knout-like strokes, and that every red shred was moaning in protest: 'Don't, don't, don't!'...
"The new moon became the full moon, and waned and died," McCarthy went on. "But no help came.
"There was nothing to do but wait, and a policeman does n't mind waiting. All his life is waiting, except for a hint of action now and then. But I worried about Janssen.
"Janssen gave me no trouble. We talked just as friendly strangers might talk, waiting on a railroad platform. She got the bananas and the cocoanuts and the breadfruit, gathering them as they fell. I managed to kill a suckling pig now and then, and I rigged up a fishing-line from a piece of rope I unraveled that had come ashore from the wreck of the boat, and a pin Janssen gave me.
"There 's nothing I like to do better than fish, and I sit there and fish and think all the time. And little things come to me of the life in New York, and I worry over them. I never was a grafter. I never took a penny from any one when I was on the vice squad, in the way of protection, but there 's little things that worry me. As, for instance, when I go into a saloon for a drink, they never take my money. When an arrest is made, sometimes I find a bailsman for the prisoner, and they give me something as a favor. Or I sell tickets for this benefit or another, and nobody wants them, but nobody dares refuse. And I sit there in a few acres of coral in the Pacific Ocean and the sun rises in the east way over New York, and the moon sets in the west down China way. And the winds blow south from Japan or north from the edge of the world. And I think: It's very small. It's not worth a man's while.
"And while I 'm thinking Janssen is thinking, too. But what she 's thinking about, I can't figure. She 's very silent. And at times her mouth is n't hard at all, nor her eyes, either. And when she speaks her eyes are on the ground and she 's very serious.
"'What are you thinking about, Janssen?' I ask.
"'McCarthy,' she says, 'did you ever, after a hard day's work, disappointed, clogged with dirt, come in and turn on a cold shower and suddenly feel better and cleaner--and be happy again?'
"'That's the only thing to do, on a day like that.'
"'Well, I feel,' she said, 'as if this island were that bath after the awful day of my life,' she said.
"At times I think, myself, that it must be getting on her nerves, this place. She 'll want the lights, the gaiety, the people, if only for a little space, before she faces her trial. Even the chair must be better for her than this waiting, I think.
"'Are n't you getting lonely, Janssen?' I ask. 'Does n't this get on your nerves--having nobody to talk to?' We never speak any more about the murder or the trial.
"'Why, no, McCarthy!'
"'I should have thought,' I say, 'that after the gaiety you knew you 'd find this a terrible trial.'
"'McCarthy,' she said suddenly, 'were you ever at Saranac?'
"'I 've passed through it.'
"'Did you ever see the poor people there, quiet, waiting, glad to be alive, just being healed? Well, I 'm like those.'
"I don't notice for a while the change that is coming over Janssen. I see things on the outside of people. I don't see them on the inside. I 'm a detective. I just think maybe she 's got the blues, Maybe she's worried. But one afternoon she comes to me and springs a new one.
"'McCarthy,' she says, 'would you mind every afternoon keeping away for an hour or so from the cove?'
"'What's the idea?' I says.
"'Well, I used to be a good swimmer,' she says, 'and I 'm going to practise, and I have n't got any bathing-suit,' she says, 'not even tights. So you 'd better keep away.'
"I think to myself: 'This is a queer thing for any one as tough as they tell me Janssen is, to come out with.' And I wonder if she means exactly the opposite of what she says. She wants me, I half figure, to hang around. And maybe she thinks I 'll fall for her. And if I do, she has me, I say to myself.
"And then I look up at her, and I see her eyes, and I never was so ashamed before or since.
"'All right, Janssen,' I say.
"'Thanks, McCarthy!'
"A week later she borrows my knife.
"'My clothes are in rags, McCarthy,' she says, 'so it's back to the Garden of Eden for me. I got to dress up like these wahinies down here. Don't laugh at me, McCarthy; promise me you won't.'
"'Not too much Garden of Eden, now,' I warn her.
"'Don't worry!' she laughs. And next morning you could have knocked me down with a straw, as they say. She has strung together big green banana-leaves with fiber, and made a knee-length skirt of them. And under her arms and about her is a little closed jacket of leaves, and that great golden cloak of her hair falls around, rippling and shimmering.
"'How do I look, McCarthy?'
"'You look fine,' I tell her. 'You look like a picture, you sure do. You might be in a stage play,' I tell her, 'only you 're so fine and modest.' She blushes pretty as a girl of sixteen, until it was a shock to me to remember that she was my prisoner for the crime of murder. And I look at myself, feel my chin, see how my suit is going. 'You make me feel like a bum.'
"The months pass and two sails go by.
"One I see in the early evening. A few very fleecy clouds shuttle in and out before the sun, and the great sea is purple, and the sand takes on a deep hue like the color of a gold coin that's been in circulation for years, mellow and reddish-like. And the green of the trees is so green you can feel it. And on the horizon is a native boat with a lateen sail that is orange-colored.
"I see it. I make no effort. I can do nothing. But it seems to me that it is unreal. It is not there. It is just a dream. It is unreal as the island is to me, unreal as my old life is to me, unreal as everything is--except Janssen.
"But a week later another boat comes, and this time it is n't unreal. Squat and bulky, it is a tramp steamer headed down New Zealand way. It passes not more than three miles off, and very ugly it is upon the sea, its funnel belching out black smoke that is like an insult to the shining seas. I have a bonfire ready-made and go to it with my burning-glass. And Janssen stands by and looks at me.
"'Do I have to go back, McCarthy?' she asks.
"'You got to go back and face the music, Janssen.' And I lights the fire.
"I get everything ready to board, but the steamer pays no attention. They go straight ahead. Maybe they think it's just natives, but at any rate they don't put about or anything. I go to the edge of the water and shout to them. I go into it up to my waist and whistle and snap my fingers and call to it, as I would to a dog, but they pay no attention. And then I give up.
"'I 'm sorry, McCarthy,' Janssen says.
"'What are you sorry for?' I asks her. 'You ought to be glad.'
"'I am glad,' she says. 'I 'm glad for myself, but I 'm sorry for your sake, McCarthy. I 'm really sorry.'
"One night we 're setting by the fire in the moonlight, and I 'm trying to figure out how the natives build their huts, because I want to build one for Janssen. There 's a queer sort of rain in these islands. Sometimes in a bright sky a cloud will pass, very high, very quick, and the rain comes down like bullets. You can hear it thunder in the leaves, and rattle over the sea like pistol shots. And it's not so pleasant after a while. It's over in a minute or so, but Janssen ought to have some place when it comes.
"And Janssen is sitting there as quiet as anything, making figures in the sand and saying nothing. She turns to me.
"'McCarthy,' she says, 'did I really kill Alec de Vries?'
"'You killed him dead.'
"'It seems like a dream to me, a bad dream in the night.'
"'If you had waited and looked at that corpse, you 'd have known it was no dream.'
"'And because I killed a man that was no use to any one I 've got to go back.'
"'You 've got to go back, all right,' I tell her.
"'Well, do you know, it's only fair,' she says. 'You 've called the tune, and danced it, and you 've got to pay the fiddler. But I 'm scared, McCarthy. I 'm terribly scared. It would be very easy for me to jump in the water or borrow your gun some night. Think of it. They put metal on your legs and strap you into a chair, and they put a cap over your head. And, then a man, as human as yourself, pushes a switch, and just as if he were putting out a light, he puts out the light of your life, the same light that's in himself.... And all in the cold gray morning....'
"'Tell you something, kid--' I had this on my mind for a while. 'I don't think they 'll burn you. We 'll get you a good lawyer when we go back and you 'll get off with a long stretch up the river.'
"'But don't you see, McCarthy,' she laughs nervously, 'that that's worse still? A person does something, as I 've done, because his mind and his--his self--are full of nooks and crannies, dust and cobwebs, bad feelings, passions. And he flies away. And maybe in the desert or the mountains a great wind comes and cleanses him. And he mends the shattered self together.
"'But the silly judge and the silly police go after him, and they send him to prison, and he sits there in the darkness and the wheels of his head go around. And the cobwebs collect again, and the grime from the other people comes off on him. And in the end he is worse than he was in the beginning.
"'I 'd rather die, McCarthy--die, all in the cold gray morning.'
"A month after this Janssen falls ill. Perhaps it's a gust of rain that's made her ill. Perhaps it's some of the berries or the fish or something. But at any rate, there she lies, white and near dead, all the life gone from her. There 's nothing I can do for her much but try to cheer her up and move her when she 's tired of lying in one position.
"'You 've got to get well, Janssen,' I say to her. 'You 've got to make an effort.'
"'But why?' she asks. 'Why shouldn't I die?'
"'That's no way to talk.'
"'What has life got for me?' she asks bitterly. 'The electric chair?'
"'You 've got nothing to worry about,' I say. 'It 'll be only a few years up the river and then out again, and the good old days.'
"'I won't live for that,' she says.
"'Well, listen,' I joke with her. 'You 're not going to make me come all the way across the world for you, and then not bring you home. You 're not going to throw me down, kid; be game.'
"'I 'd like to oblige you, McCarthy,' she smiles; 'but even for that I won't stay alive. Can't you think of any other reason?'
"'It would be awful lonely, if you were to go,' I say; and I mean it. 'Awful, awful lonely. I 'm getting very fond of you, Janssen.'
"'That's better,' she says, and pats my hand. And she turns her head. 'Don't worry, McCarthy. I 'll--I 'll live.'"
