Sometimes at midnight, in the great silence of the sleep-bound town, the doctor turned on his radio before going to bed for the few hours’ sleep he allowed himself. And from the ends of the earth, across thousands of miles of land and sea, kindly, well-meaning speakers tried to voice their fellow-feeling, and indeed did so, but at the same time proved the utter incapacity of every man truly to share in suffering that he cannot see. «Oran! Oran!» In vain the call rang over oceans, in vain Rieux listened hopefully; always the tide of eloquence began to flow, bringing home still more the unbridgeable gulf that lay between Grand and the speaker. «Oran, we’re with you!» they called emotionally. But not, the doctor told himself, to love or to die together? «and that’s the only way.
They’re too remote.»
And, as it so happens, what has yet to be recorded before coming to the culmination, during the period when the plague was gathering all its forces to fling them at the town and lay it waste, is the long, heartrendingly monotonous struggle put up by some obstinate people like Rambert to recover their lost happiness and to balk the plague of that part of themselves which they were ready to defend in the last ditch. This was their way of resisting the bondage closing in upon them, and while their resistance lacked the active virtues of the other, it had (to the narrator’s thinking) its point, and moreover it bore witness, even lit its futility and incoherences, to a salutary pride.
Rambert fought to prevent the plague from besting him. Once assured that there was no way of getting out of the town by lawful methods, he decided, as he told Rieux, to have recourse to others. He began by sounding cafe waiters. A waiter usually knows much of what’s going on behind the scenes. But the first he spoke to knew only of the very heavy penalties imposed on such attempts at evasion.
In one of the cafes he visited he was actually taken for a stool-pigeon and curtly sent about his business. It was not until he happened to meet Cottard at Rieux’s place that he made a little headway. On that day he and Rieux had been talking again about his unsuccessful efforts to interest the authorities in his case, and Cottard heard the tail end of the conversation.
Some days later Cottard met him in the street and greeted him with the hail-fellow-well-met manner that he now used on all occasions.
«Hello, Rambert! Still no luck?» «None whatever.»
«It’s no good counting on the red-tape merchants. They couldn’t understand if they tried.»
«I know that, and I’m trying to find some other way. But it’s damned difficult.» «Yes,» Cottard replied. «It certainly is.»
He, however, knew a way to go about it, and he explained to Rambert, who was much surprised to learn this, that for some time past he had been going the rounds of the cafes, had made a number of acquaintances, and had learned of the existence of an «organization» handling this sort of business. The truth was that Cottard, who had been beginning to live above his means, was now involved in smuggling ventures concerned with rationed goods. Selling contraband cigarettes and inferior liquor at steadily rising prices, he was on the way to building up a small fortune.
«Are you quite sure of this?» Rambert asked.
«Quite. I had a proposal of the sort made to me the other day.» «But you didn’t accept it.»
«Oh, come, there’s no need to be suspicious.» Cottard’s tone was genial. «I didn’t accept it because, personally, I’ve no wish to leave. I have my reasons.»
After a short silence he added: «You don’t ask me what my reasons are, I notice.» «I take it,» Rambert replied, «that they’re none of my business.»
«That’s so, in a way, of course. But from another angle? Well, let’s put it like this: I’ve been feeling much more at ease here since plague settled in.»
Rambert made no comment. Then he asked:
«And how does one approach this organization, as you call it?» «Ah,» Cottard replied, «that’s none too easy. Come with me.»
It was four in the afternoon. The town was warming up to boiling-point under a sultry sky. Nobody was about, all shops were shuttered. Cottard and Rambert walked some distance without speaking, under the arcades. This was an hour of the day when the plague lay low, so to speak; the silence, the extinction of all color and movement, might have been due as much to the fierce sunlight as to the epidemic, and there was no telling if the air was heavy with menace or merely with dust and heat. You had to look closely and take thought to realize that plague was here. For it betrayed its presence only by negative signs. Thus Cottard, who had affinities with it, drew Rambert’s attention to the absence of the dogs that in normal times would have been seen sprawling in the shadow of the doorways, panting, trying to find a nonexistent patch of coolness.
They went along the boulevard des Palmiers, crossed the Place d’Armes, and then turned down toward the docks. On the left was a cafe painted green, with a wide awning of coarse yellow canvas projecting over the sidewalk. Cottard and Rambert wiped their brows on entering. There were some small iron tables, also painted green, and folding chairs.
The room was empty, the air humming with flies; in a yellow cage on the bar a parrot squatted on its perch, all its feathers drooping. Some old pictures of military scenes, covered with grime and cobwebs, adorned the walls. On the tables, including that at which Rambert was sitting, bird-droppings were drying, and he was puzzled whence they came until, after some wing-flappings, a handsome cock came hopping out of his retreat in a dark corner.
Just then the heat seemed to rise several degrees more. Cottard took off his coat and banged on the table-top. A very small man wearing a long blue apron that came nearly to his neck emerged from a doorway at the back, shouted a greeting to Cottard, and, vigorously kicking the cock out of his way, came up to the table. Raising his voice to drown the cock’s indignant cacklings, he asked what the gentlemen would like. Cottard ordered white wine and asked: «Where’s Garcia?» The dwarf replied that he’d not shown up at the cafe for several days.
«Think he’ll come this evening?»
«Well, I ain’t in his secrets, but you know when he usually comes, don’t you?» «Yes. Really, it’s nothing very urgent; I only want him to know this friend of
mine.»
The barkeeper rubbed his moist hands on the front of his apron. «Ah, so this gentleman’s in business too?»
«Yes,» Cottard said.
The little man made a snuffling noise.
«All right. Come back this evening. I’ll send the kid to warn him.»
After they had left, Rambert asked what the business in question might be. «Why, smuggling, of course. They get the stuff in past the sentries at the gates.
There’s plenty money in it.»
«I see.» Rambert paused for a moment, then asked: «And, I take it, they’ve friends in court?»
«You’ve said it!»
In the evening the awning was rolled up, the parrot squawking in its cage, and the small tables were surrounded by men in their shirt-sleeves. When Cottard entered, one man, with a white shirt gaping on a brick-red chest and a straw hat planted well back on his head, rose to his feet. He had a sun-tanned face, regular features, small black eyes, very white teeth, and two or three rings on his fingers. He looked about thirty.
«Hi!» he said to Cottard, ignoring Rambert. «Let’s have one at the bar.» They drank three rounds in silence.
«How about a stroll?» Garcia suggested.
They walked toward the harbor. Garcia asked what he was wanted to do. Cottard explained that it wasn’t really for a deal that he wanted to introduce his friend, M. Rambert, but only for what he called a «get-away.» Puffing at his cigarette, Garcia walked straight ahead. He asked some questions, always referring to Rambert as «he» and appearing not to notice his presence.
«Why does he want to go?» «His wife is in France.»
«Ah!» After a short pause he added: «What’s his job?» «He’s a journalist.»
«Is he, now? Journalists have long tongues.»
«I told you he’s a friend of mine,» Cottard replied.
They walked on in silence until they were near the wharves, which were now railed off. Then they turned in the direction of a small tavern from which came a smell of fried sardines.
«In any case,» Garcia said finally, «it’s not up my alley. Raoul’s your man. And I’ll have to get in touch with him. It’s none too easy.»
«That so?» Cottard sounded interested. «He’s lying low, is he?»
Garcia made no answer. At the door of the tavern he halted and for the first time addressed Rambert directly.
«The day after tomorrow, at eleven, at the corner of the customs barracks in the upper town.» He made as if to go, then seemed to have an afterthought. «It’s going to cost something, you know.» He made the observation in a quite casual tone.
Rambert nodded. «Naturally.»
On the way back the journalist thanked Cottard.
«Don’t mention it, old chap. I’m only too glad to help
