The Listener Read online

  It was soon evident that the building would be square and that it would have only two rooms, a large front entrance and a small rear one. One room would be about eighteen by eighteen feet, the other a little larger. The white marble slabs rose to a flat roof. The gardens expanded, dying trees were replaced with tall young saplings, red gravel paths laid out, flower beds enlarged. “A kind of little church,” said some neighbors disdainfully. “Is he going to preach in there?” But no one knew.

  The curious, peering through the doorway — there were no windows at all — saw that the floor of the smaller room was being covered with a deep blue carpet, thick and sort, and filled with comfortable chairs, tables and lamps, all quite expensive. They could not see beyond this room, which had a wide, tall oaken door. The front door, of bronze, imported from the old country, was set in place, and over it, in an arch, was inlaid in gold letters: ‘The Man who Listens’.

  And set deeply in the white marble floor was a brass plate: ‘In Memory of Stella Godfrey’.

  Now it was complete, and John Godfrey let the press enter, for it was necessary that the public know. The young reporters surged into the pleasant and serene room with its glowing lamps, its glass tables covered with magazines and flowers in pots and vases, its white marble walls on which there were no murals or pictures, its thickly carpeted floor. It was very restful here, and quiet, and waiting. But for whom did it wait?

  John, smiling, touched a bell near the oaken door at the end of the room. It chimed gently. He pointed out a slot near the door. “For requests to be heard,” he said. The door automatically opened after ten minutes, while the reporters fumed with eager impatience. Then they entered the room beyond and stared.

  There was nothing whatsoever in the room but a tall marble chair covered with blue velvet cushions. The chair faced an arched alcove hidden by thick blue curtains. At the side of the alcove was a brass plate: ‘If you wish to see the man who has listened to you, touch the button above. You will see his face. He will be glad if you thank him, but it is not necessary’.

  So the reporters asked, “A clergyman? Shifts around the clock?” They knew that the building would never be closed. John did not answer except with a smile. The newsmen flashed their cameras on him, the sitting room, the empty marble room which was lighted obliquely by a soft and muted light falling from the white ceiling. One reporter, very young and brash, went to the button near the thick blue curtains, but John said with unusual sternness: “No! Not yet, not yet, for you.”

  He showed the reporters the box which lay below the slit that opened in the sitting room. “People may deposit their requests here, to be heard. Then, after touching the bell, they must wait ten minutes. Then the door will be opened, for one at a time. He then leaves by the rear entrance.”

  “A lawyer, perhaps, or a social worker, or a psychiatrist?” wheedled the young reporter. But John only smiled. “Of course,” said the reporters, “the people who come here will tell us all about it. It won’t be a mystery very long, you know, Mr. Godfrey.” John only smiled.

  “What do you expect people to say in here?” asked another reporter, taking another flash of the old man. “They will know before they come,” said John. He paused and said gently, “One of the most terrible aspects of this world today is that nobody listens to anyone else. If you are sick, or even dying, nobody listens. If you are bewildered, or frightened, or lost, or bereaved, or alone, or lonely — nobody really listens. Even the clergy are hurried and harassed; they do their best and work endlessly. But time has taken on a fragmented character; it doesn’t seem to have any substance any longer. Nobody has time to listen to anyone, not even those who love you and would die for you. Your parents, your children, your friends: they have no time. That’s a very terrible thing, isn’t it? Whose fault is it? I don’t know. But there doesn’t seem to be any time.”

  “And you think the man — whoever he is — will have time?” asked the impertinent reporter.

  John appeared to consider this gravely, his tall old head bent. Then he said, “Oh yes. I think he’ll have time. All the time there is.” He looked at the reporters and repeated: “All the time that’s left.”

  They thought him old, prosy, and enigmatic. They were certain that they’d have the whole story very soon from any man or woman who came here to talk, alone in this white marble room with the soft light and the shut curtains. They looked at the bronze box below the slit. It was very uncomplicated. The simple-minded would drop their illiterate little notes in there and a hidden clergyman or social worker or psychiatrist would read the notes, retire behind the curtain, and give ponderous advice. Some of the older reporters said it was very nice, and modern. The man behind the curtain couldn’t even see the speaker, and so it would all be very confidential. Silly old men and women would talk their heads off, in solitude, and go out comforted. For who ever listened to their complaints, anyway? The reporters would soon know, they reassured themselves. A new kind of psychiatric treatment, without charge.

  No one ever told. Two months after the building was opened to the public John Godfrey died. His wants had been meager; he had left a large fortune, for he had speculated for his dream. His friends laughed affectionately and said, “Who would have thought that old John was in the stock market?” His fortune was given to his building for perpetual care. Cleaners who became curious found that they could not move the blue curtains in the alcove. It was as if the velvet had been woven of steel. It was finally decided by everyone — with some truth — that it was the voices of the desperate which operated some kind of electrical impulse that opened the curtain after they had finished their confidences and had touched the button. But those who came with false confidences, out of curiosity, found that even when they touched the button the curtains did not part. It was discovered, months later, that old John, over long years, had studied electronics. Only the genuine voice of sorrow and grief and loneliness and despair could part the curtains.

  The button was only an added impulse.

  It was noted that those who slipped through the rear exit had radiant faces, or peaceful ones, or thoughtful. Some were in tears. Some walked resolutely, as if about to take a journey. Some cried aloud, “Oh yes, yes! I’d forgotten!”

  The reporters went to the clergy, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish. “What’s all this flim-flam?” they would ask. “Do you approve of it?”

  The clergy would answer only with smiles. Some would say they really knew nothing of the man who listened behind the velvet-steel curtains. Some would frown and talk of “superstition in this modern age of the hydrogen bomb and science.” A very modern clergyman said, “I know nothing about it and want to know less. Have you read Professor Blank’s latest book on the nature of the physical universe? Very enlightening. But only for intellectuals, of course. He explodes superstition for all time. Not that I am against religion,” the clergyman added hastily as he lit an excellent Havana, “for, after all, I’m a clergyman, am I not? But Things Advance, and Knowledge Grows.”

  A very old minister said briefly, “I myself have talked to the man behind the curtain. He answered me fully. He made it possible for me to continue when I thought it was impossible.”

  “What did he say to you?” asked the reporter.

  The minister looked at the young man thoughtfully. “Why, he said everything.”

  National newspapers sent their reporters to the city in droves. They learned nothing more. The Man in the Street was interviewed and his sage opinions recorded. Sure, the guy behind the curtain was a psychiatrist. The mother of the lady next door had gone to that place, and after she’d told all about her old goat the doctor had given her some good advice. And there was that girl in trouble, two blocks down the street. Social worker had told her what to do and where to go for help. And there was this widow with five kids. One was one of these juvenile delinquents. The social worker had helped her, too. And there was this man who had cancer and was scared to death. The worker had sent him to a hospital, free, a
nd he was cured. Oh, sure, the guy behind the curtain was a priest. He’d told a feller to confess his crime to the police. Say, was old John Godfrey a Catholic? Somebody said he was a Jew, and there was Jewish scrolls behind the curtain. What did the Jews want, anyways? Don’t you believe it! The guy behind the curtain’s a Christian Scientist. Can cure anything with the Bible, see?

  Other opinions, equally sage, were advanced. Oh, there was a recording machine behind the curtain. Some Communist or other. Or maybe the guy was a Socialist, or Republican, or Democrat. You kind of have to watch things these days, don’t you? Propaganda everywheres. Say, did you hear about that lady comes out and goes out of her mind? Had to take her to the state hospital. Me? I wouldn’t go there on a bet! Somebody should burn the place down. Know what real estate values are around there? We need a new school — or something.

  A priest said to a reporter, “Have you gone there, yourself, in the proper spirit?”

  “What is the proper spirit — sir?”

  The priest smiled slightly. “I’m sure you’ll find out, yourself, someday.”

  A rabbi said to a reporter, “I haven’t been there as yet, myself. But some of my people have. No, you can’t ask them. They won’t answer you.”

  A psychiatrist said, “I don’t know what is behind that curtain, and one of my most difficult patients went there, and he won’t tell me, either. But one thing I do know: he’s cured now.”

  There were attempts to break into the sanctuary, because there were rumors that the people who visited it left money ‘in the box’. But for some reason the doors resisted all kinds of pressure and force. And, of course, there were no windows to break.

  SOUL ONE

  The Confessed

  And the priest shall bring her near,

  and set her before the Lord.

  Numbers 5:16

  Mrs. Merrill Sloane entered the sitting room with resistance. She wore severe tweeds and a sable scarf and carried a leather purse soundly closed. She was fifty years old, gray and sharp of face, neat and trim of figure, and had a hat that was at least five years old and good for another five years. It was of felt, with a dipping brim. Her no-nonsense shoes set themselves firmly on the carpet. She walked and moved with precision and stared haughtily at the others in the room. They did not look at her. Murmuring distastefully to herself, as if ashamed of her own emotions, she took a sealed note from her purse, marched to the slit in the wall near the oaken door, and dropped the note through the opening. She waited. Nothing happened. Men and women of all ages were reading the magazines and slim books of poetry which had been laid on the tables. She sat down, very stiffly. Why had she been so stupid as to come here? Restlessly she removed her gloves and looked at the large diamond on her finger. But she was more concerned with the fact that her hands appeared to be withered and grasping and deformed. All the women in her family had always had soft, smooth, white hands, even in their eighties and nineties. Why were hers so dry and parched, and with such big knuckles? She looked again at the others in the room. It was warm and fresh in here, though it was March outside and there were no windows or any visible source of heat. A spring day! Suddenly she thought of a spring day, and the room blurred before her eyes and she dropped her head. She forgot her silent companions. Vaguely she was aware that one by one they rose, were admitted beyond the oaken door. Finally she was the last. Then she heard the bell chime for her, and she stood up on legs suddenly weak and entered the other room.

  Only a white, softly lit marble room, with a marble chair covered with blue velvet cushions. What was that tall alcove hidden by blue curtains? Mrs. Sloane frowned. Nonsense. John Godfrey — she had never met him — was a European, and possibly decadent, too. She remembered all the rumors. She sat down in the chair, as straight as an oak. She waited. The soft silence waited also. Oh yes, she recalled, she could say what she wished and someone behind that curtain would listen. All at once she was crying.

  “Please pardon me,” she murmured. “I have a slight cold. Prevalent this year. Or a sinus condition. I’ve just come from Dr. Bundy’s. He isn’t very competent, I’m afraid. A very painful affair, this sinus condition. My head aches all the time. Sometimes I think I am just one ache. This ache — ”

  The man who listened behind that curtain could not be interested in her sinus condition, which was due to the seasonable fogs and the melting snow. One must be dignified. “I should really tell you,” she said with severity, “that I don’t know why I am here. I’m sure my clergyman would not approve. He does deplore superstition so. Certainly he would not approve of my visiting you. I don’t know why I am here. So foolish.”

  The patient silence waited. There was no hurry, no bustle, no rustle of clothing. No sound of traffic or of jet liners or of feet. No subdued opening or closing of doors. No clock. No ticking. No impatience. “Very restful,” said Mrs. Sloane approvingly. “It reminds me — ”

  The man behind the curtain waited. He had all the time in the world. He listened. Mrs. Sloane blew her nose, murmured, wiped her eyes. “It reminds me” — she faltered again — “of a day in early May.”

  She was weeping, all at once, like a spring torrent. “I can’t bear living any longer!” she cried. “I can’t bear it!”

  She clenched her hands on her knees and was horrified at the echoing sound of her outburst. She looked about the marble room, cringing. Mrs. Merrill Sloane screaming like this, Mrs. Sloane who managed the Junior League ruthlessly, the Rheumatic Hospital League, the Debutante Cotillion, the Town Club; Mrs. Merrill Sloane who said, and said finally, who should be admitted to the very core of the city’s society, who should be chosen for the League for the Philharmonic, the Crippled Children’s Hospital Board, the Green Country Club. Mrs. Merrill Sloane whose husband could buy and sell the whole city.

  Buy and Sell.

  The man behind the curtain waited. She stared at the curtain, which did not move or stir. But she could feel the great patience, the great sympathy. “Are you someone I know?” she said. The man waited. “I suppose not,” she murmured. She paused. Then she exclaimed, “No one knows me!”

  She had the strangest sensation that the man behind the curtain knew her very well, and with affection and understanding, and that she could trust him. She said, “I hope I can trust you. After all, I have a position. May I trust you?”

  Did a voice answer “Yes”? She was never sure. “Very silly, really,” she said as the tears ran down her gray cheeks. “I shouldn’t have come. But there is all that talk. You listen, they say. No one ever listens anymore. My mother did, but she died when I was ten years old. I’ve never found anyone to listen since then. Certainly not my children!”

  She leaned toward the curtains urgently. “Mine is a silly story. I’ve talked with my doctor. He’s indulgent! Indulgent! Does he ever know how much his indulgence is like slamming a door in one’s face? I’ve talked with my clergyman too. He’s very elegant. He delivers the most erudite lectures — I mean sermons. Are you a clergyman? I didn’t mean to offend you. But lectures — I tried to talk to him; he murmured something about ‘my time of life’. Is there a ‘time of life’ when one isn’t in agony? No!”

  She twisted her gloves in her sweating hands. “I’ve thought of killing myself,” she said, and looked at the curtains fearfully. They were not agitated; there was no stir of protest behind them, nor reproach.

  “A very silly story,” she said. “I don’t know why I am wasting your time like this. I have an appointment at — ” The man did not speak behind the curtain. “An appointment,” she repeated. Then she cried out, “What does an appointment mean! It means nothing at all! People all have appointments! With what? With whom? Why? With death?”

  She paused. She said in a very low voice, “That is very strange. It has just occurred to me that we all have appointments with death. I never thought of that before. Death. Death. When you think of that, everything else seems very foolish. Except a spring day in May. That is all that matters.

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bsp; “You see,” she said, “my family is very old, and very distinguished, in America. Scholars, professors, lawyers, doctors, financiers. There are three governors in my family, too, and four senators. My father could walk in and out of the White House any time he wished; he had only to announce he was going to Washington. I have sent his letters to the Library of Congress, and all the letters of the Presidents, too. My aunt married an English peer. We are very distinguished.”