98
JASCHA KESSLER
moments they came tumbling out, clean towels raining with them.
The girl muttered, and dropped to her knees. The boy bent too,
butted her in her rear so that she sprawled, and fled down the
corridor. Acker had to wait while she retrieved her goods, folded
and put them back, buttoned up the white uniform and disappeared
after the boy in her shambling girl's run. Monkeybusiness, he said
to himself,
some
monkeybusiness!
When he judged they should have settled down wherever it
was they had gone, he resumed more painfully crouched. The fifth
floor was empty, except when the elevator rattled open and ejected
two crones in their flowered silk, who helped each other to their
rooms, where they fussed, interminably, with the locks. All right, he
promised, we will now see precisely what is doing here, heh? On
hands and knees, he ascended to the sixth floor; at the top he
moved to the landing with what seemed even to him infinitely
wearying and ridiculously unnecessary effort, though he made it
for the sake of the form, and sat there on the floor in the angle,
leaning over just enough to get a view of the hallway.
The elevator opened and two waitresses came out and walked
right towards him. He drew back. They went up the stairs to the
attic, their feet tramping hollow and measured, exhausted, on the
bare wooden steps that climbed to the seventh floor. In a minute
the elevator returned. Two busboys came out. Acker said to himself
with heavy irony, Such innocents! Such angels! We will see what
we will see! Acker watched, and saw something that opened his
eyes indeed. They had gone stealthily into the linen closet for a
moment; now they came out, each with gallon cans under their
arms-Acker's cans! Unmistakably! They slithered down the hall
at him and bounded thundering up over his head. He had a hunch
and held himself back, waiting and saying over and over, Well well
well! and Aha! and, Oho! In a few minutes, the pantomime was
repeated when another pair of busboys were brought up, and they
darted into the linen closet and also came out loaded down with
canned goods: one had even taken off his uniform jacket, put the
sleeves into the pockets and stuffed them with No.2 cans; the other
carried his white coat like a sack, and it was filled full with oranges
and grapefruits and whatnot! My god in heaven, Acker moaned
to
himself,
what have they got
in
there? In the next ten minutes, four
