Authors: Steven Millhauser
Beneath the cellars of our town, far down, there lies a maze of twisting and intersecting passageways, stretching away in every direction and connected to the upper surface by stairways of rough stone. The origin of the passageways remains unclear. Although there is some evidence that they were known to the Indians who preceded the first white settlers, our historians are unable to decide whether the passageways are the result of natural process or whether they represent an ancient form of subterranean architecture. Our earliest records, which go back to 1646, the year of our incorporation, make mention of a “tunnel” or “cave” that is said to be located “under the ground.” The words have led some to argue that our passageways were originally a single long passage, to which later ones were added by deliberate design.
Such evidence as we can gather neither refutes nor supports this hypothesis.
The passageways vary considerably in width, though even the broadest give an impression of narrowness because of the extreme height of the walls. The darkness is dimly relieved by old-fashioned oil lamps in the shape of glass globes, which hang from brackets projecting from the walls at irregular intervals some fifteen feet above the ground. Sometimes a path turns sharply downward, and may in time pass beneath the structure of passageways into a lower level that is simply a twisting continuation of the one above. This level in turn may lead downward to still lower passageways. The paths are of hard earth. Small stones or fragments of fallen rock lie about. Here and there a black puddle gleams at the base of a wall.
We descend through openings that lie scattered throughout the township, not only in the north woods but also in parking lots behind the stores on Main Street, in the slopes of the railroad embankment, in the picnic grounds overlooking the creek, in the Revolutionary War graveyard, in weed-grown vacant lots and backyard gardens, at the edges of schoolyards, at the back of the long shed in the lumberyard, behind the green dumpster at the back of the car wash, beside yellow fire hydrants and dark blue mail-boxes
on maple-lined streets rippling with sun and shade. No one knows how many openings actually exist, for new ones are continually being discovered, while old ones collapse or are condemned as unsafe or are covered over by forest growth or the clumsiness of backhoes and bulldozers. A few openings have been given a kind of architectural permanence: in back of the town hall the opening has been surrounded by a circular platform of polished granite, on which a circle of white wooden columns stands in support of a domed roof, and here and there, on street corners or in parking lots, you see simple structures composed of two square posts under a peaked roof covered with black or red asbestos shingles. Most of the openings, however, remain impermanent and inconspicuous. The stone stairways are steep and sometimes circular; at the bottom there is always a short path that leads through an arched opening into a winding passageway.
As small children we are brought down to the passageways by our parents, who hold us tightly by the hand and point at the dim-shining globed lamps, the soaring walls, the sharply turning paths. It’s as if we were being introduced to the movie theater, or the library, or the nature trails in the north woods, but we’re aware of a difference, for we sense in our parents both a gravity and a quickening that we haven’t sensed before. Some of us are frightened, and pull away, toward the stairway and the sunlight. Others are enchanted, as if they have stepped into a picture in a storybook. Children are forbidden to wander the passageways alone, and it is
only in adolescence that we begin to wander freely, seeing in the dark and turning distances images of our secret rapture or despair. As we grow older we tend to spend less time in the passageways, for the cares of life pull us away, and it may happen that some of us recall the winding pathways beneath our town as one recalls some half-forgotten journey far back in the depths of childhood. Often in old age we find ourselves spending more and more hours in the cool passageways, which are believed to be healthful, though a small number of our older citizens avoid them altogether. But even those whose lives are largely passed above are never forgetful of the world below, which seems to tug at the soles of our shoes as we stroll along the clean, sun-sparkling streets.
Some say that we descend in order to lose our way. And yet it remains true that never once in the long history of our town has anyone failed to find the way back. For not only do our citizens descend whenever they like through widely scattered openings, but lamplighters in peaked caps move from place to place, to say nothing of the watchmen who quietly make their rounds, resting their thumbs in their broad belts, or the workers in their hard hats and green uniforms, who set up wooden sawhorses and orange safety cones as they clear fallen rocks into wheelbarrows, prop up decaying ceilings, or widen a path with sharp blows of their picks. And even if, as often happens, we wander for hours, or perhaps days, without meeting a soul in the turning dark, there’s always the likelihood of a sudden arch in the wall, leading to a stairway going up.
But this once granted, it must be admitted that there is never a sense, in the passageways, of knowing where you are. The pattern of twisting and interconnecting paths, on several levels, is far too complex for anyone to master, and in addition the pattern is always changing, for old passageways become suddenly or gradually impassable, and new wall-openings and small connecting corridors are continually being formed by the fall of rock fragments or the gradual loosening of rock along fault lines—a process regularly enhanced by the workers with their busy picks. One should also keep in mind the frequent burning out of the lamps, despite the vigilance of the lamplighters, and the consequent long stretches of unilluminated darkness. For all these reasons it isn’t too much to say that after the first few twists and turns at the bottom of a familiar stairway we enter uncertain ground. But this is by no means the same thing as losing our way, so that if indeed we descend for that reason, then we continually fail. Perhaps it would be better, for those who hold this theory of descent, to say that we descend in order to have before us the perpetual possibility of losing our way.
A further objection presents itself. To say that we descend in order to lose our way, or in order to have before us the perpetual possibility of losing our way, implies that our lives aboveground are simple, orderly, and calm. This is certainly not the case. Although ours is a relatively quiet town, we suffer disease, disappointment, and death as all men and women do, and if we choose to descend
into our passageways and wander the branching paths, who dares to say what passion draws us into our dark?
Flint and jasper arrowheads, stone axheads, bone fishhooks, ear pendants of stone and shell, an earthenware pot with a circular lip curving outward, a mortar for grinding maize, fire-blackened stones—such are the evidences of Indian life that have been discovered in the dirt paths and rock walls of our passageways, and that today are displayed in a basement room of our historical society. Experts have identified the artifacts as belonging to the Quinnepaug tribe of the Algonquian linguistic stock. We know that the Quinnepaugs had a word for the passageways, meaning either “tunnel” or “channel,” as well as several obscure words apparently referring to particular openings or stairways. What we don’t know is what use the Indians made of the passageways. Some of our historians believe that the Quinnepaugs hid from enemies in the underground dark, while others suggest that rituals of propitiation or prayer may have been conducted below. One school insists that early in their history the Quinnepaugs abandoned the upper world to dwell in the passageways, from which they emerged only to hunt at night and to bury their dead; a dubious offshoot of this school argues that pale, wraith-like descendants of the tribe still live in secret hollows of the walls, dreaming of past glory, and slipping out from time to time to move silently along unfrequented paths. We ourselves, who would like nothing better than to believe in silent Indians haunting our passageways, sometimes try to imagine
stern warriors and black-haired squaws moving stealthily behind us in the always branching dark, but when we turn suddenly we see only a shadowy path, a fissured wall, a tremor of blackness.
It often happens that citizens of other towns ridicule our passageways, or subject them to sharp attack. The lower air, they say, is unhealthy, and gives to our citizens a certain characteristic and unpleasant pallor. Noxious effluvia, rising from cracks in the ceilings of passageways, seep into our soil, penetrate the roots of vegetables in our gardens, soak into our cellars, and taint the very air breathed by babies in the cradles of our homes. As if such charges weren’t enough to sting us into reply, our passageways are also said to weaken the foundations of our homes, and even to undermine the stability of the entire town, which at any moment is liable to collapse. Although there is no slightest evidence to support such assertions, we carefully refute every charge, conducting extensive tests, hiring outside engineers, studying soil samples, comparing shades of pallor in twenty-six towns. But no sooner have we finished defending ourselves than we find ourselves under attack again. Our passageways, we are told, are useless, or frivolous, or wasteful, or worse. For what purpose can they be said to serve except to distract us from the serious conduct of our lives, and to tempt us toward a kind of childish dreaminess? These are the most dangerous attacks of all, the ones intended to crush our spirit and discredit us in our own eyes. In response to such charges we have learned, over time, the value of silence.
Sometimes, when we travel to other towns, we experience a sense of liberation from our passageways. The sidewalks, streets, and parks of alien towns have for us a peculiar charm, a kind of sunny innocence, uninterrupted as they are by stone stairways plunging below. Citizens of these towns, who spend their lives on the surface of the earth, seem to us to have a storybook quaintness about them. But soon the flat streets and sidewalks, stretching levelly away, fill us with unease. We long for our under-paths, which perhaps we haven’t entered for weeks, nor can we rest until we have fled the rigid towns and entered voluptuously our dark, yielding passageways.
Although we defend our passageways relentlessly against the lies and misrepresentations of outsiders, it remains true that we ourselves are not without our disagreements. One source of contention is the sheer bareness of the passageways, which strikes some of our more practical citizens as disturbing. From time to time a motion is presented before the town council requesting permission for a soft-drink or hot-dog concession in the empty spaces stretching away below, or for more imaginative enterprises—stationary pushcarts displaying kitchenware or leather boots, a sidewalk café, bookstalls, a new kind of microwave vending machine offering hot roast chicken legs and steaming bagels. The business managers and small merchants who favor such ventures are in no sense fanatics or
lunatics intent on betraying the history of our passageways by vulgar acts of commerce. In fact they can and do point to historical precedents. Our records show clearly that in the early eighteenth century, young boys hired by merchants and known as hawkers were permitted to roam the passageways with sacks containing biscuits and small raisin cakes called “snappers.” There is also evidence that toward the middle of the century small stalls were set up in certain passageways, a practice that seems to have disappeared after the Revolutionary War. But it was only in the last quarter of the nineteenth century that the passageways were suddenly freed from all constraints and opened to the full fury of merchant ambition. On both sides of the wider paths stood stalls and booths with striped awnings selling Panama hats, shirtwaists, cigars in cedarwood boxes, hot peanuts in paper twists, ivory-headed walking sticks, majolica vases, horse blankets, plowshares, spools of thread. Period engravings show mustached men in bowlers and tight-corseted women under broad hats heaped with fruit standing in a crush between long lanes of merchandise piled high on stands, in the glare and sharp shadows cast by lamps hanging from the booths and stalls. An atmosphere of the Oriental bazaar haunts these images. One disturbing sketch shows a horse half-rearing in a narrow passageway that seems to press on both sides as a man in a top hat tries to pull him forward and the horse-dealer stands huddled in a corner holding a fistful of ten-dollar bills. These heady days of business ended abruptly with the great fire of 1901, in which twenty-six people died; in a new law passed the following year, the land beneath our town was declared exempt from business transactions of any kind.
But why, we are asked, should commerce be banished from our passageways? What sense does it make? It isn’t a matter of developers harming a lush environment, or destroying valuable wildlife; the only life ever seen below is a thin growth of moss in the artificial light of our oil lamps. Surely a discreet form of commerce, it is suggested, such as an occasional stylish mannequin modeling a dark blue suit or tan trench coat, would not be out of place. Against all such proposals we argue that commerce introduces a distraction into our quiet passageways; that it goes against the spirit of our under-town, which invites solitary and meditative wandering; that in any case it’s unnecessary for merchants to seek space underground, since we continue to invite new businesses into our upper-town and energetically encourage business growth in every way. All such arguments are nothing but variations of a single argument that is never made but always understood: the lower world must at all costs be kept distinct from the upper. The selling of goods is an invasion of the lower world by the upper, an expansion of the town downward. By banishing commerce we assert the absolute separateness of the lower realm, its radical difference, even if we can’t agree, even if we scarcely understand, why that difference matters.