Gene Wolfe - The Land Across

“You must sleep there, sir. That is correct.”

Martya said, “He sleep there last night. To this I swear.”

“I am inclined to believe you,” the small man told her, “but you force me to inquire concerning your own status. Do you yourself sleep there?”

Martya nodded. “With my husband. Yes, always. My husband own the house, which he buy with money my father leave us when he die.”

“I see. You were not sweeping its floors when first I saw you, but answering the door of the ruin this gentleman has engaged.”

“He desire to rent this house. I come with him to help. He is my cousin from America.”

The small man nodded. “I understand. How unfortunate that he should be arrested! Can you tell me why he engaged the house?”

“He say he wish a house near ours, but he does not pay much. It is such a house, and large. I do not decide. He decides.”

“I see.” The small man turned to me. “Can you tell me, sir, why you engaged this house?”

I put down my spoon. “Are you asking me why I wanted a house, or why I chose the one I did?”

“Both, I think.”

“Okay. I came here—I mean, here to your country—to collect materials for a travel book. I’m good at them. If you want to check up on me, I’ll give you the name and address of my publisher back in New York.”

The small man waved my offer aside. “I doubt that it will be necessary. Why did you come without a passport?”

“I didn’t, I had one. It was taken away from me by your border guards.”

The small man nodded. “They thought it fraudulent, sir. That it was or might be. Such passports are sent to the capital for laboratory examination.”

“I guess they’re given back to their owners when they check out.”

The small man nodded again, more slowly. “If their owners are still alive, yes. If they can be found. In many cases…” He shrugged. “They are not returned. Possibly I can help. You wished a house not far from the house in which this woman resides. I understand that. But you are living in that very house at present, provided I have understood you both correctly.”

“I am. But I figure the charges against me will be dropped pretty soon. When they are, I’m going to move out of their house and into the house I’ve rented. I ought to have it fixed up by then.”

“Your nation does not maintain a consulate here in Puraustays.”

It was my turn to nod. “That’s what everybody tells me.”

“There is, however, an embassy in the capital.”

I nodded. “I’ll go there when I can travel again. You seem to know a lot about this stuff. When I’ve talked to somebody at the embassy, will I be sent back to America straight off?”

The small man shook his head. “It will be months, certainly. Years, possibly. Do you have influential friends in your own country?”

“A few,” I told him.

“In that case, months, perhaps. Or a year or two.”

I nodded again. “Okay, if that’s the way it is, I’ll tour your lovely country with my cousin as my interpreter, and collect materials for a new book. Take a bunch of pictures, if I can get my camera bag back.”

“Ah! The police seized your luggage as well?”

“I don’t think so. It got left behind on the train when I was taken off.”

“I see. It may be that I can have it returned to you. I will try. You find the Willows attractive?”

“Yes,” I said, “certainly. I’ll have the trees cut and replaced with fruit trees and a nice lawn. When that’s been done and the roof fixed, with a few other things, the house should be really nice.”

“The state will not increase your rent?”

“Well, I hope not. To tell you the truth, I hadn’t thought about it.”

The small man sniffed. “You need fear no increase. I will see to it, sir.”

“Thanks! I’ll owe you for that.”

“If you are alive, sir. The house is most attractive? You are drawn to it while you sleep? It may be that I have employed the wrong word. This German we speak is not my native tongue.”

“It isn’t mine either,” I said.

“Does the house you have rented from us draw you in the way that a magnet draws iron filings?”

“Not so far.”

“Your cousin is attractive. You agree, I hope? See her as she eats the strawberry. Does she not attract you?”

“Sure she does.”

“But the house that you have rented from us, is it hideous?”

I thought quite a bit about that one. Finally I said, “It’s like a woman a hundred years old. Just seeing her, you know she used to be beautiful. You’d fix her up if you could.”

The small man chuckled. “Houses can be repaired.”

“That’s my point. Probably the house will attract me when it’s been fixed up, but by that time I might be as free as anybody. My passport wasn’t forged, and I’ve never committed a crime.”

“You are in my country,” the small man said slowly, “while I have never been in yours. Do you confuse ghosts with demons there? Or conflate either with fairies?”

That question made me a little dizzy. I ate a couple of strawberries while I thought about it. “No,” I told him, “I don’t believe we do. Ghosts are the souls of the dead, still hanging around. Demons are fallen angels, but fairies are nature spirits—or that’s what they said in a class I took one time.”

He nodded. “You have heard of Vlad the Impaler? A stake of some size was driven into the earth. Its top was sharpened to a point, and the condemned man was forced down on it and left there. In that manner he killed thousands. Some endured this agony for days before the merciful death freed them.”

Martya shuddered. “We should not talk of him.”

“His summer home was near here, on the lake. Someone or something is seen there, in summer particularly. A man, often large, with eyes of fire. Is this a demon, you would say? Or a ghost?”

“I’ve got no idea. What do you think?”

“No more have I. When my grandfather lay dying, he was visited by a small boy with golden hair, also wings like a flying flower. Roque was this boy’s name. I could not see him. You understand this? My grandfather sees him and describes him to me.”

I nodded. “Sure.”

“For his sufferings, my grandfather’s sins had been forgiven by God. Roque told him this. When he is no more, his soul will go to God in heaven where no sickness is, no filth. ‘Always Roque is so happy,’ my grandfather told me. ‘He laughs and makes jokes. Listen, Peterke, and you may hear him laughing.’”

I nodded again. “Did you listen?”

“Yes. I hear the tinkle of a little bell. There is such a bell on the garden gate. It rings when callers come into the garden. It does not ring in wind, unless the wind blows storm. You understand this?”

Martya said, “Many peoples have such bells.”

“I go to a window and look. Never have I seen the bell dance so, but I cannot hear it. The wind does not blow for the trees do not move. I open the window. There is no wind, and still I cannot hear the dancing bell. There is no one in the garden. Is Roque an angel, do you think? Or a fairy?”

I said, “I have no idea.”

Martya shook her head. “I do. It is a fairy”—( Fee )—“your grandfather see.”

“You are young and wise.” The small man shrugged. “I am old and stupid. I do not know.”

I ate another strawberry and asked him why he was telling us this.

“Because of the house you rent. There are many tales. What is it in your country that waits near a treasure to guard?”

“The cops.”

The small man chuckled. “Here, not. They send it to the capital and it is not seen again. Here…” He paused for a wry grin. “Sometimes ghosts, sometimes demons, sometimes fairies. Most often, we do not know. I know a man who saw such a one, a black dog with eyes of fire.”