Gene Wolfe - The Land Across

“You must have lit the fire,” I said in German. “Thank you! I thank you very much!”

He looked up at the sound of my voice. When I finally remembered he did not understand German, I tried to show him how I felt by gestures.

He smiled, and the flames shone in his dark eyes.

“I wonder how you knew I was in here,” I said. “If Martya were with us, she could ask for me. Then she could tell me what you said.”

A blazing stick popped so loud I jumped. “Kleon beat me,” I told the man in black. “He kicked me and threw me out of his house. If the police hear about it, they’ll kill him.” The popping of the fire had sounded about like a pistol shot.

The man in black watched me, his smooth, handsome face holding no expression at all. I was no longer sure that he did not know German.

“It isn’t right for me to spend the night here. Not if it means Kleon gets killed.” I paused, and when the man in black stayed quiet I added, “Kleon works very hard.” I knew how dopey it sounded, but I could not come up with anything better.

I found my shoes. “Believe me, I really appreciate your getting the fire going, but I’m going back now. I’ve got to. Martya will let me in if I pound on the door long enough. Or maybe Kleon will. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was glad to see me.”

Tying my shoes took about half a minute. Folding Volitain’s blankets and topping them with his pillow took maybe five. Even so, the fire had died down a lot by the time we left. I locked the door behind me and led the way down the path through the willows, guided by my flashlight. I remember wishing the man in black were ahead instead of behind me, even though he had seemed friendly at the castle and had done me a favor by lighting the fire. He scared the hell out of me, and I am not too proud to admit it.

When we reached the street, I hesitated. “I don’t suppose you know the way to Kleon’s? Or Martya’s? She’s the girl who was with me on the boat.”

I was surprised and happy when he nodded and motioned for me to follow him. We made tracks for ten or fifteen minutes, then turned into what seemed like a forest.

A forest—only gravel crunched underneath my feet. The trees looked smaller than the willows, and they were more separated, letting in patches of moonlight here and there. Probably I should have switched on my flashlight, but it was really not necessary and I felt somehow that it would piss off the man in black.

When he got into a spot of moonlight, I saw something black that looked like a big dog trotting at his heels. It was joined by another dog just like it before I had taken eight or ten steps.

“Those are wolves,” I said to myself. Then I realized that I had said it in English, so I said the same thing in German, but although the wolves looked back at me the man in black did not. As soon as we left the moonlight, another wolf came in behind the first two.

Pretty soon I heard twigs rattling and snapping to our right. Something there was running away from us, and the ears of the wolves went up. Then the man in black held out his arm like a general on a battlefield and all three were off like arrows from a bow. I expected yells and barks and lots of commotion, but there was just one scream, and it was not loud.

Half a minute after that, I heard a few soft snarls. And pretty soon the man in black and I stepped out of the trees and into a street.

We had not gone far when a black car with a silver shield on the door rolled to a stop ahead us. Looking out the front window, the driver motioned for me to come over.

I did. He spoke in his own language, and I explained in German that I did not understand it.

“You are foreign.”

It was not a question, but I nodded.

“Show your passport.”

“It was taken away from me by the police.”

“I am the police. Why are you out so late?”

“By the border guards. I thought they were police—a kind of police. I’m the prisoner of a man named Kleon. He has to feed me in his house and let me sleep there.”

I waited until the cop nodded.

“He beat me tonight.” I handed the cop my flashlight. “Look at my face.”

He did. “You have seen a doctor.”

I nodded. “I left Kleon’s house to find a doctor, and it took a long time. Most doctors will not see patients so late.”

“That is so.”

“I got lost. At last I found a doctor who bandaged my face. I got lost again, and by that time there was nobody in the street to direct me. Do you know the way to Kleon’s house?”

The cop shook his head. It was about then, I believe, that I recognized the silent man who sat beside him as the third of the border guards who had arrested me, the one who looked like my father. I wanted to tell the cop he had my passport, but I knew that was going to make trouble, so I said, “Well, I have to get back to Kleon’s house and sleep there. Otherwise you’ll kill him—that’s what I’ve been told.”

“That is correct. You must sleep there. Who was the doctor who treated you?”

“What difference does that make?”

“I ask, you answer. What is his name?”

For half a second I went nuts trying to remember Volitain’s last name. “Dr. Aeneaos.”

The police car glided away.

“They didn’t question you at all,” I said to the man in black.

He gave me a smile, white teeth flashing under his black mustache.

We had not gone far when the police car came back. The cop waved me over the same as before, handed me my flashlight, and drove away again without saying a word.

The man in black had already set off. I hurried after him and asked whether we were near Kleon’s. He pointed in reply.

I recognized nothing and felt sure we were a long way from it, but the man in black left the street when we had passed two or three more of the little blocks that held private houses and started up a narrow path.

After we detoured around a ruined chicken coop, we reached a door in a wall that looked white. The man in black stood aside and signed that I was to knock. I did, knocking softly at first, then harder. Pretty soon it was opened by Martya.

She stared. “Where have you been?”

“Let me in.” I pushed past her and stepped into her kitchen.

“You…”

I grabbed the door to keep her from shutting it, and opened it wide. The man in black had gone.

“What it is?”

I switched on my flashlight and looked about for him. “There was a guy with me. I was going to ask him in.”

“It is not your house!”

“Then I’ll go away,” I told her. “I can sleep in the park.”

Her mouth opened and closed. With no lipstick it was not as pretty as I remembered.

“In the morning—and it’s got to be almost morning—I’ll go to the police. I’ll tell them the truth, that your husband beat me and threw me out. Is that what you want?”

She hesitated before she shook her head.

“Then you’d better be really, really careful about what you say.”

“You are hungry. You men are always angry when you are hungry. I will make you something. We have sausage, eggs, many good things.”

“That I bought.” I did not dare to sit down for fear I would never stand up. “I’m not hungry or angry. I’m too tired to think or talk. I’m going to bed.”

There was no bar for my bedroom door, but I shut it, tried to move the dresser to block it, and hid my wallet, hanging my clothes on the chair in a special way I felt sure I would remember in the morning.

If I dreamed I cannot remember the dreams, only waking up and seeing sunlight at the window, getting up and using the chamber pot, and lying down again feeling absolutely sure that I would never get away from this crazy country, that I would die right here and be buried right here, too. In my imagination, or maybe in a dream, I remember seeing the little gray stone that would mark my grave, a stone cut with my name and after that a “d” and the date of my death.