Gene Wolfe - The Land Across

After that I took pictures of Martya, mostly to show the scale of things. She was pretty small and made the rooms look humongous. There were five or six of her coming down the big staircase, and we even built a new fire in the fireplace where my fire had been the night before. Martya got it going with one of the candles we had bought for our lantern, something I wanted to kick myself for not thinking of. After I got the fireplace shots she said she was tired and went home. I stuck around, taking a few pictures here and a few more there. Most of them were in rooms I haven’t talked about in this, and some were up on the second floor. There was a third floor, too, but I did not go up there.

The most interesting room I found was on the ground floor, anyway. It was the master bedroom. You could tell right off that it was the master bedroom even if it was not very big. For one thing, there was a great big bed right in the middle of it, a really high bed with a tester and a little two-step ladder so you could climb into it. For another thing, the ceiling was all one big picture painted right on the plaster, naked girls having a picnic in the woods. There were trees and wildflowers and all that, and a guy with horns like a goat’s peeking out of the bushes to look at them. Some of the paint was gone and some of the plaster had fallen but I liked it anyway and when it was new it must really have been something, even if the girls were kind of fat.

There was a chest of drawers and a fireplace and some other stuff, but the big thing for me was that picture. I must have taken twenty shots of it, trying to get it right. It was hard to get all of it in, or even most of it, and it was hard to light even with the strobes. I had just gotten the best shot of all when I heard somebody tapping on the front door.

This is something I remember so well it hurts. I had been lying on the floor taking pictures, and I sat up and put my camera back in my camera bag, and shut it (turning the little catches), and got up and went to the door.

There were three guys standing around on the porch, one wearing a raincoat, one a big sweater, and one a long black wool vest over a T-shirt. Raincoat said, “Can we come in?”

It did not hit me right off that he had said it in German, and how did he know I did not understand much of the language here but I spoke German? I just said, “What do you want?”

“We want to talk to you. It would be more friendly, perhaps, if all of us could sit down. So we hope that you will ask us in.”

I shook my head. There was something about them that made me edgy. “We can talk right here,” I said.

“Then let us go to a café. A café will not be as private, but perhaps we can get a good table, yes? You will be our guest, to be sure.”

I shook my head again. “What’s this about?”

Wool vest edged past Raincoat. I thought he was going to explain something, but he just grabbed the front of my shirt and jerked me out of the house. It was probably Sweater who pulled the bag over my head.

Here is where I feel like I need to explain something. You may not give a shit, but I feel like it is important and I ought to put it in. This was where I learned how to hit people.

Maybe you think you know already, and maybe you do. Only I thought I knew before when I did not. I had fights in elementary school like we all do, and two or three in middle school and even one in high school. None after that until I tangled with Kleon. Some I won and some I lost, like with Kleon. Only I did not know what I was doing, I just thought I did.

When they pulled the bag over my head I started fighting for real. I had not been hitting anybody really hard up until then, not hitting them like I would drive a nail. Something about the bag made me do it. Sometimes I could hear somebody grunt when I hit him, and sometimes feel him stagger, only I did not pay any attention to it then, only after. Once I got the bag off my head for a minute. That was great, and it was when I learned not to hit the face. Faces are too hard and will hurt your hands. The body is good anywhere. The neck is best of all, and I do not think there was one of those three guys that I did not down at least once. I am not bragging. I really think I could say twice.

If there had been two of them, I think I might have beaten them. There were three, and three was too many. I was fighting like hell when I lost track of everything.

When I woke up my head ached so much I wished I had not. I was lying on my face, the floor rocked, my hands were behind me so I could not touch my head, and my feet were fastened together some way. In my whole life I had never felt so rotten as I did just then.

And afterward, for hours. I learned that my hands were not tied—they were in metal handcuffs. I felt them all over, but there was no way to get them off. When I turned over and sat up, I saw my feet were tied with rope. It was not just my head that made the floor rock, it was really doing it. Now and then I could hear footsteps, and once in a while voices. Only nobody came.

Finally somebody did. It was Raincoat, with the beady little eyes and big sharp nose, only he was not wearing the raincoat anymore, just baggy black pants and an old white shirt. There was a gun, not very big, in a black flap holster on his belt. He said, “Would you like some soup?”

I said, “I’ve got to piss.”

He laughed. “A good excuse to get my handcuffs off it is.”

“No, I’ve really got to go.”

“Do you now?” There was a narrow bench fastened to the cabin’s wall. He sat down on it.

I said, “I can hold it awhile, but not forever. It will come out and soak my pants and I’ll stink. You won’t like it.”

“So we shoot you and throw you over the side.”

That was a bluff and somehow I knew it. I shrugged. “I can’t hold it forever. Nobody can.”

“So I am to pull down your pants and hold your whistle for you.”

I shook my head. “Take the handcuffs off and I’ll do it myself.”

“No.” He turned away and yelled, “Croton!”

Croton was Sweater, I was pretty sure, only he had taken it off. There was a gun, a pretty big one, stuck in his pants. He went off and came back with an old tin can. When we were done, he took it out. I suppose he emptied it over the side.

“That was a lot.” Raincoat was grinning.

“I told you.”

“You would like the handcuffs gone. Your legs free also.”

“Sure,” I said.

“By your good conduct you may earn those things. Do you like this country?”

Here was the prof’s big question on the final exam, and I knew it. If I could guess what he wanted to hear, I was in. If I fumbled it, I flunked. Was he secret police or communist reactionary? Or just plain crook? I could not decide, and in the end I decided the best way was just to be honest. That way I would not have a bunch of lies to keep straight.

So I told him, “I really like your country a lot, only not the clubs in Puraustays and not your cops. They nabbed me as soon as I got here when I hadn’t done anything wrong, and they took my passport. If they would give it back, I’d like them a whole lot better.”

He nodded like he understood. “Are we well governed, you would say?”

I shrugged. “It’s pretty bad in America, which is where I’m from, and—”

“It is because you are Amerikan that we have taken you.”

“No shit?”

“Of this we may speak later. Are we well governed?”

I shook my head. “It’s so bad in America that I want to say it’s got to be better everyplace else, only I’ve been around enough to know that’s not true. Every place I’ve been to, the people are generally pretty nice but the government stinks. The clubs in France and Germany are pretty good, and there’s some terrific clubs in Austria, but the government stinks in all of them, especially France.”