Gene Wolfe - The Land Across

The short man signed, and the border guards trooped out.

I apologized to the short man in English, and then in German. He could not understand that either.

The girl who had peeped in before smiled. She was a cute girl, with lots of curves and bouncy amber curls. “I must help.” She talked to the short man. It seemed to me she was translating what I said, so I thanked her.

“It is nothing. I am most happy to be of use. I am Martya. My husband is Kleon. They do not like us.”

Her husband spoke.

“He too says they do not like us. They will kill him if you escape. He says we could tie you up and keep you a prisoner in that way, which many would do. He says please do you not escape, or take us with you if you do.”

I told her I would not escape.

“Kleon does not understand, but learns from our faces. Has mine told you what I think?”

I said it had not.

“See that you do as I.”

I nodded.

“What you just did he understands. For us it might be most fortunate if you were to remember this. Try also to make long answers to my short questions, long, long answers to my long questions. In this way he will know only what I tell him. It is good for you and me, I think.”

“I have a great many questions to ask you,” I said, “questions about your country, this city, this house, your husband, and yourself, lovely lady. Where can I telephone the American embassy and a bunch of other stuff. What I’m trying to tell you is that I’ll have long questions as well as long answers.”

“Here no one has the telephones you seek. In the capital, perhaps.” She talked to her husband for two or three minutes. He shook his head, said a few words, and spat into the fireplace.

“He will answer none of your questions.” She smiled. “He thinks you are a JAKA spy. He did not say this, but he thinks it.”

I said he was wrong, and explained that I had come to collect material for a book.

“I believe you because I see your clothing. It is foreign and most well, lamb’s wool and fine cottons. The silk shirt also. The shoes. You are fortunate the border guards did not take them.”

“They would not rob a spy, would they?”

“They rob everyone. Who will arrest them? No, you are foreign, from a weak nation far away.”

I told her she was right.

“If you escape you will return there. Could you bring with you another, perhaps?”

“Yes,” I said. “That’s never easy but it might be possible.” It seemed to me it was the smart thing to say.

She smiled. “This is too short an answer, you see? You must answer me much more long, and who does not know ja ? Now for you a new question. These kind border guards who did not take your clothing, did they not take also your money, and did you before they came change some into our money? Is there other wealth of you that might be drawn upon, and do you still have it? Do not look at this money, this wealth you have, before you make the answer.”

“I won’t,” I promised. “As to the currencies about which you asked me, I have dollars from my own country and euros. What I mean by this is that I have some of each. Don’t you use euros—”

Somebody pounded on the door. Kleon looked frightened and the girl spat like a cat. “It is Aldos, the swine-dog. You must answer our door. It will confuse him.”

The big man who had pounded it looked confused for less than a second. After that he shouted in my face, but I could see fear in his eyes. I talked to him in German, saying I could not understand him, but that I would try if only he would talk slower and keep his voice down.

He did not. When I backed away, he came at me. When I came at him, he backed away.

The short man, Kleon, came to stand beside me. From his tone, I believe he must have cursed the big man. His voice was low and bitter.

At last the big man stammered and stopped, jamming his clenched fists into the pockets of what looked like a pair of old golf pants. He was wearing an undershirt too, but his was dirty. Part of it was covered by an old wool vest.

Behind me the girl said, “He says our chickens get into his garden. We do not have chickens.”

Her husband nodded almost imperceptibly to that. He spoke in his cursing tone to the big man, advancing toward him, making wild gestures that almost brushed the big man’s nose. I advanced, too.

For a minute the big man rallied, shouting louder than ever. Then he turned and stamped away.

“I suppose somebody’s chickens must get into his garden,” I said to the girl.

“Ours did once or twice,” she acknowledged. “Kleon had chickens before we were married.”

Kleon spoke bitterly before retreating into his house and slamming the door behind him.

“He says he was rich once, that one may be rich or wed but not both.”

I said, “I’m sure that isn’t true.”

“For him, yes.” The girl smiled, making me feel like I was a lot younger than she was. (Really it was only two or three years.) “He has locked us out.”

I stared.

“You do not believe? Try the door.”

I did. It would not open.

“You see? I have hear the bar drop into place. We are cast out!” She grinned at me. “Are you afraid?” She had a great grin.

“A little bit,” I admitted. “Is there an American Consulate? If there is one, I’d like to go there.”

“Soon he thinks better.” It was like she had not heard me. “Martya is with him, he will think. She will tell him he need only go to the police. He will say ‘I am his prisoner! He lock me out!’ Then the police will come and shoot him. He is right about this, but we will not go to them right away. Do you like these trees? The bushes?”

“They’re really nice,” I said.

“This bush here…” She caressed it. “It will bloom for us before the moon is old. For a week it is the most pretty one in Puraustays. Our trees give nuts. I do not know the German name, but the wood burns well. A hot fire and slow. A little stick burns for a long, long time.”

“I see.”

“Some have fruit trees. This is nice because of the fruit. Apples, pears, cherries are all good. These burn well, too. I think you have these in your land.”

I said we did.

“But you, yourself? You have such trees?”

I tried to explain that I did not have a house, I lived in an apartment because I was on the road so much.

“If you had a house, you would have fruit trees. You are a fruit tree man. This I see.” She had begun to walk, and I followed her. “My father had fruit trees but he is dead.”

“My father is dead, too,” I said. “He was with the State Department, so I grew up all over the world.”

“Here?”

“No, not here. Mostly Germany, France, and Japan.”

“Here there are three kinds of men. A fruit tree man like you, he is strong.” She held up her clenched fist. “Strong, or perhaps he has the good friends.” She drew an imaginary pistol. “You are such a one, I think.”

I said I had a lot of friends in America.

“If a man who is not strong plants fruit trees, his neighbors take the fruit.” She raised her chin, a proud daughter. “No one took my father’s fruit!”

“That must have been nice.”

“Yes, yes! Once Kleon had fruit trees. They took his fruit and he could not stop them. Now we have nut trees, so we eat the nuts.” She pointed. “Do you see those?”

We had reached the edge of her husband’s block, and she was pointing at the next one. The trees there were oaks. I said they looked fine.

“No, no! He is weak. No one takes acorns.”

“I see.”

“When a man dies his neighbors cut his trees to burn. My father is dead half a year before anyone is so brave.” The girl sighed. “I take you now to a man who has fruit trees. If there is for you a consul, he will know.”