Gene Wolfe - The Land Across

They were cherry trees mostly, Martya said. Whatever they were, they were beautiful, tall trees in wedding gowns. The smell made me think about God and heaven, and the bees that swarmed over them about hell because I got stung twice before we got to the door. “Volitain will put wet tobacco on those,” she told me. “It will take your pain.”

He was pale and starvation thin, with straight black hair, as courtly and polite as Kleon had been abrupt and hostile. “Enter!” He bowed from the hips. “Enter and welcome! Any friend of dear little Martya’s, a brother is to me.” The look that passed between them told me Martya had tried to make him.

“He is bee-bitten.” Her tone was flat, and her face held no expression. “Put tobacco on them.”

“I see…” Volitain stalked over to a table in his parlor, which looked as big as Kleon’s entire house. In the table drawer he found a magnifying glass.

“That will not help!”

Volitain bent over the sting on my cheek. “Sit here, please. Now incline the head, eh? I must have light from the window.”

I did what he said.

“The sting is here. It must be drawn. The hand we see next, eh?” He moved my hand to bring it nearer the light. “Here, also. Wait a moment. Drink good wine.”

He left us, slipping into some interior room through a door that was not quite open.

I asked, “Does he always do that? Not open the door?”

“He has no wife. The room where he go will be soiled, I think. He does not wish you to see it.”

“Or you,” I said.

Martya shrugged. “There is wine here. He desires us to drink. A woman brews tea, a man has wine.” She went to a sideboard. “Is Tokay, I think. We drink it much here. You will drink?”

I nodded and she poured. It was pungent and a little too sweet.

Volitain returned with tweezers and iodine. “The bee that stings, dies,” he murmured. “One would suppose that evolutionary processes would soon end such deaths. Is the hive stronger without him?”

I said, “Ouch!”

“First the face, because it must pain most. The hand next, where the pain is not so much.”

I managed to keep quiet.

“You are hungry? I have little cakes. Martya?”

I looked at my watch. It was one p.m.

Martya said, “I will make for us the sandwiches if you allow it.”

“There is little,” Volitain said. “We go to a café.” He had finished with the iodine and was taping on moist tobacco.

Martya looked at me, shrugging. “Volitain has much money, but he does not spend. Never for me, this money. Never for you, also, I think. You will pay?”

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll be glad to.”

Volitain shook his head. “You will not. You must not listen to our sour chit. I say the café and I pay.”

Martya giggled at that. She had drained her glass, so I thought it had probably been the wine.

“Now we will go out,” Volitain was saying. “The bees sting you if you think of them, so not. Think of pleasant things alone and you shall be safe.”

It sounded silly but I tried it, thinking what kind of food a café here might have. Sandwiches, sure. Soups and salads … I tried to concentrate on those, but I could not keep my eyes off Martya’s hips. They were to die for, and she was leading the way.

“You see?” Volitain said. “You were not stung. Of what do you think?”

“Strabo’s commentary on the Euxine,” I told him. One of my professors used to talk about it.

“Ah! It is interesting, no doubt. I must read it.”

“I’m a lot more interested in finding out why Martya’s pestering you with me.”

“She does not tell?”

I shook my head. There were no sidewalks, so we had to walk in the street. A man on a bicycle zoomed past us, staring at Volitain and pedaling faster and faster. “He’s scared of you,” I told him.

“He hates me.” Volitain sighed. “Hating me, he supposes I hate him. Supposing I hate him, he expects some hurt. Expecting hurt, he fears me. His fear make him hate me all the more. Is that not a sad circle?”

I said yes.

“As you say, but I am not in it. God may make him a king or give him a knife. All is one to me.”

I was watching for the long building I had seen when I first got to the city, the yellow brick building where the Mounted Guards stabled their horses in peacetime, but I did not see it. Here the streets were wider, and a lot of the buildings had shops on the ground floor.

We went into one of the biggest, following a path of well-worn cobbles and passing shoppers who carried their new stuff in string bags. Inside was a big atrium roofed with colored glass. There were balconies up the sides, and they were lined with shops like the floor we were on.

“The cafés here are.” Volitain indicated the level where we stood. “Those who eat in them grow fat, then the steps are not convenient.”

“Also,” Martya added, “they are drunk and fall down them.”

“We have logic in my country, you see. The most valuable things are sold highest, so we say their prices are high. Suppose a robber comes. He must descend many steps while those he robbed shout that he be stopped.”

“And throw chamber pots.” Martya was scanning the cafés. “You will pay, Grafton, so you are to choose.”

I was tired of walking, so I said, “The closest.” Do not come to this country unless you are ready to walk one hell of a lot. If you bring your bike, you will have to double-lock it every time you park it. You had better be ready to fight for it, too.

“This one is not good,” Volitain told me. “Too many come, and we have things to speak of. That one over there. You will like it.”

“It is a place for feeling,” Martya said as we trudged across the atrium. “Most quick I feel Volitain’s hand on my leg, and he my scissors.”

I could not follow what Volitain said to the hostess, but his gestures made it clear that he wanted the booth in the corner. After a little argument he got it. The high backs of the seats in all the booths went up until they just about touched the ceiling, and our booth had a green cloth curtain to close the end that was open to the table area.

Martya translated the menu and we ordered. “Is there an American Consulate here?” I asked Volitain. “Martya said you would know.”

Volitain shook his head. “I do know, and there is none. In other cities, perhaps, but not in this Puraustays of ours. There is the Amerikan ambassador at the capital. It may be there is a consulate also. That I do not know.”

“She also told me you were well connected and you’d help me.”

“I am not.” Seeing Volitain smile was like watching a skull grin. “Even so, I help you—if I can. You have the troubles with our secret police, the JAKA?”

“With your border patrol. How did you know?”

“You are foreign. Many foreigners are arrested. Also dear little Martya brought you to me. Those are enough.”

“What can you do?”

A glance passed between Martya and Volitain, and he said, “Not so much, it may be. First I must know your trouble. Tell me.”

I told him all about my arrest, pretty much like I have told you here.

“You have done nothing.” Volitain sighed and leaned back.

“Damn straight! So why was I arrested?”

“They needed someone. That is all.” His voice had sunk to a sleepy whisper. “They must show their superiors they are active, alert. Arrest someone. They wish also to punish dear little Martya’s husband. Arrest someone. You sleep in a place no one watches.”

I nodded.

“So you are chosen. They can say whatever they wish.”

“They took my passport.”

“Of a surety. They always do.”