Gene Wolfe - The Land Across

“But whoever sent Martya must have had a reason.”

Naala nodded. “I offer one where I might offer many. The priest is Rathaus’s son and can be trusted by him. The first reason tell me, and the second I am told by you. This bad master think like me, so I think. He think around corners. You see? He cannot kill Rathaus, perhaps because he cannot find him. Very well, he will kill the son. In this fashion he rob Rathaus of an ally, also give him much sorrow. Both, he think, will be good.”

I thought, too. “You’re saying that Martya gave Papa the hand so it would kill him, but it didn’t.”

Naala nodded.

“Well, why didn’t it? Why didn’t it work?”

“We cannot know, only hope to find out. I will guess now, and quickly. But it is a guess merely. It try to choke me, yes?”

It was my turn to nod. “Right. It did.”

“You grasp it with both hands and tear it away. The priest does the same. He is a man, young and large. He will be stronger than I, perhaps as strong as you. He catch it and lock it away, who know where? It could be many places. In the morning he take it to the archbishop, who keep it where?”

“In that box he gave us.”

“No. In a drawer of his desk, a drawer he unlock with a key. He tell us Papa Iason offer to destroy it if he wish. The archbishop thank him but refuse. He will give it to us, to the JAKA. Perhaps he does not believe what Papa tell him. He does, I think, but knows we will not believe.”

“You think the cult wants Russ dead. Why would they?”

Naala sighed. “This is not hard to guess. He make the dolls and sell them. They are magic, or so many think. With them is sold a book of spells. To them he is a rival. In prison he cannot do this, so let him rot there. Now he gets out, so he must die.”

“You want me to work on it.”

Naala sipped more coffee. “It is a test for you. If you are wise, if you are to be trusted and have courage, we make great use of you, here and in Amerika. This I will judge as time passes.”

I told her, “I’ve lived all over, but I’m an American. I won’t betray my country.”

She smiled. “I do not ask for that. We do not seek the destruction of Amerika, which you yourselves have too much destroyed already. We can make use of you in many other ways, and this we will do.”

You know what I was thinking. I would get back to the States and tell the JAKA to kiss off. Naturally I did not say that. Instead I asked what she wanted me to do.

“First, you have hear me tell of the operators who visit dress shops.”

“Sure.”

“I wish you, also, to visit those shops. You I give a different question. Who comes and asks such questions but has not the JAKA badge? How does this one appear? What does he say and do?”

That one took me a little time. I watched Naala sip coffee and saw how her eyes sparkled, but it did not make me any smarter.

“You do not understand.”

“You’re right,” I said. “What’s going on here?”

“Who is it who gets credit for closing a case? I know but ask even so. Who is it?”

“Whoever solves it, I suppose. If it’s not that, I don’t know.”

“Those who ask at the dress shops now are not me. To someone they make the reports, but he is not me.” Here I got the mean grin again. “You are mine.”

“O-o-okay.”

“Let us look back. The Rathaus woman escape. It seem to me there are three ways. First, it may be that Rathaus help her.”

I nodded.

“That is what I hope when we begin. In the prison for women I ask and ask, but I see no tracks of Rathaus. Now I hope you understand. Does she have help? What is it this help do? There is nothing.”

“I’ve got it.”

“Second, the cult who pull strings of Martya. They wish Rathaus dead, I think. If no, why send her with the hand to Papa Iason? I see no tracks of them, no more than Rathaus. All I learn, the Rathaus woman could have done alone. This I think she did.”

I probably scratched my head.

“We take her out, buy for her the dress and good food. She have hope. We take her back and all hope is gone. You understand how she feel, I think.”

“Then she’s outside, but without friends or money. Hell, she’s only a kid.” Just thinking about it made me feel sick.

“She has no money, but friends she has. These are you and I. If Rathaus knows she has escaped, perhaps he seeks to find her. If those of the cult know also, they too will seek her, perhaps to kill, perhaps for bait. Let us find out who seeks if either does. For this I send you.”

“If it can be found out, I’ll find it,” I told her.

Naala put down her cup. “Now a second task. Go to the priest. You are Martya’s friend?”

“Yes,” I said. “I want to help her. If the cult’s got her I want to get her away from them.”

“Good. Tell him the truth. When the truth will serve, it is better than a thousand lies. Find out from the priest what he did not tell us, all that she says to him when she brings the hand. Has he see her before or since that time? What of the housekeeper? What did your Martya tell her? Find the shawl she wrap the hand in. Examine it closely. Bring it to me if this is possible.”

“All right,” I said. “Where will you be?”

“In my apartment. If you knock and none answer…”

“I’ll wait,” I said. “Outside, under the trees.”

Naala shook her head. “Go to the police. Tell them I am perhaps dead.”

You can guess the questions I asked her after that. I am not going to give them here because she would not answer any of them. After four or five, she told me to start with the dress shops and get going.

I had said that about Rosalee having no money and no friends, and now that was me. Or at least that was how I felt then. I did not have a single euro. Naala had been my friend and pretty close to being my girlfriend, even if she was twice my age. Heck, I had scored with her. Now she had sent me off on what she figured was a really safe errand while she did the dangerous stuff.

I would have hidden and tried to follow her if I had thought I could get away with it. Only I knew I could not. She was an operator and had been one for ten or fifteen years minimum. She would have forgotten more about tailing somebody than I knew. On top of that, there was a good chance she would call a police car as soon as she finished her coffee. What was I supposed to do? Jump in a cab and say, “Follow that car?” There were not any cabs and I did not have any money.

So I went to dress shops instead. At first it was pretty tough for me to find them because I could not read the signs, but I looked in the windows and pretty soon I started recognizing certain words that were in the signs of a lot of the shops. My guess is that one meant “dresses” and one meant “women,” but I still do not know what is which.

The first two were duds. Maybe they knew something, but if they did they were not telling me. By the third I had sort of put together my story, which was that my sister’s bags had been stolen and my mom and dad were out trying to get clothes she would like, only I had bought her some so she could go out and choose her own. That got me some cooperation, especially when I said what a nice shop this was and I would bring her here. The truth is a great tool if you can use it, but I could not. If I went around saying the JAKA had sent me, which was the truth, they would want to see some ID. I did not have any, so they might call the cops.

Pretty soon somebody described a woman who had been in there, only she had not bought anything. She had only described a man and asked if he had been in. I would give the number of that one if I remembered it, but I had lost count by then. It could have been six or seven, or even eight. I got a pretty good description of the woman and said she sounded a lot like my mom, but she was too young. The lady said maybe it was my sister only she did not sound American, and I said if she talked pretty good it could not have been.