Gene Wolfe - The Land Across

“Go on.”

“As soon as she got there she wanted to know if Papa owned a crucifix. Naturally he did, and his housekeeper said so. When she saw him, she told him he must hold his crucifix in his right hand and throw the hand in the fire with his left.”

“There was no fire,” Naala said. “This he is tell us.”

“Huh-uh. He was lying, I think because he was afraid we’d blame him for not burning the hand.”

“He tells this woman he will do this?”

“He didn’t say that, but I think he did. Then he got interested in the tattoos and decided he ought to take it to the bishop instead. Either she told him how dangerous it was—he didn’t say she did—or he just sensed it from the way she acted. So he locked it up. She’d had it wrapped in the shawl and the shawl sealed with wax, then both of them put in a basket with a latch. There were crosses on the seals.”

“You will tell nothing of importance until our food come.”

“Right.”

“So I ask no more questions. Instead I tell you. Do you not wonder what I have done?”

I nodded. “Sure. What were you up to?”

“I am look for the hand. I tell myself it must be here, in my apartment. It cannot have gotten out. It is too big to crawl through the drains. Can it climb the flue? That is too small for a man, but once I have a squirrel come down, very dirty. He try to climb back up, but he cannot. Always he soon fall back. Can the hand climb where a squirrel cannot? I do not think so.”

“So you shot him.”

Naala shook her head. “I open the window for him, but he does not see. Always he tries to climb up and scratches down more soot. At last I try to hit him with the poker, but I cannot. He tries and tries until he falls dead.”

“So you don’t think the hand could do it.”

“I do not. There is nothing to grasp but soot, and always the soot give way. Also, if the hand try to climb it must knock down soot. I look, but there is none. It is here, I tell myself. It must be here.”

I said, “You’re probably right.”

“It is not. I look everyplace it might be and in many places where it could not be, places too small. I look also in places that are locked. It is in none of them. Have you eaten today?”

I remembered the crispy bread and plum jam. “Yeah, a little.”

“I have not. Not since you go.”

“Okay, I get the picture. Ask me a question. I’ll give you a straight answer if I can.”

“Where is Rathaus?”

“I don’t know. I’ve really got no idea. Outside the city, if I had to guess. Is there a big park outside the city? Or a swamp? Anyplace with lots of trees and animals?”

“The Frost Forest, perhaps.”

I had some trouble translating that name for myself. Later I talked to a few other people about what it meant, because I had come up with “Forest of the Small Ice” and a couple of others along that line. “Little-Ice Forest” made sense until you thought about it. Anyway, I asked Naala why they called it that.

“Because the ice there does not melt until midsummer. In the old time, people went there and cut ice in June. This they brought into the city and sold. It is no longer needed, but perhaps you understand.”

“I think so.” I had been letting my eyes wander around the room looking for places where the hand might hide. “Did you look in that closet?”

“Everywhere I look. This closet? Pah! I take out everything. I search each as I put back in.”

“How hard would it be to search the Frost Forest for Rathaus?”

“Hard, yes. Impossible, no. We would call upon the army, which we do not like to do. For it we must go to the Ministry of War without hats and bow very low. It would take three weeks, a month, and if Rathaus is warn…” Her shoulders rose and fell.

“I got it. We’ll try to smoke him out on our own.”

“With which you must help. You say you do not find him, but it seem you find much. Soon our food come. Tell me more.”

“Okay. There’s two things. I’m pretty sure they’re going to come together eventually, but they haven’t done it yet. One’s Rosalee. The other’s the hand. Which do you want to hear about?”

“The hand. It is for the hand I search.”

There was a little tap at the door. Naala motioned to me, so I walked over in my stocking feet and opened it. The kid outside was so small I thought at first there was nobody there.

“He won’t send nothin’,” the kid said. “Tell the lady. The man at Horváth’s. Tell her.”

Naala was behind me by then. “For this he suffer.”

“He say he got nobody to carry. I got your money.” The kid fumbled in his pocket.

“That is for you. You did as I said and so earned it. You may keep it.” Naala turned to me. “Put on your shoes. We go out.”

If arguing would have done me any good, I would have argued. The sound of her voice told me it would only get me shot.

“First to Horváth’s. You are a good fighter.”

“No, I’m not!”

“You must be, so you are. After, we eat.”

I could only hope the other guy was worse than I was.

Horváth’s was smaller than most of the cafés I had seen, and maybe a little cleaner. It might have held eight or ten, but there were only three or four customers inside, plus a big man and a girl, both wearing aprons. She was sweeping out, and he was behind the counter packing coffee mugs back into a cabinet. The mugs were in a tin tray and had probably just been washed in the kitchen. I tried to size him up while I hung my sports coat on the back of a chair. A good wool sports coat is something you do not want to fight in.

Naala got his attention by grabbing the edge of the tray and dumping the cups on the floor. A couple of them broke. “So,” she hissed, “it is impossible for you to send someone with my suppers.” He was a lot bigger than Kleon but maybe twenty years older.

There was a glass case half full of pastries on the counter. Naala had better luck with that than the cups. The glass broke when it fell and the pastries scattered all over. He had turned around to look at her by then, his eyes popping.

“You wish to summon the police? Do so! Many I know. Them I shall be glad to see. Hit him, Grafton!”

I feinted with my right and busted his mouth with my left, figuring he was not expecting it. Most likely he was not expecting anything. He took a step back and threw his hands up to his face the way you do. There was a metal carafe on the work counter behind him, so I picked that up and banged him over the head with it, putting everything I had into the bang. It must have been at least half full, because it felt heavy and he went down and stayed down.

I was putting my jacket back on when the girl with the broom ran up and whispered, “Thank you! Oh, thank you!” I knew then that I had seen her before, but for half an hour or so I could not remember who she was.

Outside, Naala said, “His mouth bleeds. You have cut the lips. This I see.”

“Probably his teeth did it. He had good, strong teeth.” I was rubbing my knuckles. I had turned them horizontal and nailed him with everything I had, and they still hurt.

“When you knock at my door, you are a most tired young man. No longer. You will be strong and straight in my bed tonight, and this too I see.”

Hearing Naala say that I felt like whistling, so I whistled. She would think I was an idiot, and I knew it. Only if I had not whistled, for the rest of my life I would remember that moment and how I had wanted to whistle but had not had the guts.

I was still whistling when we sat down at an outside table at a café sort of down the street. (I mean as much as you could talk about down the street in that crazy city. In Puraustays the blocks with buildings had been square or else rectangular, but mostly square. Here some were round or kidney-shaped.)