Gene Wolfe - The Land Across

The door opened, and I saw a big man with no belly and a big black beard.

I showed him my badge. “Nothing serious, sir, but I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes. All right if I come in?”

“Oh, most naturally!” He stepped to one side, smiling a little. “I warn that I may keep you. Few come here, nor are they intelligent. I have, um … the hundred-year brandy. Wine, naturally, some not very bad. Milk and coffee.”

The coffee sounded good, and I said so as I stepped inside.

“Already is late. Perhaps you do not sleep.”

“Fine with me. I’m going to work all night, if I can find enough work to do.”

He chuckled. “Come, then.”

We went toward the back of the house and down a few steps into the kitchen. Once in a while I heard a board creak under his weight, but his feet made no noise at all.

“My kitchen you do not mind, I hope, operator? There is also a parlor wherein I speak with those I do not like.”

“I’m glad you like me, sir.”

“I and the ghost. Of you we two are fond. You are not unaware you possess this ghost?”

I said, “Sure.”

“You do not object?”

“Nope.”

“You have seen her, it may be?”

“Can you show her to me, sir? I’d like that.”

“Very much you know about me.”

“You know a lot about me, too, sir. That’s how it seems, anyway. Did you know I was coming?”

“Not I.” He had gone to the sink. He opened a tap while he spoke, filling an old percolator with water. “I knew someone was coming, because I know such things. I did not know it was to be so young a man with a badge, a gun, and a ghost. A young man who fights.”

He turned to look at me, his mustache twitching. “Do not feel surprise. I see your knuckles. A bad fight?”

I thought back. “Depends on which one you mean, I guess.”

“I see.”

“Yeah, you’re good at that, sir. Can you see my ghost?”

He nodded.

“Will you show her to me?” The hand was climbing out of my pocket. I could feel it, and I was tempted to catch it and stop it.

“Now not. Later it may be.” He set the percolator on the stove and spooned in coffee. “A dish of fruit? I do not have much.”

I waved it off. “Not now, thanks. Later maybe. If I get to eating, I’ll forget what I came here for.”

He sat down at the table with me, and I started to say something about not wanting to make trouble for him. I stopped when I saw the hand run across the table and roll over on its back.

He stared. Whatever he might have been expecting, it was not that. Then the mustache twitched. He picked up the hand, very delicately. He had big, strong hands and long fingers. He held the hand as if it were porcelain and might break, raised it to his lips, and laid it gently back down on the table.

That was when I saw her, just for half a second maybe. A tall girl with long hair and a good face. She did not look dead, but her dress did. As soon as I saw her, she knew I was seeing her and smiled.

It kind of paralyzed me. All I could do was stare. Then she was gone, and the hand was back in my pocket.

Magos X said, “She likes you, operator. That is most fortunate.”

I just sat there. After a while the percolator began to bubble, and that kind of brought me out of it.

He got up and got mugs for us, and poured cream into a little pot-bellied pitcher.

I said, “You’re the real thing, sir.”

“Do not ask me to tell your fortune.”

“Okay, sir. I won’t. Thanks for letting me see the lady.”

“I did not do it. You did it.”

“Really? You’re not kidding me?”

“I do not play such games. You speak with our tongue most supplely.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“For what do you come here?”

“You’ve got a guest, sir. His name’s Russell Rathaus. He’s a friend of mine, and I need to talk to him.”

“Let us imagine that I tell you I have no guest. What then?”

“It would be a lie, sir, and you don’t like to lie.”

“You are correct. I do not.”

“Suppose I were to ask you a question you didn’t want to answer. Would you lie to me, sir?”

I was looking for the twitching mustache that meant a smile, but the big shoulders went up and down instead. “I might, operator.”

“Who is the Undead Dragon?”

That got me the twitch. “I do not have to lie, or even remain silent, which I prefer. I do not know.”

“Do I?”

“You think I am he, operator? I am not.”

I shook my head. “I never thought that, sir. You would’ve killed Russ, not hidden him. I’m just asking because I think I know, and I thought you might know if I really do.”

“You will tell me?”

I shook my head again. “I don’t think I’d say even if I was sure, and I’m not. It’s just what I think.”

“Someone you would not willingly slander, then.”

“I wouldn’t willingly slander anybody, sir.”

“You may slander me, if you wish. Many have. What I ask is that you do not arrest me.” Magos X looked dead serious when he said that. Serious may not be the right word, but it is as close as I can come. He looked like he was not going to be arrested without a fight, and he had ways of fighting most people had never even heard of.

I said, “Arrest you for hiding Russ? Hell no!”

“You would like coffee. I will get it.” He stood up, took the percolator off his old cast-iron stove, and poured us each a cup. “You do not fear I may poison you?”

I shook my head. “You wouldn’t do that, sir. You’re not the type.”

“Many think I am.”

“They’re wrong.” I had heard a noise somewhere in the house just before I said that. Russ was coming to listen, or that was how I figured it.

“You seek Russell Rathaus? This you say.”

“That’s right. Russ was in prison. You probably know that. He escaped. You—”

“How he does this you know?” Magos X was staring at me like he wanted to hypnotize me.

I was not about to let him do it. “If I do, I’m not telling.”

“Proceed, operator.”

“Russ is a friend of mine, like I said. We were cellmates for a pretty long time. I’m American, too.”

“This I knew. Also JAKA. They know you were in their prison?”

I nodded. “They know, too, that I didn’t really do anything. I made some broadcasts for the Legion of the Light—”

That was as far as I got. Magos X started laughing, and it was like a lion laughing, roaring and rocking in his chair. It about knocked out the windows.

When he finally stopped he said, “You are that one! I know I hear sometime the voice. It is you on the radio.”

“Yeah, they were holding me prisoner, and they made me do it. I don’t believe any of that shit.”

“A pity!” He chuckled. “A terrible pity, because some of it is quite true.” He raised his voice, which was pretty loud already. “Come in, my friend! You must join us for coffee.”

“Hello, Grafton,” Russ said. “How did you get out?”

“You got me out,” I told him. “I told them I didn’t know how you’d done it, but I knew you pretty well and I could help them find you. You want to hear the rest of it?”

“Sure.” Russ took one of the old wooden chairs. “They bought it?”

“Right. Especially a senior operator named Naala. I’ll introduce you to her by and by. She sort of adopted me. I helped her with this and that, and they made me an operator myself.”

“I hope you’re not going to snap the cuffs on me.”

Magos X said, “He will not.”

“Right,” I said. “What I’m going to try to do is show them that you’re worth a lot more to us loose than locked in a cell. We’ll offer a deal. You work for us, and when the job’s wrapped up we let you go back to America with our blessings.”