Gene Wolfe - The Land Across

I nodded. “Right.”

“No one speaks. Not far off I hear music and glasses. People talk. No one speaks into the telephone. They hang up. Five minutes ago it is the same. What does this mean, do you think?”

I did not know, and I said so.

“Then I tell what I think. The one who telephones knows you live here with me. He wishes you to answer. That he wishes most fervently, because he calls twice. If this telephone rings again, you must answer.”

I nodded. I would if she wanted me to. Then I began telling her about Volitain in Puraustays, because Magos X had said he knew him and I thought it might be a good way to lead into it. I had just gotten to our three-way deal on the Willows when the phone rang again. Naala motioned to me, and I picked it up.

“Grafton. Five, five—”

“This’s Rosalee.” It was in English and there was a lot of noise where she was, but she was good and loud. “Will you come here? Like please? You’re a good friend, you’re the only good friend I’ve got.” She sounded a little drunk.

“Sure,” I said. “Only you’ve got to tell me where you are. Tell me and I’ll get there as fast as I can.”

“Okay.” She started talking to somebody with her. I could hear their voices, both women, but I could not make out what they were saying.

I looked at Naala and said, “It’s Rosalee and some other woman, and I’d bet money they’re sitting in a bar. What I want to know is how come this woman’s got a cell phone? Nobody here has them, and most people don’t have any kind of phone.”

“It is Aliz? We leave Rosalee with her.”

Another girl on the phone: “Grafton? It is Martya! Kiss, kiss!”

I said, “Kissy, kiss, hug, hug, kiss! Where are you, Martya?”

“We are in Golden Eagle. Aliz is friends with the manager, so drinks on the house! You come, you get free drinks and we dance.”

“Okay, Martya! I’ll be there as soon as I can. Wait for me.” I was looking at Naala when I said that, and she nodded. “Is this Aliz’s phone you’re using?”

“She lets Rosalee use it and tells the number where are you, Grafton.”

“She’s a nice girl. So are you, darling. Maybe she wants to talk to me, too?”

More voices off.

“Something’s up,” I whispered to Naala.

She nodded again. She had her gun out, checking it.

“Aliz is busy,” Martya told me. “She is talk to some man, not so handsome like you.”

I said, “Good! That’ll give me more time for you. Be there as fast as I can.” I hung up.

Naala was at the door. “Where they are? It is Golden Eagle?”

I joined her. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

“Aliz is take them there. JAKA own it. She is look for Rathaus, I think.”

It took me a minute, then I nodded. “Show Rosalee and maybe he’ll come. Martya, too. She was working with him. Only she gave Rosalee her phone and your number. Why would she do that?”

We were outside by then. It was about nine, with no moon or stars and only a few streetlights. They are never really big on streetlights in that country.

Naala had been thinking. “Two reasons. First reason, Aliz believe you are know where Rathaus hide and you will tell her.”

I said, “The first part’s right, but the second part’s wrong. Unless you want me to. Do you?”

Naala shook her head. “Second reason. There will be trouble soon, she think. Already she ask more operators and they send two. Always they send no more. Two only.” Naala looked like she wanted to spit.

“I get it! Rosalee phones your apartment. If she talks to either one of us both of us will probably come, which gives Aliz two more guns. Nobody can say she wasn’t authorized to ask for us, because she didn’t. Is it the Unholy Way?”

“This I think.” Naala was walking fast and so was I. “I am their Undead Dragon perhaps, or another leader. I am tell that Rosalee is in the Eagle. You understand? We of the JAKA want Rathaus because he will bring us the Unholy Way. The Unholy Way want Rosalee because she will bring them Rathaus.”

I was keeping an eye out for police cars, and I think Naala was, too. We did not get one, but we still got to the Golden Eagle pretty quickly, pushing our way through the crowds in a Mousukos street with a lot of bars and clubs and noise. Like I said, we walked fast and it was not far.

The Golden Eagle was bigger than I had expected, with a long bar all down one side of the big room, a bandstand and a dance floor, and gaming tables. Bright lights on the bandstand and gaming tables, dim on the bar and the dance floor. The band was taking a break, so I could not judge just then, but a lot of people looked like they had been dancing, which is usually a good sign. The whole place smelled of beer, something that was probably floor wax or furniture polish, and cigarette smoke.

Aliz was sweating and laughing at something the guy with her had said. He was mopping his face with a clean white handkerchief. It took me maybe three seconds before I felt sure he was JAKA, and maybe three more to make his piece. On his belt, left side in front, which would mean crossdraw for the right hand. To tell the truth I was thinking there were probably more JAKA there, but nobody else looked right.

Martya plastered herself all over me, saying she wanted to dance.

I said, “Sure, so do I. Only we’ve got to wait til the band comes back.” I figured they were drinking at the bar.

“I will sing and we will dance.”

Which is what we did for maybe five minutes. She had a good voice and was not too drunk to use it. I would give you the lyrics here if I remembered them well enough to translate them. Only my translation would have to scan and rhyme for it to mean much, even then you would not have the feel of the language. It was about telling mom and dad to suck socks, and doing whatever you wanted to like chugging booze and smoking grass, and not worrying about the future because there was not going to be any. It was a good song and some other customers joined in, clapping and singing along.

A dozen new people were coming into the bar while we danced and acting like they did not know each other. Only I figured they did. For one thing none of them looked like they belonged, and for another there was the same look on all their faces. When a cruel person is about to have some real fun, sticking it to somebody who cannot fight back and laughing about it, and doing it all over again only worse, he gets a certain look. It is not the same way a hungry person looks at food, but that is as close as I can come. You have probably seen it a few times. Think about it.

There were men and women—more women than men, which kind of surprised me—and they all had that look. One time I sat around with three whores in Vienna. They all looked hard, if you know what I mean. They did not like men, but they had to pretend they did. That was part of it. Another part was that they had taken it on the chin more than once, and cried, and gotten up and cried some more, and wiped their eyes, and kept going. They had done that a lot and they were going to do it a lot more and they knew it. I did not like that look, but it did not scare me. This did.

Most of the women were not good-looking, but three or four were okay and two were knockouts. A year ago those two would have scared me green, but now I figured I could talk to them without stammering although I sure did not want to.

A little man with buck teeth under a rusty mustache came over to Rosalee. “You are so beautiful,” he told her. “I am a photographer and I wish to take your portrait.”

He got out a card and gave it to her. “You will love it and I will give you copies without charge but you must permit me….”

She turned away and started talking to the man who had been talking to Aliz, not saying anything particular, just chattering until the photographer went away. In back of him I could see an ugly raw-boned woman in a black-and-white polka-dot dress setting up a camera with a big flash. Off to the side a couple of others were setting up slave flashes. Just in case you do not know, a slave flash goes off when it sees another flash, which it does at the speed of light.