Gene Wolfe - The Land Across

He waited, and after a second or two she said, “What do you want me to do?”

“Get into the fireplace.” Volitain pointed. “The chimney will be large enough for you when you stand. I will lend you—”

“I’ll get filthy!”

“Yes. You will. Rich, also, if you share in the treasure. Not otherwise.”

For a minute or two, I could watch the wheels in her head spinning. Then she went to the fireplace, dropped to her knees, and crawled in. Soot fell when she stood up.

Volitain went to her. “Do you want my lantern?”

Her answer was muffled by the chimney. A little more soot fell. Then she crouched again and laid a small black box on the hearth. “This is most heavy. Almost I dropped it.”

Volitain was already bending over it. He did not speak.

Martya crawled out and stood up. She was smeared with soot, but did not look as bad that way as I had expected. “You loved me once.”

She was talking to me, and it was not a question.

“Yeah. I guess I still do, but you belong to Kleon. Like I said.”

“I have asked few favors. One more, then no more ever. You must see that I get my share.”

I had been planning to already.

The box was iron and looked tough, but the key was in the lock. Volitain tried to turn it but got nowhere. “It is rusted,” he said. “If I twist harder it may break.”

That was when I remembered the oil can Martya and I had bought more than a year ago. It seemed to me that it might still be here. I had gotten it so I could oil the lock of the front door. I had done that and gotten it working smoothly….

It seemed to me that I had not taken it back and left it with the other tools. I said, “Wait here,” and went looking.

There were two fireplaces in the front hall, the reception room or whatever you call it. My oil can was waiting on the mantel of one of them, pushed away from the edge where it was not easy to see.

I got it and carried it back, feeling like a hero.

Even with a lot of oil it must have taken us fifteen or twenty minutes to get that strongbox open. I still remember how the gold glowed in the light from Volitain’s lantern, and how Martya got down on her knees beside the box (Volitain was already in front of it) and picked up coins and let them trickle through her fingers. I wished then I had brought my cameras. That was before I found out Kleon had sold them.

Here I am going to cut to the chase. Volitain divided the gold into piles, getting them as even as he could. He said I would choose first, then Martya. He would take the pile that was left. That sounded good, but I traded turns with Martya, letting her go first and taking second choice.

Maybe that was a bad idea, because it took her a long time to make up her mind, and Volitain would not let her touch any of the piles before she picked one. Finally she asked me to pick one for her, so I did and she took it.

I took one that was left, and Volitain took the third one and put his coins back in the iron box. I had been thinking about taking that too, because I was planning to bury the hand if I could get Papa Zenon to pray over it. Only Volitain wanted the box, so I let him have it. Later, after I had sold two of my coins, I bought a regular brass jewelry box for the hand. It had a red silk lining and everything. Martya and I closed it and wrapped it in a couple of plastic bags we sealed with red wax and the cross to keep the water out. I will not tell you where we buried it, but Papa Zenon and Papa Iason prayed over it.

That is almost it.

I sold five more coins, very carefully. They went for enough for a plane ticket with a lot left over. I hid four more in my luggage.

And I buried the rest. If you are smart, you can probably figure out where. Only I am not about to tell you. I counted those coins before I buried them, and I studied every one of them. Gold coins are heavier than regular American nickels and quarters, and there is a serious feel to them that regular coins do not have.

Here is almost the last thing. Martya came up to me at the airport. She had new clothes and quite a bit of jewelry. I knew how she had gotten that stuff, but we did not talk about it. The thing was that she wanted to go to America. Her idea was that we would get married first. Then the U.S. embassy would issue her a passport (and maybe Naala would kill her before we got out of the country). We could fly to America and get divorced there.

Or stay married if I wanted to. Martya was easy with that, she said. We would do just like I wanted.

I told her to go back to Kleon before she got into trouble.

Right here I need to explain that I have not quit the JAKA. I left my gun with Naala because I could not take it on the plane, but I talked to Baldy about my going back to America and everything is cool. No, I am not a spy. I am just an American employee of a foreign government, which is not at all against the law. I get paid through the embassy in Washington and run errands every once in a while. The JAKA is as worried about terrorism as the FBI is, and there is a good deal of cooperation on that.

Maybe I should tell you here that I have taken a short course at FBI headquarters, too. Like I said, cooperation.

That is just about it. Except that I switched seats on the plane. You are not supposed to, but I did. I was giving up an aisle seat for a middle seat anyway.

Thing was, the girl with the red pen was on the plane, just sitting there with her red pen and writing away on her tray table. I sat down next to her.

She looked up. “Oh! Oooh! It’s you!”

I said, “I know how you feel. It’s exactly the same way I felt when I saw you. Is it all right if I ask why you’re going to Germany?”

Pretty soon I got the feeling it was very all right since it meant we would not have to talk about her being her and me being me. I will let my lady boil it down for you. She answers me in English.

“I have win a poetry competition, Grafton. Nationwide, and I win! For the prize I go to Harvard Amerika where I may stay all year and study poetry. Do I speak English good? My teacher says good but not perfect.”

“Your teacher’s right. You speak it much better than a whole lot of people from other countries do, but it could be better yet. At Harvard they’ll have you reading a lot of English and American poetry. You’ll need really good English to appreciate everything.”

“Not many there speak as we do in my country.” My lady was looking thoughtful. “Very few, I am sure.”

I nod.

“You—you speak as my country.”

“Not perfectly,” I say. “It could be a lot better.”

“You will perhaps stay with me?” We were holding hands by then.

“I’d like that very, very much. We ought to stick together.”

So I have sublet my old apartment in New York again, and we have leased this one in Massachusetts. She goes to class most of the day, and I mostly stay right here in our apartment and write this book. At night we go to clubs and do other things. You can probably guess.

Now this is finished except for polishing up, which should be a snap. My lady does not have to go back home right away when her year is over. There is no law that says that. It is just that her prize money stops coming. We have been thinking about South America, maybe Argentina or Chile. I could do another travel book, taking another year or so, and after that I would take her home to see her family. There is her mother and father, a brother, and two sisters. Plus some uncles and aunts. We could tour her country, dropping in on the relatives while I collect facts and pix for the travel book I planned originally.

(When I explained to my editor that this would be a travel book written by an American member of their secret police and showed her my badge and ID, she just about went nuts.)