Gene Wolfe - The Land Across

“I cannot climb over. You are strong. You must lift me over and drop me.”

“I’m not strong,” I told her, “and you’re perfectly capable of climbing out by yourself. That can’t be more than a couple of feet high.”

“I must have care for my hat.” She displayed the little cardboard hatbox. “Besides, lifting is more romantic.” Outside, a gust of wind brought in spattering rain.

I climbed out. It was maybe three feet from the bottom of the window to the muddy ground underneath. The willows that had been so silent when we came to the house were muttering now, like a crowd getting set to riot.

Martya leaned out the window. My hands nearly circled her waist as I lifted her out. She threw her arms around my neck, hatbox and all, and kissed me before I put her down.

After that, there is nothing much to tell. We ran through the dripping willows all the way to the windswept street, running blindly and getting there mostly by good luck. As Martya had said, it was not far from the Willows to Kleon’s house—not far, anyhow, the way they figured in Puraustays.

Pounding on the door brought Kleon from his bed, naked and mad as hell. He announced loudly (Martya interpreting for me) that he had no intention of making supper. Martya apparently told him to go back to bed, and told me that we would have soup.

It was on the kitchen stove already, kept warm by a banked fire. She stirred up the fire, added fresh coal, cut thick slices of dark bread, and put on water for tea.

I told her I was too tired to eat.

She said I had to take off my wet clothes and hang them in the kitchen to dry. I did, except for my shorts.

She took off her soaked dress and hung it up. “We will put these near the stove when we have go.”

I suppose I nodded. I was listening to spring rain rattle against the window.

“You have the bad day, I think. Did they beat you?”

I said that they had not, only pushed me down a flight of stairs.

“That is not so much, but you must eat my soup and sleep. It is morning, I see you again.”

I agreed and said I hoped her new hat had not been ruined.

“No, no! The box is for burn but the hat is fur. It will be most fine.” She laid aside the long spoon she had been stirring the soup with, tore open the wet box, and put on the hat. “You see? It is little water, but most soon will it be dry. Is pretty, no?”

She posed, moving from one pose to the next like a dancer, in a fox-fur hat and a worn, wet cotton bra and panties. “It suits me?”

“Yes,” I said. “It looks great on you.”

“You are straighten up. That is good. I must get butter.”

When she pulled a ring in the floor, a trapdoor almost at my feet swung up, showing rough steps that led down into darkness. She lit a candle from the stove and went down them, still wearing the fox-fur hat.

I closed my eyes to rest them. When I opened them a minute later, there was butter on the kitchen table, and a bowl of steaming soup in front of me.

“This is good. I think I must wake you. Eat! Dip first in the bread. Soup is most hot.”

I did. The bread was the kind kids hate, but solid and nourishing. The soup was foreign and delicious. I asked what kind it was.

“All kind.” Martya laughed. “What is good for soup, I put in. We have meat, there is here no dog. My soup get the bones.”

I was eating soup and too busy to smart off.

I have no idea what time it was when I went to bed. After dark, of course. But we had walked quite a ways, trying to hurry while pushed around by rain and wind. There had been a squabble with Kleon, and so forth. Worst of all, I had nodded off when Martya went down into the cellar to get butter. How long had I slept then? Half an hour might be a pretty good guess.

Certainly Martya woke me early the next morning. Gray light filled the sky, but the sun had not shown any part of his royal roundness. I can say all this because she shook my shoulder and made me look out the window.

“He is Kleon. You see? He goes to his work.”

I said, “I do now. I hadn’t noticed him before.”

“You are rest, yes?”

I said that I was still tired and wanted to stay in bed for another hour or so.

“I, too.” She had been wrapped in a blanket that I had at first taken for a robe. As she spoke she let it drop, slipping into bed beside me. She was buck naked.

“You do not wear nothing.” Her right hand had gone exploring.

“I was soaked to the skin. I didn’t want to get into a dry bed wearing wet shorts.”

“For me the same. I think Kleon will tire me most terribly, but he is asleep.” She giggled. “You must tire me now, or I don’t make nice breakfast.”

It was certainly a nice breakfast by the standards of her country. There were savory sausages, little fried cakes of what seemed to be a mixture of some kind of meat ground up and oatmeal, two kinds of cheese, and the bread and butter we had the previous night. All this was washed down with strong, unsweetened tea. I was hungry, ate everything she put on the table, and promised to buy her more groceries as soon as we had finished.

“You go market with me?”

I nodded. “I want to buy tools—stuff we’ll need in that empty house. We can buy food, too.”

“Twice we go. First for me, then for you. For me we bring here. We go back, buy for you the ladder and what else, and take these things to Willows. Is not so much to carry, or so far.”

I said all right, and we set off as soon as she had washed the breakfast dishes. (I dried.) I asked if Kleon had eaten.

She shrugged. “Bread and cheese. Water to drink. I would cook for him if he makes me. For himself is better. But he must hurry away or no more work. Always he sleeps late and must go most quick after.”

“I see.”

“I stay in the bed until he is gone.” She closed her eyes and pretended to sleep. “He does not bother me then. If he wishes to tire me, he must do it when I go to bed. At that time I do not fight him.”

“You’ll never have to fight me,” I told her. “If you don’t want to, just say so.”

“Ah! You will find another.”

“I won’t,” I told her, “but another might find me.”

The market was larger than I had expected and carried foodstuffs from the surrounding farms. There were eggs and cheeses, plenty of both, live fowls, and a ton of dried fruit, mostly apples, plums, and cherries. Fish were for sale too, although not a lot. Many things Americans would never consider eating were for sale. There was a guy there who had lined up the heads of a couple of dozen freshly decapitated pigs on board shelves. He sold one while I was watching.

Martya bought a ham, eggs, brown flour so coarse it might almost be called meal, potatoes, and salt, all of which she haggled over and I paid for. I wanted to carry everything, to which she objected vociferously—the ladies of the neighborhood would see her carrying nothing and call her a lazy slut.

I gave her the ham, the flour, and the potatoes. She did not like that either, saying she would be carrying more than I did. Both of us wanted to carry the eggs, since it seemed obvious that the person who carried those could not carry much else for fear some would be broken. In the end, she carried the eggs and the salt, and I carried everything else. As we were leaving the market she saw some fresh, bright red cherries, which she said had come a long way on the train. I bought some, but only after she agreed to carry them.

After that we trudged back to Kleon’s, Martya eating fresh cherries as she walked and spitting out the pits.

It was not yet noon when we reached the house, but I laid down the law, saying we had to get lunch before we went out to buy tools—I said it because I wanted to sit down and take off my shoes. Martya wanted me to buy our lunches at a café she would show me. “Is really most good food there and most true to old city. This you must write in your book.” (I had explained that I was a travel writer and had come to collect materials.) After another argument like the one about carrying the groceries, we settled on a compromise. She would make tea for us both. I would get what was left of the cherries, with bread, butter, and cheese. When I had finished, we would walk to the café and I would buy our lunches. After that, we would shop for tools. Martya’s arguments confirmed what I had already begun to suspect: everyone here eats everything he or she can hold at every meal but walks so much that most people do not get fat.