Gene Wolfe - Free Live Free

The witch asked quickly, “Just what do you mean by that?”

Mrs. Baker smiled her vague smile. “Why if I could say, it wouldn’t be spelling, would it? But Mr. Free used to come over and chew the rug now and then. The late Mr. Baker was a deer bomber in the war, and Mr. Free liked to hear about that and talk about his old company that he used to work for, Louise Clerk I think it was.” She sighed. “The closest I can put it is I never felt truffles was important when he was around. He had a beam in his eyes, like the Bible tells, and it lit up within.”

Barnes nodded and cleared his throat. “You know, I felt like that too. I felt like it wasn’t all that important whether I made the sale. I made some good ones too, just before we had to leave.”

“Yesterday I saw you go out my window,” the old woman said. “It wasn’t nosiness, it’s just that looking at the street’s more real-like, sometimes, than TV. I knew you were sailing because of those big valances you carried, and I thought someday you’d come to my door to sell me pans or bicyclopedias. You’d have thought I fell for your line hook and ladder, because I would have let you in and looked at everything. If you’d have told me about Mr. Free, I might have bought a new rooster too. I need one.”

Stubb was thumbing the telephone book. “No Louise Clerk & Company,” he said. “No Clerk, Louise in the residential section either.”

“I think they’re out of business,” Mrs. Baker told him. “They went backripped, I suppose. He said it was years black.”

Candy put in, “He would have retired at sixty-five, Jim, and I think he was over seventy.”

Stubb nodded. “I’m afraid we don’t know where Mr. Free is any more than you do, Mrs. Baker.” He slapped the telephone book shut. “But we’d like to find him. I’ll write down the hotel number and the number of this room for you. If you find him or hear where he is, I want you to call me. Don’t tell those women anything until you hear from me. I doubt that there’s any money. That’s something all investigators say when they want to find someone.”

“I was thinking—” Mrs. Baker took a handkerchief from her purse. “I was thinking if he’d crashed in he might have saved his house. Paid on somebody. I used to think how lucky all of you were to room in board there.” She blew her nose, a sound like Puff sneezing. “He told me all your names, but I think I’ve got them stirred up now and you aren’t who I thought. Just the same, I feel I know you from those years ago. The dark lady’s Miz Garth, because he said Miz Garth was an adventuress, and she’s so pretty. That makes the other lady—”

The bathroom door flew open. “I have my questions!” Sandy Duck waved her notebook triumphantly.

“Who was that woman anyway?” Sandy asked when she had settled into the plastic-cushioned hotel chair Barnes vacated for her.

“And is that the first of your questions?” The witch raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, no! I was just curious.”

“But you are not curious about the subjects of your other questions.”

“Yes, I am, of course. Very much so. Sandy’s round little face was confused and concerned.

“Then this question is of a piece with them, and counts as the first. Her name is Mrs. Baker, and—”

“Wait!” The notebook waved again, now a placard of protest. “You’re not in good faith. You’re just playing with me.”

“And are you in good faith? I spend my entire life, nearly every waking hour, in the pursuit of eternal truth and transcendent authority, and you come here with your three questions for an idiotic article that will be thrown away as soon as it is read. Is that good faith?”

“Yes,” Sandy said. “Yes, it is.”

The witch stared at her.

“In the first place, I didn’t come here with just three questions. I came with scads, and you were the one who said only three. In the second place, sure some copies we sell will be pitched out as soon as they’ve been read once, but a lot won’t be. To start with, we keep two sets in the office. They go clear back to 1927, when Who Knows? —that was our original title—was founded. The Mary-Sue Jordan Smith Memorial Library of the Occult in Belhaven, North Carolina has a complete set too—”

“She was a fool,” the witch interrupted.

Sandy looked baffled, and Stubb said, “The Smith woman?”

“Yes, I knew her. She had some talent, perhaps, but she had no judgement. She was appallingly ignorant as well.”

Sandy looked at Candy Garth as though for support. “I think she died in nineteen forty-seven.”

“Pah! Nineteen forty-five. Continue.”

“That’s all.” Sandy held up her hands as though she were balancing two coconuts. “I was just going to say that lots of our readers keep all our issues for years and years. They write and tell us, or say they have everything except a certain one, and ask if we’ll sell them that. We do, for five dollars, if we’ve got it.”

“How could I not cooperate with a publication so highminded? Very well then. My favorite recording artist is a man in Senegal, of whom you have never heard. I sleep in the nude. If I were stranded on a desert island—”

Candy shouted, “Oh, shut up! For God’s sake, let her ask her damn questions and get out of here. I’m tired and I’m not buzzed any more and I’m so damn hungry I may faint. You!” She glared at Sandy. “Ask the first one. She’ll answer it or I’ll sit on her.”

The young woman from Hidden Science/Natural Supernaturalism cleared her throat. “Madame Serpentina, you are one of the most profound practitioners of the occult today. In your opinion, what one thing can the average person do that would most improve his or her position vis-a-vis the unseen world?”

“See.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Apprehend, if you wish a longer answer.”

“This isn’t a question, but I’d appreciate it if you’d enlarge a little on that. You promised to answer ‘fully and fairly’ after all.”

“Most unenlightened people believe they see what they believe they will see,” the witch said. “They should not do that. To see the unseen world, it is necessary to look—that is why wisdom has so often been depicted as a third eye.”

Sandy hesitated, then nodded. “I see.”

“I doubt it.”

Stubb interposed. “Time for the second question, I think.”

“All right, second question.” Sandy took a deep breath. “Madame Serpentina, by what simple test—if such a test exists—can our readers determine whether they themselves or others who in their opinion may possess them, actually have occult powers?”

“Certainly such a test exists.” The witch straightened her shoulders and with both hands smoothed the black lace of her skirt. “You must understand that we are speaking of talents, just as one who might seek to isolate a future symphonist from a group of students would be intent upon talents. Occult talents differ from musical, or mathematical, or athletic talents in certain ways, but they are talents still. Those who possess them show signs of the same sort. I mean an easy mastery of the rudiments combined with a ‘signature’ —a characteristic their teachers may or may not appreciate that distinguishes their work from that of others.”

“But—”

“For example, a woman who believes herself clairvoyant should, more than once and more than twice, attempt cartomancy. If her most surprising predictions are often validated by subsequent events, she may proceed to more difficult things. A man who puts himself forward as a medium, let him call up spirits—then see if they come.”

Sandy remained speechless for a moment, then sighed. “Now I’m just dying to ask you about fakes, but you wouldn’t answer, would you? Unless we counted it as the third question?”