Gene Wolfe - There Are Doors

He sat up, but the woman had already turned away. For an instant her face was lit by the hall light, and he saw that she was Marcella, the woman whose picture (but it was Lara’s) was on the card that had come with the roses, the woman he had seen in the garden. He sprang from the bed and rushed down the hallway, but she was gone.

When he returned to his room, North was sitting in the tiny chair beside the bed. “Hello,” North said. “Thought I’d have to wake you. What’s up?”

“I had another visitor.”

“Anything to do with our plan for tomorrow?”

“Today, you mean. It must be a long time after midnight. No, it isn’t.”

“You got your locker open. I checked. That’s good, that was the test. What we’re going to do—”

“I’m not going,” he said.

There was a long silence. At last North said, “You think you’ve got a better way now.”

“That’s right.”

“I need somebody to drive me. You’re the only one around.”

He asked, “Can’t you drive?”

“Hell, yes. But I’m not going to.”

He hesitated. Marcella (who might or might not be the same as Lara, though he was sure she was) was going to try to get him out. But would her chances be worse if he’d gotten himself out before? “All right,” he said. “But there’s a price.”

“Name it.”

“You’re from the real world—the world where Richard Nixon was President. So am I. But I think you’ve been in this one a lot longer than I have. How long?”

North shrugged, his shadowy shoulders almost invisible in the faint light. “I’ve lost track.”

“More than a year?”

“Sure.”

“Then I want you to answer three questions for me, openly and honestly. Three questions about this world. Will you do that?”

“Shoot.”

He hesitated. There were so many questions, and some of them were questions he had to ask himself. Did he want to go home? Or to find Lara? He asked, “Who is the woman they call the goddess?”

“Hold it,” North said. “I can’t answer questions that don’t make sense. Do you mean the real goddess?”

“When I first got here, I bought a doll. The clerk said it was the goddess at sixteen. I mean whatever goddess he meant.”

“All right, that’s the real goddess. Only she’s not real. She’s just like Christ or Buddha, you get me? She represents the God-damned feminine ideal or whatever. There’s a big place out west that’s sacred to her—ten thousand square miles, they say. Nobody can live out there. Nobody’s even supposed to go into it.”

“No one ever sees her?”

“That’s your second question?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Sure, people see her. They see ghosts and flying saucers—all sorts of crap. She’s supposed to go around looking for her lost lover, some guy she ditched thousands of years back.” North paused; it was impossible to make out his expression in the faint light from the doorway. “If you ask me, she’s Mary Magdalene, and she’s looking for Jesus. Anyway, sometimes they see him too—the lost lover.”

“This is my third. What do they call him?”

There was a noticeable hesitation before North answered. “I won’t count this one. There’s a bunch of names, and I’ve never paid much attention to them.” Another hesitation. “Attis, he’s one. He’s got something to do with spring, and the harvest. Or he did.”

“I still have a question left?”

“Right.”

“Then I’ll save it for later. Are you going to tell me how we’re going to get out? Or do you want me to play it by ear?”

“I’m going to tell you. Just before noon they’ll herd all of us into the rec room. It’s called group recreation, but it’s really a get-acquainted party and gripe session. All the staff will be there, so that’s the best time for it. What we have to do then—”

The light came on.

He had barely gotten into bed when W.F. carried in his breakfast tray. “You was pretty good,” W.F. said, “so you get’nanas with your cereal.”

He said, “You work some awful hours.”

“Not really. I work days. See, the first time I see you yesterday, I was ‘bout to go off. Then I went to the arena to handle Joe. Then I come back with him, ’cause I live out this way. I had a little talk with Joe ‘bout strategy an’ all that after you gone. I always do it with him after a fight, but he won’t do it right after. He want to cool down and think ‘bout things hisself. So then I think why don’t I have a look in an’ see how everybody’s doin’.”

“You can’t have had much sleep.”

“Don’t need much. Never have. I’ll sleep good tonight, though.”

“W.F.?”

“What?” Already at the doorway, W.F. turned to look back.

“Did you see a blond woman here last night? A visitor?”

“Somebody come while you sleep last night, huh?”

He nodded, then added, “Not really while I was asleep. I was awake, and I saw her just as she was stepping out into the hallway.” He indicated the golden card attached to the roses. “This woman.”

“Listen.” W.F. stepped toward the bed again and lowered his voice. “Lots of dudes have some dreams like that. Don’t matter—don’t you worry ’bout it.”

Breakfast was Corn Flakes with a sliced banana, milk, and coffee. He ate listlessly, trying to recall what he had eaten for dinner the night before. The only thing he could be sure of was W.F.’s promised chocolate pudding. Had there been potatoes? He seemed to remember green beans and a scoop of mashed potatoes with a half tablespoon of gravy.

Was this what patients did? He had not thought of himself as a patient before, but as a wounded animal, a lost adventurer briefly exiled from the fields of life. Perhaps no one thought of himself as a patient until he was well, or almost well. He’d had a concussion, after all—a bad concussion. Perhaps this was how patients felt, how patients lived, waiting from one meal to the next, marking their whole lives with soggy Corn Flakes and cold coffee.

He tried to finish the coffee before it got any colder and discovered that his hand was shaking too much to hold the cup. This was a mental hospital. He had a concussion—or was that just what they told you? He felt his bandaged head.

There was a knock at the doorway; a man in coveralls stood there, artfully pretending that there was an actual door before him—a door impenetrable to the human eye.

“Yes?” he said.

“TV repair. You have a broken set?”

He had forgotten about it. “Yes,” he said again. “Or at least it was broken yesterday.” He picked up the remote control and pressed the On button. Nothing happened.

The man had stepped inside. “No picture. No sound.”

“That’s right,” he said.

“You didn’t mess with the knobs, did you?” The man edged in the direction of the set, keeping an eye on him.

“I’m not crazy,” he said. “I’m an alcoholic, a drunk. I fell down and hit my head. Read my chart. No, I didn’t touch the knobs at all; there’s nothing but that little chair to stand on, and it’s on wheels.”

Somewhat to his surprise, the television repair man did as he had suggested, bending to study the chart at the foot of his bed.

“Okay?” he asked.

“Okay.” The man straightened up, smiling. “You know how it is—some of the guys in this place are really nuts. I guess it’s worse for you, being in here all the time.”

“I haven’t met many of them. I only got here yesterday.” It struck him that he did not really know whether what he had said was true or not. “Or anyhow, I only woke up yesterday.”

“I had one guy try to jump me once. I had one guy tell me he was God.” The man chuckled. “And he hadn’t liked how the world was going, so he changed it. But he didn’t like the new way either, and he wanted it changed back. He was real mad.”