Gene Wolfe - There Are Doors

But where? Or had he been given some drug that permanently distorted the way he viewed the world, so that in the city where he had been born they now saw him wandering, wide eyed, talking to phantoms? Was it, as Lara had hinted in her note, merely the other side of a special door that he must find? If so, was Lara here or there? For she seemed to be in both places, admitting a strange man to his apartment, appearing here in his dream and on television, though that had perhaps been Marcella.

Who was surely, certainly, Lara herself in disguise. What had she told him? “Darling, it’s terribly dangerous, my talking with you.” That had been a message; that had been a warning as clear as Lara had dared to make it.

“What time is it there?” So “Marcella” was—had been—far away in another time zone, and had come on a jet as soon as she had finished speaking to him.

Or she had wished him to think her far away.

Marcella was a star, Marcella appeared on television, was known to everybody. What was it the nurse had called her? A goddess of the screen? But Marcella had telephoned him, waking him from sleep, if the call itself had not been a dream.

He watched snow dance across the broad, bare flags of the terrace.

On the other side of the French doors, the telephone rang and rang again. He opened them, stepped into a room that now seemed warm, and slid them shut, latching them carefully.

The telephone rang a third time.

He looked around to see whether the French doors had sent him back to his own country, or perhaps whisked him to a place stranger even than Lara’s. Other than the comfort of the room, nothing seemed to have changed, and he knew that it existed only in its contrast to the freezing wind outside. He picked up the handset.

“Mr. Pine?” It was the name he and North had decided upon.

“Yes,” he said.

“Are you sharing your room with a Mr. Campbell, sir?”

“Yes,” he said again. “Or rather, Mr. Campbell’s sharing his with me. He paid.”

“Our records show only your name, sir, although they show double occupancy. The other gentleman is Mr. Campbell?”

“That’s right. Why are you asking?”

“Mr. Campbell is buying some things in one of the shops, sir,” the clerk said, and hung up.

He hung up too, and switched on the television. Lara did not appear on the screen, though he had half expected her. He took the map and the bundle of currency from the pockets of his topcoat, pulled it off, and tossed it on the sofa.

As far as he could judge, the bills were perfectly genuine. The brown paper band with its stamped inscription, inked Chinese character, and ten-cent price was just as he remembered it.

He put away the bills and studied the map, trying to recall the topography of the United States and where such an area might fit into it. The girl in the map shop had mentioned some nearby town—or maybe it had been the red-faced man he had talked to in the street. He could not remember the name of that town, though he racked his brains for it.

No town of any kind appeared on the map, which he thought too much like a picture. There were mountains with snow-white peaks, and narrow valleys that seemed forbidding. A crude red array of walls and towers marked “Giants’ Castle” was probably just a rock formation. He felt he had heard of it, or perhaps only of something like it, a Giants’ Causeway or something of the sort.

The girl had mentioned a place called Crystal Gorge; he felt certain of that. He found it on the map—sparkling urns and statues on glass pedestals. Another place was called The Goddess’s Pleasure Garden, and there was a gray stone arch in the center smothered in flowers. Recalling that arch from his dream, he shivered.

The door banged open, and North came in carrying boxes and a paper. “Here you go,” North said, tossing a box into his lap.

He pulled the map from under it. “What is it?”

“Hat. I had to guess your size, but you can bring it back if it doesn’t fit. You look funny without one. Everybody wears them here.”

He refolded the map, opened the box, and pulled out a high-crowned snap-brim. He had never worn a hat, but he had to admit that North was right.

“Got you a new tie too, and a couple shirts. If the maid snoops around, we want her to find something.”

“Did the man who was supposed to meet you come?”

“I’m saving that for last. Try on the hat.”

He did, thinking at first that it was a trifle snug, then deciding it was a good fit. The tie was red silk with a yellow pattern that reminded him of scrambled eggs. Both shirts were taupe, one with a yellow stripe, one with a blue.

“Pure silk—silk’s cheap here. I figured you for a sixteen collar. If they don’t fit, leave the collar open. They look better like that anyhow.”

“Sixteen should be fine.”

“Now you get to read about us,” North said, handing him the paper. “We made page one.”

Three patients escaped from the male floor of United General Psychiatric Hospital yesterday. Names are being withheld to spare the feelings of their relations, but Dr. Jonathan Pille, a hospital official, describes one as dangerous. “He is a male Caucasian of medium height,” Dr. Pille told this reporter. “With receding dark hair, dark brown eyes, and a black mustache. We were treating him with electric shock and lithium, and we felt we were making progress. He was transferred from the Violent Ward to our General Treatment Facility ten days ago, but without treatment he is liable to relapse.”

The second is said to be a short, slightly built man of forty-five, almost totally bald. He is reported to have an ingratiating manner, and to be capable of appearing fully sane for extended periods. He is not thought dangerous, but should be confined for his own safety.

The third is young, below medium height, with curling brown hair and brown eyes. He is reported to be friendly with the patient above, and it is believed they may be together.

The present episode is the only instance of escape from United General in the current decade. Security measures are being tightened.

North said, “Not a word about her, you notice? They’re afraid they’ll make them quit using nurses on the men’s floor.”

“The nurse who helped you? Maybe they don’t know about her.”

“Sure they do, if they’ve got any brains. Whose car was gone? Whose—” North bit off the sentence, struck by an idea. “That’s Eddie Walsh. It’s got to be.”

“He wasn’t with us.”

North grinned. “But we left the door unlocked. Remember Door C? That was always locked. The guys had him up on their shoulders when we went out, and he must have seen us. Eddie’s one sharp little bastard.”

“He didn’t have any street clothes. My God, he must have frozen to death.”

“He took his chances just like we did.”

If North said anything more, he did not hear it. He saw his mother’s face and heard his mother’s voice, the face and voice as each had been toward the end, when they were about to lose the house: “I took my chances.”

“They don’t carry much in the way of ID here,” North said. “According to what he tells me, a driver’s license will get you just about anywhere. Here’s yours.”

A square of stiff paper sailed through the air and landed in his lap. It seemed to him that a driver’s license should be cased in plastic and carry a picture; this looked more like an elaborate theater ticket, although a name was printed on it (as if he himself were the show tonight) and there was a space for his signature.

North said, “I’m going to take a shower and change. You too, if you want to. Then we’ve got things to do.”