Gene Wolfe - There Are Doors

Klamm was there, the only occupant of a box, a crag-faced old man with long, pointed mustaches dyed jet black and cheeks pulled flaccidly downward by the weight of years. The great man wore a dinner jacket with a white dress shirt and a white tie, and seemed to be sleeping with open eyes, staring straight ahead as if content to wait, cigar in hand, for taller actors or more lofty themes, though they might be never so long in coming.

“Salmon die after they’ve spawned,” the fat man was saying. “Drones when they’ve fertilized the queen. In many species, the male spiders are devoured by their mates. At least we’re spared that.”

He had looked to one side for a moment, and in that moment Lara had entered Klamm’s box; now she stood with a hand upon the old man’s shoulder. She wore a gown of shimmering material that wrapped one breast in a prismatic highlight, a double rainbow—violet, blue, green, and gold. Yet he thought her own glorious hair more beautiful, a part of her person that in transfiguring her transfigured itself.

He took a step toward the wings, and because he had, he saw the men with guns before anyone else did.

After passing through his topcoat at hip level, the first shot killed the man who had been dying on the cot. North was firing at once, a gun in each hand. More police—if they were police—were coming from the other side of the stage. He saw a dot of blood appear on the fat man’s yellow pajama leg and rapidly grow larger. The fat man stared down at it open-mouthed, clutched the leg in fat, neatly manicured hands, and fell slowly until the crash of his gross body shook the stage.

“This way,” North yelled, and went straight back, smashing the concrete wall like so much painted canvas. Dodging to stay out of North’s line of fire, he found himself face-to-face with a magician in immaculate evening clothes. With practiced grace, the magician threw open the door of a crimson and gold cabinet.

North darted in. He followed, feeling rather than hearing the door slammed after him. They fell through darkness, sliding down something too steep and too slick to hold. Later he would remember that he had been afraid one of North’s pistols would go off when the slide ended.

Neither did, but he could hear shots and screams above, and running feet. There was a scratch and a flare of light; North held a silver cigarette-lighter. Like the visiting princess who must feel a single pea, they lay upon a pile of mattresses. All about them stood a shadowy crowd of barrels, shelves, and boxes.

With strong teeth, North was tearing the cellophane from a cigar. “Know where we are?”

He nodded. He had seen a paper lantern and recognized the place. “In the basement of the Chinese shop.”

North bit the end from the cigar and spat it out. “Close enough. We’re in the basement of the theater. That magic act was supposed to follow us, so he was setting up in back of our scenery. He makes stooges from the audience disappear in that cabinet.”

He shook his head and climbed from the mattresses, which were grimy with dust.

“It’s probably better to lie low for a while,” North told him, lighting the cigar.

He already had a foot on the stair. “Go ahead and shoot,” he said. “They’ll hear it, and they’ll know where you are. Or you can start a fight. I’ll yell, and they’ll hear that.” He took Sheng’s matches out of his pocket and struck one, just as Sheng himself had struck a match upon an earlier occasion that now seemed forlorn beneath an infinite drift of calendar leaves. A dragon of red and yellow fire appeared, emitting black smoke, illuminating their corner of the dusty basement. It appeared to wink at him, then vanished.

“God DAMN!” North said, picking up the cigar and swatting at sparks. “How’d you do that?”

“Have fun.” He waved good-bye.

He went up the stairs and into Sheng’s shop. Sheng and Dr. Pille were sitting in Sheng’s back room drinking tea. “Nice see you again,” Sheng said. “This sister’s son. Doctor. Fine man. Like tea? Want buy something?”

Dr. Pille extended a hand. “We’ve met, more or less. You were only semiconscious at the time, though. Later I saw you in the moopsball game. You were extremely impressive.”

“And now you’ll take me back. Or try to.” He pulled out the remaining chair and sat down.

“Not really.” Dr. Pille paused. “That is, not unless you want me to.”

“Maybe I do.” He found he was rubbing his temples with his fingertips. “Everything’s so crazy.”

Sheng chuckled. “We joke for gods. Relax, enjoy, laugh too. Do not do mean. Mean not belong joke. Die, drink wine with gods, laugh more.”

Dr. Pille said, “The pressures of life become too much for all of us now and then.”

It occurred to him that North might come up the stairs at any moment and kill them all. It seemed there was not much he could do about it.

“You tell,” Sheng said. “Nephew very wise. Sheng fool, but old fool, see much. Even fool learn at last.”

When he did not answer, Sheng continued in a tone that was almost coaxing. “Say Dr. Pille. Your doctor. Sheng listen.”

“All right. To start with, that name. What sort of world is it when you wake up in the hospital and they tell you you’re being treated by Dr. Pille?”

The doctor smiled, hiding his mouth behind his hand. “Is that all? You see, my family name is Di; but when I was in med school it struck me that it wasn’t quite the thing for a young physician, so I changed it. I’ve often regretted that change, I admit; I fear I retained an undergraduate sense of humor when I made it. But now Pille is on all my diplomas and licenses, and it would be a great deal of trouble to change back.”

“Am I really an alcoholic?”

“I doubt it. But if you think you might be, you’d better cut down on your drinking.”

Sheng said, “Drink tea,” and poured steaming brown liquid into his cup.

“If I’m not an alcoholic, why did you say I was when they brought me in? It was on my chart.”

Dr. Pille looked grave. “The woman preferred charges, and my uncle here had asked me to look out for you. He had seen you fall, you see. Breach of promise is quite serious, as you must know. If I had said you were sound except for your concussion, you’d have been taken to another hospital, and eventually to prison. By classifying you as an alcoholic, I was able to keep you at United and keep you off psychoactive drugs.”

“All right.” He nodded; it seemed too much to assimilate all at once. “Mr. Sheng, I was in this theater. I went into a magician’s cabinet, and I fell down what I guess was a trap door onto some old mattresses. But when the man I was with lit his cigarette lighter, we were in your basement.”

“Building belong theater. Sheng rent store, good tenant, always pay. Theater not need all room underground, let Sheng store merchandise, give Sheng key.”

Dr. Pille said something to Sheng in rapid Chinese, then asked, “Who is this man who was with you?”

“North.”

“He’s very dangerous. Are you aware of that?”

“Yes, I know,” he said.

“If he’s really in my uncle’s basement, I must inform the authorities. You should have—”

At that instant there was an explosion beneath their feet, rapidly followed by another. A demon, an alien being, a thing of flame having nothing to do with the life of earth (that yet seemed to live), roared up the stair, crashed into a wall, and veered into the room where they were drinking tea.

There was a third explosion.

He was in the street, sitting up and drinking tea. No, coffee. A cop in a tight blue overcoat held the mug, a thick, cracked one of white china. A white-coated medic crouched on the other side.