Gene Wolfe - There Are Doors

“Because I’m not leaving you. You’re bait for North, and getting him means a promotion, probably two grades—Detective Lieutenant Lindy. It might also mean the survival of the human race, although that’s strictly secondary.”

“All right,” he said.

“You’re willing to help me?”

“Yes, if you’re willing to help me. If I go home, that’s the life I had before I met Lara. She may visit my world, but this is where she comes from. This is where she lives, so this is where I’ll find her, if I find her at all.”

The waitress halted at their table. “Don’t care for your soup, ma’am?”

Fanny shook her head. “I let it get cold, but that’s all right. Take it away.”

When the waitress left, he said, “This is where I belong too, because Lara’s here.”

“Since you’re going to help me and we’re sharing info, the future detective lieutenant will share some of hers: your Lara is Laura Nomos.”

“I know.”

Fanny looked surprised. “I didn’t, not for sure. Or not till a minute ago, when you were up at the cash register. How could you be sure? And what were you doing there anyway?”

“I saw her in the theater, just like you did. And it was Lara—I told you about Mr. Kolecke. In your room you said she was Laura Nomos, so the names aren’t just a coincidence.”

“Well, I thought you were wrong, that Klamm’s stepdaughter couldn’t possibly be ducking in and out of the Visiting World as if she were the goddess. But like you say, I saw her. And that Italian woman said she saw your Lara last night, dressed the way Nomos was in the theater, so that was confirmation. You’re not crazy or nearsighted. Your Lara’s Laura Nomos.”

He nodded.

Fanny shuddered. “And if you’re not crazy, you might be right about this restaurant, and I ought to be scared to death. This is your world?”

“I think so. North calls it C-One.” He showed her the money and told her what had happened. “Do you have any large bills?”

“A twenty. That’s the biggest.”

“That should do,” he said. “I want you to take it to the register and ask for two tens. Take whatever he gives you and bring it back here.”

The waitress had brought Fanny’s salad and his fettuccine, with the tea and coffee, while Fanny was at the register. When she returned she asked, “Aren’t you hungry?”

“I’m starved,” he said, “but first I want to see what you got.”

“Two perfectly ordinary ten-dollar bills.” She held them out. “You really are crazy, that’s what I think.”

He shook his head and forked up fettuccine.

“And I asked if you were hungry.”

“I want to think,” he told her, “and I think better when I’m eating.” After another bite he asked, “Would you like a taste? It’s really very good.”

“Just to keep you happy.” She took a forkful, followed by two more. “You didn’t really get those bills you showed me from him, did you?”

He nodded, his mouth full.

“You’re saying that man knows, that he’s manipulating us.”

He swallowed. “I don’t think so. He talked to me about the fight, Joe’s fight.”

“Who’s Joe?”

“A boxer. I met him once. Everybody says what a nice guy he is, and he seemed like one, the one time I talked to him. Do you remember what Mama Capini said about the people Lara brought here?”

Fanny nodded. “The big man and the blonde? Sure.”

“Joe was the big man. Laura Nomos is Eddie Walsh’s lawyer. Eddie is Joe’s manager. All these people belong to your world, but Mama Capini doesn’t.” He sipped his water and went back to the fettuccine. “Joe paid for the dinner, remember? If it had been Lara—Laura Nomos—I would have understood, and maybe Joe used a credit card or wrote a check. But I don’t think either one would be like Joe. He bought me coffee from a machine and got a soft drink for himself, and he took the change out of one of those little coin purses that misers use on TV. I bet he’s had it since he was a kid. I think Joe would pay cash.”

“And not look at his change till later?”

“No, that’s just it. Joe would look at it. He’d count it, too. Probably Jennifer—that’s his wife, the woman in the red dress—takes care of most of the bills, but he wouldn’t want her to pay for a meal in a restaurant. That would embarrass him. So his change was right, in the right sort of money.”

“Then they’d have to know, here in this restaurant. That’s what I said.”

He shook his head. “If he’d known, he wouldn’t have talked to me about Joe. At first you don’t understand what’s happened. Believe me, I’m speaking from experience. What happened to him and this whole place is that they were pulled across, somehow. They went through a door—except they couldn’t have. One door couldn’t take a whole building, could it?”

Fanny laughed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s this about doors?”

“Lara told me, in a note. When you’ve been around someone from the other world, you see doors. Anything that’s closed on all four sides can be one. It looks significant; that was her word. If you go through, you cross over. But then if you turn around to go back, you don’t go back. It isn’t a door anymore, for you. You have to back out.”

He snapped his fingers, and Fanny said, “What is it now?”

“Why is it a door looks the same on both sides?”

“Do they? Beats me.”

“Because it is. That’s what makes it a door. Shut your eyes. Go on, this is a test.”

She did.

“Now, you’ve eaten here before, and you brought me here. What’s the full, official name of this restaurant?”

She considered for a moment. “There’s a sign outside with brass letters. Trattoria Capini.”

He sighed and said, “All right, now open them again.” He handed her a book of matches that had been lying on the table.

Fanny glanced at the cover. “‘Capini’s Italian Cuisine.’ Okay, it’s not quite the same.”

He put down his fork. “This restaurant—I call it Mama’s—is in my world. It’s the place where I’ve eaten for years. The other one—the Trattoria —is in yours. Maybe the family name’s being the same on both sides is a coincidence. Anyway, the door of the Trattoria is a Door. People from your world who’ve been with people from mine can get into mine by walking through it, like you did when you came in with me, or like Joe and his wife—her name’s Jennifer, I think—did when they came in with Lara. But things sort themselves out after awhile. People are pulled by their own worlds, which is why I’m back in mine now, I think. Money is really just pieces of paper. If it’s from one world it pulls others from the same world. Things move in ways that sort them out.”

Fanny said, “You’re implying that a piece of paper has a brain. I don’t believe you.”

“No, I’m not. Let me tell you about something they showed us in school. They tuned two strings to the same frequency. Do you follow me? Not the way you’d tune a piano, but so they made exactly the same note. Then whenever somebody plucked one, the other would start to shake. Not because it had a brain—it just did.”

“Then both worlds are only frequencies, and nothing’s solid at all.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said.

“But I would. Isn’t that how TV’s supposed to work? You tune to a certain channel and get two signals, one for picture, one for sound. The station fudges the frequency of each just a little all the time, and that’s what changes the picture and the noise from the speakers. When you change the frequency in your set a lot, it picks up a new channel, and the show you’ve been watching is gone. There’s a new show, with different people.”