Gene Wolfe - There Are Doors

When he had gone a block, he saw a man’s black sock in the gutter and stopped to pick it up. It was not one of his, but it reminded him that he had often seen clothing lost or abandoned, lying in the street. No doubt his shirt and his own socks were similarly lost and abandoned, lying in the snow of Lara’s city, the city that was so much like, and yet so much unlike, his own. The socks would be separated, he thought; they would be miles apart. No one would get any good from them, unless perhaps a child took one to make a puppet, and a tramp who did not care whether his socks matched chanced on the other. The shirt had been a good one, a real silk shirt. He hoped someone found it before it got run over, before it became a rag like the rags he had passed so often without thinking about where they might have come from.

One of Mama’s sons was at the cash register. He tried to decide whether it was Guido, the son he had talked with in the restroom; he could not be sure. All the sons had always looked much the same to him, glowering men with black mustaches that came and went like customers, full of meat sauce at one moment and gone the next.

“Sit anywhere ya want to,” the son called to him. “It’s pretty early yet.”

He took the table by the window where he had sat with Fanny for lunch. If he had indeed left his hat on a peg in Mama’s, it was gone now. He told the waitress, “I was in here around noon with a lady; she had a salad. I don’t know what it was, but it looked awfully good. Do you remember us?”

The waitress shook her head. “I don’t think I served you, sir.”

“She was—” he tried to remember how old Fanny had said she was. “—about twenty-three. Petite, curly black hair.”

“Probably Gina served you, sir. Gina looks a lot like me.”

“Then would you find her and bring her over here?”

“We got three salads, sir.” The waitress described them. “They’re all pretty good.”

“Find Gina,” he told her.

She left looking sullen, and he studied the license plates of passing cars. It was getting dark, but he could read some of them, and they were perfectly ordinary.

He looked through the pockets of his jacket, moved by the feeling that he had forgotten something. There was nothing in either side pocket, and only a handkerchief—the red one he had carried there for months—in the breast pocket. His checkbook was in the inside pocket, and he pulled it out and examined it. The last check he had recorded there had been written on March eleventh. It occurred to him that he had paid for the doll by check, and that the amount of the check had been large; but he could not remember how large, and he was not sure a check could be presented for collection by a shop in another world, a shop in a dream.

“ … not here,” the waitress announced to his elbow.

He glanced up at her. “I’m sorry?”

“I said Gina’s not here. I looked all over.” The waitress brushed a lock of hair away from her forehead and contrived to appear both hot and tired when she was neither. “Dinner’s just starting, too.”

“Can she do that? Just leave like that?”

The waitress leaned closer. “Gina’s screwing Guido. She can do any damned thing she wants.”

“Is Guido here?” He glanced toward the register. There was no one there.

“Nah, Guido’s gone. He don’t hardly ever stay for dinner. What’d you like?”

He ordered one of the salads, and she drifted away. After a minute or two, he returned his checkbook to his breast pocket, wondering what to do until his food came. He had eaten here for years, usually alone as he was now; surely he had done something. While Lara had lived with him, there had always been things to do, someone to talk with.

Mama Capini pulled out the empty chair and sat down. “Hey, what’s the matter with you? You didn’t get full at lunch? You should of said somethin’, I’d have got you some garlic bread.”

He asked, “Do you remember the girl I brought here for lunch, Mama?”

Mama kissed her fingers. “Sure. You gonna get married?”

“If she comes in, will you tell me?”

“Sure!”

“And remember Lara? Tell me if Lara comes in. Especially if Lara comes in.”

“Sure. You lookin’ for a date?”

“No, I’m just trying to find these people. And if the big man and his wife—that’s the lady in the red dress—come in, let me know about them, too.”

He dawdled over his salad for an hour and half, drinking an espresso and a couple of amarettos. He saw no one he knew, and nothing happened.

At last he paid the check. When he counted his change, it was just money; nor had he seen any bills with strange pictures in the drawer. The man at the register was the one who had told him Guido was crazy, bigger and older than Guido. As he trudged back to his apartment, he wondered vaguely where Guido had gone. Had Guido been drawn into the other world? If so, did he know it yet? Perhaps Gina came from there; if customers could walk through the door from another world, as Joe and Jennifer had, it seemed likely enough that a waitress looking for work might walk through it, too.

Back at the apartment he put on one of his favorite albums, but found that the music that had once charmed him was harsh and ugly now. He turned on the television. After an hour or so, he realized he had no idea what the show was or why he was watching it.

He had forgotten how new the store looked, how shiny everything was. The walls were faced with limestone, and the company had them sandblasted every other year. The curving show windows had bright brass frames. Maintenance washed all those windows every morning and polished the frames until they sparkled like gold.

“It’s not open,” a fat woman told him. She was standing in front of one of the windows eyeing a sundress.

“I work here,” he said, and hoped he still did. The store would open at nine-thirty sharp, but main-shift hourly employees were supposed to clock in by eight-thirty. It was three minutes after eight. He went around back and climbed the concrete steps to the employees’ entrance, where Whitey watched to make sure no one punched in for someone else.

“Hi,” Whitey said. “Have a nice vacation?”

He nodded. “Seems like I’ve only been gone for a couple of days.”

It did, and yet it did not. Nothing had changed except for himself.

He resisted the temptation to have a look at his department and took the elevator to the administrative floor. Lie, or tell the truth? Tell them the truth, he decided; he was a bad liar, and he could not think of a story that would explain such a long absence anyway.

The next question was: Mr. Capper or Personnel? Capper was (or he had been) in charge of the department; with Capper on his side, Personnel would not be too rough with him. On the other hand, if Cap was mad—and there was a good chance of that—the personnel manager would resent his not having gone there first, and would probably kill any chance of transferring.

Besides, Personnel was easy to find. Cap might be in the office doing paperwork, but might just as easily be out in the department helping stock. Cap might not even be in yet.

Ella was at her desk doing her nails. She said, “Well … hello!”

There were folding steel chairs for job applicants. He sat in the one nearest her desk. “I’m back,” he said.

“I see.” Ella hesitated. “Mr. Drummond’s not in yet.”

“I’ll wait.”

“I carried you sick for a week.” Although they were alone, Ella lowered her voice. “Then he made me start phoning. Once he even went to your apartment at night and rang your bell, but he said nobody answered.”

“I was away. I got back to my apartment yesterday, and I could see I hadn’t been there. Everything was dusty, you know?”