Gene Wolfe - There Are Doors

He snuffled and was ashamed, amused, and heartbroken all at once; without his knowledge or consent, his eyes had filled with tears. He pulled out his handkerchief, blew his nose, and wiped his eyes. But a tear dotted the green smock, another fell upon the graceful little legs, and a third plashed full in the doll’s piquant face.

And the doll moved like a living girl in his hand.

He nearly dropped it.

“Hello.” The doll sat up, or at least, sat up as well as it could, its hips resting in the palm of his left hand. “Hi, I’m Tina.” The wide hazel eyes blinked slowly, then focused on his face.

One final tear fell, wetting Tina’s hair.

“I belong to you,” Tina said. “I’m your doll, and I can talk.” Her voice was almost too high for him to hear, as high as the chirp of a cricket, he thought, or the twitter of bats. “If you want to have a tea party, I can help you set the table.”

He nodded, more to himself than to her, and said, “Would you like some tea?”

“Yes, please,” the doll answered formally. “I would like some tea very much.”

He nodded again. “Can you walk?”

“I can walk, but it might be better if you carried me. You can carry me like a baby if you like.” She seemed to sympathize with his expression of dismay. “Or I can ride on your shoulder. That’s the best way of all. You see, if I walk we’ll go pretty slowly, because my legs are so small. And if you stepped on me, I might break.”

He nodded solemnly and put the doll on his right shoulder, where she held the top of his collar with one tiny hand. “Don’t go too fast, and I’ll be fine.”

He said, “I’ll try not to.” He blew his nose again, being careful not to move his head, and wiped his cheeks.

“Why were you crying?”

“Seeing you reminded me of somebody else, of somebody I’d forgotten.” He hesitated, not sure what he had said was fair to Lara. “Or at least that I’d put out of my mind.” As he stood up, moving as slowly and smoothly as he could, he added, “Dolls don’t talk here, or anyway, not as well as you.”

There was no reply.

He went into the kitchen. Most of the water he had heated for coffee remained in the pan, but it was cold now and scummed with lime. He threw it out, put in fresh water, and turned on the burner again. There were tea bags in the canister, the remnants of a box of exotic teas he had bought (in Gourmet Foods, at the discount) for an assistant manager in Lingerie but never given her.

“I don’t know if I’ve got a cup small enough for you,” he said.

He settled on a demitasse cup, pushed the tea bag into it, and doused it with boiling water.

Tina said, “May I talk?”

“Sure, why not?”

“You said I wasn’t supposed to. But I like just a teeny-weeny pinch of salt in my tea.”

He passed the saltcellar over it. “That enough? You take sugar?”

“No, thanks,” Tina chirped. “No milk either.” She bounced from his shoulder like a tennis ball and stood, legs wide, on the dinette table to drink from the cup. It was as big for her as a wastebasket would have been for him.

When she put it down, it seemed to him that it was as full as it had ever been, but she patted her midriff and wiped her mouth on the back of one bare arm. “Now if you’ll just leave it there, I could come and get some whenever I wanted to.”

That seemed no crazier than talking to a doll. “All right,” he said.

“And I won’t have to bother you. I’m really not very good at doing things for myself. I couldn’t have turned on the water like you did.”

He nodded.

“Well, I can do things a little.”

He asked, “Can you tell me how a doll can talk?”

“Because I’m built that way. It’s my insides.” She patted her middle again. “But I can’t add or subtract or spell or any of that other stuff. I haven’t been to school.”

He nodded again.

“I’d like some nice clothes. Have you got any?”

“Not that would fit you,” he told her.

“I’d like a ball gown, just to start. And a vanity set, so I can do my hair.”

“It’s too late tonight,” he told her. “I’ll get you some things tomorrow.” He was confident that tomorrow she would be gone, or at least inanimate and silent.

“And I’d like a bra and panties. I’d like two of each, so I can wear one and wash one.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“One pair could be fawn, and the other pair could be ginger. That way we could tell which I’d worn last. And a nightie. Can I sleep with you?”

“If you don’t snore,” he told her.

“I don’t. You can’t even hear me breathing.” She threw out her chest as though to prove she did indeed breathe, tiny, conical breasts pushing impatiently against the metallic fabric of her smock. “Tomorrow night I’ll put up my hair, if you get me rollers. It would be better if you carried me, remember?”

He asked, “What if you want some tea in the middle of the night?”

“I won’t,” Tina chirped. “But if I did, I could come out and get it without waking you up. You wouldn’t have to worry about stepping on me then. Besides, I can move faster now.”

He picked her up and replaced her on his shoulder. “Is that what you work on? Tea?”

“Sometimes silly children want us to drink more tea than we can hold.”

“I won’t do that,” he promised. He recalled something a bartender had once told him, and added, “If you don’t want it, don’t drink it.”

“I like you. We’re going to have a lot of fun.”

“Not now,” he said. “Right now I’m going to take a shower, and then I’m going to bed.”

“I could have a bath in the washbowl while you’re taking your shower.”

“All right.”

“All you have to do is turn on the water for me. Not very hard. Not very hot, either.”

“All right,” he said again. He pulled up the chrome handle that stoppered the bowl, and adjusted the hot and cold knobs to produce a thin stream of tepid water.

Tina hopped from his shoulder. “Can I use your soap?”

“Sure.” He took off his shirt and tossed it in the hamper as he always did. Tina had skinned out of her metallic green smock; she had no pubic hair, but her breasts were tipped with minute pink nipples.

He turned his back to remove his trousers, and when he went into the bedroom to hang them up and get his pajamas, he debated putting on the bottoms before he returned to the bathroom. It would be useless, since he would have had to take them off again immediately.

Tina had worked up a fine lather in the washbowl. He asked if the water was too hot.

“No, it’s fine. Could you give me a drop of shampoo?”

He did, tilting the bottle just enough to pour a single emerald drop into her cupped hands.

As soon as he closed the shower door, he felt certain she would be gone when he came out. Perhaps the basin would be full of water; perhaps not. He made the spray colder and revolved beneath it, grunting because he wanted to shout.

“I’m going to use one of these little towels, okay?”

“Sure.” His next appointment with Dr. Nilson was Tuesday. Five days. He wondered whether he should call her now; she had given him her home number, though he had never used it. As he thought about that, the memory of a disheveled man in hospital pajamas playing an out-of-tune piano returned with such force that he seemed to see and hear it, seemed to feel the unyielding wood of the bench upon which he had once sat.

Tina was singing as she dried herself, singing in a voice sweet and yet so high that at times it soared beyond audibility, singing to the tune of the cracked old piano someone had donated to the hospital. No, he could not call Dr. Nilson. He couldn’t even mention Tina when he went on Tuesday.