Gene Wolfe - There Are Doors

Tightly pressed between their bodies, Tina yelled, “Hey!” They ignored her.

The elevator doors slid back. “I am Laura Nomos,” Lara told him. “I am an attorney, and the stepdaughter of a cabinet officer. You are an acquaintance.” In a lower tone she added, “You needn’t wipe your mouth—women paint theirs to look like me.”

The whisper was no more necessary than the wiping of his lips; Sailor Sawyer had grabbed the ropes and vaulted into the ring, and half the audience was on its feet, cheering wildly.

“They applaud him now,” Lara murmured. “But in a few years he will be dead, and so will they. Let them all engage with Death, an opponent worthy of any strength.”

“I thought you liked Joe,” he said as they made their way down the aisle.

“I do. He’s like a big, solemn child, so eager to please and to do what is right. And Eddie, because he’ll reshape the world to fit his dream or die. And W.F., because he loves them both.”

Klamm had already taken a seat in the first row when they arrived; there was an empty seat to his right. Lara gestured to the man on the other side of it, who rose and went to the aisle. She sat down beside Klamm and patted the now-empty seat next to hers.

He sat. She said, “Stepfather, this is my friend Adam K. Green. Adam, Adalwolf Wilhelm Klamm.”

The old man leaned across her to shake hands, eyes stupid as though with sleep. “A great pleasure, Herr Kay.” The words were thickly accented.

He said, “It’s a very great honor, sir.”

“So,” Klamm remarked to Lara, gesturing toward Sawyer. “You t’ink still your Joe will beat him?”

With mock firmness Lara announced, “I know it.”

“Then I bet you. Theater tickets, any play you wish. Or any play I wish, which is how it shall be.”

Lara said, “Never give a sucker an even break,” and they shook hands solemnly.

Tattoos covered every visible inch of Sawyer’s skin from the neck down, pictures and bannered inscriptions that writhed and flowed with the muscles beneath them.

Tina said, “That dragon’s alive!”

He looked down and saw that she had clambered far enough out of his pocket to peep past the lapel of his coat. “It’s just a picture somebody drew on his skin,” he told her.

“I’m a doll, but I’m not just a doll.”

Joe’s robe was off. Eddie Walsh, who had replaced the other guard, had it in trust. As the referee reached for the microphone lowered to her from the rafters of the arena, W.F. opened the red-and-white kit on the canvas just beyond the ropes. North stood to one side, incongruous in a three-piece suit.

Lara whispered, “Do you want to read this?” and handed him North’s confession.

This is to state that I, the undersigned Wm. T. North, did upon the morning of January 21 shoot and kill Dr. Cecil L. Applewood in his office in the concourse of the Grand Hotel. I acted in self-defense only in that I feared disclosures Applewood might make to the police. I had been observing a confederate and saw he was being followed by an officer. My confederate visited Applewood, whom he knew to be one of us, and the officer overheard their conversation. When they had gone, I entered Applewood’s office and shot him twice in the chest, knowing that he was not the man to withstand a sustained interrogation. I then entered the hotel room occupied by my confederate, intending to kill him when he returned, but he did not return.

“I was the confederate,” he whispered to Lara.

She nodded. “I thought you were.”

The bell rang. Joe and Sawyer left their corners, circled, and jabbed. An indescribable sound filled the arena, the whine of a huge animal about to be fed.

At the end of the first round, he felt Joe had gotten the worst of it, despite a few good punches. Joe had fought defensively, covering up, edging away, keeping Sawyer at a distance. Vaguely he recalled a night in Walsh’s room. Joe had said his opponent had been an expert boxer but, “I had the reach.” Something like that. Joe had the reach again now, by an inch or two; or so he thought. Was that really so important here? An inch or two?

As the death of a parent or a summer job awakens a boy to manhood, as the accidental lifting of a theater curtain shows us the hurrying stagehands and the sweating actor behind Lear or Willy Loman, so these dim musings gradually permitted him to see Joe and Sawyer. He had always supposed boxing a mere matter of someone strong and brave clubbing someone else who was less so. Thus had his schoolyard defeats been, or thus he had judged them.

It was not true. Joe and Sawyer played a game as complex as chess, and played it with the unequal pieces awarded each by birth and time.

The bell rang, and the fighters rose at once. For half a minute, both appeared to feint and circle as before. Quickly the dragon closed, wrapping Joe in golden scales. They were so near he could hear the smack-smack of their punches through the roar of the audience; yet he could not see … did not see what had happened. They separated, circling as before; there were fiery splotches on Joe’s chest; Sawyer’s head was shaking as if the champion sought to clear it.

Lara freed her breath in a deep sigh. “I thought that was it,” she said. He asked what she meant, but she only shook her head like Sawyer.

The fighters closed again toe-to-toe, and this time he had a better view. Sawyer’s head was bent over fists pounding like pistons. Joe’s head and shoulders held Sawyer away while Joe’s muscled forearms absorbed the blows. As they separated, one of those arms flew out, driving a brown-gloved fist where Sawyer’s chin met the collar bone.

Now it was the champion who was backing off and jabbing, while Joe advanced with little bobbing steps, swaying to right and left as Sawyer tried to circle.

“Look ’at ’im weave,” Walsh shouted to Lara. “God, ain’t he beautiful!”

The bell rang, Joe rejoined W.F. in the corner, and three things happened at once. Walsh sprang from his seat and rushed to Joe’s corner. W.F. yelled, “Water!” to North. And North flourished both hands, somewhat like a stage magician, somewhat like a small girl fastidiously wiping her soiled fingers on her pinafore; this last caused a blue-black automatic to appear in each hand.

For a moment North posed with these pistols, an actor in the spotlight. During that moment, Klamm dove to the floor and Lara screamed. It occurred to him that neither had much reason to be afraid; North’s guns had already swung toward him. They went off together, deafeningly loud. He grabbed the ropes as he had seen Sawyer do a few minutes earlier, vaulted clumsily, and used his momentum to drive his foot into North’s groin.

North stumbled backward, one gun firing into the rafters. Joe and Sawyer were on their feet. The referee was ringing her bell, ringing for the fighters to fight again, he thought, and they were going to do it across North.

No, North was up, scuttling toward the ropes, still holding one gun. Klamm’s men were firing from the aisle. North’s gun barked at him, spitting flame and leaping like a big, angry dog; but W.F. had thrown the red-and-white kit, and it struck North’s arm.

Then he held the gun, too. He twisted it up and back. It fired—its flash half-blinded him, and the sound of the shot was deafening. North’s jaw was a red horror, yet North struck him again and again. He heard his own nose break, a terrible sound; something had invaded his head and was working destruction there. He gasped for breath, drew in blood and spat it out. More blood was streaming down his face.

Joe’s padded glove slammed North’s ear. After that, North no longer wrestled him for the gun. It was in his hand, but he did not know what to do with it—and then it was gone. North’s corpse sprawled on the canvas near the center of the ring, in a widening scarlet stain.