Gene Wolfe - There Are Doors

“Ja.”

“I saw him on TV one time. I just switched on the TV, and there he was, answering the phone in my apartment.”

Klamm nodded. “No one else was looking? Perhaps another would have seen what you saw, Herr Kay. But perhaps not. More often, not. She was near you then, and she brings such dreams; I cannot explain why.”

That was the end of their conversation for a time, and it seemed to him that the limousine should have pulled up in front of a hospital when Klamm said, I cannot explain why. In point of fact, it did not, but followed the black sedan for another mile at least while he considered what had been said and Klamm slumped in the corner apparently asleep. Even when they reached the hospital—St. Anchises’s, according to a sign illuminated by the headlights—the limousine did not stop in front but circled to the emergency entrance in the rear.

“Good-bye, Herr Kay,” Klamm said, once again extending his hand. “No, at such a time you haff a right to the correct name. Good-bye, Herr Green, my friend. May good fortune go with you! I only call you Herr Kay because I remember an old friend, that was myself also.”

He shook Klamm’s hand. “Good-bye, Mr. Klamm. You can call me anything you want.”

One of the bodyguards opened the door.

“You know how to reach me at my desk, ja? Or another who will act for me.”

The dome light had come on when the door was opened, and he saw with astonishment that there were tears in Klamm’s eyes. He said, “Yes, I do, sir.”

“Take care of him, Ernest. See he has a good doctor.”

The bodyguard replied, “I will, Mr. Secretary,” and he got out; as soon as the door closed, the limousine glided away.

Tina said, “What a nice old man.”

The bodyguard glanced down at her and grinned. “You got one of those? I used to have one myself.”

Tina told him, “You should get another one.”

He followed the bodyguard into a brightly lit room, where an Oriental who had been sipping from a battered china mug rose to attend to him. “Good to see you again,” the Oriental told him. “But not here. Have a seat.”

He sat down. “It’s good to see you again, too, Dr. Pille.” After a moment he added, “I thought you were at that other place.”

“I am, when they need me. It’s only a block away. You had a concussion that time, remember?”

“Sure,” he said. “Ow!”

“Your nose is broken,” Dr. Pille told him. “We’ll have to set it. I’ll give you an anesthetic, but it will still hurt a bit. You get in a fight?”

A nurse answered for him. “With an assassin, Doctor. It was all over TV.”

Still examining his nose, Dr. Pille nodded. “Really?”

The bodyguard asked, “Can you keep him overnight, Doc? Somebody will come by to get him in the morning.”

“Certainly.” Dr. Pille straightened up and began filling a hypodermic.

A nurse woke him to ask what he wanted for breakfast. “You lost a couple of teeth,” she told him. “So no toast or anything like that. Do you think you could manage a coddled egg?”

He nodded and sat up in bed. “I’m hungry. Guess I missed dinner last night.”

She grinned. “That would explain it.”

When she was gone, he looked around the room; it was bigger than the one he had occupied at United, much smaller than the open ward in which he had slept with nine other patients in the psychiatric wing of some hospital whose name he could not quite remember. Like his room at United, it held a locker, but this locker was unlocked. His jacket, his trousers, and his overcoat hung inside. His shoes were on the bottom. He recalled that he had not had his overcoat when he had been in the limousine with Klamm. Someone had brought it.

He peeked into the breast pocket of his jacket, and Tina said, “Hello-good morning,” and stretched.

“Good morning.” He held out his hand, and she climbed into it. “Back in the hospital,” he said.

“Were you in the hospital before?”

“Yes, but you were asleep. I’ve been in hospitals a lot.”

The nurse came in with his tray. “Those are against our regulations,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I didn’t know.”

“I really should take it and lock it up. But you’re going to be discharged today anyhow, so it’s really not worth all the trouble. Just don’t let anybody else see it.”

“I’ll hide,” Tina promised.

“What would you like to drink? We’ve got coffee, tea, and milk.”

He asked whether he could have both tea and milk, and she nodded and brought them in, managing to get a cup, a little hot-water pot, and the glass of milk all on his tray.

“The tea’s for you,” he told Tina when the nurse had gone. He put the teabag into the pot and sprinkled salt from an old-fashioned glass saltcellar into the cup.

“Goody!”

He held the cup for her while she drank. “You don’t need any food? Just this?”

“This is all,” Tina said. “And this was plenty. Eat your egg so you’ll grow up strong.”

With a napkin to protect his fingers, he unscrewed the top of the white porcelain dish.

“Don’t you have to go to school today?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. There was a soft roll on his tray as well. He tore it in small pieces and mixed the pieces with the egg, adding pepper and the pat of butter. “Somebody’s coming for me, but I don’t think it’s to take me to school.”

“Where are they going to take you?”

“I don’t know,” he said. After a moment he added, “I’m not sure I’ll even go.”

About an hour after the nurse took his tray, she returned with a wheelchair. “I’m afraid you’ve got to ride in this,” she said. “Regulations.”

He looked around for Tina.

“It’s under the sheet. You’ll be back in an hour or so.”

He hesitated, then said, “All right. Where are we going?”

“To see the dentist.”

He stared curiously as she wheeled him to the elevator; the hospital seemed merely a hospital like any other, a little less modern than the ones he recalled seeing on TV. Perhaps they all were.

The dentist was a large woman who gave the impression of disliking him and the nurse equally. “Open wide,” she told him, and when he complied leaned so close it seemed she was trying to thrust her head into his mouth. “One came out clean, and one left a piece of root.” She turned to the nurse. “This will be a local. You can go if you want.”

The nurse shook her head.

The dentist shot something into his gum, after which he and the nurse spent a quarter of an hour in the outer office waiting for it to take effect. “If I’d gone,” the nurse said, “she’d have had you out like a candle.” He nodded, wishing she had; he had never liked having his teeth worked on and saw nothing wrong with being out like a light.

There was a stack of magazines. As he leafed through one, it struck him that he had read almost nothing here. Tina would rebuke him if she knew; thinking of it made him feel guilty, and he studied the magazine with more care. It seemed very similar to those of his own world up until page forty, which showed Lara sitting with a pink drink in a tropical garden. Lara’s hair was gold, her skin bronze. “Marcella Masters relaxes at home before beginning work on Atlantis,” read the caption.

He tore the page out, folded it, and put it in the pocket of his pajama shirt. The nurse seemed scandalized but did not protest. After that he flipped through magazines energetically until the dentist summoned him back to her chair, but he found nothing more.

Fanny was waiting for them when they returned to his room. She showed the nurse her badge and a letter, at which the nurse appeared impressed. “He’s all yours, Sergeant, if you want him.”