Gene Wolfe - There Are Doors

He considered opening the wall plug, but he had no piece of metal to turn the screw, and he would not be able to distinguish the red wire from the black one in any case.

Determined at last, he picked up the telephone. Slowly, counting holes in the old-fashioned spinning dial, he entered the number of his apartment.

For a long time the earpiece buzzed and clicked. There was a twitter of bird-like voices, the voices of Japanese children, or of music boxes tuned to speak. At last a man’s deep voice asked, “Kay? Ist dis you, Kay?”

“I’m calling for Lara,” he said. He gave the address. “I think I must have the wrong number.”

The man announced, “Dis ist Chief of Department Klamm, Herr Kay,” and he slammed down the receiver.

He woke up wondering where he was. For a brief moment, the bed was almost his bed, the room nearly his apartment. Groping for the control of his electric blanket, he found a telephone.

It did not come rushing back to him. Rather it arrived in bits and pieces, like the guests at a masked ball, like dancers all dressed as dreams. It worried him that he could recall the dreams so very clearly, and the waking world not at all; he sat up in bed and saw the dim hallway outside.

Vaguely, he wondered what time it was. Down the hallway, very far down it, he could see a brightly lit nurses’ station. He discovered slippers beneath the bed.

“Can’t sleep?” the nurse on duty asked. She seemed neither friendly nor unfriendly.

“I just wanted to know what time it was.”

“What most of them do,” the nurse said slowly, “is turn on their TVs. Then they can tell what time it is from the shows. Or sooner or later they’ll give it.”

“Mine doesn’t work.”

The nurse considered this for a while, then looked—slowly—down at the desktop. He saw the brass back of a small clock there. “Eleven thirty-five,” she said.

“I would have thought it was later than that.”

“It’s eleven thirty-five,” she repeated. “It gets dark early, this time of year, and we put you to bed early.”

As he returned to his room, it occurred to him that North was probably asleep again. North had put the pick on the table beside his bed.

As quickly and as quietly as he could, he turned the corner instead. A big, blond man in a dark overcoat was lumbering down the hall toward him. He went into North’s room, pretending that it was his own.

North was no more than an indistinct pile of bedclothes, a scarcely audible breathing. On tiptoe, he crept to the table and ran his fingers over its surface. The pick was gone.

There was a small, shallow drawer. Carefully, he pulled it out. His fingers discovered a clutter of miscellaneous objects—a little book that felt like an address book, a pen, paper clips, a hex nut.

There’s nowhere else, he thought. And yet there was—the windowsill. As he turned to examine it, his hip bumped the open drawer ever so slightly. There was a faint, metallic tinkle, and North groaned softly, as though in the grip of a painful dream.

He knelt, sweeping the tiles with his fingertips. The pick lay in the angle between the nightstand and North’s bed.

As he stepped into the hallway, he noticed the light was on in the room next to North’s; curious, he stopped to look inside. The big, blond man he had seen in the hallway was on one of the tiny hospital chairs, holding a cloth cap. Walsh was sitting up in bed, looking alert and cheerful. “Come in, come in!” Walsh called. “I want ya ta meet Joe.”

Hesitantly, he stepped inside.

“Joe fought tonight. Ya see ’im on TV? It was beautiful, just beautiful! Third round KO.”

“My set’s broken.”

“Right. Sure. Ya told me, right. Well, let me tell ya, I watched ’im. I seen every second of it. I was cheering for ’im like crazy.” Walsh laughed. “No wonder they got me in ’ere.”

“I’m sorry I missed it.”

“Joe didn’t miss ’im, let me tell ya.” Walsh’s small fists made boxing motions: one-two, one-two. “Joe, show ’im ya face. See? ‘Ardly marked ’im.”

There was a shadowy blue bruise on the big man’s jaw. “One time he got me pretty good,” Joe said. The voice was as big and as slow as the man, yet not deep, almost threatening to rise to an adolescent squeak. “He was a good fighter, a real good boxer. I had the reach on him.”

“Joe, ‘e wasn’t fit to get in the ring with ya.” Walsh frowned. “That’s the trouble with managing the champeen. Ya can’t ’ardly match ’im in ’is own class.”

Joe said, “I’ve got to go now, Eddie. The little woman’s waiting.”

“Come tomorrow—ya listening ta me? Ya’ll ‘ave plenty time ’cause I don’t want ya ta do no roadwork, understand? Too cold. Maybe ya could work out on the light bag a little, skip a little rope. But mostly ya oughta rest up from the fight. Get back ta training the next day.”

“Okay, Eddie.”

“Jennifer don’t never go ta see ’im fight. She’s always scared ’e’ll get ‘urt. She watches the TV and ’as ‘is dinner ready when ’e gets ’ome.”

“I see,” he said. “Eddie, I was supposed to tell you Billy North caught Gloria Brooks doing it to Al Bailey.” Doing what, he wondered; Walsh might tell him. “North went to Al’s room to borrow a cigarette.”

Walsh nodded. “Yeah, I bet ’e did, the mooching bastard. Ya know,” his face began to crumple, as a child’s does when the child is told of some tragedy too big to understand. “I always liked Al.” Two fat tears coursed down Walsh’s cheeks. “That bitch!”

Joe stood. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Eddie. That’s a real promise.”

“Fine, Joe. Ya my boy.”

He turned away, ready to follow Joe out the doorway. Walsh called him back. “Stay ’ere a minute, won’t ya? I need ta talk ta ya.”

“All right,” he said. “If you want me to.”

Joe gave him what might have been a significant look. The big, scuffed shoes made no more noise than a cat’s paws.

“Wish we could shut the door,” Walsh whispered when Joe was gone. “Stick ya ’ead out and take a look.”

He did. “All clear.”

“Fine.” Walsh snuffled. “I wanna tell ya about Joe. I know ya gonna say ya can’t do nothin’ about ’im. I just wanna get it off my chest.”

“Sure,” he said. To his surprise, he found that he liked the little man. “Sure, Eddie. Go ahead.”

“Joe’s married ta this Jennifer. Ya ‘eard us talking about ’er.”

He nodded.

“She’s twenty, blond, a real looker. And sweet, ya know ‘ow they are? Butter won’t melt inner mouth. She tells Joe they’ll wait till she’s thirty-five. Gives Joe fifteen years. ’E goes for it. Ya know ‘ow kids ’is age are, they don’t think thirty-five ever comes. Say, ya ain’t married yaself, are ya?”

“No,” he said. “Not yet. Maybe never.”

“That’s the way, pal.” Walsh paused. “See, I don’t know if Jennifer’s letting Joe alone. That’s what ‘e says, but can ya believe ’im? Ya seen Joe. ‘E don’t never notice nothing till ya ’it ’im with a two-by-four. Joe ain’t dumb—that’s what people think, but they’re wrong—but ’e don’t notice. ’E’s busy inside. Ya know what I mean?”

“Sometimes I’m that way myself.”

“So I pray ta God Jennifer’s gonna get ‘it with a truck. But if something like that ’appens, Joe …”

He thought of the way he would feel if something happened to Lara, and he completed the sentence: “Might kill himself.”

Walsh nodded. “Not with liquor or jumping out a window—Joe ain’t that kind. But ‘e might ’ole up where ‘e could be by ’imself with nobody ta bother ’im. Out west someplace, I guess. ’E wouldn’t never fight again.”