Gene Wolfe - Pandora by Holly Hollander

“Don’t be a party pooper. Stay and join me.”

It was too late—he was halfway to the door. The truth was I had a lot more questions to ask him; I think he must have seen them coming, and that was why he beat it. I decided next time I’d ask questions first, and if I didn’t get answers I wouldn’t give any.

And by golly I stuck to it, too. Next time turned out to be some kind of plainclothes detective—I never got it straight where he was from, maybe Illinois Bureau of Investigation, which is a ripoff of the FBI, exactly like it sounds. He wasn’t giving any info and wasn’t getting any info, and pretty soon he went away.

Lunch was peachy keen—a li’l square of broiled fish, the cutest tiny paper cup of tartar sauce, some boiled carrots, two slices of white bread, a pat of margarine, and a glass of milk. I could have cried.

After lunch came proof positive that Elaine Hollander, also known as Mommy and my Aunt Elaine, had come through with flying colors, plus talking a blue streak. “My darling, my poor little darling, you’re conscious! Do you like my flowers? I was here half the night, did they tell you? How are you feeling? Isn’t it just too awful, too terribly awfully terrible!”

“Right on,” I said. Then—first things first—“You got a roll of Life Savers in that little bag? Chiclets? Breath mints? Anything?”

“No, dearest, nothing but cigarettes, and I know you’re trying to stop smoking.”

“Gimme a cigarette,” I told her. “I’m going to eat it. As soon as you go, I’m going to eat the flowers, too.” I looked at them when I said that, and all of a sudden I didn’t feel funny or even hungry anymore.

“Well, you really shouldn’t, you know. I shouldn’t either. It’s terribly hard on the complexion.”

She lit me up. It was my first in three days, and though I’ve never been a heavy smoker (half a pack a day was my limit at the worst), it tasted pretty damn good. I took a big drag. “Elaine, where’d you get it?”

“Get what, dearest?” She couldn’t be that dumb. She was playing for time.

“That goddamn box. By now they must have asked you fifty times already.”

“ You don’t think it was the box, too, Holly dearest?” She sounded hurt. Sounding hurt’s one of her very top talents, and she was so good I nearly felt sorry for her myself.

“Certainly it was in the box. It had to be in the box. Where the hell else could it have been?”

“ Anywhere else.” Elaine waved her hand so her rings made a little rainbow dazzle on the wall. “Underneath the platform, or in that man Lief’s tool box. Personally, I think that man was wearing a belt of dynamite, just waiting for a chance to blow up where everyone would see him.”

“Larry Lief?” I couldn’t believe this.

“The other man—the one who won. You must have seen him raise his arms just before the bang … .”

“No, I didn’t,” I told her. I could smell her perfume over everything; over the flowers, over the smoke from our cigarettes, and the hospital smell. And somehow it was shrinking everything, bringing the bomb and the broken glass and the blood and death and confusion down to the level of what-can-I-wear-for-bridge.

“Well, he did. I was watching and I saw him, and hundreds of other people must have seen him, too.”

“Elaine, it had to be in the box.”

She shook her head positively. “Holly, dearest, that box hadn’t been opened in a great many years. If there had been a bomb in it, it would’ve gone off long ago. Or it wouldn’t work anymore.”

“I don’t think they do that, Elaine. They just sit there waiting. Where’d you get it?”

“I really must be running now.” She got up, smoothing her clothes. “On Wells, I believe. Or perhaps it wasn’t—it was a shop I’d never been to before. Bill might know … .

“Holly dearest, you can’t imagine what a state everything’s in. All those valuable antiques, and everyone just swarming over them.”

Elaine bustled out. I took a couple more drags on the butt and was grinding it to death in a little tin ashtray just as the nurse came in again. She smiled and said, “Do we think we could stand one more visitor? Our uncle’s here.”

I froze. I didn’t want to say yes and I couldn’t say no. The nurse smiled again, about the same way she would have at a cute knickknack. “He seems like such an interesting man, and your sister—was that your sister?—is perfectly lovely! Where does she buy her clothes?”

I stared at her, and wow did I ever feel like making some smart-ass remark; but all I could think of was here I am waiting for a crazy killer and you want to hear about Lord & Taylor.

Then Aladdin Blue came through the door. He had on slacks and an old sportcoat, which for him was most likely dressed up. What’s more, he was carrying ( I could hardly believe it) one of those little one-pound boxes of candy.

My brain unfroze. “Unc!” I trilled joyfully. “Uncle—”

“Al, the patient’s pal. How are you doing, Holly?”

“Wonderful. It may take a miracle, but somehow—someway—sometime—I’ m determined to play the tuba again.”

The nurse ducked out.

“Listen, Holly, I’m terribly sorry.”

“What for?”

“For what I did to you—or rather, for what I failed to do. The explosion rattled me, I’m afraid. Or perhaps it was merely the shock of knowing there had been one. I didn’t see you and so I didn’t think about you. I went outside to help the people who’d been hurt—”

“So you didn’t know I’d been cut up a little till I grabbed you and bled all over your pants.”

He nodded solemnly. “I should have helped you, and did not. And now I don’t know what to say, except that I am truly sorry.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I said, “Pass me that candy and sit down. Then we’ll talk about sorry.”

I popped one in my mouth. It was an opera cream, which I love. While I was chewing it, I broke open a couple of others: caramels and nuts. All right!

“I ought to have known, of course,” Blue said. “You were sitting in front of the window; the wall sheltered the rest of us. I didn’t think—”

“How much did this cost you? About five bucks?”

He nodded.

“Small, but good stuff. You don’t have much money, do you?”

“Enough for my needs.”

“Well, thank you for the candy. Maybe I shouldn’t eat it, but I’m going to. Listen, there were people bleeding to death out there. Screaming, too, I bet. What you did was brave. You ran—” Right there I stuck. I couldn’t figure any way to suck the word back in, and I couldn’t go on, and all I could see was his damned cane.

He smiled. He doesn’t do it often, but you like it when he does. “Let’s say I ran as fast as I could.”

“You know this’s really crazy?” I was chewing two caramels at once; it didn’t stop me from talking, just from talking good. “Here we are, we like each other, we’re not mad at each other, and we’re circling around like each thinks the other one’s going to bite. You do like me, don’t you?”

Blue nodded. “You’re charming. You’re also intelligent.”

“And rich and jailbait, and that worries you a lot. Don’t sweat it—I won’t holler unless there’s plenty to holler about.”

“There won’t be.”

“I know that. Listen, if you’ll open that locker, I think you’ll find my jeans inside it. Will you please take your five bucks back?”

He shook his head. “Don’t suggest that again.”

“I didn’t think you would. Why the uncle bit to bring me candy?”

“Only relatives are being admitted, so I became Alan B. Hollander. They didn’t ask for identification, which is too bad because I had some. Want to see it?”