Jesse Ball - The Way Through Doors

It was the first time in what seemed like years that Ilsa’s heart had been light, and so she treasured the girl and took seriously all that she said. The girl said,

— Come with me to the inn in Som. There are few places left where you may be safe. But that is one.

And she wept and said to the girl that she was terrified, and no longer understood herself or even such facts as the brevity of life (for to her life now seemed stretched and distended, a creature that would linger and linger on long past all sufferance). To which the girl said:

— Nonsense, Ilsa. Nonsense, or the truth. It is no matter. Come along. We have no need even of your things. There are things enough where we are going.

And they fled together down the road.

When they arrived at the inn in Som there was a tall black-bearded man awaiting them, and he told them to go upstairs to a certain room, and they knew that beneath his hand they would be sheltered from the green dream of the merchant that had so twisted her life.

— Go upstairs, said he, and I will attend to the rest.

Ilsa began up the stairs, and the girl along with her, but the bearded man called out,

— Mora, stay a moment. I would speak with you.

She came back down the steps to hear what he would say.

— You have gone very far from yourself, wandering in these dissipate geographies.

— I cannot tell one hand from the other, said Mora. I do not remember who I am, but only what I must do.

— That is as it should be, said the bearded man. But you shall learn more of yourself in time. Someone is looking for you, even now.

— If he should come here, said Mora, do not admit him until he has come thrice, and by three different paths. No matter what he brings me, or how hard has been his passage.

— This was my thought too, said the bearded man, and you have shared in it. It will be so. The tale is never forward, but always round-about. Your young man must crowd the avenues in his search, and learn to cut doors through pages, through thoughts and guesses.

Mora’s face was sad, for she was afraid that he would never come, but she mounted the stairs then and went to the comfort of the gambler’s wife, and the bearded man returned to the common room. A large dog was walking about on hind legs and playing the fiddle. The bearded man began to laugh.

— None of your business, now, he said. You of all present since the beginning shall not be allowed upstairs.

— Then tell me some news, said the dog, playing a neat little jig, and giving a good show with his feet.

— News, asked the bearded man, of what?

— Of the search for Mora, said the dog. I was listening while you spoke to her upon the stairs.

— The search for Mora…murmured the black-bearded man to himself. I do not have news to tell.

Just at that moment, a young man burst through the door, brandishing a bat. He was wearing a very finely tailored gray-blue suit.

— Where is she! he snarled.

— That’s the spirit, said the dog, and played a long wailing note on his fiddle.

— Enough of that, said the black-bearded man. Selah Morse! Leave the bat by the door and come sit down. There is much still to be told.

Selah tossed the bat back the way he had come. It flipped in the air, bounced, righted itself, and settled upright into a corner. Selah did not look back at it.

— Not bad, said the dog.

— You can’t go upstairs, you know, the black-bearded man told Selah. She isn’t ready to see you yet. You can’t find her here until you’ve found her somewhere else first.

At this, the dog jumped up and began to caper about, for he had never before heard the black-bearded man tell a lie.

— Sit down, said the black-bearded man crossly. We can’t have you capering about all the time. Now, Selah, tell us where you have been.

Selah leaned back and took a sip of the black-bearded man’s pint of ale, which had been offered him a moment before.

— I’m afraid, he said, I promised not to speak of it. However, there are others who are not thus bound.

He called out in Russian, and after a moment another man entered and took his seat beside Selah.

— This, said Selah, is the guess artist.

The dog did a pretty bow and sat again. The black-bearded man inclined his head.

— We are all old friends, he said. Are we not?

— These two, said the guess artist, have plagued me from the first.

But he said it in a kind way.

— What shall I do with this? he asked, taking from his coat the polished skull of a cat.

Selah picked it up and handed it to the black-bearded man.

— It is this, he said, that we have brought to barter for our passage upstairs.

The black-bearded man threw back his head, and his laughter shook the inn. The dog jumped up onto the table, upsetting the drinks, and broke the violin in two over his own knee.

— Never in my life, he said, have I seen such a perfect passage paid.

— But it will do no good, said the black-bearded man.

— Tell them how we came, said Selah to the guess artist.

— By the forest route, said the guess artist. There was a storm in the caverns, and the sea had taken to wearing petticoats and bartering like a bandit with the ships that sought to pass across. We wanted nothing to do with that sort of trouble.

— Really tell them how we came, said Selah.

— But do you know to whom you’re speaking? asked the guess artist.

— I am aware, said Selah. Nonetheless…

— Then there should be no need, said the guess artist.

— And yet, said the dog, we too are limited by events.

— Then I should say, said the guess artist, that it was a bright and angry morning when the sailmaker looked up in his loft to see the guess artist and municipal inspector making their way towards him in great haste. The municipal inspector was holding a sheet of paper covered in scrawled crayon, and nodding with certainty to the guess artist. It seemed to be some kind of map.

The sailmaker had been sewing all night, and his hands were large and swollen from the effort of his work. His needles were very sharp and very long, and he stitched stronger and faster and more steadily than any man before or since, yet even he, after his long labor, was tired, and thought now only of his bed, and no longer of the ship that would soon be making its way across the skin of the water, having as its strength only whatever his own will might bestow.

— Sir, said the municipal inspector. He approached the man as one might some wary animal that moves very rapidly with only death in reply.

The sailmaker looked them up and down. By this we mean that he did not like what he saw.

— This reminds me, said he, of a short story called The Arcadist. There was a man, a stone-mason, in that book who never wanted to be disturbed, and yet everyone was always disturbing him, and so in his town he built a sort of zocalo or center, with the most beautiful arcades that anyone had ever seen. Except that they were poisoned. It never said how, but people would go into the arcades and simply be gone. It was something to do with the color of the stone and the hour of day. At least, that’s the sense I got.

— We are looking for a way to get upstairs, said the municipal inspector. It is widely thought that you are the wisest man who still consents to talk.

— I do consent, don’t I? said the sailmaker-who-wished-he-were-an -arcadist.

— Certainly, said the guess artist.

— Fortunately, said the municipal inspector.

— If I tell you where to go, then what do I get out of it? asked the sailmaker. I have been sewing this sail all of yesterday through to today. Now you come and ask for more work out of me. You will have to pay dearly.