Jesse Ball - The Way Through Doors

To the municipal inspector the sailmaker resembled the hibernating bear of Eskimo legend that tells all the secrets of the world while still in its behusked sleep.

— I will give you something of equal value, said the municipal inspector. I can be trusted, he said with a curt nod. I am a municipal inspector.

— Are you now? asked the sailmaker with a disbelieving look. I thought there was only one. An older man.

— Once there was only Levkin, said the guess artist. Now there is Levkin and also M. Selah Morse.

— Oh, you are Selah Morse, said the sailmaker. I have heard of you. You get around.

At that moment everyone turned and looked out an enormous window that stood just to their left. Something huge was moving rapidly across the sky. It was an old Victorian house, shuttling in and out of the clouds.

— It was true, then, said the municipal inspector.

— It is all true, said the guess artist and the sailmaker, each to himself. None of them heard the others.

After a minute, the Victorian house had gone so far west that it was no longer visible. The sailmaker spoke.

— If you want to get upstairs it is very difficult, but not entirely impossible. You have to go first, here in our city, to the tallest building.

— The Empire State Building? asked the guess artist.

— No, said the sailmaker. This is another building, much taller than that. It has long been the tallest, but no one has ever known it, because it is in a very deep hole.

— Oh, said the municipal inspector. How nice.

— It is under the Manhattan Bridge, continued the sailmaker. No. Six Quince Street. A man will be sitting outside. Say virtually anything to him in Cantonese and he will let you by.

— I don’t speak Cantonese, said Selah to the guess artist. Do you?

— No, said the guess artist, but if he is saying something to himself in his head, then I can guess it.

Both men nodded to each other. They turned back to the sailmaker, who was still paused, needle in hand. It was a very long, very thick, and very sharp needle. The sort of needle that might be used to sew your heart shut with rope. Then the thought, What would they pay him? To this end, the municipal inspector spoke.

— I have in mind your payment.

— And a good thing too, said the sailmaker. Excuse me.

He went into a little room behind a wall. For five minutes he was gone, and all that could be heard was the distinct clacking of the second hand of a clock upon the wall. Selah was deep in thought. The guess artist was attempting to figure out what Selah intended to do as payment.

— You are intending, he said, to leave me here as the sailmaker’s indentured servant. I would live for five years and then die of tar poisoning, because the sailmaker’s sails are poisonous and kill everyone who stays too long at their side.

— The sails aren’t poisonous, said Selah. He only wants them to be. And no, you’re too important in helping me to search for me to leave you here as someone’s indentured servant. Besides, this poor man just wants to be alone. And you can’t even make a decent pot of tea. Who wants an indentured servant who can’t make a pot of tea? And furthermore, only struggling families in old books sell their children as indentured servants. The proper documents for such a transaction don’t even exist anymore. And you know as well as I that such men as the sailmaker and myself only do things the proper way.

For the first time the guess artist lowered his head sadly, ashamed at the poorness of his guess. Selah felt chastened by his sadness.

— I’m sorry, he said. Perhaps I was a little curt. Your guesses are always either correct or worth listening to, and mostly both.

The guess artist brightened up. Out of the other room then came the sailmaker carrying three little cups brimming with some odd Romanian aperitif.

— Drink up, he said.

They all downed it in one go.

— Here is your payment, said Selah.

He stretched his shoulders, stretched his wrists, and then delivered himself of the following verse as payment in trade.

Birds that talk as men do

and make of their lives a human mess

drown quickly in the shallow pools

I’ll see to when I die.

The sailmaker’s face brightened.

— How awful! he said. How wonderful! How awful! And can I say it to myself often?

— As often as you like, said Selah. It’s yours now. I thought you would like it. I’ve been saving it to say to someone of your macabre persuasion.

— Also, said the guess artist, you can mutter it quietly when someone you don’t want to speak to is near.

— That’s true, said the sailmaker, who had sat down again and begun to stitch once more the massive sail that stretched across the loft floor.

— Until next time, said the guess artist.

— So long, said Selah.

—À bientôt, said the sailmaker, with the careful accent of one who has spent time in a French penal colony.

Outside, the street came right up to the sailmaker’s loft. It had waited the whole time they were inside speaking to him, and now that they were done, it was ready to go along with them someplace else.

— I was once wrong, you know, more often than two times in three, said the guess artist as they walked.

— What was that like? asked Selah.

They passed by a small shop that sold derelict buttons for trousers and coats and also the right to call yourself a milliner or haberdasher. An old man was sitting in a chair in the shopwindow. At first it seemed that he was dead, but then his nose moved slightly.

— Where does one get that sort of authority? asked the guess artist, examining the man in the window.

— Presumably, said Selah, there is some sort of credential process. Involving perhaps the kissing of a royal hand, and being raised up, etc.

They continued.

— In answer to your question, said the guess artist, it was taxing. People are often offended by wrong guesses as to their thoughts. At the moment, the effect of this is bearable. Often I manage to get only one wrong guess prior to the right one. However, when I had to guess five or six times, the customer would many times stalk off or say cruel things. I never liked that.

— Perhaps we should hire a car, said Selah. After all, there isn’t much time.

Just then a car pulled up, an old roadster from the thirties. A woman who looked very much like Sif was driving it.

— Need a lift? she asked.

— Yeah, said Selah. What a neat car!

The woman smiled at him through her enormous driving goggles.

— I’ll sit in the front, said the guess artist.

They got in, and the car zoomed away at an incredible speed.

A moment later it began to rain. It rained very hard, and people began to close their windows. Those caught outside sheltered beneath the eaves of houses or the awnings of shops. The rain clouds made a broad shadow that stood in every direction for quite a ways. Beyond that, the light of the sun could be seen like a curtain. In a nearby square a girl stood, dressed in a short jacket, a long skirt, and espadrilles, with her hair in a braid. She was in the middle of the square when the rain came, and she had not moved, for someone was to meet her there, and he had not come yet, and she worried that if she moved, then perhaps he would not find her, and it was more important to her to be found than it was to be dry.

And so Mora Klein became a very wet and sad girl as the rain continued and no one came for her. The rain continued, and the inhabitants of that square moved around the edges like small furtive animals, attending to their immediate needs. After a while it ceased, but the sky was still dark. An old man made his way out to the middle of the square where Mora stood. He walked on three legs, two of his own and one made of wood. Mora was crying very hard, and her face was perhaps more wet from tears than from the rain shower.