Jesse Ball - The Way Through Doors

WHO WAS THE GIRL IN THE MOTORCAR?

Selah gave the guess artist a puzzled look.

— There are more, said the guess artist.

And indeed, poking out from beneath many of the tables were other fiddles. The guess artist went to the nearest table, picked up a fiddle, and broke it too over his knee. Another letter fell out. He picked it up and showed it to Selah.

UNFORTUNATELY MY FOOLISH LITTLE BIRDS, YOU’VE COME TO THE RIGHT INN AT THE WRONG TIME, OR THE WRONG INN AT THE RIGHT TIME. OR THE RIGHT INN AT THE RIGHT TIME, BUT IN THE WRONG WAY. THAT’S THE TROUBLE.

The guess artist whistled a long, low whistle.

— The wrong way, eh? he said.

Both men looked at each other. Selah’s face looked a little strained. He was desperately unhappy, but trying not to show it. The search for Mora Klein had become long and involved, and he wanted very much for her to be found, and soon. He reached into his pocket and took out the map. He unfolded it.

— What’s next? asked the guess artist.

— Let’s see, said Selah.

He looked over the map, quietly mumbling to himself.

— Nothing about this, he said.

— Nothing? asked the guess artist. If I had made a map, then I would certainly have put in something to help us out right now.

— But you didn’t, Selah pointed out. I was the one who made the map. And sometimes I wish I hadn’t.

He folded it up and put it away. There was a little clock on the wall. It struck nine. Was it nine in the morning or nine in the evening? They couldn’t really tell. It was sunny outside of the inn, but that didn’t mean anything.

— Let’s look at another, said Selah. He grabbed a fiddle and tried to break it over his knee, but he couldn’t. For some reason it wouldn’t break. He handed it to the guess artist without a word. The guess artist broke it neatly across his knee.

— I used to be in vaudeville, he said with a gentle postvaudevillian smile, and picked up the piece of paper that had fallen.

It said,

TWO MEN descend a stair quite deliberately into the ground. They are guided not by a human being but by a fox that is pretending to be a human being. At the bottom in the den proper they meet a family of foxes. The den is only slightly beneath the ground, under a finely grown oak tree with massive roots. However, the men are persuaded that they have traveled far below the ground. How pleased they are by the den! How happy are their joyous struttings about, how kind their greetings to the fox-man and the fox-wife. A table is set for them, at which they eat not human food, but raw chicken, raw duck, stolen from a farmer’s pen. They eat this with relish, are pleased by it, and ask for more. They listen to the stories told by the fox and his wife, and by the dear fox-child for whom they have developed a kind affection. How grand it is that foxes are masters of such secret wishes as this, how grand that they can take men beneath the ground into their dens and guest them as even the greatest kings of Persia could not. Long live the world of foxes and their taking of a thousand shapes. Long live such rascalry, with its quick and supple hand!

— So that’s what happened, said Selah. I thought perhaps…

— I as well, said the municipal inspector. It wouldn’t make sense otherwise.

— Well, they were awfully nice, said Selah.

— Yes, they were, said the municipal inspector, certainly very nice. And the fox-wife, Corina. Certainly she cooked a fine meal, raw duck or no raw duck.

— Let’s read another, said Selah. He looked under a few tables and returned after a moment with two more fiddles.

The guess artist broke the first, and Selah recovered the paper.

THE DOG THAT PLAYS THE FIDDLE WANTED VERY MUCH TO BE A CHARACTER IN THE PAMPHLETEER’S LATEST WORK: WORLD’S FAIR 7 JUNE 1978. BUT IT WAS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. ALTHOUGH THE DOG CAME TO VISIT THE PAMPHLETEER, AND ALTHOUGH HE REVEALED HIMSELF EVEN IN DREAMS, THE PAMPHLETEER WOULD HAVE NONE OF IT. THEREFORE, THE LITTLE DOG BETOOK HIMSELF TO BE A PART OF THE WF. IN THIS HE WAS SUCCESSFUL. HERE IS HIS SECTION:

a Treatise on Fiddle Playing as a Tool for Governance of Happenstance

There are three ways to play the fiddle if one has as his goal the governing of minds. The first way, learned from the rubbing of tree limbs the one upon the other, and from the sitting of rocks quietly on beds of moss, and from the rocking of streams on curving banks, produces notes that lull. In this way, playing thus, one can creep up on a person and render him or her quiescent. THE second way is to climb a lone mountain. First, to find a lone mountain, and then to climb it. Then, to sit upon it and watch the manner in which the various clouds that pass in conversation debate points and make their tiny coups and failures. Their language is the language of distraction. This is the language that the fiddle uses when it wants to rid a person of their own causal thought and make a vacant cloth upon which to paint the letters it intends. THE THIRD style of fiddle playing is that of the places that have never seen a drop of rain. These shelters, deep within rock faces, or hollows away beneath the earth, or simply plots of ground shielded always by the thick trees that stand above, have a sort of knowledge based upon ignorance that is always the gravest and greatest knowledge. For the total knowledge, the knowledge of all that may be in the world, is the knowledge of one’s death and the world’s continuing. That knowledge does not give. It takes away, removing from one peace of mind and fealty of thought. No, the greatest gift is in partiality. And so, from these trees we gain the power to speak lies, to say things that are not true and place them delicately into the minds of those we would conquer.

Selah took this note and put it into his pocket.

— I’m definitely going to put that in my World’s Fair, he said.

— You should, said the guess artist. I wonder if it’s true.

— I myself have no doubts, said Selah.

The guess artist broke the second fiddle. Out of it, this:

THE QUESTION OF MORA

— What an odd drawing, said the guess artist. It makes me think of long Russian afternoons during which no one speaks, not because they are tired, but because they are all very quietly angry at one another.

— It reminds me of that too, said the municipal inspector.

Just then the municipal inspector heard a noise above. He made for the stairs, the guess artist behind him. Up the stairs they flew, and into the first room. No one was there. The municipal inspector looked about. The room was a simple one: a bed, a table, a chair, a lamp, a window. On one wall, a sconce with a candle. Not even a mirror. But, ah, he thought. There is a closet.