by Gene Wolfe
“No, no. I’ve had my dinner, thanks to Madame Serpentina and Mr. Barnes. Heat feels good, howsomever, and I wish you full enjoyment, Mr. Stubb. You’re welcome to my tea, if there’s any remaining.”
The old man began to back out of the room, but Stubb halted him with a gesture. “There was one other thing, sir. Curiosity, I said. Remember?”
“And what’s that, Mr. Stubb?”
“When I was getting dressed to go out, I heard some peculiar noises.”
“Old houses like this make such creakings,” Free said vaguely. “Stands to reason.”
“On windy nights they do, yes, sir. And just about any house will creak and groan when it cools down. But they hadn’t shut off the gas then, and I’ve been out twice tonight and haven’t noticed much wind either time, though it was windy earlier this afternoon. No, Mr. Free, I listened to those noises for a while and eventually I decided it was somebody walking on the roof above my head.”
The old man nodded, and crossing to the kitchen table where Stubb sat, pulled out a chair and sat down.
“It wasn’t Candy Garth, because I’d just left her. It wasn’t Barnes either. His room’s right across from mine, and all I had to do was stick my head out to hear his chair squeak and his pen scratch; he’d been in there writing something almost ever since you people ate. It could have been the Serpentina woman—her room was dark—but I didn’t think she was heavy enough. That left you, so I took a peek in your bedroom downstairs before I went out. You ought to learn to lock the door when you’re not in there.”
“I’m gone sometimes,” the old man explained softly. “Every blamed thing in there worth stealing has been taken long ago.”
“I’ve heard people talk like that before, but it was always before they got ripped off. Not afterward. Anyway, just as I was about to go out, a tile almost beaned me. I know it was a tile because I picked up a piece and had a look at it when I got to the grocery. I don’t think anybody was laying for me, because I hadn’t stepped through the doorway when it hit. Just the same, I was damn near killed, and I’d like to know what was going on.”
“You were correct about me,” the old man said. “I have no doubt it was my steps you heard. But you were wrong concerning Madame Serpentina. She was with me.”
“Ah,” Stubb said. He took off his glasses, breathed on them, and put them on again as if waiting to hear more.
“I’m sorry about that tile, I really am. Had no notion anybody might be down there that time of the night.”
“You dropped it then, sir?”
“I’m responsible,” the old man said. “You’ve got it. I was trying to show that girl something.”
“Show her what?”
“I don’t mean to get you riled, Mr. Stubb, but I don’t believe that’s your affair. Besides, that dinner of yours is about cooked. You’re lucky they haven’t shut off the electric yet. Better take her out now.”
Stubb glanced at his bare wrist. “I suppose you’re right, sir. I left my watch upstairs.”
“Hope you locked your room. Anyway, she’s done. I wind her.”
Stubb turned off the oven and carried the foil-covered tray to the table. “Sure you won’t have any?”
The old man shook his head.
“Mr. Free, what you were doing up there isn’t my business, I admit. But I’ll make it my business—if you want me to.”
“They’re going to tear this place down. I told you about that.”
“Uh-huh.” Stubb selected a drumstick and bit into it.
“They shut off my gas an hour ago. Tomorrow the electric will go off too, and the wreckers’ll come. I want you to help me hold out. I told you about that.”
“I know you did,” Stubb said. “I will.”
“If we can keep the walls standing, that’s all the help I need. If we can’t, nothing’s going to do me good.” Free paused. “Reckon to die, but old Ben Free don’t die without a fight.”
“You love this place.”
“Suppose I do. Should it shame me, Mr. Stubb?”
“Everyone’s got to love something.”
The old man nodded. “That’s so, I believe. I love this country, I suppose, or I used to. Loved a wife and daughter once. What do you love, Mr. Stubb?”
Stubb chewed and swallowed. “I don’t know. My work, maybe, when I can get it. I haven’t got a woman or a house.”
“You’re a detective, I think you said?”
“I’m an operative, sir. To be a private detective, I’d have to be licensed. As it is, licensed private investigators hire me to do the work they’ll bill their clients for. If you think of a doctor and the clerk who sells you the aspirin he tells you to take, you’ll about have the right idea.”
“I believe I’d be clearer thinking about a farmer and his hired man. The farmer, he owns the land. He says, ‘Time to plow for winter wheat,’ and the hand, he plows and sows. He takes his wages and the farmer takes the crop.”
“You’ve got it, sir.”
“Thought I had.” The old man pushed back his chair. “I’ll make you some tea to go with your dinner.”
“I’d be finished before you could get the water hot, Mr. Free. I’m all right.”
“I’ll get you a glass of water anyhow. I was a hand once myself.” Free chuckled. “A hand for a bunch of letters.”
Stubb nodded politely.
“Up in the High Country, that was.” The old man waved at the ceiling. “That’s where I come from to start with.”
“Uh huh. How’d you get here, Mr. Free?”
“Oh, by my own doing. Come here and many another place too. Nobody made me. I’ll let it run for a minute, so it’ll be cold.”
“Fine.”
“You’ll say I was a fool. Well, you’d be right, too.”
Stubb swallowed again. “I’ve done some pretty dumb things myself.”
“Adventure, that’s what I wanted. Save the world. I come up here looking for a new world, but in all them years I never caught the sight of it, and now I guess I wouldn’t hardly care to. Danger? Plenty of that, here and there. Love? I got some, but not enough to pay, if you catch my meaning. Pain, lonesomeness. Plenty of each. I’d like to go back, but it’s too late. I’m old.”
“A bus ticket doesn’t cost much, Mr. Free.”
“I have my ticket, Mr. Stubb. There won’t no bus take you there, but I have my ticket. I saved it and I’ll save it still, though it can’t do me any good. It’s still where I left it, there in the wall.”
“In a wall?”
Free nodded. “I was fearful I’d lose it, you see, and I hid it there. Listen to me, Mr. Stubb, and I’ll tell you what don’t many know. Most of them that went lost theirs. Some used them and went back. I’m the only one I ever got the smell of that didn’t do either. ‘Cept you could say I lost mine too, ’cause I can’t use it now.”
“I haven’t got the slightest idea what the hell this ticket is, sir,” Stubb said. “But if you want me to, I’ll try and help you find it.”
The old man sighed and put a glass of water on the table. “Maybe you could. If they don’t tear the place down, we’ll see.” He leaned on the back of his chair, supporting his weight on his arms.
“And if the Serpentina woman’s giving you some kind of trouble, I’ll do what I can to help you with that. All you have to do is ask.”
“She’s more like you than you think, Mr. Stubb. I believe she’d help too, in her way.”
“Serpentina’s a good name for her, if you ask me, sir. If she bit a rabbit, it would die. I know the type.” Stubb took a swallow of water and began to scrape up what remained of his mashed potatoes with his fork.
“Where I come from there was rabbits all over,” the old man said softly. “Bears too, and deer. Here, I’ve never seen a one. Or any other wild creature, ’cept maybe a pigeon or a rat. You people don’t know how poor you are.” He straightened up, squaring shoulders that were still wide. “The creatures are all gone now, Mr. Stubb, as I soon shal
l be. Murdered.”
Stubb leaped up. By the time he reached the door, the parlor beyond it was empty. So was Free’s bedroom.
Returning to the kitchen, he removed his glasses and produced an almost clean handkerchief. When he had wiped the lenses thoroughly, he took a notebook and an automatic pencil from his shirt pocket and, twisting his face in a laborious grimace, wrote something in an almost microscopic hand. That done, he scanned the earlier pages, tearing out some and wadding them into balls he dropped into the empty tray.
The task complete, he carried the tray and its load of paper and chicken bones to the garbage container. A mouse ran from behind it as he dropped the tray in. Stubb froze; the mouse stopped to contemplate him, sitting up like a little kangaroo. Slowly, Stubb fished out a penknife and opened a blade at each end. The second clicked as it sprang into place, and the mouse resumed its dash for safety. Stubb threw, but missed by a foot.
Outside, new snow sparkled under the stars. He kicked it to find the shards of tile, then turned up his collar and walked, occasionally halting to peer upward.
The woman behind the register looked up and smiled when he came in. “My best customer.”
“Right. Am I the only one tonight?”
“The only soul. Leastways, there hasn’t been nobody in since you was here last. Need somethin’ else?”
“Forgot to get a paper,” Stubb said.
“These’s yesterday’s now. You want to wait twenty minutes, the new ones’ll come.”
“Maybe.” Stubb picked up a paper.
“How ’bout some coffee? On the house.”
“Sure, it’s cold outside.”
“The company gives it to us so we can give it to the prowl-car mens. Havin’ them come in for it keeps the place from bein’ stuck up so much. We get to drink it ourselves and give it out, only we’re not supposed to make the first pot till after midnight. What you lookin’ for?”
“Story on the new freeway,” Stubb told her.
The Visit
“A moment,” Barnes called. “Just a moment.” In the dark he had mislaid the picture. He scrabbled for it—not finding it dove for the light switch, located the picture, hung it over his peephole, and threw open the door.
“I am so sorry,” the witch said. “You were sleeping. I should have been more thoughtful.”
“I wasn’t asleep. Wide awake, that’s me. Honest.” He stumbled backward. “Won’t you come in?”
She nodded and stepped inside. Without her high-heeled boots, her head came only to his shoulder. The scarlet robe was oriental, embroidered with writhing black dragons; she clutched it at her chin, and with her long, dark hair she might almost have been Chinese.
“You are so very kind, Mr. Barnes. You have every reason to be annoyed with me.”
“Never!” The chair was still facing the picture of the gowned blonde. He seized it in an agony of haste and held it for her, seating himself on the bed only after she had consented to sit down.
“You have taped up pictures, I see. I would guess that you are the only one among us who has labored to decorate his chamber.”
“These are what I sell,” Barnes explained. He cleared his throat. “Having them here reminds me of them, and I think about what I can say about them.”
“System,” the witch said admiringly. “You are correct, Mr. Barnes. System is everything.” Her eyes, which until now had been more impressive than inviting, were melting.
“I try,” Barnes told her.
“Often with great success, I am sure.” The witch released the collar of her robe and folded her hands demurely in her lap, permitting Barnes to see her decolletage and a triangle of the black corset. For the first time, she seemed to notice the hook on which the picture of the blonde hung. “You are religious too. How refreshing to find that in a man! Mr. Barnes, I have come to you for help.”
He swallowed. “If you mean, financial, I’m afraid—”
“It was I who gave you the money for our food tonight. Have you forgotten?”
“No, Ma’am, not at all, and I promise you when I get my commissions—”
“There is no need. I meant only to show you that I do not require money from you. Doubtless other women you have known have in this way or that always demanded it.”
“No, no,” Barnes told her. “Not at all.”
“Really? You are an exception then. At any rate, I am asking for your help, Mr. Barnes. I wish to enlist you under my banner, as it were.”
“Anything I can do, Ma’am, why I’d be delighted—”
“Perhaps you should hear first. Do you credit the supernatural?”
“Why, ah …” For a moment Barnes looked embarrassed. “I can’t really say I believe or I don’t. I suppose you could say I’ve always thought there was more to everything than anybody could really know, but frankly I haven’t thought about it much. I’ve never felt it concerned me. Maybe when we die we’ll find out.”
“There is little reason to think so, Mr. Barnes. People are inclined to believe that in this world the higher world is obscure, and in the next it will be made plain. But is it not equally probable that while we are here the higher world is revealed, and if we perish in ignorance of it, we shall remain in that ignorance in the next?”
“I don’t know,” Barnes admitted.
“As a man, you would no doubt be more impressed by science than by the symbolism of the mystics. To you I would say that to speak of a higher world is to speak of a higher state of energy. That is nearly always, you will note, what we mean when we speak of height—the stone upon the mountaintop, for example, possesses greater potential energy than the stone at the bottom of the tarn. If one end of a poker is red, we say that end is of a higher temperature, or that its thermal energy is higher. When we die, by the Law of Entropy, which all scientists acknowledge, we pass from a higher state to a lower. Since we will then be further from the higher world, how are we to see it more clearly?”
Barnes said, “I’m afraid I don’t know much more about science than I do about the supernatural. In fact, they often seem about the same to me.”
The witch nodded and smiled, perfect teeth flashing in her dark face. “They are indeed closer than most scientists—or most mystics—are willing to admit, Mr. Barnes. If I have provided your first lesson in science, let me give you your first in mysticism also. It is that we live surrounded by signs—signs we are often too blind to read. I am such a sign and you are such a sign and that bed on which you sit is a sign. If we knew what all the signs mean, we should be creatures of a higher order. If we knew only what many of them mean, we should have power and great riches. Do you understand?”
“I think so,” Barnes said.
“The air and light of the living are signs then, and the dirt and dust of death. If we who can see the stars cannot see what is higher, how shall those who dwell beneath the roots of the trees in a land of worm and stone and water see it? I say to you, Mr. Barnes, that knowledge comes to those who seek to learn, sight to those whose eyes are opened, understanding to those who ponder the mysteries.”
“That’s wonderfully put,” Barnes said. “I can see why you believe it, ah …”
“My name is Madame Serpentina. You may call me that.”
“I know. Only I thought maybe … well, for instance, it might be more friendly if you were to call me Ozzie.”
“Very well, I will call you Ozzie, and you will call me Madame Serpentina.”
“Of course, Madame Serpentina, if that’s the way you want it. I was going to say that now that I’ve heard you put it so well—that is, if I could sell my merchandise the way you do your ideas, why I’d be rich. I believe it, too. Only I don’t know what it is you want from me.”
The witch smiled again. “You are a wonderful man, my Ozzie. You are practical, you are persuasive, you have to an unusual degree the masculine force of character. What would any woman want of you?”
Barnes’s eyes strayed to the stack of letters on the table. “We
ll, as you said yourself, Madame Serpentina, what most of them are after is money.”
“Your protection, your courage, your strength, and your cunning at her side. But, Ozzie,” she leaned forward and caught his hands in her own, which seemed to him as cold as ice. “You must first understand that I am what I say I am. I have been called a witch, and indeed I have called myself that—it is the closest word English has for what I am. Do you know what it means? Wit meant knowledge once. To wicken was to enchant, only a thousand years ago. To wikken was to prophesy. Wih meant holy.”
She said all these words rapidly, so that wikken sounded much like wicken, wit like wih. Barnes could only gasp, “You certainly are enchanting.”
“I am indeed, my Ozzie; you speak more truly than you know. I have often noticed that when others speak to me—doubtless it is my aura. But what you must understand is that I am one who has lifted the veil. I am enlightened. We spoke, you and I, of seeing a higher world. I have on occasion glimpsed it, or its reflection. I have made the study of it my life.”
Barnes nodded solemnly.
“You are here now, and I am here, Ozzie, in a house on the brink of destruction. Why are we here?”
“Well,” Barnes said slowly, “I can’t really speak for you, Madame Serpentina. But me, I always read the classifieds, especially the personals. And a couple of days ago, I saw this ad in the Sunday paper that said free rooms. I cut it out, and I believe I’ve got it here someplace.”
“You need not search for it.”
“Anyway, it said there would be free rooms at this address until the building came down. To tell the truth, I’d been having some trouble where I was staying then. I owed rent, and once they padlocked my door, only I was able to show the woman that unless I could get my sample cases and present a respectable appearance, I couldn’t ever make the rent, and she let me back in. So when I saw this, I went after it. Old Mr. Free was turning away undesirables, and my impression was that we would all be respectable people here, which I should say we all are, except one.”