The Best of Gene Wolfe: A Definitive Retrospective of His Finest Short Fiction
Page 53
The entire universe can be contained in three questions, of which the first two are: How long is the train? And from what station does it originate?
I do not remember boarding, although my mother, who was here in the compartment with us until a moment ago, told me she recalled it very well. I was helped on by a certain doctor, she said. I would go up and down the cars looking for him (and her), but one cannot thus look for a doctor without arousing the anxiety of the other passengers or exciting their suspicions. Certainly, however, I did not get on at the station of origin; my mother told me that she herself had already been riding for over thirty years.
The porter’s name is Flip; he was once my dog, a smooth fox terrier. Now he makes our berths and brings coffee and knows more about the train than any of us. He can answer all the unimportant questions, although his answers are so polite it is hard to tell sometimes just what he means. My wife and I (all the children we helped aboard have gone to other cars) would like to make him sit with us. But he threatens to call his uncle, the Dawn Guard.
I have formed several conjectures concerning the length of the train. It is surely either very long or very short, since when it goes around a curve (which it seldom does) I cannot see the engine. Possibly it is infinite—but it may be of a closed as well as an open infinity. If the track were extended ever westward, forming a Great Circle, and all that track were filled with cars, would not the spinning earth rush past them endlessly? That is precisely what I see from the window. On the other hand, if straight trackage were laid (and most of it does seem to be straight) it would extend forever among the stars. I see that too. Perhaps I do not see the engine because the engine is behind us.
At every moment it seems that we are stopping, but we continue and even pick up speed. The mountains crowd closer, as if to ram us by night. I lie in my berth listening to the conductor (so called because he was struck by lightning once) come down the car checking our tickets in the dark.
AFTERWORD
Back before the deluge, Rosemary and I rode Amtrak to Seattle and back—northern route out, southern route back. Between meals, I busied myself by sitting high up in the observation car and writing a bunch of short-short stories. When I got home, I asked my agent to send them all to The New Yorker. To my pleased surprise, this one was accepted.
Flip was the ruffian clown who woke Little Nemo from his wonderful dreams, in one of the finest Sunday comics ever. My father gave Flip’s name to the fox terrier we owned when I was very small: Flip’s barking always woke my father up.
There was no reason for you to care, to be sure, but for both you readers who have stuck with this until now—The earliest memory I have of my mother is that of a lovely young woman bending over me as I lie abed on the seat of a railway car. Her eyes are blue. She wears a gray cloche; from under it peeps a stray lock of auburn hair. Would the year be 1934? I can’t say for certain, but about that. Now I must stop, lest the afterword grow longer than the story.
FROM THE DESK OF GILMER C. MERTON
Dear Miss Morgan:
No, you don’t know me or anything about me—I got your name from Literary Marketplace. My own name is Gilmer C. Merton, and I’m a writer. I say that I am one, even though I haven’t sold anything yet, because I know I am. I have written a sci-fi novel, of which I enclose the first chapter and an outline of the remainder (is that a dirty word?) of the book.
Please understand me, Miss Morgan: I have written the whole book, and can send you complete ms. as soon as you ask for it. Will you represent me?
Sincerely yours,
Gilmer C. Merton
Dear Mr. Merton:
Please send the rest of Star Shuttle. Enclose $10.00 (no stamps) to cover postage and handling.
Yours truly,
Georgia Morgan
Dear Miss Morgan:
Enclosed please find the remainder of my book, Star Shuttle, and a Postal Money Order for ten dollars. I hope you enjoy it.
You can have no idea how delighted I am that you are sufficiently interested in my book to wish to read the rest. I know something of your reputation now, having asked the Chief Assistant Librarian here in No. Velo City. It would be wonderful to have you for my agent.
Sincerely,
Gilmer C. Merton
Dear Mr. Merton,
I will definitely handle Star Shuttle. When you sign and return the enclosed letter of agreement (I have already signed; please retain the last copy for your files), you will be a client of the GEORGIA MORGAN LITERARY AGENCY. Note that we do not handle short fiction, articles, or verse (Par. C.). I would, however, like to see any other book-length manuscripts, including non-fiction.
Cordially,
Georgia Morgan
P.S. Don’t say sci-fi. That is an obscenity. Say SF.
Dear Miss Morgan:
Let me repeat again how much I appreciate your taking on my book. However, I wish you had told me where you intend to market it. Is that possible?
Your letter of agreement (top three copies) is enclosed, signed and dated as you asked. Let me repeat how happy I am to be your client.
Sincerely,
Gilmer C. Merton
Dear Gil,
I sent your Star Shuttle to the best editor I know, my great and good friend Saul Hearwell at Cheap Drugstore Paperbacks, Inc. Now I am happy to report that Saul offers an advance of $4300.00 against CDPI’s standard contract. I discussed the advance with him over lunch at Elaine’s (not to worry, Saul paid), but he says CDPI’s present financial position, though not critical, is somewhat weak and he is not authorized to offer more than the standard advance. (Actually, that is four thou; I got him up three hundred.) I could be wrong, Gil, but with a first novel, I don’t think you will get a better offer than this anyplace, market conditions being as they are. The “standard” contract is enclosed, as slightly altered by yrs. trly. (Note that I was able to hold on to 30 percent of video game rights.) I advise you to sign it and return all copies to me soonest.
Cordially,
Georgia
P.S. You will receive half the advance on signing.
Dear Georgia,
I have signed and dated all copies of the contract for my book. They are enclosed. Good job!
You will be happy to note that I have borrowed enough on my signature to trade in my old Underwood for a used word processor. (These are used words, ha, ha!) Interest is 18 percent, but there is no penalty for early payment, and when I get the $2,150 it will be easy enough to pay off the rest of the loan, and I understand that Hijo and several other horror-genre shockers were written on this machine before Steven E. Presley’s untimely death. With the help of this superb machine (as soon as I learn to run the damn thing) I hope to make much faster progress on a new book, Galaxy Shuttle.
Sincerely,
Gil Merton
Dear Gil,
This is going to come as something of a shock to you, but I have just had a long phone conversation with Saul Hearwell, during which we discussed what Saul insists on referring to as “your problem.” Meaning yours, Gil, not mine, though you are my problem too, of course, or rather your problems are my problems.
Star Shuttle is bylined “Gilmer C. Merton,” and Saul does not consider that catchy enough. Of course, I suggested “Gil Merton” right away. Saul feels that is an improvement, but not a big enough one. (Am I making myself clear?) Anyway, Saul would like to see you adopt a zippier pen name, something along the lines of Berry Longear or Oar Scottson Curd. Whatever you like, but please, not Robert A. anything. (Gil Donadil might be nice???) The choice is yours, to be sure, but let me know soonest so I can get back to Saul.
Cordially,
Georgia
P.S. I rather hate to bring up this delicate matter, Gil, but you will get $1835.00 and not the $2150.00 you mention. In other words, my commission will be taken out. And don’t forget you’ll have to pay taxes on the residue.
Dear Georgia,
This is a wonderful contraption, but Steven Pres
ley seems to have programmed it with some odd subroutines. I’ll tell you in detail when I’ve figured out what all of them are.
The new byline I’ve chosen is Gilray Gunn. What do you think of it? If you like it, please pass it along to Mr. Hearwell.
I had assumed I paid you your commissions. Rereading our letter of agreement, I see that you receive all payments and deduct your part before passing mine on to me. I see the sense of that—it saves me from writing a check and so forth.
Sincerely,
Gil Merton
(Wolf Moon)
Dear Gil,
Good news! Saul likes your new byline, and I’ve already got a nibble from Honduras on Star Shuttle. Rejoice! When will I be seeing Galaxy Shuttle?
Cordially,
Georgia
Dear Miss Morgan:
Thank you for your recent communication. I have altered the title of Galaxy Shuttle to Come, Dark Lust. It is to be bylined Wolf Moon, as I have indicated on the enclosed ms. See to it.
I require the half advance now due on Star Shuttle immediately. North Velo Light & Power Co. is threatening to shut off my service.
Wolf Moon
(Gilmer C. Merton)
Dear Gil,
Saul assures me you will get your money as soon as everything clears CDPI’s Accounting Department. Have patience.
Now—the most stupendous news I’ve passed along to one of my “stable” in many a year! Saul was absolutely bowled over by Come, Dark Lust! He plans sym. hc., trade, and mass market editions. He’s trying to get an advertising budget! He’s talking an advance of $9,000, which is practically a signal that he’s willing to go to $10,000.
Gil, I trust you’re working on a sequel already ( Come Again, Dark Lust???), but meanwhile do you have any short stories or whatever kicking around? Particularly anything along the lines of your fabulous CDL? I’d love to see them.
Fondly,
Georgia
Dear Miss Morgan:
I have legally changed my name to Wolf Moon. Gilmer C. Merton is dead. (See the enclosed clipping from the No. Velo City Morning Advertiser.) In the future, please address me as “Mr. Moon” or, in moments of extreme camaraderie, “Wolf.”
I require the monies due me IMMEDIATELY.
Wolf Moon
Dear Wolf,
Saul assures me that your check is probably in the mail by this time.
The obit on Gilmer C. Merton was interesting, but didn’t you have to give the paper some disinformation to get it printed? I hope you haven’t got yourself into trouble.
The 10:00 news last night carried about a minute and a half on the mysterious goings-on around No. Velo City. Have you thought of looking into them? They would seem to be right up your alley, and it is entirely possible you might get a nonfiction book out of them as well as a new novel. (But that poor guy from the electric company—ugh!)
Since your name is now legally Wolf Moon, it would be well for us to execute a new agency agreement. I enclose it. All terms as before.
Very fondly,
Georgia
Dear Georgia,
I was sorry to hear of the unfortunate accident that befell Mr. Hearwell’s wife and children. Please extend my sympathy.
While you’re doing it, you might mention my check, which has yet to arrive. If you could contrive to drop the words disembodied claws into your conversation, I believe you might find they work wonders.
Now a very small matter, Georgia—a whim of mine, if you will. (We writers are entitled to an occasional whim, after all, and as soon as you have complied with this one of mine I will Air Express you the ms. of my latest, The Shrieking in the Nursery.) I have found that I work best when everything surrounding a new book corresponds to the mood. I am returning all four copies of our new letter of agreement. Can I, dear Georgia, persuade you to send me a fresh set signed in your blood?
Very sincerely,
Wolf
AFTERWORD
This is my editor’s favorite. For the sake of such attorneys as he may employ, I desire to state now, and categorically, that there is no connection whatsoever between editor David G. Hartwell and “Saul Hearwell.”
None!
My agent, who was still very much alive when this was written, was Virginia Kidd. “Georgia Morgan” is only a slight exaggeration. I have no idea whether Virginia liked this story, but I liked her a lot. I miss her terribly, and in that I have a whole bunch of company—including, I believe, David G. Hartwell.
DEATH OF THE ISLAND DOCTOR
T
his story took place in the same university I mentioned in the Introduction to Gene Wolfe’s Book of Days.
At this university, there was once a retired professor, a Dr. Insula, who was a little cracked on the subject of islands, doubtless because of his name. This Dr. Insula had been out to pasture for so long that no one could remember anymore what department he had once headed. The Department of Literature said it had been History, and the Department of History said Literature. Dr. Insula himself said that in his time they had been the same department, but all the other professors knew that could not be true.
One crisp fall morning, this Dr. Insula came to the chancellor’s office—to the immense surprise of the chancellor—and announced that he wished to teach a seminar. He was tired, he said, of rusticating; a small seminar that met once a week would be no trouble, and he felt that in return for the pension he had drawn for so many years he should do something to take a bit of the load off the younger men.
The chancellor was in a quandary, as you may well imagine. As a way of gaining time, he said, “Very good! Oh, yes, very good indeed, Doctor! Noble, if I may resort to that rather old-fashioned word, and fully in keeping with that noble spirit of self-sacrifice and—ah—noblesse oblige we have always sought to foster among our tenured faculty. And may I ask just what the subject of your seminar will be?”
“Islands,” Dr. Insula announced firmly.
“Yes, of course. Certainly. Islands?”
“I may also decide to include isles, atolls, islets, holms, eyots, archipelagoes, and some of the larger reefs,” Dr. Insula confided, as one friend to another. “It depends on how they come along, you know. But definitely not peninsulas.”
“I see . . . ,” said the chancellor. And he thought to himself, If I refuse the poor old boy, I’ll hurt him dreadfully. But if I agree and list his seminar as Not for Credit, no one will register and no harm will be done.
Thus it was done, and for six years every catalog carried a listing for Dr. Insula’s seminar on islands, without credit, and in six years no one registered for it.
Now as it happened, the registrar was a woman approaching retirement age, and after registration, for twelve regular semesters and six summer semesters, Dr. Insula came to her to ask whether anyone had registered for his seminar. And there came a time, not in fall but rather in that dreary tag end of summer when it is ninety degrees on the sidewalk and the stores have Halloween cards and the first subtly threatening Christmas ornaments are on display, when she could bear it no longer.
She was bending over her desk making up the new catalog (which would be that last one she would ever do), and though the air-conditioning was supposedly set at seventy-eight, it was at least eighty-five in her office. A wisp of her own gray hair kept falling over her eyes, and the buzz of the electric fan she had bought herself, with her own money, kept reminding her of her girlhood and of sleeping on the screened porch in Atlanta when Mommy and Daddy took her to visit relatives.
And at this critical moment, the hundredth, perhaps, in a long line of critical moments, she came to the section labeled “Miscellaneous” at the very end of the catalog proper, just before the dishonest little biographies of the faculty. And there was Dr. Insula’s NO CREDIT seminar on islands.
A certain madness seized her. Why, mistakes happen all the time, she thought to herself. Why, only last year, the printer changed that lab of Dr. Ettelmann’s to Monday, Grunday, and Friday. Besides, N
O CREDIT can’t possibly be right. Who would take a No-credit seminar on islands? Anyway, they really ought to run the airconditioning if they want us to work efficiently.
Almost before she knew it, her pencil had made a short, sharp, vertical line in the Credit Hours column, and she felt a great deal cooler.
So it was that that year when Dr. Insula came to inquire she was able to tell him, with some satisfaction, that two students—a young man and a young woman, as she said, judging from their names, as she said—had in fact enrolled in his seminar.
And when the young man, and later the young woman, came to the Registrar’s Office to ask just where the Friday afternoon seminar on islands was to be held and one of her subregistrars (who naturally did not know) brought them to see her, she was able to explain—twice and with almost equal satisfaction—where it would be. For the good old custom of holding undergraduate seminars in faculty living rooms had fallen so much out of use at the university that Dr. Insula himself and the old registrar were almost the only people who recalled it.
Thus it came to be, on a certain September afternoon when the leaves were just beginning to change from green to brown and red-gold, that the young man and the young woman walked up Dr. Insula’s gritty and rather overgrown walk, and up Dr. Insula’s cracked stone steps, and across Dr. Insula’s shadowy, creaking porch, to knock at Dr. Insula’s water-spotted oak door.