The Way Through Doors (Vintage Contemporaries)

by Jesse Ball

  Selah thought about removing his shoes, but if he did then his pant cuffs would trail slightly on the ground, as the tailor had taken the shoes into account when testing the length that the pant legs should be. He worried over the notion of his cuffs trailing over even such a fine surface as that provided by the richly carpeted stair. Well, he thought then, I could roll them up. He took off his shoes, set them beside the guess artist’s, and rolled up his cuffs. He took a few steps down the stairs, then returned to his shoes. Out of his pocket he took a small black notebook. He opened it. On the first page it said, World’s Fair SHORTHAND.

  —What is that? asked the guess artist.

  —It’s all my ideas for the World’s Fair 7 June 1978.

  The municipal inspector tore out a page from the middle. He wrote a short note on the page and stuck it in his shoe. It said:

  These shoes are poisonous. Beware. If you touch them or wear them, the death you will suffer will make every death you have ever heard of or seen seem easy in comparison.

  Morris was very impressed with this note. He said so.

  —Thank you, said the municipal inspector. I am often leaving notes. I have had much practice.

  On then again down the broad and limitless stair. They walked at first for what seemed like hours, but was really not, and then afterwards for what were hours. All the light was provided by mirrored ducts in the wall. As it became dark outside, the stair too grew dark. However, the carpet was of such soft kindness, and the mahogany wood so pleasing to touch, that they found their way easily downwards through the nigh complete dark.

  When they had been walking for six hours they reached the first landing. Both Selah and the guess artist had supposed that it was the bottom. It was in fact only the first landing.

  —I had hoped, said Morris, that we could get much farther. Evidently this will take longer than I supposed.

  He shared out the sandwiches and also the coffee.

  —We can’t hope, said Morris, to reach the second landing by nightfall. Do either of you walk in your sleep or move about overly much?

  —I do, said the municipal inspector. Always.

  —Then we had best stay here tonight, said Morris. If we have to sleep on the stairs, you might fall and roll for some extraordinary distance before striking your head against a wall or wounding yourself against the struts of a balcony.

  —Balcony? asked the guess artist.

  —Yes, said Morris. There are balconies beneath.

  The three lay down on the various couches that sat in attendance on the first landing. The couches were very comfortable, and the travelers were tired from their walk. They decided to have a contest to see who could tell the best story.

  THE STORY CONTEST WON BY MORRIS

  First, the guess artist told a story about a man-faced fish that lived in a green pond on a large estate during the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon’s army happened to pass through that part of the world, and he used briefly that estate as a command post before one or another of the famous battles in which he refused to take anyone’s advice and went his own implacable way.

  While out for a walk on the estate, considering the best way to array his troops along the lines of battle, Napoleon passed by the pond in which the man-faced fish lived. Being a man who was fond of green ponds and of private moments before battle, Napoleon lingered by the pond and stared down into its depths. The man-faced fish saw him and swam up to the surface.

  —Good day, said the man-faced fish.

  —Bonsoir, said Napoleon.

  —Below, said the man-faced fish, it is neither day nor night.

  When the man-faced fish said this, Napoleon suddenly realized the thing that he had been trying to realize all day. If he sent the cavalry down a certain road, thereafter to cross an embankment, slip through several cavalry-sized shadows, and appear on the right-hand side of the map, a small distraction would be made such that his massive columns would be able once more to smash the other army. In his head then too the memory of an onion he had eaten once as a boy. He had eaten an onion and a hunk of cheese and a piece of bread. The mistral had been blowing and someone had said to him,

  —That wind has an ill will. It can push a man from a horse, or tear the roof from off a house.

  But at the moment they were not near the lands over which the mistral sang. And the man-faced fish had gone back into the depths of the pond.

  —I don’t know, said the municipal inspector. I think the man-faced fish probably had secret information that helped the little emperor.

  Morris nodded in agreement.

  —You should check the facts. You might be wrong.

  The guess artist allowed that perhaps it hadn’t happened exactly like that. It was then the municipal inspector’s turn to tell a story.

  —Three men arguing in a tree. One has a hand, another a leg, another an eye. Who believes as I do? Who can say my name?

  —What kind of story is that? asked the guess artist.

  —It’s a riddle, said Selah. See if you can figure it out.

  Morris got up from the couch and walked over to Selah. He whispered something into Selah’s ear.

  —That’ s right, said Selah. That’s the answer.

  He patted Morris on the shoulder.

  —From now on, he said, we’ll call you Morris the solver-of-riddles.

  —I would like that, said Morris the solver-of-riddles.

  Then Morris told his story, and it was the best one of all. It was a story about an ambition that sifted through the population of a colony over a period of fifty years until it found the several people in whom it wanted to invest. It was the story of the growth of this ambition and the pain and suffering caused by it, as well as the will behind the ambition itself, and the secret workings of the world of which most men are not aware. Also it included a trip to the moon on horseback, and a secret chamber inside of a ring which would fit on your finger but in which you could also sleep the night safely when surrounded by enemies. Both the guess artist and the municipal inspector proclaimed him the winner, and they all went to sleep.

  Selah immediately had a dream. In his dream a girl was standing in a square. It was raining and she was getting soaked by the rain. He knew that it was Mora Klein, although he was so far away he knew he could only have achieved this vantage point by being kidnapped in a balloon and strapped to the outside. Nonetheless, his thought now was not for himself but for the girl, who had begun to cry. The sound of her crying reached him, and he felt a great sadness himself. An old man came out into the square and soon had begun to sing to her a song that was itself very sad. A bird shot down out of the sky and fetched a hair out of Mora’s braid. Just then Selah woke. He was holding the hair-knot rabbit in his hand. He felt a sense of well-being. He would find her. He knew it. He sat then on the stairs. A sort of viewing lens was positioned above the banister. He looked through it, and saw beneath him on the stair, perhaps twenty feet down, Mora in a belled coat with trousers and heavy boots. Mora, standing there, ever so still!

  —Mora! he cried, and leaped for the stairs.

  But she was gone.

  He ran back to the lens, and saw it then for what it was, a stereoscope pointed at the stairs with a photograph of the stairs, a photograph of Mora on the stairs. When had she been there? He looked again. Mora was so lovely there, looking up at the camera. Who had taken the picture?

  He leaned against the stairs and closed his eyes. The others were still asleep. Soon he was also.

  Several hours passed.

  Morris woke first and roused the others.

  —We’d best begin, he said.

  They went on down the stairwell and to another landing. Selah went to the edge of this one and peered down. Again he was greeted by a massive depth and a rising dizziness that sent him reeling.

  —How? was all he said.

  The guess artist looked also.

  —That there at the bottom…he asked. I presume that is not the bottom but only the second lan
ding?

  —And beneath it the third landing, and then the true bottom, said Morris.

  —Is there food and drink to be had at the bottom? asked Selah.

  —Water may be had now, and at every landing, said Morris. My father should be preparing lunch for us; however, we will be late for that, and he may be cross. He is obsessed with punctuality.

  —What does he have to be punctual about? asked Selah.

  —Not very much, said Morris. Nevertheless…

  Morris opened a little closet by the head of the stair. Inside was a water fountain. With a different key, Morris started up the water fountain. Selah and the guess artist drank of it. Then Morris did. Then he locked it. Then they began down.

  —Such a wide and never-ending stair, said the guess artist, is in danger of ceasing to be a stair to become instead a metaphor of some kind or even an allegory.

  —I shouldn’t like that, said Morris.

  —Let us not think of it again, said Selah.

  At that point they became aware of two things. The first was a series of paintings that had begun upon the left-hand wall. The second was the first balcony that had appeared, extending out from the stair into the nebulous middle space of the stair. Every 150 steps there was another balcony. Each balcony was equipped with couches and comfortable chairs, as well as with a reading table or two, and gas lamps. Nevertheless, the little party was not tempted to stop.

  They reached the second landing without incident and had more water there.

  Morris began to do a little dance. He was obviously very pleased by his own dance, and he cried out to see if they were admiring it as well.

  Onward then they proceeded to the third landing. This third stair was a great deal steeper than the others, and there was no longer any carpet. It was, in fact, so steep that they took to holding tight to the banister and descending backwards. This stair also was the longest of the three. The third landing was really hardly a landing at all but only a brief widening of a single step that accommodated a single leather chair, and then a brutal pinching of the stairs, which spun away down at frightening speed.

  The bottom could now be slightly made out. It seemed to be a sort of cleared space with grass of sorts and even trees.

  —Is that grass? asked Selah.

  —You will see, said Morris quietly.

  By this time their feet had begun to hurt quite a lot from the walking. Their legs were sore, and their hearts were heavy when they thought of how they would have to scale the stair to leave.

  —How did you ever manage to walk up this and present yourself to us in complete readiness for a return trip down the stair? And furthermore, where do you get the food that you eat at the bottom? Presumably you do not grow coffee or keep pigs.

  —Every now and then, said Morris, the Chinese man fetches things for us. He leaves them in the ladder chamber below the malachite plug. His family was sworn into this service many generations ago. The deed for the building passes through their hands. More than that I won’t say now, other than that I am good at climbing trees and at walking far, and so it is no wonder that I can climb and descend stairs with no trouble in the least.

  To make evidence of this, Morris rapidly descended the stairs at the speed he was best used to.

  —I will await you at the bottom, he cried, and bring my father tidings.

  In moments he was out of sight.

  —What a splendid fellow, said the municipal inspector.

  —I like to think, said the guess artist, that if I had been in his situation, I would have grown to be a boy of such evident talent.

  —The same, said Selah.

  After an undefined period that might have been one hour or three, the stair broadened into its initial comforting width, and the carpet reappeared. The stairs ceased to turn, and led instead out into a broad meadow that stretched in a magnificent cavern.

  The cavern was lit from above by what must have been more mirrored passages reflecting light from the sun accurately, easily, and well, all the way down through the earth, so that just as the sun shone upon the city streets, so too it shone at these subterranean depths.

  The meadow was beautiful, the grass nicely shorn. Lovely oaks stood, their broad leaves a bright green.

  Beneath one, on a small rise of land, Morris lay, awaiting them.

  —Do the trees hold to the seasons? Selah asked him.

  —Always, said Morris.

  —How do they get enough water? asked the guess artist.

  Morris pointed to a stream that ran out of one side of the cavern wall and crisscrossed the meadow. At one end there was a little waterfall that fell into a pond.

  There was a little cottage on a hill in the distance. Smoke rose from its chimney.

  Selah and the guess artist followed Morris the far walker through the meadow. Here and there were wildflowers. Bees trailed at the edges, and away in a small underbrush, Selah was certain he saw a fox dart by.

  —What a wonderful place! he cried, as much to himself as to the others.

  —You must tell my father, said Morris. He will be so pleased; I know it.

  As they neared the cottage, they saw that a man was seated upon the front step, smoking a pipe. The cottage was an old-style saltbox house such as were built in the eighteenth century throughout the thirteen colonies.

  —It is not a big house, said Morris. But it is right for us.

  —Yes, said the guess artist. You seem to have done all right for yourselves.

  The man waiting and smoking the pipe wore a pointy sort of knit cap, and had a short red beard. His eyes were very green, and his age could not easily be told.

  —Corina, he said. They’re here.

  A woman came out of the door wearing a large apron and a calico-print dress. She was broad, with a grand beaming smile upon her face. She looked just the sort to provide for them a pleasant and welcoming luncheon and afterwards a fine rest.

  —Welcome, she said.

  Her husband stood.

  —I’m Kleb, he said. We live under the mountain.

  —I have heard of the people who live under the mountain, said Selah. I never thought to be so lucky as to meet them.

  —You are welcome here, said Corina again.

  The guess artist took her hand warmly. Kleb shook hands with the municipal inspector. Morris looked out from behind his folks at the visitors.

  —They are very hungry, he said.

  —Come in, come in, said Kleb.

  In they went. The saltbox house had a fine little kitchen at the back with a Dutch door. As the day was so pleasant, a table had been set out back of the house with chairs and many fine things to eat. It turned out that there was an entire farm laid behind the house and that the little family grew in fact everything that they needed to eat, and that Morris had been somewhat lying, for the only things the Chinese man brought them were exotic substances like coffee and sugar.

  —I suppose, said Kleb, that you’d like to know how all this can be.

  He took a bite of a thick ham steak, and chewed it awhile before continuing. On the table was more ham, cooked with honey on a spit over a fire, potatoes, pan-fried doughnuts hot and covered in cinnamon and sugar, leeks, string beans, corn on the cob, and lovely miter-shaped loaves of bread that had just come out of the oven.

  —Yes, said Selah, between bites of doughnut. I would very much like to know everything that you have to say. I am looking for a girl. I know that she was on the stairs. I’ve seen a photograph of her there, and…

  —We shall save such conversation for evening, said Kleb. It is better suited to the darkness. All tales are, don’t you think?

  He looked them over in turn.

  —You, he said to Selah, you are the municipal inspector. Am I right?

  —Yes, said Selah, producing his badge.

  —We have no use for that here, said Corina. Put it away.

  Selah put it away, more than a little ashamed.

  —I’m sorry, he said.

&
nbsp; —She doesn’t like such talk at table, whispered Morris.

  —And you, said Kleb to the guess artist. What do you do?

  Corina looked very carefully at the guess artist. So too looked Morris and Kleb. They examined him in a very thorough fashion.

  —Stand up, said Corina.

  The guess artist stood.

  —Turn around, she said.

  He turned around.

  —What might you be? said Corina to herself.

  —I am a guess artist, said the guess artist proudly.

  —He’s the best one there is, said Selah.

  —A guess artist! said Corina. All right, then, guess what I’m thinking.

  The guess artist looked at Corina with the care that she had invested in his own examination.

  —You were born, said he, in Martins Ferry, Ohio, the daughter of a butcher. He taught you to read in Latin and Greek, and you ran away from home. You came here by accident when you were sheltering from a snowstorm in the foyer of Six Quince Street, and by chance the Chinese man was coming up out of the trapdoor. Of all things in the world you are most proud of the fact that you can name every Roman senator that ever existed by order of age, geographical origin, chronological election, or name.

  —Can you really? asked Morris.

  —Of course, said Corina. But I don’t like to speak of it.

  —You have memorized every inch of Plutarch’s Lives, and you have long imagined that it would be a splendid thing to illustrate the staircase with those splendid books in Greek script stretching the whole way. However, you haven’t the proper brushes or ink to do the job and so it has gone undone.

  —Well, I never, said Corina. You are something else.

  —I could get brushes and ink for you, said Kleb. You should have said something before.

  —All right, said Corina. I would like that very much.

  —I was thinking, said the municipal inspector, about writing a book in which whenever a character lies, his or her dialogue is in italics. You would think at first that that might simplify things, but I bet in the end, it would only really complicate them.

  —Well, said Morris, who was eating a big piece of buttered corn bread. If it was a detective novel, you would see that someone was lying when that person was talking to the police and then you might think that person was the one who did the murder, but really, everyone lies and maybe the murderer goes through the whole book without telling a single lie. He might just be good at avoiding having to lie. But the readers would be misled into thinking he was not the murderer, just because he seems to tell the truth.