by Gene Wolfe
He nodded.
The room, which had been cold before, was frigid now. As he got out his wallet, he tried to recall whether he had drunk with the taxi driver; surely he had, or he would not have slept in the taxi. There was nothing smaller than a ten, but he felt that the bellboy deserved a ten after all they had been through together, studying the great book, watching the sea, performing their autopsy on the bellboy’s place of employment.
“Thanks, sir.” The bellboy coughed. “Sir, we have these little braziers …”
“Yes,” he said. “I’d like one, if I can have one.”
“They’ve got to be ventilated, but those French doors will take care of that, sir.” The bellboy flashed a lopsided smile. “I’ll bring one up to you.”
“Thank you,” he said.
He was undressing when the bellboy returned. The brazier was a tiny thing, yet far better than nothing. He put it in his bedroom, and when he switched off the light, he found that its copper sides were faintly luminous, aglow with warmth and cheer.
When he woke in the morning, Lara was not there, and every muscle ached. The back of his right hand had been scorched as well as his coat sleeve, and the burn was crusted and painful. The cologne and shaving soap North had bought were still in the bathroom, but neither seemed the right sort of thing to dab on a burn.
Medical was listed on the white plastic card that slid from beneath the telephone. He dialed, and was told that the doctor was not yet in, did not often arrive until later or never during this, the off season, and would (or perhaps would not) call him upon arriving at last. He could not remember his room number, but he said, “I’m in the Imperial Suite, on the top floor,” and the disembodied operator seemed to understand.
It was only when he had hung up that he realized his call had gone through without difficulty, that he had not gotten the twittering voices or Klamm, and that someone—almost the correct someone—had in fact answered.
He resolved to call his apartment again, and at once began to look for something else to do, something that would postpone the moment when he would actually have to dial his own number. He had assumed that the little brazier had gone out, but a few sparks remained, sullenly crimson among the fluffy gray ashes. He added bits of charcoal from a copper can that had accompanied the brazier, then rinsed his fingers in the bathroom, avoiding the burn as much as he could.
His topcoat was ruined. His best trousers would have to be replaced too, but they remained good enough to wear until he got new ones. He dressed gingerly, careful of the burn and thinking more about breakfast than of the call and his apartment, feeling it would be wisest to put both out of his thoughts until it was time to telephone—to telephone and talk to somebody who was not Lara, or no one.
The telephone rang.
He answered. It was the doctor, as he should have guessed. “Understand you’ve a burned hand, sir.”
“Yes,” he said. “I don’t think it’s too bad, but there’s a sort of scab on it.” He decided not to mention the burns he had discovered on his face when he had shaved. The doctor would see them, and would treat them or would not.
“Had a bit of an accident myself. Come on down, sir.” The doctor’s voice sounded vaguely familiar. “I’ll give you some salve and a bandage to protect the skin until it heals. I’m in the basement—the lower level’s what they call it.”
The elevator was a long while coming. He rang three times before he recalled that it required a human operator, who would certainly be annoyed. Today the operator was a morose teenager with pimples.
“Lower level,” he said.
The passing floors that had appeared so forsaken the night before seemed equally deserted now. He felt that he himself was only a ghost, riding a ghostly elevator in a phantom hotel, that this building had fallen to the wrecking ball long ago, that it had been replaced by beach-front condos, silent and sourly white structures haunted by the worm, condos wrapped in white winding sheets of salt, themselves slated for demolition if only someone could be found who wanted the land, who would pay hard cold cash on the barrelhead for their destruction.
The lobby flashed by, empty except for a thin, bespectacled youth at the desk. They landed, helicopter-like, in a windowless cavern of boutiques, all of them shut and dark, each of them (to judge by appearances) more than ready to swear that it was never really open, had never been open at all.
“Which way is the doctor’s office?” he asked.
The teenager pointed.
“And could you tell me how late they serve breakfast in the coffee shop?”
“Until they close,” the teenager said, and slammed shut the wrought-iron door.
He reached the end of the row of shops and turned a corner. The cavernous space was even larger here, enlivened by shelving balconies. Dusty flags like stalactites hung from the ceiling; there were only two or three he recognized. Whose was that two-headed eagle? That griffin clawing the air?
“Up here, sir!”
A fat man in shirtsleeves, leaning on a crutch, was bending over a slender balcony rail to wave to him. He waved in return and mounted a short flight of iron steps that creaked and boomed dully beneath his feet, wondering whether there was an elevator someplace and whether the doctor (who it seemed should not have climbed stairs) had been forced to climb these.
The doctor’s door was the only one that showed a light, an old-fashioned pebbled glass door with an oak frame. Plain black lettering on the glass: C.L. APPLEWOOD, M.D.
Inside there was no receptionist, no nurse. The doctor sat at a desk at the back of a long, narrow room, large of feature, heavy of jaw, and smooth of face, with the high Shakespearean forehead that white hair and encroaching baldness give all men, and an extra chin upon which to display a slick professionalism in shaving and the touch of fine white powder that bespoke the actor.
“Good, good!” The syllables were resonant and constricted. “Good to see you made it, sir! Wonderful! We all made it then, save for poor Daniel. Dead, sir! Yes, dead as a stone, and I could not have saved him, sir, nor could any physician since Hippocrates. They got him, sir! Settled poor Dan once and for all. They got me too, as you’ve seen. A bullet, a thirty-eight I suppose, through the fleshy portion of the thigh. Had they but nicked the femoral artery, sir, you should not see me here! I would be a citizen of a better sphere, with poor Daniel at my side. As it was, I was able to hobble away before the fire—as you, sir, were not I see—our bold Carlos having shot the rascal set to guard the stage door.”
The doctor chuckled; the sound was deep and throaty, like the contented noise, half clucking and half crowing, made by a great rooster.
“And now, sir, if you’ll excuse me for not rising, I’ll excuse you from shaking hands. Let’s see it.”
The Sea in Winter
The coffee shop was empty. A black-and-white sign on a wooden stand read: PLEASE SEAT YOURSELF.
He did so, choosing a small table beside a high glass wall, like the wall of a greenhouse or conservatory. Beyond it stood a low cliff or bluff, or perhaps only one wall of the cavernous, flag-hung arcade he had left; beyond that lay a broad expanse of beach upon which the ocean had erected a duplicate of the quarry he had seen a few years before on a National Geographic special. Expressionless images leaned or lounged here and there among the shattered wrecks of others, some finished, some incomplete, some scarcely begun—all this executed in slabs of greenish sea-ice.
One watched him, a statue some distance down the beach and midway between land and ocean, staring insolently but silently as he took a napkin from a water glass and turned up an inverted coffee cup.
It was impossible that the police should have chosen such a strange means of spying on him, yet he felt they had. In some way they would be watching him, so why not this? Or if it was not really true, it felt true. Klamm and his men would try to account for everybody they had seen on the stage—for him, for North, for the two in business suits, for Dr. Applewood, and for the man in the army uniform. (Bu
t he was easy enough to account for—even Dr. Applewood had said so.)
And he, too, was readily accounted for. The cop had looked in his wallet, had seen his hotel key, had told the driver where to take him. They knew where he was, and they would surely send somebody to watch him.
“Would you like coffee, sir?”
The waitress was about twenty, very petite, with black hair cut short, hair that curved around her face like the wings of a soft, black bird, a bird determined to hatch that oval face—or if it was hatched already, to shield it from the harsh winds of this world.
“Yes,” he said. “And some orange juice, if you have any.”
She said, “I’ll have to squeeze you some, sir,” and winked.
He was too astonished to wink back; but he watched her as she trotted away. She wore polished black shoes with very high heels (because she’s so short, he decided), a little white cap, and a black silk dress with a tiny white apron, like the maid in some old movie starring Cary Grant.
The steamy fragrance of freshly brewed coffee told him she had filled his cup, though he had not noticed. The coffee was as black as her dress, as black as her shoes, and he knew that he would never be able to see anything black anyplace again—coffee or the night—without thinking about her shoes and her dress. He added cream (which he seldom did), looked through the glass wall, and remembered nights with Lara.
A big white boat was passing the hotel, half a mile or less from where he sat; passing slowly, as though fighting a headwind with its engines almost idling. A teacher had read it to him in school: “As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.”
He felt sure Lara was on that boat, that white-painted boat that would have looked so much more at home down in Florida or a place like that, on the Gulf or the Pacific or the Mediterranean. He felt sure that it was Lara watching him through binoculars as he sipped his coffee, sipped the icewater that the girl in the black shoes must have brought him too, brought him icewater even though he had not noticed, brought him water even though he sat in front of water and ice that went on forever.
She brought the orange juice, placing it before him with a delicate hand tipped with long, crimson nails, a hand naked of rings. “What else would you like, sir?”
“Right now,” he said, “I’d like you to sit down and talk to me.”
“I can’t do that, sir. Suppose the manager came in.”
“It’s lonesome here,” he told her.
“I know, sir. You’re the only guest—the only one in the whole place, I think.”
“I’m surprised they keep it open.”
“This is the worst time of year. Usually it’s pretty good through Yule, and then it picks up again in March.”
He thought frantically, groping for a question or comment that would hold her in conversation. “Do you drive out from the city every day?”
“Sure. There’s nothing to do way out here.” She glanced around to see whether someone was listening. “For us, I mean. There’s things for the guests.”
“What are they?”
“Oh, the spa, and indoor tennis courts and so on. We can’t use them. What would you like for breakfast?”
He noticed sadly that she had dropped the sir; he was no longer a customer, just another unwanted boyfriend. He asked, “What’s good?”
Under her breath: “I am.” Aloud she said, “Why don’t you have a waffle? The chef’s a real master with them. We’ve got about a dozen different kinds.”
“Whatever kind you think’s the best.”
She nodded. “I’ll be along again in a minute to give you more coffee.”
“All right. Hurry back.”
She walked slowly away, writing on her order pad. When she had rounded the partition and was out of sight, he spoke to the expressionless face of ice on the beach. “Did you get all that? Are you going to tell them everything?”
It did not reply.
Dr. Applewood had not been worried about spying, or about hidden mikes or cameras. When he had asked about the theater, Dr. Applewood had actually risen and seized the back of one of the old wooden chairs: “Do you recollect our stage properties, sir? That was what I used, like an old woman with a walker, clumping and thumping across the floor!”
But why had the doctor come to the hotel today, come with a bad leg to a hotel with a single guest? For that matter why had she said he was the only one? North was still registered. In fact, North might come back to the room while he ate his waffle, might already have come back while Dr. Applewood was bandaging his hand. They had all gotten away except Daniel—that was what the doctor had said. Daniel had been Nick, but where was North? Would North phone? Probably not—the police might tap the wire, listen to any calls to or from the room.
He sipped his coffee, which was excellent.
If he had a coat, he could walk all around the hotel; there had to be a parking lot somewhere. If North had used the little car that he had driven, he would recognize it, and the keys were in his pocket.
But North had probably not used that car. It had probably been burned when the theater burned down—he, not North, had the keys. Yet it was still possible. North had given him the keys, never saying they were the only set; and nothing would be less like North than to give somebody else the only set, to let go of that kind of power.
Anyway, thieves could start cars without the keys by hot-wiring the ignitions. North, who had made a lock pick from the hospital wiring, would know all about that.
A man in a three-piece suit came into the coffee shop and sat down not far from him. When the waitress brought his waffle, he asked her who the man was.
“Probably some guest. I don’t know—I’ve never seen him before.”
“You said I was the only guest.”
“That was yesterday, you and your friend. He probably checked in last night—I only got to work an hour ago.”
“There’s a fine for not knowing his name: you have to tell me yours.”
She grinned. “Fanny.”
“Really?”
“Would I fib about a name like that? I know yours. You’re A. C. Pine, and you’re in the Imperial Suite.”
She had gone before he could reply. As he ate his waffle (he had missed dinner the night before, and felt as though he could eat five), he vaguely considered the initials. What did A. C. stand for? Soon, he felt, he might have to tell Fanny; and it would be better if he were not stuck with something like Abner Cecil. Abraham Clyde? Arthur Cooper? By the time he had finished his orange juice, he had decided he was Adam something.
The lower level was no longer quite so deserted as it had been. Several shops showed lights, and once he heard footsteps. The first shop he looked into was a beauty parlor in which an enameled blonde was painting her own nails while she waited for customers. “Good morning,” he said.
She looked up without interest. “Hi, ya.”
“Nice day.”
“Is it warmin’ up a little?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t been outside.”
The blonde sighed, looked away, then back at him. “I have. Believe me, it ain’t a nice day. That wind could kill ya.”
“I wouldn’t think you’d get much business, then.”
She shrugged. “I might as well be here. It’s the only shop I got.”
“Suppose I wanted to change the color of my hair?”
She looked up, interested. “Do ya?”
“Not today. Maybe in a few days.”
“Sure, I could do it for ya, any color ya want. Twenty’d cover it.”
“That seems pretty high.”
“Okay, fifteen. But that’s as low as I’ll go. Ya oughta see what the hotel charges me for this place.”
“Then let’s say twenty, and you promise to keep it strictly confidential. Is that a deal?”
“Ya got it. Hey, listen, I never talk about my customers anyhow.”
“And now, do you—” He paused. Slightly to the left of the blonde’s head was
a poster advertising shampoo. The woman pictured there was Lara. “Could you tell me if there’s a place down here that sells men’s clothing?”
“There’s three, but I don’t know—”
The door opened behind him; the waitress—Fanny—came in, and she seemed at least as surprised to see him as he was to see her. “Hello,” he said.
“Oh, hi.” She stood silently while he looked from her to the blonde. At last she said, “Are you done?”
“I guess so.”
“I thought maybe I’d get a perm. I’m off now till lunch.”
The blonde told her, “Ya don’t need one yet. Why don’t ya let me just wash it and set it?”
He said, “Well, good-bye, I guess,” and stepped out into the cavernous arcade. He had gone fifty feet before it occurred to him to return quietly to the beauty parlor and listen; for a few seconds he hesitated, vacillating. He had seen people—actors—do it on television and in pictures hundreds of times, and felt somehow that it could not possibly work in real life. The women would hear him, or they would be talking about nothing. But was this real life?
As silently as he could he retraced his steps, glad that he could see no one watching (though someone might be watching) and feeling extremely foolish.
“ … little halfwitted tease.” That was the blonde. Fanny answered resentfully, but so softly he could scarcely hear her, “I talked … at breakfast. I was supposed to check in. You know my orders.”
He crept away.
The first men’s store he came to was run by a woman, which surprised him. He bought a new hat and a heavy overcoat, and at her suggestion a wool sweater-vest to wear under his jacket. He ordered a new pair of wool slacks, too. She measured his legs, marked the seams with chalk, and promised that the slacks would be ready next day. She wore a tape measure about her shoulders like a sash of office, and her gray hair in a bun.
“Do you run this place?” he asked.