by Gene Wolfe
He counted the waves as they spoke on the ice-locked beach; and when he had come to a hundred and seventeen, the convertible passed, driven by the bespectacled clerk. He stepped into the middle of the road to make it stop; but save for swerving around him, the clerk ignored him still.
Deciding it was useless, he turned away and trudged after the convertible, which soon vanished around a snow-blind curve. The bus had passed, and so it seemed likely to him that there was a bus stop somewhere along the road, a bus stop from which country people who did not have cars or trucks could reach the city—a bus stop, and perhaps even a bench. His legs trembled from all the walking and standing he had done that morning; his head, which had ached off and on ever since he had awakened in United, throbbed now with pain.
A car behind him pinged and chittered like a broken music box. He did not turn to look, sure that no matter what he did it would not stop and unwilling to step from the cleared strip to its snow-packed edges.
“You need a ride?” It was Fanny, calling through the open window of one of the subcompacts he had looked at in the parking lot.
He tried to smile. “Hey, do I!” She might be Klamm’s spy; but if Klamm and the police were against North, was that so bad? Like the doors of the car he had driven for North, this one had doors hinged toward the rear. He twisted the handle, opened the door, and got in.
“Didn’t you have luggage or anything?” She sounded sincere and slightly stupid.
“Not much,” he told her.
Her left foot depressed the long clutch pedal as she pulled the shift rod smoothly back. “I see. Well, I wish you’d stayed on. Anyway they would’ve called a cab or something for you when you checked out, you know.”
“I didn’t check out.”
The clutch pedal came smoothly up; the engine hesitated as if ready to die, then caught hold. The little car shook itself and lurched ahead. “They said you did.”
“They locked me out.”
“You didn’t pay?”
“We were paid for several days yet,” he said.
“They wouldn’t do that.”
He shrugged, looking out at the snowy countryside.
The little car staggered into second. “Anyway, there went my winter job. This fall they begged me—I mean begged me—to stay on. Fanny, we’re going to try staying open all winter—that’s exactly what they said. Now I’m out of a job, and all the winter jobs are gone.”
“Maybe that woman at the beauty shop could find something for you.” He turned to look at her. “I was going to say, the one who did your hair, but your hair hasn’t been touched.”
“You noticed.” When she had shifted into third, she patted her hair. “Naw, she wanted to shampoo and set it, but it don’t really need it. I don’t really need a perm either—I knew she’d tell me that. I just wanted somebody to talk to. Where are you going anyway?”
“The railway station.”
“You’re blowing town?”
He nodded. “I’m going to Marea.”
“That’s good. I mean, things don’t seem to be working out so good for you here.”
“Will you drop me there?”
“Sure.”
“Thank you.” He hesitated. “I probably shouldn’t mention this, but do you know the name of the man I was staying with?”
“I don’t pay attention to that kind of thing.”
“Yesterday morning we ate breakfast together in the coffee shop, but you weren’t our waitress.”
“You probably got Maisie, or maybe Edith. See, they kept three of us on, and we were supposed to work two days and off one, Maisie and Edith yesterday, me and Maisie today.”
He told her, “The other man in my room was using the name Campbell, but he was really William T. North.”
She did not answer.
He said, “You know people in the Iron Boot. You know who William T. North is.”
“And you want me to put you on a train for Marea.”
“That’s right.”
“Okay.” She nodded. “But I was going to do that anyway—no, you’re right, I wasn’t. I was going to try to get you to come home with me. Do you need money? I can give you a little; I don’t have a whole lot.”
“No,” he said. “I need to talk to Klamm before I go.”
There was a long silence. Their road joined a larger one, a highway with four lanes. She watched the traffic and steered. With the accelerator all the way to the floorboards, her little car would do fifty-four miles an hour on the flat. He recalled that the brown Mink had been a bit better: nearly sixty.
At last she said, “Then you’ll have to come home with me.”
“You could drop me off at a hotel.”
She shook her head. “Who’ve you told? North?”
“Nobody.” He tried to think of a way to explain. “I wasn’t North’s friend; I don’t think he has friends. I might be Klamm’s friend, if I knew what you and Klamm are up to.”
“You were with North at the Adrian.”
“That’s right. You saw us? Or did they tell you?”
“I saw you. I was in the audience. They—Klamm—thought they had everything closed, everything tight. The whole block was sealed off. But North’s got more lives than a tomcat, and they wanted me to see him just in case. As it turned out they were right.”
“North escaped? I was afraid of that.”
“That’s the way it looks. Several people died in the fire, but we’ve identified all of them now.”
He thought for a moment. “Dr. Applewood—I know you must know about him. Dr. Applewood didn’t seem to have much trouble getting out.”
“Of course not. We let him out. We let all of them out, except for one who got killed by accident.”
“Why?”
“What do you care?” She sounded contemptuous.
“Because I was one of them.”
“That’s right, you were. You’re willing to turn against North?”
“I’ve never been for him. I was a sort of prisoner—his slave, if you want to put it like that.”
“And you couldn’t get away?”
“I did.” He told her what had taken place in the basement. “That is, I got away from North. What I want to know is why you let me get away, and Dr. Applewood and the rest.”
“Because you were all just low-level people. When you’ve identified low-level people, you don’t arrest them. You don’t want to. You watch them like we watched the play before North showed up. You let them lead you to the ringleaders.”
He said, “That was what you did with me, wasn’t it? I had my hotel key in my pocket, and this morning before I ate I went to Dr. Applewood to get this bandage and some salve for my hand. After breakfast, when I came down again to buy some clothes, the light was off in his office. I suppose the blonde in the beauty shop saw me the first time and came to listen outside the door.”
Fanny shrugged. “I suppose.”
“You don’t know?”
She glanced at him, irritated. “You think she tells me everything she does? She’s my boss, a lieutenant.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
When she was silent he added, “It’s just that this morning in the coffee shop I thought you liked me. When they shut the hotel and nobody would pay any attention to me until you came by to pick me up, I knew I’d been supposed to find that paper about you, and you were just playing a part … .” He let the thought trail away.
“Nature made women to play parts. When we stop, the show’s over.” She drew a deep breath, then let it out with a puff. “I did like you, and I still do. But as long as we know each other I’ll always be playing a part, every few minutes and sometimes for hours. I can’t help it. Anything else you want to know?”
“Yes. Last night at the theater—who was the woman in the box with Klamm?”
“His stepdaughter.”
“What?” He realized his mouth was open, and closed it.
“That’s his stepdaughter. Klamm used to
be married, though obviously they never—you know.”
He did not, but he nodded.
“Then his wife found a man who would. She and Klamm were divorced, naturally, but they’re still friends—she’s supposed to have been his favorite student when he was at the university, and I imagine their love was always a lot more intellectual than anything else.”
The highway had become a boulevard. Fanny turned off it onto a city street lined with stores. “All this is just what I’ve heard, you understand—I don’t know Klamm or his ex-wife personally. Anyway, he’s been like an uncle to her children. That’s what they say, but that one’s the only one you ever see with him in public. I suppose she looks a lot like her mother did when she was younger; it happens sometimes.” Fanny smiled bitterly.
“And her name’s Klamm?”
“Certainly not. Her name’s Nomos. Laura Nomos.”
“Laura Nomos,” he repeated. He had heard the name, he felt sure. At the theater? In the hospital? He could not place it. Had Joe mentioned it? He found he associated it with Joe.
“This morning in the coffee shop I thought you really liked me.” Fanny was parodying what he had said a few moments before. “When I found out it was really Klamm’s stepdaughter, I was just devastated. I mean I am.” She sighed theatrically. “She’s a lawyer, I hear. You could look her up in the Bar Association’s guide—see how much you learn by hanging out with a cop?”
The little car turned right, and though they were not going fast, the turn was so abrupt that its rear wheels skidded.
“Any more questions?”
“Are you taking me to see Klamm?”
She laughed. “I’m taking you to my place—maybe in a week you’ll get to see Klamm. How old do you think I am?”
He hesitated, fearful of insulting her. “I’m not very good at this. Twenty?”
“Thanks. I’m twenty-two, and if I was a grade lower I’d be in uniform. My lieutenant reports to a captain who reports to a person who reports to a woman who reports to Klamm. We have to go up the chain of command, and we’ll have to have something to say that will make Klamm think you’re worth his time. Is there anything else?”
“Who is Kay?”
Her eyes left the road to stare at him, their expression a mixture of surprise and skepticism.
He explained, “Once I talked to Klamm on the phone, and he thought I was somebody called Kay. I’ve known women named Kay, but this was a man, I think. He heard my voice, and he called me ‘Herr Kay.’ That’s a man, isn’t it?”
“I suppose it is. But I haven’t the least idea what man. Except …”
“Yes?”
“Sometimes Klamm himself is called Herr K. in the papers, from his initial and because he was born in the German Empire. But I don’t see how it could be that if you were really on the phone with Klamm.”
“I don’t either. One more question. What’s a Visitor?”
Her lips tightened. “And where did you hear about that?”
“Does it matter? I want to know what one is, because I think I may be one myself.”
Fanny nosed her little car to the curb. “It’ll have to wait until we get inside,” she said. “Here we are.”
The Room
“Not what you expected, huh?”
It was not. Fanny’s room was small and shabby, no bigger than ten by twelve. Electrical wiring had been strung across the ceiling, and lingerie (a black brassiere and two pairs of panties, one peach, one pink) dangled from it. He said, “Even for a waitress …”
“This is a little extreme? Is that what you think? Rest easy; the department didn’t rent this place for me to go with the job. We aren’t that thorough, and usually we don’t have to be. This is where I live.”
As though to prove it, she sat down on the bed. “If it had gone on longer, I might have picked up some extra money in tips when the weather got a little better. Well, it’s over with now. Tomorrow I’ll tell Blanche about you and get my new assignment. Sit down.”
There was only one chair, a wingback upholstered in faded chintz. He sat, feeling the chair was too small for him, that it had been scaled for a child, that it had once been part of the furnishings of a doll’s house—furnishings dispersed long ago, scattered through smoldering dumps, through Salvation Army stores until only this chair and the doll remained.
“You were going to ask me about Visitors,” she said. “You even said you thought you might be one yourself. Why is that?”
“Because I don’t seem to fit in here.” He paused, laboring to box his feelings in words; and at last he muttered, “I never really know what’s going on.”
Fanny put her fingertips together, reminding him suddenly of the buck-toothed woman in the Downtown Mental Health Center. “Just what is it you don’t understand? I’ll explain if I can.” She rummaged in her purse, took out a battered pack of Chamois and extended it to him. “Smoke?”
“No,” he told her, “and that’s one of them. Hardly anybody smokes any more, except maybe dope. But here almost everybody seems to smoke. Even Mr. Sheng, he smoked a pipe. Klamm smoked a cigar right in the theater. And once when I tried to call my apartment, I got Klamm. I was hoping that Lara would answer, and now I think maybe she was standing there beside him, like she was that night.”
“You know Laura Nomos?”
He shook his head. “Lara Morgan—she used to live with me. I’m looking for her.” He paused to savor the idea. “That’s why I’m here.” Just saying it made him feel stronger.
“You think Laura Nomos and this Lara Morgan are the same person?”
“I don’t know. They look the same—not really the same but like they might be. Maybe this won’t make sense to you, but we used to have a supervisor, Mr. Kolecke, in the department where I worked. He wasn’t friendly like some of them are, and he wasn’t always fair; sometimes he’d crack down on people pretty hard for something that wasn’t their fault at all. But I think probably he got more out of the department than anybody else ever did.
“One day I saw him on the street, and he had a boy and a little girl with him. He looked so different I wasn’t sure it was really him. I followed them a couple of blocks trying to make up my mind, and they went into the Art Museum. I went in too after a while, and he was explaining the pictures to them. Not just what a windmill was and so on, but who the artists had been and where they’d lived, and why they said they painted the way they did.”
Fanny nodded encouragingly.
“Finally I just walked up to him and said, ‘Mr. Kolecke?’ You know the way you do. He looked surprised, then he called me by my first name. We shook hands, and he introduced me to the kids. It seemed funny I hadn’t recognized him right away. But after I thought for a while I saw he hadn’t recognized me either until I said something. I hadn’t felt different just because I was out of the store, wearing different clothes. But I’d looked different to Mr. Kolecke—so different he hadn’t known me until he heard my voice, and I think maybe that’s the way Lara is for me.”
Fanny asked, “Does your hand hurt?” He looked surprised, and she added, “You’ve been holding your wrist with your other hand.”
“Yes, a little bit. Dr. Applewood bandaged it for me this morning. I burned it in the fire last night.”
Fanny leaned forward to look. “Your bandage is wet. You probably got snow on it, and it melted in the car. You’ve cut your finger too. Let me see those, and I’ll give you some dry gauze and some iodine.”
He extended his hands. “What are Visitors? You said you’d tell me about them, but you haven’t told me anything yet.”
“This may hurt a little.”
She tore the old tape away, and it did. With the bandage off, he could trace the angry outline of the burn through its smear of yellowish cream.
“Visitors are people who seem just to appear.” Fanny went to the wooden cabinet over the little sink in the corner and got out a blue cardboard box of surgical gauze. “There’s a place—or anyway, this is how
it looks—that’s a lot like our world, but not quite the same. Or maybe there are several places like that. Anyway, sometimes people leak through. Do you like to go to the zoo?”
He said, “Not in weather like this.”
“I do, and in some sections they’ve got rows of cages side-by-side, just separated by wire. You know, I’m getting pretty far from what the manual says about this. Wait a minute, I’ll read it to you.”
She pulled a booklet bound in scuffed orange paper from a shelf over the table and thumbed through its pages. “‘Visitors: Disoriented persons without verifiable history. Visitors often proffer detailed accounts of supposed homes and past lives, but interrogation soon shows these to be fictitious. Visitors are without the rights of citizenship, and are frequently dangerous. Dangerous visitors are to be destroyed.’” She interrupted her reading to say, “That’s North, or at least that’s what we think now. ‘Harmless visitors are to be put under arrest and brought before a superior or federal district court, which will arrange for institutional custody.’” Her voice hardened. “That’s you, if you’re really a visitor.”
He said, “I’m not. I was only putting you on.”
“That’s what I thought. Do you still want to see Klamm?”
“I don’t know. You know more than I do about all this. What do you think?”
“I don’t know either,” Fanny admitted; she shut the orange booklet and replaced it on the shelf. “Whatever else he may be—and some people hate him—Klamm’s no fool. He could probably help you if he wanted to. I’d like to sleep on it.”
He nodded. “All right.”
“Just like that? Wouldn’t you like me to drive you to the station?”
It was said lightly, but he felt there would be trouble if he agreed. He shook his head instead. “I’m tired and there’s a lot more I should know—things you can tell me if you will.”
“Not about visitors, I hope, since you’re not one.”
“No, not about visitors—although I’m still interested in that, particularly in where they come from. About Klamm. Is this where he lives? This city?”
“Sure, this is the capital. He has to be here for meetings with the President. Naturally he travels a lot, because of his position.”