by Gene Wolfe
Ler Oeuni said softly, “I hope you don’t mind, sir.”
He spun around. She was in his bunk, her face, her bandaged arm, and one bare shoulder visible above the blanket.
“It was lonesome in the wardroom with Dinnile gone,” she whispered, “and I wanted to tell somebody how brave I was.”
When he had kissed her, she added, “I’ll bet you were brave too, Noen.”
Beech Hill
“BUBBA GOES OFF BY HIMSELF LIKE THIS EVERY YEAR—don’t you, Bubba?” So Maryanne had said, and looked venomously at Bobs. He recalled it as he sat in Beech Hill pretending to read, his legs primly together, his back (because, no longer young, it hurt if he sat on his spine) straight.
“I suppose he needs it. Uh … needs the rest.” Thus Mrs. Hilliard, a friend of Maryanne’s friend Mrs. Main.
“That’s what I always say. I say: ‘Bubba, God knows you work hard all year. We don’t have much money, but you go off by yourself like you always do and spend it. I can get around in my chair perfectly well, and anyway Martha Main will come over to look after me. Nobody ought to have to take care of a cripple forever, but if it wasn’t for Martha I don’t know what I’d do.’”
Mrs. Hilliard had asked, “Where do you go, Mr. Roberts?”
Someone came in, and Bobs looked up and saw the Countess, black hair stretched tight around her after-midnight face. His watch said seven and he wondered if she had been up all night.
At seven, fifty-one weeks of the year, he was at work. He looked at the watch again. Twelve hours later he and Maryanne had dinner, again at seven. Afterwards he read while she watched TV. At six he would get up, and at seven relieve the night man.
Bishop came in, followed by a young man Bobs had not seen before. The young man was pale and nervous, Bishop portly and assured behind mustache, beard, eyebrows, and tumbling iron-gray forelock. “You’re among us early this morning, Countess.”
“I could not sleep. It is often so.”
Bishop nodded sympathetically, then gestured toward the young man beside him. “Countess, may I present Dr. Preston Potts. Dr. Potts is a physicist and mathematician—the man who developed the lunar forcing vectors. You may have heard of him …”
More formally he said to Potts, “Dr. Potts, the Countess Esterhazy.”
“I have heard of Dr. Potts, and I am charmed.” The Countess held out a limp hand glittering with rhinestones. “I at first thought you were a doctor who might give me something for my not sleeping, but I am even so charmed.”
Potts stammered: “Our a-a-astronauts have trouble sleeping too. If you imagine you’re in space it might help you f-f-feel better about it.”
The Countess answered, “We are all in space always, are we not?” and smiled her sleepy smile.
For a moment Potts stood transfixed, then managed to smile weakly in return. “You are something of a mathematician yourself. Yes, we are all in space or we would not exist—perhaps that’s why we sometimes have trouble sleeping.”
“You are so clever.”
“And this is Mr. Roberts,” Bishop continued, drawing Potts away from the Countess. “I cannot tell you a great deal about Mr. Roberts’s activities, but he is one of the men who protect the things you discover.”
Bobs stood to shake hands and added: “And who occasionally arrange that you discover what someone else has just discovered on the other side. Please to meet you, Dr. Potts. I know your work.”
“Looks a lot like Bond, doesn’t he?” he overheard Bishop say as the two of them left him. “But he’s different in one respect. Our Mr. Roberts is the real thing.”
Bobs sat down again. There was a Walther PPK under his left arm, but it was no help and he felt unsettled and a little afraid. Behind him, at the far end of the big room, Bishop was introducing Potts to someone else—Claude Brain, the wild animal trainer, from the sound of the voice—and he caught the words, “Welcome to Beech Hill.”
Each year he came to Beech Hill by bus, with an overnight stop. The stop had, itself, become a ritual. In fact the entire trip from the moment he carried his bag out of the apartment was marked with golden milestones, events that were—so strong was the anticipation of pleasure—pleasures themselves.
To enter the terminal and buy his ticket; to sit on the long wooden bench with the travel-worn, with the servicemen on leave, with the young, worried, cheaply clothed women with babies, and the silent, shabby men (like himself) he always hoped were going to their own Beech Hills, but who, in their misery, could not have been.
To sit with his bag between his feet, then carry it to be stowed in the compartment under the bus’s floor. To zoom the air-conditioned roads and watch the city slip behind. The hum of the tires was song, and if he were to fall asleep on the bus (he never did) he would know even sleeping where he was.
And the stop. The hotel. A small, old, threadbare hotel; they never put him in the same room twice, but he could walk the corridors and recall them all: Here’s where, coming, in ‘62. There in ’63. The fourth floor in ’64. He stayed at the hotel on the return trip as well, but the rooms, even last year’s room, faded.
Checking in; he always asked if they had his reservation, and they always did. A card to sign—R. Roberts, address, no car.
And the room: a small room on an airshaft, bright papered walls with big flowers, a ceiling fixture with a string. And the door, a solid door with a chain and deadbolt. Snick! Rattle! His bag on the bed. Secret papers on the bed. Not NOW, Maryanne, I’m not decent. His hand on the Luger. If Maryanne should see those—It would be his duty, and the Organization would cover for him as it always did … Suppose she hadn’t heard him? Come in—Snickback!—Maryanne, Rattle! His own sister, they say. There’s devotion for you!
He always changed at the hotel the day he arrived, not waiting until morning. This time too, he had removed his old workaday clothes, showered, and, glowing, gone to the open bag for new, clean underwear bought for the occasion—and executive length hose. His shirt of artificial fabrics that looked like silk stayed new from year to year; he wore it only at Beech Hill. His slacks were inexpensive, but never before worn.
He was proud of his jacket, though it had been very cheap; an old Norfolk jacket, much abused (by someone else) but London made. The elbows had been patched with leather; the tweed smelled faintly of shotgun smoke, and the pockets were rubber lined for carrying game. Handy in my line of business. Just the sort of coat the right sort of man would continue to wear though it was worn out, or nearly. Also just the sort to effectively conceal his HSc Mauser in his shoulder holster—at Beech Hill.
But not at the stop. Regretfully he left the Mauser in his bag; but this too was part of the ritual. The empty holster beneath his arm, the strange clothes, told him where he was. Even if he had fallen asleep … (but he never did.)
There were restaurants near the hotel, and he ate quietly a meal made sumptuous by custom. There was a newsstand where he stopped for a few paperbacks, and, next door, a barbershop.
A haircut was not part of the ritual, but it might well be. He might, in years to come, remember this as the year when he had first had his hair cut on the way to Beech Hill. The shop was clean, busy, but not too busy, smelling of powder and alcoholic tonics. He stepped inside, and as he did a customer was stripped of his striped robe and dusted with the whisk. “You’re next,” the barber said.
Bobs looked at another (waiting) customer, but the man gestured wordlessly toward the first chair.
“Chin up, please. Medium on the sides?”
“Fine.”
There was a television, not offensively loud, in a corner. The news. He watched.
“Don’t move your head, sir.”
The man on the screen was portly, expensively dressed, intelligent looking. A newsman, microphone in hand, spoke deferentially:—a strike …, pollution … , Washington? …
“I know that man.” Bobs twisted in the chair. “He’s a billionaire.”
“Damn near. He sure enough owns a
lot around here.” When Bobs paid him the barber said, “You feel okay, sir?”
The next day he dropped the black Beretta into its holder. On the bus the weight of it made him feel for a moment (he had closed his eyes) that the woman next to him was leaning against him. The woman next to him became Wally Wallace, a salesman he had once known, the man who had introduced him to Beech Hill; but that seemed perfectly natural. Opposite, so that the four of them were face to face as passengers had once sat in trains, were Bishop and his wife, pretending not to know them. This was courtesy—the Bishops never spoke to anyone until it had been definitely decided what they were going to be. He knew that without being told.
“You,” Wally began. Bobs suddenly realized that he (Bobs) was ten years younger, and the wistful thought came that he would not remain so. “ … can’t beat this place. There’s nothing like it.” Bobs had wondered if Wally were not getting a commission—or at least a reduction in his own rate—for each new guest he brought. Wally had returned the second year, but never after that. Lost in the jungle he loved.
When Bishop and Potts and Claude Brain were gone (they had said something about a morning swim) he remarked to the Countess, “I saw a friend of ours on television. On my way up.” He mentioned the billionaire’s name.
“Ah,” said the Countess: “Such a nice man. But,” (she smiled brilliantly) “married.”
“He was here when I first came.”
At first he thought the Countess was no longer listening to him, then he realized that he had not spoken aloud. The billionaire had been there when he had first come. Very young, as everyone had said, to have made so much money. Great drive.
And yet perhaps—he tried to push the thought back, but it came bursting in anyway, invading his consciousness like the wind entering a pauper’s shack: perhaps he had made it.
He had wanted to badly. You could see it in his eyes. And then—
What fun! What sport to return, posing with the others year after year.
The bastard.
The bastard. Was he here yet?
He could not sit still. The fear was on him, and he stalked out of the immense house that was Beech Hill, hardly caring where he was going. The ground sloped down, and ahead the clear water of the lake gleamed. Half a dozen guests were swimming there already: drama critic, heart surgeon, the madame of New York’s most exclusive brothel. Fashion designer, big game hunter, test pilot. He stood and watched them until Claude Brain, coming up behind him, said, “No dip today, Roberts?”
“I don’t usually,” Bobs replied, turning. Brain was in trunks. His arms were horribly scarred, and there were more scars on his chest and belly.
His eyes followed Bobs’. “Tiger,” he said. “I was lucky.”
“I guess it’s hard to become a wild animal man? Hard to get started?”
Brain nodded. “There aren’t many spots. A few places around Hollywood, and a few shows. You try and try, but most of them have already had so much trouble with greenhorns they won’t touch you.”
“I’ll bet,” Bobs said sympathetically.
“Hell, I did everything. For years. Sold shoes, worked in a factory. Bought my own animals. First one was a mountain lion. Cost me three hundred and fifty, and I’ve still got him.”
“I know how you must feel,” Bobs said. He watched Brain go down into the water. His back was scarred too.
There was a path along the water’s edge. He walked slowly, head down, until he saw the girl; then she looked at him and smiled, and he said, “Sorry. Hope I’m not intruding.”
“Not at all,” the girl said. “I should be over with the others, but I’m afraid I’m shy.” She was beautiful, in the blond-cheerleader girl-next-door way.
“Your first season?”
She nodded.
“You’re the actress then. Bishop said something about you when I checked in last night.”
“Thanks for not saying starlet.” She smiled again.
“The star. That’s what Bishop called you. Have you made many pictures?”
“Just one—Bikini Bash. You didn’t—”
Bobs shook his head. “But I will, the next chance I get.”
“They say a lot of important people come here.”
Bobs nodded. “To look at the nuts.”
The girl laughed. “I get it. Beechnuts.”
“Yeah, Beechnuts. Listen, I want you to do me a favor.” He drew his pistol and handed it to her. “What’s this?”
Puzzled, she looked at it for a moment, then laughed again. “A toy pistol?”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course. It says right here on it: British Imperial Manufacture , and then: MADE IN HONG KONG.”
He took the gun and threw it as far as he could out into the lake. She stared at him, so he said: “Remember that. You may be called to testify later,” before he walked away.
Sightings at Twin Mounds
THIS PUZZLING CASE PRESENTS SEVERAL UNIQUE FEATURES; because it is of more than ordinary interest, I shall quote several of the documents in full; my attention was originally attracted by the United Press Wire-Service story below.
UFOs SPOTTED OVER PARK
Residents of upstate Duke County report brilliant blue and white lights circling over Indian River State Park after midnight. On several occasions hundreds of persons from nearby Colbyville are said to have assembled outside the park to watch. According to a State Police report, a patrol car was dispatched to the scene Wednesday night. No lights were observed, but the officers who entered the park, which closes at six, discovered an incoherent man. The man has been hospitalized.
The Guide to American Parks supplied the following:
Indian River. Site of moderately extensive mounds c. A.D. 1300. Picnic and camping facilities (no showers). Boat trips on the Indian River. Apparently a cult site, there are several mounds of interest—Eagle Mound, Twin Mounds, Snake Mounds—surrounded by an earthen wall which remains nearly complete. An Algonquin legend has it that the site commemorates a raid on an Algonquin village by Iroquois, in which all the Algonquins perished with the exception of the chiefs daughter, who fled into the forest pursued by the Iroquois warparty. Encountering the wendigo, she begged it to defend her.
It killed many Iroquois braves before both were slain. When avenging Algonquins drove off the raiding Iroquois, the chiefs daughter and the wendigo were buried under the Twin Mounds. This legend may arise from the similarity of the hemispherical mounds to a woman’s breasts.
That sent me to the public library, where the Encyclopedia of Amerind Folklore told what the wendigo was—or at least, what one was supposed to be.
wendigo, wiendigo, or windigo A giant ogre in the mythology of certain northeastern tribes. Hunters lost in the forest without food are thought to turn cannibal and, through the effects of eating human flesh, become wendigo, fearsome enemies of human beings possessing great strength and appearing and vanishing at will.
While I was at the library, I requested a week’s copies of the Colbyville Courier; they arrived a few days later. Several carried half-jocular stories concerning moving lights and “giant spaceships” hovering over Indian River State Park. I quote only that which appears to me most significant.
STANLEY J. ROBAKOWSKI FOUND UNCONSCIOUS
Stanley J. Robakowski of Colbyville, an employee of the Brewster Paper Company, was discovered in Indian River Park last night by troops investigating lights observed on park property. Police state that Mr. Robakowski was unable to account for his presence inside the park and allegedly appeared disoriented. After being administered a Breathometer test he was admitted to St. Joseph’s Hospital. Asked whether Mr. Robakowski was thought responsible for lights observed at the park, a NYSP spokesperson stated that the police had no evidence to suggest that. Several witnesses stated emphatically that they had observed moving lights above the trees after police departed with Mr. Robakowski in custody.
After getting Stanley J. Robakowski’s telephone number from Dir
ectory Assistance, I rang his apartment in Colbyville; no one answered. Saint Joseph’s Hospital confirmed that he was still a patient but refused to put my call through to his room.
By this time I felt fairly sure that Stanley Robakowski was a contactee, and I was very anxious to interview him; I drove to Colbyville the following day. Saint Joseph’s informed me that Robakowski had been discharged nearly twenty-four hours before. I checked into a hotel and telephoned his apartment again. He answered and, though reticent, gave me his address and agreed to speak to me in person.
Here I must confess my own shortcoming—one I regret more than any other involving UFO studies: I was unable to locate Robakowski’s apartment that night. I was in an unfamiliar city, it was raining (which kept those who might have provided me with directions indoors, besides reducing visibility) and the streets of Colbyville are dark and poorly marked. After two fruitless hours, I returned to my hotel room, telephoned Robakowski again, explained my difficulty, and asked whether it would be possible for him to meet me there.
He refused, saying that he had to return to work at seven the following day and intended to go to bed. I then requested an interview next evening, to which he agreed.
With a day to kill in Colbyville, I drove to Indian River State Park, where I saw the mounds and spoke to several persons who had seen lights over the park. All agreed that no lights had been present for the past two nights. They were described as very bright, usually white or blue-white, but occasionally yellow. One informant stated that they proceeded from what she termed a “wingless airplane”—that is to say, a torpedo-shaped flying object. She drew the object for me, her sketch showing a row of lights, much like the portholes of a ship, along one side of the object (Plate VI).