Storeys from the Old Hotel

by Gene Wolfe

  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.

  He opened it for them and showed them into a living room that might almost have been called a parlor, so full it was of the smell of dust, and mementos of times gone by, and stiff furniture, and old books. There he seated them in two of the stiff chairs and brought out coffee (which he called Java) for the young man and himself, and tea for the young woman. “We used to call this Ceylon tea,” he said. “Now it is Sri Lanka tea, I suppose. The Greeks called it Taprobane, and the Arabs Serendib.”

  The young man and woman nodded politely, not quite sure what he meant.

  There was Scotch shortbread too, and he reminded them that Scotland is only the northern end of the island of Great Britain, and that Scotland itself embraces three famous island groups, the Shetlands, the Orkneys, and the Hebrides. He quoted Thomson to them:

  Or where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls

  Boils round the naked melancholy isles

  Of farthest Thule, and the Atlantic surge

  Pours in among the stormy Hebrides.

  Then he asked the young man if he knew where Thule was.

  “It’s where Prince Valiant comes from in the comic strip, I think,” the young man said. “But not a real place.”

  Dr. Insula shook his head. “It is Iceland.” He turned to the young woman. “Prince Valiant is supposed to be a peer of Arthur’s realm, I believe. You will recall that Arthur was interred on the island of Avalon. Can you tell me, please, where that is?”

  “It is a mythical island west of Ireland,” the young woman said, that being what they had taught her in school.

  “No, it is in Somerset. It was there that his coffin was found, in 1191, inscribed Hic jacet Arthurus Rex, quondam Rex que futuris. Avalon was also the last known resting place of the Holy Grail.”

  The young man said, “I don’t think that’s true history, Dr. Insula.”

  “Why it’s not accepted history, I suppose. Tell me, do you know who wrote True History?”

  “No one writes true history,” the young man said, that being what they had taught him in school. “All history is subjective, reflecting the perceptions and unacknowledged prejudices of the historian.” After his weak answer about Prince Valiant, he was quite proud of that one.

  “Why, then my history is as good as accepted history. And since there really was a King Arthur—he is mentioned in contemporary chronicles—surely it’s more than probable that he was buried in Somerset than in some nonexistent place? But True History was written by Lucian of Samosata.”

  He told them of Lucian’s travels to Antioch, Greece, Italy, and Gaul; and this led him to speak of the ships of that time and the danger of storms and piracy, and the enchantment of the Greek isles. He told them of Apollo’s birth on Delos; of Patmos, where St. John beheld the Apocalypse; and of Phraxos, where the sorcerer Conchis dwelt. He said, “‘To cleave that sea in the gentle autumnal season, murmuring the name of each islet, is to my mind the joy most apt to transport the heart of man to paradise.’” But because it did not rhyme, the young man and the young woman did not know that he was quoting a famous tale.

  At last he said, “But why is it that people at all times and in all places have considered islands unique and uniquely magical? Can either of you tell me that?”

  Both shook their heads.

  “Very well then. One of you has a small boat, I believe.”

  “I do,” the young man said. “It’s an aluminum canoe—you probably saw it on top of my Toyota.”

  “Good. You would have no objection to taking your fellow student as a passenger? I have a homework assignment for both of you. You must go to a certain isle I shall tell you of, and when we next meet describe to me what you find magical there.” And he told them how to go down certain roads to certain others until they came to one that was unpaved and had the river for its end, and how from that place they would see the island.

  “When we meet again,” he said, “I shall reveal to you the true locations of Atlantis, of High Brasail, and of Utopia.” And he quoted these lines:

  Our fabled shores none ever reach,

  No mariner has found our beach,

  Scarcely our mirage is seen,

  And neighbouring waves of floating green,

  . Yet still the oldest charts contain

  Some dotted outline of our main.

  “Okay,” the young man said, and he got up and went out. Dr. Insula rose too, to show the young woman to the door, but he looked so ill that she asked if he were all right. “I am as all right as it is possible for an old man to be,” he told her. “My dear, could you bear one last quotation?” And when she nodded, he whispered:

  The deep

  Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

  ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

  Push off, and sitting well in order smite

  The sounding furrows, for my purpose holds

  To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

  Of all the western stars, until I die.

  It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;

  It may be we shall touch the happy Isles,

  And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

  The young man and the young woman stopped at a delicatessen and bought sandwiches that the young woman paid for, she saying that because the young man was driving, her self-respect (she was careful not to say honor) demanded it. They also bought a six-pack of beer that the young man paid for, he saying that his own self-respect demanded it (he too was careful not to say honor) because she had paid for the sandwiches.

  Then they followed the directions Dr. Insula had given them and so came to a sandy river bank, where they lifted the aluminum canoe from the Toyota and set sail for the little pine-covered island a hundred yards or so downstream.

  There they explored the whole place and threw stones into the water, and sat listening to the wind tell of old things among the boughs of the largest pine.

  And when they had cooled the beer in the leaf-brown river, and eaten the sandwiches they had brought, they paddled back to the spot where they had parked the Toyota, debating how they could tell Dr. Insula he had been mistaken about the island when they came next week—how they could tell him there was no magic there.

  But when the next week came (as the next week always does), and they stood on the shadowed, creaking porch and knocked at the water-spotted oak door, an old woman crossed the street to tell them it was no use to knock.

  “He passed on a week ago yesterday,” she said. “It was such a shame. He’d come out to talk to me that morning, and he was so happy because he was going to meet with his students the next day. He must have gone into his garage after that; that was where they found him.”

  “Sitting in his boat,” the young woman said.

&n
bsp; The old woman nodded. “Why, yes. I suppose you must have heard about it.”

  The young man and the young woman looked at each other then, and thanked her, and walked away. Afterwards they talked about it sometimes and thought about it often; but it was not until much later (when it was time for the long, long vacation that stretches from the week before Christmas to the beginning of the new semester in January, and they would have to separate for nearly a month) that they discovered Dr. Insula had not been mistaken about the island after all.

  Redwood Coast Roamer

  On the Train

  WHEN I LOOK OUT THE WINDOW, the earth seems to have become liquid, rushing to flow over a falls that is always just behind the last car. Wherever that may be. The telephone poles reel like drunks, losing their footing. The mountains, white islands in the fluid landscape, track us for miles, the hills breaking to snow on their beaches.

  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.

  In the Mountains

  It is still snowing, though April has come. The cliffs, the color of anti-rust primer, are dusted with white. Forests of Christmas trees run up them forever. Elk do not fear our train. Three bulls show great racks of horns, but do not fight. They are all good members of the Elks Club now, their bugles silenced.

  I told my wife I had seen a tree that a bear had just walked around. It had that look, I said. She thinks me very silly, does my wife.

  Once I knew a woman who feared bears. She wanted to live in the country, in the deep woods, and so did her husband; but the fear of bears kept them in the city, and they live in the city still, though Goldilocks is gray. Her husband coughs now. The fumes from the plant—from all the plants—have got into his lungs to stay. Once I asked his doctor if he would always cough like that. “No,” his doctor said. “Not always.” Their children have not turned out well.

  How terrible the bears, whose mere thought has destroyed these two. Their wedding picture waits upon the television. There is a framed certificate on the wall, an eight-day clock on the mantle. I went into their basement once to see the man’s collection. An old ax leaned in the corner, the paint of the blade was dull, though the blade was still sharp. Time had dulled the varnish of the unworn handle. I asked about this ax. The man coughed and asked me if I wanted it.

  The woods of the frightful bears are gone now, cut to make houses and books, or perhaps only to clear the land. (Why should land be clear, when each mirror shows an uglier face?) No doubt the frightful bears are gone too, perhaps to the high mountains, the mountains of Montana, of Washington. May they with my heart abide here forever, stalking elk, dodging clumsily, slyly, around Christmas trees, leaving bear tracks in the snow.

  At the Volcano’s Lip

  “You talk too loud,” my wife said, “and so I cannot hear the roar of the earth.” (Our friend had said her friend the pilot said he would not fly. It was snowing, she said he said, on the mountain, and so he would not fly.) We looked for the burning mountain but saw only white clouds. It was pointed out to us in various directions.

  We drove down back roads. They went nowhere, nor did they return upon themselves like the serpents of myth. We saw whole valleys laid waste. “Here,” said my wife, “is the devastation of the volcano.” But the stumps showed the prim labor of saws, the earth the tread of trucks. It was a national forest.

  We bought postcards and a frisbee with a picture of the mountain. She had exploded with the force of five million (or perhaps five billion) tons of TNT, with the force of hydrogen bombs, with a force equal to the combined forces of all the bombs dropped on Japan, plus that of the test that may (or may not) have been conducted by the Union of South Africa. (All this from a ranger who wore a pin with a man’s clenched fist to show herself a feminist.) I picked up a rock that had surely come from the volcano, or at least from some volcano, sometime. I have it in my pocket still, and it will file your fingernails.

  We bought a cup fired with a picture of the volcano and saw a river gray with ash, or perhaps mud. I wish, now, that I had filled the cup with gray water, but now it is much too late. “We would have seen it,” my wife told me, “if you had not talked so loud. They didn’t want your shouting in the plane, drowning the roar of the volcano, the roaring of the engines. But I love you anyway.”

  We returned to Seattle and read in the paper there that the ecologists had seen smoke and scented poisonous vapors, that their instruments all felt the earth trembling, trembling at the margins of the missile silos. It may be, I told my wife, that there are louder talkers coming.

  In the Old Hotel

  We are in the old hotel because our friends are registered too, although they don’t know we are—oh, it’s all too complicated to explain. The jolly Englishman and his jolly daughter. Now, so suddenly, the jolly English girl is in the hospital here, half a world from Devon, and we don’t want to bother him.

  By night the hotel is like an old man resting. The elevator’s machinery (we are on the topmost floor; it is our neighbor) gasps for breath. A pipe in the bathroom clears its throat again and again. Our room was not designed to hold a television, but there is one now, intrusive as a pinball machine. Slips of paper on its top tell us we will get a newspaper tomorrow, a “complimentary” “continental” breakfast.

  Tomorrow and tomorrow. The old hotel is forever looking to tomorrow, striving to show it has a place in the future, that it need not be torn down.

  Yesterday an old man boarded the wheezy elevator with me; then a pretty girl got on at the floor below, and an even prettier one, a radiant blonde, a few floors below that. “They get better all the way down,” the old man had whispered.

  But not for you, old man, I think, lying awake beside my sleeping wife. Your time with the girls is over. And I fall asleep.

  In the morning the paper is at the door; a note in the bathroom says, “We thought you’d like a larger bar of soap,” and a Chinese bellboy brings our rolls and coffee and does not expect the tip he gets. The old hotel smiles its tense smile, polishes its dark wood—an old retainer out to show he does not have to retire so soon, though he may be
a little lame; the little cough will go away. And I want to take it by the hand and say, “God, Kennedy, please don’t go. How we’ll miss you! We’d rather see your false teeth than their false smiles.”

  Later, on the dark, windy street we meet the Englishman and his daughter. “It was over with by noon,” she says. “I’m fit as fit.” He grins at us, white hair blowing, eyes flashing like blue ice in the sun.

  Choice of the Black Goddess

  TEV NOEN LAY IN HIS BUNK, listening to Ler Oeuni’s screams. Something was wrong, he was under some spell. No, it was Oeuni who was under the spell—the spell cast by the surgeon who was taking away Oeuni’s right hand. Oeuni was watching the saw blade, her face calm, her eyes screaming, following the saw back and forth, back and forth. How was it, then, that he could hear her screaming eyes? How was it Oeuni never wept?

  The surgeon said, “This might have been saved by a spell of healing; healing of a spell might have saved this,” and Oeuni screamed again.

  “Too far gone. Can’t make something too far gone.”

  The final word ended with a thump; Noen sat up, habit keeping his head from the deck beams. There was a knock at the door. Ler Oeuni’s scream became only the shrieking of the block that hoisted Windsong’s mainsail, the surgeon’s voice the creaking of a pump and the shuffle of the steward’s feet on the steps descending to his cabin under the quarterdeck.

  No doubt thinking her first knock had gone unheard, she knocked again. “I’m awake,” Noen called. “What’s the time?”

  “Two bells, sir.”

  Noen swore and swung his long legs over the side of his bunk. “I told you to call me at the forenoon watch.” He thrust them into ragged canvas trousers.