The Land Across

by Gene Wolfe

  “So you shot him.”

  Naala shook her head. “I open the window for him, but he does not see. Always he tries to climb up and scratches down more soot. At last I try to hit him with the poker, but I cannot. He tries and tries until he falls dead.”

  “So you don’t think the hand could do it.”

  “I do not. There is nothing to grasp but soot, and always the soot give way. Also, if the hand try to climb it must knock down soot. I look, but there is none. It is here, I tell myself. It must be here.”

  I said, “You’re probably right.”

  “It is not. I look everyplace it might be and in many places where it could not be, places too small. I look also in places that are locked. It is in none of them. Have you eaten today?”

  I remembered the crispy bread and plum jam. “Yeah, a little.”

  “I have not. Not since you go.”

  “Okay, I get the picture. Ask me a question. I’ll give you a straight answer if I can.”

  “Where is Rathaus?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve really got no idea. Outside the city, if I had to guess. Is there a big park outside the city? Or a swamp? Anyplace with lots of trees and animals?”

  “The Frost Forest, perhaps.”

  I had some trouble translating that name for myself. Later I talked to a few other people about what it meant, because I had come up with “Forest of the Small Ice” and a couple of others along that line. “Little-Ice Forest” made sense until you thought about it. Anyway, I asked Naala why they called it that.

  “Because the ice there does not melt until midsummer. In the old time, people went there and cut ice in June. This they brought into the city and sold. It is no longer needed, but perhaps you understand.”

  “I think so.” I had been letting my eyes wander around the room looking for places where the hand might hide. “Did you look in that closet?”

  “Everywhere I look. This closet? Pah! I take out everything. I search each as I put back in.”

  “How hard would it be to search the Frost Forest for Rathaus?”

  “Hard, yes. Impossible, no. We would call upon the army, which we do not like to do. For it we must go to the Ministry of War without hats and bow very low. It would take three weeks, a month, and if Rathaus is warn…” Her shoulders rose and fell.

  “I got it. We’ll try to smoke him out on our own.”

  “With which you must help. You say you do not find him, but it seem you find much. Soon our food come. Tell me more.”

  “Okay. There’s two things. I’m pretty sure they’re going to come together eventually, but they haven’t done it yet. One’s Rosalee. The other’s the hand. Which do you want to hear about?”

  “The hand. It is for the hand I search.”

  There was a little tap at the door. Naala motioned to me, so I walked over in my stocking feet and opened it. The kid outside was so small I thought at first there was nobody there.

  “He won’t send nothin’,” the kid said. “Tell the lady. The man at Horváth’s. Tell her.”

  Naala was behind me by then. “For this he suffer.”

  “He say he got nobody to carry. I got your money.” The kid fumbled in his pocket.

  “That is for you. You did as I said and so earned it. You may keep it.” Naala turned to me. “Put on your shoes. We go out.”

  If arguing would have done me any good, I would have argued. The sound of her voice told me it would only get me shot.

  “First to Horváth’s. You are a good fighter.”

  “No, I’m not!”

  “You must be, so you are. After, we eat.”

  I could only hope the other guy was worse than I was.

  Horváth’s was smaller than most of the cafés I had seen, and maybe a little cleaner. It might have held eight or ten, but there were only three or four customers inside, plus a big man and a girl, both wearing aprons. She was sweeping out, and he was behind the counter packing coffee mugs back into a cabinet. The mugs were in a tin tray and had probably just been washed in the kitchen. I tried to size him up while I hung my sports coat on the back of a chair. A good wool sports coat is something you do not want to fight in.

  Naala got his attention by grabbing the edge of the tray and dumping the cups on the floor. A couple of them broke. “So,” she hissed, “it is impossible for you to send someone with my suppers.” He was a lot bigger than Kleon but maybe twenty years older.

  There was a glass case half full of pastries on the counter. Naala had better luck with that than the cups. The glass broke when it fell and the pastries scattered all over. He had turned around to look at her by then, his eyes popping.

  “You wish to summon the police? Do so! Many I know. Them I shall be glad to see. Hit him, Grafton!”

  I feinted with my right and busted his mouth with my left, figuring he was not expecting it. Most likely he was not expecting anything. He took a step back and threw his hands up to his face the way you do. There was a metal carafe on the work counter behind him, so I picked that up and banged him over the head with it, putting everything I had into the bang. It must have been at least half full, because it felt heavy and he went down and stayed down.

  I was putting my jacket back on when the girl with the broom ran up and whispered, “Thank you! Oh, thank you!” I knew then that I had seen her before, but for half an hour or so I could not remember who she was.

  Outside, Naala said, “His mouth bleeds. You have cut the lips. This I see.”

  “Probably his teeth did it. He had good, strong teeth.” I was rubbing my knuckles. I had turned them horizontal and nailed him with everything I had, and they still hurt.

  “When you knock at my door, you are a most tired young man. No longer. You will be strong and straight in my bed tonight, and this too I see.”

  Hearing Naala say that I felt like whistling, so I whistled. She would think I was an idiot, and I knew it. Only if I had not whistled, for the rest of my life I would remember that moment and how I had wanted to whistle but had not had the guts.

  I was still whistling when we sat down at an outside table at a café sort of down the street. (I mean as much as you could talk about down the street in that crazy city. In Puraustays the blocks with buildings had been square or else rectangular, but mostly square. Here some were round or kidney-shaped.)

  It was pretty cold for outside tables by that time. There was another couple two tables over, and maybe half a dozen empty tables. There were a lot more people inside. “Here is more private,” Naala explained. “For you and I, private is good. Also I hear better the things you say. Why it is the Rathaus woman do not need clothes?”

  “Because she’s hiding out in one of those dress shops. She’s scared of you, and I promised her I wouldn’t tell you which one. So I won’t. But you could find her easy enough anytime you really wanted to, and I’ll produce her if we need her.”

  “The shopkeeper hides her?”

  “Right. And gave her some nice clothes. The thing is, we mustn’t send her back. You thought at first that somebody must have gotten her out.”

  Naala nodded.

  “Well, in a way somebody did. There was a girl named Yelena in there who looked a lot like Rosalee. She slept in the same building, and had a bed not very far from where Rosalee slept on the floor. Rosalee was lying there nearly asleep when she saw a man come in and go from bed to bed looking at the women. When he came to Yelena’s bed, he stabbed her. Or anyway that was what Rosalee thought she saw.”

  Naala raised an eyebrow. “But he did not?”

  “I don’t think so.” I was getting close to things I really did not want to talk about. “I think it must have been a hypodermic needle. Something like that. Only Rosalee thought it was a knife, and as soon as he was gone she got out fast. I never asked her exactly how she got out, but we both know security’s pretty lax. They’re counting on the women not wanting to get out all that much.”

  A waiter showed up about then, and we ordered kabanos.


  When he had gone, I said, “I told you about Yelena. Nobody saw anything wrong until she collapsed. They took her to the infirmary, and I went to see her there.”

  “Yes. What did you learn from her?”

  “More respect for death, I guess. She couldn’t talk much, but I was sitting beside her when she died, thinking about the man Rosalee’d seen.”

  “It was Rathaus? Like him?”

  “It was everybody. She couldn’t see him that well, just a man. I asked her how she knew it was a man, but she couldn’t tell me. She just knew. Men move differently, I guess.”

  “This Yelena, she does not cry out?”

  “When he stabbed her? I doubt it. Rosalee didn’t say anything about it.” I thought back. “Yelena gave me a name, a guy who kept hanging around her. Ferenc Narkatsos. She said he wouldn’t try to kill her, but I don’t think anybody really wanted to kill her. I think they were after Rosalee.”

  “I, also,” Naala said. “We will remember this name when we have nothing else, perhaps. You have more for me, you say. The woman who brings the hand to Papa? You say Rathaus sends her. This is because you wish to find her. You will say Rathaus and I will look for her for you.”

  I shook my head. “I said it because it’s true. I’d like to find Martya, sure. But she’s mixed up in this, and if I’m going to get her out I need to understand what’s going on. For one thing I’ve got to find out how Rathaus got the hand. Another one is I have to find out how he got Martya.”

  “If he have her, of which you are too confident. You speak again with Papa.”

  I nodded. “You were the one who said Martya might have mentioned me to Papa Iason, and that might be the reason Papa Zenon was sure she was here.”

  “I am guilty. I do not know this, or anything. Only that Papa Zenon believe she have come here. He is not like you—for say it he must have some reason. Papa Iason does not tell you she says this?”

  “No. I was hoping he would, but he told me everything she said while she was with him. Or anyway he said he did. And that wasn’t in it.”

  Naala looked thoughtful. “Too many are elbowing, one pushing another.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “What it say. Those who send the gray-hair lady and three more hope to find Rathaus first. I hope to find Rathaus first. Papa Zenon hope to find those who free him before us.”

  I said, “You still haven’t asked me how I know it was Rathaus who sent Martya with the hand.”

  “I do not ask this because it is too easy. She is go to Rathaus’s son, of all priests. Rathaus think, ‘My son will do this and will not bungle.’ Others would not think this.”

  “Nope. I’ve got more. There are two shops, right side-by-side. One handles ladies’ clothes, good stuff. The other one magic supplies. Not for tricks with boxes like that guy we saw, but roots and dried flowers, funny stones all polished and packed in cotton in little boxes. Powders. Bones. Stuff in bottles with labels I couldn’t read. Like that. It was one of the places that bought dolls from Russ.”

  “The Rathaus woman tells this?” I could see Naala was interested.

  “No. She can’t remember the names. I know about it because I broke into the shop and saw some of Russ’s dolls. That shop next door, with women’s clothes? It’s where the shawl came from.”

  After that, Naala was quiet until our sausages came. There was bread and butter and mustard, and lots of other stuff with them. So while she was thinking hard, I built a sandwich, kabanos and grilled garlic on nice soft white bread.

  Finally she said, “It may be that Rathaus is hiding in that shop.”

  I shook my head. “He isn’t there. I looked.”

  “They let you search?”

  Head shake again. “I broke in. I told you that.”

  “You perhaps break into prison.”

  “I’ve been in prison already,” I explained. “I was put in for nothing and locked up in there until you got me out. I figure I might as well do whatever’s handy. Then if I have to go back I won’t waste a lot of time thinking how innocent I am. Hey, if the American embassy knew about me, would they try to get me out?”

  “You are rich and famous?”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ve got it. Don’t laugh at me.”

  “I am not laughing. You find much in one day. I am try to think of one in JAKA who sometime find out so much so fast, but I cannot. We send a letter to Papa.”

  “Papa Iason?”

  “Of course no. Papa Zenon.”

  She clapped her hands, and when the waiter came she got paper and an envelope from him. I watched her write for a while, and that was when I remembered the girl with the red pen. The guy I had punched out in the coffee shop was not the one who had been sitting with her in the other café. I was pretty sure of that. When Naala had finished, I asked her what she had said.

  “I say that we are not his enemies, and he is not ours. Friends is better. We are search for Rathaus, Papa for those who work magic by the help of devils. These are not the same, but we believe Rathaus know who they are, also that they know where Rathaus hide. They are key to him, and the hand is key to them. We are given the hand by His Excellency, as he know. Let us work as one.”

  “That sounds good,” I told her, “only you said you couldn’t find the hand.”

  Naala smiled. “I do not say we have it still. Also, it may be we find it tonight, you and I. Too soon it is to say it is forever gone.”

  “Okay.”

  “At end I say let us meet for breakfast in the Great Square Café. It is where we see him this morning.”

  She had been folding the paper while she talked. She waved to our waiter, and when he came over she showed her badge and gave him the letter and some money. He nodded a lot, listening to her instructions, and when he left he was almost running.

  “Will he read it?” I asked her.

  “This I do not think, but perhaps I am wrong. If he read, he will not learn much. What is he to do? Say to Rathaus the JAKA look for him? Rathaus already know, I think. Tell to the magic workers, ‘The archbishop does not like you?’”

  I ate and thought. Pretty soon my sandwich was gone, and I had hardly tasted it. Finally I said, “You’re after something Papa Zenon knows. Or anyway, something you think he might know. Something you want to find out.”

  Naala laughed. “To you I am glass. Two things.”

  “Will you tell me?”

  “If you wish. First I desire to know what it is Papa Iason tells by which Papa Zenon know the woman who brings the hand is your Martya.”

  I said, “I see what you mean. Yeah, we’d sure like to have that.”

  “Also does Papa Iason know where is Rathaus? He will not tell Papa Zenon this, I think. But Papa Zenon is more clever than him. He may know Papa Iason knows, or know he does not. This will be most useful for us.”

  “You ought to have somebody follow Papa Iason. That’s how they would do it back in America.”

  “Amerika have more operatives than we, perhaps. We cannot waste three on this priest. If he knows, it is not waste and so is good. But we must know he knows this.”

  “You could assign one.”

  “To which hours? Shall he begin at nine and go home at five? If Papa Iason go, night is most probable, but night is most hard, too. Two operatives by night, then. Or three. Five should be enough, perhaps. Now this. A man come to see Papa. Our operative do not see his face. He go away. Should two operatives follow? Or it is better they stay to watch the house?”

  So more thinking for me. Finally I said, “Could you put a bug on his bike?”

  “I have ask for this already. Tomorrow it is done, perhaps. We will find out.”

  “Got it.”

  “Let us go back. What is the name of the shop you find that have the dolls?”

  “I couldn’t read it. I’ve been trying to catch onto the sounds of your letters, but I’m not very good at them yet. You get fancy, like English.”

  “Then is easy
for you.”

  “I wish it was.” I was fishing in my shirt pocket. “I didn’t steal anything from that shop, but I took a business card. There was a little stack of those on the counter.” I handed the card to her.

  “This is good.” She pointed to a corner. “Here is name of owner.”

  “That’s what I figured it was.”

  “It is a name I already hear. Do you know this?”

  I shook my head. “I couldn’t read it. I told you.”

  “Then I read for you. ‘Abderos Narkatsos.’”

  It sounded familiar. I scratched my head.

  “You say Ferenc Narkatsos.”

  “That’s what Yelena said. That was the guy who always hung around her.”

  “It is the same family? That would be good to know. Tomorrow I will find out.”

  I said, “I don’t see where that’s a clue at all.” I had finished my sandwich by then and was sipping wine.

  “Nor I. But when you investigate and here is the same thing twice, you look more. This I will do.”

  That was the gist of what we said that evening, and pretty soon we got up to go. There were cops at Horváth’s, one talking to some man I had never seen before, and one eating some kind of sweet roll. The girl who had been sweeping, the girl with the red pen, was out of sight if she was still around. Naala did not stop, so neither did I. I stuck my right hand in the side pocket of my jacket, I guess because I was trying to look cool.

  Only there was a hand in there already. It took hold of mine and gave it a little squeeze, like it wanted to be friends.

  17

  FROM THEIR DARK PLACES

  We were both tired. I had drunk a couple of glasses of zip-code wine at the café, and more wine back in Naala’s apartment. Not a whole lot—it might have been three glasses. About like that, and Naala had killed the bottle, so we were fuzzy when we got into bed. One of us would go to sleep and the other one would wake that one up doing stuff. It went on for quite a while.