Storeys from the Old Hotel

by Gene Wolfe

  At seven I drove to Robakowski’s apartment, having provided myself in the meantime with a four-cell flashlight with which to read building numbers. A fresh reason for my earlier confusion was soon apparent: I had been looking for an apartment building, while Robakowski’s apartment was in fact the upper story of an old house, now provided with its own entrance. I had parked in front of the house and gotten out of my car before I noticed the shadow of what appeared to be an embracing couple thrown on the curtains. Thinking it better to leave them in solitude for a time, I drove to a nearby cafe, drank a leisurely cup of coffee, then telephoned the apartment, intending to ask whether it would be convenient for Robakowski to see me. There was no response.

  I drove back to the apartment. Save for the absence of the amorous silhouette, everything appeared to be as I had left it; lights were still on in the front room and the curtains remained drawn. Admission was through a ground-level door leading to a steep, straight stairway. As I rang the bell, I could not help observing that this door was ajar.

  No doubt I should not have done what I did. I can only say that I was extremely eager to speak with Robakowski, and at that point I was already afraid some danger had overtaken him. After ringing and knocking several times, I entered the apartment and discovered extensive bloodstains in the kitchen, bedroom, and hall. I called the police at once; Robakowski’s body has never been found, and I am told that no arrest has ever been made.

  Dr. Ernest Schwartz, who treated Robakowski during the time he was a patient at Saint Joseph’s Hospital, has contributed an account to The Journal of the American Psychiatric Society. The brief section that I quote here is used with Dr. Schwartz’s kind permission.

  Stan Roland [the pseudonym by which Dr. Schwartz refers to Robakowski—Author] was a white male twenty-three years of age. He had been employed as a maintenance technician at a paper mill since leaving school. He appeared alert but confused, and at no time exhibited either hostility or aggression. There was no history of psychopathic or psychoneurotic disturbance.

  Asked about the episode which brought him to the attention of the police, Roland said that he had gone to Indian River Park with friends in the hope of seeing lights that were occasionally sighted in the park at that time. After a wait of approximately an hour, during which the members of his party chatted and drank beer, Roland and another saw, briefly, a dim blue light moving in the area of the Twin Mounds; this was challenged by those who had not seen it. Armed with a wrench, Roland then climbed the fence surrounding the park (which is closed after dark) in order to investigate. He said that he had visited the park frequently in his boyhood and sporadically thereafter, and was intimately familiar with its geography.

  Nevertheless, by his own account he would seem to have lost his way almost at once. He insisted that trails with which he was familiar had been “taken away,” but that the heavily wooded area was, paradoxically, almost free of underbush, which is not in fact the case. He stated that he saw moving blue and white lights on several occasions but was never able to approach them closely.

  At this point, Roland invariably became agitated, and the order of subjective events is unclear. “She ran into me in the dark.” “I thought I heard somebody screaming off to my right—there was a lot of yelling, and all of a sudden this girl was holding onto me.” “I was just walking along, trying to go fast, you know? And all of a sudden my arms were around her.” There is no objective evidence for the existence of this mysterious young woman, who Roland said could not speak English and seemed terrified.

  They ran though the park together, Roland said, until they were assaulted by invisible beings. Asked how he could know, in darkness, that the beings were invisible, Roland stated that it was not wholly dark and that he could dimly see the young woman beside him, but could at no time catch sight of their attackers, who were thus tactile and auditory hallucinations only.

  Questioned regarding the outcome of this struggle with these invisible beings, Roland said that he had become separated from them and the young woman when he was detained by the police; but that he felt certain they and she were still searching for him. He described his attackers as making “little real quiet sounds,” while the young woman called softly, something that sounded like “Where’d he go?” Reminded that he had said the young woman did not speak English, he declared that he did not think her words were in fact English, although they sounded something like the English phrase he repeated. He said that neither she nor those who had attacked them could see him now; nor could he see them.

  And there the case of the sightings at Twin Mounds remains. UFO contactees have often reported being shadowed or threatened after their experiences were made public, most frequently by men in black (MIBs). Although I personally do not believe that Robakowski’s attackers were MIBs, it cannot be denied that MIBs encountered in the woods at night might seem “invisible beings” to a frightened man. Reports of physical harm at the hands of MIBs are extremely rare, and murder almost unheard-of; and yet murder would appear to have taken place in the mysterious case of Stanley J. Robakowski.

  Additional sightings in the vicinity of Indian River Park have been difficult to verify. Two years ago, an archeological excavation of the Twin Mounds was begun by a team from SUNY Brockport, although no report has been issued. All activity was suspended indefinitely when it was discovered that the site had been contaminated by “modern materials.”

  Continuing Westward

  CONTINUING WESTWARD UNTIL NEARLY SUNDOWN we came to a village of stone huts. Earlier it had been very hot, even with the wind from the airscrew in our faces. The upper wing had provided a certain amount of shade for me, but Sanderson, my observer, had nothing but his leather flying helmet between his head and the sun, and I believe that by the time we halted he was near delirium. Every few miles he would lean forward, tap me on the shoulder, and ask, “Suppose the landing gear goes too, eh? What then? What shall we do then?” and I would try to shout something reassuring over my shoulder as we jolted along, or swear at him.

  Both the upper and lower wings had broken about midway on the left. The ends of them and what remained of the bamboo struts and silk trailed on the ground, the focal point of the long plume of dust we raised. I was afraid the dust might be seen by Turkish horse and wanted to get out and cut the wreckage away; but Sanderson argued against it, saying that when we halted it might be possible to effect some repairs. Every few miles one or the other of us would get out and try to tie it up onto the good sections, but it always worked loose again. By the time we reached the village there wasn’t much left but rags and wires.

  The sound of our engine had frightened the people away. We stopped in front of the largest of the huts and I drew my Webley and went up and down the village street looking into doors while Sanderson covered me with the swivel-mounted Lewis gun, but no one was there. A hundred yards off, camels tethered in the scrub watched us with haughty eyes while we found the village well and drank from big, unglazed jars. It was wonderful and we slopped it, letting the water run down our faces and soak our tunics. Then we sat on the coping and smoked until the people, in timorous twos and threes, began to come back.

  The children came first, dirty, very unappealing children with sad faces and thin or bow-bellied bodies; the smaller children naked, the larger in garments like short nightshirts, grey with perspiration and dust.

  Then the women. They wore black camel’s-hair gowns that reached their ankles, yashmaks, and black head shawls. Between shawl and veil their eyes looked huge and very dark, but I noticed that many were blind, or blind in one eye. They didn’t touch us as the children had, or try to talk to us. They pulled the children back, whispering; and when they spoke among themselves, standing in small groups twenty yards away and gesticulating with flashing brown arms, the sound was precisely that of sparrows quarreling in the street, heard from a window several storeys high.

  The men came last, all of them bearded, wearing grey or white or blue-dyed robes. They had dagge
rs in their sashes, and although they never touched them we kept our hands on our revolvers. These men said nothing to us or to each other or the women, but stood around us in a half circle watching and, I thought, waiting. Only the children seemed really interested by our aircraft, and they were too much in awe to do more than stroke the hot cowling with the tips of their fingers. It came to me then that the scene was Old Testament biblical, and I suppose it was; people like this not changing much.

  Eventually a man older than the rest came forward and began to talk to us. His beard was almost white, and he had a deep solemn voice like an ambassador on a state occasion. I looked at Sanderson, who claims to parley-voo wog, but he was as out of it as I. We waited until the old boy had finished, then pointed to our mouths and rubbed our bellies to show that we wanted something to eat.

  It was mutton stew in rice when we got it, everything flavored strongly with saffron and herbs. Not a dish that would have appealed under normal circumstances, but these were far from that, and for a time I dug in as heartily as Sanderson, sitting crosslegged and dipping the stuff up with my fingers.

  The chief and two of his men sat across from us, trying to pretend that this was a normal social dinner. More of the men had tried to crowd in at the beginning, but Sanderson and I had discouraged that, cocking our revolvers and shouting at them until all but these had left. It had resulted, as they say, in a strained atmosphere; but there had been no help for it. At close quarters in the hut we couldn’t have managed more than the three of them if they had decided to rush us with their knives.

  When we had eaten all we could, a sweet was brought out, a sticky pink paste neither of us wanted. Then strong unsweetened coffee in brass cups, and the chiefs daughter.

  Or perhaps his granddaughter or the daughter of one of the other men. We had no way of really knowing; at any rate a young girl in linen trousers and vest, with her fingers and toes hennaed red-pink and her eyes heavily outlined by some black cosmetic. Her hair was braided and coiled high on her head, bound and twined with copper wire and little black discs like coins, and she wore more tinkling junk, hundreds of glass things like jelly beans, around her neck and wrists and on her fingers. She danced for us, jingling and swaying, while an older woman played the flute.

  In cafes I’d seen that sort of thing done so often, and often so much better, that it was absurd that it should effect me as it did. Perhaps I can make it clear: think of a chap who’s learned to swim, and done it often, in tiled natatoriums, seeing the sort of pool a clear brook makes under a willow. Better: a dog raised on butcher’s meat feels his jaws snap the first time on his own rabbit. I glanced at Sanderson and saw that, stuffed as he was with rice and mutton (the man has eaten like a pig ever since I’ve known him and is a joke in our mess), he felt the same way. Once she bent backwards and put her head in my lap the way they do, which gave me a really good look at her; she was a choice piece right enough, but there was one thing I must say gave me a bit of a turn. The little black thingummies I’d thought were coins were really electric dohickies of some sort, though you could see the wires had been twisted together and nothing worked anymore. Even the glass jelly beans had wires in them. I suppose these wogs must have stolen radios or some such from the Turks and torn them up to make jewelry. Then she laid her head in Sanderson’s lap, and looking at him I knew he’d go along.

  They had pitched a tent for us near the plane, and after we had taken her out there the two of us discussed in a friendly way what was to be done. In the end we matched out for her. Sanderson won and I lay down with my Webley in my hand to watch the door of the tent.

  In a way I was glad to be second—happy, you know, for a bit of a rest first. It had been bloody early in the morning when we’d landed to dynamite the Turkish power line, and I kept recalling how the whole great thing had flashed up in our faces while we were still setting the charge. It seemed such a devil of a long time ago, and after that taxiing across the desert dragging the smashed wings while mirages flitted about—a good half million years of that, if the time inside one’s head means anything …

  Mustn’t sleep, though. Sit up. Now her.

  She had taken off her veil when we had brought her in. I kept remembering that, knowing that no act however rash or lewd performed by an Englishwoman could have quite the same meaning that that did for her. She had reached up with a kind of last-gasp panache and unfastened one side of it like a man before a firing squad throwing aside his blindfold—a girl of perhaps fifteen with a high-bridged nose and high cheekbones.

  I had thought then that she would merely submit unless (or until) something broke through that hawk-face reserve. Sitting there listening to her with Sanderson, I knew I had been wrong. They were whispering endearments though neither could understand the other, and there was a sensuous sound to the jingle of the glass beans and little disks that made it easy to imagine her hands stroking an accompaniment to words she scarcely breathed. It seemed incredible that Sanderson had not removed the rubbish when he undressed her but he had not. After a time I felt I could distinguish the locations from which those tiny chimings came: the fingers and wrists, the ankles, the belt over the hips loudest of all.

  It reached a crescendo, a steady ringing urgent as a cry for help, and over it I could hear Sanderson’s harsh breathing. Then it was over and I waited for her to come to me, but she did not.

  Just as I was about to call out or go over and take hold of her they began again. I couldn’t make out what Sanderson was saying—something about loving forever—but I could hear his voice and hers, and I heard the ringing begin again. Outside, the moon rose and sent cold white light through the door.

  They were longer this time; and the pause, too, was longer; but at last they began the third. I tried to stare through the blackness in the tent, but I could see nothing except when a wire or one of the glass beans flashed in the inky shadow. Then there was the insistent jingling again, louder and louder. At last Sanderson gave a sort of gasp, and I heard a rustle as he rolled away from her.

  Half a minute and the jingling began again as she stood up; her feet made soft noises on the matting walking over to where I lay. She spoke, and although I could not understand the words the meaning was clear enough: “Now you.” I holstered my revolver and pulled her down to me. She came willingly enough, sinking to a sitting posture and then, gradually it seemed to me, though I could not see her, lying at full length.

  I ran my hands over her. In the half minute between Sanderson’s gasp and the present I had come to understand what had happened; the only question that remained was the hiding place of her weapon. I stroked her, pretending to make love to her. Under the arms—no. Strapped to the calf—no. She hissed with pleasure, a soft exhalation.

  Then it came to me. There is almost no place where a man will not put his hands when he takes a woman; but there is one, and thus this girl had been able to kill Sanderson after lying with him half the night.

  A man will touch a woman’s legs and arms everywhere, caress her body, kiss her lips and eyes and cheeks and ears. But he will not, if she is elaborately coifed, put his hands in her hair. And if he attempts to, she may stop him without arousing his suspicions.

  She cried out, then bit my hands, as I tore away the disk-threaded wires, but I found it—a knife not much larger than a penknife yet big enough to open the jugular. I knew what I was going to do.

  I threw the knife aside and used the wires to tie her, first stuffing my handkerchief in her mouth as a gag. Then with my revolver in my hand I stepped out into the village street, looking around in the moonlight. I could see no one, but I knew they were there, watching and waiting for her signal. They would be too late.

  Back in the tent I picked her up in my arms, drew a deep breath, then burst out sprinting for the aircraft. Even with her arms and legs bound she fought as best she could, but I stuffed her into Sanderson’s place. They would be after us in moments, but I squandered a few seconds on the compass, striking a lucifer to look at it
though it was hopelessly dotty as usual, having crawled thirty degrees at least away from the north star. The engine coughed, then caught, as I spun the airscrew; and before the aircraft could build up speed I had jumped onto the wing and vaulted into the cockpit. The roar of the exhaust shook the little village now. We rolled forward faster and faster and I felt the tail come up.

  I knew she couldn’t understand me, but I turned back to the girl shouting, “We’ll do it! We’ll find something tomorrow, bamboo or something, and repair the wing! We’ll get back!”

  Sanderson was running after us in his underclothes, so I had been wrong, but I didn’t care. I had her and the aircraft, racing across the desert while meteors miles ahead shot upwards into the sky. “We’ll do it,” I called back. “We’ll fly!” Her eyes said she understood.

  Slaves of Silver

  THE DAY I FORMED MY CONNECTION WITH MARCH B. STREET has remained extraordinarily well fixed in my memory. This shows, of course, that my unconscious—my monitor, I should say; you must pardon me if I sometimes slip into these anthropomorphic terms; it’s the influence of my profession—What was I saying? Oh, yes. My monitor, which of course sorts through my stored data during maintenance periods and wipes the obsolete material out of core, regards the connection as quite important. A tenuous connection, you will say. Yes, but it has endured.

  The hour was late. I had finished the last of my house calls and it was raining. I may be more careful of my physical well-being than I should be, but my profession makes me so and, after all, quite a number of people depend on me. At any rate, instead of walking to my quarters as was my custom I bought a paper and seated myself in a kiosk to read and await the eventual arrival of the monorail.