The Best of Gene Wolfe

by Gene Wolfe

  * * *

  And now I must, I suppose, explain why I have been writing this account, which has already been the labor of days, and I must even explain why I explain. Very well then. I have written to disclose myself to myself, and I am writing now because I will, I know, sometime read what I am now writing and wonder.

  Perhaps by the time I do, I will have solved the mystery of myself, or perhaps I will no longer care to know the solution.

  * * *

  It has been three years since my release. This house, when Nerissa and I reentered it, was in a very confused state, my aunt having spent her last days, so Mr. Million told me, in a search for my father’s supposed hoard. She did not find it, and I do not think it is to be found; knowing his character better than she, I believe he spent most of what his girls brought him on his experiments and apparatus. I needed money badly myself at first, but the reputation of the house brought women seeking buyers and men seeking to buy. It is hardly necessary, as I told myself when we began, to do more than introduce them, and I have a good staff now. Phaedria lives with us and works too; the brilliant marriage was a failure after all. Last night while I was working in my surgery I heard her at the library door. I opened it and she had the child with her. Someday they’ll want us.

  Afterword

  This was the pivotal story that changed my life. The truly strange thing was that I knew it would do it before it had done it. Damon Knight’s Orbit was my main market back then; I had sold Damon several stories, been invited to his Milford Writer’s Conference, and gone (I think twice).

  He bought this story and praised it. When I said I wanted it to be my next conference story he very reasonably objected that it did not require fixing. I told him I wanted to hear what others said about it, and eventually won him over.

  The time came. We had just bought a new car, small and cheap—but brand-new. I was returning to the Milford Conference (which I loved) with a story I felt certain was good. Ten or twenty miles from Milford, Pennsylvania, I topped a hill and saw yellow dots in the road. They were goldfinches, and as my new car drew nearer they flew up, a golden shower rising from the earth. There are no words to describe how happy I was at that moment, when I felt that a whole new life was opening before me.

  It was perfectly true. One was.

  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. Afterward he read while she watched television. 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 he 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. Pleased 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 Bobs 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 air shaft, bright papered walls with big flowers, a ceiling fixture with a string. And the door, a solid door with a chain and dead bolt. 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 holster. 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 was 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) Bobs 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?

  Bobs 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. Bobs 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’s. “Tiger,” Brain 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. Bobs 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.

  Afterword

  This story was based, in one way, on the Milford Writer’s Conference. In another, on an academic I once knew. Dom (as I shall call him) is dead now, but when “Beech Hill” was written he was a major figure in the study of popular culture.

  You may have heard of Baron von Steuben, one of George Washington’s most valued—and valuable—subordinates. To put it bluntly, von Steuben was a fraud in almost every respect. He said he was a Prussian nobleman and that he had been a general in the army of Frederick the Great. He was a commoner and had been a captain. But he could do what he said he could do. He could turn farm boys into soldiers, and he could do it fast; it was a talent our fledgling America needed desperately—a talent that von Steuben provided.

  Dom was like that. He wore tweed jackets and smoked a pipe. He spoke with a dubious British accent and sounded pompous even when what he said was not. He gave you every reason to think him a lovable fraud. Yet he knew his subject backward and forward and cared deeply about it. I knew him, as I said, and in a way I based the story you have
read upon him. We are the poorer for his passing.

  The Recording

  I have found my record, a record I have owned for fifty years and never played until five minutes ago. Let me explain.

  When I was a small boy—in those dear, dead days of Model A Ford touring cars, horse-drawn milk trucks, and hand-cranked ice-cream freezers—I had an uncle. As a matter of fact, I had several, all brothers of my father, and all, like him, tall and somewhat portly men with faces stamped (as my own is) in the image of their father, the lumberman and land speculator who built this Victorian house for his wife.

  But this particular uncle, my uncle Bill, whose record (in a sense I shall explain) it was, was closer than all the others to me. As the eldest, he was the titular head of the family, for my grandfather had passed away a few years after I was born. My uncle’s capacity for beer was famous, and I suspect now that he was “comfortable” much of the time, a large-waisted (how he would roar if he could see his little nephew’s waistline today!) red-faced, good-humored man whom none of us—for a child catches these attitudes as readily as measles—took wholly seriously.

  The special position which, in my mind, this uncle occupied is not too difficult to explain. Though younger than many men still working, he was said to be retired, and for that reason I saw much more of him than of any of the others. And despite his being something of a figure of fun, I was a little frightened of him, as a child may be of the painted, rowdy clown at a circus; this, I suppose, because of some incident of drunken behavior witnessed at the edge of infancy and not understood. At the same time I loved my uncle, or at least would have said I did, for he was generous with small gifts and often willing to talk when everyone else was “too busy.”

  Why my uncle had promised me a present I have now quite forgotten. It was not my birthday, and not Christmas—I vividly recall the hot, dusty streets over which the maples hung motionless, year-worn leaves. But promise he had, and there was no slightest doubt in my mind about what I wanted.