The Best of Gene Wolfe

by Gene Wolfe

  Mr. Fleer had scrawled a note on a small tablet marked with the Bet-Your-Life emblem. He tore the sheet off as Forlesen watched, and laid it in an empty square near the center of the board. It read: “BID 17 ASK 18 1/4 SNOWMOBILE 5 1/2 UP 1/2 OPEN NEW TERRITORY SHUT DOWN COAL OIL SHOES FLEER.” He left the room, and Forlesen, timing the remark in such a way that it might be supposed that he thought Mr. Fleer out of earshot, said, “I’ll bet he’s a strong player.”

  The man to his left, to whom the remark was nominally addressed, shook his head. “He’s overbought in sporting goods.”

  “Sporting goods seem like a good investment to me,” Forlesen said. “Of course I don’t know the game.”

  “Well, you won’t learn it reading that thing—it’ll only mix you up. The basic rule to remember is that no one has to move, but that anyone can move at any time if he wants to. Fleer hasn’t been here for ten ours—now he’s moved.”

  “On the other hand,” a man in a red jacket said, “this part of the building is kept open at all times, and coffee and sandwiches are brought in every our—some people never leave. I’m the referee.”

  A man with a bristling mustache, who had been arguing with the man in the red jacket a moment before, interjected, “The rules can be changed whenever a quorum agrees—we pull the staple out of the middle of the book, type up a new page, and slip it in. A quorum is three-quarters of the players present but never seven or less.”

  Forlesen said hesitantly, “It’s not likely three-quarters of those present would be seven, is it?”

  “No, it isn’t,” the referee agreed. “We rarely have that many.”

  The man with the mustache said, “You’d better look over your holdings.”

  Forlesen did so, and discovered that he held 100 percent of the stock of a company called International Toys and Foods. He wrote: “BID 34 ASK 32 FFOULKS” on a slip and placed it in the center of the board. “You’ll never get thirty-two for that stuff,” the man with the mustache said. “It isn’t worth near that.”

  Forlesen pointed out that he had an offer to buy in at thirty-four but was finding no takers. The man with the mustache looked puzzled, and Forlesen used the time he had gained to examine the brown pamphlet. Opening it at random he read:

  “We’re a team,” Fields continued, “and we’re going to function as a team. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a quarterback, and a coach”—he pointed toward the ceiling—“up there. It does mean that I expect every man to bat two fifty or better, and the ones that don’t make three hundred had better be damn good Fields. See what I mean?”

  “I buy five hundred, and I’m selling them to you.”

  Forlesen nodded again and asked, “What does our subdivision do? What’s our function?”

  “I said I’m going to buy five hundred shares and then I’m going to sell them back to you.”

  “Not so fast,” Forlesen said. “You don’t own any yet.”

  “Well, I’m buying.” The man with the mustache rummaged among his playing materials and produced some bits of colored paper. Forlesen accepted the money and began to count it.

  The man with the red jacket said: “Coffee. And sandwiches. Spam and Churkey.” The man with the mustache went over to get one, and Forlesen went out the door.

  The corridor was deserted. There had been a feeling of airlessness in the game room, an atmosphere compounded of stale sweat and smoke and the cold, oily coffee left to stagnate in the bottom of the paper hot cups; the corridor was glacial by comparison, filled with quiet wind and the memory of ice. Forlesen stopped outside the door to savor it for a second, and was joined by the man with the mustache, munching a sandwich. “Nice to get out here for a minute, isn’t it?” he said.

  Forlesen nodded.

  “Not that I don’t enjoy the game,” the man with the mustache continued. “I do. I’m in Sales, you know.”

  “I didn’t. I thought everyone was from our division.”

  “Oh, no. There’s several of us Sales guys, and some Advertising guys. Brought in to sharpen you up. That’s what we say.”

  “I’m sure we can use some sharpening.”

  “Well, anyway, I like it—this wheeling and dealing. You know what Sales is—you put pressure on the grocers. Tell them if they don’t stock the new items they’re going to get slow deliveries on the standard stuff, going to lose their discount. A guy doesn’t learn much financial management that way.”

  “Enough,” Forlesen said.

  “Yeah, I guess so.” The man with the mustache swallowed the remainder of his sandwich. “Listen, I got to be going; I’m about to clip some guy in there.”

  Forlesen said, “Good luck,” and walked away, hearing the door to the game room open and close behind him. He went past a number of offices, looking for his own, and up two flights of steps before he found someone who looked as though she could direct him, a sharp-nosed woman who wore glasses.

  “You’re looking at me funny,” the sharp-nosed woman said. She smiled with something of the expression of a blindfolded schoolteacher who has been made to bite a lemon at a Halloween party.

  “You remind me a great deal of someone I know,” Forlesen said, “Mrs. Frost.” As a matter of fact, the woman looked exactly like Miss Fawn.

  The woman’s smile grew somewhat warmer. “Everyone says that. Actually we’re cousins—I’m Miss Fedd.”

  “Say something else.”

  “Do I talk like her too?”

  “No. I think I recognize your voice. This is going to sound rather silly, but when I came here—in the morning, I mean—my car talked to me. I hadn’t thought of it as a female voice, but it sounded just like you.”

  “It’s quite possible,” Miss Fedd said. “I used to be in Traffic, and I still fill in there at times.”

  “I never thought I’d meet you. I was the one who stopped and got out of his car.”

  “A lot of them do, but usually only once. What’s that you’re carrying?”

  “This?” Forlesen held up the brown book; his finger was still thrust between the pages. “A book. I’m afraid to read the ending.”

  “It’s the red book you’re supposed to be afraid to read the end of,” Miss Fedd told him. “It’s the opposite of a mystery—everyone stops before the revelations.”

  “I haven’t even read the beginning of that one,” Forlesen said. “Come to think of it, I haven’t read the beginning of this one either.”

  “We’re not supposed to talk about books here, not even when we haven’t anything to do. What was it you wanted?”

  “I’ve just been transferred into the division, and I was hoping you’d help me find my desk.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Forlesen. Emanuel Forlesen.”

  “Good. I was looking for you—you weren’t at your desk.”

  “No, I wasn’t,” Forlesen said. “I was in the Bet-Your-Life room—well, not recently.”

  “I know. I looked there too. Mr. Frick wants to see you.”

  “Mr. Frick?”

  “Yes. He said to tell you he was planning to do this a bit later today, but he’s got to leave the office a little early. Come on.”

  Miss Fedd walked with short, mincing steps, but so rapidly that Forlesen was forced to trot to keep up. “Why does Mr. Frick want to see me?” He thought of the way he had cheated the man with the mustache, of the time he had baited Fairchild on the telephone, of other things.

  “I’m not supposed to tell,” Miss Fedd said. “This is Mr. Frick’s door.”

  “I know,” Forlesen told her. It was a large door—larger than the other doors in the building—and not painted to resemble metal. Mr. Frick’s plaque was of silver (or perhaps platinum), and had the single word Frick engraved in an almost too-tasteful script. A man Forlesen did not know walked past them as they stood before Mr. Frick’s tasteful plaque; the man wore a hat and carried a briefcase, and had a coat slung over his arm.

  “We’re emptying out a little already,” Miss
Fedd said. “I’d go right in now if I were you—I think he wants to play golf before he goes home.”

  “Aren’t you going in with me?”

  “Of course not—he’s got a group in there already, and I have things to do. Don’t knock; just go in.”

  Forlesen opened the door. The room was very large and crowded; men in expensive suits stood smoking, holding drinks, knocking out their pipes in bronze ashtrays. The tables and the desk—yes, he told himself, there is a desk, a very large desk next to the window at one end, a desk shaped like the lid of a grand piano—the tables and the desk all of dark heavy tropical wood, the tables and the desk all littered with bronze trophies so that the whole room seemed of bronze and black wood and red wool. Several of the men looked at him, then toward the opposite end of the room, and he knew at once who Mr. Frick was: a bald man standing with his back to the room, rather heavy, Forlesen thought, and somewhat below average height. He made his way through the smokers and drink holders. “I’m Emanuel Forlesen.”

  “Oh, there you are.” Mr. Frick turned around. “Ernie Frick, Forlesen.” Mr. Frick had a wide, plump face, a mole over one eyebrow, and a gold tooth. Forlesen felt that he had seen him before.

  “We went to grade school together,” Mr. Frick said. “I bet you don’t remember me, do you?”

  Forlesen shook his head.

  “Well, I’ll be honest—I don’t think I would have remembered you; but I looked up your file while we were getting set for the ceremony. And now that I see you, by gosh, I do remember—I played prisoner’s base with you one day; you used to be able to run like anything.”

  “I wonder where I lost it,” Forlesen said. Mr. Frick and several of the men standing around him laughed, but Forlesen was thinking that he could not possibly be as old as Mr. Frick.

  “Say, that’s pretty good. You know, we must have started at about the same time. Well, some of us go up and some don’t, and I suppose you envy me, but let me tell you I envy you. It’s lonely at the top, the work is hard, and you can never set down the responsibility for a minute. You won’t believe it, but you’ve had the best of it.”

  “I don’t,” Forlesen said.

  “Well, anyway, I’m tired—we’re all tired. Let’s get this over with so we can all go home.” Mr. Frick raised his voice to address the room at large. “Gentlemen, I asked you to come here because you have all been associated at one time or another, in one way or another, with this gentleman here, Mr. Forlesen, to whom I am very happy to present this token of his colleagues’ regard.”

  Someone handed Mr. Frick a box, and he handed it to Forlesen, who opened it while everyone clapped. It was a watch. “I didn’t know it was so late,” Forlesen said.

  Several people laughed; they were already filing out.

  “You’ve been playing Bet-Your-Life, haven’t you?” Mr. Frick said. “A fellow can spend more time at that than he thinks.”

  Forlesen nodded.

  “Say, why don’t you take the rest of the day off? There’s not much of it left anyhow.”

  * * *

  Outside, others, who presumably had not been given the remainder of the day off by Mr. Frick, were straggling toward their cars. As Forlesen walked toward his, feeling as he did the stiffness and the pain in his legs, a bright, new car pulled onto the lot and a couple got out, the man a fresh-faced boy, really, the girl a working-class girl, meticulously made up and dressed, cheaply attractive and forlorn, like the models in the advertisements of third-rate dress shops. They went up the sidewalk hand in hand to kiss, Forlesen felt sure, in the time clock room, and separate, she going up the steps, he down. They would meet for coffee later, both uncomfortable, out of a sense of duty, meet for lunch in the cafeteria, he charging her meal to the paycheck he had not yet received.

  The yellow signs that lined the street read: YIELD; orange and black machines were eating the houses just beyond the light. Forlesen pulled his car into his driveway, over the oil spot. A small man in a dark suit was sitting on a wood and canvas folding stool beside Forlesen’s door, a black bag at his feet; Forlesen spoke to him, but he did not answer. Forlesen shrugged and stepped inside.

  A tall young man stood beside a long, angular object that rested on a sort of trestle in the center of the parlor. “Look what we’ve got for you,” he said.

  Forlesen looked. It was exactly like the box his watch had come in, save that it was much larger: of red-brown wood that seemed almost black, lined with pinkish-white silk.

  “Want to try her out?” the young man said.

  “No, I don’t.” Forlesen had already guessed who the young man must be, and after a moment he added a question: “Where’s your mother?”

  “Busy,” the young man said. “You know how women are. . . . Well, to tell the truth she doesn’t want to come in until it’s over. This lid is neat—watch.” He folded down half the lid. “Like a Dutch door.” He folded it up again. “Don’t you want to try it for size? I’m afraid it’s going to be tight around the shoulders, but it’s got a hell of a good engine.”

  “No,” Forlesen said, “I don’t want to try it out.” Something about the pinkish silk disgusted him. He bent over it to examine it more closely, and the young man took him by the hips and lifted him in as though he were a child, closing the lower half of the lid; it reached to his shirt pockets and effectively pinioned his arms. “Ha, ha,” Forlesen said.

  The young man sniffed. “You don’t think we’d bury you before you’re dead, do you? I just wanted you to try it out, and that was the easiest way. How do you like it?”

  “Get me out of this thing.”

  “In a minute. Is it comfortable? Is it a good fit? It’s costing us quite a bit, you know.”

  “Actually,” Forlesen said, “it’s more comfortable than I had foreseen. The bottom is only thinly padded, but I find the firmness helps my back.”

  “Good, that’s great. Now have you decided about the Explainer?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Didn’t you read your orientation? Everyone’s entitled to an Explainer—in whatever form he chooses—at the end of his life. He—”

  “It seems to me,” Forlesen interrupted, “that it would be more useful at the beginning.”

  “—may be a novelist, aged loremaster, National Hero, warlock, or actor.”

  “None of those sounds quite right for me,” Forlesen said.

  “Or a theologian, philosopher, priest, or doctor.”

  “I don’t think I like those either.”

  “Well, that’s the end of the menu as far as I know,” his son said. “I’ll tell you what—I’ll send him in and you can talk to him yourself; he’s right outside.”

  “That little fellow in the dark suit?” Forlesen asked. His son, whose head was thrust out the door already, paid no attention.

  After a moment the small man came in carrying his bag, and Forlesen’s son placed a chair close to the coffin for him and went into the bedroom. “Well, what’s it going to be,” the small man asked, “or is it going to be nothing?”

  “I don’t know,” Forlesen said. He was looking at the weave of the small man’s suit, the intertwining of the innumerable threads, and realizing that they constituted the universe in themselves, that they were serpents and worms and roots, the black tracks of forgotten rockets across a dark sky, the sine waves of the radiation of the cosmos. “I wish I could talk to my wife.”

  “Your wife is dead,” the small man said “The kid didn’t want to tell you. We got her laid out in the next room. What’ll it be? Doctor, priest, philosopher, theologian, actor, warlock, National Hero, aged loremaster, or novelist?”

  “I don’t know,” Forlesen said again. “I want to feel, you know, that this box is a bed—and yet a ship, a ship that will set me free. And yet . . . it’s been a strange life.”

  “You may have been oppressed by demons,” the small man said. “Or revived by unseen aliens who, landing on the Earth eons after the death of the last man, have so
ught to re-create the life of the twentieth century. Or it may be that there is a small pressure, exerted by a tumor in your brain.”

  “Those are the explanations?” Forlesen asked.

  “Those are some of them.”

  “I want to know if it’s meant anything,” Forlesen said. “If what I suffered—if it’s been worth it.”

  “No,” the little man said. “Yes. No. Yes. Yes. No. Yes. Yes. Maybe.”

  Afterword

  There are men—I have known a good many—who work all their lives for the same Fortune 500 company. They have families to support, and no skills that will permit them to leave and support their families by other means in another place. Their work is of little value, because few, if any, assignments of value come to them. They spend an amazing amount of time trying to find something useful to do. And, failing that, just trying to look busy.

  In time their lives end, as all lives do. As this world recons things they have spent eight thousand days, perhaps, at work; but in a clearer air it has all been the same day.

  The story you have just read was my tribute to them.

  Westwind

  “. . . to all of you, my dearly loved fellow countrymen. And most particularly—as ever—to my eyes, Westwind.”

  One wall of the steaming, stinking room began to waver, the magic portal that had opened upon a garden of almost inconceivable beauty beginning to mist and change. Fountains of marble waved like grass, and rose trees, whose flowery branches wore strands of pearl and diamond, faded to soft old valentines. The ruler’s chair turned to bronze, then to umber, and the ruler himself, fatherly and cunning, wise and unknowable, underwent a succession of transformations, becoming at first a picture, then a poster, and at last a postage stamp.