The Best of Gene Wolfe

by Gene Wolfe

  “More or less,” I said. “Over the gate Dante used, at any rate. It wasn’t this one, so the inscription here may be quite different, if there’s an inscription at all.”

  “You haven’t been there.”

  I shook my head. “Not yet.”

  “But you’re going”—she laughed again, a deep, throaty, very feminine chuckle this time—“and it’s not very far.”

  “Three miles, I’m told, by the old county road. A little less, two perhaps, if you were to cut across the fields, which almost no one does.”

  “I’m not going,” she said.

  “Oh, but you are. So am I. Do you know what they do in Heaven?”

  “Fly around playing harps?”

  “There’s the Celestial Choir, which sings the praises of God throughout all eternity. Everyone else beholds His face.”

  “That’s it?” She was skeptical but amused.

  “That’s it. It’s fine for contemplative saints. They go there, and they love it. They’re the only people suited to it, and it suits them. The unbaptized go to Limbo. All the rest of us go to Hell; and for a few, this is the last stop before they arrive.”

  I waited for her reply, but she had a mouthful of chicken. “There are quite a number of entrances, as the ancients knew. Dodona, Ephyra, Acheron, Averno, and so forth. Dante went in through the crater of Vesuvius, or so rumor had it; to the best of my memory, he never specified the place in his poem.”

  “You said demons stay here.”

  I nodded. “If it weren’t for them, the old people would have to close, I imagine.”

  “But you’re not a demon and neither am I. Isn’t it pretty dangerous for us? You certainly don’t look . . . I don’t mean to be offensive—”

  “I don’t look courageous.” I sighed. “Nor am I. Let me concede that at once, because we need to establish it from the very beginning. I’m innately cautious, and have been accused of cowardice more than once. But don’t you understand that courage has nothing to do with appearances? You must watch a great deal of television; no one would say what you did who did not. Haven’t you ever seen a real hero on the news? Someone who had done something extraordinarily brave? The last one I saw looked very much like the black woman on the pancake mix used to, yet she’d run into a burning tenement to rescue three children. Not her own children, I should add.”

  Eira got up and poured herself a second glass of milk. “I said I didn’t want to hurt your feelings, and I meant it. Just to start with, I can’t afford to tick off anybody just now—I need help. I’m sorry. I really am.”

  “I’m not offended. I’m simply telling you the truth, that you cannot judge by appearances. One of the bravest men I’ve known was short and plump and inclined to be careless, not to say slovenly, about clothes and shaving and so on. A friend said that you couldn’t imagine anyone less military, and he was right. Yet that fat little man had served in combat with the navy and the marines, and with the Israeli Army.”

  “But isn’t it dangerous? You said you weren’t brave to come here.”

  “In the first place, one keeps one’s guard up here. There are precautions, and I take them. In the second, they’re not on duty, so to speak. If they were to commit murder or set the house on fire, the old people would realize immediately who had done it and shut down; so while they are here, they’re on their good behavior.”

  “I see.” She picked up another piece of chicken. “Nice demons.”

  “Not really. But the old man tells me that they usually overpay and are, well, businesslike in their dealings. Those are the best things about evil. It generally has ready money, and doesn’t expect to be trusted. There’s a third reason, as well. Do you want to hear it?”

  “Sure.”

  “Here one can discern them, and rather easily for the most part. When you’ve identified a demon, his ability to harm you is vastly reduced. But past this farm, identification is far more difficult; the demons vanish in the surging tide of mortal humanity that we have been taught by them to call life, and one tends to relax somewhat. Yet scarcely a week goes by in which one does not encounter a demon unaware.”

  “All right, what about the people on their way to Hell? They’re dead, aren’t they?”

  “Some are, and some aren’t.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Exactly what I said. Some are and some are not. It can be difficult to tell. They aren’t ghosts in the conventional sense, you understand, any more than they are corpses, but the people who have left the corpse and the ghost behind.”

  “Would you mind if I warmed up a couple of pieces of this, and toasted some of that bread? We could share it.”

  I shook my head. “Not in the least, but I’m practically finished.”

  She rose, and I wondered whether she realized just how graceful she was. “I’ve got a dead brother, my brother Eric.”

  I said that I was sorry to hear it.

  “It was a long time ago, when I was a kid. He was four, I think, and he fell off the balcony. Mother always said he was an angel now, an angel up in Heaven. Do dead people really get to be angels if they’re good?”

  “I don’t know; it’s an interesting question. There’s a suggestion in the Book of Tobit that the Archangel Raphael is actually an ancestor of Tobit’s. Angel means ‘messenger,’ as you probably know, so if God were to employ one of the blest as a messenger, he or she could be regarded as an angel, I’d think.”

  “Devils are fallen angels, aren’t they? I mean, if they exist.” She dropped three pieces of chicken into a frying pan, hesitated, and added a fourth. “So if good people really get recycled as angels, shouldn’t the bad ones get to be devils or demons?”

  I admitted that it seemed plausible.

  She lit the stove with a kitchen match, turning the burner higher than I would have. “You sound like you come here pretty often. You must talk to them at breakfast, or whenever. You ought to know.”

  “Since you don’t believe me, wouldn’t it be logical for you to believe my admission of ignorance?”

  “No way!” She turned to face me, a forefinger upraised. “You’ve got to be consistent, and coming here and talking to lots of demons, you’d know.”

  I protested that information provided by demons could not be relied upon.

  “But what do you think? What’s your best guess? See, I want to find out if there’s any hope for us. You said we’re going to Hell, both of us, and that dude, the Italian—”

  “Dante,” I supplied.

  “Dante says the sign over the door says don’t hope. I went to a school like that for a couple years, come to think of it.”

  “Were they merely strict, or actually sadistic?”

  “Mean. But the teachers lived better than we did—a lot better. If there’s a chance of getting to be one yourself, we could always hope for that.”

  At that moment, we heard a knock at the front door, and her shoulders sagged. “There goes my free room. I guess I’ve got to be going. It was fun talking to you; it really was.”

  I suggested she finish her chicken first.

  “Probably I should. I’ll have to find another place to stay, though, and I’d like to get going before they throw me out. It’s pretty late already.” She hesitated. “Would you buy my wedding ring? I’ve got it right here.” Her thumb and forefinger groped the watch pocket of her blue jeans.

  I took a final bite of coleslaw and pushed back my plate. “It doesn’t matter, actually, whether I want to buy your ring or not. I can’t afford to. Someone in town might, perhaps.”

  A booming voice in the hallway drowned out the old man’s; I knew that the new guest was a demon before I saw him or heard a single intelligible word.

  She held up her ring, a white-gold band set with two small diamonds. “I had a job, but he never let me keep anything from it and I finally caught on—if I kept waiting till I had some money or someplace to go, I’d never get away. So I split, just walked away with nothing but the cl
othes I had on.”

  “Today?” I inquired.

  “Yesterday. Last night I slept in a wrecked truck in a ditch. You probably don’t believe that, but it’s the truth. All night I was afraid somebody’d come to tow it away. There were furniture pads in the back, and I lay on a couple and pulled three more on top of me, and they were pretty warm.”

  “If you can sell your ring,” I said, “there’s a Holiday Inn in town. I should warn you that a great many demons stay there, just as you would expect.”

  The kitchen door opened. Following the old man was one of the largest I have ever seen, swag bellied and broad hipped; he must have stood at least six-foot-six.

  “This’s our kitchen,” the old man told him.

  “I know,” the demon boomed. “I stopped off last year. Naturally you don’t remember, Mr. Hopsack. But I remembered you and this wonderful place of yours. I’ll scrounge around and make out all right.”

  The old man gave Eira a significant look and jerked his head toward the door, at which she nodded almost imperceptibly. I said, “She’s going to stay with me, Len. There’s plenty of room in the bed. You don’t object, I trust?”

  He did, of course, though he was much too diffident to say so; at last he managed, “Double’s six dollars more.”

  I said, “Certainly,” and handed him the money, at which the demon snickered.

  “Just don’t you let Ma find out.”

  When the old man had gone, the demon fished business cards from his vest pocket; I did not trouble to read the one that he handed me, knowing that nothing on it would be true. Eira read hers aloud, however, with a good simulation of admiration. “ ‘J. Gunderson Foulweather, Broker, Commodities Sales.’ ”

  The demon picked up her skillet and tossed her chicken a foot into the air, catching all four pieces with remarkable dexterity. “Soap, dope, rope, or hope. If it’s sold in bulk, I’ll buy it and give you the best price anywhere. If it’s bought in bulk, I sell it cheaper than anybody in the nation. Pleasure to meet you.”

  I introduced myself, pretending not to see his hand, and added, “This is Eira Mumble.”

  “On your way to St. Louis? Lovely city! I know it well.”

  I shook my head.

  She said, “But you’re going somewhere—home to some city—in the morning aren’t you? And you’ve got a car. There are cars parked outside. The black Plymouth?”

  My vehicle is a gray Honda Civic, and I told her so.

  “If I—you know.”

  “Stay in my room tonight.”

  “Will you give me a ride in the morning? Just a ride? Let me off downtown; that’s all I ask.”

  I do not live in St. Louis and had not intended to go there, but I said I would.

  She turned to the demon. “He says this’s close to Hell and the souls of people going there stop off here, sometimes. Is that where you’re going?”

  His booming laugh shook the kitchen. “Not me! Davenport. Going to do a little business in feed corn if I can.”

  Eira looked at me as if to say, There, you see?

  The demon popped the largest piece of chicken into his mouth like an hors d’oeuvre; I have never met one who did not prefer his food smoking hot. “He’s giving you the straight scoop though, Eira. It is.”

  “How’d you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Talk around that chicken like that.”

  He grinned, which made him look like a portly crocodile. “Swallowed it, that’s all. I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten since lunch.”

  “Do you mind if I take the others? I was warming them up for myself, and there’s more in the refrigerator.”

  He stood aside with a mock bow.

  “You’re in this together—this thing about Hell. You and him.” Eira indicated me as she took the frying pan from the stove.

  “We met before?” he boomed at me. I said that we had not, to the best of my memory.

  “Devils—demons are what he calls them. He says there are probably demons sleeping here right now, up on the second floor.”

  I put in, “I implied that, I suppose. I did not state it.”

  “Very likely true,” the demon boomed, adding, “I’m going to make coffee, if anybody wants some.”

  “And the . . . the damned. They’re going to Hell, but they stop off here.”

  He gave me a searching glance. “I’ve been wondering about you, to tell the truth. You seem like the type.”

  I declared that I was alive for the time being.

  “That’s the best anybody can say.”

  “But the cars—” Eira began.

  “Some drive; some fly.” He had discovered slices of ham in the refrigerator, and he slapped them into the frying pan as though he were dealing blackjack. “I used to wonder what they did with all the cars down there.”

  “But you don’t anymore.” Eira was going along now once more willing to play what she thought (or wished me to believe she thought) a rather silly game. “So you found out. What is it?”

  “Nope.” He pulled out one of the wooden yellow-enameled kitchen chairs and sat down with such force I was surprised it did not break. “I quit wondering, that’s all. I’ll find out soon enough, or I won’t. But in places this close—I guess there’s others—you get four kinds of folks.” He displayed thick fingers, each with a ring that looked as if it had cost a great deal more than Eira’s. “There’s guys that’s still alive, like our friend here.” He clenched one finger. “Then there’s staff. You know what I mean?”

  Eira looked puzzled. “Devils?”

  “J. Gunderson Foulweather”—the demon jerked his thumb at his vest— “doesn’t call anybody racial names unless they hurt him or his, especially when there’s liable to be a few eating breakfast in the morning. Staff, okay? Free angels. Some of them are business contacts of mine. They told me about this place; that’s why I came the first time.”

  He clenched a second finger and touched the third with the index finger of his free hand. “Then there’s future inmates. You used a word J. Gunderson Foul-weather himself wouldn’t say in the presence of a lady, but since you’re the only lady here, no harm done. Colonists, okay?”

  “Wait a minute.” Eira looked from him to me. “You both claim they stop off here.”

  We nodded.

  “On their way to Hell. So why do they go? Why don’t they just go off,” she hesitated, searching for the right word, and finished weakly, “back home or something?”

  The demon boomed, “You want to field this one?”

  I shook my head. “Your information is superior to mine, I feel certain.”

  “Okay, a friend of mine was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey. You ever been to Newark?”

  “No,” Eira said.

  “Some parts are pretty nice, but it’s not, like, the hub of Creation, see? He went to France when he was twenty-two and stayed twenty years, doing jobs for American magazines around Paris. Learned to speak the language better than the natives. He’s a photographer, a good one.”

  The demon’s coffee had begun to perk. He glanced around at it, sniffed appreciatively, and turned back to us, still holding up his ring and little fingers. “Twenty years, then he goes back to Newark. J. Gunderson Foulweather doesn’t stick his nose into other people’s business, but I asked him the same thing you did me: how come? He said he felt like he belonged there.”

  Eira nodded slowly.

  I said, “The staff, as you call them, might hasten the process, I imagine.”

  The demon appeared thoughtful. “Could be. Sometimes, anyhow.” He touched the fourth and final finger. “All the first three’s pretty common from what I hear. Only there’s another kind you don’t hardly ever see. The runaways.”

  Eira chewed and swallowed. “You mean people escape?”

  “That’s what I hear. Down at the bottom, Hell’s pretty rough, you know? Higher up it’s not so bad.”

  I put in, “That’s what Dante reported too.”

&nbs
p; “You know him? Nice guy. I never been there myself, but that’s what they say. Up at the top it’s not so bad, sort of like one of those country-club jails for politicians. The guys up there could jump the fence and walk out. Only they don’t, because they know they’d get caught and sent down where things aren’t so nice. Only every so often somebody does. So you got them too, headed out. Anybody want coffee? I made plenty.”

  Long before he had reached his point, I had realized what it was; I found it difficult to speak, but managed to say that I was going up to bed and coffee would keep me awake.

  “You, Eira?”

  She shook her head. It was at that moment that I at last concluded that she was truly beautiful, not merely attractive in an unconventional way. “I’ve had all I want, really. You can have my toast for your ham.”

  I confess that I heaved a sigh of relief when the kitchen door swung shut behind us. As we mounted the steep, carpeted stairs, the house seemed so silent that I supposed for a moment that the demon had dematerialized, or whatever it is they do. He began to whistle a hymn in the kitchen, and I looked around sharply.

  She said, “He scares you, doesn’t he? He scares me too. I don’t know why.”

  I did, or believed I did, though I forbore.

  “You probably thought I was going to switch—spend the night with him instead of you—but I’d rather sleep outside in your car.”

  I said, “Thank you,” or something of the kind, and Eira took my hand; it was the first physical intimacy of any sort between us.

  When we reached the top of the stair, she said, “Maybe you’d like it if I waited out here in the hall till you get undressed? I won’t run away.”

  I shook my head. “I told you I take precautions. As long as you’re in my company, those precautions protect you as well to a considerable extent. Out here alone, you’d be completely vulnerable.”

  I unlocked the door of my room, opened it, and switched on the light. “Come in, please. There are things in here, enough protection to keep us both safe tonight, I believe. Just don’t touch them. Don’t touch anything you don’t understand.”

  “You’re keeping out demons?” She was no longer laughing, I noticed.

  “Unwanted guests of every sort.” I endeavored to sound confident, though I have had little proof of the effectiveness of those old spells. I shut and relocked the door behind us.