The Land Across

by Gene Wolfe

  “Do you think it would work?” I was remembering what the archbishop had told us about the hand’s pointing out treasure.

  Papa Iason shook his head. “Prayers by the righteous might free such spirits, or at least assist them in gaining their freedom. Bound spirits would not ask for those, however. Or so I think. The kinds of spirits who might ask such prayers would not remain bound for long. These are still attached to the things of this sad realm into which we are born. They would ask to be avenged upon men long dead, perhaps. More likely, they would not give up their gold for any vengeance.”

  I said, “If they were real ghosts, I’d think they could get all the revenge they wanted by haunting people. Do you think Martya read the hand? Did she say anything about it?”

  “She did not. Could she read Greek?”

  I did not know, but I shook my head.

  “Someone else could have read it for her and told her what it said, I suppose. She was not curious about the tattoos, or so it appeared to me.”

  “Did she mention treasure at all?”

  Papa Iason shook his head.

  “What did she say the hand was for?”

  “She did not propose any use for it. She said it was an evil thing—you will agree that it looks evil—and that it must be destroyed. I think she was too frightened to destroy it herself, although she did not say so.”

  “Let’s move along to Papa Zenon. Maybe we’ll come back to Martya later. Papa Zenon came to see you when?”

  “Yesterday, before you came. About ten o’clock, perhaps. I had said my morning mass and eaten breakfast.”

  That reminded me of the archbishop and the bell tower. “Do you say mass every morning?”

  “I try to. As priests we are required to say a mass every day and to read our breviary. On weekdays I try to say mine very early, so those who wish to hear mass may attend before going to their work. I had shaved and dressed, said mass, eaten breakfast, and looked through the newspaper when Papa Zenon knocked.”

  I nodded. “You let him in?”

  “I did. I was in the parlor going over the parish accounts. Mrs. Varagos was in the kitchen, washing up.”

  “What did Papa Zenon say?”

  “He introduced himself. His Excellency had called him away from his parish in Puraustays, and we talked a little about that. He asked about the hand, whether I had read the tattoos. I explained that I had read some of them, but not all of them. We talked for a time about their wording, whether they were prayers or curses. He feared they might be invocations addressed to demons. After that, he asked many questions about the young woman you call Martya. He even inquired about her shoes. I remember that.”

  I nodded. “What did you say about them?”

  “That they were plain black shoes such as many women wear. She had told me she was a poor woman, but—what was it I said?”

  I told him never mind, and to keep going.

  “I was going to say that she could not have been as poor as many here, since her shoes looked new. Also the shawl in which she had wrapped the hand is of good quality. Have I mentioned the wax seals?”

  I nodded.

  “They are very plain, but I showed them to Papa Zenon and he seemed interested in them. The pieces are still attached to the shawl, you understand. She broke them but did not tear them away.”

  “You’ve still got them?”

  “They are here.” Papa Iason stood up. “I’ll show you.”

  He took out the shawl. It was larger than I expected, with a pattern of ivy leaves and a long dark green fringe. There had been three seals, all of red wax. The stamp on all three was a plain cross.

  Papa Iason pointed to it. “The same seal made all three impressions. I have compared them carefully, and it is so. There is no writing, not even a trace. Either the seal that imprinted them is very old or it was cut by someone who knew nothing of the making of seals. I think the latter.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “He got a wooden dowel and cut this with a pen knife. Probably he drew the cross on first, then cut around it. He did a pretty good job, but he was no pro.” I had already stopped looking at the seals and was looking at the shawl. It looked new, and it felt warm and rich.

  What Papa Iason said next was exactly what I was thinking. “That is not the shawl of a poor woman.”

  I should not have said, “Hell, no!” but I believe I did.

  “It is of silk and lamb’s wool woven together. My cassock is wool and much rougher than this. But in a shop where such things are sold, I have seen cassocks of cloth like this. They were very costly.”

  I spread the shawl out and saw a little label sewn into one side. I could not read it, but I borrowed paper from Papa Iason and copied it down. When I was sure I had all the letters right, I asked him to translate it for me. Here it is in English:

  BEST MILLINERY

  LILY & CIVET, UPSTAIRS

  I said I thought the streets here did not have names, and he said, “They do not. It is the lily and the civet that bother you?”

  “Sure. If they’re not street names, what are they?”

  “There will be a sign. It will say ‘Lily and Civet,’ and there will be pictures on it. A lily is a flower.” He shaped a trumpet with his hands. “A civet is a kind of cat. Its fur has stripes and dots.”

  “Got it. Do you know where this place is?”

  He shook his head. “Look where costly things are sold.”

  So I was back to the dress shops and so forth. Maybe I had walked right under that sign already, but if I had I did not remember it. I wanted to take the shawl with me, but he did not want me to and got mad, so I let him keep it.

  16

  A LONG DAY’S END

  Maybe you will say that I ought to have gone looking for Best Millinery, but I was tired and knew it was a long way back to Naala’s building. What was worse was that the sun was about down, which meant the shops would be closing. The streets were not as crowded as they had been, and every so often you could hear somebody pulling down one of those rolling grills over a shop window.

  The good part was that it was getting cooler. Just the little fire in Papa Iason’s parlor had seemed like way too much to me, but a stiff wind off the lake played with dust and dirty papers in the street, the sun was as good as gone, and I felt like I would wish pretty soon that I had the wool sports jacket Naala had wanted me to wear.

  I was thinking a lot about that when I heard my own voice. It is a funny sensation if it happens when you’re not expecting it, and that time it stopped me dead. After a minute or two I realized that I was talking about the Legion, and that I was hearing a radio. Somebody had an apartment over the street-level shop in the building I was passing, and he had left his radio on and his window open a little. I listened for maybe a minute more before it hit me that it was not a good thing for me to be doing if a cop passed by.

  So I got moving after that and told myself I was not even looking for a sign with a lily and striped cat on it, there would be plenty of time for that tomorrow morning. Only I was looking for it. I could not help it. All that I was really doing was telling myself I was not.

  Then I saw it. Just when I was practically out of downtown and could feel a couple of blisters on my feet, I saw it. The cat had pushed aside the lily to look out at you. Under my breath I said, “Oh gosh, isn’t that cute!” Meaning I would have liked to set it on fire.

  There were doors to two shops, and a third door with a little sign I could not read. Both shop doors were locked, so I figured the third one would be, too. But I shook the handle like you do and the door opened right up and showed me a flight of stairs.

  So okay. I went up, and there was a little hallway there with two more doors. They were locked, but they had glass in them. I looked into both shops, and I could see inside pretty good. Later I found out that was because there were skylights. I will say more about those in a minute. The first shop I looked into made me think of the one that had taken Rosalee in. There were hats on fake heads
and beautiful silk dresses on dummies. Bras and lacy underpants, too. All that stuff.

  The second one had the darnedest jumble of junk I ever saw. There were boxes and books and about a hundred dried roots on a string and something that looked sort of like a man’s head. It had a mustache and a scrawny beard, but it was not much bigger than my fist. My brain started itching when I saw all that, but I was way too tired to be even a little bit smart.

  Well, I went back down the steps and the door at the bottom had locked. In the States a door like that would probably have had some way you could open it from inside. This one did not. There was a sort of brass box on it, and the bolt came out of there and into a smaller brass box on the frame, and that was it.

  So I sat down on the steps and rubbed my feet, and cussed it, and tried to think. I could have kicked that door down, but it would have made a racket and drawn a crowd, and by the time I got it open there would be a cop out there. Maybe two or three.

  I could sit on those steps all night. In the morning somebody might unlock the door, and I might be able to get away from him without getting busted, but maybe not.

  So how about the shops upstairs? If I could get into one, there might be a back door. And if there was, it was probably just bolted from inside. What was more, I could probably break the glass in those doors without anybody outside hearing. I would be doing it up on the second floor, and the windows were closed.

  So up I went. Hats or head? I felt like flipping a coin, but I did not have one. After a minute, what I really did was flip an imaginary coin and call, heads! Naturally that settled it. The glass broke as soon as I kicked it, and in I went.

  That head felt like leather and I was tempted to boost it, but it reminded me of the hand way too much. What if it came alive, too? I let it be.

  There was no back door, no back stairs, nothing like that. On the other hand, there were windows at the front and back of the building, and one on one side. They were locked, sure. But anybody could turn the catch from inside and open the window. I opened one myself just to prove it. It was a back window with a dirty patch of bare ground down below. Maybe I could have let myself down and dropped, and walked away from it. But maybe I would have broken my ankle, too. Basically, looking out of the back and side windows showed you big trees. Out the front windows, you saw a few little trees, then the street, then the trees on the other side.

  I had already noticed the skylights, and it seemed like they might be better. I cleared some stuff off the top of a table and climbed up on it. Opening the skylight was a piece of cake. It took me a couple of minutes, no more than that, to get it open and pull myself up onto the roof. It was flat, gravel over tar. I went to the edge, and sure enough, one of the big trees on the side of the building had reached a limb over the roof. I grabbed it and climbed into the tree, going from limb to limb until I was only about six feet above the ground.

  That was better than okay, but once I was down I had a thought. It was a crazy idea and I was tired, but getting out the way I did had perked me up. What I did was climb up again, which was pretty easy, get up on the roof, and close the skylight.

  I was not just trying to be nice. That skylight was closed now, but not locked. Whoever ran the shop was going to see his glass door had been busted, and he was going to check his stock and find out nothing was missing. (Really I had taken one thing, but it was not from the stock.) So he would figure somebody had broken in but had not found anything he wanted and had gone out the same way. It could be weeks or a month before he noticed his skylight was not locked. Meanwhile I could get in anytime I wanted to by climbing the tree and pulling up the skylight. Want to know why I thought that might be handy? It was just because the head had reminded me of the hand.

  So after that I went back to Naala’s. I did not have a key, but when I knocked on the door she let me in right away. “You I was expecting earlier. I had begun to think some hurt had befall to you.”

  I shook my head. “Nothing. I’ve been walking my feet off, that’s all.”

  “You are not hungry?”

  I just about said I was starved, but I thought about it for half a second or so and realized I was not. I was too tired to be hungry. “No,” I told her, “or not very. If you were to offer me a bowl of corn flakes I’d probably eat it, but I wouldn’t walk outside the building to get one.”

  She gave me the grin. “You fear I will wish you to walk a hundred kilometers to some café.”

  I shook my head. “I fear you’ll wish me to walk fifty meters. Okay if I take off my shoes?”

  “You are my guest, how can I refuse? A glass of wine? Some I have that is not so bad.”

  I only had one shoe off, but I stood up anyhow. “I’ll get it. You must be tired, too.”

  It worked. Naala jumped up and said, “No, I. I know where is it, and you do not. Besides, you would drink the bottle in the kitchen.”

  I sat down again….

  Something touched my hand. Naala’s voice. “It is here.”

  I had leaned back and closed my eyes. Now I opened them again and took the wine.

  “Taste. If you do not like, I will drink.”

  I tasted. “You think I’ll think you’re trying to poison me, right? You won’t, because it wouldn’t make sense.”

  “Also I like you. More also I have the uses for you. So no. Do you like it?”

  It was too sweet for me and not cold enough, but I said I did.

  “A gift from someone who desires many favors. I will complain of it.” She giggled, something that always caught me off guard. “If I complain well, he may give me better. You have walked from shop to shop, yes?”

  “Yes. One hell of a lot.”

  “You did not find Rathaus?”

  “I didn’t even get a smell of him.” I was taking off the other shoe. “Let me tell you something. Either he doesn’t know Rosalee’s out of jail, or he knows she doesn’t need clothes.”

  “Or he is unable. Or too much frightened. Or a hundred other things.”

  “You’re wrong. It’s one of those two things. You’ll see when we find him.”

  For a while Naala did not say anything. She sat down and studied me, sipped from the glass she had poured for herself, and studied me some more. Finally she said, “You do not speak.”

  “I’m tired, like I told you. I’m tired and my feet hurt.”

  “You have found something or learned something. You have that to say which is of interest, but you wait the moment.”

  I shrugged.

  “The moment has arrived, Grafton. What have you learn?”

  “Well, for one thing there’s nobody looking for Rosalee except the JAKA. I saw one, a middle-aged lady. Nice dress, gray hair. Do you know who that is?”

  Naala nodded. “Proceed.”

  “Here’s the bad one, and it may be the biggest I’ve got. I know why Rosalee escaped.”

  “It was not as I said?”

  “No. Or anyhow, not exactly. You know, you could have some food for us delivered here.”

  “Ah-ha! You must be bribed.”

  I grinned. “A pizza or something. That’s pretty cheap for what I’ve got.”

  “That word I do not know, only that it is food you want. I am to walk to the café. There I am to pay and walk empty home. In time someone will bring our food. All so you may remain in my chair and be lazy.”

  “It was just a suggestion.”

  “If I do this you will tell me?”

  I nodded. “Absolutely. Word of honor.”

  “All right. I go. All day I am here. Now for me the breath of evening.”

  She went out, but she was back before I could fall asleep. Say, five minutes tops.

  “Now I have done as you say. Tell me.”

  I said, “I didn’t know there was a café as close as that.”

  “Tell me!”

  “Not til the food comes. I’ll tell you something else instead. Rathaus sent Martya to Papa Iason with the hand.”

  That opene
d her eyes.

  “We thought that the hand was sent so it would kill Papa. That was wrong. It was sent so he could kill it. That’s the only way the stuff I found out makes sense.”

  “Tell me.” Naala was leaning way forward, and her eyes caught the light. I thought of a German shorthaired bitch I had seen one time. In a second or so she would get the signal to range, then she would run from side to side, farther and farther out, sniffing and listening and looking for birds. If they were there, she would find them and point them for the guns.

  “Let’s start here. Martya isn’t hurting. She had on good clothes when she came to see Papa Iason. New shoes and so forth. The hand was wrapped in a shawl—you know that already. I saw it and it’s a good one, not cheap and just about new.”

  “Go on.”

  “As soon as she got there she wanted to know if Papa owned a crucifix. Naturally he did, and his housekeeper said so. When she saw him, she told him he must hold his crucifix in his right hand and throw the hand in the fire with his left.”

  “There was no fire,” Naala said. “This he is tell us.”

  “Huh-uh. He was lying, I think because he was afraid we’d blame him for not burning the hand.”

  “He tells this woman he will do this?”

  “He didn’t say that, but I think he did. Then he got interested in the tattoos and decided he ought to take it to the bishop instead. Either she told him how dangerous it was—he didn’t say she did—or he just sensed it from the way she acted. So he locked it up. She’d had it wrapped in the shawl and the shawl sealed with wax, then both of them put in a basket with a latch. There were crosses on the seals.”

  “You will tell nothing of importance until our food come.”

  “Right.”

  “So I ask no more questions. Instead I tell you. Do you not wonder what I have done?”

  I nodded. “Sure. What were you up to?”

  “I am look for the hand. I tell myself it must be here, in my apartment. It cannot have gotten out. It is too big to crawl through the drains. Can it climb the flue? That is too small for a man, but once I have a squirrel come down, very dirty. He try to climb back up, but he cannot. Always he soon fall back. Can the hand climb where a squirrel cannot? I do not think so.”