The Way Through Doors (16 page)

—Then tell me some news, said the dog, playing a neat little jig, and giving a good show with his feet.

—News, asked the bearded man, of what?

—Of the search for Mora, said the dog. I was listening while you spoke to her upon the stairs.

—The search for Mora…murmured the black-bearded man to himself. I do not have news to tell.

Just at that moment, a young man burst through the door, brandishing a bat. He was wearing a very finely tailored gray-blue suit.

—Where is she! he snarled.

—That’s the spirit, said the dog, and played a long wailing note on his fiddle.

—Enough of that, said the black-bearded man. Selah Morse! Leave the bat by the door and come sit down. There is much still to be told.

Selah tossed the bat back the way he had come. It flipped in the air, bounced, righted itself, and settled upright into a corner. Selah did not look back at it.

—Not bad, said the dog.

—You can’t go upstairs, you know, the black-bearded man told Selah. She isn’t ready to see you yet. You can’t find her here until you’ve found her somewhere else first.

At this, the dog jumped up and began to caper about, for he had never before heard the black-bearded man tell a lie.

—Sit down, said the black-bearded man crossly. We can’t have you capering about all the time. Now, Selah, tell us where you have been.

Selah leaned back and took a sip of the black-bearded man’s pint of ale, which had been offered him a moment before.

—I’m afraid, he said, I promised not to speak of it. However, there are others who are not thus bound.

He called out in Russian, and after a moment another man entered and took his seat beside Selah.

—This, said Selah, is the guess artist.

The dog did a pretty bow and sat again. The black-bearded man inclined his head.

—We are all old friends, he said. Are we not?

—These two, said the guess artist, have plagued me from the first.

But he said it in a kind way.

—What shall I do with this? he asked, taking from his coat the polished skull of a cat.

Selah picked it up and handed it to the black-bearded man.

—It is this, he said, that we have brought to barter for our passage upstairs.

The black-bearded man threw back his head, and his laughter shook the inn. The dog jumped up onto the table, upsetting the drinks, and broke the violin in two over his own knee.

—Never in my life, he said, have I seen such a perfect passage paid.

—But it will do no good, said the black-bearded man.

—Tell them how we came, said Selah to the guess artist.

—By the forest route, said the guess artist. There was a storm in the caverns, and the sea had taken to wearing petticoats and bartering like a bandit with the ships that sought to pass across. We wanted nothing to do with that sort of trouble.

—Really tell them how we came, said Selah.

—But do you know to whom you’re speaking? asked the guess artist.

—I am aware, said Selah. Nonetheless…

—Then there should be no need, said the guess artist.

—And yet, said the dog, we too are limited by events.

—Then I should say, said the guess artist, that it was a bright and angry morning when the sailmaker looked up in his loft to see the guess artist and municipal inspector making their way towards him in great haste. The municipal inspector was holding a sheet of paper covered in scrawled crayon, and nodding with certainty to the guess artist. It seemed to be some kind of map.

The sailmaker had been sewing all night, and his hands were large and swollen from the effort of his work. His needles were very sharp and very long, and he stitched stronger and faster and more steadily than any man before or since, yet even he, after his long labor, was tired, and thought now only of his bed, and no longer of the ship that would soon be making its way across the skin of the water, having as
its
strength only whatever his own will might bestow.

—Sir, said the municipal inspector. He approached the man as one might some wary animal that moves very rapidly with only death in reply.

The sailmaker looked them up and down. By this we mean that he did not like what he saw.

—This reminds me, said he, of a short story called
The Arcadist.
There was a man, a stone-mason, in that book who never wanted to be disturbed, and yet everyone was always disturbing him, and so in his town he built a sort of zocalo or center, with the most beautiful arcades that anyone had ever seen. Except that they were poisoned. It never said how, but people would go into the arcades and simply be gone. It was something to do with the color of the stone and the hour of day. At least, that’s the sense I got.

—We are looking for a way to get upstairs, said the municipal inspector. It is widely thought that you are the wisest man who still consents to talk.

—I do consent, don’t I? said the sailmaker-who-wished-he-were-an
-arcadist.

—Certainly, said the guess artist.

—Fortunately, said the municipal inspector.

—If I tell you where to go, then what do I get out of it? asked the sailmaker. I have been sewing this sail all of yesterday through to today. Now you come and ask for more work out of me. You will have to pay dearly.

To the municipal inspector the sailmaker resembled the hibernating bear of Eskimo legend that tells all the secrets of the world while still in its behusked sleep.

—I will give you something of equal value, said the municipal inspector. I can be trusted, he said with a curt nod. I am a municipal inspector.

—Are you now? asked the sailmaker with a disbelieving look. I thought there was only one. An older man.

—Once there was only Levkin, said the guess artist. Now there is Levkin and also M. Selah Morse.

—Oh, you are Selah Morse, said the sailmaker. I have heard of you. You get around.

At that moment everyone turned and looked out an enormous window that stood just to their left. Something huge was moving rapidly across the sky. It was an old Victorian house, shuttling in and out of the clouds.

—It was true, then, said the municipal inspector.

—It is all true, said the guess artist and the sailmaker, each to himself. None of them heard the others.

After a minute, the Victorian house had gone so far west that it was no longer visible. The sailmaker spoke.

—If you want to get upstairs it is very difficult, but not entirely impossible. You have to go first, here in our city, to the tallest building.

—The Empire State Building? asked the guess artist.

—No, said the sailmaker. This is another building, much taller than that. It has long been the tallest, but no one has ever known it, because it is in a very deep hole.

—Oh, said the municipal inspector. How nice.

—It is under the Manhattan Bridge, continued the sailmaker. No. Six Quince Street. A man will be sitting outside. Say virtually anything to him in Cantonese and he will let you by.

—I don’t speak Cantonese, said Selah to the guess artist. Do you?

—No, said the guess artist, but if he is saying something to himself in his head, then I can guess it.

Both men nodded to each other. They turned back to the sailmaker, who was still paused, needle in hand. It was a very long, very thick, and very sharp needle. The sort of needle that might be used to sew your heart shut with rope. Then the thought, What would they pay him? To this end, the municipal inspector spoke.

—I have in mind your payment.

—And a good thing too, said the sailmaker. Excuse me.

He went into a little room behind a wall. For five minutes he was gone, and all that could be heard was the distinct clacking of the second hand of a clock upon the wall. Selah was deep in thought. The guess artist was attempting to figure out what Selah intended to do as payment.

—You are intending, he said, to leave me here as the sailmaker’s indentured servant. I would live for five years and then die of tar poisoning, because the sailmaker’s sails are poisonous and kill everyone who stays too long at their side.

—The sails aren’t poisonous, said Selah. He only wants them to be. And no, you’re too important in helping me to search for me to leave you here as someone’s indentured servant. Besides, this poor man just wants to be alone. And you can’t even make a decent pot of tea. Who wants an indentured servant who can’t make a pot of tea? And furthermore, only struggling families in old books sell their children as indentured servants. The proper documents for such a transaction don’t even exist anymore. And you know as well as I that such men as the sailmaker and myself only do things the proper way.

For the first time the guess artist lowered his head sadly, ashamed at the poorness of his guess. Selah felt chastened by his sadness.

—I’m sorry, he said. Perhaps I was a little curt. Your guesses are always either correct or worth listening to, and mostly both.

The guess artist brightened up. Out of the other room then came the sailmaker carrying three little cups brimming with some odd Romanian aperitif.

—Drink up, he said.

They all downed it in one go.

—Here is your payment, said Selah.

He stretched his shoulders, stretched his wrists, and then delivered himself of the following verse as payment in trade.

Birds that talk as men do

and make of their lives a human mess

drown quickly in the shallow pools

I’ll see to when I die.

The sailmaker’s face brightened.

—How awful! he said. How wonderful! How awful! And can I say it to myself often?

—As often as you like, said Selah. It’s yours now. I thought you would like it. I’ve been saving it to say to someone of your macabre persuasion.

—Also, said the guess artist, you can mutter it quietly when someone you don’t want to speak to is near.

—That’s
true,
said the sailmaker, who had sat down again and begun to stitch once more the massive sail that stretched across the loft floor.

—Until next time, said the guess artist.

—So long, said Selah.

—À bientôt,
said the sailmaker, with the careful accent of one who has spent time in a French penal colony.

Outside, the street came right up to the sailmaker’s loft. It had waited the whole time they were inside speaking to him, and now that they were done, it was ready to go along with them someplace else.

—I was once wrong, you know, more often than two times in three, said the guess artist as they walked.

—What was that like? asked Selah.

They passed by a small shop that sold derelict buttons for trousers and coats and also the right to call yourself a milliner or haberdasher. An old man was sitting in a chair in the shopwindow. At first it seemed that he was dead, but then his nose moved slightly.

—Where does one get that sort of authority? asked the guess artist, examining the man in the window.

—Presumably, said Selah, there is some sort of credential process. Involving perhaps the kissing of a royal hand, and being raised up, etc.

They continued.

—In answer to your question, said the guess artist, it was taxing. People are often offended by wrong guesses as to their thoughts. At the moment, the effect of this is bearable. Often I manage to get only one wrong guess prior to the right one. However, when I had to guess five or six times, the customer would many times stalk off or say cruel things. I never liked that.

—Perhaps we should hire a car, said Selah. After all, there isn’t much time.

Just then a car pulled up, an old roadster from the thirties. A woman who looked very much like Sif was driving it.

—Need a lift? she asked.

—Yeah, said Selah. What a neat car!

The woman smiled at him through her enormous driving goggles.