The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

XVI

"Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood."

OSCAR WILDE 1854-1900

I watched them out of sight, then started walking slowly. It was easier to walk than to stand still and there was no place near to sit down. My stump ached and all the weariness of the past few days hit me. My mind was numb. I continued to move toward the Raffles Hotel because I was headed that way, programmed.

The Raffles was even seedier than I had recalled. But I suspected that Rabbi Ezra knew what he was talking about- this, or nothing. In any case I wanted to get out of the public eye; I would have accepted a much poorer hostelry as long as it enabled me to get behind a closed door.

I told the man at the desk that Rabbi Ezra had sent me and asked what he had. I think he offered me his most expensive room still vacant: eighteen crowns.

I ran through the ritual dicker but my heart wasn't in it. I settled for fourteen crowns, paid it, accepted a key; the clerk turned a large book toward me. "Sign here. And show me your air receipt."

"Eh? When did this kaka start?"

"With the new administration, chum. I don't like it any more than you do but either I comply or they shut me down."

I thought about it. Was I "Richard Ames"? Why cause a cop to salivate at the thought of a reward? Colin Campbell? Someone with a long memory might recognize that name-and think of Walker Evans.

I wrote, "Richard Campbell, Novylen."

"Thank you, gospodin. Room L is at the end of this passage on the left. There's no dining room but our kitchen has dumbwaiter service to the rooms. If you want dinner here, please note that the kitchen shuts down at twenty-one o'clock. Except for liquor and ice, dumbwaiter service ends at the same time. But there is an all-night Sloppy Joe across the corridor and north about fifty meters. No cooking in the rooms."

"Thank you."

"Do you want company? Straight arrow, lefthand drive, or versatile, all ages and sexes and catering only to high-class clientele."

"Thanks again. I'm very tired."

It was a room adequate for my needs; I didn't mind its shabbiness. There was a single bed and a couch that opened out, and a refresher, small but with all the usual offices, and no water restriction-I promised myself a hot bath... later, later! A shelf bracket in the bed-sitting room seemed to have been intended for a communication terminal; now it was empty. Near it, let into the rock, was a brass plate:

In This Room on Tuesday 14 May 2075 Adam Selene. Bemardo de la Paz. Manuel Davis, and Wyoming Knott Created the Plan That Gave Rise to Free Luna. Here They Declared the Revolution!

I was not impressed. Yes, those four were heroes of the Revolution but in the year in which I buried Colin Campbell and created Richard Ames I had stayed in a dozen-odd hotel rooms in L-City; most of them had sported a similar sign. It was like the "Washington Slept Here" signs back in my native country: bait for tourists, any resemblance to truth a happy accident.

Not that I cared. I took off my foot, lay down on the couch, and tried to make my mind blank.

Gwen! Oh, damn, damn, damn!

Had I been a stiff-necked fool? Perhaps. But, damn it all, there is a limit. I didn't mind indulging Gwen in most things. It was all right to let her make decisions for both of us and I hadn't squawked even when she did so without consulting me. But she should not encourage this pensioner to defy me-now should she? I should not have to put up with that. A man can't live that way.

But I can't live without her!

Not true, not true! Up until this week-hardly more than three days ago-you lived without her... and you can do without her now.

I can do without my missing foot, too. But I don't like not having both feet and I'll never get used to the loss. Sure, you can do without Gwen; you won't die without her-but admit it, stupid: In the past thirty years you've been happy just this brief time, the hours since Gwen moved in and married you. Hours loaded with danger and blatant injustice and fighting and hardship, and it all mattered not a whit; you've been bubbling over with happiness simply because she was at your side.

And now you've sent her away.

Put on your stupid hat. Fasten it with rivets; you'll never need to take it off again.

But I was right!

So? What has being "right" got to do with staying married?

I must have slept (I was mortal tired), as I remember things that did not happen, nightmares-e.g., Gwen had been raped and killed in Bottom Alley. But rape is as scarce in Luna City as it is commonplace in San Francisco. Over eighty years since the last one and the groundhog who committed it didn't last long enough to be eliminated; the men who responded to her screams tore him to pieces.

Later it was learned that she had screamed because he hadn't paid her. This made no difference. To a Loonie a hooker is just as sacred in her person as is the Virgin Mary. I am a Loonie only by adoption but I agree deep in my heart. The only proper punishment for rape is death, forthwith, no appeal.

There used to be, dirtside, legal defenses called "diminished capacity" and "not guilty by reason of insanity." These concepts would bewilder a Loonie. In Luna City a man would necessarily be of diminished mental capacity even to think about rape; to carry one out would be the strongest possible proof of insanity-but among Loonies such mental disorders would not gain a rapist any sympathy. Loonies do not psychoanalyze a rapist;

they kill him. Now. Fast. Brutally.

San Francisco should learn from Loonies. So should every city where it is not safe for a woman to walk alone. In Luna our ladies are never afraid of men, be they family, friends, or strangers; in Luna men do not harm women-or they die!

I had awakened sobbing in grief uncontrollable. Gwen was dead, Gwen had been raped and murdered and it was my fault!

Even when I had wakened wide enough to fit back into my proper continuity I was still bawling-I knew that it had been just a dream, a nasty nightmare... but my guilt feelings were undiminished. I had indeed failed to protect my darling. I had told her to leave me. "-start walking and don't look back." Oh, folly unplumbable!

What can I do about it?

Find her! Maybe she'll forgive me. Women seem to have almost unlimited capacity for forgiveness. (Since it is usually a man who needs forgiveness, this must be a racial survival trait.)

But first I had to find her.

I felt overpowering need to go out and start searching- jump on my horse and gallop in all directions. But that is the classic case given in mathematics textbooks of how not to find someone who is lost. I had no idea of where to look for Gwen, but she just possibly might look for me by checking the Raffles-if she had second thoughts. If she did, I must be here, not out searching at random.

But I could improve the odds. Call the Daily Lunatic; place an advertisement-place more than one sort: a classified ad, a box ad, and-best!-a commercial spiel to go out on every terminal with the Lunatic's hourly news bulletins.

If that doesn't work, what will you do?

Oh, shut up and write the ad!

Gwen, Call me at the Raffles. Richard.

Gwen, Please call me! I'm at the Raffles. Love, Richard.

Dearest Gwen, For the sake of what we had, please call me. I'm at the Raffles. Love always, Richard.

Gwen, I was wrong. Let me try again. I'm at the Raffles. All my love, Richard.

I jittered over it, finally decided mat number two was best- changed my mind; number four held more appeal. Changed it again-the simplicity of number two was better. Or even number one. Oh, hell, stupid, just place an ad! Ask her to call; if you have any chance of getting her back, she won't boggle at

how you word it.

Call it in from the hotel office? No, leave a note there, telling Gwen where you are going and why and what time you'll be back and please wait... then hurry to the newspaper's office and get it on the terminals at once-and into their next edition. Then hurry back.

So I put on my false foot, wrote out the note to leave at the desk, and grabbed my cane-and that split-second timing I have noticed too many times in my life again took place, a timing that impels me more than anything else to think that this crazy world is somehow planned, not chaos. A knock at my door-

I hurried to open it. It was she! Glory hallelujah! She seemed even smaller than I knew her to be, and all big round solemn eyes. She was carrying the little potted maple as if it were a love offering-perhaps it was. "Richard, will you let me come back? Please?"

All happening at once I took the little tree and put it on the floor and picked her up and closed the door and sat her on the couch myself beside her and we were crying sobs and tears and talking all mixed up together.

After a while we slowed and I shut up enough that I heard what she was saying: "I'm sorry Richard I was wrong I should have backed you but I was hurt and angry and too stinking proud to turn back and tell you so and when I did you were gone and I didn't know what to do. Oh, God, darling, don't ever let me leave you again; make me stay! You're bigger than I am; if I ever get angry again and try to leave, pick me up and turn me around but don't let me leave!"

"I won't let you leave again, ever. I was wrong, dear; I should not have made an issue of it; that's no way to love and cherish. I surrender, horse and foot. Make a pet out of Bill any way you like; I won't say a word. Go ahead, spoil him rotten."

"No, Richard, no! I was wrong. Bill needed a stem lesson and I should have backed you up and let you straighten him out. However-" Gwen unwound herself a little, reached for her purse, opened it. I said,

"Mind the alligator! Careful."

She smiled for the first time. "Adele certainly took that hook, line and sinker."

"Do you mean that there is not an alligator in there?"

"Goodness, sweetheart, do you think I'm eccentric?"

"Oh, Heaven forbid!"

"Just a mousetrap and her imagination. Here-" Gwen placed a wad of money, paper and metal, beside her on the couch. "I made Bill give it back. What he had left, I mean; he should have had three times as much. I'm afraid Bill is one of those weaklings who can't carry money without spending it. I must figure out how to spank him for it till he learns better. In the meantime he can't have any cash until he earns it."

"As soon as he earns any money he should pay me ninety days' air fee," I put in. "Gwen, I really am vexed about that. Vexed at him, not at you. His attitude about paying for air. But I'm sorry as can be that I let it slop over onto you."

"But you were right, dear. Bill's attitude about paying for air reflects his wrong-headedness in general. So I've discovered. We sat in Old Dome and discussed many things. Richard, Bill has the socialist disease in its worst form; he thinks the world owes him a living. He told me sincerely-smugly!- that of course everyone was entitled to the best possible medical and hospital service-free of course, unlimited of course, and of course the government should pay for it. He couldn't even understand the mathematical impossibility of what he was demanding. But it's not just free air and free therapy, Bill honestly believes that anything he wants must be possible... and should be free." She shivered. "I couldn't shake his opinion on anything."

"'The Road Song of the Bandar-Log.'"

"Excuse me?"

"From a poet a couple of centuries back, Rudyard Kipling. The bandar-log-apes, they were-believed that anything was possible just by wishing it so."

"Yes, that's Bill. In all seriousness he explains how things should be ... then it's up to the government to make it happen. Just pass a law. Richard, he thinks of 'the government' the way a savage thinks of idols. Or- No, I don't know, I don't understand how his mind works. We talked at each other but we didn't reach each other. He believes his nonsense. Richard, we made a mistake-or I did. We should not have rescued Bill."

"Wrong, honey girl."

"No, dear. I thought I could rehabilitate him. I was wrong."

"That's not how I meant you were wrong. Remember the rats?"

'•Oh."

"Don't sound so miserable. We took Bill with us because each of us was afraid that, if we didn't, he would be killed, possibly eaten alive by rats. Gwen, we both knew the hazards of picking up stray kittens, we both understood the concept 'Chinese obligation.' We did it anyhow." I tilted up her chin, kissed her. "And we would again, this very minute. Knowing the price."

"Oh, I love you!"

"I love you, too, in a sweaty, vulgar fashion."

"Uh... now?"

"I need a bath."

"We can bathe later."

I had just retrieved Gwen's other baggage, temporarily forgotten outside the door-and happily untouched-and we were getting ready to bathe when Gwen bent over the little tree, then picked it up and put it on the shelf table by the dumbwaiter so she could get at it better. "Present for you, Richard."

"Goodie. Girls? Or liquor?"

"Neither. Although I understand both are readily available.

The desk manager wanted a cut of my fee when I bought Bill a key here."

"Bill is here?"

"Overnight, in the cheapest single. Richard, I didn't know what to do with Bill. I would have told him to find his own doss in Bottom Alley if I hadn't heard something Rabbi Ezra said about rats. Dam it all, there did not used to be rats down there. Luna City is getting to be a slum."

"I'm afraid you're right."

"I fed him, too-there is a Sloppy Joe up the line. He eats enough for four-perhaps you've noticed?"

"I have."

"Richard, I could not abandon Bill without feeding him and finding him a safe bed. But tomorrow is another story. I told him that I expected him to shape up-before breakfast."

"Hmmph. Bill would lie for a fried egg. He's a sad sack, Gwen. The saddest."

"I don't think he can lie convincingly. At least I gave him something to think about. He knows that I am angry with him, that I despise his notions, and that the free lunch is about to shut its doors. I hope I have given him a sleepless night. Here, dear-" She had been digging into the potting soil, under the little maple. "For Richard. Better wash them." She handed me six cartridges, Skoda 6.5 mm longs or monkey copies.

I picked one up, examined it. "Wonder woman, you continue to amaze me. Where? When? How?"

Praise made her look sunnily happy and about twelve. "This morning. In Kong. Black market, of course, which simply means finding which counter to look under at Sears. I hid my Miyako under Tree-San before I went shopping, then stashed the ammo there in leaving Xia's place. Sweetheart, I did not know what sort of search we might have to stand if things got sticky in Kong-and they did, but Auntie got us loose."

"Can you cook?"

"I'm an adequate cook."

"You can shoot, you can rassle a rolligon, you can pilot a spacecraft, you can cook. Okay, you're hired. But do you have any other skills?"

"Well, some engineering. I used to be a pretty good lawyer. But I haven't practiced either one lately." She added, "And I can spit between my teeth."

"Supergal! Are you now or have you ever been a member of the human race? Careful how you answer; it will be taken down in writing."

"I decline to answer on advice of counsel. Let's order dinner before they shut down the kitchen."

"I thought you wanted a bath?"

"Do. I'm itchy. But if we don't get the order in soon, we'll have to get dressed and go out to Sloppy Joe's ... and I don't mind Sloppy Joe but I do mind having to get dressed. This is the first completely relaxed, quiet time I've had alone with my husband for, oh, ages. In your suite in Golden Rule before that silly eviction notice."

"Three days."

"As little as that? Truly?"

"Eighty hours. Fairly busy hours, I grant you."

The Raffles has a good kitchen as long as you stick to chef's choice; that night it was meatballs with Swedish pancakes, honey-and-beer sauce-an odd combination that worked. Tossed fresh salad, oil and wine vinegar. Cheese and fresh strawberries. Black tea.

We enjoyed it but an old shoe, suitably sauteed, would have been acceptable, so long had it been since we had eaten. It could have been fried skunk and I would not have noticed;

Gwen's company was all the sauce I needed.

We had been happily chomping away for a half hour, making no attempt to be elegant, when my darling noticed the brass plate in the rock-too busy before then. Understandable.

She got up and looked at it, then said in a hushed voice, "I'll be a Hollywood hooker. This is the place! Richard, this is the very cradle of the Revolution! And here I've sat, belching and scratching, as if this were just any hotel room."

I said, "Sit down and finish your dinner, love. Three out of four hotel rooms in Luna City have signs something like that."

"Not like that. Richard, what is the number of this i )0'n?"

"Doesn't have a number-a letter. Room L."

"'Room L'-yes! This is the place! Richard, in any nation back dirtside, a national shrine this important would have an eternal flame. Likely a guard of honor. But here- Somebody puts up that little brass plaque, and it's forgotten. Even on Free Luna Day. But that's Loonies. Weirdest mob in the known universe. My word!"

I said, "Darling girl, if it pleases you to think that this room is truly what that sign says-fine! In the meantime sit back down and eat. Or shall I eat your strawberries?"

Gwen did not answer; she did sit down, then kept quiet. She merely toyed with the fruit and cheese. I finally said, "Sweetheart, something is bothering you."

"I won't die from it."

"Glad to hear it. Well, when you feel like talking, I'm all ears. Meanwhile I'll simply fan you with them. Don't feel hurried."

"Richard-" Her voice sounded choked. I was surprised to see tears slowly creeping down each side of her nose.

"Yes, dear?"

"I've told you a pack of lies. I-"

"Stop right there. My love, my lusty little love, I have always believed that women should be allowed to lie as much as they need to and never be taxed with it. Lies can be their only defense against an unfriendly world. I have not quizzed you about your past-have I?"

"No but-"

"Again stop. I haven't. You volunteered a few things. But, even so, I've shut you up a couple of times when you were about to have an attack of pernicious autobiography. Gwen, I didn't marry you for your money, or for your family background, or your brains, or even for your talents in bed."

"Not even for the last? You haven't left me much."

"Oh, yes, I have. I appreciate your horizontal skills and your enthusiasm. But competent mattress dancers are not uncommon. Take Xia, for example. I conjecture that she is both skilled and eager."

"Probably twice as skilled as I am, but I'll be damned if she's more eager."

"You do all right when you get your rest. But don't distract me. Do you want to know what it is that makes you so special?"

"Yes! Well, I think so. If it's not booby-trapped."

"It's not. Mistress mine, your unique and special quality is this: When I'm around you, I'm happy."

"Richard!"

"Quit blubbering. Can't stand a female who has to lick tears off her upper lip."

"Brute. I'll cry if I goddam well feel like it... and I need this one. Richard, I love you."

"I'm fond of you, too, monkey face. What I was saying was that, if your present pack of lies is wearing thin, don't bother to build up another structure filled with solemn assurances that this is at last the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Forget it. The old structure may be threadbare- but I don't care. I'm not looking for holes or inconsistencies because I don't care. I just want to live with you and hold your hand and hear you snore."

"I don't snore! Uh... do I?"

"I don't know. We haven't had enough sleep in the last eighty hours for it to be a problem. Ask me in fifty years." I reached across the table, tickled a nipple, watched it grow. "I want to hold your hand, listen to your snores, and occasionally-oh, once or twice a month-"

"Once or twice a month!"

"Is that too often?"

She sighed. "I guess I must settle for what I can get. Or go out on the tiles."

'Tiles? What tiles? I was saying that once or twice a month we'll go out to dinner, see a show, go to a night club. Buy you a flower to pin in your hair. Oh, oftener, I guess, if you insist ... but too much night life does interfere with writing. I intend to support you, my love, despite those bags of gold you have squirreled away." I added, "Some problem, dear? Null program? Why the expression?"

"Richard Colin, you are beyond doubt the most infuriating man I have ever married. Or even slept with."

"Did you let them sleep?"

"Oh, you mother! I shouldn't have saved you from Gretchen. 'Once or twice a month'! You set me up for that. Then sprang the trap."

"Madam, I don't know what you are talking about."

"You do so! You think I'm a sweaty little nymphomaniac."

"You're not too little."

"Keep doing it. Go on. Push me hard enough and I'll add a second husband to our marriage. Choy-Mu would marry us- I know he would."

"Choy-Mu is a dinkum cobber, too right. And I'm sure he would marry you; he doesn't have sand in his skull. If you so elect, I'll try to make him feel welcome'. Although I hadn't realized that you were that well acquainted with him. Were you speaking seriously?"

"No, damn it. I've never made a practice of plural marriage;

coping with one husband at a time is complex enough. Certainly Captain Marcy is a nice boy but he's much too young for me. Oh, I won't say that I would turn him down for a night of bundling if he asked me gracefully. But it would be simply for fun, nothing serious."

"/ won't say that you would turn him down, either. Well, let me know ahead of time, if convenient, so that I can gracefully fail to notice. Or stand jigger. Even hand out towels. Lady's option."

"Richard, you're entirely too agreeable."

"You want me to be jealous? But this is Luna, and I'm a Loonie. Only by adoption but nevertheless a Loonie. Never a groundhog, banging his head against a rock wall." I paused to kiss her hand. "My lovely mistress, you are indeed small and not massy. But your heart is big. Like the loaves and fishes, you are a rich plenitude for as many husbands and lovers as you choose. I am happy to be first-if I am first-among equals."

"'Is this a dagger which I see before me?'"

"No, an icicle."

"Really? Let's grab it before it melts."

We did, but just barely; I was tired. Afterwards I said, "Gwen, why are you frowning? Did I do so poorly?"

"No, love. But I still have those lies on my mind... and this time please don't change the subject. I know that the inscription on that brass plate over there is correct, because I knew three of those four. Knew them well; I was adopted by two of them. Beloved, I am a Founding Father of Luna Free State."

I said nothing because sometimes there is nothing one can say. Shortly Gwen wiggled and said almost angrily, "Don't look at me that way! I know what you're thinking; 2076 is quite a while back. So it is. But, if you'll get dressed, I'll take you down to Old Dome and show you my chop and thumbprint on the Declaration of Independence. You might not believe that it's my chop... but I can't fake a thumbprint. Shall we go look?"

"No."

"Why not? Want to know my age? I was bom Christmas Day 2063, so I was twelve and a half when I signed the Declaration. That nails down how old I am."

"Sweetheart, when I decided to become a native Loonie or a reasonable facsimile, I studied the history of Luna to help me get away with it. There is no Gwendolyn among the signers. Wait a second, not saying you lied-saying you must have had another name then."

"Yes, of course. Hazel. Hazel Meade Davis."

"'Hazel.' Later married into the Stone Gang. Leader of the children's auxiliaries. Um, Hazel was a redhead."

"Yes. Now I can stop taking some pesky pills and let my hair go back to its natural color. Unless you prefer it this shade?"

"Hair color isn't important. But- Hazel, why did you marry me?"

She sighed. "For love, dear, and that is true. To help you when you were in trouble... and that is true, too. Because it was inevitable and that is true, also. For it is written in history books in another time and place that Hazel Stone returned to Luna and married Richard Ames aka Colin Campbell... and this couple rescued Adam Selene, chairman of the Revolutionary Committee."

"Already written, eh? Predestined?"

"Not quite, my beloved. In other history books it is written that we failed... and died trying."