The Land Across

3 THE WILLOWS

Martya and I went to an office on the second floor of the long yellow brick building called the Mounted Guard, where a sweating fat man in shirtsleeves sat writing letters. “To those who are behind on their rent,” he explained.

We had not asked, but we nodded. Anyway, I did.

“The police will come. If they are kind, they will permit the tenants to move out their personal belongings. If they are not, they will not. Then those who are too poor to pay will be poorer still.”

Martya translated and added, “They have no money.”

“They must get some.” The fat man pointed his pen at her. “Let me tell you, young woman, it is one thing to be without money, quite another to be without the means of getting money. The state finds employment for everyone who applies.”

I said, “Then why don’t they apply?”

He turned his attention to me. “You are German?”

“American.”

“Ah. You are most ignorant. I have heard this. They do not apply because they do not want to work. What is the purpose of the state?”

Neither of us spoke.

“I ask seriously, sir. What is it?” He laid aside his pen and fanned himself with a painted fan of thin wood.

“To defend the country,” I said. I was trying to recall the Constitution. “To secure the property of its citizens.”

He shook his head. “You have not been to school. For those things and more the nation is responsible. It is on the state that we rely to make all work, and to reward good work should there be any. This I explain in these letters you see, with certain other things. What is it you wish?”

“I want to rent a house,” I said.

“You are German. Why would you rent a house here?”

“I will stay here in Puraustays for some time. It should be cheaper to rent a house here than to live in a hotel. Do you rent houses here? In this office?”

“I do. The houses I rent belong to the state, sir. When taxes are not paid, the state takes the house. Also for certain criminal offenses. If a serious offense is committed by the owner in his house, the house is forfeit.” Grunting, the fat man lifted a heavy book onto his desk.

Martya said, “He wants to rent the Willows.”

The fat man ignored her. “These houses I have, sir. All good houses, though some are in need of minor repairs.” He flipped pages. “Here is one of the sequestered kind I just described. The owner lured women to his house, raped them, strangled them, and raped them again. He was put to death and his house confiscated. Seven rooms, full bath. Full of interest, too, for a visitor. It is said that one of the dead women walks up the cellar stairs by night.” He smacked his lips. “I would advise keeping the cellar door shut and bolted by night, and not going down there save in a case of dire necessity. Which is not likely to arise.”

He waited for my comment. When I did not talk he said, “Think of the tales you will tell when you return to Germany. Why, a man might dine out for a year on it!”

“He doesn’t want that one,” Martya said.

I explained that I had already selected a house, the Willows, and asked him to rent it to me.

He pursed his lips. “You are bold, sir. Indeed you are bold. I myself … Well, no matter. You have seen it, sir?”

“The exterior, yes. We looked at that and peeped in through the windows. We couldn’t get in.”

“It is kept locked. I see to it that all the vacant houses are locked.” The fat man paused to fan his sweating face and became business-like. “Normally, sir, we require a security deposit equal to three months’ rent. It is to be refunded when the tenant vacates. I inspect the house. If it is in good condition, your deposit is refunded.”

I said, “I understand.”

“In this case…” He was paging through his book. “For the house you have selected, sir, we will not. The house is not in good condition.”

Martya said, “We know that.”

I promised I would make any necessary repairs.

He cleared his throat. “You may post the bills to me. Should I approve them, they will be settled by the state. Should I decline them, you must pay them yourself…. Ah, here it is. The rent will be twenty euros per month, sir.”

I said it seemed quite cheap.

“It is.” He cleared his throat again. “We take into consideration the poor condition of the house and its long vacancy. Let me see….” He bent over the page. “One Volitain Aeneaos rented it years ago. He remained for two months. It has remained vacant ever since. Are you sure you want it, sir? At twenty euros per month?”

“Yes,” I said. “Certain. I’ll give you the first month’s rent in advance, if I may.”

“You must give me two months’ rent in advance,” he told me. “Forty euros. That is the law, sir. I cannot make exceptions.”

I gave him the money, and he filled out a printed receipt, signed it, and handed it to me. “Crucifixes are said to be effectual, sir. There is a little store in the cathedral. You might get holy water there, too. My own grandmother swore by cold iron. Large nails, by choice. She was a woman of wide experience. Should you have need of the assistance of the state, you might speak to me. I will direct you to the proper persons.”

I thanked him and told him I appreciated his help.

He nodded, frowning as he handed me two rusty iron keys. “The trees, sir. The willows. You must have seen them when you looked at the house.”

I had.

“I would cut them. You will cut them, if you take my advice. Root out the stumps. Plant grass and clover, and leave it so until the soil recovers. You have been stung by bees?”

“He will plant fruit trees,” Martya declared.

“They will not do well until the soil recovers. Plow in manure, sir, before you plant your clover. When it has sprouted, beware of bees. Clover attracts them.”

I said, “Good advice. Thanks a lot.”

When we had left his office and stepped into the hall, I heard him say, “Would you eat their fruit, young woman?”

Martya was silent until we had left the Mounted Guard, then she said, “He thought I was a cousin.”

“My cousin, you mean?”

“Not a real cousin.” She laughed. “When foreigners come, girls attach themselves. Did I say that well? The girl shows her friend the city and interprets for him. He buys her gifts and she sleeps with him. Sometimes he gives her money. They are called cousins because it is what she says: ‘He is my cousin.’”

I said I would be happy to buy her a gift.

“Would you really? A hat? Would you buy me a winter hat?”

“It’s spring,” I said. “Why would you want a winter hat?”

She laughed. “How little you understand! You are married, yes?”

I shook my head.

“No wonder! Because it is spring, the winter things are most cheap. Besides, the hat I wore all last winter is old. Most ragged! It is a hat to laugh at, an old wool hat that was not good when it was new.” She tugged at my arm. “Come! There is a shop near. I show you.”

It was not near, but she did. The hat I eventually bought for her was a perky round cap of what looked to me like fox fur. She was thrilled with it, posing a dozen times in front of the mirror in the store before we left.

When we were out on the street again, I said, “How will you explain your new hat to Kleon?”

“He does not see it until autumn.”

“Yes, but he’ll see it then. What’ll you tell him?”

Her chin went up and her shoulders back. “The truth! I will tell him you bought it for me.”

“He’ll be jealous.”

“Good! Let him be most jealous. He needs much more jealous, that Kleon.”

We were walking, of course. The police have their patrol cars, and there are limousines for high officials. In a day, you might see three or four trucks and a dozen wagons. But private cars? Buses and cabs? All that shit? Forget it! Ordinary people walk everywhere.

The way to the Willows was not hard, but it seemed to me like it went on forever. We walked in the street like everybody else. The crazy plan of the streets, which zig to the right or zag to the left every few blocks, wears out a walker.

“Your streets should have names,” I told Martya.

“If this street had a name and I called to it, would it come to me?” Seeing I had no answer, she laughed.

After a while I said, “You give names to your houses.”

“To cats and dogs also. If you call a dog, it will come to you sometimes. Cats will not come. So our houses are cats.”

I asked the name of Kleon’s house.

“I do not wish to tell. It is ill luck for me.”

“Then I’ll ask Kleon. We’re going back tonight, aren’t we?”

“We must. If he does not let us in, we go to the police and they shoot him.”

“You’ll be a wealthy widow,” I said.

Martya sniffed. “He has nothing.”

“He has his house.”

She shrugged. “We must turn here, why do you walk straight ahead?”

“Here” was the little path through the dark, crowding trees to the door of the Willows. We had walked so far that I had nearly forgotten that eventually we would get there.

When we had gone to the Willows earlier, the sun had been high overhead, and lonely sunbeams had penetrated the crowding leaves. Now the sun was low, and a cloudy sky promised a dark night. Martya’s hand found mine and we walked together, not quite side by side, down a path I could not see that was barely wide enough for one person.

“You do not have a light?”

“No,” I said. “Do you have matches?”

“No. We should have bought a … I do not know this word. To hold in the hand and give light.”

“Taschenlampe.”

“Yes, a flashlight, where there were shops. Someone would have them.”

“We’ll get one tomorrow,” I told her.

“Tomorrow will be too late.”

After that I stumbled, she swore for me, and we walked on silently while the trees made fun of us. Their silence was a lot bigger and a lot older than ours. As I tried the most likely looking key in the front door lock, Martya asked, “Are you going to start searching now?”

“Yeah. I want to look the whole place over and make plans. What to do first, what tools I’ll need, and so on.”

“It is haunted. This you must know.”

“I know you said it was.” The likely key squeaked and balked in the lock. “People always say these old houses are haunted. If nobody’s living there, it’ll be a haunted house in a year.” I wrestled with the key. “This lock needs a squirt of WD40, or if we can’t get that a squirt of oil.”

“We will see no ghosts because the sun is still in the sky.” It seemed like Martya was talking to herself instead of me. “One cannot see ghosts by daylight. Who does not know this?”

The key turned at last. “Then we won’t see them,” I told her.

“We will not see them, but they will be there.”

“So what? So will we. Maybe they’ll tell us where the treasure is.”

I opened the door and went in. It was dim, but not as dark as I had expected, maybe because the ceilings were so high. The windows, pointed at the top like the ones in a church, rose high above my head.

“He would not have had willows.” Martya’s voice, hushed and kind of querulous, sounded behind me. “Not the one who builds thus. Fruit trees for him.”

I agreed without giving her much attention. The foyer we stood in was pretty clearly a preliminary room. Benches stuck out from two walls and there were hooks for hanging coats. Even so, it was big and imposing, with great big fireplaces at both ends. Looking back at Martya, I said, “They didn’t have central heating when this was built, I guess.”

She stopped, looking frightened. “What is it you talk of? I do not know.”

“A furnace to heat the whole building.”

“Oh, that. Public buildings have these. We do not. Can we go out?”

“I haven’t even started.” The door to the next room stood open, and I walked into it.

It was nearly empty but really interesting just the same. A few pieces of furniture were covered with dirty white drop cloths. A dozen or so more, the ones with no upholstery, had none and were thick with dust. You could tell that pictures and tapestries had hung on the walls back when the room was new, but they were gone now. Over the big fireplace at the other end, crooked swords and a little round shield of dark iron and peeling leather had been left behind. I pointed and said, “I wonder why they didn’t take those.”

“Who would want things from such a house?”

“We do,” I told her. “We want the treasure, and we’d like to find it. Your friend Volitain does, too.”

“Perhaps they are fastened to the wall.”

That made sense. I stepped up onto the hearth, which was a good foot above the floor. The swords and the little shield were higher than that, too high for me to do more than touch them. I got out my pen and my little notebook.

“What are you writing?”

“That I’ve got to get a stepladder.”

“So that you can take those things? Let us go. I do not like this place.”

“I do,” I said. “Or anyhow I like it so far. And I don’t want the swords or the shield. I want to look in back of them. There could be a hole in the stonework in back. We ought to look.”

“Volitain will have thought of it.”

“You’re right. He may have looked there. When you think of a place nobody who searched this place will have thought of, you let me know straight off.” Having finished my note, I snapped my notebook shut.

“There are mirrors in here,” Martya muttered.

I stepped down. “I’d think they’d have been taken.”

She shook her head. “Not all of them.”

“Come on! We need to look at some more rooms.” I led the way without looking back to see if she was following me. “Is this something Volitain told you?”

“They call to me.” She sounded like she had not moved an inch.

“Magic mirrors?” It made me think about this book, which I had already been planning. “I’ll have to find out about them.”

Martya said, “Do you not know mirrors call out to women?”

I had thought the foyer was pretty big. The next room was three times its size, a lot bigger than Kleon’s whole house. A lot of furniture remained, dark and heavy tables, chairs, and cabinets. The floorboards had been torn up in places.

The cabinets, I decided, were way too obvious to be worth searching. They would have been searched a long time ago. I opened one to see. It had originally been locked, but somebody had pried it open, busting the lock. There were a few dusty odds and ends left, like a long, bent screw and an empty ink bottle. In the angle between a shelf and the back …

My fingernail pried it out: a chewed-up pencil.

Martya was pulling a dustcover from the picture above the nearest mantel. The dustcover gone, it turned out to be no picture at all, but a big mirror. “Here is one,” she told me. “There is a dead woman buried behind it.”

I did not believe her. “How do you know that?”

She shrugged.

“How? Did Volitain tell you?”

“I saw her.” Martya paused, groping, probably because she was looking for the right German. “I look at it. It does not show me, but she.”

“A dead woman.”

“Yes.”

I went to the mirror and, just as I expected, saw my own reflection. The mirror was in a heavy brass frame, and the frame fastened with big screws to the black wood over the mantel. “If I had tools, I’d take this down so you could see there’s no dead woman hiding back there.”

“You would do that for me?”

I shook my head. “We’re treasure hunting. This looks as if it hasn’t been disturbed in quite a while, so it’s at least possible the treasure’s back there, in a hole behind the mirror.”

“Someone might have looked and put it back.”

It seemed to me that a searcher would have had no reason to put back the mirror, which looked pretty heavy. But I was checking out the heads of the big brass screws and kept my yap shut. The slots would have showed bright scratches if the screws had been turned lately with a steel screwdriver. None did, but there was one missing.

I picked up the cloth dustcover and covered the mirror.

“Make many notes,” Martya told me. “We must have tools and a light.”

I did.

“Are we to go now?”

“Soon,” I told her. “I want to look around a little more.”

“Soon it will be night. I make the suggestion. We go through the house.” Martya gestured. “When we have reach the end there will be a door. This must be so. We go out this door of which I speak and so back to make Kleon let us in and give us supper.”

I said I wanted to look things over a little more thoroughly.

“If I wish to go, how do you prevent me?”

“I wouldn’t stop you at all, except for arguing that it would be better if you were to stay.”

“This we are doing. I will go. Will you find Kleon’s house again? It is not far.”

I thought about it.

“Answer! You could not.”

“I could ask directions.”

“They will tell you nothing. This you will most soon find, and know I am right. So! You will not find it. The police will shoot Kleon. For me this is good. I will have the house and sell him, and I go to the capital. You go to prison. For you it is most bad.”

“All right,” I told her, “we’ll go through the house like you want. But first we ought to lock the front door. I’m sure we can lock it from inside.”

“No one will wish to enter into such a place as this. You and Volitain solely.”

“Let me lock it. It will only take a minute.”

The large keyhole on the inside of the door was pretty obvious, but the lock seemed stiffer and rustier than ever. I got out my notebook again, and made a note about spray lubricant, underlining it. It worked magic. Just making the note seemed to fix the lock, which let my key turn almost easily. I shook the door.

“It is locked! Let us go.”

I nodded as I pocketed the key and followed her out of the reception hall. In the next room the tall windows had changed to smaller ones, square or round, some broken. The fireplaces were gone, and there was a big Dutch stove instead.

“We do not need your swears,” Martya told me. “They are most vile. This your voice says. I do not understand them. This house either. We have come through the wrong door. It is no more than that.”

“Yeah, you’re right. How about this? You go back to the reception hall and find the right door. I’ll keep on going toward the back from here. We’ll meet at the back and see who gets there first.”

“You would leave me! Kleon will be shot, and you will go to prison. This I have said.”

I shook my head. “You said nobody will give me directions. If you’re telling the truth—which I don’t believe, by the way—I’ll pay somebody to guide me.”

“I will be at Kleon’s before you!”

“When I get there I’ll tell you how smart you are.”

“You think me afraid!”

“Only you’re not? You can prove it pretty easily.” I gestured toward the door through which we had come into the room.

“I am afraid—most afraid for you. You are like a foolish child. You think himself wise. I must protect you.”

Since I did not really want us to be separated, I smiled at that, calling her Mother Martya. She laughed, and we crossed the room together, exiting through the door at the farther end.

Here I would like to stop to tell you that I had never really sensed the sinister atmosphere of the Willows until Martya laughed. There was something in there that hated laughter, and her laugh woke it up. Woke it only in my own mind, you will say. But I had not been afraid before and was scared then. There is no arguing against that.

The setting sun may have had something to do with it, too. I did not see it, but I may have sensed it in the changed quality of the light. In Australia I watched Ayers Rock change color at sunset. Of course the space-traveling stone does not really change. It just makes the change in the sunlight show up better. Did the Willows really change some way? I would rather write no, but I think maybe it did.

Either the next room was windowless or its windows had been boarded up. It would have been as dark as the heart of an alderman if we had not left the door open. As it was, we walked slowly and carefully because I remembered the torn-up floorboards in the other room.

We were halfway through when Martya yelled, “A thing run on my foot!”

“Just a rat,” I said. “There’s bound to be rats in an old house like this.”

“What is it they eat here? What is it their food?”

I said I had no idea.

“I will tell. They gnaw the bodies of the dead! We—” Martya paused. “That you heard. That you must hear. Tell me you hear.”

“Hear what?”

“Somebody laugh when I say that. Not you, I have hear you laugh at me too often. I could not mistake. You hear? Say you hear it, too.”

“No. No, I didn’t.”

“There is another here with us!”

“It was probably the wind.”

“What wind? I do not feel him.”

“The next time we do this—,” I began.

I was interrupted. “We do not next time. No! You do it, with none.”

I would have closed her mouth with my hand, but she moved away. I had heard something, and hoped—scared half to death—to hear it again. As it was, all I could do was urge Martya, in whispers, to be quiet and listen.

Somebody was walking around upstairs. The noises were faint, but I felt sure I knew exactly what they were. He would walk toward the back of the house, and then toward the front again.

A door slammed, and after that everything got quiet.

“We must get out,” Martya was whispering.

I nodded, hoping she could see it, turned, and steered her toward what I thought was the door we had come through.

It showed us into another room, smaller than the one we had left and five or six sided, but a room with windows.

Martya went to a broken one, felt along the bottom of the frame for broken glass, found some, and by what seemed like a real miracle got the window to open, swinging like the door of a cabinet in a rusty frame that creaked and squeaked.

“I cannot climb over. You are strong. You must lift me over and drop me.”

“I’m not strong,” I told her, “and you’re perfectly capable of climbing out by yourself. That can’t be more than a couple of feet high.”

“I must have care for my hat.” She displayed the little cardboard hatbox. “Besides, lifting is more romantic.” Outside, a gust of wind brought in spattering rain.

I climbed out. It was maybe three feet from the bottom of the window to the muddy ground underneath. The willows that had been so silent when we came to the house were muttering now, like a crowd getting set to riot.

Martya leaned out the window. My hands nearly circled her waist as I lifted her out. She threw her arms around my neck, hatbox and all, and kissed me before I put her down.

After that, there is nothing much to tell. We ran through the dripping willows all the way to the windswept street, running blindly and getting there mostly by good luck. As Martya had said, it was not far from the Willows to Kleon’s house—not far, anyhow, the way they figured in Puraustays.

Pounding on the door brought Kleon from his bed, naked and mad as hell. He announced loudly (Martya interpreting for me) that he had no intention of making supper. Martya apparently told him to go back to bed, and told me that we would have soup.

It was on the kitchen stove already, kept warm by a banked fire. She stirred up the fire, added fresh coal, cut thick slices of dark bread, and put on water for tea.

I told her I was too tired to eat.

She said I had to take off my wet clothes and hang them in the kitchen to dry. I did, except for my shorts.

She took off her soaked dress and hung it up. “We will put these near the stove when we have go.”

I suppose I nodded. I was listening to spring rain rattle against the window.

“You have the bad day, I think. Did they beat you?”

I said that they had not, only pushed me down a flight of stairs.

“That is not so much, but you must eat my soup and sleep. It is morning, I see you again.”

I agreed and said I hoped her new hat had not been ruined.

“No, no! The box is for burn but the hat is fur. It will be most fine.” She laid aside the long spoon she had been stirring the soup with, tore open the wet box, and put on the hat. “You see? It is little water, but most soon will it be dry. Is pretty, no?”

She posed, moving from one pose to the next like a dancer, in a fox-fur hat and a worn, wet cotton bra and panties. “It suits me?”

“Yes,” I said. “It looks great on you.”

“You are straighten up. That is good. I must get butter.”

When she pulled a ring in the floor, a trapdoor almost at my feet swung up, showing rough steps that led down into darkness. She lit a candle from the stove and went down them, still wearing the fox-fur hat.

I closed my eyes to rest them. When I opened them a minute later, there was butter on the kitchen table, and a bowl of steaming soup in front of me.

“This is good. I think I must wake you. Eat! Dip first in the bread. Soup is most hot.”

I did. The bread was the kind kids hate, but solid and nourishing. The soup was foreign and delicious. I asked what kind it was.

“All kind.” Martya laughed. “What is good for soup, I put in. We have meat, there is here no dog. My soup get the bones.”

I was eating soup and too busy to smart off.