The Stranger's Woes

  “Come on, do you think you can get rid of me that easily? Dream on. You won’t even begin to miss me.”

  And I hurried out of the Ministry of Perfect Public Order. I left my amobiler parked at the entrance. My little house on the Street of Old Coins was a stone’s throw away—no more than ten minutes, if you walked fast. And today I was rushing like a bunch of Mutinous Magicians was hot on my heels.

  My first apartment didn’t look like it had been abandoned, even though I had only been there once, and only for half an hour, in the past year and a half. No stale air, no oppressive atmosphere, not even a layer of dust. That was a miracle in itself.

  I ran upstairs to the small bedroom. If I had understood Juffin’s laconic explanation correctly, this bedroom was my personal entrance to that unfathomable place the boss referred to as the Corridor between Worlds. Through the Corridor I could get to any place I wished. For example, I could get to the World I had happened to be born in, the World from which I had fled not so very long ago, obediently following Juffin’s instructions. Back then, though, I had used a regular streetcar.

  I had reason to hope that a year of wandering through the labyrinth of unknown Worlds, of which I could hardly remember anything, had not been in vain. I was certain I’d be able to find my way home—and, even more important, my way back to Echo again. That was why I walked into the trap voluntarily. I lay down in bed, closed my eyes, and finally relaxed. Sinning Magicians, what was I thinking?

  And then, what happened, happened. I yawned and fell asleep, certain I was going to dream of the mysterious Corridor between Worlds, the place where there was nothing, not even me—although I would have to be there, of course, for where else could I be? And among the infinite Doors to endless Worlds, I thought I would find the Door to the World I was looking for, and then open it, and . . .

  I woke up on my couch under a thin checkered blanket. I was cold, because it was the end of fall, and the heating wasn’t working. I pulled the blanket up over my head to keep warm and tried to remember my dream. I had been dreaming about something wonderful, something completely improbable and mind-boggling, something . . . I couldn’t quite remember what.

  Now, looking back, I realize that my sudden awakening under my old checkered blanket might have been a worthy finale to my suicidal plan. Somehow I managed to forget absolutely everything that had happened to me. I thought I had just fallen asleep on that couch a few hours before, in the morning, as usual, and so hadn’t gotten enough sleep. My dream, though, had been extraordinary, absolutely incomparable.

  Fortunately, I never allow myself to forget my dreams. That part of my life has always been more important to me than the waking part. Since childhood I’ve had a clever method of retrieving my dreams before they slip away. I relax all the muscles in my body, close my eyes, and allow myself to doze off—not to fall completely asleep but just to doze off so that I find myself on the fragile, intangible threshold between dreaming and waking. A tried-and-true method.

  It worked like a charm. Boy, did it work! All the memories of my life in Echo poured down on me. All of them at once. It was like swimming in a waterfall: it wasn’t a question of whether you’d get wet but of making sure you didn’t drown. There were too many details for my feeble mind to cope with, and the details were so real, so sweet . . .

  Being the nitwit that I am, when I remembered the details of my life in Echo I thought it was just a dream. A long, fantastic dream that had, nevertheless, ended. I had never walked the mosaic sidewalks of Echo, never sat in the Glutton Bunba with Juffin Hully. Because Juffin Hully didn’t exist. The others had never existed, either. All that existed was my endless loneliness and the boundless tenderness I felt toward my madeup characters. That’s right, characters. That’s why Sir Shurf Lonli-Lokli, the Master Who Snuffs Out Unnecessary Lives, the Mad Fishmonger, my imperturbable comrade in the most incredible and dangerous adventures, so resembled the famous Charlie Watts. And that’s why Sir Kofa Yox looked like Commissioner Maigret. In what old Hollywood movie about a boxer had I seen Melifaro’s handsome face? Even Lady Melamori—my unfulfilled, breathless romance—looked a little like a young Diana Rigg. It all made sense now. I had no idea I was such a cinephile. And Tekki . . . Well, if you think about it, she resembled me. I don’t know from what associative cellar I had salvaged her black eyes and silver curls, but her manner of speaking was exactly like my own. There were no two ways about it. And the others? Where the hell did they come from? Who cares? The imagination of a delirious mind works in mysterious ways. However crazy our dreams may be, we wake up sooner or later.

  Sooner.

  Or later.

  We. Wake. Up.

  My right hand grasped the hard upholstery of the couch. I broke a few fingernails, but it seemed to me that the pain was coming not from my fingers but from the leather upholstery. I writhed like a dying animal, but a totally different kind of pain was tearing me apart. What does a man feel when his Universe is collapsing? Or, worse, what does a demiurge feel when the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride roughshod over his new-made World? The time had arrived for me to find out.

  I still don’t know how I managed to withstand the horrible gnawing pain in my chest, to drive away the hordes of predatory rats that were eating my poor heart alive. I beat my head on the wooden armrest, hammered my ribs with my fists, bit my lips until they bled, and howled quietly, shuddering at the savage sound of my own voice. The whole nine yards.

  Then I calmed down. Without waiting for the signal from the brain that had gone awry, my body began doing the famous breathing exercises of Lonli-Lokli. Magicians only knew how many jokes I had made about them in the past.

  Let’s make a deal, I told myself. You’re going to get up and wash. Then you’re going to make some coffee, drink a cup or two, smoke a cigarette, and put your thoughts together. Then, if you still feel like howling, you can do it till the cows come home. All right?

  I tried to get up. My legs felt like they were made out of cotton, and I swayed back and forth. It was better than agony but worse than a bad hangover. I stayed upright, though, made it to the bathroom, and got into the shower. For a few seconds I stood under the stiff stream without realizing I had turned on the cold water. I howled and turned the hot water tap. All the better, I thought. I would never have agreed to subject myself to such extremes of my own volition.

  After the torture of the alternating cold and hot water, I wrapped myself in the same checkered blanket (I had never had a bathrobe) and went to the kitchen to carry out the rest of my survival program. I stared blankly at the electric coffee maker, trying to figure out what it was. Then I remembered, and even recalled how to use it. The peaceful bubbling noise of the machine sent a jolt through my mind, and it spat out another piece of useful information: people brush their teeth in the morning. I saluted my mind, did an about-face, and returned to the bathroom.

  While I was brushing my teeth, I examined my face in the mirror. Something was wrong, although I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I put the toothbrush back on the shelf and looked with disgust at the unshaven chin of my reflection. What I saw was pathetic: week-old stubble and long, tangled hair reaching almost to my shoulders. The only thing missing was a mammoth’s bone between my teeth.

  Then it struck me. I knew what was wrong with my reflection—it was the hair. It couldn’t have grown that long, because just a week ago I had gone to Victor’s to get a haircut. He had just gotten an electric hair-cutting gadget. I should be sporting a neat, short haircut, I thought, and there’s no way my hair could have grown that long in a week. People cut their hair once in a while—wasn’t that what Sir Juffin said at the very beginning of my wonderful long dream? And then I remembered some charming old lady, the powerful witch Lady Sotofa Xanemer, who told me to look after my shaggy, disheveled head. My shaggy head. I was onto something. All I needed was to figure out why my hair looked as unattractive as—

  Off you go to the kitchen, I told myself. We had a deal, reme
mber? First you drink your coffee, then you go insane, if that’s what you really want to do.

  So off to the kitchen I went.

  On the way it occurred to me that I might have gone to Victor’s not a week but a whole year ago. Maybe I had amnesia? That possibility was comforting. Compared to everything else that was happening to me, it sounded sane and made a lot of sense.

  I took the TV Guide from the table. No, the date seemed right. It was November. You can’t confuse the dreariness of that month with anything else. The year was the same year it was yesterday. Also, according to the guide, yesterday they aired the last episode of Twin Peaks. That’s correct, my dear Watson. After the TV show I was going to go for a walk on Green Street, because Sir Juffin Hully from my dreams said that—

  I broke into a cold sweat and sank down on the stool in the kitchen. But of course, last night I went to Green Street, and then there was that mysterious streetcar 432. Holy cow! And the streetcar took me to another World, where, as it turned out, I felt right at home. It wasn’t just that I felt good there. It was right! It was the way it should be! I was in my element there. I was indispensable there. God almighty! If I told this to anyone here, they would just laugh. Me, indispensable? Getting along without me is the easiest thing in the world. That’s what they do from morning till night, day in and day out. And they do it very well, let me tell you.

  Drink your coffee, I said to myself. Who else do you think I made it for?

  I stood up, grabbed a cup, poured some coffee, took a sip, and almost spat it out. Looks like I’m losing it, I thought. I forgot that I usually take sugar in my coffee.

  I found the sugar bowl and put a few funny-looking white cubes in my cup. Now the coffee tasted heavenly. My head started spinning at the long-forgotten smell. I lit up and stared at my reflection in the dim screen of an old TV set. My reflection gave me a vague sense of hope. “Hope is a darn-fool feeling,” someone had once told me. That someone was Sir Mackie Ainti, the old sheriff of Kettari, another imaginary town where I had once spent some marvelous moments.

  I finished my coffee, poured myself another cup, and decided it was time to begin an investigation. If I was going to think anyway, I might as well start thinking logically. I could deal with my unruly locks right now. The phone was just an arm’s length away. Granted, in this apartment everything was an arm’s length away, no matter what corner you retreated to. I wavered a bit before making the call, then brushed my doubts aside. Victor was also an oddball, and he had long ago gotten used to my eccentricities.

  Thank goodness Vic was home. He picked up almost immediately, as though he had been waiting all day for my call.

  “Hi, who is this?” he said after my incoherent variations on the theme of good morning.

  “It’s Max.”

  “Jesus, man! I didn’t recognize you. What happened to your voice?”

  “I don’t know. I picked up some wicked germ,” I said. “I wanted to ask you something.”

  “You wanted to? You don’t want to anymore?”

  I couldn’t contain a smile, even though I didn’t feel like smiling.

  “Vic, did you give me a haircut with your miniature lawnmower about a week ago?”

  “Bad conscience, huh? Have you finally decided to pay me for my job? What’s my fee?”

  “The standard lawnmowing fee, naturally. But you’re not going to get rich, considering the minuscule area of my head,” I said. “So, did you or did you not give me a haircut?”

  “I did. But I disagree with the proposed fee. You see . . .”

  I exhaled and mopped my forehead. Vic was saying something on the other end of the wire, but I couldn’t focus. I already knew what I wanted to know. Now I had to figure out what to do with this new information.

  “Max, is everything all right?” said Vic. “I’m talking and you’re totally silent. It’s usually the other way around. That ‘wicked germ’ of yours, is it serious?”

  “No, I don’t think it is,” I said, surprised at the mixture of happiness and hysteria in my voice. “Thanks, Vic. I’ll call you back later, okay?”

  “Okay,” he said. “Call me any time you want. I can’t deprive you of that pleasure.”

  I hung up. One of the flimsy postulates of my not-yet-formed theorem had just been proven. My wonderful dream began to sound more and more like reality, although I still couldn’t wrap my mind around it. And who could?

  “Quit whining, mister,” I said to my scruffy reflection. “There’s something else besides your haircut. How many hearts were pounding in your chest when you were dialing Vic’s number? One or two? Huh? I say two.”

  I finished my cold coffee and stared at the linoleum floor, darkened with age. Then I conducted an experiment. I spat on the floor and looked at the results: an ugly black hole on a smooth gray surface. My infamous venom, which required that I wear the Mantle of Death, was still with me. Very interesting.

  I should go out and test it on somebody, I thought with a nervous laugh. If he dies right away, than it was all true. If he just punches me in the face, then . . . Oh, well, since I don’t have a potential victim, I’ll just use the floor.

  Another small black burn appeared on the floor next to the first one. Then I snapped the fingers of my left hand. How were my Lethal Spheres doing? The Lethal Spheres were doing great. A tiny blob of blinding green light rolled through the kitchen and burst when it hit the wall. That’s right, there’s nobody to kill here, I thought. Except for the cockroaches, but they had prudently scurried away.

  So all of my dangerous talents were still with me. I could relax and forget about any further experiments. Regular people don’t juggle little fireballs in their kitchens and burn linoleum with their spittle. And then I realized, with relief and horror at the same time, that there was no me, and hadn’t been for quite some time. Sitting in my kitchen was Sir Max from Echo. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the very real Max the Terrible. He had left his Mantle of Death on the floor of the bedroom on the Street of Old Coins. And he was in trouble.

  But unlike my good old friend Max, who had had a haircut just a week ago at his friend Victor’s, Sir Max from the Minor Secret Investigative Force of the City of Echo was capable of handling any metaphysical problem, big or small. In any case, that’s what I was hoping.

  The revelation was so powerful that I tried to ignore it. That was the only way to save whatever was left of my sanity. I took the bag with coffee from the shelf again, poured fresh water in the coffee maker, and turned on the TV. If there was anything I had learned from spending years at the epicenter of magic, it was the art of remaining aloof.

  Interesting things were happening on the TV screen. Airplanes were taking off, fat men in suits were shuffling around, loud sounds resembling human speech came from the speakers. Then a homely middle-aged man with an intelligent expression told me that the president of the United States had flown to Japan for some reason.

  “That’s very wise of him,” I said, lighting up another cigarette. “To Japan, you say? Well, well. It’s high time he did.”

  The anchorman responded by trying hard to unsettle me. He very warmly broached the subject of the lowering of the exchange rate of the dollar against the Japanese yen.

  “Oh, really?” I said. “Well, what about the exchange rate of Kumonian doubloons, huh? See, since morning I’ve been feeling uneasy in both of my hearts about the state of the Kumonian currency.”

  While I was bickering with the TV, my mind tried desperately to reach some balance. It failed, but it was better than not trying at all. By the time a lively lady in a blue sweater started blaring out some phantasmagorical sports news at me, I had realized two things. First, I had almost certainly lived in Echo for some time. My hair, venomous spit, and other charming attributes clearly testified to that, whatever the stubborn and prudent half of my personality might think about it. Second, I desperately wanted to go back. It wasn’t just a matter of wanting to. Going back was the only solution to this unbearable situati
on. It was my only chance of survival.

  I put down the empty cup on the table and went to get dressed. I needed to take a walk and collect my thoughts, which I can’t really do when I’m sitting still. I’m much better at it when I’m on the move.

  When I went into the hallway I realized I didn’t have any warm shoes. Of course, I had been wearing my one and only pair of boots when I boarded the streetcar that had taken me to the wonderful Capital of the Unified Kingdom. Now they were lying there in one of my numerous closets—a souvenir of sorts from the homeland. I had no choice but to put on a pair of canvas sneakers—not exactly the footwear one would choose for walking in a cold November drizzle. I was lucky I hadn’t taken my coat with me, as well.

  After thinking about it, I decided to buy new shoes. I wasn’t what you would call wealthy in this World, far from it, but at least I didn’t have to economize, praise be the Magicians. I still had no idea how I was going to get out of here, but one thing I knew for certain: I wasn’t going to stay here for long. No way. Besides, I was worried that my honestly earned talents might pave the way for a brilliant career in crime. One Lethal Sphere, and any bank teller would be willing to throw millions at my feet. Sure beats robbing 7-Elevens with women’s tights pulled over your head.

  By the time I got to the shoe store, my feet had turned into thick, barely usable frozen clumps. This informed my choice of new shoes. I had two basic considerations in mind. Number one, they must be warm. Number two, they must be very warm. And in addition to that, they had to be warm and waterproof. I didn’t even give a thought to the price. I shelled out almost half of my savings for the new shoes. I threw my old sneakers away in a garbage can and grinned. If there was anything I’d never be able to get used to again, it was poverty.