Book of days, p.1
Book of Days, page 1
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GENE WOLFE’S
BOOK OF DAYS
GENE WOLFE
GENE WOLFE’S BOOK OF DAYS is a calendar of science fiction delights. In a solar circuit of marvelous eccentricity, each festive date receives its grotesque monument. How better to mark Mother’s Day at the close of the twentieth century than with a story about a pregnant automobile? St. Patrick’s Day, Opening Day (the beginning of the hunting season), Earth Day, and Arbor Day are represented too, with a dozen others; we are treated to the visit of an immortal witch to a far-off planet, to alien houses that prowl the woods by night, and to a grand prix superintended by Winston Churchill, in which the opposing teams meet head-on.
A true feast of science fiction holidays.
GENE WOLFE’S
BOOK OF DAYS
All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Acknowledgments
“How the Whip Came Back” first appeared in Orbit 6, edited by Damon Knight
“Of Relays and Roses” first appeared in World of If, September-October 1970
“Paul’s Treehouse” first appeared in Orbit 5 edited by Damon Knight
“St. Brandon” first appeared as part of the novel Peace, and is here reprinted by permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.
“Beautyland” first appeared in Saving Worlds, edited by Roger Ehvood and Virginia Kidd
“Car Sinister” first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1970
“The Blue Mouse” first appeared in The Many Worlds of Science Fiction, edited by Ben Bova
“How I Lost the Second World War and Helped Turn Back the German Invasion” first appeared in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, May 1973
“The Adopted Father” first appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, 1980
“Forlesen” first appeared in Orbit 14, edited by Damon Knight
“An Article About Hunting” first appeared in Saving Worlds, edited by Roger Elwood and Virginia Kidd
“The Changeling” first appeared in Orbit 3, edited by Damon Knight
“Many Mansions” first appeared in Orbit 19, edited by Damon Knight
“Against the Lafayette Escadrille” first appeared as part of “Mathoms from the Time Closet” in Again, Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
“Three Million Square Miles” first appeared in The Ruins of Earth, edited by Thomas M. Disch
“The War Beneath the Tree” first appeared in Omni, December 1979
“La Befana” first appeared in Galaxy, January-February 1973
“Melting” first appeared in Orbit 15, edited by Damon Knight
ISBN: 0-385-15991-9
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 80-1074
Copyright © 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1980
1981 by Gene Wolfe
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First Edition
CONTENTS
Introduction
Lincoln’s Birthday “How the Whip Came Back”
Valentine’s Day “Of Relays and Roses”
Arbor Day “Paul’s Treehouse”
St. Patrick’s Day “St. Brandon”
Earth Day “Beautyland”
Mother’s Day “Car Sinister”
Armed Forces Day “The Blue Mouse”
Memorial Day “How I Lost the Second World War . . .”
Father’s Day “The Adopted Father”
Labor Day “Forlesen”
Opening Day “An Article About Hunting”
Homecoming Day “The Changeling”
Halloween “Many Mansions”
Armistice Day “Against the Lafayette Escadrille”
Thanksgiving “Three Million Square Miles”
Christmas Eve “The War Beneath the Tree”
Christmas Day “La Befana”
New Year’s Eve “Melting”
GENE WOLFE’S
BOOK OF DAYS
INTRODUCTION
Publishers tell me that no one reads introductions. I do not believe them, since I read the things myself, but I am willing to admit that there is probably some truth behind the myth—in other words, that you, who have read these few lines, are a member of a select minority.
I do not quite see how I can repay you. You already know, I hope, that the book you hold is a collection of short stories. The jacket will have told you that I wrote them. (And, yes, I wrote them. My name really is Gene Wolfe, and I am an actual person.) The front matter has perhaps told you about my other books, and even where these stories originally appeared. All that remains for me is to tell you a little something concerning the stories themselves.
To begin, they are largely what is called science fiction, though a good many are of that type of science fiction that is sometimes questioned, particularly by people who do not read much sf and therefore have a very definite idea of what it is and is not. Only “La Befana” and “Many Mansions” clearly take place off Earth. Several stories are not even futuristic. One at least is inarguably fantasy. Several are humorous, and I have been told often enough that I have a sense of humor that makes strong men faint and women reach for weapons; I should have known better than to include those, but now it is too late.
I will not bore you with a description of how I came to write these stories. Neither will I presume to instruct you about writing stories in general—there is a whole library of books on how to do that already, though few of them seem to be much good-But I would like to leave you with a handful of words on how to read stories, these stories at least.
I urge you not to read one after another, the way I eat potato chips. The simple act of doing this book and putting it away for another day will do a great deal for the story you have just read and even more for the next. If you are a purist, you might even go so far as to read each story on the designated day—“An Article About Hunting” at the opening of deer season, “The War Beneath the Tree” before Christmas.
Even if you are not a purist. I urge you to think for a moment about the day, before beginning each story. Think on very young men in leggings and pie-pan helmets before you start “Against the Lafayette Escadrille.” Think about somewhat older men who carry a lunchbucket or a briefcase with a sandwich in it) before “Forlesen.”
Try to put aside your preconceptions. Don’t be disappointed when you discover, as you will, that I am not Harlan Ellison or Isaac Asimov. Harlan and Isaac—as they would be the first to admit—are not me. either.
Lastly, let me urge you to treat this and all books with respect. We will all benefit if you do. You cannot judge this book now. You will not even be able to judge it rightly when you have read its last story. Ten (or twenty) years from now you will know it was a good book if you remember any of the tales you are about to read.
Meanwhile, its author begs you to preserve it as a physical object, so that at an appropriate time it can be shared by others. If you have bought it, those others may be friends you have not met or children you have thus far only dreamed of. If you have borrowed it from a library, they are your peers in the community, having the same rights in it as yourself. Let me tell you a story.
An acquaintance of mine who was a college student once discovered a secret door in the college library. It was a fire exit that was almost blocked by a huge bookcase full of fifty-year-old books in foreign languages—mostly Serbian, he said—and was unknown to the present staff. Outside, it was well screened by holly.
Because there was no handle on the outside, he could net use it to enter the library; but he could, and did, use it to leave in company with whatever books he fancied. And he fancied three or four nearly every day.
He lived in a small apartment he rented off-campus, and had no other home. As the semesters turned to years, this apartment grew crowded with stolen books. Books were piled on every table, in every comer, and even on his tiny dry bar Books waited like burglars under his bed. Waterproof books on swimming, boating, tropical fish, and similar subjects stood in a row along the edge of the tub; the toilet tank groaned and leaked under the crushing load of a hundred or so humorous books, so that even as he sat thinking how he might free himself from his thousands of stolen volumes, he feared they might fall and crush him.
He considered simply returning the books to the library, but since they had never been checked out, they could hardly be returned, and it seemed to him that the head librarian—a woman with a singularly frigid gaze—suspected him already. He considered mailing them back anonymously, but the cost of postage would have been staggering. He considered setting fire to the building in which he lived, but he felt sure he would lose many valuable possessions now forgotten and buried under the books. Graduation loomed.
At last he hit on a scheme that seemed foolproof. Instead of accepting a lucrative offer from a major corporation, he would have a rubber stamp made reading: discarded by the university library. During the months immediately following graduation, he would stamp all the books in violet ink. In October, he would sell his car and jogging shoes, borrow all the money he could, and open a small used-book store. The thought of having a rack of birthday cards somewhere near the door cheered him.
&nb sp; One fine day in May, as he was considering means of attracting shoplifters, he returned to his apartment and opened the door to see the sight he had most dreaded during all the grim years when he had been drowning in hoarded volumes. The head librarian sat waiting for him in his own chair (the only one clear of books) in his own living-dining-kitchenette. He would have fainted if he could, but he had never been quick. She had never been slow, and at this crucial moment she was icily calm. “I am sorry, sir,” she said, “but this branch closes in five minutes.”
It was noon Saturday, and he became a homeless wanderer on the face of die earth until 9:30 Monday morning.
This has been the story for “Date Due.” The people who do not read introductions missed it.
LINCOLN’S BIRTHDAY
HOW THE WHIP
CAME BACK
Pretty Miss Bushnan’s suite was all red acrylic and green-dyed leather. Real leather, very modem—red acrylic and green, real leather were the modem things this year. But it made her Louis XIV secretary, Sal, look terribly out of place.
Miss Bushnan had disliked the suite from the day she moved in— though she could hardly complain, when there was a chance that the entire city of Geneva and the sovereign Swiss nation might be offended. This evening she did her best to like red and green, and in the meantime turned her eyes from them to the cool relief of the fountain. It was a copy of a Cellini salt dish and lovely, no matter how silly a fountain indoors on the hundred and twenty-fifth floor might be. In a characteristic reversal of feeling she found herself wondering what sort of place she might have gotten if she had had to find one for herself, without reservations, at the height of the tourist season. Three flights up in some dingy suburban pension, no doubt.
So bless the generosity of the sovereign Swiss Republic. Bless the openhanded city of Geneva. Bless the hotel. And bless the United Nations Conference on Human Value, which brought glory to the Swiss Republic et cetera and inspired the free mountaineers to grant free hotel suites in the height of the season even to non-voting Conference observers such as she. Sal had brought her in a gibson a few minutes ago, and she picked it up from the edge of the fountain to sip, a little surprised to see that it was already three-quarters gone; red and green.
A brawny, naked triton half-reclined, water streaming from his hair and beard, dripping from his mouth, dribbling from his ears. His eyes, expressionless and smooth as eggs, wept for her. Balancing her empty glass carefully on the rim again, she leaned forward and stroked his smooth, wet stone flesh. Smiling she told him—mentally—how handsome he was, and he blushed pink lemonade at the compliment. She thought of herself taking off her clothes and climbing in with him, the cool water soothing her face, which now felt hot and flushed. Not, she told herself suddenly, that she would feel any real desire for the triton in the unlikely event of his being metamorphosed to flesh. If she wanted men in her bed she could find ten any evening, and afterward edit the whole adventure from Sal’s memory bank. She wanted a man, but she wanted only one, she wanted Brad (whose real name, as the terrible, bitter woman who lived in the back of her skull, the woman the gibson had not quite drowned, reminded her, had proved at his trial to be Aaron). The triton vanished and Brad was there instead, laughing and dripping Atlantic water on the sand as he threw up his arms to catch the towel she flung him. Brad running through the surf . . .
Sal interrupted her reverie, rolling in on silent casters. “A gentleman to see you, Miss Bushnan.” Sal had real metal drawer-pulls on her false drawers, and they jingled softly when she stopped to deliver her message, like costume jewelry.
“Who?” Miss Bushnan straightened up, pushing a stray wisp of brown hair away from her face.
Sal said blankly, “I don’t know.” The gibson had made Miss Bushnan feel pleasantly muzzy, but even so the blankness came through as slightly suspicious.
“He didn’t give you his name or a card?”
“He did. Miss Bushnan, but I can’t read it. Even though, as I’m sure you’re already aware, Miss Bushnan, there’s an Italian language software package for me for only two hundred dollars. It includes reading, writing, speaking, and an elementary knowledge of great Italian art.”
“The advertising package,” Miss Bushnan said with wasted sarcasm, “is free. And compulsory with your lease.”
“Yes,” Sal said. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
Miss Bushnan swung around in the green leather chair from which she had been watching the fountain. “He did give you a card. I see it in one of your pigeonholes. Take it out and look at it.”
As if the Louis XIV secretary had concealed a silver snake, one of Sal s arms emerged. With steel fingers like nails it took the card and held it in front of a swirl of ornament hiding a scanner.
“Now,” Miss Bushnan said patiently, “pretend that what you’re reading isn’t Italian. Let’s say instead that its English that’s been garbled by a translator post-processor error. What’s your best guess at the original meaning?”
“ ‘His Holiness Pope Honorius V.’ ”
“Ah.” Miss Bushnan sat up in her chair. “Please show the gentleman in.”
With a faint hum of servomotors Sal rolled away. There was just time for a last fragment of daydream. Brad with quiet eyes alone with her on the beach at Cape Cod. Tailing about the past, talking about the divorce, Brad really, really sorry . . .
The Pope wore a plain dark suit and a white satin tie embroidered in gold with the triple crown. He was an elderly man, never tall and now stooped. Miss Bushnan rose. She sat beside him every day at the council sessions, and had occasionally exchanged a few words with him during the refreshment breaks (he had a glass of red wine usually, she good English tea or the horrible Swiss coffee laced with brandy), but it had never so much as occurred to her that he might ever have anything to discuss with her in private.
“Your Holiness,” she said as smoothly as the gibson would let her manage the unfamiliar words, “this is an unexpected pleasure.”
Sal chimed in with, “May we offer you something and looking sidelong Miss Bushnan saw that she had put Scotch, a bottle of club soda, and two glasses of ice on her fold-out writing shelf.
The Pope waved her away, and when he had settled in his chair said pointedly, “I deeply appreciate your hospitality, but I wonder if it would be possible to speak with you privately.”
Miss Bushnan said, “Of course,” and waited until Sal had coasted off in the direction of the kitchen. “My secretary bothers you, Your Holiness?”
Taking a cigar from the recesses of his coat, the Pope nodded. “I’m afraid she does. I have never had much sympathy with furniture that talks—you don’t mind if I smoke?” He had only the barest trace of Italian accent.
“If it makes you more comfortable I should prefer it.”
He smiled in appreciation of the little speech, and struck an old-fashioned kitchen match on the imitation marble of the fountain. It left no mark, and when he tossed in the matchstick a moment later, it bobbed only twice in the crystal water before being whisked away. “I suppose I’m out of date,” the Pope continued. “But back in my youth when people speculated about the possibility of those things we always thought of them as being shaped more or less like us. Something like a suit of armor.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Miss Bushnan said. “You might as well shape a radio like a human mouth—or a TV screen like a keyhole.”
The Pope chuckled. “I didn’t say I was going to defend the idea. I only remarked that that was what we expected.”
“I’m sure they must have considered it, but—”
“But too much extra work would have had to go into just making it look human,” the Pope continued for her, “and besides, a furniture cabinet is much cheaper than articulated metal and doesn’t make the robot look dead when it’s turned off.”
She must have looked flustered because he continued, smiling, “You Americans are not the only manufacturers, you see. It happens that a friend of mine is president of Olivetti. A skeptic like all of them today, but . . .”
