Wolfe, Gene - The island of Dr. Death

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THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR DEATH

AND OTHER STORIES

Gene Wolfe

Winter comes to water as well as land, though there are

no leaves to fall. The waves that were a bright, hard blue

yesterday under a fading sky today are green, opaque,

and cold. If you are a boy not wanted in the house you

walk the beach for hours, feeling the winter that has come

in the night; sand blowing across your shoes, spray wet-

ting the legs of your corduroys. You turn your back to the

sea, and with the sharp end of a stick found half buried

write in the wet sand Tackman Babcock.

Then you go home, knowing that 'behind you the Atlan-

tic is destroying your work.

Home is 'the big house on Settlers Island, but Settlers

Island, so called, is not really an island and for that rea-

son is not named or accurately delineated on maps.

Smash a barnacle with a stone and you will see inside the

shape from which the beautiful barnacle goose takes its

name. There is a thin and flaccid organ which is the

goose's neck and the mollusc's siphon, and a shapeless

body with tiny wings. Settlers Island is like that.

The goose neck is a strip of land down which a county

road runs. By whim, the mapmakers usually exaggerate

the width of this and give no information to indicate that

it is scarcely above the high tide. Thus Settlers Island

appears to be a mere protuberance on the coast, not re"

quiring a nameand since the village of eight or ten

houses has none, nothing shows on the map but the spider

line of road terminating at the sea.

The village has no name, but home has two: a near and

a far designation. On the island, and on the mainland

nearby, it is called the Seaview place because in die ear-

liest years of the century it was operated 'as a resort hotel.

Mama calls it The House of 31 February; and that is

on her stationery and is presumably used by her friends

in New York and Philadelphia when they do not simply

say, "Mrs. Baboock's." Home is four floors high in some

places, less in others, and is completely surrounded by a

veranda; it was once painted yellow, but the paint

outsideis mostly gone now and The House of 31 Feb-

ruary is grey.

Jason comes out the front door with the little curly

hairs on his chin trembling in the wind .and his thumbs

hooked in the waistband of his Levi's. "Come on, you're

going into town with me. Your mother wants to rest."

"Hey tough!" Into Jason's Jaguar, feeling the leather

upholstery soft 'and smelly; you fall asleep.

Awake in town, bright lights flashing in the car win-

dows. Jason is gone and the car is growing cold; you wait

for what seems a long time, looking out at the shop win-

dows, the big gun on the hip of the policeman who walks

past, the lost dog who is afraid of everyone, even you

when you tap the glass and call to him.

Then Jason is back with packages to put behind the

seat. "Are we going home now?"

He nods without looking at you, arranging his bundles

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file:///F|/rah/Gene%20Wolfe/Wolfe%20Island%20of%20Dr%20Death.txt

so they won't topple over, fastening his seatbelt.

"I want to get out of 'the car."

He looks at you.

"I want to go in a store. Come on, Jason."

Jason sighs. "All right, the drugstore overthere, okay?

Just for a minuite."

The drugstore is as big as a supermarket, with long,

bright aisles of glassware and notions and paper goods.

Jason buys fluid for his lighter at the cigarette counter,

and you bring Um a book from a revolving wire rack.

"Please, Jason?"

He takes it from you and replaces it in the rack, then

when you are in .the oar again takes it from under his

jacket 'and gives it to you.

It is a wonderful book, thick and heavy, with the edges

of the pages tinted yellow. The covers are glossy stiff

cardboard, and on the front is a picture of a man in rags

fighting a thing partly like an ape and partly like a man,

but much worse than either. The picture is in color, and

there is real blood on the ape-thing; the man is muscular

and handsome, with tawny hair lighter than Jason's and

no beard.

"You like that?"

You are out of town already, and without the street

lights it's too dark in the car, almost, to see the picture.

You nod.

Jason laughs. "That's camp. Did you know that?"

You shrug, riffling the pages under your thumb, think-

ing of reading, alone, in your room tonight!

"You going to tell your morn how nice I was to you?"

"Uh-huh, sure. You want me to?"

"Tomorrow, not tonight. I think she'll be asleep when

we get back. Don't you wake her up." Jason's voice says

he will be angry if you do.

"Okay."

"Don't come in her room."

"Okay."

The Jaguar says 'Hutntntaca . . ." down the road, and

you can see the whitecaps in the moonlight now, and the

driftwood pushed just off the asphalt.

"You got a nice, soft mommy, you know that? When I

climb on her it's just like being on a big pillow."

You nod, remembering the times when, lonely and

frightened by dreams, you have crawled into her bed and

snuggled against her soft warmthbut at the same time

angry, knowing Jason is somehow deriding you both.

Home is silent and dark, and you leave Jason as soon

as you can, bounding off down the hall and up the stairs

ahead of him, up a second, narrow, twisted flight to your

own room in the turret.

I had this story from a man who was breaking his

word in telling it. How much it has suffered in his

hands1 should say in his mouth, rather1 cannot

say. In essentials it is true, and I give it to you as it

was given to me. This is the story he told.

Captain Phillip Ransom had been adrift, alone, for

nine days when he saw the island. It was already late

evening when it appeared like a thin line of purple on

ithe borizon, but Ransom did not sleep that nil?ht

TheiB was no feeble questionmg m 'his wakeful mind

oonoerning the reality of what he had seen; 'he bad

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Wolfe, Gene - The island of Dr. Death

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