There Are Doors

“They never do,” the red-faced man walking beside him said.

The red-faced man gestured toward a shop, and he saw that the sheet music in its window was yellowed and dusty. “Find Your True Love” was printed at the top in the florid lettering favored at the turn of the century. A dead fly lay upon its back at the bottom.

“Looks quaint,” he said. It was what they said at the store when they wanted to insult a rival operation.

“Get you anything you want,” the red-faced man said, and laughed.

The social ice had been broken, and he was eager to ask someone. “Could you direct me to Overwood?”

The red-faced man halted and turned to face him. “Why, no,” he said. “No, I can’t.”

“All right.”

“However,” the red-faced man raised a finger. “I can tell you how to get close, if you want to. Once you’re close, maybe you can get more specific directions.”

“Great!” he said. (But where was Overwood, and why had the shopkeeper called Lara “the goddess”?)

“ … to the station. Marea’s right there at the foot of the mountains, and from there somebody may be able to direct you.”

“Fine.”

The red-faced man pointed. “Also, if you’ll look right across the street, you’ll see a little cartography store. You can probably get a map from them.”

Though the store was small, it had a high ceiling. The owner had taken advantage of it to display several very large maps. One was a city map, and as he had expected, there were several five-way intersections; he crossed the store to study it, hoping to trace his route from the apartment to Capini’s, and from there to the Downtown Mental Health Center.

But he could not locate his own neighborhood, or even find the address of the department store in which he worked. Though the store had only display windows, he felt certain it was near the river. Several rivers snaked across the map, and at one point two appeared to cross. None seemed quite as large as the river he recalled, or as straight.

A clerk said, “Can I help you?” and he turned to face her. She was a short, cheerful-looking girl with chestnut hair.

“A map to Overwood,” he said.

She smiled. “Not many people want to go there.”

There was something questionable in her look, he decided. It was the look of a clerk who remains perfectly pleasant while signaling frantically for the department manager. “I didn’t say I wanted to go there,” he told her. “But I’d like a map showing the location.”

“They’re pretty expensive, you know, and we don’t guarantee them.”

“That’s all right,” he said.

She nodded. “As long as you understand. Step this way, please.”

A manic gaiety seized him. “Madame, if I could step that way I wouldn’t need the lotion.” It was the ancient wheeze at which he himself had dutifully snickered a hundred times.

She ignored it, or more probably did not hear it. “Here we are, sir. Slumberland, Disneyland, Cleveland, and Heaven, Hell, and Limbo—all three on this one map.” She shot him a quizzical glance. “Quite a saving.”

“No,” he said. “Overwood.”

“Overwood.” She had to stand on tiptoe to pull it out of the highest pigeonhole in the rack. “Last one, too. They’re on backorder, I think. That will be twenty-nine ninety-eight, plus tax.”

“I want to make sure it’s what I’m looking for first.” He unfolded part of the map, which was thick and folded with great complexity.

“There’s the Overwood area.” She pointed. “Crystal Gorge, the Metal Forest, and so forth.”

He nodded, bending over the map.

“That’s twenty-nine ninety-eight, plus tax.”

There were no paths, no roads, no buildings that showed on the map. He got out his wallet, a twenty, a ten, and a five.

The clerk glanced at them and shook her head. “That isn’t real money. Not here, anyway. Where are you from?”

He said, “What do you mean? I just bought a doll down the street.” Then he recalled that he had written a check for the doll.

The clerk walked hurriedly to her cash register and pressed a button. “Mrs. Peters, I think you’d better get in here.”

He began to refold the map. In a moment he would have lost it forever.

“Wait a minute!” the clerk shrieked at him. “Hey!”

He was out the door and sprinting down the street. He had not thought she would chase him, but she did, knees pumping, one black high-heeled shoe in each hand, flying along with her skirt at her thighs. “Stop him!”

A woman tried to trip him with her umbrella; he staggered but ran on. A big, rough-looking man shouted, “Go it, Neddy!” Horns blew as a mounted policeman spurred his skittish horse through traffic.