There Are Doors

“Jacob smiled. ‘I always felt the same way myself,’ he said.”

Tina asked, “Felt what way?”

He pulled at his jaw, scratched his ear. “As if there was nothing going on, I guess. And yet, so much going on —so many things that it was hard to choose.”

“Uh huh, that must be it. Read some more.”

“Joseph saw how silently the blue shadows crept across the hoarfrost beside the trees. ‘I see a black wolf,’ he said, and Jacob’s pen flew faster than the wind. Joseph tiptoed away as quietly as he could.”

He paused and glanced at Tina, who was rinsing her hair in the trickle from the tap. “I can hear,” she told him. “Don’t stop.”

“When he came back next time, Jacob was waiting. ‘You must look outside again, I fear,’ Jacob said.

“So Joseph looked out. A bright bird fluttered above the brambles. ‘I see an enchanted princess picking blackberries,’ he told Jacob. ‘An enchanted princess with wings,’ he added after a moment, and Jacob’s pen flew faster than the bird.”

Tina was drying herself with Kleenex. “Do you think the Schwarzwald Gazette will buy Jacob’s story?”

He nodded. “I’m sure they will. It’s such a good one.”

“So am I,” Tina said. “Now read some more.”

“Soon Jacob’s story was finished. He addressed an envelope, and that night Joseph walked to the village to mail it.

“After that, Jacob wrote another story and another, but no answering letter arrived from the Schwarzwald Gazette. When the last leaves had fallen, Joseph bought as much food as he could; and when winter came in earnest, and the snow was higher than a man’s knees, he made snowshoes. Each day, after he had dressed himself as warmly as he could, he went hunting. He shot several hares in that way, and at Christmas he and Jacob feasted upon a partridge.”

Tina stepped into the blue teddy he had bought her in Toys. “All clean,” she announced. “We can start on the drawers, but you’ll have to open them for me and lift me up.”

He carried her into the bedroom and (deciding they might as well be systematic) opened the upper left drawer of his bureau. “You can start in here,” he told her. “But I don’t think you’ll find anything except handkerchiefs.”

She hopped from his palm. “I like your hankies. They’re so clean. Now go on with the story.”

He sat down on the bed and found his place. “And yet there were many days when Joseph shot nothing at all, and he and Jacob supped upon pease porridge and water, for dried peas, water, and firewood were the only supplies that the winter had left them; and on such days, Joseph filled Jacob’s bowl to the rim but took only a few spoonsful for himself.

“But on this day, when he saw how few dried peas remained, Joseph resolved that Jacob should have them all and that he himself should have nothing, for he blamed himself bitterly for returning with an empty bag. He set out Jacob’s bowl and a spoon, filled two pots with snow, sprinkled all the remaining peas into one, and hung them over their little fire.

“Then Jacob said, ‘Brother, I am hard at work on a new tale, but you must look out the window for me.’

“Joseph looked, and to his astonishment saw a fine sleigh drawn by four—”

Tina called, “Look!” She was holding up something thin and brown and shapeless, suspended on a scarlet thread.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Don’t you know? I found it in your drawer.”

He took it from her and held it up to the light. “It’s a root,” he said. At once Mr. Sheng’s shop rose before his mind’s eye, complete with all its queer boxes of incense, paper horses, blue-haloed gas ring, and steaming teapot. “It’s a magic charm,” he told Tina.

“A real charm?”

“The man who gave it to me said it was.”

“Will it make you as little as me?”

“I’m afraid not.”

She seated herself on the edge of the drawer, slender legs dangling over what was to her an abyss. “I didn’t think so—not really. But we could pretend. Will it make you invisible?”

He shook his head. “It was supposed to bring mail.”

“But it doesn’t work?”

“I don’t know. There was a lot of mail when I got back, but then I’d been gone for a month.”

“Will it bring a sleigh with reindeer, like the one in the story?”

“I don’t think they were reindeer.” He glanced down at the page. “No, chargers.”

“I don’t know that word.”

He groped. “Like ponies,” (Tina would surely know pony) “but bigger. I don’t think it will bring any kind of sleigh.”

“Aren’t you going to put it on?”

“I hadn’t planned to,” he said.