The Way Through Doors by Jesse Ball Page A

and how that had pleased me in my time. I was welcomed into their house and our holiday began.
    They lived on a sort of vineyard, and in the first days they began to teach me how one keeps a vineyard, how one cares for the grapes, how certain fields lie fallow and others bear fruit. I learned about the shade of the porch in the long afternoon, where we would sit, drinking iced drinks from tall glasses, and watching the dogs sleep and wake and sleep again.
    But something began to happen. There were other people present too, people who worked at the vineyard, as well as a few servants to see to the house. There was a sort of human drama always going on, with people entering rooms and leaving them. One man would stick his head in a window, another would emerge from a cellar. People were always conversing and talking about this or that. At some point I was walking, crossing a field beside my friend. He was dressed, I recall, in a linen shirt with deep brown pants, rolled up, and bare feet. His hair was unkempt, and his eyes had that incredible quality that eyes have that are blue and also long beneath the sun.
    He began to speak to me on some subject, and I responded. Someone shouted something from across the field, and then I realized what had been lurking just beyond the edges of my comprehension: the things that people were saying to one another, the way that one action blended into another, the shifting times of day, and the pleasures of companionship, but most of all the dialogue: we were in a novel. There was no other explanation. No one spoke like this in ordinary life, picking up every inch of what had been said, and delivering it back with a twist and a nuance. It had not happened just once. I felt that each remark somehow carried with it the implication of all others previous. One felt very clearly a comprehending intelligence strung through the air, setting each new moment into motion. I wrested myself out of the necessity to do and say without decision, the leash that had accompanied my passage hitherto through the book that was all about me, and a further thought occurred to me: how could a person wander into a novel? It must be a dream. Then, realizing that I was in a dream, all became possible.
    I said to my friend, This is a dream. And he looked at me blankly.
    —That’s ridiculous, he said. But funny. Imagine that! You, Robert, saying that this is all a dream with that dead serious expression on your face. I can’t wait to tell Isabel. She’ll laugh and laugh. Let’s go back to the house and tell her.
    He pulled on my arm, touching me with that tacit permission that is between the best of friends.
    I looked at him sadly. For we had had such a fine time, but now it was all over.
    —Good-bye, my friend. I’ll miss you.
    —I’ll see you at dinner, he said, still smiling, unbelieving, and turned away, already crossing the field.
    But I, I rose up straight into the air, and saw beneath me the vineyard spread out, and beyond that, unestablished country, unestablished for I had not yet flown over it and decided in my passage what might or might not exist, creating it even as I glanced in depth upon each thing in turn.
    Yes, I was flying and dreaming and shooting through the air at blinding speed. The feeling is glorious, and better than anything in this world. But at some point the dream can again take hold, and one forgets that one is dreaming. One stumbles, and again is bound to the dictates of something half created, half imagined.
    —You see! he said, striking his hand upon his knee. That’s the difficulty. Things must be done easily and well or not at all. For instance, in the city even now a young man has entered the Seventh Ministry building. It is a fine and beautiful day in the fall. Fall is, of course, the best season in that city of cities.
    The air is crisp and the leaves on the trees that line the streets have begun to change. As he crosses the doorstep and passes within, he sees behind the desk