The Way Through Doors (20 page)

Lefferts never forgot that. He had the phrase engraved on a small metal plaque, and wore the plaque about his wrist as a constant reminder of his mission. Over the next two years he worked day and night, building rope ladders and lowering himself deeper and still deeper into the hole. So long did the rope ladders become that he began to build hammocks that would accompany the rope ladder in order to provide rest for the tired climber. Finally he despaired even of this, and he had a huge cable made, such as was used to bind clipper ships to trading docks. To the end of this he attached the basket from a balloon. He had a massive winch set inside the now formidable enclosure that surrounded Six Quince Street, and down into the hole he had himself lowered, lanterns in tow.

The winch ran out of rope four times, and had to be restrung. Each time the rope was separated, tied off, then strung together with the new rope and lowered. Finally Lefferts reached the bottom, where we now stand.

At that time it was only bare stone, a wide cavern of bare stone, with a stream running through it.

Lefferts cried with joy and laid himself down upon the cavern floor and spoke once more the words that Lincoln had said:
This may be a godsend in pitiful disguise.

However, the disguise was no longer pitiful.

Lefferts had himself winched back up out of the hole, and he went immediately again to Washington. He sat with Lincoln and told him all that he had found. Said Lincoln:

—I have thought often of your hole, and of what might lie at the bottom. I am best pleased by this that you have found. Here are my plans for what should be done.

Lincoln had set up a special government branch, sealed from the rest and with only this single purpose in mind: to build a passage down through the hole, and place at the bottom a replica of a meadow and cottage that he had seen once in a dream.

This was the plan that Lincoln had drawn:

Lefferts returned, now flush with cash, and began the work in earnest. He had to keep the proceedings secret, and so the entire area had to be sealed. A large building was built over the hole, and the work went on underneath, done by workers whose children were kept as hostages in a separate federal camp near the Canadian border.

The building is architecturally unique, because none of its weight relies upon that which is beneath it. All the weight is supported by the stone to either side. The staircase was literally built one step at a time, proceeding down. The workers would stand on the step above, and build the step that would come next, while the building materials hung in the central space supported by the winch far above. Last of all were built the landings, for they prohibited the use of the winch to carry up and down supplies of timber and metal beams.

To import the grass and the trees was no easy task. An ecosystem had to be created where there was none. Perhaps most amazing was the creation of the series of mirrors that enabled the sun to shine upon the meadow just as it shines above. The complication of this mirror system has never been matched by any lens or mirror system built elsewhere at any time in the history of man.

Lefferts himself took up residence in the cottage. He brought his wife down and lived happily to old age. Lincoln passed away during the first year of the work, when the stairs scarcely descended a hundred steps into the ground, and over the next years presidents came and went. No president until Theodore Roosevelt betook himself to see just what the Department of Deep Core Agriculture was accomplishing. When he did, Roosevelt found the existence of the hole. The covering structure had long been removed. A small shack stood on the site, covered around by a stone wall with a locked gate. Within the shack was the malachite plug that you yourself have seen.

Roosevelt descended and spoke with Lefferts, who had gone then into extreme old age. They conversed over the future of the place. Roosevelt decided that eventually, if it were continued to be allowed to manage the place, the federal government would eventually mismanage it. Thus he created an endowment, complete with a board of directors and charter, to see in complete discretion and privacy to the continuation of the hole. He named it Lincoln’s Folly, and saw to it that every document pertaining to its existence or creation was destroyed. One more thing he saw to also, and that was to the marrying off of Lefferts’s son to a bright-eyed woman named Nancy Rourke. She moved down into Lincoln’s Folly, and life continued with no one the wiser.

The Lincoln’s Folly Foundation endured through the Depression. Always they blended the site with the architecture that was around it, so that even down to this day it mirrors the surrounding buildings. The Chinese man who sits outside the door is an employee of the foundation, and is paid quite well for his services. His own discretion is unimpeachable.

—But, said Selah, all this is really not why I came down here.

Kleb lit the lantern and peered in Selah’s face.

—Why ever did you come down here, if not to learn the secret of Lincoln’s Folly?

His voice was thick and strange, as is anyone’s who has just told such a long and involved tale, only to learn the person listening was not really listening.

—Why, because I want to get upstairs, and I don’t know how to get there in the first place, and I was told that perhaps you knew something about it. Or rather, I was told that here I might find out some information that might help me. Whether from you or another, I do not know.

Kleb nodded, and the lantern moved slightly in his hand.

—It’s not so easy, he said, to get upstairs. But if you must…

—I must, said Selah. There is a girl. She has lost her memory.

—Don’t tell me, said Kleb. Listen now. Go into the kitchen of the house. Look at the small painting on the wall beside the spice cabinet.

Selah rose and, taking the lantern from Kleb, descended the hill. The grass felt good upon his feet. A breeze moved, and he could hear in the night the whinnying of the horses. He felt them close by in the darkness, and through it he guided his little light toward the larger light of the house. Soon he came to it. I am so far, he thought, so very far from the world I began in. He thought of Mora, and of his hunt, his long hunt. Around him this small pastoral beauty—to be out-of-doors but indoors. It was a grave and unanswerable pleasure. Somewhere, he felt, there must be a cost paid for a wonder such as this. And also, did Mora come here, and why?

The door was unlocked. He entered. Morris and the guess artist were playing chess. Corina was watching.

—Don’t let him cheat, said Selah to Morris.

—When it’s his turn, said Morris, I think of all sorts of bad moves that he might do.

—He’s very clever, said the guess artist. As I said earlier.

Selah passed through the first room into the kitchen. Corina came after him. Clutching at his hand, she whispered:

—The branch will not break.

Selah looked her carefully in the eyes and saw a few things there that he wished he could remember but knew he never would.

Bread was baking in the oven, and the smell enfolded the house in what seemed like a gentle trembling of longing. Upon the wall beside a cabinet there was indeed a painting. Selah came closer to it. It was very old, a painting of a town as seen from a hill beyond.

—Guess artist, said Selah in a definite you-had-better-come-here voice. Leaned in the corner of the room was a baseball bat. Selah took it up in his hands. Mora, he thought. I will find you soon.

The guess artist came into the room and saw Selah, intent on the painting. He pressed up next to him and peered into the painting.

—Oh, Lord, he said. Here we go.

And the two were standing no longer in a saltbox house at the foot of a great stair, but instead upon a hill in broad daylight. Ahead of them was a signpost. It said:

SOM—>

Selah looked at the guess artist. The guess artist looked at Selah. The road was rather rough, and they were both now barefoot.

—This is a bad business, said Selah. You should never leave your shoes in the midst of a staircase. I knew it was the wrong thing to do.

They started to walk in the direction of the town. The weather was broad, and the clouds were very puffy, while behind, the sky was a deep blue. Ahead upon the road, the town looked fine as well, its roofs and steeples shining in the sun. They made their way down into it, past towns-people laboring in the sun at this task or that, and soon came to an inn.

—This is the inn, said the guess artist.

—Wait here a moment, said Selah.

He burst in through the door. The room was empty. No one was there. Certainly it was the common room of the inn, but the proprietor was elsewhere. All the better, thought Selah.

He proceeded up the stairway that stood on the left. It was a winding stair, but a simple matter for the now experienced stairsman that Selah had become. Up the stair he went and burst into the first chamber at the top.

—Mora! he shouted.

But there was no one there. This room too was empty. In turn Selah went into every room upon the second floor. There was no one anywhere.

Selah returned to the common room.

—Hey, he shouted.

The guess artist came in.

—I don’t think there’s anyone here, said the guess artist.

—It’s all very wrong, said Selah. I know she’s here.

—What’s that? asked the guess artist.

The edge of something was sticking out from beneath a table. Selah went around the table. It was a fiddle. He picked it up.

—Let me see that, said the guess artist.

Selah handed him the fiddle. The guess artist took it and with a violent motion broke it loudly across his knee. The fiddle let out a violent twang.

Out of the broken fiddle there fell a letter, rolled up and tied with a string.

Selah knelt and picked it up.

It said,

WHO WAS THE GIRL IN THE MOTORCAR?

Selah gave the guess artist a puzzled look.

—There are more, said the guess artist.

And indeed, poking out from beneath many of the tables were other fiddles. The guess artist went to the nearest table, picked up a fiddle, and broke it too over his knee. Another letter fell out. He picked it up and showed it to Selah.