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1Fragments of The Land Across Writeup by Aramini
2# *THE LAND ACROSS*: WHAT HAS GOTTEN INTO US LATELY?
3>“[I felt] absolutely sure that I would never get away from this crazy country, that I would die right here and be buried right here, too. In my imagination, or maybe in a dream, I remember seeing the little gray stone that would mark my grave, a stone cut with my name and after that a ‘d’ and the date of my death. Was it a real prophesy? I think maybe it was.” (Wolfe 65).
4Given the surface action of Wolfe’s *The Land Across*, we might be reminded of the fallible nature of prophecies: 
5>Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing … but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
6Despite the claim in the well-worn passage above, prophecies in Wolfe usually come true *somehow*, though we may lack the necessary knowledge at first glance to appreciate exactly how. At times reading *The Land Across*, though I had faith that many of the disparate and confusing elements could be unified, at every step a holistic understanding vanished. Luckily, there are still patterns of meaning and motifs that suggest a cogent backstory to the novel, but the distinctions between good, evil, men, angels, and other eldritch or demonic forces are so vague that a close reading might leave us almost as perplexed as when we began. Alas, I don’t get paid to be confused, so let’s forge ahead.
7With the many doubles, visions of authority figures that only a select few can see, and autonomous fragments of the dead operating in the text, we can conclude that Grafton, like most of Wolfe’s narrators, fails to grasp the full import of the events occurring around him. One theme that seems to unify many of the plot elements in *The Land Across* involves possession, whether that be attempted possession of a wife through marriage, of a house via occupation, of a country by dictatorship, or, perhaps most importantly, of another’s body through demonic agency.
8## The Story
9*The Land Across* highlights many of the features of Wolfe’s late fiction: a masculine but perhaps not entirely confident (or trustworthy) narrator is thrust into a series of strange events which *almost* make sense, but we are left with enough inexplicable observations and frustrating omissions from the start that we are forced once again to question reality as well as the perceptions of our narrator. On one level, the novel examines life when democracy fails and a dictator rises to power, but that analysis of government is subordinate to the adventure story at its heart.
10In short, the narrator Grafton enters a European country via locomotive with the intention of writing a travel book, and is quickly detained, his passport confiscated by border guards (one of whom seems to be ignored by the others and reminds Grafton of his father). Taken to the city of Puraustays (whose direct translation into Greek might imply something like a static fire or pyre), he is left in the custody of a man named Kleon (who will be executed if Grafton does not remain at his house). Grafton begins an affair with Kleon’s wife Martya. After some of the domestic drama which this provokes, Martya introduces our narrator to Volitain Aeneaos, who dabbles in both medicine and law. Volitain tells Grafton that money might be the best way to ensure his freedom. He informs Grafton of a house known as the Willows. [While his assistance to Grafton gives readers a rather benevolent first impression, Volitain’s description, of an emaciated man with a rictus-like grin, coupled with the fear a local citizen on a bike clearly has of him, hint at a sinister nature.] Aeneaos challenges Grafton to find the nineteenth-century treasure supposedly hidden there by its one-time owner, Eion Demarates. (Aeneaos also seems to order Grafton to repair the property, “rendering it a fit residence” (26).)
11The mood of the novel changes when Martya and Grafton enter the Willows, introducing the haunting and sprawling house trope ubiquitous in Wolfe’s late stand-alone novels. They find the mummified remains of a woman’s body behind one of the mirrors in the house and seek the aid of a priest named Father Zenon to grant it a discrete burial. (Martya claims that the mirrors call to her). On a lake trip to the abandoned summerhouse of Vlad Tepes the Impaler, Grafton encounters the figure of a tall “Man in Black” who reappears several times throughout his stay in the country. Throughout the rest of the narrative, Grafton seems preoccupied with avoiding the ire of the Man in Black.
12After being beaten by Kleon, who seems to realize Martya and Grafton have initiated a physical relationship, Grafton leaves the house and wrestles with the idea of getting his reluctant host killed. In the Willows, a vision of the Man in Black appears, leading Grafton back to Kleon’s house even though other people cannot perceive his dark guide. During this night journey, the Man in Black is also accompanied by three wolves. Later, while further investigating the Willows, Grafton is abducted by a strange religious group motivated by political ends known as the Legion of Light. They force Grafton to broadcast for them in English. Planting clues to his location in the broadcast, Grafton trades captors when the Legion is raided by the government's police force. Although Grafton is shot during the attack, he is taken into custody and thrust into a cell. His cellmate, Russell Rathaus, claims to be an American as well. During their time together, Grafton learns of Russell's younger wife Rosalee and the strange business he once owned: Rathaus produced voodoo dolls which could imprint on people’s faces when exposed to a photograph and a light source. [We should note here that the theme of governance extends even to Rathaus’s name – a *rathaus* is a town hall or a municipal building which houses local government in German speaking countries.]
13During his incarceration, Grafton is constantly questioned by the officials Butch Bobokis and Aegis, and for his cooperation he is eventually rewarded with a cigarette and a match for his cell mate. Rathaus uses the match (perhaps) to invoke the Man in Black and somehow escape, leaving a life-sized doll in his bed. This proves sufficient to fool Grafton into believing that Rathaus is still present in the morning. In exchange for his assistance in finding the Unholy Way, a sinister group interested in Rathaus, Grafton is released into the custody of an older female agent of the secret police named Naala. (At this point, Grafton has a dream in which the Man in Black impales another man on a stake – though the impaled figure soon turns out to be a doll with the face of Russ Rathaus).
14One of Grafton and Naala’s first acts is to interrogate Russ’s wife Rosalee, who has been incarcerated at an all-female prison. She reveals that her Uncle Eneas and Russ might have gotten back into the doll business locally. [Perhaps we should consider the similarity in name between Eneas and Aeneaos, though it does not appear at first glance that Uncle Eneas features in the action of the novel.] Grafton and Naala then visit the Archbishop of the capital city, who claims that the city has been laboring under a dark force, and that somewhere, somehow, possession is involved. He gives them a disembodied and tattooed hand which another priest had brought to him. Naala demands to know the identity of that priest, and the archbishop directs her to Papa Iason.
15After releasing Rosalee from prison, they find Iason near his parish. Naala realizes that Iason strongly resembles Russ Rathaus and asks to see pictures of his parents, who look nothing like the priest. Iason will only tell them that a woman with red hair dropped off the hand; he then took it to the archbishop. Grafton soon surmises that this red-haired woman must have been Martya.
16On their way back to the prison, Rosalee recognizes a shop as one of her husband’s clients by its sign, depicting a hand with a white rabbit. The old man there remembers Rathaus as a German who visited his store several years ago, but he believes that the doll manufacturer must be a different American man. [This entire scene seems very portentous, given that the proprietor of the magic shop performs several tricks; some of them feature a pencil, a motif we shall definitely return to below.] That night, the hand tries to strangle Naala while she and Grafton sleep side by side in her apartment. Grafton succeeds in wresting the hand from her throat, but it conceals itself. Naala first believes that an entire woman attacked her.
17They soon learn that Rosalee is missing from prison. Naala sends Grafton to find her and to speak with Papa Iason again. During his visit to the prison, Grafton learns that a young prisoner named Yelena, who bears a strong resemblance to Rosalee, has fallen sick after what might have been an attack in the night. Grafton is present when she passes away. In his search, he later finds Rosalee posing as a mannequin in a shop. She claims that during the night someone tried to kill her, stabbing Yelena instead. During this scene, a gray-haired woman comes into the shop; it is eventually revealed that this woman is searching for Rosalee as well under orders from the Dictator. (Her name is eventually revealed to be Omphala, which resonates with some stories surrounding the figure of Heracles.) 
18 While Naala searches for the hand, Grafton traces the scarf which wrapped it to a building which features both a clothing shop and a magic parlor. He manages to open a door, which locks behind him, and he is forced to break into the magic shop. He takes one of their business cards and leaves the skylight unlocked in case he needs to return. Near something like a shrunken head (which seems to call to him mysteriously), Grafton claims to see one of Rathaus’s dolls in the store. When he reports to Naala, he is convinced that Rathaus sent Martya to Iason. Naala then decides to work with Papa Zenon to find both Rathaus and the group interested in him.
19Ravenously hungry, Grafton refuses to report all of his findings to Naala until she procures food. When a boy she sends returns empty handed, Grafton goes and roughs up the owner of the nearby restaurant. A woman he had seen earlier, wielding a red pen and obviously troubled, thanks him for his actions. Naala and Grafton continue to discuss how Martya might have come to deliver the hand to Iason and his purpose in doing so. The next day they meet with Papa Zenon, who informs them that Russ, Rosalee, and Martya are, according to his sources, certainly involved with the Unholy Way. Grafton shows him the hand, intending to procure his cooperation, and the priest asserts that the symbols on it represent the names of angels. It is also inscribed with a spell meant to reveal treasure. Later, Naala and Grafton go back to the magic shop and have a rough encounter with the deceased Yelena’s suitor Ferenc Narkatsos, whose father owns both stores in the building. Naala claims to get a confession for Yelena’s murder from him. While Ferenc’s motive is vague, he insists that Yelena refused to sign something.
20Grafton receives a badge and a firearm from an officer of the JAKA known as Baldy, then tries to track down Rosalee again on his own. He only finds a letter she left behind claiming that she must go to her ill husband. When Bax reports this to Naala, the door to her apartment is thrust open and someone throws a decapitated head into it. Grafton recognizes it as belonging to Butch Bobokis. 
21After the panic associated with investigating what happened, Grafton eventually heads to Papa Iason’s, where he discovers Martya, also in a frenzy, who describes how she has wound up in her current position. Grafton assumes she must have attempted to shop lift from the store owned by Narkatsos and been forced into bringing the hand to Russ in an attempt to kill him, then been diverted to Papa Iason at Russ’s request. According to Martya, the Unholy Way forced her to sign a kind of confession which could implicate her to the authorities if she did not cooperate. She also reveals that Russ is in the Frost Forest. Russ, Iason, Naala and another cop go the strange forest, which seems to Grafton to be a gigantic chamber. They find Russ, helping him back to the car after Naala arrests him. When grey light burgeons in the sky, Grafton realizes that they are carrying a doll instead of his friend. Only when he drags the others far enough away do they recognize it for what it is.
22In his attempt to explain what they have experienced, Grafton claims that Russ had been hiding in the forest and then fallen ill, sending Martya to find Rosalee. However, Russ’s sickness became more severe – the doll that was last in the hands of Butch Bobokis was being used against him. Supposedly, Russ came across it and brought the doll back to the forest, from which he fled. Grafton’s search for Russ eventually leads him back to the magic shop, where he asks if anyone else might have purchased the dolls. The proprietor thinks of a man Grafton calls “Magos X” who owns several of the dolls, directing Grafton to his home.
23When Grafton comes to Magos X’s house, the mysterious man there seems aware of the ghost who accompanies Grafton. Magos X claims to be ignorant of the Undead Dragon’s identity but admits that he has been allowing Russ to stay with him. He also recognizes Grafton’s voice from the Legion of Light broadcasts and expresses belief in some of their propaganda. Grafton offers a deal to Russ in return for his cooperation, which includes his freedom and return to America via Germany. Russ demands his picture and destroys it. Russ refuses to be the bait for the Unholy Way. Eventually, Grafton returns to Naala’s apartment.
24There, Grafton learns that Naala has been receiving calls, but the caller will not speak. She assumes he or she wants Grafton to pick up the phone. Eventually, Rosalee calls Grafton from a bar called the Golden Eagle, also putting Martya on the line. Naala and Grafton conclude that the agent Aliz wants extra back up and so allowed Rosalee to use her phone, fearing that the Unholy Way will soon act. They assume that the Unholy Way wants to capture Rosalee so she can lead them to Russ.
25Naala and Grafton head to the bar and blend into the club scene. A group of cruel looking people enter, and soon a man offers to take Rosalee’s picture. Violence explodes when the flash goes off, and in the aftermath of the fight Naala tells Grafton that Martya has been taken instead of Rosalee. As Grafton tries to determine how to find his enemies, he soon notices that the third border guard accompanies him through the streets, dressed in a conservative dark suit. Soon, Grafton hears a locomotive whistle, and he follows the guard around a corner to see a railroad station, with the clock ringing eleven. It is at this point that Grafton asserts that he believes he knows who the Unholy Way’s Undead Dragon might be: “God had used the tower and the clock striking eleven to remind me of all that stuff and maybe give me a clue about which way to go. He is good at that” (240).
26Soon enough, Grafton sees a woman in a red-and-black striped dress whom he recognizes from the nightclub (though she was wearing a different dress), and Grafton watches her enter a coffee shop. Eventually, she leaves through a loading dock door, and Grafton follows her to a mortuary. Hiding in the trees and weeds, Grafton soon sees another man in the shadows. When Grafton approaches the man to ask a question, he is knocked down by a punch. Grafton manages to kick his opponent and wrench the gun from his hands, but notices during this fight that his new watch is broken. A cop approaches and Grafton sends him to seek Naala for reinforcements. The man Grafton attempts to question about the mortuary gets away. As he circles around the back to try and enter the building, he sees a poster featuring the likeness of the third border guard. (Grafton also notes that most of the stores have lights on inside them). Grafton is able to push the hand under one of the partially opened windows and asks it to unlock it for him. 
27As he enters, Grafton hears voices in the dark, and considers that if he makes noise the people might turn on the lights: “I cannot tell you how bad I wanted those lights” (247).  He passes a dead youth and finally sees a glimmer of light through an old wooden door. He overhears a woman on the other side saying, “… and the news would get out.” (247).
28Grafton opens the door and proceeds down steps to find the group from the Golden Eagle, with Martya seemingly crucified, suffering from skewers through her arms and right leg. The photographer holds a knife at her throat. Grafton is distracted by the dark candles and notices photographs of men and women sexually defiling the dead. He feels a presence watching him and thinks that the world has cancer: “and the thing watching me now was the cancer” (249).
29Soon, they begin firing at each other, and Grafton is able to reach Martya and free her thanks to the arrival of Russ Rathaus, wielding a shotgun on the stairs. When Naala arrives with some other cops, she indicates that Russ is also working for the JAKA. After some time at JAKA headquarters, Naala, Russ, and Grafton return to the Golden Eagle to eat. Grafton emphasizes that the Undead Dragon is still at large, at which point the hand comes to life in his pocket. Russ reveals that Magos X told him that he might find Rosalee at the Golden Eagle, and Naala wonders how he might have spoken to her there without her noticing earlier in the night. When Russ returned to Magos X to asks where the Satanists might have taken Martya, Magos X suggested several places, including the undertaker’s and “an old mansion on the lake shore” (252). Russ describes entering and shooting several members of the Unholy Way. When Naala and Grafton return to her place, he is curious about who she thinks might have killed Butch Bobokis, and she indicates that they have ten people in custody to question.
30When they go to sleep, there is a strange disjunction in the text. Grafton wakes up alone with all of his clothes gone, with his gun and badge lying on top of new clothes. He is concerned about the hand. Grafton sees that it is three, realizing he has slept through the day and most of the night. He finds a new wool jacket in the closet and resolves upon a necessary course of action, heading to the cathedral. Grafton enters through a side door and climbs the steps of the tower, noting at the top that there is no rail on the bell-rope side. There, Grafton waits until the steps of the archbishop sound out. At that point, he notices that the third border guard is waiting with him there as well. Grafton notes that the archbishop seems to be talking to himself. 
31Grafton says that three of the archbishop’s people are dead, but ten were taken alive. As the archbishop begins to say something under his breath, Grafton realizes that there was somebody else there besides even the third border guard: “Just having it there made me angry and sad and terribly down, but I kept going” (256).
32Grafton says that he knows the archbishop is the Undead Dragon because he had told them that the hand was full of curses. “I got someone I trust to translate a couple of them, and they were prayers” (257). The second reason involved Papa Zenon’s concerns upon viewing the archbishop coming down from the tower. Grafton surmises his concern was over the archbishop’s appearance. At this point, the archbishop seems to stop listening to Grafton, staring at his gun on the coping, wielded by the hand. Suddenly, the archbishop throws his legs over the rail and falls off the tower. When Grafton descends, he looks back to find the border guard saluting him and smiling before he disappears. Grafton notes that the bad feeling follows him down some of the way, and he almost trips on something on his way down. He recites things he learned from his mother as a child in an attempt to combat that feeling. He simply leaves the archbishop on the ground and returns to Naala’s. She dresses in a green dress and they go to a café, and he tells her the Undead Dragon was the archbishop, who is now dead. 
33## The Willows
34It is worth noting that the opening of *The Land Across* bears som resemblance to Algernon Blackwood’s “The Willows.” Blackwood’s story starts with a journey across the Danube via boat:
35>After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, the Danube enters a region of singular loneliness and desolation, where its waters spread away on all sides regardless of a main channel, and the country becomes a swamp for miles upon miles, covered by a vast sea of low willow-bushes. On the big maps this deserted area is painted in a fluffy blue, growing fainter in color as it leaves the banks, and across it may be seen in large straggling letters the word Sumpfe, meaning marshes.
36>In high flood this great acreage of sand, shingle-beds, and willow-grown islands is almost topped by the water, but in normal seasons the bushes bend and rustle in the free winds, showing their silver leaves to the sunshine in an ever-moving plain of bewildering beauty. These willows never attain to the dignity of trees; they have no rigid trunks; they remain humble bushes, with rounded tops and soft outline, swaying on slender stems that answer to the least pressure of the wind; supple as grasses, and so continually shifting that they somehow give the impression that the entire plain is moving and alive. For the wind sends waves rising and falling over the whole surface, waves of leaves instead of waves of water, green swells like the sea, too, until the branches turn and lift, and then silvery white as their underside turns to the sun.
37>Happy to slip beyond the control of the stern banks, the Danube here wanders about at will among the intricate network of channels intersecting the islands everywhere with broad avenues down which the waters pour with a shouting sound; making whirlpools, eddies, and foaming rapids; tearing at the sandy banks; carrying away masses of shore and willow-clumps; and forming new islands innumerably which shift daily in size and shape and possess at best an impermanent life, since the flood-time obliterates their very existence.
38…
39"He saw our smoke, and thought we were spirits probably," laughed my companion. "These Hungarians believe in all sorts of rubbish; you remember the shopwoman at Pressburg warning us that no one ever landed here because it belonged to some sort of beings outside man's world! I suppose they believe in fairies and elementals, possibly demons, too. That peasant in the boat saw people on the islands for the first time in his life," he added, after a slight pause, "and it scared him, that's all."
40The Swede's tone of voice was not convincing, and his manner lacked something that was usually there. I noted the change instantly while he talked, though without being able to label it precisely.
41"If they had enough imagination," I laughed loudly—I remember trying to make as much noise as I could—"they might well people a place like this with the old gods of antiquity. The Romans must have haunted all this region more or less with their shrines and sacred groves and elemental deities."
42…
43My first instinct was to waken my companion, that he too might see them, but something made me hesitate—the sudden realization, probably, that I should not welcome corroboration; and meanwhile I crouched there staring in amazement with smarting eyes. I was wide awake. I remember saying to myself that I was not dreaming.
44They first became properly visible, these huge figures, just within the tops of the bushes—immense, bronze-colored, moving, and wholly independent of the swaying of the branches. I saw them plainly and noted, now I came to examine them more calmly, that they were very much larger than human, and indeed that something in their appearance proclaimed them to be not human at all. Certainly they were not merely the moving tracery of the branches against the moonlight. They shifted independently. They rose upwards in a continuous stream from earth to sky, vanishing utterly as soon as they reached the dark of the sky. They were interlaced one with another, making a great column, and I saw their limbs and huge bodies melting in and out of each other, forming this serpentine line that bent and swayed and twisted spirally with the contortions of the wind-tossed trees. They were nude, fluid shapes, passing up the bushes, within the leaves almost—rising up in a living column into the heavens. Their faces I never could see. Unceasingly they poured upwards, swaying in great bending curves, with a hue of dull bronze upon their skins.
45
46
47…
48
49>"Worse--by far," he said. "Death, according to one's belief, means either
50annihilation or release from the limitations of the senses, but it involves
51no change of character. You don't suddenly alter just because the body's
52gone. But this means a radical alteration, a complete change, a horrible
53loss of oneself by substitution--far worse than death, and not even
54annihilation. We happen to have camped in a spot where their region touches
55ours, where the veil between has worn thin"--horrors! he was using my very
56own phrase, my actual words--"so that they are aware of our being in their
57neighborhood."
58…
59"It's the willows, of course. The willows mask the others, but the others
60are feeling about for us. If we let our minds betray our fear, we're lost,
61lost utterly." He looked at me with an expression so calm, so determined,
62so sincere, that I no longer had any doubts as to his sanity. He was as
63sane as any man ever was. "If we can hold out through the night," he added,
64"we may get off in the daylight unnoticed, or rather, undiscovered."
65
66…
67"It's their sound," he whispered gravely. "It's the sound of their world,
68the humming in their region. The division here is so thin that it leaks
69through somehow. But, if you listen carefully, you'll find it's not above
70so much as around us. It's in the willows. It's the willows themselves
71humming, because here the willows have been made symbols of the forces that
72are against us."
73
74I dashed out in a mad run, seized by a dreadful agitation, and the moment I
75was out I plunged into a sort of torrent of humming that surrounded me
76completely and came out of every quarter of the heavens at once. It was
77that same familiar humming--gone mad! A swarm of great invisible bees might
78have been about me in the air. The sound seemed to thicken the very
79atmosphere, and I felt that my lungs worked with difficulty.
80
81
82
83
84
85## The Panic and the Pencil: *Grafote!*
86Grafton’s story features several strange elisions; by the end of the novel, he really doesn’t seem like a very trustworthy fellow. His sexual interest in the married and unmarried women in his life, his narcolepsy every time someone leaves the room, his interest in dancing and his disappointment in all of the clubs in Puraustays, and the constant talk of possession everywhere in this country all point to a rather infamous ur-myth. Given all those Greek words that are ever so slightly modified and scattered through the text, we might as well start there. No more ambiguous figure exists in relationship to Christianity than poor dead Pan: Satan and Christ in one allusion, his death synonymous with the death of Christ and the defeat of the pagan world even as his image invokes the archetypal lusty devil. There are several reasons to think of Pan while considering *The Land Across*. One of them involves his love of naps – if he was disturbed, he could cause widespride panic through a kind of manic possession. He was also famously associated with lust and sexuality, and Grafton looks at almost every woman he meets in terms of their physical attraction and his ability to copulate with them – even the first mention of his friend’s wife Rosalee is explicitly sexual: 
87Pan is also a god of vegetation and forest – here, trees are used to define men. Perhaps the oddest feature of Pan’s mythology involves the proliferation of Pans: Pan could multiply into a swarm of Pans. The question is, do we have a plethora of Pans in *The Land Across*, or even any at all?
88“They bear strange fruit” (225) Magos X trees
89Seeing the ghost:”I did not do it. You did it.” (227)
90
91“Then I began telling her about Volitain in Puraustays, because Magos X had said he knew him and I thought it might be a good way to lead into it.” (234).
92When they first meet Papa Iason, he is sitting at a bar and grill called Demas’s. They find him listening: “just sitting there in his black suit sipping beer from a big mug and tapping his lips with a pencil.” (129). They are talking about selling things to benefit the church, and Grafton notes that Iason wanted to trust the people. 
93Martya sings at the Golden Eagle, and they dance. “It was about telling mom and dad to suck socks, and doing whatever you wanted to like chugging booze and smoking grass, and not worrying about the future, because there was not going to be any.” (237)
94The most difficult part of the novel involves untangling the motivations of the various characters. As individuals, Grafton, Russ, Rosalee, Naala, Zenon, the woman with the red pen, Martya, Magos X, the Archbishop, and Volitain all seem to have divided or ambiguous loyalties, and the supernatural or political influences of the dictator, the Legion of Light, the Unholy Way, the JAKA, and the man in black who seems to be the spirit of Dracula create a very confusing narrative. At times, Naala is certain that the Unholy Way helped Russ escape, while Grafton insists that he escaped on his own, perhaps using powers in conjunction with the man in black. Grafton also hypothesizes that the Unholy Way has been using the doll in Frost Forest against Russ, though the late Butch Bobokis was the last person who seemed to have possession of it. To further complicate matters, the special favor Grafton seems to enjoy from the dictator of the country at the end of the novel also throws doubt on his claims of being an ordinary American author of travel guides. In the epilogue to the novel, much of the rhetoric which Grafton spouts resonates strongly with the propaganda he was forced to deliver while held captive by the Legion of Light, further polluting our understanding of the text. On rereads, even Volitain seems somewhat sinister, with his emaciated and cadaverous look. After all, he is the one who makes Martya and Grafton join hands in their agreement to seek out the treasure of the Willows – Grafton hears several warnings about taking up residence in that house. 
95Some of the suspicion must fall on Grafton, for there are several strange features of his personality which come out, including a pattern of narcolepsy: he seems to fall asleep as soon as he is left alone in a room. In addition, his memories of the number of times he became intimate with Martya are a matter of some concern to him:
96
97He also makes a strange claim about notes we don’t really see him write. When he is first interrogated by Naala, an agent accompanying her says that Grafton “speaks like a child” (97). Naala defends him: “Like a little child he speaks a foreign tongue he has learned by listening. Soon he speaks better.” The other male agent present, whom Grafton thinks of as Baldy, interrupts the man with hair when he starts, “I do not mean a foreign-,” and immediately after this strange exchange, Grafton explains how his notes work. “I had taken notes, and I find that even when something happens to them later having written them down fixes them in my mind. … [T]here was one time when my notes were lost for a while then found again. There was not one thing in them that I had not remembered” (97). We should keep the exact correspondence between Grafton’s notes and his memories in mind, for later he will be strangely attracted to a woman whose defining characteristic is a red pen. In the strange semiotic slippage which I fear (with a deep and abiding existential dread) that Wolfe has fallen into in his late works, the appearance of pencils in the book might very well invoke our own graphite Grafton.
98Additionally, he occasionally seems to fear his own reactions, as when he finds Naala’s gun: “I was not afraid Naala would panic and shoot me. I was pretty sure that was not going to happen. I was afraid I would sneak it out from under her pillow and shoot her. … I could see how that might start looking like a swell idea when I got sleepy. That was one thing. The other one was that I do not trust myself when I have had much of anything to drink” (148). (This very scene features Grafton drinking something which he regurgitated, but which made him feel better). 
99
100[The bathroom window to Rosalee’s prison is big enough, as Grafton notes, for her to get out of: “I could have gotten through it myself.” (151)
101
102“They have who that we know? Name this person?”
103“That’s easy, and I’ve been thinking a lot about it. Martya. They had her, but she stole their hand and got away. She brought it to a priest because she thought he’d be the righttguy to destroy it.” (156) Naala says that he is wrong, and that Martya serves them. 
104“It is both [hand and woman]. The hand is a hand. It is solid. I have pick it up. You also. The woman is a soul by God condemned, a bad ghost.”
105“I can’t see that,” I said.
106“You have the eyes.” […[
107“The hand doesn’t. That’s what you mean. Only it seems like it sees” (156).
108
109“It is her master who wish the priest dead. … But the priest is [Rathaus’s] son. Even a bad man loves his son.” (157)
110
111Unholy way, according to Naala, views Russ as a rival. 
112
113## Phantasmagorical Beginnings and Endings - Steam Locomotive, Railroad Station, and Mysterious Lights
114SILK and LAMB’s WOOL “”that is not the shawl of a poor woman.” (178) “It is of silk and lamb’s wool woven together.” (178) Best Millinery
115Lily & Civet, Upstairs (178)
116A hat store
117
118“The first shop that I looked into made me think of the one that had taken Rosale in. There were hats on fake heads and beautifuls ilk dresses on dummies.” (180)
119The beginning and ending of the novel contain a few parallel images that are worth examining. Grafton arrives in the country determined to write a travel book, but after experiencing difficulty in crossing the border by most conventional means, he resorts to a train. The locomotive he finally uses is described in nebulous and inconsistent fashion. On the train, a “porter who would not talk” to Grafton makes his bed, and Grafton goes to sleep. “Now it seems to me that I must have been asleep a long time before I got into bed” (10). During the night, he claims to awaken and experience something he will “never forget. … Silent men walked up and down the train, men I could just barely make out by starlight. They looked small, but I think they were really big men. They carried what I figured were dark lanterns, boxy black gadgets that shed floods of light you did not expect when they were opened.” After the train jolts twice, one of the men stops by his window, holding up the lantern, which, according to Grafton, “scared hell out of me. I do not know why” (10). He is also quite conspicuously naked in this scene.
120
121Much later, when he finally (and mystically) discovers the treasure of the Willows, he mentions strange lights. “There were lights, faint lights, mostly white, some blue. Some stood still, some circled around us. I had the feeling that if one were to touch me I would die, and that I would want to die, too” (281). The association of these lights with death, almost as if they were held by psychopomps, might bear some relation to the start of the novel, especially given the strong premonition Grafton has that he will die in this country, though he seems to return to America at its conclusion. During this climactic scene at the house, Grafton notes, “I felt like I was turning into my own shadow. I was getting thinner and darker somehow, and I felt light enough to float away” (282). The ceremony during this scene involves candles placed upon the infamous and ambiguous hand. Grafton experiences a vision of a bed-ridden man in the room: “I think the man sitting up in it was screaming, but I could not hear him. He had a beard and a mustache, and I want to say that only his eyes showed how scared he was but that would not be strictly true. Something inside me kept saying, ‘Blow out the candles’” (282). Those candles, too, might have something to do with the lights which so terrify Grafton, as if this ceremony has summoned a spirit from beyond the grave. In addition to the eerie lights, the description of the train itself, the landscape over which it passes, and Grafton’s removal from the train achieve an almost surreal quality.
122We must already suspect that Grafton is not exactly as he seems, especially considering his reward from the border guard who so resembles his father, actually the dictator of the land across. When the border guards confiscate Grafton’s passport and take him from the train, the strange quality of the experience does not abate. After the loss of his passport, he notices “the railing (which I knew darn well had been there when I had climbed to the upper deck) had been taken down” (11). We will return to this missing railing later, for it is also something which he thinks about during his fatal confrontation with the Archbishop, who falls to his death from the tower of his cathedral. During this train scene, Grafton falls into the boss border guard and gets kicked, but later denies that they beat him. Their entrance into the country over the oddly moving and differently colored roads also seems to have some kind of spiritual significance. 
123
124As he steps from the conveyor belt, the wind cannot touch him. He sees that “the train’s diesel engine was gone, and there was a big steam engine up front. It was twice as big but looked old. It seemed to be trying to outrun its own smoke, but it could not do it” (12). As he moves from a black conveyor belt to a slower white one, the chief of the border guards says, “*Auanactain! Profasis!*” before helping him onto a red one. [In a hallmark act of lupine indirectness, many of the words in *The Land Across* seem to be derived from Greek roots with subtle misspellings from common usage, increasing the difficulty of a standard search from yielding meaningful results.] Prophasis is the personification of an excuse or plea, and in addition to its mundane function is also the name of a goddess. In further discussion with Ab de Vos of the Urth Mailing List, it was suggested that Auanactain could be derived from au (again) combined with anakteon, which implies something brought up or referred to again, perhaps even implying to reduce or bring back. Ab de Vos also notes, “Profasis is an alleged motive or cause whether false or not. [It is a] moral reason[,] false pretext or [a] medical cause.” The guard, who seems to be sorry that Grafton may have been hurt, might be merely apologizing for making him get up again, but given the lamps, Grafton’s naked slumber, and the strange manner by which he arrives in *The Land Across*, some necromantic resurrection is not out of the question, whether Grafton is ever aware of it or not. Indeed, he says of the guard, “I never did figure him out, only back then I thought maybe I could. My dad used to say foreigners’ values were not the same as ours. Then he would dope them out anyway” (Wolfe 12). Later Grafton also reveals that his father “was with the State Department, so [he] grew up all over the world. … Mostly Germany, France, and Japan” (19). 
125As the red belt slows, Grafton can feel the wind.  He gets in the car with the three border guards, but the “third border guard was older than the other two. He had a black mustache, and in a lot of ways he looked like my father. Sometimes it seemed to me that the other two did not know he was there the same way I did. He never did talk, and nobody ever talked to him, except me. I did one time” (12). Soon, he is delivered to Kleon’s house, where he notes that “the driver looked like the porter who had made my bed on the train. They could not have been the same guy. Still, they looked a lot alike” (14). The proliferation of people who resemble each other strongly throughout the novel must have some important explanation, and it is perhaps through Rathaus’s dolls that we might reach some mechanism for this homogeneity of appearance.
126
127When Grafton first sees a map of the area, he notes the Taxus River over which his locomotive might have passed, and this sets in motion one of Wolfe’s favorite geographical tricks: Taxus is the taxonymic name for Yew trees, noted not only for their entirely poisonous composition, but also as a symbol of immortality, renewal, everlasting life, transformation, and rebirth. This directly links Grafton’s strange train ride with a passage from death to life, also granting the words of the guard who lifts him up a new resonance: has it become necessary to resurrect a dead agent, either literally or, perhaps, as a complicated imitation?
128
129The rational for having him stay with Kleon is interesting, saying that they intend to “save” via this process, but we soon learn that many, many people are incarcerated in a traditional jail system. Grafton eventually denies that he was beaten by these guards (39).
130
131The boss border guard speaks to him in German.
132POSSESSIon 
133>The medical treatise on the Sacred Disease is the classic dexcription of popular superstitions about pernicious activities of gods and daimones which has been taken as the strongest evidence of the belief in possession. Partiularly telling is the descrption in Chap. 4 of the seers’ diagnosis of the responsible god: if it is Poseidon the sufferer sounds like a horse, if the  mother of the gods, he sounds like a goat, and so on. Interpreters of the passage remind us that it is necessary to know the name of a possessing demon to exorcize him: hence the diagnosis.” (405) 
134Smith, Wesley D. “So Called Possession in Pre-Christrian Greece.” *Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association*. 96 (1865) 403-426. 
135
136 euxine and it is an elaborate theory about things below affecting things above like the legion of light philosophy
137
138 and compares the mountains to the High Tatras, which border northern Slovakia and southern Poland, and the Transylvanian Alps. “It was early spring, and the water spilling down their cliffs made me think of a certain type of girl, the tall cold blondes that knock your eyes out. Later I met Rosalee Rathaus, and she was a blond knockout even if she hardly came up to my chin in heels” (11). As this passage suggests, Grafton’s interest in “a certain type of girl,” whether that be Martya, Rosalee, or the mysterious figure with the red pen, spur him forward to ever increasing trouble. Given the ceiling mural of a leering satyr or Pan which so interests Grafton at the Willows, we shall return to his more lecherous instincts later. Another possible conflation here involves the god Dionysius, who was also associated with frenzy and possession. The “panic” induced by Pan, often a figure in the retinue of the wine God, also suggests a kind of possession. 
139
140
141
142
143Stephen Hoy, May 30, 
144> Agree with Taxus = yew = death. Bees and Willows seem consistent with a theme of cloning, which I suspect occurred in the factories of Puraustays. The city name Puraustays can reasonably be translated from Romanian as "stand pure" and of course the surname Grafton plays with the idea as well.
145
146In Puruastays, all of the buildings are their own block. The seat of the city government features “gargoyles and lots of balconies” (14). The trees around it conceal everything but the upper floors. “I remember plants that looked an awful lot like jellyfish, and people who looked a lot like flowers” (14).
147it seems Grafton comes to share the philosophy of the Legion of Light by the conclusion about dictatorship and government - tolerating it because replacing it with something better is difficult. (Magos X says some of their philosophy is truth).
148
149 
150
151The archbishop wants to perform an exorcism, for he believes the country is possessed by something evil, and this is why he brings Zenon into the picture. The official from the ministry of internal order speaks about how his uncle saw a young angel or fey boy when he was about to die (named Rocque, while the speaker, Peterke, has a name which means more or less the same thing: rock) The calling of Rocque when Peterke was there seemed to be simply the movement of a bell in the wind (Grafton finds himself disturbed by a bell on the archbishop's desk). 
152 
153
154
155There is a fat official who mistakes Grafton for a German and rents him the Willows, saying "I myself ..." when the house comes up and never finishing the thought. There is a fat magic shop owner (of Left Hand Magic) later who believes that Russ Rathaus was also German, and he gives Naala and Grafton a trick pencil. Rosalee's Aunt Lilly seems to have disappeared, and Grafton finds a pencil in the Willows house before they learn that a dead woman is concealed behind a mirror. 
156
157 
158The archbishop tells Grafton that they must find the "right room" to perform the exorcism, saying that he once knew a woman whose house always smelled nicely and looked perfect because an angel visible only to her was present, but that the country and city are not masked with a good scent, but with an odor of evil. The leader of the country, the third border guard, seems visible only to Grafton through most of his adventure, though at the end he becomes a tangible figure and at one point seems to appear to another driver when Grafton can't see him. The stairs at the Willows are too high for the building somehow, as if they lead somewhere higher. The Legion of Light says that there is an idealized reality above where belief creates God. Grafton sees a satyr or faun looking at corpulent women on the ceiling in the bedroom where Eion Demarates seems to have died, which attracts him so strongly at the end of the novel. Is this the room the archbishop spoke of, or is it the basement of the summerhouse of Vlad the Impaler? At one point, someone says a cellar door was left open, allowing the evil in, and this most likely signals the government and the leader creeping in.
159
160
161
162The woman with the red pen appears in a few scenes, and seems somehow to become Grafton's editor (ha ha). At one point he says, "Editors are hell." She appears at the café Tetrasemnos when Papa Zenon randomly meets up with Naala and Grafton again, supposedly summoned to perform an exorcism, with a man staring at her spellbound. Is this rapture she inspires the same as the satyr or Pan staring at the maidens on the ceiling in Eion's room?
163 
164
165So ... the country is possessed by the dictator. Immediately after meeting the man in black, Papa Zenon is also described as a small man in black who seems to know a whole lot about the needs of Grafton and Martya, but the physical description of Magos X and Zenon do not jive at all, and it is clear that Volitain and Magos X are completely different characters. On the glory hand, two angels are named: Haaiah, angel of legal matters (Volitain seems to have dabbled in the law for the past three years, and Russ came into the country three years ago to see his "son" Papa Iason ordained) and Lamach, guardian angel of Mars.
166
167
168"The angel drives Adam from paradise with a sword of fire," says Peterke, and it is unclear whether the man in black with the fiery eyes who seems to be Dracula is synonymous or on the side of the leader (he commands three wolves, Papa Zenon has three assistants, three men show up to take Grafton to the Legion of the Light), but the undead dragon would certainly seem to resonate with Dracula. Grafton says he is glad he was never taken prisoner by the Unholy Way, but this could be one of those ironic things if he was always a spirit programmed by notes (which he somehow seems to recall perfectly) and thrust into some vessel (When he is brought before Naala, a man with hair, and a bald man who is highly ranked, the man with hair notes that Grafton speaks like a child, and not just a foreigner). 
169
170 
171
172Is the presence of the girl with the red pen who is so overwhelmingly magnetic to men a sign that some information has been edited in those scenes? While the archbishop gets blamed as being the undead dragon, he is the one who wants to exorcise the city. Have the good and bad guys been turned around in this story? The treasure at the end still seems to be symbolic: martya gets first choice of coin, but grafton chooses it for her (as he chooses that she go with Kleon), while he takes the girl with the red pen (and buries the gold either in the basement of Vlad's summer house or in the willow trees outside the property, one would assume - most probably in the summer house).
173
174 
175
176Just as the lowest levels of the summer house are wet, the highest levels of the government house in Puraustays are strange: "I remember plants that looked an awful lot like jellyfish, and people who looked a lot like flowers”. They want to bury the corpse of the woman in a place that is not wet.
177
178
179
180The bees which sting Grafton in the face and hand are said to die after they sting - another metaphor for possession? Dracula is generally said to have a name which means son of the dragon, and Grafton is pretty insistent that the leader looks like his father.
181And yelena looks like rosalee, the leader looks like grafton's father, the porter on the train looks like the driver to Puruastays... there is a scene where Volitain makes a bakers dozen rolls and all but three are eaten. Im the final scene, 13 members of the unholy way are fought and russ blasts three of them with his shotgun. Aegis might look like Butch Bobokis if grafton theorizes they are the same person before seeing them in the room together ... maybe this cloning stuff and the insistence on stability and unchangingness from the legiom of light is a unifying theme. Huh.
182Ab de vos may 31
183>There is a connection between bees and death too, because sometimes they build their dwelling in the ground the bee is considered chthonic. Sometimes the soul is represented as a bee, as well as a butterfly or bird. According to Porphyry the neoplatonist “ the old ones called the souls who were getting ready to be born again bees... only those who were going to lead a just life” Originally from a pythagoreic-orphic source.
184>Bees have divine powers and give inspiration in dreams, profetic and poetic. The word “dream” itself may be come from the sound bees make.
185>Pindar called the Pythia the Delphic bee.
186>There were bee cults in Crete, in Ephese.
187>There is a connection between bees and amazones.
188I am still wondering if the third type of man martya mentioned but didn't name (nut tree, fruit tree, ... ? ) refers to dead men or what (willow? Evergreens?) if nut men are weak and fruit men are strong - the trees are burnt after the owner dies for firewood etc.
189
190Another interesting thing here is the argument between eion demarates and his father. He leaves for 20 years, comes back rich, dies in his bed looking up at a satyr or faun staring at some women, and his treasure vanishes.
191
192"Son of the dragon," and our narrator is certain the dictator looks like his father - with memories of travel and sailing with an american father. Grafton can mean an enclosure around a grove. Given the importance of trees and the laughing/sinister willows, perhaps nature spirits from below are being personified and worshipped by the unholy way. When Grafton goes through the grove of trees around Volitain's house without getting stung he is thinking of Martya's hips but says strabo's commentary on the euxine (that shifts in land masses below affect the surface river, etc). Perhaps the haploid bee drones whose sex cells are all identical is invoked here and meant to be applied to higher life forms. 
193
194When grafton and martya search the willows, the rooms seem to change and they hear someone tromping upstairs. Later volitain seems to admit it was him. The stairs are too long for the first floor ... something about top levels in both the philosophy of the legion of the light and the description of those going up the stairs (like the archbishop to hear the voice of God) is given a lot of weight.
195
196Nature spirits worshipped becoming dreaded dictators? I dunno.
197## Possession: The Officers and the Goal of the Archbishop
198At one point, after Naala buys Grafton some clothes and supplies, and asks about the fate of his old belongings, she says, “Possessions come and go. … We have them until we lose them or they wear out. Money the same” (103). In typical Wolfe fashion, *The Land Across* might be an exploration of many different types of possession. Grafton comes to inhabit a house searching for its treasure, the leader of the country has quite literally come to possess it , and the spirits and demons hinted at in the text might also be involved in a kind of possession.  As Naala and Grafton explore the mystery of the hand and speak to Papa Iason about the  manner in which he gained it, it soon comes out that Papa Zenon has also been to visit him. “He told me that His Excellency believes that many in this city are worshipping demons, and he is looking into the abomination at His Excellency’s request.” (133) 
199When Grafton and Naala interview the archbishop, he says “we do not know [who is possessed.] … I do not know it. I feel it” (122). There are three staircases, and at the top, the archbishop claims to “stand among the bells and listen for the voice of God” (122). He claims that the city is wrapped in darkness: “I sense it and, almost, I see it. … This is Satanism, the worship of evil. I have learned that these Satanists call themselves the Unholy Way” (123).
200Over the course of his stay in the land across, Grafton meets several officials, and much of their dialogue is motivated by discussion of the supernatural. In order to make sense of the recognition Grafton receives after the death of the Archbishop, we should note that the Archbishop has grown certain that a widespread and evil possession has overcome the country. For better or for worse, Papa Zenon has become the country's expert on exorcism, having written *A Manual of Exorcism for Those in Holy Orders* (108). It is only natural that the Archbishop would summon him. There are hints of the supernatural throughout.
201When the man from the Ministry of Internal Order named Peterke meets Grafton and Martya at the Willows, they travel to a cafe called the Haysuxia, “a patio in what looks like a private house, ”which no doubt corresponds with the Greek concept of Ησυχία, or quiet and privacy (45). This man identifies Grafton as American. Peterke claims that Grafton’s passport was confiscated because it was believed to be fraudulent. (47) While the direct bribery of the official might only result in the return of Grafton’s luggage and camera, the official has a few more esoteric interests as well, and it seems that he makes Father Zenon aware that Grafton and Martya need assistance of a priestly nature. The official also asks if the Willows draws Grafton as a “magnet draws iron fillings” (48). Grafton compares the house to an ancient woman who used to be beautiful. The officer brings up something which might have import for the story as a whole: “Do you confuse ghosts with demons there? Or conflate either with fairies?” (49).  Grafton answers that ghosts are the souls of the dead, while demons are fallen angels, and he brings up Vlad the Impaler, seen there in summer “with eyes of fire,” and asks if it would be considered a demon or a ghost (49). He also tells of a boy named Roque with golden hair and wings who would appear to his grandfather as he was dying. Peterke only heard the tinkle of a bell in the garden, and when he went to investigate, he found “the wind does not blow for the trees do not move. … There is no wind, and still I cannot hear the dancing bell. There is no one in the garden” (50). Martya identifies Rocque as a fairy or *Fee*. 
202
203
204“What is it in your country that waits near a treasure to guard? … Sometimes ghosts, sometimes demons, sometimes fairies. Most often, we do not know. I know a man who saw such a one, a black dog with eyes of fire. … The angel drives Adam from paradise with a sword of fire, and fairies take such shapes to frighten us. Who shall say?” (50). This bribery probably results in the return of Grafton's luggage and camera bag.
205Later, at the Archbishop’s, Grafton notes, “there was a little bell on the desk. The archbishop picked it up and rang it. It was just a little glass bell, but for some reason I did not like the sound it made” (125).
206
207The archbishop also says
208>“I once encountered an old woman who had been visited by an angel. … She said that she was the only one who ever saw the angel. It was always in another room when visitors came. She would ask it where it had been, and it would explain that it had been in the attic, or in the spring house, or in the root cell, or in the kitchen. Nevertheless, her visitors always commented favorably on her house. How bright and smiling all her rooms were, how clean everything was, how good the air smelled there. … It is not so for my city – for our city. There is a darkness now that the sun cannot drive out, and its air is close and fetid. It is possessed.” (123)
209In order to exorcise the city, he says that they must get closer and “find the right room,” asking Grafton for help. (123)
210With candles made of corpse fat, the hand will point at treasure. (125)
211The archbishop hesitates before nodding in agreement that Zenon is “Investigating the bad magic” for him (126).
212## Willows, Fruit Trees, and Nut Trees
213Martya says that in Puraustays there “are three kinds of men. A fruit tree man like you, he is strong …. Strong, or perhaps he has the good friends. … If a man who is not strong plants fruit trees, his neighbors take the fruit. … Once Kleon had fruit trees. They took his fruit and he could not stop them. Now we have nut trees, so we eat the nuts. … He is weak. No one takes acorns. … When a man dies his neighbors cut his trees to burn. My father is dead half a year before anyone is so brave.” (19) She neglects to mention the third type of man, but later revelas that Kleon bought their house with her father's money (47).
214When she takes Grafton to Volitain, he has cherry trees. “The smell made me think about God and heaven, and the bees that swarmed over them about hell because I got stung twice before we got to the door” (20). “The bee that stings, dies. … One would suppose that evolutionary processes would soon end such deaths. Is the hive stronger without him?” (21). He is bitten on the face and hand. “Think of pleasant things alone and you shall be safe” (21).
215
216She describes him as bee-bitten, and Volitain examines him with a magnifying glass. “The sting is here. It must be drawn. The hand we see next, eh?” (20) He does not open his door when he goes into an interior room.
217
218The man who rents out the Willows advises Grafton to cut the trees: “Root out the stumps. Plant grass and clover, and leave it so until the soil recovers. You have been stung by bees. … Plow in manure, sir, before you plant your clover. When it has sprouted, beware of bees. Clover attracts them.” (30). [Clover is symbolic of love and used in exorcism for the removal of negative spirits.]
219A man on a bicycle passes (p22) and Volitain says, “He hates me … Hating me, he supposed I hate him. Supposing I hate him, he expects some hurt. Expecting hurt, he fears me.” (22)
220Of the café, Martya says, “It is a place for feeling. … Most quick I feel Volitain’s hand on my leg, and he my scissors” (22). Volitain will not let him stay later after being beaten by Kleon (59). When he experiences blisters and pain in his ankles and legs, he notes: “All three seemed like something happening to somebody else a long, long way away” (60). He collects fallen wood, and has “scary, horror-movie dreams that seemed terribly real.” He cannot recall them, but sometimes wishes he could forget “things that happened in that house later” (61).
221As they enter the Willows hand in hand, “we walked on silently while the trees made fun of us” (32).
222She tells him they “will see no ghosts because the sun is still in the sky” (33). She notes that the man who built the Willows would not have had that type of tree: “Fruit trees for him.” (33) As they investigate, Martya reveals that the mirrors “call” to her, and says she feels “a dead woman buried behind” the large mirror on the mantle (35).
223
224the porters who deliver their ladder advise him to trim the trees: “Every little wind will drag those branches across your shingles” (45).
225
226In a bit of almost ironic exposition, Grafton notes that his spray lubricant “worked magic” on the door. “Just making the note seemed to fix the lock, which let my key turn almost easily” (36). This is the same spray lubricant which opens the treasure box at the culmination of the novel. The house seems to have changed: “We have come through the wrong door. It is no more than that” Martya tries to justify it. (26)
227
228When asked what he is thinking about to clear the bees (Martya’s hips), he answers Strabo’s commentary on the Euxine.
229>”It is not … because the lands covered by seas were originally at different altitudes, that the waters have risen, or subsided, or receded from some parts and inundated others. But the reason is, that the same land is sometimes raised up and sometimes depressed, and the sea also is simultaneously raised and depressed, so that it either overflows or returns into its own place again. We must therefore ascribe the cause to the ground, either to that ground which is under the sea, or to that which becomes flooded by it, but rather to that which lies beneath the sea, for this is more moveable, and, on account of its humidity, can be altered with great celerity. It is proper … to derive our explanations from things which are obvious, and in some measure of daily occurrence, such as deluges, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and sudden swellings of the land beneath the sea; for the last raise up the sea also, and when the same lands subside again, they occasion the sea to be let down. And it is not merely the small, but the large islands also, and not merely the islands, but the continents, which can be lifted up together with the sea; and both large and small tracts may subside, for habitations and cities, like Bure, Bizona, and many others, have been engulfed by earthquakes.” (Lyell, 20-21)'
230Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, 1832, p.20-21
231
232## The Men in Black and the Third Border Guard
233The rich houses near the lake were destroyed when the Russians came. “there are thieves, also wolves, so this park is most dangerous by night … “they come into the city from the east. The streets they do not like, there is too much houses, too many people. … The thieves hide there. They wait for someone to come … The wolves do not wait. They fall upon the thief and he is dead. They eat him. The police say we shoot them, but they shoot only two, I think, and there is trouble about those. So they let them live and the wolves do not attack them. If the sun is bright and you are more than one, you are safe.” (52) [Lake Perilimna] – he says his father once crossed “the North Pacific from Dutch Harbor to Hokkaido” (53).  He asks about Vlad’s summer home. 
234As they approach an island with battlements visible among Hemlocks, Martya notes that Grafton has seemed different: “What is this? You are not nice all today” (54). She speculates that he will disappear, and believe that he has broken her leg, and that when she approaches, they will both vanish. He passes through hemlocks and ferns to the castle.  In the black castle, heading down an uneven stairway let to a slippery and wet area. (55). A man in black sits on the stones as if he is waiting for Grafton, talking in a strange language. “He came here to think, or is seemed to me that was what he said. Maybe he meant he was mourning” (55).
235
236When Kleon attacks him, kicking him, Martya begins begging. “I thought she was begging him not to kick me again. She may really have been begging him to forgive her and swearing I had forced her mornings, which was when we made love.” (57)
237
238When he sleeps at the entrance after failing to light the fire, he awakens to find it burning. “Had I gotten the wood to burn after all?” (61) The man in black waits observing him. He tries to tell the man in Black how he was beaten, but that he thinks he should go back so Kleon will not be killed. (62) As they walk, he finds himself in a gravel forest. In the moonlight, three wolves surround the man, and he sends them off after a sound through the trees. (63) After this, he is accosted by a policeman who asks him why he is out so late without a passport. The silent man beside the policeman is the “third border guard,” the leader.  (64) The man in black, ignored by the cops, leads him to Martya's house.
239
240After he is sent to Naala’s custody, he has a dream about being chained up, with the man in black preparing a spike for him. The man in black returns with something tied as Grafton was on the boat when the Legion of Light abducted him, and raised his prisoner up in the air before impaling him on the stake. “Maybe the man in black went away then, because I do not remember him anymore. It was just me and the man with the stake through him, only it was not really a man, it was the doll with Russ’s face. … wiggling only made the point go in deeper. I wanted to tell it how it could get off the stake, but I did not know what to say. It seemed to me there was no way it ever could” (100). When he wakes up, he thinks that the stake represented the country which had so effectively trapped him. “I would die here, like the doll on the stake in my dream” (101). [One of Naala’s books features how stage magicians looked on stage (102).
241Soon enough another, smaller man in black appears at a cafe, telling Grafton, “Many things are from hell. … I've come to help you deal with them” (67). Martya identifies Zenon as a spy of the Jaka. 
242
243He considers that once upon a time aristocrats had lived there, and “commoners who had been happier and richer and one hell of a lot freer than their great-grandkids were her in the Democratic Republic. When I thought all that I never imagined that people would make a religion out of it, but I was about to find out” (69). Peterke sent him, but counts on Grafton knowing that he will be watched, so he can be “*umsichtig*” (prudent or awake). (69).
244The man in black is not the only apparition which appears to Grafton. He continually sees a man he calls “the third border guard” in the front seat of police vehicles, though usually no one else can see the man. At one point, when Grafton is released from the custody of Butch Bobokis and remanded to the JAKA agent Naala, it seems that someone else is seeing the figure: “I got the idea that our driver was talking to somebody sitting next to him who was too short for his head to show over the back of the seat. Either that, or he was invisible. Or most likely of all, our driver was nuts and there was really nobody there” (94). They arrive at a warehouse where the people upstairs seem to “*have real power, the no-shit kind that pays no attention to the law or anything else. If they say you die, you die*” (95).
245
246After speaking with Papa Iason, the man appears once again in the front seat of the police car. “he looked like the guy who had been sitting next to the cop who ha stopped his car to talk to me in Puraustays. Also that he looked an awful lot like that guy I had been seeing on posters (141).
247
248The magician at Left-Hand Magic Supplies turns one pencil into three (142). He puts a doll in a box and cuts the box in half and pulls the doll out of half of the box. Naala says she wants the doll though it is part of another trick. (143).  He remembers that Russ was there three years ago, buying “the snake that foretells the future, and the vanishing cigarettes” (144). He claims that Russ is German and was not the American who sends a doll sample (144). After Naala concludes that the old man there is not harboring Russ or helping him, the hand moves for the first time. (144)
249
250
251They make Kleon sign the paper (15). Martya indicates that the border guards do not like them. Immediately, Kleon believes Grafton is “a JAKA spy” (16). The next door neighbor hates Kleon because of chickens that he used to have before Martya and he were married, claiming that they get into his garden  (17). “The wish also to punish dear little Martya’s husband” (23) says Volitain.
252
253 Continually, Volitain emphasizes his honesty: “I will not deceive you, for I do not deceive” (24).
254
255
256
257## Clothing
258Grafton’s clothing is first described as “lamb’s wool and fine cottons. The silk shirt also” (16).
259The shawl around the hand, which Papa Iason and Grafton discuss as certainly not the clothing of a poor woman, to which Grafton comments, “Hell, no!” is “of silk and lamb’s wool woven together.” Iason says, “in a shop where such things are sold, I have seen cassocks of cloth like this. They were very costly.” (178). The label reads, “Best Millinery / Lily & Civet, Upstairs” (178).
260“Maybe I had walked right under that sign already, but if I had I did not remember it. I wanted to take the shawl with me, but he did not want me to and got mad, so I let him keep it.” (178)
261After they speak to the archbishop and take Rosalee with them, they buy her a dress. “Now when I think of Rosalee, it is always in that loose red-and-white dress” (128).
262## Glory Hand and the Kaballah
263In 2012, Wolfe released the short story “Uncaged,” based on a chapter from William Seabrook’s *Witchcraft*. In addition to its discussion of the Hand of Glory (which reveals treasure and featured prominently in a much older Wolfe story, “Houston, 1943”), Seabrook’s text also explores the nature of dolls used to enact curses, emphasizing that their efficacy, even to the point of making those who do not believe in such dark magic severely ill (or dead), relies on subconscious influence. 
264
265When Grafton first seeks out Volitain, he prepares (“perhaps”) a baker's dozen rolls. “He ate one. When we left, three were left on the plate.” (60) Grafton dozes off and Volitain lights lamps in the room. [This scene somehow matches with the 13 members of the unholy way who have lit candles around Martya, and during that scene, 3 of them are killed by Russ with his shotgun.]
266The bishop’s palace is “a big stone house that had been the work of at least three architects” (120).
267The archbishop says Papa Zenon’s parish is in excellent condition, “and he leaves three assistants.” (121)
268
269## Metaphor or Reality
270
271## Grafton as the House
272Martya instructs Volitain to “Tell Grafton of the judge” (25). Eion Demarates left his home after a quarrel with his father in 1860. He returns rich, twenty years later, refusing to share his riches with his brothers and sisters. “He builds a fine house for himself. … In eighteen eighty-eight, our money was not rubbish. … Our money is silver and gold” (25).
273Volitain’s ancestor was the sole judge then. Demaretes was helped to bed by the valet, and dies. No gold was found, and the house searched thoroughly. His ancestor vows “to wreck the house and find it” (26). The capital ruled that it could not be demolished, but it belongs to the state. “People died there. No one will rent it” (26). Volitain suggests Grafton lives there when his passport is returned.  Volitain offers to represent him: “I practice law for, oh, not quite three years” (27). Volitain has already searched it, but hopes someone of “foreign temperament” (27) would do better.
274When he goes to rent the house, the fat man there assumes he is German. When Grafton says he is American, he responds, “You are most ignorant. I have heard this.” Grafton claims that the purpose of the state is to “defend the country [and] … to secure the property of its citizens.” (28). The fat man says that those are national responsibilities, and that the state produces work and rewards it.  Once again, the fat man asks, “You are German. Why would you rent a house here?” (29)
275They find the mummified remains behind the mirror. 
276
277When Martya laughed, Grafton notes, “I would like to stop to tell you that I had never really sensed the sinister atmosphere of the Willows until Martya laughed. There was something in there that hated laughter, and her laugh woke it up. Woke it only in my own mind, you will say“ (37). At this point, Martya feels “A thing run on my foot!” (37) They hear someone walking around upstairs, and later Grafton surmises that it was in fact Volitain doing so. As they attempt to escape, “the willows that had been so silent when we came tot he house were muttering now, like a crowd getting set to riot” (38).
278He is entranced by the painting above the master bedroom on the ground floor, featuring a horned man peering through trees and wildflowers at buxom women. He is interrupted by three men at the door who address him in German.  One of them, named Croton, has a name which means “tick” or is a type of tropical plant. Klean =glory. 
279
280“I think that [Volitain] and Martya were really there, but I could not see them. The only Volitain and Martya I could see (the Volitain and Martya I thought I saw) were my idea of Volitain and Martya. Does that make any sense? Either that, or I was spread out all over the room somehow” (282).
281## The Girl with the Red Pen
282“I won't show everything in the book. What I decide to show will depend on the text, the stuff I'm going to write … And my editor. Editors are pure hell.” 
283
284When Naala takes him to the Tetrasemnos café, he first encounters the girl with the red pen, writing on lined paper as a man watches her with hungry eyes: “He looked like he meant to heat her” (104). [Tetra means four, semnos to revere or hold in awe]. They encounter Father Zenon there, whose parish is Saint Barachisios. Zenon reveals that he has written a book: “It is a great mistake, I find, to write a book, because everyone looks upon you as an expert” (107). Grafton continues to be enraptured by the girl with the red pen. 
285“The girl with the red pen looked up at me and smiled, and I smiled back” (112). He claims, “[Russ is] not really a spy, you know. He isn’t dangerous to your government at all” (113).
286“Thing was, the girl with the red pen was on the plane, just sitting there with her red pen and writing away on her tray table. I sat down next to her. … 'Is it all right if I ask why you're going to Germany?' Pretty soon I got the feeling it was very all right since it meant we would not have to talk about her being her and me being me” (285). She has won a poetry contest.
287“(When I explained to my editor that this would be a travel book written by an American member of their secret police and showed her my badge and ID, she just about went nuts.)” (286).
288“I don’t trust that conductor. Why is he so short?” Rocky and Bullwinkle (109).
289Naala concludes that Father Zenon is “worried” by Grafton (109).
290## The Legion of the Light and Prison
291
292“You would not believe how long I have been writing and rewriting this one in my head, especially when I was a prisoner of the Legion of the Light and in a cell with Russ Rathaus. I was lucky, I cannot even tell you how lucky, that I was never taken prisoner by the Unholy Way. (9)
293When he is first thrust into the cell with Rathaus, it is empty: “There were two bunks in it, but no other prisoner. Right away I figured there would be somebody shoved in with me pretty soon, and he would be a plant” (84). In the morning, a large man speaking English sits on the other bunk, claiming to be from Cincinnati. He makes voodoo dolls: “my partner invented the process, and I bankrolled him, running the business out of my garage at first.” (85) A strong light source allows the Imprinting Dolls to take on the features displayed in a photograph. His partner: “Pete actually ended up with more than I did, because he'd held on to fifty five percent of the patent.” (86)
294
295“Rosalee'd had an aunt, her aunt Lilly. Aunt Lilly'd married some guy from Europe, but he got hurt on the job and had to quite work. He was disabled, see, and couldn't work. … Rosalee wanted to find out what had happened to her.” (86-87)
296When Grafton asks if Russ will level with him, he responds, “About everything? Hell, no. But you probably won't ask about that stuff. It was a long time ago, see?” (87)
297“Do they think you're a spy or something? … Same here.” (88)
298“One was the spells. He got to talking about the spells in his voodoo book, and being a writer myself I asked him who wrote them. That shut him up hard and right away, and he would not even say why he did not want to talk about it” (89).
299Bobokis is certain “Russ will behave” when he implores Grafton not to light his mattress on fire with the cigarette and match he provides. Russ uses the light somehow to summon the man in black: “he was standing in the corner with his pale face really plain and his black clothes just about invisible before I recognized him. Russ's little fire had gone out and its ashes had been dropped into our slop jar, and the big stone fireplace at the Willows was miles and miles away, but fire from somewhere was still reflected in his eyes” (90).
300“(So much for my idea that they were the same guy with different clothes and so forth. …) (92) of Butch and Aegis.
301At the meal at Tetrasemnos, Grafton admits “I don’t know what has taken [Russ]” (111).
302The flashing light of the car scares horses as Naala and Grafton drive away from the archbishop’s palace, and Naala claims, “We never torture unless torture is absolutely necessary” (127).
303
304>Dictators get in when democracy sucks. The elected governments do a bad job, one after another. Or they are so crooked the elections no longer matter and nobody cares. Are dictators bad? Sure. But some are worse than others. … Spreading democracy is a really good idea nad I am all for it. Just keep in m ind that ruling is work. It means staying informed and making the tough choices. And if the people do not want to do the work of ruling, democracy will no work. It is a lot easier to shoot a dictator than it is to replace one with something better. (297)
305
306## Americans or Germans? 
307The “sweating fat man” who rents the Willows out to Grafton asks if he is German, and reveals, when the Willows comes up, that he thinks Grafton bold. “I myself … Well, no matter.” (29)
308
309Later as he eats with Martya, he notes that “European waiters despise tourists, but I was not one and felt pretty sure I did not look like one. I knew I was right when the wiater asked whether I had come to buy pork for Germany” (43). [This occurred at the Skiadeion, a name implying a parasol, sunshade, or shadow].
310The Legion of Light say that they took him because he is American. “Ever place I've been to, the people are generally pretty nice but the government stinks.” (73). They respond it is because those places lack the Light of Stability.
311“God exists and is real, but he did not create us. We create him. … there Is another, higher universe above this one we inhabit. Call it the Universe of the Ideal. There God dwells. He grants our prayers at times because he must. The more of us who pray for something, the more he must grant whatever it is so many pray for … In change there is no progress.” (74).
312“What is, is right. The enlightened will preserve it. The unenlightened destroy it promising to bring into being something better, but to bring into being is more difficult than to destroy, and the somethings they bring better are always worse. Thus it is that we do not seek to overthrow the government, though the government seeks to overthrow us” (75).
313“A government is an idea; if that idea is mistaken, it is a building built upon the water. … There was in the cellar a door that must not be opened, you see. Someone opened – the water rushed in. The communists sink while I watch. It was very quick. Very quiet, too” (75)
314We are the Legion of Light. We will tow it to shore, you see, and because you are Amerikan you will help us” (76).
315He notices that the stairway in the Willows “had too many steps.” (78) He is shot and sees the poster of “the third border guard.” (79) escapes into mousukos (mousikos, skilled in the arts or a musician).
316When he is interrogated by Butch Bobokis, he says, “They gave me a copy of their holy book that had been translated on somebody's computer.” (82). “I could have named one guy who might have had one, and I wanted to kick myself for not having braced him on it.” (83).
317
318“In the States we have sugar bowls at home because we trust the people there. In restaurants you get your sugar in little paper packages, because the government knows better htan to trust you. Yelena had probably died because somebody made a crazy mistake.” (196). In some ways, Grafton concludes, life in America must be worse “because it drives so many people crazy with hate … I wondered if my own country was not crazier.” (196-7). 
319
320The hand comes out when Papa Zenon does not have to volunteer how he knows Martya first, instead letting Grafton talk of what Yelena told him (197), and squeezes his hand when he says that Russ sent Martya to Papa Iason (202-3). 
321He thinks Martya recognized his voice on the Legion of Light broadcasts (203) He thinks in her inquiry, she comes across someone who heard the story of his cellmante from Russ. 
322“Send [Russ] to Germany and wash your hands of him.” (205)
323“It’s a young woman’s. She’s dead, but her left hand is still alive.” (205) an earthbound spirit – “these I have encountered before, but not like this.” (205)
324
325Chapter “From their dark places” features Zenon, Naala, and Grafton
326“I want Martya. I want to find Russ and get him back to the States in one piece. Let’s make that Russ and Rosalee, and I want to get back there myself.” (206)
327“This is no curse … It is a spell to find treasure, first in Greek and after in Latin but the same. Here on the thumb, a prayer to Haaiah. It is very short.” [means God listens in concealment – angel of ambition] (207) 
328The supplicant asks that the strangers become new friends.” (207). Also, Lamach, the guardian of Mars. 
329“I had a hunch [Papa Zenon] knew more than he was telling. He had kept saying that he was telling us all he knew. (I have not told you about a bunch of stuff that turned out not to matter.) When somebody does that, it is usually because they are not. So what could he be hiding? He had read more prayers from the hand to us. I have not told you about those, either, but I went over htem in my  mind as we walked along.” (208)
330No sign for the magic shop (209)
331“You must tell your son to stop poking them.” (210) in magic shop 
332
333(Naala’s left hand is proficient in getthing her badge out (211) the hand begins to strangle him. 
334“She wouldn’t sign. Everything I say to her, it is still no. She wants the police.” (211)
335
336“We believe those who say the Unholy way free Rathaus.” (198) Zenon assures them that the Archbishop wishes to “drag them from their dark places, not just a few but every one of them.” (198). Grafton believe Rathaus freed himself. He had photographs of three persons he could “be sure are among the black magicians.” (199). “There are several of us, but he fears that one may be a spy. Which one he does not yet know.” (199). 
337
338“Vampires and certain others are said to react so. Mere witches do not. Do you know how a witch proceeds when she wishes a consecrated host?” (200)
339
340“That is a big word, ‘die’” (202) On iason as a good man who would not let his father rot in prison. 
341When Naala meets Papa Iason, she asks Grafton if Russ spoke German. “I said I did not think so.” Naala responds, “I see. Good German? He is fluent?” (135). Iason says, “When one answers God’s call, one is rewarded” (136).
342Of his own father, Grafton says, “[My father] was wonderful, only he’s dead. We used to sail together, and fish, and talk about boats and books” (136). Iason looks at the shotgun in the corner of the room and says he felt his father was only kind out of duty, and at times he feels the same way, but he reminds himself “that Christ is in us all” (137).
343Rosalee as spy: when Naala says they will take Rosalee back to prison, she doesn’t respond – “It made me wonder just how good she was.” (137) 
344At the shop of the white rabbit: “Two years … No, three Christmases ago. He comes the day I reopen. He buys … the snake that foretells the future, and the vanishing cigarettes. In Germany I lived three years, and we talked about it. … [The man who sells those dolls] is another man, a man in America. He writes and sends a sample. … This man?” The old guy pointed to Russ’s picture.” He is not Amerikan. He is German” (144). (when Naala agrees that this could not be the man Russ came to for help, the hand moves.)
345In the post-climactic scene where Grafton is rewarded for killing the Undead Dragon with a gold medal, Russ Rathaus brags that he is going to be returning to America. In the very next chapter, he and his wife try to convince Grafton “to go to Germany with them” (272).
346Rathaus: a town hall in which the city council meets.
347Russell: Red.
348Rosalee: 24, Russell 63 ( p 117)
349“Only if Rosalee escaped I would be more valuable than ever. So how could I work that?” (145) The sinister implication here is that if rosalee is dead or incapacitated, his value is also assured.
350With Naala: “I was just about settled on trying to roll her over when something like a rat ran across my chest. I froze.” (146) hand tries to strangle her, Naala sees it as a woman (147)
351118: peter Debussy and Russ sold the business.
352“Russ wanted to make the dolls in our factory, but Uncle Eneas kept saying he could make them just as good and much cheaper here. I think Russ was thinking about setting up a little factory here, and that was why he agreed to come.” (118) The places that buy the dolls: “Two were stores and the other one was just a man’s name, and it was terribly foreign.” (119).
353“Eighteen months ago two American spies, husband and wife, were arrested at the border. The husband was taken to the Rural Reeducation Center. The wife was taken here”( 115). (What does the reeducation actually involve?)
354## The Hand
355“It isn’t really a cut-off hand, like we thought … It’s more like some kind of animal somebody has fixed up to look like a hand.” (147)
356
357Tokay p. 74
358mousi
359Papa Iason’s is St. Isidore’s (129) but he was in Demas’s bar and grill (Demans means governer of the people, companion of Paul)
360peter debussy
361
362uncle eneas
363zenon – friendly, zeno – supreme ruler of the gods
364papa iason is tapping his lips with a pencil in Demas’s when they see him (129). When asked, he says that Rosalee is “beautiful. Who is she?” (132) Zenon has already talked to Iason about demon worship by the time they get to him (133). Zenon is from “the wrong end of the lake” (133). Iason is 26 (134). His father is Zetes Soukis. (135) Paul says “Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world …”
365Zetes “son of Boreas” father of Iason
366Soukis (died “last year” (135)
367Papa Iason doesn’t tell everything. Naala thinks, “there is someone else looking for her, perhaps.” 
368Ogulinos (real place in Croatia name Ogulin, named after an area cleared of trees), where Iason’s mother lives. (137)
369
370“CAL 9 BROWNING COURT” “Later I got one pretty much like it.” (148) – the CIP designation for the .380 ACP, a common caliber firearm (light weight means no locking mechanism necessary in firing, recoil energy can be absorbed by slide and spring). Calibre used to kill Franz Ferdinand and start WWI …
371“I was afraid I would sneak it out from under her pillow and shoot her.” (148)
372“I do not trust myself when I have had much of anything to drink.” (148)
373“She did not speak as we speak, operator. She was of Amerika.” (150 ) rosalee, after she left during the night. Bathroom window: “I could have gotten through it myself.” (151) They took the red and white dress off and gave her a new uniform (153)
374
375“If he knows Russ is his real father, Russ could trust [Papa Iason]” (154). “Papa’s card is of three years.” (155)
376
377Can papa Iason be trusted “by Rathous, his true father.” (154) If he knows, Grafton surmises, he would honor his father.  “Three years ago Rathaus comes here.” (154)
378The Unholy Way makes dark magic – “Rathaus makes the magic dolls. They have taken him. You agree.” (155) Grafton does not think it is them.  Naala believes Martya serves the Unholy Way (156). “It is her master who wish the priest dead. … But the priest is his son. Even a bad man loves his son. So it often  is, even if not always. Also this son is to e trusted. Why kill him? Why in such a fashion. There is no reason.” (157) [working against Rathuas, as a rival with power, now that he is free.
379“We do not seek the destruction of Amerika, which you yourselves have too much destroyed already.” (158]
380“Two great teachers we have, of which reason is one.” (156).
381
382“The woman is a soul by God condemned, a bad ghost.” (156) Grafton says he can’t see that. Naala wonders who thinks for the hand.
383“The lady said maybe it was my sister only she did not sound American, and I said if she talked pretty good it could not have been.” While looking for Naala at dress shops (161). Red and white checked dress for Rosalie (161), Rosalie as mannequin in the shop – “I remind her of her daughter” (162). 
384“There was a girl in there named Yelena who looked like me. A man came in during the night.” (162). “He was looking for me and he thought he found me.” (162).  Lady comes in looking for hats, wanting dresses same size as Rosalee (163) ?
385“God must give him the strength.” (163) archbishop is very old.
386“and now I was thinking about screwing his wife. I was thinking about that a lot” (165).
387
388“She did not look exactly like her because she did not have the cute nose or the cheek bones, but except for those they were pretty much the same type.” (167).
389
390Yelena says that there is a man named Ferenc Narkatsos who keeps hanging around her, but calls him a “good man” (168). She says, “Take my hand. … You are good man. I meet you so late. There are so few good men” (168).  He cries when she dies, saying, “I’m sorry.” (169). “I love Martya.” (169) When he says, “I’m an American,” Iason’s house keeper says, “I have heard of that” (170).
391
392“The JAKA should not bother Papa Iason. He is a good man.” (170).
393Says he has been kicked twice (170).  Housekeeper says someone would beat Martya (171). He tells Papa Iason that, “Somebody wants to kill you.” (172). He says the hand is an evil thing. Papa Iason is not confident that the woman was Martya (173).
394
395Our peasants think swift water a sovereign cure for evil, I’m afraid.” (173).
396
397“I saw that it had been tattooed in life. … My father did that work when he could not find other work. He was a stonemason.” (175) Iason’s real father?
398>”They were prayers, for the most part. Prayers to entities whose names mean nothing to me. Perhaps they were angels, fallen or holy. I remember a few, but I will not repeat them. The names of demons may be prominent in them, and when one calls upon demons they sometimes come. … Sending them home is less easy. So many find.” (175). 
399“It is a spell for finding treasure. It is on the palm, and very short. … ‘All you ghosts tight-bound with chain, hear me well or here remain. Show me where your treasure hid, and I shall serve you as you bid.’ … It would be a dangerous thing, or so I would think, to be bound to the service of a ghost, far more to the service of a senate of bound spirits” (176).
400Iason believes they would not ask for freedom. “These are still attached to the things of this sad realm into which we are born. They would ask to be avenged upon men long dead, perhaps. More likely, they would not give up their gold for any vengeance.” (176). 
401
402Zenon asked about martya’s shoes … (177) three red seals stamped with crosses. 
403
404“There were boxes and books and about a hundred dried roots on a string and something that looked sort of like a man’s head. It had a mustache and a scrawny beard, but it was not much bigger than my fist. My brain started itching when I saw all that, but I was way too tired to be even a little bit smart.” (180).
405He leaves the skylight open because “the head had reminded me of the hand.” (181).
406
407“Rathaus sent Martya to Papa Iason with the hand. … It was sent so he could kill it.” ” (183-4)
408H ebelieves Rathaus would be outside the city, at a park or swamp, “anyplace with lots of trees and animals. (185).
409
410“Soon our food come.” (186)
411Girl with the red pen, sweeping at Horvath’s: “Thank you! Oh, thank you!” I knew then that I had seen her before, but for half an hour or so I could not remember who she was.” (187).
412
413Grafton assumes it was a hypodermic needle rather than a knife (188). “I was getting close to things I really did not want to talk about.” (188). 
414“She said [Ferenc Narkatsos] wouldn’t try to kill her, but I don’t think anybody really wanted to kill her. I think they were after Rosalee.” (189). He is certain Rathaus has Martya because of the two shops: “One handles aldies’ clothes, good stuff. The other one magic supplies. Not for tricks with boxes like the guy we saw, but roots and dried flowers, funny stones all polished and packed in cotton in little boxes. Powders. Bones. Stuff in bottles with labels I couldn’t read. … I broke into the shop and saw some of Russ’s dolls. That shop next door, with women’s clothes? It’s where the shawl came from” (190).
415
416Naala resolves to write to Papa Zenon, and at this point “I remembered the girl with the red pen. The guy I had punched out in the coffee shop was not the one who had been sitting with her in the other café.” (190-1) Naala says, “We are search for Rathaus, Papa for those who work magic by the help of devils. … They are key to [Rathaus], and the hand is key to them.” (191). The shop is owned by Abderos Narkatsos. (192)
417
418“The girl who had been sweeping, the girl with the red pen, was out of sight if she was still around. … I stuck my right hadn in the side pocket of my jacket, I guess because I was trying to look cool. Only there was a hand in there already. It took hold of mine and gave it a little squeeze, like it wanted to be friends.” (193)
419
420Iason says that Rosalee is “beautiful” (132) and that there was no fire that night since it was warm. 
421
422“[Ferenc} showed us the [poison] he used and told us how he made a paste of this poison and smeared it on a hat pin. In my purse I have a sample.” (213) Naala says
423
424“About the time Baldy handed me the badge case and the box, the door of his office opened and somebody else came in.  … It was the man who looked a little like my father, I mean the third  border guard, who was the man I had seen sometimes riding next to the driver in police cars. … After that, I saw him pretty often. I will not always mention him, because it would get boring.  Once or twice I asked Naala about him, but she did not know what I was talking about.” (214)
425
426“My husband I ill and needs me. I must go to him. Thank you! … If we ever get home I will repay you.” (217) Rosalee Borden Rathaus.  At the point where Naala decides for him to go talk to Zenon, the door opens and someone throws in Butch Bobokis’s head, seeming to  unlock the door. 
427
428He finds Martya at Papa Iason’s: “He will want you! He will want you, too!” (218)
429
430“naturally I wanted to know whether Martya had sold it and how often, only there was no point asking about that because I would never get the truth that way.” (219)
431“So they make me sign the paper or I will go to jail. … On this paper are many terrible things I never do. If they give to the police I will hang, but I must sign or they go to the police. I sign and after this I am a slave.” (220) 
432“I would not kill him, the hand does it” [kill’s Russ] (220)
433“He was a magician, too, only a good magician and his magic was stronger than theirs. … Then he sent her to Papa Iason with the hand.” (220). 
434“Sometimes it seemed to me like they were just trees, but sometimes it seemed like we were walking over a broken stone floor inside a big, big building with columns all around us, row and rows of columns that stretched off into the night one hell of  a lot farther than I could see” (221). 
435As they go to see him, there is another cop in the front (221). 
436
437“You bought yours from that old man with the pencils.” (222) He assumes he got the power from the man in black. “On my list of people I did not want to piss off, he was Number one.” (222). 
438Butch Bobokis had the doll. “We must find the doll and take it from them.” (222) “Later I found out that it had been in the trunk of his car.” (222)
439Saint Isidore’s 224
440
441(old man sold seven or eight dolls) 224
442“Magos X … He does not sell his dolls, but he has several. Once he tells me he orders from a man in Amerika.” (225). 
443His trees “bear strange fruit” (225)
444“a big man with no belly and a big black beard” (225) 
445“I’m glad you like me, sir.
446“I and the ghost. Of you we two are fond. You are not unaware you possess this ghost?” (226)
447“She did not look dead, but her dress did.” (227). 
448When Grafton thanks Magos X for letting him see her, he says, “I did not do it. You did it.” (227). 
449“You think I am he, operator? I am not.” (227). 
450He tells Magos X, “I don’t believe any of that shit.”
451“A pity! … A terrible pity, because some of it is quite true.” (229). 
452The embassy is “over that way, in a little park.” (231)
453Butch and Aegis had the doll, but the Unholy Way must have “gotten their hands on the doll, and  they know how to use it against you.” (232).
454“Russ muttered, ‘Right.’” (232)
455“How did you find out I spoke German?” (232)
456
457“I do not know how effective my blessing may be. It goes and it returns. But you shall have it.” Then he whispered in a language I thought was probably Latin.” (233)
458When Naala’s phone rings, no one is there, but she hears “music and glasses.” (234) It is Rosalee. 
459“Then I began telling her about volitain in Puraustays, because Magos X had said he knew him and I thought it might be a good way to lead into it.” (234) 
460
461“Show Rosaless and maybe he’ll come. Martya, too. She was working with him. Only she gave Rosalee her phone and your number. Why would shee do that?” ( 235)
462“Always they send no more. Two only.” (236)
463“In back of him I could see an ugly raw-boned woman in a black-and-white polka-dot dress setting up a camera with a big flash.” (237) he wants to take rosalee’s picture. 
464
465After this distraction, it is Martya, not Rosalee, who they take, “ the one who bring the hand.” (239). 
466After the trouble at the Golden Eagle club, Grafton sees the third border guard again. “all the cops and border guards had never seemed like they noticed him much.” (239). When Grafton acknowledges him, “He smiled and nodded, looking more like my father than ever. We went a ways and I heard a locomotive whistle, not like an American locomotive, but like one of the old steam trains you see in movies sometimes. Pretty soon after that, the third border guard turned a corner when I would have gone straight.” He motions for Grafton to follow. (240). 
467“I had never been there. It was the railroad station, a red brick building, pretty big, with a little tower with a big clock in it. The clock struck … eleven o’clock. If you backed me into a corner and made me explain why I am telling you all this, I would make a really bad job of it. But it meant something to me. It felt like God was telling me something, but it took me a few minutes to figure out what it was.” (240). 
468“Most of all, the JAKA had been looking for the Unholy Way’s Undead Dragon. And I was pretty sure I knew who that was. It left a bad taste in my mouth, but that did not change the facts. God had used the tower and the clock striking eleven to remind me of all that stuff and maybe give me a clue about which way to go. He is good at that.” (240). 
469“Pretty soon a big, raw-boned woman in a red-and-black-striped dress came in. Disguised, right? Okay, she had changed clothes somewhere and even changed the way she wore her hair, piling it on top of her bead. But I would have known her anyhow, and there was a dead giveaway. She was carrying a long canvas case I knew damned well must have the camer and tripod in it, so the buck-toothed guy had sutck her with those.”  (241). 
470“That was when I noticed that my new watch was broken” (243). 
471“I passed a store that had a big picture of the third border guard in the window. He was younger in the picture and maybe a little bit better looking than he really ways, but it was him.” (245). 
472
473“four was my lucky number” (245)
474
475“not a strong wind but plenty strong enough to ruffle my hair. Up until I talked to the hand the air had been still that night, like it mostly is in the summer.” (246)
476“Only hell was on their side, or at least they thought it was. I had never thought that heaven was on my side, but I told God I could sure use an angel with a flaming sword right about then.” (247)
477“One I remember a lot better than I want to showed this really good-looking brunette. She had stabbed a man’s corpse in the chest, or that was what it looked like, and still had her hand on the hilt of the knife.” (248).
478There was something about that place that was getting to me just the same. There were a lot of candles, which I do not think I have mentioned yet. Most of them were black, something you do not see often. … I was getting depressed, angry, and sad at the same time. … It was the feeling that something really, really huge was studying me the way I might study a bug, something I could not see even though it could see me fine. The whole world had cancer, and the thing watching me now as the cancer.” (249)
479
480“I don’t trust in [God.] … I don’t even trust in myself. But what if he trusts in me?” (249)
481“my father had taught me to keep my finger off the trigger until I was ready to shoot.” (250)
482“She told them he was working for the JAKA, which surprised both of us.” (250)
483“We don’t have the Undead Dragon. As long as he’s around they’re going to be dangerous. How dangerous I don’t know.” The hand came to life in my pocket when I said that.” (252)
484They might have taken her to an “old mansion on the lake shore. One of the others was the undertaker’s.” (252)
485This new one was wool, too.” (254)
486“I went slow, feeling the wall with my left hand.” (255)
487“No rail on the bell-rope side.” (255)
488“there was somebody else up there with me already. It was the third border guard, just standing in a corner. … The two of us just waited.” (255)
489
490“Pretty soon I realized there was somebody else there besides the third border guard, the archbishop, and me. Just having it there made me angry and sad and terribly down, but I kept going.” (256).
491
492“I got someone I trust to translate a couple of them, and they were prayers.” (257).=
493“It was the way you had looked when you came down from –“ (257).
494He throws himself soundlessly off the balcony. 
495“After that I started saying certain things under my breath. … A lot of it was from my mother, who passed away when I was six. I still remember her, though. How pretty she was and the songs she used to sing, and some of the stories she used to tell me.” (258)