The Time Traveler's Wife

  Evening, the same day: (Henry is 28 and 33, Clare is 20)

  CLARE: We're on our way to the Violent Femmes concert at the Aragon Ballroom. After some reluctance on Henry's part, which I don't understand because he loves les Femmes, we are cruising Uptown in search of parking. I loop around and around, past the Green Mill, the bars, the dimly lit apartment buildings and the laundromats that look like stage sets. I finally park on Argyle and we walk shivering down the glassy broken sidewalks. Henry walks fast and I am always a little out of breath when we walk together. I've noticed that he makes an effort to match my pace, now. I pull off my glove and put my hand in his coat pocket, and he puts his arm around my shoulder. I'm excited because Henry and I have never gone dancing before, and I love the Aragon, in all its decaying faux Spanish splendor. My Grandma Meagram used to tell me about dancing to the big bands here in the thirties, when everything was new and lovely and there weren't people shooting up in the balconies and lakes of piss in the men's room. But c'est la vie, times change, and we are here.

  We stand in line for a few minutes. Henry seems tense, on guard. He holds my hand, but stares out over the crowd. I take the opportunity to look at him. Henry is beautiful. His hair is shoulder-length, combed back, black and sleek. He's cat-like, thin, exuding restlessness and physicality. He looks like he might bite. Henry is wearing a black overcoat and a white cotton shirt with French cuffs which dangle undone below his coat sleeves, a lovely acid-green silk tie which he has loosened just enough so that I can see the muscles in his neck, black jeans and black high-top sneakers. Henry gathers my hair together and wraps it around his wrist. For a moment I am his prisoner, and then the line moves forward and he lets me go.

  We are ticketed and flow with masses of people into the building. The Aragon has numerous long hallways and alcoves and balconies that wrap around the main hall and are ideal for getting lost and for hiding, Henry and I go up to a balcony close to the stage and sit at a tiny table. We take off our coats. Henry is staring at me.

  "You look lovely. That's a great dress; I can't believe you can dance in it."

  My dress is skin-tight lilac blue silk, but it stretches enough to move in. I tried it out this afternoon in front of a mirror and it was fine. The thing that worries me is my hair; because of the dry winter air there seems to be twice as much of it as usual. I start to braid it and Henry stops me.

  "Don't, please--I want to look at you with it down."

  The opening act begins its set. We listen patiently. Everyone is milling around, talking, smoking. There are no seats on the main floor. The noise is phenomenal.

  Henry leans over and yells in my ear. "Do you want something to drink?"

  "Just a Coke."

  He goes off to the bar. I rest my arms on the railing of the balcony and watch the crowd. Girls in vintage dresses, girls in combat gear, boys with Mohawks, boys in flannel shirts. People of both sexes in Tshirts and jeans. College kids and twenty-somethings, with a few old folks scattered in.

  Henry is gone for a long time. The warm-up band finishes, to scattered applause, and roadies begin removing the band's equipment and bringing on a more or less identical bunch of instruments. Eventually I get tired of waiting, and, abandoning our table and coats, I force my way through the dense pack of people on the balcony down the stairs and into the long dim hallway where the bar is. Henry's not there. I move slowly through the halls and alcoves, looking but trying not to look like I'm looking.

  I spot him at the end of a hallway. He is standing so close to the woman that at first I think they are embracing; she has her back to the wall and Henry leans over her with his hand braced against the wall above her shoulder. The intimacy of their pose takes my breath. She is blond, and beautiful in a very German way, tall and dramatic.

  As I get closer, I realize that they aren't kissing; they are fighting. Henry is using his free hand to emphasize whatever it is he is yelling at this woman. Suddenly her impassive face breaks into anger, almost tears. She screams something back at him. Henry steps back and throws up his hands. I hear the last of it as he walks away: "I can't, Ingrid, I just can't! I'm sorry--"

  "Henry!" She is running after him when they both see me, standing quite still in the middle of the corridor. Henry is grim as he takes my arm and we walk quickly to the stairs. Three steps up I turn and see her standing, watching us, her arms at her sides, helpless and intense. Henry glances back, and we turn and continue up the stairs.

  We find our table, which miraculously is still free and still boasts our coats. The lights arc going down and Henry raises his voice over the noise of the crowd. "I'm sorry. I never made it as far as the bar, and I ran into Ingrid--"

  Who is Ingrid? I think of myself standing in Henry's bathroom with a lipstick in my hand and I need to know but blackness descends and the Violent Femmes take the stage.

  Gordon Gano stands at the microphone glaring at us all and menacing chords ring out and he leans forward and intones the opening lines of Blister in the Sun and we're off and running. Henry and I sit and listen and then he leans over to me and shouts, "Do you want to leave?" The dance floor is a roiling mass of slamming humanity.

  "I want to dance!"

  Henry looks relieved. "Great! Yes! Come on!" He strips off his tie and shoves it in his overcoat pocket. We wend our way back downstairs and enter the main hall. I see Charisse and Gomez dancing more or less together. Charisse is oblivious and frenzied, Gomez is barely moving, a cigarette absolutely level between his lips. He sees me and gives me a little wave. Moving into the crowd is like wading in Lake Michigan; we are taken in and buoyed along, floating toward the stage. The crowd is roaring Add it up! Add it up! and the Femmes respond by attacking their instruments with insane vigor.

  Henry is moving, vibrating with the bass line. We are just outside the mosh pit, dancers slamming against each other at high velocity on one side and on the other side dancers shaking their hips, flailing their arms, stepping to the music.

  We dance. The music runs through me, waves of sound that grab me by the spine, that move my feet my hips my shoulders without consulting my brain. (Beautiful girl, love your dress, high school smile, oh yes, where she is now, I can only guess.) I open my eyes and see Henry watching me while he dances. When I raise my arms he grasps me around the waist and I leap up. I have a panoramic view of the dance floor for a mighty eternity. Someone waves at me but before I can see who it is Henry sets me down again. We dance touching, we dance apart. (How can I explain personal pain?) Sweat is streaming down me. Henry shakes his head and his hair makes a black blur and his sweat is all over me. The music is goading, mocking (I ain't had much to live for I ain't had much to live for I ain't had much to live for). We throw ourselves at it. My body is elastic, my legs are numb, and a sensation of white heat travels from my crotch to the top of my head. My hair is damp ropes that cling to my arms and neck and face and back. The music crashes into a wall and stops. My heart is pounding. I place my hand on Henry's chest and am surprised that his seems only slightly quickened.

  Slightly later, I walk into the ladies' room and see Ingrid sitting on a sink, crying. A small black woman with beautiful long dreads is standing in front of her speaking softly and stroking her hair. The sound of Ingrid's sobs echoes off the dank yellow tile. I start to back out of the room and my movement attracts their attention. They look at me. Ingrid is a mess. All her Teutonic cool is gone, her face is red and puffy, her makeup is in streaks. She stares at me, bleak and drained. The black woman walks over to me. She is fine and delicate and dark and sad. She stands close and speaks quietly.

  "Sister," she says, "what's your name?"

  I hesitate. "Clare," I finally say.

  She looks back at Ingrid. "Clare. A word to the wise. You are mixing in where you're not wanted. Henry, he's bad news, but he's Ingrid's bad news, and you be a fool to mess with him. You hear what I'm saying?"

  I don't want to know but I can't help myself. "What are you talking about?"

  "They we
re going to get married. Then Henry, he breaks it off, tells Ingrid he's sorry, never mind, just forget it. I say she's better off without him, but she don't listen. He treats her bad, drinks like they ain't making it no more, disappears for days and then comes around like nothing happened, sleeps with anything that stands still long enough. That's Henry. When he makes you moan and cry, don't say nobody never told you." She turns abruptly and walks back to Ingrid, who is still staring at me, who is looking at me with unconditional despair.

  I must be gaping at them. "I'm sorry," I say, and I flee.

  I wander the halls and finally find an alcove that's empty except for a young Goth girl passed out on a vinyl couch with a burning cigarette between her fingers. I take it from her and stub it out on the filthy tile. I sit on the arm of the couch and the music vibrates through my tailbone up my spine. I can feel it in my teeth. I still need to pee and my head hurts. I want to cry. I don't understand what just happened. That is, I understand but I don't know what I should do about it. I don't know if I should just forget it, or get upset at Henry and demand an explanation, or what. What did I expect? I wish I could send a postcard into the past, to this cad Henry who I don't know: Do nothing, Wait for me. Wish you were here.

  Henry sticks his head around the corner. "There you are. I thought I'd lost you."

  Short hair. Henry has either gotten his hair cut in the last half hour or I'm looking at my favorite chrono-displaced person. I jump up and fling myself at him.

  "Oompf--hey, glad to see you, too..."

  "I've missed you--" now I am crying.

  "You've been with me almost nonstop for weeks."

  "I know but--you're not you, yet--I mean, you're different. Damn." I lean against the wall and Henry presses against me. We kiss, and then Henry starts licking my face like a mama cat. I try to purr and start laughing. "You asshole. You're trying to distract me from your infamous behavior--"

  "What behavior? I didn't know you existed. I was unhappily dating Ingrid. I met you. I broke up with Ingrid less than twenty-four hours later. I mean, infidelity isn't retroactive, you know?"

  "She said--"

  "Who said?"

  "The black woman." I mime long hair. "Short, big eyes, dreads--"

  "Oh Lord. That's Celia Attley. She despises me. She's in love with Ingrid."

  "She said you were going to marry Ingrid. That you drink all the time, fuck around, and are basically a bad person and I should run. That's what she said."

  Henry is torn between mirth and incredulity. "Well, some of that is actually true. I did fuck around, a lot, and I certainly have been known to drink rather prodigiously. But we weren't engaged. I would never have been insane enough to marry Ingrid. We were royally miserable together."

  "But then why--"

  "Clare, very few people meet their soulmates at age six. So you gotta pass the time somehow. And Ingrid was very--patient. Overly patient. Willing to put up with odd behavior, in the hope that someday I would shape up and marry her martyred ass. And when somebody is that patient, you have to feel grateful, and then you want to hurt them. Does that make any sense?"

  "I guess. I mean, no, not to me, but I don't think that way."

  Henry sighs. "It's very charming of you to be ignorant of the twisted logic of most relationships. Trust me. When we met I was wrecked, blasted, and damned, and I am slowly pulling myself together because I can see that you are a human being and I would like to be one, too. And I have been trying to do it without you noticing, because I still haven't figured out that all pretense is useless between us. But it's a long way from the me you're dealing with in 1991 to me, talking to you right now from 1996. You have to work at me; I can't get there alone."

  "Yes, but it's hard. I'm not used to being the teacher."

  "Well, whenever you feel discouraged, think of all the hours I spent, am spending, with your tiny self. New math and botany, spelling and American history. I mean, you can say nasty things to me in French because I sat there and drilled you on them."

  "Too true. Il a les defauts de ses qualites. But I bet it's easier to teach all that than to teach how to be--happy."

  "But you make me happy. It's living up to being happy that's the difficult part." Henry is playing with my hair, twirling it into little knots. "Listen, Clare, I'm going to return you to the poor imbecile you came in with. I'm sitting upstairs feeling depressed and wondering where you are."

  I realize that I have forgotten my present Henry in my joy at seeing my once and future Henry, and I am ashamed. I feel an almost maternal longing to go solace the strange boy who is becoming the man before me, the one who kisses me and leaves me with an admonition to be nice. As I walk up the stairs I see the Henry of my future fling himself into the midst of the slam dancers, and I move as in a dream to find the Henry who is my here and now.

  CHRISTMAS EVE, THREE

  Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, December 24, 25, 26, 1991 (Clare is 20, Henry is 28)

  CLARE: It's 8:32 a.m. on the twenty-fourth of December and Henry and I are on our way to Meadowlark House for Christmas. It's a beautiful clear day, no snow here in Chicago, but six inches on the ground in South Haven. Before we left, Henry spent time repacking the car, checking the tires, looking under the hood. I don't think he had the slightest idea what he was looking at. My car is a very cute 1990 white Honda Civic, and I love it, but Henry really hates riding in cars, especially small cars. He's a horrible passenger, holding onto the armrest and braking the whole time we're in transit. He would probably be less afraid if he could be the driver, but for obvious reasons Henry doesn't have a driver's license. So we are sailing along the Indiana Toll Road on this fine winter day; I'm calm and looking forward to seeing my family and Henry is a basket case. It doesn't help that he didn't run this morning; I've noticed that Henry needs an incredible amount of physical activity all the time in order to be happy. It's like hanging out with a greyhound. It's different being with Henry in real time. When I was growing up Henry came and went, and our encounters were concentrated and dramatic and unsettling. Henry had a lot of stuff he wasn't going to tell me, and most of the time he wouldn't let me get anywhere near him, so I always had this intense, unsatisfied feeling. When I finally found him in the present, I thought it would be like that. But in fact it's so much better, in many ways. First and foremost, instead of refusing to touch me at all, Henry is constantly touching me, kissing me, making love to me. I feel as though I have become a different person, one who is bathed in a warm pool of desire. And he tells me things! Anything I ask him about himself, his life, his family--he tells me, with names, places, dates. Things that seemed utterly mysterious to me as a child are revealed as perfectly logical. But the best thing of all is that I see him for long stretches of time--hours, days. I know where to find him. He goes to work, he comes home. Sometimes I open my address book just to look at the entry: Henry DeTamble, 714 Dearborn, 11e, Chicago, IL 60610, 312-431-8313. A last name, an address, a phone number. I can call him on the phone. It's a miracle. I feel like Dorothy, when her house crash-landed in Oz and the world turned from black and white to color. We're not in Kansas anymore.

  In fact, we're about to cross into Michigan, and there's a rest stop. I pull into the parking lot, and we get out and stretch our legs. We head into the building, and there's the maps and brochures for the tourists, and the huge bank of vending machines.

  "Wow," Henry says. He goes over and inspects all the junk food, and then starts reading the brochures. "Hey, let's go to Frankenmuth! 'Christmas 365 Days a Year!' God, I'd commit hara-kiri after about an hour of that. Do you have any change?"

  I find a fistful of change in the bottom of my purse and we gleefully spend it on two Cokes, a box of Good & Plenty, and a Hershey bar. We walk back out into the dry cold air, arm in arm. In the car, we open our Cokes and consume sugar. Henry looks at my watch. "Such decadence. It's only 9:15."

  "Well, in a couple minutes, it'll be 10:15."

  "Oh, right, Michigan's an hour ahead. How surreal
."

  I look over at him. "Everything is surreal. I can't believe you're actually going to meet my family. I've spent so much time hiding you from my family."

  "Only because I adore you beyond reason am I doing this. I have spent a lot of time avoiding road trips, meeting girls' families, and Christmas. The fact that I am enduring all three at once proves that I love you."

  "Henry--" I turn to him; we kiss. The kiss starts to evolve into something more when out of the corner of my eye I see three prepubescent boys and a large dog standing a few feet away from us, watching with interest. Henry turns to see what I am looking at and the boys all grin and give us the thumbs up. They amble off to their parents' van.

  "By the way--what are the sleeping arrangements at your house?"

  "Oh, dear. Etta called me yesterday about that. I'm in my own room and you are in the blue room. We're down the hall from each other, with my parents and Alicia in between."

  "And how committed are we to maintaining this?"

  I start the car and we get back on the highway. "I don't know because I've never done this before. Mark just brings his girlfriends downstairs to the rec room and boffs them on the couch in the wee hours, and we all pretend not to notice. If things are difficult we can always go down to the Reading Room; I used to hide you down there."

  "Hmm. Oh, well." Henry looks out the window for a while. "You know, this isn't too bad."

  "What?"

  "Riding. In a car. On the highway."

  "Golly. Next you'll be getting on planes."

  "Never."

  "Paris. Cairo. London. Kyoto."

  "No way. I am convinced that I would time travel and Lord knows if I would be able to get back to something flying 350 miles an hour. I'd end up falling out of the sky a la Icarus."

  "Seriously?"

  "I'm not planning to find out for sure."