The Time Traveler's Wife, Page 27

  "You could go have a beer," says Henry.

  "I thought Evanston was dry."

  "No, I think they changed it. If you can prove you're not a member of the YMCA you can have a beer."

  "I'll come with you. All for one and one for all." We turn onto Sherman, walk past what used to be Marshall Field's and is now a sneaker outlet store, past what used to be the Varsity Theater and is now a Gap. We turn into the alley that runs between the florist's and the shoe repair shop and lo and behold, it's Bookman's Alley. I push the door open and we troop into the dim cool shop as though we are tumbling into the past.

  Roger is sitting behind his little untidy desk chatting with a ruddy white-haired gentleman about something to do with chamber music. He smiles when he sees us. "Clare, I've got something you will like," he says. Henry makes a beeline for the back of the store where all the printing and bibliophilic stuff is. Gomez meanders around looking at the weird little objects that are tucked into the various sections: a saddle in Westerns, a deerstalker's cap in Mysteries. He takes a gumdrop from the immense bowl in the Children's section, not realizing that those gumdrops have been there for years and you can hurt yourself on them. The book Roger has for me is a Dutch catalog of decorative papers with real sample papers tipped in. I can see immediately that it's a find, so I lay it on the table by the desk, to start the pile of things I want. Then I begin to peruse the shelves dreamily, inhaling the deep dusty smell of paper, glue, old carpets and wood. I see Henry sitting on the floor in the Art section with something open on his lap. He's sunburned, and his hair stands up every which way. I'm glad he cut it. He looks more like himself to me now, with the short hair. As I watch him he puts his hand up to twirl a piece of it around his finger, realizes it's too short to do that, and scratches his ear. I want to touch him, run my hands through his funny sticking-up hair, but I turn and burrow into the Travel section instead.

  HENRY: Clare is standing in the main room by a huge stack of new arrivals. Roger doesn't really like people fiddling with unpriced stuff, but I've noticed that he'll let Clare do pretty much whatever she wants in his store. She has her head bent over a small red book. Her hair is trying to escape from the coil on her head, and one strap of her sundress is hanging off her shoulder, exposing a bit of her bathing suit. This is so poignant, so powerful, that I urgently need to walk over to her, touch her, possibly, if no one is looking, bite her, but at the same time I don't want this moment to end, and suddenly I notice Gomez, who is standing in the Mystery section looking at Clare with an expression that so exactly mirrors my own feelings that I am forced to see--.

  At this moment, Clare looks up at me and says, "Henry, look, it's Pompeii." She holds out the tiny book of picture postcards, and something in her voice says, See, I have chosen you. I walk to her, put my arm around her shoulders, straighten the fallen strap. When I look up a second later, Gomez has turned his back on us and is intently surveying the Agatha Christies.

  Sunday, January 15, 1995 (Clare is 23, Henry is 31)

  CLARE: I am washing dishes and Henry is dicing green peppers. The sun is setting very pinkly over the January snow in our backyard on this early Sunday evening, and we are making chili and singing Yellow Submarine: In the town where I was born

  Lived a man who sailed to sea...

  Onions hiss in the pan on the stove. As we sing And our friends are all on board I suddenly hear my voice floating alone and I turn and Henry's clothes lie in a heap, the knife is on the kitchen floor. Half of a pepper sways slightly on the cutting board.

  I turn off the heat and cover the onions. I sit down next to the pile of clothes and scoop them up, still warm from Henry's body, and sit until all their warmth is from my body, holding them. Then I get up and go into our bedroom, fold the clothes neatly and place them on our bed. Then I continue making dinner as best I can, and eat by myself, waiting and wondering.

  Friday, February 3, 1995 (Clare is 23, Henry is 31, and 39)

  CLARE: Gomez and Charisse and Henry and I are sitting around our dining room table playing Modern Capitalist Mind-Fuck. It's a game Gomez and Charisse have invented. We play it with a Monopoly set. It involves answering questions, getting points, accumulating money, and exploiting your fellow players. It's Gomez's turn. He shakes the dice, gets a six, and lands on Community Chest. He draws a card.

  "Okay, everybody. What modern technological invention would you deep-six for the good of society?"

  "Television," I say.

  "Fabric softener," says Charisse.

  "Motion detectors," says Henry vehemently.

  "And I say gunpowder."

  "That's hardly modern," I object.

  "Okay. The assembly line."

  "You don't get two answers," says Henry.

  "Sure I do. What kind of a lame-ass answer is 'motion detectors,' anyway?"

  "I keep getting ratted on by the motion detectors in the stacks at the Newberry. Twice this week I've ended up in the stacks after hours, and as soon as I show up the guard is upstairs checking it out. It's driving me nuts."

  "I don't think the proletariat would be affected much by the de-invention of motion sensors. Clare and I each get ten points for correct answers, Charisse gets five points for creativity, and Henry gets to go backward three spaces for valuing the needs of the individual over the collective good."

  "That puts me back on Go. Give me $200.00, Banker." Charisse gives Henry his money.

  "Oops," says Gomez. I smile at him. It's my turn. I roll a four.

  "Park Place. I'll buy it." In order to buy anything I must correctly answer a question. Henry draws from the Chance pile.

  "Whom would you prefer to have dinner with and why: Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Rosa Luxembourg, Alan Greenspan?"

  "Rosa."

  "Why?"

  "Most interesting death." Henry, Charisse, and Gomez confer and agree that I can buy Park Place. I give Charisse my money and she hands me the deed. Henry shakes and lands on Income Tax. Income Tax has its own special cards. We all tense, in apprehension. He reads the card.

  "Great Leap Forward."

  "Damn." We all hand Charisse all our real estate, and she puts it back in the Bank's holdings, along with her own.

  "Well, so much for Park Place."

  "Sorry." Henry moves halfway across the board, which puts him on St. James. "I'll buy it."

  "My poor little St. James," laments Charisse. I draw a card from the Free Parking pile.

  "What is the exchange rate of the Japanese yen against the dollar today?"

  "I have no idea. Where did that question come from?"

  "Me." Charisse smiles.

  "What's the answer?"

  "99.8 yen to the dollar."

  "Okay. No St. James. Your turn." Henry hands Charisse the dice. She rolls a four and ends up going to Jail. She picks a card that tells her what her crime is: Insider Trading. We laugh.

  "That sounds more like you guys," says Gomez. Henry and I smile modestly. We are making a killing in the stock market these days. To get out of Jail Charisse has to answer three questions.

  Gomez picks from the Chance pile. "Question the First: name two famous artists Trotsky knew in Mexico."

  "Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo."

  "Good. Question the Second: How much does Nike pay its Vietnamese workers per diem to make those ridiculously expensive sneakers?"

  "Oh, God. I don't know...$3? Ten cents?"

  "What's your answer?" There is an immense crash in the kitchen. We all jump up, and Henry says, "Sit down!" so emphatically that we do. He runs into the kitchen. Charisse and Gomez look at me, startled. I shake my head. "I don't know." But I do. There is a low murmur of voices and a moan. Charisse and Gomez are frozen, listening. I stand up and softly follow Henry.

  He is kneeling on the floor, holding a dish cloth against the head of the naked man lying on the linoleum, who is of course Henry. The wooden cabinet that holds our dishes is on its side; the glass is broken and all the dishes have spilled out and shattered. Henr
y is lying in the midst of the mess, bleeding and covered with glass. Both Henrys look at me, one piteously, the other urgently. I kneel opposite Henry, over Henry. "Where's all this blood coming from?" I whisper. "I think it's all from the scalp," Henry whispers back. "Let's call an ambulance," I say. I start to pick the glass out of Henry's chest. He closes his eyes and says, "Don't." I stop.

  "Holy cats." Gomez stands in the doorway. I see Charisse standing behind him on tiptoe, trying to see over his shoulder. "Wow," she says, pushing past Gomez. Henry throws a dish cloth over his prone duplicate's genitalia.

  "Oh, Henry, don't worry about it, I've drawn a gazillion models--"

  "I try to retain a modicum of privacy," Henry snaps. Charisse recoils as though he's slapped her.

  "Listen, Henry--" Gomez rumbles.

  I can't think with all this going on. "Everyone please shut up," I demand, exasperated. To my surprise they do. "What happens?" I ask Henry, who has been lying on the floor grimacing and trying not to move. He opens his eyes and stares up at me for a moment before answering.

  "I'll be gone in a few minutes," he finally says, softly. He looks at Henry. "I want a drink." Henry bounds up and comes back with a juice glass full of Jack Daniels. I support Henry's head and he manages to down about a third of it.

  "Is that wise?" Gomez asks.

  "Don't know. Don't care," Henry assures him from the floor. "This hurts like hell." He gasps. "Stand back! Close your eyes--"

  "Why?--" Gomez begins.

  Henry is convulsing on the floor as though he is being electrified. His head is nodding violently and he yells "Clare!" and I close my eyes. There is a noise like a bed sheet being snapped but much louder and then there is a cascade of glass and china everywhere and Henry has vanished.

  "Oh my God," says Charisse. Henry and I stare at each other. That was different, Henry. That was violent and ugly. What is happening to you? His white face tells me that he doesn't know either. He inspects the whiskey for glass fragments and then drinks it down.

  "What's with all the glass?" Gomez demands, gingerly brushing himself off.

  Henry stands up, offers me his hand. He's covered with a fine mist of blood and bits of crockery and crystal. I stand up and look at Charisse. She has a big cut on her face; blood is running down her cheek like a tear.

  "Anything that's not part of my body gets left behind," Henry explains. He shows them the gap where he had a tooth pulled because he kept losing the filling. "So whenever I went back to, at least all the glass is gone, they won't have to sit there and pick it out with tweezers,"

  "No, but we will," Gomez says, gently removing glass from Charisse's hair. He has a point.

  LIBRARY SCIENCE FICTION

  Wednesday, March 8, 1995 (Henry is 31)

  HENRY: Matt and I are playing Hide and Seek in the stacks in Special Collections. He's looking for me because we are supposed to be giving a calligraphy Show and Tell to a Newberry Trustee and her Ladies' Lettering Club. I'm hiding from him because I'm trying to get all of my clothes on my body before he finds me.

  "Come on, Henry, they're waiting," Matt calls from somewhere in Early American Broadsides. I'm pulling on my pants in Twentieth-Century French Livres d'artistes. "Just a second, I just want to find this one thing," I call. I make a mental note to learn ventriloquism for moments like this. Matt's voice is coming closer as he says, "You know Mrs. Connelly is going to have kittens, just forget it, let's get out there--" He sticks his head into my row as I'm buttoning my shirt. "What are you doing?"

  "Sorry?"

  "You've been running around naked in the stacks again, haven't you?"

  "Um, maybe." I try to sound nonchalant.

  "Jesus, Henry. Give me the cart." Matt grabs the book-laden cart and starts to wheel it off toward the Reading Room. The heavy metal door opens and closes. I put on my socks and shoes, knot my tie, dust off my jacket and put it on. Then I walk out into the Reading Room, face Matt over the long classroom table surrounded by middle-aged rich ladies, and begin to discourse on the various book hands of lettering genius Rudolf Koch. Matt lays out felts and opens portfolios and interjects intelligent things about Koch and by the end of the hour he seems like maybe he's not going to kill me this time. The happy ladies toddle off to lunch. Matt and I move around the table, putting books back into their boxes and onto the cart.

  "I'm sorry about being late," I say.

  "If you weren't brilliant," Matt replies, "we would have tanned you and used you to rebind Das Manifest der Nacktkultur by now."

  "There's no such book."

  "Wanna bet?"

  "No." We wheel the cart back to the stacks and begin reshelving the portfolios and books. I buy Matt lunch at the Beau Thai, and all is forgiven, if not forgotten.

  Tuesday, April 11, 1995 (Henry is 31)

  HENRY: There is a stairwell in the Newberry Library that I am afraid of. It is located toward the east end of the long hallway that runs through each of the four floors, bisecting the Reading Rooms from the stacks. It is not grand, like the main staircase with its marble treads and carved balustrades. It has no windows. It has fluorescent lights, cinderblock walls, concrete stairs with yellow safety strips. There are metal doors with no windows on each floor. But these are not the things that frighten me. The thing about this stairwell that I don't like one bit is the Cage.

  The Cage is four stories tall and runs up the center of the stairwell. At first glance it looks like an elevator cage, but there is no elevator and never was. No one at the Newberry seems to know what the Cage is for, or why it was installed. I assume it's there to stop people from throwing themselves from the stairs and landing in a broken heap. The Cage is painted beige. It is made of steel.

  When I first came to work at the Newberry, Catherine gave me a tour of all the nooks and crannies. She proudly showed me the stacks, the artifact room, the unused room in the east link where Matt practices his singing, McAllister's amazingly untidy cubicle, the Fellows' carrels, the staff lunch room. As Catherine opened the door to the stairwell, on our way up to Conservation, I had a moment of panic. I glimpsed the crisscrossed wire of the Cage and balked, like a skittish horse.

  "What's that?" I asked Catherine.

  "Oh, that's the Cage," she replied, casually.

  "Is it an elevator?"

  "No, it's just a cage. I don't think it does anything."

  "Oh." I walked up to it, looked in. "Is there a door down there?"

  "No. You can't get into it."

  "Oh." We walked up the stairs and continued on with our tour.

  Since then, I have avoided using that stairway. I try not to think about the Cage; I don't want to make a big deal out of it. But if I ever end up inside it, I won't be able to get out.

  Friday, June 9, 1995 (Henry is 31)

  HENRY: I materialize on the floor of the Staff Men's Room on the fourth floor of the Newberry. I've been gone for days, lost in 1973, rural Indiana, and I'm tired, hungry, and unshaven; worst of all, I've got a black eye and I can't find my clothes. I get up and lock myself in a stall, sit down and think. While I'm thinking someone comes in, unzips, and stands in front of the urinal pissing. When he's done he zips and then stands for a moment and right then I happen to sneeze.

  "Who's there?" says Roberto. I sit silently. Through the space between the door and the stall I see Roberto slowly bend down and look under the door at my feet.

  "Henry?" he says. "I will have Matt bring your clothes. Please get dressed and come to my office."

  I slink into Roberto's office and sit down across from him. He's on the phone, so I sneak a look at his calendar. It's Friday. The clock above the desk says 2:17. I've been gone for a little more than twenty-two hours. Roberto places the phone gently in its cradle and turns to look at me. "Shut the door," he says. This is a mere formality because the walls of our offices don't actually go all the way up to the ceiling, but I do as he says.

  Roberto Calle is an eminent scholar of the Italian Renaissance and the Head of Special Col
lections. He is ordinarily the most sanguine of men, golden, bearded, and encouraging; now he gazes at me sadly over his bifocals and says, "We really can't have this, you know."

  "Yes," I say. "I know."

  "May I ask how you acquired that rather impressive black eye?" Roberto's voice is grim.

  "I think I walked into a tree."

  "Of course. How silly of me not to think of that." We sit and look at each other. Roberto says, "Yesterday I happened to notice Matt walking into your office carrying a pile of clothing. Since it was not the first time I had seen Matt walking around with clothing I asked him where he had gotten this particular pile, and he said that he had found it in the Men's Room. And so I asked him why he felt compelled to transport this pile of clothing to your office and he said that it looked like what you were wearing, which it did. And since no one could find you, we simply left the clothing on your desk."

  He pauses as though I'm supposed to say something, but I can't think of anything appropriate. He goes on, "This morning Clare called and told Isabelle you had the flu and wouldn't be in." I lean my head against my hand. My eye is throbbing. "Explain yourself," Roberto demands.

  It's tempting to say, Roberto, I got stuck in 1973 and I couldn't get out and I was in Muncie, Indiana, for days living in a barn and I got decked by the guy who owned the barn because he thought I was trying to mess with his sheep. But of course I can't say that. I say, "I don't really remember, Roberto. I'm sorry."

  "Ah. Well, I guess Matt wins the pool."

  "What pool?"

  Roberto smiles, and I think that maybe he's not going to fire me. "Matt bet that you wouldn't even attempt to explain. Amelia put her money on abduction by aliens. Isabelle bet that you were involved in an international drug-running cartel and had been kidnapped and killed by the Mafia."

  "What about Catherine?"

  "Oh, Catherine and I are convinced that this is all due to an unspeakably bizarre sexual kink involving nudity and books."

  I take a deep breath. "It's more like epilepsy," I say.

  Roberto looks skeptical. "Epilepsy? You disappeared yesterday afternoon. You have a black eye and scratches all over your face and hands. I had Security searching the building top to bottom for you yesterday; they tell me you are in the habit of taking off your clothing in the stacks."