The Time Traveler's Wife, Page 40

  We sit facing each other at the table. Lourdes brings small plates of exquisitely arranged antipasti: transparent prosciutto with pale yellow melon, mussels that are mild and smoky, slender strips of carrot and beet that taste of fennel and olive oil. In the candlelight Clare's skin is warm and her eyes are shadowed. The pearls she's wearing delineate her collar bones and the pale smooth area above her breasts; they rise and fall with her breath. Clare catches me staring at her and smiles and looks away. I look down and realize that I have finished eating my mussels and am sitting there holding a tiny fork in the air like an idiot. I put it down and Lourdes removes our plates and brings the next course.

  We eat Nell's beautiful rare tuna, braised with a sauce of tomatoes, apples, and basil. We eat small salads full of radicchio and orange peppers and we eat little brown olives that remind me of a meal I ate with my mother in a hotel in Athens when I was very young. We drink Sauvignon Blanc, toasting each other repeatedly. ("To olives!" "To baby-sitters!" "To Nell!") Nell emerges from the kitchen carrying a small flat white cake that blazes with candles. Clare, Nell, and Lourdes sing "Happy Birthday" to me. I make a wish and blow out the candles in one breath. "That means you'll get your wish," says Nell, but mine is not a wish that can be granted. The birds talk to each other in strange voices as we all eat cake and then Lourdes and Nell vanish back into the kitchen. Clare says, "I got you a present. Close your eyes." I close my eyes. I hear Clare push her chair back from the table. She walks across the room. Then there is the noise of a needle hitting vinyl...a hiss...violins...a pure soprano piercing like sharp rain through the clamor of the orchestra...my mother's voice, singing Lulu. I open my eyes. Clare sits across the table from me, smiling. I stand up and pull her from her chair, embrace her. "Amazing," I say, and then I can't continue so I kiss her.

  Much later, after we have said goodbye to Nell and Lourdes with many teary expressions of gratitude, after we have made our way home and paid the baby-sitter, after we have made love in a daze of exhausted pleasure, we lie in bed on the verge of sleep, and Clare says, "Was it a good birthday?"

  "Perfect," I say. "The best."

  "Do you ever wish you could stop time?" Clare asks. "I wouldn't mind staying here forever."

  "Mmm," I say, rolling onto my stomach. As I slide into sleep Clare says, "I feel like we're at the top of a roller coaster," but then I am asleep and I forget to ask her, in the morning, what she means.

  AN UNPLEASANT SCENE

  Wednesday, June 28, 2006 (Henry is 43, and 43)

  HENRY: I come to in the dark, on a cold concrete floor. I try to sit up, but I get dizzy and I lie down again. My head is aching. I explore with my hands; there's a big swollen area just behind my left ear. As my eyes adjust, I see the faint outlines of stairs, and Exit signs, and far above me a lone fluorescent bulb emitting cold light. All around me is the criss-crossed steel pattern of the Cage. I'm at the Newberry, after hours, inside the Cage.

  "Don't panic" I say to myself out loud. "It's okay. It's okay. It's okay." I stop when I realize that I'm not listening to myself. I manage to get to my feet. I'm shivering. I wonder how long I have to wait. I wonder what my co-workers will say when they see me. Because this is it. I'm about to be revealed as the tenuous freak of nature that I really am. I have not been looking forward to this, to say the least.

  I try pacing back and forth to keep warm, but this makes my head throb. I give it up, sit down in the middle of the floor of the Cage and make myself as compact as possible. Hours go by. I replay this whole incident in my head, rehearsing my lines, considering all the ways it could have gone better, or worse. Finally I get tired of that and play records for myself in my head. That's Entertainment by the Jam, Pills and Soap by Elvis Costello, Perfect Day by Lou Reed. I'm trying to remember all the words to the Gang of Four's I Love a Man in a Uniform when the lights blink on. Of course it's Kevin the Security Nazi, opening the library. Kevin is the last person on the entire planet I would want to encounter while naked and trapped in the Cage, so naturally he spots me as soon as he walks in. I am curled up on the floor, playing possum.

  "Who's there?" Kevin says, louder than necessary. I imagine Kevin standing there, pasty and hung over in the dank light of the stairwell. His voice bounces around, echoing off the concrete. Kevin walks down the stairs and stands at the bottom, about ten feet away from me. "How'd you get in there?" He walks around the Cage. I continue to pretend to be unconscious. Since I can't explain, I might as well not be bothered. "My God, it's DeTamble," I can feel him standing there, gaping. Finally he remembers his radio. "Ah, ten-four, hey, Roy." Unintelligible static. "Ah, yeah, Roy it's Kevin, ah, could you come on down to A46? Yeah, at the bottom." Squawks. "Just come on down here." He turns the radio off. "Lord, DeTamble, I don't know what you think you're trying to prove, but you sure have done it now." I hear him moving around. His shoes squeak and he makes a soft grunting noise. I imagine he must be sitting on the stairs. After a few minutes a door opens upstairs and Roy comes down. Roy is my favorite security guy. He's a huge African-American gentleman who always has a beautiful smile on his face. He's the King of the Main Desk, and I'm always glad to arrive at work and bask in his magnificent good cheer. "Whoa," Roy says. "What have we here?"

  "It's DeTamble. I can't figure out how he got in there."

  "DeTamble? My my. That boy sure has a thing for airing out his johnson. I ever tell you 'bout the time I found him running around the third-floor Link in his altogether?"

  "Yeah, you did."

  "Well, I guess we got to get him out of there."

  "He's not moving."

  "Well, he's breathing. You think he's hurt? Maybe we should call an ambulance."

  "We're gonna need the fire department, cut him out with those Jaws of Life things they use on wrecks." Kevin sounds excited. I don't want the fire department or paramedics. I groan and sit up.

  "Good morning, Mr. DeTamble," Roy croons. "You're here a bit early, aren't you?"

  "Just a bit," I agree, pulling my knees to my chin. I'm so cold my teeth hurt from being clenched. I contemplate Kevin and Roy, and they return my gaze. "I don't suppose I could bribe you gentlemen?"

  They exchange glances. "Depends," Kevin says, "on what you have in mind. We can't keep our mouths shut about this because we can't get you out by ourselves."

  "No, no, I wouldn't expect that." They look relieved, "Listen. I will give each of you one hundred dollars if you will do two things for me. The first thing is, I would like one of you to go out and get me a cup of coffee."

  Roy's face breaks into his patented King of the Main Desk smile. "Hell, Mr. DeTamble, I'll do that for free. 'Course, I don't know how you're gonna drink it,"

  "Bring a straw. And don't get it from the machines in the lounge. Go out and get real coffee. Cream, no sugar."

  "Will do," says Roy.

  "What's the second thing?" asks Kevin.

  "I want you to go up to Special Collections and grab some clothes out of my desk, lower right-hand drawer. Bonus points if you can do it without anyone noticing what you're up to."

  "No sweat," Kevin says, and I wonder why I ever disliked the man.

  "Better lock off this stairwell," Roy says to Kevin, who nods and walks off to do it. Roy stands at the side of the Cage and looks at me with pity. "So, how'd you get yourself in there?"

  I shrug. "I don't have a really good answer for that."

  Roy smiles, shakes his head. "Well, think about it and I'll go get you that cup of coffee."

  About twenty minutes pass. Finally, I hear a door being unlocked and Kevin comes down the stairs, followed by Matt and Roberto. Kevin catches my eye and shrugs as though to say, I tried. He feeds my shirt through the mesh of the Cage, and I put it on while Roberto stands regarding me coldly with his arms crossed. The pants are a little bulky and it takes some effort to get them into the Cage. Matt is sitting on the stairs with a doubtful expression. I hear the door opening again. It's Roy, bringing coffee and a sweet roll. He places a straw in my co
ffee and sets it on the floor next to the roll. I have to drag my eyes away from it to look at Roberto, who turns to Roy and Kevin and asks, "May we have some privacy?"

  "Certainly, Dr. Calle." The security guards walk upstairs and out the first-floor door. Now I am alone, trapped, and bereft of an explanation, before Roberto, whom I revere and whom I have lied to repeatedly. Now there is only the truth, which is more outrageous than any of my lies.

  "All right, Henry," says Roberto. "Let's have it."

  HENRY: It's a perfect September morning. I'm a little late to work because of Alba (she refused to get dressed) and the El (it refused to come) but not terribly late, by my standards, anyway. When I sign in at the Main Desk there's no Roy, it's Marsha. I say, "Hey Marsha, where's Roy?" and she says, "Oh, he's attending to some business." I say, "Oh." and take the elevator to the fourth floor. When I walk into Special Collections Isabelle says, "You're late," and I say, "But not very." I walk into my office and Matt is standing at my window, looking out over the park.

  "Hi, Matt," I say, and Matt jumps a mile.

  "Henry!" he says, going white. "How did you get out of the Cage?"

  I set my knapsack on my desk and stare at him. "The Cage?"

  "You--I just came from downstairs--you were trapped in the Cage, and Roberto is down there--you told me to come up here and wait, but you didn't say for what--"

  "My god." I sit down on the desk. "Oh, my god." Matt sits down in my chair and looks up at me. "Look, I can explain..." I begin.

  "You can?"

  "Sure." I think about it. "I--you see--oh, fuck,"

  "It's something really weird, isn't it, Henry?"

  "Yeah. Yeah, it is." We stare at each other. "Look, Matt...let's go downstairs and see what's going on, and I'll explain to you and Roberto together, okay?"

  "Okay." We stand up, and we go downstairs.

  As we walk down the east corridor I see Roy loitering near the entrance to the stairs. He starts when he sees me, and just as he's about to ask me the obvious, I hear Catherine say, "Hi, boys, what's up?" as she breezes past us and tries to open the door to the stairs. "Hey, Roy, how come no can open?"

  "Hum, well, Ms. Mead," Roy glances at me, "we've been having a problem with, uh..."

  "It's okay, Roy," I say. "Come on, Catherine. Roy, would you mind staying up here?" He nods, and lets us into the stairwell.

  As we step inside I hear Roberto say, "Listen, I do not appreciate you sitting in there telling me science fiction. If I wanted science fiction I would borrow some from Amelia." He's sitting on the bottom stairs and as we come down behind him he turns to see who it is.

  "Hi, Roberto," I say softly. Catherine says, "Oh my god. Oh my god." Roberto stands up and loses his balance and Matt reaches over and steadies him. I look over at the Cage, and there I am. I'm sitting on the floor, wearing my white shirt and khakis and hugging my knees to my chest, obviously freezing and hungry. There's a cup of coffee sitting outside the Cage. Roberto and Matt and Catherine watch us silently.

  "When are you from?" I ask.

  "August, 2006." I pick up the coffee, hold it at chin level, poke the straw through the side of the Cage. He sucks it down. "You want this sweet roll?" He does. I break it into three parts and push it in. I feel like I'm at the zoo. "You're hurt," I say. "I hit my head on something," he says. "How much longer are you going to be here?"

  "Another half hour or so." He gestures to Roberto. "You see?"

  "What is going on?" Catherine asks.

  I consult my self. "You want to explain?"

  "I'm tired. Go ahead."

  So I explain. I explain about being a time traveler, the practical and genetic aspects of it. I explain about how the whole thing is really a sort of disease, and I can't control it. I explain about Kendrick, and about how Clare and I met, and met again. I explain about causal loops, and quantum mechanics and photons and the speed of light. I explain about how it feels to be living outside of the time constraints most humans are subject to. I explain about the lying, and the stealing, and the fear. I explain about trying to have a normal life. "And part of having a normal life is having a normal job," I conclude.

  "I wouldn't really call this a normal job," Catherine says.

  "I wouldn't call this a normal life," says my self, sitting inside the Cage.

  I look at Roberto, who is sitting on the stairs, leaning his head against the wall. He looks exhausted, and wistful. "So," I ask him. "Are you going to fire me?"

  Roberto sighs. "No. No, Henry, I'm not going to fire you." He stands up carefully, and brushes off the back of his coat with his hand. "But I don't understand why you didn't tell me all this a long time ago."

  "You wouldn't have believed me," says my self. "You didn't believe me just now, until you saw."

  "Well, yes--" Roberto begins, but his next words are lost in the odd noise vacuum that sometimes accompanies my comings and goings. I turn and see a pile of clothes lying on the floor of the Cage. I will come back later this afternoon and fish them out with a clothes hanger. I turn back to Matt, Roberto, and Catherine. They look stunned.

  "Gosh," says Catherine. "It's like working with Clark Kent."

  "I feel like Jimmy Olsen," says Matt. "Ugh."

  "That makes you Lois Lane," Roberto teases Catherine.

  "No, no, Clare is Lois Lane," she replies.

  Matt says, "But Lois Lane was oblivious to the Clark Kent/Superman connection, whereas Clare.

  "Without Clare I would have given up a long time ago," I say. "I never understood why Clark Kent was so hell bent on keeping Lois Lane in the dark."

  "It makes a better story," says Matt.

  "Does it? I don't know," I reply.

  Friday, July 7, 2006 (Henry is 43)

  HENRY: I'm sitting in Kendrick's office, listening to him explain why it's not going to work. Outside the heat is stifling, blazing hot wet wool mummification. In here it's air-conditioned enough that I'm hunched gooseflesh in this chair. We are sitting across from each other in the same chairs we always sit in. On the table is an ashtray full of cigarette filters. Kendrick has been lighting each cigarette off the end of the previous one. We're sitting with the lights off, and the air is heavy with smoke and cold. I want a drink. I want to scream. I want Kendrick to stop talking so I can ask him a question. I want to stand up and walk out. But I sit, listening.

  When Kendrick stops talking the background noises of the building are suddenly apparent.

  "Henry? Did you hear me?"

  I sit up and look at him like a schoolchild caught daydreaming. "Um, no."

  "I asked you if you understood. Why it won't work."

  "Um, yeah." I try to pull my head together. "It won't work because my immune system is all fucked up. And because I'm old. And because there are too many genes involved."

  "Right." Kendrick sighs and stubs out his cigarette in the mound of stubs. Tendrils of smoke escape and die. "I'm sorry." He leans back in his chair and clasps his soft pink hands together in his lap. I think about the first time I saw him, here in this office, eight years ago. Both of us were younger and cockier, confident in the bounty of molecular genetics, ready to use science to confound nature. I think about holding Kendrick's time-traveling mouse in my hands, about the surge of hope I felt then, looking at my tiny white proxy. I think about the look on Clare's face when I tell her it's not going to work. She never thought it would work, though.

  I clear my throat. "What about Alba?"

  Kendrick crosses his ankles and fidgets. "What about Alba?"

  "Would it work for her?"

  "We'll never know, will we? Unless Clare changes her mind about letting me work with Alba's DNA. And we both know perfectly well that Clare's terrified of gene therapy. She looks at me like I'm Josef Mengele every time I try to discuss it with her."

  "But if you had Alba's DNA" I say, "you could make some mice and work on stuff for her and when she turns eighteen if she wants she can try it."

  "Yes."

  "So even if I'm fu
cked at least Alba might benefit someday."

  "Yes."

  "Okay, then." I stand and rub my hands together, pluck my cotton shirt away from my body where it has been adhered by now-cold sweat. "That's what we'll do."

  Friday, July 14, 2006 (Clare is 35, Henry is 43)

  CLARE: I'm in the studio making gampi tissue. It's a paper so thin and transparent you can see through it; I plunge the su-ketta into the vat and bring it up, rolling the delicate slurry around until it is perfectly distributed. I set it on the corner of the vat to drain, and I hear Alba laughing, Alba running through the garden, Alba yelling, "Mama! Look what Daddy got me!" She bursts through the door and clatters toward me, Henry following more sedately. I look down to see why she is clattering and I see: ruby slippers.

  "They're just like Dorothy's!" Alba says, doing a little tap dance on the wooden floor. She taps her heels together three times, but she doesn't vanish. Of course, she's already home. I laugh. Henry looks pleased with himself.

  "Did you make it to the post office?" I ask him.

  His face falls. "Shit. No, I forgot. Sorry. I'll go tomorrow, first thing." Alba is twirling around, and Henry reaches out and stops her. "Don't, Alba. You'll get dizzy."

  "I like being dizzy."

  "It's not a good idea."

  Alba is wearing a T-shirt and shorts. She has a Band-Aid over the skin in the crook of her elbow. "What happened to your arm?" I ask her. Instead of answering she looks at Henry, so I do, too.

  "It's nothing," he says. "She was sucking on her skin and she gave herself a hickey."

  "What's a hickey?" Alba asks. Henry starts to explain but I say, "Why does a hickey need a Band-Aid?"

  "I dunno," he says. "She just wanted one."

  I have a premonition. Call it the sixth sense of mothers. I walk over to Alba. "Let's see."

  She hugs her arm close to her, clutching it tight with her other arm. "Don't take off the Band-Aid. It'll hurt."

  "I'll be careful." I grip her arm firmly. She makes a whimpering noise, but I am determined. Slowly I unbend her arm, peel off the bandage gently. There's a small red puncture wound in the center of a purple bruise. Alba says, "It's sore, don't" and I release her. She sticks the Band-Aid back down, and watches me, waiting.

  "Alba, why don't you go call Kimy and see if she wants to come over for dinner?" Alba smiles and races out of the studio. In a minute the back door of the house bangs. Henry is sitting at my drawing table, swiveling slightly back and forth in my chair. He watches me. He waits for me to say something.