The Time Traveler's Wife, Page 5

  "This is lovely."

  Clare is pleased, as always when she receives homage for her work. "I could make one for you."

  "I would like that. But I'm not allowed to take anything with me when I time travel, so maybe you could keep it for me and I could just enjoy it while I'm here."

  "Why can't you take anything?"

  "Well, think about it. If we time travelers started to move things around in time, pretty soon the world would be a big mess. Let's say I brought some money with me into the past. I could look up all the winning lottery numbers and football teams and make a ton of money. That doesn't seem very fair, does it? Or if I was really dishonest, I could steal things and bring them to the future where nobody could find me."

  "You could be a pirate!" Clare seems so pleased with the idea of me as a pirate that she forgets that I am Stranger Danger. "You could bury the money and make a treasure map and dig it up in the future." This is in fact more or less how Clare and I fund our rock-and-roll lifestyle. As an adult Clare finds this mildly immoral, although it does give us an edge in the stock market.

  "That's a great idea. But what I really need isn't money, it's clothing."

  Clare looks at me doubtfully.

  "Does your dad have any clothes he doesn't need? Even a pair of pants would be great. I mean, I like this towel, don't get me wrong, it's just that where I come from, I usually like to wear pants." Philip Abshire is a tad shorter than me and about thirty pounds heavier. His pants are comical but comfortable on me.

  "I don't know..."

  "That's okay, you don't need to get them right now. But if you bring some next time I come, it would be very nice."

  "Next time?"

  I find an unused piece of stationery and a pencil. I print in block letters: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1977 AFTER SUPPER. I hand Clare the paper, and she receives it cautiously. My vision is blurring. I can hear Etta calling Clare. "It's a secret, Clare, okay?"

  "Why?"

  "Can't tell. I have to go, now. It was nice to meet you. Don't take any wooden nickels." I hold out my hand and Clare takes it, bravely. As we shake hands, I disappear.

  Wednesday, February 9, 2000 (Clare is 28, Henry is 36)

  CLARE: It's early, about six in the morning and I'm sleeping the thin dreamy sleep of six in the morning when Henry slams me awake and I realize he's been elsewhen. He materializes practically on top of me and I yell, and we scare the shit out of each other and then he starts laughing and rolls over and I roll over and look at him and realize that his mouth is bleeding profusely. I jump up to get a washcloth and Henry is still smiling when I get back and start daubing at his lip.

  "How'd that happen?"

  "You threw a shoe at me." I don't remember ever throwing anything at Henry.

  "Did not."

  "Did too. We just met for the very first time, and as soon as you laid eyes on me you said, 'That's the man I'm going to marry,' and you pasted me one. I always said you were an excellent judge of character."

  Thursday, September 29, 1977 (Clare is 6, Henry is 35)

  CLARE: The calendar on Daddy's desk this morning said the same as the paper the man wrote. Nell was making a soft egg for Alicia and Etta was yelling at Mark cause he didn't do his homework and played Frisbee with Steve. I said Etta can I have some clothes from the trunks? meaning the trunks in the attic where we play dress up, and Etta said What for? and I said I want to play dress up with Megan and Etta got mad and said It was time to go to school and I could worry about playing when I got home. So I went to school and we did adding and mealworms and language arts and after lunch French and music and religion. I worried all day about pants for the man cause he seemed like he really wanted pants. So when I got home I went to ask Etta again but she was in town but Nell let me lick both the beaters of cake batter which Etta won't let us because you get salmon. And Mama was writing and I was gonna go away without asking but she said What is it, Baby? so I asked and she said I could go look in the Goodwill bags and have anything I wanted. So I went to the laundry room and looked in the Goodwill bags and found three pairs of Daddy's pants but one had a big cigarette hole. So I took two and I found a white shirt like Daddy wears to work and a tie with fishes on it and a red sweater. And the yellow bathrobe that Daddy had when I was little and it smelled like Daddy. I put the clothes in a bag and put the bag in the mud-room closet. When I was coming out of the mud room Mark saw me and he said What are you doing, asshole? And I said Nothing, asshole and he pulled my hair and I stepped on his foot really hard and then he started to cry and went to tell. So I went up to my room and played Television with Mr. Bear and Jane where Jane is the movie star and Mr. Bear asks her about how it is being a movie star and she says she really wants to be a veterinarian but she is so incredibly pretty she has to be a movie star and Mr. Bear says maybe she could be a veterinarian when she's old. And Etta knocked and said Why are you stepping on Mark? and I said Because Mark pulled my hair for no reason and Etta said You two are getting on my nerves and went away so that was okay. We ate dinner with just Etta because Daddy and Mama went to a party. It was fried chicken with little peas and chocolate cake and Mark got the biggest piece but I didn't say anything because I licked the beaters. So after dinner I asked Etta if I could go outside and she said did I have homework and I said Spelling and bring leaves for art class, and she said Okay as long as you come in by dark. So I went and got my blue sweater with the zebras and I got the bag and I went out and went to the clearing. But the man wasn't there and I sat on the rock for a while and then I thought I better get some leaves. So I went back to the garden and found some leaves from Mama's little tree that she told me later was Ginkgo, and some leaves from the Maple and the Oak. So then I went back to the clearing he still wasn't there and I thought Well, I guess he just made up that he was coming and he didn't want pants so bad after all. And I thought maybe Ruth was right cause I told her about the man and she said I was making it up because people don't disappear in real life only on TV. Or maybe it was a dream like when Buster died and I dreamed he was okay and he was in his cage but I woke up and no Buster and Mama said Dreams are different than real life but important too. And it was getting cold and I thought maybe I should just leave the bag and if the man came he could have his pants. So I was walking back up the path and there was this noise and somebody said Ouch. Dang, that hurt. And then I was scared.

  HENRY: I kind of slam into the rock when I appear and scrape my knees. I am in the clearing and the sun is setting beautifully in a spectacular J. M. W. Turner blowout orange and red over the trees. The clearing is empty except for a shopping bag full of clothes and I rapidly deduce that Clare has left these and this is probably a day shortly after our first meeting. Clare is nowhere in sight and I call her name softly. No response. I dig through the bag of clothes. There's the pair of chinos and the beautiful pair of brown wool trousers, a hideous tie with trout all over it, the Harvard sweater, the oxford-cloth white shirt with ring around the collar and sweat stains under the arms, and the exquisite silk bathrobe with Philip's monogram and a big tear over the pocket. All these clothes are old friends, except for the tie, and I'm happy to see them. I don the chinos and the sweater and bless Clare's apparently hereditary good taste and sense. I feel great; except for the lack of shoes I'm well equipped for my current location in spacetime. "Thanks, Clare, you did a great job," I call softly.

  I am surprised when she appears at the entrance to the clearing. It's getting dark quickly and Clare looks tiny and scared in the half light.

  "Hi."

  "Hi, Clare. Thanks for the clothes. They're perfect, and they'll keep me nice and warm tonight."

  "I have to go in soon."

  "That's okay, it's almost dark. Is it a school night?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "What's the date?"

  "Thursday, September 29, 1977."

  "That's very helpful. Thanks."

  "How come you don't know that?"

  "Well, I just got here. A few minutes ago i
t was Monday, March 27, 2000. It was a rainy morning and I was making toast."

  "But you wrote it down for me." She takes out a piece of Philip's law office letterhead and holds it out for me. I walk to her and take it, and am interested to see the date written on it in my careful block lettering. I pause and grope for the best way to explain the vagaries of time travel to the small child who is Clare at the moment.

  "It's like this. You know how to use a tape recorder?"

  "Mmhmm."

  "Okay. So you put in a tape and you play it from the beginning to the end, right?"

  "Yeah..."

  "That's how your life is. You get up in the morning and you eat breakfast and you brush your teeth and you go to school, right? You don't get up and suddenly find yourself at school eating lunch with Helen and Ruth and then all of a sudden you're at home getting dressed, right?"

  Clare giggles. "Right."

  "Now for me, it's different. Because I am a time traveler, I jump around a lot from one time to another. So it's like if you started the tape and played it for a while but then you said Oh I want to hear that song again, so you played that song and then you went back to where you left off but you wound the tape too far ahead so you rewound it again but you still got it too far ahead. You see?"

  "Sort of."

  "Well, it's not the greatest analogy in the world. Basically, sometimes I get lost in time and I don't know when I am."

  "What's analogy?"

  "It's when you try to explain something by saying it's like another thing. For example, at the moment I am as snug as a bug in a rug in this nice sweater, and you are as pretty as a picture, and Etta is going to be as mad as a hatter if you don't go in pretty soon."

  "Are you going to sleep here? You could come to our house, we have a guest room."

  "Gosh, that's very nice of you. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to meet your family until 1991."

  Clare is utterly perplexed. I think part of the problem is that she can't imagine dates beyond the '70s. I remember having the same problem with the '60s when I was her age. "Why not?"

  "It's part of the rules. People who time travel aren't supposed to go around talking to regular people while they visit their times, because we might mess things up." Actually, I don't believe this; things happen the way they happened, once and only once. I'm not a proponent of splitting universes.

  "But you talk to me."

  "You're special. You're brave and smart and good at keeping secrets."

  Clare is embarrassed. "I told Ruth, but she didn't believe me."

  "Oh. Well, don't worry about it. Very few people ever believe me, either. Especially doctors. Doctors don't believe anything unless you can prove it to them."

  "I believe you."

  Clare is standing about five feet away from me. Her small pale face catches the last orange light from the west. Her hair is pulled back tightly into a ponytail and she is wearing blue jeans and a dark sweater with zebras running across the chest. Her hands are clenched and she looks fierce and determined. Our daughter, I think sadly, would have looked like this.

  "Thank you, Clare."

  "I have to go in now."

  "Good idea."

  "Are you coming back?"

  I consult the List, from memory. "I'll be back October 16. It's a Friday. Come here, right after school. Bring that little blue diary Megan gave you for your birthday and a blue ballpoint pen" I repeat the date, looking at Clare to make sure she is remembering.

  "Au revoir, Clare."

  "Au revoir..."

  "Henry."

  "Au revoir, Henri." Already her accent is better than mine. Clare turns and runs up the path, into the arms of her lighted and welcoming house, and I turn to the dark and begin to walk across the meadow. Later in the evening I chuck the tie in the dumpster behind Dina's Fish 'n Fry.

  LESSONS IN SURVIVAL

  Thursday, June 7, 1973 (Henry is 27, and 9)

  HENRY: I am standing across the street from the Art Institute of Chicago on a sunny June day in 1973 in the company of my nine-year-old self. He is traveling from next Wednesday; I have come from 1990. We have a long afternoon and evening to frivol as we will, and so we have come to one of the great art museums of the world for a little lesson in pickpocketing.

  "Can't we just look at the art?" pleads Henry. He's nervous. He's never done this before.

  "Nope. You need to know this. How are you going to survive if you can't steal anything?"

  "Begging."

  "Begging is a drag, and you keep getting carted off by the police. Now, listen: when we get in there, I want you to stay away from me and pretend we don't know each other. But be close enough to watch what I'm doing. If I hand you anything, don't drop it, and put it in your pocket as fast as you can. Okay?"

  "I guess. Can we go see St. George?"

  "Sure." We cross Michigan Avenue and walk between students and housewives sunning themselves on the museum steps. Henry pats one of the bronze lions as we go by.

  I feel moderately bad about this whole thing. On the one hand, I am providing myself with urgently required survival skills. Other lessons in this series include Shoplifting, Beating People Up, Picking Locks, Climbing Trees, Driving, Housebreaking, Dumpster Diving, and How to Use Oddball Things like Venetian Blinds and Garbage Can Lids as Weapons. On the other hand, I'm corrupting my poor innocent little self. I sigh. Somebody's got to do it.

  It's Free Day, so the place is swarming with people. We stand in line, move through the entry, and slowly climb the grandiose central staircase. We enter the European Galleries and make our way backward from the seventeenth-century Netherlands to fifteenth-century Spain. St. George stands poised, as always, ready to transfix his dragon with his delicate spear while the pink and green princess waits demurely in the middleground. My self and I love the yellow-bellied dragon wholeheartedly, and we are always relieved to find that his moment of doom has still not arrived.

  Henry and I stand before Bernardo Martorell's painting for five minutes, and then he turns to me. We have the gallery to ourselves at the moment.

  "It's not so hard," I say. "Pay attention. Look for someone who is distracted. Figure out where the wallet is. Most men use either their back pocket or the inside pocket of their suit jacket. With women you want the purse behind their back. If you're on the street you can just grab the whole purse, but then you have to be sure you can outrun anybody who might decide to chase you. It's much quieter if you can take it without them noticing."

  "I saw a movie where they practiced with a suit of clothes with little bells and if the guy moved the suit while he took the wallet the bells rang."

  "Yeah, I remember that movie. You can try that at home. Now follow me." I lead Henry from the fifteenth century to the nineteenth; we arrive suddenly in the midst of French Impressionism. The Art Institute is famous for its Impressionist collection. I can take it or leave it, but as usual these rooms are jam-packed with people craning for a glimpse of La Grande Jatte or a Monet Haystack. Henry can't see over the heads of the adults, so the paintings are lost on him, but he's too nervous to look at them anyway. I scan the room. A woman is bending over her toddler as it twists and screams. Must be nap time. I nod at Henry and move toward her. Her purse has a simple clasp and is slung over her shoulder, across her back. She's totally focused on getting her child to stop screeching. She's in front of Toulouse-Lautrec's At the Moulin Rouge. I pretend to be looking at it as I walk, bump into her, sending her pitching forward, I catch her arm, "I'm so sorry, forgive me, I wasn't looking, are you all right? It's so crowded in here..." My hand is in her purse, she's flustered, she has dark eyes and long hair, large breasts, she's still trying to lose the weight she gained having the kid. I catch her eye as I find her wallet, still apologizing, the wallet goes up my jacket sleeve, I look her up and down and smile, back away, turn, walk, look over my shoulder. She has picked up her boy and is staring back at me, slightly forlorn. I smile and walk, walk. Henry is following me as I take the stairs down t
o the Junior Museum. We rendezvous by the men's toilets.

  "That was weird," says Henry. "Why'd she look at you like that?"

  "She's lonely," I euphemize. "Maybe her husband isn't around very much." We cram ourselves into a stall and I open her wallet. Her name is Denise Radke. She lives in Villa Park, Illinois. She is a member of the museum and an alumna of Roosevelt University. She is carrying twenty-two dollars in cash, plus change. I show all this to Henry, silently, put the wallet back as it was, and hand it to him. We walk out of the stall, out of the men's room, back toward the entrance to the museum. "Give this to the guard. Say you found it on the floor."

  "Why?"

  "We don't need it; I was just demonstrating." Henry runs to the guard, an elderly black woman who smiles and gives Henry a sort of half-hug. He conies back slowly, and we walk ten feet apart, with me leading, down the long dark corridor which will someday house Decorative Arts and lead to the as-yet-unthought-of Rice Wing, but which at the moment is full of posters. I'm looking for easy marks, and just ahead of me is a perfect illustration of the pickpocket's dream. Short, portly, sun burnt, he looks as though he's made a wrong turn from Wrigley Field in his baseball cap and polyester trousers with light blue short-sleeved button-down shirt. He's lecturing his mousy girlfriend on Vincent van Gogh.

  "So he cuts his ear off and gives it to his girl--hey, how'd you like that for a present, huh? An ear! Huh. So they put him in the loony bin..."

  I have no qualms about this one. He strolls on, braying, blissfully unaware, with his wallet in his left back pocket. He has a large gut but almost no backside, and his wallet is pretty much aching for me to take it. I amble along behind them. Henry has a clear view as I deftly insert my thumb and forefinger into the mark's pocket and liberate the wallet. I drop back, they walk on, I pass the wallet to Henry and he shoves it into his pants as I walk ahead.

  I show Henry some other techniques: how to take a wallet from the inside breast pocket of a suit, how to shield your hand from view while it's inside a woman's purse, six different ways to distract someone while you take their wallet, how to take a wallet out of a backpack, and how to get someone to inadvertently show you where their money is. He's more relaxed now, he's even starting to enjoy this. Finally, I say, "Okay, now you try."