The time traveler's wife (15 page)

Center is on television; I watch it with Gram
and Gramps in Muncie. I am six years old and I hardly believe that it's my mom,
there in black and white on the small screen. She is singing Madama Butterfly.
They make plans to move to Vienna after the end of the Lyric's '69 -'70 season.
Dad auditions at the Philharmonic. Whenever the phone rings it's Uncle Ish,
Mom's manager, or someone from a record label.

I hear the door at the top of the stairs open
and clap shut and then slowly descending footsteps. Clare knocks quietly four
times and I remove the straight-backed chair from under the doorknob. There's
still snow in her hair and her cheeks are red. She is seventeen years old.
Clare throws her arms around me and hugs me excitedly. "Merry Christmas,
Henry!" she says. "It's so great you're here!" I kiss her on the
cheek; her cheer and bustle have scattered my thoughts but my sense of sadness
and loss remains. I run my hands over her hair and come away with a small
handful of snow that melts immediately.

"What's wrong?" Clare takes in the
untouched food, my uncheerful demeanor. "You're sulking because there's no
mayo?"

"Hey. Hush." I sit down on the broken
old La-Z-Boy and Clare squeezes in beside me. I put my arm around her
shoulders. She puts her hand on my inner thigh. I remove it, and hold it. Her
hand is cold. "Have I ever told you about my mom?"

"No." Clare is all ears; she's always
eager for any bits of autobiography I let drop. As the dates on the List grow
few and our two years of separation loom large, Clare is secretly convinced she
can find me in real time if I would only dole out a few facts. Of course, she
can't, because I won't, and she doesn't. We each eat a cookie. "Okay. Once
upon a time, I had a mom. I had a dad, too, and they were very deeply in love.
And they had me. And we were all pretty happy. And both of them were really
terrific at their jobs, and my mother, especially, was great at what she did,
and we used to travel all over, seeing the hotel rooms of the world. So it was
almost Christmas—"

"What year?"

"The year I was six. It was the morning of
Christmas Eve, and my dad was in Vienna because we were going to move there
soon and he was finding us an apartment. So the idea was that Dad would fly
into the airport and Mom and I would drive out and pick him up and we would all
continue on to Grandma's house for the holidays.

"It was a gray, snowy morning and the
streets were covered in sheets of ice that hadn't been salted yet. Mom was a
nervous driver. She hated expressways, hated driving to the airport, and had
only agreed to do this because it made a lot of sense. We got up early, and she
packed the car. I was wearing a winter coat, a knit hat, boots, jeans, a
pullover sweater, underwear, wool socks that were kind of tight, and mittens.
She was dressed entirely in black, which was more unusual then than it is
now."

Clare drinks some of the milk directly from the
carton. She leaves a cinnamon-colored lipstick print. "What kind of
car?"

"It was a white '62 Ford Fairlane."

"What's that?"

"Look it up. It was built like a tank. It
had fins. My parents loved it— it had a lot of history for them.

"So we got in the car. I sat in the front
passenger seat, we both wore our seatbelts. And we drove. The weather was
absolutely awful. It was hard to see, and the defrost in that car wasn't the
greatest. We went through this maze of residential streets, and then we got on
the expressway. It was after rush hour, but traffic was a mess because of the
weather and the holiday So we were moving maybe fifteen, twenty miles an hour.
My mother stayed in the right-hand lane, probably because she didn't want to
change lanes without being able to see very well and because we weren't going
to be on the expressway very long before we exited for the airport.

"We were behind a truck, well behind it,
giving it plenty of room up there. As we passed an entrance a small car, a red
Corvette, actually, got on behind us. The Corvette, which was being driven by a
dentist who was only slightly inebriated, at 10:30 a.m., got on just a bit too
quickly, and was unable to slow down soon enough because of the ice on the
road, and hit our car. And in ordinary weather conditions, the Corvette would
have been mangled and the indestructible Ford Fairlane would have had a bent
fender and it wouldn't have been that big of a deal.

"But the weather was bad, the roads were
slick, so the shove from the Corvette sent our car accelerating forward just as
traffic slowed down. The truck ahead of us was barely moving. My mother was
pumping the brakes but nothing was happening.

"We hit the truck practically in slow
motion, or so it seemed to me. In actuality we were going about forty. The
truck was an open pickup truck full of scrap metal. When we hit it, a large
sheet of steel flew off the back of the truck, came through our windshield, and
decapitated my mother."

Clare has her eyes closed. "No."

"It's true."

"But you were right there—you were too
short!"

"No, that wasn't it, the steel embedded in
my seat right where my forehead should have been. I have a scar where it
started to cut my forehead." I show Clare. "It got my hat. The police
couldn't figure it out. All my clothes were in the car, on the seat and the
floor, and I was found stark naked by the side of the road."

"You time traveled."

"Yes. I time traveled." We are silent
for a moment. "It was only the second time it ever happened to me. I had
no idea what was going on. I was watching us plow into this truck, and then I
was in the hospital. In fact, I was pretty much unhurt, just in shock."

"How.. .why do you think it
happened?"

"Stress—pure fear. I think my body did the
only trick it could."

Clare turns her face to mine, sad and excited.
"So..."

"So. Mom died, and I didn't. The front end
of the Ford crumpled up, the steering column went through Mom's chest, her head
went through the now empty windshield and into the back of the truck, there was
an unbelievable amount of blood. The guy in the Corvette was unscathed. The
truck driver got out of his truck to see what hit him, saw Mom, fainted on the
road and was run over by a school bus driver who didn't see him and was gawking
at the accident. The truck driver had two broken legs. Meanwhile, I was
completely absent from the scene for ten minutes and forty-seven seconds. I don't
remember where I went; maybe it was only a second or two for me. Traffic came
to a complete halt. Ambulances were trying to come from three different
directions and couldn't get near us for half an hour. Paramedics came running
on foot. I appeared on the shoulder. The only person who saw me appear was a
little girl; she was in the back seat of a green Chevrolet station wagon. Her
mouth opened, and she just stared and stared."

"But—Henry, you were—you said you don't
remember. And how could you know this anyway? Ten minutes and forty-seven
seconds? Exactly?"

I am quiet for a while, searching for the best
way to explain. "You know about gravity, right? The larger something is,
the more mass it has, the more gravitational pull it exerts? It pulls smaller
things to it, and they orbit around and around?"

"Yes
  
"

"My mother dying...it's the pivotal
thing...everything else goes around and around it... I dream about it, and I
also—time travel to it. Over and over. If you could be there, and could hover
over the scene of the accident, and you could see every detail of it, all the
people, cars, trees, snowdrifts—if you had enough time to really look at
everything, you would see me. I am in cars, behind bushes, on the bridge, in a
tree. I have seen it from every angle, I am even a participant in the
aftermath: I called the airport from a nearby gas station to page my father
with the message to come immediately to the hospital. I sat in the hospital
waiting room and watched my father walk through on his way to find me. He looks
gray and ravaged. I walked along the shoulder of the road, waiting for my young
self to appear, and I put a blanket around my thin child's shoulders. I looked
into my small uncomprehending face, and I thought... I thought
   
"I am weeping now. Clare wraps her arms
around me and I cry soundlessly into her mohair-sweatered breasts.

"What? What, Henry?"

"I thought, I should have died, too!"

We hold each other. I gradually get hold of
myself. I have made a mess of Clare's sweater. She goes to the laundry room and
comes back wearing one of Alicia's white polyester chamber music playing
shirts. Alicia is only fourteen, but she's already taller and bigger than
Clare. I stare at Clare, standing before me, and I am sorry to be here, sorry
to ruin her Christmas.

"I'm sorry, Clare. I didn't mean to put
all this sadness on you. I just find Christmas.. .difficult."

"Oh, Henry! I'm so glad you're here, and,
you know, I'd rather know—I mean, you just come out of nowhere, and disappear,
and if I know things, about your life, you seem more...real. Even terrible
things.. .I need to know as much as you can say." Alicia is calling down
the stairs for Clare. It is time for Clare to join her family, to celebrate
Christmas. I stand, and we kiss, cautiously, and Clare says "Coming!"
and gives me a smile and then she's running up the stairs. I prop the chair
under the door again and settle in for a long night.

CHRISTMAS EVE,
TWO

Saturday, December 24, 1988 (Henry is 25)

Henry: I call Dad and ask if he wants me to
come over for dinner after the Christmas matinee concert. He makes a halfhearted
attempt at inviting me but I back out, to his relief. The Official DeTamble Day
of Mourning will be conducted in multiple locations this year. Mrs. Kim has
gone to Korea to visit her sisters; I've been watering her plants and taking in
her mail. I call Ingrid Carmichel and ask her to come out with me and she
reminds me, crisply, that it's Christmas Eve and some people have families to
kowtow to. I run through my address book. Everyone is out of town, or in town
with their visiting relatives. I should have gone to see Gram and Gramps. Then
I remember they're in Florida. It's 2:53 in the afternoon and stores are
closing down. I buy a bottle of schnapps at Al's and stow it in my overcoat pocket.
Then I hop on the El at Belmont and ride downtown. It's a gray day, and cold.
The train is half full, mostly people with their kids going down to see
Marshall Field's Christmas windows and do last minute shopping at Water Tower
Place. I get off at Randolph and Walk east to Grant Park. I stand on the IC
overpass for a while, drinking, and then I walk down to the skating rink. A few
couples and little kids are skating. The kids chase each other and skate
backward and do figure eights. I rent a pair of more-or-less my size skates,
lace them on, and walk onto the ice. I skate the perimeter of the rink,
smoothly and without thinking too much. Repetition, movement, balance, cold
air. It's nice. The sun is setting. I skate for an hour or so, then return the
skates, pull on my boots, and walk. I walk west on Randolph, and south on
Michigan Avenue, past the Art Institute. The lions are decked out in Christmas
wreathes. I walk down Columbus Drive. Grant Park is empty, except for the
crows, which strut and circle over the evening-blue snow. The streetlights tint
the sky orange above me; it's a deep cerulean blue over the lake. At Buckingham
Fountain I stand until the cold becomes unbearable watching seagulls wheeling
and diving, fighting over a loaf of bread somebody has left for them. A mounted
policeman rides slowly around the fountain once and then sedately continues
south. I walk. My boots are not quite waterproof, and despite my several
sweaters my overcoat is a bit thin for the dropping temperature. Not enough body
fat; I'm always cold from November to April. I walk along Harrison, over to
State Street. I pass the Pacific Garden Mission, where the homeless have
gathered for shelter and dinner. I wonder what they're having; I wonder if
there's any festivity, there, in the shelter. There are few cars. I don't have
a watch, but I guess that it's about seven. I've noticed lately that my sense
of time passing is different; it seems to run slower than other people's. An
afternoon can be like a day to me; an El ride can be an epic journey. Today is
interminable. I have managed to get through most of the day without thinking,
too much, about Mom, about the accident, about all of it...but now, in the
evening, walking, it is catching up with me. I realize I'm hungry. The alcohol
has worn off. I'm almost at Adams, and I mentally review the amount of cash I
have on me and decide to splurge on dinner at the Berghoff a venerable German
restaurant famous for its brewery. The Berghoff is warm, and noisy. There are
quite a few people, eating and standing around. The legendary Berghoff waiters
are bustling importantly from kitchen to table. I stand in line, thawing out,
amidst chattering families and couples. Eventually I am led to a small table in
the main dining room, toward the back. I order a dark beer and a plate of duck
wursts with spaetzle. When the food comes, I eat slowly. I polish off all the
bread, too, and realize that I can't remember eating lunch. This is good, I'm
taking care of myself, I'm not being an idiot, I'm remembering to eat dinner. I
lean back in my chair and survey the room. Under the high ceilings, dark
paneling, and murals of boats, middle-aged couples eat their dinners. They have
spent the afternoon shopping, or at the symphony, and they talk pleasantly of the
presents they have bought, their grandchildren, plane tickets and arrival
times, Mozart. I have an urge to go to the symphony, now, but there's no
evening program. Dad is probably on his way home from Orchestra Hall. I would
sit in the upper reaches of the uppermost balcony (the best place to sit,
acoustically) and listen to Das Lied von der Erde, or Beethoven, or something
similarly un-Christmasy. Oh well. Maybe next year. I have a sudden glimpse of
all the Christmases of my life lined up one after another, waiting to be gotten
through, and despair floods me. No. I wish for a moment that Time would lift me
out of this day, and into some more benign one. But then I feel guilty for
wanting to avoid the sadness; dead people need us to remember them, even if it
eats us, even if all we can do is say I'm sorry until it is as meaningless as
air. I don't want to burden this warm festive restaurant with grief that I
would have to recall the next time I'm here with Gram and Gramps, so I pay and
leave. Back on the street, I stand pondering. I don't want to go home. I want
to be with people, I want to be distracted. I suddenly think of the Get Me High
Lounge, a place where anything can happen, a haven for eccentricity. Perfect. I
walk over to Water Tower Place and catch the #66 Chicago Avenue bus, get off at
Damen, and take the #50 bus north. The bus smells of vomit, and I'm the only
passenger. The driver is singing Silent Night in a smooth church tenor, and I
wish him a Merry Christmas as I step off the bus at Wabansia. As I walk past
the Fix-It shop snow begins to fall, and I catch the big wet flakes on the tips
of my fingers. I can hear music leaking out of the bar. The abandoned ghost
train track looms over the street in the sodium vapor glare and as I open the
door someone starts to blow a trumpet and hot jazz smacks me in the chest. I
walk into it like a drowning man, which is what I have come here to be. There
are about ten people in the place, counting Mia, the bartender. Three
musicians, trumpet, standing bass, and clarinet, occupy the tiny stage, and the
customers are all sitting at the bar. The musicians are playing furiously,
swinging at maximum volume like sonic dervishes and as I sit and listen I make
out the melody line of White Christmas. Mia comes over and stares at me and I
shout "Whiskey and water!" at the top of my voice and she bawls
"House?" and I yell "Okay!" and she turns to mix it. There
is an abrupt halt to the music. The phone rings, and Mia snatches it up and
says, "Get Me Hiiiiiiiiigh!" She sets my drink in front of me and I
lay a twenty on the bar. "No," she says into the phone. "Well,
daaaang. Well, fuck you, too." She whomps the receiver back into its
cradle like she's dunking a basketball. Mia stands looking pissed off for a few
moments, then lights a Pall Mall and blows a huge cloud of smoke at me.
"Oh, sorry." The musicians troop over to the bar and she serves them
beers. The rest-room door is on the stage, so I take advantage of the break
between sets to take a leak. When I get back to the bar Mia has set another
drink in front of my bar stool. "You're psychic," I say.