The time traveler's wife (47 page)

He perches on the edge of the tub. I would just
as soon not have an audience for this. "Should I be worried? You never
threw up at all before."

"Amit says this is good; I'm supposed to
throw up." It's something about my body recognizing the baby as part of
me, instead of a foreign body. Amit has been giving me this drug they give
people who have organ transplants.

"Maybe I should bank some more blood for
you today." Henry and I are both type O. I nod, and throw up. We are avid
blood bankers; he has needed transfusions twice, and I have had three, one of
them requiring a huge amount. I sit for a minute and then stagger to my feet.
Henry steadies me. I wipe my mouth and brush my teeth. Henry goes downstairs to
make breakfast. I suddenly have an overpowering desire for oatmeal.

"Oatmeal!" I yell down the stairs.

"Okay!"

I begin to brush out my hair. My reflection in
the mirror shows me pink and puffy. I thought pregnant women were supposed to
glow. I am not glowing. Oh, well. I'm still pregnant, and that's all that
counts.

Thursday, April 19, 2001 (Henry is 37, Clare is
29)

Henry: We are at Amit Montague's office for the
ultrasound. Clare and I have been both eager and reluctant to have an
ultrasound. We have refused amniocentesis because we are sure we will lose the
baby if we poke a huge long needle at it. Clare is eighteen weeks pregnant.
Halfway there; if we could fold time in half right now like a Rorschach test,
this would be the crease down the middle. We live in a state of holding breath,
afraid to exhale for fear of breathing out the baby too soon. We sit in the
waiting room with other expectant couples and mothers with strollers and
toddlers who run around bumping into things. Dr. Montague's office always
depresses me, because we have spent so much time here being anxious and hearing
bad news. But today is different. Today everything will be okay. A nurse calls
our names. We repair to an examining room. Clare gets undressed, and gets on
the table, and is greased and scanned. The technician watches the monitor. Amit
Montague, who is tall and regal and French Moroccan, watches the monitor. Clare
and I hold hands. We watch the monitor, too. Slowly the image builds itself,
bit by bit. On the screen is a weather map of the world. Or a galaxy, a swirl
of stars. Or a baby.

" Bien joue, une fille," Dr. Montague
says. "She is sucking her thumb. She is very pretty. And very big."

Clare and I exhale. On the screen a pretty
galaxy is sucking her thumb. As we watch she takes her hand away from her
mouth. Dr. Montague says, "She smiles." And so do we.

Monday, August 20, 2001 (Clare is 30, Henry is
38)

Clare: The baby is due in two weeks and we
still haven't settled on a name for her. In fact, we've barely discussed it;
we've been avoiding the whole subject superstitiously, as though naming the
baby will cause the Furies to notice her and torment her. Finally Henry brings
home a book called Dictionary of Given Names. We are in bed. It's only 8:30
p.m. and I'm wiped out. I lie on my side, my belly a peninsula, facing Henry,
who lies on his side facing me with his head propped on his arm, the book on
the bed between us. We look at each other, smile nervously.

"Any thoughts?" he says, leafing
through the book.

"Jane," I reply. He makes a face.
"Jane?"

"I used to name all my dolls and stuffed
animals Jane. Every one of them." Henry looks it up. "It means ' Gift
of God.'" "That works for me."

"Let's have something a little unusual.
How about Irette? Or Jodotha?" He s through the pages. "Here's a good
one: Loololuluah. It's Arabic for pearl."

"How about Pearl?" I picture the baby
as a smooth iridescent white ball. Henry runs his finger downs the columns.
"Okay: ' (Latin) A probable variant of perula, in reference to the most
valued form of this product of disease.'"

"Ugh. What's wrong with this book?" I
take it from Henry and, for kicks, look up " 'Henry (Teutonic) Ruler of
the home: chief of the dwelling.'"

He laughs. "Look up Clare."

"It's just another form of ' Clara (Latin)
Illustrious, bright.'"

"That's good," he says. I flip
through the book randomly. "Philomele?"

"I like that," says Henry. "But
what of the horrible nickname issue? Philly? Mel?" "Pyrene (Greek)
Red-haired."

"But what if she isn't?" Henry
reaches over the book and picks up a handful of my hair, and puts the ends in
his mouth. I pull it away from him and push all my hair behind me.

"I thought we knew everything there was to
know about this kid. Surely Kendrick tested for red hair?" I say. Henry
retrieves the book from me. "Yseult? Zoe? I like Zoe. Zoe has
possibilities."

"What's it mean?"

"Life."

"Yeah, that's very good. Bookmark
that."

"Eliza," Henry offers.

"Elizabeth."

Henry looks at me, hesitates.
"Annette." "Lucy."

"No " Henry says firmly.

"No," I agree.

"What we need" Henry says, "is a
fresh start. A blank slate. Let's call her Tabula Rasa."

"Let's call her Titanium White."

"Blanche, Blanca, Bianca... "

"Alba," I say.

" As in Duchess of?"

"Alba DeTamble." It rolls around in
my mouth as I say it.

"That's nice, all the little iambs,
tripping along..." He's flipping through the book. " 'Alba (Latin)
White. (Provencal) Dawn of day.' Hmm." He laboriously clambers off the
bed. I can hear him rummaging around in the living room; he returns after a few
minutes with Volume I of the oed, the big Random House dictionary, and my
decrepit old Encyclopedia Americana Book I, A to Annuals. '"A dawn song of
the Provencal poets.. .in honor of their mistresses. Reveilles, a Vaurore, par
le cri du guet-teur, deux amants qui viennent de passer la nuit ensemble se
separent en maudissant le jour qui vient trop tat; tel est le theme, non moins
invariable que celui de la pastourelle, d'un genre dontle nom est emprunte au
mot alba, qui figure parfois au debut de la piece. Et regulierement a la fin de
chaque couplet, ou il forme refrain.' How sad. Let's try Random House. This is
better. 'A white city on a hill. A fortress.'" He jettisons Random House
off the bed and opens the encyclopedia. "AEsop, Age of Reason,
Alaska...okay, here, Alba." He scans the entry. "A bunch of now
wiped-out towns in ancient Italy. And the Duke of Alba."

I sigh and turn onto my back. The baby stirs.
She must have been sleeping. Henry is back to perusing the bed. "Amour.
Amourous. Armadillo. Bazooms. Goodness, the things they print these days in
works reference." He slides his hand under my nightgown, runs it slowly
over her taut stomach. The baby kicks, hard, just where his hand is, and he
arts, and looks at me, amazed. His hands are roaming, finding their way toss
familiar and unfamiliar terrain. "How many DeTambles can you fit in
there?"

"Uh, there's always room for one
more."

"Alba," he says, softly.

"A white city. An impregnable fortress on
a white hill."

"She'll like it." Henry is pulling my
underwear down my legs and over my ankles. He tosses it off the bed and looks
at me.

"Careful...," I tell him.

"Very careful," he agrees, as he
strips off his clothes. I feel immense, like a continent in a sea of pillows
and blankets. Henry bends over me from behind, moves over me, an explorer
mapping my skin with his tongue. "Slowly, slowly...." I am afraid.

"A song sung by the troubadours at
dawn..." he is whispering to me as he enters me.

"...To their mistresses," I reply. My
eyes are closed and I hear Henry as though from the next room:

"Just.. .so." And then: "Yes.
Yes!"

ALBA, AN
INTRODUCTION

Wednesday, November 16, 2011 (Henry is 38,
Clare is 40)

Henry: I'm in the Surrealist Galleries at the
Art Institute of Chicago, in the future. I am not perfectly dressed; the best I
could do was a long black winter coat from the coat check room and pants from a
guard's locker. I did manage to find shoes, which are always the most difficult
thing to get. So I figure I'll lift a wallet, buy a T-shirt in the museum
store, have lunch, see some art, and then launch myself out of the building and
into the world of shops and hotel rooms. I have no idea where I am in time. Not
too far out there; the clothing and haircuts are not too different from 2001.
I'm simultaneously excited about this little sojourn and disturbed, because in
my present Clare is about to have Alba at any moment, and I absolutely want to
be there, but on the other hand this is an unusually high-quality slice of
forward time travel. I feel strong and really present, really good. So I stand
quietly in a dark room full of spot-lit Joseph Cornell boxes, watching a school
group following a docent, carrying little stools which they obediently sit on
when she tells them to park themselves. I observe the group. The docent is the
usual: a well-groomed woman in her fifties with impossibly blond hair and taut
face. The teacher, a good-humored young woman wearing light blue lipstick,
stands at the back of the flock of students, ready to contain any who get
boisterous. It's the students who interest me. They are all about ten or so,
fifth grade, I guess that would be. It's a Catholic school, so they all wear
identical clothes, green plaid for the girls and navy blue for the boys. They
are attentive and polite, but not excited. Too bad; I would think Cornell would
be perfect for kids. The docent seems to think they are younger than they are;
she talks to them as though they are little children. There's a girl in the
back row who seems more engaged than the rest. I can't see her face. She has
long curly black hair and a peacock-blue dress, which sets her apart from her
peers. Every time the docent asks a question, this girl's hand goes up, but the
docent never calls on her. I can see that the girl is getting fed up. The
docent is talking about Cornell's Aviary boxes. Each box is bleak, and many
have white, painted interiors with perches and the kind of holes that a
birdhouse would have, and some have pictures of birds. They are the starkest
and most austere of his pieces, without the whimsy of the Soap Bubble Sets or
the romance of the Hotel boxes.

"Why do you think Mr. Cornell made these
boxes?" The docent brightly scans the children for a reply, ignoring the
peacock-blue girl, who is waving her hand like she has Saint Vitus' Dance. A
boy in the front says shyly that the artist must have liked birds. This is too
much for the girl She stands up with her hand in the air. The docent
reluctantly says,

"Yes?"

"He made the boxes because he was lonely.
He didn't have anyone to love, and he made the boxes so he could love them, and
so people would know that he existed, and because birds are free and the boxes
are hiding places for the birds so they will feel safe, and he wanted to be
free and be safe. The boxes are for him so he can be a bird." The girl sits
down. I am blown away by her answer. This is a ten-year-old who can empathize
with Joseph Cornell. Neither the docent nor the class exactly knows what to
make of this, but the teacher, who is obviously used to her, says, "Thank
you, Alba, that's very perceptive." She turns and smiles gratefully at the
teacher, and I see her face, and I am looking at my daughter. I have been
standing in the next gallery, and I take a few steps forward, to look at her,
to see her, and she sees me, and her face lights up, and she jumps up, knocks
over her little folding chair, and almost before I know it I am holding Alba in
my arms, holding her tight, kneeling before her with my arms around her as she
says "Daddy" over and over. Everyone is gaping at us. The teacher hurries
over. She says, "Alba, who is this? Sir, who are you?"

"I'm Henry DeTamble, Alba's father."

"He's my daddy!"

The teacher is almost wringing her hands.
"Sir, Alba's father is dead." I am speechless. But Alba, daughter
mine, has a grip on the situation. "He's dead," she tells her
teacher. "But he's not continuously dead." I find my wits. "It's
kind of hard to explain—"

"He's a CDP," says Alba. "Like
me." This seems to make perfect sense to the teacher although it means
nothing to me. The teacher is a bit pale under her makeup but she looks
sympathetic. Alba squeezes my hand. Say something, is what she means.

"Ah, Ms.—"

"Cooper."

"Ms. Cooper, is there any possibility that
Alba and I could have a few minutes, here, to talk? We don't see each other
much."

"Well... I just...we're on a field
trip...the group... I can't let you just take the child away from the group,
and I don't really know that you are Mr. DeTamble, you see
         
"

"Let's call Mama," says Alba. She
runs over to her school bag and whips out a cell phone. She presses a key and I
hear the phone ringing and I'm rapidly realizing that there are possibilities
here: someone picks up on the other end, and Alba says "Mama?...I'm at the
Art Institute...No, I'm okay...Mama, Daddy's here! Tell Mrs. Cooper it's really
Daddy, okay?... Yeah, 'k, bye!" She hands me the phone. I hesitate, pull
my head together.