The time traveler's wife (55 page)

"Maybe you got back to the present?"

"But maybe not... " Henry is
confused, and so am I. We get out of the car. It's cold down here. My breath
condenses and vanishes. I don't feel as though we should leave, but I don't
have any idea what might have happened. I walk over to the security station and
peer in the window. No guard. The video monitors show empty concrete.
"Shit. Where would I go? Let's drive around." We get back into the
car and cruise slowly through the vast pillared chambers of vacant space, past
signs directing us to Go Slow, More Parking, Remember Your Car's Location. No
Henry anywhere. We look at each other in defeat.

"When were you coming from?"

"I didn't say"

We drive home in silence. Alba is sleeping.
Henry stares out the window. The sky is cloudless and pink in the east, and
there are more cars out now, early commuters. As we wait for the stoplight at
Ohio Street I hear seagulls squawking. The streets are dark with salt and
water. The city is soft, white, obscured by snow. Everything is beautiful. I am
detached, I am a movie. We are seemingly unscathed, but sooner or later there
will be hell to pay.

BIRTHDAY

Thursday, June 15, 2006 (Clare is 35)

Clare: Tomorrow is Henry's birthday. I'm in
Vintage Vinyl, trying to find an album he will love that he doesn't already
have. I was kind of counting on asking Vaughn, the owner of the shop, for help,
because Henry's been coming here for years. But there's a high school kid
behind the counter. He's wearing a Seven Dead Arson T-shirt and probably wasn't
even born when most of the stuff in the shop was being recorded. I flip through
the bins. Sex Pistols, Patti Smith, Supertramp, Matthew Sweet. Phish, Pixies,
Pogues, Pretenders. B-52's, Kate Bush, Buzzcocks. Echo and the Bunnymen. The
Art of Noise. The Nails. The Clash, The Cramps, The Cure. Television. I pause
over an obscure Velvet Underground retread, trying to remember if I've seen it
lying around the house, but on closer scrutiny I realize it's just a mishmash of
stuff Henry has on other albums. Dazzling Killmen, Dead Kennedys. Vaughn comes
in carrying a huge box, heaves it behind the counter, and goes back out. He
does this a few more times, and then he and the kid start to unpack the boxes,
piling LPs onto the counter, exclaiming over various things I've never heard
of. I walk over to Vaughn and mutely fan three LPs before him. "Hi,
Clare," he says, grinning hugely. "How's it going?"

"Hi, Vaughn. Tomorrow's Henry's birthday.
Help."

He eyeballs my selections. "He's already
got those two," he says nodding at Lilliput and the Breeders, "and
that's really awful," indicating the Plasmatics. "Great cover,
though, huh?"

"Yeah. Do you have anything in that box he
might like?"

"Nah, this is all fifties. Some old lady
died. You might like this, I just got this yesterday." He pulls a Golden
Palominos compilation out of the New Arrivals bin. There's a couple new things
on it, so I take it. Suddenly Vaughn grins at me. "I've got something
really oddball for you—I've been saving it for Henry." He steps behind the
counter and fishes around in the depths for a minute. "Here." Vaughn
hands me an LP in a blank white jacket. I slide the record out and read the
label: " Annette Lyn Robinson, Paris Opera, May 13, 1968, Lulu." I
look at Vaughn, questioningly. "Yeah, not his usual thing, huh? It's a
bootleg of a concert; it doesn't officially exist. He asked me to keep an eye
out for her stuff a while back, but it's not my usual thing, either, so I found
it and then I kept forgetting to tell him. I listened to it; it's really nice.
Good sound quality."

"Thank you," I whisper.

"You're welcome. Hey, what's the big
deal?"

"She's Henry's mother."

Vaughn raises his eyebrows and his forehead
scrunches up comically. "No kidding? Yeah...he looks like her. Huh, that's
interesting. You'd think he would have mentioned it."

"He doesn't talk about her much. She died
when he was little. In a car accident."

"Oh. That's right, I sort of remember
that. Well, can I find anything else for you?"

"No, that's it." I pay Vaughn and
leave, hugging the voice of Henry's mother to me as I walk down Davis Street in
an ecstasy of anticipation.

Friday, June 16, 2006 (Henry is 43, Clare is
35)

Henry: It's my forty-third birthday. My eyes
pop open at 6:46 a.m. even though I have the day off from work, and I can't get
back to sleep. I look over at Clare and she's utterly abandoned to slumber,
arms cast apart and hair fanned over her pillow willy-nilly. She looks
beautiful, even with creases from the pillowcase across her cheeks. I get out
of bed carefully, go to the kitchen, and start the coffee. In the bathroom I
run the water for a while, waiting for it to get hot. We should get a plumber
in here, but we never get around to it. Back in the kitchen I pour a cup of
coffee, carry it to the bathroom, and balance it on the sink. I lather my face,
and start to shave. Ordinarily, I am expert at shaving without actually looking
at myself, but today, in honor of my birthday, I take inventory. My hair has
gone almost white; there's a bit of black left at the temples and my eyebrows
are still completely black. I've grown it out some, not as long as I used to
wear it before I met Clare, but not short, either. My skin is wind-roughened
and there are creases at the edges of my eyes and across my forehead and lines
that run from my nostrils to the corners of my mouth. My face is too thin. All
of me is too thin. Not Auschwitz thin, but not normal thin, either. Early
stages of cancer thin, perhaps. Heroin addict thin. I don't want to think about
it, so I continue shaving. I rinse off my face, apply aftershave, step back,
and survey the results. At the library yesterday someone remembered that it's
my birthday and so Roberto, Isabelle, Matt, Catherine, and Amelia gathered me
up and took me to Beau Thai for lunch. I know there's been some talk at work
about my health, about why I have suddenly lost so much weight and the fact
that I have recently aged rapidly. Everyone was extra nice, the way people are
to AIDS victims and chemotherapy patients. I almost long for someone to just
ask me, so I can lie to them and get it over with. But instead we joked around
and ate Pad Thai and Prik King, Cashew Chicken and Pad Seeuw. Amelia gave me a
pound of killer Colombian coffee beans. Catherine, Matt, Roberto and Isabelle
splurged and got me the Getty facsimile of the Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta,
which I have been lusting after in the Newberry bookstore for ages. I looked up
at them, heartstruck, and I realized that my co-workers think I am dying.
"You guys... " I said, and I couldn't think how to go on, so I
didn't. It's not often that words fail me. Clare gets up, Alba wakes up. We all
get dressed, and pack the car. We're going to Brookfield Zoo with Gomez and
Charisse and their kids. We spend the day ambling around, looking at monkeys
and flamingoes, polar bears and otters. Alba likes the big cats best. Rosa
holds Alba's hand and tells her about dinosaurs. Gomez does a great impression
of a chimp, and Max and Joe rampage around, pretending to be elephants and
playing hand-held video games. Charisse and Clare and I stroll aimlessly,
talking about nothing, soaking in the sunlight. At four o'clock the kids are
all tired and cranky and we pack them back in the cars, promise to do it again
soon, and go home. The baby-sitter arrives promptly at seven. Clare bribes and
threatens Alba to be good, and we escape. We are dressed to the nines, at
Clare's insistence, and as we sail south on Lake Shore Drive I realize that I
don't know where we're going. "You'll see," says Clare. "It's
not a surprise party, is it?" I ask apprehensively. "No," she
assures me. Clare exits the Drive at Roosevelt and threads her way through
Pilsen, a Hispanic neighborhood just south of downtown. Groups of kids are
playing in the streets, and we weave around them and finally park near 20th and
Racine. Clare leads me to a run-down two-flat and rings the bell at the gate.
We are buzzed in, and we make our way through the trash-littered yard and up
precarious stairs. Clare knocks on one of the doors and it is opened by
Lourdes, a friend of Clare's from art school. Lourdes smiles and beckons us
inside, and as we step in I see that the apartment has been transformed into a
restaurant with only one table. Beautiful smells are wafting around, and the table
is laid with white damask, china, candles. A record player stands on a heavy
carved sideboard. In the living room are cages full of birds: parrots,
canaries, tiny lovebirds. Lourdes kisses my cheek and says, "Happy
birthday, Henry," and a familiar voice says, "Yeah, happy
birthday!" I stick my head into the kitchen and there's Nell. She's
stirring something in a saucepan and she doesn't stop even when I wrap my arms
around her and lift her slightly off the ground. "Whooee!" she says.
"You been eatin' your Wheaties!" Clare hugs Nell and they smile at
each other. "He looks pretty surprised," Nell says, and Clare just
smiles even more broadly. "Go on and sit down " Nell commands.
"Dinner is ready."

We sit facing each other at the table. Lourdes
brings small plates of exquisitely arranged antipasti: transparent prociutto
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 crisscrossed 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.