The time traveler's wife (64 page)

"All times at once. A long time ago, and
right now."

"Both?"

"Yes, always both."

"How can it be both?"

"Do you want me to tell this story or
not?"

"Yeah
"

"All right then. Once upon a time, your
mama lived in a big house beside a meadow, and in the meadow was a place called
the clearing where she used to go to play. And one fine day your mama, who was
only a tiny thing whose hair was bigger than she was, went out to the clearing
and there was a man there—"

"With no clothes!"

"With not a stitch on him" I agree.
"And after your mama had given him a beach towel she happened to be
carrying so he could have something to wear, he explained to her that he was a
time traveler, and for some reason she believed him—"

"Because it was true!" .

"Well, yes, but how was she going to know
that? Anyway, she did"" believe him, and then later on she was silly
enough to marry him and here we are,"

Alba punches me in the stomach. "Tell it
right" she demands.

"Ooof. How can I tell anything if you beat
on me like that? Geez."

Alba is quiet. Then she says, "How come
you never visit Mama in the future?"

"I don't know, Alba. If I could, I'd be
there." The blue is deepening over the horizon and the tide is receding. I
stand up and offer Alba my hand, pull her up. As she stands brushing sand from
her nightgown she stumbles toward me and says, "Oh!" and is gone and
I stand there on the beach holding a damp cotton nightgown and staring at
Alba's slender footprints in the fading light. RENASCENCE

Thursday, December 4, 2008 (Clare is 37)

Clare: It's a cold, bright morning. I unlock
the door of the studio and stamp snow off my boots. I open the shades, turn up
the heat. I start a pot of coffee brewing. I stand in the empty space in the
middle of the studio and I look around me. Two years' worth of dust and
stillness lies over everything. My drawing table is bare. The beater sits clean
and empty. The molds and deckles are neatly stacked, coils of armature wire sit
untouched by the table. Paints and pigments, jars of brushes, tools, books; all
are just as I left them. The sketches I had thumb tacked to the wall have
yellowed and curled. I untack them and throw them in the wastebasket. I sit at
my drawing table and I close my eyes. The wind is rattling tree branches against
the side of the house, A car splashes through slush in the alley. The
coffeemaker hisses and gurgles as it spits the last spurt of coffee into the
pot. I open my eyes, shiver and pull my heavy sweater closer. When I woke up
this morning I had an urge to come here. It was like a flash of lust: an
assignation with my old lover, art. But now I'm sitting here waiting for..
.something.. .to come to me and nothing comes. I open a flat file drawer and
take out a sheet of indigo-dyed paper. It's heavy and slightly rough, deep blue
and cold to the touch like metal. I lay it on the table. I stand and stare at
it for a while. I take out a few pieces of soft white pastel and weigh them in
my palm. Then I put them down and pour myself some coffee. I stare out the window
at the back of the house. If Henry were here he might be sitting at his desk,
might be looking back at me from the window above his desk. Or he might be
playing Scrabble with Alba, or reading the comics, or making soup for lunch. I
sip my coffee and try to feel time revert, try to erase the difference between
now and then. It is only my memory that holds me here. Time, let me vanish.
Then what we separate by our very presence can come together. I stand in front
of the sheet of paper, holding a white pastel. The paper is vast, and I begin
in the center, bending over the paper though I know I would be more comfortable
at the easel. I measure out the figure, half-life-sized: here is the top of the
head, the groin, the heel of the foot. I rough in a head. I draw very lightly,
from memory: empty eyes, here at the midpoint of the head, long nose, bow mouth
slightly open. The eyebrows arch in surprise: oh, it's you. The pointed chin
and the round jawline, the forehead high and the ears only indicated. Here is the
neck, and the shoulders that slope into arms that cross protectively over the
breasts, here is the bottom of the rib cage, the plump stomach, full hips, legs
slightly bent, feet pointing downward as though the figure is floating in
midair. The points of measurement are like stars in the indigo night sky of the
paper; the figure is a constellation. I indicate highlights and the figure
becomes three dimensional, a glass vessel. I draw the features carefully,
create the structure of the face, fill in the eyes, which regard me, astonished
at suddenly existing. The hair undulates across the paper, floating weightless
and motionless, linear pattern that makes the static body dynamic. What else is
in this universe, this drawing? Other stars, far away. I hunt through my tools
and find a needle. I tape the drawing over a window and I begin to prick the
paper full of tiny holes, and each pin prick becomes a sun in some other set of
worlds. And when I have a galaxy full of stars I prick out the figure, which
now becomes a constellation in earnest, a network of tiny lights, I regard my
likeness, and she returns my gaze. I place my finger on her forehead and say,
"Vanish," but it is she who will stay; I am the one who is vanishing.
ALWAYS AGAIN

Thursday, July 24, 2053 (Henry is 43, Clare is
82)

Henry: I find myself in a dark hallway. At the
end of the hall is a door, slightly open with white light spilling around its
edges. The hall is full of galoshes and rain coats. I walk slowly and silently
to the door and carefully look into the next room. Morning light fills up the
room and is painful at first, but as my eyes adjust I see that in the room is a
plain wooden table next to a window. A woman sits at the table facing the
window. A teacup sits at her elbow. Outside is the lake, the waves rush up the
shore and recede with calming repetition which becomes like stillness after a
few minutes. The woman is extremely still. Something about her is familiar. She
is an old woman; her hair is perfectly white and lies long on her back in a
thin stream, over a slight dowager's hump. She wears a sweater the color of
coral. The curve of her shoulders, the stiffness in her posture say here is
someone who is very tired, and I am very tired, myself. I shift my weight from
one foot to the other and the floor creaks; the woman turns and sees me and her
face is remade into joy; I am suddenly amazed; this is Clare, Clare old! and
she is coming to me, so slowly, and I take her into my arms. Monday, July 14,
2053 (Clare is 82)

Clare: This morning everything is clean; the
storm has left branches strewn around the yard, which I will presently go out
and pick up: all the beach's sand has been redistributed and laid down fresh in
an even blanket pocked with impressions of rain, and the daylilies bend and
glisten in the white seven a.m. light. I sit at the dining room table with a
cup of tea, looking at the water, listening. Waiting. Today is not much
different from all the other days. I get up at dawn, put on slacks and a
sweater, brush my hair, make toast, and tea, and sit looking at the lake,
wondering if he will come today. It's not much different from the many other
times he was gone, and I waited, except that this time I have instructions:
this time I know Henry will come, eventually. I sometimes wonder if this
readiness, this expectation, prevents the miracle from happening. But I have no
choice. He is coming, and I am here.

Now from his breast into his eyes the ache of
longing mounted, and he wept at last, his dear wife, clear and faithful, in his
arms, longed for as the sun warmed earth is longed for by a swimmer spent in
rough water where his ship went down under Poseidon's blows, gale winds and
tons of sea.

Few men can keep alive through a big surf to
crawl, clotted with brine, on kindly beaches in joy, in joy, knowing the abyss
behind: and so she too rejoiced, her gaze upon her husband, her white arms
round him pressed as though forever.

— from, The Odyssey Homer translated by Robert
Fitzgerald ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Writing is a private thing. It's boring to
watch, and its pleasures tend to be most intense for the person who's actually
doing the writing. So with big gratitude and much awe, I would like to thank
everyone who helped me to write and publish The Time Traveler's Wife:

Thank you to Joseph Regal, for saying Yes, and
for an education in the wily ways of publishing. It's been a blast. Thank you
to the excellent people of MacAdam/Cage, especially Anika Streitfeld, my
editor, for patience and care and close scrutiny. It is a great pleasure to work
with Dorothy Carico Smith, Pat Walsh, David Poindexter, Kate Nitze, Tom White,
and John Gray. And thank you also to Melanie Mitchell, Amy Stoll, and Tasha
Reynolds. Many thanks also to Howard Sanders, and to Caspian Dennis. The
Ragdale Foundation supported this book with numerous residencies. Thank you to
its marvelous staff, especially Sylvia Brown, Anne Hughes, Susan Tillett, and
Melissa Mosher. And thank you to The Illinois Arts Council, and the taxpayers
of Illinois, who awarded me a Fellowship in Prose in 2000. Thank you to the
librarians and staff, past and present, of the Newberry Library: Dr. Paul Gehl,
Bart Smith, and Margaret Kulis. Without their generous help, Henry would have
ended up working at Starbucks. I would also like to thank the librarians of the
Reference Desk at the Evanston Public Library, for their patient assistance
with all sorts of wacko queries. Thank you to papermakers who patiently shared
their knowledge: Marilyn Sward and Andrea Peterson. Thanks to Roger Carlson of
Bookman's Alley, for many years of happy book hunting, and to Steve Kay of
Vintage Vinyl for stocking everything I want to listen to. And thanks to Carol
Prieto, realtor supreme. Many thanks to friends, family, and colleagues who
read, critiqued, and contributed their expertise: Lyn Rosen, Danea Rush,
Jonelle Niffenegger, Riva Lehrer, Lisa Gurr, Robert Vladova, Melissa Jay Craig,
Stacey Stern, Ron Falzone, Marcy Henry, Josie Kearns, Caroline Preston, Bill
Frederick, Bert Menco, Patricia Niffenegger, Beth Niffenegger, Jonis Agee and
the members of her Advanced Novel class, Iowa City, 2001. Thanks to Paula
Campbell for her help with the French. Special thanks to Alan Larson, whose
unflagging optimism set me a good example. Last and best, thanks to Christopher
Schneberger: I waited for you, and now you're here.

Audrey Niffenegger is a visual artist and a
professor in the Interdisciplinary Book Arts MFA Program at the Columbia
College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts, where she teaches writing,
letterpress printing, and fine edition book production. She shows her artwork
at Printworks Gallery in Chicago. The Time Traveler's Wife is her first novel.