The time traveler's wife (9 page)

"No," I say, but I put my fingers on
the white plastic anyway. Ruth puts her fingers on too and nothing moves. We
are both touching the thing very lightly, we are trying to do it right and not
push. Then it starts to move, slow. It goes in circles, and then stops on H.
Then it speeds up. E, N, R, Y. "Henry," says Mary Christina,
"who's Henry?" Helen says, "I don't know, but you're blushing,
Clare. Who is Henry?" I just shake my head, like it's a mystery to me,
too. "You ask, Ruth." She asks (big surprise) who likes her; the
Ouija spells out R, I, C, K. I can feel her pushing. Rick is Mr. Malone, our
Science teacher, who has a crush on Miss Engle, the English teacher. Everybody
except Patty laughs; Patty has a crush on Mr. Malone, too. Ruth and I get up
and Laura and Nancy sit down. Nancy has her back to me, so I can't see her face
when she asks, "Who is Henry?" Everybody looks at me and gets real
quiet. I watch the board. Nothing. Just as I'm thinking I'm safe, the plastic
thing starts to move. H, it says. I think maybe it will just spell Henry again;
after all, Nancy and Laura don't know anything about Henry. I don't even know
that much about Henry. Then it goes on: U, S, B, A, N, D. They all look at me.
"Well, I'm not married; I'm only eleven."

"But who's Henry?" wonders Laura.
"I don't know. Maybe he's somebody I haven't met yet." She nods.
Everyone is weirded out. I'm very weirded out. Husband? Husband?

Thursday, April 12, 1984 (Henry is 36, Clare is
12)

Henry: Clare and I are playing chess in the
fire circle in the woods. It's a beautiful spring day, and the woods are alive
with birds courting and birds nesting. We are keeping ourselves out of the way
of Clare's family, who are out and about this afternoon. Clare has been stuck
on her move for a while; I took her Queen Three moves ago and now she is doomed
but determined to go down fighting. She looks up, "Henry, who's your
favorite Beatle?"

"John. Of course."

"Why 'of course'?"

"Well, Ringo is okay but kind of a sad
sack, you know? And George is a little too New Age for my taste."
"What's 'New Age'?"

"Oddball religions. Sappy boring music.
Pathetic attempts to convince oneself of the superiority of anything connected
with Indians. Non-Western medicine."

"But you don't like regular medicine
"

"That's because doctors are always trying
to tell me I'm crazy. If I had a broken arm I would be a big fan of Western
medicine."

"What about Paul?"

"Paul is for girls."

Clare smiles, shyly. "I like Paul
best." "Well, you're a girl." "Why is Paul for girls?"

Tread carefully, I tell myself. "Uh, gee.
Paul is, like, the Nice Beatle, you know?" "Is that bad?"

"No, not at all. But guys are more
interested in being cool, and John is the Cool Beatle." "Oh. But he's
dead."

I laugh. "You can still be cool when
you're dead. In fact, it's much easier, because you aren't getting old and fat
and losing your hair."

Clare hums the beginning of "When I'm
64." She moves her rook forward five spaces. I can checkmate her now, and
I point this out to her and she hastily takes back the move.

"So why do you like Paul?" I ask her.
I look up in time to see her blushing fervently.

"He's so... beautiful," Clare says.
There's something about the way she says it that makes me feel strange. I study
the board, and it occurs to me that Clare could checkmate me if she took my
bishop with her knight. I wonder if I should tell her this. If she was a little
younger, I would. Twelve is old enough to fend for yourself. Clare is staring
dreamily at the board. It dawns on me that I am jealous. Jesus. I can't believe
I'm feeling jealous of a multimillionaire rock star geezer old enough to be
Clare's dad.

"Hmpf," I say. Clare looks up,
smiling mischievously. "Who do you like?" You, I think but don't say.
"You mean when I was your age?" "Um, yeah. When were you my
age?"

I weigh the value and potential of this nugget
before I dole it out. "I was your age in 1975. I'm eight years older than
you."

"So you're twenty?"

"Well, no, I'm thirty-six." Old
enough to be your dad. Clare furrows her brow. Math is not her strongest
subject. "But if you were twelve in 1975...."

"Oh, sorry. You're right. I mean, I myself
am thirty-six, but somewhere out there"—I wave my hand toward the south—
"I'm twenty. In real time."

Clare strives to digest this. "So there
are two of you?"

"Not exactly. There's always only one me,
but when I'm time traveling sometimes I go somewhere I already am, and yeah,
then you could say there are two. Or more."

"How come I never see more than one?"

"You will. When you and I meet in my
present that will happen fairly frequently." More often than I'd like,
Clare. "So who did you like in 1975?"

"Nobody, really. At twelve I had other
stuff to think about. But when I was thirteen I had this huge crush on Patty
Hearst."

Clare looks annoyed. "A girl you knew at
school?"

I laugh. "No. She was a rich Californian
college girl who got kidnapped by these awful left-wing political terrorists,
and they made her rob banks. She was on the news every night for months."

"What happened to her? Why did you like
her?"

"They eventually let her go, and she got
married and had kids and now she's a rich lady in California. Why did I like
her? Ah, I don't know. It's irrational, you know? I guess I kind of knew how
she felt, being taken away and forced to do stuff she didn't want to do, and
then it seemed like she was kind of enjoying it."

"Do you do things you don't want to
do?"

"Yeah. All the time." My leg has
fallen asleep and I stand up and shake it until it tingles. "I don't
always end up safe and sound with you, Clare. A lot of times I go places where
I have to get clothes and food by stealing."

"Oh." Her face clouds, and then she
sees her move, and makes it, and looks up at me triumphantly.
"Checkmate!"

"Hey! Bravo!" I salaam her. "You
are the chess queen dujour."

"Yes, I am," Clare says, pink with
pride. She starts to set the pieces back in their starting positions.
"Again?"

I pretend to consult my nonexistent watch.
"Sure." I sit down again. "You hungry?" We've been out here
for hours and supplies have run low; all we have left is the dregs of a bag of
Doritos.

"Mmhmm." Clare holds the pawns behind
her back; I tap her right elbow and she shows me the white pawn. I make my
standard opening move, Queen's Pawn to Q4. She makes her standard response to
my standard opening move, Queen's Pawn to Q4. We play out the next ten moves
fairly rapidly, with only moderate bloodshed, and then Clare sits for a while,
pondering the board. She is always experimenting, always attempting the coup
d'eclat. "Who do you like now?" she asks without looking up.

"You mean at twenty? Or at
thirty-six?"

"Both."

I try to remember being twenty. It's just a
blur of women, breasts, legs, skin, hair. All their stories have jumbled
together, and their faces no longer attach themselves to names. I was busy but
miserable at twenty. "Twenty was nothing special. Nobody springs to
mind."

"And thirty-six?"

I scrutinize Clare. Is twelve too young? I'm
sure twelve is really too young. Better to fantasize about beautiful,
unattainable, safe Paul McCartney than to have to contend with Henry the Time
Traveling Geezer. Why is she asking this anyway?

"Henry?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you married?" "Yes," I
admit reluctantly. "To who?"

"A very beautiful, patient, talented,
smart woman."

Her faces falls. "Oh." She picks up
one of my white bishops, which she captured two moves ago, and spins it on the
ground like a top. "Well, that's nice." She seems kind of put out by
this news.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Clare moves her queen from
Q2 to KN5. "Check."

I move my knight to protect my king.

"Am I married?" Clare inquires. I
meet her eyes. "You're pushing your luck today."

"Why not? You never tell me anything
anyway. Come on, Henry, tell me if I'm gonna be an old maid." "You're
a nun," I tease her. Clare shudders. "Boy, I hope not." She
takes one of my pawns with her rook. "How did you meet your wife?"

"Sorry. Top secret information." I
take her rook with my queen. Clare makes a face. "Ouch. Were you time
traveling? When you met her?"

" I was minding my own business."

Clare sighs. She takes another pawn with her
other rook. I'm starting to run low on pawns. I move Queen's Bishop to KB4.

"It's not fair that you know everything
about me but you never tell me anything about you." "True. It's not
fair." I try to look regretful, and obliging.

"I mean, Ruth and Helen and Megan and
Laura tell me everything and I tell them everything."
"Everything?"

"Yeah. Well, I don't tell them about
you."

"Oh? Why's that?"

Clare looks a bit defensive. "You're a
secret. They wouldn't believe me, anyway." She traps my bishop with her
knight, flashes me a sly smile. I contemplate the board, trying to find a way
to take her knight or move my bishop. Things are looking grim for White.
"Henry, are you really a person?"

I am a bit taken aback. "Yes. What else
would I be?"

"I don't know. A spirit?"

"I'm really a person, Clare."

"Prove it."

"How?"

"I don't know."

"I mean, I don't think you could prove
that you're a person, Clare."

"Sure I can."

"How?"

"I'm just like a person."

"Well, I'm just like a person, too."
It's funny that Clare is bringing this up; back in 1999 Dr. Kendrick and I are
engaged in philosophical trench warfare over this very issue. Kendrick is
convinced that I am a harbinger of a new species of human, as different from
everyday folks as Cro-Magnon Man was from his Neanderthal neighbors. I contend
that I'm just a piece of messed-up code, and our inability to have kids proves
that I'm not going to be the Missing Link. We've taken to quoting Kierkegaard
and Heidegger at each other and glowering. Meanwhile, Clare regards me
doubtfully.

" People don't appear and disappear the
way you do. You're like the Cheshire Cat."

"Are you implying that I'm a fictional
character?" I spot my move, finally: King's Rook to QR3. Now she can take
my bishop but she'll lose her queen in the process. It takes Clare a moment to
realize this and when she does she sticks out her tongue at me. Her tongue is a
worrisome shade of orange from all the Doritos she's eaten.

"It makes me kind of wonder about fairy
tales. I mean, if you're real, then why shouldn't fairy tales be real,
too?" Clare stands up, still pondering the board, and does a little dance,
hopping around like her pants are on fire. "I think the ground is getting
harder. My butt's asleep."

"Maybe they are real. Or some little thing
in them is real and then people just added to it, you know?"

"Like maybe Snow White was in a
coma?"

"And Sleeping Beauty, too."

"And Jack the beanstalk guy was just a
real terrific gardener." "And Noah was a weird old man with a
houseboat and a lot of cats."

Clare stares at me. "Noah is in the Bible.
He's not a fairy tale."

"Oh. Right. Sorry." I'm getting very
hungry. Any minute now Nell will ring the dinner bell and Clare will have to go
in. She sits back down on her side of the board. I can tell she's lost interest
in the game when she starts building a little pyramid out of all the conquered
pieces.

"You still haven't proved you're
real" Clare says.

"Neither have you."

"Do you ever wonder if I'm real?" she
asks me, surprised.

"Maybe I'm dreaming you. Maybe you're
dreaming me; maybe we only exist in each other's dreams and every morning when
we wake up we forget all about each other."

Clare frowns, and makes a motion with her hand
as though to bat away this odd idea. "Pinch me," she requests. I lean
over and pinch her lightly on the arm. "Harder!" I do it again, hard
enough to leave a white and red mark that lingers for some seconds and then vanishes.
"Don't you think I would wake up, if I was asleep? Anyway, I don't feel
asleep."

"Well, I don't feel like a spirit. Or a
fictional character."

"How do you know? I mean, if I was making
you up, and I didn't want you to know you were made up, I just wouldn't tell
you, right?"

I wiggle my eyebrows at her. "Maybe God
just made us up and He's not telling us."

"You shouldn't say things like that,"
Clare exclaims. "Besides, you don't even believe in God. Do you?"