Time and Again (47 page)

My mind performed its commonplace miracle again. Hardly pausing before I replied, I was able to consider the four long years of trench warfare of World War I: the battle at Verdun in which a million men had died, unrestricted submarine warfare. Then I thought of World War II and the destruction of cities by the Germans, the killing of women, old people and babies; of the fire-bombings of German cities by the Americans, creating actual hundred-mile-an-hour hurricanes of fire incinerating women, old people and babies. And of a man I have often imagined, a German designer, getting up each morning, having breakfast, going to his office, sitting at his drawing board, neatly rolling back his sleeves, and then very carefully, with detailed india-ink drawings and precise manufacturing specifications, designing false shower heads which would presently loose poison gas to kill people by the millions in what were literally factories of death. And I thought of people killed even more efficiently: instantaneous death for hundreds of thousands in the brilliant flashes of two atomic explosions over Japan. What was World War II like? Unbelievably, it was worse than World War I, and no answer or foolish lie came to mind now.

She guessed. She knew that wars weren't called "world wars" for nothing. She looked at the thickness of the pictorial history I had taken from her; then she looked up at my face and said, "I don't want to hear about it."

"I don't want to tell you." I put the book back in its place, and we returned to the davenport. Julia didn't sit back, though. She sat on the edge of the cushion, her hands folded — clenched together, actually — in her lap. Staring straight ahead, getting her thoughts in order, she was silent for a few moments. Then she said, "During the day I've thought about what I wanted to do. And I've thought about staying here, if it were possible to tell Aunt Ada what had happened. During part of the day, when we walked down Fifth Avenue, I thought I'd made up my mind that if we could tell Ada, I
would
stay." I was sitting beside Julia, and she turned to look at me, managing a little smile. "I never thought I could possibly say this to a man, but I can: Do you love me, Si?"

"Yes."

"And I you. Almost from the first, though I didn't know it. But Jake guessed it, didn't he? Or felt it. Now I know, too. What should I do, Si? What do you want me to do? Shall I stay here?"

I thought that needed thinking about, then realized it didn't. I suppose Julia believed I was considering my answer as I sat looking at her face, but I wasn't. I was talking to her silently. I said,
No, I won't let you stay here. Julia, we're a people who pollute the very air we breathe. And our rivers. We're destroying the Great Lakes; Erie is already gone, and now we've begun on the oceans. We filled our atmosphere with radioactive fallout that put poison into our children's bones, and we knew it. We've made bombs that can wipe out humanity in minutes, and they are aimed and ready to fire. We ended polio, and then the United States Army bred new strains of germs that can cause fatal, incurable disease. We had a chance to do justice to our Negroes, and when they asked it, we refused. In Asia we burned people alive, we really did. We allow children to grow up malnourished in the United States. We allow people to make money by using our television channels to persuade our own children to smoke, knowing what it is going to do to them. This is a time when it becomes harder and harder to continue telling yourself that we are still good people. We hate each other. And we're used to it.

I stopped; I wasn't going to say any of these things. The burden wasn't hers. I said, "You've been to Harlem."

"Yes, of course."

"Do you like it?"

"Certainly. It's charming; I've always liked the country."

"Have you ever walked in Central Park at night?"

"Yes."

"Alone?"

"Yes; it's very peaceful."

There were horrors in Julia's time, and I knew it. I knew that the seeds of everything I hated in my own time were already planted and sprouting in hers. But they hadn't yet flowered. In Julia's New York the streets could still fill with sleighs on a moonlit night of new snow, of strangers calling to each other, of singing and laughing. Life still had meaning and purpose in people's minds; the great emptiness hadn't begun. Now the good times to be alive seemed to be gone, Julia's probably the last of them. I said, "You have to go back," and reached over to take her hands in mine. "Just believe me, Julia. Because I love you. You can't stay here."

After a few moments she nodded slowly. "And you, Si — will you come back, too?"

The elation at the very thought of it showed in my face because Julia smiled. But I had to say, "I don't know. I have some duties here first."

"And you don't know if you could, do you? For the rest of your life."

"I'd have to be very sure."

"Yes, you would. For both our sakes." For several moments we looked at each other; then Julia said, "I'm going back, now, Si, tonight. Or I'll begin pleading with you to come, too. And to spend the rest of your life in another time is something you must determine alone."

I thought so, too, and I nodded. "Can you go back alone?"

"I think so. I couldn't have come here into a future past all imagining; you had to bring me. But I can visualize my own time, feel it, and know it is there — far better than you the first time you tried."

Something roared up in my mind that I'd almost forgotten, it seemed so remote from this room and time. "Carmody! You
can't
go back, Julia! Carmody will —»

"No, he won't." She was shaking her head. "Do you remember what I was doing when Inspector Byrnes came for us? You were downstairs in the parlor, reading and I —»

"You were upstairs."

"Yes; in Jake's room, Si. I'd folded his clothes and put them into his trunk. And I was wrapping his boots when I heard you call. This afternoon for no reason I can understand, I remembered those boots. I'd just picked them up when the doorbell rang, and, Si — I saw the heels. The nails formed a pattern, and the pattern was a nine-pointed star in a circle. Jake survived the fire, not Carmody. That was Jake at Carmody's home covered with bandages. And filled with hate."

I knew it was true, and I knew what had happened. "My God, Julia; he walked out of that fire, somehow. Badly burned, yet a plan already forming in his mind. He walked straight to Carmody's, I'm certain, saw Carmody's widow, and — can you conceive of this? — they made a deal! Without Carmody she could lose the fortune, so he
became
Carmody. When we saw her at the Charity Ball, her husband newly dead, she'd already made the arrangement. Has anyone ever wanted money and position more than those two? They really make a pair, don't they!"

"What are you smiling at?"

"Was I? I didn't realize. It's not easy to explain, but… I'm smiling because Jake is such a
villain!
It's the first time I've ever even used the word, but it's what he is, all right. Complete. In everything he does. He's a complete man of his times, and I guess I'm also smiling because in spite of everything I like him. Good old Jake, disguised as Carmody, down on Wall Street at last. I hope he corners the market, whatever that means."

"Yes," Julia said, "he was cursed. I hope he finds happiness, though I am certain he will not." She didn't know what I'd meant, of course. To her there was no strangeness or comedy in the word
villain;
it's what Jake was, that's all. She said, "He can't harm me now; I know who he is, and when he understands that, I'm safe. So will you be… if you come back." She stood abruptly, and walked quickly to the bedroom to change her clothes.

I rode downtown with Julia in a cab. It was dark now; she sat back from the window, and no one but the driver saw her clothes. Half a block from our destination we got out, well away from the nearest streetlamp. I paid off the cab, then Julia and I walked quickly to the immense granite-block base of the Manhattan tower of the Brooklyn Bridge.

In the deepest shadows I took Julia's hands in mine and stood looking at her. In her long skirt, her coat and bonnet, her muff hanging from her wrist on its loop, she looked right; she looked the way Julia ought to. I said, "I want to come back; I want to spend my life with you, but…"

"I know. I know."

We repeated what we'd already said, several times. I took Julia in my arms then, and held her for quite a long time. I kissed her, we looked at each other once more, then simultaneously inhaled, mouths opening to speak. We stood staring, breaths held momentarily, then smiled a little sadly; we'd said it all. Julia reached out and laid her fingers on my cheek for a moment, then shook her head quickly; she wouldn't say goodbye.

She took my hand, and we walked a few paces out from the great granite wall of the bridge tower, then turned to look at it; now it was like an enormous stone curtain shutting out the world. She said, "The time I was born into and belong to are there, Si; far more real to me than the time I glimpsed today. My own world… I can feel it very strongly, it's very real; can't you?" I nodded; I couldn't speak. Julia turned, kissed me very quickly, then let go my hand and walked swiftly forward at a long angle toward the corner of that enormous wall. She reached it, hesitated, looked back as though she were going to speak, but didn't. She took the final steps and was gone then, around the corner of the huge base of the tower, the sound of her steps rapidly receding.

Silence. Then I began to walk toward the same corner. I broke into a run, fast as I could move, and was around it far quicker than Julia could have disappeared from sight. But she was gone.

22

This may look to you like unseemly haste — and taste," Colonel Esterhazy said to me; with a move of his hand he indicated Dr. Danziger's office. He sat behind the desk; Rube and I had come in and taken the two leather-padded metal chairs before it. Like Rube, Esterhazy was wearing cotton army pants and shirt today, without insignia but as rigidly pressed as though they were made of khaki-painted sheet metal. Rube's were neat enough but the creases didn't look welded in. I had on my blue suit. Esterhazy was saying, "But I'm here only because we're so terribly cramped for space; this was the one empty office. Someone has to head the project, and Dr. Danziger is gone." He moved a shoulder regretfully. "I wish he were sitting here instead of me."

I didn't say anything to that. I'd glanced around the office as we walked in, and it looked about the same only neater. Danziger's photographs and bookshelf were gone and so was a carton filled with papers he'd had on the floor, though now there were half a dozen folding chairs stacked against the far end wall. The desk top was empty except for a pen stand, and I imagine the drawers had been cleared out. Behind the desk now stood a gold-fringed nylon American flag on a standard, and on the wall hung a large framed color photograph of the President.

Rube said to Esterhazy, "The debriefing showed all-clear, as I phoned you. And believe me, that's a relief." He turned to me, smiling. "Because you were a busy fellow this trip, weren't you? Escaping the fire. Escaping… what's his name?"

"Inspector Byrnes."

"Yeah. And escaping the girl, too, I suspect. Julia."

I just smiled, and the two of them sat grinning at me for a few moments. I'd spent the morning here at the project, reeling off my list of random facts, dictating a long full report of everything I'd done on this last "trip," as we seemed to be calling them now. Everything except that Julia had come back with me. That had nothing to do with the success or failure of my mission so I just said that in the middle of the night, hiding in the arm of the Statue of Liberty, she'd remembered the nail pattern on Jake's boots. We'd known she was safe then, and at dawn I'd taken her home to 19 Gramercy Park, gotten my money, then hired a hansom up to the Dakota. I said I'd spent yesterday in my apartment sleeping.

Rube said, "So if the debriefing shows okay after all
those
shenanigans, it means that the stream of past events —"

" — is what we always insisted it was," Esterhazy cut in. " 'Twig-in-the-river' theory," he reminded me brusquely. "The stream of past events is a mighty stream indeed, far from easy to deflect casually, as ought to be obvious. It can happen by accident, as we've learned. Although the consequences were negligible. In any historical context, that is. But we have no doubt, nor did Dr. Danziger, that it
could
be affected by design."

It was hard to even keep my mind on what he was saying, and when he paused I nodded and rather vaguely said, "Well, fine. Colonel, and Rube, I think I've completed my mission. How practical it is to study past events, considering the risk I've demonstrated of getting involved with them, is something you people will have to judge. But right now my own affairs are piling up on me; I've got things to work out. And what I'd like now, if you're through with me" — I smiled — "is an honorable discharge."

Neither of them answered for a moment or so. They looked at me, then at each other. Finally Esterhazy said, "Well, before we take that up, Si, there's something I'd like you to know about. You're free to resign; you've done beautifully, done all that could be expected and more. But I'm certain you'll be interested in what I want you to hear. And then maybe you won't want to resign quite yet."

A girl opened the door; I hadn't seen her around the project before. "The others are here, Colonel."

"Good. Send them in." Esterhazy stood up behind his desk and looked toward the door with a pleasant smile.

Two men walked in, and I recognized them. The first was the young history professor with the big nose and big shock of thinning black hair that made him look to me anyway, like a television comic; his name was Messinger. The man behind him was Fessenden, the President's representative, around fifty, bald, with gray-brown hair combed over the shiny top of his head. They both greeted me, and Professor Messinger walked over to my chair as I stood up, to shake my hand. "Welcome home!" he said, and held up a sheet of mimeographed typescript stapled in one corner; I saw it was my dictated account of this last trip. "Terrific," he said, rattling the papers, "absolutely terrific," even
sounding
like a TV "personality." Fessenden gave me a formal nod, and then in imitation of Messinger decided to add a smile and waggle his copy of my account, which was a mistake; smiling cordiality wasn't really a part of his nature.

Rube was bringing over a couple of folding chairs, opening one as he walked; with his foot he shoved his own chair to Fessenden and gave the opened folding chair to Messinger. When we were all seated in a little curve at the front of his desk, Esterhazy sat down, saying, "This is the board now, Si, except for the senator, who's shepherding a bill through Congress today and can't join us. And Professor Butts, whom you may remember: professor of biology at Chicago. He's an advisory member now, without vote, present only when his specialty requires it. The old board was unwieldy. This is far more practical. Jack, maybe you'd like to brief Si."

Messinger turned to me, smiling easily, pleasantly; I saw Fessenden watching him, and it occurred to me that he envied Messinger. "Well, Mr. Morley — is 'Si' all right?"

"Of course."

"Good. And please call me Jack. We've been busy, too, Si. While you were gone. Doing the same job you were: investigating Mr. Andrew Carmody, though not at quite such close quarters. I've been in Washington, on leave and with a secretary provided. A very capable one, though" — he grinned at Esterhazy — "you might have found one just a shade better-looking. We've been cozily alone together in the National Archives, literally down in the basement, rummaging through papers of both Cleveland administrations, the rest of my team in other sections of the Archives. And Carmody really
was
a Cleveland adviser, one of many, in the years following your visit, Si. He began to involve himself in politics beginning in the spring of 1882 when Cleveland was governor of New York. And from occasional notes of Cleveland's, from the minutes of several meetings, and from references in two letters of Cleveland's, I've learned that he became something of a friend of his during Cleveland's first term. How that came about I don't know; there was nothing on that, not surprisingly. His influence then was zero, so far as I've been able to learn. But Carmody — or as we now know he really was, Pickering — fostered the friendship, and it reached its height, such as it was, during Cleveland's second term. The references we found in the Archives show clearly that Cleveland sometimes listened to Carmody — as of course the records call him, and as I might as well continue to call him. His influence was never large, and never important, except in one instance, and the evidence I found on that is conclusive. Cleveland entered office the second time with a war over Cuba building up with Spam, and being whooped up by several newspaper interests. Cleveland hoped to avoid the war, and a pretty good solution was offered him by a number of people; namely, that he offer to buy Cuba from Spain. This much is well known, a matter of clear record; you can find references to it in any complete account of Cleveland's second term. There was precedent for the plan — in our purchases of the Louisiana Territory from France and of Alaska from Russia. And there was evidence that Spain would welcome a chance to avoid a war they knew they couldn't hope to win. But here, I discover, is Pickering-Carmody's place in history: It was his advice that turned Cleveland against the notion. I don't know what he said; the little I found on it is partly technical and pretty sketchy. But it's certain; no mistake about that. And that's it. His sole role in history of any importance is a negative one, a small one, a footnote he might not care to brag about if he were around to do so. After Cleveland's second term we don't hear of him again so far as I was able to learn."

He stopped, and I sat nodding for a few moments, thinking about what he'd said; I was interested. I said, "Well, I'm glad I was able to contribute the new knowledge, unimportant though it is now, that Carmody was actually Pickering. Personally I'm a little pleased at the thought of old Jake Pickering actually in the White House advising Cleveland."

Esterhazy said, "We're pleased with your contribution, too; damn pleased. We hoped for something like it, and you delivered. It's a contribution far more important than you know. Rube?"

Rube turned to me, swinging a leg over an arm of his chair so he could sit facing me more comfortably, smiling that good smile that made you glad he was your friend and made you want to be on
his
side. He said, "Si, you're bright. You can understand that this project has to yield practical results. It's great that it can contribute to scholarly knowledge, but that isn't enough. You can't spend millions, can't take valuable people off other work, to add a little footnote to history about someone nobody ever heard of anyway. Your success — and how remarkable a thing that is I don't think there are words for — has made the next phase of this project possible. That next phase is an advance on the experiment. As careful and cautious as those that preceded it. And it is potentially of enormous benefit —»

" — incalculable benefit," Esterhazy interjected.

Rube nodded. " — of incalculable benefit to the United States. It has been considered and unanimously passed by this board, and then cleared in Washington with the highest authorities; we were on a scramble phone with Washington for nearly an hour this morning."

Esterhazy had his forearms lying on the desk top, hands clasped together in what looked like a relaxed position. But now he leaned far forward over the desk top toward me, and when he spoke I turned to him and saw that his hands were so tightly clenched the fingertips were white. He couldn't keep himself from interrupting Rube. "We want you to go back one more time. Then if that's what you want, your resignation will be instantly accepted, and with great thanks by a grateful government, I can promise you. When the time comes — not in our lifetime, I think, but eventually — when the time comes that this is no longer secret, you will have a place of distinction and honor in your country's history. Your findings, Si, have made this next step possible, and now we want you to use those findings. You're to go back, and do just one thing: You are to reveal 'Carmody's' secret. You're to expose him as what he really is; namely, a clerk named Pickering — responsible for Carmody's death, responsible for the World Building fire. You won't have proof, of course; he won't be imprisoned, tried, or even charged. But he'll be discredited. As he deserves. Can you do that, Si?" I was slow, baffled. "But…
why?
What for?" Esterhazy grinned with the pleasure of explaining. "Don't you see? This is the logical next step, Si, a very small and very carefully controlled experiment… in slightly altering the course of past events. We've avoided doing that till now, scrupulously avoided it, as well as we possibly could, and rightly so. Until we learned from experience that the accidental risk of altering the course of past events is negligible. And that even when it does happen, the actual effect seems trivial. Now it's time for the next slow advance, a slight and very careful change of events in the past… for the benefit of our own time and country. Think about it! We can prevent Carmody — or Pickering, as we know him to be now — from becoming an adviser, minor though he was, to Cleveland. And there is obvious reason to think that this may actually result in a change in the course of our history. If Cuba became a permanent American possession in the 1890's…" He grinned. "Well, I don't have to spell out the benefit of
that.
The name Castro will remain what it was, unheard of. The man himself remaining whatever he was, a worker in the sugar fields, I suppose, forever unknown. That's the next step, Si, if it works, a clear immediate benefit — and, even
more
important, a guide to even greater ones. My God…" His voice dropped in awe. "To correct mistakes of the past which have adversely affected the present for us — what an incredible opportunity."

We sat in absolute silence then. I was stunned. I was, and I knew it, an ordinary person who long after he was grown retained the childhood assumption that the people who largely control our lives are somehow better informed than, and have judgment superior to, the rest of us; that they are more intelligent. Not until Vietnam did I finally realize that some of the most important decisions of all time can be made by men knowing really no more than, and who are not more intelligent than, most of the rest of us. That it was even possible that my own opinions and judgment could be as good as and maybe better than a politician's who made a decision of profound consequence. Some of that childhood awe and acceptance of authority remained, and while I was sitting before Esterhazy's desk — the room silent, everyone watching me, waiting — it seemed presumptuous that ordinary Simon Morley should question the judgment of this board. And of the men in Washington who agreed with it. Yet I knew I had to. And was going to.

I stumbled, though. I spoke badly and in confusion. I even began with what I suppose was the least important aspect of the entire decision. I said, "Go back and deliberately discredit Jake? Destroy his life? I, ah… does anyone have the right to do that?"

"The man's long dead, Si," Esterhazy said gently, as though to a simpleton he didn't want to offend. "We're what counts now."

"He won't be dead where I'll be seeing him."

"Well, yes. But, Si, a lot of men make far greater sacrifices than he will. For the good of the country."

"But he wouldn't even be consulted about it!"

"Neither are they; they're drafted into the army."