Timescape (51 page)

"Ian's come to live with us," his uncle repeated.

"Where are the children?" she asked. "They're late."

No one reminded her that both sons had drowned in a sailing accident some fifteen years before. They waited patiently tor the daily ritual to be completed.

"Well let's not wait for them." She picked up the heavy teapot and began to pour the strong steaming tea into the striped blue and white farmhouse cups.

They ate in silence. Outside, the rain that had threatened all day began to fall, tentatively at first, pattering against the windows, then more steadily.

Distantly, the cows, disturbed by the drumming of the rain on the roof of their shed, lowed mournfully.

"It s rainig," his uncle volunteered.

No one answered. He liked their silence. And when they spoke, their flat East Anglian vowels slid like balm into his ears, slow and soothing. His childhood nurse had been a Suffolk woman.

He finished his tea and went into the library. He fingered the cut glass decanter, decided against a drink. The steady sound of pouring rain was muted by the heavy oak shutters. They had been well made, concealing a panel of steel. He had turned the place into a fortress. It could withstand a lengthy siege. The cowsheds and barn were double-walled and connected by tunnels to the house. All doors were double, with heavy bolts. Every room was a miniature armory. He stroked a rifle on the library wall. He checked the chamber; oiled and loaded, as he had ordered.

He chose a cigar and dropped into his leather armchair. He picked up a book that lay waiting, a Maugham. He began to read. Roland came in and built a fire. Its rich crackling cut the edge of cold in the room. There would be time later to review the stock of provisions and lay out a dietary plan.

No outside water, at least for a while. No more trips into the village. He settled further into the chair, aware that things needed doing, but not for the moment feeling up to it. His limbs were sore and the sudden flashes of weakness still came upon him. Here he was still Peterson of Peters Manor and he let the sense of that sweep through him, bringing a kind of inner rest. Was it Russell who had said that no man is truly comfortable far from the environment of his childhood? There was some truth in that. But the fellow from the village, just now ... Peterson frowned. They really couldn't use the bacon any longer; everything would be blighted with the cloud stuff, at least for a while. The village man probably knew that. And beneath the yes-m'lord manner there had been a clear threat. He had come to barter security, not bacon. Give them some tinned food and all would be well,

Peterson moved in the chair restlessly. All his life he had been in motion, he thought. He had moved up from this landed gentry role, through Cambridge, and into the government. He had used each level and then moved on. Sarah, he supposed, was the most recent clear case, not forgetting the Council itself. They had all helped. The government itself had, of course, followed much the same strategy. Modern economics and the welfare state borrowed heavily on the future.

Now he was in a place he could not leave. He had to depend on those around him. And suddenly he was uncomfortably aware that this small, easily managed band in the manor and village were free agents, too. Once society faltered, what became of the ordering that had kept Peters Manor calm and safe? Peterson sat in the waning light of day and thought, a finger tapping on the arm of his chair. He tried to begin again with his book, but it held no interest for him. Through the window he could see the cut fields that stretched to the horizon. A north wind stirred the crisp outline of the trees. Dusk fell. The fire popped.

NOVEMBER 22, 1963

Gordon wrote out the equation in full before commenting on it. The yellow chalk squeaked. "So we see that if we integrate Maxwell's equations over the volume, the flux–"

Movement at the back of the class caught his eye. He turned. A secretary from the department waved a hand hesitantly at him. "Yes?"

"Dr. Bernstein I hate to interrupt but we've just heard on the radio that the President has been shot," She said it in one long gasp. There was an answering rustle from the class. "I thought ... you would want to know,"

she finished lamely.

Gordon stood unmoving. Speculations raced through his mind. Then he remembered where he was and firmly put them aside. There was a lecture to finish. "Very well. Thank you." He studied the upturned faces of the class. "I think, in view of how much more material there is to cover in this semester... Until something more is known, we should go on."

One of the twins said abruptly, "Where was he?"

The secretary answered meekly, "In Dallas."

"I hope somebody gets Goldwater, then," the twin said with sudden vehemence.

"Quiet, quiet," Gordon said mildly. "There is nothing we can do here, right? I propose to continue."

With that he returned to the equation. He got through most of the introductory discussion of the Poynting vector, ignoring the buzz of whispers at his back. He fell into the rhythm of the discussion. His stabs with the chalk made their clicking points, one by one. The equations unfolded their beauties. He conjured up electromagnetic waves and endowed them with momentum. He spoke of imaginary mathematical boxes brimming with light, theur flux kept in precise balance by the unseen power of partial differentials.

Another stirring at the back of the room. Several students were leaving.

Gordon put down his chalk.

"I suppose you can't concentrate under the circumstances," he conceded. "We'll take it up next time."

One of the twins got up to leave and said to the other, "Lyndon Johnson.

Jesus, we might end up with him."

Gordon made his way down to his office and put away his lecture notes.

He was tired, but he supposed he should go hunt up a TV and watch. The last week had been a madhouse of interviews, challenges by other physicists, and an astonishing amount of attention from the networks. He was thoroughly weary of the whole process.

He remembered that the student center down by Scripps beach had a TV. The drive down in his Chevy took only moments. There seemed to be few people on the streets.

Students were ranked three deep around the set. As Gordon came in and stood at the back Walter Cronkite was saying, "I repeat, there is still no definite word from Parkland Memorial Hospital about the President. A priest who just left the operating room was heard to have said that the President was dying. However, that is not an official announcement. The priest did acknowledge that the last rites have been administered to the President."

Gordon asked a student next to him, "What happened?"

"Some guy shot him from a school book building, they said."

Cronkite accepted a piece of paper from off camera.

"Governor John Connally is undergoing treatment in the operating room next to the President. The doctors working on the governor have said only that he is in serious condition. Meanwhile, Vice President Johnson is known to be in the hospital. He is apparently waiting in a small room down the corridor from where the President lies. The Secret Service has the area completely surrounded, with the help of the Dallas Police."

Gordon noticed several of the students from his class gathered nearby.

The recreation room was packed now. The crowd was absolutely still as Cronkite paused, listening to a small headset which he pressed to his ear.

Through the glass sliding doors which led out onto a wooden porch Gordon could see the waves breaking into white and sliding up the beach.

Outside, the world went on with its unending rhythm. In this small pocket, a flickering color screen held sway.

Cronkite glanced off camera and then back. "The Dallas police have just released the name of the man they suspect of the shooting. His name is Lee Oswald. Apparently he is an employee of the School Book Depository building. That's the building that the shots–some said rifle shots, but that has not been confirmed–came from. The Dallas police have not released any further information. There are many policemen around that building now and it is very difficult to get any information. However, we do have men on the scene and a television camera is being set up, I am told."

The recreation room was becoming hot. Fall sunlight streamed through the glass doors. Someone lit a cigarette. The plumes of smoke slowed and formed blue layers as Cronkite spoke on, repeating himself, waiting for more reports. Gordon began breathing more rapidly, as though the thickened air would not come freely into his lungs. The light became watery, weaving. The crowd around him caught the feeling and moved restlessly, human wheat beneath a strange wind.

"Some members of the crowd around Dealey Plaza say there were two shots fired at the Presidential motorcade. There are reports of three and four shots, however. One of our reporters on the scene says the shots came from a window on the sixth story of that School Book Depository–"

The scene suddenly shifted to a bleak fall landscape in black and white.

Knots of people crowded the sidewalk before a brick building. Trees stood out in stark contrast to the bright sky. The camera panned to show a bleached, open plaza. Cars blocked the streets. People milled aimlessly.

"That is the site of the shooting you are seeing now," Cronkite continued. "There is still no definite word about the President. A nurse in the corridor outside has said that the doctor working on the President has carried out a tracheotomy–that is, a cut in the windpipe, to make another breathing path for the President. This seems to confirm reports that Mr.

Kennedy was struck in the back of the neck."

Gordon felt ill. He wiped beads of sweat from his brow. He was the only person in the room wearing a jacket and tie. The air felt silky, moist. The odd sensation of a moment before was ebbing slowly away.

"There is a report that Mrs. Kennedy has been seen in the corridor outside the operating room. We have no indication of what this means."

Cronkite was in shirt-sleeves. He looked uncertain and anxious.

"Back at Dealey Plaza–" Again the crowds, the brick building, police everywhere. "Yes, there is a police statement that Oswald has been removed from the area under heavy police guard. We did not see them leave the School Book Depository building, at least not from the front entrance. Apparently they left through the back. Oswald has been inside the building since he was captured there, moments after the shooting.

Wait–wait–" On the screen the crowd parted. Men in overcoats and hats moved ahead of a double rank of police, pushing the crowd back.

"Someone else is leaving the Depository building, taken by the police.

Our camera crew there tells me it is another person involved in the incident, in the capture of the suspect, Lee Oswald. I think I can see him now–"

Between the lines of policemen marched a teenager, a boy. He looked around at the press of bodies, appearing dazed. He wore a tan leather jacket and blue jeans. He was well over six feet in height and looked out over the heads of the policemen. His head swiveled around, taking it all in.

He had brown hair and wore glasses that reflected the glaring, slanted sunlight. His head stopped when he saw the camera. A figure moved into the foreground, holding a microphone. The police surged to block him.

Distantly:

"If we could have just a statement, I–"

A plainclothesman leading the group shook his head. "Nothing until later, when–"

"Hey, hold on!" It was the teenager, in a loud, booming voice that stopped everyone. The plain-clothes man, a hand raised palm forward toward the camera, looked back over his shoulder.

"You cops have bugged me enough," the boy said. He shouldered his way forward. The policemen yielded before him. and concentrated on keeping the crowd back. He reached the plainclothesman. "Look, am I under arrest or what?"

"Well, no, you're under protective custody–"

"Okay, that's what I thought. See that? What it is, is a TV camera, right? You guys don't have to protect me from that do you?"

"No, look, Hayes–we wanna get you off the street. There could be— "

"I tell you that guy was alone up there. There isn't anybody else to worry about. And I'm gonna talk to these TV guys 'cause I'm a free citizen."

"You're a minor," the plainclothesman began hesitantly, "and we have to–"

"That's a lotta bull. Here "He reached beyond the plainclothesman and grabbed the microphone.

"See?–no trouble." Several people standing nearby applauded. The plainclothesman glanced uncertainly around. He began, "We don't want you giving–"

"What happened in there?" someone shouted.

"A lot!" Hayes shouted back.

"Didja see that guy shooting?"

"I saw it all, man. Cold-cocked the guy, I did." He peered at the camera.

"I'm Bob Hayes and I saw it all, I'm here to tell ya. Bob Hayes from Thomas Jefferson High."

"How many shots were fired?" an off-camera voice asked, trying to get Hayes on the track of the story.

"Three. I was walkin' down the hall outside when I heard the first one.

The guy downstairs was eatin' lunch and he sent me up to get some magazines they had stored up there. So I'm lookin' for them and I hear this loud noise."

Hayes paused, plainly enjoying this. "Yeah?" someone said.

"I knew it was a rifle right off. So I open this door where it came from. I see these chicken bones on a carton, like somebody's havin' lunch. Then I see this guy crouched down and pointin' this rifle out the window. He had it on the sill, to brace it. He was leaning on some cartons, too."

"That was Oswald?"

"That's what these guys said his name was. Me, I didn't ask." Hayes grinned. Someone laughed.

"I start over toward this guy and boom he fires again. I can hear somebody yelling outside. I didn't think about it, I just went for him. Dove over this crate and slammed into him. Just then the rifle goes off again, just as I hit him. I used to play some football y'know, an' I know how to take a guy out."

"You got the rifle away from him?"