Time After Time

by Lisa Grunwald

  Joe asked for Ruth’s number.

  Unlike the formal downstairs rooms that Joe had seen back in 1937, the rooms upstairs were a jumbled mess. They reminded him of some arts-and-crafts project Mike and Alice might have started and dropped. Some trappings of the Lansings’ former life remained—the fancy wallpaper, the heavy rugs, the huge mirrors framed by gold leaves and shells. But over and around these was the life Artie was living—a stack of newspapers on a marble hall table; a bright modern painting between fussy light fixtures.

  “Must be in my study,” Artie said, and he led the way across the landing to a flight of worn carpeted stairs. The study was a small room, and Joe knew immediately that it had to have been Nora’s bedroom. The wallpaper had a delicate pattern of vines and birds, and the arms of the white iron ceiling fixture ended in flowers and leaves painted yellow, orange, and pink. A massive wooden desk stood where the bed must have been. A telephone, a bust of someone like George Washington, and what looked like a month’s worth of mail sat on top of it. Joe wondered casually what Artie did but had a vague sense that it wasn’t entirely on the up-and-up. Other mysteries were far more important.

  Joe scanned the room for traces of Nora. She had stared up at this flowery light fixture when she had gone to sleep each night. She had hung her clothes in this closet, doorless now to accommodate Artie’s file cabinets. She had looked at herself in this mirror hanging on this wall, looked at herself, probably, at every age. Joe wished that her reflections had been left behind.

  A ceiling-high bookcase painted a girlish butter yellow held The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, and a bunch of dime novels: The Wolves of New York, Spicy New York. There was something wrong, almost twisted, Joe thought, about having this grown man’s fantasies shelved in what had been a young girl’s room. He looked over his shoulder and saw that Artie was busy searching through his desk drawers. Then Joe turned back and found, on the top shelf, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Alice in Wonderland.

  Keeping his back to Artie, Joe tried to sound casual. “These Nora’s books?”

  “Hmm,” Artie said, still shuffling through the things in his desk. “I guess. Elsie left a lot of books. I never really sorted them.”

  “Any clothes?” Joe asked, turning around.

  Artie squinted. “What? Clothes?”

  “Just curious,” Joe said. He smiled faintly but guiltily: the smile of a man a bit ashamed of who or what he loves.

  “Salvation Army,” Artie said. “They got the clothes.”

  Joe turned back to the bookshelf. Pollyanna, The Magic Pudding. These were the books of Joe’s childhood too. Peter Pan, Dr. Dolittle, and next to that one, a book about half its size. The cover was also red but made of leather, and the only writing on the spine were two words in faint gold capital letters:

  MY DIARY

  Joe had never stolen anything in his life, but he left Artie Fox’s house and walked down the dappled streets of Turtle Bay with Ruth Ingram’s phone number in one pants pocket and Nora’s diary in the other. He had made a date to meet Finn at the Polo Grounds, but with practically no hesitation he turned east instead of west and continued down to the river. There was a small area of grass there—not big enough to call a park—and several benches by the water. Joe took the diary from his pocket and sat in the sun, feeling the breeze whip his bangs against his forehead. He already knew he wouldn’t make it to the game today.

  Examining the book, Joe saw that the page edges had been dyed in a wavy pattern of red and gold. The gold was mustard yellow now, but in a few spots it still shone where it caught the sunlight. The book was kept closed by a cracked, tongue-shaped flap slipped into a worn, thin loop. Gently, Joe pulled the tongue through and even more gently opened the book. The paper on the inside covers had a pale-plaid design, and Nora’s name, in a flowery schoolgirl script, was written in the upper right-hand corner.

  He turned one page.

  Five-Year Diary, 1919–1923

  This book, if Nora had used it, would contain the record of her life from the time she was seventeen until she was twenty-one, just two years before her death.

  It had been six months since Joe had seen this young woman who had died in 1925 and yet was undeniably alive in Grand Central, according to laws neither of them understood. Whatever qualms he might have had about reading someone else’s diary were overcome by the mystery of who she was and by the wish—which now felt like a crushing need—to be with her in any way he could.

  He fanned the thin pages, which crackled a little, unstiffening, and bent over to read. The book was arranged by the days of the year, each day given two pages, with a section for each year. The earliest entries were written in a large but careful script. Some were just a line or two from a saying or song. Others recorded grades Nora had gotten—lots of A’s but, Joe was somehow relieved to see, plenty of B’s and some C’s too. There were also many days she had left blank. Occasionally Joe found two pages on which Nora had written something in every year, and he could see how her handwriting had gotten smaller and neater as her thoughts had gotten larger and bolder.

  May 7, 1919

  I don’t think I like Roxanne anymore. Is that because she didn’t pick me in field hockey? Do I even care about field hockey? Do I even care about Roxanne? Do I only like people who like me?

  May 7, 1920

  Tonight Mother and Father took me to see the Follies! I saw Fanny Brice, W. C. Fields, Vanda Hoff, Sybil Carmen, and the Ziegfeld Girls. It was divine!

  May 7, 1921

  Mother always tells me never to use the word “hate” unless I really mean it. She says: “Hate is a very strong word.” But right now I hate her! She thinks she knows everything, but I think all she knows is what it was like to be young when she was young!

  May 7, 1922

  I hate how Mother treats Father. She acts as if all he’s ever doing when he’s home is just waiting to see what he can do for her. She says his name even when she doesn’t need anything. “Fred? Fred?” She sounds like a parrot. And Father just says, “Yes, Elsie?” Sometimes she doesn’t even answer. She just has to know he’s there. I will never be like that with Jenks.

  Nora had drawn a heart next to the name Jenks.

  Joe put down the book for a moment and looked out at the river. To his left was the Queensboro Bridge, with its double-pointed towers that always reminded him of bats’ ears. To his right, much farther away, was the solid Williamsburg Bridge, which led to Brooklyn.

  The sun leapt over the water, and he could smell the brine. Aside from the backyard of the house in Queens, the East River was as close to nature as Joe usually managed to get. For a few minutes he watched its traffic: a red-and-white fireboat gliding along; a green tug steering a huge tanker; a steamer veering so close to shore that Joe could see the captain’s beard. So many different lives and destinations.

  He went back to reading:

  May 7, 1923

  Just because I want to get my hair bobbed, Mother says she’s not sure I’m the girl she thought I was. Well, maybe I’m not. And maybe that’s one of the best things I can say!

  After that, there were only occasional entries for the year 1923. A fight with Jenks, whoever that had been. A kiss from some guy named Sebastian. Joe was about to close the book when he found the last entry:

  Thanksgiving, 1923

  Thanksgiving Day? Here is what I’m most thankful for: It didn’t hurt. I didn’t bleed. Sebastian swears he’s not going to tell anyone we did it. And I’m never going to have to wonder again what the big deal is. And P.S. Thanks to wonderful Father, I am going to go to Paris after graduation next summer, no matter what Mother says!

  Joe closed the book and held it to his chest, the way he had held Nora’s coat after she disappeared and the way he was determined to hold her again, when she came back on the next anniversary of her death.

  * * *

 
—

  Joe went to Paris in September—or, rather, went as near as he could, which was France’s pavilion at the World’s Fair. The fair was scheduled to close for good at the end of October, and by now Joe had already been back six or seven times. He had visited Greece, Belgium, Brazil, Japan, and Norway, and he had seen almost all the United States buildings. He had saved France—what he’d assumed would be the best—for last.

  Even before he’d met Nora, Joe had been curious about Paris. During the war, Damian had landed in a rehabilitation hospital there, and he had always talked about the city with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. The beauty of the Eiffel Tower, the beauty of Notre-Dame, and—when Katherine wasn’t listening—the beauty of the French nurse who had wheeled him outside daily. “Bee-you-tiful,” he would whisper to Finn and Joe, using jittery hands to sketch an hourglass in the air. “And believe me, when a man’s just lost a limb and half a hand, he needs some warmth and kindness.”

  At the fair’s French pavilion, though, there seemed to be not much of either. However cheerful the hostesses tried to be, they were forcing their smiles. Despite the high picture windows, with their views of the fountains and bright avenues, the mood here was dark and hushed. The Germans had taken Paris in June. I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE, read the pins given to visitors at the World of Tomorrow. Worn in this pavilion, these buttons seemed less like proud declarations and more like a grim prophecy.

  Nevertheless, Joe settled at a café table and, without a moment’s hesitation, ordered a croque-monsieur. He wasn’t even that hungry, but he remembered the joy with which Nora had held up her sandwich at Alva’s that first night. It didn’t take long before a tired, somber waitress put a plate in front of him with a honey-colored sandwich and a cluster of tiny pickles. With faithful anticipation, Joe took a first bite, but really it was just a sandwich, special only because it represented a slim connection to Nora.

  After the French pavilion, Joe made sure to visit some of the nongeographic exhibits he had heard or read about. He saw a building-sized cash register that toted up the day’s attendance and a see-through Plexiglas Pontiac that was, strangely enough, called “The Ghost Car.” At the Westinghouse pavilion he saw Elektro, the gleaming metal robot who could walk, talk, and smoke a cigar, and right outside that building there were copies of the objects that had been placed inside a time capsule and buried fifty feet underground: a woman’s hat, a man’s razor, a can opener, phonograph records, things like that. The capsule wasn’t supposed to be opened for five thousand years; the engraving on the tip read “1939 A.D. to 6939 A.D.” Joe had to smile at that, thinking back to the start of the year, when Mr. Landsman’s retirement had made 1975 seem hard to imagine.

  Joe’s last destination was the Elgin Time Observatory, where Jacob the clock master had insisted Joe stop. Jake himself had gotten to go only once: With a sash of tools across his chest that made him look like a bandit, he tended nearly a thousand clocks that he hated to leave for long. As Jake had promised, though, Joe enjoyed looking at the many clock faces, gears, and telescopes, and he stopped at a machine that could show you in thirty seconds how much time your watch gained or lost in a day. Finally, he joined a small crowd that had gathered around an ugly twelve-foot-high statue. With massive muscles, a hunched back, and a club in its hands, this figure was meant to represent Time as a slave, striking a gong every hour. Checking their watches, the visitors waited at the base of the statue. At five o’clock exactly, like a great beast, the statue moved to swing its club against the gong. Instinctively, Joe turned away. In his life at this moment, time wasn’t the slave, but the master.

  10

  M42

  1940

  Joe had been working at the Piano in Tower A for eight hours, following the lights on the board, bringing the trains in, pulling and pushing the worn brass handles. He needed more than ever to be busy today. One thought kept getting in his way, and it felt like a physical tap on the shoulder each time he worked a lever. A year before, he had almost been scared that Nora would appear, and now he was terrified that she wouldn’t.

  By six A.M., he was famished, but after cleaning up and trudging through the tunnel to the concourse, he had lost his appetite. He picked up a newspaper so he would look busy, and he sat under the west balcony on the marble steps, perfectly positioned in front of the spot on the east side of the concourse where Nora had told him she had died. Flexing his sore hands, Joe was grateful for the sparseness of the hall at this hour.

  Joe stared up at the three arched east windows, which were wide enough to drive a train through. He’d heard once that that had been the architects’ plan, in case New York got so big that the windows had to be taken out and new tracks laid right through the concourse. If that ever happened, Joe thought, he would have to look elsewhere for work. These windows were more holy to him than the stained-glass ones in St. Anthony’s. In churches, light lit up pictures of what was supposed to be sacred. In Grand Central Terminal, the light itself seemed sacred. This morning, though, before dawn, Joe felt no special grace, only a murky, thick exhaustion.

  At 6:15, the New Haven came in, and a few woozy travelers came up from the commuter tracks, blinking like mice. A couple of teenagers followed them, drunk and noisy and carrying on until one of them bent almost double and puked into his cap.

  Fifteen minutes later, despite himself, Joe had almost dozed off, but he was brought to attention by the squeech-squeech sound of Butch Becker’s heavy black galoshes. The new shoeshine kid was standing at the bottom of the stairs, taking off his dripping slicker.

  “Still raining, I guess,” Joe said.

  “They said it was going to stop,” Butch said.

  “You’re making a puddle.”

  Butch stared down at Joe awkwardly. “Hey, Joe?”

  “Huh?”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Something like what?”

  “You look sort of worried.”

  “Nah,” Joe said. “I’m just meeting someone.”

  “It’s still dark out,” Butch said. “Who—”

  Joe cut him off. “You’d better get dried off and go open up, or Shoebox Lou’s going to have your hide.”

  Joe watched, nearly hypnotized, as Butch turned to walk back down the long length of the concourse, the pink floor and the high stone walls gradually absorbing him.

  * * *

  —

  Old and new photographs of Grand Central looked practically identical, and people often spoke about the place being timeless—like a mountain or a monument, unchanged by the years. But to anyone who knew it well, the terminal was filled with time: not just with scars and history, but with time you could sense all around you, as if the many people who’d come and gone had left something real behind them, had spent their time, like money.

  Joe felt adrift in this time as he waited, studying the long rectangular slabs of the marble floor, trying to find a pattern in the veins—some gray, some white, some black. It was nearly seven, the hour of the accident, the hour of Nora’s arrival. Joe opened the newspaper and stared at the words but wasn’t able to read them. What if she didn’t come? He wished there were a lever he could use to push the thought away.

  It was just past seven when the Manhattanhenge sunrise blasted through the window. Joe leapt to his feet. The sunlight seemed to wipe away all the details of the room and change every color. Seemingly at the same instant, Nora appeared, lying on the floor and bathed in the light. Joe shot down the steps and reached her just as she was standing up. At that moment, her image flickered—exactly as it had when she’d disappeared on the street the year before. Joe lunged for her, arms out, trying to hold and tether her. For a split second their eyes met—in joy, followed by helplessness. He felt her warmth run through his body, but then he fell, facedown, arms empty. He hit the now dull floor. Dumbfounded, he looked out the window toward the clouds that had passed in front of the s
un.

  “Is there a problem, Joseph?” Joe heard someone say.

  Steady Max was walking past him. It took Joe a moment to realize that Max hadn’t seen Nora, though he’d seen Joe fall. It had all happened so quickly. Joe himself wouldn’t have seen her unless he had known where to look.

  “Drunk again?” Max asked, which was a joke.

  Joe scrambled to his feet. “I just slipped,” he said. “The rain—”

  He bent down to untie and retie first one shoelace, then the other, biding his time.

  Come back, come back, come back.

  * * *

  —

  Joe hadn’t cried when his mother died, not even on the rainy warm morning when she was buried in Calvary Cemetery. But now, halfway down the ramp to the lower concourse, he was fighting tears. Blinking them back, he passed under the enormous egg-shaped chandeliers, whose naked lightbulbs, stuck on gold-plated bands, still shone as a celebration of the terminal’s once revolutionary electric power. There was nothing to celebrate today. The morning greetings that usually gave Joe such comfort—that made him feel so welcome and neighborly—were all at once an intrusion. If hope could make you drunk, then this was its hangover, and Joe had to be alone to nurse it.

  Moving swiftly now, cap slanted over his eyes, he walked down one ramp after another, into the terminal’s depths, where staircases replaced the ramps designed to ease travelers’ ways. It had taken Joe a few years before he’d felt comfortable in the depths of Grand Central. The farther down you went, the fewer people you saw, and in the barely lit tunnels and passageways, it became harder and harder to separate shadows from the objects that cast them. There were black corners, peeling pipes, damp smells, the oil and sweat of machines and men. The concourse—with its signs and stars and windows and light—was easy for anyone to know. Even the platforms offered the comfort of math and motion, purpose and straight lines. But the layers below the track levels held the power and secrets, and the men who could navigate those levels knew the building the way doctors knew bodies.