Time and Again

by Jack Finney

  In his office Rossoff said, "Sugar? Cream?" walking toward a low magazine table and a glass jug of coffee on a hot plate. "I hope not, because we haven't got any."

  "I believe I'll take mine black," Rube said, sitting down in an upholstered chair. "How about you, Si?"

  "Black sounds good to me." I sat down in a green-leather chair, looking around me. It was a large rectangular room, windowless but filled with daylight from two immense skylights. I liked the room and felt comfortable in it. It was carpeted in gray and the walls were papered in a cheerful red-and-green pattern. At one end the doctor's desk was a mess, heaped with stacked books and papers. The other end was floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and Rossoff, handing me a cup of coffee, saw me looking at them.

  "Go take a look, if you like," he said, and I got up and walked over, tasting my coffee, which wasn't too good.

  I'd expected the books to be medical texts, and a lot were. But six or eight feet of shelving was history: college textbooks, reference books, biographies, all kinds of books on every period, country and historical personage you could think of. And there must have been two hundred novels, many very old judging from the bindings, none of their titles familiar to me. On the way back to my chair, sipping the coffee, I took a quick look at the framed diplomas, New York State license, and photographs that nearly covered a wall above the back of a green-leather davenport. Rossoff, I saw, was an M.D. and a psychologist, from Johns Hopkins. He also had a cheerful-looking wife, two grade-school-age daughters, and a Basset hound. "All mine, the dog especially," he said, when he saw me glance at the pictures.

  We had our coffee, talking idly, filling in a five-minute pause. Mostly we talked about the San Francisco Giants, and a plan of Rossoff's to force them back to New York by kidnapping Willie Mays. Then Rube set his cup on a little table beside him and stood up. He said, "Thanks, Oscar; the coffee was atrocious. Si, I'll be back when the doc's finished with you, and we'll go see the director."

  He left, Rossoff asked if I wanted more coffee, and I said no. "Okay; now then," he said, "I have some tests I expect I'll be asking you to take presently. Mostly of a kind I'm sure you're familiar with. I may ask you to look at some Rorschach blots and tell me what nasty things they make you think of. That sort of thing. If you do all right, then we may want to find out how good a liar you are. I may ask you to pose, with no advance warning, as something you're not; a lawyer, for example. And withstand the questionings of three or four people apparently suspicious of the pose. Or you may deny you're an artist, or that you've ever been to New York, sitting in conversation with several strangers, all from the project, who will try to trap you. But all that later. There's something else has to be done first. Incidentally, has it occurred to you that we may all be nuts, and that you've wandered into an immense booby-hatch?"

  "That's why I joined up."

  "Good; obviously you're the type we need." I liked Rossoff; if he was trying to put me at ease he was succeeding. He said, "Have you ever been hypnotized for any reason?"

  "No, never."

  "Do you have any feelings against it? I hope not," he added quickly. "This is most important; we have to be certain, first of all, that you can be hypnotized. Some people can't, as you undoubtedly know; the only way to find out is to try."

  I hesitated, then shrugged. "Well, I suppose if it's someone competent..."

  "I'm competent. And I'll do it. If you're willing."

  "Okay. I've come this far; it wouldn't make sense to let that stop me."

  Rossoff stood up, walked to his desk, and picked up a yellow wooden pencil. He sat down again, hitching his chair closer to mine till we sat only a yard apart, facing each other. Holding the pencil vertically before me, by the point, he said, "We'll use an object. This or most anything else will do; it doesn't have to be shiny. Just stare at it, if you will, please, not particularly intently; and if you want to blink or glance away do so. The only important thing here is that if you tense up and resist, I won't be able to do it. I need your okay in more than words; you have to agree mentally. Within yourself. And completely. All the way. Don't fight it at all. Don't resist. Are you perfectly comfortable? Just nod, if you are." I nodded. "Fine. If you sense any resistance in your mind, let it thaw. Just sit and watch it melt, then let it drain away. Relax your muscles, incidentally; I want you really quite comfortable. Relax even your jaw; let your mouth hang open a little, and let your eyes unfocus. I think you're feeling it a little now; you're intelligent and perceptive, and I believe you're accepting this very well. Really very well, and it's rather pleasant, isn't it? And nothing to be concerned about. Occasionally I practice auto-hypnosis, which can be done very easily, and which you will learn, too. Just four or five minutes of self-hypnosis, which actually means nothing more than opening your mind to suggestion, your own suggestion, can be wonderfully refreshing. I can cure a tension headache with it; I never use aspirin. I think you're feeling how relaxing this can be. Isn't it a nice way to rest? Better than a drink, better than a cocktail." He lowered the pencil, saying, "I'll tell you how wonderfully relaxed you are, in fact. Look at your right arm lying there on the arm of your chair. It's so completely relaxed, more than ever before in your life, even when you've been asleep, that you can't lift it. The muscles are too relaxed, they refuse to move. When I count to three you'll see for yourself. Try to lift your arm when I say 'three.' You won't be able to. One. Two. Three."

  My arm wouldn't move. I stared at it, leaning closer, my eyes fixed on my coat sleeve, my brain willing it to move. But it lay absolutely motionless; it would no more move at my silent command than the doctor's desk.

  "All right, don't be in any way concerned; you've willingly put yourself under my hypnotic suggestion, and done it very well, too. I'm going to talk to you for just a few minutes, now. Your arm, incidentally, is entirely free to move now."

  I lifted my arm, flexing it, clenching and unclenching the fingers as though it had been asleep. Then I leaned back into the soft leather of the chair, more comfortable and content than I remembered ever having been before.

  Rossoff said, "In a sense the mind is compartmented. Various parts of the brain perform various functions; eliminate a certain part of the brain, by accident, for example, and you lose the ability to talk. You have to learn how all over again, training another part of the mind. We can think of memory in that way, too, if it's convenient. Memories can be shut off. Closed down as though they had never existed. When it happens extensively we call it amnesia. Right now we're going to close off only a small part of your memory. When I tap this pencil against the arm of my chair, you will forget the name of the man who brought you here. For the time being it will be gone from your mind, as impossible to recall as though you never knew it." He tapped the pencil against the leather arm of his chair; it made only the smallest sound but I heard it. "You remember the man, don't you, who first talked to you and induced you to come here? And who just had coffee with us? You can picture his face?"

  "Yes."

  "How was he dressed, by the way?"

  "Wash pants, white shirt with short sleeves, brown moccasin loafers."

  "Could you draw a sketch of his face?"

  "Sure."

  "Okay, what is his name?"

  Nothing came to mind. I thought. I ran over names in my mind: Smith, Jones; names of people I knew or had known; names I had read or heard. None of them meant anything; I simply didn't know his name.

  "You understand why you can't think of it? That you're under hypnotic suggestion?"

  "Yes, I know."

  "Well, see if you can break through it. Do your damnedest. You know his name. You've used it and heard it several times today. Come on, now; what is his name?"

  I closed my eyes, straining. I searched my mind, tried to force out that name, but there was no way to find it. It was as though he were asking the name of a stranger in the street.

  "When I tap this pencil on the arm of the chair again, you will remember it." He tapped the pencil against t
he leather and said, "What is his name?"

  "Ruben Prien."

  "All right. When I clap my hands together you will come out of hypnosis completely. There will be no lingering remainder, no vestige of it. All hypnotic suggestibility will be gone." He clapped his hands together, not loudly but with a sharp hollow pop. "Feel all right?"

  "Yeah, fine."

  "Let me just test to be sure. When I tap this pencil against the arm of my chair, you will forget my name. You will be completely unable to recall it." He tapped the chair arm with the pencil again. "Now, what is my name?"

  "Alfred E. Neuman."

  "No, come on now, no kidding around!"

  "Rossoff. Dr. Oscar Rossoff."

  "Okay, fine. Just testing; you're clear. Well, you did good, a first-rate subject. I have a hunch you'll do. Next time I may have you bark like a seal and eat a live fish."

  I looked at Rorschach blots then, and told Rossoff what thoughts they started. I looked at pictures, interpreted them, and drew a few myself. I did a short true-or-false test. I filled in words missing from sentences. I talked about myself and answered questions. Wearing a blindfold, I picked up objects and described their sizes and shapes, and sometimes their uses. Finally Rossoff said, "Enough. More than enough. I've generally run tests for several days, sometimes a week, but... we're not really so damned sure of what we're doing that I can pretend to pinpoint the requirements for performing what is probably an impossibility. I have the strongest kind of hunch about you, and no test is going to make me change my mind. They all confirm it, anyway. As well as I'll ever be able to figure it out, you're a candidate." He looked over at the closed door of the office, listening. We could hear the murmur of a man's voice, then a woman's laugh, and Rossoff yelled, "Rube, get your hands off Alice, and come on in here!"

  The door opened, and a very tall, thin elderly man walked in, and Rossoff got quickly to his feet. "It's not Rube," the man said, "and my hands weren't on Alice, I'm sorry to say."

  "It was the other way around," the nurse said, reaching into the office for the doorknob; she closed the door, smiling.

  Rossoff introduced us. This was Dr. E.E. Danziger, Director of the project, and we shook hands. His hand, big and hairy and with prominent veins, wrapped right around mine, it was so large, and his eyes stared at me, excited, fascinated, wanting to know all about me in one look. The words spilling out, he said, "How does he test?" and while Rossoff told him, it was my turn to study him.

  He was a man you'd know again if you saw him just once. He was sixty-five or -six, I thought, his forehead and cheeks heavily lined; the cheek lines were a series of three curved brackets beginning at the corners of his mouth and extending up to the cheekbones, widening and deepening when he smiled. He was bald and tanned, the top of his head freckled, his side hair still black, or possibly dyed. He must have been six feet five inches tall, maybe more; and he was thin and lanky, wide-shouldered but stooped. He wore a jaunty polka-dotted, blue bow tie; an old-style double-breasted tan suit, the coat hanging open; and a brown button-up sweater under the coat. He was well into his sixties but he looked strong, he looked masculine and virile; I had a hunch that he might not at all mind getting his hands on Alice, and that maybe she wouldn't mind either.

  To Rossoff, speaking slowly, he said, "You say yes?" And when Rossoff nodded, he said, "Then I do, too. I've gone over all we have on him, and he sounds right." He turned and stood looking at me soberly and searchingly for some seconds; during this Rube stepped into the office and very quietly closed the door. I was beginning to feel a little embarrassed by Dr. Danziger's stare when he suddenly grinned. "All right!" he said. "And now you'd like to know what you've got yourself into. Well, first Rube will show you, then I'll try to tell you." He gripped his coat lapels in his big freckled fists, his arms hanging loosely, and stood staring at me again, smiling a little, nodding slowly; in approval, I felt, and was more pleased than I'd have thought.

  "I'm in charge of this establishment," Danziger continued then. "I began it, in fact. But just now I envy you. I'm sixty-eight years old, and two years ago when I understood that this project was going to become real, I began taking care of my health for the first time in my life. I quit smoking. I never thought I could and never much wanted to, but I quit"—he snapped his fingers—"like that. I miss it." His hand returned to his lapel. "But I'm not going to start again. I drink moderately; medicinally, actually. And I once drank a lot on occasion. Frequent occasion. Because I liked it. But no more now, and I follow a diet besides. Why all this nonsense?" He raised a hand, forefinger pointing up. "Because I want to live and be with this project just as long as I possibly can. I've had an interesting life, I haven't been cheated; I've been in two wars, lived in five countries, had two wives, a great many friends of both sexes, and once for four years I was rich. No children, though; you can't have everything." Again Dr. Danziger stared at me, eyes friendly and envious, hands hung on his lapels. "But if this project should succeed, it will be the most remarkable thing mortal man has ever done, and I'll give up anything, I'd follow a diet of raw turnips and horse manure, just to get an extra year or even an extra month of life for it. No matter how carefully a man lives, though, at sixty-eight his remaining years are numbered, while you—you're what: twenty-eight?" I nodded. "Well, you've got forty years on me then, and if I could steal them from you I'd do it, cheerfully and without compunction. I even envy you this day. Have you ever given someone a book you enjoyed enormously, with a feeling of envy because they were about to read it for the first time, an experience you could never have again?"

  "Yes, sir; Huckleberry Finn."

  "Right. Well, that's how I feel about the day you're going to have now. Take him away, Rube. There's lots to show him, and we're in a hurry now." He raised a wrist to look at his watch. "Bring him to the cafeteria at noon."

  3

  Out in the corridors as I walked along with Rube, people passed us, moving to and from offices. They were men and women, mostly young, and whenever one walked by, speaking or nodding to Rube, he or she would glance at me curiously. Rube was watching me, I saw, smiling a little, and when I looked at him he said, "What do you think you're going to see?"

  I tried to find an answer but had to shake my head. "I haven't a glimmering, Rube."

  "Well, I'm sorry to be so damn mysterious. But it's the director who explains this, not me. And you have to see it before he can explain it." We turned a corner and then another, into a corridor considerably narrower than the others. We turned once more, and now we were walking along a narrow aisle that stretched ahead for a considerable distance.

  One wall of the aisle was blank. The other was a series of tinted windows through which we could see into what Rube told me were instruction rooms. The first three were empty and were fitted out as ordinary classrooms. There were six or eight one-armed wooden chairs in each, the arms widening into writing surfaces; there were blackboards, bookshelves, teachers' desks and chairs. At the fourth window two men were sitting in the same kind of room, one at the desk, the other in a wooden chair facing him, and we stopped to watch. "We can see in, they can't see out," Rube said. "Everyone knows it; it's just a matter of not disturbing people at work."

  The man in the student's chair was talking, steadily but with frequent pauses, sometimes rubbing his face in thought. He was about forty, thin and dark, and wore a navy-blue sweater and a white shirt open at the collar. The instructor at the desk was younger and wore a brown tweed sport coat. Beside the window on a stainless-steel wall plate was a pair of buttons. Rube pushed one and now we could hear the speaking man's voice from a loudspeaker behind a grill over the window.

  It was a foreign language, and after a dozen seconds or so I thought I recognized it and was about to say so, then I stopped. I'd thought it was French, a language I can recognize, but now I wasn't sure. I stood listening carefully; some of the words were French, I was almost certain, but pronounced not quite correctly. He kept on, fluently enough, the instructor occas
ionally correcting pronunciation, which the other would repeat a few times before continuing. "Is it French?"

  From the way Rube smiled I knew he'd been waiting for the question. "Yep. But medieval French; no one has talked like that in four hundred years." He pressed the other button, and the loudspeaker went silent, the man's lips continuing to move, and we walked on. At the next window Rube jabbed the speaker button, I heard a stifled grunt and the clash of wood on wood, then I stopped beside him and stood looking into the room.

  It was completely bare, the walls padded and faced with heavy canvas; in it two men were fighting with bayonet-tipped rifles. One wore the shallow helmet, high-necked khaki blouse, and roll-puttees of a First World War American uniform. The other wore the black boots, gray uniform, and deep flared helmet of the Germans. The bayonets were an odd false-looking silver, and I saw that they were painted rubber. The men's faces were shiny with sweat, their uniforms stained at armpits and back, and as we watched they parried and riposted, heaved and shoved, grunting as the rifles clashed. Suddenly the German stepped back fast, feinted, sidestepped a counterthrust, and drove his rifle straight into the other's stomach, the rubber bayonet bending double against the khaki. "You're dead, pig of an American!" he yelled, and the other shouted, "Hell I am, that's just a little stomach wound!" They both started laughing, jabbing away at each other, and Rube stood glaring in at them, muttering, "Wrong, wrong, the bastards! An absolutely wrong attitude!" I glanced at him: He looked mean and dangerous, his lips set, eyes narrowed. For a moment longer he stared in silence, then punched the cutoff button hard with his thumb and swung away from the window.

  A dozen men sat in the next room. Most of them wore white carpenter's overalls; a few were in blue jeans and work shirts. Beside the desk a man in khaki wash pants and shirt stood pointing with a ruler at a cardboard model which completely covered the desk top. It was a model of a room, one wall missing like a stage set, and the man was pointing to the miniature ceiling. Rube pushed the button beside the window. "...painted beams. But only at the highest ceiling points, where it's dark." The ruler moved to a wall. "Down here begin real oak beams, and real plaster. Mixed with straw; don't forget that, damn it." Rube poked the cutoff button, and once more we walked on.