Time and Again

by Jack Finney

  I said no, and Rube ordered apple pie and another stein of beer. I didn't say much or argue with him. I sat looking doubtful, and probably confused, because that's how I felt. Rube ate quickly, a quarter of his slice of pie at a bite, followed by a fourth of his stein of beer. Suddenly, impulsively, he grinned at me, a wonderfully likable guy, and said, "Si, stay with us, for crysake. You haven't done a damn bit of harm so far, it's affected nothing at all, and we have the proof of that. And that's how it'll be from now on if you're careful."

  We talked a little more of what had happened to me at 19 Gramercy Park, while Rube sat comfortably back in a corner of the booth with a cigar; and I told him something of what I felt about New York then and now. And he listened and asked questions, absolutely fascinated. He said, "I can't do it, you know. I tried long before I met you, and I just can't achieve it; Lord, how I envy you." He glanced at his watch, then sat up reluctantly; he started to slide out of the booth, then suddenly reached across the table and put a hand on my forearm. "I don't really have to argue with you, Si, because you see it as well as I do: The project can't be dropped, it just can't. And since you want to stay with it, there's just no sense in not staying." I didn't nod or murmur any sort of agreement, but I didn't say no, either. Rube slid out of the booth, I stood up with him, and on the way back to the warehouse we talked football. Even now I feel ashamed; I have no excuse. I just could not give up the chance to go back, I knew it, and that's all there was to it.

  When we got back Danziger had already left, for good—as I might have guessed, and probably had. But his girl gave me his address and phone number; he lived in an apartment building in the Bronx. I used her phone, and called but got no answer; he probably hadn't had time to get there yet, and might not have gone straight home. When I hung up, I stood with my hand on the phone for a moment or so longer, but didn't dial Kate; was I postponing getting in touch with her?

  A little later, walking across town toward her shop, I thought about it. I'd been too busy, I started to tell myself, with hardly a moment to phone Kate. But while that was true, it wasn't the whole truth. Was the reluctance—it had been there, I had to admit it—connected with Julia? Well, the electricity had flowed faster whenever I'd been around her, that was true, but I didn't think it was Julia.

  Maybe it was the news I was going to have to give Kate: that Ira's father had been, simply, a crook; a swindler and grafter. But he was dead long before Kate was born, was no relation anyway, and the news couldn't hurt Ira. I didn't know what it was, and just moseyed along through the streets till I got to her shop.

  Kate was there; she was just coming into the shop from the little back workroom when I opened the shop door and the bell jangled. She'd been stripping layers of old paint from a chair, wearing blue denims, an old blouse and an apron, and her hands were full of the gunk she was using. So we just leaned toward each other for a little peck of a kiss, and in the workroom I sat on a little keg she had there while she worked on the chair, telling her all about everything. And that was fun, she was so completely enthralled.

  After Kate closed the shop we walked a block to the supermarket where she bought a steak and some butter; I went to the liquor store a few doors away and got a bottle of whiskey, then came back and picked up some soda. And when we were upstairs in Kate's little apartment, having our second drink, potatoes boiling in the kitchen, I couldn't understand why I'd hesitated about getting in touch with her. This was the only place I wanted to be, and the hours of being here that still lay ahead all looked very good to me.

  Kate had a special interest, of course, in what I had to tell her as we had our drinks and during dinner; she'd seen the time and place I was talking about, had seen or at least glimpsed Jake Pickering. And when I told her about Carmody she hardly moved, just sat with her lips parted, fascinated. When I told her about Danziger, Esterhazy, and Rube, and what I'd decided, she listened, then made a few careful and minimal comments, anxious not to interfere with my decision; I knew she was glad, she couldn't help it, that I was going back.

  She got up from the table, went to her bedroom, and returned with her red-cardboard accordion folder, untying the red-string bow as she walked. And once again we looked at the strange little black-and-white snapshot of Andrew Carmody's gravestone. There it stood, mysteriously, among the gone-to-seed dandelions and sparse grass; a cartoonist's gravestone, the top a perfect half-circle, the sides straight, the whole stone sunk low in the ground and a little off kilter. And on the stone, sharp and clear, the strange design: no word, name or date, only the nine-pointed star inscribed in a circle, made from dozens of dots tapped into the stone; the design we'd seen, incredibly, impressed in the snow at the base of a lamp standard, on Broadway, New York, January 23, 1882.

  We looked again, marveling, at the blue envelope and the black ink of its address, its ferrous content showing rusty through the black. Kate shook the note from the envelope and read aloud the top portion above the fold, in black. " 'If a discussion of Court House Carrara should prove of interest to you, please appear in City Hall Park at half past twelve on Thursday next.' " She lowered the note to look at me. "And now we know," she said, her voice awed. "We really know what happened in the park. I'm glad Ira didn't." She lifted the note again, and read the portion below the fold. " 'That the sending of this should cause the Destruction by Fire of the entire World'—oh, what's the missing word!—'seems well-nigh incredible. Yet it is so, and the Fault and the Guilt' "—she paused to indicate the second missing word or words—" 'mine, and can never be denied or escaped. So, with this wretched souvenir of that Event before me, I now end the life which should have ended then.' " Kate slid the note back into its envelope. "Do whatever it is they're sending you back for, Si; but find out for me what that note means. That's why you're ignoring Danziger, isn't it? You've got to go back; you can't help it." And I nodded.

  Esterhazy had the good grace in the morning not to have taken over Dr. Danziger's office. We met in Rube's little cubbyhole, Rube in shirt-sleeves behind his desk, tilted far back in his swivel chair, hands clasped behind his head, grinning at me. Esterhazy half sat, half leaned against a corner of Rube's desk, very neat, almost military in a gray gabardine suit, white shirt, and dark tie. I sat on the one chair facing both of them.

  I was to go back and resume, was about all they had to say. They wanted to know whatever else I could learn about Andrew Carmody and what happened between him and Jake Pickering: The historians especially wanted to know, Rube said; they already had a team of two historians with a couple of postgrad student assistants at the Library of Congress digging up whatever they could on his relationship with Cleveland, and a second similar team at the National Archives. Anything I could learn might expand or illuminate whatever they should find out. The end result of this pilot test project, it was hoped, would be a workable method for enlarging our entire knowledge of history.

  On my way back to the Dakota—Rube drove me over—I told myself I was doing the right thing, the only thing; that there was no defect in the arguments I'd listened to and had made myself. But if that was true, I had to wonder, why did I feel I was doing wrong? And why, if I was so sure of what I was doing, hadn't I talked to Dr. Danziger? There'd been time to phone him; there still was. But I knew I wasn't going to.

  17

  It had become habit, leaving the Dakota, to walk out and back into the winter of 1882. I was used to the process now; there were no longer any doubts that it would happen lingering in my mind. Without questioning it I simply knew I was back and accepted it. So it seemed natural, stepping up onto the curb into Central Park—it had snowed during the day—to see horse-drawn sleighs, dozens and dozens and endless more dozens of then, gliding along every park roadway as far as I could see.

  It was a great sight, and walking along the path I felt that every sense was stirred and I was suddenly keenly aware of the winter actuality of it. My face felt the sharp clean air press onto my cheeks as I walked, and my lungs tasted it, clear and cold.
Nearly every passing horse carried harness bells, and the winter air was bright with their sound, the drum of hoofs and the hiss of runners electrically exciting. And there was a special quality, a happy nostalgia, in the sound—high and faintly muffled—of voices outdoors in new snow. A maroon-enameled sleigh, passing close, had side panels painted with winter scenes, some of the horses wore whisks of dyed horsehair or feathers, and I swear that the eyes of every man and woman and child who jingled past me were smiling with the pleasure of the moment.

  I stopped on the path and made a quick sketch of the scene. Much later I finished it, working very carefully in the style of the period because it seemed appropriate. It's on the next page. You can see the Dakota in the background, and I wish you could hear the silvery sound of the wonderfully elaborate harness bells mounted on the horses' backs.

  Off across the park as I approached they were skating on the pond, and everywhere the park swarmed with kids, belly-flopping onto low wooden sleds, smaller kids bundled to the ears on high spraddle-runnered sleds pulled by older sisters, brothers, or adults. One such passed me pulled by a white-bearded man whose clothes—gaiters, very skinny pants, a strange dull-silk top hat that flared out at the top—were years out of fashion. He must have been far into his seventies, pulling that sled through the snow, and he was smiling; like everyone else I could see in the entire park, he was having fun. So was I, and I was suddenly happy to be alive here in this place at this time and moment; I was happy, I realized, to be back.

  But I didn't look forward to returning to 19 Gramercy Park; this was Sunday, and Jake Pickering could be home. So I stopped at a saloon on West Fifty-seventh Street—its front door was locked, in deference to the Sunday closing law, I learned, after following two men in through a side door. There I had some soup and two huge sandwiches; I wanted to keep the greetings and questions and especially my first encounter with Jake as brief as possible, going up to my room immediately afterward, and saying I wasn't hungry at suppertime.

  But when I turned the corner, two big sleighs stood before the house. Felix Grier and a girl I didn't know sat in the front seat of the first one, Felix holding the reins, the girl with Felix's new birthday camera cradled in her lap; Byron Doverman was just helping a young woman into the rear seat. Julia was coming down the steps, carefully because of a layer of new snow, and right beside her Jake, in top hat and dark overcoat with a lamb's-wool collar, held her elbow. Maud Torrence was just behind them, and up on the stoop Aunt Ada stood locking the front door.

  They saw me before I could turn away; calling and beckoning. Felix, out of his mind with excitement—over the girl, I imagined—yelled down the street at me. "Welcome home! Just in time for the sleighing party! Mr. Pickering's rented two sleighs!" Waving back feebly, trying to smile as I walked on toward them, I was slamming together an excuse in my mind: tired out; long train ride; coming down with la grippe. Because of course I couldn't ride, the fifth wheel, with the two bachelors and their dates; and to ride in the other sleigh, Pickering glowering, then doing God only knew what crazy thing, was impossible. They surrounded me then, Felix leaping out of his sleigh to grab my free hand, the questions popping—how was my brother, how was my family?—welcoming me back, Byron grabbing my hand next, everyone so plainly glad to see me that I felt my eyes smart.

  And then my hand was grabbed again, and Jake was pumping it, happily grinning at me! I was trying to respond: My brother was unexpectedly much better; all was well at home; glad to be back! But I was staring at Jake, astounded: His big brown eyes were warm and friendly and his smile as he stood shaking my hand was real, as obviously sincere as the others. Julia was smiling at me, so really pleased my heart jumped. She shook my hand, so did Maud, and when Aunt Ada took my hand, she leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek.

  And with that, I suddenly wanted to go with these people, wanted nothing else more. Aunt Ada took my bag, to unlock the door and set it inside, and Byron and Felix introduced me to their dates: Felix's very young and pretty; Byron's older, and though her face was pocked, an attractive woman, looking quietly intelligent. They politely asked me to ride with them but before I could reply Jake was saying no, I had to ride with them, taking me by the elbow, urging me to climb in; and when Julia suggested I ride up front with them, Jake agreed enthusiastically, asking if I wanted "the ribbons," meaning the reins, I realized. I simply gave up trying to figure out what was happening. Jake, I assumed, was a manic-depressive, an emotional pendulum, and I was glad and relieved to let it go at that.

  He took the reins after I refused with thanks; the horses would have turned and laughed if I'd tried to drive them. Maud and Aunt Ada sat in back, Julia in front between Jake and me. There's something keenly intimate, I discovered, in being pressed snugly against a girl, waist to knees, underneath a robe. Tucking the robe in on my side, I glanced at Jake but he was grinning, hands on the reins ready to go. It wasn't quite comfortable, pressed shoulder to shoulder, and I brought up my left arm and laid it along the back of the seat behind Julia. But I was careful not to actually touch her; there was no point, no future, in dwelling on how nice it was this close beside her, and I made myself think of the scene, the snow-mounded black-iron fence and trees and shrubbery of little Gramercy Park beside us.

  "Ready?" Felix yelled over his shoulder, and Jake exuberantly shouted back that he was. Their reins snapped simultaneously, both teams dug in, and the harness bells came to life. The runners sliding easily, the horses eased back; then at a second snap of the reins as we rounded the corner onto Twenty-first Street, they tossed their heads, snorting jets of warm breath, and began to trot, obviously enjoying themselves, and now the harness bells sang.

  All I can really tell you about the rest of that day and the evening is that it was magical. A dream. The white streets of Manhattan were filled with sleighs; the air everywhere was alive with the music of their bells. And if that sounds overly lyrical I can't help it. The weekday wagons and vans were gone, even the horse-drawn buses and cars were rare; the streets and sidewalks were given over to people.

  On the walks they were pulling kids on sleds, throwing snowballs, making snowmen; children, adults, old men and women, laughing, calling to each other. And in the streets we passed and were passed by every kind of sleigh, and we called to them and they to us. We raced them sometimes; once, going up Fifth Avenue, we raced three teams abreast, drivers on their feet, whips cracking, girls shrieking, for nearly two blocks before—sleighs coming the other way—we had to fall into single file cheering and shouting. Heading north somewhere in the Fifties, Felix's sleigh half a block behind, Jake turned impulsively into a cross street just as a sleigh coming south swung in, too. Bells jingling, we trotted along side by side, grinning at each other.

  It was a big, green-enameled swan's-neck affair, a beautiful sleigh. They were five kids in their late teens and early twenties, and one of the girls, in a red-and-white knitted cap tied under her chin, began singing: Dashing through the snow! In a one-horse open sleigh! O'er the field we go! And then all ten of us, everyone but me knowing all the words, came in on Laughing all the way! To the exact rhythm of our horses' hoofs and the jounce of our bells, we lined it out: Bells on bobtail ring! Making spirits bright! What fun it is to ride and sing—and it was; oh, Lord, it was—a sleighing song tonight! Then we roared it: Jingle bells, jingle bells! Jingle all the way! Oh, what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh! For two blocks—people on the walks calling out to us, kids throwing snowballs at us—we sang. Beside me Julia's voice was high, a soprano, very clear, very sweet and lovely, the white mist of her breath punctuating every phrase. Maud was nearly inaudible, Aunt Ada surprisingly youthful and good, Jake a rumbling baritone; and I guess I was a sort of lost-in-the-shuffle tenor. At the corner the kids swung south. Waving and yelling at each other, we headed north toward Central Park, both sleighs continuing to sing as long as each could hear the other.

  Felix caught up with us, and in the Park he took the lead, and we all flew along t
he curving roads with hundreds of other sleighs. Fast as we moved, sleighs raced past us, hoofs drumming, the runners on one side sometimes actually lifting from the snow on the curves. Some of the drivers carried what the others said were fish horns: brass horns they occasionally raised and blew into, producing a single mournful yet somehow exciting blast of brassy sound that hung in the air for a moment afterward. Ahead, Felix pulled over for a shot of the roadway, and we waited behind him as he focused the big red-leather-and-varnished-wood camera, the brass fittings gleaming in the winter light. It came out good, and when I saw it later I asked him for a copy, which he gave me. This is it, and I can't even look at it without smiling with pleasure.