Time and Again

by Jack Finney

  I was around the corner now, out of his line of fire. He was far behind, probably just getting to his feet, and I knew I'd make it to Second Avenue if my wind held out. I had to walk the last dozen yards gasping, looking behind me, but he was nowhere in sight. At Second I turned south, knowing that—no radios, no patrol cars, hardly any phones—I was temporarily safe again.

  Four blocks down I walked into a saloon, ordered a stein of beer, took a couple of sips, then walked back through a dim hallway to the toilet, and killed six or seven minutes just standing there. I came back and had a couple more sips of beer; there were half a dozen men standing at the bar, paying me no attention. Then I walked to the free-lunch table and took a ham sandwich, with two hard-boiled eggs and a dill pickle, back to the bar, and ate them with the rest of my beer. And when I left I had two more hard-boiled eggs, and a thick cheese sandwich, which I'd sneaked into my overcoat pocket.

  I spent fifteen minutes standing in an alley in a locked doorway; occasionally, in case anyone was watching from an upper story somewhere, I hauled out my watch and looked at it, as though waiting for someone. Then I walked again, down Second. Twice a horsecar passed but I was keeping off them now; I wanted to be ready to move in any of four directions. At Thirty-seventh Street I saw a cop ahead, and turned off Second and went back to Third, then headed south again. Seven or eight blocks, and a cop came walking out of Twenty-ninth Street not ten yards ahead, looked toward me, said, "Hey!" and began to walk quickly in my direction. I stopped. He was far too close for me to run; I'd have been shot in the back. A few steps ahead and at the outer edge of the walk near the curb, a man and a woman had stopped, too. And now the cop, pulling off his helmet, stopped before them. As I walked past—my steps as quiet as I could make them—trying to shrink myself into invisibility, he took his photographs out of the helmet, and I saw that the couple was young and that the girl's dress, the hem visible under her coat, was the same color as Julia's though not the same shade and the man's overcoat was vaguely like mine. But they matched the description Byrnes had dictated, and as I turned onto Twenty-ninth Street I heard the cop order the man to turn his head, and I knew he was comparing his face to my photograph. As fast as I could without drawing attention, I walked over to Lexington Avenue. There a pair of lamplighters were moving down the street, touching each lamp into light, and before I reached Gramercy Park, at Twenty-first Street, it was dark.

  The fenced-in rectangle of Gramercy Park lay between me and Number 19. I stood in the shadows between two streetlamps, and through the bare branches and black iron bars of the fence I looked across its snow-covered grass and bushes to watch the house. The lower-floor windows—parlor, dining room, kitchen—were all lighted, and so were two of the upper windows. I'd seen someone, either Byron Doverman or Felix Grier, pass a front lower window, a newspaper in his hand. And now a light upstairs went out. Then, barely visible through the intervening shrubs, fencing, and trees, I saw the cop on the other side of the square. He was walking slowly past the house.

  He walked on to the corner of the square, then turned and walked back just as slowly, on past the house again to the opposite corner. He turned to walk back, and I hauled out my watch and timed him. It took just about a minute and a half to walk past the house once more, up to the corner again, and turn; and it took the same time to walk back. Six times, watch in hand, I watched him walk that beat, back and forth in the same path, and as regular as my watch he did it in a minute and a half each time. If I timed my movements with his, it would be perfectly possible to walk around the corner of the square toward the house, and then—behind his back as he walked slowly past the house—to silently cross the street, hurry up the steps, and with my own key unlock the front door and slip inside before he turned to walk back again. Up the stairs to my room, the rest of my money in my hand within seconds. Then down again, watch the cop through the door crack, then out and across the street behind his back once more.

  But I didn't move: Was it really going to be that easy to outwit Byrnes? The man had set a trap for me and Julia, overlooking nothing so far. Was this cop, so easy to sneak past, only what he seemed? I stood watching him, and again he walked his beat in precisely the same way, and then again. Maybe he was what he seemed—just a cop, not Byrnes himself; a human being doing a tiresome job and falling into a regular pattern. I moved a few yards along my fence, stood watching again, and suddenly I saw him. Entirely motionless—he must have been chilled through no matter how many layers of clothes he wore—a man sat on a bench inside the park facing Number 19. He was dressed in dark clothes, his coat collar up, and, motionless in the darkness there inside the park, he was almost invisible. There he sat, waiting for me or Julia to cleverly time our movements to the slow metronome of the cop's walk and cross the street as he watched. Then, the street door closing, a low whistle, and the cop strolling the sidewalk suddenly turning to run to the house.

  I actually backed away from the park for a step or two, then I turned and walked off. It was only a few blocks to Madison Square, and though I walked them warily I knew now that we were going to be caught. Unless I simply deserted Julia, which I wasn't going to do, Byrnes had us—bottled up, trapped. Without money for food, even holing up somewhere was useless. He had us as planned; as he'd known he would since even before he'd picked us up. Did he want us killed? While "avoiding detention"? Maybe; it would be a simple and very quick way to the meeting in Carmody's Wall Street office. Or did he want us caught? It probably didn't matter to him; our "escape" proved our guilt, or at least disproved any claim to innocence. For two powerful people like Byrnes and Andrew Carmody to actually convict us of a charge of murder after our attempted escape wouldn't be hard in an 1882 courtroom. And all I could do about it was stick with Julia; I had to do that and just hope against hope, I didn't even know for what.

  I saw her enter the square from Fifth Avenue, walking briskly, purposefully, along the curve of a path, her long-skirted silhouette sharp against the light from an overhead standard, then blurring in the shadows, sharpening again as she walked into the next cone of pale yellow light. I met her at the downtown end of the park, she smiled with relief when she saw me, and I took her arm, and we walked toward the other end as though we knew where we were going. As we walked I told her what had happened, that we still had no money, and for a moment she closed her eyes, and said, "Oh, God."

  "What's wrong?"

  "I'm so tired, Si; I simply cannot continue endlessly walking." Then she smiled, squeezing my arm under hers, and I smiled back; I had nothing to encourage her about. She'd stopped at a messenger-service office, she said, soon after she'd left me, and sent a handwritten note by messenger boy to her aunt. She was all right, it had said; she'd be away for a time; she'd explain when she returned; meanwhile her aunt wasn't to worry. "Of course she will," Julia said, "but at least she's heard from me, and it was the best I could do. I wish—" Under my arm, hers moved sharply, and I saw the cops, a pair of them, crossing Fifth toward the square, and we turned right around to walk just as purposefully back in the direction we'd come from, hoping they hadn't yet seen us through the trees and shrubs. It seemed useless yet we instinctively postponed being caught.

  As we approached the south end of the park and could see Twenty-third Street, I saw a cop standing on the walk ahead. His back was to us, he didn't see us, was probably thinking of anything but us. If we walked out of the park past him, though, he'd see us, and once more we turned on the path. Up ahead, still two-thirds the long length of the park away from us, the cops were walking along toward us, talking. We could turn east or west now, it didn't seem to matter which, and we took the first intersecting path we came to, west toward Fifth. Julia hurried along with me, but when she spoke I knew she was close to crying. She said, "Si, I have to stop, I have to. Let me just sit down on a bench here, and you go ahead. Come back later, Si, and if I'm still here—"

  But I was shaking my head, pulling her along by force, making her walk, nearly running. Something abou
t this path, the look of the trees and placement of the benches here, had become suddenly familiar. I'd walked here before, and—yes. We rounded the bend of the path and there ahead it came into sight, a dark nearly formless bulk obscured by the thick screen of bare trees, but I recognized it. As we completed the curve it came suddenly clear, dimly silhouetted against the dark sky: the immense right arm of the Statue of Liberty, the tip of its great torch high over the trees.

  We climbed the winding stairs fast and silently, and then at last we sat down, out on the circular railed platform at the base of the great metal flame. The ornamental railing concealed us but we could look out through it, and for as long as a minute, I suppose, we just sat in silence looking down on the dark city, listening to the sound and watching the dim swaying lights of Fifth Avenue traffic. It was chill. We felt the cold of the metal through our clothes. But for the moment—just sitting, no longer having to walk—being here was enough. If it occurred to anyone to climb up and look for us here, as it might, there'd be no escape. Byrnes had run us, if not precisely to ground, at least into a cul-de-sac. But for the moment we just didn't care. In the faint light from the lamps of the square, I could see the dull, very slightly iridescent glow of the shaped copper against which Julia's head rested and I could see that she was smiling tiredly. "How good," she murmured, "how good just not to have to move." She opened her eyes, saw me watching her, and smiling again to show she didn't really mean this, she said, "Now, if we only had something to eat." I remembered, grinned, and brought out the mashed sandwich and mashed eggs, their shells cracked to particles, and handed them to her. She didn't even bother asking where they'd come from, but just shook her head, marveling, and began eating the sandwich. She offered me some, but I told her I'd eaten, and where, and made her eat it all.

  We spent the night inside, sitting near the top of the curved staircase out of the little wind that came up. We sat huddled together on the third or fourth step from the top so that, eyes level with the floor of the platform, we could look out under the railing at the city. I sat half facing Julia, my arms around her, her head on my chest. It was cold in here, but out of the wind it was tolerable, and I enjoyed it. Julia slept right away, but for a time I sat holding her and staring out at the city; all I saw was darkness sprinkled with a few dim lights. They disappeared, one or two at a time; presently there were no lights at all, the city outside nearly silent, and then I slept, too.

  Twice we awakened, very stiff and cold, and stood up and stretched and flexed our fingers. The second time, careful to make very little sound, we went outside and walked around the circular platform half a dozen times, looking down onto the treetops and the silent lighted paths of the park, looking out over the low dark city. Inside again, huddled together for warmth, my arms around Julia once more, I knew I'd had all the sleep I was going to get for a while on a cold metal staircase. I was still tired but the sleep had helped. Presently Julia whispered, "Awake?" and as I nodded, the side of my jaw brushed her hair so that I knew she could feel it. "Me, too," she said.

  And then without planning it, without any thought at all before the quiet words began, I told Julia who I was and where I had come from; I felt that it was time, that it was her due. I told her about the project; about Rube, Dr. Danziger, Oscar Rossoff; about my life in that far-off time. My voice a steady murmur hardly audible beyond her ear, I talked about my preparations with Martin, my life at the Dakota, the first successful attempt, my arrival at her house. Twice she lifted her head to stare up at my face, searching it as well as she could in the barely relieved darkness, then lying back in my arms, and I wondered what she thought. I couldn't tell. I knew I was violating a fundamental rule of the project, and knew that no one in it could ever understand this. But I felt it was right. Finally I finished, and waited.

  I could feel her draw a deep breath, then she sighed, and said, "Thank you, Si. You're the most understanding man I've ever known. You've helped me through a long night; I haven't been so enthralled since I was a girl, and read Little Women. You should write that story down, and perhaps illustrate it. I'm certain Harper's would consider it. And now I think I can sleep again."

  "Good," I said, and sat grinning at myself in the darkness: a story made up and spun out to entertain her; what in the hell else was she supposed to think? And within a few minutes, four or five, I think, I was asleep, too, this time in the soundest sleep of all.

  I woke up for good, knowing in the odd way you do that this was the last of the night, dawn not too far away now, and I was sorry. Uncomfortable as it had been, it had also been good, here with Julia. Now nothing lay ahead but a day we weren't going to get through. We'd be able to buy some sort of breakfast probably, then there was only more walking, all of yesterday's weariness back in our legs in an hour, until presently we were caught. Possibly, I thought, we ought to give ourselves up right away; at least we'd be warm then, and could stop running.

  There was no light, the first sun a long way off, yet the darkness was just faintly diluted. Looking out, I could see the ornate pattern of the railing, and I hadn't been able to do that before. All over again the strangeness of where we were struck me. I had to say it to myself; incredibly we were here, high up in the arm and torch of the Statue of Liberty. And then it occurred to me: Could it be made to happen? I considered it, and thought that maybe it could, and I carefully tightened my arms around Julia, pressing my cheek to the top of her head, holding her very close, making her as much a part of me as I was able. Then, in the technique Oscar Rossoff had taught me, I began to free my mind from the time I was in. For this, too, this great metal hand with its torch, was a part of both the New Yorks I had known, existing in each of them. And in my mind I allowed the twentieth century to come to life. Then I told myself where I was; where we were, Julia and I. And I felt it happen.

  My arms squeezed, holding Julia even tighter during that moment, so that she stirred and opened her eyes. She looked up at me blankly. "Where..." Then she glanced around her, realizing, said, "Oh," and smiled. I let her go, stood up stiffly, and she got up, too, and we walked out onto the platform. The darkness was going, a whiteness and lightness coming into the air, but we couldn't really see; we heard it instead. I was expecting it and recognized the sound first, glancing at Julia. I saw the look of bafflement come to her face, and she turned to me, frowning. "Waves?'' she said. "Si, I hear waves, I swear I do!" Then she sniffed the air. "And I can smell the sea." She was frightened. "Si, what—"

  I had my arm around her shoulders, saying softly, "Julia, we've escaped. The story I told you last night is true. It was the truth, Julia; I've brought you with me into my own time."

  She stared at my face, saw the truth in my eyes, and buried her face on my chest. "Oh, Si, I'm frightened! I can't look!"

  Ahead, the whole sky was light now, pinkening the horizon, the tiny whitecaps in the harbor far below suddenly just visible. "Yes, you can," I said, and took her chin, lifting her head, turning it toward the railing to the east. She looked out across it, saw the water and the harbor far below; then she turned to see the blue-green skin of verdigris, the patina of decades, on the giant copper torch and flame behind us, and began to tremble.

  Under my arm her shoulders actually shook with fright—yet she couldn't stop looking. Her head turned endlessly from side to side, seeing it all; and all that she said over and again every few seconds was "Oh, Si!" in a frightened, excited, ecstatic wail. Her face was dead-white, and her hand as she raised it to press tight against her cheek was trembling, but she'd begun to smile.

  Far out, the first thin edge of sun suddenly touched the rim of the ocean, and now ships were visible. Then, the sun edging up over the horizon as we stared, I took Julia's arm, and we walked around our little railed circle. On the other side Julia stopped to stand stock-still, her breath suddenly caught motionless in her chest as she stared out across the harbor at the astonishing, soaring skyscrapers filling the tip of Manhattan Island, their tens of thousands of windows flashing ora
nge in the dawn.

  21

  We took the first sight-seeing boat back to Manhattan, the handful of wintertime tourists who filed off it glancing curiously at Julia's clothes as we stood waiting to board. They ignored me, my overcoat and round fur hat, not much different from plenty of others. This was the one boat of the day returning to New York empty of passengers—except, this time, for us. The next boat would leave its new arrivals and take the first batch back, and so on throughout the day. I was grateful; I didn't feel like being stared at. A little belligerently, the attendant asked where we'd come from. I said we'd missed the last boat yesterday afternoon, and had spent the night on the island. It took him a second or so to decide what he thought about that, then he grinned a little lewdly and motioned us on; our clothes didn't seem to bother him a bit.

  The second deck was open, and we climbed the inside stairs to it as the boat nosed out into the channel. Then we moved through the water toward Manhattan, Julia motionless beside me watching the skyscrapers on the tip of Manhattan Island growing impossibly larger and larger. We had a completely unobstructed view of lower Manhattan, and of New Jersey, South Brooklyn, Staten Island, and of the harbor looking toward the Verrazano bridge, and for ten minutes Julia just stared without speaking. Then, leaning toward me but without for an instant taking her eyes from the immense buildings crowding the tip of Manhattan—beautiful now in the full morning sun—she said, "What makes them stand up?" I explained what I knew or thought I knew about steel frameworks, but stopped in mid-sentence. She wasn't listening, hadn't heard a word. She just sat staring, till suddenly she gripped my arm, her face lighting up. "The new bridge!" she said, pointing at the Brooklyn Bridge up the East River, to the right of Manhattan.