As I continued on, I became conscious of my stomach. It felt tight and overheated. I attempted to recall if I had eaten recently but that thought, too, bewildered and disturbed me. The day on which I’d eaten last was not the day I walked in now. Yet did my body know that? Though years had been traversed, as far as my system was concerned wasn’t I still in a confluent span of hours? That accepted, it was not surprising that my stomach felt upset, my head wrapped in wool, my body stonelike and unreal. I’d gone from 1971 to 1896 in a matter of seconds.
A reaction hit me with staggering force and I had to stop and lean against the wall, chest heaving with breath. How can my lungs breathe this air? I thought insanely. I closed my eyes, trying hard to assert present consciousness. I was there! The conviction had to sweep away all others. I was standing, mind and body, on—
I shuddered. What day was it? I’d instructed myself for November 19th. But it had been a Friday on which I’d spoken, then written, then thought the instruction. Was it Friday now? Or Thursday the 19th? The uncertainty frightened me. If it was Friday, her performance would be given in a few hours and I might never get to meet her.
I began to shake, unable to control it. I had never dealt with the actual details of our confrontation. Even believing, as I had to, that our meeting was inevitable, how was I to go about it in practical terms? She might be rehearsing, surrounded by members of her company, her privacy maintained by Robinson or, for all I knew, a squad of uniformed policemen. She might be in her room, her mother chaperoning; undoubtedly, they shared a room—again, perhaps, guarded by police. Or she might be eating with her mother and, probably, Robinson. At every turn, she might be in protective company. How was I to get the opportunity even to speak to her, much less convey my cause?
The hopelessness of what I’d dreamed swept across me with such brutal harshness that it took my breath away. I leaned my back against the wall, eyes shut, completely overwhelmed by dread. There was no way. Reaching 1896 had been a simple feat compared to meeting her. The first I’d done alone, with no one to dissuade or interfere with me except myself.
There would be a host of human obstacles to foil the second.
I’m sure that was a crisis point for me. For minutes—I shall never know how many—I slumped against the wall, strength drained, incapable of going on; too weak even to curse myself for my stupidity in not foreseeing so elementary a restriction; crushed by despair because it all seemed, now, so totally beyond my grasp.
I might, conceivably, be standing there yet (assuming that my mind’s paralysis had not eventually driven me back to 1971) had not the unexpected sound of footsteps reached me. My eyes sprang open as I jerked my head around and saw a man approaching down the corridor.
I stared at him with foreboding. He was wearing what appeared to me to be a suit like one my brother had been wearing in a photograph from our family album: made of gray tweed, with knickers. Only as the man drew closer did I see that the coat was different, looking more like a shirt, and that he wore gray, buttoned shoes and held a pearl-gray derby in one hand. It was impossible to guess his age because of his beard. Charles Dickens, I remember thinking dazedly. I knew it couldn’t be him, but there was such a strong resemblance.
On the other hand, I must have resembled a wraith to him for his expression showed alarm, then, instantly, concern. He increased his pace and hurried to my side. “My dear sir, are you ill?” he asked.
The sound of the first voice I’d heard since arriving in 1896 seared through me like an electric shock, making me shudder. “My dear sir,” said the man. He caught hold of my arm.
I stared into his face, mere inches from my own. This morning (mine), this man had been dead for many years; my mind could not avoid the lurid thought. Now he was young and vital; close-up, I could see that he was probably younger than I was. I felt the sinewy pressure of his fingers on my arm, saw awareness in his bright blue eyes, even smelled the unmistakable aroma of tobacco on his breath. He was vividly and awesomely alive.
“May I assist you to your room?” he asked.
I swallowed parchedly and braced myself. I had to start adjusting or I’d lose it all; I knew that clearly. “No, thank you,” I replied. I tried to smile. “Just a touch of the—”
I broke off, newly afflicted. I’d been about to say “the flu” when I realized that it couldn’t have been described that way in 1896. “—vertigo,” I finished lamely. “I’ve been a little ill.”
“Perhaps if you took a lie-down,” he suggested, the oddness of the phrase striking me. He sounded genuinely concerned and it struck me that my first exposure to another person might have been disastrous if, instead of this young man, I’d met some cold, unpleasant one who’d only aggravated my distress.
I managed to smile. “No, thank you. I’ll be fine,” I said. “I appreciate your help though.”
“Not at all, sir.” Smiling, he released his grip. “You’re certain I can be of no assistance?”
“No. Thank you. I’ll be fine.” I knew I was repeating myself but no other words sprang to mind. Like my gait, I seemed to be initiating speech in this new environment with stumbling ineptitude.
He was nodding. “Well …” His brow contracted into furrows once more. “Are you certain?” he inquired. “You do look rather pale.”
I nodded back. “Yes, thank you. I’ll—I’m almost to my room,” I added as the phrase occurred to me.
“Very well.” He patted me genially on the shoulder. “Do take care then.”
As he continued down the corridor, I started walking in the opposite direction so he wouldn’t see me still against the wall and feel an obligation to return. I moved slowly but, in recollection, more or less erectly A vital moment, I thought again. My first encounter with a citizen of 1896. The hurdle had been crossed successfully.
Which brought on the thought that, had I been in a similar strait in this corridor in 1971, I doubt if I’d have been approached so kindly. When people stand by mutely, watching others being murdered, what was the likelihood that I, slumped against the wall in wan distress, would have gleaned any better than a clinical stare?
Moving down the staircase, I began to hear a murmur of voices and a blend of sounds which I could not identify. Descent into the maelstrom, I remember thinking. My next ordeal and a far more perilous one. Where there had been one corridor and one solicitous gentleman, I now faced a multitude of people in their full, demanding habitat of 1896.
I stopped descending, feeling cold and weak, wondering if I had the strength to face it. Never was it more apparent to me that to reach another time is infinitely less demanding than adapting to it.
I had to adapt to it though. I could not permit myself to give up now, when Elise was only minutes from me. Gripping the banister as firmly as I could, I continued down the stairs, the pulse of 1896 engulfing me as I descended, challenging me to harmonize myself with its unfamiliar beat or lose it altogether.
I stopped on the final landing and looked at what appeared to be a three-sided sitting room. On the wall to my right was a fireplace, a coal fire glowing on its grate. Around it were grouped a scarf-covered table and four flimsy chairs. I stared at them for at least a minute, delaying my confrontation with the onslaught of sights and sounds I knew awaited me below.
At last, impulsively, I turned and started toward the landing area which overlooked the lobby.
I’m sure it was coincidence but, at the moment I was halfway there, the lobby lights went on. I started, gasping, stopped, and closed my eyes. Easy now, I told myself; or begged myself, I don’t know which.
A humming noise to my right made me start again and turn my opening eyes in that direction. The birdcage elevator was descending in its black, grillwork shaft.
I stared at the couple standing inside. They were only level with me for a moment but the memory of them is a vivid etching in my mind: he in a long, double-breasted Chesterfield with collar and sleeve cuffs made of fur, a glossy, black hat held against his chest; she we
aring a long fur cloak, a fine hat perched on top of her head, her dark, red hair held back by a tight bun at the nape of her neck.
Together they epitomized to me, in one brief glance, the grace and elegance of this period I’d reached. That they did not deign to take notice of my stare only strengthened the impression. As the elevator reached the lobby and was stopped, I stepped to the railing to watch them as they strode forth, one at a time, from its interior, the woman’s right hand settling lightly on the man’s left arm as he reached her side. I watched them with a sense of awe as they glided toward the front door with serene gentility. As human beings they may have been monsters, but as symbols of their time and station they were perfect.
Turning, then, I moved to the staircase and descended to the lobby.
My first impression was one of disappointment that it was not as lavish as I’d anticipated. In the somewhat austere illumination, it appeared almost dowdy in comparison to the lobby I’d seen first in 1971. The chandelier was stark, its angled bulb shades made of white glass. No red-leather chairs and sofas here. In their place were chairs and a sofa made of wicker or dark wood, potted palms, square, round, and rectangular tables, and—the sight of them startled me—polished spittoons in various strategic spots.
The desk, instead of being where it was before, was to the right of the elevator where, previously (or should I say eventually?), I’d seen open lobby and the window of the Smoke Shop. Where the desk had been, I saw a counter with a sign above it reading Western Union Telegraph Office and next to that a combination newsstand and gift shop, a glass case on the countertop displaying sundry items. Around the corner from it was an open doorway with a hanging fringe through which I could just make out what appeared to be a billiard table.
Moreover, the effect of halcyon silence was completely absent from this lobby, the floor not carpeted but made of inlaid wooden parquet on which the shoes and boots of guests and employees thudded echoingly in the high-ceilinged interior.
It was with considerable effort that I willed myself to cross it, passing a number of people en route. I blanked out perception even of what sex they were, much less of their appearance, sensing that my only chance of adaptation lay in ignoring the mass of living and inanimate minutiae which surrounded me and dealing, instead, with one item at a time.
I must have still been noticeably dazed and pale; the appraisal of me by the handlebar-mustached clerk in his severe black suit made that obvious enough. As much as possible, I attempted to compose myself as I approached him.
“Sir?” he asked.
I swallowed, realizing for the first time how extremely thirsty I’d become. “Would you tell me—?” I began. I was forced to cough and swallow again before I could complete the question. “Would you tell me, please, what room Miss McKenna is in?”
A burst of dread harrowed me as, suddenly, I imagined him replying that there was no such person staying at the hotel. After all, how did I know it was November 19th or 20th? It could, just as easily, be some other day or month, even—God!—some other year.
“Might I inquire why you wish to know, sir?” he asked. The question was politely stated but obvious suspicion lurked in his tone. Another unforeseen obstruction. Of course, they wouldn’t give, to anyone, the room number of a woman so well known.
I improvised abruptly. “I’m her cousin,” I told him. “I just arrived. I’m in Room 527.” Another stab of dread. He had only to check it out to discover I was lying.
“Is she expecting you, sir?” he asked.
“No,” I heard myself reply, instantly approving of the lie; any other answer could only result in complications. “She knows I’m in California and I wrote her that I’d try to make her opening tonight but—it is tonight, isn’t it?” I asked, trying hard to make the question sound casual.
“No, sir. Tomorrow night.”
I nodded. “Ah.”
How long we stood there eyeing each other, I have no idea. It might have been no more than seconds though it seemed like hours. By the time he spoke, my stomach was in churning knots and I didn’t even hear him; had to murmur, wincingly, “I beg your pardon?”
“I said I’ll have a bellboy take you to her room,” he said.
Her room. The words made me shiver.
“Are you ill, sir?” asked the clerk.
“A little shaky from the train trip down,” I said.
“I see.” He nodded once, then made me flinch as he raised his right hand suddenly and snapped his fingers. “George,” he said. His voice snapped too.
A short, stocky man stepped into the line of sight I was permitting myself. As he spoke, I noted his dark uniform buttoned to the neck. “Yes, Mr. Rollins,” he said.
“Escort this gentleman to Miss McKenna’s room,” the clerk informed him. The way he said it gave me the impression he was adding the implicit command “—and remain with him until you are satisfied that everything is in order.” Perhaps that was imagination. Still, he could have given me the room number rather than had me escorted.
“Yes, Mr. Rollins,” the bellboy answered. I call him a bellboy but a boy he wasn’t; he was probably more than fifty years old. He looked at me and gestured. “This way, sir.”
I started to follow him along the side corridor, trying not to let new visual discrepancies affect me but unable to prevent it. Where the Smoke Shop had been, I saw a reading room. Where the men’s room had been I saw what I took to be—from its conclave of cigar and pipe-puffing denizens—a smoking room. And, where the Victorian Lounge had been, I saw a room the function of which I failed to identify; several men and women were sitting in it, chatting.
I felt my heartbeat quicken as I looked toward the Ballroom doors ahead. Inside that room, only yards away, the stage was set or being set at that exact moment. I drew in labored breath when I saw the placard resting on an easel to the right of the doors. As in a dream, I read the lettering on it. The Famous American Actress / Miss Elise McKenna / Starring in / Mr.J. M. Barrie’s / The Little Minister / Friday, November 20, 1896 / at 8:30 P.M.
My voice trembled as I asked the bellboy, “Is it possible she’s in there now, rehearsing?”
“No, sir; no one’s in there at the moment save, perhaps, a stagehand or two.”
I nodded. What would I have done if she had been in there? Entered and accosted her? What words could I have spoken? How do you do, Miss McKenna. I’ve just traveled seventy-five years to meet you? God in heaven. Even imagining such words made my insides shrivel.
The truth of it was that I could not envision speaking to her, face-to-face. Yet there had to be a first remark, an opening phrase. Again, I’d failed to prepare myself, so involved in reaching her that I’d never given a thought to what I’d say when I did.
By then I was following the bellboy along the bare plank floor of an enclosed veranda. Looking to my left through narrow windows, I could see not a swimming pool or tennis courts, but an open walk about ten feet below and several narrow terraces below that, connected to the walk by short flights of steps. Again, it was astonishing to me to see how close the ocean was. In a storm, waves would doubtless hit the veranda windows with spray.
As we passed a wide doorway, opening on a staircase which descended to the walk, I looked through the window of one of the doors and saw three figures striding, side by side, toward the hotel, all wearing capes and hats, their sex indistinguishable in the blinding glow of sunset.
I blinked to refocus my eyes as the bellboy turned to the right and we moved through a short corridor to the open patio. The sight of it made me catch my breath. “Something wrong, sir?” the bellboy asked, stopping to look at me.
I tried to think of something to say. “The patio’s so lushly grown,” I answered.
“Patio, sir?”
I stared at him.
“We call it the Open Court,” he said.
I walked behind him up the west side of the Open Court. Despite the contrast of lighting and landscaping, what impressed me most about it
was its sense of immutability. Perhaps it was the massive looming of the hotel around me; I wasn’t sure. I tried to analyze the feeling but to no avail. The knowledge that every step brought me closer to Elise overshadowed all else in my mind. In minutes, maybe seconds, I’d be standing in front of her.
What was I to say?
My brain was unable to answer the question. The best it could manage was, “May I speak to you, Miss McKenna?” after which it blanked. Even the thought of speaking those words made me cringe. How could she possibly react with favor to such a feeble opening from a total stranger?
At that point, my imagination added its disrupting influence to my already jumbled mind. Doubtless, she’d be tired from rehearsing; nervous, maybe irritable. What if the rehearsal had gone badly? What if she’d been arguing with Robinson or her mother? Dizziness began expanding in my head again as a multitude of obstacles sprang, full-blown, to my mind, every one of them rendering it impossible for me to speak more than a few clumsy words before she excused herself, shut the door of her room in my face, and vanished from my life forever.
Once, when I was eight years old, I got lost at Coney Island. The emotion I experienced as I drew nearer to her room was identical to that which I had felt as a child—blind anxiety, an almost mindless terror, nervous system on the brink of panic. I came very close to fleeing. How could I dare face her? To come all this way only to utter several blundering words and lose the moment would demolish me. Desperately, I tried to hold on to the memory of reading that she’d met someone at the hotel during her stay here; someone who—
I stopped abruptly, frozen in my tracks, heartbeat so extreme it felt as though some maniac were battering a ram against the inside of my chest.
What if she’d already met that someone and was with him now?
The bellboy didn’t notice my stop. Yards ahead of me, he turned left through an open doorway and disappeared from sight. I remained transfixed, heartbeats causing me actual pain as I visualized her opening the door and me catching sight of a young man in the room with her. The man I’d read about, her “Coronado scandal.” The man I had deluded myself into thinking was me, so deceiving my mind that I’d succeeded in circumventing time itself to reach her.
Somewhere in Time Page 10
