The bellboy reappeared, a questioning expression on his face. I clenched my teeth and drew in straining breath. “Looking at the Court,” I muttered. I wasn’t sure my voice was even audible, though I knew that if it was, my lie was horribly apparent.
All he did was nod and say, “Yes, sir,” then gesture toward the doorway. “It’s in here, sir.”
I advanced on him, as stiffly infirm as though I were a hundred. Once more, all my hopes seemed pointless. I advanced only because I lacked the courage to retreat.
We entered a public sitting room that opened onto four bedrooms. Dazed by the enormity of what I was about to face, I noticed nothing of the decor or the furnishings. My heart still pounded slowly, heavily. I felt a throbbing at my temples and wondered, vaguely, if I was about to faint, some inner segment of my mind, unmoved by my distress, suggesting that it might be just as good a way of introducing myself to her as any I’d come up with.
The bellboy stopped at one of the doors and I saw a heavy, oval plate attached to it, the number 41 inscribed across its metal face. I twitched as he rapped the knuckles of his right hand on the door, felt the floor begin to stir beneath me, saw the walls take on a gelatinous aspect. Here you go, the mental voice addressed me calmly. Reaching out, I leaned my palm against the wall.
The phrase “almost jumped out of his skin” came close to being actualized by me as a shrill female voice spoke suddenly behind us, asking, “Lookin’ for Miss McKenna?”
I whirled with a gasp, almost lost my balance, and reached blindly for the wall again. A plump young woman was regarding us. Peculiar what inanities the mind will pick up during the most unsettling of moments. All I really noticed about her were her chapped lips.
“Yes. Is she here?” the bellboy was asking.
“She went outside a while ago.” The young woman threw a mincing glance at me, then looked back at him.
“Any idea where she went?” he asked.
“I think I heard her tell her mother she was goin’ for a walk along the beach.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, starting past her, smelling an odor that I later realized was that of laundry soap. I headed for the doorway, hoping that my stride was not as lopsided as it felt. I wondered briefly if they thought I was drunk.
“Would you care to leave a message, sir?” The bellboy’s question seemed to float behind me.
“No,” I said. I raised my hand in an effort toward a casual gesture. There was obviously no message I could leave which would make the slightest sense to her.
Wavering through the doorway of the sitting room, I turned to the left and started along the walk which led toward the north side of the hotel. Oh, God, I forgot to tip him, I thought, then remembered that I only had the two bills.
I looked at the staircase leading to the cellar, wondering—an indication of my mental state—what had happened to the Hall of History sign. I turned into the corridor and walked past the small elevator; it was there then. The youthful operator standing by it stared at me in such a way that I knew I still presented a distraught appearance. My legs moved under me but they might have been somebody else’s legs as I plodded to the door, pulled it open, and slipped outside.
The coldness of the sea air made me shiver as I descended the porch steps with cautious movements, holding on to the rail. I’d felt a sense of reassurance when I’d learned that she was walking on the beach, partly because I didn’t have to face our meeting in her room, partly because it seemed to bring the situation into some minor semblance of perspective; I had read about her love of walking and here she was walking, proving what I’d read.
The reassurance had already dissipated, though. The chance of my meeting her along the beach was terribly remote. It was my last chance too, I felt. If I failed to reach her now, she’d soon become involved in dinner, more rehearsing probably, and then she would retire to bed.
I moved unevenly along the curving promenade, beneath a line of dripping trees; until that moment I had not been conscious of the many signs that rain had fallen earlier. I walked past the empty tennis courts and over to the sea walk. The sun was on the horizon now, three-quarters buried in the sea, its color molten orange. Dark clouds hung above the distant peninsula, their lower edges aglow with sunset. Along the sea walk, large electric globes on metal poles were lit, resembling a series of pale, white moons ahead of me. I moved past a wooden bench on which a man, wearing a tall black hat, was sitting, smoking a cigar. What if it’s Robinson? the thought occurred. What if he keeps an eye on her at all times? He’d prevent me from speaking to her even if I saw her.
As I walked, I scanned the beach ahead and to the left of me; unlike what I remembered, it was less than fifty feet across. What if she isn’t out there, came another question. What if she is? My mind reversed the challenge. Still, I kept on walking—if what I was doing could, charitably, be described as walking—eyes searching for some sign of her.
After a while, I had to stop and rest, turning my back to the wind, which was not particularly strong but quite cold. As I did, the sight of the hotel struck me, its gigantic, lighted silhouette outlined against the sky like some cutout of a fairy castle.
Suddenly, I had the chilling premonition that I’d walked too far; that my grasp on 1896 was confined to the hotel itself and that, now, I would begin to lose hold and be drawn inexorably back to 1971. I closed my eyes, fighting the threat of transposition. Only after many moments did I have the courage to open my eyes and look at the hotel again. It was still there, unchanged.
When I looked at the narrow beach again, I saw her.
How did I know it was her? She was little more than a tiny outline moving almost imperceptibly against the dark blue background of the water. Under any other circumstances, I could not possibly have identified her from so little evidence. As it was, I knew it had to be Elise.
The initial sight of her had caused a chill to flood my body, made my heartbeat leap. Now, the only sensation I felt was one of numbing fear that the moment wouldn’t last, that, having reached her, I’d be taken back to where I’d come from. Fear that, even if I managed to accost her, her reaction would be one of distaste at my presumption. I had, against all logic, hoped that the sight of her at long last would instill confidence in me. The exact opposite was true. My confidence was at its nadir as I stood there wondering what I could possibly say to convince her it was not some madman who confronted her.
My head seemed to be pulsing slowly, my entire body cold, as I watched her walking near the surf line, holding her long skirt above the sand. Her approach seemed dreamlike in its slowness; as though, in the instant I’d caught sight of her, time had altered itself again, seconds extended to minutes, minutes stretched to hours, Time 1 no longer in effect. Once more, I was outside the realm of clocks and calendars, condemned to watch her moving toward me through eternity, never reaching me.
In a way, it was a relief since I had no notion of what to say to her. In a larger way, however, it was torture to believe that we would never truly come together. Once again, I felt as though I were a ghost. I actually visualized her walking up to me, then by me, eyes not even moving toward me since, to her, I wouldn’t be there.
Exactly when I started toward her at an intercepting angle, I cannot recall. I first grew conscious of movement when my boots began to skid down the eroded, four-foot-high slope to the beach, then crunch across the damp sand toward the water. Adding to the dreamlike vagueness of the moment was the now nebulous sunset along the cloudy horizon and the summit of Point Loma. My eyes kept going out of focus, sometimes losing sight of her as we walked toward each other like figures on a phantom landscape. I remembered the soldier on Owl Creek Bridge moving toward his beloved yet never reaching her, because his movements were the last, fierce moments of a dying delusion. In such a manner, endlessly, Elise McKenna and I approached each other while the low waves rolled in, one by one, the noise they made as they struck the shore so unremitting that it sounded like a roar of distant wind.
When she first became aware of me, I cannot say. I only knew, for certain, that she’d seen me when she stopped and stood immobile by the water, a silhouette against the last, dim lambency of the sunset. Her eyes were on me, I could tell, though I couldn’t see her eyes or face or dream with what emotion she regarded my approach. Was it fear she felt? I had not anticipated that she might behold my coming with alarm. Our meeting had seemed so inevitable that I’d never considered such a possibility. I considered it now. If she were to bolt or scream for help, what would I do? What could I do?
At long last, I stopped in front of her and, in silence, we gazed at each other. She was shorter than I’d expected. She almost had to tilt her head back to look at my face. I couldn’t see hers at all because her back was to the sunset. Why was she so still, so motionless? I felt some relief that she was not calling out for help or turning away to run from me. Still, why no reaction at all? Was it possible she was disabled by fear? The thought unnerved me.
What I had felt while approaching her had been nothing in comparison to what I felt now. My body and mind seemed paralyzed. I could not have moved or spoken if my life had depended on it. Only one thought penetrated. Why was she, too, standing mutely, staring at me? Somehow, I sensed that it was not because of disabling fear but, beyond that, I could neither fathom her behavior nor react to it.
Then, abruptly, unexpectedly, she spoke, the sound of her voice making me start.
“Is it you?” she asked.
If I had compiled a list of all the opening remarks she might have made to me, that one would have had to be on the bottom if it were there at all. I stared at her incredulously. Had some enchantment totally beyond my visions taken place so that she knew about me? I could not believe it. Yet I did sense, within a moment after she had spoken, that I had the miraculous opportunity to bypass what might be hours of persuading her to accept me. “Yes, Elise,” I heard myself answer.
She began to waver and I reached out quickly to support her by the arm. And how do I describe, after all my dreams about her, what it was like to have those dreams acquire flesh that I could feel beneath my fingers? She tightened at my touch but I couldn’t let go. “Are you all right?” I asked.
She didn’t answer and, although I wanted, more than anything, to know what she was thinking, I could say no more, struck dumb by the very presence of her. Once again, we were like statues, gazing at each other. I feared my silence would undo the small advantage I had seized, but my brain refused to function.
She stirred then, glancing around as though emerging from a trance. “I must return to the hotel,” she murmured, more to herself than to me, it seemed.
Her words were unexpected and my flare of minor confidence immediately began to wane. I fought away an instinct to retreat. “I’ll walk you back,” I said. Perhaps, along the way, I’d think of something.
She made no reply and we started toward the hotel. I felt sick with frustration. I had succeeded in my incredible quest; moved through time itself to be with her. Now we were together—together!—walking side by side and I was mute. It was beyond my understanding.
I twitched as she spoke; again I’d had no expectation of it. “May I know your name?” she asked. Her voice was more controlled now, though it still sounded thin.
“Richard,” I said. I don’t know why I didn’t add my last name. Perhaps it seemed superfluous to me. I could only think of her as Elise. “Richard,” I repeated, why I don’t know.
Silence again. The moment seemed insane to me. I had been unable to envision what we’d say to each other when we met but I’d never have believed that we’d say nothing. I yearned to know her feelings but felt totally incapable of probing for them; or of conveying mine.
“Are you staying at the hotel?” she asked.
I hesitated, fumbling for an answer. Finally, I said, “Not yet. I just arrived.”
Suddenly, the thought occurred to me that she’d been frightened of me all along and was trying to pretend otherwise; that she was only waiting for a chance to run from me when we were nearer the hotel.
I had to know. “Elise, are you afraid of me?” I asked.
She glanced over sharply as though I’d read her mind, then looked ahead again. “No,” she said. She didn’t sound convincing though.
“Don’t be,” I told her. “I’m the last person in the world you need be afraid of.”
More silent walking, my mind a pendulum between emotion and common sense. Emotionally, the matter was established. I had come through time to be with her and, now that I was, I mustn’t lose her. Realistically, I knew I was an unknown factor to her. Still, why had she asked, “Is it you?” That baffled me.
“Where are you from?” she asked.
“Los Angeles,” I said. It was not a lie, of course, though, under the circumstances, hardly the entire truth either. I wanted to say more, wanted to convey to her the miracle of our coming together; but I didn’t dare. How I reached her is a subject I must never broach to her.
We were almost to the slope now. In seconds, we’d be climbing to the sea walk, in minutes, reach the hotel. I could not continue walking dumbly by her side. I had to initiate something, start bringing us together. Yet how could I ask to see her that evening? Surely she faced rehearsal, then early retirement to bed.
Suddenly, without apparent cause—unless the dread of losing her interest had instantaneously magnified to one of losing her entirely—I became convinced that I was being taken back to 1971. I stopped in my tracks, fingers digging at her arm. The beach began to reel around me, darkness flooding at my eyes. “No,” I muttered involuntarily. “Don’t let me lose it.”
I have no recollection of how long it lasted; it may have been seconds or minutes. The first memory I have is of her standing before me, staring at me. I knew she was afraid now. Something in her very posture made it clear. “Please don’t be afraid,” I pleaded.
The sound she made told me that I might as well have asked her not to breathe. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t mean to frighten you.”
“Are you all right?” she asked. I felt a rush of gratitude at the concern in her voice. I tried to smile, made a feeble sound intended to convey amusement at myself. “Yes,” I answered. “Thank you. Maybe I can tell you later why—” I caught myself. I had to monitor my words more carefully.
“Are you able to continue now?” she asked, as though she hadn’t noticed how my words had broken off.
I nodded. “Yes.” I sounded calm enough, I think, even though it was incredible to me that we were talking. I had not yet adjusted to the basic awe of having her in front of me, hearing the sound of her voice, feeling her arm beneath my fingers.
I winced as I realized how my grip had clamped down on that arm. “Did I hurt you?” I asked.
“It’s all right,” she said.
A silent pause before we started toward the hotel once again.
“Have you been ill?” she asked.
I felt a stirring of bizarre amusement in myself. “No, just … tired by my journey,” I said. I braced myself. “Elise?”
She made a faint, inquiring sound.
“May we have dinner together?”
She didn’t answer and, immediately, my confidence was gone again.
“I don’t know,” she said finally.
An overwhelming sense of impropriety took hold of me as I realized, abruptly, that this was 1896. Total strangers did not accost unmarried women on the beach, hold their arm, and walk with them, uninvited, request their company for dinner. Such actions suited the time I’d left; they did not belong here.
As if reminding me that this was so, she asked, “May I know your last name, sir?” I winced at the formality of her words but answered similarly. “I’m sorry,” I replied. “I should have told you. It’s Collier.”
“Collier,” she said. She seemed to be attempting to derive some logic from the name. “And you know who I am?”
“Elise McKenna.”
I fe
lt her arm twitch slightly and wondered if she thought I had accosted her because she was a famous actress; that there was no mystery at all: I was some maddened swain, some cunning fortune hunter.
“It isn’t that,” I said as though she knew what I was thinking. “I didn’t come to you because you’re … what you are.”
She made no response and I felt anxiety begin to mount as I helped her up the slope to the sea walk. How could I ever have thought that reaching her would give me peace? She may not have run or cried for help but her acceptance of me was precarious at best.
“I know this all seems—inexplicable,” I said, hoping that it didn’t seem, in fact, obvious and suspect. “But there is a reason and it’s not ulterior.” Why did I continue to pursue that line of thought? That approach could only increase her suspicions of me.
We were on the curving promenade now. I felt my heartbeat becoming more strained. In moments we would be inside. She might leave me, rush into her room and lock the door, ending everything. And there was nothing I could do about it. To ask her again about dinner felt wrong to me. I didn’t know what more to say on any subject.
Now we were ascending the steep porch steps. My legs felt leaden, and when I opened the door for her, it seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. Then we were inside, stopping simultaneously. Either that or I stopped, causing her to do so; I simply don’t remember. All I can recall is that for the first time, I was gazing, in full light, at the face of Elise McKenna.
Her photographs lied. She’s lovelier, by far, than any of them indicated. Itemizing details cannot possibly convey the magic of their combination. Let it be noted, however, that her eyes are grayish green, her cheekbones high and delicately structured, her nose formed perfectly, her full lips red without the need of makeup, her skin the shade of sunlit, pale pink roses, her hair fawn-colored, glossy, and luxuriant; pinned up at that moment as she looked at me with an expression of such open curiosity that I almost told her, then and there, I loved her.
Somewhere in Time Page 11
