As Starr Street is within a few miles of my room, I resolved to call on Mr. Kinkaid after dinner the next day to see if I could ascertain Mr. Nordstrom’s whereabouts and be of service to him.
The Green Gables bus took me to Askelon Avenue and Brent Place. From there I had only to walk back one street to Starr, and three blocks and a quarter north brought me to 710.
I found 710 Starr Street to be one of those outmoded houses of the so-called Spanish type: tanned stucco with a red tiled roof. There was a patio to the left front and a large leaded window to the right, with insets of colored glass. The whole place, as nearly as I could tell in the evening, seemed well kept, and the lawn was still damp from the sprinklers, which were then turned off. I reached the front door through a gate in the patio, and the button rang a double chiming bell which brought Mr. Kinkaid himself to the door.
When I had given Mr. Kinkaid my card and explained that I thought he might be of help in locating a client of mine, he kindly asked me into the living room. This, I saw, was fitted as an office with files and large metal storage cabinets along the walls. At the south wall Mr. Kinkaid had an oak desk, clear except for a telephone, a calendar and a photograph of a handsome young lady. Now his chair was swiveled away from the desk, so that he faced me across a long oak table, on the other side of which I was seated in an oak office armchair. As I talked with him I noted his features, which I still remember well.
Mr. Kinkaid was about five feet six or seven, and he weighed perhaps 160 pounds. He had a roundish face with a snub nose and blue eyes. His sandy hair, which had thinned considerably (he was perhaps forty-five) was combed across the top of his head, and his eyebrows were sparse and inconspicuous. Perhaps his most notable feature was that his neck was short, so that his head seemed set squarely upon his shoulders, and as these shoulders were hunched forward, he appeared rather to look up at me.
Unlike Mr. Nordstrom, Mr. Kinkaid was very agreeable and open to talk to. I found that Mr. Nordstrom had indeed taken the insurance out for business purposes. Mr. Kinkaid had advanced him the sum of the insurance for a venture to be conducted in Egypt, and the insurance had been a precaution against misadventure on the part of Mr. Nordstrom. Our letters to Egypt had not reached Mr. Nordstrom because he had since returned. Perhaps he had failed to notify us, or perhaps his letter had gone astray. Since that time, Mr. Nordstrom had, unfortunately, disappeared.
Mr. Kinkaid made every effort to be helpful to me, and there ensued a conversation which lasted far into the night. Although I remember the whole thing almost word for word as it occurred, it was of course full of false starts, repetitions and inconsequential details. Here I can only hope to reduce its content to some sort of coherent account.
I may say that throughout Mr. Kinkaid showed himself to be a man of wide interests and sound knowledge. In talking with my clients I pick up a smattering of information concerning the variety of fields which I find they like to discuss, but with Mr. Kinkaid I found myself continually out of my depth, so that I cannot be sure that I have rightly understood him.
From the very start I found myself plunged into a subject of which I have only a superficial knowledge. The venture in which Mr. Nordstrom was engaged had been nothing less than an archeological expedition of limited scope. Mr. Kinkaid, who had, as I could see, a deep interest in the Old Testament, was particularly concerned with the role of the Jews in Egyptian history. He had met Mr. Nordstrom, who was a professional explorer and adventurer, through a mutual friend. This friend was, I might add, the handsome young lady whose photograph stood on Mr. Kinkaid’s desk. The idea had come to Mr. Kinkaid of financing a modest expedition to Egypt to search for possible traces of Joseph and his people, by means of first-hand examination of various archeological relics and monuments and, if necessary, through actual excavation. I have a suspicion, perhaps unjust, that this last was to have been a clandestine affair, for in our very long conversation no slightest mention was made of obtaining the permission of the Egyptian government.
Mr. Nordstrom was to have been gone two years, but he returned after a year only, with a story of some trouble with the authorities. He brought back, however, two relics, which he presumably smuggled from the country. One was a fragmentary mummified skull, and the other was a torn fragment of a papyrus manuscript. These Mr. Nordstrom had obtained from a looted and sand-filled tomb. After consulting his file, Mr. Kinkaid located a numbered black box in one of the steel cabinets and, bringing it to the table, exhibited these relics to me.
The skull lacked the lower jaw, and some of the teeth in the upper jaw were missing. One of those remaining seemed to be filled; Mr. Kinkaid said it was a tin filling, which was common among the ancient Egyptians.
Of the papyrus fragment I could make nothing, but Mr. Kinkaid told me with some show of excitement that the hieroglyphs said nothing less than: The Book of Joseph, and the account of his stewardship to Potiphar.
My good parents saw that I received sound religious training, and you can imagine my emotion to think that here lay a contemporary account of Joseph, and that the skull was perhaps that of one who had known him.
Mr. Kinkaid had even greater surprises in store for me, however. Much as he regretted Mr. Nordstrom’s precipitate return with no more than these tantalizing fragments, he was delighted at the same time to have obtained so much, and he resolved to have more. This brought him to a subject even more foreign to my understanding than Egyptology. I am not sure that I have even properly identified the field upon which Mr. Kinkaid now touched, but I take it to be a part of the higher mathematics or of quantum physics. I found everything about it bewildering and, indeed, almost miraculous, but who today can gainsay the marvels of science, when cybernetics gives us machines that play games and think far beyond the power of man, when astrophysics reveals the continuing creation of the universe, and when even Dr. Einstein confesses himself baffled by the wonders of wave mechanics?
Mr. Kinkaid’s achievement almost outdid these marvels, however. It was nothing less than reaching the time of Joseph and the Pharaohs in one’s very person! The principles involved I could not fully grasp, but I gathered that the essential element was mathematical and mental, involving a reorientation of the mind in hyperspace. In this, I learned, the papyrus fragment played an important part, for it served as a sort of compass in directing the minds of Mr. Nordstrom and Mr. Kinkaid to the times of Joseph, just as Mr. Kinkaid’s calling to mind the first name of Mr. Nordstrom was essential in directing the latter’s return into the present.
This made me think of the magic use of names in primitive societies, as explained to me by Peter J. Mertz, one of my clients who is interested in anthropology. I marveled that as Democritus understood something of atoms in times preceding the rise of modern science, so too, apparently, even primitive peoples have by chance foreseen the results of an even more astonishing penetration of the hidden order of nature.
Mr. Kinkaid assured me that had two not been necessary for such a temporal excursion, he himself would have endeavored to reach the time of Joseph, but he doubted that he could trust anyone less expert than himself to guide him back through the proper use of his given name.
That Mr. Kinkaid himself possessed this facility was shown by the successful return of Mr. Nordstrom from his first journey to the time of Joseph in a venture that was not entirely successful.
It seems that Mr. Kinkaid was troubled almost as much as I had been by the stalwart Mr. Nordstrom’s taciturnity, and it was only with difficulty that he pried from him the barest bones of the story.
How Mr. Nordstrom came to just the part of Joseph’s career he reached perhaps he alone could tell us. As he and Mr. Kinkaid concentrated on the papyrus and on Joseph, there was a snap, and Mr. Nordstrom found himself in the midst of a tremendous hullabaloo. He was in a large and richly furnished Oriental apartment. Two huge, fat, beardless blacks were holding a handsome, curly-headed young man by either arm. A pretty but somewhat plump woman, her clothes disarrayed, was scr
eaming and pointing. Girls, very scantily clad, were rushing about aimlessly, except for one, who supported the woman and tried to hold a phial under her nose.
Mr. Nordstrom, who had found himself stark naked in the corner of the room, hid behind a drapery and watched these and ensuing events. What immediately followed was that a portly man of middle age strutted onto the scene of disorder. There was a conversation, unintelligible to Nordstrom, and the blacks dragged the handsome and apparently protesting youth away. The portly man left. The girls clustered about the woman, who first collapsed on a couch and then sprang up and shouted angrily, apparently dismissing them. Then she collapsed, sighing and weeping and tossing about in great restlessness.
It was at this point that Nordstrom took action. Just how he secured her co-operation I am not sure. He was, I had noted, a man with an air of authority, but even so, it must have been hard to explain himself and his condition to a hysterical woman who could not understand a word he said.
Whatever the means of which he availed himself, he managed not only to insinuate himself into the good graces of the woman, who turned out to be none other than Potiphar’s wife, but he secured her co-operation to the extent that she clothed him, gave him quarters in her apartment for several months, and, during this period, undertook to teach him the Egyptian language. This, of course, was an absolute requisite if he were to progress further in his mission.
I gather that something went wrong in the meeting of Nordstrom and Potiphar, for a point came at which he found himself secured by the two black giants at Potiphar’s command, and he judged it wise to make his escape by returning to the present with the aid of Mr. Kinkaid.
When he had with great labor extracted this general account from Mr. Nordstrom, Mr. Kinkaid was halfway between joy and disappointment. His plan had so nearly succeeded, but Mr. Nordstrom had seen Joseph (if, indeed, the handsome youth had been Joseph) for a few moments only. Still, he had learned the Egyptian language—or so they both thought.
For Mr. Nordstrom’s next venture into the time of Joseph disclosed a phenomenon which from the point of view of scientific interest I find perhaps the most fascinating in Mr. Kinkaid’s account.
Both Mr. Kinkaid and Mr. Nordstrom had agreed that it would be best to return to the same period, where, or rather, when, Mr. Nordstrom could endeavor to handle his relations with Potiphar more successfully. Accordingly, Mr. Nordstrom found himself naked in the same scene he had encountered before. But it was different! The youth held by the black men was a mean-looking fellow this time, and one of the black men was slightly lame. The apartment was different also, and Potiphar’s wife was taller, not so plump, and not nearly so good-looking. Most startling of all to Mr. Nordstrom was the fact that although he had spent months in this period perfecting his knowledge of Egyptian, he could barely catch the drift of what was being said. The vowels were different, and the accents were placed differently. This latter especially made the speech hard to follow.
I must confess that I was no less puzzled than Mr. Nordstrom had been, and I interrupted Mr. Kinkaid’s account at this point to ask for an explanation.
If anything could astound me in this age of miracles of science, Mr. Kinkaid’s explanation would have, but I have learned that there are deeper minds than mine, and I accept what I am assured is true and try to make myself understand it.
Suffice it to say, there is no unique past! The uncertainty principle of Heisenberg, which philosophers use to assure us that the world is not a predestined machine, without room for free will, leading to one unique future, just as decisively contradicts the idea of a unique past. No present measurement made on the ultimate particles of matter can predict just where they will go, nor can any such measurement tell exactly whence they have come. Photographs, pictures, manuscripts, monuments and shards of civilizations sketch in rough outlines of the past, but science is helpless to fill in the picture precisely. Thus, there is an infinity of pasts which are consistent with all the evidences in our present universe, and any of these pasts is as much the real past as any other. Mr. Nordstrom had visited one possible past on the first occasion and a different past on the second!
Once this had been explained to me, such knowledge of Egyptology as I once obtained from F. O. Axerson of the city museum, a client of mine, came to my rescue. Of course the spoken language could be different in different pasts, for the Egyptians had signs for neither vowels nor accents. Only the consonants would have to be consistent from past to past!
Mr. Kinkaid himself congratulated me on this observation. I in turn sympathized with him on the unfortunate turn his experiments had taken, for they clearly made it impossible for him ever to ascertain the exact truth about Joseph and the Jews in Egypt. If all versions of the past which do not contradict the present are one as much the true past as another, certainly history can never become the exact science which Mr. Kinkaid had been striving to make it. Indeed, it may even be that such questions as whether Moses is a historical figure or a mythological folk hero have become meaningless.
I observed to Mr. Kinkaid, however, that, looked at broadly, this new fact of science should tend to promote tolerance and respect for the opinions of others, religious or secular, for divergent views on history, sacred or profane, need no longer be regarded as contradictory.
Disappointed as he had been by his effort to get at the unique facts about Joseph, Mr. Kinkaid nevertheless agreed with me in this cheerful view of his discovery, and the conversation passed on to Mr. Nordstrom’s further experiences.
It appeared that the taciturn explorer was no better able to establish friendly relations with Potiphar on his second attempt than on the first, for again he was forced to return hurriedly to our era with no further knowledge about Joseph in any past.
The third attempt was, alas, even less successful, for Mr. Nordstrom had failed to return at all!
Mr. Kinkaid reproached himself concerning this. He believed that in his preoccupation he may not have concentrated on Mr. Nordstrom and on his given name frequently enough.
“You see,” Mr. Kinkaid told me, “I was very worried about Wanda at the time.”
He indicated that Wanda was the young lady in the photograph on his desk, and he looked so morose that delicacy forbade me to inquire concerning her and his troubles.
With whatever justification, Mr. Kinkaid blamed himself severely for not having kept Mr. Nordstrom and his name more in mind.
“Perhaps,” he said, “he had need to return to me to escape some terrible danger, and there was no mind nor token ready to guide him here. Indeed, I fear I have evidence that this was so.”
At this, Mr. Kinkaid looked even sadder, and I could not forbear encouraging him to tell me more.
“Mr. Nordstrom,” he said, “had traveled to many places, including Ethiopia, before I came to know him. He once told me that a native dentist in that place had filled one of his teeth with tin. This primitive dentistry I associated at the time with the Egyptian practice.
“I fear,” Mr. Kinkaid continued, pointing to the skull, “that my colleague finally met with violence at the hands of Potiphar, and that we have his skull here.”
Mr. Kinkaid then suggested that while Mr. Nordstrom was almost certainly dead, it would be very hard to establish his decease. Further, as Mr. Nordstrom had returned with some success from two expeditions, the reason for his holding insurance on Mr. Nordstrom’s life had ceased to be. We agreed together that it would be wisest merely to let the policy lapse.
By the time we had reached this point it was very late indeed, and I took my leave at 2:26 a.m., asking that I might return some day to pay a friendly visit. To this Mr. Kinkaid readily assented.
Unfortunately, I was never able to do so. Within the week I had further news of Mr. Kinkaid in the Daily Gazette. Neighbors had been induced by the evidence of accumulating milk bottles and papers to notify the police, and it was found that Mr. Kinkaid had disappeared. He left behind him all his personal belongings and household goods
in their orderly places. Oddly enough, the cabinets in his office were found empty, and the only contents of that room, except for the furniture, were a skull and a scrap of Egyptian papyrus on his desk, a heap of clothes on the floor, and a brief note, which said simply: My name is Samuel. Think of me.
Of this note the police could of course make nothing, although it was clear enough to me. Mr. Kinkaid, hopeless and full of remorse, had decided to venture among the pasts in search of Mr. Nordstrom, and he relied upon me to help him back. My feeling concerning Mr. Kinkaid’s state of mind was confirmed when the police discovered that the “Wanda” of the photograph on Mr. Kinkaid’s desk (Wanda Mainwaring, a stenographer) had died shortly before from an acute attack diagnosed as gastroenteritis. Mr. Kinkaid must have been very close to her, for he had kindly provided for her cremation and inurnment.
Although I could see that the authorities were completely at sea in dealing with the situation (almost as much so, indeed, as the yellow press with its painful hints of a “jealousy slaying” and deliberate disappearance), a certain natural caution kept me from approaching them. This was reinforced by the fact that my own understanding of some aspects of the situation was incomplete. I had every reason to believe that Mr. Kinkaid was very well off, and yet the police found no trace of money or securities, and Mr. Kinkaid’s bank accounts had been recently exhausted. I can only presume that he made some wise disposition of his assets before taking the dangerous step he took.
Needless to say, I have frequently thought rather hopelessly of Mr. Kinkaid, using his name Samuel in my meditations. Sometimes I take the card with the violet tab and the red-and-green marker with the number 27 from the dead file where it now reposes and hold it in my hand the while, in my effort to direct Mr. Kinkaid back to the present. I find it hard to concentrate, however, for my mind continually wanders over the adventures of Mr. Nordstrom in Potiphar’s house, and from there to speculations on how astounding may be the possible and valid realities of the events described in the Old Testament.
Beyond the Barriers of Space and Time Page 25
