by Amor Towles
When we turned the fourth corner, we could see the last stretch of doors leading up to the spot where we’d begun. Slower and slower Billy moved, softer and softer he spoke, until finally, in front of the second-to-last door, he came to a stop and said nothing at all. He must have read out fifty little plaques by then, and though I was standing behind him, I could tell from his posture that he’d simply had enough.
After a moment, he looked up at Woolly with what must have been an expression of disappointment on his face, because Woolly suddenly had an expression of sympathy on his. Then Billy turned to look at me. Only his expression wasn’t of disappointment. It was of wide-eyed amazement.
Turning back to the little brass plaque, he extended a finger and read the inscription out loud.
—Office of Professor Abacus Abernathe, MLA, PhD.
Turning to Woolly with my own expression of amazement, I realized that the sympathy on his face hadn’t been meant for Billy; it had been meant for me. Because once again, the feet I had pulled the rug out from under were my own. After spending a few days with this kid, you’d think I might have known better. But like I said: I blame the high spirits.
Well, when circumstances conspire to spoil your carefully laid plans with an unexpected reversal, the best thing you can do is take credit as quickly as possible.
—What’d I tell you, kid.
Billy gave me a smile, but then he looked at the doorknob with a touch of apprehension, as if he weren’t sure he had the gumption to turn it.
—Allow me! exclaimed Woolly.
Stepping forward, Woolly turned the knob and opened the door. Inside, we found ourselves in a small reception area with a desk, coffee table, and a few chairs. The room would have been dark but for a faint light that shone through the open transom over an interior door.
—I guess you were right, Woolly, I said with an audible sigh. Looks like nobody’s home.
But Woolly raised a finger to his lips.
—Shhh. Did you hear that?
We all looked up when Woolly pointed at the transom.
—There it is again, he whispered.
—There’s what? I whispered back.
—The scratching of a pen, said Billy.
—The scratching of a pen, said Woolly with a smile.
Billy and I followed Woolly as he tiptoed across the reception area and gently turned the second knob. Behind this door was a much bigger room. It was a long rectangle lined from floor to ceiling with books and furnished with a standing globe, a couch, two high-back chairs, and a large wooden desk, behind which sat a little old man writing in a little old ledger by the light of a green-shaded lamp. Wearing a wrinkled seersucker suit, he had thinning white hair and a pair of reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose. In other words, he looked so much the part of a professor, you had to figure that all the books on the shelves were for show.
At the sound of our entry, the old man looked up from his work without a hint of surprise or dismay.
—May I help you?
After the three of us had taken a few steps, Woolly nudged Billy one step more.
—Ask him, he encouraged.
Billy cleared his throat.
—Are you Professor Abacus Abernathe?
After moving his reading glasses to the top of his head, the old man tilted the shade of his lamp so that he could get a better look at the three of us. Though mostly, he trained his gaze on Billy, having understood in the instant that the boy was the reason we were there.
—I am Abacus Abernathe, he replied. What can I do for you?
Although there seemed to be no end to the things that Billy knew, apparently what he did not know was what Abacus Abernathe could do for him. Because rather than give an answer, Billy looked back at Woolly with an unsure expression. So Woolly spoke on his behalf.
—We’re sorry to interrupt you, Professor, but this is Billy Watson from Morgen, Nebraska, who’s just arrived in New York City for the very first time. He is only eight years old but he has read your Compendium of adventurers twenty-four times.
Having listened to Woolly with interest, the professor shifted his gaze back to Billy.
—Is that so, young man?
—It is so, said Billy. Except that I have read it twenty-five times.
—Well, said the professor, if you have read my book twenty-five times and have come all the way from Nebraska to New York City to tell me so, then the least I can do is offer you a chair.
With an open hand, he invited Billy to take one of the high-back chairs in front of his desk. For Woolly and me, he gestured to the couch by the bookcase.
Let me say right now that it was a very nice couch. It was upholstered with dark brown leather, pinpointed with shiny brass rivets, and almost as big as a car. But if three people who come into a room accept a fourth person’s offer of a seat, then no one’s going anywhere anytime soon. It’s human nature. Having taken all the trouble of making themselves comfortable, people are going to feel the need to chew the fat for at least half an hour. In fact, if they run out of things to say after twenty minutes, they’ll start making them up just to be polite. So when the professor offered us the seats, I opened my mouth with every intention of observing that it was getting quite late and our car was at the curb. But before I could get a word out, Billy was climbing onto the high-back chair and Woolly was settling into the couch.
—Now tell me, Billy, said the professor—once we were all irreparably ensconced—what brings you to New York?
As conversations go, it was a classic opener. It was the sort of question that any New Yorker would ask a visitor with a reasonable expectation of a one- or two-sentence reply. Like I’m here to see my aunt, or We have tickets for a show. But this was Billy Watson, so instead of one or two sentences, what the professor got was the whole megillah.
Billy started back in 1946, on the summer night that his mother walked out on them. He explained about Emmett’s doing the hitch at Salina and his father dying of cancer and the brothers’ plan to follow the trail of a bunch of postcards so that they could find their mother at a fireworks display in San Francisco on the Fourth of July. He even explained about the escapade and how since Woolly and I had borrowed the Studebaker, he and Emmett had to hitch a ride to New York on the Sunset East.
—Well, well, well, said the professor, who hadn’t missed a word. And you say that you traveled to the city by freight train?
—That’s where I began your book for the twenty-fifth time, said Billy.
—In the boxcar?
—There wasn’t a window, but I had my army surplus flashlight.
—How fortuitous.
—When we decided to go to California and make a fresh start, Emmett agreed with you that we should only carry what we could fit in a kit bag. So I put everything I need in my backpack.
Having leaned back in his chair with a smile, the professor suddenly leaned forward again.
—You wouldn’t happen to have the Compendium in your backpack now?
—Yes, said Billy. That’s just where I have it.
—Then, perhaps I could inscribe it for you?
—That would be terrific! exclaimed Woolly.
At the professor’s encouragement, Billy slid off the high-back chair, took off his backpack, undid the straps, and removed the big red book.
—Bring it here, said the professor with a wave of the hand. Bring it over here.
When Billy came around the desk, the professor took the book and held it under his light in order to appreciate the wear and tear.
—There are few things more beautiful to an author’s eye, he confessed to Billy, than a well-read copy of one of his books.
Setting the book down, the professor took up his pen and opened to the title page.
—It was a gift, I see.
—From Miss Matthiessen, s
aid Billy. She’s the librarian at the Morgen Public Library.
—A gift from a librarian, no less, the professor said with added satisfaction.
Having written in Billy’s book at some length, the professor applied his signature with a great big theatrical flourish—since when it comes to New York City, even the old guys who write compendiums perform for the back row. Before returning the book, the professor flitted once through the pages as if to make sure they were all there. Then letting out a little expression of surprise, he looked at Billy.
—I see that you haven’t filled in any of the You chapter. Now, why is that?
—Because I want to start in medias res, explained Billy. And I’m not sure yet where the middle is.
It sounded like a kooky answer to me, but it left the professor beaming.
—Billy Watson, he said, as a seasoned historian and professional teller of tales, I think I can say with confidence that you have already been through enough adventures to warrant the beginning of your chapter! However . . .
Here, the professor opened one of his desk drawers and took out a black ledger just like the one that he’d been working in when we arrived.
—Should the eight pages in your Compendium prove insufficient for recording your story in its entirety—as I am almost certain they will—you can continue in the pages of this journal. And should you run out of pages in it, drop me a line, and I shall happily send you another.
Then, after handing over the two books, the professor shook Billy’s hand and said what an honor it had been to meet him. And that, as they say, should have been that.
But after Billy had carefully put away his books, cinched the straps on his backpack, and taken the first few steps toward the exit, he suddenly stopped, turned, and faced the professor with a furrowed brow—which with Billy Watson could only mean one thing: more questions.
—I think we’ve taken up enough of the professor’s time, I said, laying a hand on Billy’s shoulder.
—That’s all right, said Abernathe. What is it, Billy?
Billy looked at the floor for a second, then up at the professor.
—Do you think heroes return?
—You mean like Napoleon returning to Paris, and Marco Polo returning to Venice . . . ?
—No, said Billy shaking his head. I don’t mean returning to a place. I mean returning in time.
The professor was quiet for a moment.
—Why do you ask that, Billy?
This go-round, the old scrivener definitely got more than he bargained for. Because without taking a seat, Billy launched into a story that was longer and wilder than the first one. While he was on the Sunset East, he explained, and Emmett had gone looking for food, a pastor who’d invited himself into Billy’s boxcar tried to take Billy’s collection of silver dollars with the intention of tossing Billy from the train. In the nick of time, a big black guy dropped through the hatch, and it ended up being the pastor who got the old heave-ho.
But apparently, the pastor, the silver dollars, and the last-minute rescue weren’t even the point of the story. The point was that the black guy, whose name was Ulysses, had left behind a wife and son when he crossed the Atlantic to fight in the war and had been wandering the country on freight trains ever since.
Now, when an eight-year-old boy is spinning a yarn like this one—with black men dropping through ceilings and pastors being thrown from trains—you might think it would test the limits of someone’s willingness to suspend his disbelief. Especially a professor’s. But it didn’t test Abernathe’s in the least.
As Billy told his story, the good professor resumed his seat in slow motion, carefully lowering himself into his chair, then gently leaning back, as if he didn’t want a sudden sound or movement to interrupt the boy’s story, or his own attention to it.
—He thought he was named Ulysses for Ulysses S. Grant, said Billy, but I explained to him that he must be named for the Great Ulysses. And that having already wandered for over eight years without his wife and son, he was sure to be reunited with them once his ten years of wandering were complete. But if heroes don’t return in time, Billy concluded with a touch of concern, then maybe I shouldn’t have said that to him.
When Billy stopped speaking, the professor closed his eyes for a moment. Not like Emmett does when he’s trying to hold in his exasperation, but like a lover of music who has just heard the ending of his favorite concerto. When he opened his eyes again, he looked from Billy to the books along his walls and back again.
—I have no doubt that heroes return in time, he said to Billy. And I think you were perfectly right to tell him what you did. But I . . .
Now it was the professor who looked at Billy with hesitation, and Billy who encouraged the professor to continue.
—I was just wondering, if this man called Ulysses is still here in New York?
—Yes, said Billy. He is here in New York.
The professor sat for a moment, as if working up the courage to ask a second question of this eight-year-old.
—I know it is late, he said at last, and you and your friends have other places to be, and I have no grounds on which to ask for this favor, but is there any chance that you might be willing to bring me to him?
Woolly
It was on a trip to greece with his mother in 1946, while standing at the foot of the Parthenon, that Woolly first gained an inkling of the List—that itemization of all the places that one was supposed to see. There it is, she had said, while fanning herself with her map when they had reached the dusty summit overlooking Athens. The Parthenon in all its glory. In addition to the Parthenon, as Woolly was soon to learn, there were the Piazza San Marco in Venice and the Louvre in Paris and the Uffizi in Florence. There were the Sistine Chapel and Notre Dame and Westminster Abbey.
It was something of a mystery to Woolly where the List came from. It seemed to have been compiled by various scholars and eminent historians long before he was born. No one had ever quite explained to Woolly why one needed to see all the places on the List, but there was no mistaking the importance of doing so. For his elders would inevitably praise him if he had seen one, frown at him if he expressed disinterest in one, and chastise him in no uncertain terms if he happened to be in the vicinity of one and failed to pay it a visit.
Suffice it to say, when it came to seeing the items on the List, Woolly Wolcott Martin was Johnny-on-the-spot! Whenever he traveled, he took special care to obtain the appropriate guidebooks and secure the services of the appropriate drivers to get him to the appropriate sights at the appropriate times. To the Colosseum, signore, and step on it! he would say, and off they would zip through the crooked streets of Rome with all the urgency of policemen in pursuit of a gang of thieves.
Whenever Woolly arrived at one of the places on the List, he always had the same threefold response. First was a sense of awe. For these were not your run-of-the-mill stopping spots. They were big and elaborate and fashioned from all sorts of impressive materials like marble and mahogany and lapis lazuli. Second was a sense of gratitude toward his forebears since they had gone to all the trouble of handing down this itemization from one generation to the next. But third and most important was a sense of relief—a relief that having dropped his bags at his hotel and dashed across the city in the back of a taxi, Woolly could check one more item off the List.
But having considered himself a diligent checker-offer since the age of twelve, earlier that evening when they were driving to the circus, Woolly had something of an epiphany. While the List had been handed down with consistency and care by five generations of Wolcotts—which is to say, Manhattanites—for some strange reason it did not include a single sight in the city of New York. And though Woolly had dutifully visited Buckingham Palace, La Scala, and the Eiffel Tower, he had never, ever, not even once driven across the Brooklyn Bridge.
Growing up on the Upper East Side, Woolly
had had no need to cross it. To get to the Adirondacks, or Long Island, or any of those good old boarding schools up in New England, you would travel by way of the Queensborough or Triborough bridges. So after Duchess had driven them down Broadway and circled round City Hall, it was with a palpable sense of excitement that Woolly realized they were suddenly approaching the Brooklyn Bridge with every intention of driving across it.
How truly majestic was its architecture, thought Woolly. How inspiring the cathedral-like buttresses and the cables that soared through the air. What a feat of engineering, especially since it had been built back in eighteen something-something, and ever since had supported the movement of multitudes from one side of the river to the other and back again, every single day. Surely, the Brooklyn Bridge deserved to be on the List. It certainly had as much business being there as the Eiffel Tower, which was made from similar materials at a similar time but which didn’t take anybody anywhere.
It must have been an undersight, decided Woolly.
Like his sister Kaitlin and the oil paintings.
When his family had visited the Louvre and the Uffizi, Kaitlin had expressed the highest admiration for all those paintings lined along the walls in their gilded frames. As they walked from gallery to gallery, she was always giving Woolly the shush and pointing with insistence at some portrait or landscape that he was supposed to be quietly admiring. But the funny thing of it was that their townhouse on Eighty-Sixth Street had been chock-full of portraits and landscapes in gilded frames. As had been their grandmother’s. And yet, in all those years of growing up, not once had he seen his sister stop in front of one of them in order to contemplate its majesty. That’s why Woolly called it an undersight. Because Kaitlin didn’t notice those oil paintings even though they were right under her nose. That must have been why the Manhattanites who’d handed down the List had failed to include any of the sights of New York. Which, come to think of it, made Woolly wonder what else they had forgotten.
