chapter 7

I can cook fairly well in a top-of-the-stove, smoke-up-the-kitchen style, the way a man who lives alone usually learns. But I'd been doing it for nearly a week now, and my memories of good food were growing dim. Tonight I was having pork chops and a sliced-up potato fried in lard, hoping that for a change they'd both be finished at the same time, but my hopes weren't high. I'm fed up with my own cooking, I thought, as I bungled around the big old kitchen, then I smiled; "fed up" was hardly the phrase. The boy from Fishborn's Market had delivered the chops that morning at the service door of the apartment. I'd stood at the door in my black, unpressed, cuffless wool pants; wide suspenders; heavy black buttoned shoes; green-and-white-striped shirt with no collar, though both front and back studs were in the neckband; and I wore a double-breasted black vest with braided edges, a heavy gold watch chain stretched across it. I'd stood there handing the boy my pencil-written order for next day's meat and groceries, then I gave him a nickel tip. The nickel had a shield design on one side and a big 5 on the other; the boy was glad to get it, and thanked me nicely. Putting the meat in the icebox, I pictured him out on the street again, climbing up to the seat of his light delivery wagon with the canvas sides that could be rolled up in summer. When it snowed, as it would any day now, I knew he'd switch to the big delivery sled. The meat, which I laid on top of the ice, was wrapped in coarse butcher's paper tied with string —no gummed-paper tape or cellophane allowed. Someone had forgotten that the first day, but someone else apparently saw to it that they remembered from then on. They remembered about the butter and lard, too; these came wrapped in the same kind of paper, and packed into shallow scoop-shaped trays made of paper-thin wood. My potatoes were frying away on the big, black coal-burning stove, and I stood watching them, turning them occasionally. I liked it here in the kitchen; it was an enormous room with plenty of space for a big round wooden table and four tall wooden chairs in the center of the room. The stove was big as an office desk, ornamented with nickel-plated castings. A huge wooden cupboard covered an entire wall, floor to ceiling; back of the glass-paned doors stood all the china, glassware, and pots and pans on oilcloth-covered shelves. It was a fine room, warm and comfortable from the fire, the windows steamed opaque. I turned from stove to cupboard, took half a loaf of bread from the big red bread-box, and cut offthree thick slices. I knew I'd eat all of them; this bread was the only thing I ate that still tasted good. Probably all that's keeping me alive, I said to myself silently; I wasn't talking aloud to myself, not yet. It was homemade bread baked by an Irishwoman who sold it door to door, she said. The chops were nearly done, as far as I could tell by staring at them, and now I ground some coffee in a little hand grinder made of wood and fancily carved. I filled the tin coffeepot and set it on the stove. I'd gotten into the habit of eating most of my meals in the kitchen; it was easier than carrying food and dishes all over the place. And tonight as usual, when supper was ready, I sat eating and reading the evening paper which was left at the door each night. This was January 10, so I was reading a crisp fresh copy of the New York Evening Sun of January 10, 1882. Sitting there reading, eating—the chops were all right though a little dry, but the half-raw potatoes would have been turned down by a starving vulture—I took out my watch and pressed the little stud in its side which released the gold cover that protected its face. It showed just past seven, four minutes faster than the kitchen clock, which hadn't yet struck. I didn't know which was right, and it didn't matter; the evening ahead wasn't too exciting. It was seven o'clock, and would be seven thirty when I finished the dishes. Then I'd play a few games of patience till around nine, go to bed and read this week's copy of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, which the mailman had delivered in the second afternoon delivery. A few days later, though, I had company. Once again I was washing dishes after supper, which I didn't really mind once I got started. I'm a daydreaming type, something that's often got me into trouble, starting with kindergarten when I sent home with note saying I was "lackadaisical."Nooneinmyfamilyknewwhatthatme(was) antsonothingwasd(a) one about it, and I've stayed fairly lackadaisical ever since. When I'm doing a routine job that keeps my hands busy, like washing dishes, I slide into a daydream. Now, as usual during dishwashing time, I let myself slide into one; pretty much the same one every night. What I'd do was picture to myself what was probably going on here and there around town. Down in Central Park, my mind said to itself, if I were to walk into the living room and look out the window, there might be a cabriolet clip-clopping along under the lamps and the bare-branched trees. I didn't actually look out the windows too often, and when I did it was down toward the center of the park late at night or in the very early morning. Because of course this was the twentieth, not the nineteenth century, and the fewer reminders of that the better. So standing at the sink I imagined the man in the cabriolet down in the park at this moment, its top folded back. He was holding the reins in one hand, whip in the other, wrapped to the waist in a light blanket, wearing a black cutaway and a high-crowned derby. And earmuffs? No, it wasn't that cold, but he'd be wearing fur gloves. Then, in my mind, I watched a man and his wife in a landau heading in the opposite direction, the plate glass glittering each time they passed under a light; they were going somewhere for dinner, I supposed. Helped by Martin Lastvogel's woodcuts, I pictured a liveried servant driving,high on the outside front seat between lighted carriage lamps. The man inside, visible through the oval back window, wore a black coat and a silk hat. His wife wore a round fur cap, and the collar of her coat was fur. Landau and cabriolet passed through a yellow circle of light, and the occupants nodded, the men tipping their hats. Adelina Patti was singing tonight at the Opera House, according to the Evening Sun; right now, I supposed, overalled mustached men were testing the footlights, and in my mind I watched them turn each one on, light the gas, watch for a moment, then turn it off. At the firehouse half a mile south a man in hip boots was currying the big horses in the stalls at the back of the station, averting his face from the swishing tails, keeping his feet from under the hoofs that occasionally stomped hollowly on the heavy worn planking, leg muscles quivering. The dishes washed and draining, I lighted a candle in a porcelain holder, turned out the gas jets over the sink and table, and walked down the long hall to the living room, my hand cupped around the flame. There I lighted a single wall jet, and a lamp on a table beside my favorite chair. I glanced cautiously at the windows—it was dark out, there was nothing to be seen—and I sat down in my chair. It was upholstered in plum-colored cloth, with a million tassels hanging from the arms and around the lower edges. When the doorbell rang, I actually jumped. It hadn't occurred to me that anyone would ring it; the boy from the market always knocked. I hadn't known there even was a doorbell, and I almost ran to answer it, afraid something was wrong. Rube Prien and a black-haired brown-eyed woman stood in the hall smiling at me. He was wearing an ankle-length overcoat with a brown fur collar, and in one hand held a high-crowned derby and something else I couldn't quite make out in the shadows of the hall. The woman with him had on an ankle-length navy-blue coat with a cape attached, and a white scarf tied under her chin. "Hello, Si," Rube said. "We were just passing by and thought we'd stop in for a moment. I'm glad to find you at home." "Come in, come in!" I was as elated as a kid. "I'm glad you did!" Rube introduced me to the girl—her first name was May—and I took their things. Rube was carrying a couple of pairs of skates, just blades attached to wood platforms fitted with leather straps. They were going skating in the park, he said; the flag was up and bonfires were lighted. He asked me to come along, but I said no, I didn't skate. I got them some coffee, and when I carried it in, May was sitting at the organ, looking through the sheet music. The organ was the size and shape of an upright piano, and only a little more ornate than the Taj Mahal. It was of light yellow wood—oak, I think—and was jigsawed, lathed, and carved beyond belief: Apparently an entire family of demented woodcarvers had gone berserk and would have carved it to a mound of chips if they hadn't been forcibly dragged away. May took her coffee; she wore a plain ankle-length wool dress, brown to match her eyes; it had a white collar fastened infront with a little silver brooch; her black hair was parted in the middle and tied up in back in a bun. Rube was sitting in a wooden rocker, and he looked great: His suit had four buttons and high tiny lapels, and he wore a stand-up wing collar and a four-in-hand black tie with a gold stickpin; his shoes were high, black, and buttoned, like mine. May set her cup down, opened a sheet of music, and played something called "Hide Thou Me," and then "Funiculi, Funicula!" She played pretty well, and Rube and I sat there, smiling faintly, nodding our heads to the music, pretending we liked it. We talked for a few minutes then: about the weather, about a fire yesterday in Ninth Street, about progress of the digging of the Hudson Tunnel. I offered a drink, but Rube said no, it was time to go skating if they were to go at all, and they left. But it was an hour or so—I was so excited by that little visit—before I could make sense out of the book I was trying to read. Next day that visit caused trouble. After breakfast and the Times, I was suddenly fed up with nothing to do but playacting for myself. The whole pretense turned into foolishness, and standing in the living room, a book in my hand that I thought I was about to read, I tossed it to a chair instead. Then I just stood in what had become not clothes but a tiresome costume, fiercely aware of the real New York City all around me. It was full of movies, plays, nightclubs, radio, television, and, above all, people I knew and wanted to be with; and all I had to do to have them was walk out. Planes flew over the city around me; I heard them. And automobiles choked it, and just out of my sight the city rose to the sky in glass, steel, and stone, and the New York of the eighties was dead. But almost as it began the rebellion was fading and I knew it wasn't going to be hard, in a moment or so, to resume the pretense. I suppose most everyone has had the experience of a vacation in a fairly remote place away from newspapers and television. Under those conditions the reality of the world you've left recedes, and the real world becomes wherever you are and whatever you're doing. That had been happening here. The idea of turning on a television set was remote. The remembered feeling of how it is to sit at the wheel of a car was a little fuzzed. And the last national and international news I'd heard was long since stale. All the memories of the world I'd left had just perceptibly lost a degree of vigor. And since most of what we do, think, and feel is habit, it wasn't very hard now to blink, look around, then pick up my book and resume reading where I'd stopped last night, back in the mood once again. Yet as the days passed I didn't even make an attempt, because I knew it would fail. Time flowed by as it does for a convalescent; slowly, effortlessly, without real boredom or restlessness, the hours and days disappearing almost unnoticed like melting ice. The world outside was far gone now, my routine the only reality. Everything about it was consistent with January 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 ... 1882. And I could almost, almost, believe that it was. But outside ... From up here Central Park seemed unchanged except for the buildings around it; the view opposite I took from themiddle window the first time I was in the apartment. And often now, late at night and at dawn, I stared down at the park trying to achieve the feeling of a nineteenth-century world beyond it. But once when I'd thought I might be succeeding or beginning to, a maroon Mustang with aluminum wheels and a raised rear-end moved across the scene. And I had never, in any case, dared lift my eyes from the old roadways and paths, knowing that the twentieth century, as my picture shows, stood stark and visible all around them. I knew I'd fail if I made the attempt, so I waited. One afternoon I was reading in the living room, and around four o'clock—the kitchen clock, I thought I remembered, had struck the hour not long before—I looked up from my book; something in the room had changed. I glanced around, but everything seemed the same. Then I looked up, and the ceiling was brighter; the light from outside had altered. Something else had changed, too. The walls of this building were thick; from the outside I never heard any but the loudest sounds, and they were muted. But now I couldn't hear even these; no horns, air brakes, tire squeals. The silence was absolute. Then, far away, a child shouted for joy. Carrying my book, I walked to a window, and whatever it is that leaps in your chest with excitement sprang up now; there were six inches of new snow, unmarked and sparkling, on every horizontal surface outside, ten billion more fat flakes rushing past my window. Nothing moved on the street below me, and there wasn't a parked car in sight, every one of them moved from the curbs before the trapped them. Under my window Central Park West was level with untouchedsnow,thetra(snow) ffic lights uselessly clicking from green to red, red to green, and across the street Central Park was a delight. There things moved: Little kids in red, blue, brown, green, were running, toddling, and falling down in the snow; they were rolling in it, scooping it up, throwing, and eating it. A few had sleds, and one struggling cluster was rolling a ball of snow already taller than they were. I'm a nut for lightning and snow-storms, and I stood at the window for what must have been half an hour, watching the big flakes whirl past the glass, watching Central Park turn into an etching as the black branches loaded up with white, watching the humps and depressions that marked paths and streets level off and disappear. After a while I made coffee, dragged a chair to the window, and sat next to it, sitting sideways, legs over the chair arm. Then—it was early for supper, but I felt hungry—I made a sandwich and brought it, with an apple, back to my chair. The light had dwindled, and the white of the vast expanse of snow outside had picked up a blue tint. I sat eating, watching the day disappear. The traffic lights on the street under my windows had stopped, I noticed presently; either shut off to save current or interrupted by the storm. They looked different now, their tops and hoods mounded high with snow; they could have been streetlamps. In the cooling air the falling flakes became smaller, and a little wind began and carried the fine snow horizontally like a curtain of mist. Now I couldn't see beyond the center of the park; far on the other side the apartments along its eastern edge had vanished in the curtain; so had the buildings to the south and, of course, far to the north. The last of the children left; it was colder—I could feel it through the windowpane—and it was nearly dark. Then the streetlights came on. Nothing moved outside now but the snow in the wind,and the silence was complete. Staring down into Central Park, I wondered suddenly if it had also snowed in January 1882. I didn't know but it was likely, of course. And if it had, at this time, then now in every way the scene I sat staring down at was exactly and without difference what I'd have seen from here then. I stood up and stepped to the window, glancing at my own dim reflection in the glass, and in these clothes, in this room, in this building, I knew I could have stood here then precisely as I stood here now. I turned away, walked to the chandelier, struck a match, then reached up to light the lamps, one by one. There was coffee, still warm, in the china pot I'd set on the carpet beside my chair, and I poured out another half cup but I never drank it. I sat down again beside the window, the room, warm and comfortable, silent except for the tiny hiss of the gas jets and the occasional hard flick of a snowflake against the pane. I lay back in my chair, legs stretched out, holding the cup in my lap, staring up at the blue-edged flames shaped like tiny medieval ax-blades behind the etched patterns of the glass shades. I was no longer thinking; you couldn't call it thought. I sat at rest, almost blank-minded, except that a picture involuntarily formed itself in my mind momentarily: of the people who had to be out in the streets, farther south, downtown in the busier parts of the city. I saw them bent against the blowing snow, men touching the rims of their derbies, women's hands snug in their muffs, and in the streets beside them the horses' feet were sliding, staggering for a footing. For an instant I had a glimpse in my mind of a lifted hoof wet with slush, the fetlocks balled with gray snow. And now I could—not imagine; that wasn't the word—I could feel the city around me, all the others, I mean: the people in their houses tonight like me, in the soft yellow light of a million gas flames. I hated to move; it was so white and silent outside, the flakes scudding past my lighted window; it was so comfortable in here, the room's shadows occasionally shifting as the wedgelike flames momentarily flickered. I kept meaning to sip my coffee but never did. Finally I set down the cup, made myself stand, and walked to the last window to the left and pulled the blind. Who, watching from somewhere, would see that this one window was now darkened I didn't know and hardly cared. And when the bell over my door jounced on its coiled spring I was nearly asleep in my chair. It was Oscar Rossoff, I saw without surprise when I opened the door, stomping off the snow clinging to his unpolished, heavily greased boots. He wore a shiny black beard trimmed to a point. "Hello, Si." He stood snapping off beads of moisture from a high-crowned derby in his hand. "I was passing by, and stopped to catch my breath, if it's convenient. A fine night, but hard walking." "Come on in, Oscar! I'm glad to see you." He stepped in, and stood smiling, unbuttoning his ankle-length fur-collared overcoat. Then he handed it to me and rubbed his hands together quickly, glad to be warm; he wore a black cutaway coat with silk lapels, black-and-white-checked pants, and a wing collar with a black ascot tie. Wewalked across the room to facing chairs, and Oscar unbuttoned his coat as he sat down. Across his vest hung a heavy gold chain strung with gold and ivory ornaments. "Oscar, I'll make a fire. Would you like a drink first? Or coffee, if you'd rather. Have you had supper?" I was pleased to have company, and almost chattering. "No, I can't stay, Si; I only stopped for a moment. So don't trouble with anything on my account. Except a drink; I would like a whiskey! Neat." He rubbed his hands together again, glancing at the windows. "Quite a night!" I brought whiskey in miniature cut-glass tumblers, we raised them in salute, then tasted the liquor. "Fine," Oscar said, and sat back in his chair, and began absently playing with a coin-shaped gold ornament on his watch chain. "This is fine, sitting here with a glass of whiskey, the storm dying outside." I nodded. "Yes. I'm glad you came, Oscar; I was falling asleep." "A man could do that easily enough on a night like this." He sipped at his whiskey, then sat back again, idly fingering the disc on his chain; I sat watching it glow dully in the gaslight. "Nothing could be more relaxing, it's so quiet outside, so warm and peaceful in here." I nodded, and started to make some reply, but Oscar shook his head slowly, smiling, lying comfortably back in his chair. "Don't trouble to make small talk, Si; I don't need entertaining. It's so pleasant in here it should be enjoyed without thought, the mind at rest, content and serene. And the whiskey helps, doesn't it? You can feel your nerves and muscles relaxing. I think the wind has died down, it's so absolutely silent now. Still snowing, though; big soft flakes again. You're very contented right now, Si, I can see it. So relaxed and at ease. At peace. And I believe I am helping. Because although you're listening to me it's not so much to the words as the sound; the tone, the murmur, the suggestion. It's draining away all tension; I can see that you feel it happening. You're so at peace that even the glass in your hand is becoming a little heavy to hold; notice? You're more content and serene, more than you've ever been before in your life, just sitting here in peace listening to the sound of my voice. That glass is too heavy; set it down on the floor beside you. That's better, isn't it? If you tried to pick it up again it would be too heavy now. And you don't want to anyway, you don't care to. And you couldn't. Try, though, Si; just try to pick it up for a moment. Try harder; lift it for just an inch or so, then let it drop back. You can't. Well, no matter. It doesn't matter at all. You're very tired, and in a moment I'm going to let you sleep. I only want to tell you something first, then I'll go. "You'll sleep for only a little while, Si. But it will be a marvelously restful sleep. Deep and dreamless. Restful as you've ever known. And when you wake, everything you know of the twentieth century will be gone from your mind. As you sleep, that entire body of knowledge will shrink in your mind; it will dwindle to a motionless pinpoint deep in your brain, and lost to you.
"It's beginning to happen now. There are no such things as automobiles, Si; there are no planes, computers, television, no world in which they are possible. 'Nuclear' and 'electronics' appear in no dictionary anywhere on the face of the earth. "You have never heard the name Richard Nixon... or Eisenhower ... Adenauer ... Stalin ... Franco ... General Patton... Goring ... Roosevelt... Woodrow Wilson... Admiral Dewey....Everything you know of the past eight decades is washing out of your mind; everything. All of it. Large and small. From the important to the smallest of trivia. "But you know what the world is like; you know that very well. You know all about it. Why shouldn't you know what the world is like tonight, January 21, 1882? Because that is the date; that is the time we're in, of course. That's why I'm dressed as I am, and you as you are. That's why this room is as it is. Don't sleep quite yet, Si. Hold your eyes open just a bit. For just a few seconds longer. "Now, hear what I say. I am going to give you a final, irrevocable instruction; you will hear it, you will obey it. You will sleep for twenty minutes. You will awake rested. You will go out for a walk. Just a little walk, a breath of air before you go to bed. You will be as careful as you possibly can be ... that no one sees you. You will be absolutely certain to speak to no one. You will allow no act of yours, however small, to influence anyone in any way, however trivial. "Then you will come back here, go to bed, and sleep all night. You will awaken in the morning as usual, free of all hypnotic suggestion. So that as you open your eyes, all your knowledge of the twentieth century will light up in your mind again. But you will remember your walk. You will remember your walk. You will remember your walk. Now ... let go. And sleep." I was embarrassed; the moment I woke up in my chair I glanced quickly over at Oscar's chair and saw that he was gone, his glass on a table, and I wondered what he must have thought at my falling asleep while he sat here, a guest. But I knew he wouldn't mind; we were old friends and he'd be amused. I felt rested now, though; alive and energetic, a little too restless to feel like going to bed, and I decided to take a walk. It was still snowing, but big soft flakes. There was no wind, I'd been indoors too long, and I wanted to get out, into that snow, breathing chill fresh air; and I walked to the closet and put on my overcoat, chest protector, boots, and my round fur cap of black lamb's wool. I walked down the building stairs, somehow glad to encounter no one; I didn't feel like chatting, and if I'd heard someone on the stairs I think I'd have stood waiting till he'd gone. Downstairs I walked out of the building, glancing quickly around, but saw not a soul—tonight I didn't want to see anyone—and I turned toward Central Park just across the street ahead. It was a fine night, a wonderful night. The air was sharp in my lungs, and snowflakes occasionally caught in my lashes, momentarily blurring the streetlamps just ahead, already misty in the swirls of snow around them.
Just ahead the street was almost level with the curbs, unmarked by steps or tracks of any kind. I crossed it and walked into the park. There was no path to be seen or detected; I simply avoided bushes and trees, and it was hard going, the snow seven or eight inches deep now. It occurred to me that I'd better not go too far from the lights of the street or I could easily become lost, and I turned to look back. The streetlamps were plainly visible, and I could still see my own footprints in their light, but they were covering over very quickly and I knew that in only minutes they'd be gone again and that I'd never be able to follow them back if I went on much farther. I plodded on just a little way more though, feet lifting high, boots clogged with damp snow, enjoying the exercise of it, exhilarated by the feel of this snowy luminous night, and my aloneness in it. Behind me and to the north I heard a distant rhythmical jingle, perceptibly louder each time it sounded, and I turned to look back toward the street once again. For a moment or two I stood listening to the jink-jink-jingle sound, and then just beyond the silhouetted branches, down the center of the lighted street, there it came, the only kind of vehicle that could move on a night like this: a light, airy, one-seated sleigh drawn by a single slim horse trotting easily and silently through the snow. The sleigh had no top; they sat out in the falling snow, bundled snugly together under a robe, a man and a woman passing jink-jink-jingle through the snow-swirled cones of light under each lamp. They wore fur caps like mine, and the man held a whip and the reins in one hand. The woman was smiling, her face tilted to receive the snow, and the only sounds were the bells, the muffled hoof-clops, and the hiss of the sleigh runners. Then their backs were to me, the sleigh drawing away, diminishing, the steady rhythm of the sleigh bells receding. They were nearly gone when I heard the woman laugh momentarily, her voice muffled by the falling snow, the sound distant and happy. It was enough of a walk, I had no desire to push on into the park, and I turned back. The slim parallel lines of the sleigh runners were still there, down the middle of Central Park West, but they were fading quickly, and my own earlier footsteps were already completely gone. I climbed the stairs of the Dakota, took off my cap and coat, then turned off the living-room jets, ready for bed. I walked to the windows for one last look outside. Then I wanted to feel the snow once more, and I opened the french windows, and stepped out onto the balcony. Down on the street I'd crossed, the marks of the sleigh runners and of my steps were gone, the snow level and unmarked once more. I stared into the black-and-white park for several moments, then turned to look north. All I could see, barely visible through the curtain of snow, was the Museum of Natural History several blocks ahead, one row of its windows lighted, then I turned back into the living room. In bed I fell asleep almost instantly.