chapter 22

This may look to you like unseemly haste—and taste," Colonel Esterhazy said to me; with a move of his hand he indicated Dr. Danziger's office. He sat behind the desk; Rube and I had come in and taken the two leather-padded metal chairs before it. Like Rube, Esterhazy was wearing cotton army pants and shirt today, without insignia but as rigidly pressed as though they were made of khaki-painted sheet metal. Rube's were neat enough but the creases didn't look welded in. I had on my blue suit. Esterhazy was saying, "But I'm here only because we're so terribly cramped for space; this was the one empty office. Someone has to head the project, and Dr. Danziger is gone." He moved a shoulder regretfully. "I wish he were sitting here instead of me." I didn't say anything to that. I'd glanced around the office as we walked in, and it looked about the same only neater. Danziger's photographs and bookshelf were gone and so was a carton filled with papers he'd had on the floor, though now there were half a dozen folding chairs stacked against the far end wall. The desk top was empty except for a pen stand, and I imagine the drawers had been cleared out. Behind the desk now stood a gold-fringed nylon American flag on a standard, and on the wall hung a large framed color photograph of the President. Rube said to Esterhazy, "The debriefing showed all-clear, as I phoned you. And believe me, that's a relief." He turned to me, smiling. "Because you were a busy fellow this trip, weren't you? Escaping the fire. Escaping ... what's his name?" "Inspector Byrnes." "Yeah. And escaping the girl, too, I suspect. Julia." I just smiled, and the two of them sat grinning at me for a few moments. I'd spent the morning here at the project, reeling off my list of random facts, dictating a long full report of everything I'd done on this last "trip," as we seemed to be calling them now. Everything except that Julia had come back with me. That had nothing to do with the success or failure of my mission so I just said that in the middle of the night, hiding in the arm of the Statue of Liberty, she'd remembered the nail pattern on Jake's boots. We'd known she was safe then, and at dawn I'd taken her home to 19 Gramercy Park, gotten my money, then hired a hansom up to the Dakota. I said I'd spent yesterday in my apartment sleeping.
Rube said, "So if the debriefing shows okay after all those shenanigans, it means that the stream of past events—" "—is what we always insisted it was," Esterhazy cut in. " 'Twig-in-the-river' theory," he reminded me brusquely. "The stream of past events is a mighty stream indeed, far from easy to deflect casually, as ought to be obvious. It can happen by accident, as we've learned. Although the consequences were negligible. In any historical context, that is. But we have no doubt, nor did Dr. Danziger, that it could be affected by design." It was hard to even keep my mind on what he was saying, and when he paused I nodded and rather vaguely said, "Well, fine. Colonel, and Rube, I think I've completed my mission. How practical it is to study past events, considering the risk I've demonstrated of getting involved with them, is something you people will have to judge. But right now my own affairs are piling up on me; I've got things to work out. And what I'd like now, if you're through with me"—I smiled—"is an honorable discharge." Neither of them answered for a moment or so. They looked at me, then at each other. Finally Esterhazy said, "Well, before we take that up, Si, there's something I'd like you to know about. You're free to resign; you've done beautifully, done all that could be expected and more. But I'm certain you'll be interested in what I want you to hear. And then maybe you won't want to resign quite yet." A girl opened the door; I hadn't seen her around the project before. "The others are here, Colonel." "Good. Send them in." Esterhazy stood up behind his desk and looked toward the door with a pleasant smile. Two men walked in, and I recognized them. The first was the young history professor with the big nose and big shock of thinning black hair that made him look to me anyway, like a television comic; his Messinger. The behind him Fessenden, the President'representative,aro(name) undfi(was) fty,bald,withgray-bro(man) wnhaircombedov(was) er the shiny top of his head.(s) They both greeted me, and Professor Messinger walked over to my chair as I stood up, to shake my hand. "Welcome home!" he said, and held up a sheet of mimeographed typescript stapled in one corner; I saw it was my dictated account of this last trip. "Terrific," he said, rattling the papers, "absolutely terrific," even sounding like a TV "personality." Fessenden gave me a formal nod, and then in imitation of Messinger decided to add a smile and waggle his copy of my account, which was a mistake; smiling cordiality wasn't really a part of his nature. Rube was bringing over a couple of folding chairs, opening one as he walked; with his foot he shoved his own chair to Fessenden and gave the opened folding chair to Messinger. When we were all seated in a little curve at the front of his desk, Esterhazy sat down, saying, "This is the board now, Si, except for the senator, who's shepherding a bill through Congress today and can't join us. And Professor Butts, whom you may remember: professor of biology at Chicago. He's an advisorymember now, without vote, present only when his specialty requires it. The old board was unwieldy. This is far more practical. Jack, maybe you'd like to brief Si." Messinger turned to me, smiling easily, pleasantly; I saw Fessenden watching him, and it occurred to me that he envied Messinger. "Well, Mr. Morley—is 'Si' all right?" "Of course." "Good. And please call me Jack. We've been busy, too, Si. While you were gone. Doing the same job you were: investigating Mr. Andrew Carmody, though not at quite such close quarters. I've been in Washington, on leave and with a secretary provided. A very capable one, though"—he grinned at Esterhazy—"you might have found one just a shade better-looking. We've been cozily alone together in the National Archives, literally down in the basement, rummaging through papers of both Cleveland administrations, the rest of my team in other sections of the Archives. And Carmody really was a Cleveland adviser, one of many, in the years following your visit, Si. He began to involve himself in politics beginning in the spring of 1882 when Cleveland was governor of New York. And from occasional notes of Cleveland's, from the minutes of several meetings, and from references in two letters of Cleveland's, I've learned that he became something of a friend of his during Cleveland's first term. How that came about I don't know; there was nothing on that, not surprisingly. His influence then was zero, so far as I've been able to learn. But Carmody—or as we now know he really was, Pickering—fostered the friendship, and it reached its height, such as it was, during Cleveland's second term. The references we found in the Archives show clearly that Cleveland sometimes listened to Carmody—as of course the records call him, and as I might as well continue to call him. His influence was never large, and never important, except in one instance, and the evidence I found on that is conclusive. Cleveland entered office the second time with a war over Cuba building up with Spam, and being whooped up by several newspaper interests. Cleveland hoped to avoid the war, and a pretty good solution was offered him by a number of people; namely, that he offer to buy Cuba from Spain. This much is well known, a matter of clear record; you can find references to it in any complete account of Cleveland's second term. There was precedent for the plan—in our purchases of the Louisiana Territory from France and of Alaska from Russia. And there was evidence that Spain would welcome a chance to avoid a war they knew they couldn't hope to win. But here, I discover, is Pickering-Carmody's place in history: It was his advice that turned Cleveland against the notion. I don't know what he said; the little I found on it is partly technical and pretty sketchy. But it's certain; no mistake about that. And that's it. His sole role in history of any importance is a negative one, a small one, a footnote he might not care to brag about if he were around to do so. After Cleveland's second term we don't hear of him again so far as I was able to learn." He stopped, and I sat nodding for a few moments, thinking about what he'd said; I was interested. I said, "Well, I'm glad I was able to contribute the new knowledge, unimportant though it is now, that Carmody was actually Pickering. Personally I'm a little pleased at the thought of old Jake Pickering actually in the White House advising Cleveland."Esterhazy said, "We're pleased with your contribution, too; damn pleased. We hoped for something like it, and you delivered. It's a contribution far more important than you know. Rube?" Rube turned to me, swinging a leg over an arm of his chair so he could sit facing me more comfortably, smiling that good smile that made you glad he was your friend and made you want to be on his side. He said, "Si, you're bright. You can understand that this project has to yield practical results. It's great that it can contribute to scholarly knowledge, but that isn't enough. You can't spend millions, can't take valuable people off other work, to add a little footnote to history about someone nobody ever heard of anyway. Your success—and how remarkable a thing that is I don't think there are words for—has made the next phase of this project possible. That next phase is an advance on the experiment. As careful and cautious as those that preceded it. And it is potentially of enormous benefit—" "—incalculable benefit," Esterhazy interjected. Rube nodded. "—of incalculable benefit to the United States. It has been considered and unanimously passed by this board, and then cleared in Washington with the highest authorities; we were on a scramble phone with Washington for nearly an hour this morning." Esterhazy had his forearms lying on the desk top, hands clasped together in what looked like a relaxed position. But now he leaned far forward over the desk top toward me, and when he spoke I turned to him and saw that his hands were so tightly clenched the fingertips were white. He couldn't keep himself from interrupting Rube. "We want you to go back one more time. Then if that's what you want, your resignation will be instantly accepted, and with great thanks by a grateful government, I can promise you. When the time comes—not in our lifetime, I think, but eventually—when the time comes that this is no longer secret, you will have a place of distinction and honor in your country's history. Your findings, Si, have made this next step possible, and now we want you to use those findings. You're to go back, and do just one thing: You are to reveal 'Carmody's' secret. You're to expose him as what he really is; namely, a clerk named Pickering— responsible for Carmody's death, responsible for the World Building fire. You won't have proof, of course; he won't be imprisoned, tried, or even charged. But he'll be discredited. As he deserves. Can you do that, Si?" I was slow, baffled. "But... why? What for?" Esterhazy grinned with the pleasure of explaining. "Don't you see? This is the logical next step, Si, a very small and very carefully controlled experiment... in slightly altering the course of past events. We've avoided doing that till now, scrupulously avoided it, as well as we possibly could, and rightly so. Until we learned from experience that the accidental risk of altering the course of past events is negligible. And that even when it does happen, the actual effect seems trivial. Now it's time for the next slow advance, a slight and very careful change of events in the past... for the benefit of our own time and country. Think about it! We can prevent Carmody—or Pickering, as we know him to be now —from becoming an adviser, minor though he was, to Cleveland. And there is obvious reason to think that this may actually result in a change in the course of our history. If Cuba became a permanent American possession in the 1890's ..." He grinned. "Well, I don't have to spell out the benefit of that. The name Castro will remain what it was, unheard of. The man himself remaining whatever he was, a worker in the sugar fields, I suppose, forever unknown. That's the next step, Si,if it works, a clear immediate benefit—and, even more important, a guide to even greater ones. My God ..." His voice dropped in awe. "To correct mistakes of the past which have adversely affected the present for us—what an incredible opportunity." We sat in absolute silence then. I was stunned. I was, and I knew it, an ordinary person who long after he was grown retained the childhood assumption that the people who largely control our lives are somehow better informed than, and have judgment superior to, the rest of us; that they are more intelligent. Not until Vietnam did I finally realize that some of the most important decisions of all time can be made by men knowing really no more than, and who are not more intelligent than, most of the rest of us. That it was even possible that my own opinions and judgment could be as good as and maybe better than a politician's who made a decision of profound consequence. Some of that childhood awe and acceptance of authority remained, and while I was sitting before Esterhazy's desk—the room silent, everyone watching me, waiting—it seemed presumptuous that ordinary Simon Morley should question the judgment of this board. And of the men in Washington who agreed with it. Yet I knew I had to. And was going to. I stumbled, though. I spoke badly and in confusion. I even began with what I suppose was the least important aspect of the entire decision. I said, "Go back and deliberately discredit Jake? Destroy his life? I, ah ... does anyone have the right to do that?" "The man's long dead, Si," Esterhazy said gently, as though to a simpleton he didn't want to offend. "We're what counts now." "He won't be dead where I'll be seeing him." "Well, yes. But, Si, a lot of men make far greater sacrifices than he will. For the good of the country." "But he wouldn't even be consulted about it!" "Neither are they; they're drafted into the army." "Well, maybe they should be asked, too." He genuinely didn't understand. "What do you mean?" "Maybe it's wrong to force a man to join an army and kill other people against his own wishes." They just looked at me. What I was saying was really incomprehensible to them, and I realized I'd been arguing the wrong point. I said, "Colonel, Rube, Mr. Fessenden and Professor Messinger—listen. Would it be—right to alter past events? I mean who knows it's a good thing to do? Who can be sure of it, I mean.""Why, dammit, we can be sure!" Esterhazy said. "Do you deny that it would be one hell of a lot better if Cuba were long since a U.S. possession instead of a Communist country ninety miles from our mainland?" I shrugged uneasily. "No, it isn't that I deny it. The point is it doesn't matter what I think; because I might be wrong. Who can be sure Cuba will ever do us any harm? It's awfully tiny, and hasn't hurt us yet." "They tried, didn't they?" Esterhazy very nearly shouted. Gently, trying to calm things down, Fessenden said, "The missile crisis," as though politely reminding me of something that might have slipped my mind. I said, "Well, yeah. Though according to Robert Kennedy it was the military who tried to make JFK think the danger was greater than perhaps it might have been. But I don't want to bog down into a debate about Cuba. Whatever the truth there, I just don't think anyone has the godlike wisdom to actually rearrange the present by altering the past. It's going too far! My God, look what has already happened. The scientists make fantastic new discoveries which are immediately taken over by a group, almost a breed of men, who always know what's best for the rest of us. Science learns how to split the atom, and they immediately know that the best thing to do with that new knowledge is blow up Hiroshima!" "Don't you think it was?" Esterhazy said coldly. "Or should we have allowed hundreds of thousands of American troops to die on the shores of Japan?" "I don't know! Who does know? I think the most enormous kinds of decisions are being made by people who don't know either. Only in their own opinions do they know. They know it's right and necessary to poison the atmosphere with radioactivity. They know we should use our scientists' genetic discoveries to breed new and terrible kinds of disease. And that they don't even have to ask the consent of the ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent of the rest of us. And now that still another scientist, Dr. Danziger, has made this enormous discovery, he sits at home, squeezed out, unfit to decide what should be done with it. But you aren't. Once again you know that the best thing to do with his discovery is eliminate Castro Cuba. Well, how do you know? Who's given this new little breed of men who've polluted the entire environment and who may actually wipe out the human race—who gave them the power of God to control the lives and futures of the rest of us? Most of them we never heard of, and we sure as hell didn't elect them!" I sat looking from one to the other, then lowered my voice. "Even if you're right about Cuba, as you may be, look what it leads to. It leads directly to bigger and bigger changes, with a handful of military minds rewriting the past, present, and future according to their ideas of what's best for the rest of the entire human race. No, sir, gentlemen; I refuse." Esterhazy'nostrils rigidly flared in rage that the edges were white. His teeth clenched,hedr(s) ewalongsigh(were) ing(so) breath, a prolonged inhalation through his nostrils, filling his lungs to explode at me. Rube saw it and before Esterhazy could speak he said, "Let me!" and Iheard the ring of command, and understood in astonishment that it was an order—from Major Prien to Colonel Esterhazy—and I knew I hadn't begun to understand the real relationships here in the project. Esterhazy forced his lips tight together, obeying. Rube turned to me and spoke in a flat calm voice; not catering to me one bit, not out to mollify me at all, but simply explaining the facts, take it or leave it. He said, "We'll be sorry if you refuse; you're the best operative we have. Our recruiting has continued without letup, and it hasn't become one bit easier to find qualified people. But still... they can be found, and they have been. Furthermore, other portions of the project have continued; yours hasn't been the only one. The man who spent a few seconds in medieval Paris has done it again. Four days ago we reached Denver, 1901, for twenty minutes. We failed in North Dakota, failed at Vimy Ridge, failed in Montana. And we've had important trouble with the Winfield, Vermont, project. The man there succeeded. He made the transition twice, and never returned the second time. We don't know why; there is an obvious guess, but we don't know. Now, what am I driving at? I tell you frankly and honestly that we have serious difficulties and problems. I tell you that you may be the best operative by far that we will ever find. I tell you that we hope very much that you will reconsider. But I also tell you that if you do not—" He stopped, and sat looking at me, no smile at all in his eyes; then he finished the sentence, quietly and flatly: "—we'll simply get somebody else. And if the experiment cannot be made in New York City, 1882, with Jacob Pickering, then another will be made at some other place, some other time, and with somebody else. I'm not interested in arguing with you. Just understand this: It is going to be done." Rube sat for several seconds, not moving, staring directly into my eyes. Then he allowed just a ghost of the old smile to appear. He said, "I agree with—not all, and not the most important part— but with a very great deal of what you said, and what you think. What you feel does you credit. But, Si, I can only repeat: With every possible precaution we are nevertheless going to do it. Now, take your time; sit and think; then tell us what you want to do. Whatever it is, it will be accepted instantly with no further argument or discussion." I sat there for several very long slow minutes; and I thought more intensely, I suppose, than I'd ever done before. Once Messinger started to speak, but Colonel Esterhazy's hand shot up, and he said, "Hold it!" I'd looked up, and Esterhazy sat back in his chair, deliberately relaxing, taking his time, to let me know I had all the time I wanted. Silence again, for a long time, then presently I looked up at them. I said, "All right; my conscience is clear. I did my best. I did my very utmost to persuade you of what I still feel is right. And if any record is to be made of these proceedings, I'd like the record to show that I did. But now—all right, Rube; there's no answer to what you say. If this is going to be done no matter what I think, feel, or do, then I want to be in on it. I started this, and rather than someone else finishing it, I want to. Because there's one thing I can do better than anyone else, and I ask now that I be allowed to. I'll do what you want because I know it, or something else like it, is going to be done anyway, but I ask you to let me be as easy as I possibly can on Jake Pickering. I came into his life unasked, and I've done him harm, though I think it was justified. But I don't care to destroy him. Let me do just enough so that he is discredited only in the immediate circle thatmatters to you. It will accomplish what you want just as much as wrecking the man completely. His future is grim enough; let's let him keep something, for crysake. If you'll agree to that, I'll do it. But then I resign." Everyone was pleased, Rube and Esterhazy agreeing immediately. We were all standing then, everyone shaking my hand, assuring me I wouldn't be sorry, that they weren't foolhardy, that they'd had to convince some very sober, responsible, and extremely important people in Washington that every safeguard would be taken. They'd be phoning Washington again now; when could I leave? I said I had to have a little time to take care of my own affairs; how about a week? And Rube said a week was fine. I asked about Oscar Rossoff then, and Martin Lastvogel; I liked them, and would have liked to see them. But Esterhazy told me Oscar had left the project; he had his own practice to take care of, and the time he'd agreed to stay was up, unfortunately. It was possible, of course, even probable, but I didn't believe it; the thought rose up in my mind, though I knew I might be wrong, that Oscar had quit in protest against the course the project was taking. Martin was gone, too: back to teaching. Standing in the office, all of us chattering away, I'd managed a smile by now, and I made what amounted to a miniature three-sentence speech, I suppose. I said, "Well. We're all set now. I did my best to change your minds; I think I had to do that. But I have to admit... since you're going on with or without me, I'd one hell of a lot rather have it be with me." And they all grinned, and actually applauded with a quiet token clap or two. I'm not going to say too much about my visit with Kate. It was awkward, for one thing; she was waiting for a delivery and couldn't leave the shop, so we had to talk there for quite a while, occasionally interrupted when a customer would come in. Then I'd have to wander around the shop, waiting for the customer to get the hell out and trying not to show it. I told Kate about the "trip," of course—the project word for it that I'd gotten into the habit of using, too. And of course she was fascinated. The delivery arrived during the last of it, and Kate had to check through four cartons of carefully wrapped antique glassware, verifying the contents and condition before she signed for it. And then, finally—it wasn't closing time but late enough— Kate locked up, and we went upstairs. First thing she did upstairs after starting some coffee was to go to her bedroom and bring out her red-cardboard accordion folder. And while I finished my story we looked once more at the long blue envelope and the note inside it. When finally I finished talking, Kate read the last sentence aloud: " 'So, with this wretched souvenir of that Event before me, I now end the life which should have ended then.' " She looked up at me and nodded; the questions she'd wondered about most of her life were answered now. She said, "I've pictured it so often: The shot sounded, and the woman who lived as his wife came running." "To the body with Julia tattooed across the chest."She nodded. "Yes. So she washed, dressed and laid him out alone: No one else was to see that tattoo." I had the blue envelope in my hand, and I gave it a last look, then handed it back to Kate, and took the little snapshot she held. Again I stared down at the clear sharp image of the tombstone under which Mrs. Andrew Carmody had finally laid Jake. No name on it; she'd live with him as her husband but she wouldn't bury him that way. There on the face of the stone outside Gillis, Montana, were the dots, the time-eroded pits forming a nine-pointed star in a circle. Only now it no longer looked like a tombstone. Rounded at the top, the sides straight, the short little stone looked to me as it had looked to the woman who ordered it made: It was Jake Pickering's boot heel in stone, the final touch to the melodrama of his nineteenth-century life. Kate put her folder away, she poured our coffee, we sat sipping it, talking, waiting till what had to be said was spoken. And presently I said it, clumsily. "It hasn't worked out for us, has it, Kate?" She said, "No. I don't know why. Do you?" I shook my head. "I thought it was going to; I was sure of that. But it reached the point when it ought to have..." She didn't want to go on about it. "And it didn't. Well. It happens, Si. What else can be said? It's not a matter of fault; it can't be forced. Don't blame yourself." We talked much more, of course; quite a lot, surprisingly, even laughing at things that had happened in the past. And when I left, finally, I think we felt pretty good about each other, and I knew that when some time had passed, our new relationship an old fact, I'd be pleased if I saw Katie again someday. On the walk home, the doubts struck, and everything turned bleak. Was it possible for me to go back and live out my life with Julia? Could I do that, knowing the future? Could I live in nineteenth-century New York and look at infants in their carriages, knowing what lay ahead for them? It was a vanished world, actually, nearly every soul in it long since dead: Could I ever really join it? During the next week I let the question lie in the back of my mind, not trying to force an answer. Instead, I finished up several sketches and began this account, working steadily and rapidly in longhand since I had no typewriter, stopping for meals and taking a walk now and then, but not doing much else. In an oblique way it was helping me think what to do, my mind on what mattered yet not directly. Occasionally I thought about Rube Prien, and was amused; if he knew what I was doing he'd want every page stamped CLASSIFIED—or, better yet, burned. Which is what I'd have to do with it unless I joined Julia and took it with me. I have a friend, a writer, and I'm very certain he is the only man ever to look through a great decaying stack of ancient religious pamphlets in the rare-book section of the New York Public Library. If I were to join Julia, I couldfinish this, I thought, and then whenever it was—1911?—that the library was built, I could place this where I knew he'd come onto it someday. Sitting at my kitchen table working, I smiled, liking the idea; it gave the feeling, at least, of a little further purpose to the doing of it. But the real purpose wasn't achieved; the question in my mind didn't answer itself. Rube phoned each day, and dropped in on me twice during that week. He was careful to phone first to avoid any appearance of checking up on me, which was just what he was doing, of course. Each time we talked I took the trouble to let him know I hadn't changed my mind. On the last day I phoned Dr. Danziger. He was in the book, and he answered on the fifth ring, just as I was thinking of hanging up, my conscience clear. As we spoke I wished I'd hung up one ring sooner because, in the mysterious way that this sometimes happens, he'd suddenly turned old, I realized, and I was relieved not to see him. His voice had a quaver now, he was old and beaten, and it struck me with the force of certain knowledge that he was living the very last of his life. I told him what Esterhazy and Rube had told me—he insisted; and I thought he deserved that knowledge if he wanted it. He hadn't known, nobody had told him. And he was so disturbed, his voice trembling almost to breaking, that I was horribly afraid he might actually cry but of course he did not. I should have known he wouldn't; he was old suddenly and very likely dying, but this wasn't a man to let himself change that much. He was angry. "Stop them!" he cried, his voice tiny in the receiver at my car. "You've got to stop them! Promise it, Si! Say you'll stop them!" And of course I said yes, I certainly would, listening to my own voice, hoping it sounded as though I really meant it. A week after my return I was back in the Dakota, back in the clothes that seemed almost more natural to me now than those I'd left behind in my apartment. I'd spent last night here and most of this next day, not because I any longer needed them to reach the state of mind necessary to step out into what I thought of now as Julia's time. It was because I was even more alone here than I'd been in my apartment, and more free to try to think through the most important decision I'd ever make, here in a limbo between two worlds and times. It didn't snow but it was a drab February sky all day, visibility low, as though it might snow soon. And finally, well after dark this time, I walked out of the apartment, down the stairs, and turned toward the street and the park just ahead. There were cars on the street, their tires sounding wetly on the pavement, and I stood waiting at the curb. Then the traffic light clicked green, and I crossed, walked far into the park, found a bench to myself and sat down. I waited then, deep in the park, in the silence, and—simply allowed the change to happen, almost to accumulate. And when finally I stood up, looking around me at the bare trees visible by the light of the night sky reflected from the snow, the park looked no different. But I knew where I was with absolute certainty, and when once again I walked out onto Fifth Avenue, a light delivery wagon rattled slowly by, the horse tired, his neck slumped, a kerosene lantern swaying under the rear axle. On the walk a woman in a feathered black hat, a fur cape over her shoulders, walked past me, holding her long dark skirt an inch above the wet paving stones.
I turned south, down narrow, quiet residential Fifth Avenue, glancing into yellow-lighted windows as I walked, catching glimpses: of a bald bearded man reading the evening paper, the light from a fireplace I couldn't see reflected redly on the windowpane; of a white-aproned, white-capped maid passing through a room; of a month-old Christmas tree, a woman touching a lighted taper to its candles for the pleasure of the five-year-old boy beside her. I walked a long way, not thinking but just waiting to see what I felt. Then I stood across the street beside the iron railings of the park fence staring over at the tall lighted windows of 19 Gramercy Park. I stood for some minutes, and once someone passed quickly by a lower front window, I couldn't tell who. I stood till I was cold, my feet numbing. But I didn't go in; after a while I walked quickly away. And then, north on Broadway from Madison Square, I walked along the Rialto, the theatrical section of New York when Broadway was Broadway. The street was jammed with newly washed and polished carriages. The sidewalks were alive with people, at least half of them in evening dress, the night filled with the sound of them, and the feel of excitement and imminent pleasure hung in the air. But I wasn't a part of it. I hurried past the lighted theaters, restaurants, and great hotels, until I reached the Gilsey House between Twenty-ninth and Thirtieth. There, at the lobby cigar counter, I bought a cigar, a long thin cheroot, and tucked it carefully into the breast pocket of my inner coat. Outside I crossed Thirtieth Street, and stopped before a theater that looked and was brand-new: Wallack's. THE MONEY SPINNERS, said the big block letters of the printed signs beside the entrances. Just ahead of me a man carrying a silver-headed cane collapsed his opera hat, then held open a lobby door for the girl with him. They walked in, and I followed, stepping into a lobby so magnificent it overpowering. It all dark blue and maroon velvet, gilt and silver ornamentation, dark(was) polished wood, and orna(was) te chandeliers. Twin staircases, one at each end of the lobby, curved up to the balconies. I walked over to the ticket window, before which stood a short line, and read the framed price schedule beside it: PARQUET ORCHESTRA OR ALL DOWN STAIRS, $1.50. DRESS CIRCLE FIRST ROW, $2.00, SECOND AND THIRD ROWS, $1.50; NEXT FIVE ROWS $1.00; NEXT ROWS, 75￠ AND 50￠. I glanced out through the glass door panels then; the woman I was waiting for still wasn't there, and I stood to one side by a wall, listening to the excited hum of the lobby, but apart from it. Minutes passed, maybe four or five; then I saw her, back bent, feet shuffling. She was white-haired, wearing a buttonless man's overcoat tied at the waist with a rope, her shoes split at the sides, a rag of a scarf tied under her chin. On one arm she carried a small basket two-thirds filled with polished red apples, and she stopped in the middle of the walk and began an endless cackling spiel: "Apples, apples, apples. Get your apples, get 'em now. Apples, apples, Apple Mary's best! Hurry, now, hurry. Apple Mary says hurry." I stood watching; only one man of the three or four that I saw hand her a coin actually took an apple, and he didn't come into the theater but walked on, eating it. The others came in or stood on the walk.
Carriages had been steadily dropping off their parties at the curb. Now another stopped, and a family got out, all in evening dress: a bearded father, a ruby stud in his stiff white shirtfront; the mother, a pleasantly smiling woman in pink dress and gray cloak; and two girls, one in her twenties, the other younger. Each girl carried her cloak folded over an arm, shoulders bare; one wore a gray dress trimmed with red bows, and the younger wore a marvelous velvet gown of untrimmed, unrelieved spring-green velvet. When she smiled, as she did now, passing through the door her father held open for the party, she was lovely. In the lobby they met friends, and now they stood talking, laughing, and I wanted to eavesdrop but couldn't: I stood staring out at Apple Mary chanting on the walk. And in less than a minute here he came, in evening dress, clean-shaven except for a mustache, moving deftly through the groups on the walk, a slim, very tall, handsome man in his twenties. The lobby doors beside me opened and closed steadily, and as he stopped out on the walk beside Apple Mary I heard him speak the words I could almost repeat with him. "Here you are, Mary. Good luck for you and good luck for me!" and I saw the wink of gold as the coin dropped into her hand. She stared at her palm, then looked up at him. "Bless you, sir; oh, bless you!" she said aloud, and then my lips moved silently, almost in unison with hers. "This evening will be blessed for you; mark my words!" I glanced quickly to my left. The family party were saying goodbye to their friends, turning slowly toward the staircase as their friends turned toward the main-floor doors. And the man I'd watched on the sidewalk was striding toward my door, his hand reaching out for the handle. My own hand was lifting from the breast pocket of my suit coat, the other pushed open the door. I said, "Excuse me, sir," smiling, blocking his way, and I slowly raised the cigar in my hand to my mouth. "But do you have a light?" "Certainly." He brought out a match, lifted one foot to strike it on the dry part of the sole, then raised the sputtering match, shielding it with one hand, to my cigar. Sick at heart, I ducked my head, unable to meet his eyes, and puffed my cigar into light. "Thank you," I said then; from a corner of my eye I could see the far stairway to the balcony, and the girl in the pale green dress was climbing it. "You're welcome"—the man just outside the door shook out the match, then stepped past me into the lobby, glancing around it. But there was nothing now to catch his interest. On the staircase there was a last flick of pale green velvet but I don't think he even noticed it. Taking a ticket from his white vest pocket, he crossed the lobby on into the theater. As I walked along the dark side-street east of Broadway, my hands shoved into my overcoat pockets, it was queer to realize that if I were again to—though I knew I would not—walk into the great brick warehouse labeled Beekey's, it would be into an interior of six concrete floors filled with stored household goods, nothing else. And that if, through the army, I were to track down a major named Ruben Prien, I might eventually find him, a tough little former football player with a wonderful smile. He'd be at a desk somewhere, in his neat khaki uniform, planning in absolute good faith and with an utter certainty God knows what terrible mischief. And he wouldn't know me at all.
To Dr. Danziger, on the phone, I'd repeated as a promise the decision I'd made on the day I confronted Rube Prien and Esterhazy. Now I'd just kept my promise. And the man—the facial resemblance had been very strong—who would have become Dr. Danziger's father, and the girl in green who in time would have become his mother, now never would be. But these were thoughts that weren't of my time anymore. Now they were of a far-off future I no longer belonged in. I touched the unfinished manuscript in my overcoat pocket, and looked around at the world I was in. At the gaslighted brownstones beside me. At the nighttime winter sky. This, too, was an imperfect world, but—I drew a deep breath, sharply chill in my lungs—the air was still clean. The rivers flowed fresh, as they had since time began. And the first of the terrible corrupting wars still lay decades ahead. I reached Lexington Avenue, turned south and— the yellow lights of Gramercy Park waiting at the end of the street—I walked on toward Number 19.