Jack Finney - Time and Again

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 could finish 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 was overpowering. It was all dark blue and maroon velvet, gilt and silver ornamentation, dark polished wood, and ornate 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¢.