Jack Finney - Time and Again

I stopped; I wasn't going to say any of these things. The burden wasn't hers. I said, "You've been to Harlem."

"Yes, of course."

"Do you like it?"

"Certainly. It's charming; I've always liked the country."

"Have you ever walked in Central Park at night?"

"Yes."

"Alone?"

"Yes; it's very peaceful."

There were horrors in Julia's time, and I knew it. I knew that the seeds of everything I hated in my own time were already planted and sprouting in hers. But they hadn't yet flowered. In Julia's New York the streets could still fill with sleighs on a moonlit night of new snow, of strangers calling to each other, of singing and laughing. Life still had meaning and purpose in people's minds; the great emptiness hadn't begun. Now the good times to be alive seemed to be gone, Julia's probably the last of them. I said, "You have to go back," and reached over to take her hands in mine. "Just believe me, Julia. Because I love you. You can't stay here."

After a few moments she nodded slowly. "And you, Si — will you come back, too?"

The elation at the very thought of it showed in my face because Julia smiled. But I had to say, "I don't know. I have some duties here first."

"And you don't know if you could, do you? For the rest of your life."

"I'd have to be very sure."

"Yes, you would. For both our sakes." For several moments we looked at each other; then Julia said, "I'm going back, now, Si, tonight. Or I'll begin pleading with you to come, too. And to spend the rest of your life in another time is something you must determine alone."

I thought so, too, and I nodded. "Can you go back alone?"

"I think so. I couldn't have come here into a future past all imagining; you had to bring me. But I can visualize my own time, feel it, and know it is there — far better than you the first time you tried."

Something roared up in my mind that I'd almost forgotten, it seemed so remote from this room and time. "Carmody! You can't go back, Julia! Carmody will —»

"No, he won't." She was shaking her head. "Do you remember what I was doing when Inspector Byrnes came for us? You were downstairs in the parlor, reading and I —»

"You were upstairs."

"Yes; in Jake's room, Si. I'd folded his clothes and put them into his trunk. And I was wrapping his boots when I heard you call. This afternoon for no reason I can understand, I remembered those boots. I'd just picked them up when the doorbell rang, and, Si — I saw the heels. The nails formed a pattern, and the pattern was a nine-pointed star in a circle. Jake survived the fire, not Carmody. That was Jake at Carmody's home covered with bandages. And filled with hate."

I knew it was true, and I knew what had happened. "My God, Julia; he walked out of that fire, somehow. Badly burned, yet a plan already forming in his mind. He walked straight to Carmody's, I'm certain, saw Carmody's widow, and — can you conceive of this? — they made a deal! Without Carmody she could lose the fortune, so he became Carmody. When we saw her at the Charity Ball, her husband newly dead, she'd already made the arrangement. Has anyone ever wanted money and position more than those two? They really make a pair, don't they!"

"What are you smiling at?"

"Was I? I didn't realize. It's not easy to explain, but… I'm smiling because Jake is such a villain! It's the first time I've ever even used the word, but it's what he is, all right. Complete. In everything he does. He's a complete man of his times, and I guess I'm also smiling because in spite of everything I like him. Good old Jake, disguised as Carmody, down on Wall Street at last. I hope he corners the market, whatever that means."

"Yes," Julia said, "he was cursed. I hope he finds happiness, though I am certain he will not." She didn't know what I'd meant, of course. To her there was no strangeness or comedy in the word villain; it's what Jake was, that's all. She said, "He can't harm me now; I know who he is, and when he understands that, I'm safe. So will you be… if you come back." She stood abruptly, and walked quickly to the bedroom to change her clothes.

I rode downtown with Julia in a cab. It was dark now; she sat back from the window, and no one but the driver saw her clothes. Half a block from our destination we got out, well away from the nearest streetlamp. I paid off the cab, then Julia and I walked quickly to the immense granite-block base of the Manhattan tower of the Brooklyn Bridge.

In the deepest shadows I took Julia's hands in mine and stood looking at her. In her long skirt, her coat and bonnet, her muff hanging from her wrist on its loop, she looked right; she looked the way Julia ought to. I said, "I want to come back; I want to spend my life with you, but…"

"I know. I know."

We repeated what we'd already said, several times. I took Julia in my arms then, and held her for quite a long time. I kissed her, we looked at each other once more, then simultaneously inhaled, mouths opening to speak. We stood staring, breaths held momentarily, then smiled a little sadly; we'd said it all. Julia reached out and laid her fingers on my cheek for a moment, then shook her head quickly; she wouldn't say goodbye.

She took my hand, and we walked a few paces out from the great granite wall of the bridge tower, then turned to look at it; now it was like an enormous stone curtain shutting out the world. She said, "The time I was born into and belong to are there, Si; far more real to me than the time I glimpsed today. My own world… I can feel it very strongly, it's very real; can't you?" I nodded; I couldn't speak. Julia turned, kissed me very quickly, then let go my hand and walked swiftly forward at a long angle toward the corner of that enormous wall. She reached it, hesitated, looked back as though she were going to speak, but didn't. She took the final steps and was gone then, around the corner of the huge base of the tower, the sound of her steps rapidly receding.

Silence. Then I began to walk toward the same corner. I broke into a run, fast as I could move, and was around it far quicker than Julia could have disappeared from sight. But she was gone.

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."