Not that Robinson looked overly subdued by her authority. She did stand up to him, however, and clearly had the better cards in hand; for he fell silent, scowling at her as she went on speaking. After several moments, she turned away from him and came back across the Rotunda to me, that expression still on her face, intimidating me. Was she going to tell me off now?
“There is an extra bed in Mr. Robinson’s room,” she told me. “You can stay there tonight. Tomorrow, you will have to make other arrangements.”
I wanted to refuse her; tell her I’d rather sleep on the beach than spend the night in the company of her manager. I couldn’t do that though; it would be insulting to her after she had, once more, extended herself for me. “Fine,” I said. “Thank you, Elise.”
For many seconds, I was under that intense scrutiny again, her eyes searching mine, her expression one of tight uncertainty, as though she would have welcomed the motivation to send me packing but could not quite summon it. I said nothing, realizing that this feeling on her part was the only thing in my favor at the moment.
Abruptly, she murmured, “Goodnight,” and turned.
To stand there, watching her move away from me, had to be the most terrifying experience of my life. It took every bit of will I had not to run after her, clutch at her arm, and plead with her to stay with me. Only the conviction that doing so might alienate her completely kept me from it. My need for her was overwhelming. Like a frightened child, I stood there, watching the one person in this world I longed for most vanish from my sight.
I didn’t hear his footsteps; never noticed his approach. My first awareness of his presence was a viscid clearing of the throat nearby. I turned to face his stony visage. His dark eyes were regarding me, to put it bluntly, with murderous hatred.
“Know immediately,” he told me, “that I do this out of deference to Miss McKenna and for no other cause. Were it left to my election, I should have you bodily ejected from the premises.”
I could not have believed, until that moment, that any comment of his might strike me as funny. Yet, despite my wretchedness over Elise’s departure, his comment did sound funny to me; it was so utterly and staunchly mid-Victorian. I was forced to restrain a smile.
“You are amused?” he asked.
Amusement fled before physical alarm. He was a heavy man if not a tall one; I had a good three inches on him and was feeling infinitely stronger, but it was best I didn’t goad him into fisticuffs. “Not by you,” I said.
I’d meant the remark to be conciliatory but it sounded more like an insult. I suppose it was an optical illusion but it seemed as though Robinson’s suit went taut all over, every muscle in his body expanding simultaneously with rage.
“Look,” I said. I was starting to lose patience with him. “Mr. Robinson. I don’t want to argue with you or have any kind of difficulty. I know you think—I take that back, I don’t know what you think of me except that, obviously, you disapprove. For now, though, can we call a truce? I’m just not up to anything else.”
He regarded me at length with those cold, black eyes of his. Then he said, eyes narrowing, “Who are you, sir, and what is your game?”
I exhaled wearily. “No game,” I said.
His smile was thin, contemptuous. “That we shall see,” he observed, “as sure as eggs are eggs.”
Good phrase, I thought, in spite of my awareness of his threat to me. The writer’s mind at work.
“I will warn you once and then no more,” he continued. “I do not know what you have said to Miss McKenna which has caused her to accept you with such credulity. You are a long way wrong, however, if you think your ruse, whatever it may be, has cozened me in any way, shape, or form.”
I felt inclined to applaud but didn’t. I didn’t contest his will in any way because I knew that Mr. William Fawcett Robinson had to have the last word. We would stand in the Rotunda all night if I failed to understand that and behave accordingly. So I let him have the point. “May we go to your room now?” I asked.
His features contorted with a look of disdain. “We may,” he answered.
Turning on his heel, he began to move across the floor in rapid strides. For several moments, I failed to comprehend what he was doing. Then, suddenly, it came to me that he had no intention of escorting me. If I were unable to match his pace, he would simply tell Elise that he had tried to take me to his room and I had chosen not to follow.
I stepped off, walking after him as fast as possible. You son of a bitch, I thought. If I’d felt a trifle more dynamic, I think I would have taken a run and punch at him. As it was, I was lucky to keep him in sight at all. He started up the staircase two steps at a time, obviously intending to outdistance me, and causing me to find out that my physical recovery was not as extensive as I’d thought.
Thank God for a sense of humor. I have often thought it but never more acutely than during those moments. If I had not been able to appreciate the ludicrous quality of that chase, I think I would have buckled. I did appreciate it though—in the very midst of it. I must have made a farcical sight, lurching up those stairs, holding onto the banister rail, trying to keep him in view as he bounded upward like some damned overweight gazelle. More than once, my legs gave way and I pitched against the banister, holding on like an earthquake victim. Once, another man came down the stairs but, unlike the first man I’d met, this one eyed my reeling ascent with icy disapproval. I actually laughed as I wallowed past him, though to him it doubtless sounded like a drunken hiccup.
By the time I reached the third floor, Robinson was out of sight. I staggered to the corridor and looked both ways, then, seeing no one, spun around and staggered to the stairs again, continued climbing. The walls were starting to blur around me and I knew I didn’t have much longer to go before I’d pass out. And here I’d thought that I’d completely overcome the side effects of my journey through time. One more mistake.
Fortunately, I came across him on the fourth floor. What the hell’s he doing way up here? I wondered dizzily as I turned right from the staircase landing and saw him down the corridor, talking to some man. I don’t know, even now, if he’d spoken to the man deliberately, giving me a chance to catch up with him; not out of personal sympathy, God knows, but because he’d had second thoughts about facing Elise after I told her I’d been ditched. Then again, he might have simply run across the man and been unable to avoid a conversation.
Whatever the case, as I approached them on my rubbery legs, I heard that they were discussing the play. Nearing them, I stopped and leaned against the wall, wheezing and puffing, fighting off waves of darkness. Robinson chose not to introduce me, which was just as well since I couldn’t have done more than gurgle at the other man. He must have wondered, though, who in the name of heaven this strange, perspiring fellow was, slumped against the wall.
Finally, the conversation ended and the man walked by me, his appraisal darkly curious. Robinson moved into a side corridor and, pushing from the wall, I followed him. His room was on the left. As he unlocked the door, I wavered toward him, too close to fainting now to wait for an invitation.
Robinson said something in a surly tone as I barged past him through the doorway; I couldn’t interpret a word of it. My blurring vision, going fast, made out two beds on the opposite side of the room. One of them had a newspaper lying on it, so I groped for the other, miscalculated distance, and banged my shins against the footboard. Gasping in pain, I hobbled to the side of the bed and pitched clumsily across the mattress, reaching down with my right hand to break the fall. My palm slipped on the spread and I felt my right cheek jar down on it. The room begin to turn around me like an unlit, silent merry-go-round. I’m going! I thought. The frightened awareness was the last to cross my mind before unconsciousness devoured me.
A sound awoke me. Opening my eyes, I stared at the wall. I had no idea where I was. Ten to fifteen seconds passed before I felt a sudden jab of fear and turned my head.
Contradictory, I suppose, that the sight
of Robinson consoled me. It did, however, for it told me in an instant that I hadn’t gone back. Despite a period of actual unconsciousness, my system had remained in place. Which could only mean I had begun to send down roots.
I stared at Robinson, confused by the way he stood with his back to me, facing what appeared to be a blank wall. He was holding something in front of himself. I couldn’t see what it was but, from the crackling sound it emitted, it was something made of paper.
At last he moved, there was a thumping sound, and he began to turn. I closed my eyes, not daring to deal with him again. After a while, I opened them a tiny bit and saw that he had turned away from me. I glanced to the spot where he’d been standing and made out the door of a wall safe.
I looked at Robinson again. He was sitting in a wicker chair by the windows, removing his shoes. There was an unlit stump of cigar clamped in the left corner of his mouth. He’d removed his coat, vest, and tie and I saw elastic bands on the sleeves of his striped shirt, the mountings on which looked as though they might be made of sterling silver. The trimmings on his black suspenders also looked like silver.
The chair creaked as he dropped his second shoe—more like an ankle-high boot, I saw—sighed, and propped his black-socked feet on a stool. Reaching over to a writing table by the chair, he picked up an ornately designed silver pocketknife. He opened it and began to run the blade tip underneath his fingernails. The room was so still I could hear the delicate rasping noise. I noticed the ring on the third finger of his right hand, black onyx with a raised gold emblem.
I wanted to look around the room but my eyelids were getting heavy again. I felt warm and comfortable even in Robinson’s presence. After all, he was only doing what he thought was best for Elise.
I began to think about what she’d said to me behind the hotel; that she’d been expecting me. How could that be? An answer seemed impossible unless one thought in terms of ESP. Was that it? I felt perplexed, yet at the same time deeply grateful. Whatever the explanation, her expecting me had made all the difference. She was still a long, long way from accepting me in the way I wanted to be accepted, but at least a start had been made.
My mind was slipping away again. This time, I did not feel apprehensive. I was confident that, when I woke, I would still be in 1896. Drifting into shadows, I applied the last of my attention to the enigma at hand. Had it all been preordained?—my seeing her photograph, falling in love with her, deciding to try and reach her, finally reaching her? Could such preordination only function if it were balanced by her knowledge of my coming?
I was too groggy to make any sense of the problem. I let it fade away and, with it, all awareness.
November 20, 1896
I know that dreams can be sensory reflections, for I was dreaming of a waterfall when I woke to hear a waterfall of rain outside the room.
Twisting around, I looked toward the window and saw a sheet of water descending from the eaves and heard it thudding loudly on the roof below.
Then, competing with the sound, I heard Robinson’s snoring and looked toward the other bed. He had fallen asleep with the lights on, still dressed, sprawled on his back like a murder victim, mouth a yawning cavity, loud snores rattling from it like spasmodic leopard growls. A cigar had been between his lips and now lay on the pillow by his head. Thank God it hadn’t been lit when he fell asleep. It would have been a grisly irony to reach 1896 only to perish in a hotel fire.
I sat up guardedly so as not to wake him. The caution was unnecessary. Robinson is the sort of man who sleeps through tornadoes. I gazed at him, recalling how ungraciously he’d treated me. Because of what I’d read about him, I felt no animosity. Having godlike prescience is sometimes an advantage.
Suddenly I felt a hungering need to be with Elise and wondered how she’d react if I were to knock on her door at this hour. Even in the act of wondering, I knew it was impossible. The mores of this time forbade it—not to mention the probability that if he found out, Robinson would take a fling at thrashing me to within the accepted inch of my life.
Even so, the knowledge of how physically close she was to me after having been seventy-five years distant plagued me. What was she doing at this moment? Was she asleep, lying snug and warm in her bed? Or—uncharitably, if humanly, I hoped for this—was she standing by the window of her room, staring at the rainswept night and thinking of me?
I had only to steal from the room and make my way downstairs to find out.
For several minutes, I succeeded in driving myself half-mad by visualizing her letting me into her room. She was wearing—in my vision—a nightgown and robe and, as I held her close (in my vision, she permitted this immediately), I could feel her warm body against mine. We even kissed in my vision, her lips soft and receptive, her fingers clinging to my shoulders. Side by side, we walked into her bedroom, arms around each other.
At which point, scowling with self-reproach, I managed to terminate the vision. Step by step, I told myself. This is 1896; don’t be an idiot. I drew in agitated breath and looked around for mental distraction.
Robinson’s belongings on the writing table provided it. Rising, I stepped over to the table and looked at his open watch. It was seven minutes after three. A marvelous time to knock on a lady’s door, I thought as I stared at the ornate case of the watch. It was gold with elaborate engraving around its rim, the figure of a lion in its center; not a living one but the stone variety, such as those in front of the New York Public Library.
Looking at Robinson’s coat, which he had tossed across the chair back, I saw the tip of a pen protruding from an inside pocket and slipped it out. To my surprise, I saw that it was a fountain pen. Odd that I have been inclined to visualize this period as such a primitive one. The electric lights surprised me; now the fountain pen. This is, after all, hardly the Middle Ages. As I recall, they even have their own version of the digital clock.
Drawing out the chair, I sat down carefully and eased out the drawer of the writing table. There was a sheaf of hotel stationery inside. Setting aside Robinson’s belongings—a wallet and a silver matchbox—I began to write, making my letters as small as possible and using what I remembered from the Speedwriting course I took because I had so much to recount and didn’t want to run out of paper; also to prevent anyone who might see it from being able to interpret it.
I am writing now and have been doing so for hours. The rain has stopped and it is almost dawn, I think; there seems to be a grayish tinge to the sky.
I am taken by the fact that my writing style seems to have altered, as though I am attempting to keep it more in harmony with this period. Television scripts demand nothing if not economy of presentation. Dictating them increased this sparseness even more.
Now, I seem to be falling into the leisurely loquaciousness of this time. It is not an unpleasant feeling. As I sit here, the scratching of this penpoint on this paper the only sound in the room save for the distant percussion of surf—even Robinson has, temporarily at least, stilled himself—I feel very much the model of an 1896 gentleman.
I hope I have remembered everything important. I know I have missed endless moments and nuances of emotion. Words were spoken, even between Elise and myself, which I cannot recollect. Still, I think I have recalled the essential moments.
It is almost clear outside now. There is only a drip of rain from the eaves. Across Glorietta Bay, I can see a scattering of lights, up in the sky a few diamondlike stars. I can make out the dark shape of the laundry chimney on the other side of the grounds, the strand leading to Mexico, and, to my right, the ghostly outline of the iron pier jutting out into the ocean.
I wonder if it is unwise—foolish even—to consider the contradictions in what I have done. I suppose it would be best to concentrate entirely on Time 1,1896. I sense pitfalls in any other approach.
Still, it is difficult not to examine those contradictions, if only cursorily. What happens, for instance, on February 20, 1935? I intend to remain where I am. In that case, what happe
ns on that future day? Will the adult me vanish spontaneously? Will the baby me live or die at birth or not be conceived at all? Worse than any of these possibilities, will my act of returning create the grotesque enigma of two Richard Colliers existing simultaneously? The concept is disturbing and I wish I’d never thought of it.
Perhaps the answer is, more simply, that, in remaining, I will gradually take on some other identity so that by 1935 there will, literally, be no Richard Collier to be replaced.
An odd thought just occurred to me; odd in the sense that it has only now occurred to me.
It is that famous men and women I have read about are now alive.
Einstein is a teenager in Switzerland. Lenin is a young lawyer, his revolutionary days far ahead of him. Franklin Roosevelt is a Groton student, Gandhi a lawyer in Africa, Picasso a youth, Hitler and De Gaulle schoolboys. Queen Victoria still sits on the throne of England. Teddy Roosevelt has yet to charge up San Juan Hill. H. G. Wells has only recently published The Time Machine. McKinley has been elected this very month. Henry James has just fled to Europe. John L. Sullivan is newly retired from the ring. Crane and Dreiser and Norris are, only now, beginning to evolve the realistic school of writing.
And, even as I write these words, in Vienna, Gustav Mahler is commencing his duties as conductor of the Royal Opera.
I had better stop this kind of thinking or—
Dear God.
My hand is shaking so I can hardly hold the pen.
I’ve slept for hours and hours and there is no headache.
I feel as though I am still holding my breath, the change so electrifying to me that I fear to think of it.
At first, I didn’t think of it. With deliberate care, I concentrated on the details of my actions. I folded the sheets of paper carefully, feeling their texture against my fingers, listening to their crackling rustle as I put them in my inside coat pocket. I looked at Robinson’s watch again. It was just past six thirty. I stood and stretched. I looked at Robinson, who was still asleep, breath bubbling in his throat. I permitted myself to worry about the wrinkles in my suit.