To Sail Beyond the Sunset

  Father looked strange, haunted. I heard him murmur, “‘—unto an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world—’” Sergeant Theodore answered, “‘—and the glory of them.’ Matthew, four, verse eight. But, Doctor, I am not the Devil and I am not offering you treasure or power—simply the hospitality of my home as I have enjoyed the hospitality of this home…plus an opportunity for a refresher course if you want it. But you don’t have to make up your mind tonight; you have more than eight years for that. You can postpone your decision right up to the last minute. Dora—that’s my ship—has ample room.”

  I turned and put my hand on Father’s arm. “Father, do you remember what we did in 1893?” I looked across at Ted. “Father read medicine under a preceptor who never believed in germs. So, after Father had been in practice for many years, he went back to school at Northwestern University in 1893 to learn the latest knowledge about germ theory and asepsis and such things. Father, this is the same thing—and an incredible opportunity! Father accepts, Theodore—he’s just slow to admit what he wants, sometimes.”

  “Mind your own business, Maureen. Ted said I could take eight years to answer.”

  “Carol would not take eight years to answer. And neither would I! If Brian permitted. If Theodore can bring me back to the same hour and day—”

  “I can.”

  “Would I meet Tamara?”

  “Of course.”

  “Oh, my! Brian? Just a visit and I come home the same day—”

  Theodore put in, “Brian, you can come with her. A few days or a few months vacation, and back the same day.”

  “Uh—Oh, Heavens! Sergeant, you and I have a war to win first. Can we table this till we come back from France?”

  “Certainly, Captain.”

  I don’t recall how the talk got around to economics. First, I was sworn to silence about the periodic nature of female fertility…and took the oath with my fingers crossed. Fiddlesticks. Both doctors, Papa and Theodore, pointed out that my mucous membranes had never been invaded by bugs—gonococci and spirochete treponema pallidum and such—because I had been drilled and drilled in “Always use a rubber except when you want a baby,” and my girls had been trained the same way. I didn’t mention the far more numerous times when I had happily skipped those pesky sheaths because I was pregnant and knew it. Such as the night before. Avoiding disease does not depend on anything as trivial as a rubber purse; it depends on being very, very fussy about your intimates. A woman can catch something bad in her mouth or in her eyes just as quickly as in her vagina—and much easier. Am I going to copulate with a man without kissing him? Let’s not be silly.

  I can’t recall ever using a rubber after Theodore explained exactly how to chart my fertile span. Or ever again failing to “ring the cash register” when I wished to.

  Then I heard, “—October twenty-ninth, 1929.”

  I blurted, “Huh? But you said you were leaving in 1926. August second.”

  My husband said, “Pay attention, Carrot Top. There will be a quiz Monday morning.”

  Theodore said, “Maureen, I was speaking of Black Tuesday. That is what future historians will call the greatest stock market crash in all history.”

  “You mean like 1907?”

  “I’m not sure what happened in 1907 because, as I told you, I studied closely only the history of the decade I planned to spend here—from the year after the end of this war until shortly before Black Tuesday, the twenty-ninth of October, 1929. That ten years, from after the First World War—”

  “Hold it! Doctor, you said ‘First World War—’ First?”

  “Doctor Johnson, except for this one Golden Age, from November eleventh, 1918, to October twenty-ninth, 1929, there are wars all through this century. The Second World War starts in 1939, and is longer and worse than this one. Then there are wars off and on—mostly on—the rest of this century. But the next century, the twenty-first century, is far worse.”

  Father said, “Ted. The day war was declared. You were simply speaking the truth as you saw it. Weren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then why did you enlist? This isn’t your war… Captain Long.”

  Theodore answered very softly, “To gain your respect, Ancestor. And to make Maureen proud of me.”

  “Mrrph! Well! I hope that you will never regret it, sir.”

  “I never will.”

  Thursday was a busy day indeed; Eleanor and I, with the aid of all my older children and all her older children, with much help from Sergeant Theodore as my aide de camp (“dog robber” he called it, and so did Father—I declined to let them get my goat), with some help from our spouses and from Father—Eleanor and I mounted a formal church wedding in only twenty-four hours.

  Oh, I must admit that Eleanor and I had done spadework ahead of time—guest lists, plans, alerting of minister and janitor and caterer as soon as Brian’s first phone call had made it possible, engraving of invitations on Tuesday, envelopes addressed on Wednesday by her two best penmen, invitations delivered by my two boys and two of hers, with RSVP to Justin’s office by telephone, etc., etc.

  We managed to have the bride dressed correctly and on time because Sergeant Theodore displayed another unexpected talent: ladies’ sempstress—no, sempstor—no, I think it must be “ladies’ tailor”. I had already accomplished my prime purpose of using Eleanor’s special telepathic talent by having Theodore drive me to Eleanor’s house out south on Thursday morning and there putting my problem to her bluntly—speeding things up by peeling my clothes off the instant the door was locked on El and me in her private apartment, then bringing her up to date—then Eleanor had her maid show Theodore to El’s private suite.

  Never mind the sweaty details; in another thirty minutes Eleanor reported to me, “Maureen love, Theodore believes every word of what he has been telling us,” which Theodore countered by pointing out that every Napoleon in every insane asylum believed his own story just as firmly.

  “Captain Long,” Eleanor had answered, “few males have a firm grip on reality; I can’t see that it matters. You were telling me the truth as you know it when you told me about your home in the future and you were again telling the truth when you told me that you love Maureen. Since I love her, too, I hope to earn some portion of your love. Now, please, if you will let me up—and thank you, sir! you pleasured me immensely.”

  It was immediately after that we ran into a time conflict: how to get Eleanor’s wedding dress and Nancy to Eleanor’s sempstress at a time when Justin said that Jonathan must fetch Nancy and Brian to Justin’s office so that all four could go to City Hall together to obtain the necessary special license, both principals being under age.

  Theodore said, “Why do we need a sempstress? Eleanor, doesn’t that cabinet over there conceal a Singer sewing machine? And why do we need Nancy? Mama Maureen, didn’t you tell me that you and Nancy can wear the same clothes?”

  I agreed that Nancy and I could (and did) borrow clothes from each other. “I’m an inch more in the thighs and about the same bigger in the bust. But, Lazarus, we don’t dare touch Eleanor’s dress—wait till you see it.”

  Although Eleanor was taller and bigger than I, the wedding dress was close to my size as it had already been cut down once for her daughter Ruth, three inches shorter than her mother. It was a magnificent gown of white satin, lavishly beaded with seed pearls. It had a Belgian lace veil and a ten-foot train. It had originally had mutton-leg sleeves and a derrière cut for a bustle; these had vanished in the alteration for Ruth.

  All the money in the world could not produce a wedding dress of that quality in the few hours until it would be needed; my Nancy was lucky that her Aunt El was willing to lend it to her.

  Eleanor fetched it. Theodore admired it but did not seem intimidated by it. “Eleanor, let’s fit it snugly to Mama Maureen, then there will be just room for its slip under it for Nancy. What other underclothes? Corset? Brassiere? Panties?”

  I said
, “I’ve never put a corset on Nancy and she says she’s never going to start.”

  “Good for Nancy!” agreed Eleanor. “I wish I never had. Mau, Nancy doesn’t need a brassiere. What about underpants? Can’t wear bloomers with that dress. Both Emery Bird and Harzfeld carry sheer underpants…but they will still make lines under this dress if it is fitted as well as it should be.”

  “No pants,” I ruled.

  “Every old biddy there will know she’s not wearing any,” Eleanor said doubtfully.

  I explained in Chaucerian terms my lack of interest in what old biddies thought. “I’ll put round garters on her. She can shift to hose supporters when she changes to leave.”

  “At which time she can put on underpants,” Theodore added.

  I was startled. “Why, Theodore! I’m surprised. What need has a bride for pants?”

  “The tiniest, scantiest, sheerest girl panties that are sold today, I mean—not bloomers. So Jonny can take them off when he gets her there, darling. Symbolic defloration, an old pagan rite. It tells her she’s married.”

  El and I giggled. “I must be sure to tell Nancy that.”

  “And I’ll tell Jonathan so that he will make it a proper ceremony. Eleanor, let’s put Maureen up on that low table and start shoving pins into her. Mama Maureen, are you clean and dry all over? I’m about to turn this dress inside out. Satin shows water marks something ’orrible.”

  For the next twenty-five minutes Theodore was very busy, while I held still and Eleanor kept him supplied with pins. Presently El said, “Lazarus, where did you learn women’s clothes?”

  “In Paris, about a hundred years from now.”

  “I wish I hadn’t asked. Are you descended from me? As well as from Maureen?”

  “I wish I were. I’m not. But I’m married to three of your descendants… Tamara, Ishtar, and Hamadryad—and co-husband to another, Ira Weatheral. Probably—certainly—other connections, but Maureen was right; I checked the archives only for my own ancestors. I didn’t guess that I would meet you, El of the beautiful belly. I’m almost through. Shall I go ahead and make the alterations? Or do we take this to your ladies’ sempstress?”

  El said, “Maureen? I’m willing to risk the dress; I have confidence in Lazarus—I mean M’sieur Jacques Noir. But I won’t risk it for Nancy’s wedding without your permission.”

  I answered, “I don’t have any judgment about Theodore, or Lazarus, or whatever name he’s using today—I mean this stud who’s treating me like a dressmaker’s dummy. But—Sergeant, didn’t you tell me you have retailored your breeches yourself? Pegged them?”

  “Oui, Madame.”

  “‘Oui, Madame’ my tired back. Where did you leave your pants, Sergeant? You should always know where your pants are.”

  “I know where they are!” said El, and fetched them.

  “Around the knees, El. Turn them inside out and look.” I joined her in checking Theodore’s tailoring. Shortly I said, “El, I can’t see where they were altered.”

  “I can. See? The original thread is just barely faded; the thread he used in altering is the same shade as the cloth of the outlets—the cloth that has not been in sunlight.”

  I agreed. “Mmm, yes, once I get it into stronger light. If I look closely.”

  El looked up. “You’re hired, boy. Room, board, ten dollars a week, and all the tail you can use.”

  Theodore looked thoughtful. “Well…all right. Though I usually get paid extra for that.”

  El looked surprised, then laughed merrily, ran to him, and started rubbing tits against his ribs. “I’ll meet your terms, Captain. What is your stud fee?”

  “I usually get the pick of the litter.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  The wedding was beautiful and our Nancy was dazzlingly lovely in a magnificent dress that fitted her perfectly. Marie was flower girl; Richard was ring bearer, both in Sunday white. Jonathan was (to my surprise) in formal cutaway, ascot in pearl gray with pearl stickpin, gray striped trousers, spats. Theodore was his best man, in uniform; Father was in uniform and wearing his many medals and acting as usher and groomsman; Brian was utterly beautiful in boots and Sam Browne and spurs and saber and his ’98 medals and forest-green jacket and pinks.

  Carol was maid of honor and almost as dazzling as the bride in lime-green tulle and her bouquet. Brian Junior was the other usher and groomsman and was dressed in his grammar-school graduation suit, brand new only two weeks earlier—double-breasted blue serge and his first long pants and very grown-up in his manner.

  George was charged with just one duty, to see to it that Woodrow kept quiet and behaved himself, and was authorized to use force as necessary. Father gave George this instruction in Woodrow’s presence…and Woodrow did behave himself; he could always be counted on to act in his own self-interest.

  Dr. Draper did not indulge in any of the nonsense with which the Reverend Timberly had almost spoiled my wedding; he used the ME service right straight out of the 1904 Discipline, not a word more, not a word less…and in short order our Nancy was going back down the aisle on her husband’s arm to the traditional strains of the Mendelssohn recessional, and I sighed with relief. It had been a perfect wedding, no rough spots whatever, and I thought to myself how dumbfounded Mrs. Grundy would have been had she seen a majority of the wedding party thirty-six hours earlier, behind locked doors, in a gentle orgy inaugurating Carol’s Day.

  It was the first celebration of the holiday that would spread at the wave-front of the Diaspora of the human race: Carol’s Day, Carolmas, Carolita’s Birthday (it was not!), Fiesta de Santa Carolita. Theodore had told us that it had become (would become) the midsummer fertility rite for all planets, anywhen. Then he had toasted Carol’s graduation to womanhood in champagne, and Carol had answered his toast with great seriousness and dignity—and got bubbles up her nose and gagged and coughed and had to be consoled.

  I did not know then and do not know now whether or not Theodore granted my second daughter the boon she craved. All I can say is that I gave them every opportunity. But with Theodore (stubborn, difficult man!) one never knows.

  On Saturday afternoon there was a rump session of the trustees of the Ira Howard Foundation, Judge Sperling having come all the way from Toledo for that purpose: Judge Sperling, Mr. Arthur J. Chapman, Justin Weatheral, Brian Smith (by unanimous consent), Sergeant Theodore…and me. And Eleanor.

  When Judge Sperling cleared his throat, I understood the signal and started to withdraw. Whereupon Theodore stood up to leave with me.

  There was some backing and filling, but the result was that I stayed and Eleanor stayed because Theodore headed for the door when we did. He did explain that the Howard Families, in their permanent organization, used absolute equality of the sexes…and, as Howard chairman in his own time, attending this meeting as a courtesy to the twentieth-century Howard organization, he could not in conscience take part in any Howard meeting from which women were excluded.

  Once they got past that hurdle, the meeting simply consisted of Theodore’s repeating his prediction of November 11, 1918, as the day the war would end, followed by his prediction of Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929. On being questioned he embellished this latter, with mention of devaluation of the dollar, from twenty dollars to the ounce down to thirty-five dollars to the ounce. “President Roosevelt will do this by what amounts to decree, although Congress will ratify it…but this doesn’t happen until early in 1933.”

  “Just a moment, Sergeant Bronson, or Captain Long, or whatever you call yourself, are you saying that Colonel Roosevelt makes a comeback? I find that hard to swallow. In 1933 he will be, uh—” Mr. Chapman stopped to think.

  “Seventy-five years old,” Judge Sperling put in. “What’s so unusual about that, Arthur? I’m older than that, but I have no intention of retiring anytime soon.”

  Theodore said, “No, gentlemen, no. Not Teddy Roosevelt. Franklin Roosevelt. Now assistant secretary to Mr. Josephus Daniels.”

  Mr. Chapm
an shook his head. “I find that even harder to believe.”

  Theodore answered rather testily, “It does not matter what you believe, Counselor; Mr. Roosevelt will be inaugurated in 1933 and shortly after that he will close all the banks and call in all gold and gold certificates and devalue the dollar. The dollar never does regain its present value. Fifty years later an ounce of gold will fluctuate wildly, from around a hundred dollars an ounce to around a thousand dollars an ounce.”

  “Young man,” Mr. Chapman pronounced, “what you describe is anarchy.”

  “Not quite. It gets worse. Much worse. Most historians call the second half of this century ‘the Crazy Years.’ Socially the Crazy Years start at the end of the next World War. But from a standpoint of the economy the Crazy Years start on Black Tuesday, October twenty-ninth, 1929. For the rest of this century you can lose your shirt if you don’t maintain a strong cash position. But it is a century of great opportunity, too, in almost every field.”

  Mr. Chapman closed down his face. I could see that he had made up his mind not to believe anything. But Justin and Judge Sperling exchanged some side remarks, then the Judge said, “Captain Long, can you tell us what some of these ‘great opportunities’ will be?”

  “I’ll try. Commercial aviation both for passengers and for freight. Railroads will be in deep trouble and will not recover. The present picture shows will add sound—talking pictures. Television. Stereovision. Space travel. Atomic power. Lasers. Computers. Electronics of every sort. Mining on the Moon. Asteroid mining. Rolling roadways. Cryonics. Artificial manipulation of genetics. Personal body armor. Sunpower screens. Frozen foods. Hydroponics. Microwave cooking. Do any of you know D. D. Harriman?”

  Chapman stood up. “Judge, I move we adjourn.”

  “Sit down, Arthur, and behave yourself. Captain, you realize how shocking your predictions are, do you not?”