I slapped my stomach, where a bay window had been. “Here is the proof: I wore Graham’s clothes, I told you. But his clothes did not fit me perfectly. At the time of the fire walk I was rather plump, too heavy, carrying a lot of flab right here.” I slapped my stomach again. “Graham’s clothes were too tight around the middle for me. I had to suck in hard and hold my breath to fasten the waistband on any pair of his trousers. That could not happen in the blink of an eye, while walking through a fire pit. Nor did it. Two weeks of rich food in a cruise ship gave me that bay window…and it proves that I am not Alec Graham.”
Margrethe not only kept quiet, her expression said nothing. But Farnsworth insisted. “Margie?”
“Alec, you were having exactly that trouble with your clothes before the fire walk. For the same reason. Too much rich food.” She smiled. “I’m sorry to contradict you, my beloved…but I’m awfully glad you’re you.”
Jerry said, “Alec, many is the man who would walk through fire to get a woman to look at him that way just once. When you get to Kansas, you had better go see the Menningers; you’ve got to get that amnesia untangled. Nobody can fool a woman about her husband. When she’s lived with him, slept with him, given him enemas and listened to his jokes, a substitution is impossible no matter how much the ringer may look like him. Even an identical twin could not do it. There are all those little things a wife knows and the public never sees.”
I said, “Marga, it’s up to you.”
She answered, “Jerry, my husband is saying that I must refute that—in part—myself. At that time I did not know Alec as well as a wife knows her husband. I was not his wife then; I was his lover—and I had been such only a few days.” She smiled. “But you’re right in essence; I recognized him.”
Farnsworth frowned. “I’m getting mixed up again. We’re talking about either one man or two. This Alexander Hergensheimer—Alec, tell me about him.”
“I’m a Protestant preacher, Jerry, ordained in the Brothers of the Apocalypse Christian Church of the One Truth—the Apocalypse Brethren as you hear us referred to. I was born on my grandfather’s farm outside Wichita on May twenty-second—”
“Hey, you’ve got a birthday this week!” Jerry remarked. Marga looked alert.
“So I have. I’ve been too busy to think about it.—in nineteen-sixty. My parents and grandparents are dead; my oldest brother is still working the family farm—”
“That’s why you’re going to Kansas? To find your brother?”
“No. That farm is in another world, the one I grew up in.”
“Then why are you going to Kansas?”
I was slow in answering. “I don’t have a logical answer. Perhaps it’s the homing instinct. Or it may be something like horses running back into a burning barn. I don’t know, Jerry. But I have to go back and try to find my roots.”
“That’s a reason I can understand. Go on.”
I told him about my schooling, not hiding the fact that I had failed to make it in engineering—my switch to the seminary and my ordination on graduation, then my association with C.U.D. I did not mention Abigail, I did not mention that I hadn’t been too successful as a parson largely (in my private opinion) because Abigail did not like people and my parishioners did not like Abigail. Impossible to put all details into a short biography—but the fact is that I could not mention Abigail at all without throwing doubt on the legitimacy of Margrethe’s status…and this I could not do.
“That’s about it. If we were in my native world, you could phone C.U.D. national headquarters in Kansas City, Kansas, and check on me. We had had a successful year and I was on vacation. I took a dirigible, the Count von Zeppelin of North American Airlines, from Kansas City airport to San Francisco, to Hilo, to Tahiti, and there I joined the Motor Vessel Konge Knut and that about brings us up to date, as I’ve told you the rest.”
“You sound kosher, you talk a good game—are you born again?”
“Certainly! I’m afraid I’m not in a state of grace now…but I’m working on it. We’re in the Last Days, brother; it’s urgent. Are you born again?”
“Discuss it later. What’s the second law of thermodynamics?”
I made a wry face. “Entropy always increases. That’s the one that tripped me.”
“Now tell me about Alec Graham.”
“Not much I can tell. His passport showed that he was born in Texas, and he gave a law firm in Dallas as an address. For the rest you had better ask Margrethe; she knew him, I didn’t.” (I did not mention an embarrassing million dollars. I could not explain it, so I left it out…and Marga had only my word for it; she had never seen it.)
“Margie? Can you fill us in on Alec Graham?”
She was slow in answering. “I’m afraid I can’t add anything to what my husband has told you.”
“Hey! You’re letting me down. Your husband gave a detailed description of Dr. Jekyll; can’t you describe Mr. Hyde? So far, he’s a zero. A mail drop in Dallas, nothing more.”
“Mr. Farnsworth, I’m sure you’ve never been a shipboard stewardess—”
“Nope, I haven’t. But I was a room steward in a cargo liner—two trips when I was a kid.”
“Then you’ll understand. A stewardess knows many things about her passengers. She knows how often they bathe. She knows how often they change their clothes. She knows how they smell—and everyone does smell, some good, some bad. She knows what sort of books they read—or don’t read. Most of all she knows whether or not they are truly gentlefolk, honest, generous, considerate, warmhearted. She knows everything one could need to know to judge a person. Yet she may not know a passenger’s occupation, home town, schooling, or any of those details that a friend would know.
“Before the day of the fire walk I had been Alec Graham’s stewardess for four weeks. For the last two of those weeks I was his mistress and was ecstatically in love with him. After the fire walk it was many days before his amnesia let us resume our happy relationship—and then it did, and I was happy again. And now I have been his wife for four months—months of some adversity but the happiest time of my whole life. And it still is and I think it always will be. And that is all I know about my husband Alec Graham.” She smiled at me and her eyes were brimming with tears, and I found that mine were, too.
Jerry sighed and shook his head. “This calls for a Solomon. Which I am not. I believe both your stories—and one of them can’t be correct. Never mind. My wife and I practice Muslim hospitality, something I learned in the late war. Will you accept our hospitality for a night or two? You had better say yes.”
Marga glanced at me; I said, “Yes!”
“Good. Now to see if the boss is at home.” He swiveled around to face forward, touched something. A few moments later a light came on and something went beep! once. His face lighted up and he spoke: “Duchess, this is your favorite husband.”
“Oh, Ronny, it’s been so long.”
“No, no. Try again.”
“Albert? Tony? George, Andy, Jim—”
“Once more and get it right; I have company with me.”
“Yes, Jerry?”
“Company for dinner and overnight and possibly more.”
“Yes, my love. How many and what sexes and when will you be home?”
“Let me ask Hubert.” Again he touched something. “Hubert says twenty-seven minutes. Two guests. The one seated by me is about twenty-three, give or take a bit, blonde, long, wavy hair, dark blue eyes, height about five seven, mass about one twenty, other basics I have not checked but about those of our daughter. Female. I am certain she is female as she is not wearing so much as a G-string.”
“Yes, dear. I’ll scratch her eyes out. After I’ve fed her, of course.”
“Good. But she’s no menace as her husband is with her and is watching her closely. Did I say that he is naked, too?”
“You did not. Interesting.”
“Do you want his basic statistic? If so, do you want it relaxed or at attention?”
&nbs
p; “My love, you are a dirty old man, I am happy to say. Quit trying to embarrass your guests.”
“There is madness in my method, Duchess. They ate naked because they have no clothes at all. Yet I suspect that they do embarrass easily. So please meet us at the gate with clothing. You have her statistics, except—Margie, hand me a foot.” Marga promptly put a foot up high, without comment. He felt it. “A pair of your sandals will fit, I think. Zapatos for him. Of mine.”
“His other sizes? Never mind the jokes.”
“He’s about my height and shoulders, but I am twenty pounds heavier, at least. So something from my skinny rack. If Sybil has a houseful of her junior barbarians, please use extreme prejudice to keep them away from the gate. These are gentle people; we’ll introduce them after they have a chance to dress.”
“Roger Wilco, Sergeant Bilko. But it is time that you introduced them to me.”
“Mea culpa. My love, this is Margrethe Graham, Mrs. Alec Graham.”
“Hello, Margrethe, welcome to our home.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Farnsworth—”
“Katherine, dear. Or Kate.”
“‘Katherine.’ I can’t tell you how much you are doing for us…when we were so miserable!” My darling started to cry.
She stopped it abruptly. “And this is my husband, Alec Graham.”
“Howdy, Mrs. Farnsworth. And thank you.”
“Alec, you bring that girl straight here. I want to welcome her. Both of you.”
Jerry cut in. “Hubert says twenty-two minutes, Duchess.”
“Hasta la vista. Sign off and let me get busy.”
“End.” Jerry turned his seat around. “Kate will find you a pretty to wear, Margie…although in your case there ought to be a law. Say, are you cold? I’ve been yacking so much I didn’t think of it. I keep this buggy cool enough for me, in clothes. But Hubert can change it to suit.”
“I am a Viking, Jerry; I never get cold. Most rooms are too warm to suit me.”
“How about you, Alec?”
“I’m warm enough,” I answered, fibbing only a little.
“I believe—” Jerry started to say—
—as the heavens opened with the most brilliant light imaginable, outshining day, and I was gripped by sudden grief, knowing that I failed to lead my beloved back to grace.
XVIII
Then Satan answered the Lord, and said,
Doth Job fear God for nought?
Job 1:7
Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou
find out the Almighty unto perfection?
Job 11:7
I waited for the Shout.
My feelings were mixed. Did I want the Rapture? Was I ready to be snatched up into the loving arms of Jesus? Yes, dear Lord. Yes! Without Margrethe? No, no! Then you choose to be cast down into the Pit? Yes—no, but—Make up your mind!
Mr. Farnsworth looked up. “See that baby go!”
I looked up through the roof of the car. There was a second sun directly overhead. It seemed to shrink and lose brilliance as I watched it.
Our host went on, “Right on time! Yesterday we had a hold, missed the window, and had to reslot. When you’re sitting on the pad, and single-H is boiling away, even a hold for one orbit can kill your profit margin. And yesterday wasn’t even a glitch; it was a totally worthless recheck ordered by a Nasa fatbottom. Figures.”
He seemed to be talking English.
Margrethe said breathlessly, “Mr. Farnsworth—Jerry—what was it?”
“Eh? Never seen a lift-off before?”
“I don’t know what a lift-off is.”
“Mm…yes. Margie, the fact that you and Alec are from another world—or worlds—hasn’t really soaked through my skull yet. Your world doesn’t have space travel?”
“I’m not sure what you mean but I don’t think we do.”
I was fairly sure what he meant so I interrupted. “Jerry, you’re talking about flying to the moon, aren’t you? Like Jules Verne.”
“Yes. Close enough.”
“That was an ethership? Going to the moon? Golly Moses!” The profanity just slipped out.
“Slow down. That was not an ethership, it was an unmanned freight rocket. It is not going to Luna; it is going only as far as Leo—low Earth orbit. Then it comes back, ditches off Galveston, is ferried back to North Texas Port, where it will lift again sometime next week. But some of its cargo will go on to Luna City or Tycho Under—and some may go as far as the Asteroids. Clear?”
“Uh…not quite.”
“Well, in Kennedy’s second term—”
“Who?”
“John F. Kennedy. President. Sixty-one to sixty-nine.”
“I’m sorry. I’m going to have to relearn history again. Jerry, the most confusing thing about being bounced around among worlds is not new technology, such as television or jet planes—or even space-travel ships. It is different history.”
“Well—When we get home, I’ll find you an American history, and a history of space travel. A lot of them around the house; I’m in space up to my armpits—started with model rockets as a kid. Now, besides Diana Freight Lines, I’ve got a piece of Jacob’s Ladder and the Beanstalk, both—just a tax loss at present but—”
I think he caught sight of my face. “Sorry. You skim through the books I’ll dig out for you, then we’ll talk.”
Farnsworth looked back at his controls, punched something, blinked at it, punched again, and said, “Hubert says that we’ll have the sound in three minutes twenty-one seconds.”
When the sound did arrive, I was disappointed. I had expected a thunderclap to match that incredible light. Instead it was a rumble that went on and on, then faded away without a distinct end.
A few minutes later the car left the highway, swung right in a large circle and went under the highway through a tunnel and came out on a smaller highway. We stayed on this highway (83, I noted) about five minutes, then there was a repeated beeping sound and a flash of lights. “I hear you,” Mr. Farnsworth said. “Just hold your horses.” He swung his chair around and faced forward, grasped the two hand grips.
The next several minutes were interesting. I was reminded of something the Sage of Hannibal said: “If it warn’t for the honor, I’d druther uv walked.” Mr. Farnsworth seemed to regard any collision avoided by a measurable distance as less than sporting. Again and again that “soft mush” saved us from bruises if not broken bones. Once that signal from the machinery went Bee-bee-bee-beep! at him; he growled in answer: “Pipe down! You mind your business; I’ll mind mine,” and subjected us to another near miss.
We turned off onto a narrow road, private I concluded, as there was an arch over the entrance reading FARNSWORTH’S FOLLY. We went up a grade, At the top, lost among trees, was a high gate that snapped out of the way as we approached it.
There we met Katie Farnsworth.
If you have read this far in this memoir, you know that I am in love with my wife. That is a basic, like the speed of light, like the love of God the Father. Know ye now that I learned that I could love another person, a woman, without detracting from my love for Margrethe, without wishing to take her from her lawful mate, without lusting to possess her. Or at least not much.
In meeting her I learned that five feet two inches is the perfect height for a woman, that forty is the perfect age, and that a hundred and ten pounds is the correct weight, just as for a woman’s voice contralto is the right register. That my own beloved darling is none of these is irrelevant; Katie Farnsworth makes them perfect for her by being herself content with what she is.
But she startled me first by the most graceful gesture of warm hospitality I have ever encountered.
She knew from her husband that we were utterly without clothes; she knew also from him that he felt that we were embarrassed by our state. So she had fetched clothing for each of us.
And she herself was naked.
No, that’s not right; I was naked, she was unclothed. That’s not quite right
, either. Nude? Bare? Stripped? Undressed? No, she was dressed in her own beauty, like Mother Eve before the Fall. She made it seem so utterly appropriate that I wondered how I had ever acquired the delusion that freedom from clothing equals obscenity.
Those clamshell doors lifted; I got out and handed Margrethe out. Mrs. Farnsworth dropped what she was carrying, put her arms around Margrethe and kissed her. “Margrethe! Welcome, dear.”
My darling hugged her back and sniffled again.
Then she offered me her hand. “Welcome to you, too, Mr. Graham. Alec.” I took her hand, did not shake it. Instead I handled it like rare china and bowed over it. I felt that I should kiss it but I had never learned how.
For Margrethe she had a summer dress the shade of Marga’s eyes. Its styling suggested the Arcadia of myth; one could imagine a wood nymph wearing it. It hung on the left shoulder, was open all the way down on the right but wrapped around with generous overlap. Both sides of this simple garment ended in a long sash ribbon; the end that went under passed through a slot, which permitted both ends to go all the way around Marga’s waist, then to tie at her right side.
It occurred to me that this was a fit-anyone dress. It would be tight or loose on any figure depending on how it was tied.
Katie had sandals for Marga in blue to match her dress. For me she had Mexican sandals, zapatos, of the cut-leather openwork sort that are almost as fit-anyone as that dress, simply by how they are tied. She offered me trousers and shirt that were superficially equivalent to those I had bought in Winslow at the SECOND WIND—but these were tailormade of summer-weight wool rather than mass-produced from cheap cotton. She also had for me socks that fitted themselves to my feet and knit shorts that seemed to be my size.