From Time to Time (14 page)

"And what do you think Dr. D would say about this?

"Oh, we both know what he'd say; I can quote from the little red book, the wise, wise sayings of the cautious Dr. D. Supercautious --I believe he carries a spare set of shoelaces. But we're not talking about changing the past, Si; it would be a restoration. The old newspaper tells us that. He hunched forward over the table toward me. "The twentieth century, Si, should have been the best, the happiest, the human race ever knew. We were on our way in those first early years! And then the great change occurred. Something that sent us down another path. Into a war nobody needed. What we can do, Si, would not be a change but a restoration to the path the world was already on.

"I came here for a few days. Not to see anyone, except Dr. D. Least of all you. Just a final visit, mostly to walk around. Storing up images. Like a man visiting his old hometown for the last time. Now instead -I shook my head, laughing a little- instead you want me to prevent-

"Give me a week, Si. That's all. Meet me at noon a week from today. At the old place. In the Park where we talked the very first time.

He waited, watching me, but what rushed through my mind was not what Rube thought. My mind was screaming, Tessie and Ted. Do this, and you'll be where Tessie and Ted are! But that's a forbidden thing, isn't it? Not if I have to do what Rube is asking. Not my fault then, is it?

"Well? You'll meet me in a week?

I nodded: scared and terribly excited. Tessie and Ted .

Rube said, "You going to talk to Danziger?

"I think so.

"You're not going to let him talk you out of--

"No. It was different when you and Esterhazv only wanted to fool around with the past. Just to see what would happen. Then I was with Danziger. But this: yeah, sure; I'll meet you in a week.

Tessie and Ted .

CHAPTER 11

THROUGH THE REVOLVING DOORS of the Plaza, down the stone steps, and north to the Fifty-ninth Street corner, where I stopped to wait for the light. I was wearing gray pants and a navy-blue zipper jacket I'd bought a few days ago, no hat. The light changed, I crossed to Central Park, then turned onto a dirt-and-gravel path. On a bit, feeling a little excited, curious about what Rube might have. Off the path then, to walk across a dozen yards of weedy grass or something like grass toward a big outcropping of black rock.

Rube sat waiting, in tan army shirt and pants, tan shoes, an old leather jacket, and an odd-looking blue knitted cap with a fuzzy little tassel. He sat leaning back against the rock, eyes closed, face tipped up into the sun, a brown paper sack on his lap.

He heard me and opened his eyes, grinning, and gestured at the area around us as I sat down, the same place where he had first told me about the Project. "Symbolic, isn't it? Meaningful.

"Or something.

"Well, you made a hard decision then, but the right one. Now do it again. But first . . ." He opened the paper sack, and took out a wax-paper-wrapped sandwich, and handed it to me. "What you ordered, I believe? The first time we sat here? I smiled, knowing what was coming: a roast pork sandwich. "Also symbolic. Of the pig in the poke you bought then. Well, Si, I'm afraid it's another one now. A bigger pig and a far worse poke. But first to the feast! Rube brought out a pair of apples; they too, I remembered, were what we'd had here for lunch once before.

We ate, no hurry. Sitting back against the sun-warmed rock, it wasn't too bad here. On the path a pair of more than usually nice- looking young women walked by, glancing over at us, then walking on with just a tiny bit of extra hip-sway, maybe three eighths of an inch. Rube said, "Those are called girls, I think. Or used to be. And someone once told me-but I've never believed it.

"Good you're in the Army, Rube: the outside world would only confuse you.

"It does, it does. If only they'd let the Army run it. He glanced at me. "But that's not the right thing to say, is it? You already think I'm some kind of homegrown Hitler.

"No, I don't think that, Rube. Napoleon, maybe. Except for the hat.

He reached up and touched it. "Comes to protecting my old bald head, I have no shame. A friend made it; I have to wear it occasionally.

We finished our sandwiches, I dusted crumbs from my hands, took an apple, bit into it-it was tart-and said, "Okay, Rube, I'm all ears.

He reached around to the side of the rock face we were sitting against, and picked up a tan leather carrying case. "What do you know, he said, unzipping it, "about William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt?

"Taft was fat, and Roosevelt wore funny glasses.

"More than I knew. I wasn't even sure which was which. He brought out a blue-lined yellow sheet of penciled notes. "But apparently they were friends. Good ones. Roosevelt was President first, then he got the job for Taft. Naturally, after that they fought over who'd be President the next time around. In 1912. But here s the thing: According to our U.S.A. specialists, there's something they stuck together on. They both wanted peace. I mean really did, no political bullshit, or not too much anyway. Roosevelt had already won the Nobel Peace Prize. Taft's father -Rube tilted his yellow sheet of notes to read a line along the side- had been minister to Austria-Hungary. And Ruman-no, Russia; can't read my own scrawl. Taft himself had been Secretary of War. Roosevelt had brought Japan and Russia together to end their war. And so on. And they were both smart, they knew how things worked, they knew what other smart men all over the world knew, that things were beginning to shape up so that the world just might eventually trip and stumble into a war that made no sense.

Rube folded his yellow sheet, shoved it back into the case, but didn't withdraw his hand. Grinning at me, he said, "I've got something here that's classified, Si. It's army stuff: our people found this, it's ours, and still secret. They think Roosevelt and Taft had an agreement. Whichever was elected in 1912 would implement something they'd already started together. And in the unlikely event that the Democrat was elected, they'd brief him on this, and hope for the best. Sometimes our people are pretty good, Si; take a look at this. He brought out a letter-size sheet, and handed it to me.

It was a xeroxed copy of a smaller sheet, blackened all around the edges for a couple inches surrounding a slightly tilted memo- size rectangle of white. Printed at the top of the memo: The White House. Below that in three penciled lines of fairly good handwriting: Lunch D.S.; under that, wrp gft; below that, Detail Z on G, V.E.

"Cute, eh? said Rube. "Our people tell me that Presidents save bales of stuff. And that it's getting worse. Not much from George Washington, carloads from Gerald Ford. He touched the paper in my hand. "So what does that thing mean?-it s Taft's handwriting. Probably nothing, and who cares. Except that anything a President writes is of some interest, so eventually somebody-I don't know who, it was years ago-at least worked out the date. D.S. was probably Douglas Selbst, senator from Ohio, Taft's state. So check out the senator s journal in the Library of Congress, and vep, it mentions his lunch with the President all right, at some length. On August 14, 1911. So now the memo is dated, and our people note that fact. Not on the original memo, though. It's our information, and to hell with anyone else-right? Don't ever let the Navy find out that Taft had lunch with Senator Selbst in 1911.

"Twenty-five years later-I'm not fooling, Si-another one of our people, an ambitious young girl, if you'll excuse the ugly' word, a lieutenant, who hadn't been born when the memo got dated, came across our file copy. And got interested in the other items. What was rupp guft'? All she could think of was wrap gift,' so she checked out Taft's wife's birth date-not the easiest thing in the world to find out, incidentally. But sure enough, it was August fifteenth, so now the United States Army History Section knew that rupp guft' did indeed mean wrap gift'-terrific! Apparently Taft did his own gift wrapping; those were leisurely days even for Presidents. That information, by the way, is also classified. Swear you'll never tell.

I crossed my heart.

"Okay. Our people earn their pensions. Eventually. And a lifetime after Taft scribbled his memo, one of our guys going through some stuff that included this glanced at the third item, and the initials translated themselves for him. On sight. That happens. Detail Z,' said the memo, and then-G for George, B for Briand, and V.E. for Victor Emmanuel. George Fifth of England; Briand, the premier of France; and the king of Italy, Victor Emmanuel. Three heads of state! And so a lifetime after this thing was written, our people got interested. Sort of. And went to work. Also sort of. Who was Z? they wondered. That was three years ago, and at first-

"Rube. In only five or six hours it's going to get dark.

"All right. I get carried away. Who was Z? Well, Z was a guy Taft and Roosevelt sent to Europe. To extend greetings from the President to various heads of state: that sort of thing. But also to- well, to chat. And reach a few informal agreements. Form a sort of unofficial alliance. Whoever was elected in 1912-and also including the Democrat, if possible-would commit himself to actively work, to do everything in his considerable power, to float the idea that we would enter any European war on the side of the Allies. And precede even that with Atlantic submarine patrol.

"They couldn't promise that, could they?

"Of course not. Congress would have to declare war; this was back in the old-fashioned days when Presidents felt they had to honor their oath to abide by the Constitution. Only Congress could declare war then, and undoubtedly would not have done so. Everyone knew that. All over the world. But this is the point, Si:

While I'm an ignoramus about U.S. history, we now move into a historical field I do understand. If there were even the slimmest possibility that America would come into a European war . . . that war immediately becomes impossible. Don't need Congress, formal treaties, don't need even the least certainty about it. Because no nation begins a war, Clausewitz tells us, that it does not believe it will win. And that's true. That war, Si, unnecessary to anyone, would simply not have begun. No idiotic ultimatums, no declarations. Believe me, Si, it would have worked! The war would have been made impossible. Dig up Ludendorff and Hindenburg and ask them. They'll tell you.

"But Z didn't get his agreements.

"Oh, he got them. So our people believe. What he got was letters, informal exchanges. No acts of Parliament or anything like that. But signed. By heads of state. So they counted. They had power and magic.

"And that's how World War One never happened?

"It happened.

"How come?

"Z never got home.~~

"What?

"No sign of it in anything our people came across. On his way back, all finished, had what he came for: they have cablegrams on that. But then . . . he just seems to vanish. Thin air. We know because there are references to it. Maybe they knew' why at the time. Probably did. But we don't.

"Well, who was Z?

Rube sat slowly shaking his head. "Our people don't know. His actual name never shows up. He is always just Z.' And damn it, Si, our people here don't really care. They're not that interested. This stuff is all just a favor to me. Can't blame them: it's nothing they're on, you see. To them this is just one more failed mission, and there are dozens and dozens of those in any country's history. It happened a lifetime ago, is very little documented, so-it's a case of so-what.

"Can't you tell your people why you- "No. I've been able to form a new unit on this. Very small, need-to-know. Esterhazv heads it, nominally; I'm second in line, and the rest of the unit is mostly the sergeant who brings us coffee.

"Esterhazy.

"Yep. Brigadier now. Si, you know we can't tell people what we're doing. Most of our people never even heard of the original Project in the first place. How could we explain what we hope to do? Show them the Project, a junk heap? I've had to accept what they've offered, which is mostly what they already had at hand. Anyway, I doubt that there's much of anything else. We're talking history of the U.S.A. well before 1914, hardly anyone even thinking about a coming war. Wasn't like Europe; I've told \ou the kind of stuff I could give you for Europe. But here? I think what I've got is about all there is to get. Rube grinned at me suddenly, reaching over to clap me on the forearm. "But an old dog doesn't forget his old tricks! What do you do when a trail peters out? You run around in circles! Till you pick up the scent again. Look, let's get us some coffee or something. He hopped up, the old athlete, offered me a hand, and I let him help pull me up, and we turned to walk over to the path.

We reached it, turning south toward Fifty-ninth Street and the Plaza Hotel. Rube said, "You ever hear of Alice Longworth?

"Yeah, I think so. Old lady? Dead now? The one who said Thomas Dewey looked like the little man on a wedding cake?

"That's her. She also said, If you can't speak well of someone, come sit by me.' That last is the reason I thought of her. She was real bright. Clever, witty. Had a tongue in her head, as they say. A gossip. Married to a socialite congressman. And she wasn't always an old lady. Once she was young, and very much the leader of the \oung Washington set. Knew everybody who was anybody in Washington. Did you know she was Theodore Roosevelt's daughter?

"I don't know. I guess so.

"Well, I remembered, and began reading a little bit about her. Two, three books from the library. And I put together a list of her friends, many as I could. And, figuratively speaking, I began ringing doorbells. I wrote, I phoned, and in one case, in Washington, I actually did ring a doorbell. What I did, Si, was get in touch with people who'd had some connection with Alice; grandchildren of her friends, great-grandchildren, great-greats, anyone I could find who just might have some letters of hers. That's something a fainily might save, a letter from Alice Longworth. I reached maybe one out of five on my list. Some of them didnt even know who she was. We came out onto the Fifth Avenue sidewalk beside the Park, walking on toward Fifty-ninth Street ahead. "It was tedious work, and I'd get bored, irritated. One day on the phone I said, What! You never heard of Alice Longworth! Your life is a wasteland! Why, she's the one they wrote the song about!' What song? he wants to know, of course, so I sang it to him. Over the phone. Rube began singing, softly and in not a bad voice, hitting the notes right: "In her sweet lid-ull Al-liss blue gown! It's a nice old song really; I'd always known it, but never knew the words referred to an actual Alice. I joined in, and we walked along Fifth toward the Plaza across the street, singing softly. I felt pretty good after that, walking into the little bar off the lobby, picking a table. I knew Rube hadn't planned it; he could be devious, but also impulsive, even reckless, and I knew his singing had been spontaneous. But when the waitress arrived, Rube smiled up at her and said, "What the hell; I'll have a martini. First in a million years. And instead of the Coke I'd thought I was going to order, I said I'd have one too. And thought later that maybe Rube had recognized a spur-of- the-moment opportunity to get a little booze in me as an aid toward the right decision.