From Time to Time (2 page)

"All right, the chairman said presently, "let's finish up. Bring your cups to the table if you want. As they took their seats again, he said, "Mr. Braunstein's leaving now; he's got a little drive ahead of him. Any last questions?

"Yes, please, said Audrey. "Mr. Braunstein, did you ever run into anyone else who'd had this . . . experience?

Braunstein, standing with the chairman at the head of the table, nodded. "Yeah, I did once. At my brother's. He was on a softball team, and I was over to go with him to a game, watch him play. He had another player there, a guy from Chicago originally. My brother had me tell my story, and the guy said yeah, he'd heard that before. In Chicago.

Steve, the young man with the thinning yellow hair, said, "Well, did it check out the same? I mean about Kefauver and Dirksen. And the convention in Atlanta?

Braunstein was shaking his head. "I asked him that but he said he didn't know or didn't remember or something. Maybe he was just kidding me, you know? What's so hot about your story? I heard it before!' But I don't think so. I think it's true.

Their guest left, well thanked, Carl walking out with him. The donated button remained lying on the table, occasionally picked up and examined again during the rest of the meeting. The chairman said, "Okay, we've got Teddy Lehmann to hear from, but - he nodded, smiling, at a young woman in an army lieutenant's uniform seated near him- you're a new member?

"Yes. I hope so.

"You are if you want to be. Were you a student here?

"No, but my husband was. We're divorced now, but-I got interested. Still am.

"Good. Well, I'm sure whoever recruited you briefed you. Was it Frank?

Frank nodded. "How'd you know?

The chairman said, "Lucky guess, and several people smiled. To the young woman, he said, "Let me just make sure everything's been covered. You understand what we're doing? Right now we're simply gathering and recording certain incidents. Documenting them as well as we can. We don't know what they mean yet. If anything. And may never know. We all have our guesses, of course, and it does seem obvious that occasionally two versions of the same stretch of time seem to exist. Or to have existed, one of them replacing the other. Looks that way, I should say. Maybe it's not what's happening at all. We're not even close to formulating a theory yet, we're just tracking down incidents any way we happen to hear about them. We're organized to do that, very loosely. And we keep a low profile. We're as secret as we can reasonably manage without being nutty about it. Each of us is building a little network of friends, relatives, acquaintances-anyone you might think would know, or hear of, or come upon the kind of incident we're collecting. So start your own network. If you haven't already. Use your own best judgment about who you should use and who not, that's about all I can tell you. And explain as little as you think you can get by with. Make it seem as though you're alone; your own nutty little interest, nothing important. Because above all . . ." He paused for emphasis. "We are not an official part of the Parapsychology Department. Officially they know nothing about us; we're a private group of. . . hobbyists. We've never even met in any of the department's rooms. I don't have to tell you why if your husband was a student here. For forty years the department has taken a lot of guff'-his eves began to narrow- from academics in other fields, the respectable fields, who wouldn't know solid evidence or proof-or refuse to know, which is worse-if it came up and bit them in the ass. He smiled at her and at himself. "Sorry. I'll wipe the flecks of foam from nw lips in a minute. But we're carefully unofficial. And as secret as we can manage. Okay? Ready for the sacred blood oath?

The young lieutenant nodded, smiling.

"Then welcome aboard. Ted, I understand you took quite a trip on our behalf this summer. To Arizona?

"Well, I was in California anyway. On vacation. In L.A., if you can believe it. Ted, a researcher here, was a handsome man who didn't seem to know it, his brown hair cut close, nothing made of its curl, his glasses of wire-thin metal, the lenses round as a coin. He looked thirty, and wore a hand calculator in his shirt pocket. "So I took a couple of days, flew over to Phoenix, rented a car, and drove out to this guy's place.

"Okay. Tell us about it.

"My mother heard about this years ago from a friend, a woman her age; they both lived in New York then. I phoned this woman, and got the man's name-my mother couldn't remember it. He used to be a lawyer, a really big-time lawyer in New York, partner in a big firm, all that. He's well remembered, I've discovered. Retired now. I tracked him down, which wasn't hard. Talked to him by phone, and arranged to see him this summer. Ted reached down beside his chair, brought up a worn black leather briefcase bearing a scuffed Stanford sticker, opened it on the table, and slid out a small, chrome-rimmed, gray plastic recorder. He pushed in a control, and a beadlike bulb turned amber. "I taped what he told me, so you might as well hear it from the source. Just picture us sitting by his pool, a nice Arizona morning, getting hot but very dry. Pleasant. He had cactuses around, here and there, some natural, some in pots. We were in the shade from his house, adobe painted so white it hurt your eyes.

"He's an old man now, but smart; no trouble imagining him as a damned effective lawyer. Intelligent face. I don't think it was because I was in Arizona but he really did look-well, not truly like Barry Goldwater, hut if someone told you they were maybe cousins you'd believe it. Had most of his hair, snow white, and the same kind of bushy white sideburns. Wore expensive-looking tan linen pants, dark blue shirt. Name is Bertram 0. I3ush, and he was stretched out in a lounge chair, me in a straight chair where I could manage the recorder. I had it on a glass-top table between us, and we both had coffee, real big cups. It's a nice place, some twenty-odd miles out of Phoenix. He and his wife retired there, but now he's a widower. Lives alone, but he has grown children with families and two of them live near Phoenix. The other in California. He seems to see them fairly often. And did I say he has money? Well, he obviously has; it's a nice place.

"We got our preliminary chitchat out of the way, he said it was okay to record, and here's what I got. Nice and clear; I'm a master with these things. He pushed another control, and after a second or two his own voice came from the machine. "Okay, Mr. Bush, tell us about it if you will. Though you must be tired of telling it.

"Well, I used to be, but it's been quite a while since I've told it. This voice was deep, measured, assured; did not sound old. "When I was a kid in grade school and told this, I got hooted and jeered at, naturally, boys being the sensitive considerate creatures they are. Which I didn't mind; I hooted right back, my insults often superior to theirs. And it was somewhat the same in college. Mostly people assumed I'd made this up, but at least I got credit for being mildly imaginative and entertaining, a clever fellow. But always some people listened thoughtfully. And a few were impressed. When one of these was a girl, I sometimes found that her interest and attention transferred to me, and I'm afraid I sometimes used my story for the wrong reasons, though I feel no shame. But after I began practicing law in New York, and particularly when I understood the solid possibility that I might someday become a partner of the firm in which eventually I did just that, I stopped telling this story. It was harmful now, made me seem odd and eccentric. So I shut up about it, except very occasionally to someone I knew would be interested and could be trusted. Doesn't matter now, of course. I'm retired. Old.

"Oh, I don't think-"

"None of that. And if you dare even pronounce the term senior citizen,' I'll demonstrate that I'm capable of throwing you into this pool. Headfirst. And hold you under. I am old. I xvas horn near the turn of the century, so I've never had any trouble remembering mv age.

"Anyway, when I was a boy we lived in New York. On Madison Avenue. We hadl a house-long gone-a four-story brownstone.

My father, mother, two sisters, and me. And a dog actually named Fido. Plus several servants; my father was a successful marine- insurance broker, and we were well-off. Every morning our whole family breakfasted together, by paternal fiat, in the dining room. And one spring morning, a Wednesday, I remember, my father asked me whether I'd like to skip school that day. Well, I was twelve years old, and I acknowledged that just possibly I might; but why? Well, there was a ship coming in, he said, a liner, and it had occurred to him that I might like to see her come in, from his office. He knew very well I would. I was wild about the big liners in the same way, I suppose, that my grand- and great-grandchildren are about planes today. Although come to think of it, I don't believe they really are. They seem to take everything in stride, pretty hard to impress. They know more than I did when I was twenty years old. And some things, I'm sure, that I don't know yet.

"But I loved the big liners. Thought about them, read about them, looked at their pictures and drew my own. And would have given anything I had or ever would have to sail on one. As we all did four or five years later. To Europe on the Leviathan. That was the old Vaterland, as you know. You do know, of course?

"Sure, who doesn't?

The old man laughed. "In the years since, I've sailed on the Mauretania. More than once. The old Mauretania, of course. And the Normandie, the Lauren tic, the Isle de France, God bless her, and the Queen Mary many times. Wonderful ship, the Mary, one of the great ones. Compares with even the Mauretania, and I don't like it that she's tied up and engineless in southern California, where she doesn't belong and never did. I suppose we should be grateful, though, that she still exists. None of the others do. All scrapped the moment their profitable days were done. Suppose we'd saved them? Had them all lined up in Southampton from the Kaiser Wilhelm on, say, right on through to the Mary. Be wonderful, wouldn't it? Then someday finally we'd add the newest and last, the Queen Elizabeth, Second: the QE Two. Which I'm happy to say is fully in the grand tradition. Modern, yes. As she should be. But a most worthy successor to her ancestors. You must sail on her, mv boy, if you never have.

"Can't afford it.

"Stow away then, but do it. Because when she's gone, when they scrap the QE Two as of course they will, picking her bones and selling the skeleton for the last dime of profit, there'll be no more Atlantic liners. Not ever. She's your last chance to know one of man's most pleasurable experiences, including sex, though a young man like you should be able to combine the two and avoid the comparison: I can assure you it makes for a wonderful crossing. Sail on the QE Two while you still can; I insist. Where was I?

"Your father.

"Yes. My father. Of course he knew what my response to his invitation would be, but he was aware, he said, of my burning thirst for knowledge; maybe, after all, I'd prefer to go to school? He'd understand if I did. My father liked to tease us a little, and we enjoyed it, at least I did.

"We went downtown to his office after breakfast, at Battery Place and West Street. The Whitehall Building, new then; it had a good view of New York harbor, and the old Battery. I wore corduroy knickerbockers, long black knit stockings, a kind of Norfolk jacket, and a cloth cap with a peak. All boys did; it was compulsory. We took the El downtown to his office, which had a huge rectangular window overlooking the entire harbor and bay as far as the eye could see. He had a big leather-bound brass telescope on a wooden tripod. I expect every office on that side of the building had one.

"The ship was already visible when we arrived, still far out, hardly more than a speck, but my father found it in the telescope, focused carefully, then turned it over to me, and I stood hardly breathing so as not to jar the telescope, watching that ship grow in the tight little circle of my vision. She was coming straight on, with a bit of white bow wave, and her stacks smoking; I could see that almost tangible blackness curling straight back. She was coal- fueled, and I expect she had a full head of steam. She grew, filling the circle, then expanding beyond it, and I stood erect and found her again with my own vision, shrunk back down in size. But once more she grew, very fast, and then I could see the colors of the pennants strung in her rigging for the occasion. Fireboats appeared, moving out to meet her; then they swung around to escort her in, their long brass hose tips pointing up, pumping great pluming jets of white water and spray. First time I'd ever seen that, though not the last.

"The tugs reached her next, as I recall, and now-she seemed very chose-she turned to port, and I saw the full astounding length of her, the great stacks streaming smoke straight out over the port side. They all had four stacks, you know, and I still think it's the way a liner should be. It's the only thing wrong with the QE Two; she ought to have four stacks as God intended. Just as He meant automobiles to have running boards, and airplanes two wings. Right, my boy? You agree, of course.

"Of course, said Ted's voice. "It's what I keep saying all the time.

"I'm sure you do, but you must try not to be boring about it; you're not old enough. She turned, as I say, I saw the magnificent length of her, the sun lighting those millions of portholes, and of course in just that moment she sounded her horn. I saw the steam puff first, a sudden whiteness, and then oh, the glory of that deep sound. All the host sounds: wagon wheels, ships' steam horns, the whistle of steam locomotives. Yes indeed. God also meant locomotives to run only by steam.

"I know. Diesels are the devil's work.

"You're right! You're right! You know, you don't hook eighty at all.

The chairman laughed. "You two got along, didn't you?

Ted poked a control, stopping the tape. "Yeah, we did. Course he's a lawyer, a pro; instinctively wants you on his side, and knows how to get you there.

Ted started the machine again, the reels turned for a moment, then the old man's recorded voice continued: "The sound, the cmv of that ship, actually rattled the windows, and I do remember clearly that I could feel the vibration of it in my chest. So deep. Such a how, rough, growling, utterly thrilling sound.