Read From Time to Time for Free Online
Authors: Jack Finney
twentieth-century knowledge, not a scrap! Not for a long time anyway. If ever. This is his time, the one he'll grow up and live in. And I want it to be for him just like any other-
"Yes, yes, don't worry, he's forgotten, it won't hurt him. It's you I worry about -she put a hand on my forearm- when I hear you singing those songs. You don't even know you're doing it. Sometimes you just hum, but I know it's from your own time because the tune is so odd.
That made me smile. Julia's idea of a good song-everybody's idea-was one her aunt had just bought, the sheet music, called "Baby's Gone to Heaven. All about a dead baby, and the cover- a truly bad black-and-white drawing I'd have secretly buried late at night-showed a woman, tears streaming, arms lifted toward a floating baby drifting up into a heavenly glow. Aunt Ada's boarders and friends, and some of our friends, too, would sing that kind of song standing around the organ. Some would smile, demonstrating sophisticated amusement, but most sniffled, eyes moist. And my songs were odd?
But I was smiling at more than songs. Here in the deep of the nineteenth century, I'd become a part of it, certainly. I knew how this time lived, thought, felt, and believed, and their ways were mine now. But like a man living permanently in another country, knowing its language and customs, becoming indistinguishably a part of it, I nevertheless carried hidden things that remained forever foreign. Things like my idea of humor and of what a song should be come from earliest childhood, and can't be changed.
"And when I hear you humming your songs, Julia said, "I know you're thinking of your time. The late twentieth century scared Julia; she hated everything she knew about it. She wanted me to be happy, hut happy here.
"Well, of course I think about my own time occasionall~.
"Could you go back, Si? Can you still do it?
"Well . . . I'm not sure; it's been five years. At the Project we learned that if you can move into another time, you can usually do it again. But I really don't know. Don't want to anyway.
"Do you think others have done it?
"Martin Lastvogel thought so; he was the teacher at the Project. He showed me an ad once, a personals ad in an 1891 New York Times. Said something like, Alice, Alice, I'm here but I can't get back! Say hello for me to the city, MOMA, the library, and Eddie and Mom. Oh, pray for me!' And he said there's a tombstone in Trinity Church cemetery that reads, Everett Brownlee, Born 1910, Died 1895.' Martin said people assume it was a mistake, but that people don't make that kind of mistake on a tombstone. He thinks the dates are correct. Yeah, of course there've been others; always. The concept isn't hard; Dr. D couldn't have been the first to think of it. Not many can manage to do it though, I added, and detected a hint of smugness in my voice.
"Do you ever want to go back? Just as . . . a kind of visit to your own time?
"Because of what you did.
We'd had this conversation half a dozen times in the past five years, but I knew she needed reassurance, and nodded. "On February 6, 1882, her eighteenth birthday: I can see her standing in the theater lobby in her new green dress. Just eighteen, and about to meet the man she'd eventually marry.
"You mustn't blame yourself, Si.
"Oh, I don't, really. But I think about it. Me standing there, knowing what was coming, knowing what I had to do. And watching him outside walking toward the lobby doors. Young Otto Danziger, about to step into the lobby where he'd be introduced to her: he even looked like Dr. D! Then I see myself treacherously stepping out, unlighted cigar in hand, asking him for a light. Deliberately delaying him. Till I saw her leave the lobby to go inside. So they never met, it was that simple. Never met, never married, so Dr. D was never born. And without him, of course-so strange to think about it-there was never a Project. Julia lay beside me, listening like a child to a familiar story, and I smiled and
"Yes, yes, don't worry, he's forgotten, it won't hurt him. It's you I worry about -she put a hand on my forearm- when I hear you singing those songs. You don't even know you're doing it. Sometimes you just hum, but I know it's from your own time because the tune is so odd.
That made me smile. Julia's idea of a good song-everybody's idea-was one her aunt had just bought, the sheet music, called "Baby's Gone to Heaven. All about a dead baby, and the cover- a truly bad black-and-white drawing I'd have secretly buried late at night-showed a woman, tears streaming, arms lifted toward a floating baby drifting up into a heavenly glow. Aunt Ada's boarders and friends, and some of our friends, too, would sing that kind of song standing around the organ. Some would smile, demonstrating sophisticated amusement, but most sniffled, eyes moist. And my songs were odd?
But I was smiling at more than songs. Here in the deep of the nineteenth century, I'd become a part of it, certainly. I knew how this time lived, thought, felt, and believed, and their ways were mine now. But like a man living permanently in another country, knowing its language and customs, becoming indistinguishably a part of it, I nevertheless carried hidden things that remained forever foreign. Things like my idea of humor and of what a song should be come from earliest childhood, and can't be changed.
"And when I hear you humming your songs, Julia said, "I know you're thinking of your time. The late twentieth century scared Julia; she hated everything she knew about it. She wanted me to be happy, hut happy here.
"Well, of course I think about my own time occasionall~.
"Could you go back, Si? Can you still do it?
"Well . . . I'm not sure; it's been five years. At the Project we learned that if you can move into another time, you can usually do it again. But I really don't know. Don't want to anyway.
"Do you think others have done it?
"Martin Lastvogel thought so; he was the teacher at the Project. He showed me an ad once, a personals ad in an 1891 New York Times. Said something like, Alice, Alice, I'm here but I can't get back! Say hello for me to the city, MOMA, the library, and Eddie and Mom. Oh, pray for me!' And he said there's a tombstone in Trinity Church cemetery that reads, Everett Brownlee, Born 1910, Died 1895.' Martin said people assume it was a mistake, but that people don't make that kind of mistake on a tombstone. He thinks the dates are correct. Yeah, of course there've been others; always. The concept isn't hard; Dr. D couldn't have been the first to think of it. Not many can manage to do it though, I added, and detected a hint of smugness in my voice.
"Do you ever want to go back? Just as . . . a kind of visit to your own time?
"Because of what you did.
We'd had this conversation half a dozen times in the past five years, but I knew she needed reassurance, and nodded. "On February 6, 1882, her eighteenth birthday: I can see her standing in the theater lobby in her new green dress. Just eighteen, and about to meet the man she'd eventually marry.
"You mustn't blame yourself, Si.
"Oh, I don't, really. But I think about it. Me standing there, knowing what was coming, knowing what I had to do. And watching him outside walking toward the lobby doors. Young Otto Danziger, about to step into the lobby where he'd be introduced to her: he even looked like Dr. D! Then I see myself treacherously stepping out, unlighted cigar in hand, asking him for a light. Deliberately delaying him. Till I saw her leave the lobby to go inside. So they never met, it was that simple. Never met, never married, so Dr. D was never born. And without him, of course-so strange to think about it-there was never a Project. Julia lay beside me, listening like a child to a familiar story, and I smiled and