Oracle Night

by Paul Auster

  Because Jill can’t go home now, and because Jack loves her and can’t bear the thought of leaving her behind, he chooses to stay with her in 1963. In the final scene of the movie, they destroy their time machines and bury them in the meadow. Then, with the sun rising before them, they walk off into the morning of November twenty-third, two young people who have renounced their pasts, preparing to face the future together.

  It was pure rubbish, of course, fantasy drek of the lowest order, but it felt like a possible movie to me, and that was all I was hoping to accomplish: to deliver something that would fit the formula they wanted. It wasn’t prostitution so much as a financial arrangement, and I didn’t have any second thoughts about working for hire to scare up a pot of some much-needed cash. It had been a rocky day for me, beginning with my failure to advance the story I was working on, then the jolt of discovering Chang’s store had gone out of business, and then the horrifying newspaper article I had read at lunch. If nothing else, thinking about The Time Machine had served as a painless distraction, and when Grace walked through the door at eight-thirty, I was in relatively good spirits. The table was set, a bottle of white wine was chilling in the refrigerator, and the omelet was ready to be poured into the pan. She was a little surprised that I had waited for her, I think, but she didn’t make any comment about it. She looked worn-out, with dark circles under her eyes and a certain heaviness in her movements. After I helped her out of her coat, I immediately led her into the kitchen and sat her down at the table. ‘Eat,’ I said. ‘You must be starved.’ I put some bread and a plate of salad in front of her and then walked over to the stove to begin fixing the omelet.

  She complimented me on the food, but otherwise she didn’t say much during the meal. I was glad to see that her appetite had returned, but at the same time she seemed to be somewhere else, less present than usual. When I told her about going out on my Scotch tape errand and the mysterious closing of Chang’s store, she barely seemed to be listening. I was tempted to tell her about the screenplay offer, but it didn’t feel like the right moment. Maybe after dinner, I thought, and then, just as I stood up and was about to start clearing the table, she looked over at me and said, ‘I think I’m pregnant, Sid.’

  She’d blurted out the news so unexpectedly, I didn’t know what else to do but sit back down in my chair.

  ‘It’s been almost six weeks since my last period. You know how regular I am. And all that throwing up yesterday. What else can it mean?’

  ‘You don’t sound too happy about it,’ I finally said.

  ‘I don’t know what I feel. We’ve always talked about having kids, but this seems like the worst possible moment.’

  ‘Not necessarily. If the test comes back positive, we’ll figure out something. That’s what everyone else does. We’re not stupid, Grace. We’ll find a way.’

  ‘The apartment’s too small, we don’t have any money, and I’d have to stop working for three or four months. If you were all the way back, none of that would matter. But you’re still not there.’

  ‘I got you pregnant, didn’t I? Who says I’m not there? Ain’t nothing wrong with my plumbing, anyway.’

  Grace smiled. ‘So you vote yes.’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘That makes one yes and one no. Where do we go from there?’

  ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘An abortion. You’re not thinking of getting rid of it, are you?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s a horrible idea, but it might be best to put off having kids for a while.’

  ‘Married people don’t kill their babies. Not when they love each other.’

  ‘That’s an awful thing to say, Sidney. I don’t like it.’

  ‘Last night you said, “Just go on loving me, and everything will take care of itself.” That’s what I’m trying to do. To love you and take care of you.’

  ‘This isn’t about love. It’s about trying to figure out what’s best for both of us.’

  ‘You already know, don’t you?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘That you’re pregnant. You don’t think you might be pregnant. You’ve already found out that you are. When did you have the test?’

  For the first time since I’d known her, Grace turned away from me when she spoke – unable to look at me, addressing her words to the wall. I’d caught her out in a lie, and the humiliation was almost too much for her to bear. ‘Saturday morning,’ she said. Her voice was nearly inaudible, scarcely louder than a whisper.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me then?’

  ‘I couldn’t.’

  ‘Couldn’t?’

  ‘I was too shaken up. I didn’t want to accept it, and I needed time to digest the news. I’m sorry, Sid. I’m really sorry.’

  We went on talking for another two hours, and in the end I wore down her resistance, hammering away at her until she gave in and promised to keep the child. It was probably the worst struggle we’d ever been through together. From every practical vantage, she was right to hesitate about the pregnancy, but the very rationality of her doubts seemed to touch off some morbid, irrational fear in me, and I kept on assaulting her with wildly emotional arguments that made little sense. When it came to the money end of things, I mentioned both the screenplay and the story I’d been outlining in the blue notebook, neglecting to add that the first project was no more than a tentative query, the faintest promise of future work, and that the second project had already stalled. If neither one of them panned out, I said, I would apply for a teaching post in every creative writing department in America, and if nothing turned up there, I would go back to teaching high school history, knowing full well that I still didn’t have the physical stamina to hold down a regular job. In other words, I lied to her. My only object was to talk her out of aborting the child, and I was willing to indulge in any sort of dishonesty to plead my case. The question was why. Even as I bombarded her with my endless justifications and brutally efficient rhetoric, demolishing each one of her quiet, perfectly reasonable statements, I wondered why I was battling so hard. At bottom, I wasn’t at all certain that I was ready to become a father, and I knew Grace was right to contend that the timing was off, that we shouldn’t start thinking about children until I was fully recovered. Months went by before I understood what I was actually up to that night. It wasn’t about having a baby – it was about me. Ever since I’d met her, I had lived in mortal fear that I would lose Grace. I had lost her once before our marriage, and after falling ill and turning into a semi-invalid, I had gradually succumbed to a kind of terminal hopelessness, a secret conviction that she would be better off without me. Having a child together would erase that anxiety and prevent her from wanting to decamp. Conversely, for her to argue against the baby was a sign that she wanted out, that she was already slipping away from me. That explains why I became so worked up that night, I think, and I defended myself as ruthlessly as any shyster lawyer, even going so low as to take that dreadful newspaper clipping out of my wallet and insist that she read it. BORN IN A TOILET, BABY DISCARDED. When she came to the end of the article, Grace looked up at me with tears in her eyes and said, ‘It isn’t fair, Sidney. What does this … this nightmare have to do with us? You talk to me about dead babies in Dachau, about couples who can’t have children, and now you show me this. What’s wrong with you? I’m only trying to hold our life together in the best way I can. Don’t you understand that?’

  The next morning, I woke up early and made breakfast for the two of us, carrying a tray into the bedroom at seven o’clock, one minute before the alarm was set to go off. I parked the tray on top of the bureau, switched off the alarm, and then sat down on the bed next to Grace. The moment she opened her eyes, I put my arms around her and began kissing her cheek, her neck, and her shoulder, pressing my head against her and apologizing for the idiotic things I’d said the night before. I told her she was free to do what she wanted, that it was up to her and I would stand behind
any decision she made. Beautiful Grace, who never looked puffy or bleary in the morning, who always emerged from sleep with the alacrity of a boot-camp soldier or a young child, rising up from deepest oblivion to full alertness in a matter of seconds, wrapped her arms around me and hugged me back, not saying a word, but emitting a series of small purring sounds from the bottom of her throat that told me I was forgiven, that the disagreement was already behind us.

  I served her the breakfast while she remained in bed. Orange juice first, then a cup of coffee with some milk in it, followed by a pair of two-and-a-half-minute eggs and a slice of toast. Her appetite was good, with no signs of queasiness or morning sickness, and as I drank my own coffee and ate my own piece of toast, I thought she had never looked more splendid than she did at that moment. My wife is a luminous being, I said to myself, and may lightning strike me dead if I ever forget how lucky I am to be sitting next to her now.

  ‘I was having the strangest dream,’ Grace said. ‘One of those nutty, mixed-up marathons where one thing keeps changing into another. But very clear – more real than real, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Can you remember it?’

  ‘Most of it, I think, but it’s already starting to fade. I can’t see the beginning anymore, but somewhere along the line, you and I were with my parents. We were looking for a new place to live.’

  ‘A bigger apartment, I suppose.’

  ‘No, not an apartment. A house. We were driving around some city. Not New York or Charlottesville, but somewhere else, a place I’d never been to before. And my father said we should check out an address on Bluebird Avenue. Where do you suppose I dug up that one? Bluebird Avenue.’

  ‘I don’t know. But it’s a nice name.’

  ‘That’s just what you said in the dream. You said it was a nice name.’

  ‘Are you sure the dream is over? Maybe we’re still asleep, and we’re having the dream together.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. We were riding in my parents’ car. You were with me in the backseat, and you said to my mother, “That’s a nice name.”’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘We pulled up in front of an old house. It was a huge place – a mansion, really – and then the four of us went inside and started looking around. All the rooms were empty, with no furniture in them, but they were enormous, like museum galleries or basketball courts, and we could hear our steps echoing against the walls. Then my parents decided to go upstairs to have a look at the second floor, but I wanted to go down to the basement. At first, you didn’t want to go, but I took your hand and sort of dragged you along with me. It turned out to be pretty much like the ground floor – one empty room after another – but right in the middle of the last room there was a trapdoor. I yanked it open and saw that there was a ladder leading to a lower level. I started climbing down, and this time you followed right after me. You were just as curious as I was by then, and it was like we were having an adventure. You know, two kids exploring a strange house, both of us a little scared, but enjoying ourselves at the same time.’

  ‘How long was the ladder?’

  ‘I don’t know. Ten or twelve feet. Something like that.’

  ‘Ten or twelve feet … And then?’

  ‘We found ourselves in a room. Smaller than the ones upstairs, with a much lower ceiling. The whole place was filled with bookshelves. Metal ones, painted gray, like the ones they use in libraries. We started looking at the titles of the books, and it turned out they’d all been written by you, Sid. Hundreds and hundreds of books, and every spine had your name on it: Sidney Orr.’

  ‘Scary.’

  ‘No, not at all. I felt very proud of you. After we’d looked at the books for a while, I started walking around again, and eventually I found a door. I opened it, and inside there was this perfect little bedroom. Very plush, with soft Persian rugs and comfortable chairs, paintings on the walls, incense burning on the table, and a bed with silk pillows and a red satin comforter. I called you over, and the minute you stepped inside, I threw my arms around you and started kissing you on the mouth. I was completely hot. All sexed up and raring to go.’

  ‘And me?’

  ‘You had the biggest hard-on of your life.’

  ‘Keep this up, Grace, and you’ll give me an even bigger one now.’

  ‘We took off our clothes and started rolling around on the bed, all sweaty and hungry for each other. It was delicious. We both came once, and then, without pausing for breath, we started in again, going at each other like two animals.’

  ‘It sounds like a porno movie.’

  ‘It was wild. I don’t know how long we kept at it, but at some point we heard my parents’ car drive away. It didn’t bother us. We’ll catch up with them later, we said, and then we started screwing again. After we were done, we both collapsed. I dozed off for a while, and when I woke up you were standing naked by the door, pulling on the handle, looking a little desperate. “What’s wrong,” I asked, and you said, “It looks like we’re locked in.”’

  ‘This is the strangest thing I’ve ever heard.’

  ‘It’s just a dream, Sid. All dreams are strange.’

  ‘I haven’t been talking in my sleep, have I?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I know you never go into my workroom. But if you did, and if you happened to open the blue notebook I bought on Saturday, you’d see that the story I’ve been writing is similar to your dream. The ladder that goes down to an underground room, the library bookcases, the little bedroom at the back. My hero is locked in that room right now, and I don’t know how to get him out.’

  ‘Weird.’

  ‘It’s more than weird. It’s chilling.’

  ‘The funny thing is, that’s where the dream ended. You had that scared look on your face, but before I could do anything to help you, I woke up. And there you were on the bed with your arms around me, hugging me in the same way you did in the dream. It was a wonderful thing. It felt like the dream was still going on, even after I’d woken up.’

  ‘So you don’t know what happens to us after we’re locked in the room.’

  ‘I didn’t get that far. But we would have found a way out. People can’t die in their dreams, you know. Even if the door was locked, something would have happened to get us out. That’s how it works. As long as you’re dreaming, there’s always a way out.’

  After Grace left for Manhattan, I sat down at my typewriter and worked on the film treatment for Bobby Hunter. I tried to boil the synopsis down to four pages, but I wound up writing six. Certain matters needed more clarification, I realized, and I didn’t want there to be any holes in the story. For one thing, if the initiation journey was fraught with so many dangers and the potential for such harsh punishment, why would anyone want to risk traveling into the past? I decided to make the journey optional, something one does by choice, not compulsion. For another thing, how do the people in the twenty-second century know when the traveler has broken the rules? I invented a special branch of the national police to take care of that. Time-travel agents sit in libraries poring over books, magazines, and newspapers, and when a young traveler interferes with someone’s actions in the past, the words in the books change. The name Lee Harvey Oswald, for example, would suddenly disappear from every work on the Kennedy assassination. Imagining that scene, I understood that those alterations could be turned into a striking visual effect: hundreds of words scrambling around and rearranging themselves on printed pages, moving back and forth like tiny, maddened bugs.

  When I finished typing, I read over the treatment once, corrected a few typos, and then walked down the hall to the kitchen and rang up the Sklarr Agency. Mary was busy on another call, but I told her assistant I would be turning up at the office in an hour or two to drop off the manuscript. ‘That was fast,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, I guess so,’ I answered, ‘but you know how it is, Angela. When you travel in time, you don’t have a second to lose.’

  Angela laughed at my feeble rem
ark. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘I’ll tell Mary you’re on your way. But there’s no big rush, you know. You could put it in the mail and save yourself the trip.’

  ‘Don’t trust the mail, ma’am,’ I said, lapsing into my Oklahoma cowboy twang. ‘Never did and never will.’

  After we hung up, I lifted the receiver off the hook again and dialed Trause’s number. Mary’s office was on Fifth Avenue between 12th and 13th Streets, not far from where John lived, and it occurred to me that he might be interested in getting together for lunch. I also wanted to know how his leg was doing. We hadn’t talked since Saturday night, and it was time to check up on him and get the latest report.

  ‘Nothing new,’ he said. ‘It’s no worse than it was, but no better. The doctor prescribed an anti-inflammatory drug, and when I took the first pill yesterday, I had a bad reaction. Upchucking, spinning head, the works. I’m still feeling a bit drained from all that.’

  ‘I’m leaving for Manhattan in a little while to see Mary Sklarr, and I thought I’d stop by to see you afterward. Maybe have lunch or something, but it doesn’t sound like a good moment.’

  ‘Why don’t you come tomorrow? I’m bound to be okay by then. At least I fucking well better be.’

  I left the apartment at eleven-thirty and walked over to Bergen Street, where I caught the F train to Manhattan. There were several mysterious glitches along the way – a lengthy pause in a tunnel, a blackout in the car that lasted for four stops, an unusually slow traverse from the York Street station to the other side of the river – and by the time I made it to Mary’s office, she had already gone out to lunch. I left the treatment with Angela, the chubby, chain-smoking answerer of phones and sender of packages, who surprised me by standing up from her desk and kissing me good-bye – an Italian doubleheader, one peck on each cheek. ‘Too bad you’re married,’ she whispered. ‘You and I could have made some beautiful music together, Sid.’