Charlie races back out to his garage and guns his Mercedes down the hill, zooming through traffic—to the newsstand by Main Beach. He slams to a stop in a handicapped parking place and runs to the magazine display. In the latest Harper’s he flips to the classifieds. There it is.
Seen the footage of Monica with the president? Do you drive a Sienna? Colin Powell as secretary of state? Call 201-555-6666.
“This isn’t a library, mister!”
He has been staring at the page, openmouthed. Charlie throws a twenty-dollar bill at the vendor and jumps back into his Mercedes.
After running back into the house, he grabs the phone from the front hallway and dials the number.
The speaker counts out five rings. Then a buzz. A deep, slow voice with a slight English accent follows. “Manhattan. Forty-two West Twentieth Street. Sunday, two p.m. This message will not repeat.” There is a squeal and a click, then the dial tone comes back.
Charlie is stunned. What should he do? What should he do?
He dashes to the kitchen, gets a paper towel and a pen, runs back to the phone, and redials. The message is the same, only this time he has the presence of mind to scribble the address down.
This is late Friday afternoon. Making sure he has his credit cards with him, Charlie goes back out to find a travel agent.
* * *
Part IV
* * *
The Bridge of Sighs
Time is the greatest teacher, but in the end it kills all its students.
—Hector Berlioz
25 The rental car doesn’t handle very well, and Charlie isn’t accustomed to the tight side streets of Manhattan, with all their illegally parked cars and pedestrian traffic. Damn, he thinks, why didn’t I get a limousine? But he doesn’t want anyone to know what he is doing in New York City.
The flight was not optimal. He recalled that long-vanished era, when Kennedy was Idlewild and the MetLife Building atop Grand Central was the Pan Am Building, and winging across a continent felt like a marvel. He got to LAX late and so inched past seats filled with squalling babies, muscled guys in Stallone-style T-shirts, girls in flamingo-pink tank tops, obese armrest hoggers, divorce lawyers jabbering, women in owlish spectacles burrowing into their reading.
He prowls the jammed streets, punching the car’s radio. It begins playing:
He’s gonna recommend you
To the spirit in the sky.
He snaps it off.
Yes—there is the address, a large “42” in black iron on one of the two gray pillars flanking an imposing entrance. Amid the packed streets a parking place is empty only a block away—a New York miracle. It’s 1:46 p.m. Will they mind if I’m early?
He decides to wait it out in the car. The voice on the tape sounded exact, severe. His mind churns feverishly with memories, the car accident, coming back in 1968, reading Timescape, having Trudy for the first time all over again, the vortex of turbulent time. He checks his watch again: 1:51 p.m.; time is crawling. He has to get out of this car. He straightens his tie and picks up his jacket. Locking the car, pulse hammering, getting onto the sidewalk, and putting on his jacket take a few more seconds. He makes his way down Twentieth Street, absorbing the tang and bustle of the city. This is an older section, and everyone rushes by in a hurry with New York tightness constricting their faces. A lot of mice in this concrete cage. Haughty ladies parade past in their let-them-eat-cake creations, hand-stitched with gilt embroidery and trimmed with guiltless fur. Some are ornately wrapped stick girls straight out of Vogue. Within yards of these are hippies in their sacred squalor. Some are blank faced. They all carefully do not notice one another. Islands in a sea of graffiti, litter, menace, loitering, vandalism, boom boxes, sidelong glances.
He likes the contrast. He walks half a block and comes upon some more remnants of the 1960s, crouched figures murmuring some Hare Krishna chant. Charlie wonders if Hindu reincarnation might intersect with his weirdness. Is the point of life to attain nirvana and vanish from the endless round of lives? In the Hindu faith no one recalls their past lives, but Charlie can. If someone becomes enlightened, then, do they vanish from Charlie’s rewritten lives? Or are they replaced by some dead thing without the crucial soul, a robot who plays the part but cares nothing for the outcome? A chilling thought. He moves on.
Charlie kills a little time by stepping into the alcove of a head shop to look at the display window. Some of the gear will be illegal in a few years as Nixon’s War on Drugs takes tighter hold, maybe the Dark President’s worst legacy. He lets himself wallow a bit in nostalgia. He has been so concentrated on his career and troubles, the era has been slipping by him unnoticed. Grinning, he crouches down to look at a lava lamp bloom a dollop of luminous red goo—
The street explodes behind him. The blast slams his face into the glass. He rolls sideways, stunned.
Shaking his deafened head as he stands, Charlie sees a car that has exploded only yards away. It burns furiously as the smell of gasoline curls up into his nostrils. A sharp, stabbing pain comes from his shoulder. He reaches for it and finds his shirt torn away, blood seeping.
The smoke thickens, chokes him. He steps out onto the street and sees that by standing in the alcove, he narrowly avoided most of the blast. Some bodies lie crumpled, probably hit by shards.
Is this a political act? Terror, the Weathermen—didn’t they blow up a house in Manhattan around this time? No, that was 1970 . . .
He starts toward the fallen bodies, which look like bundles of rags. Maybe they’re dead. Then he stops, his head swirling. The bodies on the pavement bring him back to his visions of the parade of death. Hardly reasoning, he staggers onward to number 42 and up the steps to the hooded entrance, breathing hard.
The large gray door has a small brass plaque: THE SOCIETY. The Society of what? Charlie asks himself. Fire rages only half a block away, and his adrenaline is out of control.
No call button, no knocker.
He looks at his watch and its display comes into focus, showing exactly 2:00 p.m. The door opens on its own, without a sound. Charlie recoils slightly, his skin alive with thousands of erect hair follicles, while his ears ring.
A white-haired head pokes sideways around the door.
“Ah, Mr. Moment! Please come in, sir.” Charlie realizes that he can hear again.
Charlie starts to panic. Why would they know his name?
The old man swings the door open with only a glance at the chaos and sirens in the street beyond. He is dressed in the drab blue uniform of an English college porter and moves slowly, but his eyes have a sparkle that belies his deadpan mouth. Eerily, he keeps his eyes on Charlie and, except for a slight sniff at the sour stink of smoke, does not seem to register the shouts and clanging fire alarms.
“Please come in, sir.” The porter’s repeated intonation is now more of a command. It is clear that he doesn’t like to hold the door open for too long, his left shoulder straining against an impulse to swing the heavy wood shut.
“Sorry.” Charlie slips across the threshold, still dazed, entering a high-vaulted reception area smelling of linseed and berry bread. The light level is low, in tasteful pools.
“Not at all, sir. You are often like this.”
Charlie stops, blinks, not following what the porter is saying. He leads Charlie by example toward a large dark-mahogany check-in desk. Suddenly moving quickly, he slips under a leaf of wood, raising it momentarily as he ducks his head, then turns to face Moment from the other side of the counter.
“May I . . .” Charlie’s voice chokes up on him, but he recovers after coughing slightly. “May I ask your name?”
“Phelps, sir.” There is something cloaked about the porter but not unkindly.
“There was an explosion out there. People are hurt. Maybe we should call—”
Sirens wail in the distance. Phelps smiles and shakes his head. “I am sure the authorities are taking charge, sir. But—ah!—I see you are wounded. Let me assist.”
Phelps t
akes a few minutes to clean and dress Charlie’s wounds. He barely noticed three gouges to his back and legs. Quick and deft, Phelps applies the compresses expertly and even tapes over the tears in the shirt and pants. He has the medical supplies close at hand. Charlie feels himself trembling but says nothing. Faint cries and sirens echo in the vaulted hallway, as if the events outside are distant, minor. The uncanny, cool calm soothes Charlie, and some focus returns.
Charlie has no idea how to continue their conversation, but Phelps comes to his rescue. “The chevalier will be coming downstairs momentarily, sir.”
“Chevalier?”
“De Seingalt.”
“And do I know Chevalier de Sein—de Sein—”
“Chevalier de Seingalt, sir.”
“Yes.”
The porter’s eyes twinkle. “All Europe knows the chevalier, and much of America, too, sir. You probably know him better as the gentleman Casanova.”
“Who? Isn’t that, like, a myth, or an expression?” Charlie is relieved to be talking about a name, instead of the circumstances of this encounter, where he is at such a disadvantage.
A booming man’s voice cuts sideways across the large hallway, a voice round, self-confident, almost sardonic. “Ah! Charles!”
Charlie Moment turns and sees a nondescript middle-aged man wearing a dressing gown richly embroidered in bourbon and gold lacing, with matching cap and slippers, advancing toward him with a broad but supercilious smile. His cheeks are a bit pouchy and pale, but there is a powerful sense of presence to him. Something about the canny eyes.
“How I look forward to these meetings of ours!” The voice drips with scented oil. They shake hands. The chevalier ignores the porter, who gets out a large ledger and busies himself. “Though I gather there has been a disturbance on the street again.”
“This kind of thing happens a lot?” Charlie manages.
“Only on this day.” A shrug.
Charlie’s head spins, trying to understand. He sucks in a breath of cool air, tinged with a dry ceramic odor and a strong perfume.
“This way, dear boy!” The chevalier leads Charlie into a den off the hall. This room also has tall ceilings, but the pattern of the chintz-covered furniture and matching wallpaper is so strong that the den has an intimate quality. The chevalier directs Charlie to a well-stuffed chair close to the one he drops himself into.
“How do you like the Morris?”
“Um, what?”
“The pattern, dear boy. The other residents quite like it, but frankly, I still prefer good baroque ornamentation. A bit of a girl dancing nakedly over the fireplace, something with some fun in it, not this rather Persian sort of thing, abstract flowers. No life to it.”
Charlie is struggling to keep his mind focused. Persian, Morris, baroque? Who is this man, and how does he know me? From magazine interviews?
Charlie becomes aware that the chevalier is looking at him analytically, like a painting or a piece of sculpture.
“Do I know you? I mean, have we met, um, Chevalier?”
“Call me Giacomo. We have too much in common to stand on title or ceremony.” The chevalier leans forward and slaps Charlie on the thigh. “Though I see you have that to learn.”
Charlie shifts his body slightly away from the man but leans forward from the waist, so that the distance between their eyes remains the same. “And what is it that we have in common?”
The chevalier’s eyes widen and he spreads his hands outward in a comic display of amused confusion.
“Reincarnation. Cycling. I don’t know what you would call it? Perhaps time travel. That seems to be fashionable right now. Didn’t you put it in your movie Peggy Sue Got Married?”
Charlie clears his throat. “I’m sorry, but I haven’t heard of that film. . . .” His voice trails off.
“That’s it! Coppola did Peggy Sue, didn’t he? We didn’t like the way Coppola presented the Society, not at all. You should have seen Albert! He was beside himself.”
“Albert?”
“Einstein.”
Charlie is stunned. “Einstein?”
“He’s quite a fellow. You will love meeting him.” The chevalier raises a hand above Charlie’s thigh, but Charlie crosses his legs in time to escape another slap. The chevalier’s twinkling eyes reassure Charlie that he isn’t offended by Charlie’s demurral.
“I know this must be a bit confusing for you, Charlie. But you think on your feet, a quick study.”
The chevalier breaks off to stare intently at Charlie, his smile growing even larger. “It’s so good to have you back! Let’s have a little dinner, shall we?”
Back? wonders Charlie.
The dining room has still more traditional decor, muted red wallpaper and a white linen tablecloth covering solemn mahogany. The shiny service on the sideboard is enormous and silver, Louis XV perhaps, or Georgian. Charlie isn’t sure. The cultural history of the 1700s is vague to him.
The chevalier picks up a floral china plate and takes it over to the buffet. “Let’s see what Phelps has spirited forth. He is so ingenious about getting food from the local places. Please, my boy, help yourself.”
Charlie contemplates the lunchtime fare, a greasy parade of Italian sausage, fried eggs, thick bacon, toast, marmalade, and a gelatinous chutney that looks like a botanical experiment gone very wrong.
“Any fresh fruit?” he asks.
The chevalier laughs. “Fresh fruit! Charles, you are so charming. Haven’t you realized yet that we don’t need to worry about those slow, lingering deaths, the pollution of the arteries, the teeny-tiny vessels in the brain?” He clutches his midsection, practically winded. “That’s for others to worry about. We just exit, you know, when we choose.”
“When we choose?” Charlie is dumbfounded. How much does the chevalier really know about reincarnation, or time travel, whatever it is? Could this be a ruse?
The chevalier seats himself at the head of the table and gestures toward the ornate place setting on his right. He removes the embroidered cap from his head, exposing a shiny pate.
As Charlie seats himself, the chevalier makes a theatrical face, showing disgust. “Not a very good appearance, is it? You know, we can’t be too choosy about the body we get when we’re no longer cycling through our own lives.”
Charlie’s face now shows the confusion that runs through his mind. He has virtually ceased thinking coherently. Just take it in, he realizes. Understand later. The patter of the chevalier, mixed up with so many hints, has seized his nervous system from his suddenly icy feet to his prickling scalp, like a jittery vertigo. He also worries about the flickering coming back.
The chevalier dramatically pauses, examines Charlie’s face closely, and then reaches over to pat his hand. This time Charlie doesn’t even flinch.
“I have quite forgotten myself. I’m sorry, Charles. But when reincarnates enter the Society building, it’s like”—the chevalier uses his hands in a flourish that Charlie has never seen a man use—“well, it’s like resuming a love affair. We have so much to offer each other, so alone in our predicament. Charles, can you forgive me?”
Charlie nods mutely, not knowing why.
“There.” The chevalier takes a large handkerchief out of his pocket and dabs at his eyes. “Yes, that’s right. You don’t know my story, and I can’t expect you to understand your own fortunate situation until you know that of another reincarnate.”
“Reincarnate?”
“Yes, dear companion. We are the few who consciously cycle through time, bodies, and universes. But it doesn’t make sense just to say it like that.”
“Okay, then,” says Charlie.
26 The chevalier tells Charlie his story for the rest of the afternoon, how he first died in prison in Venice and then came back to life only to be arrested again. And then died again trying to escape from the prison. And again, until finally he found a way out.
Charlie rises from his chair, dizzy, breathing shallowly. His legs are weak. How long have we been
sitting here? he wonders. His watch shows 7:15 p.m. An age has passed.
Yet he gets the point of this long story. Casanova’s case shows what a price can come with what seems to be a simple boon—new life. So Charlie’s simple second draft of his little life is just a first gesture, really. A first rewrite. Casanova did not say so; he simply showed. That was this lesson. Charlie’s first. There will be more, he is certain.
“I . . . I have to go.”
The chevalier rises, reaching toward Charlie with one hand but not touching him. “Very well. But I expect you for dinner tomorrow night.”
“Who would be at dinner?”
“I have a small affair in mind—perhaps just the two of us and Albert.”
“Albert.”
“Yes. I have already mentioned him to you.”
“Albert . . . Einstein?”
“At least, most of him. I’m afraid his present body isn’t quite that intelligent. But he is still an excellent companion at the supper table.”
Casanova smiles wryly, an eyebrow arched. “Say, seven p.m.?”
Charlie nods slowly, numbed by it all. Yet he knows that Casanova is telling him the truth. There is no other way to make sense of his second life.
“Perhaps Albert can illuminate for you the awkward situation that you and I share,” Casanova says grandly as he ushers Charlie to the door and opens it. Not thinking, Charlie steps out into noise and stench.
Charlie blinks, startled by the chaos outside. He nearly forgot it. The ruined car sits off to his left and he stares at it. Cleanup crews push debris off the street with hoses and brooms. The bodies are gone. Police are everywhere, and a burly one scowls as Charlie starts down the sidewalk. “Hey, whatcha doin’?” another growls.
“Uh, I was visiting there, number forty-two. What happened?”
“A car blew up. You see anything?”
“Uh, no.” Don’t get involved. “Gas tank?”
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