"Far Rockaway," Walter mouths. A remote beachside community way out in Queens. He hadn't thought to look there. "Why Far Rockaway?"
Louisa has no answer.
"As I was trying to explain to you backstage," Azor continues, "the eutron electrical accumulator works with the principle that negative zero divided by positive zero equals zero. Now, I understand that there have been some concerns that in conventional algebra the idea of a minus zero is meaningless. I am standing, uh sitting, har har, here before you tonight," he says, spreading his arms out to the side almost in a curtsy, "to tell you that my associates and I are not using conventional algebra, but rather dimensional algebra of the sort found outside the sphere of our solar system. I tell you, we are using math brought here"—he pauses and looks heavenward—"from the future."
There are chuckles and a few gasps from the audience. Louisa stares at Walter, whose nose is crinkled. "Who are these associates?" he whispers to Louisa again.
"From the future?" asks Big Chief Ezra. "Well, who in blazes brought it here?"
But Azor will not be deterred by questions. He continues his curious speech. "When the eutron electrical accumulator begins to rotate, it metamorphosizes. You might imagine Leonardo's Circle of Man." Azor jerks uncomfortably, as though he knows he isn't quite making sense. He clears his throat for confidence. He continues in his slow, plodding voice. "Let me explain," he says as if that hadn't been what he was trying to do before. "Time and space are not linear. They are curved. When we look at the universe we see atoms, cells, lakes, jellyfish, planets, galaxies. We see circles and curves everywhere. It is the original form, meaning that all life springs from the circle. Think of the egg, the pregnant belly. It is my belief that we, as inventors and scientists, can use this idea, use the curvature of time to cut across it, slicing straight from there to there without following the curve."
"Burrow through time, like a mole?" Big Chief Ezra asks.
But Azor is rolling, and all questions, all prompts, bounce off him. He continues, "See, in creating an inertial attraction, unimaginable velocities can be reached with the electro-magno force in place. After rising high above the Earth, jetting through time, we will be landing in 1776 within five hours." He shuts his lips together, hoping to give the impression that what he has just stated is as clear as day.
"Really?" Big Chief Ezra says. "I'm not sure I follow. Could you explain it in terms the layman might understand?"
Again ignoring much of the host's question, Azor continues, "We could schedule our return so that we will land squarely within the courtyard of the brand-new Pentagon building in Washington, D.C., whose construction is slated to be complete this January, 1943. But even if they miss the deadline we'll just program the craft to land a few weeks later."
The audience finally laughs.
"So you've been in contact with the military?"
"Yes, we have been in contact and communication with a number of military commanders who must remain anonymous."
Louisa turns a third time to see what her father makes of Azor's statements. A third time he meets her with a blank expression.
The audience is rapt. Some have tiny hints of smiles, not believing a word they are hearing, while others nod in agreement. One young man seated beside Louisa is taking notes so zealously that the lead in his pencil keeps popping, breaking as though on cue, at which point he withdraws a tiny silver sharpener from his breast pocket. He grinds away at the wood, much to the annoyance of a terrifically formal older woman seated in front of the young man. The woman cups her right ear toward the front of the room in order to better make out what is being said over the racket of so much pencil sharpening.
"Is it real?" Louisa asks her dad.
Walter simply shrugs, without taking his eyes off the stage.
Louisa looks up through the transom window. The snow loops in crazy swirls as if each flake has a mind of its own, a home it is furiously trying to get back to despite the heavy traffic.
"Now we'd like to take some questions from our audience members. Are there any questions?" Big Chief Ezra asks.
A young man raises his hand. "Sir, with no disrespect..." The young man rises to his feet. Louisa turns to see who he is but never makes it around all the way. In one glance, time travel, radio, and Azor's reappearance are erased because seated not too far behind her, perhaps five rows back, is the man from the subway, the mysterious Arthur Vaughn. Louisa stops mid-turn. She stares openly and her blood begins to shift like the early rumblings of an earthquake. The tips of her ears catch fire and she grabs hold of them to stop the flame. Arthur watches the stage. He drums his fingers against the side of his head. She studies his movements, each fingerfall, the bone, muscle, sinew, knuckle, as if this motion will reveal what he is doing here. She studies the dark stubble, the red stain of his cheeks, and the twists of his ear. She sees his jaw, and inside his coat, a collarbone. If this were a radio drama, he'd turn out to be her long-lost brother with amnesia, or perhaps he is simply a German spy trying to infiltrate the Hotel New Yorker's maintenance staff. But this, Louisa reminds herself, is not a radio drama. What is he doing here?
The other young man asks his question. "Sir, how do you plan to deal with the paradox of time travel, namely that it creates the possibility that you might travel backward in time, kill your great-great-grandfather, and then instantaneously disappear, thus not being able to kill your great-great-grandfather and so reappearing again in your time machine only to kill your great-great-grandfather again and disappear?"
Louisa forces herself to turn back to the stage.
Azor stares straight ahead while Big Chief Ezra repeats the question into the microphone. Azor does not look at the audience but rather focuses on the back wall as if he is seeing all time swirling over the audience's heads, or would if only he could duck this annoying question.
Azor smiles suddenly. The question's monkey wrench is nothing more to him than an annoying black fly that can be swatted away. The on-air silence grows awkward. Azor is dazed, and in that moment of pause he begins to chew at his lips in a gesture so familiar that it brings Azor back to Louisa fully. He is lost in thought. There is silence for another moment until, at last, he turns toward the microphone, and squinting his eyes up into darts, he raises them heavenward again, muttering a scapegoat, a sentence. "Son, molecular flow," he answers, "is perpetual."
Relief settles back over the crowd as if those words explained something. They didn't to Louisa. They don't seem to make much sense to the question asker either. He creases his eyebrows, gets a puzzled look on his face, and gives up. He takes a seat. Louisa shifts again, trying to catch Arthur's eye.
A woman raises her hand.
"Yes, you there," Big Chief Ezra calls.
The woman stands. "What are the legal ramifications of a time machine?"
Azor laughs, stunned. He giggles, chucking his shoulders up and down before answering. "Madame, I can assure you, when I am toiling in my laboratory, the eutron accelerator humming beside me and invention on the wing, the laws of man loom about as large as the exhalations of one flea."
"Before, you called it a eutron accumulator."
"Yes, Madame. Both the accumulator and the accelerator are crucial to my work. You see, time travel is a matter of speed. It is a matter of gravity."
And so the woman seated beside the questioner stands, wanting more information. "But have you actually traveled through time?" she asks.
"We have flown a number of models on test runs," Azor says. "Yes, we have been to the future, Madame. It's wonderful." The audience gasps. Azor smiles.
"What about the past?" the woman asks.
"The past" Azor says. "The past is a bit trickier, but we are making stunning progress each day."
"Which leads us to our next topic, Mr. Carter. Now"—the host pats some sweat off his brow and shifts in his chair—"if time travel is possible, how come America is not flooded with visitors from the future? The people want to know. And we'll return with M
r. Carter's answer to that question just after this message from one of our sponsors."
Walter finally leans back in his chair and looks over at Louisa. "Azor," is all he says at first, and then, "Do you know what this means, Lou?" He is smiling ear to ear, but she is oblivious. She sits staring straight ahead, feeling the presence of Arthur Vaughn somewhere behind her back like danger or maybe delectation, heart pumping in her hands. Walter asks again, "I knew he'd do it. Do you know what this means, Lou?"
"What?" she asks without looking at her father.
Walter is stunned, staring up at Azor as if he were Walter's personal hero. "Honey. It means Freddie," Walter whispers. "It means we can go see Freddie."
Louisa sighs and slumps, shaking her head.
"Myyyyyyyyy!" Big Chief Ezra rolls the sound across his tongue. "Are they delicious! That's right. I'm talking about Myer's Mixed Roasted Nuts. One handful is never enough. The highest-quality mix of cashews, pecans, filberts, macadamias, peanuts, and almonds. Myyyyy-er's Nuts. For good health. For long life. Look for Myer's Nuts on your grocer's shelf in both the salted and unsalted varieties."
Big Chief Ezra returns to a neutral position, his normal voice. He continues. "Now, Mr. Carter. Visitors from the future. Are they here? And if they are here, why haven't they declared themselves to the proper authorities?"
Walter again leans forward. Azor sits staring out at the audience. He opens his lips and closes them. Opens his lips and closes them again. He exhales. "Yes."
Big Chief Ezra waits for a further explanation. One is not forthcoming. "Yes?" he prods.
Azor turns toward him and nods his head yes.
"Could you elaborate, sir?"
"It's a theory I have. I'm not certain, but I think visitors from the future are quite common. They are people you've all heard of, read about in the newspapers or history books," Azor says.
"Who are they?" Ezra asks.
"Well, Ben Franklin, Louis Pasteur, Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace. You know. Nikola Tesla. He lives right here in New York City."
Now it is Louisa's turn to lurch forward in her seat. Mr. Tesla? The old man at the hotel?
"Is he still alive? We haven't heard from him in years." Big Chief Ezra laughs.
"Oh, yes. Quite alive," Azor says seriously. "Indeed I've incorporated many of his ideas into my work."
"You mean you've met him."
"Well, no. Not yet, but I plan to."
Louisa considers how he sucked the electricity from the building. It's true Mr. Tesla is strange, but that doesn't mean he is from the future.
"Where's the proof?" Ezra asks. "Has he got some membership card from the future?"
"No," Azor says. "The proof is in the wireless technology that you are using to broadcast here tonight. Mr. Tesla invented it."
Now Big Chief Ezra stares. "Well" he says. "Well, I'm not sure what Mr. Marconi would have to say about that."
Azor barely stirs. He looks again at the back wall, above it all. "Mr. Marconi can go suck an egg."
The stage manager starts wildly circling his arm in the air and Big Chief Ezra looks his way and nods.
"There you have it, folks," Ezra says. "Visitors from the future? Do they exist? Azor Carter, chairman of AJC Enterprises, says yes. Sorry, but that's all we have time for today on Big Chief Ezra's Science Discoveries. Join us next week when we explore this conundrum: Gorillas, friend or foe? Thank you for tuning in. Signing of, this is Big Chief Ezra saying, Hiyahiyahiyahiyahiyahiyahi!"
And with that it is over.
Big Chief Ezra quickly shakes Azor's hand before disappearing backstage. Then the young woman is there again, blocking Azor, a frantic look on her face, trying to help him down off the stool. But Azor just sits and stares, looking straight ahead at the crowd, which is beginning to file out of the theater. He has a tricky smile on his face and he shakes his chin as if disappointed.
"Come on," Walter says. "Let's go get Azor."
"I'll be there in one second," Louisa says.
Walter turns and pauses, cocking his head, unable to imagine what could be more important than Azor at this moment. "What?" he asks.
"That guy I mentioned. Arthur Vaughn. He's here."
Walter looks suspicious. "Really? Why?" He squints into the audience.
"I don't know, but I thought I'd ask him. I'll be there in a second," she tells her father.
And so Walter tucks his chin to his chest, spurned. "Fine," he says as he walks off to greet Azor alone.
Arthur is looking around the auditorium for someone, apparently, but he's not seeing Louisa. The aisle is jammed with people and she doesn't want to miss him, so with a very unladylike shrug Louisa hikes her skirt up her legs and climbs over the back of her chair, making her way toward Arthur. She is doing fine until she reaches one row of lighter-weight folding chairs. She attempts to scale them as she has the others but finds, when she is delicately balanced on top, that the chair is too insubstantial. The metal contraption spills backward and sends Louisa flying down onto her hands and knees. The chair and Louisa land with an explosive crash. The whole audience, which had been courteously exiting the theater, falls silent and turns to see what all the commotion is—the whole audience including Arthur Vaughn.
"Hello," he says and waves. Arthur jumps a few rows to help her. He offers her his hand. She stands on her own, too embarrassed to accept his assistance. She smoothes her coat and skirt.
"Hello," she says. Louisa's head is flooded, a bucket of dishwater. She can't find one word to say to Arthur in the deluge of embarrassment. Black flecks of a beard have grown on his face since she saw him clean-shaven this morning. This new darkness to his skin makes his lips that much redder. The crowd flows past, filing their way out of the auditorium. His neck, his nose, his eyelashes. The room that had been freezing has, to Louisa, quite quickly become a furnace. She comes up with one word. "So," she says and bites her lip before thinking of something else, remembering what she wanted to ask him. "What are you doing here?"
Arthur looks puzzled. "Louisa?" he asks, and then in a lower voice, "Louisa?" as though he'd gotten it wrong the first time. "I got your invitation."
Louisa sifts the dull matter of her brain. She cobbles together a question. "Invitation?" Her mouth is making a sound like a balloon that sprang a leak. "I never sent one. I didn't even know about this until an hour ago. I don't even know where you live."
"It's a rooming house two blocks away from you," he says.
"How do you know where I live?" she asks and studies his face. Arthur is like a glass vase toppled off the windowsill. He's busted into a hundred distracting shards. He's a little scary, confusing her, reflecting light into her eyes from over there and over there and over there and over there. He's got the ground covered and it seems a sliver of him has already cut right through the toughest skin of her heel. Arthur has entered her bloodstream.
"It was the return address on the envelope." He takes her arm in his hand. "Are you ready to go?" he asks.
"I'm not here alone," she tells him, and Arthur turns toward her, a seam splitting open in his brow, so that even though she planned to let that declaration drill a hole of doubt into Arthur's confidence, she can't keep it up. "I'm here with my father," she says and points toward Walter, who is standing at the edge of the stage with Azor. Walter's index finger is raised. He's shaking it not three inches away from the tip of Azor's nose, scolding.
"Your father." Arthur puffs up his shoulders, reanimated after the blow.
"You want to meet my father?"
"I'd love to," he says, though it doesn't actually sound that way.
Arthur follows Louisa over to where her father stands by the stage. She walks carefully, not smiling but keeping her teeth set firmly as if she'd gotten a butterfly to perch on her shoulder and is trying not to scare it away before she can show it to Walter and Azor.
"Dad, Azor," she says carefully.
Walter and Azor have linked arms, and though Walter still has a sour look around his
mouth, he does seem happy to be reunited. Both men are leaning their backs against the edge of the stage. Azor has one hand resting on Walter's shoulder.
"Oh, Walter, look at your girl," Azor says and moves to hug her, but Louisa notices that Walter is not looking at "his girl." He is looking just over her head at Arthur. He is wondering who this young gentleman might be. Walter begins a study of Arthur and then Louisa, Arthur and then Louisa.
"Dad, Azor," she says again and turns to make sure Arthur is still standing behind her. "This is—"
"Arthur!" Azor screams. "Arthur. Oh, my! You got the invitation. You came!"
Arthur looks long at Azor. "I don't—Do I? Have we met?" He stumbles.
"Oh! I guess we haven't yet, but don't worry, we will. We will. And soon. Now, let's see—1943. Have you two gotten married yet?" Azor is nearly licking his lips he is so excited. "No. No. That's not for a year or so, is it. Right. Right! Arthur! Louisa! I'm so happy to see you both!"
No one says a thing. All noises in the room seem to be coming from the mouths of wild beasts.
"Married?" Louisa finally asks Azor with her hand resting on one cocked hip.
"Oh, dear. No, no more. Tick a lock." Azor turns the key on his lips and laughs quietly to himself. "I'm not very good at keeping track of all this."
"Azor, I don't even know this man."
"Really?" Azor says. "Oh, honey, I'm sorry. Really, I'm sorry," he says and starts to laugh with such zeal that he turns toward the stage and begins to beat his hand against it, pounding out time like the second hand on a clock, only he's moving much faster than that.
5
We are in Transylvania, and Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things.
The Invention of Everything Else Page 9