CALVIN WALKER
1963
“Dr. King?” Calvin asked, scarcely believing the words were coming out of his mouth.
“Yes, I’m Dr. King,” the man said, extending his hand. Calvin shook his hand but said nothing. He was too stunned to speak. “And you are?” the reverend asked.
“I’m sorry. I’m Calvin Walker.” He kept examining the man before him. “It’s extraordinary, the likeness,” Calvin said. “You really do look just like all the photos I’ve seen.”
“Well, I’ve been told the camera doesn’t lie although I wouldn’t mind a fib or two from time to time,” Dr. King said with a smile. The elevator doors opened and he stepped inside. “Are you going down?” he asked Calvin.
“Um, no. I forgot something in my room,” Calvin answered.
“Well it was nice meeting you, Mr. Walker. I hope to see you at the march tomorrow.”
Calvin said nothing further and the doors closed, taking the best Martin Luther King, Jr. impersonator he had ever seen down to the lobby. He went back to his room to call his wife and tell her about the experience he’d just had. It had literally shaken him up because it felt so real.
Why didn’t I pull out my phone and ask for a picture? Nobody will believe how much this guy looked like the real thing.
Calvin reached in his pocket for his cell phone but couldn’t find it. He didn’t remember picking it up this morning at all so he walked over to the nightstand to get it and noticed the rotary phone on the table, but no cell phone. This phone is a little old school for such a fancy hotel.
Outside there was a commotion of some sort at street level and he could hear raised voices and an intermittent siren. He went to the window and everything looked surreal. The cars were all old and everyone was dressed in what looked like vintage-wear. The women on the street had little hats on their heads and proper pocketbooks on their arms. It looked like a Hollywood back lot for a period film. Maybe that was it. They must be shooting a film outside today and the man he met is an actor playing the part of MLK. Now he really wanted to find his phone so he could snap some photos on his way out. Who knew what big-name actors might be out there? His son would be really impressed if he came home with a football jersey AND a photo of Will Smith, or maybe Denzel Washington would be there. That shot would win him points with his wife for sure. He was still looking for the phone when he heard a knock at his door. He opened it to find an impeccably dressed man standing there.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr. Walker. My name is Edward Chase and I’m the hotel concierge. I understand you made the acquaintance of Dr. King this morning.”
Calvin smiled. “Yes, I met the illustrious ‘Dr. King.’ It looks like they’re shooting a movie outside. It must have been a no-brainer to hire that actor. He could be the man’s twin. What can I do for you, Mr. Chase?”
“Mr. Walker, I’m afraid you have misunderstood what you’ve seen this morning. That man was not an actor and this is not a film location. The man you met is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the famous civil rights leader.”
Calvin stood there waiting for Chase to say something else but nothing was forthcoming. “What’s the punch line, Mr. Chase? Is this a reality show or something?” He looked into the hallway, both left and right, but there was no crew there and no cameras.
“Mr. Walker, if I could come in for a moment I can explain everything.”
Calvin stepped aside and let the concierge enter.
“First, let me start by giving you this morning’s paper.”
Chase handed him a newspaper and Calvin saw the date on the masthead. August 27, 1963.
Calvin looked at Chase questioningly. “What the hell is going on?” he asked.
“Mr. Walker, most of what I’m about to say you’ll have to take on faith because we don’t have much time. Today is August 27, 1963. There is a march scheduled for here in the city tomorrow. I believe you know it as the March on Washington. Dr. King is one of several prominent civil rights leaders heading up the event. As you know, the march is historically known as one of the great moments in the quest for equal rights.”
“I’m very well-versed on the March on Washington, Mr. Chase. What I’m less sure of is why you seem to think we’re fifty years in the past here.”
“There has been a disturbance in the fabric of history, Mr. Walker. You are not here at this time and place by accident. You possess a unique ability to interact with the people of this time to see that history is preserved. For reasons we don’t understand, there are, from time to time, disturbances or “tears” in the fabric of our history. Across the centuries there have been people like you who have been tasked with extraordinary opportunities to travel back to these places in time and see things with your own eyes that most people will only ever read about. At the same time, you have a responsibility to every person who comes after you to make certain that things happen as they are recorded in history.” Calvin sat down and invited Chase to join him as the concierge continued his story.
“You may notice I didn’t say ‘as they should happen’ and there’s a very good reason for that. History is made up of both the sublime and the tragic, the glorious and the horrendous, the good and the bad. With benefit of hindsight we can look back and say ‘Why didn’t someone put a bullet in Adolf Hitler before he could take power?’ or ‘Why don’t we tell Bobby Kennedy’s security detail not to go through the kitchen?’ And we want to do those things, to right the wrongs when we have this chance. But we cannot. History must play itself out in the way that it happened, no matter how much we wish it could be different. Good or bad, it’s up to you to make sure it doesn’t change from the original.”
Calvin vacillated between thinking Chase was out of his mind and thinking he was playing a practical joke on him. Either way, he didn’t have the time or the patience for it. “I think you’d better leave if you don’t mind, Mr. Chase. I’m not sure what kind of game this is but I’ve had enough of it. This isn’t funny and I have places I need to be,” Calvin said as he urged Chase toward the door.
“With all due respect sir, where you need to be is up for debate right now, but I have a couple of leads for you.”
“Seriously man, you need to go.”
“Mr. Walker, I realize this is very hard for you to believe so I’ll cut to the heart of the matter. In twenty-four hours, without your intervention, the peaceful March on Washington that is best known for the eloquent ‘I Have A Dream’ speech Dr. King is currently working on in this very hotel will be known for something much different and it will likely set the course of civil rights back a hundred years.” He could tell he had Calvin’s attention now.
“Everyone in America knows about that speech. It was a brilliant moment in American history. What could possibly overshadow what happened that day?” Calvin asked.
“Bloodshed, Mr. Walker. Tremendous bloodshed.”
CHAPTER 9
EDWARD CHASE
It wasn’t surprising that Calvin Walker was having trouble believing what he was hearing. Chase remembered so clearly how he had felt when he sat in Walker’s shoes all those years ago. As a twenty-two-year-old student at Cambridge University, he’d been burning the midnight oil in the library preparing a presentation for a notoriously difficult professor of philosophy. He had read and read until his eyes burned and his brain threatened to overflow with complicated theories when he decided to just close his eyes for a few minutes. He had a short, but deep nap and awoke to find himself in a most undignified state of drooling on his journal. Straightening up, he noticed a change around him. He still felt groggy and decided a quick walk in the brisk night air might revive him. When he exited the library that’s when his odyssey really began. His whole world had changed. When he had closed his eyes for that brief rest it was 1812 and when he awoke the year was 1587. Over the next five days he found himself involved in an unbelievable adventure, a date in the past reborn for a second run.
Upon his return to the library to gather his
things, he found the old librarian was still at his post. Nothing about the situation seemed strange to this man and he watched as Edward slowly packed his belongings into his knapsack and then he approached him. What the librarian told him boggled the mind. He was sending him out into the night on a grand adventure, one that was too impossible to be believed. But Edward followed the librarian’s instructions and made his way to London where he became involved in the intrigue surrounding the conviction of Mary, Queen of Scots, for treason. Edward found himself in the court of Elizabeth I as the countdown to execution made its macabre march. His role was to get a message from the court to Mary’s son, James VI, King of Scotland. Should this message not get through in time there was thought the army that had been raised by Mary would launch an attack on the English court. Mary was guilty of many offenses in her life and in her time she brought terrible repute to her people, but her son was no better in his own way. He was an arrogant and proud young man who had no real relationship with his mother. She had abdicated the Scottish throne to him under duress and now she believed that he could possibly sit on the throne of England one day as she, herself, had plotted to do for so long. No one is sure of what was in the message or even if it had come from Elizabeth herself or had been an attempt by the court to prevent an uprising. Most believe it was a simple barter, urging James to keep his mother’s supporters in line in exchange for something he himself wanted. For whatever reason, Edward was tasked with delivering the message into the hands of the king’s liaison in the English countryside. On February 8, the execution order was carried out with no interference from Mary’s loyal subjects or from her son. While it is impossible to say what could have happened, all Edward knew was that everything went as history had recorded it. He didn’t know if he had made a difference or not. Had he prevented bloodshed in the defense of a traitor? Or had he been a pawn stopping the resistance and allowing a woman’s death when it might have been prevented, even by war? He struggled with the questions that were circling in his mind and when he returned to find the librarian he sat down to wait for him, determined to get answers. The librarian didn’t appear right away and as the shadows of evening grew longer Edward grew more tired. He settled into a comfortable chair to wait and once again the peaceful library lulled him to sleep. When he awoke he found the librarian standing over him holding a stack of books about the great philosophers.
“Sorry to disturb you, young man, but I found the volumes you were interested in,” the old librarian said with a chuckle.
“Volumes?”
“For your paper. Before your catnap you told me you needed the most complete works I could find on Aristotle and Plato. Here they are,” responded the librarian.
After more back and forth it became apparent the old man either didn’t know or wouldn’t admit that he knew what Edward was talking about with regard to Mary and Elizabeth. He’d just been digging in the stacks for these books, he told him. Edward jotted some notes from the books and tucked them into his bag so he could finish the paper later. He wasn’t ready to work on it just yet. He assumed he’d been asleep longer than he thought and that he’d had a very vivid dream.
I wish I had a history paper to write tonight instead of philosophy. I feel like I could write that just from the memory of my dream.
He bid the librarian goodnight and walked out into the misty night. As he walked he began to get a chill and he reached into his knapsack for his sweater. That’s when he felt it. A small, waxy disc was stuck to his finger and when he pulled it out of the bag he stopped in his tracks. It was the wax seal from the message and it bore the imprint of Queen Elizabeth I. There, in his hand, he held the blood-red wax he had seen the sovereign seal just before she handed the message to her courtier who then handed it to Edward. It could not be. And yet it was. Thus began Edward’s journey to find the truth and ultimately, to become the concierge. He had learned about portals—places rich with history that opened up to times in their own past. The Willard was one such portal. There were many hotel portals in various cities around the world, but there were also libraries, like the one he had found at Cambridge. There were also museums, historic homes, government buildings, trains, ships and just about anywhere else where people had gathered in times gone by. Through these portals, other guides like Chase came and went with their travelers, all of them looking for the tears in the fabric of the past.
CHAPTER 10
OLIVIA FORDHAM
1913
Very little ever rattled Olivia Fordham. Having spent nearly five decades navigating the worlds of both high society and high finance she could be counted on to react to almost anything with aplomb. That’s why she didn’t jump to any conclusions when she first saw the traffic jam of classic automobiles. She pulled a chair over to the window and watched the scene unfold on the street below her for some time. She saw the angry drivers get out of their cars and shake their fists at one another but even that anger seemed tempered. The men were dressed in dapper suits with hats and the women wore tailored dresses with wool coats and gloves. Most wore large hats with embellishments like flowers and feathers, much like what one would see today at the Kentucky Derby. Before long, the police showed up to untangle the mess and send everyone on their way. The officer looked like a character from a Charlie Chaplin movie, but he did his job effectively and traffic began to flow again, all of it cars and a few trucks of a bygone era. Olivia turned her attention to the pedestrians strolling the sidewalks and crossing the streets. There were more well-dressed patrons like those she had seen in the cars but there were also young boys that brought to mind the term street urchins. They were wearing ragged pants and overcoats and had flat, wool caps on their heads and dirt on their faces. Olivia didn’t know why but she found herself thinking they must be up to no good. There were governesses walking their young charges and shooing away the urchins when they got too close to the young ladies in their lace finery. Some of the women had dresses that went all the way to the ground but many ladies had hemlines that ended at their ankles revealing delicate slipper heels.
Olivia watched for a while and noticed there were a few horse-drawn carriages mingling with the automobiles. When she had seen enough she went to straighten her bed and get dressed. She went to the closet where the maids had unpacked her things and was only slightly surprised to see that the clothes hanging in the closet were not the ones her New York maids had packed. Hanging there she saw long dresses like those on the street outside, some long enough to touch the floor when she walked and not a single pair of trousers. There were shoes with tiny buttons across the bridge and slippers with demure heels. She also noticed several hat boxes stacked on the shelf and when she examined their contents she found a collection of large, extravagant hats in a variety of colors. There were even a couple of fascinators with radiating plumes and simple combs for placing in the hair. These would look right at home at a royal wedding. There were beaded clutches and a couple of sensible pocketbooks and on the dressing vanity she noticed several pairs of white gloves in different lengths. She was delighted with the items she found.
Considering the clothing, the vintage automobiles, and the mannerisms of the people she had observed, she imagined herself to be somewhere around the early 1900s, likely the Edwardian period. This was a new one for her. She had always been fascinated by the era but never had a chance to “visit” it. The timing on this episode was terrible with everything she had to do this week but it couldn’t be helped. Part of her secretly hoped she would stay in the era long enough to really enjoy it. She wanted a chance to wear everything in the closet. She would place a call to her friend, Jane, who had checked into the hotel and was staying in the adjacent second bedroom. Olivia had begun reserving the second bedroom about a year before and made sure it was always included when she stayed at the Willard. Jane had been given a key to the adjoining door so she could come and go as Mrs. Fordham needed.
Yes, Olivia would call Jane soon, but not just yet. She went back to the chair by
the window and opened it a few inches so she could hear the sounds of the city. She didn’t know how long she would be in this time and she wanted to enjoy every minute.
Half an hour later Edward Chase rang the doorbell of the suite. Olivia greeted him still wearing her dressing gown.
“Come in, Edward.”
“Did you enjoy your rest, Olivia?”
“Yes, very much. I feel very refreshed.”
Chase noticed she did indeed seem alert and calm. He walked to the window and looked out. Traffic was flowing nicely on Pennsylvania Avenue, the classic cars blowing their horns at the boys who darted between them. He wondered if she had looked out the window or noticed anything different. She was still wearing her dressing gown so maybe she hadn’t gone to her closet and seen the period clothing he knew was now hanging there. He was going to have to be very careful how he broke the news to her.
“Would you like some tea, Edward? The water has gone cold but I could order up a new pot.”
“No, thank you. Olivia, I thought you might like your maid to come and help you dress for this evening but I wanted to speak with you first.”
“I don’t require any assistance this evening but it’s good of you to be concerned. I’m afraid I may need to stay in tonight. I was going to call Jane and spend the evening with her. Has she checked in?”
“Yes, she’s all taken care of but she’s not, um, available right now.”
“That’s no problem. I’ll call her in a bit.” Chase glanced at the circa 1910 telephone on the desk. If Olivia hadn’t noticed it, she would when she got ready to make the call. He had to tell her what was going on.
“Olivia, would you please come with me? I need to show you something.”
She followed him into the dining room where he drew back the drapes on the corner window with its Juliet balcony overlooking the intersection. He pointed to the street.
She looked down but didn’t make any remark.
The Willard Page 5