As Time Goes By

by Hank Davis

  Under Hubert’s tutelage Mavis had shudderingly tried pot-gardening, dog-patting, and automobile-driving. She was miserable. She balked the night Hubert came to dinner in her apartment and insisted she pursue and kill the two cockroaches the grocer had sacked with the potatoes. She grew so heady with her rebellion that night that she almost broke the engagement. In fact, she was triumphantly convinced she had, till Hubert showed up the next night and overwhelmed her with his bland assumption that all was well. It was all so difficult. She could not clearly recall how she had come to be engaged to Hubert in the first place. Fortunately, Hubert’s excessively cautious nature had demanded a long engagement. Unfortunately, the long engagement period was now drawing to a close, and Mavis found it more and more difficult to tell Hubert what a big mistake he was.

  After the night of the cockroaches, Mavis had given up her role of the grim quarry slave scourged to her dungeon and gone happily back to being her old chicken-hearted, unfibered self. Now she wished she hadn’t. If Hubert’s character-building had succeeded, how simple it would be now to tell him (in effect) that she was turning him in at the exchange desk! (But for whom could she exchange him?)

  That was a fruitless line of thought. Especially since she couldn’t even bring herself to exchange a perfectly useless (but perfectly beautiful) green velvet cloak—which no power on earth could induce her to wear in public, even supposing she should ever have occasion for wearing it. It was impossible to picture herself garbed in the long Victorian garment, sailing into some nightclub on Hubert’s arm. Mavis hadn’t the courage to bring it off, for one thing. For another, it demanded an escort as unlike Hubert as was humanly possible.

  When she left the department store, Mavis headed straight for the Book Nook. After mentally wrestling with two enormous mistakes she felt she deserved a small reward. In Mavis’ opinion chicken-hearted people were frequently in need of small rewards—for the things they did and the things they did not do, for success and failure, for joy and despair, and for all in-betweenness.

  When she could find it the Book Nook was her favorite second-hand bookstore, and second-hand books were her favorite small rewards. The place was a narrow, dark cave sandwiched between a real-estate office and a surgical-supply shop. She was never quite certain of the address. Sometimes, when it had been months since her last visit, she would return to find that the real-estate office had unaccountably changed into a cubby-hole that sold sneeze powder and exploding cigars; and when she turned into what ought to have been the Book Nook, she ended in a nightmare of trusses, bedpans, and menacing garments with a lot of dangling harness attached.

  But on the day of the green cloak the real-estate office displayed its usual ugly photographs of property nobody wanted, while the surgical-supply shop offered a choice of legs or crutches, and she found the Book Nook huddled between them.

  There was a new proprietor in charge. But then, there often was. At first glance she found him a vast improvement over his predecessors, though this one was badly in need of a shave. Still, the new man was young and he didn’t have a cold. Till then it had been Mavis’ experience that all second-hand booksellers suffered from heavy colds and a startling resemblance to stone images squatting on ancient tombs. This one, however, went so far as to raise his head, blink his eyes, and glance pleasantly (if vaguely) in her direction.

  Proceeding carefully in the half-gloom, Mavis eased her way into the old-books section, which in places like the Book Nook mostly meant nineteenth-century trash. After a grubby half-hour she emerged with a prize: a chatty description of a European tour made by a wealthy American girl in the year 1877. Mavis had once known a man who collected cigarette lighters that looked like guns or miniature bottles or outdoor privies—he didn’t care, just so they in no way resembled cigarette lighters. Live and let live, Mavis thought. Cigarette lighters held no charms for her but Victorian travel journals did. Like most collectors she began with sheer greed, trying to cover too much territory, and ended with despair and not enough money. For some time now, she had limited herself to feminine journals that spanned (roughly) the years between 1850 and 1900. As for why she ever began collecting them at all . . . Hubert had asked her that. She had tried answering him with the truth: that people do not live by reason alone—that they only make up reasons to stop other people asking silly questions.

  Hubert wasn’t pleased with her answer at all, at all. In the end she was forced to retreat behind the conversation-killing remark that history was fascinating. Even Hubert respected history.

  When she brought the book to the new proprietor’s desk, he blew the dust from it and leafed through it while Mavis waited with money in one hand and tried to steady her small mountain of packages with the other.

  “It’s marked seventy-five cents,” she said. “Right there, on the flyleaf.” She laid the money on the desk, but the young man ignored it. He was reading a page in the middle of the book. He closed the book, his finger still marking his place, and looked back to check the author’s name.

  “Sara . . .” he said. “Only think of Sara’s keeping a journal so faithfully. It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for. Thank you . . . thank you.” He glanced up at Mavis and smiled very sweetly and went back to his reading. She stared down at the top of his head which resembled a medium grade of sheared beaver. Her feet began to hurt. Impatience always settled in Mavis’ feet.

  “You want to keep it?” she asked, leaning perilously forward to glare at him over her packages.

  “Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary or even desirable. . . .” He chewed nervously at his lower lip. “But I really ought to read it—or anyway, part of. Now, here’s a nice question of ethics: if one is a time traveler and discovers in the future that one’s sister’s best friend has been keeping a journal that one is certain to find oneself in, how far is one allowed to read ahead? I mean, of what is to happen, but has not yet happened?” He pondered a moment while Mavis stared at him in bewilderment.

  “I rather think,” he continued, “that it is perfectly fair for me to read up to the point of my departure, don’t you?”

  “Oh, by all means,” Mavis said, but her sarcasm was lost on the young man.

  “Yes, here we are, steaming up the Rhine, a whole party of us.” He began to read aloud from the book: “We broke our journey at Königswinter long enough to climb up to Godesburg Castle. While strolling back T.G. kept us merry with fantastic predictions for the future. J. gaily accused him of having drunk too deeply of the wine at luncheon or of having consulted the raggle-taggle gypsies who waylaid us near the castle. T.G. only laughed and shook his head. J. asked mock-scornfully if he had traveled much into the future. T.G. answered her that he wished he could, more than anything. Mrs. Simmons then exercised her authority as chaperone and begged us to cease our wild talk. Yes,” he looked up from the book and nodded at Mavis, who was standing before him with her mouth open. “That’s exactly the way it was. And then we climbed the Drachenfels and afterwards floated past thirty-three crumbling castles. It must have been two days later when we reached Heidelberg. That’s where I excused myself from sightseeing and succumbed to a bookshop.” He suddenly stopped talking and fell to reading again the way a hungry man attacks his dinner.

  Mavis began unloading all her packages onto the desk. He might well be crazy, but she wanted that book. Short of grappling for it, she saw no way of getting it but to wait for it. She moved around behind the desk, drew up a chair and sat down beside him; she took off her shoes and wiggled her toes. The Book Nook was very quiet, dark, and cool. There were no other customers. She could wait till closing time—still two hours away. Surely it would not take him that long to finish Sara’s journal.

  The young man paid no attention to her, other than to move his chair a few inches to allow her to squeeze in beside him. He read silently and swiftly for ten minutes, then began groping around on the desk top without lifting his eyes from the page. The hand paused as if it were surprised when it came in contact
with Mavis’ packages.

  “I could stack them here on the floor,” she said, “if they’re in your way.”

  “Not at all. The thing is, I believe my cigar case is under them.”

  Together they lifted the stack. No cigars. The young man ran his hands through the medium grade of sheared beaver and looked desperate.

  “Here, have a cigarette.” Mavis opened her purse and handed him the package, first taking one for herself. She waited for him to light it, but when she saw that no light was forthcoming she fished out a book of matches. Only then did she glance up at his face. His eyebrows had climbed almost as high as the sheared beaver.

  “Oh, I say! You . . . Well, I call it brave of you. There are ladies, I know, who . . . who smoke, but to do it in public and carry tobacco about with you . . . I call it brave!”

  Nobody else had ever called Mavis brave. She warmed to him. But honesty was strong in her. “Millions of women smoke. Hubert hates it. But, of course you’re teasing me. . . . Forgive me, but I do think you’re the strangest owner the Book Nook has ever had. If you’ve finished with it, I’ll take the book and go. The money is on the desk.”

  The young man lighted both cigarettes before he answered. “My dear young lady, I am not the owner of the Book Nook. There was nobody at all here when I arrived in that little alcove back there. It was pitch dark, and I slept on the floor till daylight. That was three days ago. This morning I broke the lock on the front door—the back door is boarded up and nailed solid. I took a short but nerve-racking walk and then crept back into this safe but cheerless hole. It was then I noticed a sign on the street side of the door. It said ‘Closed till further notice.’ It’s still there, I believe. When you came in, I was considering, rather desperately, what I should do next. I do think it was clever of you to find exactly the book I needed! I’d been looking, but there are so many books, and all so higgledy-piggledy . . .” Mavis stared and stared at him, while belief in him grew and grew. For the first time she noticed that his crumpled clothes were very Ivy League. “Are you really out of Sara’s journal? I . . . I mean, how did it happen?”

  “I really am, Miss—please, what is your name?” Mavis told him. “Mine is Titus Graham, and I ought this minute to be in Heidelberg, and it ought to be the year eighteen-seventy-seven. I don’t quite know how it happened, except that I went into a bookshop and I found a new book of short stories by a young German whose work I admire. He writes fantastic stories about the future, and I quite lose myself in them, you see. Only this time I lost myself indeed. I had settled myself in a little reading alcove they have there and had begun reading the book. You see, I’d fully intended to buy it and take it back to the hotel with me, till I discovered I’d left all my money in my room. Very embarrassing, but the proprietor insisted I look it over, anyway. I did, and suddenly, here I was.”

  “But, Mr. Graham, how will you get back?”

  “Presumably, by reading in this time something that closely relates to the other time.”

  “But will it work?”

  “I . . . I hope so.” The young man closed his eyes and swayed a little, as if he were suddenly dizzy. He clutched at the edge of the desk, and his teeth began to chatter. His pallor was alarming.

  Mavis was on her feet at once, scrambling to put on her shoes. “What is it, Mr. Graham? Are you ill?”

  “Not at all. It’s just the cold in here. Don’t you feel it?”

  “Cold nothing!” Mavis was furious with herself. “You’re starving, of course. What a witless idiot I am! No money—here three days in this dreadful honking, hooting, cruel city. Frightened, too, I’ll bet I But not showing it. Oh, Mr. Graham, you are so brave! Here . . .” She dragged the green velvet cloak from its box. “Let me wrap you in this, and then I’ll go get some food. I’ll be right back.”

  She was halfway out the door when he called to her. “You are so kind. So very kind. When you come back, don’t be alarmed if you don’t find me here. I’ll try reading the book in the little alcove back there. Perhaps that will help.”

  “Oh, Mr. Graham, dear, take the book and try! Try hard, and I’ll hurry.”

  But again his voice stopped her. “I say . . . I know this is rather presumptuous of me, but I wonder . . . That is, I’ve never met a woman like you before. You didn’t turn a hair when I told you about me—when I was from. I’ve daydreamed a great deal about the New Woman of the future, so free, so untrammeled and brave. I mean, would you—if you could—go back with me? If we tried reading the book together? I’m saying this badly, but I could take you to my sister . . . And after a while, if you wanted to . . . Miss O’Hanlon, will you marry me in eighteen-seventy-seven?”

  Mavis stood in the doorway, her heart pounding. Oh, wouldn’t it be wonderful to go back with him—back to a time she’d fit into? Back to the long sunlit days when an hour was a whole hour long, not like these modern ten-minute hours. She knew very well from her persistent reading of Victorian journals that something queer had happened to time even before she was born. And to people. There used to be room enough in the world for all kinds of people—the inefficient, and the chicken-hearted . . . Maybe, with time enough, she could fiber-up her character in her own way. Mightn’t she even, in Titus Graham’s world, appear to be not only strong-fibered, but perhaps a trifle fast? There, she could wear the velvet cloak . . . and no more problems about Hubert. Hubert. He fell into her dream the way a boulder might crash into delicate glass castles. She drew herself up as tall as she could, and for the first time in her life felt little tendrils of strength lacing across her spine.

  “I thank you, Mr. Graham, dear, from the bottom of my heart. I am honored, but I cannot go. You see, I have not been in this world all that you think I am. I’m a timid rabbit of a girl—not the New Woman you’ve imagined me to be. A poet once said, ‘There grows no herb of help to heal a coward heart,’ so there’s no sense in my chasing through time to look for it. What I’d better do is stay here and heal myself. Anyway, I mean to try. But right now I must go get you some food.”

  “In spite of what you say, I should like you to know, Miss O’Hanlon, that my faith in your courage remains unshaken.”

  They were the last words Mavis ever heard from Titus Graham. Spoken words, that is. When she returned with the sandwiches and coffee, he was gone. In the small alcove in back she found Sara’s journal, and after a short but sharp battle with her conscience, she gathered the book up with her packages. After all, she comforted herself, she had left the money for it on the desk. She put the sandwiches and coffee inside the box that had held the green velvet cloak and set them outside on the curb for the trash collector. Resolutely then she left the Book Nook and walked several blocks to find a telephone. Though her voice and hands were shaking, she finally managed to phone the police to them that someone should see to relocking the Book Nook’s front door. When they asked for her name, she hung up.

  Once safely at home again, Mavis gave in to fatigue and dull discontent. Something strange and wonderful had happened to her, and yet everything was discouragingly the same. She felt there ought to be some glow left, some magic light that would alter her forever. But what was different? There was still Hubert to contend with. There was still the fact that she’d spent almost all her money on the green velvet cloak. What, she wondered, had happened to it? And, oh, if she could only know that Mr. Graham was safely home again and no longer hungry. Her eyes fell on Sara’s journal . . . Of course!

  She found the entry almost immediately. Sara had written in Heidelberg in June, 1877: After a frantic three days’ search by our whole party and various Heidelberg officials, T.G. reappeared yesterday and set our fears at rest. He was quite unharmed, but tired and hungry and looking very seedy. None of us endeavored to question him till he had enjoyed some food and rest. Today the physician tells us that he evidently contracted a fever and in his delirium wandered about the city, in a state bordering on loss of memory. It is pitiful to think of poor T. unable to find his way back to his
friends and family. The fugue, as the doctor called it, has now passed, and we are assured he will recover fully. T.G. remembers nothing, he says, except that somewhere he met a young woman who was kind to him, giving him her cloak because he was shivering. He had it with him when he returned and will not yet permit it to be removed from his sight. He has got it firmly in his head that she was an extraordinarily beautiful and fearless creature, quite unlike any other young lady of his acquaintance. It is most provoking. He has always admired strong-minded females. Fortunately, I feel myself growing daily more strong-minded . . . The cloak is of green velvet and of a quality that proves its owner (whatever her other attributes) to have been a lady of excellent taste.

  For a moment, Mavis had read enough. Without intending to, Sara had given her enough glow to go on warming. Bravely or not, Mavis could at least live her life with good taste. And it was never good taste to marry a man you didn’t love. So much for Hubert. Mavis reached for the telephone and summoned him to their last meeting. While she waited for his arrival she made further plans for the future. She would continue her collection of journals. It would be delightful if now and then she ran across references to Sara and Titus. Of course, they’d marry. Or had married. Mavis hoped so; certainly she didn’t mind. In fact, Mavis had no regrets at all, except when she thought of the beautiful green cloak. Never mind, Sara could have it. Mavis would save her money and buy herself another, because it hadn’t been a mistake at all. Then why, Mavis wondered, with everything so neatly ordered, did she feel like a leftover pancake in an otherwise empty refrigerator?

  She was crying a little and telling herself that she would not cry when her doorbell rang. Mavis was surprised that Hubert had arrived so quickly; he wasn’t due for another hour yet. The young man standing before her had hair that resembled a superior grade of sheared beaver, and in his hands he carried a package heavy with red wax seals.