Metamorphosis

by Sesh Heri

  “Are you him?” I asked.

  “Who?” the man asked.

  “The man who Nikola Tesla told me about,” I said, “a man who wears a silk hat and has curious ways.”

  “I am he,” the man in the silk hat said.

  “We meet,” I said. “You have come to tell me something.”

  “I tell nothing,” the man in the silk hat said, “for nothing can be told. All that is known is experienced. It is game. It is gesture. It is ritual. It is fire. It is truth. It is lie. It is All. Come with me. Come follow me. I will confuse you. I will lie to you. It is for you to find the truth.”

  The man in the silk hat turned and ran into the forest. I ran after him. The path through the forest took a winding, serpentine course. My feet were light and flew over the ground. Then I was flying through the air, flying through the forest. Then I looked up through the branches of the trees and saw the man in the silk hat flying through the blue of the sky. I flew after him and approached him in the sky. He turned about in mid-air and floated in front of me.

  “All is time,” the man in the silk hat said, “but you are between two times, two time-lines— what you call universes. They are only dreams, only thoughts, only games. I could pluck you up and put you back in your original place. I could do many things, and have done many things. I choose not to pluck you up and put you back. We will have other games.”

  The man in the silk hat flew away from me, and descended. I flew after him, all in a rage. All I could see before me was bright blue. Then, in the lower field of my vision, I saw the white gloved finger of the man in the silk hat, and I heard his voice.

  He said: “We will have four times here, four times for you to experience. That is the rules of this game. Time One is— now.”

  And with that the blue faded away into a scene of my childhood. I recognized the place instantly. It was College Avenue in my old hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin. The street looked just as it did when I was a boy, unpaved, with horse-drawn wagons rolling by. I was standing in front of the drug store, a place I had been many times. I knew exactly where I was.

  I’ll go to the park, I thought. That’s where they’ll be.

  I was thinking of my mother and father.

  I walked to the park. When I got there, I saw them sitting under the shade of a tree. They were having a picnic, and were very happy. I hid behind another tree and watched them. I knew if they saw me, they’d disappear. I kept watching them, very excited, and then they suddenly looked in my direction. I felt shame, and they vanished from my sight.

  “You were obtrusive!” the man in the silk hat scolded me.

  “I tried,” I said.

  “Try, try again,” the man in the silk hat said. “What has it gotten you?”

  “I am a rich man,” I said. “I am famous.”

  “Except to your own self,” the man in the silk hat said. “Time Two is— now.”

  The park in Appleton faded away. Now I was in a dark hallway, standing before a massive oaken door that was closed with a hasp and affixed with a large lock. I went up and looked at the lock and saw that its keyhole was covered with a seal of red wax.

  “Only the worthy enter here,” I heard the man in the silk hat say.

  I turned and saw my father standing before me. He was wearing a prayer shawl and was carrying the Torah. It looked just like the scroll of the Ten Commandments I used to carry on me, but this one was full-sized. I heard music playing somewhere, and recognized the melody as “Kol Nidre” and I knew that this was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

  “Avert the severest decree!” my father said, looking directly at me.

  I gasped for breath and found myself suddenly in the blue expanse again, flying next to the man in the silk hat.

  “Do you know who you are yet?” the man in the silk hat asked.

  I kept looking at him. He wouldn’t smile or frown; he only looked back at me, saying nothing.

  Then the man in the silk hat raised his forefinger and said: “Time three is— now!”

  I was suddenly looking down at the sandy ground. It was very hot and the sun was very bright. I could feel the heat and smell it rising from the ground, a dusty, dry heat.

  I looked up and found myself in a giant arena. The people sat far away, ringing a vast, sandy expanse of earth. I could hardly see them. They seemed irrelevant to what was proceeding in front of me.

  Two men faced each other. They both wore wide-brimmed black hats, black shirts and trousers and black boots. I looked to one man, then over to the other, who was much farther away. The man nearest me I could see quite well. I almost stood by his side, but he didn’t notice me. He seemed to be a big man, with wide shoulders and great muscles under his black clothing. His shirt was buttoned up to his neck. His arms were tied with ropes to a massive wooden yolk like what is put upon oxen. This yolk had been tied across his back and his forearms had been tied up against it. But he still held a whip in his right hand. This man had a square jaw, a flat nose, and slanted, oriental-looking eyes, but his eyes were bright blue. His skin was fair, but sun-burned. His hair under his black hat was yellow. He was clean shaven. Tiny beads of sweat stood out upon his face. His expression was squinting and grim; his jaw was set. His eyes widened in a wild rage. Crimson streaked the black fabric of his shirt. The crimson was the man’s blood.

  I went over to the other man. He looked very much like the first man. He was dressed exactly the same, but he had a leaner face and a sharper nose and red-blonde hair. And this second man was a giant. He must have been ten feet tall. He was sitting on a wooden bench that was part of a larger structure behind him; it was something like a fence, but directly behind the giant was a large wooden circle with wooden spikes surrounding it. This whole wooden structure was blackened and smoldering in flames. Lashed to the back of the giant was a giant wooden yolk, exactly the same in appearance as the one upon the back of the other man. The giant also held a whip in his right hand, and his black shirt was also streaked with blood. The giant seemed more determined than the other man, but in both men I saw the fire of rage.

  And then the other man ran forward to the giant and tried to crack his whip, but he fell at the giant’s feet. The giant rose and kicked the other man back and then began lashing him with his whip, lashing him again and again.

  “Receive the wisdom!” the voice of the man in the silk hat said.

  The man who was being lashed turned upside down and stood upon his head. The giant continued to lash him until he began spinning and wobbling on his head like a top. Finally the spinning man caught fire and blazed up.

  “The fire will come from the north!” the man in the silk hat said.

  Now the spinning, upside down man was consumed in flame until nothing was left but a heap of ashes. And then from the ashes a bird broke forth and flew away. The bird flew out over the sand and then landed upon the ground. It stood there a moment and then the bird became the man again. He was dressed exactly the same as before except that now all his clothing was white.

  “See the mystery of purification,” the man in the silk hat said. The man in white took off his hat, and I could see that he had become the man in the silk hat. He raised his hand and he was instantly dressed as before, with the topper and old fashioned formal suit.

  “Time four is— now,” the man in the silk hat said.

  And the bright, hot vision of the arena disappeared before me to be replaced with a view of a city street— a city in ruins.

  It was night. A great crowd was moving down the street, marching in a general evacuation, carrying suitcases and boxes, wearing heavy clothing. A fire burned against the distant night sky, an orange glow casting a purple light to the clouds.

  I pushed my way through the people and came upon a place I recognized. It was that little lunch counter restaurant in Oakland where I had gone with Carter days earlier. Now it was full of people. They were all talking, all of them in an uproar over something.

  “We’ve got to get out!
” a man said, grasping a fistful of dollar bills. “They’re coming. They’ll be here any time. I have a thousand dollars I’ll give to any man who has an automobile that can drive me out of the city!”

  “You can’t get out!” someone else shouted. “They’ve got all the roads out of town blockaded. We’re surrounded!”

  The man with the dollar bills was shoved aside by several others.

  I made my way to the lunch counter and saw the fry-cook.

  “Say!” I shouted to him. He looked over at me.

  “What?” the cook snapped.

  “What’s going on here?” I demanded.

  “Where have you been?” somebody shouted.

  “We’ve been bombed, stupid!” somebody else said.

  “Bombed?” I asked. “Who? Who did it?”

  “The Germans, you imbecile!” another man shouted.

  “And they’ve shot the President in Washington!” another man said.

  “The President!” I shouted. “President Wilson?”

  “This guy’s a loon!” the cook said with disgust. He picked up a newspaper and shoved it at me.

  “Don’t you know the name of the President?” a man shouted in my ear. “What are you— a spy?”

  I turned over the newspaper and saw the front page. It read:

  “PRESIDENT ABRAHAM M. KENNEDY SHOT!”

  I looked at the date on the paper. It read, “November 28th, 2015.” My eye ran down the article. It said that the President had been shot while riding in his Ford automobile. The assassin, one John Harvey Wilkes, fired the fatal bullet from a telephone booth while the President’s automobile was turning a corner. Wilkes, a cinema actor, had escaped and was being sought all along the eastern seaboard. German troops occupying the Confederate States of America were now poised to enter Washington and take control of the northern government.

  I pushed the newspaper aside, pushed through the crowd and went back outside. The streets were now in turmoil. People were trying to run every which way. Many looked up to the sky. I heard the roar of engines. I looked up. Several airplanes were flying directly overhead in a ‘V’ formation.

  I looked down. A woman who was stirring soup in a kettle shouted, “Only broth here! Only broth! But hodge podge is coming! Hodge podge is coming!”

  I heard someone scream.

  Then I saw a silver rocket descend toward the city— and then there was a terrible flash of light and a deafening roar, and, amid the roar, the unspeakable screams of men, women, and children filled my ears! Intensely bright white rays of light flooded the air before me; they were so bright that the rays shined through the bodies of all the people so that could I see their skeletons beneath their flesh; it was a flash-fire of x-rays. Then a pressure wave pushed through us all and I saw the skeletons before me slowly crumbled to dust as in a slow motion picture sequence— and all the while the roar kept getting louder.

  And amid this roar I heard a voice, the voice of the man in the silk hat, say: “This time is— now.”

  And then another voice broke in and said: “Soon I will say what time is— now.”

  And out of the raging furnace that fish-head from the depths of the ocean approached me, approached me as I felt an unbearable searing heat and the sensation of my own body slowly crumbling into a thousand pieces. The fish head grew in size until it was enormous.

  The fish-head— the NYMZA— said: “Soon I will say when all time is— for all time shall be mine!”

  Then all I recall was that I was suddenly awake, shaking, drenched in cold sweat and Bess was holding me in her arms, gently crying.

  “It’s all right, Harry, it’s all right,” she was saying. “It was just a nightmare, that’s all.”

  She sat there holding me a long time. I don’t remember when I went back to sleep.

  CHAPTER NINE

  In The Valley of the Moon

  “I’m an American, though first, last,

  and all the time. I’m an aviator, and

  in case there’s war, will surely be a

  member of the aviation corps.”

  Houdini

  The next morning, looking out the window of my hotel, I found Oakland quiet and cold.

  It was Sunday, November 28th, 1915, Sunday in a universe that was not my own, in a body that was not my own. I felt my hands. They did not belong to me. I felt my arms. They were the arms of a stranger.

  How could I explain this to anyone? And how could Bess, who was hurrying to finish packing our trunks, ever understand what had happened to me? Was I destined to live out the rest of my life in this world which seemed so similar to the world I had known, and yet was so different in every way? I looked down at my hat which I held in my hand. I thought of its duplicate which I had already packed away.

  “Harry,” Bess said.

  “Hmm?” I mumbled.

  “What are you looking at?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “The street. It looks pretty cold out there.”

  “I don’t understand it,” she said, closing her case.

  “What?” I asked.

  “The point of going up to that ranch,” Bess said. “This time of year? In this weather?”

  “Jack invited us,” I said.

  “I think he invites everybody he meets,” Bess said. “It doesn’t mean a thing.”

  I turned away from the window and looked at Bess.

  “Sure it does,” I said. “He’s included us in his circle.”

  “Circle?” Bess asked. “What’s that mean? Circle?”

  “His literary circle,” I said. “His…crowd.”

  “Is that what you think?” Bess asked. “That he thinks you’re a fellow writer?”

  “Well— sure,” I said.

  “He doesn’t think you’re a writer,” Bess said. “You’re a magician, Harry, a stage magician. An actor!”

  “Don’t tell me what I am,” I said. “Don’t ever tell me what I am. I know what I am. And Jack knows what I am. I’m not just a magician. I am a writer. I’m an author. You know I’m an author. I’ve written and published before and I’ll write and publish again! And that’s not all. I’ve got other things up my sleeve as well.”

  “What?” Bess asked. “What have you got up your sleeve?”

  “Lot of things,” I said. “For instance: aviation. I just may fly again.”

  “You’ve sold the airplane!” Bess shouted.

  “So what? Airplanes can be bought,” I said.

  “But you told me you were through with all that!” Bess said. “You’ve coined your publicity!”

  “If I go back to aviation,” I said, “it won’t be about publicity. It’ll be about fighting a war.”

  “The war’s in Europe,” Bess said. “It’s not our war.”

  “It will be,” I said.

  “How do you know?” Bess asked. “Did President Wilson tell you that?”

  “I just know,” I said. “There’s a lot I just know, and you’re just going to have to take my word on it. Just like with Jack. It’s important that we know him. Jack London may be the most important man that I will ever meet in my life. I think he is. I haven’t the college degrees that would make the literary world take me seriously. But Jack doesn’t, either. He’s taught himself out of books— and he knows as much or more than the professors do who have the degrees— and those professors know that he knows as much, too. Look at Jack’s friends. Why, he’s friends with scientists like Luther Burbank! And he speaks at universities and colleges! He’s teaching the teachers! If I can associate myself with Jack London, then some of those professors may sit up and take notice of what I’m writing. They may say, ‘Old Dime Museum Harry has learned a thing or two.’ It won’t be ‘Dime Museum Harry’ anymore. It’ll be Houdini, the scholar! Houdini, the scientist! Houdini, the…the…”

  “Author,” Bess said.

  “Houdini, the author,” I said. “And that’s the point of going up to Jack London’s ranch.”

  There was a knock at
the door. Bobby started barking.

  “Quiet,” I said to him. He shrunk back into his basket. I went to the door and opened it. A bell man was standing outside.

  “Good,” I said. “Come in. We’ve just finished packing. You can start taking them down to the lobby.”

  The bell man came in, went into the bedroom, picked up two suitcases, and came out again.

  “I’ll come back for the trunk,” the bell man said.

  “Very good,” I said.

  The bell man went out. I started to close the door, but saw Jack and Charmian approaching in the hall outside.

  “Well, come on in,” I said. “They have one more trunk to take down to the lobby.”

  Jack and Charmian came in. I closed the door. Jack took off his hat. Bess came out of the bedroom.

  “Morning,” Charmian said.

  “Good morning,” Bess said.

  “Shall we wait here for the bell man,” Jack asked, “or go on downstairs?”

  “I’d like to wait ‘til he comes back,” I said. “I have a few things in that trunk I want to keep my eye on.”

  “I understand,” Jack said, lighting a cigarette.

  An awkward silence suddenly inserted itself into the room. We all stood there, looking at each other. Jack just stood there, smoking his cigarette, looking at Bess and me. He didn’t seem uncomfortable, just alert and maybe curious. Charmian, on the other hand, seemed tense, but she had that tension under complete control.

  Finally Bess said, “Harry says it looks very cold out.”

  “That’s Oakland weather,” Jack said, blowing a puff of smoke. “We’re headed for Sonoma Valley, an entirely different weather zone. The Coast Ranges block the sea current. The clouds have to crawl over the hills to get to us.”

  “If they get to us at all,” Charmian said.

  “We can’t promise spring,” Jack said. “But you will find Sonoma warmer and brighter. It has its own unique weather.”

  “What route are we taking up there?” I asked.