Hazards of Time Travel Read online

  Miss Steadman clasped my hand. “That may be a blessing, dear. No one would want to remember being struck by lightning!”

  And there came, with some embarrassment, Miss Hurly—she’d been astonished to read about me in the papers, and to hear about me on the radio, and to realize that the girl-struck-by-lightning was Mary Ellen Enright.

  “Such a shock! Dr. Harrick sends his regards and very best wishes for your recovery. He said—when I’d told him about you, and showed him the news stories—that he had once come close to being struck by lightning himself, boating on Lake Michigan as a teenager—when a sudden storm came up. It was quite a suspenseful tale Dr. Harrick told, really quite emotional—how terribly close Dr. Harrick had come to being killed, at such a young age; and only think, all the great work he has done in science would have been lost . . . He did remember you, Mary Ellen, though at first he’d mixed you up with our other girl Lorraine who’d been working on Mondays and Wednesdays.”

  And there came a woman whom I didn’t know, whom I had never seen before, who introduced herself as Cornelia Graeber—“Please excuse me, Miss Enright, but I saw your picture in the newspaper, and I—I felt that I knew you, somehow—and I wonder if you know me? In some way? I’m sometimes called ‘Nelia.’” This individual was edgy, nervous; as she spoke to me, she picked at her fingernails, and tugged at her hair; she seemed quite anxious in my presence, as well as bewildered—she had no idea why she’d been drawn to see me, but the idea had obsessed her, and at last she’d come. She was about thirty years old. She reminded me of myself—somehow. Her eyes were disconcertingly intense, fixed upon me in a way that suggested that yes, she knew me; but she wasn’t sure why. She explained that she was a Ph.D. candidate in psychology, working with A. J. Axel. She’d looked up my course work, out of curiosity, and discovered that I’d taken Axel’s popular lecture course Psychology 101 the previous fall, and that I’d had an instructor named Ira Wolfman as my quiz section instructor—“Do you remember him? ‘Ira Wolfman’? He left Wainscotia abruptly, at the end of the term. He didn’t say good-bye to any of us. Not even A. J. Axel. It was very—upsetting. Of course, Ira may have had reasons—professional reasons. But to leave without saying good-bye to any of his friends and colleagues—that wasn’t like him . . .”

  The sharp shooting pains behind my eyes were making me blink rapidly. Tears flooded my eyes. I could not hear the woman’s words clearly for a roaring in my ears like a freight train. Badly I wanted to tell the woman to go away—I didn’t know her, I didn’t know what she was talking about, the names of most of my professors had vanished from my memory, and could be retrieved only with great difficulty. And it wasn’t clear why this stranger was addressing me.

  Drawn by the sound of my sobbing, one of the nurses intervened. Quickly the woman apologized, and departed.

  The fit of convulsive sobbing was so extreme, I could not catch my breath and began to hyperventilate. I had to be rushed to the ER and given oxygen and an IV medication to bring down my suddenly accelerated heartbeat, that was racing at 260 beats a minute.

  THEN, THERE CAME Jamie Stiles to see me.

  “Hello? Mary Ellen—”

  At first, I didn’t remember him. In ungainly stained bib-overalls and no shirt beneath, with bristling dark whiskers, and sandals on his large gnarly feet, he was a startling and intimidating sight.

  Telling me, with awkward humor, that “Rufus” wanted to see me also but hadn’t been allowed inside the hospital—his leash was tied to a bicycle rack outside.

  For it had been Jamie Stiles’s dog Rufus that had discovered me fallen on the trail, and rushed barking to me.

  It had been Jamie Stiles who’d been hiking on the trail—(not the trail that I’d been on but one close by)—and who’d applied mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to make me breathe again.

  Jamie Stiles, who’d been one of the SANE protesters. Who taught sculpting part-time in the fine arts department at Wainscotia State.

  Jamie had remembered me, he said. Seeing my picture in the newspaper he’d remembered me from the SANE march.

  By this time he’d stepped inside the room. For a big man he was shy. Nurses were glancing at him curiously as they passed by in the hall. A flush rose in his face. I saw now that in his right hand he clutched a bouquet of flowers which looked as if they’d been picked in haste in a field.

  There was some fuss about getting a vase for the flowers. When I lifted the flowers to smell them, the scent that lifted from their petals was very faint, yet sweet. Confusedly I thought—Is this a long time ago, or now? Or has it not happened yet?

  In fear of shutting my eyes. For there was the possibility that, if I did, something small and dark would rush at me and cause me to scream and when I dared to open my eyes again, I would be alone; or worse yet, one of the nurses would be bending over my body.

  As Jamie Stiles spoke haltingly to me I thought that yes, I would have remembered this man—I wanted to remember him. For his face was familiar, in a way that a face is familiar which you have been seeing all your life.

  Jamie Stiles was deep-chested, with a thick neck, muscular arms and shoulders, jaws covered in bristling dark whiskers that looked as if they would be wiry to the touch; yet his eyes were kindly and concerned, and puzzled. For he’d seemed to know me, he said. When he’d seen me on campus at the time of the protest he’d felt this strongly—“No reason, I guess. The phenomenon is called déjà vu.”

  (Déjà vu. The term was familiar to me. Though in the psychology textbook in which I’d encountered it the phenomenon was discounted as usually mistaken, delusional.)

  Jamie Stiles was soft-spoken at my hospital bedside but I recalled from his behavior at the protest march that he was a man of strong feelings, impulsive, courageous.

  He’d spoken scornfully to me, I recalled. Oh but why?

  But then, he’d spoken tenderly to me. He’d forgiven me for my ignorance.

  Despite the size of his hands, and his stubby clay-stained fingers, there was gentleness in Jamie’s handclasp. In his voice, sympathy and hope.

  I felt tears threaten me. Though I tried very hard to keep them back tears spilled onto my face like acid and I began to cry as Jamie looked on in distress.

  Unlike the hospital staff Jamie Stiles did not ask why I was crying. He did not remark that I was very lucky to be alive.

  He said very little on this or subsequent visits. For Jamie Stiles is not a verbal person.

  He did not say What have you lost, why are you grieving. Why, when you should be grateful to be alive!

  He did not say In another story, you were electrified to a crisp. A smear and a smudge and a smelly hole in the snow, that’s all of you.

  So that I knew, and there was great comfort in the knowing—He will be the one.

  “Uncle”

  His name was Cosgrove, David R. He introduced himself to me as an old-fashioned family doctor.

  He didn’t know Dr. Fenner, or any of the physicians at the hospital. His practice wasn’t in Wainscotia Falls but twenty miles away in St. Cloud. He’d been “intrigued” by my picture in the newspaper. He’d come to visit me just to say hello and to ask a question or two.

  “Like Benjamin Franklin, I have an abiding interest in electricity. It’s a hobby. The history of ‘reanimation’—for instance.”

  Reanimation? I tried to think what this might mean.

  Dr. Cosgrove was a lean wiry man of some mysterious age—fifties?—sixties? Slightly ill at ease, though boyish, and very friendly; thistle-colored hair had nearly vanished from his head, and his eyes were couched in shadowy puckered skin. He had a long thin nose with a tiny bump in the bone and he was smiling hard at me as if to impart some secondary meaning to his words, totally lost on me. In his left cheek was a tic or a twitch, which was distracting. He was carrying a brown leather bag much creased from years of wear.

  “Unless you’d rather not talk about it? The ‘lightning strike’?”

  Vaguely I shook my head
, no. Meaning—yes.

  Meaning—yes, I could talk about it. Though I didn’t remember anything helpful at all.

  Dr. Cosgrove continued to smile at me in that curious way. A strange sensation came over me—I know this man! I have seen this man before.

  Dr. Cosgrove chattered about lightning, electric current, those instances of individuals who’d been “struck” and yet lived, until one of the nurses who’d been in the room left; then, he ceased speaking abruptly.

  He went to the door, and shut it carefully.

  Doors to hospital rooms are rarely shut, still more rarely are they shut so carefully, so that the lock clicks.

  “Very good to see you, ‘Mary Ellen,’ dear! I’ve been told that you will be discharged in a few days, you’ve made a miraculous convalescence.”

  Dr. Cosgrove continued to smile, even as he removed an object from the brown bag. It looked like a wand, or a small phone—a small, flat phone?—a shape that was familiar to me, that fit in the palm of the man’s hand, but which I could not have identified.

  Ah, a cell phone! I had not seen a cell phone in—how many months? Years?

  But no, the object was not a cell phone after all.

  Dr. Cosgrove was frowning, turning a dial between his thumb and forefinger, that caused the small flat object to stir, to emit a low buzzing sound like a hive of wasps.

  Seeing the perplexity in my face he said quickly, “Just a little ‘baffle’—of my invention.”

  “‘Baffle’?”

  “A kind of ‘white noise,’ in case anyone is listening to us. Advertently, or in—”

  Dr. Cosgrove adjusted the buzzing-level of the object in his hand. Now it sounded like honeybees at a little distance, a friendly sound. But all this was utterly mysterious to me.

  I wondered—why would anyone be interested in our conversation? I could not imagine who these people could possibly be—no one on the hospital staff, certainly.

  Satisfied that the small flat object was operating as he wished Dr. Cosgrove pulled a chair close beside my chair—(for I’d been sitting up and reading beside my bed; I’d become very tired of lying flat and helpless in bed)—and smiled at me with an air of complicity.

  An eccentric individual, I thought—but a gentleman.

  Dr. Cosgrove asked if indeed I did remember anything about being struck by lightning; and when I shook my head no he said, frowning, “But think again, ‘Mary Ellen.’ Try to remember.”

  I had tried, many times. This request had been put to me frequently. Most recently by a Wainscotia Falls Journal-American reporter who’d been assigned a feature article with the sensational title THE GIRL WHO CAME BACK FROM THE BEYOND. The disappointed reporter had had to interview several doctors, nurses, and a professor of physics from the university, since I hadn’t been able to supply him with much information.

  “Did it feel as if you’d been ‘transported’ from—somewhere? I mean, when you woke up.”

  “I—I don’t know. What do you mean ‘transported’?”

  “Or, a more accurate term might be ‘teletransported.’”

  Teletransported. What did this mean!

  (I wished that my new friend Jamie Stiles were here. It had become a habit to tell Jamie most of what happened during my days in rehab, as Jamie told me what happened during his days, when he came to visit me in the evening; but this exchange with Dr. Cosgrove was so peculiar, like something in a dream, I despaired that I would be able to convey it successfully.)

  In a yet more cautious voice Dr. Cosgrove asked if the name “Eric Strohl” meant anything to me

  Eric Strohl. I wasn’t sure.

  “‘Eric Strohl.’ ‘Madeleine Strohl.’” The doctor spoke slowly, and quietly, just loud enough for me to hear him over the buzzing sound of the flat little object in his hand, even as he held his hand over his mouth as if to shield his lips.

  Eric Strohl. Madeleine Strohl. I began to tremble. I had no idea why.

  “Does the name ‘Adriane Strohl’ mean anything to you?”

  My heart was beating rapidly. I was frightened that I would begin to hyperventilate again. The pain in my eyes throbbed.

  Dr. Cosgrove reached out to take hold of my wrist. Gently, he pressed his forefinger against my pulse.

  “Calm, now! Remain calm.”

  “I—I don’t—”

  “Calm, my dear! Just breathe normally. You may want to count your breaths.”

  I counted my breaths, to ten. By ten, I was not so agitated. Dr. Cosgrove released my wrist.

  “‘Adriane Strohl.’ I’m just curious—if you have ever heard this name before.”

  “I—I think—” I was straining, trying to remember. I felt as if I were about to stumble over a curb, as in a dream. “I don’t know. What is it again—‘Adrian’—”

  “‘Adriane.’”

  Very deliberately Dr. Cosgrove pronounced this name. It did not mean anything to me—did it?

  Dr. Cosgrove and I stared at each other as if across an abyss. Not a wide abyss, but very deep. I felt that familiar weakness in me, as if my bones were turning to water.

  From some long-ago time I remembered being told, unless I’d read these words—The striking thing about self-knowledge is that it may be lacking.

  When I’d awakened from my comatose state in the Wainscotia hospital I’d felt this weakness through my entire body—no way to describe it except as terrifying, appalling.

  That sense that the body is a precarious entity comprised of numberless atoms, that might disintegrate at any moment.

  And beyond the body, the world itself—the very Universe—poised at the brink of detonation.

  Leaning close to murmur in my ear Dr. Cosgrove said, “It may be, dear, that I used to know—your parents . . . In fact, I have reason to believe that I am related to your father. And so, to you.”

  This was astonishing! For a long moment I stared at the bald-headed doctor with the earnest eyes, and had no idea how to reply. “I don’t mean to surprise or shock you, dear. I realize—you’ve been told that you were ‘adopted.’”

  “I—I don’t really remember my parents, I’m afraid. The parents who adopted me, and the parents who . . .”

  Dr. Cosgrove regarded me thoughtfully. He reached out to take my hand in his, my hand in both his hands. I thought—He knows me. The absurd thought came to me—Maybe he was the doctor who delivered me.

  “Your father Eric was—is—my older brother. I have reason to believe. For you look very like him—unmistakably. I saw the resemblance in the newspaper photograph—I was sure.” He paused, wiping at his eyes. “But we’ve been separated, your father and me. We have not seen each other in nearly twenty years.”

  Have not? This man was speaking as if my father were alive at this time.

  I was very confused. Pulses pounded in my head, exacerbated by the drugs that coursed through my veins, seeping into my blood.

  “You’re my uncle? But—where did you—where did my parents—live? How is this possible?”

  It did seem to me now that Dr. Cosgrove looked familiar. The uncanny dark glisten of his eyes, the tiny bump on his nose . . .

  “I think that it is possible, ‘Adriane.’ You won’t remember—probably—because you were very young when I’d last seen you. About two years old, I believe.”

  “Oh—where was this?”

  “In another part of the country.”

  “But—which state?”

  “In New Jersey, I believe.”

  But I have never lived in New Jersey—have I?

  “Have you ever heard of Pennsboro? New Jersey?”

  “N-No . . . I don’t think so.” I could not think at all.

  “Maybe—y-yes . . .”

  I was shivering badly. Wiping tears from my eyes. Dr. Cosgrove apologized for upsetting me.

  He held my chilly hand in his and stroked it, for some time.

  “Adults have not treated you well, my dear girl. I would not exacerbate your confusion and grief. But l
et me ask—do you know the name ‘Tobias’?—‘Toby’?—‘Uncle Toby’?”

  I did not know how to reply. If this man was my uncle, I wanted to say yes.

  “I—I’m not sure. ‘Uncle Toby.’”

  “That was my name once—‘Tobias.’ Before I was sent to Wisconsin to complete my medical degree at U Wisconsin–Madison; then I settled north of Wainscotia Falls, and haven’t left St. Cloud since. I’m married—have been married for a long time. I married a dear, kind, beautiful girl from here—Zone Nine. I have children—that is, you have cousins . . . But we may not see each other again, I think. It’s too risky for us both.” Dr. Cosgrove blinked tears from his eyes, though he was smiling. “I’ve been concerned about coming to see you—I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea. But of course, I wanted to see you—my dear niece Adriane. I wanted to ask about your father—your family. How they are, how things are in that other—dimension. But you can’t answer me, I think. You can’t ‘remember.’”

  “I—I can almost—remember something . . .”

  When Dr. Cosgrove gazed at me with his dark-brown glistening eyes, and as he smiled at me in so kindly a way, almost I did remember—something. But at once it evaporated like a dream in bright daylight.

  “You seem to be doing well, ‘Adriane’—that is, ‘Mary Ellen.’ At least physically, now that you’re recovering. Young people are so much more resilient than older people—you’re still young, though you’ve traversed decades.”

  “But—how old are you? When were you my uncle?”

  “Ah, dear—it hasn’t happened yet! And when it happens, when I am a young man, in my twenties, and you are newly born, some years from now—we won’t remember a thing. Amnesia is all that saves us from the abyss.”

  Seeing that I was looking confused Dr. Cosgrove said quickly, “All we can do is persevere in our own time. No one has to deal with more than one day at a time. That’s the blessing of our temporal universe—time is spread out horizontally, you might say; it doesn’t all happen at once, as at the instant of the ‘big bang.’ Some of us are political beings, and some of us are not. But it can’t be the case that any of us—in 1960, in the United States—or elsewhere, at another time—can be wholly well.”