Time and the Riddle: Thirty-One Zen Stories (59 page)

“Not particularly.”

“Perhaps no more than I think of myself as a good Jew—if indeed either term has any meaning. But long ago I heard the legend of Moses, who could not enter the promised land. Then, standing at his side on Mount Nebo, God revealed to him all that had been and all that would be—the past and the future, all of it existent in God's time. That too is in symbols. Do you understand why we cannot take the chance of testing the machine, of sending you back even a single day?”

“Not really.”

“Then you must take our word for it, as you have.”

I shrugged and nodded.

“Any other questions, Scott?” Greenberg asked me.

“A thousand—plus all I have asked before. I have the questions, but you have no answers.”

“I wish we had them,” Goldman said. “I truly do.”

“All right, let's get on with it. First, the money.”

Greenberg laid it in small piles on the table. “Ten thousand dollars, American. We would have liked it to be more, but we think that this will cover every contingency. Not easy to come by, believe me, Scott. We pulled some of the largest strings we have in Washington, and if anyone tells you museum officials cannot be bribed, he is mistaken. Pay for everything in cash without any trepidation. It was the most common method in those days. There are two hundred pounds, British. Just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“Who knows? We simply do not wish you to have to exchange money, and thus we include these small sums in francs and lire.”

“And in marks?”

“German and Austrian—about five thousand dollars in each. Strangely enough, they were easier to obtain than the dollars,. We have our own sources through dealers. Indeed, most of the marks came from one man who had some sense of what we were doing. No hard money; that would only make problems.”

“The revolver?”

“We decided against it. We know it was common practice at the time to carry one, but in this case you are safer with only the knife. Here it is.” He placed a pearl-handled folding knife on the table.

“Four blades, common gentleman's possession at the time. You will use the large one. It's honed to a razor edge.”

Zvi watched me carefully, his eyes slitted. I opened the pearl-handled knife and ran my finger along the edge of the blade. I was rather relieved that they had decided against the revolver; after all, it was probably a more civilized world than the one we lived in.

Goldman brought a large cardboard box and placed it on the table. “Your clothes,” he explained, smiling almost apologetically. “You can begin to change now. Amazing how much in style they are. You may want to keep them afterwards.”

“Afterwards—”

Greenberg waited, his face thoughtful.

“We are afterwards. That's what keeps tearing my gut.”

“Get it out, Scott,” Greenberg said.

“We are afterwards. That's all.”

“Let go of it. Our minds are not made for a paradox.”

“‘My ways are not thy ways; neither are my thoughts thy thoughts',” Goldman said.

“Quoting God?”

Goldman grinned, and suddenly I relaxed and began to peel off my clothes.

“Damn you, I envy you,” Zvi said suddenly. “If I did not have this cursed limp and two duodenal ulcers, I would go myself. It's what no man has ever been offered, what no man has ever experienced. You step into the mind of God.”

“For atheists, you Jews are the most frantically religious people I have ever known.”

“That's also part of the paradox,” Greenberg agreed. “The label in the suit is Heffner and Kline. They were excellent custom tailors. Imported Irish tweed, hand spun and hand woven. Your valise contains another suit, dark blue cheviot. Both of them rather heavy for May, but they didn't go in for tropicals in those days. Also six shirts, underclothes, and all the rest.”

He brought the valise from where it stood by the wall, next to the strange maze of tubes and wires it had taken them seven years to build. Goldman fitted the collar to the shirt and handed it to me.

“Ever wear one of these?” he inquired.

“My father wore them.” It was the first time I had thought about my father in years, and suddenly I was overwhelmed with the memory.

“No.” Zvi shook his head.

“Why not?” I asked desperately. “Why not? He wouldn't know me.”

“You would not know him either,” Zvi said evenly. “It will be eighteen ninety-seven. You were not born until nineteen twenty. How old was he then when you were born?”

“Thirty-six.”

“Then in eighteen ninety-seven he would be a boy of thirteen—to what end, Scott?” Greenberg asked.

“I don't know to what end. So help me God, I don't know. But if I could only look at him!”

Goldman walked over to me and helped me adjust the two gold buttons that held the collar to the shirt. “There, now. You will let me tie the cravat, Scott. I know exactly how it should be done. And watch me carefully, so you can do it yourself. And take our word for it. We are interfering with a schematic—a great, enormous schematic—so we must interfere as little as possible. What Zvi said before is quite true—we enter the mind of God. We are bold men, all of us. Also, perhaps, we are madmen—as the people who exploded the first atomic bomb were madmen. They tampered with the mystery, and the world paid a price. We also tamper with the mystery, and we shall also pay a price. But we must tamper as little as possible. You must not be diverted. You must speak to no one unless it is absolutely necessary. You must not touch things, you must not change things—except the single thing to which we are pledged. Now watch how I tie the cravat—very simple, isn't it?”

I had gotten hold of myself now and wanted nothing else than to get on with it. Greenberg helped me into the tweed jacket.

“Beautiful. We have not traduced the tradition of Heffner and Kline. You are a well-dressed, upper-class gentleman, Scott. Now try this hat.”

He handed me a soft felt hat, which fitted quite well.

“My grandfather's,” he said with pleasure. “By golly, they made things to last, didn't they? Now listen carefully, Scott—we have only ten minutes remaining to us. Here's your wallet.” He handed me an oversized, bulging wallet of alligator hide. “Papers, identity, everything you need. Knife, money—change your shoes. These are hand made. Every detail. In the wallet you will find a complete and detailed itinerary, just in case you should forget some detail. This watch”—giving me a magnificent pocket watch with a cover of embossed gold—”belonged to my grandfather. Comes with the hat. Completely overhauled, it keeps perfect time.”

I finished buckling on the excellent handmade Victorian boots. Soft as butter, there would be no problem of breaking them in. Greenberg went on with his instructions, precisely, rapidly.

“You have exactly twenty-nine days, four hours, sixteen minutes, and thirty-one seconds. At that time after your arrival, you must be back here in this warehouse and in the same spot. It will then have been abandoned three years, and it should be as empty as when my grandfather bought the property half a century ago. Now in a few minutes I am going to mark your boots with a red pigment that will come off when you step away. No matter how nervous or startled you are upon arrival, a red outline of your boots will remain on the floor. When you return, you step into the same position. Is that clear?”

“Clear.”

“You will walk to the railroad station, take the first train to New York, and buy your round-trip steamship passage immediately. From the time you arrive until the
SS Victoria
sails, you have eighteen hours. Spend them on board the ship in your cabin. On the voyage, talk to as few people as possible. Plead seasickness, if you will.”

“I won't have to plead it.”

“Good enough. The ship docks at Hamburg, where you buy a first-class through ticket to Vienna. But of course you know all that, and of course you have detailed written instructions in your wallet. You've brushed up on your German?”

“My German is adequate. You know that. What happens if I don't get back to the warehouse in time?”

Greenberg shrugged. “We don't know.”

“I live on in a world where my father is a child?”

“You keep invoking the paradox,” said Zvi. “Don't do that. It's hurtful to you, hurtful to your mind.”

“My mind's all right,” I assured him. “A man with one foot in hell doesn't trouble about his mind. It's my body that worries me.”

“Only four minutes,” Greenberg said gently. “Would you step over here, Scott. Stand precisely between the electrodes and hold the valise as close to your body as you can.”

“Cigars!” I remembered. “Good God, I don't have a cigar on me.”

“They were better in those days. Pure Havana. Buy some. Now take your place!”

I grabbed the valise, fixed Greenberg's grandfather's hat firmly on my head, and stood where I was instructed to stand.

“One foot at a time,” said Greenberg, kneeling in front of me. He marked each sole and heel with a dab of heavy red pigment. “Now don't move.”

“Three minutes,” Goldman said.

“You look damned impressive in that hat and suit,” Zvi admitted.

“How long will I be away?” I wanted to know. “I mean in your time. Here. How long do you wait until I return?”

“We don't wait. If you return, you are still here.”

“That's insane.”

“That's the paradox,” said Zvi. “I warned you not to think about it.”

“Two minutes,” Goldman said.

Zvi put his hand on the switch. Goldman's lips were moving silently. Either he was praying or counting the seconds.

“Suppose something's in the way,” I said desperately. “Bales, boxes. How can two objects occupy the same space? What happens to me then?”

“It won't happen. That's also part of the paradox.”

“If it's such a goddamn paradox, how can you be so sure? How do you know?”

I was high-strung, frightened, despairing, and losing my nerve. In a few seconds, I would be hurtled back seventy-five years through time—riding on a set of coordinates that had come out of someone's strained logic, on an equation that had never been proved or tested—into hell or the mind of God or nothingness or the Mesozoic age, armed with a pearl-handled pocketknife and an ancient valise.

“One minute,” Goldman said.

“Do you want to step out?” Greenberg asked, his voice half a plea. He too was frightened. They all were.

I shook my head angrily.

“Thirty seconds,” said Goldman, “twenty, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, zero—”

I saw Zvi pulling the switch. When I returned, twenty-nine days, four hours, sixteen minutes, and thirty-one seconds later, his hand was still on the switch and I heard the soft vowel sound as Goldman finished saying zero. I stood there and they stood there, in a frozen tableau that appeared to go on and on.

“Zvi spoke first. “Where is the valise?”

“For heavens sake, let him sit down and rest,” said Greenberg, helping me to a chair. I was shaking like a leaf. Goldman poured a glass of brandy and held it to my lips, but I shook my head.

“Are you cold?” Goldman asked.

“I'm not in shock. Just frightened. Breathless. I had to run the last hundred yards to the warehouse, and I made it by seconds. I threw the valise away.”

“That doesn't matter.”

“He failed,” Zvi said bleakly. “God almighty, he failed. I knew it.”

“Did you fail?” Goldman asked.

“I'll have the brandy now,” I said, my hand still shaking as I took the glass.

“Let him tell it all,” Greenberg said. “There will be no recriminations, no accusations. Let that be plain, Zvi. Do you understand me?”

“Seven years.” There were tears in Zvi's eyes.

“And six million dollars of my money. We both learned something. Tell us, Scott—did you go back?”

I looked at Goldman, the doomed man, the man with the malignancy—and there was the slightest, thinnest smile on his lips, as if he had known all the time.

“Did you go back?”

I drank the brandy, and then I reached into my breast pocket and took out two large black cigars, handing one to Greenberg, the only cigar smoker among them. I bit off the end and lit it, while Greenberg stared at the cigar in his hand. I puffed deeply and told him it was better than anything he'd find today.

“Did you go back?” Greenberg repeated.

“Yes—yes, I went back. I'll tell you. But let me rest a moment, let me think. Let me remember. Jesus Christ, let me remember!”

“Of course,” said Goldman, “you must remember. Relax, Scott. It will come back.” He knew already, this withered man who was visited nightly by the Jewish angel of death. He needed no coordinates or equations; he had touched God briefly, as I had, and he knew all the terror and wonder of it. “You see,” he explained to Zvi and Greenberg, “he has to remember. You will understand that in a few minutes. But he must have the time to remember.”

Greenberg poured me another brandy. He didn't light his cigar. He kept looking at it and handling it. “Fresh,” he muttered, sniffing at it. “Very dark. They must have cured the leaves differently.”

“I went back,” I said finally. “Seventy-five years. It all worked, your machine, your equations, your bloody coordinates. It all worked. It was like being sick for a few minutes—a terrible sense of being sick. I thought I was going to die. And then I was alone in the warehouse, holding my valise, standing right there. Only—” I paused and looked at Goldman.

“Only you could not remember,” Goldman said.

“How do you know?”

“What the devil do you mean?” Zvi demanded. “What do you mean, he couldn't remember?”

“Let him tell it.”

“I had no memory,” I said. “I did not know who I was, or where I was.”