Part 21 (2/2)

”I remember.”

”Well, one day in nineteen fifty-three, long after the old crowd was gone from the pool, and you with them, my dad was drilling me outdoors one late afternoon. He had me standing in the hot sun for an hour or so and he yelled in my face, I can remember the saliva spray on my chin, my nose, my eyelids when he yelled: don't move a muscle muscle! don't blink blink! don't twitch twitch! don't breathe breathe till I tell you! You hear, soldier? till I tell you! You hear, soldier? Hear Hear? You hear hear! Hear?!”

” 'Sir!' ” I gritted between my teeth.

”As my father turned, he slipped on the tiles and fell in the water.” The young-old man paused and gave a strange small bark of a laugh.

”Did you know know? Of course you didn't I didn't either...that in all those years of working at various pools, cleaning out the showers, replacing the towels, repairing the diving boards, fixing the plumbing, he had never, my G.o.d, never learned to swim! Never! Jesus. It's unbelievable. Never.

”He had never told told me. Somehow, I had never guessed! And since he had just yelled at me, instructed me, me. Somehow, I had never guessed! And since he had just yelled at me, instructed me, ordered ordered me: eyes right! don't twitch! don't move! I just stood there staring straight ahead at the late afternoon sun. I didn't let my eyes drop to see, even once. Just straight ahead, by the numbers, as told. me: eyes right! don't twitch! don't move! I just stood there staring straight ahead at the late afternoon sun. I didn't let my eyes drop to see, even once. Just straight ahead, by the numbers, as told.

”I heard him thras.h.i.+ng around in the water, yelling. But I couldn't understand what he said. I heard him suck and gasp and gargle and suck again, going down, shrieking, but I stood straight, chin up, stomach tight, eyes level, sweat of my brow, mouth firm, b.u.t.tocks clenched, ramrod spine, and him yelling, gagging, taking water. I kept waiting for him to yell, 'At ease!' 'At ease!' he should have yelled, but he never did. So what could I do? I just stood there, like a statue, until the shrieking stopped and the water lapped the poolrim and everything got quiet. I stood there for ten minutes, maybe twenty, half an hour, until someone came out and found me there, and they looked down in the pool and saw something deep under and said Jesus Christ and finally turned and came up to me, because they knew me and my father, and at last said, At Ease.

”And then I cried.”

The young-old man finished his drink.

”You see, the thing is, I couldn't be sure he wasn't faking. He'd done tricks like that before, to get me off guard, make me relax. He'd go around a corner, wait, duck back, to see if I was ramrod tall. Or he'd pretend to go in the men's room, and jump back to find me wrong. Then he'd punish me. So, standing there by the pool that day, I thought, it's a trick, to make me fall out. So I had to wait, didn't I, to be sure?...to be sure.”

Finished, he put his empty martini gla.s.s down on the tray and sat back in his own silence, eyes gazing over my shoulder at nothing in particular. I tried to see if his eyes were wet, or if his mouth gave some special sign now that the tale was told, but I saw nothing.

”Now,” I said, ”I know about your father. But...what ever happened to you you?”

”As you see,” he said, ”I'm here.”

He stood up and reached over and shook my hand.

”Good night,” he said.

I looked straight up in his face and saw the young boy there waiting for orders five thousand afternoons back. Then I looked at his left hand; no wedding ring there. Which meant what? No sons, no future? But I couldn't ask.

”I'm glad we met again,” I heard myself say.

”Yes.” He nodded, and gave my hand a final shake.

”It's good to see you made it through.”

Me, I thought. My G.o.d! Me Me?!

But he had turned and was walking off down the aisle, beautifully balanced, not swaying with the train's motion, this way or that. He moved in a clean, lithe, well-cared-for body, which the train's swerving could do nothing to as he went away.

As he reached the door, he hesitated, his back to me, and he seemed to be waiting for some final word, some order, some shout from someone.

Forward, I wanted to say, by the numbers! March March!

But I said nothing.

Not knowing if it would kill him, or release him, I simply bit my tongue, and watched him open the door, slip silently through, and stride down the corridor of the next sleeping car toward a past I just might have imagined, toward a future I could not guess.

A Touch of Petulance

On an otherwise ordinary evening in May, a week before his twenty-ninth birthday, Jonathan Hughes met his fete, commuting from another time, another year, another life.

His fete was unrecognizable at first, of course, and boarded the train at the same hour, in Pennsylvania Station, and sat with Hughes for the dinnertime journey across Long Island. It was the newspaper held by this fete disguised as an older man that caused Jonathan Hughes to stare and finally say: ”Sir, pardon me, your New York Times seems different from mine. The typeface on your front page seems more modern. Is that a later edition?”

”No!” The older man stopped, swallowed hard, and at last managed to say, ”Yes. A very late edition.”

Hughes glanced around. ”Excuse me, but-all the other editions look the same. Is yours a trial copy for a future change?”

”Future?” The older man's mouth barely moved. His entire body seemed to wither in his clothes, as if he had lost weight with a single exhalation. ”Indeed,” he whispered. ”Future change. G.o.d, what a joke.”

Jonathan Hughes blinked at the newspaper's dateline: May 2, 1999.

”Now, see here-” he protested, and then his eyes moved down to find a small story, minus picture, in the upper-left-hand corner of the front page: WOMAN MURDEBED.

POLICE SEEK HUSBAND.

Body of Mrs. Alice Hughes found shot to death-

The train thundered over a bridge. Outside the window, a billion trees rose up, flourished their green branches in convulsions of wind, then fell as if chopped to earth.

The train rolled into a station as if nothing at all in the world had happened. In the silence, the young man's eyes returned to the text: Jonathan Hughes, certified public accountant, Jonathan Hughes, certified public accountant, of 112 Plandome Avenue, Plandome- ”My G.o.d!” he cried. ”Get away!”

But he himself rose and ran a few steps back before the older man could move. The train jolted and threw him into an empty seat where he stared wildly out at a river of green light that rushed past the windows.

Christ, he thought, who would do do such a thing? Who'd try to hurt us- such a thing? Who'd try to hurt us-us? What land of joke? To mock a new marriage with a fine wife? d.a.m.n! And again, trembling, d.a.m.n, oh, d.a.m.n!

The train rounded a curve and all but threw him to his feet. Like a man drunk with traveling, gravity, and simple rage, he swung about and lurched back to con front the old man, bent now into his newspaper, gone to earth, hiding in print. Hughes brushed the paper out of the way, and clutched the old man's shoulder. The old man, startled, glanced up, tears running from his eyes. They were both held in a long moment of thunderous traveling. Hughes felt his soul rise to leave his body.

”Who are you?”

Someone must have shouted that.

The train rocked as if it might derail.

The old man stood up as if shot in the heart, blindly crammed something in Jonathan Hughes's hand, and blundered away down the aisle and into the next car. The younger man opened his fist and turned a card over and read a few words that moved him heavily down to sit and read the words again: JONATHAN HUGHES, CPA.

679-4990. Plandome.

”No!” someone shouted. Me, thought the young man. Why, that old man is...me.

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