He continued to look at her, hoping she could tell him what had happened to him. And to her? She was here, too.

  "Could be worse," she said, crossing her arms and shifting her weight off her twisted left leg. "I could've been a Saracen or a ribbon clerk or even one of those hairy pre-humans." He didn't respond. He didn't know what she was talking about. She smiled wryly, remembering. "First person I met was some kind of a retard, little boy about 15 or so. Must have spent what there'd been of his life in some padded cell or a hospital bed, something like that. He just sat there and stared at me, drooled a little, couldn't tell me a thing. I was scared out of my mind, ran around like a chicken with its head cut off. Wasn't till a long time after that before I met someone who spoke English."

  He tried to speak and found his throat was dry. His voice came out in a croak. He swallowed and wet his lips. "Are there many other, uh, other people . . . we're not all alone . . . ?"

  "Lots of others. Hundreds, thousands. God only knows; maybe whole countries full of people here. No animals, though. They don't waste it the way we do."

  "Waste it? What?"

  "Time, son. Precious, lovely time. That's all there is, just time. Sweet, flowing time. Animals don't know about time."

  As she spoke, a slipping shadow of some wild scene whirled past and through them. It was a great city in flames. It seemed more substantial than the vagrant wisps of countryside or sea scenes that had been ribboning past them as they spoke. The wooden buildings and city towers seemed almost solid enough to crush anything in their path. Flames leaped toward the gray, dead-skin sky; enormous tongues of crackling flame that ate the city's gut and chewed the phantom image, leaving ash. (But even the dead ashes had more life than the grayness through which the vision swirled.)

  Ian Ross ducked, frightened. Then it was gone.

  "Don't worry about it, son," the old woman said. "Looked a lot like London during the Big Fire. First the Plague, then the Fire. I've seen its like before. Can't hurt you. None of it can hurt you."

  He tried to stand, found himself still weak. "But what is it?"

  She shrugged. "No one's ever been able to tell me for sure. Bet there's some around in here who can, though. One day I'll run into one of them. If I find out and we ever meet again I'll be sure to let you know. Bound to happen." But her face grew infinitely sad and there was desolation in her expression. "Maybe. Maybe we'll meet again. Never happens, but it might. Never saw that retarded boy again. But it might happen."

  She started to walk away, hobbling awkwardly. Ian got to his feet with difficulty, but as quickly as he could. "Hey wait! Where are you going? Please, lady don't leave me here all alone. I'm scared to be here all alone. I'm scared to be here by myself."

  She stopped and turned, tilting oddly on her bad leg. "Got to keep moving. Keep going, you know? If you stay in one place, you don't get anywhere: there's a way out . . . you've just got to keep moving till you find it." She started again, saying, over her shoulder, "I guess I won't be seeing you again: I don't think it's likely."

  He ran after her and grabbed her arm. She seemed very startled. As if no one had ever touched her in this place during all the time she had been here.

  "Listen, you've got to tell me some things, whatever you know. I'm awfully scared, don't you understand? You have to have some understanding."

  She looked at him carefully. "All right, as much as I can, then you'll let me go?"

  He nodded.

  "I don't know what happened to me . . . or to you. Did it all fade away and just disappear, and everything that was left was this, just this gray nothing?"

  He nodded.

  She sighed. "How old are you, son?"

  "I'm 37. My name is Ian-"

  She waved his name away with an impatient gesture. "That doesn't matter. I can see you don't know any better than I do. So I don't have the time to waste on you. You'll learn that, too. Just keep walking, just keep looking for a way out."

  He made fists. "That doesn't tell me anything! What was that burning city, what are these shadows that go past all the time?" As if to mark his question a vagrant filmy phantom caravan of cassowary-like animals drifted through them.

  She shrugged and sighed. "I think it's history. I'm not sure . . . I'm guessing, you understand. But I think it's all the bits and pieces of the past, going through on its way somewhere."

  He waited. She shrugged again, and her silence indicated-with a kind of helpless appeal to be let go that she could tell him nothing further.

  He nodded resignedly. "All right. Thank you."

  She turned with her bad leg trembling: she had stood with her weight on it for too long. And she started to walk off into the gray limbo. When she was almost out of sight, he found himself able to speak again, and he said . . . too softly to reach her . . . "Goodbye, lady. Thank you."

  He wondered how old she was. How long she had been here. If he would one time far from now be like her. If it was all over and if he would wander in shadows forever.

  He wondered if people died here.

  Before he met Catherine, a long time before he met her, he met the lunatic who told him where he was, what had happened to him, and why it had happened.

  They saw each other standing on opposite sides of a particularly vivid phantom of the Battle of Waterloo. The battle raged past them, and through the clash and slaughter of Napoleon's and Wellington's forces they waved to each other.

  When the sliding vision had rushed by, leaving emptiness between them, the lunatic rushed forward, clapping his hands as if preparing himself for a long, arduous, but pleasurable chore. He was of indeterminate age but clearly past his middle years. His hair was long and wild, he wore a pair of rimless antique spectacles, and his suit was turn-of the eighteenth-century. "Well, well, well," he called, across the narrowing space between them, "so good to see you, sir!"

  Ian Ross was startled. In the timeless time he had wandered through this limbo, he had encountered coolies and Berbers and Thracian traders and silent Goths . . . an endless stream of hurrying humanity that would neither speak nor stop. This man was something different. Immediately, Ian knew he was insane. But he wanted to talk!

  The older man reached Ian and extended his hand. "Cowper, sir. Justinian Cowper. Alchemist, metaphysician, consultant to the forces of time and space, ah yes, time! Do I perceive in you, sir, one only recently come to our little Valhalla, one in need of illumination? Certainly! Definitely. I can see that is the case."

  Ian began to say something, almost anything, in response, but the wildly gesticulating old man pressed on without drawing a breath. "This most recent manifestation, the one we were both privileged to witness was, I'm certain you're aware, the pivotal moment at Waterloo in which the Little Corporal had his fat chewed good and proper. Fascinating piece of recent history, wouldn't you say?"

  Recent history? Ian started to ask him how long he had been in this gray place, but the old man barely paused before a fresh torrent of words spilled out.

  "Stunningly reminiscent of that marvelous scene in Stendahl's Charterhouse of Parma in which Fabrizio, young, innocent, fresh to that environ, found himself walking across a large meadow on which men were running in all directions, noise, shouts, confusion . . . and he knew not what was happening, and not till several chapters later do we learn-ah, marvelous!-that it was, in fact, the Battle of Waterloo through which he moved, totally unaware of history in the shaping all around him. He was there, while not there. Precisely our situation, wouldn't you say?"

  He had run out of breath. He stopped, and Ian plunged into the gap. "That's what I'd like to know, Mr. Cowper: What's happened to me? I've lost everything, but I can remember everything, too. I know I should be going crazy or frightened, and I am scared, but not out of my mind with it . . . I seem to accept this, whatever it is. I-I don't know how to take it, but I know I'm not feeling it yet. And I've been here a long time!"

  The old man slipped his arm around Ian's back and began walking with him, two gentlemen strolling in confidence on a summer afternoon by the edge of a cool park. "Quite correct, sir, quite correct. Dissociative behavior; mark of the man unable to accept his destiny. Accept it, sir. I urge you; and fascination follows. Perhaps even obsession, but we must run that risk, mustn't we?"

  Ian wrenched away from him, turned to face him. "Look, mister, I don't want to hear all that craziness! I want to know where I am and how I get out of here. And if you can't tell me, then leave me alone!"

  "Nothing easier, my good man. Explanation is the least of it. Observation of phenomena, ah, that's the key. You can follow? Well, then: we are victims of the law of conservation of time. Precisely and exactly linked to the law of the conservation of matter; matter, which can neither be created nor destroyed. Time exists without end. But there is an ineluctable entropic balance, absolutely necessary to maintain order in the universe. Keeps events discrete, you see. As matter approaches universal distribution, there is a counterbalancing, how shall I put it, a counterbalancing `leaching out' of time. Unused time is not wasted in places where nothing happens. It goes somewhere. It goes here, to be precise. In measurable units-which I've decided, after considerable thought, to call `chronons'."

  He paused, perhaps hoping Ian would compliment him on his choice of nomenclature. Ian put a hand to his forehead: his brain was swimming.

  "That's insane. It doesn't make sense."

  "Makes perfectly good sense. I assure you. I was a top savant in my time; what I've told you is the only theory that fits the facts. Time unused is not wasted; it is leached out, drained through the normal space-time continuum and recycled. All this history you see shooting past us is that part of the time-flow that was wasted. Entropic balance. I assure you."

  "But what am I doing here?"

  "You force me to hurt your feelings, sir."

  "What am I doing here?!"

  "You wasted your life. Wasted time. All around you, throughout your life, unused chronons were being leached out, drawn away from the contiguous universe, until their pull on you was irresistible. Then you went on through, pulled loose like a piece of wood in a rushing torrent, a bit of chaff whirled away on the wind. Like Fabrizio, you were never really there. You wandered through, never seeing, never participating and so there was nothing to moor you solidly in your own time."

  "But how long will I stay here?"

  The old man looked sad and spoke kindly for the first time: "Forever. You never used your time, so you have nothing to rely on as anchorage in normal space."

  "But everyone here thinks there's a way out. I know it! They keep walking, trying to find an exit."

  "Fools. There is no way back."

  "But you don't seem to be the sort of person who wasted his life. Some of the others I've seen, yes. I can seen that; but you?"

  The old man's eyes grew misty. He spoke with difficulty. "Yes, I belong here . . ."

  Then he turned and, like one in a dream, lost, wandered away. Lunatic, observing phenomena. And then gone in the grayness of time gorged limbo. Part of a glacial period slid past Ian Ross and he resumed his walk without destination.

  And after a long, long time that was timeless but filled with an abundance of time, he met Catherine.

  He saw her as a spot of darkness against the gray limbo. She was quite a distance away, and he walked on for a while, watching the dark blotch against gray, and then decided to change direction. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered: he was alone with his memories, replaying again and again.

  The sinking of the Titanic wafted through him.

  She did not move, even though he was approaching on a direct line.

  When he was quite close he could see that she was sitting cross-legged on nothingness; she was asleep. Her head was propped in one hand, the bracing arm supported by her knee. Asleep.

  He came right up to her and stood there simply watching. He smiled. She was like a bird, he thought, with her head tucked under her wing. Not really, but that was how he saw her. Though her cupped hand covered half her face he could make out a sweet face, very pale skin, a mole on her throat; her hair was brown, cut quite short. Her eyes were closed; he decided they would be blue.

  The Greek Senate, the Age of Pericles, men in a crowd-property owners-screaming at Lycurgus's exhortations in behalf of socialism. The shadow of it sailed past not very far away.

  Ian stood staring, and after a while he sat down opposite her. He leaned back on his arms and watched. He hummed an old tune the name of which he did not know.

  Finally, she opened her brown eyes and stared at him.

  At first momentary terror, startlement, chagrin, curiosity. Then she took umbrage. "How long have you been there?"

  "My name is Ian Ross." he said.

  "I don't care what your name is!" she said angrily. "I asked you how long you've been sitting there watching me."

  "I don't know. A while."

  "I don't like being watched; you're being very rude."

  He got to his feet without answering and began walking away. Oh well.

  She ran after him. "Hey, wait!"

  He kept walking. He didn't have to be bothered like that. She caught up with him and ran around to stand in front of him. "I suppose you just think you can walk off like that!"

  "Yes. I can. I'm sorry I bothered you. Please get out of my way if you don't want me around."

  "I didn't say that."

  "You said I was being rude. I am never rude; I'm a very well-mannered person, and you were just being insulting."

  He walked around her. She ran after him.

  "All right, okay, maybe I was a little out of sorts. I was asleep, after all."

  He stopped. She stood in front of him. Now it was her move. "My name is Catherine Molnar. How do you do?"

  "Not too well, that's how."

  "Have you been here long?"

  "Longer than I wanted to be here, that's for sure."

  "Can you explain what's happened to me?"

  He thought about it. Walking with someone would be a nice change. "Let me ask you something." Ian Ross said, beginning to stroll off toward the phantom image of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon wafting past them. "Did you waste a lot of time, sitting around, not doing much, maybe watching television a lot?"

  They were lying down side by side because they were tired. Nothing more than that. The Battle of Ardennes, First World War, was all around them. Not a sound. Just movement. Mist, fog, turretless tanks, shattered trees all around them. Some corpses left lying in the middle of no-man's land. They had been together for a space of time . . . it was three hours, it was six weeks, it was a month of Sundays, it was a year to remember, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times: who could measure it? There were no signposts, no town criers, no grandfather clocks, no change of seasons, who could measure it?

  They had begun to talk freely. He told her again that his name was Ian Ross, and she said Catherine.. Catherine Molnar again. She confirmed his guess that her life had been empty. "Plain," she said. "I was plain. I am plain. No, don't bother to say you think I have nice cheekbones or a trim figure; it won't change a thing. If you want plain, I've got it."

  He didn't say she had nice cheekbones or a trim figure. But he didn't think she was plain.

  The Battle of the Ardennes was swirling away now.

  She suggested they make love.

  Ian Ross got to his feet quickly and walked away.

  She watched him for a while, keeping him in 3 sight. Then she got up, dusted off her hands though there was nothing on them, an act of memory, and followed him. Quite a long time later, after trailing him but not trying to catch up to him, she ran to match his pace and finally, gasping for breath, reached him.

  "I'm sorry," she said.

  "Nothing to be sorry about."

  "I offended you."

  "No, you didn't. I just felt like walking."

  "Stop it, Ian. I did. I offended you."

  He stopped and spun on her. "Do you think I'm a virgin? I'm not a virgin."

  His vehemence pulled her back from the edge of boldness. "No, of course you're not. I never thought such a .thing." Then she said. "Well . . . I am."

  "Sorry," he said, because he didn't know the right thing to say, if there was a right thing.

  "Not your fault," she said. Which was the right thing to say.

  From nothing to nothing. Thirty-four years old, the properly desperate age for unmarried, unmotherhooded, unloved, Catherine Molnar. Janesville, Wisconsin. Straightening the trinkets in her jewelry box, ironing her clothes, `j removing and refolding the sweaters in her

  drawers, hanging the slacks with the slacks, skirts with the skirts, blouses with the blouses, coats with the coats, all in order in the closet, reading every word in Time and Reader's Digest, learning seven new words every day, never using seven new words every day, mopping the floors in the three-room apartment, putting aside one full evening to pay the bills and spelling out Wisconsin completely, never the WI abbreviation on the return envelopes, listening to talk radio, calling for the correct time to set the clocks, spooning out the droppings from the kitty box, repasting photos in the album of scenes with round-faced people, pinching back the buds on the coleus, calling Aunt Beatrice every Tuesday at seven o'clock, talking brightly to the waitress in the orange and-blue uniform at the chicken pie shop, repainting fingernails carefully so the moon on each nail is showing, heating morning water for herself alone for the cup of herbal tea, setting the table with a cloth napkin and a placemat, doing dishes, going to the office and straightening the bills of lading precisely. From nothing to nothing. Thirty-four.

  They lay side by side but they were not tired. There was more to it than that.

  "I hate men who can't think past the pillow," she said, touching his hair.

  "What's that?"

  "Oh, it's just something I practiced, to say after the first time I slept with a man. I always felt there should be something original to say, instead of all the things I read in novels."

  "I think it's a very clever phrase." Even now, he found it hard to touch her. He lay with hands at his sides.

 

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