Greatest hits, p.28
Greatest Hits, page 28
“You go back to bed. But will you go out to the cemetery with me tomorrow? It’s important.”
“Why?”
“Because I believe I’ll be dying tomorrow.”
* * *
It was a nice day, cool and clear. Not at all a day for dying, but neither had been many such days in Southeast Asia, and death had not been deterred.
They stood at Minna’s gravesite, and Gaspar opened his shooting stick to form a seat; and he thrust the spike into the ground; and he settled onto it, and sighed, and said to Billy Kinetta, “I’m growing cold as that stone.”
“Do you want my jacket?”
“No, I’m cold inside.” He looked around at the sky, at the grass, at the rows of markers. “I’ve been responsible, for all of this, and more.”
“You’ve said that before.”
“Young fella, are you by any chance familiar, in your reading, with an old novel by James Hilton called Lost Horizon? Perhaps you saw the movie. It was a wonderful movie. It was a wonderful movie, actually much better than the book. Mr. Capra’s greatest achievement. A human testament. Ronald Colman was superb. Do you know the story?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember the High Lama, played by Sam Jaffe? His name was Father Perrault?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember how he passed on the caretakership of that magical hidden world, Shangri-La, to Ronald Colman?”
“Yes, I remember that.” Billy paused. “Then he died. He was very old, and he died.”
Gaspar smiled up at him. “Very good, Billy. I knew you were a good boy. So now, if you remember all that, may I tell you a story? It’s not a very long story.”
Billy nodded, smiling at his friend.
“In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII decreed that the civilized world would no longer observe the Julian calendar. October 4th, 1582, was followed, the next day, by October 15th. Eleven days vanished from the world. One hundred and seventy years later, the British Parliament followed suit, and September 2nd, 1752, was followed, the next day, by September 14th. Why did he do that, the pope?”
Billy was bewildered by the conversation. “Because he was bringing it into synch with the real world. The solstices and equinoxes. When to plant, when to harvest.”
Gaspar waggled a finger at him with pleasure. “Excellent, young fella. And you’re correct when you say Gregory abolished the Julian calendar because its error of one day in every one hundred and twenty-eight years had moved the vernal equinox to March 11th. That’s what the history books say. It’s what every history book says. But what if?”
“What if what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What if: Pope Gregory had the knowledge revealed to him that he must readjust time in the minds of men? What if: the excess time in 1582 was eleven days and one hour? What if: he accounted for those eleven days, vanished those eleven days, but that one hour slipped free, was left loose to bounce through eternity? A very special hour … an hour that must never be used … an hour that must never toll. What if?”
Billy spread his hands. “What if, what if, what if! It’s all just philosophy. It doesn’t mean anything. Hours aren’t real, time isn’t something that you can bottle up. So what if there is an hour out there somewhere that …”
And he stopped.
He grew tense and leaned down to the old man. “The watch. Your watch. It doesn’t work. It’s stopped.”
Gaspar nodded, “At eleven o’clock. My watch works; it keeps very special time, for one very special hour.”
Billy touched Gaspar’s shoulder. Carefully he asked, “Who are you, Dad?”
The old man did not smile as he said. “Gaspar. Keeper. Paladin. Guardian.”
“Father Perrault was hundreds of years old.”
Gaspar shook his head with a wistful expression on his old face. “I’m eighty-six years old, Billy. You asked me if I thought I was God. Not God, not Father Perrault, not an immortal, just an old man who will die too soon. Are you Ronald Colman?”
Billy nervously touched his lower lip with a finger. He looked at Gaspar as long as he could, then turned away. He walked off a few paces, stared at the barren trees. It seemed suddenly much chillier here in this place of entombed remembrances. From a distance he said, “But it’s only … what? A chronological convenience. Like daylight saving time; Spring forward, Fall back. We don’t actually lose an hour; we get it back.”
Gaspar stared at Minna’s grave. “At the end of April I lost an hour. If I die now, I’ll die an hour short in my life. I’ll have been cheated out of one hour I want, Billy.” He swayed toward all he had left of Minna. “One last hour I could have with my old girl. That’s what I’m afraid of, Billy. I have that hour in my possession. I’m afraid I’ll use it, god help me, I want so much to use it.”
Billy came to him. Tense, and chilled, he said, “Why must that hour never toll?”
Gaspar drew a deep breath and tore his eyes away from the grave. His gaze locked with Billy’s. And he told him.
The years, all the days and hours, exist. As solid and as real as mountains and oceans and men and women and the baobab tree. Look, he said, at the lines in my face and deny that time is real. Consider these dead weeds that were once alive and try to believe it’s all just vapor or the mutual agreement of popes and caesars and young men like you.
“The lost hour must never come, Billy, for in that hour it all ends. The light, the wind, the stars, this magnificent open place we call the universe. It all ends, and in its place—waiting, always waiting—is eternal darkness. No new beginnings, no world without end, just the infinite emptiness.”
And he opened his hand, which had been lying in his lap, and there, in his palm, rested the watch, making no sound at all, and stopped dead at eleven o’clock. “Should it strike twelve, Billy, eternal night falls; from which there is no recall.”
There he sat, this very old man, just a perfectly normal old man. The most recent in the endless chain of keepers of the lost hour, descended in possession from Caesar and Pope Gregory XIII, down through the centuries of men and women who had served as caretakers of the excellent timepiece. And now he was dying, and now he wanted to cling to life as every man and woman clings to life no matter how awful or painful or empty, even if it is for one more hour. The suicide, falling from the bridge, at the final instant, tries to fly, tries to climb back up the sky. This weary old man, who only wanted to stay one brief hour more with Minna. Who was afraid that his love would cost the universe.
He looked at Billy, and he extended his hand with the watch waiting for its next paladin. So softly Billy could barely hear him, knowing that he was denying himself what he most wanted at this last place in his life, he whispered, “If I die without passing it on … it will begin to tick.”
“Not me,” Billy said. “Why did you pick me? I’m no one special. I’m not someone like you. I run an all-night service mart. There’s nothing special about me the way there is about you! I’m not Ronald Colman! I don’t want to be responsible, I’ve never been responsible!”
Gaspar smiled gently. “You’ve been responsible for me.”
Billy’s rage vanished. He looked wounded.
“Look at us, Billy. Look at what color you are; and look at what color I am. You took me in as a friend. I think of you as worthy, Billy. Worthy.”
They remained there that way, in silence, as the wind rose. And finally, in a timeless time, Billy nodded.
Then the young man said, “You won’t be losing Minna, Dad. Now you’ll go to the place where she’s been waiting for you, just as she was when you first met her. There’s a place where we find everything we’ve ever lost through the years.”
“That’s good, Billy, that you tell me that. I’d like to believe it, too. But I’m a pragmatist. I believe in what exists … like rain and Minna’s grave and the hours that pass that we can’t see, but they are. I’m afraid, Billy. I’m afraid this will be the last time I can speak to her. So I ask a favor. As payment, in return for my life spent protecting the watch.
“I ask for one minute of the hour, Billy. One minute to call her back so we can stand face-to-face and I can touch her and say goodbye. You’ll be the new protector of this watch, Billy, so I ask you please, just let me steal one minute.”
Billy could not speak. The look on Gaspar’s face was without horizon, empty as tundra, bottomless. The child left alone in darkness; the pain of eternal waiting. He knew he could never deny this old man, no matter what he asked, and in the silence he heard a voice say: “No!” And it was his own.
He had spoken without conscious volition. Strong and determined, and without the slightest room for reversal. If a part of his heart had been swayed by compassion, that part had been instantly overridden. No. A final, unshakeable no.
For an instant Gaspar looked crestfallen. His eyes clouded with tears; and Billy felt something twist and break within himself at the sight. He knew he had hurt the old man. Quickly, but softly, he said urgently, “You know that would be wrong, Dad. We mustn’t …”
Gaspar said nothing. Then he reached out with his free hand and took Billy’s. It was an affectionate touch.
“That was the last test, young fella. Oh, you know I’ve been testing you, don’t you? This important item couldn’t go to just anyone.
“And you passed the test, my friend: my last, best friend. When I said I could bring her back from where she’s gone, here in this place we’ve both come to so often, to talk to someone lost to us, I knew you would understand that anyone could be brought back in that stolen minute. I knew you wouldn’t use it for yourself, no matter how much you wanted it; but I wasn’t sure that as much as you like me, it might not sway you. But you wouldn’t even give it to me, Billy.”
He smiled up at him, his eyes now clear and steady.
“I’m content, Billy. You needn’t have worried. Minna and I don’t need that minute. But if you’re to carry on for me, I think you do need it. You’re in pain, and that’s no good for someone who carries this watch. You’ve got to heal, Billy.
“So I give you something you would never take for yourself. I give you a going-away present …”
And he started the watch, whose ticking was as loud and as clear as a baby’s first sound; and the sweep-second hand began to move away from eleven o’clock.
Then the wind rose, and the sky seemed to cloud over, and it grew colder, with a remarkable silver-blue mist that rolled across the cemetery; and though he did not see it emerge from that grave at a distance far to the right, Billy Kinetta saw a shape move toward him. A soldier in the uniform of a day past, and his rank was lance corporal. He came toward Billy Kinetta, and Billy went to meet him as Gaspar watched.
They stood together and Billy spoke to him. And the man whose name Billy had never known when he was alive, answered. And then he faded, as the seconds ticked away. Faded, and faded, and was gone. And the silver-blue mist rolled through them, and past them, and was gone; and the soldier was gone.
Billy stood alone.
When he turned back to look across the grounds to his friend, he saw that Gaspar had fallen from the shooting-stick. He lay on the ground. Billy rushed to him and fell to his knees and lifted him onto his lap. Gaspar was still.
“Oh, god, Dad, you should have heard what he said. Oh, geez, he let me go. He let me go so I didn’t even have to say I was sorry. He told me he didn’t even see me in that foxhole. He never knew he’d saved my life. I said thank you and he said no, thank you, that he hadn’t died for nothing. Oh, please, Dad, please don’t be dead yet. I want to tell you …”
And, as it sometimes happens, rarely but wonderfully, sometimes they come back for a moment, for an instant before they go, the old man, this very old man, opened his eyes, just before going on his way, and he looked through the dimming light at his friend, and he said, “May I remember you to my old girl, Billy?”
And his eyes closed again, after only a moment; and his caretakership was at an end; as his hand opened and the most excellent timepiece, now stopped again at one minute past eleven, floated from his palm and waited till Billy Kinetta extended his hand; and then it floated down and lay there silently, making no sound, no sound at all. Safe. Protected.
There in the place where all lost things returned, the young man sat on the cold ground, rocking the body of his friend. And he was in no hurry to leave. There was time.
A blessing of the 18th Egyptian Dynasty:
God be between you and harm in all the empty places you walk.
The author gratefully acknowledges the importance of a discussion with Ms. Ellie Grossman in the creation of this work of fiction.
The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World
After an idle discussion with the pest control man who came once a month to spray around the outside of his home in the Ruxton section of Baltimore, William Sterog stole a canister of malathion, a deadly insecticide poison, from the man’s truck, and went out early one morning, following the route of the neighborhood milkman, and spooned medium-large quantities into each bottle left on the rear doorstep of seventy homes. Within six hours of Bill Sterog’s activities, two hundred men, women, and children died in convulsive agony.
Learning that an aunt who had lived in Buffalo was dying of cancer of the lymph glands, William Sterog hastily helped his mother pack three bags and took her to Friendship Airport, where he put her on an Eastern Airlines jet with a simple but efficient time bomb made from a Westclox Travalarm and four sticks of dynamite in her three-suiter. The jet exploded somewhere over Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Ninety-three people—including Bill Sterog’s mother—were killed in the explosion, and flaming wreckage added seven to the toll by cascading down on a public swimming pool.
On a Sunday in November, William Sterog made his way to Babe Ruth Plaza on 33rd Street where he became one of 54,000 fans jamming Memorial Stadium to see the Baltimore Colts play the Green Bay Packers. He was dressed warmly in gray flannel slacks, a navy blue turtleneck pullover, and a heavy hand-knitted Irish wool sweater under his parka. With three minutes and thirteen seconds of the fourth quarter remaining to be played, and Baltimore trailing seventeen to sixteen on Green Bay’s eighteen yard line, Bill Sterog found his way up the aisle to the exit above the mezzanine seats and fumbled under his parka for the U.S. Army surplus M-3 submachine gun he had bought for $49.95 from a mail order armaments dealer in Alexandria, Virginia. Even as 53,999 screaming fans leaped to their feet—making his range of fire that much better—as the ball was snapped to the quarterback, holding for the defensive tackle most able to kick a successful field goal, Bill Sterog opened fire on the massed backs of the fans below him. Before the mob could bring him down, he had killed forty-four people.
When the first Expeditionary Force to the elliptical galaxy in Sculptor descended on the second planet of a fourth magnitude star the Force had designated Flammarion Theta, they found a thirty-seven-foot-high statue of a hitherto-unknown blue-white substance—not quite stone, something like metal—in the shape of a man. The figure was barefoot, draped in a garment that vaguely resembled a toga, the head encased in a skull-tight cap, and holding in its left hand a peculiar ring-and-ball device of another substance altogether. The statue’s face was curiously beatific. It had high cheekbones; deep-set eyes; a tiny, almost alien mouth; and a broad, large-nostriled nose. The statue loomed enormous among the pitted and blasted curvilinear structures of some forgotten architect. The members of the Expeditionary Force commented on the peculiar expression each noted on the face of the statue. None of these men, standing under a gorgeous brass moon that shared an evening sky with a descending sun quite dissimilar in color to the one that now shone wanly on an Earth unthinkably distant in time and space, had ever heard of William Sterog. And so none of them was able to say that the expression on the giant statue was the same as the one Bill Sterog had shown as he told the final appeals judge who was about to sentence him to death in the lethal gas chamber, “I love everyone in the world. I do. So help me God, I love you, all of you!” He was shouting.
* * *
Crosswhen, through interstices of thought called time, through reflective images called space; another then, another now. This place, over there. Beyond concepts, the transmogrification of simplicity finally labeled if. Forty and more steps sidewise but later, much later. There, in that ultimate center, with everything radiating outward, becoming infinitely more complex, the enigma of symmetry, harmony, apportionment singing with fine-tuned order in this place, where it all began, begins, will always begin. The center. Crosswhen.
Or: a hundred million years in the future. And: a hundred million parsecs beyond the farthest edge of measurable space. And: parallax warpages beyond counting across the universes of parallel existences. Finally: an infinitude of mind-triggered leaps beyond human thought.
There: Crosswhen.
On the mauve level, crouched down in deeper magenta washings that concealed his arched form, the maniac waited. He was a dragon, squat and round in the torso, tapered ropey tail tucked under his body; the small, thick osseous shields rising perpendicularly from the arched back, running down to the end of the tail, tips pointing upward; his taloned shorter arms folded across his massive chest. He had the seven-headed dog faces of an ancient Cerberus. Each head watched, waiting, hungry, insane.
He saw the bright yellow wedge of light as it moved in random patterns through the mauve, always getting closer. He knew he could not run, the movement would betray him, the specter light finding him instantly. Fear choked the maniac. The specter light had pursued him through innocence and humility and nine other emotional obfuscations he had tried. He had to do something, get them off his scent. But he was alone on this level. It had been closed down some time before, to purge it of residue emotions. Had he not been so terribly confused after the killings, had he not been drowning in disorientation, he would never have trapped himself on a closed level.
