LESSONS IN SURVIVAL 3 page

“Ein jeder Engel ist schrecklich.‘”

Clare sighs, a little soft sigh that means I don’t speak German, remember? “Huh?”

“‘Every angel is terrifying.’ It’s part of a series of poems called The Duino Elegies, by a poet named Rilke. He’s one of our favorite poets.”

Clare laughs. “You’re doing it again!” “What?”

“Telling me what I like.” Clare burrows into my lap with her feet. Without thinking I put her feet on my shoulders, but then that seems too sexual, somehow, and I quickly take Clare’s feet in my hands again and hold them together with one hand in the air as she lies on her back, innocent and angelic with her hair spread nimbus-like around her on the blanket. I tickle her feet. Clare giggles and twists out of my hands like a fish, jumps up and does a cartwheel across the clearing, grinning at me as if to dare me to come and get her. I just grin back, and she returns to the blanket and sits down next to me.

“Henry?”

“Yeah?”

“You are making me different.” “I know”

I turn to look at Clare and just for a moment I forget that she is young, and that this is long ago; I see Clare, my wife, superimposed on the face of this young girl, and I don’t know what to say to this Clare who is old and young and different from other girls, who knows that different might be hard. But Clare doesn’t seem to expect an answer. She leans against my arm, and I put my arm around her shoulders.

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“ Clare!” Across the quiet of the Meadow Clare’s dad is bellowing her name. Clare jumps up and grabs her shoes and socks.

“It’s time for church ” she says, suddenly nervous.

“Okay,” I say. “Um, bye.” I wave at her, and she smiles and mumbles goodbye and is running up the path, and is gone. I lie in the sun for a while, wondering about God, reading Dorothy Sayers. After an hour or so has passed I too am gone and there is only a blanket and a book, coffee cups, and clothing, to show that we were there at all.

The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

AFTER THE END

Saturday, October 27, 1984 (Clare is 13, Henry is 43)

CLARE: I wake up suddenly. There was a noise: someone called my name. It sounded like Henry. I sit up in bed, listening. I hear the wind, and crows calling. But what if it was Henry? I jump out of bed and I run, with no shoes I run downstairs, out the back door, into the Meadow. It’s cold, the wind cuts right through my nightgown. Where is he? I stop and look and there, by the orchard, there’s Daddy and Mark, in their bright orange hunting clothes, and there’s a man with them, they are all standing and looking at something but then they hear me and they turn and I see that the man is Henry. What is Henry doing with Daddy and Mark? I run to them, my feet cut by the dead grasses, and Daddy walks to meet me. “Sweetheart,” he says, “what are you doing out here so early?”

“I heard my name” I say. He smiles at me. Silly girl, his smile says, and I look at Henry, to see if he will explain. Why did you call me, Henry? but he shakes his head and puts his finger to his lips, Shhh, don’t tell, Clare. He walks into the orchard and I want to see what they were looking at but there’s nothing there and Daddy says, “Go back to bed, Clare, it was just a dream.” He puts his arm around me and begins to walk back toward the house with me and I look back at Henry and he waves, he’s smiling, It’s okay, Clare, I’ll explain later (although knowing Henry he probably won’t explain, he’ll make me figure it out or it will explain itself one of these days). I wave back at him, and then I check to see if Mark saw that but Mark has his back to us, he’s irritated and is waiting for me to go away so he and Daddy can go back to hunting, but what is Henry doing here, what did they say to each other? I look back again but I don’t see Henry and Daddy says, “Go on, now, Clare, go back to bed,” and he kisses my forehead. He seems upset and so I run, run back to the house, and then softly up the stairs and then I am sitting on my bed, shivering, and I still don’t know what just happened, but I know it was bad, it was very, very bad.

Monday, February 2, 1987 (Clare is 15, Henry is 38)

CLARE: When I get home from school Henry is waiting for me in the Reading Room. I have fixed a little room for him next to the furnace room; it’s on the opposite side from where all the bicycles are. I have allowed it to be known in my household that I like to spend time in the basement reading, and I do in fact spend a lot of time in here, so that it doesn’t seem unusual. Henry has a chair wedged under the doorknob. I knock four knocks and he lets me in. He has made a sort of nest out of pillows and chair cushions and blankets, he has been

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reading old magazines under my desk lamp. He is wearing Dad’s old jeans and a plaid flannel shirt, and he looks tired and unshaven. I left the back door unlocked for him this morning and here he is.

I set the tray of food I have brought on the floor. “I could bring down some books.”

“Actually, these are great.” He’s been reading Mad magazines from the ‘60s. “And this is indispensable for time travelers who need to know all sorts of factoids at a moment’s notice,” he says, holding up the 1968 World Almanac.

I sit down next to him on the blankets, and look over at him to see if he’s going to make me move. I can see he’s thinking about it, so I hold up my hands for him to see and then I sit on them. He smiles. “Make yourself at home,” he says.

“When are you coming from?” “2001. October”

“You look tired.” I can see that he’s debating about telling me why he’s tired, and decides against it. “What are we up to in 2001?”

“Big things. Exhausting things.” Henry starts to eat the roast beef sandwich I have brought him. “Hey, this is good.”

“Nell made it.”

He laughs. “I’ll never understand why it is that you can build huge sculptures that withstand gale force winds, deal with dye recipes, cook kozo, and all that, and you can’t do anything whatsoever with food. It’s amazing.”

“It’s a mental block. A phobia.” “It’s weird.”

“I walk into the kitchen and I hear this little voice saying, ‘Go away.’ So I do.” “Are you eating enough? You look thin.”

I feel fat. “I’m eating.” I have a dismal thought. “Am I very fat in 2001? Maybe that’s why you think I’m too thin.”

Henry smiles at some joke I don’t get. “Well, you’re kind of plump at the moment, in my present, but it will pass.”

“Ugh.”

“Plump is good. It will look very good on you.”

“No thanks.” Henry looks at me, worrying. “You know, I’m not anorexic or anything. I mean, you don’t have to worry about it.”

“Well, it’s just that your mom was always bugging you about it.”

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“‘Was’?”

“Is.”

“Why did you say was?”

“No reason. Lucille is fine. Don’t worry.” He’s lying. My stomach tightens and I wrap my arms around my knees and put my head down.

HENRY: I cannot believe that I have made a slip of the tongue of this magnitude. I stroke Clare’s hair, and I wish fervently that I could go back to my present for just a minute, long enough to consult Clare, to find out what I should say to her, at fifteen, about her mother’s death. It’s because I’m not getting any sleep. If I was getting some sleep I would have been thinking faster, or at least covering better for my lapse. But Clare, who is the most truthful person I know, is acutely sensitive to even small lies, and now the only alternatives are to refuse to say anything, which will make her frantic, or to lie, which she won’t accept, or to tell the truth, which will upset her and do strange things to her relationship with her mother. Clare looks at me. “Tell me,” she says.

CLARE: Henry looks miserable. “I can’t, Clare.” “Why not?”

“It’s not good to know things ahead. It screws up your life.” “Yes. But you can’t half tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

I’m really beginning to panic. “She killed herself.” I am flooded with certainty. It is the thing I have always feared most.

“ No. No. Absolutely not.”

I stare at him. Henry just looks very unhappy. I cannot tell if he is telling the truth. If I could only read his mind, how much easier life would be. Mama. Oh, Mama.

HENRY: This is dreadful. I can’t leave Clare with this. “Ovarian cancer,” I say, very quietly. “Thank God,” she says, and begins to cry.

Friday, June 5, 1987 (Clare is 16, Henry is 32)

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CLARE: I’ve been waiting all day for Henry. I’m so excited. I got my driver’s license yesterday, and Daddy said I could take the Fiat to Ruth’s party tonight. Mama doesn’t like this at all, but since Daddy has already said yes she can’t do much about it. I can hear them arguing in the library after dinner.

“You could have asked me—” “It seemed harmless, Lucy....”

I take my book and walk out to the Meadow. I lie down in the grass. The sun is beginning to set. It’s cool out here, and the grass is full of little white moths. The sky is pink and orange over the trees in the west, and an arc of deepening blue over me. I am thinking about going back to the house and getting a sweater when I hear someone walking through the grass. Sure enough, it’s Henry. He enters the clearing and sits down on the rock. I spy on him from the grass. He looks fairly young, early thirties maybe. He’s wearing the plain black T-shirt and jeans and hi-tops. He’s just sitting quietly, waiting. I can’t wait a minute longer, myself, and I jump up and startle him.

“Jesus, Clare, don’t give the geezer a heart attack.” “You’re not a geezer.”

Henry smiles. He’s funny about being old. “Kiss,” I demand, and he kisses me. “What was that for?” he asks.

“I got my driver’s license!”

Henry looks alarmed. “Oh, no. I mean, congratulations.”

I smile at him; nothing he says can ruin my mood. “You’re just jealous.” “I am, in fact. I love to drive, and I never do.”

“How come?” “Too dangerous.” “Chicken.”

“I mean for other people. Imagine what would happen if I was driving and I disappeared? The car would still be moving and kaboom! lots of dead people and blood. Not pretty.”

I sit down on the rock next to Henry. He moves away. I ignore this. “I’m going to a party at Ruth’s tonight. Want to come?”

He raises one eyebrow. This usually means he’s going to quote from a book I’ve never heard of or lecture me about something. Instead he only says, “But Clare, that would involve meeting a whole bunch of your friends.”

“Why not? I’m tired of being all secretive about this.”

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“Let’s see. You’re sixteen. I’m thirty-two right now, only twice your age. I’m sure no one would even notice, and your parents would never hear about it.”

I sigh. “Well, I have to go to this party. Come with and sit in the car and I won’t stay in very long and then we can go somewhere.”

HENRY: We park about a block away from Ruth’s house. I can hear the music all the way down here; it’s Talking Heads’ Once In A Lifetime. I actually kind of wish I could go with Clare, but it would be unwise. She hops out of the car and says, “Stay!” as though I am a large, disobedient dog, and totters off in her heels and short skirt toward Ruth’s. I slump down and wait.

CLARE: AS soon as I walk in the door I know this party is a mistake. Ruth’s parents are in San Francisco for a week, so at least she will have some time to repair, clean, and explain, but I’m glad it’s not my house all the same. Ruth’s older brother, Jake, has also invited his friends, and altogether there are about a hundred people here and all of them are drunk. There are more guys than girls and I wish I had worn pants and flats, but it’s too late to do anything about it. As I walk into the kitchen to get a drink someone behind me says, “Check out Miss Look-But-Don’t-Touch!” and makes an obscene slurping sound. I spin around and see the guy we call Lizardface (because of his acne) leering at me. “Nice dress, Clare.”

“Thanks, but it’s not for your benefit, Lizardface.”

He follows me into the kitchen. “Now, that’s not a very nice thing to say, young lady. After all, I’m just trying to express my appreciation of your extremely comely attire, and all you can do is insult me...”He won’t shut up. I finally escape by grabbing Helen and using her as a human shield to get out of the kitchen.

“This sucks,” says Helen. “Where’s Ruth?”

Ruth is hiding upstairs in her bedroom with Laura. They are smoking a joint in the dark and watching out the window as a bunch of Jake’s friends skinny dip in the pool. Soon we are all sitting in the window seat gawking.

“Mmm,” says Helen. “I’d like some of that.” “Which one?” Ruth asks.

“The guy on the diving board.” “Ooh.”

“Look at Ron,” says Laura. “That’s Ron?” Ruth giggles.

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“Wow. Well, I guess anyone would look better without the Metallica T-shirt and the skanky leather vest,” Helen says. “Hey, Clare, you’re awfully quiet.”

“Um? Yeah, I guess,” I say weakly.

“Look at you,” says Helen. “You are, like, cross-eyed with lust. I am ashamed of you. How could you let yourself get into such a state?” She laughs. “Seriously, Clare, why don’t you just get it over with?”

“I can’t,” I say miserably.

“Sure you can. Just walk downstairs and yell ‘Fuck me!’ and about fifty guys would be yelling ‘Me! Me!’”

“You don’t understand. I don’t want—it’s not that—”

“She wants somebody in particular,” Ruth says, without taking her eyes off the pool. “Who?” Helen asks.

I shrug my shoulders. “Come on, Clare, spit it out.”

“Leave her alone,” Laura says. “If Clare doesn’t want to say, she doesn’t have to.” I am sitting next to Laura, and I lean my head on her shoulder.

Helen bounces up. “I’ll be right back.” “Where you going?”

“I brought some champagne and pear juice to make Bellinis, but I left it in the car.” She dashes out the door. A tall guy with shoulder-length hair does a backwards somersault off the diving board.

“Ooh la la,” say Ruth and Laura in unison.

HENRY: A long time has passed, maybe an hour or so. I eat half the potato chips and drink the warm Coke Clare has brought along. I nap a bit. She’s gone for so long that I’m starting to consider going for a walk. Also I need to take a leak.

I hear heels tapping toward me. I look out the window, but it’s not Clare, it’s this bombshell blond girl in a tight red dress. I blink, and realize that this is Clare’s friend Helen Powell. Uh oh.

She clicks over to my side of the car, leans over and peers at me. I can see right down her dress to Tokyo. I feel slightly woozy,

“Hi, Clare’s boyfriend. I’m Helen.”

“Wrong number, Helen. But pleased to meet you.” Her breath is highly alcoholic.

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“Aren’t you going to get out of the car and be properly introduced?” “Oh, I’m pretty comfortable where I am, thanks.”

“Well, I’ll just join you in there, then.” She moves uncertainly around the front of the car, opens the door, and plops herself into the driver’s seat.

“I’ve been wanting to meet you for the longest time,” Helen confides.

“You have? Why?” I desperately wish Clare would come and rescue me, but then that would give the game away, wouldn’t it?

Helen leans toward me and says, sotto voce, “I deduced your existence. My vast powers of observation have led me to the conclusion that whatever remains when you have eliminated the impossible, is the truth, no matter how impossible. Hence,” Helen pauses to burp. “How unladylike. Excuse me. Hence, I have concluded that Clare must have a boyfriend, because otherwise, she would not be refusing to fuck all these very nice boys who are very much distressed about it. And here you are. Ta da!”

I’ve always liked Helen, and I am sad to have to mislead her. This does explain something she said to me at our wedding, though. I love it when little puzzle pieces drop into place like this.

“That’s very compelling reasoning, Helen, but I’m not Clare’s boyfriend.” “Then why are you sitting in her car?”

I have a brainstorm. Clare is going to kill me for this. “I’m a friend of Clare’s parents. They were worried about her taking the car to a party where there might be alcohol, so they asked me to go along and play chauffeur in case she got too pickled to drive.”

Helen pouts. “That’s extremely not necessary. Our little Clare hardly drinks enough to fill a tiny, tiny thimble—”

“I never said she did. Her parents were just being paranoid.”

High heels click down the sidewalk. This time it is Clare. She freezes when she sees that I have company.

Helen jumps out of the car and says, “Clare! This naughty man says he is not your boyfriend.”

Clare and I exchange glances. “Well, he’s not,” says Clare curtly. “Oh,” says Helen. “Are you leaving?”

“It’s almost midnight. I’m about to turn into a pumpkin.” Clare walks around the car and opens her door. “Come on, Henry, let’s go.” She starts the car and flips on the lights.

Helen stands stock still in the headlights. Then she walks over to my side of the car. “Not her boyfriend, huh, Henry? You had me going there for a minute, yes you did. Bye bye,

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Clare.” She laughs, and Clare pulls out of the parking space awkwardly and drives away. Ruth lives on Conger. As we turn onto Broadway, I see that all the street lights are off. Broadway is a two-lane highway. It’s ruler-straight, but without the streetlights it’s like driving into an inkwell.

“Better turn on your brights, Clare,” I say. She reaches forward and turns the headlights off completely.

“Clare—!”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” I shut up. All I can see are the illuminated numbers of the clock radio. It’s 11:36.I hear the air rushing past the car, the engine of the car; I feel the wheels passing over the asphalt, but somehow we seem to be motionless, and the world moves around us at forty-five miles per hour. I close my eyes. It makes no difference. I open them. My heart is pounding.

Headlights appear in the distance. Clare turns her lights on and we are rushing along again, perfectly aligned between the yellow stripes in the middle of the road and the edge of the highway. It’s 11:38.

Clare is expressionless in the reflected dashboard lights. “Why did you do that?” I ask her, my voice shaking.

“Why not?” Clare’s voice is calm as a summer pond. “Because we could have both died in a fiery wreck?”

Clare slows and turns onto Blue Star Highway. “But that’s not what happens” she says. “I grow up and meet you and we get married and here you are.”

“For all you know you crashed the car just then and we both spent a year in traction.” “But then you would have warned me not to do it,” says Clare.

“I tried, but you yelled at me—”

“I mean, an older you would have told a younger me not to crash the car.” “Well, by then it would have already happened.”

We have reached Meagram Lane, and Clare turns onto it. This is the private road that leads to her house. “Pull over, Clare, okay? Please?” Clare drives onto the grass, stops, cuts the engine and the lights. It’s completely dark again, and I can hear a million cicadas singing. I reach over and pull Clare close to me, put my arm around her. She is tense and unpliant.

“Promise me something.” “What?” Clare asks.

“Promise you won’t do anything like that again. I mean not just with the car, but anything dangerous. Because you don’t know. The future is weird, and you can’t go around behaving

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like you’re invincible—”

“But if you’ve seen me in the future—” “Trust me. Just trust me.”

Clare laughs. “Why would I want to do that?” “I dunno. Because I love you?”

Clare turns her head so quickly that she hits me in the jaw, “Ouch.”

“Sorry.” I can barely see the outline of her profile. “You love me?” she asks. “Yes.”

“Right now?” “Yes.”

“But you’re not my boyfriend.”

Oh. That’s what’s bugging her. “Well, technically speaking, I’m your husband. Since you haven’t actually gotten married yet, I suppose we would have to say that you are my girlfriend.”

Clare puts her hand someplace it probably shouldn’t be. “I’d rather be your mistress.” “You’re sixteen, Clare.” I gently remove her hand, and stroke her face.

“That’s old enough. Ugh, your hands are all wet.” Clare turns on the overhead light and I am startled to see that her face and dress are streaked with blood. I look at my palms and they are sticky and red. “Henry! What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.” I lick my right palm and four deep crescent-shaped cuts appear in a row. I laugh. “It’s from my fingernails. When you were driving without the headlights.”

Clare snaps off the overhead light and we are sitting in the dark again. The cicadas sing with all their might. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Yeah, you did. But usually I feel safe when you’re driving. It’s just—” “What?”

“I was in a car accident when I was a kid, and I don’t like to ride in cars.” “Oh—I’m sorry.”

“‘S okay. Hey, what time is it?”

“Oh my God.” Clare flips the light on. 12:12. “I’m late. And how can I walk in all bloody like this?” She looks so distraught that I want to laugh.

“Here.” I rub my left palm across her upper lip and under her nose. “You have a

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nosebleed.”

“Okay.” She starts the car, flips on the headlights, and eases back onto the road. “Etta’s going to freak when she sees me.”

“Etta? What about your parents?”

“Mama’s probably asleep by now, and it’s Daddy’s poker night.” Clare opens the gate and we pass through.

“If my kid was out with the car the day after she got her license I would be sitting next to the front door with a stopwatch.” Clare stops the car out of sight of the house.

“Do we have kids?” “Sorry, that’s classified.”

“I’m gonna apply for that one under the Freedom of Information Act.”

“Be my guest.” I kiss her carefully, so as not to disturb the faux nosebleed. “Let me know what you find out.” I open the car door. “Good luck with Etta.”

“Good night.”

“Night.” I get out and close the door as quietly as possible. The car glides down the drive, around the bend and into the night. I walk after it toward a bed in the Meadow under the stars.

Sunday, September 27, 1987 (Henry is 32, Clare is 16)

HENRY: I materialize in the Meadow, about fifteen feet west of the clearing. I feel dreadful, dizzy and nauseated, so I sit for a few minutes to pull myself together. It’s chilly and gray, and I am submerged in the tall brown grass, which cuts into my skin. After a while I feel a little better, and it’s quiet, so I stand up and walk into the clearing.

Clare is sitting on the ground, next to the rock, leaning against it. She doesn’t say anything, just looks at me with what I can only describe as anger. Uh oh, I think. What have I done? She’s in her Grace Kelly phase; she’s wearing her blue wool coat and a red skirt. I’mshivering, and I hunt for the clothes box. I find it, and don black jeans, a black sweater, black wool socks, a black overcoat, black boots, and black leather gloves, I look like I’m about to star in a Wim Wenders film. I sit down next to Clare.

“Hi, Clare. Are you okay?”

“Hi, Henry. Here.” She hands me a Thermos and two sandwiches.

“Thanks. I feel kind of sick, so I’ll wait a little.” I set the food on the rock. The Thermos

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contains coffee; I inhale deeply. Just the smell makes me feel better. “Are you all right?” She’s not looking at me. As I scrutinize Clare, I realize that she’s been crying.

“Henry. Would you beat someone up for me?” “What?”

“I want to hurt someone, and I’m not big enough, and I don’t know how to fight. Will you do it for me?”

“Whoa. What are you talking about? Who? Why?”

Clare stares at her lap. “I don’t want to talk about it. Couldn’t you just take my word that he totally deserves it?”

I think I know what’s going on; I think I’ve heard this story before. I sigh, and move closer to Clare, and put my arm around her. She leans her head on my shoulder.

“This is about some guy you went on a date with, right?” “Yeah.”

“And he was a jerk, and now you want me to pulverize him?” “Yeah.”

“Clare, lots of guys are jerks. I used to be a jerk—”

Clare laughs. “I bet you weren’t as big of a jerk as Jason Everleigh.” “He’s a football player or something, right?”

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 568