From Time to Time

9

WHEN HIS PHONE RANG at 3:51 in the morning, Rube Prien’s eyes immediately opened and he glanced at his clock as he picked up the phone. Speaking before it could ring again—pleased with himself and his swift response, annoyed at knowing he was as sleepily confused as anyone else might be.

“Rube, it’s Danz—”

“Hello, Dr. Danziger.”

“I’m terribly sorry to c—”

“It’s all right. I know you have a reason.”

“Believe me, I do. Rube: the newspaper you showed me at the Project, the old paper.”

“The New-York Courier.”

“Yes. Rube, please. Get dressed. And bring it over. I’d come to your place, but—”

“I’ll be dressed and out the door in four minutes.”

“I’m slow, you see, so slow. At my age it takes me forever to get up and get started. And this can’t wait.”

“I’m on my way.”

“With the paper?”

“Oh, you bet.”

• • •

In the high-ceilinged dining room overlooking West End Avenue, Rube pulled out a chair at Dr. Danziger’s gesture, and sat down at the table. He wore tan wash pants and a black pullover sweater. Standing across from him in pajamas, maroon robe, slippers, wearing glasses, the dyed hair at the sides of his bald head disorderly, Danziger spread the old newspaper, very slightly browned at the edges, on the table. He began scanning the columns of the front page, down and up, down and up, the shiny top of his head catching light from the overhead chandelier. “This’ll take a little time. I have to be certain.”

Presently he turned the front page, opening the paper fully, the page a little larger than modern newspapers, Rube thought. Still scanning the pages column by column, Danziger absently pulled out a chair and sat down slowly, never stopping his scanning, head bobbing in slow motion. His glasses were magnifiers, and each time his head lowered they slid down a trifle, and each time he raised his head for the next column, his big forefinger lifted too, to poke them back into place.

Minutes passed, the street outside, five stories below, remaining silent, the city as quiet as it ever got. Rube glanced around; he had never been here before. The windows were dark, touched by the light of a streetlamp. He didn’t feel tired and his mind waited easy and alert, yet his body told him it was unnatural to be awake. The old man, he thought, was doing a kind of speed reading, eyes moving at an even rate down the center of each narrow strip of type.

Danziger turned a page, this time to a double spread of classified ads, and Rube leaned forward to read the upside-down headings: Flats and Apartments . . . Furnished Rooms . . . Boarders Wanted. Another page: For Sale . . . Horses, Carriages, &c . . . Two pages of Help Wanted—Female and Help Wanted—Male, Danziger apparently looking at every ad for an instant. “Sorry,” he said, glancing up as he turned yet another page. “Highly unlikely to find anything in these, but we must be sure.” His head resumed its slow up-and-down nodding. Two pages of Society . . . then Sports, Rube waiting, hands quiet on the tabletop, face patient, eyes curious.

The final, back page now, examined slowly from upper left to lower right. Then Danziger picked up the paper and, shaking it gently, restored it to its old creases and pushed it over the table to Rube. He took off his glasses and slipped them into the breast pocket of his robe. “You’ve read this, have you? All of it?”

“After a fashion.”

“And found?”

“Well.” Rube revolved the paper on the tabletop to look at the front-page headings. “The main news story is ‘President Urges Trade Reciprocity’ “—he smiled—“and I may possibly have skipped a word or two of that. And . . . news from Europe. Not a hell of a lot, and I’m afraid I didn’t read too much of that either. There’s a local story: Cab ran up over the sidewalk on Fourteenth Str—”

“Yes: anything else?”

Rube shrugged a shoulder. “Glanced at the ads. Theater stuff. Fashions, cartoons. Sports. I did read the sports stuff pretty well; kind of interesting. Skipped the editorials.”

“Yes.” Danziger was nodding, eyes pleased with himself. “About the way we all read old newspapers. As curiosities. And that’s why we both missed Sherlock Holmes’ dog.”

“Did we really do that? Pray continue.”

Danziger hunched comfortably over the table on his forearms, a big forefinger hooking out to tap the newspaper’s masthead as he read it aloud. “ ‘The New-York Courier. Evening Edition. Sports Final.’ ” He looked up at Rube, and sat back again, one arm lifting to dangle from the back of his chair. “An old forgotten paper, one of many from New York’s glory days of newspapers by the dozens. Well, the Courier stopped publishing, you tell me, in 1909; records confirm it. And yet there lies an issue of February 22, 1916”—his forefinger moved out to touch the dateline. “You saw that. And so did I, so did I, missing the point completely. We all missed the dog, the clue, said Sherlock Holmes, of the dog who should have barked . . . but did not. Look at that date one more time.”

Rube obeyed, staring down at the printed dateline through a second or two, then lifted his head. “Oh my God,” he said very softly, eyes brightening with excitement. “The battle of Verdun. The battle of Verdun had started . . .”

Danziger sat grinning at him. “Yes. So what we have here is a published newspaper of—what would you call it? A paper from a different order of time and event. Oh Lord,” he said softly, “oh Lord, Lord, a newspaper of 1916 without a word about World War One. Rube—damn it, Rube!—the paper lying under your hand . . . is a remnant of a different path the world once took. Where there was no World War.”

The two men sat looking at each other, eyes happy with wonder. Then Danziger leaned forward. “You’re the historian. Is it possible? Could such a . . . stupendous thing, Rube, could such a stupendous happening as the first World War actually have been avoided?”

“You’re goddamned right: it almost was!” Simultaneously, unable to sit, both men pushed back their chairs and stood. Rube shoved both hands into his back pockets, glancing down at the yellow-edged newspaper, then looking up to nod. “It’s a fact all right. Long accepted. The first World War not only could have been avoided but should have been. Should have been, Dr. D: it can break your heart sometimes when you sit and read about the men and times and events just before that war. When you’re into primary sources, sometimes reading the actual scribbled handwriting of men deeply involved, and then you sit back and just think about that fucking war. So close, it came so goddamned close to never happening at all.”

Out of physical need to move, both men turned from the table, Rube picking up the paper, and they walked into the shadowed living room. At the front windows they stopped to stand looking down at the two rows of automobile roofs lining the motionless street five stories below. Softly, Rube said, “World War One, ‘the Great War,’ the English called it. There was no powerful reason for it. It wasn’t necessary. It wasn’t to anyone’s real interest. Right now I could give you eight or ten names, qualified people who’ve spent important hunks of their lives studying that war. Reading, reading. Studying. Walking the old battlefields. Thinking. Who could describe specific ways—the very times and places—in which that war very nearly didn’t begin. Ludendorff could have stopped it dead with a word. And would have if he’d only understood a certain truth: that the United States truly did have the ability to mobilize, equip, train, and transport an army to Europe within months.”

“Surely, though, an event of enormous complexity, that war? Four years that altered the nature of the world?”

“Complex after it began, not before.” They stood staring down at the car roofs through several moments; then Rube said, “World War One began almost casually. For no big reason. Dissensions between nations, you read. Well, yeah, they existed all right. Always do. But trivial in 1914. Even more so in ’13 and ’12. A lot of talk about colonies, but who really needed or even wanted them anymore? Their day was over, they all knew that. A lot of bluster for the hell of it, really. Ignorant men in high places. Without much understanding of historical cause and effect. Issuing stupid ultimatums out of no real necessity. A foolish war. Blundered into, no one actually wanting it or truly believing it would even happen. Some wars have to happen, no stopping them. Our own Civil—”

“Rube.” Danziger stood smiling at him. “I’d like nothing more than to hear the full lecture. With lantern slides. But at this time of night I’m afraid I’d flunk the exam.”

Rube smiled, glancing at his watch. “Right. Time to go home. But you can’t help thinking: Without that war, this might have been a remarkable century. Quite possibly even a happy one, Dr. D.”

“Rube, Rube”—Danziger laughed, clapping Rube lightly on the shoulder—“you never change, do you? What’s it been, three minutes, four? Since you learned what the old newspaper meant? Yet you’re off and running, aren’t you?”

Rube smiled again. “No. Because I don’t know where to turn. If Si were standing here right now, I wouldn’t know what to tell him. I’m not a full-fledged historian, you know. Only got into it after I joined the Army. And my specialty is military history, specifically the two World Wars in Europe, after they began. I don’t know any more about purely domestic American history than the average high school senior. But we have people who do. People who might know, and probably do know, how that war might have been prevented. Maybe almost was prevented. Dr. Danziger, I’m not thinking about some little experiment cooked up by Esterhazy and me. Some tiny change in the past that might affect the present in an equally tiny way. I’m thinking about the actual possibility of preventing World War One. I know that you can reach Si Morley; well, it’s time to do it.”

“Is it? Why?”

“Jesus. Prevent World War One—if that’s possible. And you ask why?”

“Sure.” Danziger reached out to touch the old newspaper in Rube’s hand. “Because show me the next day’s issue. And the issue of a month after that. And a year. Then a decade later. What would those newspapers have to tell us? Of the nature of the world? Who can assure us that if World War One had never happened, the world would now be a rose garden?”

Rube stood staring down at the unmoving street. “Certainty,” he murmured. “Certainty. You’re obsessed with it!” He swung to face Danziger again. “Who the hell is ever certain about anything? Including his own next breath! We’re affecting the future right now just standing here. Some loony insomniac across the way may be watching us, starting a train of loony thought, and blow up the fucking world!”

“That we can’t help. But we don’t have to make the risk retroactive.”

“Yes we do. If we can, we’ve got to.”

“Minutes. Only minutes have passed, and listen to you. Well, I’ll never help you, Rube. Ever.”

Rube nodded several times, then smiled, the deep smile, utterly friendly and without guile, that made most people like him very much. “Okay,” he said, then impulsively offered the old newspaper in his hand to the older man. “Here you are, Dr. D, a souvenir. You might as well have it.”

“No, no, Rube, you must keep it; it belongs with—”

“You’re the only one saw what it meant; I want you to have it. My lieutenant friend can explain not bringing it back; she likes me.” He looked around the room for a place to lay it, then walked to Danziger’s pigeonholed desk, cluttered but orderly. Eyes skimming the desktop, he pushed the phone and its attached notepad aside, clearing a space, and set the paper down, memorizing in the instant of seeing them ten digits penciled on the pad.

He walked home, twenty-odd blocks including five long cross-town. He liked being out now, watching the occasional car or early pedestrian. Idly wondering about them, seeing their numbers begin to increase. Seeing the nighttime sky begin to alter, trying to sense the very moment that last night ended and tomorrow began. Thinking idly about time itself, wondering if it was ever to be understood.

When his alarm rang two hours and twenty minutes after he got home, the city noisy and fully alive down on the daylight streets, Rube rolled to the phone and dialed seven of the ten digits—759-3000—he had seen on Dr. Danziger’s phone pad.

“Plaza Hotel, good morning.”

“Good morning.” He spoke the last three digits: “Four-oh-nine, please.”

“Hello?”

“Hello, Si. Welcome back to the present. This is Rube Prien.”