“You,” he said, “have opened the library and let me breathe my past. Am I taller? Straighter? Is my voice clear?”
“Most clear.”
“My hands?”
“Are the hands of a sailor newborn.”
“Stay off land?”
“Stay off.”
“But look.” He pointed. “My legs are anchors! Much thanks for your miracle of words. Oh, thanks …”
And he wandered off into the customs shed.
I looked in upon this old man a thousand miles distant on the dark earth, saw his hand fly up, down, up, down, stamping the forms, eyes shut, gone blind, as I backed off to feel the huge wings brush my neck. I spun to let the great moth take me.
“O, Herman, stay!” I cried, but the shed was gone.
And I was spun forth in another time, a house, a door opened and shut, a small round man confronting me.
“How,” he said, “did you get in?”
“Down the chimney, under the door. And you are?”
“Count Leo Tolstoy!”
“Of War and Peace?”
“Is there another!?” he exclaimed. “How did you enter? For what purpose?”
“To help you run away!”
“Run—?”
“Away,” I said, “from home. For you are crazed. Your wife is berserk with jealousy.”
Count Leo Tolstoy froze. “How—?”
“It’s all in the books.”
“There are no books!”
“Not now, but soon! To claim your wife accused the chambermaids, the kitchen help, the gardener’s daughters, your accountant’s mistress, the milkman’s wife, your niece!”
“Stop!” cried Count Leo Tolstoy. “I refuse those beds!”
“They lie?”
“Yes, maybe, no, how dare you!”
“Because your wife threatens to tear the sheets, burn the bed, lock the door, decapitate your modus operandi.”
“No, yes! Guilty, innocent, guilty, innocent! Damn! Guilty! What a wife. Repeat!”
“Home. Run away from it.”
“That is what boys do!”
“Yes!”
“And you’d have me act half a life younger? You are a lunatic of solutions.”
“Better than a maniac of punishments.”
“Lower your voice!” he whispered. “She’s in the next room.”
“Then, let’s go!”
“She has stolen my underwear!”
“Wash and wear on the way.”
“To?”
“Anywhere!”
“But how long do I hide?”
“Until she swoons, apoplectic!”
“Superb! Who are you?”
“The only man on earth who has read War and Peace and remembered the names. Shall I list them?”
At this a fierce blow hit a far door.
“Thank God,” I said, “it’s locked.”
“What shall I pack?”
“A toothbrush! Quick!”
I threw the outer door wide. Count Leo Tolstoy stared out.
“What is that mist made of transparent leaves and milkweed?”
“Salvation!”
“It is beautiful.”
There was more banging on the door, a bray like an elephant.
“The maniac,” he cried.
“Do you wear running shoes?”
“I …”
“Run!”
He ran. The machine enfolded him.
The library door burst wide. A face of fury raged, an open furnace. “Where is he?” she cried.
“Who?” I said and vanished.
Perhaps I materialized to Billy Barlow, perhaps he materialized to me. But suddenly my machine took root in my library as Billy was glancing up Tolstoy, Melville, and Papa.
“Two losses and a win!” I said.
Billy shut Melville, closed Papa, smiled at Tolstoy.
“I made him leave madame,” I said.
“Did she enact Anna Karenina?”
“Throw herself under a train? No.”
“Pity. You off on more travels? White House, April ’65, maybe. Steal Mary Todd Lincoln’s theater tickets?”
“And risk her bite? No. Gangway!”
The golden wings soughed to touch by the waters of the marble fount near the Hotel Plaza. The fountains lifted quiet jets on a summer night. In the fount, wading, staggering, laughing, martini glasses raised to the moon, swayed a handsome man in a drenched tuxedo and a lovely woman in a silver gown. They whooped and hollered until my shout.
“Time!” I cried. “Zelda! Scottie! Everyone out!”
The end
