The Bellbottom Incident (16 page)

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Authors: Neve Maslakovic

Tags: #Science Fiction, #Mystery

BOOK: The Bellbottom Incident
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I looked up from my reading. “The chrono-synclastic infund— Can we just call it the CSI for short? The CSI in the book is between Earth and Mars.”

“Yeah.” Abigail wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think that’s the one Udo meant.”

“Let’s hope not. So where, then? It could be anywhere really, depending on where Udo thinks truths fit together…” I set the book down and started to speculate widely. “People with different points of view coming together…let’s see…the United Nations? The Olympics?…Or, to go in a completely different direction, Hollywood or Las Vegas? All right, that’s dumb. Where does someone of a literary bent think various truths come together?”

Abigail gestured around us. “The library.”
 

“Perhaps not just any library. How about the Library of Congress? That’s sort of near the ocean, if you don’t mind driving a couple of hours from Washington DC to the nearest beach. Or does Udo maybe have a place from Vonnegut’s own life in mind? I wonder where he lives. Not Udo, Vonnegut.”

“Not a clue.”

There wasn’t a biography included in the book—perhaps it had been on the missing book jacket. I got up to ask the librarian at the help desk. She was tidying up, as the library would be closing soon, but didn’t seem to mind the interruption.

“You’re wondering where Mr. Vonnegut lives?”

“Yes, for, uh…a book project I’m working on.”
 

“Well, then. I did read a news article not too long ago—now where would that have been? Oh, yes. It was about Mr. Vonnegut’s speech at the dedication of the new library at Connecticut College. They said that he suggested the name ‘The Noodle Factory’ for it.” She chuckled. “They didn’t accept his kind suggestion. But to answer your question, the article gave Mr. Vonnegut’s residence as New York City.”

I thanked her and went to rejoin Abigail. New York City matched the East Coast part, though it wasn’t exactly the first place that came to mind when you said
tree
, unless that part had been wholly in Xave’s inebriated imagination. I summarized what we’d found out so far. “Our best guess, then, is that they’ve gone either to the Library of Congress or Kurt Vonnegut’s house in New York City. I’m not sure that narrows it down any. It would be easier if I just jumped back home and phoned my parents to ask them.”

“Your parents were at the book club meeting together?” Abigail said as we got up to look for Dr. Little. “Aww, how romantic.”

“Sadly, not in the least. My father was sneezing the whole time thanks to his allergies, and my mother was more interested in a tall, dark-haired stranger. Don’t say it…”

“What?”

“That he might be the dark-haired ancestor I assumed was somewhere in my family tree.”

“I’m sure that’s not it,” she said diplomatically.
 

“Well, let’s hope it’s not Udo, either. He’s blond but he dyes his hair.”

“Did your parents ever mention the book club to you?”

I shook my head. Had my parents possessed grander writing aspirations before their dreams were subverted by life’s realities? Something else to ask them about when I got home. They had ended up happily running the town paper, the simply titled
Thornberg News
, writing articles that ranged from reports on the popularity of the September corn fair to birth and death announcements. I wondered what Udo Leland had made of the
Thornberg News
.

Dr. Little was by the library magazine rack, leafing through a
Popular Electronics
issue, his duffel bag by his feet, his coat draped over it. “Anything?” he asked at our approach.

“It will be a place where
all the different kinds of truths fit together
,” I quoted from the book.

“Truths? Well, that’s not very helpful.” He slid the magazine back into place next to the others. “I don’t suppose Udo said anything else of interest at the book club meeting, Julia?”

“Not really. He read a story about twenty-second-century skeleton hoarders. No mention of the tree Xave heard about from Jenny. I don’t suppose there’s a key tree in Vonnegut’s book, Abigail?”

She wrinkled her nose in thought. “It’s been a long time since I read it. There was a fancy fountain, some deep caves on Mercury, bluebirds on Titan…There may have been a tree, but I honestly don’t remember.”

“If we had current campus IDs, we could check the book out of the library and read the rest. But since we don’t, you’d better put it back on the shelf, Abigail.”

“Will do.” She made a 180 and headed back into the stacks.

Dr. Little reached for his coat and duffel. “Hanging around reading books would be a waste of our time anyway. In this case, I mean, not in general, obviously.”

“We could check in with Nate,” I suggested as we left the library, Abigail having rejoined us.

“Why?” Dr. Little wanted to know.

I hoped that he didn’t think I was eager to keep popping back into the present to see Nate. I was, of course, but that was beside the point. Like I’d told Abigail, I wanted to phone my parents and ask them about the book club, but I felt strangely reluctant to mention that in front of Dr. Little. I also
really
wanted to sit down and have a very frank talk with Dr. Mooney.

“Just to touch base,” I said. “It could be that he’s already found Udo and talked to him.”

Dr. Little checked his wristwatch and did a quick mental calculation. “Only six minutes and fifty-five seconds have passed in the lab. It would be a miracle if Kirkland managed to contact Udo in that short a time. We need to give him at least a full twenty-four hours our time.”

“In that case, let’s jump to the previous book club meeting—I’m pretty sure the CSI was something they’ve discussed before.”

On the evening of Friday, October 22, 1976, we found the campus under a clear night sky. This time all three of us were able to go into St. Olaf’s Hall—the dorm monitor was missing from his post. We seated ourselves in the wooden chairs against the back wall of the rec room, just inside the door. A couple of students glanced in our direction, but only briefly. There was presumably nothing unusual about a newcomer or two listening in without contributing.
 

As before, a cloud of smoke hung over the space. The difference this time was that rather than Udo monopolizing the conversation, it was a free-for-all. We had walked into a discussion of the kind that really only can be had in college, before the everyday details of adult life take over: mortgage payments, meals, child care, laundry. More of the lights had been left on this time, and the students were sprawled on the couch, chairs, and the floor with well-thumbed copies of
The Sirens of Titan
in their hands. Words like
fate
,
free will
,
and
determinism
were flying around the room. There never was an answer to these things. It wasn’t there in Vonnegut’s book, I guessed, and it wouldn’t be hammered out by Udo’s book club either. But they sure were trying.

Scanning the room, I saw that my parents were not present this time. Breathing a sigh of relief, I devoted my attention to the metaphysical questions occupying the students, which, I hoped, would soon turn into a discussion of where the book club would be heading in a couple of weeks.
 

I watched Udo as he occasionally partook in the debate regarding Vonnegut’s
The Sirens of Titan
and read something in his expression. Not that I knew much about budding fiction writers, but I had spent almost eight years observing the academic environment from within. I suspected that the problems that existed in the ivory tower—jealousy, greed, narcissism, loneliness, unrealistic expectations—were all represented in this room as well. Udo was trying to figure out what elements in
The Sirens of Titan
spoke to the others in order to absorb them into his own work in progress. He wanted Vonnegut’s success for himself.

I heard someone mention the infundibulum, and my ears perked up. It was the woman in a sari, the one who would form one fourth of the flirting quadrangle one week hence. She was wondering at the significance of the fifty-nine-day interval at which Rumfoord and his dog, Kazak, popped in and out of New England via their CSI.
 

A second voice said, “Gilberte, that’s a great question,” and I felt Abigail sit up in the chair next to me. Gilberte was who had taken Sabina in for the night. At her question, the discussion took off on a different tangent. Did the fifty-nine come from the year the book was published, or had it been chosen because it was a prime number, or perhaps because it was the last minute on the clock before it struck the hour, denoting inevitability?

Udo raised a hand. “Friends!” He was a natural speaker, projecting his voice without having to shout, and the conversation in the room immediately died down. “I have a thought. I propose we visit a chrono-synclastic infundibulum of our own.”

There were gasps of surprise and approval in response.

“I have one in mind, as it happens. It’s by the ocean, under a tree. The place has housed the rich, but no matter.” He waved that issue away. “There we will find some answers perhaps.”

I, too, wanted some answers. But it was not to be. I felt my breathing turn shallow, as if the very air was growing thinner. When I turned to look at Dr. Little and Abigail, I saw that they were already on their feet, backing out the door. I joined them.

Behind us, conversation had broken out again, voices rising and falling over each other as Udo’s idea of a pilgrimage to a CSI took hold. We did not get to hear the rest.
 

In the hallway, we passed a couple hurrying into the room, late to the book club meeting. My parents. They were clearly in the middle of an argument—“I can eat dinner with
whomever
I wish,” my mother was saying angrily; “I didn’t mean it like that,” my father countered, adding, “Are you mad because of what I said the other day?”
 

It was clear that their presence there meant that
ours
wasn’t welcome. Would Missy or Soren have stumbled over our feet had we stayed in the rec room, thus interrupting their argument and halting the book club discussion? Whatever the reason, History propelled us as if we had a winter wind at our backs, and we passed out of St. Olaf’s Hall.

16

“Too bad that couple had to come in just then,” Abigail said after we came to a halt behind the now-familiar shrubbery in the courtyard of the dorm. Dr. Little gave an irritated grunt and pulled out his duffel bag from where we had left our things hidden—under one of the shrubs—but carefully so that none of the sensitive instruments inside would get damaged. Abigail continued. “Julia, were those your—”

“My parents, yes. Sorry,” I said, feeling an obligation to apologize for their intrusion.
 

“They were having a lovers’ quarrel?” Abigail said. “How cute.”

“Poor timing on their part, though.”

“I’m glad my parents are all the way in California,” Dr. Little said. “I do
not
want that problem.”

The statement was a touch insensitive—I was pretty sure Abigail would have been very happy to have the problem of running into her parents. It was too dark for me to make out her expression, but I decided it would be best to change the topic. “What do you think of Udo? Everyone in the club seems to hero-worship him, especially the women. He’s more your age than mine, Abigail.”

Abigail was an unabashed romantic, but she had a practical side. “He looks like he would faint if he had to wash a dish or mow the lawn. So the attraction—I don’t know…the tight black turtleneck?”

We chuckled at that—a chuckle not shared by Dr. Little—and I brought up a thought that had occurred to me during the book club meeting. “Do you think it’s odd that they’re reading
The Sirens of Titan
and not
Slaughterhouse-Five
?
That’s Vonnegut’s most famous novel, isn’t it? I had to—I mean, I read it in college. And he’s already written
Slaughterhouse
. We saw it on the library shelf.”

“What was that one about,
Slaughterhouse-Five
?” Dr. Little asked. “It’s not one I’ve read.”

I remembered a bit about it. “It was based on his experiences in World War Two—Vonnegut survived the bombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war.”

Abigail nodded. “Come to think of it, that one featured time travel, too…at least, of sorts. The main character, whose name I can’t remember, jumped in and out of various points in his life. In one scene he’d be in a trench in Europe, and in the next he’d be an old man in an armchair back home, then he’d be back in the war.”
 

“There you go. Udo never went to war,” Dr. Little said. “He can’t match Vonnegut’s experience. The US pulled out of Vietnam in 1973—three years ago. He may have been called in for a physical, but he probably wasn’t assigned a lottery number.”

“A lottery number?” Abigail asked.

“To see who would be called up.”
 

“Yes, I see…” I said. “Udo grew up watching those only a few years older than him be drafted—or go to Canada—all the while expecting that he himself might be called up, too. I wonder if he was relieved when that didn’t happen, or if he was disappointed that he wouldn’t get to serve, like his literary hero Kurt Vonnegut did.”

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