To Sail Beyond the Sunset (31 page)

“Father?”

“How can I tell, Maureen?” Father looked terribly thoughtful. “But I think we must assume as least hypothesis—Occam’s Razor—that Ted believes his own story. Which of course does not exclude the hypothesis that he is as loony as a June bug.”

“Grandpa! You know Uncle Ted isn’t crazy!”

“I don’t think he is. But his story sounds crazy. Nancy, I’m trying to be rational about this. Now don’t scold Grandpa; I’m doing the best I can. At worst we’ll know in about five months. November eleventh. Which is little comfort to you now, Maureen, but it may make up somewhat for the dirty trick Woodrow played on you. You should have clobbered him, on the spot.”

“Not out in the woods at night, Papa, not a child that young. And now it’s too late. Nancy, you remember that spot where Sergeant Theodore took you all on a picnic a year ago? We were there.”

Nancy’s mouth dropped open. “Woodie was with you? Then you didn’t—” She chopped off what she was saying. Father put on his draw-poker face.

I looked from one to the other. “You darlings! I confided my plans to each of you. But did not tell either of you that I had told the other. Yes, Nancy, I went out there with the precise purpose I told you about: to offer Sergeant Theodore the best warrior’s farewell I could manage, if he would let me. And he was about to let me. And it turned out that Woodrow had hidden in the back seat of the car.”

“Oh, how dreadful!”

“I thought so. So we got out of there quickly and went to Electric Park and never did have the privacy we needed.”

“Oh, poor Mama!” Nancy leaned across Father’s legs and grabbed my head and made mother-hen sounds over me, exactly as I had over her for all those years, whenever she needed sympathy.

Then she straightened up. “Mama, you should go do it right now!”

“Here? With a house full of children? My dear! No, no!”

“I’ll jigger for you! Grandpa! Don’t you think she should?”

Father kept quiet. I repeated, “No, dear, no. Too risky.”

She answered, “Mama, if you’re scared to, here in the house, I certainly am not. Grandpa knows I’m pregnant, don’t you, Grandpa? Or I wouldn’t be getting married. And I know what Jonathan would say.” She sat up straight, started to get off the edge of the bed. “I’m going straight down and give Uncle Ted a soldier’s farewell. And tomorrow I’ll tell Jonathan. And—Mama, I have a message for you from Jonathan. But I’ll tell you when I come back upstairs.”

I said, weakly and hopelessly, “Don’t stay down too long. The boys get up at four-thirty; don’t get caught by them.”

“I’ll be careful. ’Bye.”

Father stopped her. “Nancy! Sit back down. You are crowding in on your mother’s prerogatives.”

“But, Grandpa—”

“Pipe down! Maureen is going downstairs to finish what she started. As she should. Daughter, I will stand jigger and Nancy can help me if she wishes. But take your own advice; don’t stay down too long. If you aren’t upstairs by three, I’m coming down to tap on the door.”

Nancy said eagerly, “Mama, why don’t we both go down? I bet Uncle Ted would like that!”

“I’ll bet Uncle Ted would like that, too,” Father said grimly, “but he’s not going to get it tonight. If you want to give him a soldier’s send-off, that’s fine. But not tonight, and not until after you have consulted Jonathan. Now git for bed, dear…and you, Maureen, go downstairs and see Ted.”

I leaned over and kissed him and got quietly off the edge of the bed and started to leave. Father said, “Get along, Nancy; I’ll take the first watch.”

She shoved out her lower lip. “No. Grandpa, I’m going to stay right here and bother you.”

I left, via the sleeping porch and my own room, then went downstairs barefooted and wearing just a wrapper, not stopping to see if Father threw Nancy out. If she had managed to tame Father when I had not been able to manage it in twice her years, I didn’t want to know it. Not then. I thought about Theodore instead…so successfully that by the time I quietly opened the door to my sewing room I was as ready as a female animal can be.

Quiet as I was, he heard me and had me in his arms as I closed the door. I returned his embrace, then let go and shrugged off my wrapper, and reached up to him again. At last, at last I was naked in his arms.

Which led, inevitably, to my sitting with Theodore and Brian and Father in our back yard glider swing after our picnic dinner on Wednesday, listening to a discussion between Father and Theodore, while our young people played croquet around us. At Briney’s request, Theodore had repeated his statements about when and how female
h. sapiens
could and could not get pregnant.

The conversation drifted off from reproduction to obstetrics and they started using ungrammatical Latin at each other—some difference of opinion about the best way to handle a particular sort of birth complication. They became more and more polite to each other the more they differed. I did not have any opinions as birth complications are something I know about only from reading, since I have babies about as easily as a hen lays eggs—one big ouch and it’s over.

Briney finally interrupted them, somewhat to my relief. I don’t even want to hear about the horrible things that can happen if a birthing goes wrong. “This is all very interesting,” Brian said, “but, Ira, may I ask one question? Is Ted a medical doctor, or not? Sorry, Ted.”

“Not at all, Brian. My whole story sounds phony, I know. That’s why I avoid telling it.”

Father said, “Brian, haven’t you heard me addressing Ted as ‘Doctor’ for the last thirty minutes? The thing that makes me so angry—so graveled, rather—is that Ted knows more about the art of medicine than I could ever possibly learn. Yet his shop talk makes me want to go back to the practice of medicine.”

Theodore cleared his throat, sounding just like Father. “Mrrrrph. Dr. Johnson—”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“I think my superior knowledge of therapy—correction: my knowledge of superior therapy—bothers you in part because you think of me as being younger than you are. But, as I explained, I simply look young. In fact I am older than you are.”

“How old?”

“I declined to answer that question when Mrs. Smith asked it—”

“Theodore! My name is Maureen.”(That exasperating man!)

“Little pitchers with big ears, Maureen,” Theodore said quietly. “Dr. Johnson, the therapy of my time is not harder to learn than is therapy today; it is easier, because less of it is empirical and more of it—most of it—is based on minutely developed and thoroughly tested theory. With correct and logical theory as a framework you could catch up on what new has been learned in jig time, then go quickly into clinical work under a preceptor. You would not find it difficult.”

“Damn it, sir, I’ll never have the chance!”

“But, Doctor, that’s what I’m trying to offer you. My sisters will pick me up at an agreed rendezvous in Arizona on August 2, 1926, eight years from now. If you wish, I will be delighted to take you with me to my time and my planet, where, if you wish, you can study therapy—I am chairman of the board of a medical school there; no problem. Then you can either stay on Tertius, or return to Earth—to the exact spot and instant that you left, if that is your wish, but with your medical education updated and you yourself rejuvenated…and with renewed zest for life, that being merely a side effect but a fine bonus of rejuvenation.”

Father looked strange, haunted. I heard him murmur, “‘—unto an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world—’” Sergeant Theodore answered, “‘—and the glory of them.’ Matthew, four, verse eight. But, Doctor, I am not the Devil and I am not offering you treasure or power—simply the hospitality of my home as I have enjoyed the hospitality of this home…plus an opportunity for a refresher course if you want it. But you don’t have to make up your mind tonight; you have more than eight years for that. You can postpone your decision right up to the last minute.
Dora
—that’s my ship—has ample room.”

I turned and put my hand on Father’s arm. “Father, do you remember what we did in 1893?” I looked across at Ted. “Father read medicine under a preceptor who never believed in germs. So, after Father had been in practice for many years, he went back to school at Northwestern University in 1893 to learn the latest knowledge about germ theory and asepsis and such things. Father, this is the same thing—and an incredible opportunity! Father accepts, Theodore—he’s just slow to admit what he wants, sometimes.”

“Mind your own business, Maureen. Ted said I could take eight years to answer.”

“Carol would not take eight years to answer. And neither would I! If Brian permitted. If Theodore can bring me back to the same hour and day—”

“I can.”

“Would I meet Tamara?”

“Of course.”

“Oh, my! Brian? Just a visit and I come home the same day—”

Theodore put in, “Brian, you can come with her. A few days or a few months vacation, and back the same day.”

“Uh—Oh, Heavens! Sergeant, you and I have a war to win first. Can we table this till we come back from France?”

“Certainly, Captain.”

I don’t recall how the talk got around to economics. First, I was sworn to silence about the periodic nature of female fertility…and took the oath with my fingers crossed. Fiddlesticks. Both doctors, Papa and Theodore, pointed out that my mucous membranes had never been invaded by bugs—
gonococci
and
spirochete treponema pallidum
and such—because I had been drilled and drilled in “Always use a rubber except when you want a baby,” and my girls had been trained the same way. I didn’t mention the far more numerous times when I had happily skipped those pesky sheaths because I was pregnant and knew it. Such as the night before. Avoiding disease does not depend on anything as trivial as a rubber purse; it depends on being very, very fussy about your intimates. A woman can catch something bad in her mouth or in her eyes just as quickly as in her vagina—and much easier. Am I going to copulate with a man without kissing him? Let’s not be silly.

I can’t recall ever using a rubber after Theodore explained exactly how to chart my fertile span. Or ever again failing to “ring the cash register” when I wished to.

Then I heard, “—October twenty-ninth, 1929.”

I blurted, “Huh? But you said you were leaving in 1926. August second.”

My husband said, “Pay attention, Carrot Top. There will be a quiz Monday morning.”

Theodore said, “Maureen, I was speaking of Black Tuesday. That is what future historians will call the greatest stock market crash in all history.”

“You mean like 1907?”

“I’m not sure what happened in 1907 because, as I told you, I studied closely only the history of the decade I planned to spend here—from the year after the end of this war until shortly before Black Tuesday, the twenty-ninth of October, 1929. That ten years, from after the First World War—”

“Hold it! Doctor, you said ‘First World War—’ First?”

“Doctor Johnson, except for this one Golden Age, from November eleventh, 1918, to October twenty-ninth, 1929, there are wars all through this century. The Second World War starts in 1939, and is longer and worse than this one. Then there are wars off and on—mostly on—the rest of this century. But the next century, the twenty-first century, is far worse.”

Father said, “Ted. The day war was declared. You were simply speaking the truth as you saw it. Weren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then why did you enlist? This isn’t your war… Captain Long.”

Theodore answered very softly, “To gain your respect, Ancestor. And to make Maureen proud of me.”

“Mrrph! Well! I hope that you will never regret it, sir.”

“I never will.”

Thursday was a busy day indeed; Eleanor and I, with the aid of all my older children and all her older children, with much help from Sergeant Theodore as my aide de camp (“dog robber” he called it, and so did Father—I declined to let them get my goat), with some help from our spouses and from Father—Eleanor and I mounted a formal church wedding in only twenty-four hours.

Oh, I must admit that Eleanor and I had done spadework ahead of time—guest lists, plans, alerting of minister and janitor and caterer as soon as Brian’s first phone call had made it possible, engraving of invitations on Tuesday, envelopes addressed on Wednesday by her two best penmen, invitations delivered by my two boys and two of hers, with RSVP to Justin’s office by telephone, etc., etc.

We managed to have the bride dressed correctly and on time because Sergeant Theodore displayed another unexpected talent: ladies’ sempstress—no, sempstor—no, I think it must be “ladies’ tailor”. I had already accomplished my prime purpose of using Eleanor’s special telepathic talent by having Theodore drive me to Eleanor’s house out south on Thursday morning and there putting my problem to her bluntly—speeding things up by peeling my clothes off the instant the door was locked on El and me in her private apartment, then bringing her up to date—then Eleanor had her maid show Theodore to El’s private suite.

Never mind the sweaty details; in another thirty minutes Eleanor reported to me, “Maureen love, Theodore believes every word of what he has been telling us,” which Theodore countered by pointing out that every Napoleon in every insane asylum believed his own story just as firmly.

“Captain Long,” Eleanor had answered, “few males have a firm grip on reality; I can’t see that it matters. You were telling me the truth as you know it when you told me about your home in the future and you were again telling the truth when you told me that you love Maureen. Since I love her, too, I hope to earn some portion of your love. Now, please, if you will let me up—and thank you, sir! you pleasured me immensely.”

It was immediately after that we ran into a time conflict: how to get Eleanor’s wedding dress and Nancy to Eleanor’s sempstress at a time when Justin said that Jonathan must fetch Nancy and Brian to Justin’s office so that all four could go to City Hall together to obtain the necessary special license, both principals being under age.

Theodore said, “Why do we need a sempstress? Eleanor, doesn’t that cabinet over there conceal a Singer sewing machine? And why do we need Nancy? Mama Maureen, didn’t you tell me that you and Nancy can wear the same clothes?”