A Bridge of Years Read online

  "Nobody wants to rent, I guess."

  "That's funny. That's not what I hear. Maybe if you painted?"

  "One day," Billy explained solemnly, "all this will be under water."

  Nowadays, when he came, he came at night, when Mrs. Korzybski was asleep. Her apartment was dark tonight. All the apartments were dark except for 403: Amos Shank, who lived on his retirement fund from the H. J. Heinz Company in Pittsburgh. Mr. Shank had come to New York to find a publisher for his epic poem Ulysses at the Elbe. The publishing industry had disappointed him, but Mr. Shank still liked to talk about the work—three massive volumes of vellum paper bound with rubber bands, still not entirely finished.

  Mr. Shank left the light on in case inspiration struck in the depths of the night . . . but Mr. Shank was probably asleep by now too. Everyone in Billy's building was lonely and asleep. Everyone but Billy.

  He whistled a formless tune between his teeth and stepped into the entranceway. The paint on the walls had faded to gray a long time ago. The mirrored wall by the stairs was fogged and chipped and some of the floor tiles had turned up at the corners, like leaves.

  Billy went directly to the basement.

  The stairway leading down smelled hot and stale. These old wooden steps had grown leathery in the humid air. Silent in the dim light, Billy passed the bizarre and inefficient oil furnace with its many arms, the groaning water heater; through an unmarked access door and deeper, past the storage cellar with its lime-green calcinated walls and its crusted cans of paint, to the door he had sealed with a sturdy Yale padlock. The light was dim—the light here was always dim. Billy took a chrome Zippo lighter out of his hip pocket.

  He felt strange down here so close to the tunnel. He had been deeply frightened when he first understood how vast this warren of temporal fractures really was—what it implied and what that might mean to him. He couldn't think about the tunnel without considering the creatures who had made it . . . beings, Billy understood, so nearly omnipotent that they might as well be called gods. And he remembered what he'd seen in this tunnel the day he arrived here, something even stranger than the godlike time travelers, a creature as bright and hot as a living flame.

  He flicked the igniter on the Zippo. Time for a new flint, Billy told himself.

  He brought the light down closer to the padlock—then drew a sharp breath and stepped back.

  Dear God! After all these years—! The lock had been broken open.

  Billy's first thought was of Krakow gazing down at him through another door, the night he was recruited. He had the same feeling now: discovered in hiding.

  He was defenseless, weaponless, and the walls were much too close.

  He touched his throat, instinctively reaching for the touch-plate that would trigger his armor—but the armor was at home.

  He backed away from the door.

  Someone had been here! Someone had come for him!

  He considered going upstairs, dragging Mrs. Korzybski out of her sleep, Amos Shank from his senile slumber, beating them until they told him who had come and who had gone. But they might not know. Probably didn't. Maybe no one had seen.

  I need help, Billy told himself. The sense of imminent danger had closed around him like a noose. (Not alone anymore!) He pocketed his lighter, climbed the stairs, and left the building.

  He stood alone in the sweaty darkness of the street, his eyes patrolling the sawtooth shadows between the tenement stoops.

  He hurried away, avoiding streetlights. The armor, Billy thought. The armor would know what to do.

  Ten

  Catherine Simmons drove into Belltower after the cremation of her grandmother, Peggy Simmons, who had lived out along the Post Road for many years and who had died a week ago in her sleep.

  Summer made Belltower a pretty little town, at least when the wind wasn't blowing from the mill. Catherine knew the town from her many visits; she didn't have any trouble finding the Carstairs Funeral Home on a side street off Brierley, between an antique shop and a marine electronics store. She parked and sat in her Honda a few minutes—she was early for her appointment.

  Gram Peggy's fatal stroke had been unexpected and the news of her death still seemed fresh and unreasonable. Of all Catherine's family, Gram Peggy had seemed most like a fixture—the solidest and most fun of the sorry lot. But Gram Peggy was dead and Catherine supposed she would have to adjust to that fact.

  She sighed and climbed out of the car. The afternoon was sunny and the air carried a whiff of ocean. Pretty little dumb little smelly little town, Catherine thought.

  There was no ceremony planned and no other Simmonses at the funeral home. Catherine's father—Gram Peggy's only son—had died in 1983, of liver cancer, and the rest of the family was hopelessly scattered. Only Catherine had ever come to visit these last several years. Apparently Gram Peggy had appreciated those visits. Her lawyer, Dick Parsons, had phoned to say that the entire estate, including the house, had been left to Catherine: another stunning piece of news, still somewhat indigestible.

  The funeral director at Carstairs turned out not to be the unctuous vulture Catherine was expecting; he was a big-shouldered man who looked a little like a football coach. He handed Catherine the bronze urn containing Gram Peggy's ashes in a gesture that was almost apologetic. "This is the way your grandmother wanted it, Miss Simmons. No ceremony, nothing solemn. She arranged all this in advance."

  "Gram Peggy was very practical," Catherine said.

  "That she was." He managed a sympathetic smile. "Everything's been paid for through her lawyer. I hope we've been of some small help?"

  "You did fine," Catherine said. "Thank you."

  There was a woman in the lobby as Catherine left, a gray-haired woman roughly Gram Peggy's age; she stepped forward and said, "I'm Nancy Horton—a friend of your grandmother's. I just want to say how sorry I am."

  "Thank you," Catherine said. Apparently death involved thanking people a lot.

  "I knew Peggy from the shopping trips we took. She still drove, you see. I don't drive if I can help it. She used to drive me down to the mall on the highway, Wednesday mornings usually. We'd talk. Though she was never a big talker. I liked her a lot, though. You must be Catherine."

  "Yes."

  "Are you going to be staying in the house?" "Gram's house? For a little while. Maybe for the summer." "Well, I'm not far away if you need anything." She glanced at the urn in Catherine's hand. "I don't know about cremation. It seems—oh, I'm sorry! I shouldn't be saying this, should I? But it seems like so little to leave behind."

  "That's okay," Catherine said. "This isn't Gram Peggy. We talked about that before she died. These are just some ashes."

  "Of course," Nancy Horton said. "Will you keep them? Oh, my curiosity! I'm sorry—"

  "Gram loved the forest out in back of her property," Catherine said. "She once asked me to scatter her ashes there." She took the urn protectively into the crook of her left arm. "That's what I'll do."

  Of course, she couldn't keep the house. It was a big old house up along the Post Road and a long way from anywhere Catherine wanted to live, as much as she sometimes liked Belltower. Once the will was probated, she would probably try to sell the property. She had said as much to Dick Parsons, who had given her the number of the local realty company. One of their agents was supposed to meet her outside the funeral home.

  The agent turned out to be the man lounging against a mailbox by the front steps—he straightened up and announced himself as Doug Archer. Catherine smiled and shook his hand. "Everybody's running against type," she said. I m sorry?

  "The funeral director doesn't look like a funeral director. You don't look much like a real estate agent."

  "I'll take that as flattery," Archer said.

  But it was true, Catherine thought. He was a little too young, a little too careless about his clothes. He wore floppy high-top Reeboks tied too low, and he grinned like an eight-year-old. He said, "Are you still thinking about putting the house on the mar
ket?"

  "It's a firm decision," Catherine said. "I'm just not sure about when. I'm thinking of spending the rest of the summer here."

  "It may not be a quick sale in any case. The market's a little slow, and those houses out on the Post Road are kind of lonely. But I'm sure we can find a buyer for it."

  "I'm in no hurry. Dick Parsons said you'd probably want to look at the house?"

  "It'll help when we're thinking about setting a price. If you want to make an appointment? Or I can drive out today—"

  "Today is fine. I have to stop by Mr. Parsons' office and pick up the keys, but you can come by later if you like."

  "If that's all right." He looked at his watch. "Around three?" Sure.

  "I'm sorry about your grandmother, Miss Simmons. I handle a lot of those houses up the Post Road, so I had the occasion to meet her once or twice. She was a unique woman."

  Catherine smiled. "I don't imagine she had much patience with real estate agents." "Not too damn much patience at all," Doug Archer said.

  Catherine picked up the keys, signed papers, said another round of thanks, then braced herself for the drive to Gram Peggy's house.

  The word "holiday," in Catherine's memory, was associated with this road. When she was little they would drive down from Bellingham in her father's station wagon, circle through Belltower to the bottom of the Post Road hill, then up a long corridor of fragrant pines to the door of Gram Peggy's house. Gram Peggy who cooked wonderful meals, who said wonderful and irreverent things, and whose presence imposed a magical truce between Catherine's mother and father. At Gram Peggy's house, nobody was allowed to smoke and nobody was allowed to fight. "Everything else is permitted. But I will not have the house stinking of tobacco smoke and I will not allow bickering—both of which poison the air. Isn't that right, Catherine?"

  The Post Road hadn't changed much. It was still this green, dark, faintly magical corridor—the highway and the malls might have been a thousand miles away. Houses on the Post Road were barely more than outposts in the wilderness, Catherine thought, set in their little plots of landscape, some grand and many humble, but always overshadowed by the lush Douglas firs.

  Gram Peggy's house, at the crest of the hill, was the only one of these homes with a view. The house was an old and grandly Victorian wood frame structure, two stories high with a gabled attic above that. Gram Peggy had always been meticulous about having it painted and touched up; otherwise, she said, the weeds would think they had an open invitation. The house had been built by Gram Peggy's father, a piano maker, whom Catherine had never met. The idea of selling the property—of never coming back here—felt like the worst kind of sacrilege. But of course she'd be lost in it herself.

  She parked and unlocked the big front door. For now, she left her paints and supplies in the trunk of the Civic. If she stayed for the summer—the idea was steadily more attractive —she could set up a studio in the sunny room facing the woods out back. Or in the guest room, where the bay window allowed glimpses of the distant ocean.

  But for now it was still Gram Peggy's house, left untidied at the end of what must have been a tiring day. Crumbs on the kitchen counter, the ficus wilting in a dry pot. Catherine wandered aimlessly through some of these rooms, then dropped into the overstuffed sofa in front of the TV set. Gram Peggy's TV Guide was splayed open on the side table —a week out of date.

  Of course I'll be here all summer, Catherine thought; it would take that long to sort out Gram Peggy's possessions and arrange to have them sold. None of this had occurred to her. She had assumed, by some wordless logic, that Gram Peggy's things would have vanished like Gram Peggy herself, into the urn now resting by the front door. But maybe this was where the real mourning started: the disposition of these letters, clocks, clothes, dentures—a last, brutal intimacy.

  Catherine slipped off her shoes, reclined on the sofa, and napped until Doug Archer knocked at the door.

  Before he left, Doug Archer said a strange thing.

  His visit went well, otherwise. He was friendly and his interest seemed genuine, more than just businesslike. He asked about her work. Catherine was shy about her painting even though she had begun to earn some money through a couple of small Seattle galleries. She'd taken fine arts courses at college, but the work she produced was mainly intuitive, personal, meticulous. She worked with acrylics and sometimes with montage. Her subjects were usually small—a leaf, a water drop, a ladybug—but her canvases were large, impressionistic, and layered with bright acrylic washes. After her last show a Seattle newspaper critic said she "seemed to coax light out of paint," which had pleased her. But she didn't tell Archer that; only that she painted and that she was thinking of doing some work here during the summer. He said he'd love to see some of her work sometime. Catherine said she was flattered but there was nothing to show right now.

  He was thorough about the house. He inspected the basement, the water heater and the furnace, the fuseboard and the window casements. Upstairs, he made a note about the oak floors and moldings. Lastly, he went outside and gazed up at the eaves. Catherine told him Gram Peggy had had the roof inspected every year.

  She walked him to his car. "I suppose we'll have to put it on the market pretty soon. I don't even know what that involves. I guess people come to see it?"

  "We don't have to hurry. You must be upset by all this."

  "Dazed. I think I'm dazed."

  "Take as long as you need. Call me when you're ready to talk about it."

  "I appreciate that," Catherine said.

  Archer put his hand on the door of the car, then seemed to hesitate. "Do you mind if I ask you something?"

  "Shoot."

  "Did your grandmother ever talk much about her neighbors?"

  "Not that I remember. I did meet Mrs. Horton from around the corner. Apparently they used to drive to the mall together."

  "How about the house down the other direction—the man who lived there? She ever mention him? This would have been ten or more years ago."

  "I don't remember anything like that. Why?"

  "No real reason." Something personal, she guessed. He was obviously embarrassed to have asked. "Will you do me one favor, Catherine? If you notice anything strange happening, will you give me a call? My number's on the card. You can reach me pretty much anytime."

  "What do you mean, anything strange?"

  "Odd occurrences," Archer said unhappily.

  "Like what? Ghosts, flying saucers, that kind of thing? Is there a lot of that around here?" She couldn't help smiling.

  "Nothing like that. No, look, forget I asked, okay? It's nothing important. Just kind of a hobby with me."

  He thanked her, she thanked him, he drove away. How odd, Catherine thought as his car vanished into the tree shadows along the Post Road. What an unusual man. What a strange thing to ask.

  She didn't think more about it. A bank of clouds moved in and a steady, sullen rain fell without interruption for most of a week. Catherine stayed in the house and began to itemize some of Gram Peggy's possessions, room by room. It was depressing weather and depressing work. She felt lost in this big old house, but the rhythms of it—the ticking of the mantel clock and the morning and evening light through the high dusty windows—were familiar and in their own way reassuring.

  Still, she was glad when the sun came out. After a couple of warm days the ground had dried and she was able to move around the big back lawn and some distance down a trail into the woods. She remembered taking some of these walks with Gram Peggy and how intimidating the forest had seemed— still seemed, in fact. There was enough red cedar behind the house to make her feel very small, as if she'd shrunk, Alice-style, to the size of a caterpillar. The trail was narrow, probably a deer trail; the forest was cool and silent.

  She took these walks almost every day and before long she began to feel a little braver. She ranged farther than Gram Peggy had ever taken her. Some of this woodland was municipal property, and farther east it had been staked out by the ti
mber interests, but nobody up along the Post Road cared too much about property lines and Catherine was able to wander fairly freely. Most days she hiked south down the slope of the hill, keeping east of the road and the houses.

  She bought a guidebook and taught herself to identify some of the wildlife. She had seen a salamander, a thrush, and something she believed was a "pileated woodpecker." There was the tantalizing possibility of encountering a black bear, though that hadn't happened yet. Sometimes she brought her lunch with her; sometimes she carried a sketchbook.

  She had already found favorite places in the woods. There was a meadow where she could sit on a fallen log and gaze across a thicket of salal and huckleberry, where the forest sloped away toward Belltower. There was a sandy spot by a creek where she thought she might scatter Gram Peggy's ashes. And another meadow, farther south, riddled with deer trails, where an abandoned woodshed sagged under a growth of moss.

  The woodshed fascinated her. There was something inviting about the cockeyed slant of the door. Surely there was nothing inside, Catherine told herself; or only a cord of moldy firewood. But then again there might be an old plough or spinning wheel, something she could clean up and peddle to the antique shops in Belltower. Unless this was somebody's property, in which case she would be stealing. But she could at least peek.

  She had this thought vaguely in mind Wednesday morning, her second week in Belltower, when she packed a bag lunch and went wandering. It was a warm day and she was sweating by the time she passed the creek. She pressed on south, paused to tie her hair up off her neck, hiked past the huckleberry thicket and on down to the woodshed in its sunny meadow.

  She approached the door of the ancient structure, high-stepping through berry-bush runners to avoid a stand of fireweed . . . then she hesitated.

  It seemed to her she could hear faint motion inside.

  Curiosity killed the cat, Gram Peggy used to say. But she always added the less salutary rider—Satisfaction brought it back. Gram Peggy had been a big believer in satisfied curiosity.