Time and Again

I lay down beside her to bring my mouth to her ear. I had to put an arm around her in order to get closer and to get oriented; I didn't mind. "You awake?" Her hair brushed across my nose as she nodded. I whispered the situation then, and told her the time. She asked whether I'd slept, then made me change places, and she sat doing guard duty while I fell almost instantly to sleep.

The first daylight on my face and the slow bong of the City Hall clock awakened me. I opened my eyes; Julia's hand was hovering an inch from my mouth, ready to close over it if I started to speak. I lifted my head and kissed her palm, and she yanked her hand away, startled, then smiled. She made a pointing gesture toward the next room, then placed her finger across her lips, and I nodded. I'd been counting with the clock; it was seven, and when it stopped I heard once again what I seemed now to have been hearing forever — the steady flick-flick of paper in the room beside us.

We moved silently to the boarded-over doorway and sat down as before. Except that the room was now gray and shabby with daylight — a powdering of new snow had appeared on the outside windowsills — nothing had changed. Carmody sat on the desk top flicking steadily through the inches of paper in, I saw, the bottom drawer of the third cabinet. Jake had turned in his chair to watch; there was a huge swollen lump on his head nearly the size of a fist, and his face was haggard, his eyes red, the skin below them drooping into wrinkles, and his mouth hung open a little. He was in pain, I thought — from the blow on his head, perhaps, or the inability to alter his position. But Carmody's face looked almost as tired, his eyes dulled and staring, and I wondered if he were still able to fully comprehend the blur of paper passing endlessly before them. There were five sheets now, lying on top of the second filing cabinet.

Something had to change soon; that was obvious. In the new daylight, very white from the fresh snow, I glanced at Julia beside me, and she looked rested, and she smiled at me. But just the same I knew that neither she nor I could stay here much longer. And neither could Carmody. He might be willing to leave Jake Pickering just as he was, but he himself would have to leave soon if only to get some food, and return. If he left, he'd have to gag Jake, I supposed. Jake didn't dare shout now and take another blow on the head, but he'd surely shout if Carmody left, until someone heard and investigated — which wouldn't take long. The city was fully awake, Julia and I could hear the steady roar of it outside our windows. The building was awakening, too; twice I'd heard the sound, coming up the shaft, of footsteps on the building staircase. What should we do, I wondered, if Carmody left? We couldn't push our loosened boards aside and walk out through Jake's office without his seeing us. I leaned back out of the doorway to look down. Beside and behind me the floorboards were gone and I could see far below into the shaft, lighted at each floor by the windows facing east on Nassau Street. The joists of the floors below us had been removed, I saw; there was no way at all for us to get out of here by way of the elevator shaft.

And I was tired. I ached from hours of sitting or lying on wooden floorboards. I was thirsty and hungry, and Julia must be the same. But if there was anything to do but continue to sit here, staring into the next room, I couldn't think of it. I simply repeated to myself that something had to change soon, something had to give; and when Julia glanced at me I smiled reassuringly.

After half an hour or so Carmody stopped. He got to his feet, revolving his shoulders, rotating his head as he bent his neck, working the stiffness loose. He stood looking speculatively at Jake, and I thought I could read his mind; he was wondering if he dared leave him for a time, and how best to do it. But then he thought of something I hadn't; he turned, and began opening the drawers of Jake's desk one after another. I'd once searched these drawers, too, and I remembered what he was going to find.

He reached the bottom, left-hand drawer, opened it, lifted out the paper sack, looked into it, then looked over at Jake, and smiled. He sat down on the desk top and ate the four or five big white crackers, holding his cupped hand under his mouth to catch the crumbs, which he tossed into his mouth last. There were soft brown spots on the apple, but he ate it all, including the core. He wasn't deliberately taunting Jake, but Jake sat watching him, and when Carmody stood up again, dusting the last crumbs from his hands, he was gri

For over two more hours we sat in a semi-stupor; the snowstorm was heavier now, snow piling up on the window ledge, lying flat against the glass. We'd been here sitting or lying on a hard floor too long, and I knew we couldn't take it much longer. Most of the time Julia sat simply staring at the floor and so did I; after a while I put my arm around her shoulders and made her rest against me, her head on my shoulder. It occurred to me that Jake Pickering looked to be in pretty good shape; his color was better now, probably from the whiskey. But he'd also had more sleep than any of us; and his arms, while bound, were protected by a considerable thickness of cloth, and the leather binding was broad and flat; they wouldn't be numbed. Still, he hadn't been able to stand or move about for over nine hours; I thought he must be in pretty severe discomfort, and I had to admire the calmness of his voice when presently he spoke.

We'd heard the clock strike nine half an hour or so before, and now Jake — voice a little dogged, an edge of doubt sounding — said, "A financier is bound to be skilled at figures: Here is a problem to test you. If a man can search through two and a half file cabinets in nine and a half hours, how long will it take him to hunt through thirteen?"

Without turning to look at Pickering Carmody had stopped to listen, hands lying motionless on the compressed paper in the drawer before him. It seemed a mild enough taunt; I expected Carmody to smile or shrug, reply in kind, and resume work. But I'd found myself automatically responding to Pickering's «problem» by trying to work out the arithmetic of it in my head, and I think maybe Carmody did the same. He sat for a few moments apparently thinking; and I believe that something about the inescapable answer to the question — the forced realization of the immensity of what still lay ahead, the long sickening blur of concentration he'd already gone through being only the begi

The force of it rocked Jake back in his chair, the metal springs creaking, the paper cascading down his chest and off his shoulders, separating into sheaves and sheets, fluttering to the floor, sliding down off his lap. But when Jake rocked forward again he was still laughing, and Carmody gathered up the rest of the file, an immense wad, stood, and smashed it down onto Jake's swollen head. But Jake never stopped laughing, and then Carmody went wild.