Killer, Come Back to Me

“It

doesn’t seem possible, does it? I’ve watched her for an hour and found nothing, no hint, no clue, not the merest period, semicolon or exclamation point of blemish, bump, or hair out of place with her. I’ve watched you, too, to see if you were at fault, we were at fault, in all this.”

“And?” The young man poured sherry for both of them, and handed over a glass.

“You drink too much is about the sum. Watch it.”

Hughes put his drink down without sipping it. “What else?”

“I suppose I should give you a list, make you keep it, look at it every day. Advice from the old crazy to the young fool.”

“Whatever you say, I’ll remember.”

“Will you? For how long? A month, a year, then, like everything else, it’ll go. You’ll be busy living. You’ll be slowly turning into…me. She will slowly be turning into someone worth putting out of the world. Tell her you love her.”

“Every day.”

“Promise! It’s that important! Maybe that’s where I failed myself, failed us. Every day, without fail!” The old man leaned forward, his face taking fire with his words. “Every day. Every day!”

Alice stood in the doorway, faintly alarmed.

“Anything wrong?”

“No, no.” Jonathan Hughes smiled. “We were trying to decide which of us likes you best.”

She laughed, shrugged, and went away.

“I think,” said Jonathan Hughes, and stopped and closed his eyes, forcing himself to say it, “it’s time for you to go.”

“Yes, time.” But the old man did not move. His voice was very tired, exhausted, sad. “I’ve been sitting here feeling defeated. I can’t find anything wrong. I can’t find the flaw. I can’t advise you, my God, it’s so stupid, I shouldn’t have come to upset you, worry you, disturb your life, when I have nothing to offer but vague suggestions, inane cryings of doom. I sat here a moment ago and thought: I’ll kill her now, get rid of her now, take the blame now, as an old man, so the young man there, you, can go on into the future and be free of her. Isn’t that silly? I wonder if it would work? It’s that old time-travel paradox, isn’t it? Would I foul up the time flow, the world, the universe, what? Don’t worry, no, no, don’t look that way. No murder now. It’s all been done up ahead, twenty years in your future. The old man having done nothing whatever, having been no help, will now open the door and run away to his madness.”

He arose and shut his eyes again.

“Let me see if I can find my way out of my own house, in the dark.”

He moved, the young man moved with him to find the closet by the front door and open it and take out the old man’s overcoat and slowly shrug him into it.

“You have helped,” said Jonathan Hughes. “You have told me to tell her I love her.”

“Yes, I did do that, didn’t I?”

They turned to the door.

“Is there hope for us?” the old man asked, suddenly, fiercely. “Yes. I’ll make sure of it,” said Jonathan Hughes. “Good, oh, good. I almost believe!”

The old man put one hand out and blindly opened the front door.

“I won’t say goodbye to her. I couldn’t stand looking at that lovely face. Tell her the old fool’s gone. Where? Up the road to wait for you. You’ll arrive someday.”

“To become you? Not a chance,” said the young man.

“Keep saying that. And—my God—here—” The old man fumbled in his pocket and drew forth a small object wrapped in crumpled newspaper. “You’d better keep this. I can’t be trusted, even now. I might do something wild. Here. Here.”

He thrust the object into the young man’s hands. “Goodbye. Doesn’t that mean: God be with you? Yes. Goodbye.”

The old man hurried down the walk into the night. A wind shook the trees. A long way off, a train moved in darkness, arriving or departing, no one could tell.

Jonathan Hughes stood in the doorway for a long while, trying to see if there really was someone out there vanishing in the dark.