Hazards of Time Travel by Joyce Carol Oates

Author:Joyce Carol Oates
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-10-02T16:00:00+00:00

Shelter

In silence Wolfman led me deeper into the interior of the museum.

Quickly I followed. I would have followed Ira Wolfman anywhere.

Like a sleepwalker who is but dimly aware of her surroundings but determined to behave as if she were in control of her movements, I followed.

Wolfman had come to me! I’d seen in his face a frowning smile, or half-smile—a pained sort of tenderness. He is risking his life for me, I thought.

I vowed then, I would love Wolfman with all my strength. I would die for Wolfman.

He knew the Van Buren Museum of Natural History, it seemed. He was not a stranger to its vast subterranean-seeming reaches. And he knew that I worked here—he must have made inquiries about me, to have such specific knowledge of my work hours.

Shyly I smiled at Wolfman. My heart was beating rapidly in my chest like a trapped bird!

Still without a word Wolfman took my hand, and pulled me gently—firmly—forward. His fingers clasped mine with startling familiarity. As in a dream of surpassing wonder and beauty we passed through rooms I had never seen before: entire walls festooned with songbirds perched on replicas of tree limbs, and a great flock of brightly colored warblers; a hall of “wetlands” creatures—rubbery stuffed frogs and toads, turtles of all sizes, snowy egrets perched on a single leg, mute swans, Canada geese, mallard ducks frozen in dark gelid ponds. Clinging to the underside of a tree trunk, a weak-eyed opossum. All these creatures seemed to be watching us, alerted by the life in our bodies.

Wolfman mouthed the words—Don’t speak! Not yet.

We passed through a display of large mammals of the American West—antelope, deer, buffalo, bison, mountain lions, bears (black, brown); a display that was an enormous whale skeleton, through which we walked furtively, eagerly. And there was an enlarged photograph of the gigantic creature, on a wall facing us. Where was Wolfman leading me? I felt dazed with happiness, or with dread. In my fantasies of Ira Wolfman I had not made out what we would say to each other, if we were truly alone together. How we would declare ourselves to each other, if we dared. I had not allowed myself to imagine Wolfman actually taking my hand.

I had not allowed myself to imagine Wolfman holding me, kissing me. My dreams of Wolfman had always faded at that point.

As if to obscure our trail Wolfman switched on and off lights as he led me through the museum.

At last we were in a remote corner of the museum, far from the entrance. Here was a dimly lighted room crowded with a miscellany of exhibits as if the museum curator had run out of space and despaired of his mission, like a distracted Creator, and had stored here crudely stuffed animals (small deer, lynx and bobcat, rodents) whose fur was matted and whose glass eyes were sunken in their sockets; trays of fossil rocks whose labels had peeled away; unidentified skulls and bones; and rattlesnakes coiled together on

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