Time Travelers Never Die (33 page)

IN
a sense, the genie was out of the box. After visiting the Library and the Alexandria Lighthouse and the Temple of Zeus, seeing them at their zenith, there was no way they could avoid dropping by to see the Colossus of Rhodes.

They arrived next day, just after sunrise. The Colossus was another majestic giant, this one dominating the harbor in the manner of the Statue of Liberty.

Dave couldn’t take his eyes from it. “Apollo?” he asked.

Shel shook his head. “Helios. The sun god.”

Ships were tied up around the port, and a frigate was just entering the harbor. At least Dave thought it was a frigate. He saw what looked like weapon racks on deck.

They found a café with a view of the waterfront and went inside. Dave had problems reading the menu, and they never did figure out what they’d ordered. There was scorched meat, and eggs—but not from chickens—and a reddish vegetable. It was served with a hot drink that had a lime taste. In all, not something to get excited about, but it didn’t matter. They were in an extravagant mood by then, and anything would have tasted good.

 

 

DURING
the next month, they visited the Great Pyramid at Giza, the Hanging Gardens, and returned to Rhodes for the Temple of Artemis. They were in the cheering crowds at Athens when Pheidippides arrived after a twenty-four-mile run, with news that the Athenians had beaten the Persians at Marathon, and driven them into the sea.

They couldn’t hear what Pheidippides said to those who’d hurried out to greet him, to catch him as he collapsed. But they knew the content. The danger was not over. The army was returning, but the city should prepare against the possibility of a new attack.

Pheidippides was carried away. If he in fact died, as the histories all say, he must have done it later. Because he was still breathing, and still talking, as he and his rescuers disappeared into the crowds.

On October 31, 1517, they were outside the castle church at Wit tenberg, waiting for Martin Luther to show up and nail
The Ninety-Five Theses
to the door. They were there more than two fruitless hours before Dave suggested they travel through to the morning to determine whether he’d actually performed the deed. They did, and he hadn’t.

“The date was never certain,” said Shel. “Should have thought of that earlier.” They tried the next day, though this time they checked the morning results first. Again, there was nothing.

It happened on the evening of November 3, at a little past nine o’clock in the evening. Dave and Shel were sheltered by a group of trees about fifty feet away from the church door when Luther arrived, a coat pulled around him to protect against the cold. They took pictures and resisted the inclination to shake his hand. “I like rebels,” said Dave.

 

 

THEY
spent two hours with Aristotle, pretending to be scholars from Rhodes (Shel’s idea of a joke), asking questions about the movement of the stars and listening sadly while he talked of the ether and stars and planets orbiting the Earth in a complex system of fifty-five spheres, which, remarkably, usually gave the right answers regarding what would be in the sky at any given time. And he knew the Earth was round. Although he thought it was permanent and unchanging.

Afterward, Shel shook his head: “I’ve never seen anyone so obviously brilliant who has everything so wrong.”

“It’s a time without science,” Dave said. “Nobody knows anything. I felt sorry for him. Trying to make sense of orbital mechanics with no telescope. That was what, 330 B.C.?”

“33
1
.”

“I think we should cut him a break.”

“Yeah. I was dying to tell him the sun is a star. That he’s thinking small.”

“That might be one more reason we shouldn’t be doing this. But you’re right. I was sitting there the whole time with one of the most famous guys in history. And I kept thinking, You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

WHERE
else would they like to go? Some of the more interesting events, Custer’s last stand, Pearl Harbor, Actium, Hastings, Waterloo, the Teutoburg Forest, all involved a degree of personal risk that neither was anxious to assume. “In any case,” said Shel, “you can’t really show up and watch the battle. Even if you didn’t have to spend all your time hiding behind a tree, you’d still not be able to see anything except a small segment of what was going on.”

Dave agreed. “How about the assassination of the archduke?”

They looked at each other. Ferdinand’s death in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, was unquestionably one of the pivotal events in world history. “But,” said Shel, “I’m not excited about watching somebody get killed.”

“Okay. Yeah, that’s a point. I’ll tell you what I’d like to do.”

“What’s that?”

“How about we go see
Hamlet
?”

Shel laughed. “See it on—”

“Opening day. Your father talked about seeing the first performance of
Lear
. We could go him one better.”

“When was that?”

They were at David’s place. He got up, walked over to the computer, and tapped the keys. “Somewhere around 1600 or 1601.”

“That’s the best we can do?”

“Nobody knows for sure. But
here’s
something interesting. Shakespeare never published his plays.”

“How do you mean?”

“They were performed. Not published. The plays we have today were apparently more or less copied. I guess by people at the Globe.”

“You know what?” said Shel. “We could go back and get the originals. Grab one of the scripts. It shouldn’t be that hard. He’s got to give them out to the actors.”

“And then do what with them? Send them to a Shakespearean scholar and ruin her reputation? Let’s just go watch the show.”

“Okay.”

“If we can find out when it was performed.”

THEY
needed several trips to get the exact date, April 11, 1601.

The Globe was an open-air amphitheater. Seats were arranged in sheltered compartments at three levels. They were expensive. Cheaper admission could be had into “the pit,” where the general audience had to stand, or sit, as conditions permitted.

The stage was about five feet off the ground. It projected out over the pit. Its rear was protected by a roof, which was supported by columns. The back wall had several doors and curtains, allowing the cast members to move onstage and offstage. It was a cool afternoon, and a substantial portion of the audience, especially in the pit, had brought food and alcohol along. “I wonder,” said Dave, “when the candy counter was invented?”

Several of the actors were handing out copies of the printed program.
HAMLET,
it said,
by William Shakespeare
. Dave looked at the cast. All were unfamiliar names, of course. Except one: The ghost was played by the author.

He folded it carefully and slipped it into a pocket.

Shel absentmindedly checked the time, and a young man sitting next to him gazed uncertainly at the watch. “What’s that?” he asked.

No point lying. “It tells time.”

“It’s a
clock
,” he said. “It’s really possible to make a clock you can strap to your wrist?”

Shel showed it to him. “It’s something new. Picked it up yesterday.”

“Where?” asked the young man. He looked to be in his midtwenties.

“Marboro Street, I think.” Shel turned to David. “It
was
Marboro, wasn’t it, Dave?”

Dave had no idea whether London even
had
a Marboro Street. “I think so,” he said.

“Excellent,” said the young man. “I have to get myself one of those. May I inquire your name, sir?”

“Adrian Shelborne.” He went on to introduce Dave.

“I’m pleased to meet you, gentlemen,” he said. “My name’s Ben Jonson.”

Dave almost fell out of his chair. When he recovered, he extended his hand. “The author of
Every Man in His Humour
?”

Jonson smiled. “The same.”

“Excellent. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Thank you very much.”

“Your work is exquisite.”

“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Dryden.”

“My friends call me Dave.”

Somewhere a horn sounded, followed by the mournful wail of a flute. Onstage, a military guard appeared and began walking his post. The flute died away. Something creaked.

The guard turned in the direction of the sound. “Who’s there?”

 

 

THE
production ran more than four hours. Dave tried to imagine a twenty-first-century audience, many with no chairs, enduring a performance of that length.

When he’d first looked at conditions in the theater, and saw the crowd bringing in beer and food, he’d expected a noisy, raucous evening. But once the show started, the audience became surprisingly attentive, and when necessary, they policed themselves.

It was hard to get a good look at the playwright. The ghost wore a long dark robe, and his features were hidden within the folds of a black hood.

There were no breaks between the acts. The show simply rolled on. But the audience was involved from the start. They watched breathlessly when the ghost appeared, and waited in expectant silence while Hamlet contemplated killing Claudius at the altar. They seemed relieved when he backed off. They roared with laughter at the idiotic Polonius, who gave everyone endless advice on how to behave. One of the loudest reactions of the night was provoked by his long-winded observation that brevity was the soul of wit.

They cheered when Hamlet stabbed him through the curtains, and groaned when Ophelia turned up dead.

They sat riveted during the mass bloodletting at the finale, and were silent during the closing moments as Horatio expressed his hope that they could learn from the debacle, and Fortinbras paid a final tribute to Hamlet. The bodies were carried off to a dirge. And somewhere a cannon fired.

The actors took their bows to wild, and moderately inebriated, applause. Shakespeare, while onstage, remained hidden within the ghost’s raiment. And finally the crowd began filing out.

 

 

STAFF
people, or somebody, showed up with brew and food for the cast, and they celebrated backstage. Dave and Shel said good-bye to Ben Jonson and headed for the party. But there were stagehands posted at all approaches. “Nobody allowed back here except the cast,” one of them said. He wasn’t quite as big as Dave, but he looked considerably more willing to do what was necessary.

“We’re friends of Mr. Shakespeare’s,” said Shel.

“Are y’ now?” he said in a Scottish brogue. “And what’s your name?”

“Ben Jonson,” said Shel.

The stagehand laughed. “Yer no more Ben Jonson than I am. Go on, now; y’ must have better things to do than hang around here.”

Shel and Dave backed off but stayed close enough to watch for actors leaving the theater. “I’m a little nervous about this one,” Dave said.

There were several who resembled what Shakespeare was supposed to have looked like. They had two misfires before striking gold. “Yes,” he said. “I’m Will Shakespeare. Hope you enjoyed the show.”

Then he was carried off by his friends. Shel called after him: “It was good, Will. Really good.”

They watched him disappear.

“Well,” said Dave, “that was certainly worth the wait.”

Shel smiled. “At least we got to see him.”

“You know,” Dave said, “I assume eventually we’ll get to see Einstein.”

“Maybe.”

“When we do, are we going to call him ‘Al’?”

“Hey,” said Shel, “it was the way he introduced himself.”

“I know.” Dave smiled. “We could tell him that relativity is good.”

“Okay,” said Shel. “Let it go.”

“
Really
good, Al.”

Awake, my heart, and sing!