“What is it?”

“Let me see George now. See what he looks like physically. I know that’ll help. Can I? Will you let me?”

“Yes.”

Although surprised at how quickly he acceded to my request, I still made a fist and punched it triumphantly into the air. “Yes! Let’s go.” I started again toward the hotel.

“We don’t need to walk there, Mr. McCabe—unless you want to.”

“Are you kidding? The less I use these bum legs the better.”

“Good.” He looked at the sky. I looked too. Abruptly I was no longer looking at the blue Viennese sky but at a white sconce on a ceiling. My eyes rushed down to find George in this room, wherever that was. I was sure once I saw him—

On a large bed covered with a gold-and-white spread was Old Vertue, alive. No question about it. Like everything else, the dog was frozen—in a sitting position. But its eyes were open and looked alert. I couldn’t help smiling at the old son of a bitch. I had grown even fonder of it after what we’d been through together. Now here it was yet again, brought back this time by my friend. Where had it been all these years? Where had George found it? I felt a great urge to go over and pat its nondead head, but first things first—where was George?

The room was large and elegant, similar to the one Susan and I occupied, only this one was much grander in every way. I walked around looking for any sign of life—a book by the side of the bed, an open suitcase, a wallet or passport on the dresser. But there was nothing—no sign of anyone, much less George Dalemwood. Other than Old Vertue perched on the bed, this room gave the feeling it had been empty a long time. It held the smell of old suitcases and laundered sheets, room freshener was somewhere in there too.

I walked into the bathroom but it felt even emptier. No kit bag sat next to the tub. The water glasses were all unused and turned upside down on the shelf above the sink. No toothbrush / paste laid out, no shaving things all in a row. On a hunch I touched the towels. None was damp. Each was neatly folded and evenly spaced on the stainless steel drying bars.

I lowered the toilet seat lid and sat on it. I put my elbows on my knees and my chin in my palms. For some inexplicable reason my gums began to ache, and I was again reminded of how old and ornery my body was. Looking through the door at the dog on the bed, I tried to figure the whole thing out. On first realizing the room was empty, I thought George must be with Floon. Both were waiting somewhere for us to return. Why then would Astopel bring me here? What was the point if George wasn’t here? My view into the bedroom included Astopel’s foot sliding back and forth over the carpet near the door. He’d been silent since we materialized here but that hadn’t struck me till now. I started touching my singed eyebrows again.

His foot stopped. “Are you ready to go?”

My hand stopped. “What do you mean?”

“Is there anything else you’d like to do here?”

“Yes—see George.” My voice, whining, echoed off the walls.

The pause that followed was a long one. “Could you come in here a moment, Mr. McCabe?” Astopel’s voice was patient and earnest, as if he were a father having to slow down a lesson so that his young child could understand.

“Oh my God!” I said to myself, to the walls, the sink, and the silence of that empty room. The bathroom floor was made up of row after gleaming row of black and white ceramic tiles. They played tricks on your eyes when you stared at them too long. I closed mine and made tight fists in my lap.

What was going on had abruptly come clear to me and now I was stalling for time. I tightened my fists until both arms shook. When I returned to the other room I would confirm what I already knew. The moment that happened, my world would become an entirely different place. Magda’s mother used to say life is short but very wide. For me it had just grown about as wide as this human’s mind could stand. But stand I did and walk out of there because I had to see for myself.

His back to me, Astopel held a gold curtain aside and stared out the window. Over his shoulder, blinding sunlight reflected off the glass facade of a building across the street. The glare made me glance away. I looked at the dog. Mistrust took over and I thought Old Vertue was smiling. At what? Because he was glad to see me? Because of how things had turned out? At the fact I’d finally gotten the point?

“Did you do this?” I asked Astopel’s back. Silently I willed him to turn around and acknowledge me. He didn’t.

“No, Mr. McCabe. I’m only here to show you things, not interfere.”

“It’s George there, isn’t it? That dog is George.”

“That’s right.”

“Can you tell me why?”

“He and Mr. Floon recently collaborated on an experiment with a new drug they invented in one of Floon’s laboratories. You see the results.” He let the curtain drop but did not turn around. “Does that make things any clearer?”

When I awoke I was in bed with Magda. The sun was streaming in the window, which meant it was early morning. Our bedroom faced east, and Magda, who was very much a morning person, liked to say sunlight was the alarm clock in this house. She lay with her head turned toward me on my outstretched arm. She was smiling. My wife often smiled in her sleep. She also gave me kisses in her sleep but when she woke up said she didn’t remember doing it. I was home. I was with my wife who was alive and smiling. Another day had passed. I had five left.

My last memory of the other place (as I came to think of it) was reaching out to touch Old Vertue/George Dalemwood on its frozen-in-place head. But at the last moment I hesitated because I was afraid. Yes I, Mr. Courageous, was afraid to pet a dog. I’d asked Astopel if it was all right to do it. Not even bothering to turn from the window, he said only “Why not?” His tone of voice sounded more like “Who cares?”

I reached out to pet the dog but stopped. Then I felt something heavy on my arm. Then I was back in bed with my wife and my life and all this confounding strife.

Normally I loved to lay in bed in the morning, barely awake, letting my still-sleepy brain simmer. Loved to lie next to Magda McCabe and watch her sleeping smile and smell her. She was the sweetest-smelling human being who ever lived. I could never get enough of her odor. Even when she was hot and sweaty after a ten-mile bicycle ride in the middle of August this woman smelled delicious. What is more gratifying than to lie next to your partner in your own bed mornings, thoughts just beginning to take shape, sharp-edged early light coming through the window and warming a patch of floor where your shoes are mixed with hers from the night before? What is more fulfilling than waking to your own satisfying life with someone treasured next to you? What more could we ask for and not be ashamed?

But that morning I shot up out of bed like I’d been launched by a catapult. I had so much to do and no idea of how to do it. Or even where to begin. And I was ravenously hungry. Atomically, tidalwavedly hungry. Never in my life had my stomach felt emptier. Was it because of what had been happening to me? Did time travel use up more calories than a day of normal clock time?

I walked toward the kitchen wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts, assuming my stepdaughter wouldn’t be up for hours, as was her habit. I was thinking scrambled eggs and many pieces of bacon, cold tart orange juice that stung the tongue and enough hot coffee to float my eyeballs. I was thinking hot cinnamon buns—when the doorbell rang. I looked at my watch but saw I wasn’t wearing it. They had thought of everything, whoever they were. I always took off the watch before going to sleep. I was certain if I returned to the bedroom now and looked at my night table it would be there. The watch Astopel had taken from me. The watch that meant absolutely nothing anymore because time was no longer a highway going from A to B, but rather an amusement park with too many nauseating rides.