"Why, Grandpa got back yesterday."

"Oh. May I speak to him, Miss Nancy?"

"But he's not here, either. He went downtown hours ago. He might be at his chess club. Do you want to leave a message for him?"

"No. Just tell him I called...and will call again later. And, Miss Nancy-don't worry."

"How can I help worrying?"

"I have second sight. Don't tell anyone but it's true; an old gypsy woman saw that I had it and proved it to me. Your father is coming home and will not be hurt in this war. I know."

"Uh...I don't know whether to believe that or not-but it does make me feel better."

"It's true." He said good-bye gently, and hung up.

"Chess club-" Surely Gramp would not be loafing in a pool hail today? But since it was just across the street, he might as well see...before driving out to Benton and waiting in sight of the house for him to return.

Gramp was there, at the chess table but not even pretending to work a chess problem; he was simply glowering.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Johnson."

Gramp looked up. "What's good about it? Sit down, Ted."

"Thank you, sir." Lazarus slid into the other chair. "Not much good about it, I suppose."

"Eh?" The old man looked at him as if just noticing his presence. "Ted, would you say that I was a man in good physical condition?"

"Yes, certainly."

"Able to shoulder a gun and march twenty miles a day?"

"I would think so." (I'm sure you could, Gramp.)

"That's what I told that young smart-alec at the recruiting station. He told me I was too old!" Ira Johnson looked ready to break into tears. "I asked him since when was forty-five too old?-and he told me to move aside, I was holding up the line. I offered to step outside and whip him and any two other men he picked. And they put me out, Ted, they put me out!" Gramp covered his face with his hands, then took them down and muttered, "I was wearing Army Blue before that snotty little shikepoke learned to pee standing up."

"I'm sorry, sir."

"My own fault. I fetched along my discharge...and forgot about its having my birth date on it. Look, Ted, if I dyed my hair and went back to St. Looie-or Joplin-that would work...wouldn't it?"

"Probably." (I know it didn't, Gramp...but I think you did manage to talk your way into the Home Guard. But I can't tell you that.)

"I'll do it! But I'll leave my discharge at home."

"In the meantime may I drive you home? My Tin Lizzie is around in back."

"Well...I suppose I've got to go home-eventually."

"How about a little spin out Paseo to cool off first?"

"That's a n'idee. If it won't put you out?"

"Not at all."

Lazarus drove around, keeping silent, until the old man's fuming stopped. When Lazarus noted this, he headed back and turned east on thirty-first Street, and parked. "Mr. Johnson, may I say something?"

"Eh? Speak up."

"If they won't take you-even with your hair dyed-I hope you won't feel too bad about it. Because this war is a terrible mistake."

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I said." (How much to tell him? How much can I get him to believe? I can't hold back altogether-this is Gramp...who taught me to shoot, and a thousand other things. But what will he believe?) "This, war won't do the slightest good; it will just make things worse."

Gramp stared at him, under knotted brows. "What are you, Ted? Pro-German?"

"No."

"Pacifist, maybe? Come to think about it, you've never had one word to say about the war."

"No, I'm not a pacifist. And I'm not pro-German. But if we win this war-"

"You mean 'When we win this war!'"

"All right, 'when we win this war,' it will turn out that we've actually lost it. Lost everything we thought we were fighting for."

Mr. Johnson abruptly changed tactics. "When are you enlisting?"

Lazarus hesitated. "I've got a couple of things I must do first."

"I thought that might be your answer, Mr. Bronson. Good-bye!" Gramp fumbled with the door latch, cursed, and stepped over onto the running board, thence to the curb.

Lazarus said, "Gramp! I mean 'Mr. Johnson.' Let me finish running you home. Please!"

His grandfather paused just long enough to look back and say, "Not on your tintype...you pusillanimous piss-ant." Then he marched steadily down the street to the car stop.

Lazarus waited and watched Mr. Johnson climb aboard; then he trailed the trolley car, unwilling to admit that there was nothing he could do to correct the shambles he had made of his relations with Gramp. He watched the old man get off at Benton Boulevard, considered overtaking him and trying to speak to him.

But what could he say? He understood how Gramp felt, and why-and he had already said too much and no further words could call it back or correct it. He drove aimlessly on down Thirty-first Street.

At Indiana Avenue he parked his car, bought a Star from a newsboy, went into a drugstore, sat down at the soda fountain, ordered a cherry phosphate to justify his presence, looked at the newspaper.

But was unable to read it- Instead he stared at it and brooded.

When the soda jerk wiped the marble counter in front of him and lingered, Lazarus ordered another phosphate. When this happened a second time,. Lazarus asked to use a telephone.

"Home or Bell?"

"Home."

"Back of the cigar counter and you pay me.'~

"Brian? This is Mr. Bronson. May I speak to your mother?"

"I'll go see,"

But it was his grandfather's voice that came on the line: "Mr. Bronson, your sheer effrontery amazes me. What do you want?"

"Mr. Johnson, I want to speak to Mrs. Smith-"

"You can't."

"-because she has been very kind to me and I Want to thank her and say good-bye."

"One moment-" He heard his grandfather say, "George, get out. Brian, take Woodie with you and close the door and see that it stays closed." Mr. Johnson's voice then came back closer: "Are you still there?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then listen carefully and don't interrupt; I'm going to say this just once."

"Yes, sir."

"My daughter will not speak to you, now or ever-" Lazarus said quickly, "Does she know that I asked to speak to her?"

"Shut up! Certainly she knows. She asked me to deliver that message. Or I would not have spoken to you myself. Now I too have a message for you-and don't interrupt. My daughter is a respectable married woman whose husband has answered his country's call. So don't hang around her. Don't come here or you'll be met with a shotgun. Don't telephone. Don't go to her church. Maybe you think I can't make this stick. Let me remind you that this is Kansas City. Two broken arms cost twenty-five dollars; for twice that they'll kill you. But for a combined deal-break your arms first and then kill you-there's a discount. I can afford sixty-two fifty if you make it necessary. Understand me?"

"Yes."

"So twenty-three skidoo!"

"Hold it! Mr. Johnson, I do not believe that you would hire a man to kill another man-"

"You had better not risk it."

"-because I think you would kill him yourself."

There was a pause. Then the old man chuckled slightly. "You may be right." He hung up on Lazarus.

Lazarus cranked his car and drove away. Presently he found that he was driving west on Linwood Boulevard, noticed it because he passed his family's church. Where he had first seen Maureen- Where he would never see her again.

Not ever! Not even if he came back again and tried to avoid the mistakes he had made-there were no paradoxes. Those mistakes were unalterably part of the fabric of space-time, and all of the subtleties of Andy's mathematics, all of the powers built into the Dora, could not erase them.