"She was living in a New York hotel. One evening she left her room with the light burning and a page of unfinished handwriting on the table. She was never seen again. It is known that she went to meet a Communist friend in Central Park and that he had decoyed her there as part of a G.P.U. trap. She was pushed into an automobile and two men drove her off.
- Whittaker Chambers, Witness (1952):
I write historical fiction, but it’s not like I make a fortune at it. You can find my short stories here and there on the internet, a couple of novels from small publishers and a bunch more self-published on Amazon. Even if I’m not in it for the money, I take the work seriously and do a hell of a lot of research to make sure I have my facts correct.
Here’s my method. I find a subject that interests me, some forgotten figure from history, almost always an old-time Leftist. Then I go to the place where the person was active and kind of absorb the vibes. It’s a way of stimulating my imagination. I don’t expect to meet their ghost or anything, and it doesn’t always work. Take last week, for example. I went to the corner of 15th Street and Fifth Avenue, the exact spot where the anarchist Carlo Tresca was gunned down in 1943. I was thinking of writing about him, trying to decide if the trigger man was a communist, a fascist or a mafia guy, but nothing came to me. That happens a lot, but I don’t give up. I don’t believe writer’s block is a real thing.
So, that’s why I took the Q into Manhattan yesterday. My goal was 353 West 57th, a building that was the American Women’s Hotel back in the 1930s, a respectable place for single women. First thing I noticed about the building in 2023 was that there was no 353 entrance, just a 340 and a 350, and a new Frenchified name: Parc Vendome. A quick check of my phone showed that even a studio in this nondescript building now went for 850k.
I was hoping to visualize a woman who had walked out of the hotel on a late afternoon in June, 1937 and simply disappeared. Her name was Juliet Stuart Poyntz and I had read everything I could find on her life. She came to New York to study at Barnard, married a rich German, ran educational programs for a couple of unions, was a founding member of the U.S. Communist party, head of its women’s division, possibly an agent for Stalin’s secret police…the list goes on. What interested me most was her reported conversation with the above-mentioned Carlo Tresca and his claim that she had been kidnapped and murdered by assassins sent from Moscow.
I was standing there taking pictures with my iPhone when I heard a kind of moaning sound. Turning my head, I saw a woman holding her hands to her face. When she lowered her arms and I could see her face, I felt a huge shock. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind. I had seen pictures of her on the internet.
I immediately recalled the words with which Whittaker Chambers, my go-to author for that era, had described her: “a heavy-set, dark, softly feminine woman in her late forties.”
“Juliet?” I said. “Miss Poyntz?”
“Are you…” she started to say. “What has…I mean to say…who?”
I stared into her terrified eyes and pronounced the name of the man whom Tresca said had lured her out of the tiny room where she had hidden for weeks: “Schachno Epstein.”
A smile appeared and vanished. “Who? Why isn’t he here? Has something happened to him?”
“He’s fine,” I assured her. It was obvious to me that some kind of time warp had occurred. In the course of my extensive historical research, I had come to believe that such things were possible.
If this woman was indeed waiting for her onetime lover, Schachno Epstein, who could she be but Juliet Poyntz? Who else would even recognize the name of the totally forgotten Epstein, who had shuttled back and forth between Russia and the U.S. under a variety of names, doing the dirtiest of work for Stalin, setting up other people for the kill, never pulling the trigger himself?
By the time Juliet was finally reported as missing by her supposed friends in the Party, Epstein and his even more vicious partner had long since vanished, probably back to Russia. Were it not for the revelations of Tresca to the New York Times, the sinister role played by Stalin’s agents in her disappearance would never have been known.
“You know George Mink.” I pronounced the second name and were I given to melodrama, I would say that a shudder passed over her frame. Mink was Stalin’s favorite assassin and had sent to their deaths hundreds of fellow communists suspected of less than slavish devotion to the dictator.
“Mink?” she managed to say at the very moment that I thought I saw out of the corner of my eye a 1936 green Model Y Checkers Taxi sliding along 8th avenue. How was that possible?
“Let’s walk,” I said, “and I will explain everything.” As she took my arm and we proceeded east on 57th, the green taxi reappeared in my peripheral vision, only to vanish when I glanced quickly back over her shoulder.
As we passed a nail salon, I took the time to note how she was dressed and was surprised that there was nothing distinctively 1937 about her style. True, she wore khaki trousers of the kind Amelia Earhart might have worn but those pants had never gone out of style. And she wore a man’s blue shirt which could be from any era. Her hair was short and no jewelry was evident. I reminded myself that she was a dedicated communist and not one to waste time on bourgeois frills, but still, she certainly didn’t look like the time traveler she was.
Her heightened state of agitation, of course, was revealing. Only moments before I saw her, she had pushed through a revolving door and suddenly found herself on a 57th Street that was utterly different from the one she knew.
She had stopped on the sidewalk and was staring up at the forest of office and residential towers that surrounded us in every direction. “Did someone send you?” she asked.
I nodded. Her grip on my arm tightened. What was I to do? How long would she be able to stay in this time? Could she be snatched back to that summer evening 86 years earlier when she was walking this same street toward the park, anticipating the joy of reunion with her lover, only to find herself face-to-face with the monstrous George Mink?
The ancient green taxi reappeared in my peripheral vision, vanishing once again before I could be certain it had ever been there. Was the filmy web between the past and present dissolving? Would she be gone in an instant? Or would we both be suddenly transported to the streets of a New York where certain death awaited her? And possibly even me?
“Epstein is not what you think he is,” I said, but she didn’t seem to hear me.
“He is a coward,” I said. Again, no response. But I could see her eyes widen as she took in what could only be incredibly different surroundings.
“What is European Wax?” she asked me, pointing across the street.
“Some kind of beauty treatment,” I muttered. “Something favored by the women of the capitalist class.”
“Not floor polish?”
“No, not floor polish.”
“And New York Road Runners?” she pointed again. “Why does it say ‘Worn by anyone?”
“I think it’s a brand of sneakers.”
“Sneakers?”
“A kind of shoe, I think.” I had to convince her of the danger she was in. “But listen, Juliet. Or Miss Poyntz, I should say. Epstein is a coward. He has been assigned to lure you out of your hotel.”
“What?” Her eyes were still fixed on the shops that lined the street. She was looking at a sign advertising cooking classes at Sur la table.
“Let’s sit for a moment.” I steered her into one of those small parks that real estate developers donate to the public in return for violating our air space with their horrendous constructions. Once she was seated, I took both her hands and tried to draw her attention to my words. “Do you recall speaking with Carlo Tresca?”
“Carlos. You know Carlos?”
“Carlo,” I corrected. “Carlo Tresca. Your friend, the anarchist.”
In that instant I saw a glimpse of the powerful political operative she had been for decades. It seemed that she focused on me for the first time. I told her my name and related to her what Tresca had told the New York Times months after her disappearance, namely that she had come out of Russia in early 1937 totally disillusioned with Stalin. “He said that you had notes for a book condemning Stalin’s murder of all the comrades who had built the Revolution.”
“Yes,” she said, “I have had the thought that I will write a book.”
I could see from her eyes that she was becoming suspicious of me. The effect of the new surroundings was wearing off, perhaps. I had to speak even more convincingly if I were to save her. “Juliet, you must believe me. Simply look around at how this city has changed and you will know I am not lying. Somehow, on the very day that you were to be killed by George Mink, you stepped out of the women’s hotel in 1937 and came here to 2023.”
“I’ve been drugged.” She stood up quickly and nearly fell. I helped back to the concrete seat. “I’ve heard about people like…”
“I believe Schachno Epstein to be waiting for you outside the hotel in 1937.”
“Drugged. Yes, I’ve been drugged.” She looked at me with terror in her eyes. I told her repeatedly that I was a friend and that she could be saved from Mink if she listened to me.
“I cannot be sure how long you will be here in 2023,” I said as forcefully as I could.. “For the moment you are safe, but you may suddenly find yourself back in your own time.” She stood up again, became dizzy once more, and returned to the seat.
“Or Mink and Epstein may appear in this time.” Thinking again that I saw the green taxi, I helped Juliet to her feet and walked quickly toward Seventh Avenue. I led her into the CVS on the corner in case we were truly being followed. Was that green taxi even real?
For a few moments, she was distracted by the lavish displays of unfamiliar merchandise, including stacks of Covid test kits and Pampers. Exiting the store, I directed us toward Columbus Circle, thinking we could catch a subway to a distant part of the city. The subway system was one feature of life that had probably changed the least in 80 years and might make her feel more comfortable in our time.
As we approached Columbus Circle, Juliet became more and more the highly original Marxist thinker that history recorded her to be. “All is possible,” she declared.
“Yes, I warmly agreed, “and more than possible.”
“I will soon be back where I started.”
“As I said.”
“Tell me.” We had stopped, waiting for a Walk signal at 58th Street. “Tell me about Carlos. Is he still in that building?”
“Building?” I was puzzled for only a split second before realizing that she must have been referring to the offices of his weekly Italian language newspaper. I had to give her the facts quickly. “Carlo said, and it was later backed up by a Soviet defector, that Epstein lured you into Central Park at dusk. A car pulled alongside you on the park drive and the two men forced you into the car. Mink immediately strangled you.”
“Strangled?” She looked at me with an unusual expression, but who wouldn’t be dismayed on hearing the news of their own murder. “Me?” she asked.
“According to Carlo, they buried you on the grounds of Rockefeller’s Estate in Westchester. It’s a state park now.”
I was surprised to hear her laugh, a reaction I could not account for.
I was busy scanning the crowds to make certain no one had come after us out of 1937. “The smart move now is to take the subway to an outer borough, like Brooklyn. If Mink or Epstein or anyone else comes through time in pursuit, my guess is that they will appear in this immediate area where it all happened. If we can get you to Brooklyn, I believe you will be safe.”
We paused in front of the mall at Columbus Circle. I saw her look up at the sign Deutsche Bank Center and shake her head with an ironic smile. And then everything began to blur. I saw two men coming our way. Where was the green taxi? The very old green taxi? They were coming toward us. They were between us and the subway entrance.
“Quick, Juliet!” I shouted. I ran toward the taxi line, pulling her by the arm. I pushed her into a yellow cab, pressing a hundred dollar bill on the driver. I gave him an address in Brooklyn and turned to face her pursuers.
The two men walked past, as if they could not see me at all.
Michael Cooney has published poetry in *Badlands, Second Chance Lit, Bitter Oleander, Big Windows Review *and other journals. His short stories have appeared recently in *Sundial Magazine, Bandit Fiction* and *Cerasus *and his novella “The Witch Girl & The Wobbly” was published by Running Wild Press in 2021. A second novela, “A Good Catholic Girl,” is scheduled for publication in 2023.