The Mirror That Time Forgot by Paul Smith

Berghoff’s is a great place to eat, drink and remember. I come here fairly often, usually to ogle our bartender, Jackie, an authoritative girl. I’ve noticed other things, too, like how the glasses are stacked behind the bar, in front of the mirror. Staring at the reflection of these rows of glasses stacked upside down, I concluded that there was a deeper, broader meaning than the simple placement of glassware. Maybe it represented closure. Maybe it represented that people close themselves off so that nothing could ‘fall’ into them, or ‘befall’ them, and this was Berghoff’s way of reminding people at the bar, in front of those mirrors, that although drinking a glass or two was pleasant, there was always the danger of excess leading to a dead-end. And I liked how I could look at things without being seen, through the mirror’s reflection, things behind me. Last time here, I watched a man about my age with a brisk disposition and a long line of blarney try his bunk with Jackie, a girl I had fancied and had hoped would fall into my lap. He did it without success, without access. Jackie, I had observed, was a clever girl who could keep customers at arms’ length easily. After five minutes of his claptrap, I watched through the mirror as his reflection walked away discouraged. Unpleasantness, if it’s familiar enough, can be comforting.

Here I was again, with a new thirst, as well as that old one for her, but that, like an empty glass upside down, was kept in my shirt pocket, invisible to all. I wanted a glass of da Vinci Chianti. A signal to Jackie was all it took.

Above the bar-length mirror were more things I liked. There was a series of wood panels of pastoral scenes—fields, meadows, European woods, glades that made you relax. Above those panels were walls painted in Medieval or ancient scenes of ruins, coliseums, a line of arbor vitae trees sadly lined up in front of a hill. They cheered me on as I raised my glass, reminding me of my last visit here, when Jackie served me and turned away the talkative stranger in the gabardine overcoat.

It was then that I noticed it. I looked at the glasses more closely in front of the mirror. The glasses themselves were not stacked upside down. They were upright.

But the reflection in the mirror was of empty glasses, stacked upside down. This was a freak of nature, something inexplicable. I got Jackie’s attention. I pointed to the glasses.

“Something is wrong with them,” I said.

She leaned over and whispered confidentially. “It’s not the glasses. It’s the mirror.” Her voice rustled like a drapery held over a coffin with two jugglers inside. Or maybe with one man who’d had his jugular pried open. One or the other.

“The mirror,” I repeated. How could a mirror do that? Given the circumstances, and my overall attitude towards Berghoff’s, I asked, “Entropy?”

“No,” she whispered. “They got it on sale.”

“The mirror is poorly made,” I concurred.

“When it was new, it was a good mirror, but it simply stopped working. It doesn’t reflect what’s in front of me anymore. I mean, it doesn’t reflect what’s in front of it anymore. A mirror takes in fractals, composes them, and then shoots them back as reflections. Kind of like the hokey-pokey:

‘You take the fractals in

You take the fractals out

You put the fractals in

And shake them all about

You put the fractals in

You put the fractals out

That’s what quantum physics fractal theory is all about!’

At which point, she shook her head and body, causing her pigtail to oscillate voluptuously. “The problem is the fricking fractured fractals.”

“I thought it was the mirror,” I said.

“Oh, yeah, the mirror, or maybe it was photons. That’s what Einstein said, or Gottlieb or Sacco and Vanzetti. Anyway, the mirror is influencing everything around here. It reflects what it saw weeks ago, months ago, whatever it liked. When were you here last?”

“Two months, three days.”

“On a Tuesday.”

“Yes! Yes! You remember!”

“How could I not? That man was here.”

“That glib gabardine fellow.”

“I couldn’t stand him.”

“I couldn’t either. When you turned him away, I was so happy.”

“The mirror,” she pointed. “Now, the rest.” She pointed to one of the wood panels, where a young boy had been tossing a ball in the air alongside a pretty girl in a jester suit. Now I noticed a tired look on the boy, and the ball was no longer in the air. It rested in his lap. The girl was now sticking her tongue out at him. “See?” Jackie said.

I looked up above the wood panels, where I had seen those ancient ruins. The buildings now were further decayed, just heaps of stone rubble, where there had been Ionian or Corinthian columns. I was dismayed. “I want it to be like it was!” I exclaimed.

“Look in the mirror, then!” she said. I did, and behind me the man came back, the man she’d turned away. His reflection was clear. This was a true mirror, a mirror that spoke the truth about the past and the present, a mirror that gave a clear picture of all our memories and desires, desires we hide from everyone else, our deepest needs that had to be satisfied. The man approached and spoke to Jackie.

“Is this old coot bothering you?” he asked her.

“No, he’s harmless.”

“Want me to get rid of him for you? He’s been hanging around here all day.”

“He comes here and drinks. He’s lonely.”

“I’m lonely, too. Want some company?”

“No, you’d be a big bother.”

“You mean a big brother.”

“No. Bother. You’re bothering me now. Scram.”

“I thought we could be friends.”

“We’re friends. Now, beat it.”

“OK, but if the old guy gets frisky, call me.”

“Sure.”

He gave me a look. “What are you looking at, you old codger?”

I stared at my reflection in the mirror, my back to him. “I’m looking through you,” I said, repeating a song line I once heard and liked. It meant that he really wasn’t there. I spun around on my bar stool to confront him. He was gone. The mirror had done its job, had stirred up memories of longing, regret, but most of all— familiarity.

I looked at Jackie. “Great mirror,” I said.

“Another one?” she asked. What did she mean—the Chianti and nothing else? Maybe this was my big chance.

“Jackie,” I stammered, “I’ve been thinking about us, you and me.”

As she stood in front of the mirror with her back to it, she smiled. It was a radiant smile, like the sun emerging from behind a cloud, full, yet distant. Jackie smiled a smile meant to keep us away, me and the gabardine coat fellow. It was not a reflection of her, but of Berghoff’s, where we were all welcomed to dine and drink, but nothing more. She held up a glass to show that all she meant was the da Vinci Chianti. The glass was upside down. Alas!

“Oh,” I nodded. “I must go back to my room.” The boy tossing the ball in his lap nodded back. Somewhere Mr. Berghoff nodded. The girl in the wood panel withdrew her tongue and nodded. The empty glasses, stacked upside down tinkled joyously and nodded. Everyone and everything affirmed what I knew. The comfort of familiarity overpowers everything else. The passage of time is like a balm or a salve, inverting the past so it looks better than it was. I waved to the mirror, but it did not wave back. It just stared at me. That was alright.

I put on my worsted wool trenchcoat and made for the door. The mirror was at a standstill. I could come back in two months and three days and by looking in the mirror still think I had a chance with her. How nice to have something to look forward to!