Time and Again

Katherine “Kate” Mancuso is Si’s girlfriend through most of the story, at least nominally. She has brown hair, brown eyes, and freckles. She owns an antique store and is an orphan as both of her foster parents recently died. Though she is not actively involved in large sections of the plot, she is still a fully realized character with interests and motivations of her own.

Kate is a catalyst of the main conflict because she tells Si about her foster father’s father, Andrew Carmody; his suicide; and the mysterious letter he left behind. The letter represents the central mystery and conflict of the novel. Si would never have been consumed with curiosity about January 1882 if Kate had not made him aware of the letter. Both she and Si embody the theme of curiosity. She is just as curious about the mystery as he is and encourages him to push forward even as the risks grow larger and larger. She gains satisfaction when Si returns to tell her the full story of Pickering and Carmody.

Though she seems to enjoy Si’s company, she is not any more invested in their relationship than he is. When he breaks off the relationship in preparation to return to Julia, she does not seem hurt. Ironically, early in the novel, Rube comments that he might like and trust her even more than he trusts Si, and readers may wonder if she would have made the same choices Si does in the end.

Maj. Ruben “Rube” Prien, like Kate, is a catalyst for the plot and Si’s development, as he is the one who first approaches Si about the project. Rube is bald, short, and in his mid-thirties. Though Si initially thinks he might be a salesman, he also has the distinct look and bearing of a military man. He was also a former football player before joining the Army.

Rube is friendly and charming, able to disarm Si’s suspicions and distrust surprisingly quickly. He is also perceptive and able to read things about Si he may not be aware of himself, such as when he claims that Si has already decided to join the project even if he cannot admit to himself. As the story progresses, the shine of Rube’s charm and friendliness slowly gives way to reveal a hard, commanding man underneath.

The more Si pushes against the mandate of the project and questions the ethics of what they’re doing, the more Rube becomes intense and intimidating. He believes in the rightness of what he, and by extension the government, are doing. It also becomes clear that he has more power over the project council than Si had any idea of. While Pickering is the primary antagonist of the novel, Rube and Esterhazy share an antagonistic position in the narrative, particularly as Si comes to understand the full nature of their plans.

Oscar Rossoff is a doctor and psychologist from Johns Hopkins and the lead medical staff member of the project. He assesses all the candidates, both physically and mentally, to ensure they are a good fit for the experiments. He is young and dark-haired, with a thin mustache, and friendly nature. He is genuinely enthusiastic about the project.

Though Rossoff disappears from the narrative in the second half of the novel, his involvement is important in the beginning. Rossoff’s use of hypnosis first allows Si, and the other experimenters, to successfully shift into the past. Because he teaches Si self-hypnosis, Si is able to complete the other trips by himself and eventually even bring Julia along with him.

Dr. E. E. Danziger, the director of the time travel project, is described in especially rich detail: He is in his mid-sixties, over six feet tall, and “thin and lanky”; has large hands; and wears an “old-style double-breasted tan suit” (37). He is a physicist and is brilliant, driven, and inspired. He is also the one who first theorized the method of time travel that the project is trying to prove. Though he is a scientist driven by curiosity and discovery, he possesses a moral compass and an idea of the lines he will not cross in the pursuit of answers.

It is this hard limit, this belief in the right and wrongness of a thing, that causes him to object to the project council’s decisions and resign from the project he created. In the face of the possible risks of time travel, he decides that they have gone far enough and demands they stop. In this way, he is a foil to Colonel Esterhazy. He is also the voice of reason in the novel, particularly for Si, who initially disregards the risks but eventually realizes that Danziger is right. Ironically, because Danziger is right about the risks of time travel, he is doomed in the narrative. When Danziger demands that Si promise to stop Esterhazy and Rube, he is in essence demanding his own eradication from history.

Colonel Esterhazy is a direct foil to Danziger. Whereas Danziger is a scientist driven by discovery, Esterhazy is a military man driven by power. Whereas Danziger is cautious and conscientious, Esterhazy is reckless and cutthroat. Given the amount of detail the narrative gives to almost every other character, and the importance of Esterhazy’s actions later in the novel, it is odd that Esterhazy receives almost no description beyond the terms “tense” and “bright-eyed” (82). Esterhazy, like Rube, is a secondary antagonist, particularly toward the end of the novel.

The lack of physical description may indicate that Esterhazy is a stand-in for all power-hungry military types and the many faceless men who wield power in the federal government. Though the narrative provides no physical description or personal background for Esterhazy, his behavior and choices paint a picture of a man who is powerful, ruthless, and unprincipled in his pursuit of American supremacy, though he hides this ruthlessness beneath a veneer of politeness.

Julia Charbonneau is the primary love interest for Si and a part of the secondary conflict between Si, Julia, and Pickering. Her aunt is the proprietor of the boarding house at 19 Gramercy Park where she works as well. Si describes her as a beautiful young woman in her twenties with long dark brown hair and elegant bearing. Though she is primarily the love interest, she is a round character, with complexity, emotional depth, and motivations that have nothing to do with Si’s presence or wishes.

She is proud and intelligent, and she is suspicious of Si even though no one else seems to notice the oddities in his behavior or gaps in his knowledge. She has moments of temper and stubbornness, such as when Pickering first comes home and behaves rudely. She does not acquiesce to Pickering’s claims. When she does, briefly, agree to be engaged to him, she does so for her own reasons. Though Si does not know, and cannot relate these reasons to the reader concretely, she seems to be concerned with financial security, a motivation for many young women of the time when employment opportunities were severely limited.

Likewise, when Si tells her about Pickering’s blackmail scheme, she is not entirely surprised and thus is clearly intelligent enough to have suspicions about his behavior. She demands to join Si when he leaves to spy on the meeting, not for his benefit, but for her own. Julia’s reality as a living, breathing human is part of the reason Si is able to understand that the people in this time matter just as much as those in his own.

Jake Pickering is the main antagonist of the novel as both the subject of the mystery that Si is trying to solve and Si’s rival in the love triangle with Julia. He is a large, intimidating man, with menacing brown eyes, a beard, strong hands, and a cruel laugh. Upon his first appearance, it is obvious that he has a volatile temper, is prone to intense jealousy, and is not above using both overt violence and subtle threats to get what he wants.

Pickering, working as a poor city clerk, is single-mindedly obsessed with power and wealth. This obsession gave him the patience to work for two years while trying to find evidence to use in his blackmail scheme. However, his volatile temper outstrips his patience as he gets closer to his goal.

Pickering is an archetypal villain whose obsession drives him to madness. But this madness does not negate his cleverness, which is evident in the planning required for his initial scheme and the quick thinking to pivot after the fire. He uses his injuries as a cover to take over Carmody’s life and even convince the widow to help him.

Perhaps the most fascinating element of this character is that he wins and gets what he wants. Though Julia and Si use their knowledge of his deception to protect themselves, they do not reveal him to the authorities or the public. He succeeds in becoming Carmody and eventually (as Esterhazy fears) becomes an advisor to President Cleveland. Only later in life does remorse overtake him. It remains unclear what causes this remorse so long after the fact.

Though Andrew Carmody is introduced early in the novel, through Kate’s story from her foster father, the man himself does not appear until late in the narrative. Throughout most of the story, Carmody is portrayed as the victim of Pickering’s blackmail and a victim of suicide later. It is this death that sparks Kate and Si’s curiosity at the beginning. Perhaps the biggest twist in the novel is the revelation that Carmody is a criminal.

Carmody reveals himself to be greedy, hateful, and violent. The scene in Pickering’s office, when Carmody loses his temper and lashes out, is sudden and shocking after his initial gentlemanly behavior. When he decides he is willing to risk many deaths in burning a building to hide his crime, he reveals himself to be reprehensible and ruthless on a level possibly even worse than Pickering.

Once Si and Julia realize it was Carmody, not Pickering, who died in the fire, they do not seem concerned. Nor does his widow seem bothered by the news, as Pickering is able to recruit her to his scheme in the name of keeping her wealth. The lack of mourning on Carmody’s behalf is telling about his character.