Crossroads of Destiny | Page 2

dramatize the event up to that
point just as it really happened, and then a commentary-voice comes on and announces
that this is the Crossroads of Destiny; this is where history could have been completely
changed. Then he gives a resumé of what really did happen, and then he says,
'But--suppose so and so had done this and that, instead of such and such.' Then we pick
up the dramatization at that point, only we show it the way it might have happened. Like
this thing about Columbus; we'll show how it could have happened, and end with
Columbus wading ashore with his sword in one hand and a flag in the other, just like the
painting, only it'll be the English flag, and Columbus will shout: 'I take possession of this
new land in the name of His Majesty, Henry the Seventh of England!'" He brandished his
drink, to the visible consternation of the elderly man beside him. "And then, the sailors
all sing God Save the King."
"Which wasn't written till about 1745," I couldn't help mentioning.
"Huh?" The plump man looked startled. "Are you sure?" Then he decided that I was, and
shrugged. "Well, they can all shout, 'God Save King Henry!' or 'St. George for England!'
or something. Then, at the end, we introduce the program guest, some history expert, a
real name, and he tells how he thinks history would have been changed if it had happened
this way."
The conservatively dressed gentleman beside him wanted to know how long he expected
to keep the show running.
"The crossroads will give out before long," he added.
"The sponsor'll give out first," I said. "History is just one damn crossroads after another."
I mentioned, in passing, that I taught the subject. "Why, since the beginning of this
century, we've had enough of them to keep the show running for a year."
"We have about twenty already written and ready to produce," the plump man said
comfortably, "and ideas for twice as many that the planning staff is working on now."

The elderly man accepted that and took another cautious sip of wine.
"What I wonder, though, is whether you can really say that history can be changed."
"Well, of course--" The television man was taken aback; one always seems to be when a
basic assumption is questioned. "Of course, we only know what really did happen, but it
stands to reason if something had happened differently, the results would have been
different, doesn't it?"
"But it seems to me that everything would work out the same in the long run. There'd be
some differences at the time, but over the years wouldn't they all cancel out?"
"Non, non, Monsieur!" the man with the book, who had been outside the conversation
until now, told him earnestly. "Make no mistake; 'istoree can be shange'!"
I looked at him curiously. The accent sounded French, but it wasn't quite right. He was
some kind of a foreigner, though; I'd swear that he never bought the clothes he was
wearing in this country. The way the suit fitted, and the cut of it, and the shirt-collar, and
the necktie. The book he was reading was Langmuir's Social History of the American
People--not one of my favorites, a bit too much on the doctrinaire side, but what a
bookshop clerk would give a foreigner looking for something to explain America.
"What do you think, Professor?" the plump man was asking me.
"It would work out the other way. The differences wouldn't cancel out; they'd accumulate.
Say something happened a century ago, to throw a presidential election the other way.
You'd get different people at the head of the government, opposite lines of policy taken,
and eventually we'd be getting into different wars with different enemies at different
times, and different batches of young men killed before they could marry and have
families--different people being born or not being born. That would mean different ideas,
good or bad, being advanced; different books written; different inventions, and different
social and economic problems as a consequence."
"Look, he's only giving himself a century," the colonel added. "Think of the changes if
this thing we were discussing, Columbus sailing under the English flag, had happened. Or
suppose Leif Ericson had been able to plant a permanent colony in America in the
Eleventh Century, or if the Saracens had won the Battle of Tours. Try to imagine the
world today if any of those things had happened. One thing you can be sure of--any
errors you make in trying to imagine such a world will be on the side of
over-conservatism."
The sandy-haired man beside me, who had been using his highball for a crystal ball, must
have glimpsed in it what he was looking for. He finished