Fast Backward

by David Patneaude

Soon typewriter sounds reach the porch. And it’s then that the junior genius has an idea. “Let’s go bother him,” I say. Dad gives me an annoyed look when we re-enter the kitchen, but I forge ahead. “I’ve got a plan.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “We need you to find a letter in our mailbox tonight. It will be from some anonymous source written to your newspaperman self. The source—us, really—will claim to be in a position that’s privy to intercepting information from both sides. Mom will type the letter at work in case somebody compares the type on the letter to the type your typewriter makes. In books, they call that a ’signature.’”

  Dad unsuccessfully hides a grin, but I go on. “In the letter, we explain what Cocoa’s told us—the bomb, the other bombs, the plans for Japan and Germany, the ships, the sinkings. Not Germany winning the war. Nobody could know that. In the morning, I’ll take the letter to Uncle Pete and get him to show it to his boss or his boss’s boss.”

  Cocoa nods. “It’s a good plan, Robert.”

  While Dad digests my idea, I remain standing, my head full of excitement and worry. Cocoa shifts from foot to foot.

  Finally, Dad passes judgment. “I don’t see any holes in it, except the letter will be passed along by a pacifist.”

  “So, you’ll call Mom?”

  “It’s still a long shot,” he says. “Even without the time travel, the idea is still going to be hard to swallow. Whoever sees the letter—or hears the message—that Pete passes on is likely to dismiss it as the work of a crackpot. It’s going to have to get high enough up the chain of command to reach someone who’s aware of the Allies’ bombing plans and the ships carrying the bombs. If the plans and bombs and ships actually exist.”

  “They do,” Cocoa says.

  “We have to try,” I say.

  He contemplates his nervous hands, Cocoa, me. “You’re right, Bobby,” he says finally. He removes the piece of paper from his typewriter and inserts a fresh one. We sit. “Before we call your mom we need the words, and they have to be good.”

  The soup smells like soup by the time we’ve perfected our message. My mouth waters. My stomach growls. But no one wants to eat before we call Mom.

  Dad goes to the phone, makes sure the line is free of other parties, and dials Mom. When she answers, he explains the plan and her role in it. She tells him she’ll have to call us back in an hour. Her boss is still there.

  We eat our soup and bread and the remains of the rhubarb pie. As usual, Cocoa eats like she hasn’t eaten before, which is both upsetting and pleasing. A couple of times I look up to see Dad studying her face, the face of a puzzle. And I don’t blame him. Who is she, really? Where is she from, really? How did she get here, really? How much of what she’s said is true?

  We’re doing the dishes when Mom calls back, ready to type. I read her the letter, pausing regularly for her to catch up.

  July 17, 1945

  Dear Mr. Hastings,

  I have hand-delivered this message to your mailbox under the cover of darkness because of the need for speed and secrecy. I chose you because I followed your columns and stories in the Journal and Chieftain over the years, and you seem to be reasonable and open-minded. This situation requires both qualities. It also requires you to recognize the gravity involved and convince someone to pass along this message to the ultimate authorities so that urgent steps can be taken to thwart the plot I will now describe.

  I am aware that a successful test of an atomic bomb was conducted at the nearby government facility yesterday. I am also aware that its success triggered approval for similar bombs to be loaded on US Naval vessels awaiting orders to leave for foreign destinations. As of this morning, one ship has departed Norfolk carrying a bomb, destined for Liverpool. From there, the bomb will be transported to an Army Air Force base, where a B-29 crew awaits. That crew has orders to drop the bomb on a strategic target in Germany within the next three weeks. The other bomb—a twin of the weapon tested yesterday—was loaded on a second warship and left a California port this morning, bound for an island in the western Pacific where another B-29 crew awaits. That bomb will target Japan, also within the next three weeks.

  Our commander-in-chief, the top ranks of the military, and other essential personnel are aware of the plan. What they are not aware of is that Germany is a step ahead of us, both in intelligence-gathering and atomic weaponry. The Germans and their Japanese allies intend to sink our ships, on July 20, to be precise, buying them time to finalize preparations for an attack with their own weapons while we scramble to replace the lost bombs.

  Circumstances do not allow me to come forward in person. It is vital to the welfare of the US and its allies that you get this information moving through appropriate channels immediately. If you, or others, are unwilling or unable to act, the consequences will be dire.

  Sincerely,

  A Citizen

  “That’s it,” I say when the sound of Mom’s typing dies.

  “Scares the life out of me,” she says. “But that’s what we want, right?”

  “Someone has to believe.”

  “I want to make sure everything’s correct,” she says. “Let me read it back to you.”

  She reads. It’s perfect. She says she’ll bring an original and carbon copy home, along with an envelope with Dad’s name typed on it. I say goodbye and hand him the phone, and Cocoa and I take Lolly for a walk. Once outside, away from the letter and phone and reminders of what we’ve done and what might come, I can breathe.

  The next morning Leo’s waiting at the shack. He tells me my job may be history by the end of the month. When I arrive at the base camp I can see why. Equipment and belongings are piled in the backs and on the roofs of trucks and cars, men carry and load, farewells fade away in clouds of dust and exhaust.

  Not that I can do anything about it, but I wonder how many of these preoccupied fellows will be skipping out without paying their Journal bill.

  I find my uncle pacing outside the barracks door. When he sees me, he gives me a hug like we haven’t seen each other in weeks, even though it’s been maybe twelve hours.

  “I’ve been thinking about you, kid,” he says as I squirm out of his hold. “Word is most of us will be going back to Los Alamos.”

  “How soon?”

  “Security will be the last to leave, and a skeleton crew might stay on if anything valuable is left behind.”

  “I don’t want you to go.”

  “If my next stop’s Los Alamos, we’ll still see each other.”

  “Not enough.”

  “No. Never enough.” He stares into the emptiness of the desert. “I’ve been thinking about your little girlfriend. You two gave me a lot to ponder while I was out guarding the cactus crop last night.”

  I don’t bother denying the girlfriend label. I dig the envelope out of my newspaper bag.

  “We have a plan,” I say. On the envelope is Mom’s typing: Mr. Charles Hastings.

  I hand it over. “Don’t open it yet. First let me tell you about it.”

  I try to stay calm as I run through the scheme. All he has to do is talk to his lieutenant boss or, if he’s feeling extra brave, Doctor Bainbridge or someone else with enough power or brass to speed the letter or its content to the next level, and the next level, and so on.

  “Your idea, Bobby?” he says as he opens the envelope, which Mom sealed and then sliced open with a letter opener before bringing it home.

  “Mostly.”

  “Let’s find some light.”

  We stand inside the door while he reads our masterpiece and I wait for him to say it’s crap.

  “If this doesn’t get their attention, nothing will,” he says when he’s finished. I breathe. “I’ll show it to Lieutenant Bush and ask him what he thinks the next step should be. Maybe Doctor Bainbridge, maybe someone farther up the lieutenant’s chain of command.”

  “You’ll call me?”

  “Stick around the house. I’ll give you the blow-by-blow.”

&n
bsp; “Thanks for doing this, Uncle Pete.”

  “Thank you. And thank Cocoa. If there’s any truth to this—”

  I hand him the newspapers and he follows me outside. “I think it’s time for you to drop the ’uncle’ formality. I call you Bobby; you’re old enough to call me Pete.”

  “Sure . . . Pete.” It doesn’t feel right. It also doesn’t feel right that I haven’t told him everything. “Uh, Pete?”

  Through the gloom, I can see a grin. “Yeah?”

  “Monday, when I found Cocoa standing on the side of the road.”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “She was naked.”

  “Naked?”

  “Wherever she came from, she arrived with no clothes. They got torn off during her journey or whatever it was, she said. The time-slippage thing.”

  “Wow,” Pete says.

  “I gave her my shorts. Right away.” I tug on my bag. “And this.”

  His grin widens. “So, you’ve seen it all now.”

  “It was still kind of dark.”

  “You can definitely call me Pete.”

  “I like her, Pete.”

  “I can tell. I’m glad you were such a gentleman.”

  At first, I don’t know what to say to that. But I remember that morning like it was five minutes ago.

  “She wasn’t embarrassed. Not much. She’s had a different life. I think she lived in hell.”

  “I think you’re right, Bobby. Whatever she’s been through, it was real. Whether the rest is real, I don’t know. But we have to assume it is. We have to do what we can to make sure we—and our offspring—don’t end up in Cocoa’s hell, too.”

  “Call me,” I say, and pedal away.

  THIRTEEN

  When I get home, Cocoa’s writing at the kitchen table. Our dictionary is open at her elbow. Lolly lies at her feet, under her spell. Last night he slept on her bed. He doesn’t lift his head when I drop the Journal on the table.

  “Did you talk to Peter?” Cocoa asks as I pour myself some coffee. A half mug, still steaming, sits next to the dictionary.

  “He liked the idea.” I sit, move my chair closer, look at her writing. It’s a list—state names, with New Mexico at the top. The rest seem to be alphabetical. I can smell her—toothpaste, soap, coffee, and for some reason, barnyard. “What are you doing?”

  “I woke up with my head buzzing like the flies buzzing over the unnamed pigs and their shit. All I could think about was the ships, what we could do to save them. If I could think of their names, my story—and the one we manufactured—would be more convincing.”

  “You think the ships are named after states?”

  “Places. I started with states because there are fewer of them than cities.”

  “Battleships are named after states,” I say. “The New Jersey, the Missouri, the Iowa, the Indiana, the South Dakota.”

  She glances at her list. “Did you say Indiana?”

  “I’m pretty sure there’s a battleship Indiana.”

  She shakes her head. “Not right. Will Peter show the letter to his superiors?”

  “Lieutenant Bush and whoever else Pete—or the lieutenant—can get to.”

  “Two days,” she says. “Little time for doubts.”

  “It has to be enough.”

  She goes on with her list, writing down names in her weird handwriting that’s neat but, with its strange angles and curls, barely legible.

  “Anything?” I say when she finally puts down the pen.

  She runs her finger down the list, pauses at Indiana, and continues. “I would not feel comfortable choosing any of these.”

  “We’ve already provided specific details. Should be enough without a ship’s name. Someone knows what ships are carrying the bombs.”

  “I hope you’re right, Robert.”

  “How about we go see the animals?”

  “Chuck was already out there. Up before me and then returned to bed. He fed them. He milked the Andrews sisters. He brought a small pig to the kitchen that had a scraped leg. I held the small pig while he washed and bandaged the wound. The small pig was very cute.”

  “Piglet.”

  “What?”

  “Piglet. It’s what they call a young pig.”

  “Piglet.”

  “So, did Chuck—Dad—bring back eggs?”

  She shakes her head. “No naked headless hens, either.”

  “Let’s go visit the chicken coop.”

  Once we’re outside, Cocoa is spellbound by the stars overhead, fading but still fiery. Lolly and I wait while she stands in one spot and scans the sky, west to east, finally settling on the glow above the eastern mountaintops.

  Franklin crows. He’s late, getting old, derelict in his duties. Soon he’ll be swimming in the soup pot. I don’t mention this scenario.

  “I see them every morning now,” I say. “The stars. I didn’t think about them much. Before.” Before you came, I almost say, but it would sound like something from a movie. Artificial and calculating.

  “I never saw them. Except for my mother, no one I knew ever had.”

  “Not even the old people?”

  “In my world, an old person has twenty years.”

  “Twenty?”

  “Peter needs to be convincing.”

  “Twenty,” I repeat, my way of agreeing that Peter needs to be convincing.

  We visit the barn, then the chicken coop, where we collect fourteen eggs—thirteen for us, one for Lolly, who snatches it off the ground—cracked—after Cocoa under-hands it only halfway to him.

  “You didn’t have baseball where you came from?”

  “We had rocks. Sticks.” She plunges her hand in the pocket of her new jeans. “A few acorns from dying trees.” She holds up an acorn that even in the dim light I recognize as being from a burr oak.

  “Did you bring that with you?” I remember her dropping something in my bag the morning I first saw her.

  She nods. “I found it before the rats did. It was going to be my breakfast. But you have these acorns here, too. I have seen them, still green, hanging on healthy trees.”

  “It’s from a burr oak.”

  “Burr oak,” she repeats. She pronounces oak like awk. Cute. “Yes. It’s one I know.”

  We resume walking to the house. A light is on in my parents’ bedroom. “You grew up speaking German?”

  “German. English. Or a messy marriage of the two. Gerglish. I also tried to learn Japanese because many Japanese moved to the US after the Devil’s War. Their language became widespread. But I didn’t have a knack for it. The vocabulary was puzzling. The characters eluded me. The learning programs were on audio and video. Without power, they were garbage.”

  “I speak English,” I say. “Barely.” I wait for her to tell me I speak it well, but she’s stingy with her praise, at least when it comes to me.

  It’s too early for Pete to call, but as we near the kitchen door, I find myself listening. Inside, Mom and Dad sit at the table. They eye us eagerly. I have a story to tell.

  “Uncle Pete liked our plan,” I say. “He’s going to take the letter to Lieutenant Bush.”

  “It’s a strong letter,” Mom says.

  Dad has the carbon copy in front of him, studying it for the zillionth time. “I don’t see where we could have added anything.”

  “They might think the whole thing is a lie,” Cocoa says.

  “You did what you could, dear,” Mom says.

  “Pete’s supposed to call,” I say. “Can everyone listen for the phone?” I go to the counter and set down the basket of eggs.

  “I’ll be here working,” Dad says. “But if I leave, I’ll make sure one of you is within earshot.”

  “My other news came from Leo,” I say. “He says I may not have a job after this month because so many people are leaving.”

  “Makes sense,” Dad says.

  “I won’t be bringing home any money. Maybe I could do odd jobs for the Unsers.”

  “You could,” M
om says, “but then your dad would lose the jobs he’s doing for them.”

  “Maybe another ranch would hire me.”

  “Let’s not worry about it for now,” Dad says. “The Lord will provide.” He avoids Mom’s skeptical gaze. She’s almost always on his side, and she’s not against asking the Lord for help, but when it comes to money matters, she’s from the Lord-helps-those-who-help-themselves school.

  The radio is muffled background noise, but now I turn up the volume, anxious. In theory we have two days. But what if it happens early?

  So far, there’s no earth-shattering news on the radio. And nothing dramatic in the pages of the Journal. No sinkings, no Maydays, no failures to arrive, no lost contact, no unexplained debris or oil slicks in far-off waters.

  If whoever winds up with the letter isn’t willing to take action, what will the news be on the twentieth? Or the next day? Or the day after that? Will it be that the bad guys have new life? Will the good guys wait in shock for the next boot to fall? I try to calm my thoughts.

  While Mom and Dad read the paper, Cocoa and I come up with a breakfast menu—scrambled eggs, toast, Cream of Wheat, strawberries. We go to the garden. Her face hasn’t shed its worried look, but it’s alive with early-morning sunlight as we pick the berries.

  We return to the kitchen and get busy. I catch Mom glancing at us now and then. Does she think we’re a cute couple? Are we a couple? I’ve gotten no sense of that from Cocoa. A brother, maybe. A little brother, possibly. Neither makes me happy.

  “You’re good at this, Robert,” Cocoa says as I turn down the flame under the eggs and add salt and pepper and chopped onion to the thickening yellow soup.

  “Necessity,” I say, surprised at the unexpected compliment.

  “When Mr. Trainor offered me the job at the bank,” Mom says, employing her super-hearing, “and I worried out loud about how Bobby and his dad would get by at suppertime, he reminded me about all the men who make meals for a living. And he was right. I provided the lessons and recipes, and hunger gave these two the incentive.”

  “I know about hunger,” Cocoa says. None of us reply. I avoid looking at her body.

  Halfway through the morning, just as Cocoa returns from a bath and a change into more of her new clothes, the phone rings. Partly distracted by her appearance and smell, I snatch the phone off the wall.