by Riser Troy
Honoré maintained his silence. The only sound was the scrape of silverware on china.
Emily put down her fork. ‘Honoré? How did she die? She must have been quite young.’
Honoré ignored the question. Relating the story of his mother’s murder would be too much at the start of the day. ‘Here is something I don’t understand,’ he said, finally. ‘Our doubles stopped the War from happening. Without the War, there was no reason for “me” to come to Europe. Without the War, he should never have had his time-sensitivity awakened. Yet here he is, here they are. How can that be?’
Emily shrugged. ‘We have encountered paradoxes before, Honoré. I classify inexplicable contradictions under “just one of those things”.’
Honoré nodded, stretched his lips in a smile. ‘So if a problem is fixed,’ he said, ‘how do we notice the problem in the first place?’
‘Schrödinger waves,’ Em said, entering the room at that moment. Honoré could feel the slight breeze she made as she walked by him on her way to the refridgerator, and caught a faint whiff of her perfume. After she’d passed, he saw she was wearing a long-sleeved, striped nightshirt barely covering her thighs, opened wide enough at the front to show off a wide expanse of her cleavage. Emily – his Emily – was probably one of those people who had anxiety dreams about appearing naked in a public place – not because Emily was a prude, he thought, but because she defined herself differently from this woman. Honoré suspected Emily sometimes resented her own beauty, thinking it a distraction from those qualities she worked so hard to attain or already possessed: intellect, wit, courage, character. He averted his eyes as Em took an apple from the fridge, placed it on the cutting board on the kitchen counter, and began slicing it expertly into perfectly-proportioned chunks.
‘You haven’t explained things, Emily?’ she said.
‘I’m a bit slow,’ Honoré said, cutting off Emily’s attempt to answer.
Em shook her head as she cut a skin-spiral of apple into her palm. ‘It starts with a cat,’ she began.
‘A cat,’ Honoré said. ‘What cat? Whose cat?’
‘An experiment in quantum physics involving a cat, an isotope and a vial of poison gas.’
‘I don’t follow,’ Honoré said.
‘Place all three in a box. No-one can see in; the test is a true blind. At a certain time, the isotope will or will not hit the vial of poison, releasing or not releasing the gas, killing or not killing the cat. The point is, as long as the event is unobserved, both situations are true: the cat is both alive and dead.’
‘So open the box,’ Honoré said. ‘What good is a test if you can’t know the results?’
‘Opening the box collapses the waveforms into a single causality. It is only then the cat is one or the other.’
‘I see,’ Honoré said. ‘So how can you control the outcome? I mean, what if you want the cat to live?’
‘You’re getting ahead of me,’ Em said. ‘That’s good.’ She turned to Emily. ‘Yours is sharper than mine.’
Emily glanced at the knife the woman was holding.
‘No, I meant Honoré,’ Em said. She turned to Honoré. ‘Have you ever wondered where you are – or rather, what you are – when riding the time stream?’
‘I don’t give it much thought,’ he said. ‘It just is, we just do.’
‘We become what are called Schrödinger waves: unobservable bits of conscious flotsam, navigating the time stream. While we ride the stream, events both do and do not occur. It isn’t until we emerge that the event waves collapse into a single, cohesive continuity. In a sense, we open the box each time we jump. And being what we are, we exert a measure of conscious control over how these events resolve. Which continuity is real? For us – you and Emily, Lechasseur and me – both realities exist. We choose, consciously or not, how we emerge into the new continuity. Look at it this way: it is true that the War never happened and Honoré Lechasseur was never wounded, yet it is also true that the War did happen and he was blown up by a booby-trap in Belgium. Both must be true, clearly. I mean, here we all are.’ Em gave a short, deprecatory laugh. ‘Listen to me. I do go on sometimes. I apologise.’
‘No need,’ said Emily. ‘I could not have explained things better myself.’
‘The upshot of all this being that we can change our own pasts yet still be the product of an alternate stream of events.’
‘Masters of our fate,’ Honoré said, considering the ramifications. ‘Masters of everyone’s fate. The consequences would ripple throughout the continuum.’
‘Exactly,’ said Em. ‘But think what it means: stopping a war, preventing a plague. Iron out all the wrinkles in your life. Even something nasty lurking in the future …’
Clearing his throat loudly, even theatrically, Lechasseur shuffled into the room, bare-chested, the trousers of his pyjamas matching the shirt Em was wearing. He grunted a greeting to Honoré and Emily, then settled heavily into one of the remaining chairs.
‘Morning, love,’ he said to Em. Lechasseur scooped a large spoonful of scrambled eggs onto a plate and shoved a forkful into his mouth. ‘So, what are we discussing?’
‘The nature of time,’ Em said. She crossed the kitchen and held an apple slice to his lips.
‘Before breakfast?’ he asked, taking it. ‘Utterly uncivilised.’
Honoré and Emily exchanged uneasy glances. The boundaries of their own relationship had always been unspoken but mutually understood and clearly defined. It is a door, Honoré thought, that neither of us dare open, for a number of very good reasons. The relationship we share is already tricky enough in our time and place.
Lechasseur’s eyes scanned the table. ‘No hot sauce, today,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to talk to Tom about that.’ He pushed his chair back and stood up. ‘Can’t expect a man to stomach his eggs without a liberal dose of …’ His sentence was cut short by a grunt of pain as he crumpled to the floor.
Em was beside him in a shot. ‘What is it? Is it your legs?’
Sucking air through his clenched teeth, Lechasseur nodded. ‘Never mind me, sher. Check the windows.’
Honoré and Emily both turned to the glass, but Em went instead to the wall of portraits. ‘She’s still there,’ Em called back, passing the portrait of Lechasseur’s family. She quickly scanned over the other pictures and paintings, stopping at a watercolour of an Austrian street scene. ‘Found it,’ she said.
Lechasseur had pulled himself up to a half-sitting position, dragging himself forward on his arms. ‘Get me dressed,’ he said.
‘Here,’ said Honoré. ‘I’ve got him.’ Putting a hand under each of the man’s arms, he lifted. ‘Get his legs.’ Lechasseur swore as Em lifted his ankles. ‘Careful,’ Honoré added.
‘In here,’ Em directed. ‘Put him on the bed.’
‘What’s the matter with him?’ Emily asked, standing in the door behind them.
‘Time,’ Em replied. She dropped Lechasseur’s ankles with a soft thump, getting another hiss of pain from the man.
‘Time?’ Honoré asked.
‘Contrary to opinion, it is not on our side,’ she said. She went directly to the closet, rummaged quickly through its hanging contents and selected an outfit. ‘Sorry. Anachronistic allegory. You tend to pick them up as you go. What I mean is that we have a serious problem with history.’ She pulled off the striped pyjama top in one swift move, leaving her completely naked, her back to Honoré and Emily. ‘Something in the past has … changed.’ She turned to them. Emily covered Honoré’s eyes, and Em allowed herself a brief smile. ‘Seriously, we could use your help on this,’ she said.
‘We’ll just be out here,’ Emily said, backing Honoré out of the room.
‘Waiting,’ Honoré said.
Emily closed the door, and Honoré peeled her fingers from his eyes.
‘What was that all about?’ Honoré asked.
Emily rolled her eyes at him. ‘If you have to ask …’
Several minutes later, Em – now fully dressed – came back out. Surprisingly, Lechasseur followed her, leaning heavily on a crutch.
‘Should you be up and about?’ Honoré asked.
‘Places to go,’ Lechasseur said, with effort. ‘People to see.’
‘As I said, we could use your assistance,’ Em told Honoré and Emily. ‘Obviously our friend here is at a disadvantage.’
‘What can we do?’ Emily asked.
‘How did this happen?’ Honoré persisted. ‘You said you un-made the War, changed it so it didn’t happen.’
‘Changes don’t always “stick”,’ Lechasseur said. ‘Leastways, not on the first few tries.’ He limped past the table, past the photograph of himself, his mother and his grandmother. ‘Experience, it’s the best teacher, no Honoré? We’ve already planned for this.’ He stopped in front of the Austrian street scene watercolour. The painting itself was unremarkable – which, Honoré now realised, was why it was out of place. Everything else he had seen in the flat showed that these two had a remarkably refined taste in the things that surrounded them: the colour scheme and interior design were well-planned and harmonious; their manner of dress was impeccable; the furniture was understated but clearly substantial and fine; and most of the art and decorative pieces were of gallery – even museum – quality. But here, this painting – not one but several things marked it out as amateurish: the pedestrian use of colour, the glaring inconsistency between the lovingly detailed architecture and the amorphous blobs meant to represent the people walking its streets, the sheer banality of the composition.
‘A little help, sher?’ Lechasseur asked Em. ‘These legs will not hold me for long.’
Em took his hand, then looked over her shoulder to Honoré and Emily. ‘Coming?’ she said, extending her hand.
Emily cast a questioning, nervous glance at Honoré.
Honoré paused, then stood abruptly. ‘Absolutely,’ he said. He still had grave misgivings about the cavalier way this pair manipulated the time stream, but now a door had been opened and he wanted to see what lay beyond it. Perhaps watching Em and Lechasseur work would put to rest the doubts weighing upon him.
‘Who knows? Maybe we’ll learn something,’ he said aloud.
Emily shrugged, then joined him.
‘I’ll drive,’ Lechasseur said, grinning through his pain. The air became charged around them, and Honoré stared into the painting, careful not to wrest control from Lechasseur, even as he noticed the signature on the bland little scene.
Chapter Six
Professor Roche enjoys walking home after a day of work at the Academy. Naturally enough for one of his profession, he is a man who thinks in very visual terms. When Professor Roche thinks of Vienna, his home, his city, he doesn’t hear in his head the babble of languages in boisterous Magyar, Croat, Slovene, Slovak, gypsy, Romanian, Polish, Italian, German, Czech and Yiddish or the deafening clatter of the carriages, or even catch a nostalgic dream whiff of marketplaces and coffee houses and bordellos. When Professor Roche thinks of Vienna, he envisions his city in the form of a woman. No, not one of those idealised, classically-inspired, perfectly-proportioned pieces by Botticelli, nor even something by Rubens, but a woman no longer young but not yet a dowager, not so old that one cannot see how beautiful she once was, adorned with jewellery too gaudy to be fake (and now the Professor’s mind conjures up ‘The Feast of Belshazzar’, a Rembrandt he saw in his youth, with jewellery rendered in thick impasto, real-looking enough for him to have to suppress the urge to try to pluck it from the canvas), a woman no longer pleasingly plump but big, hips wide as the horizon, legs like pillars and breasts like the wineskins painted by Caravaggio, filled to bursting. Professor Roche loves his city. He tells himself it is the only romantic love a bookish old bachelor like him can still allow.
Roche’s walk takes him past the busy intersection at Eschenbackgasse, and he is about to turn into one of the coffee shops he frequents (to settle an argument with Frisch, that rascal, who sees the Golden Section even in the works of the Englishman Turner, who in Roche’s opinion became so preoccupied with colour effect that he never gave a conscious thought to classical composition, much less to matters of draftsmanship, in any of his later works, Ruskin be damned, and now we’re all the worse for it), when he encounters a strange sight, even for polyglot Vienna: identical twins, impeccably dressed, one on a crutch, the other not, and Ethiopian, by the colour of their skin, one of whom accosts him by name.
‘You are Herr Professor Roche?’
Roche raises a bushy white eyebrow, stiffens a little at the rudeness of the young man’s salutation. Even in these informal times, he still bristles at the use of the familiar ‘Du’ when addressed by a stranger, no matter how novel and extraordinary the circumstances.
The two men flank him, one on either side. A gentleman, Roche steps to the side of the pavement and allows the interruption of his walk. Frisch can wait, he thinks. Same arguments every day, in any event. Frisch will not change his position one iota, and nor will I. The raging debates of our youth have settled into a mundane and predictable taking of contrary sides, out of habit and ennui. This encounter, however, is something altogether new. The Professor’s pulse quickens at the prospect. It has been a long time since he has encountered anything approaching novelty.
The one with a crutch, the one who addressed him, gives Roche a conciliatory grin. ‘I am truly sorry, Herr Professor, but my German is a little rusty, and I just realised my error. Would you be comfortable speaking in English?’
Roche replies in English, ‘I read it, of course, in the course of my work, but my accent – or so I am told – is terrible.’
‘French?’
‘My French is much better, thank you. So tell me, what is the meaning of this? Who are you gentlemen?’
‘We come to you on a matter of great urgency, Herr Professor.’
‘And confidentiality,’ interjects the other.
‘Perhaps it would be better if we found a more private place to discuss the matter?’ This from the twin with the crutch.
Professor Roche takes his eyes from the twins and notes the wonderment of the passers-by. Typical Viennese, they are worldly enough not to gawk like yokels or gather about in a crowd, but their stares are somewhat disconcerting.
‘I would think you gentlemen would be accustomed to such attention,’ Roche says. The tips of his waxed, luxuriant moustache twitch with barely suppressed amusement.
‘I know a place nearby where we can talk.’
Professor Roche surveys the two nearly-identical black men for a long moment, calculating their trustworthiness. The quiet one, he sees, emanates a certain open good will, his expressions easy to discern; the one with the crutch, on the other hand, is more difficult to read.
‘You two do not look at all alike, up close.’
‘Think of me as the handsome one,’ the quiet one says.
The two newcomers introduce themselves as ‘Jacques’ and ‘Martin,’ two brothers from America.
‘In the import business, you know,’ says Jacques, explaining that he has unfortunately sprained his ankle on the long trip to Europe, by falling down a too-crowded gangway or some such thing.
The Professor points forward with his cane, indicating a willingness to accompany the newcomers. As they walk, he again finds himself flanked by the two men. A gentleman to the marrow, he slows his normally brisk pace so that Jacques, hobbled by his obviously painful injury, can keep up.
‘I have never been to America,’ Roche says. ‘In fact, you are the first Americans to whom I’ve ever spoken.’
‘This way,’ Jacques tells him, pointing to an alley off Babenbergerstrasse.
Something in the man’s voice triggers alarm. The Professor stops at the mouth of the alley, hesitating.
‘Don’t worry, Professor, we’re almost there,’ Jacques says.
‘No.’ Roche is simply, softly, suddenly very afraid. He is aware that there is no-one else around. It is just these two and him, and he is very old.
And that is when the one calling himself Jacques takes a hypodermic from his vest pocket and presses the needle firmly into the carotid artery on the left side of Professor Roche’s neck, below his jaw line, about three inches beneath the lobe of his ear. The Professor is propelled into the darkness of the alley. He tries to call out, but the sudden, unexpected violence of the act has stolen his wind and his voice. Roche feels the wall at his back, and sags to the ground. The twins are arguing above him: shouting loudly back and forth, the voices identical but not. He can make no sense of it. A terrible pain, like a hammer blow striking his chest, causes him to convulse, and he supposes they have hit him with something heavy, a club perhaps (or a crutch). Roche sees a bright white light (and thinks, even now, of a painting by that damned Englishman Turner, and finds he can’t remember the title of the piece: typhoon swirls of sun-yellow and grey and violet and vermilion on a white background) and tries to shape the name of his wife, but nothing comes out and he wonders if his grandchildren will remember him fondly, if at all, and then his senses close down and he lies still.
‘He’s dead,’ Honoré said, checking the pulse of the former Professor at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. ‘He’s dead, and you killed him.’ Honoré heard the scream of a woman behind him. The authorities would arrive soon, an angry mob probably sooner. Honoré found he didn’t care.
‘Necessity, my brother. There was truly no other way.’
‘Stop calling me your brother. You’re no brother of mine. What was in that hypodermic? Strychnine? Arsenic? What?’
‘Air.’
‘Air? What do you mean, air?’
‘Just that: air – which is to say, there was no chemical in the hypodermic. Shooting air into the carotid artery causes a massive stroke, nearly instantaneous death. It was a trick I learned from the OSS during the War – that is, when there was an OSS, when there was a War.’