Time-Travel Duo

by James Paddock

  But, it wasn’t easy.

  “Good morning, Nurse Caldwell.” He put on his biggest smile. “How is that boyfriend of yours?” Nathaniel always played along, flirting back with the nurses. But he never let it go beyond that. He would never let a woman into his life again.

  “Oh, just fine. I got a letter from him yesterday. Says they’re really kicking butt over there.”

  “That’s encouraging. What ship’s he on?”

  “The USS Maddox. They’re just off the coast of Italy somewhere, getting ready for some kind of secret operations.”

  “Oh!” Dr. Bronson raised his eyebrows at her.

  “He didn’t really tell me that because he is not supposed to and they always check their mail, but we have this secret code thing and I find out all kinds of neat stuff.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t be spreading that kind of information all over the place you know.”

  The nurse sighed, “Oh, I know, I know. But I can’t just keep it bottled up inside.” She grabbed his arm and pulled herself up until he could feel the swell of her breast. She looked around and added in a whisper, “and if I can’t trust my favorite doctor, whom can I trust?”

  He smiled at that thought as he felt the heat spread out from his groin. “Good point, Miss Caldwell. Good point.” He peeled himself away from her, making excuses about being busy, and headed for the elevator. He made a mental note to see what else she knew, and to not get involved with her. He had to be careful with the nurses. Too easy to slip up. Stay professional, he reminded himself.

  He wondered how Francine was doing. It was two years after having said good-bye to her that he walked back into that bookstore. He shouldn’t have. Two years of training, the last six months preparing specifically to perform the duties personally requested of him by the Führer; duties he relished because it could fulfill his lifelong resolution.

  He shouldn’t have visited the bookstore. She was cool to him at first, but he persisted and she relented. For several months he enjoyed Chicago. That surprised him. Chicago wasn’t a place he thought he would ever enjoy. He also enjoyed Francine.

  Then an opportunity came. Through his medical school connections in Chicago a job offer came to him in Charleston, South Carolina. As hard as he tried, he knew he couldn’t remain cold and unemotional to Francine. He spent several days working it out, justifying it in his mind. A great addition to his cover, he told himself. He was certain he could maintain his secret from her while continuing to carry out his duties.

  With the plan firmly planted in his head, he picked her up as she closed shop on a Friday evening. They walked two blocks to a diner while she talked about Sherwood Anderson coming in the store. He didn’t even know who Sherwood Anderson was, but she compared him to Hemingway, who he knew of, and Fitzgerald whom he thought he had heard of. He wasn’t well read in American literature, a part of his training and preparations he realized was lacking. He read technical medical journals and military manuals. But he was excited by her excitement. He remembered sitting in the diner trying to find the right moment in the middle of a half-finished meal. Glenn Miller’s Chattanooga Choo Choo was playing on a radio. He remembered the song ending and the news coming on and something about sugar rationing. He remembered taking her hand and looking into those expectant warm blue eyes and then beginning with the job offer. He remembered her warmth receding, her eyes turning cold and the sliding of her hand away from his. Then he asked her to come with him. Most of all, he remembered the “No!” So final. So complete. He remembered her walking away. He saw her only one more time, briefly, from the sidewalk, through the window of the shop, ringing up a purchase for an old gentleman.

  The door to the elevator opened and Nathaniel Bronson wondered how Francine was doing, and what it would be like to see her again.

  Bronson wasn’t intending to stop on the maternity ward until later. He looked forward to looking in on Mrs. Waring, if for no other reason then she was a mystery. His conversations with her had been intensely interesting – such alertness – such intelligence. He stepped off the elevator and realized he was already in maternity. He had selected the wrong floor. He turned back, but the elevator was already closed. Since he was already there, he thought he would check the charts.

  As was often the case, the nurses’ station was empty. He began sorting through the patient charts, stopping at Mrs. Waring’s. Nothing new since her episode Sunday morning a few hours after delivery. Her baby was very normal for being a month early. The note was still attached saying no visitors unless it was Steven Waring. He would tell her she could check out tomorrow if she wished. He heard the elevator open so he closed the file and turned to find a Navy Chief Petty Officer getting off. He approached Doctor Bronson.

  “Would it be possible to visit Mrs. Waring?” the chief said.

  “Are you Mister Waring?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry. She’s accepting no other visitors.”

  “Are you her doctor?”

  “Yes. I’m Doctor Bronson.”

  The chief extended an envelope to him. “Could you make sure she gets this?”

  “Certainly.”

  “How is she doing? When she mysteriously showed up in my barracks, she seemed very confused. How is the baby?”

  “She is doing fine, and the baby as well. I’ll tell her you asked about her. You say she showed up mysteriously? In what way?”

  “Out of thin air is my best description. Eight hours later in the middle of the night, my roving patrol found a bag. Its arrival was just as mysterious, and then last night this envelope. Same way.”

  “Out of thin air, you say.”

  “Right. I had forty-one men sleeping in one large room, in the middle of which Mrs. Waring, the bag and this envelope all appeared. After a thorough investigation, I’m convinced none of them saw anything or know anything.”

  “Fascinating, Chief. I’m sure once her amnesia clears up, she’ll be able to make sense of it all.”

  “I hope so. You think she has amnesia?”

  “At this point, that’s my only guess, although it doesn’t appear to be a type of amnesia I’m familiar with. Just have to give her some time and see.”

  The chief tore a piece of paper off a small notebook he carried. He found a pencil at the nurse’s station and wrote his name and number on it. “Could you also give this to her and ask her to call me?”

  “Certainly, Chief.”

  As the elevator doors closed, Bronson looked at the envelope.

  Anne Waring.

  He slipped it into the pocket with his stethoscope, his intention being to give it to her when he made his visit. He finished checking charts, making a note of whom he wanted to see later, then took the stairs on up to the next floor.

  Greg O’Brian lightly punched the shoulder of his old shipmate. Brian Smithton and he were best friends on board ship. They worked together until O’Brian moved to Engineering. Brian and O’Brian – the constant pair. Then the boiler explosion happened. When the ship limped into the shipyard and Greg was transferred to the hospital, Brian was transferred to another ship preparing to get underway. After that, they kept in contact by occasional letter or postcard until back in mid June. A German dive-bomber hit Brian’s ship. Now here he was, in Roper Hospital, all wired up so he couldn’t move, both legs and one arm broken. The ship was lucky because the bomb didn’t do enough damage to cripple her. No one was killed and only Brian received major injuries.

  “Hey Buddy,” Greg said softly.

  Brian awoke and turned his head. A smile grew on his face. “Hey you, Gob!”

  “Hey to you too, Gob. Here you are still just lying around being lazy.”

  “Hell, I’m just worn out after a night with three hot Canaries. Yeah, I just flipped out of this contraption and snuck out to meet these three babes. We whipped off our clothes and then I fucked them until their eyes popped out. I just lie around like this during the day so no one will make me work.”

  �
�A couple charity girls, huh! Got to tell you about the babe that showed up in the barracks a couple nights ago.”

  “Really! You had a dame in the barracks!” Brian made like to sit up, then winced in pain. “Jeez! Did you all take turns with her or what?”

  “No, Gob. Wasn’t like that at all. She just showed up, big as all get out, about to pop a kid and everything. She actually started having the baby right there in the barracks. The doc had her sent over here.”

  “No shit! Who is she? Someone’s girlfriend or something?”

  “No one knows, or no one is saying.”

  O’Brian went on to tell him everything he knew. He felt privileged to have more information than most. “I caught a ride with the chief. He was delivering the letter to the woman. I tried to get him to tell me what was in the bag. He said there was some strange stuff in it.”

  “Like what?”

  “Women’s stuff is about all he would say.”

  “Probably underwear and stuff.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah.”

  Brian said, “So nobody knows where she came from. I’ll bet she belongs to someone in your barracks and he isn’t fessing up.” He thought for a moment. “You said her, the bag and this envelope all appeared in the exact same place?”

  “Yeah. I discovered the bag and the envelope myself.”

  “You know, I read a story one time about a time machine.”

  “Time machine?”

  “Yeah! You know. A machine you sit in that travels backwards or forward in time. I think that would be neat.”

  “That’s impossible, Brian. Besides, she wasn’t sitting in anything.”

  Dr. Bronson walked up and picked up Brian’s chart.

  “Where else do you think she came from?”

  “Well, she kept asking for some Steven Waring guy,” O’Brian said, “and we don’t know anyone named Steven Waring. She could be a Nazi Spy.”

  “Yeah, right. I don’t think there are spies in America.”

  “What do you think, Doc?” asked O’Brian.

  Dr. Bronson looked across the bridge of his nose. “What do I think about what?”

  “Spies, Doc! Do you think there are any spies around, like Nazi spies sent over by Hitler?”

  Nathaniel Bronson smiled at the two young men. “Sounds like a lot of gossip and rumors. I doubt very much we have to worry about spies. And you really ought to be careful what you chance to guess at. For example, suppose one of you speculated that Mrs. Waring was a spy, and suppose some busybody gossip type was listening in on your conversation from three or four beds away. And also suppose that busybody ran to her friend and said that Mrs. Waring might be a spy and then that friend told another friend but left out the ‘might be’ part because it just sounded better. Now this last person is a bigger blabbermouth than the others all put together and before you know it mobs of people are rushing through the hospital doors demanding that the spy be removed and thrown in prison or worse, executed. Now that would be a heck of a thing to happen to a new mother with a brand-new baby.” Bronson pulled the stethoscope from his pocket, listened to Brian’s heart, then turned to the structure holding his left leg in place. “How have you been feeling?”

  “Other than the drive-me-crazy itch and the ache when it’s not itching, I’m not doing too bad, Doc.”

  He picked up the chart, wrote something and then started to walk away.

  “Hey, Doc,” O’Brian said and bent down to pick an envelope off the floor. “I think you dropped this.”

  “Oh, thanks,” Dr. Bronson said as he slipped the envelope back into his pocket with his stethoscope. “Oh, by the way, Seaman Smithton. You’ve got to be more careful when you run around at night with those hot canaries. I don’t want to have to reset all these fractures.” Without smiling he turned and walked away.

  “That’s weird,” O’Brian said after he knew for sure the Doc was out of earshot.

  “Yeah, he’s been listening in on our conversation all along.”

  “No! It’s weird about the envelope.”

  “Envelope?” Brian wrinkled his brow. “You mean the one the Doc dropped? What’s so weird about that?”

  “It’s the same one I found last night.”

  “What do you mean, same one? Probably just looks the same. It’s just an envelope.”

  O’Brian shook his head. “No, it’s exactly the same one. Same dirt smudge mark on it I saw last night and the same name. Anne Waring. Why does Doctor Bronson have it?”

  “Mystery to me, Gob. Hey, did I tell you I got a letter from my ex-girl?”

  “No,” O’Brian said but his mind was on the envelope as Brian rambled on about the girl that dumped him when he joined the Navy. The Chief probably just gave it to him to give to her, he thought. Reasonable explanation.

  Dr. Bronson entered Room 328 to find Anne Waring sitting in a chair cooing to her baby. “How are we today, Mrs. Waring?”

  Anne looked up at him with a quizzical look on her face then said with a low voice, “We’re asleep.”

  “Ah.” He bent over and peered at Elizabeth Anne.

  “Have we met before, Doctor Bronson?” Anne suddenly asked, the quizzical look still on her face.

  “Met! You’re meaning before your arrival here the other night.”

  “Right. Every time I see you I get the very strong feeling I should know you.”

  “I doubt we’ve met before, Mrs. Waring. Someone like you I would surely never forget. Most likely it’s your mind trying to rebuild itself and it’s grasping at everything it can.”

  “I don’t think that’s it. I haven’t felt as though I know any other person I’ve met since I’ve been here, except you. The thing is I don’t forget things. I never forget faces. That’s what makes it so perplexing. If I’ve met someone, I’ll know their name immediately when I see them again, even if it’s years later.”

  “That’s hard to believe.”

  “As I grew up, in high school and college, I was often accused of having a photographic memory. I never believed I did, although my memory is very good. My point is that every time you walk into this room, or I first see you, a photograph jumps into my head. It’s foggy, sort of muddy, but the image has all your features. As I sit here and talk about it I become even surer I know you. I’m also certain that when I regain my memory and sort out my confusion, how I know you will become much more apparent. It may be as simple as waiting in line next to you at a fast food restaurant or some such thing.”

  “Fast food restaurant?”

  Anne wrinkled her brow, realizing there couldn’t be any such thing in nineteen forty-three. Where did the concept of the words even come from then? “Ah, never mind. It hasn’t been invented yet. My overactive imagination. I’m just confused.”

  “And I’m sure the confusion will go away on it’s own in time. When it’s all sorted out, you will likely find I just look like someone you know.” He peeked again at Elizabeth Anne who had awakened and was looking up at the ceiling, trying to find something to focus on. “She is very beautiful. How are you feeling?”

  “Better today, thank you.”

  “I’ve been noticing you have some clothes, personal effects. Apparently you managed to locate your husband, or a friend.”

  Anne sighed with frustration. “No, Doc. I don’t even know where this all came from.” She paused. “May I ask you a stupid medical question?”

  “Certainly. But let me be the judge on whether it’s stupid or not.”

  “Is it possible I’ve got some form of amnesia?”

  “It’s something I’ve considered.”

  “I think I know who I am. At least I thought I knew who I was, but there’s no evidence to prove me right. Everything proves me wrong. Is there some form of amnesia that instead of losing your memory after you bump your head or have some kind of head trauma, you change your identity? Change your entire memory. You start making up things. Not only have I made up an entire other life, but it’s all in
the future.”

  “Future?”

  “Yeah. Like forty years from now. And not just my life, Doc, but an entire society. A future society, including transportation and communications, presidents, computers, medicine and medical advancement. My God! Heart transplants and unbelievable microsurgery, wars and space travel, satellites and cable TV. Music – unimaginable changes in music. This very war. I’ve got an entire scenario of how it goes and how it ends.”

  “And how is that, Mrs. Waring?”

  “Hitler commits suicide, and then we drop the big one on Japan.” Anne looked at Doctor Bronson for a few seconds, then shook her head. “No. It’s all too crazy. I’m wondering if it’s some sort of amnesia.”

  Bronson remained quiet for a moment. Composure – no emotion. Adolf Hitler does not commit suicide. “I’m not an expert at amnesia but in all my learning I’ve never heard of it working that way. Not a stupid question, certainly, but the answer that you’re looking for, creative amnesia let’s call it, is quite doubtful.”

  “Then there has got to be some kind of explanation, Doc. Because whoever I am, I apparently am not Anne Waring, or at least there is no Mr. Waring. I can’t find anybody I know. How about heat? I didn’t have any head trauma but I know I got hot. Is it possible that I had heat stroke causing a mental dysfunction leading to amnesia-like symptoms?”

  “I can’t say I’ve heard of heat causing amnesia. People do become delirious and some might associate that closely with amnesia. I wouldn’t rule it out, however. Let me do some research and see if I can come up with anything.”

  “I really appreciate it.” She picked up Elizabeth Anne and held her out before her. “She has such beautiful eyes. Don’t you think so?”

  “Oh, yes, Mrs. Waring. I agree.”

  She laid her on her lap. “My background is history and nuclear physics; at least I think it is. But I’ve taken enough physiology and psychology courses to understand that the brain and the body are very complicated and immensely powerful in combination. There has got to be some explanation for my loss or change of memory or whatever it is.”