by Anthology
He nodded. “It is. But fortunately I can correct that.”
Adele felt a chill run through her body, and it took her a moment to regain the ability to speak. “Does that mean—would you—are you planning to murder me?”
Schmidt’s eyebrows shot up and his jaw dropped open. The expression on his face was so comical that Adele almost laughed. “I take it the answer is no.”
“I’m surprised you would have even entertained the notion,” he said.
“You’re letting a thousand people go to their deaths without interference. It wasn’t that much of a stretch.”
He sighed. “No, I suppose not. But I don’t have to kill you. I can use another one of my devices to make you forget our conversation ever happened.”
She nodded. “Ah. So you would further violate my mind, then.”
“I have no real choice,” Schmidt said. From a jacket pocket he pulled out a thin metal rod. “This device is called a disorienter. It will cause you to forget our conversation. Are you ready?”
“I plead with you. Do not do this.”
“I have no choice, Miss Weber. I’m sorry.”
He pointed the rod directly at her and pushed a button. Adele considered jumping away, or lunging for the rod, but neither option seemed viable. Instead, she shut her eyes tight and waited for whatever effect the rod would have on her.
But nothing happened. She opened one eye and saw Mr. Schmidt standing there, dumbfounded, the rod now hanging loosely from his hand.
“Mr. Schmidt? I still remember everything.”
He nodded. “I know. I couldn’t do it.”
Adele felt a small measure of relief. “Ah. I knew you wouldn’t do that to me.”
Schmidt shook his head. “No, Adele. What I meant was that your mind is too strong. There are always some people whose minds resist the disorienter. I’m afraid you’re one of them.”
“Oh. I had thought—never mind. So what happens now?”
“Now?” He paused, his brow furrowed. “Now I guess I have to rely upon your discretion.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning it is my turn to plead with you. Miss Weber, promise me that you will not breathe a word of this to anyone. The consequences will be disastrous if you do.”
She pointed at Ship Ablaze. “They will be disastrous if I don’t.”
“Miss Weber—”
Adele stood up and took a few quick steps over to the door. Just before she left the room, she took one last look at the book. “You have kept your own counsel for quite some time, Mr. Schmidt. Expect me to do the same.”
On many of the following nights, Adele Weber dreamed again of fire and water. But no longer did she float on a simple raft that was sometimes a building or a maze. Instead, she found herself on a cavernous steamboat, devoid of other people, as a fire licked away at the decks.
During the days, Lucas Schmidt kept up the pretense of going to work at the World. Adele knew the truth, but saw no reason to tell her mother. Schmidt somehow managed to pay his weekly rent, so what would be the point of exposing him? It wasn’t as if her mother could do anything.
But there were some people who could. A few evenings later, Adele stood in front of Mr. Schmidt’s door with Reverend Haas and Mary Abendschein. Haas knocked on the door, and within a moment Schmidt opened it.
“Pastor Haas. Miss Abendschein.” The slightest pause. “Miss Weber. To what do I owe this visit?”
“May I speak with you, Mr. Schmidt?” Haas asked.
“Um—certainly.” He moved aside and allowed the pastor and the head of the excursion committee into his room. As Adele passed by, she gave him a haughty look, to which Schmidt did not visibly react. She darted over to his desk, but nothing sat upon it.
“Well, where is it?” she asked as Haas and Abendschein found places to stand.
“Where is what, Miss Weber?” Haas asked.
“He knows,” she said, pointing at Schmidt.
“I do?” Schmidt asked.
She glared at him. “The book. The memory recorder. The helmet. Any of it. All of it.”
Haas removed his spectacles. “Miss Weber. Miss Abendschein and I were willing to come talk to Mr. Schmidt, but would you mind if I handled this my way?”
“Sorry, Reverend. By all means.”
Haas nodded. “Mr. Schmidt. Adele has come to us with news of a premonition, for lack of a better word.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Now I have known Adele and her family for a long time; in fact, I christened Adele. And I know that Adele sometimes has vivid dreams regarding what may come to pass.”
“Oh, does she?” Schmidt asked.
“Yes, she does. I tend not to put faith in such things myself. But once or twice—” He paused. “But that is not important now. This is.”
“What?”
Haas put his spectacles back on. “Mr. Schmidt, this will sound ludicrous, but Miss Weber told me that you knew of a problem with the upcoming excursion to Long Island.”
“Really?”
“Yes. She said that it came to her in a dream. She claimed you had in your possession a book that detailed a great disaster that would take place should we go on our excursion.”
Schmidt looked at Adele, who let her gaze fall to the floor. “Indeed,” he said.
“I know it sounds like nonsense, but she seemed most insistent.”
“Well, I have no such book. This sounds like a dream of hers that had best stay in the dark of night.”
Haas pulled at his collar and then wiped his brow with a white handkerchief. “May I have your permission to look around?”
Schmidt smiled. “This is my private room, Reverend Haas, but I wouldn’t be here if not for you. Please, by all means. I shall be outside, breathing in the fresh night air.”
Given the trace scent of manure that occasionally wafted through the streets, it was clear to Adele that Schmidt was being facetious, and merely giving them a chance to search his room without his presence. It also became clear to her that Reverend Haas would not be able to find the book; otherwise, Mr. Schmidt would not have been so ready to assent.
“Never mind,” she said suddenly. “There’s nothing here.”
Haas looked at her. “Were you lying then about your dream?”
“No, Reverend. I would never lie to you. I am convinced Mr. Schmidt knows of a danger which he simply refuses to tell us. But I don’t think we’re going to find anything that I saw—I mean that I dreamed about—here.”
Haas nodded, and turned back to Schmidt. “Mr. Schmidt—Lucas—on your honor as a new member of my congregation, please be candid. Is there any reason you know of that we should cancel the festivities of Wednesday next?”
Schmidt glanced at Adele and Haas in turn. Finally, he gave a weary shake of his head. “I know of no reason.”
“Thank you, sir.” Haas turned to Adele and flashed a weak smile. “Adele, I know how caught up you sometimes get in your dreams. Please rest assured that I will take all precautions to ensure a smooth and safe excursion on the General Slocum.”
“Will you speak with the captain, at least? Have him run a fire drill?”
Haas sighed. “Captain Van Schiack has been in charge of the steamboat for thirteen years, and he has a spotless record. I am sure we will be fine.”
Haas and Abendschein departed. As soon as the door closed behind them, Adele lurched at Schmidt, who jumped back. “Where is it, you cad?”
“The book?”
“Yes, the book! What have you done with it, you blackguard?”
“I sent it back to the future.”
“You did what?”
“I had to. I couldn’t risk the possibility that someone else might come across it. No one would believe you, not with your reputation for dreams. But they might believe the book. And if someone else were to see it, well, I’m not sure if people would be so mistrusting of Reverend Haas or Miss Abendschein.”
“But all these people are going to die!”
Adele thought of a few choice responses to that, but considered herself far too much of a lady to say them aloud. Instead, she replied, “You are wrong. History can be helped, especially if it is not yet history.”
He raised a finger. “Adele—”
“Do not presume upon me, Mr. Schmidt.”
“Let me try to show you the dangers in another way. Forget the General Slocum for the moment. Instead, answer this question: would you have me go back further into time and save your father’s life?”
Adele froze. “That possibility had never occurred to me.”
“Well?”
“Go back in time and save my father from dying? Of course I would.”
“Are you sure? Think long and hard before answering again.”
Adele thought. She had loved her father so much when she was a little girl. He had always hugged her every evening when he came home from work, and she remembered how happy he always made her just by being around. He used to take Adele and her mother to the park and playgrounds, and she remembered how safe she always felt, knowing her father was around.
And yet . . . Her father had also been an overwhelming presence in her family. Adele loved to read anything she could get her hands on, and she had had to sneak glances at books and magazines while her father was alive. For some reason, he never felt that a little girl needed to read so much, even though Adele thirsted to learn about the world. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, her father’s absence had made it easier for her in some ways.
In fact . . . Adele thought about how necessity had forced her mother to grow from a simple housewife into a woman who managed to keep the two of them in food and shelter. The fact was that her mother had become a much stronger, more independent woman than she had been before. Adele wouldn’t want to take that away from her mother.
“Well?” Schmidt asked. “Would you change history?”
“I—I don’t know. The woman I am now would probably say yes, and ask you to go back in time and save my father. But if I did allow it to happen, then the woman I am now would cease to exist. And I have no idea what my new life would be like.”
“Precisely. Perhaps if your father lived, your mother would have died. Or maybe you yourself. Or perhaps you all would have ended up a happy family, right until the Slocum disaster. That’s just it. You don’t know, you can’t know. History is dangerous to toy with.”
“However, Mr. Schmidt, your analogy has one fatal flaw.”
“Which is what?”
She took a deep breath. “If you ask me here in 1904 if I would go back in time to 1898 to change something, I hesitate. But if you ask me to prevent something that, as far as I am concerned, has not yet happened, my answer is an unequivocal yes.” She paused. “I shall continue spread the word about the disaster, Mr. Schmidt. And you can’t stop me.”
“You already saw Reverend Haas’s reaction. They’ll consider you insane if you try.”
“And I will consider myself evil if I do not.”
Schmidt flinched. “Do not think of me as evil, Miss Weber. As I said, there are far worse tragedies in history. If we were to prevent one tragedy from occurring, morally we would have to prevent them all . . . and the universe would fall apart in a blaze of otherworldly fire.”
“ ‘Ein Prophet gilt nirgends weniger als in seinem Vaterland und bei seinen Verwandten und in seinem Hause,’ ” she said.
“Huh?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said with a sarcastic tone. “Once again, I had forgotten that you don’t speak German. Mark, chapter six, verse four. ‘A prophet is not without honor save in his own country.’ ”
“You are not a prophet, Miss Weber.”
“And you are not a gentleman, Mr. Schmidt. You have shown me the future and have denied me the means of averting it. Good night. I hope you have nightmares.”
The week of the excursion finally came. The Monday before, June 13, was the day of the annual parade of the Schuetzen Bund, a German-American shooting club, and Adele went to watch the parade with her mother, despite feeling glum. At the front of the parade marched a group of men on horses, blowing trumpets, along with men playing kettledrums. Everyone was dressed in traditional costume, from their Bavarian hats down to their lederhosen. Women wore dirndls over their blouses and long flowing skirts, with their hair braided in myriad styles. And then, following behind, thousands of German immigrants and German-Americans, many brandishing rifles.
Adele searched the crowd for Mr. Schmidt, but couldn’t find him. He had chosen not to watch the parade with them, and when she pressed him, he explained that this would be his last chance to spread his nanobots before the excursion. Adele’s mother took it as a rejection of Adele, which made Adele even more listless.
Adele slept badly on both Monday and Tuesday nights. And then the morning of Wednesday, June 15, 1904, arrived. Adele awoke to sunlight streaming in the windows. She breathed in the morning air and felt a breeze caress her body. The day would clearly turn out to be beautiful; she just hoped it wouldn’t be tragic as well.
After she dressed, she knocked on Mr. Schmidt’s door, but there was no response.
“Mr. Schmidt?” she called out. “You don’t want to miss the boat.”
Again, impudence won out over propriety. Adele turned the knob, opened the door, and walked into the room, only to discover that it was completely empty of Schmidt and his possessions. All of his clothing was gone, as were his futuristic devices.
After a few minutes, she sighed and went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast and lunch for herself and her mother. When her mother finally came into the dining room, she was already dressed for the excursion in her finest Sunday outfit, a blue blouse and skirt combination topped off with a broad-brimmed hat.
“What do you think, Adele?” she asked, turning around.
“You look lovely as always, mother.”
“Will you be wearing a hat, Adele? If you don’t, you’ll catch your death of sunburn.”
“I thought I would bring a parasol. I’ve left it near the door with the blankets and towels.”
Adele’s mother nodded. “Thank you for preparing the sandwiches.”
“Of course.” She paused. “Mother, will Mr. Schmidt be joining us? I didn’t hear him in his room.”
“I spoke with him last night. He told me that he would be leaving early for the boat.” She flashed a knowing smile at Adele. “My guess is that he wishes to save two seats on the hurricane deck.”
Despite her sour mood, Adele couldn’t help but smile back. “You harbor more hopes than I do.”
“Now, child, I’m sure he will forgive you for your fantasies. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s planned something special for you once we reach Locust Grove.”
“Or even before,” Adele said under her breath.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Adele thought for a moment about whether she should tell her mother that Mr. Schmidt had cleared his room of all his possessions. She decided not to. But she did decide one last time to express her reservations about the excursion.
“Mother, I’m still not sure if we should go on the steamboat.”
“This again?” She sighed. “Adele, you’ve already been fodder for the church gossip mill. Please stop.”
“But Mother—”
“Adele, I’m going, whether you do or not. Your uncle is expecting me. And we need to leave now. The General Slocum is scheduled to depart from the East Third Street recreation pier at a quarter to nine.”
Adele felt torn, but she wasn’t about to let her mother go on the steamboat without her. At the very least, perhaps she could save the two of them.
They stepped out onto the street, which already teemed with hundreds of people dressed in their Sunday best heading towards the Third Street pier. Some walked briskly east, while others hovered in front of tenement buildings or stood at corners, waiting for friends and family.
They stopped on
ce when Adele heard a little girl laughing behind them. She turned around and spotted Catherine Gallagher with her family.
“Well, hello, Catherine. You seem particularly happy.”
“I am, I am!” the little girl shouted. “I thought I wasn’t going to be able to go, but the woman at the store, she gave me a ticket!” She held her ticket up high.
“Now be careful, Catherine,” the girl’s mother said. “You don’t want to lose the ticket, now that God has smiled upon you.”
More like God has sentenced you, Adele thought.
“Have a good time,” Adele’s mother said to the Gallaghers. “We’ll see you on the boat.”
Soon enough, Adele and her mother found themselves at the gangplank, where Reverend Haas and Mary Abendschein stood welcoming parishioners and guests onto the General Slocum. “Ah, Miss Weber, Mrs. Weber,” Haas said. “I am delighted to see you both. Particularly you, Miss Weber.”
“Here, dears,” Miss Abendschein said, pressing into their left hands copies of the Journal for the Seventeenth Annual Excursion of St. Mark’s Evan. Lutheran Church.
“The program feels thicker than last year’s,” Adele’s mother said.
Abendschein preened. “We managed to get over one hundred advertisements this year.”
Adele flipped through the program. “A remarkable achievement.”
“Thank you, Adele.” She looked around. “I certainly hope you weren’t too upset with how often I kept your boarder away from home.”
“Miss Abendschein! Really!”
She laughed. “Relax. Your mother told me that he seemed to be courting you. I wouldn’t stand in the way.”
“Have you actually seen Mr. Schmidt today?” Adele asked.
“I thought I saw him boarding earlier,” Reverend Haas replied. He looked directly at Adele. “I imagine he’s looking forward to a day in the country as much as the rest of us.”
Adele grasped the unspoken point, that Schmidt would not have boarded the Slocum if Adele’s suspicions of disaster had any grounding to them. “Thank you, Reverend Haas.”
“I’ll see you on the boat.”
Adele and her mother crossed the gangplank and boarded the General Slocum, along with many happy, laughing people. Adele noticed a deckhand clicking away on a mechanical counter as people stepped off the gangplank and onto the boat. She repressed the urge to tell him to be extra careful with his count.