M. Dubois seized upon the faintest possible hope of calming his sister.
“That—that would be admirable,” he said, still trembling. “But, until it occurs—”
“She’ll raise hell. Of course!” Carroll fished in the pockets of his contemporary costume. “Damnation! She cleaned out my pockets! Lucky I put my money in another bank! Harrison, have you any modern currency to pay the bus fare to Paris?”
A little later they left the cottage. Harrison remembered to give warning that Pepe and Albert were still to arrive, probably twelve hours or so from now. The town of St. Jean-sur-Seine looked remarkably familiar, because it looked like parts of Paris of 1804. There were minor modifications—such as street-lights—but it was very similar, quaint and unspoiled and unattractive.
The bus waited, wheezing. Harrison bought a newspaper. The mainland Chinese had consented to delay the bombing of Formosa. They said blandly that they would not consider a change in their demand for its surrender, but if the people of Formosa chose to rise against their criminal bourgeois rulers, the mainland government would give them a reasonable time in which to do it. In effect, they offered to regard the people of the island more kindly if before surrendering they killed everybody the mainlanders disliked. They would give five days’ grace for the suggested murders if the murderers-to-be asked nicely.
The rest of the news story dealt with negotiations, with profound statements by the President of France, the debates in the United Nations, the remarkable refusal of some African countries to join in the United Nations protest, and so on. But it was not the exclusive news story on the first page. There had been a fire, and much editorial eloquence described the destruction of that ancient wooden building on the Rue Colbert which was precious to the hearts of all Frenchmen because in it had lived Julie d’Arnaud, mistress of Charles VII of France. It was considered the most ancient wooden structure still standing in Paris, and its leaden roof had resisted the rains and storms of six hundred years. There was also, on an inside page, an editorial about the tragedy, to France, that the Chinese threat to the rest of the world had come about through a French scientist, defected first to Russia and then to China. But Carroll did not read that editorial. It was unfortunate. It named the Frenchman.
Carroll read only the nuclear news. He put the paper aside.
“Better cash in your letter of credit,” he observed as the bus rolled on. “If we have to spend possibly months working on the future, from back where we’ll be, we don’t want to be having to try to find employment back there! I don’t know whether I told you about calling on Gay-Lussac, the chemist. He envisions great things for the science of chemistry. Of course he doesn’t believe that organic compounds can ever be synthesized, but he has an idea that precious stones may some day be synthesized. He’s very hopeful about artificial diamonds.”
Harrison was thinking anxiously about Valerie. He said absently:
“I think it’s been done.”
“Not gem stones,” said Carroll regretfully. “If we could take some of them back…”
Something clicked in Harrison’s mind. The part of it that he’d set to worry about money made a clamor against the rest. But he stared out the bus window. If the universe was not especially designed for humans to live in, then presently these fields would be thin dust or mud, with stark, bare trees in frozen gestures above a world on which there was nothing green anywhere. Houses that men had built would be abraded by desert winds blowing foolishly here and there. Eventually they would fall, but they would not decay because there would be no decay-bacteria alive to feed on them. There would be sunrises and sunsets with no eyes to see them, and there would be sounds of wind and rain and thunder, but no ears to hear.
He turned suddenly from the window.
“Synthetic rubies,” he said. “Synthetic sapphires. That’s the answer! At cents per carat. They’re real rubies and sapphires. They’re genuine. They simply aren’t natural ones. And there are cultured opals, too. They’re genuine. They just aren’t wild. They’re cultivated.”
Carroll said wryly:
“I suspect my wife never happened to think of that! Yes. We’ll get some. But not for trade. In case of emergency only. I don’t mind Albert stealing. It’s his nature. But I’ve a quaint objection to acting like a tradesman.”
Harrison made no comment. His thoughts went back to Valerie.
The bus reached Paris. Harrison went to the Express office. He acquired flat packets of currency for his letter of credit. He got a cab to the shop of Carroll, Dubois et Cie.
The streets were the same. There was a blockade across the front of a scene of much destruction by a recent fire. It was that very, very old wooden house once occupied by the mistress of a forgotten king. From one gaunt blackened timber there dangled a peculiar glittering shape of metal. It was like an icicle, except that solidified lead from the roof had formed it.
Harrison saw posters on the kiosks where newspapers were sold. Russia offered alliance with the West. India considered a non-aggression pact with China. Les Êtats-Unis announced that the bombardment of Formosa would be considered an act of war. England attempted to negotiate a compromise. France warned the world that it would use the atom in its own defense. The Scandinavian countries joined Switzerland in proclaiming their unalterable policy of neutrality. West Germany demanded atom bombs for its own defense. But there were no gatherings of people to buy newspapers. The public was accustomed to crises.
Harrison’s cab stopped before the shop. There was an elderly customer inside. He chatted amiably and interminably before he purchased a copy of the Moniteur of March 20th, 1804. It contained a mention of his great-grandfather. He confided gleefully that he would yellow it with coffee and antique its texture with a flat-iron, and frame it for his descendants to consider an original.
He went out, chuckling to himself. And Harrison acted as an engaged man is likely to, when be has not seen his particular girl for well over a week.
Presently he explained the situation. Valerie smiled at him and objected that the shop had to be kept open. She could not leave Paris. Harrison spread out the newspaper and pointed out that Paris was not likely to exist for more than a limited number of days. Valerie permitted him to kiss her and said regretfully that her aunt would be frantic if she lost money by the closing of the shop for a single day.
When Carroll appeared at dusk Harrison was in a highly unstable condition. Valerie wanted to do as he asked, but she was alarmed. She tried to change the subject. She told him that she had witnessed part of the conflagration when the most ancient wooden building in Paris burned. He wouldn’t listen. She had to come to St. Jean-sur-Seine and go through the tunnel.
But Carroll’s arrival solved the problem. Carroll explained that though Harrison had not been present at the time, her aunt wished Valerie to come at once to St. Jean-sur-Seine to receive instructions about the shop. It was, of course, a whopping lie. Harrison couldn’t lie to Valerie—at least, not yet—but he didn’t feel that he had to contradict so useful a prevarication.
They took the seven o’clock bus out of Paris. They reached St. Jean-sur-Seine. Valerie dutifully delivered to her aunt the contents of the shop’s cash drawer. Madame Carroll retired with her, immediately, to count the money and demand precise and particular accounts of every transaction and sale.
Pepe and Albert arrived later, from 1804. Pepe was again in a passion of desperate anxiety, and the newspapers Carroll had brought from Paris were not in the least reassuring. The tone of all the news accounts was that this was another crisis; a grave and indeed an appalling crisis. But every one found room on its front page for a news item about the destruction of the residence of the mistress of a long-ago ting. Not one made the statement that history could be about to end, the human race to become extinct, and that it would thereby be demonstrated that the universe was not designed for humans to live in, because they were going to stop living in it. Pepe read, and reached the verge of tears. He had a grandmother w
ho was in Tegucigalpa, but that would be no safer than anywhere else on earth.
“I saw your great-great-grandfather,” Harrison told him. “I provided him with perfume for your great-great-grandmother.”
He hadn’t thought to tell Pepe about it before. But Albert interposed as Pepe would have asked morbid questions.
“M’sieur, my clothing of this period—”
“Ask Dubois,” said Harrison. “Hold it! Are you going to stay in this time? This side of the tunnel?”
“M’sieur,” said Albert in a subdued tone, “I think I shall do so. I could not possibly do anything more magnificent than I achieved in the jewellers’ you know of. I wore Napoleon’s crown before he did! I shall remain here and contemplate that achievement. I shall retire contentedly even from my hobby! I shall make a hobby of my recollections!”
“Read these newspapers,” commanded Harrison, “and if you don’t change your mind I’ve a pocketful of paper currency with which to buy any gold pieces you may have accumulated.”
Albert waved the papers aside. He shook his head.
“M’sieur,” he said firmly, “M’sieur Carroll explained to me the France behind the tunnel. I now understand it. Unhappily I can now anticipate events in it. I even understand your and M. Carroll’s intention to change the past so the present will become other than as it is. But that cannot be predicted! It is impossible to guess what it may be! And it will no longer be my hobby, but it will give me pleasure to observe. So as a former connoisseur of surprises I shall remain at this end of the tunnel to see what comes next. I shall be surprised at anything that happens, and most of all if nothing happens. So I will be happy to exchange my napoleons for the paper money of modern France!”
He dumped out the contents of his individual saddlebags. Gold coins seemed to cover the floor. He stacked them matter-of-factly while Harrison counted his paper money. Albert named a sum. Harrison paid it. There was paper money left over. Harrison said:
“You may as well take this too.”
“No, m’sieur,” said Albert proudly. “We are friends. If you will arrange to get my proper costume for the present time, I will leave you and return to my retirement.”
Dubois came down the stairs. He looked precariously relieved. His sister seemed to be talking almost tranquilly with Valerie. She had even determined that Valerie should wear the female costume of 1804 in the shop. It would make the shop distinctive. And if Carroll would take up his residence in the era of Napoleon, and if he would supply from that period the stock she required, M. Dubois need never again risk pneumonia by travelling in the past. And M. Dubois was almost cheerful, because his sister was less agitated than he’d seen her for months.
He gave Albert his corduroy trousers and sash and the red-checked shirt. Albert put them on and stuffed his pockets with paper money. He swaggered to the door. Then he stopped. He returned to shake hands emotionally with Carroll and Pope and Harrison. Then, from apparently nowhere, he produced a much-folded scrap of paper. He pressed it into Harrison’s hand.
“Do not read this,” he said unhappily, “until I have gone.”
He went swiftly to the door, gazed back at them as if through brimming eyes, and went out. They heard his footsteps hastening away.
Harrison unfolded the paper. Crudely written with a strictly improvised pen, he read:
“Monsieur; I have to confess. It was after I had put the bucket on the coachman’s head and taken the parcel from the coach that I learned from the innkeeper that the gentleman in the black cloak was M. de Bassompierre. Then I dared not reveal it. I weep that I disarranged your plans. I beg your forgiveness,
Albert.”
Carroll said:
“The devil! We missed a possibly lucky break! But it’s too late to repair it now! We’re starting back, anyhow. Get into your 1804 clothes, Harrison. Ybarra, you don’t have to change. Pack these books with that newspaper. The paper should convince de Bassompierre when we find him again! You’ve got a good lot of cash, Harrison!”
Harrison looked up. He was startled by what he’d just found out.
“Albert told me how much I owed him, and I paid him. But he figured the napoleons at six hundred francs each, instead of twelve!”
“That was the bargain he offered,” said Carroll dryly. “A most admirable character! But get changed. We want to get moving!”
Harrison changed. And he was thinking morbidly that he hadn’t yet gotten Valerie to consent to move into the past as an atom-bomb-proof shelter when he heard her come down the stairs from the upper floor. He looked yearningly at the door of the kitchen, to which the stairs descended.
She came through that door, smiling. She looked to Harrison for approval. She wore the costume looted from the coach at the post-house.
“Ma tante,” she said demurely, “told me to try on the costume I am to wear in the shop. Does it become me?”
Harrison could only babble. Anguish filled him. Valerie mustn’t share the disaster due to come upon the earth! He remembered the fields and towns and highways on the way to Paris. He’d imagined them as they seemed certain to become if the events of 1804 were not changed so definitely that reality could not cover them up by making them never to have been. He’d pictured all living things as alive no longer. Trees no longer in leaf. Grass no longer green. Cities no longer inhabited. All solid ground mere lifeless dust or else thick mud; all the seas empty of life; the air never echoing the sounds of birds or insects or anything but thunder and rain and wind and surf with no ears anywhere to hear…
“Listen!” he said thickly, “Come through the tunnel with me, Valerie. I want to talk to you!”
She followed him unquestioningly. He warned her of the symptoms she’d feel during the passage through the tunnel. Then they were together in the resonant, echoing emptiness of the foundry building which did not exist in the same century as the cottage.
He tried to explain. She looked about her. She was astonished. There was brand new daylight filtering through the cracks in boarded-up windows of the foundry. But it was deep night outside the cottage! Here it was day! He explained that oddity, desperately aware that what he told her was no less preposterous than what she saw.
Carroll appeared behind them. He carried saddlebags. He put them down, nodded, and said:
“There is going to be an argument with your aunt, Valerie. For some unknown reason I feel responsibility for her. I shall try to persuade her to join us. Heaven knows why!”
He went back through the tunnel and therefore nearly two centuries into what was here the future. Valerie said uneasily, “But is this the arrangement my uncle uses to get the merchandise for the shop?”
“He came through here, yes,” said Harrison. “You see—”
He tried again to explain. She put her hand tremblingly upon his arm. He ceased to explain. There were matters much more urgent than explanations. Carroll returned with more saddlebags. He deposited them and said dryly, “I’m only Valerie’s uncle by marriage, Harrison, but I think I should ask your intentions!”
Harrison swore at him and then hastily apologized to Valerie.
“The war has begun,” said Carroll. At Harrison’s violent reaction he explained. “No, not the world war. Not atomic war. But my wife is in action. I’ve told her I want her to come through the tunnel because I intend for Valerie to stay there until the war scare’s over. She can’t imagine such a thing. She hasn’t bothered to refuse. She’s just working up to a completed description, in detail, of my criminal insanity.”
He went back. Valerie said shakily, “Should—should I try to calm her?”
“Have you ever managed it?” asked Harrison. “Look! There’s going to be atomic war! But Carroll and Pepe and I have some faint chance of preventing it! We don’t know what will take its place, but I won’t let anything happen to you! I won’t do it!”
Pepe came out of the tunnel, carrying bags. He put them down. He said distressedly:
“Dios mio! If Carroll does persu
ade her to come—”
He made an appalled gesture. He went back. Valerie said:
“I am frightened. Of my aunt. Not—of anything else.”
Perhaps ten minutes later Carroll came through again. M. Dubois came with him. Dubois said agitatedly:
“Valerie, your aunt commands that you return! At once! She is agitated! She is angry! I have never seen her so angry! Come!”
Valerie stirred in Harrison’s arms. He tightened them about her. She said faintly:
“I—I cannot!”
“But your aunt demands it! She threatens—she threatens—”
Pepe came out of the tunnel with a last parcel. He said with some grimness:
“She swears that if Ma’mselle Valerie does not return at once that she will disown her forever! She will endure this state of things no longer! She will abandon her and—”
Carroll said kindly:
“Maybe you can calm her down, Georges. This thing is more important than her getting her way again. Better try to make her see it.”
Dubois went shakily back to the world of the future. Almost instantly thereafter Madame Carroll’s voice reached them. It was thin and muted by its passage through time, just a muttering. Madame Carroll cried out fiercely in the totally uncontrolled fury of a bad-tempered woman. Her voice sounded far away but shrieking. Then things came flying out into the foundry. They were the twentieth-century garments Valerie had removed to put on the costume for the shop. Madame Carroll’s voice shrieked like the ghost of an outcry of rage.
Time Tunnel Page 13