At the end of the passageway the darkness deepened and George grabbed Alice’s arm to stop her from going any further. He reached over her shoulder and held out the lantern, revealing a set of stairs that went down into the temple. The sound of water was far louder here and Alice could tell from the looks on the faces of the others that they were all hearing it this time.
“I guess there’s no way to go but down,” Alice said.
“Fitting for a descent into Hell, I suppose,” George said. He stepped around Alice. “I’ll lead the way this time. Just in case there’s something dangerous.”
“I can take care of myself,” she said. “Besides, I don’t think there are any monsters hiding in here.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. In any case, I’d rather not take the chance,” George said. He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and took out a revolver that looked like it had been around a few years. Alice looked at him in horror as he held it pointed toward the ceiling, and he frowned at her. “What’s the matter?”
“Where did you get a gun?” Alice hoped her voice didn’t sound as high pitched to him as it did in her head and George sighed at her.
“It’s mine,” he said. “Standard issue from the military. They let me keep it after the war.”
“And you just carry it around with you all the time?” Having only just learned that he’d been in the military, Alice was shocked by the sudden appearance of a gun in their midst. The only time she’d ever been near a gun had been disastrous and she had never been in a position to repeat the experience.
“Of course not,” George snapped. “You don’t think I bring this to the hospital, do you? I brought it in case there was trouble, and if you’re planning on going into this without any sort of protection, you’re on your own.”
“We should keep going,” Nadir said, obviously not as alarmed by this revelation as Alice. “Otherwise we could be in here all night. A weapon isn’t the worst idea, especially since we have no idea what we’re going to be facing up ahead.”
“Right,” George said, holding up the lantern. “Let’s go.” He looked back at Alice, who was looking at him warily, and gave a sigh of irritation. “Would it make you feel better if I put it back in my pocket?”
“Do whatever you like,” Alice said. “You obviously don’t care about my opinion anyway.”
“Your opinion –” George stopped short, then jammed the gun back into his pocket. “Fine. Are you happy now?” Alice didn’t say anything and he started heading down the stairway, quickly enough to where she had to hurry to keep up with him. The others didn’t seem to have a problem with his speed and kept her moving forward without a moment’s pause.
Their footsteps were loud against the stone and the sound of water had become further away again, but the air had turned cool and damp. Water dripped from the unseen ceiling and pattered onto the ground. The echoing sound of the droplets and their steps made her think of the time she had gone into a cave behind a waterfall with her friends as a girl. Alice’s mind was taken over by the sounds of water and the sight of George holding a gun, so when her foot slipped on one of the steps she didn’t notice until she pitched forward with a cry of surprise.
“Alice!” Phillip reached forward and caught the back of her shirt as she fell, and Alice heard the fabric tear.
I just bought this shirt, she thought, realizing as she did how ridiculous it was. It didn’t stop her falling, though, and George turned toward the sound of Phillip’s voice to see Alice coming directly at him. He dropped the lantern and caught her in his arms, an action that pushed him off the edge of his own step. The lantern crashed on the stone floor beneath them and burst in a splintering of glass and metal, giving off one bright burst of light before being swallowed by the darkness. Alice hoped that when they hit the ground he wouldn’t land on the mess. The last thing she wanted was for him to get hurt again because she wasn’t paying attention.
George was under her, so when they hit the floor together he broke her fall. Alice lay in his arms for a moment, trying to decide if they were really all right before she got up. The worst thing that had happened to her was her ruined shirt but George was coughing and trying to catch his breath.
“Are you all right?” She sat up and got off him but didn’t stand, waiting instead to make sure he was going to be okay. George pressed a hand to his chest and nodded.
“Just got the wind knocked out of me,” he said.
“Thank you,” Alice said quietly, not wanting the others to hear what she was saying. She wanted to keep as much between her and George as possible. “You could have just let me fall.”
“I could’ve,” George said looking up at Phillip and Nadir, who were coming down as fast as caution would allow. “But I won’t.” The light of Nadir’s lantern reached them, throwing shadows onto George’s face and he smiled. “As you can see, I didn’t even lose my glasses.”
“Are you okay?” Phillip knelt down beside Alice and she nodded. “Thank God. I’m sorry about tearing your shirt, I thought I would be able to catch you.”
“It’s all right,” Alice said. “Thank you for trying, though. I can forgive the loss of one shirt.”
“I’ll buy you a new one when we get back to the States,” Phillip said. “Whatever kind you like.” His words touched Alice but she knew she couldn’t let him do it. She had felt his feelings for her growing the longer they spent together, and he was a sweet boy, but that was all he was to her. Before she could reply, George started to get up.
“Let me help you,” Alice said, shooting up from her place on the floor and offering George both of her hands the way she used to. He gave her a dubious look and for a moment she thought he was going to tell her not to be ridiculous and stand up himself. Instead he took her hands and let her put on the old charade. Alice didn’t know if he could see it but she was smiling hard enough that it hurt. “You’ve definitely put on weight.”
“Age will do that to a man,” George said, standing up as she took a step backward to pull him. “Happens to the best of us.”
“I should say so,” Alice said. “I know I---” Her words were cut off before she’d really gotten a chance to say them as the stones beneath the heel of her shoe crumbled away under her slight pressure. When she realized she was falling again, Alice immediately let go of George’s hands so she wouldn’t pull him down with her.
“Alice!” This time it was all three of the men shouting at her as she fell backward and the fact that their voices were echoing made her realize that they must have come into an open chamber. She couldn’t sense the floor or more steps coming up at her and it dawned on Alice that she was most likely falling to her death.
She could hear her companions shouting again and this time they seemed much further away. It was getting darker and cooler by the second as she fell away from their warmth and what little light was left to them with the one lantern. It looked like one of the fireflies she’d seen while she was playing outside in summer.
This is it, Alice thought. I’m really going to die. Rather than try to look into the darkness, Alice closed her eyes and stretched her arms out to her sides like wings. I wonder if it will hurt?
Thoughts warred and spun through her head; images of her parents and her friends, the work she did for the translation company, her mother’s noisy little dog. Mostly she thought about George and how happy she was that she’d gotten the chance to tell him that she loved him. She hoped he would be able to forget everything that had happened since they met again in Nadir’s office and remember the time they’d spent together in Surat, only this time he’d know how she felt.
I’m sorry, George, she thought as she finally felt something rushing up at her. For everything.
Alice clenched her teeth and braced herself as best she could for the impact, hoping that she would die right away and not suffer. She didn’t know how far she had fallen so it was impossible to tell, but she knew that it wasn’t a question of whether or not she would die, more of how painfully she
would do so.
Then, to her surprise, Alice plunged into water so icy cold that it sent a shock through her body. It wasn’t at all what she expected and she opened her mouth to cry out but nothing came out. A moment later her heart stopped and everything was black.
Nineteen
With her heart beating so hard it felt like it was being squeezed, Alice stood in her kitchen with her hands up in front of her chest. She wanted to run but the only option she could see was making a dash for the door and there was no way she could get there without being shot by the man standing in front of her.
He was pointing a gun at her in what she could only describe as a casual manner, his face clearly saying that he knew he had her trapped. Though it seemed a strange thing, he was wearing a military uniform with a red armband that marked him as a member of the Nazi army.
“Go ahead,” he said in German. “Try it. I know you want to.”
“This is madness,” Alice said, her hands still up. She was pleading, which was much more what she remembered, but he only smiled. “You can’t honestly think I had anything to do with it. I would never do anything like that.” They both knew she was lying and her eyes went to the door again. It was so close but it seemed so far away and her body was starting to feel heavy, as if it was made of stone instead of flesh and water.
“Come now, Alice,” the Nazi said, still smiling. “Let’s not cheapen the moment with lies. We have the proof, your last bit of work, and there’s nothing you can say to change it.”
The room was growing dark, and the only light was an eerie glow coming from the end of the gun. Alice didn’t know what to do. There was no way out, none that she could see apart from the glowing end of the gun that was pointed at her chest.
“Just give me a chance to explain, Jan.”
“No.” The gun fired and the bullet came toward her so slowly that Alice could tell it was coming at her chest but she couldn’t move. It was as if she was stuck in the air, staring at the bullet that would surely end her life.
All of a sudden time sped up. The bullet tore into her and blood soaked the front of her pressed white shirt before she could even put her hand to the wound. She clutched her burning shoulder, trying to stop the pain as her skirt and the tails of her shirt turned red. Alice looked up to find that the Nazi was gone and she stumbled toward the door, leaving a trail of blood behind her. She stepped in her own blood on her way out, and it left the print of one of her shoes on the stones beneath them.
I have to get back, she thought. I just have to hold it together a little longer.
George was standing in the foxhole again, listening to the bullets and shouts overhead. His medic’s uniform was gone. Instead, he was wearing the uniform of an enlisted man he had been given instead of a present on his 17th birthday.
“What are you waiting for, Bennett?” It was his commanding officer’s voice but the man himself was nowhere to be found. “Get your ass over the top!”
“I can’t,” George said. “It’s not my turn.”
“If I say it’s your turn, it’s your turn!”
“I don’t have a weapon. I can’t go over.” The fact that he was essentially being shouted at by a ghost was unnerving, as was the fact that he was climbing the ladder without question.
No, this is wrong, George thought. It’s too soon. I have to stay here and help people.
As he climbed, someone stumbled backward over the edge of the trench and he let go of the ladder to try and reach out for them. The soldier actually brushed his fingertips as he fell but George couldn’t catch him and his body continued moving upward until he reached the top and hoisted himself over onto the bare, hard-packed earth of No Man’s Land.
It was a bleak landscape that he found himself staring at, miles of dead brown dirt and rocks with tangles of barbed wire that blocked some of the Germans from getting to the trench but did nothing to keep bullets from peppering the ground and the wooden posts that were inexplicably planted along the edge of the trench.
Out of nowhere another soldier came staggering into view and George immediately started toward him, thinking of the soldier who had fallen past him on the ladder. He may not have been able to save him, but he would save this one. Not caring about the bullets that flew past him as he ran, George reached for the medic’s bag that was no longer by his side. It didn’t stop him. Somehow he knew he would be able to help without it.
The soldier tripped on a chunk of rock and George jumped forward to catch him, only to find that the person in his arms was a woman. She was wearing a slim gray skirt and a pressed white blouse, and George felt like he should know her. As if her name was on the tip of his tongue. More concerning, however, was the amount of blood that was coming from a hole in her stomach.
“My God,” he said. “You’ve been shot.”
“It was my fault,” the woman said. Her eyes were closed and she was clutching her shoulder but George couldn’t see any wound there. “I was a fool. I should never have agreed.”
“Agreed? To what?” George didn't know this woman, but every curve and line in her face was etched so deeply into his memory it was as if they'd known each other for hundreds of years. Her body jerked in his arms and she opened eyes of deep brown that took a long moment to focus on his face, as if she too was trying to recognize him. Her name came to him then and he spoke softly. “Alice.”
“George,” she breathed, and the words sent a flood of memories coursing through him. Things he had no way of knowing, memories he had not yet made, the sounds and sights of years to come filled him and tears spilled over onto his cheeks. “I'm so glad it's you.”
“What are you doing here?” His hand went to the place he'd seen her scar and Alice's face contorted in pain under his touch while the wound in her abdomen continued to bleed freely. “What happened?” She shook her head and he frowned, moving his hand to the soaked fabric. Here his touch brought no reaction and he pressed harder, not wanting to hurt her but not understanding why this didn't seem to bother her. “Can you feel this?”
“Your hand? Of course I can,” she said. “It's my shoulder that hurts. That bastard shot me.” Her head fell back over his arm and Alice felt a stab of pain race down her arm from her shoulder. “I wish I could kill him.”
“What about your stomach? Did he shoot you there as well?” From the barely-controlled note of alarm in George's voice, she could tell that something was wrong but didn't know what. All she knew was that it must be bad for him to sound so close to panic and it hit her then that she was, in all likelihood, dying. Dizziness sent the gray sky of No Man's Land into a circle that pinwheeled around her head and she closed her eyes. “Alice?”
“It's all my fault,” she said. “I brought this on myself. All of it.” Forcing herself to open her eyes again, she locked them on George's face to keep the world steady. Her body felt as if it was spinning and twisting but her mind stayed just clear enough to say a little more. “I want you to know something.”
“We’ll have plenty of time for that later. We need to get you to a doctor first.”
“Don’t be silly,” Alice said. “You are a doctor.” She reached up to touch his face and when her hand pressed to his cheek a pair of glasses appeared on his face and threads of gray blossomed in his hair. “That day I went to the Vidyapith I had every intention of keeping our plans. Only when I delivered the files Amesh told me that the Germans had found out about the American who had been passing information out of India and they were looking for both her and her British lover.” She was having a hard time looking at George as she spoke but she knew she had to or he would never believe her. “I was coming back to get you. I was going to tell you everything and that you could come back with me to America. I was almost to your office when I discovered that someone was following me.” Her voice was growing faint and George kissed a hand that felt heavier by the second.
“You don’t have to talk,” he said. “You can tell me all about it later.”
“If I had
come to you they would have known where you were and killed us both,” Alice went on. “The only way to save you was to let them follow me instead. If they’d killed me I would have deserved it but I couldn’t let them hurt you.” Tears were welling up in her eyes and she let them fall, too weak to even brush them away. “If one of us had to die, I couldn’t let it be you. I couldn’t live without you, but in the end I had to.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. Her fingers were far too cold and George took her hand. “I need you to know that I love you, George. I always have.”
“I love you too, Alice. I did then and I do now. I don’t know that I ever stopped.” Alice smiled at him, squeezed his hand so lightly that it could have been his imagination, then went limp in his arms. Her eyes were closed and for a moment he thought she had just fainted. Then he saw she wasn’t breathing. “Alice?”
Water flooded No Man’s land, coming up from the ground and lifting Alice out of his arms. George reached for her but she was just out of his reach and she was sinking while he was rising. The water was so cold that he was afraid the surface would be iced over when he reached it but he tried to fight his way to Alice. His mouth was full of water so he couldn’t call out to her and he knew that if he tried she wouldn’t answer him.
No, he thought as he dove down through the cold water. He’d always been a good swimmer and he struggled down until he found Alice lying on a bed of weeds. He made to her side, struggling against his body’s insistence that he rise to the surface. When he tried to pull her up with him, though, her body hardly moved. Through the green-blue light that filtered down to the bottom of the lake, George could see that she was tangled in the weeds and he pulled harder, wishing he had Phillip’s knife or his scalpel.
I’m not leaving you behind, George thought as he pulled at the weeds. If you die down here, so will I. As if the lake had felt his resolve to save Alice, he finally pulled her free of the tangle of weeds and swam to the surface, his lungs burning and screaming for air. I won’t let you die.
Drowned History Page 12
