Travel Glasses

by Chess Desalls

  “Thank you for coming back,” he said.

  We ignored the dancing and the music, the fine food and drink, and all of the other festivities behind us. We just stood there together, being. I wished that I could stay there with him forever, that I could forget what I was running from—that my entire purpose for being there was to learn enough about Valcas’ past to understand what was going on in the present.

  I knew that this past version of Valcas was not real, but since I was there to learn more about him anyway, I didn’t see any harm in enjoying the illusion that we were a couple. I welcomed the illusion, hoping that it would help me learn even more about him. I suspended reality in favor of experiencing what it would be like if this really were reality.

  I decided to live in that moment, at least for a little while.

  ONE BRIGHT morning soon afterward, Valcas found me on the brunch balcony looking out at the sea through my tiny telescope.

  “You don’t need to capture a recording of the waves, you know. They will last all day long.” He bolstered his taunt with a playful grin.

  “Excuse me?”

  He put his arms around me to adjust the positioning of the instrument. “Of course it helps when you’re rotating the lens.”

  “Stop teasing! You know what this is, don’t you?”

  “It’s a zobascope.”

  I turned around to look at Valcas as if that would help me to understand him better. “A zobe-a-scope?” I repeated, testing out each syllable of the word.

  “I’ve only seen one before, but I’m not surprised that there are duplicates. Yes, I’m quite certain that’s what it is.”

  “Do you know how to use this?”

  Valcas smiled, patiently waiting for the punch line to the joke. When none came, he replied, “You don’t?”

  “It was a gift given to me with no explanation. Please, teach me.”

  “There’s really no trick to it. The contraption is much less complicated than a camcorder. You just look through the smaller end, like a telescope, turn the zobascope clockwise to record and then turn it counterclockwise to play back what’s already been recorded.”

  “Okay.” Unsure of what was inside to be seen and afraid to accidentally record over something important, I carefully placed the zobascope back into its box. “Thank you, Valcas.” I smiled. “If it’s that easy, then it can wait until after we have brunch.”

  If it’s that easy, I added in my head, then why didn’t Enta just tell me how to use it?

  LATER THAT day, I sat alone in the front room of my guest suite, facing a window that overlooked the all-night sky.

  “No need for your books this afternoon. Just a pencil and your writing tablet if you wish.”

  The voice I heard while turning the zobascope was younger but just as animated. I knew that the voice belonged to Enta, even though I couldn’t see her. Instead, I watched a young boy, approximately seven years old, as he carefully turned fine sheets of parchment notebook paper to an empty page. The boy had a defiant ruddiness to his cheeks. His tousled black hair still had the wet shininess of having been combed earlier that day. Otherwise, he was as neat as a pin in his navy blue uniform trousers, crisp white-collared shirt and green button-down sweater. The boy looked up expectantly, his attention focusing on me through oversized emerald eyes.

  I listened along with the boy as Enta chattered on and on about how Edgar had made her the gift, how she always dreamed of being more than a governess and how fond she’d always been of the sciences. Governess? Valcas’ governess? I thought she’d said she was a nurse.

  “Oh, to be an innovator like him someday! I don’t think he realizes just how far ahead he is of his own time.”

  I smiled, knowing that Enta had surpassed Edgar’s work on the travel glasses.

  “What do you think of my birthday present, Valcas?”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a zobascope—one of your Uncle Edgar’s most recent inventions. Very advanced for his time period, you see. After this lesson you will be able to look into it and see today as if it were happening all over again. Only, at least right now, it will be from my point of view.”

  “Wow!”

  The child Valcas sat at a student desk in a classroom that looked to have been made for twenty students. Behind him, the walls were lined with shelves full of lesson books, picture books, scientific instruments and astrological equipment. Valcas’ eyes were on fire with curiosity. He clutched a pencil, but took no notes.

  “Nurse, tell me how it works.”

  “First, as I am doing right now, you place the small end of the zobascope to your eye and point the larger end to what you want to observe. When you rotate the lens clockwise—you see that I am turning the front half of the instrument to my right and your left at the moment—the zobascope takes a moving picture of the object. This type of picture is called a recording.”

  I watched as the child’s shining eyes opened wider than I thought was anatomically possible.

  Enta continued, “Yes, I can see that you are impressed, Master Valcas, but there’s more.”

  “More?” The child’s feet twitched with excitement.

  “Not only am I making a recording of you sitting at your desk as I see you through my own eyes, but I am also capturing our entire conversation. Everything we say will be right here inside the zobascope.”

  Besides looking astonished, the child Valcas grew suspicious. With furrowed brow and through pouted lips he responded, “Then I must behave or you will show this recording to Mother and Father?”

  At this, Enta and I both chuckled. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary, Master Valcas. Inattentiveness and speaking out of turn will only result in additional lessons today. Oh, how delighted I am with this very special gift!”

  Seemingly unable to keep his bottom upon his seat, the child asked, “Nurse, how do you see the recording?”

  “A well-thought question, young sir. You only need to rotate the lens counterclockwise—the opposite direction—which I will show you in a moment after I let you have a turn.”

  Valcas grinned widely, revealing a missing front tooth. “Will I be spinning around when you watch it back? Or does the whole room spin?”

  I sensed Enta’s surprised silence, and then heard her understanding murmur as she took in Valcas’ smart question.

  “It is true that the zobascope turns, but the room will be still, exactly the way that I am looking at it.”

  “Oh.”

  “Are you ready for your turn?”

  “Yes!”

  After an empty pause, a torrent of giggling filled my ears. The image wasn’t as clear and stable as it had been with Enta acting as the “zobographer.” Flashes of shelves, tall windows and desks whirled by. I steadied myself for a dizzying view of the domed ceiling, followed by a more serene vision of a stick bug slowly making its way across the floor. I had to admit that Valcas had a knack for making the recording come to life; although, I wasn’t sure exactly what it was that made the room appear grander and more alive from his point of view.

  “Master Valcas, you must observe more steadily. You will compromise the quality of the recording.”

  “I’m making the room spin, Nurse. You’ll see!”

  “You’ve made the room spin long enough now. If you remain still and sit nicely, I will let you record the rest of your afternoon lesson.”

  A delighted squeal confirmed the agreement. I watched as the room rotated halfway as the child Valcas turned toward the front of the classroom and then plunged downward, followed by a milder bump as he settled onto his seat. A chalkboard came into view, covered in bold penmanship on the topic of how artists portray two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects.

  “Valcas—you are not looking at me. Please face me while I am speaking.”

  “Yes, Nurse.”

  The room shifted to the left and then upward, centering on the governess. Enta smiled in approval. Her auburn hair, speckled with gray, was pulled up
halfway into a chignon, with ringlets falling onto the starchy white collar that crowned a long black dress. I’d expected to see a younger Enta, but she looked exactly the same age as she did at the homestead—with one glaring difference. The Enta I knew never had rich brown eyes. She’d had a more understated honey-hazel color, a dim maple frost. I thought of Valcas’ bright green eyes that had turned pale blue, as well as my own dark eyes that had faded to green. The travel glasses had affected each of us.

  I listened with the child Valcas while Enta lectured about the history of painting techniques and how artistic realism became less necessary with the invention of the camera. She spoke about video cameras and movies as if they were inventions of an archaic past. I wondered why Enta was so excited about the zobascope. Was it remarkable just because Edgar had been able to invent it with the limited resources that had existed in his own time period? Or was it simply because the gift had been from Edgar?

  I remembered Enta’s tears and splotchy red eyes from when she mourned his death. What had Edgar meant to her? The zobascope didn’t answer these questions. Unable to fast forward, I became weary of the lesson. I returned the zobascope to its box and settled in for the night.

  I WOKE up the next morning with many questions about Enta—Valcas’ governess. Her evasiveness finally made sense to me. She had been protecting Valcas, but I didn’t know whether she did so out of love or loyalty. I looked forward to viewing more of the recordings inside the zobascope. Until then, I had more questions for Valcas about his governess.

  I bathed and dressed for the day before leaving my suite. Valcas found me in the white hallway looking for him near additional doors leading inside the main house. He greeted me with a hug and asked whether I’d like to go for a walk with him along his favorite hiking trail. I agreed. Hand in hand, we walked toward the front entrance of the white tower.

  The eighteenth door to our left from the front entrance led into a very clean wooded path. The trees along the path were made of a sterile material that was nothing like actual leaves and bark, although they were shaped correctly down to every detailed stem and leaf. The path itself was tiled with vinyl, in a faux stone pattern, with tufts of soft green carpeting on both sides. All of the colors were very natural, but there was no dirt or debris.

  “Is this really a hiking trail?”

  “Yes. It’s an indoor hiking trail with fabricated scenery. Take a look at the objects off in the distance. They’re very lifelike projections. And, it’s allergen free.”

  “A hypoallergenic hiking trail—interesting.” I shrugged.

  Valcas snickered. “What are you really interested in asking me about, Calla?”

  I cast him a sideways glance. “How did you know?”

  “Well for one, this hiking trail is not all that impressive. It’s just an excuse to get some exercise and spend time with you away from everyone else. You’re also terrible at making small talk, especially when you have a question on your mind.”

  Unable to think of any reason to stall, I jumped right in and asked my most burning question. “What was your governess like?”

  Valcas looked at me with surprise, clearly not expecting my question to be about Enta. “Nurse Vittor,” he replied. “Enta was her first name, but I never addressed her that way. She was a well-renowned nurse who had the aptitude to become a great scientist if she’d had the fortune of more advantageous connections. My parents welcomed Nurse Vittor into our home to take care of me as a nursemaid or nanny. Having displayed a sharp intellect and broad knowledge of subject matter, it was later agreed that she would stay on as my governess. She taught me well, but we never developed the usual student-teacher relationship. I was so used to calling her Nurse by then that it kind of stuck. She was very good with children. If she had children of her own, I never knew about them. Nurse Vittor had a knack for being secretive.”

  Um, yeah, she’d certainly kept a lot to herself the entire time she’d known me. “Where is she now?” I asked, wondering why Enta wouldn’t have stayed at the white tower.

  “I really don’t know. Nurse Vittor resigned from her position here at the tower after I started taking more advanced lessons from other instructors. We parted on good terms, but we lost touch and I haven’t seen her since. Some of the more gossipy servants relayed a story about how she’d fallen in love with an inventor she’d admired for a long time who was already married. She cared for him enough to not interfere with his marriage, but later learned that he’d isolated himself from his family. The inventor’s wife quietly divorced him and, since he’d been unresponsive to her requests made through her attorneys, he lost everything—his home, his land, his family. If all this was in fact true, then I wouldn’t be surprised that Nurse Vittor left here to try to find him. She and the inventor never ended up together, though. Word is that by the time she found him, he already had a new bride—his work.”

  I gasped. The story and the people in it were too familiar to me. I wondered whether Edgar ever knew that Enta felt that way about him. They hadn’t reunited until just before he died, when she cared for him during the last days of his life. He died in her house and was buried in her yard. I shuddered. No wonder Enta needed time away from the homestead. She’d just lost the unrequited love of her life.

  Valcas squeezed my hand. “I’m sure she’s doing just fine now, though. With her talents, in both science and discretion, I wouldn’t be surprised if she spent some time working for the TSTA.”

  I frowned. Valcas hadn’t made the connection between Enta and his uncle Edgar. His past version had no idea what had just happened back at Enta’s homestead. Even if things had worked out between Enta and Edgar, I still didn’t understand the timeline. I frowned again as I tried to figure out Enta’s age. If Edgar was in his hundred and twenties when he died, then what did that make Enta? If Valcas was a teenager in the 1930s and was still a teenager in the twenty-first-century, and Enta looked to be in her mid-forties when she was tutoring Valcas… It didn’t make sense.

  “Calla?”

  “Yes?”

  “I can’t tell what expression you’re making. You look thoughtful, but pained. I hope my story is not upsetting you in some way.”

  “It’s a really sad story,” I said. “I’m also trying to work out some numbers in my head.”

  “All right, I’m intrigued.” Valcas stopped walking and let go of my hand. He placed both of his hands on the sides of my head, his thumbs grazing my temples. “Where is your lovely mind going with this?”

  “I just don’t understand how the aging process works and how it differs between this world and mine on Earth. I’m starting to lose track of time without knowing exactly what it is I’m supposed to be tracking. Does that even make sense?”

  “It’s complicated, but one gets used to it. You, Nurse Vittor and I are all from worlds with different time schemes. Nurse Vittor and I were both born in different, much more futuristic worlds than Earth, and as a result, our lives and how we age are subject to how time is measured there instead of how it works on Earth.”

  “You and Enta aren’t from the same world?”

  “No, we’re not. She’s part of a much more distant future, so she ages even more slowly than I do. Calla? You look pale—well, paler, actually. Are you feeling sick?”

  “A little,” I admitted as I caught onto Valcas’ arm and shoulder. “I feel dizzy.”

  “Let’s find a place to rest.”

  Valcas seated himself on a patch of plush green carpeting under a tree on the side of the trail. He opened a drawer that had been built into the tree. After pulling out a couple of throw pillows, he placed one on his lap so that I could recline while looking up at him. I didn’t know what made me feel more ill, the idea of other worlds with different time schemes or the fact that Valcas just pulled pillows out of a tree.

  “Other worlds,” I murmured. I’d known that the white tower was a made-up place, but it hadn’t actually sunk in that this place and Enta’s homestead were so different
, so far away.

  Valcas placed his hand on my forehead and looked at me, half concerned, half confused. “Does this feel like Earth?”

  I considered his question as I ran my hand along the velvety trunk of a nearby tree and looked up at its leaves of thick felt. “No, but a lot of it reminds me of Earth.”

  I looked at Valcas. His father, Jim, was from Earth, but Sable was not. Did that make Valcas half alien? For how many Earth years would he continue to be a teenager? “How does it work here for a person’s age?” I asked. “There must be some kind of formula for conversion—you know, like people’s ages in dog years and vice versa.”

  Valcas chuckled. “I wouldn’t have put it that way, but I guess that makes sense. It has to do with how long the years are in each world, how many minutes are in a day, et cetera. But, Calla, the calculations are painfully boring. Let’s touch upon a lighter subject. Then maybe you’ll feel up to continuing our walk.”

  “Okay, no formula explanations then. But, could you quickly calculate a few numbers for me? Please?”

  Valcas traced my left cheekbone with his fingers, grazing along my jawline to my chin. “How can I refuse when you look up at me that way?”

  I smiled, feeling the blood return to my cheeks. “Say, for example, it’s in the 1930s in England where your Uncle Edgar lives—you’re how old?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Okay, so then what year was it on Earth when you were six or seven years old?”

  Valcas thought for a brief moment, “It would have been in roughly the year 1030, something in the realm of 900 Earth years earlier.”

  I gulped. One of Valcas’ birthdays converted to an entire lifetime of someone born on Earth. No wonder he looked the same age as me when I met him at the dock. He would be seventeen years old until sometime in the 2020s, when he would turn eighteen.

  “But, how is that possible? You would have been born here before your father was born on Earth.”

  Valcas nodded. “That’s because this is a future world, Calla. My father met my mother in another future world and traveled with her here. The timeline here at the white tower reset when I was born, having never followed the timeline on Earth and making it possible for my father to have already been born in his own world.”