He journeyed south, beyond Lyon, beyond small French towns with picturesque French bakeries and marketplaces. He made sure to avoid the Vichy and the Nazis; after all, he wasn’t sure if he could trust the Vichy, yet, despite what Marc had told him a few days before.
He traveled mostly in darkness, occupying himself by remembering the lyrics of weepy songs from his youth. For the first time in many years, he thought about somber breakup songs—songs he remembered listening to in his bedroom in high school, aching after one girl or another. The music was in his mind—in his soul.
As the miles passed, so did his dedication to the mission. Every time he stopped to get gas or supplies, he had to struggle through French phrases and watch the men and women he spoke with snicker at him. He realized he no longer looked like a spy. Rather, he looked like a dirty, sad American—without any hope or any prospects.
He found himself back in Sete, the canalled city in the south of France. He parked the car by the water and wandered along the canal, his mind lost in a sea of regret. He picked up a stone and tossed it into the water, watching it bounce. A man in a boat just a few feet away raised his hand in greeting. The sun had peppered the man with freckles.
A few hours before his ship was scheduled to leave, he climbed up the small mountain around which Sete had been built. He stood next to the monastery at the top of the hill and gazed down at the wild stretches of turquoise water. The people in Sete didn’t seem bothered by the war efforts up north. At one point, he thought about remaining here, about summoning Julie and the child. But he didn’t feel right about it. He needed to get back; he knew his place in the world.
Peter found the liner he was meant to take back to the United States, and he shuffled aboard, thinking of the words Julie had said about Sete all those weeks before. Her voice sounded like an echo in his head. How long had they been in France? he wondered. How long had this been happening? Decades? Years? A day or two? He felt the scars on his back from his stint in the Nazi prison, and his heart ached, remembering Julie’s fear, the sound of her voice through the wall. Back then, he’d thought he’d never see her again. Now, he was certain he never would. They were purposefully drawing a curtain between them. He thought of the journalist Edward R. Murrow’s words: Good night and good luck.
He felt the boat lurch from the dock, and he rushed from his cabin to the deck, where he watched the sun-filled Mediterranean city drift away from him. The sea was turquoise beneath him. He leaned heavy on his elbows as the sunlight penetrated his skin. Closing his eyes, he tried to imagine a different life for himself.
Throughout the long voyage, Peter continued to write, documenting his and Julie’s journey through World war II. The exercise was difficult, as with every word, every line, his mind was continually centered on Julie.
He sat on the deck often, gazing out at the horizon. A few other people were on the liner, as well, mostly French people traveling to live in the United States after their war-torn country had collapsed around them.
One afternoon, Peter sat outside, smoking a cigarette he’d purchased from a Frenchman who lived across the hall from him. He blew smoke into the air, creating small rings that floated overhead. He hadn’t done that since college, and he loved the familiarity of it—the feeling that he was rooted to himself, to his past, even as he mulled over the strange events of the past few months.
Nearby, a young French woman and her husband stood gazing out over the water. The man was American, and the woman was French. Their conversation was spotty. It was clear to Peter that they couldn’t quite communicate yet. The woman nodded at the man, her eyes lowered. She appeared to be crying. She placed her hand on her stomach as she turned, and Peter understood that she was pregnant. She strode away, allowing her hips to swivel this way, then that. She was far along, and Peter was mildly curious about it, remembering the months when Minnie was pregnant. How uncomfortable she’d been. To be on an ocean liner with a baby in your womb certainly couldn’t be ideal.
The American man saw Peter watching, and walked toward him, sitting a few feet away on the deck bench. He lit a cigarette as well and spoke out of the side of his mouth, allowing the smoke to drift from his mouth easily. “Motion sickness. Home sickness. Morning sickness. You name it, she’s got it.”
Peter grunted, acknowledging the words. He remembered that his grandfather had been a man of very few words, and he’d tried to emulate that on the ship. He owed no one his words.
The man beside him continued to blow smoke. “I’m injured, yeah. That’s why I’m heading home. You?”
Peter tapped his leg. “Bum knee.”
The man nodded. “I met her in Paris. I was stationed there. She was such a beauty. Now, I knocked her up, asked her to come with me. She agreed, but I think she’s having second thoughts.” He scratched the area between his lip and his nose. “She’s a timid girl. Not sure how she’s going to get on with my mother and sisters in Boston. They’re a loud bunch. Going to eat her alive.”
Peter nodded. His mind had begun to whirl, and he took another long drag from his cigarette. The man excused himself and followed the pregnant woman.
Peter understood, then. He lit another cigarette as the words revolved around inside his head.
Julie was pregnant.
He hadn’t caught the signs. Too much had been going on. But she’d been feeling ill, showing symptoms. He remembered her poised over the basin, vomiting. He remembered her holding her stomach with her hands during the day as she spoke to him, as if she was trying to tell him something.
It was true that before the trip became dire—before it involved actual Nazis, actual bombs—he and Julie had made love to each other as often as they could. They couldn’t resist each other. It had been their intimate time together—a time that didn’t exist anywhere else.
Peter knew that she wouldn’t have been taking her birth control pills during their travels; the pills didn’t fit in the timeline. And yet: he hadn’t used any condoms, hadn’t taken any precautions. They had thrown too much caution to the wind already. What was one more thing?
Peter hung his head in his hands as the boat steamed west, away from his love and their baby. He would be leaving them in this rocky past, a past that wasn’t even written yet. His heart ached for them. But there was nothing he could do, nothing he could say.
He wondered if the baby would even learn his name. If he or she would ever know what he looked like. He imagined what Julie would tell the baby as he or she grew older. Would she tell the baby that his father loved architecture, and take him to the renowned buildings in Paris to learn where architecture had been and where it was going?
Peter spent most of the following days in his room, feeling the weight of this knowledge on his mind and in his heart. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen the signs. His brain itched as he wondered, had Julie allowed him to leave because she didn’t truly love him? Had she wanted him to leave because she didn’t see a future with him?
He tried to orient himself, to allow himself to heal. That was the only way he could survive.
CHAPTER 18
Peter arrived at the port, in New York City, after what seemed like many weeks at sea. It was strange to him how unchanged New York seemed from when he’d last been there all those months before.
Essentially, nothing about the war seemed to affect the city. He saw burly men in suits walking down the sidewalk, speaking quickly with their hands, articulating something essential, something that had been important back in this clouded past. He bought a beer for 39 cents near the train station, thinking about the long road back to San Francisco. He imagined Jack Kerouac as a young boy, walking the New York streets and already imagining the open road, crossing the country.
Did anyone know about Oradour-sur-Glane? Did anyone know about Marion, about Julie—trying to move forward with their lives on the outskirts of that little town? Did anyone think beyond their New York City lives, beyond their American dreams?
Peter boarded the t
rain and daydreamed all the way back to San Francisco, gazing across the plains and feeling his heart widen at the grandeur of the Rocky Mountains. What a country they had. And it would grow stronger, perhaps stranger, in the next seventy years. The coming century was so essential to Peter’s very existence. In just a few decades, his father would learn that his mother was pregnant with him; his father would be faced with a future of children, of struggles, of both happy and sad times. As the train rambled ahead, Peter felt like he was at the bottom of a well looking up into the sky. The sky was his future.
The train arrived all too quickly, returning him to his home. San Francisco would be the place he and his wife, Minnie, would meet; it would be the place they would decide to raise their children. Their discussions of moving anywhere else in the world would be brief. Why would we? they’d ask each other. And then their family life, their home, became too perfect to ever leave.
Until, of course, Minnie had died. Until Peter’s life had collapsed around him.
Peter sighed heavily as the train doors opened, trying to orient himself to what he still had to do. He had to reach Dr. Epson; he had to return to 2013. His mission was nearly complete, and he wanted it to be over. As if he was waking up from a nightmare, he was ready to begin his day.
He strode from the train station, suddenly in the California fog once more. He had gone on the longest journey of his life, and now he felt the overarching sadness of that journey coming to an end. So much had ended, really: his relationship with Julie, his mission, his purpose. He didn’t even know if his children still existed in 2013, yet, and he didn’t even know if this all had been worth it. He tried to remember the chances Applegate had given him for his children’s continued existence. Fifty percent? Sixty? Could he really bank on these chances, or should he head back to France, to a woman and a child who needed him, wholly, in the here-and-now?
The hotel room was still reserved for him, for Julie, and for the doctors. He found his key in his pocket, and he entered, finding the room undisturbed since he and Julie had left the continent. He opened a window, bringing light and air into the stuffy room. He began removing the clothes from his bag, aligning them on the windowsill, allowing them to flap in the breeze. He pulled his overflowing journal from his satchel, stroking the leather cover before placing it at his bedside.
He lay back on the bed, hearing the tick-tick-tick from the clock on the bedside table. He felt his body aging around him, in a way: he felt wrinkles growing, felt his skin sagging. He wondered what all that would mean when he passed away in some year in the greater century moving forward. Would his skeleton, his sagging skin, still contain any resonance of this year 1943, when so much love and passion and anger and sadness had passed through him?
He thought for a moment about the doctors who had had the hotel room across the hall. He stood and walked toward their room, and rapped his knuckles against the door. Suddenly, the door creaked open; it hadn’t been closed all the way. “Hello?” Peter called. He leaned in and sensed that the room hadn’t been lived in for some time. “Hello?” he called again.
All across the hotel room, papers had been strewn about. The bed had been torn apart, as if someone had been looking for something. Peter felt a wave of alarm course through his body. What the hell was going on? Each of the dresser drawers had been searched and torn from the dresser. He brought his hand to his head and remembered that he’d kept some papers in his own dresser. He panicked and turned, running back to his own room. He opened the wardrobe and found that the papers were still there, along with the final envelope from Applegate—”Mailing Instructions”, all undisturbed.
But there was something else.
The roll of pennies he’d gotten from Canter, so long ago, was lying in the drawer. He knew he hadn’t been the one to put them there. He held them up, noting the image of Lincoln and the year: 1943, right where it ought to be. They glinted in the light from the San Francisco sky.
Beneath the roll of pennies, Peter found a folded note. His heart beating fast, he brought it toward him, leaning back on the bed. The letter was from Julie. Her handwriting made his stomach clench. He pressed the paper to his chest for a moment, unsure if he wanted to read further. Why had she left him this? And would it help him get over her? Would it make anything easier on him?
Finally, he dove into the letter.
Peter,
You’re reading this on the other side of the mission. We’ve gone to France, to Oradour-sur-Glane, and I’m hopefully stationed there, now, with my French family, just as I’d always planned.
You must listen to me, Peter, and you mustn’t grow angry. I’ve tied everything up in 2013. I was fully prepared to take the leap into the past. Too much had happened to me in my lifetime. I felt like an alien in my own land, in my own apartment. I said goodbye to my stepfather, and I’m officially ready to orient myself in the past and to save my family from certain death. I hope you can understand. I want to rewrite the future, to create a better life for my family’s bloodline. I feel like I owe it to my mother, to myself.
You’ll notice I left the pennies, of course. All but one (which I’ve kept for myself as a memento). It’s ultimately up to you what you do with these pennies, Peter. But I’d wager that your mind isn’t on the pennies right now. It’s on whatever’s happened to you back in France, or the fact that I’m still living on there, while you’ve come back here to be with your family.
You’re a good man, Peter, a man I could have truly loved. I wish I could have met you in another lifetime, where things could have worked out perfectly for us, where we were meant to have our meet-cute in a café or something other than a secret government mission.
Remember that I care for you, Peter. Remember to have strength as you move back into the future. I’ll be thinking about you, always, as I live the remainder of my life in this antiquated past. (I never got into the Internet thing, anyway.)
Yours,
Julie
Peter swallowed. He felt the weight of the pennies in his hand as he refolded the letter slowly. He kissed it on the corner and tucked it into his journal. This was his final reminder of her, this woman he now loved. She’d written it even before they became lovers who’d gone through hell and come out the other side, hand in hand. He missed having her in bed with him; he missed hearing her voice in his ear—those raspy, secret whispers.
But there was another letter demanding his attention.
Peter,
I assume that if you’ve opened this letter, the mission was a success! Congratulations to you and your entire team. I am certain that the repercussions associated with your memo swap will be world-changing, and in the most positive way, I am sure.
Now, for the final leg of your mission—the journey home. In order for you and your team to return to 2013, there are a few simple procedures that you must complete. First, you must erase any trace of your existence in 1942. Depending on how vigilant you’ve all been about not sharing your identities throughout your assignment, this should be fairly straightforward. Leave no trail. Nothing from you or the team must remain in 1942.
The most important action for you to complete now is mailing the enclosed envelope. Do not tamper with or alter it in any way. Do not open the envelope, and specifically, DO NOT edit the mailing address. The address has been vetted thoroughly prior to your departure to 1942. It is an address that exists both then and now, and one to which I will have full access in the future as you see it from 1942.
Briefly, I’ll explain the urgency for this mailing. It contains information for me about the team and the mission. When you come back to 2013, the world will have moved on along a different path, and I will not have any recollection of you or the mission without that envelope. It will give me instructions to receive you and your team at the appropriate travel window.
As for that time frame, it is slightly different for your return to 2013 than it was for your travel to the past. We had a very specific slot we had to transport you all throug
h in order to introduce you to Dr. Epson at precisely the right moment. With your return, we’ll be able to leave the device on and in receiving mode.
Again, Peter, I am very thankful for your devotion to this mission, and will be eager to meet you, Julie and the doctors upon your return. I am sure your stories will be legendary.
Regards,
Harrison Applegate
Suddenly, Peter rose once more, his mind racing as he broke from his reverie. The doctors! He realized that they’d been taken by Mandrake—and that Mandrake had certainly had their room ransacked before taking them. He’d known that everything had been some sort of elaborate scheme, and now at the end of the mission, Peter needed to get to the bottom of it—why Mandrake was so heavily involved in everything, even when they hadn’t heard his name spoken in the initial proceedings back in 2013.
He grabbed his coat and rushed from the building, sliding the roll of pennies into his pocket and holding his journal in his grasp.
CHAPTER 19
Peter sped across town, toward Mandrake’s office. He remembered the fateful day when Mandrake had kidnapped him from the church and taken him there, to question him, to demand answers. Mandrake had said that he didn’t want the four of them to return to the present because it could alter the timeline. Peter thought perhaps Mandrake was using them further: that he and Julie had perhaps halted the war, made it end much sooner than it would have. But they wouldn’t be rewarded with being able to go back. Mandrake’s society was interested in the greater good of the world, not in what Peter wanted.
He rushed into the building. As if they’d expected Peter at that very moment, a man leaped upon him, grabbing his upper arms with strong hands. Peter had been moving so fast that this sudden stop made him lurch forward, made him lose his breath for a moment. “Hey!” he cried. But the man held him tight.
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