“Who tells him?”
“The others. They go back to his time and place and bring him news.”
“His time and place?”
She sorted through her mental archives. “He was American, from the 20th Century.” She snapped her fingers. “Gone.”
“The future?”
“Future, past, they’re all of a piece here.”
“You mean, we can go back?”
“In a way. That is, you can’t go back to your own time. Otherwise, you’re free to go pretty much anywhere. Sort of.”
The Frenchman’s confusion was more deeply engraved in his expression than any amount of telling could describe.
“Perhaps you’d like some nice, crusty bread,” she said. For all that she’d learned to speak a thousand tongues fluently, she could find in none of them the words to erase that look of utter despondency. “I expect Cook could do up some escargot or truffles.” Fixing the dietary preferences to given epochs had always given her difficulty. “Onion soup? French fries?”
The new arrival attempted to sort through his bewilderment. “I am dead?”
“Likely.”
“But I am alive.”
She nodded. “I can’t say for sure, but my guess is that if you sent someone back to your time, they’d tell you you disappeared.”
He shook his head distractedly. “You mean . . . I can send someone back with a message? They would tell my wife and daughter where I am . . . what has happened?”
“Well, no,” she said. “That is . . . when they go back, they can’t intervene directly. Just sort of round about. Sometimes it’s easier just to go back as ghosts. You don’t need money for that.”
“Ghosts?!”
“I know! An omelet! Cook does some lovely things with eggs, when he can get ’em.”
“I don’t want to eat!” he snapped. “I want to know what this place is!”
She looked at the clock. The five minutes was nearly up. “Maybe my dad could tell you better.” She gestured toward the bar. Her father nodded and, after wiping down the counter, joined them at the table in the corner.
The Frenchman eyed him suspiciously. “You are the landlord of this place?”
The barman nodded. “As much as anyone is, I suppose. I make you 1647, am I right?”
“How did you know?” said the Frenchman, startled.
The barman raised his voice to the room in general. “I was right, on the nail! Pay up!”
With that a number of the other patrons, representing all the eras in the history of man, grudgingly got to their feet, went to the bar and there deposited their wagers. Some in gold, some in silver, property deeds, seashells, certificates of deposit, works of art, or artifacts of value to particular eras.
“I’m right more than I’m wrong,” said the landlord with a wink. “Still, they’ll wager on anything, poor sods.”
“How do they understand you, if they are of so many tongues?” said the Frenchman, as if he’d found a weakness in the armor of logic.
“Oh, everyone understands the language of a gentleman’s bet,” said the landlord. He sat down. “Besides, most of ’em’ve been here a good long time. Plenty long enough to learn everyone else’s languages. The Basques give a little trouble now an’ again. Not enough of ’em to keep a fellow in practice, you know. But we all understand each other pretty well. You, ah . . . you seem to have come under fire.” He laughed at a personal joke.
“I was burned.”
“So I see. Well, we can get you another suit of clothes, for a price. Any particular fashion strike your fancy? We got some lovely Rockport loafers in this mornin’. Much easier on the feet than those things,” said the landlord, inclining his head at the leather sandals on the Frenchman’s feet. “Them ain’t ergonomical at all.”
The Frenchman resolved to deal with one madness at a time. “Your daughter tells me it is possible to go back.”
The landlord cast a disapproving glance at his daughter. “You shouldn’t have told him so soon.”
“I know, Papa, but he asked.”
“Well, take more care how you guide the conversation in future. You remember what happened to Amelia Earhart. Went charging right back and . . . well.” His attention returned to the Frenchman. “You can go back. Yes. After a fashion. But we recommend you wait a while. Get the lay of the place. You’ll find it ain’t so bad, once you get used to it. ’Course, you can’t go back to your own time anyway. You’ll have to get someone else to do that.”
“Why, if I can go anywhere, can’t I go back to my own time?”
“Ain’t in the rules,” said the landlord.
“Whose rules?”
“Rules of the Tavern. They ain’t man-set rules like ‘no spittin’ on the floor’ or ‘no shirt, no shoes, no service.’ More like natural laws. Folks’ve tried, mind. The apparatus just don’t seem to work that way.”
They waited while the Frenchman absorbed the information.
“Anything else we can do for you?” said the girl, rising from the table. “Sure you aren’t hungry?”
“We got some lovely tomatoes an Incan brought in last night,” said the landlord, enthusiastically. “I could slice ’em up thin with a little camembert on toast.”
“Tomatoes are poisonous!”
“Oh, sorry,” the landlord apologized. He should know better. “I forgot for a moment what century you was from. The things folks think! How about lobster? It’s still fresh.”
“Nothing,” said the Frenchman dejectedly. “I have no money.”
The landlord clapped his hands together and laughed. “Oh, you will have, all you want and then some! Your credit’s good here, ain’t it, my darlin’?”
“Everyone’s credit is good at the Tavern,” said the girl with a smile. The Frenchman noticed, for the first time, how pretty she was.
“No end of ways to pay off a little debt,” said the landlord. “No end of ways. Tit for tat, you know. Liberate a few objects from whatever time you happen to find yourself in and bring ’em back. You’ll always find someone willin’ to barter this for that.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Simple economics,” said the landlord. “Let’s say Ling-Chu over there wants to check up on his wife in 6th Century China, make sure she ain’t steppin’ out with the local barber in his absence.” He laughed. “Well, he can’t go back, can he? But he can hire you to go. Well, you need money once you get there; can’t have you impoverished, can we? So he bargains and barters ’til he finds someone whose done a little light liftin’ from the time and place in question, gives it to you—together with lessons in his native language—and you’re all set up! While you’re there, you lift a trinket or two, bring it back here and you’re in business. Nothin’ simpler.”
“But—if the morality of this place allows us to steal, why couldn’t I just go there and steal my way to wealth?”
“You might get caught,” said the landlord matter-of-factly. “Then where would you be? Nope, that’s another rule of the place. Anything you want to . . . borrow . . . you do it just before you come back. That way no one’s the wiser. See? And one other rule . . .”
“So many rules among dead thieves!” said the Frenchman sarcastically.
The landlord smiled. “Just one more: no one can visit a time and place but once. ’Course you can go a to a few days earlier, or a few days later, but you might run into yourself or someone who knew you. And that means . . .” He hung his head sadly, as did his daughter and several of those within hearing.
“Means what?” asked the Frenchman.
The landlord shuddered visibly. “Annihilation.”
“Annihilation?”
The landlord nodded.
“Death?”
“Worse.”
“Worse than death?”
“And bad for business. The investor loses everything. Well,” the landlord concluded. “I’d best get back. They’re three deep at the bar. Just you ring for anything you want.
”
The Frenchman grabbed him by the arm. “If what you say is true, any one of these people might go to any point in time and place . . . and ‘borrow’ anything they wanted!”
“Now you’re gettin’ the picture!” said the landlord, a jovial, piratical gleam in his eye. “Which reminds me: I got some lovely artwork in the back from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. I bet Rembrandt will pay a pretty penny to have his Storm on the Sea of Galilee back.” He returned to the bar. “Come along, Tortusse. You’ve got customers.”
Tortusse tossed the damp bar cloth over her naked shoulder. “Your room is at the top of the stairs, eighth door on the left. The room next is a snorer—Jimmy Hoffa. You’ll get to know him, more bark than bite. But such a snorer! Sleep apnea’s my guess.” She followed after her father, speaking in whispers, but still loud enough to be heard. “I thought no one was supposed to know Rembrandt disappeared. If he heard you from the back room . . .”
The landlord threw up his hands. “It’s so hard to keep the stories straight!”
The Frenchman hadn’t long to consider all he’d heard before a man from a nearby table and the 12th century approached. A fierce looking Mongol, his eyes, hungry and wary, fastened like rivets on the new arrival.
The Frenchman was unaware. His brain, its neurons firing in fits and starts like a poorly-calibrated internal combustion engine, was trying to corral a host of unruly possibilities. Bewilderment framed his face.
“You’re beginning to see the possibilities of the place, I see?” he asked in perfect Nicoise French. “Mind if I sit?”
He sat whether the Frenchman minded or not.
“I just want to know how my wife and daughter are doing. Without me, they have nothing. They’re probably starving.”
“Oh, that’s easily taken care of,” said the Mongol. “We can set ’em up like royalty, if you want. I know a Moor from about your time; an academic. He won’t seem much out of place in your era. All you need to do is supply him with the specifics. Of course, it’ll cost.”
“Cost what?”
“Oh, another favor. Another time. Another place. You’d be amazed the kind of unfinished business people want tending to.”
The Mongol smiled, his lips curled to reveal a mouthful of gold teeth.
“No end of little errands to keep a fella occupied.”
Rat Badger did not awaken the next morning. Cummings, having ascertained that he was still breathing, left him alone and tip-toed out of the room. “A pity,” he said to himself. He had managed to procure a slice of sugar-cured country ham with which to tempt the palette of his guest. “One must make the best of things,” he said, and ate the ham himself.
“Such as?”
“Oh, no need to trouble yourself about specifics. They’ll become apparent in time.” He raised his empty tankard and waved it in the direction of the bar. “Tortusse! Another . . . and one of what my friend is having!”
“How long have you been here?” the Frenchman asked lethargically. He did not like the look of his table companion and wished to forestall the proposition he had no doubt would be forthcoming. He needed time to think. Of course, he had the option of adjourning to his room as Tortusse had earlier suggested, but there were his wife and daughter to consider. If it was possible for him to somehow reach through the flames that had consumed him and provide for their well-being, love constrained him to seize the opportunity.
Tortusse arrived with the drinks. “Why’n’t you let the man sort himself out, Kengis?” she scolded in slightly accented Mongolian. “He’s only just got here.”
“No better time, my dear,” he replied, his eyes and his teeth catching the glint of a nearby candle. “Be on about your business.”
The Frenchman hadn’t been much interested in the exchange, in a language he didn’t understand. He was distractedly turning the jam jar in his hands, trying to make sense of the little images stamped thereon—Elmer Fudd and Daffy Duck—resolving they were abstract representations of the gods of some primitive race. He placed the empty container on the table and Tortusse refilled it. He caught the cautionary look in her eyes and the slight shake of her head.
“You’d best go to your room and have some rest,” she suggested.
“Leave ’im be!” said the Mongol, lapsing into Gaelic, then into English. “He’s a grown man, ain’t he? Push off about your business now, there’s a good girl.”
A nearby Norseman, who had been regaling a headless Irish Monk with tales of his exploits, slammed his tankard on the table, indicative of his desire for further refreshment. Tortusse, with another warning glance at the Frenchman, resumed her professional duties.
“She’s over-cautious,” said the Mongol, watching her departing nether regions with a certain lascivious appreciation. “Comes from having been born here, I imagine. She don’t understand what we’ve been though. She ain’t left her loved ones behind like we have.”
“She was born in this place?”
“So her father says,” said the Mongol. “I’ve no reason to doubt. Though who her mother might have been is a topic of speculation.” He produced a Game Boy from the folds of his garments and pretended to occupy himself with it. The device responded with the sounds of an animated character being crushed by heavy machinery. The curse with which he conceded defeat was in Mongolian, but required no translation. “Bad batteries. I need to find someone going back to the 21st century.”
The Frenchman, who didn’t know batteries from the ergodic branch of quantum theory, nonetheless deduced they were a commodity the Mongol desired. “Why don’t you go back yourself?”
“I run it out,” said the Mongol, still pretending to concentrate on the device.
“Run it out?”
“Been all through it,” said the Mongol. “You can’t go anyplace more than once. You can come close, mind, but I’ve been back to most every day in that century—different places, of course, so I wouldn’t run into myself—but last time I come that close,” he pinched the air with his thumb and forefinger, “to meetin’ myself outside a disco in Cleveland.”
The Frenchman was reminded of an earlier comment by the landlord. “Annihilation?”
The Mongol shuddered and nodded. “You have to have a good memory in this business,” he said. “I forgot I’d been there. I should take the time to learn to write, that way I could keep notes.”
“What is annihilation?” asked the Frenchman, wondering if it might not be preferable to an extended period of time among present company. “Death?”
“Worse!” said the Mongol. “But let’s not talk about that. No fear, if you keep your dates straight. I tried gettin’ some batteries from the 21st century, but by that time everything was runnin’ on coal . . .”
“So, if I go to this . . . this Cleveland . . . and get some of these . . . things . . .”
The Mongol grinned and nodded encouragingly.
“. . .you will go to my time and see that my wife and child are provided for?”
“That’s the idea!” said the Mongol with a wink. “Though I couldn’t go myself. But, like I said, there’s this Moor I know . . .”
“Why couldn’t you go? You’ve been there already?”
“Not that I recall,” the Mongol replied matter-of-factly. “But, you may not have noticed, I’m Mongolian. I’d’ve stood out amongst the populace.” He leaned conspiratorially across the table. “Anonymity is the thing, you see. You’ve got to pick times and places where you’ll fit in. For instance, if you, as a Frenchman, were to turn up in Algeria about the time of the uprising against colonial rule, well . . . you’d be filleted like a Dover sole before you got off a decent “Que-est-ce que tu fait?” You’ve got to know your history.”
The Frenchman was skeptical. “And you had no trouble fitting in in this Cleveland?”
“America’s a wonderful place!” said the Mongol, his eyes alight with pleasant memories. “Everyone fits in!”
“America is a land of red savages!” said the F
renchman, confident that he’d caught his companion in an untruth.
“Mais non!” said the Mongol. “In the 20th century they’ve got savages of every color! A wonderful place!” He swept the Frenchman with an appraising eye. “Mind, I’d steer clear of Harlem in that outfit, if I were you. You have to select your neighborhood carefully. Never mind. The landlord’s got a wardrobe that’d have Samuel B. Mayer droolin’.”
“For a price?” the Frenchman ventured.
The Mongol grinned a little wider.
Negotiations continued until the early hours and concluded with the introduction of the Moor to whom Kengis had referred—a light-skinned Spaniard from the Alhambra Palace—whose scholarly demeanor perfectly suited his physical appearance.
“Now,” said the Mongol, “the question is, what can our new friend do for you in return for this little favor, Sarcen?”
The remark had been framed as a question, but the Frenchman had the impression that the Mongol already knew the answer.
The Moor cleared his throat. “It’s a bit delicate.”
“Go on. Go on,” said the Mongol, all but rubbing his hands together in avaricious glee.
“You are new among us,” Sarcen continued. “So no doubt you have not heard of Leonhard Euler.”
The name was unfamiliar to the Frenchman, as his expression indicated.
“No, of course not. Came a bit after your time. He was a Swiss mathematician, 18th century.”
“Properly dead and buried,” Kengis interjected, with a touch of envy.
“Just so,” said the Moor.
The Frenchman continued to stare blankly.
Sarcen warmed to his subject. “He proved that adjacent triangles enfolding a sphere must have, at a minimum, twelve defects—swatches that have five neighbors instead of six.”
The blankness of the Frenchman’s expression deepened by several degrees. Sarcen produced a soccer ball with which to illustrate his point. “This ball is comprised of hexagons, with the exception of twelve pentagons. See?” He indicated one of the five-sided figures in question. “Of course, science thereafter proved that particle groups relieve strain by forcing additional particles to have an odd number of neighbors—five or seven—creating defects beyond these twelve. These create scars—lines, if you will—the lengths of which are directly proportional to the size of the sphere.” He fixed the Frenchman through his thick glasses. “You see the implications relative to physics, of course?”
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