"Ariel?" he says. He reaches for my hand across the table. "What is it?"
I sigh, as though all the air is leaving my body. "Can't you see it?"
"See what?"
"The mice ... What we've just done for those mice. We should do that for everything. We could go and prevent the Holocaust. We could stop the atom bomb from being invented. We could..."
"Ariel."
"What?"
"We can't edit the world. We can't just go and rewrite it, as if it was just a draft of a book we weren't happy with."
"Why not?"
"Well, aren't you here to stop the possibility of that? Lura and Burlem sent you back here to take the book away so that people wouldn't even have the option of doing that. It's important. It's important that people can't change history."
"I know. That's why I'm not sure about changing Lumas's mind," I say, drinking more of the vodka. Amazingly, it is working, and the syrupy feeling intensifies the more of it I drink. "I mean, who made me God? I shouldn't get to decide any of this. But since I have been put in this position, and I do get to decide, I want to go and erase Hitler."
"But you know you can't."
"Do I?"
"Yes. Think about it. If Hitler were in your position, he'd erase something else. If the pope were in your position, he'd edit the world differently again. You've got to close the loophole that lets people do this."
"What if I know I'm right?"
"Come on. I know your mind. You can never know you're right."
"Hitler thought he was right," I say. "But everyone agrees that he wasn't."
"Of course he wasn't right," Adam says. "I'm not just saying that every opinion is as valid as every other..."
"Moral relativism," I say. "It's a trap."
"Yes, but you must still realize that you can't decide. We can't decide. It's not up to us. History has to make itself. And it probably will anyway, whatever we do. In erasing Hitler, we could just open the door for someone worse. I'm not even sure that what we've already done will have actually changed anything. Abbie Lathrop could decide to just get some more mice. If she doesn't, someone else will. We've helped those mice, but not all mice."
I drink more vodka. "I'm glad you're here," I say. Then I realize what I've just said. "I mean with me. I'm not glad you're here in the way you are." I put my glass down. "Adam?"
"What?"
"What do you think will happen to the Troposphere once I've been into Lumas's mind and stopped him from writing the book?"
"I don't know."
"I don't want you to disappear."
"Even if I do, it's worth it."
"Is it?"
"Yes. Now, we should hurry up and do this. You'll need to get back."
I don't say anything.
"Ariel?"
"Yes, I know. I just want to..." I get up.
"Where are you going?"
"Just over here."
I walk over to the table and look at the manuscript on the other table. Just as I thought, the title on the front is handwritten, and it says The End of Mr. Y. I turn away and walk out through the doors, with Adam following me.
"Will you come in with me?" I ask him.
"Of course," he says.
That way, I think, there's less possibility of him disappearing once I've done what I have to do.
We walk to the bookshop down the street, and I look in the window. There are various Samuel Butler novels there, as well as Zoonomia. I know who is behind the door, I just have to actually open it. I can't think about it anymore. I'm here now, and I know I'm not going to decide not to do this, so I may as well just do it now. I kiss Adam before we walk to the door and I open it and go in.
You now have one choice
You ... I ... We are sitting at the old desk in the draughty sitting room, writing, as usual. This book ... I have to write it; I have to finish it. Is it possible that people who do not write can ever understand quite how this feels? I have set poor Mr. Y going like a top, and now I have to keep him spinning until he reaches his end. And then I have to stop him spinning and put him back in the toy chest, limp with death. Oh, what a cruel God I would make! Can I have him live? No, don't be ridiculous, Tom. To have him live would break all the rules of tragedy, and more than that: It would not be the truth. So Mr. Y will die, and he will die by my hand. And then... And then.
My hand trembles when I think of that. And then, of course, I must die as well.
I have made the most solemn oath, with myself as a witness, that I will not visit the Troposphere again until this novel is completed. But when I go back, I am never coming out again. This cough will be the end of me otherwise; I understand what the doctor told me. As well as that—I want to be free of my right leg and these eyes. Of course, I am also cursed to suffer the most grievous impecuniosity, and I have known for many years that I shall never fuck again. Oh, when will this book end! Each time I dip my pen into this ink bottle (the sixth this month) I wonder if this will be the last bottle of ink I shall use and if this will be the last pen nib I wear out, and if so—in both cases—I wonder if I should frame the damn things or burn them. I am now obsessed with endings: the ending of this novel, and the ending of my own life. Can I be content now that I have a title? Perhaps. The End of Mr. Y has a pleasing double meaning, although I am convinced that most reviewers will be far too dull to notice anything like meaning and, if they review my book at all, will simply reference that awful business with Darwin.
Oh, I feel weary. This lamp oil smells toxic.
Perhaps I should just toss the whole book in the fire.
What am I thinking?
I can hear the coarse clip-clop of hooves outside, as men younger than I take to the clubs for an evening of entertainment and cunt-sucking. But mine is a more lofty purpose. Oh, it is so very cold in here, and I have only a little more coal.
When I began this long, arduous composition, I admit that I was seeking revenge. I desired that every man should hold the knowledge that I had been given. For I am Mr. Y—in spirit, if not in precise detail, and I, too, paid all the money I had in the world for another taste of this medicine that has since become my most demanding mistress. The man who sold it to me will have nothing of value once I have completed my book.
And then I shall end my life, just after I have ended the life of Mr. Y.
But ... What thoughts are these? Am I now to have a crisis of conscience? Am I now, when the whole novel is more than seven-eighths complete, to wonder what the results of its publication will be? Oh, curse these introspective nights. But now that I can see the narrative taking shape on the page I wonder: Will others try the recipe as I have? And how many will die that I may get my revenge? And... No! This is an absurd thought. But it insists on petitioning me, anyway. What would happen if those who read my book not only discover the Troposphere, but find some way to alter it?
I will burn the book.
No! No ... Not my book.
My hands are someone else's as they grasp my most precious manuscript and, with me as their unwilling assistant, toss the pages into the fire. The warmth is brief but intense as all two hundred pages crackle and pop. The fire cares not what is ink and what is white space. The book is gone.
What have I done?
What have I done?
I fall to my knees and begin to weep.
Quit.
Back in the Troposphere, it has started to rain.
"I wanted to spend so much more time with him," I say to Adam.
"No. Look at the weather. You need to get to the station."