“You know something, Orson? That’s not a good enough reason. Not even close. As a matter of fact, it’s a goddamn—”
“Also, there were extenuating circumstances,” he cut in, as though the notion had only just occurred to him. “I’d learned, on the previous morning, that my current iteration has come due.”
“Spare me the cult-speak. What I want from you is a straightforward—”
“Cancer of the small intestine. Stage three, whatever that means.” He beamed up at me. “That straightforward enough?”
A particle of dust turned in the sunlit air between us. The wallpaper, which was coming loose around the soot-grimed window, was patterned with tiny, shabby-looking fleurs-de-lis. Everything in that awful room was shabby, my father included, and everything outside was clear and bright.
“So that’s it?” I croaked, my throat thick, my voice breaking. “So that’s it, Dad? You’re going to die?”
“That appears to be the general consensus.” He shifted in his chair and closed his eyes. “I’ve never been all that troubled by dying, to tell you the truth. Must be my natural aversion to cliché.”
* * *
I’d expected the Iterants to hold me prisoner in the villa, or at least to detain me until Haven arrived, but they did no such thing. The house seemed deserted when I left Orson’s room, the way it had seemed when I’d first been let in, and I sat on the second-floor landing with my head in my hands for what felt like a very long time. Our talk had left me hollow and weak, as if my organs had been harvested — discreetly and painlessly — while my father rambled and evaded my questions.
When my nausea had passed I continued downstairs without caring who saw me. I was reaching for the front door when an elegant white hand closed around my wrist.
“One moment, Mr. Tolliver.”
I turned to face her, prepared for the worst, and saw to my surprise that she looked frightened. She smelled — faintly but unmistakably — of hairspray and coffee and sweat. So much for the “synthetic human” theory.
“Let go of me, Miss Greer. I’m not my father.”
“Let’s suppose, Mr. Tolliver, that there’s a tiny grain of truth to your idea. Not an enormous grain, mind you, but just enough. There would likely be people — individuals, or even entire groups — who’d have an interest in keeping that truth to themselves.” Her voice dropped so low that I could barely hear her. “Don’t go to the General Lee. It’s being watched.”
“What do you mean?” I said, feeling queasy again. “Who’s watching it?”
“You don’t need to go to Harlem, Waldy. Use your head a little. You’re a history major. You ought to know where to go next.”
“I’m trying to come up with a reason to trust you, Miss Greer.”
“Do you think you’re the only one — you and the rest of your family — with an interest in turning back time?”
She glanced quickly over her shoulder, then unlocked the door and pulled it smoothly open. I stepped out onto the stoop, feeling as though anything in the world might happen next. It ought to have been a good feeling, Mrs. Haven, but it wasn’t.
“Can I ask you why you’re telling me all this?”
She gave a clipped laugh. “I’m in love with your father. Is that so hard to imagine?”
“It is, actually. What’s in it for you?”
“I had no choice in the matter — I thought you’d been informed. I’m an autobot, created for his pleasure and relief.”
She gave another, harsher laugh and shut the door.
Monday, 09:05 EST
I was on my way back from the bathroom, Mrs. Haven, when I saw him. He lay spread-eagled in the Archive, around a slight crook in the tunnel, and only the heels of his wingtips were visible. His eyes came open when I reached him, identified me, then fell closed again. His face was not a face I recognized. If not for his shoes and his tattered green satchel I might not have known him at all.
“There you are, Nefflein,” he managed to rasp. “I’ve been eavesdropping again, as you can see.”
He gestured at his lap, wincing from even that small effort, and I saw my latest pages scattered there. The top few were coated with a fine, slate-gray dust, as though they’d traveled with him a great distance. Some of them were dog-eared at the corners: passages, presumably, that he took issue with. He asked if he might have a drink of water.
When I returned with the water he was sitting upright, or as near as he could manage, and my manuscript lay neatly stacked beside him. He took the glass from me and drained it, then let out a sigh — long and damp and contented — and sucked in enough air to speak.
“Judging by the look on your face, Nefflein, you’re asking yourself why I make these visits.”
“You come because of me. I understand that now.”
He nodded. “And because of the book.”
I took the manuscript and leafed through it, fingering the occasional dog-eared corner. “It looks as though you’ve found some more errata.”
“Not at all,” he said, smiling a little. “Those are places where you’ve gotten something right.”
It was the first joke we’d shared, and it seemed to ease his pain, or at least to distract him a little. I refilled his glass and let him drink, in no hurry to ask my next question. I had very few left.
“Tell me what happened at Äschenwald.”
His smile was gone before I’d finished speaking. “No use talking about that. I set everything down, clear as day, in my protocols.” His voice cracked. “If you care to consult—”
“Your protocols describe how you did what you did. That doesn’t interest me, Uncle. I want to know why.”
“I’ve told you already.”
“Tell me again.”
He seemed to pull back into the wall of trash behind him. “Why do you persist in the delusion that my crimes are your concern? If our positions were reversed, Nefflein, I’d feel no such responsibility — I can assure you of that.”
“That’s the difference between us,” I heard myself say, and I felt the Archive tremble as I spoke. “That’s the difference between us,” I told him again. “That’s why you and I are not the same.”
I had my answer at last, Mrs. Haven, and the Timekeeper knew it.
“Are you satisfied?” he wheezed, his voice heavy with defeat. “Will you leave me in peace?”
“Not just yet. Tell me what happened when the Red Army came. Tell me how you escaped.”
His face grew distant and set, and for a moment it seemed as if he might refuse. But he was only remembering — or attempting to remember. Eventually he coughed and sat upright.
* * *
“It was the crowning act of my duration, of course, but it was done in the blink of an eye. I’d always conceived of time travel as a matter of addition, if you understand me: of creating a machine, or an approach, or a propensity. In fact, as I discovered quite by accident, it proved a simple matter of subtraction. It happened naturally, effortlessly, as a function — in perfect accordance with my theory — of environmental stress. The Red Army had just overrun the compound. My intention was simply to excise myself from the timestream; I never thought of it as an escape. I’d calculated that the event would be immediate — that the extrachronological ether would reject me as an alien object, like a body attacking a virus — and that I’d return to the instant I’d left. At that point the Russians would find me, and I’d attempt to negotiate terms; or the partisans would find me, and beat me to death with their rifles. I was reconciled, by necessity, to either of these outcomes. It would have been irrational to hope for any other.