"The best trip ever . . ."
Bruck had not closed the door to the room, and he had been listening very intently to what Nestor was saying. Otherwise, he would have noticed the pairs of feral eyes lurking in the dark shadows outside the door. Too late, he realized that the red-haired bristly-bearded older brother had crept up the stairs and was standing there, listening, with a handful of savage looking men behind him, waiting.
Bruck felt a pang of regret as the red- haired red-bearded brother dashed into the room with a terrible cry and plunged a long sword into the heart of the helpless wounded Nestor.
Nestor slumped over lifeless, the grin on his face permanent now.
Bruck had just rotated the last number into place. But he dropped the rolled parchment on the floor and it skittered away as he ran out of time.
Even as the killer pulled his sword out of Nestor"s dead body and gleefully turned to Bruck, the killer"s blade dripping with blood and his confederates surging behind him, Bruck had begun to shimmer and vanish.
The red-haired bristly-bearded brother was too slow, reaching for Bruck but grabbing nothing, reaching, stretching, grasping futilely with hate-filled eyes.
That was always the last thing Bruck remembered before waking up, the reaching, stretching, grasping hands and the hate-filled eyes of the red-haired bristly-bearded brother.
The line shuffled forward. It was a long line, and there were many other lines inside the building. After each man received his orders he moved outside where there were vast treeless s.p.a.ces, and grouped areas of machines and equipment, and hundreds if not thousands of men, all attired for imminent battle.
Today Bruck"s weapons included a bow and arrow and several long curved swords tucked into his sash. He carried a shield and wore a winged helmet. Pads of armor were fitted over black pants, a black shirt, and a burgundy vest, everything edged in gilt.
Everywhere around him similarly dressed samurai awaited the signal.
Bruck felt a little foolish.
If only he could remember.
The worst thing was not the fighting all the time. He loved fighting, though he sometimes had to remind himself of that fact. The worst thing was not not knowing what he was fighting for-most of the time. Sometimes he knew the cause, though usually they didn"t tell him and it didn"t really matter.
The worst thing was how false and foolish and pretend it all felt.
The Marquis came by and pointed at Bruck, laughing. Bruck laughed back, pointing at the Marquis, and in a way that cheered him up a little, even though the Marquis quickly moved on to another part of the field, where today he had been picked to ride on horseback.
Bruck was an expert rider. He could have ridden circles around the Marquis and most of the others, but he didn"t care if he was running and carrying a spear or riding a horse. He didn"t care if he was dressed in blue or gray or samurai armor or the uniform he wore several times, with variations, when fighting in something the people in charge insisted on calling World War II. They numbered everything in this place, even wars.
If only he could remember.
Holding the triangle of stone in his hand, he rotated the numbers around into sequence again and again. And although he had been doing the same thing for days and weeks, each time the numbers locked into a new configuration, he waited expectantly for the shimmer and the rocketing, dizzying, nauseating sensation that might send him home again, though that never happened.
Seven numbers.
Bruck had about ten thousand probable sequences to work through, provided he could keep track of all the numbers he had tried before, the Marquis had told him with a laugh.
"Just wait till Nestor gets back . . ."
Bruck looked up, shading his eyes against the hot sun, and there-he spotted him again. A man with curly red hair and a gnarly reddish beard, huddled with another group of samurai, dressed slightly differently, over there on a small rise. Was the man staring at Bruck?
Was he the same man Bruck had glimpsed at Bar None?
The man in the dream?
Bruck felt a sudden excitement, a renewal, hope and expectation. The bile rose in his throat as he pocketed the stone and tightly gripped his sword. Around him others were stirring, standing.
A man came by with a bullhorn shouting instructions.
Bruck felt real again, for the first time in weeks, ready for a real fight.
"Action!"
Memories of Light and Sound Steven Saus
Steven Saus injects people with radioactivity as his day job, but only to serve the forces of good. His work has appeared in Seed Seed magazine and magazine and Andromeda s.p.a.ceways Andromeda s.p.a.ceways inflight magazine. He also has several flash fiction works in the online magazines inflight magazine. He also has several flash fiction works in the online magazines 365 Tomorrows 365 Tomorrows, Everyday Weirdness Everyday Weirdness, and Quantum Muse Quantum Muse. You can keep up with him at www.stevensaus.com.
"At least I get to wear a nice hat," Monica laughed. She held its floofy rim down as a gust of fall wind threatened to pull it off her bobbed hair. "You know, baby, when I said I wanted to visit Manhattan someday, this isn"t quite what I meant."
Anthony adjusted his bowler, shielding his dark eyes from a stray beam of late afternoon sunlight. "It"s an important time period," he said. "The Roaring Twenties. Flappers, speakeasies, all that jazz. Besides, the Statue of Liberty isn"t wading in seawater like it would be if we came here in our time."
Anthony grabbed the leather handle of the suitcase the Timeshares agent had provided for them. They had managed to buy one of the first unaccompanied tours. They wore period clothes for the trip and had an automatic recall trigger. Timeshares had arranged for a native to provide a packed suitcase, an itinerary, and lodgings. The reduced traveling ma.s.s and short length of their vacation reduced the price enough to let regular people like them afford the trip.
"The hotel is right across the street. Good for one night only." The traffic only justified checking the street once, but the back part of Anthony"s brain twitched so he checked for cars again.
The hotel"s foyer spread out before them as Monica handed her fur coat to a doorman. Anthony pointed to the marble pillars along the walls. "See? I got you Roman columns."
She giggled, and Anthony wrapped his arms around her, the soft cotton of her dress thin under his arms.
"It"s our honeymoon," she whispered in his ear, her pale fingers playing with the trace of gray at his temple. "I"m more interested in another kind of column."
Anthony"s face grew hot. He only had a few years on her, but her forwardness still took him by surprise. "We"ll do something about that after I check in," he said with a smile.
He walked to the counter and rang the bell while Monica examined the oil paintings on the wall. The other men in the lobby looked at her. Anthony"s smile got bigger as he leaned on the counter, watching the men watch her. It didn"t matter how much they looked. She had chosen him, the loser boy who had finally been successful. Now, on his honeymoon, he could finally make things right with- The clerk"s rough voice stopped his daydreaming. "You a wop?"
The blunt question punched through Timeshare"s historical briefing. Their warnings echoed his grandfather"s stories of a time when his family was not considered white. Anthony"s heart beat faster as he turned to face the desk clerk, fingers pressed into the polished wood of the counter.
"What the h.e.l.l did you say?"
Monica was at his side, her words cutting into the clerk"s reply. "We"re from Cleveland. Ohio. It"s our honeymoon!"
The clerk nodded to Anthony. "Sorry. Didn"t figure, but the owner doesn"t want no dagos staying here. Drives off real business, you know how it is. Gotta be careful with all the boats coming in."
Monica tapped the counter. "We don"t have much of that in Cleveland, thank goodness. Husband, dear, why don"t you sign us in and pay the man?"
"Of course," Anthony forced out, fumbling with the strange paper money.
He signed his name as Michael.
Anthony relaxed on the bed, pleasantly surprised at the comforting sensation of the thick quilt against his bare skin. He fluffed the pillow, pressing his head into the soft, real feathers. After years with bland foam, he found the p.r.i.c.k of an occasional quill fascinating. The sweat from their lovemaking slowly dried on his skin while Monica rinsed off in the extravagant claw foot bathtub. Both of them had paid more attention to each other than the room, which was now littered with their clothes. He let his attention wander as she splashed, taking in the ornate gilded wallpaper, the swirled plaster ceiling, the gas lights and radiator. Eventually it rested on his trousers. On the small bulge of folded papers in the pocket.
The muscles in his stomach clenched. Anthony closed his eyes. "Monica, there"s something I need to tell you."
"What, that racism is annoying? Or that you"ve rested enough?" She had gotten out of the tub and leaned against the doorway, dripping and naked. Monica grabbed her hat and plopped it on her head. "You like?"
"I wouldn"t have married you if I didn"t."
Her gaze slid down his body, one corner of her mouth rising higher in a wicked grin. "Doesn"t look like you like it quite enough," she said.
Anthony rolled his eyes. "I am older than you."
Monica snorted. "It must be the hat." She tossed it onto the bedpost, then jumped onto the bed in a slick wet heap.
"Even medical marvels have their limits, you know."
"Modern medical marvels," she said after kissing him. She rose up on one elbow. "You can"t worry about this stuff, baby. You"ve got to be practical about the past. You know how this all turns out, history. You can"t change it now, so let it go." She ran a finger across the short hairs on his chest. "Maybe you should concentrate on right now." medical marvels," she said after kissing him. She rose up on one elbow. "You can"t worry about this stuff, baby. You"ve got to be practical about the past. You know how this all turns out, history. You can"t change it now, so let it go." She ran a finger across the short hairs on his chest. "Maybe you should concentrate on right now."
He sighed, feeling the topic get away from him. "But I need to-"
"Husband of mine," she said, inching her way down the bed, "we can only afford one honeymoon. Get your mind off the past and on the present."
And for a little while, he did.
The next morning, Monica snored softly as Anthony picked his trousers up from the floor and pulled the papers from his pocket. Golden light from the early sunrise shone through the window. The soft clank of the radiator echoed in the cool autumn morning. The folded sheets were bound with a sc.r.a.p of string. One ragged edge showed where Anthony had removed them from the binding. He untied the string and unfolded the yellowed paper, smoothing the wrinkles against the floor. He put aside the copied record from Ellis Island and began to read.
Anthony skimmed over the handwritten Italian of his grandfather"s diary. He remembered the translation, merely using the sheets as sentimental cues. The earliest entries began a few weeks from now, in the coalfields. His grandfather had stopped keeping the diary the day Anthony"s parents had died. The day Anthony began to live with the old man.
Anthony was glad of that. He replayed that part of his childhood again and again. So many fights with his grandfather. So many times his grandfather had tried to keep Anthony from s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his life. All the times when he caught Anthony smoking, stealing, or sneaking out at night. The times when he insisted Anthony stay in school.
Monica turned in her sleep. The bedsprings" creak echoed the springs of his old bed in Grandfather"s house. That night he"d thrown himself on the bed in teenage melodrama, arguing over the sound of protesting springs. The last night.
"You cannot go out with them, Anthony. You are grounded. They are bad boys, and you cannot go with them."
The ancient jazz from his grandfather"s record player was yet another way the old man was behind the times.
"You don"t understand! You can"t understand. You"re not even from this country. You don"t get it!"
He could not remember what any of it looked like. All he remembered were the sounds and silences of that night. The sudden silence of his grandfather-confused and unable to speak. The echoing wail of the ambulance siren. The beep-punctuated quiet of the hospital room as Anthony waited for the doctors to tell him it was a ma.s.sive stroke. The total silence of the funeral home when his smart-a.s.s teenage mouth could not say a thing.
"What"s that, baby?" Monica said.
Anthony mashed the pages back together. His hands twisted the string around them on autopilot. The radiator clanked again, louder, giving him a moment to stall. He held a fragment of the past, a relic of a memory older than himself. He could not take anyone else judging him about this.
"Nothing," he said. She flinched at the flatness in his voice. "Just some notes about things to see in the city." Anthony pushed the papers back into his pants pocket.
"Okay, baby."
He watched her b.r.e.a.s.t.s rise and fall with a deep breath.
"Are you coming back to bed?"
Anthony put on his trousers. "No. Let"s get dressed. I want to get started on our tour."
The lion did not roar.
Monica"s eyes were large. "How does it move around?"
Anthony closed the pocket watch in his hand and looked up at the lion. It stopped circling the cage-it had just enough room for that-then sank down and began chewing at the bald patches on its haunches. It ignored the stinking bowl of kibble and sc.r.a.ps in the far corner.
"I don"t think it can. These small cages in zoos were normal even when I was a kid." He could smell the musk of the big cat over the metal of the cage; they were far closer to the lion than they would ever be in the naturalistic enclosures of a modern zoo.
"Is that why it"s chewing on itself? Because it has no room? Because it feels trapped?"
Anthony started to reply when a swarm of schoolchildren flowed around a corner and past them, a pushing, shoving, river of shouting youth. Behind them, a school-teacher in a muted floral dress prompted stragglers to keep up.
Monica pointed at the kids. "They"re so cute, Anthony."
"No."
"I wasn"t-"
"I can"t afford kids. We"ve talked about this before." Anthony looked at his watch again. "We"ve got to get going, anyway."
"Fine."
Anthony looked up; the hardness of her voice was also in her eyes.
"We won"t talk about it, Anthony. I"ll meet you at the front gate."
He watched her walk away, her stride keeping pace with the students. A chuff from the lion got his attention. It had stopped gnawing at itself, its face instead turned straight toward him. Anthony understood how antelope felt.
"I can"t afford it," he whispered. "I can"t afford to make another mistake."
It was afternoon when they got to the docks, and even if the conversation was not forgotten, Anthony was not going to mention it. The early afternoon sunlight angled across the water as the ferry lowered its ramp. When it did, humanity poured out, swirling among the few people waiting nearby. The pa.s.sengers" brown clothing offset the sea of olive skin and dark hair. Pale manifest tags from the pa.s.senger ships were still pinned to their clothes. The sound of immigrant voices reached Anthony, a linguist"s stew of Europe, the words too fast in too many languages to understand. The smell of disinfectant came next, carried on their clothes from Ellis Island, pushing away the smell of the sea.
Monica leaned into his shoulder, a whispered breath in his ear. "Why are we here, baby? Isn"t the Statue of Liberty next on the itinerary?"
Anthony turned his head slowly from side to side, both negating and trying to take in each of the faces as they went past. He tried to imagine each one forty years older, to match them to the face he had argued with years ago. His heart twisted more with each small wave of people that pa.s.sed. He was only able to see a few of them. There were too many-the ferry was emptying too fast.
They both swiveled at a joyful cry. A man, still in dirty work clothes gathered up a woman and child into his arms. The woman was speaking fast, high, excited, and then was stopped by the man"s pa.s.sionate kiss. A small wordless sound escaped Anthony"s lips, his mind filled with memories of his father returning from business trips.