Chapter 8

Titus woke in his own room just where he had fallen on top of the covers. Someone had drawn the curtains, but a finger of sunshine crept between, so it couldn’t be late. Groggily he fumbled for his watch before he remembered it wasn’t there. His chin was still smooth and his stomach rumbled with hunger. It appeared he’d only napped for an hour or so. It was astonishing how a little rest could revive the courage. Nevertheless Titus felt no urge to go out any more today. Time for a little peaceable domestic exploration, perhaps.

He wandered down the hall, peering into doorways. Definitely this was not a residential building, nor an hospital, but a place of business! An office with nobody in it; Dr. Trask’s surgery — no, he remembered now that Americans called it an examination room; a windowless meeting room furnished with a large table and a dozen chairs; a larger office with several people at desks working on little machines. He was startled to see a photograph of himself on the wall, looking stupid as an owl in an ivy bush and shaking hands with some simpering whelp he didn’t recognize. His dark wool jacket placed the occasion — the picture must have been taken at that banquet. Well, Lash had mentioned photographs.

He emerged in the common area. Ensconced at the long table, Shell was eating from a tray, clicking buttons on the perpetual small machine, and talking to her machine. He prowled the room quietly so as not to disturb her.

He could identify none of the machines or devices in the kitchen area, recognizable only because there was a washbasin piled with dirty dishes. He didn’t even know how to work the taps. He realized now that his own bathroom had been specially fitted with antique fixtures that he could use without thought. Possibly Lash was the man to thank for that bit of thoughtfulness.

A machine in the cabinetry above the counter seemed to be a coffee dispenser — he could see the coffee inside a built-in flask, and when he touched the glassy vessel it was warm. This would account for Shell and Dr. Trask’s appalling ignorance about tea. The cat-lap he got must be specially procured for him by someone who knew nothing about it — no wonder it was so foul. When in Rome and all that — he had no objections to coffee. But getting this coffee out into a cup baffled him. The flask didn’t slide out, nor was there a spout or hose, so how did the damn thing work? Rather than risk breaking the device he gave up and moved on.

Shell said to her machine, “I would have told her. Maybe she needs to hear it, you know? A floor length skirt doesn’t suit every figure.”

Titus sat down opposite her. When he looked at Shell’s lunch he realized that they’d been giving him special food and utensils, too. She was using tong-like tools that he had never seen before. The food tray was divided into sections. None of the foods in the compartments looked even remotely edible. Bits of coloured leather in gravy perhaps, or wood shavings fried in oil, but not food.

Shell said, “If you let her bake the cakes herself, she’ll be a rag by the big day, you know. Have it catered, and save everybody the headache.” She picked up a bite in the tongs and transported it neatly to her mouth without a drip. Then she lifted a bit of food in the tongs, and reached it across to Titus. In a mild panic, he examined it narrowly. It looked exactly like a wet scrap of chamois leather. If he had not seen Shell eat some he would have rejected it. But the tongs poked forward impatiently, and he did not dare to do other than open his mouth. It was cold, and sweet-sour, and surprisingly crunchy — something vegetable? He could not say, even after chewing thoroughly and swallowing.

“Have him try it on beforehand,” Shell advised her machine. “Nat is so tall, they had to add a piece of black cloth to the bottom of each pants leg.” She slid her entire tray across to Titus. He would have refused it. Surely this was her meal? But she leaned back and stirred her coffee in an inarguably post-prandial way.

He experimented with the little tongs, which were of thin pale plastic and hinged at the top, too delicate for long use. It wasn’t difficult to handle them, however. He practised on the contents of the tray. Even polishing off all the crunchy stuff did not help him determine what it was. The brown food seemed to be rice in thin gravy, difficult to manipulate with the tongs, but there was no spoon. The thing that looked like a rolled washcloth revealed itself to be bread-like in nature and very tasty. He devoured it with pleasure. But the mysterious green slices were vile, salty and slick, and he left them in their section of the tray. Another packet, still sealed, bore no label. He tore it open and pondered the rolled washcloth within. If he had not already devoured the first, he could compare the two. Finally he took a nibble. It was nothing so tasty as the first, worse than the green stuff in fact —

“No, Titus! That’s a wipe!”

“Wipe, did you say?”

She snatched the thing from his fingers and unfolded it. It didn’t look any less papery than some of the foods he’d just eaten. But when she swabbed her fingers with it he understood it wasn’t food, but some sort of ready-moistened napkin. “Sorry, Bel, minor crisis here,” she said to her machine. “You were saying, about the out-of-town contingent?”

Embarrassed, Titus got up and drifted over to the coffee dispenser again. Damned if a seething machine was going to foil him! By chance more than intent, he found that the flask slid out of its niche for pouring if one grasped and turned it by its curved black handle. This minor victory bucked him so much that he hardly cared that he couldn’t get the lid off the flask, or that the cups were immured in a glass-fronted cupboard that defied him. He carried the flask over to Shell, who absently took it and topped off her own mug, thus revealing that the thing worked like teapots — one didn’t have to take off the lid to pour.

All he needed now was a cup, and were there not plenty of used ones in the sink? He chose one and nearly jumped out of his skin when the water turned on of its own accord, arching from the sleek metal tap onto the dishes below. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, he hastened to rinse the cup and pour himself some coffee. The water turned itself off again, too. Apparently the sink could tell when a person wanted to wash up. Perhaps it was keyed to the chip? Charmed, he played with the device, waving his hand above the tap in the manner of a stage magician to make the water appear. “Abracadabra, eh?” he said to Lash, as he came bursting in.

“Hallo, Titus, glad you’re finding your way around. Shell, we’re having an emergency meeting — you’d better sit in.”

Shell gave him a nod. “Look, Bel, I have to run. I’ll call you later, all right? Give Pats a kiss for me.” She scooped up the tray and pushed the entire thing into a slot in the wall before hurrying out after Lash.

It occurred to Titus that Lash’s emergency might have something to do with the tumultuous events of this morning. Suddenly uneasy, he followed, cup in hand. If they had gone to another floor in the building he would never find them, but to nose round on this level should be simple enough. And indeed, people were assembling in the meeting room down the hall, Lash and Shell among them, to watch half a dozen screens let into one wall. Titus slipped in, and Lash pulled out a chair for him.

By jingo, that was himself on a screen! Talking to that Talbot jackanapes! They were, yes, on the crowded street corner being ogled by interested throngs. He always looked a fool in photographs, either laughing or scowling at the camera, but there was a weird fascination now in seeing himself in motion. Shell had not been out at all, complaining of his stiff manner: beside the rubbery and loose-jointed Talbot he looked as unbending as the lamp-post at his back. From the angle Talbot’s assistant must have been filming him all that time. Doubtless one of his little machines had been a cine-camera. He had not realized that cameras could be got so small.

“Titus, how could you?” Shell fixed him with an ominous look. “Spouting off to that little vid weasel!”

“I didn’t take him seriously,” Titus had to admit. “You can’t tell me that a man who goes about in yellow knee pants is a person of consideration.”

Dr. Piotr snorted with laughter. “He’s got you there!”

Titus tasted his coffee. It was dreadful, worse even than the tea. Perhaps sugar and milk would improve it? There were paper sugar packets and little sealed pots of milk on the side table. He added both lavishly until the brew was palatable.

And here he was on another screen again! Rick had mentioned that someone in the crowd had been filming in the plaza. Perhaps one of those elfin cameras was the way they were keeping an eye on him in his room? This time he looked a frightful bully, pounding a table beneath a white and blue banner while ladies and boys cowered. A shocking exhibition of foul temper and poor manners! He stepped up to face the music immediately. “Inexcusable behavior on my part,” he apologized.

Shell grinned at him. “This the self-deprecatory British bit, isn’t it?”

“It’s absolutely perfect,” Piotr said. “Offering to let them finish the job on you? Titus, you’re a living wonder. Thrilling’s the only word for it.”

“Or insane.” Lash shivered at the memory. “You wouldn’t say it was thrilling if you’d been standing there beside him.”

Titus could only shake his head. By what standard were his one set of actions considered admirable, and the other not? He watched, trying to sift the problem out.

“Damn,” someone watching the screen said. “Latimer is asking questions on the Senate floor again.”

Groans. “Just what we need!” “Why didn’t the good people of Iowa put a sock in him?”

“I thought we’d dug a hole for this issue and buried it,” Shell said. “Until you, Titus, went and dug up the body!”

“Me? Are you on about the dancing? You were very graceful, Shell, but it’s balderdash to believe that any native would be impressed.” An unmistakable undercurrent of dismay from the group made Titus add, “Curse it, should I not say ‘native’?”

Dr. Piotr made an exasperated noise. “There’s no time to explain now, Titus. Just keep away from vid crews!”

“No one will take note of a clown like that,” Titus said, nodding with contempt at his image on the screens. His glassy expression as he confronted the brazen woman lifting her blouse would have made a cat laugh. And this inane image was doubtless being shown on screens all over the country, perhaps the world. “I’ll be a figure of fun for the rest of my life.”

“Tasteless but funny — the typical on-the-street newsie,” Dr. Trask said.

“I think you’ll be surprised and pleased, old man,” Lash said soothingly. “You can see that you don’t lack for rescuers.”

“True enough,” Titus had to concede. His backwards tumble into the street was the stuff of music-hall farce. But the chorus-like wail of dismay from the watching crowd was undeniably a spontaneous expression. Obviously the bulk of the populace did not regard him as superfluous. And the stupendous traffic tie-up was triggered by the impulsive surge of Good Samaritans into the street as much as by the toppled omnibus. He could hardly make out his fallen figure in the rush of helpers bearing him to safety, and the hapless Graham was nearly trampled in the stampede.

“If only you’d kept your mouth shut about the Forties!” Dr. Piotr shook his head. “Christ, it would’ve been perfect.”

“It would’ve been all right if you’d laughed at his pants,” Lash explained. “Or criticized the food, or the climate. But you have to realize that you’re tied in with the Project, Titus. We brought you here, and you’ve captured the public imagination. And when you touch on a hot issue like the Fortie program — “

Titus snarled with frustration. “I don’t understand where they got the idea that I know anything about it! Who cares what an antique soldier like me thinks? I can’t even open the kitchen cupboards!”

“Oh, you poor thing,” Shell said, immediately sympathetic. “Was that what you were fussing around the kitchen for? You should’ve asked — “ Her machine peeped, and she said to it, “What? Oh, hi, Rick. Yes, I saw Graham. Sure I’ll make a statement. Well, you could send me a draft.”

“Have I really dropped a clanger?” Titus said dismally.

“Clanger,” Piotr murmured to his machine.

“Not to worry, Titus,” Lash said, without a scintilla of conviction. “You have to grasp how public affairs work in this era. There’s always vigorous contention between various projects for scarce resources. The Fortie project had fine innings for a number of years, but there’s always a faction insisting that the money would be better spent on feeding the poor, or restoring the Everglades, or some such. Debate is healthy, a part of the democratic process...”

Titus stopped listening. According to his moral system, deliberately ragging authority was good fun, but to drop a brick due to ignorance was unacceptable. It still baffled him that anyone would solicit his opinion about anything, but if they regarded it so highly, so be it. “Let me go back to that young whelp, and put him straight.”

The cries of horror that greeted this proposal quenched his enthusiasm. “They’d eat you alive, Titus,” Dr. Piotr said. “Haven’t we already seen that?”

Still clutching her little machine, Shell said, “Rick says they’d all love to see him. He’s telling them no — wait a second, Rick, and I’ll get you up. And they aren’t buying it.”

“A medical reason,” Dr. Trask said. “I can cook up a medical excuse for him to be unavailable.”

The glint in her bright blue eyes gave Titus a distinct qualm. “I feel fine, truly!”

“No, you don’t, Titus,” Shell contradicted. “You feel dreadfully ill.”

She was fidgeting with her machine, and suddenly a new voice squawked from it. This must be Rick himself saying, “That sounds damned smart, Shell. Let’s pursue it. What’s wrong with him, Sabrina?

“He’s sick as a dog,” she said promptly. “Needs quiet, not to be bothered by newsies and worried about Doomsters gunning for him.”

“Quiet is damned attractive,” Titus said, remembering his list. “If it doesn’t smack of the white feather, I’d like to get out of this city.”

“Did you hear that, Rick? Excellent idea, Titus.”

“Chronal displacement syndrome,” Dr. Trask said, shaking her head gloomily. “Very serious. We’ve been worrying and preparing for it for months. Let me feel your pulse, Titus. Tch! Terrible. No, the only hope is to recoup his strength somewhere far away.”

“At this point PTICA will be much more comfortable if he’s stashed in a safe place,” Dr. Piotr said. “My only stipulation is that somebody keep him under supervision.” Titus growled at this, but Piotr pointed out, “Titus, today you incited a riot, and kicked off a traffic tie-up that’ll keep the upper West Side gridlocked till midnight — and that was just before lunch. You’re too hot to let out alone.”

Lash added, “And by the time Titus has had more time to adjust, all this Doomster nonsense will have died down.”

This was not how plans were made in England — or was this another one of those chronal things? Titus was used to a clear chain of command, with one’s superior officer making all the decisions. Meetings were for announcing them to the staff and perhaps elaborating strategy. When he thought about this conclave, its oddity became very plain. Decisions were not handed down, but debated and discussed until a consensus emerged. It seemed like a lunatic way to operate, throwing away the reins — possible only to feckless civilians.

Rick’s voice rang from Shell’s machine on the table. “So where could we park him that would be quiet — and cheap? Titus? Talk to me, man. Give me your take. If you could hoop anywhere in the world for a couple months, where would you like to lay it?”

Another straw in the wind — no British officer would ask for a subordinate’s opinion! “You sound so, so American,” he couldn’t help remarking.

“Can we focus?” Rick asked impatiently.

“How about England?” Lash suggested.

“Not with a barge pole!” There was little left for Titus in England now but memories he hadn’t yet the strength to face. The idea of seeing how terribly his country had altered in the past 133 years made him quail.

“Barge pole,” Dr. Trask murmured, apparently to her machine.

Rick said, “Bad move, Lash. The conquering hero returns home in triumph, and the media is over it like white on rice: parades, presentations, the works. Antarctica is more secluded. What do you say to returning to the old territory, Titus? The National Geographic Society is planning a special on the old explorers, and they’d like you to do color commentary. How about some video of you walking in the snow on the old route, standing like a hero at your own monument, huh?”

Without thinking Titus exclaimed, “I’d sooner be shot!” Somehow this was even worse than the idea of returning to England.

To his annoyance Lash noticed his distress. “He’s not ready for that, Rick. It’s much too soon. Give him time.”

“Antarctica is too exciting,” Piotr said. “We want someplace boring. Where nobody goes and nothing happens. And I have just the thing. My family leases a beach house on St. Simon’s Island, in a gated community down the Georgia coast. Private, exclusive, and relaxing.”

“What does one do at a beach?”

Dr. Piotr sparkled with enthusiasm. “Lie on the sand, swim in the ocean, drink blender cocktails, surf-cast, paraboard. And there’s four gorgeous golf courses. The back nine at the Hampton Club takes you right through the wetlands — miss the green and your ball is gone forever, eaten by alligators.”

“It sounds charming,” Titus said, unenthused. He had tried golf in England, and found it deucedly tame. “What is paraboard?”

“A sport,” Shell said. “You’d probably like it, Titus. It’s dangerous and expensive.”

“Well, how about something with more flavor?” Dr. Trask proposed. “And safer, too — I don’t want to risk my patient with alligators and paraboard. Shell, you met my brother Howard.”

“The one who married the history professor, sure,” Shell said.

“Well, she converted him, or he converted himself, I don’t know which, and now they’re living in this strict Orthodox community on Long Island. It’s about eight square city blocks, and they have a real job for somebody like Titus.”

“A job!” Titus sat up, electrified.

“Are you sure, Sabrina?” Lash said. “He has so few qualifications for employment.”

“For the Shabbos, Kev,” Dr. Trask said. “That’s the beauty of it. He doesn’t need any qualifications except being a Gentile. And he’d only need to work on Saturdays.”

Shell clapped a hand to her head in exaggerated amazement. “It’s so high-concept, Sabrina. Absolutely glorioso! You shouldn’t be wasting your talent in medicine. You should be in Hollywood, where there isn’t any real life, only sitcoms. Edwardian time traveler as a Shabbos goy — I’m going to bust a gut.”

“Exactly,” Dr. Trask said modestly. “Nobody would ever look for him there — it’s just too wacky. And he’d be close enough to the TTD to come in and get checked over every now and then, which is what I’m interested in.”

With a feeling that events were entirely running away with him Titus demanded, “What is a Shabbos?”

Shell said, “Titus, it’s important that you understand: Sabrina is suggesting that you hole up in a community of very conservative Orthodox Jews. You would do odd jobs for them once a week on the Shabbos, the Jewish day of rest, when they’re forbidden to work.”

Titus frowned, thinking hard. “You mean, live in a Jewish ghetto. Is that the right word?” he added, suddenly uneasy.

Nobody replied, sure sign that he had somehow dropped a brick once more. Lash said to Dr. Trask, “Isn’t your sister-in-law that Holocaust scholar?”

“Yes. You probably saw her book, the one about the concentration camp at Buchenwald.”

“‘Concentration camp’ — that’s British,” Titus said. “Coined during the Boer War, if it the same term.”

“I don’t think there’s time to explain, Titus,” Shell said, adding to the others, “Maybe Titus would increase the stress in the household more than they would like.”

“Miriam does like to argue,” Dr. Trask sighed.

Rick’s voice boomed out from the speaker: “Oh for God’s sake. How about this: my aunt and uncle raise soybeans in Ohio. A nice visit to the farm — what do you think, Titus?”

“Would I get to do any farm work?”

“You wouldn’t have to do a thing, pal. It’s all automated. Aunt Claudia does some hand-spinning from her angora bunnies. You could help hold the skeins of yarn.”

The ghastly prospect of months helping an old lady wind fluffy wool forced Titus to be frank. “You don’t understand. I don’t want to lounge about on perpetual holiday. I want to do things, contribute. To have no role, no job to do in the world — it’s hellishly depressing.”

The listeners he could see seemed sympathetic, but from the machine Rick said, “Problem is, you aren’t very marketable, Titus. None of your skills transfer over from the 19^th century to the 21^st.”

“It’s not your fault,” Lash said earnestly.

“But it’s true.” Titus held his head in his hands and tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “How can even farming be beyond my skill?”

“It was the default career in your day,” Rick said, “but times have changed.”

“I hadn’t really planned to do this.” Shell sighed and leaned both plump elbows on the table. “But I suppose you could come out to Wyoming with Miranda and me.”

“Wyoming?” For a moment Titus couldn’t recall what Wyoming was. “Where there’s room to gallop horses!”

“Shell, you’re a softy,” Rick said. “Isn’t that the last slot allotted for your family?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Shell said. “But he really does get on well with Miranda. He has the right attitude. When I introduced you,” she added to Titus, “you shook hands with her — just like with a regular person. That was nice. I know from the books that you haven’t had much exposure to handicapped children. So it beats me, how you can talk to her so well.”

Miranda and I are fighting the same sort of battle, he would have said. But this might be misunderstood. “I’ve already seen there’s a crying need for equestrian nannies in this era. I’m admirably qualified for that kind of work.”

“But, but it’s dangerous out there,” Lash said, staring at his little machine. “Look at this list of liability waivers! Titus, are you aware of what they do for a living? And you’ll have to deal with the public!”

“You make it sound like prostitution,” Dr. Trask said. “What it really is, Titus, is a sort of living history thing. Nat and Mag dress up in historical clothes, and take tourists for rides in covered wagons.”

“Usually four or five-day camping trips,” Shell amplified. “They can always use another wrangler. You live rough, there’s no denying it. But you’re used to that.”

“Certainly. And I take it these wagons are drawn by horses? I can help with them.”

Dr. Trask whistled. “Wow! Can you drive, as well as ride?”

Titus looked at her open-mouthed. “It was as necessary in my time as driving a motor must be for you.”

Lash said, “But — there are rattlesnakes! Lightning strikes! Heat stroke! Grass fires! Falling rocks!”

“Better and better.” Titus rubbed his hands in anticipation.

“Aren’t you a pistol,” Dr. Trask said. “But you are not going to fall off a rock, Titus. For my sake.”

“They only list those things for insurance purposes,” Shell said. “The only snake I’ve ever seen out there was road-kill.”

“But you’ll keep a close eye on him,” Lash pleaded. “I won’t be able to come along, Titus — the horse dander, you know.” This was an advantage that had not occurred to Titus until now. Carefully he said nothing.

“I’d worry more about Nat,” Shell said. “Titus, you should know that my ex is an Indigenous American.”

Dr. Trask said, “Only one quarter at most, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but it’s the important quarter, in his mind.”

Titus sighed. “What is an Indigenous American? Or is that another one of those touchy questions?”

“They used to call them Native Americans,” Lash said helpfully. “And before that, Indians.”

“Indian — ah, I understand. She means he’s a Red Indian.” Titus’s mind raced as he tried out and discarded possible comments. Finally he fixed on one that was probably safe: “Miranda must resemble him, rather than you.”

“She does,” Shell said.

“And who is Mag?”

“His wife, owner and manager of Prairie Schooner Tours.”

Owning and managing a business was not a task adapted to the fragile female mind — but Titus held his tongue. Lash said, “Will they mind if you turn up with an extra passenger?”

“I’m not going to be a passenger,” Titus said.

“That’s right, he’s going to work,” Shell said. “Although possibly not for a wage — I’ll discuss it with Mag. But if you’re fed and not paid, I don’t see how she could beef.”

“These are minor details,” Rick said. “It sounds excellent from this end. Ain’t nobody going to look for an Englishman in the grasslands of Wyoming. That’s better even than Ohio. Use an alias, okay? And I’ll start leaking rumors immediately, that Titus is going back to South Africa or something.”

“So it’s settled,” Piotr said — apparently the role of a leader was merely to confirm the decision of the group. “Shell will open discussions with the tour people, and Kev will help Titus pack.”

“A few clothes,” Shell advised. “You’ll have to dress right, Titus — Mag will take care of that.”

“Right, as in how?” Titus demanded, suspicious. “I won’t wear baggy knee pants.”

“To fit in with the period,” Lash said. “What is it supposed to be, Shell, the late 1800s sometime?”

“Little House in the Prairie country,” Shell agreed.

“My God,” Titus said. “Do you realize what this means? For once I’m going to be too modern!”

He had not intended to be witty, but when everyone laughed and applauded he couldn’t help grinning too.

Copyright © 2008 Brenda W. Clough