...
And this is now
“Bonjour,
mama,” I called as I came into the kitchen. I’ve got to practice
my French if I’m to accompany her to the Université de Guadalajarre
this summer. Mexican French isn’t Parisian French but it’s a hell
of a lot cheaper. I can still afford to go to San Diego State in
the fall and begin my studies for a secondary teacher's credential in earnest.
Living in Mexico for nine months gave me a good start but just a start.
All
of which, of course, is rationalization for a six-week party in Guadalajarre
before the grind begins. Pretty soon we're chattering away in Frenglish.
Only a month to go.
So here
I am, sitting in a place called Café de la Paix, scuffing
my tennies on the cobblestone patio and looking over the terra cotta roofs
at the Sea of Cortez harbor of Topolobampo. Brilliant blue jellyfish
swarm the waters of the cove below this Mediterranean-looking, terraced
fishing village. And I’m minding my own business, really. Munching
some pain duoce and sipping Mexican chocolate, reading Jules Verne
in the original French. It’s good practice though I’ve already read it
several times in English.
It
was tough talking my mom into letting me travel with some buddies I met
in Guadalajarre, even if it was to the Copper Canyon. Talk about
spectacular! Several Grand Canyons would fit in it with room left over.
One of my friends was an adult already, it was a popular tour, completely
safe. And besides, I only needed to remind her that she bicycled
through Europe in ’39, just before LeNoir, may his soul rot in hell, began
his march on Germany. This looked to be boring in comparison.
Then,
of course, when we got to Los Mochis the train was to be delayed for a
couple of days so, hey, there’s this great little village just a couple
of hours away by bus. My buddies are sleeping off a hangover and
I’m reading Verne for breakfast and an odd-looking man is walking over
to a table and notices me. He stumbles, catches his balance and stands,
staring. I can barely hear his whisper from across the way.
“Who
are
you?”
The scenery
is hard to ignore as the train crawls along the rim of a chasm that truly
dwarfs our own puny Canyon. But I can’t exorcise him from my mind.
His words constantly haunt me, speaking of a universe that never happened,
one that almost did. He looked at me is if I knew him, as if I were
in fact relentlessly dogging his footsteps. Across the aisle the forest
rolls by....
“Hey,
I really don’t know you. Am I supposed to?”
“Please.
I’m sorry, ... I mean....”
He hesitated.
I had no idea what to say so for lack a better plan I just waited.
He tried again.
“It
wasn’t supposed to happen.” He spoke half to me, half to something
over my shoulder. “I got back and it was all wrong. LeNoir won,
for godssake.” Had I been less bemused and more on my toes I would
have remarked, ‘Certainly not for God’s sake.’ Of course he won.
Europe’s got twenty years of fascist rule to show for it. “But he
wasn’t supposed to,” he continued. “We defeated him.”
He wasn’t
really talking to me, was he? Just sort of bouncing the sounds off
of me, maybe to hear them more clearly himself.
At
this point my poorer judgment got the better of me.
“What
you mean we, Kimo Sabe. If I remember my history correctly
we were too busy fighting off the Confeds to be of much help. Not
that we could have done much good anyway. It’s tough to fight the
Confeds and France and Japan and South Africa all
at the same time. Diamonds buy a hell of a lot of planes and tanks
and guns.”
“But
I didn’t do anything. I went back, just like you told me to. And
it was all different. More than two million Jews were killed.”
“Yeah,
six million more, to be approximate.”
This
was getting a bit weird. I never told him anything, never even met
him before.
Suddenly,
it was like a film just lifted from his eyes. He spoke clearly, firmly.
“Daniel,
you like science fiction, don’t you.”
I don’t
remember telling him my name but I was already a little confused anyway.
“Yeah.”
“Just
give me a moment to compose this. I’m going to tell you a story.
You may not remember me but the last time we spoke you said we would meet
again, but in 1959....”
We spoke
for hours as he wove the most fantastical tale and when it was done he gave
me seven pages from his journal, ones he claimed to have given me in a
once before that never happened. They’re in Hebrew, all right, but
I know what they say.
He had
been on his way to La Paz. He started looking for answers in Puebla
but it held no clues as to why the universe had changed so he continued
on and the most natural land route took him through Topolobampo. As it
turned out, that was to be his destination. I asked him if all this
traveling around might not keep on changing things. He replied that
he felt a stability now that he hadn’t before, that he felt that things
would be different before he had known. He had theories but they
meant nothing now. He’s no longer a scientist but a pilgrim, a part
of the landscape, an insignificant piece of flotsam on the jetstream of
time.
