Then
was then ... (part II)
So
here I am on top of the world and I finally know what was on those pages.
My
Philosophy class was having a section on comparative religions. A
Catholic priest, a Methodist minister and a Buddhist monk had come in and
later a Moslem and a Ba’hai would talk to us too but that day it was a
rabbi and I couldn’t get those pieces of paper out of my mind.
I
went up to him after class.
Soon
after the dreams began.
When
I was very young I used to believe that Hitler was still in power.
I knew that I was Jewish, but only half Jewish, and that made a
great difference. My folks don’t remember but I used to wonder, out
loud, maybe, if I was safe because I was only half Jewish, if Hitler would
leave me alone. Twenty years after the end of the war, a continent
and an ocean away and that bastard still had that power over me.
So
the dreams came, and I saw the marching and heard the speeches except Hitler
was speaking not in German but in French. And behind the swastika-laden
banners not Deutschland Über Alles but La Marseillaise.
After several weeks I had one final dream.
I
was in a cantina, I know, much like I imagined the cantina in San
Bartolo to be (I never actually went inside one), with its wind-up Victrola
blaring old rancheros and Saturday-night boracheros singing
Canción
Mixteca at the top of their lungs.
I
was sitting at a table across the room from a fireplace and I saw him enter
the room. He didn’t notice me; he saw the French soldiers sitting
by the fire drinking cerveza and probably wishing it were cognac.
I called to him.
“Monsieur
Tenet.”
He glanced
my way, startled, then started toward the soldiers. He couldn’t have
heard right.
“Monsieur,
venez ici, s’il vous plait.”
Now the
soldiers even noticed, but as quickly returned to their conversation.
The man, however, stopped dead in his tracks.
“Qui
est toi?”
“You
don’t know me yet. Please come over here and join me.”
“You
speak English. You are American?”
“¿Prefiere
español?” (I usually like to switch languages just to
be a smart-ass, but I was serious this time.) “My English is a lot
better.”
By now
he was approaching my table. I offered him a chair, called to the
dueño
for another cerveza. Sixteen and I’m ordering drinks for a stranger.
But this is a dream, remember.
He
sat down, but glanced nervously at the French several times a minute.
“Monsieur
Tenet...”
“How
do you know my name?”
“I’ll
explain. What year is this?”
“Alors...,
1882 , je croix.”
“That’s
what you think. Please, look at me. Look at me! You need
to see my eyes. It may be the only way you’ll believe me. And
you must!
“You
can’t do what you are about to do.”
“What
do you.... How.... Incroyable!”
He abruptly
rose to his feet and turned toward his original destination.
“1959.
We will meet in 1959 in La Paz,” I said hurriedly. “We’ll talk about
science fiction and time travel. You write in Hebrew in a leather
notebook with a green Waterman fountain pen and you will give me the last
seven pages you wrote in your journal before you left 1992...”
The man
turned back to me and fell back onto his chair.
“Vous
savez trop, garçon. What I do is vital. I must....”
“You
must listen to me, damnit! You come from 1992. You think that
you can waltz into the past and change history for the better. How
many Jews did Hitler... I mean, LeNoir kill? Two million? Ever
hear of Hitler? Of course not. You guys were too busy in France
to notice the Austrian scum. Believe me, Hitler will do your
LeNoir four million better. I’m a Jew! I was born in 1948 but
that son-of-a-bitch gave me nightmares six years and six thousand miles
away. Six million of my cousins he sent to the ovens!
Your tequila and your Havana cigars won’t give you much comfort as you
sit in a cafe in La Paz and think about six million Jews.”
He looks
at me hesitantly, glances at the French, start to speak and then falls
silent.
“Please,
you must believe me. Go. Return to your home.”
Curiously, I felt like a father talking to a son. “You can do nothing
here.”
All color
has drained from his face. He looked several years older, closer
to how he looked in 1959. He swirled the remaining liquid around
in his glass, set it down, smiled a smile that collapsed in on itself.
Then he arose and walked back to the door. His hand hesitated at
the door’s handle, he glanced at Maximillian’s men and was gone. I
whispered to his shade, “Shalom. ¡Vaya con Diós!” and fell
back into a dreamless sleep.
