“I don’t think you’re going to be able to prove to me I’m a time traveler without actually traveling in time,” I warned Ms. Moro, as she hustled me down Zwickau’s main street. It was a chilly night and it smelled like rain was on the way. “I see nothing here that makes me think I’m in the wrong era.”
“God, you’re stubborn,” she sighed.
Somewhere in the distance, we heard the chugging of what I was pretty sure was a small steam engine. It grew louder, heading our way. She peered into the gloom. I couldn’t see a thing.
“What about cars, David?”
I still couldn’t make out what she was looking at.
“You have a car, don’t you?” she pressed.
“I...I can’t recall.”
“But you know what a car looks like, right?”
“Well, sure.” I wasn’t exactly sure, but I had a vague inkling. “Four wheels, seats, steering wheel...”
Finally the auto emerged into the spill from the street lamp. Fascinated Zwickau pedestrians pointed as it passed.
It had no headlamps, and was smaller than I expected, basically a topless buggy with four bike wheels, and no steering wheel. The driver made turns with a tiller. The noise came from the little steam engine on the back.
“Is that what you’d call a car?” the blonde asked.
“Obviously, it’s an antique car. So what?”
“Does it look antique?”
“No, it looks brand new. Which just means it’s well maintained.”
“Okay. And what about the fact Philippe Brumbach doesn’t know what a film is?” she asked.
“Maybe he’s never been to one.”
“Do you see any movie houses he could go to?”
I looked up and down every street leading to the Zwickau Marketplace. She had a point. We were walking through the center of town, and I hadn’t seen a single cinema marquee. Nor any movie posters.
“This must be one of those quaint little tourist towns that don’t go in for modern innovation.”
“Oh, they’ve got innovations, David. They just don’t have movies. Because this is not your era. This is 118 years in your past.”
“You mean 116. If I’m really from 2016, as you claim.”
“No, ’cause before you came here, we lived for three days in 2018, and we left that year on March eighteenth. So 118 years.”
“What is it with you and all the exact numbers? Are you some kind of math whiz?”
She started to tear up again.
“What’d I say this time?” I asked.
“How can you not remember? You’re the one who taught me my times tables, and how to add and subtract.”
“I did? What was I a professor of? Arithmetic?”
She dried her eyes and led me around a corner.
We almost bumped into Johanna Brumbach, carrying her toddler and shepherding fourteen more children along the street, but Miss Moro pulled me back into the shadows and they passed us unaware.
“Now we find the candy shop and you may each have one piece!” Mama announced, as they vanished into the dark.
Kientopp read the sign over the picture window, in a little storefront that might otherwise have housed Matuschek and Company.
Wait, who’s Matuschek? Is that a real business? Or was that in a movie?
Miss Moro escorted me inside.
“Welcome to Kientopp,” she told me
The place was buzzing with excited customers, bent over drum-shaped machines set on pedestals. Each was made from gold-toned metal with flowing Art Nouveau decoration, and a framed picture in a silvery frame atop the machine. Each patron was looking into the binocular-shaped eye port on top, and winding a crank in the front.
“Is this a museum?” I wondered.
“No, professor. What you’re looking at is state-of-the-art entertainment in 1900.”
She invited me to look. I put my eyes to the port and she dropped a coin in the slot.
A light came on inside. As I cranked, a series of monochrome photos on cards flipped by, creating the illusion of movement. It was a man with an enormous mustache, taking a pinch of snuff and sneezing. It was over in five seconds.
Belatedly, I read the sign atop my machine:
Die Firma Edison präsentiert Fred Otts Niesen.
“That’s it?” I asked my guide, Miss Moro.
Another customer was eagerly lined up to shove his cash into Mr. Ott’s slot, so I stepped out of his way.
You may think that’s entertainment, but it’s snot, I almost said. But I knew the joke wouldn’t translate.
Five seconds later, he laughed his ass off at Fred Ott’s sneeze.
And it wasn’t just this man. All around the premises, the public gaped in rapt attention at what their excited cranking had set flickering inside the drums.
Miss Moro noted my bewilderment.
“Still think you’re not back in time? Still think you belong here in 1900?” She gestured at another flicker machine and handed me another coin. I stared at the twenty-five-pfennig piece, which looked to be made of nickel.
Then it hit me.
Kientopp...is a nickelodeon. A penny arcade peep show. Like I just saw on Disneyland’s Main Street. And these flipbook machines—they’re called Mutoscopes. They were antiques even when I saw them the other day...in 1961. And in 1961, I still wouldn’t be born for more than a quarter of a century!
A flood of fragmentary memories washed over me like a storm-churned breaker. I looked around, and realized the clothes everyone was wearing, clothes that I’d been looking at all day, were really old-fashioned: they now seemed more like costumes in an old movie.
Suddenly, I felt like I was upside-down. My feet were still on the floor, but the world seemed to have inverted and I could only wonder why I wasn’t smashing through the skylight and falling into the sky.
“This is the past,” I said. Then I lost my balance. Ms. Moro gently took my elbow and guided my descent as I sank into the nearest chair, hyperventilating. “My God, I’m not from this time at all. I must be a time traveler.”
People around us gave me a funny look.
“It’s okay,” Ms. Moro murmured. “Take slow, deep breaths.”
“And that means you’re one too?” I whispered.
She nodded, encouraging. Her beauty had rather dazzled me before, but now I could see it was not just esthetic beauty...she had a kind face. Like Kati.
I stared at her a long time, hoping I’d remember her. But most of my life, including this woman’s role in it, was still a blank.
“I’m getting flashes of memory. But as for you...I’m sorry, I still don’t...”
“It’s okay. Give it time.”
“You never told me your name. Or did you?”
“Yeah, I did, but you thought I was talking about a high-wire act. It’s not that kind of aerial. It’s a name. It’s my name. Ariyl.”
“Oh, like in The Little Mermaid?”
“Hey, you remember the Disney cartoon?”
“Who’s Disney?”
“You don’t know Disney?”
“I only know he has a land somewhere.”
“Oh, Jeez,” she winced.
“But your name’s spelled A-R-I-E-L?”
“Y, not E. Doesn’t matter, though.”
“Well, it’s just as easy to get these things right.”
She gave a wan smile. “Now that sounds like the David I remember.” She helped me to my feet. “Come on, professor.”
“I thought you said I got fired.”
“You’ll always be ‘professor’ to me.”
Ariyl Moro pointed me at another Mutoscope. It showed a photo of a mustachioed man with bulging muscles like a Greek statue of Hercules.
It was another Edison Company production. I read the title aloud: “Eugen Sandow - Der stärkste Mann der Welt.”
“How do you get ‘oyg-in zan-doe’ out of Eugen Sandow?” she asked, saying it “yew-jen sand-ow.”
“That’s the German pronunciation.”
“Already you’re correcting me. You’re on the mend, I guess,” she sighed. “Take a look.” I took the coin she handed me and plopped it in the slot. I cranked, and saw the blond, curly-haired strongman doing a posing routine. Unlike Philippe Brumbach, there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, nor any body fur.
“Who’s this guy, the world’s first bodybuilder?” I asked.
“You got it. Remember that face, ’cause we may need to find him in New York in two years.”
“What for?
“Tell you later. First, we fix things here.”
“How?”
“You have to break up with Kati Brumbach.”
That brought me back to terra firma with a thud.
“Says who?”
“Me. You don’t have a choice.”
“The hell I don’t. I won’t do it.”
“You said it yourself, David. You don’t belong in this era.”
“I belong anywhere I choose to live.”
“You can’t be part of her life. She never married you. That’s not how history works out.”
“Do you know what you’re asking me? To give her up? When I don’t know if I will ever again have anyone anywhere near as wonderful in my life?”
She took a long pause, thinking something over. “Believe me, professor, there are things I wish I could tell you that would make it easier.”
“Like what?”
She shook her head.
“The one thing I did hear in that lecture is you can’t force someone out of this kind of amnesia. It’s like you don’t wake a sleepwalker...you have to kinda guide them to figuring it out on their own.”
“This sucks.”
“Well, you don’t have to break up with Kati, exactly. We just have to get her to take these.” Ariyl held out three red-and-purple capsules.
“What’s that?”
“Pentol-117. A hypnotic developed in the 2030s. It’ll erase her memory of this day and let us give her a post-hypnotic suggestion that will get history back on track.”
“You want me to drug the woman I love?” I exclaimed, way too loudly. All around the Kientopp, heads turned.
Ms. Moro took my arm and led me out of the little arcade.
“It’s harmless...unlike you, changing history.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t need to. I’ll prove it to you.”
As we walked back to the Brumbach camp, I noticed a shooting star fly across the inky heavens.
And it made me think of what Ariyl Moro had said about the asteroid hitting the Earth. I got a chill down my spine.
Philippe Brumbach was peacefully snoring on the floor of the wagon.
“What happened to him?” I gasped.
“I convinced him to take the capsules.”
“Plural?”
“Yeah, alcohol counteracts the effect, so I had to up the dose. These people seem to live on beer.”
“How exactly did you convince him?”
“That’s one of those answers you’ll have to figure out on your own, professor.”
She gently tapped his feet.
“Herr Brumbach. Wake up.”
Philippe opened his eyes, yawned and stretched. He looked at Ariyl Moro and me.
“Hello,” he said pleasantly. “Who are you?”
“What do you mean, who am I? I’m Sandy,” I replied. “You know, the one who wrestled your daughter and...well, the guy you don’t like so much.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “You never wrestled my Kati. I remember every match she ever had. But you are welcome to try tomorrow. We have one more show in Zwickau.”
“You will forget this conversation,” Ariyl told him. “You never saw Sandy or me. Go back to sleep now, Herr Brumbach.”
He nodded agreeably and went right back to sawing logs. I tried kicking his foot to wake him, but he dozed on.
“An hour ago, he hated me. Now he has no idea who I am!” I marveled. “Those things really work.”
“Yep. Now, who did you interact with in the family, besides Katharina and her parents?”
“Well, I was helping out this afternoon, but I didn’t talk to any of the other kids. They kept their distance.”
“Then we can fix the damage to history by erasing Kati and Johanna’s memories of you.”
“What about Max Heymann?”
“Done. I found him earlier tonight. He’ll be there tomorrow. Their meeting gets a reset, just one day later.” She looked at me with sympathy. “I can handle Kati if you want, and you take care of Johanna.”
“I don’t think I can fool Mama. She’s a pretty sharp cookie.”
“So is her daughter.”
“Yeah, but Kati trusts me,” I said, feeling twice as shitty about this now.
“Okay, I’ll take Johanna. Here.”
Ariyl handed me the three capsules, then pulled a bottle of sarsaparilla from within her cloak.
“Slip them in this. They dissolve fast and she won’t be able to taste them.”
Kati was just peeking out of her tent when I showed up. She instantly dragged me inside and tied the tent flaps down.
“Liebchen, where have you been?” she whispered. “I was afraid Papa had caught you and driven you off!”
“No. He doesn’t hate me anymore.” She gave me a dubious look. “It’s true,” I said.
“Well, that’s good. But how...?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Unfortunately, Sandy, now the others are back. The children are asleep in their tents, and Mama and Papa are in the wagon.” She lifted me up for a mighty long kiss. “But we must be very quiet now,” she whispered.
I nodded, and held out the bottle Ariyl Moro had given me.
“I brought you this.”
She wrinkled her nose.
“Ugh. I hate sarsaparilla.”
Oh, great, I thought.
She brightened. “But don’t worry, I have some beer.” She bent to grab the bottles.
“No!”
“Shhh!” she cautioned me.
I remembered to whisper.
“No, no alcohol. Please, this is a very special sarsaparilla. It, uh, it’s the same brand my father and mother had on their first date.”
“Oh, Sandy, that is so sweet!”
She shifted me to one arm and kissed me while her free hand yanked off my shirt. Then abruptly she halted.
“Wait...does this mean you are starting to remember your past?”
“I’m getting flashes here and there.”
“No wife or girlfriend, I hope!”
“Nobody like you, Kati. Absolutely not.”
Well, that just made her kiss me all the more. She had me half naked by now, and I was losing my shaky resolve with every article of clothing she pulled off me.
“Kati, love, please...you’re forgetting the sarsaparilla.”
“I am doing my best to, yes,” she giggled.
“Please. It means the world to me,” I urged.
She sighed, and put me down.
“You are such an impractical romantic,” she chided me. I opened the stopper, and took a swig. It was like the bitterest root beer I’d ever had, only worse.
“Mmm!” I lied. I forced myself to take one more sip.
“Liebchen, let’s elope, tonight!” she murmured in my ear. I choked on the soda and it came out my nose.
“Is that such a terrible idea?” she asked, hurt. This powerful amazon suddenly sounded like a sad and vulnerable girl. “I thought that we could get married in Vienna, and by the time Papa caught up to us, it would be too late and he would have to accept you!”
“It’s a wonderful idea,” I said. “If you hadn’t suggested it, I would have.” And I would have, back when I was worried about her papa. But now it could never happen.
I secretly dropped two capsules into the bottle neck, swirled the contents to dissolve them, then gave it to her. I pocketed the third. I really wasn’t sure if this Pentol stuff was safe, so I made a command decision not to give her the full dose.
“Bottoms up,” I said. She took a sip and frowned in disgust. “I know, but please...for me,” I said.
She finished it, and gave a resounding belch afterward.
“Excuse me!” she laughed, embarrassed.
“Only if you excuse me,” I said. She began kissing me again, as she carried me to the pillows and laid me down where we’d made love before.
If I had felt supremely lucky before, now I just felt like a thief, stealing something that no longer belonged to me.
“Kati, since we are going to elope, maybe we should not make love...you know, until our wedding night.”
“Of course! Just give me a few minutes to pack some things!”
She started to get up, but I pulled on her hand.
“Aren’t you feeling sleepy now?”
She was silent for a moment, then yawned. “I am, a little.”
She lay back down. “Just let me rest my eyes a moment.” She cuddled me to her.
I wasn’t sure when the Pentol was supposed to kick in. I couldn’t give her that post-hypnotic suggestion unless I was sure she was under.
“Sandy, did you remember a song yet?”
“Song?”
“I told you anyone can sing a song, and you said you didn’t know any.”
“Oh, right. Um...I think I do.”
“Sing it for me, please?”
Damned if I didn’t remember one. A really old one, though. Out of my dad’s shellac 78 record collection. The words came back to me as I sang it for her.
Lips that once were mine
Tender eyes that shine...
She was falling asleep now.
“Kati, do you hear me?”
Her eyes were shut, but she nodded. “Ja.”
“In the morning, you will not remember me, nor anything that we did today. But you won’t be sad. You are going to become a great and famous woman.”
A tear rolled out of my eye. I brushed it off my cheek before it could fall on her face. I went on, my voice heavy.
“And tomorrow, you will meet someone who will make you truly happy the rest of your life.”
Because that’s what Ariyl Moro had promised me would happen.
“I understand,” Katharina whispered.
As soon as her breathing was regular, I pulled on my shirt. I whispered, “Auf wiedersehen, Liebchen,” and kissed her forehead. Then I crept out of her tent.
I jumped a foot when I backed into Ariyl Moro, who was suddenly in my path, wrapped in that dark velvet cloak of hers.
“It’s done,” I told her.
“I’ll check,” she said, going into the tent. After a long ten seconds, she emerged, evidently satisfied. She gently took my arm and we walked off.
“That was a pretty song you sang her,” she said. “What’s it called?”
“‘I’ll See You in My Dreams.’ Isham Jones and Gus Kahn. She’ll have to wait a couple decades to hear it again.”