I have to reread the beginning of Elie’s letter; I was so excited to read it the first time the words flew right past my open eyes.
Dear William,
As I promised, here is a letter to you, which is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to write. I hope it finds you healthy and happy.
Firstly, I survived! I knew I would, though you had a bit of doubt. There was no problem physically in the travel, and I walked home in relative comfort, if chilly. It seems we are having an early winter here.
It’s Sunday evening now and finally quiet enough in the house to compose my thoughts. There’s a candle burning next to my writing desk, and the light is so spare my eyes are straining already. I took electric lighting for granted when I was with you.
Anyway, I was saying this letter is difficult to write. Once I sat down, I realized I didn’t know how to word it—and despite your words Friday morning, I didn’t know if you would care once I left. A few hours ago it dawned on me that as I write this, you haven’t been born yet—not even close. Yet I feel like you’re still living to me and are as real as anyone on the Earth with me now. You, Evan, Jeanne, Natalya, Isabelle, Professor Nagar—everyone—is still bone and blood to me. It’s difficult to reconcile the reality of where I am with who is alive with me. That sounds like I’m losing my mind, and perhaps I am. Perhaps this adjustment is simply still in its difficult beginning stage.
I am, however, very happy to be home. Father and Mother held me close when I came back, no doubt fearing I’d disappear from their eyes again; I can’t blame them. Since then, I’ve felt more loved, certainly by Mother, than I had felt here for quite some time. Oh, Mother did berate me for leaving on a whim and not saying goodbye—my cover story is a spur-of-the-moment trip to the States—but that was short-lived, surprisingly. I seem to have escaped the severe punishment I expected from her. That may be merely delayed, however; they were talking privately earlier, and I feared they were going to keep me locked in my room. Worse, they might have discussed sending me to a private boarding college—or worse yet, forced me to marry right away.
On the subject of that, I don’t know how Ralph Fowler has taken my disappearance. Mother has only alluded to him briefly, and in a positive light. She may have been suggesting he still wants to see me, but I didn’t press her. I’m sure I’ll find out very soon whether he took the hint that I’m not interested. The cover story of my leaving is, I suppose, the worst form of rejection, and I’m awfully sorry for him on that account.
Besides the touchy business of Mr. Fowler and the possibility of a forthcoming punishment from my parents, things are quite fine here. I can understand all the phrases people are using here. Getting dressed in the morning doesn’t require careful review and suppression of a panic attack, though it does require more layers, lace, and ribbons. I can play music on the phonograph by myself instead of fumbling through your “high-tech” music player. The familiar and comfortable surrounds me again, and that’s . . . comforting. No surprises. It does seem a bit old-fashioned, though, as I’m looking at life through the eyes of one who’s seen twenty-first century modernity. But that’s probably nothing but an initial shock, and I’ll get over it; things will feel normal again soon.
I had a good laugh this afternoon when talking to Father about how his work is going. You would get a kick out of it, as you like to say. It seems that on Thursday he was disturbed by the janitor of the engineering buildings, Mr. Roget. He complained that someone was setting insects into his storage closet in the Macdonald engineering building. You will know exactly which closet I’m referring to. It seems Mr. Roget thought lab assistants such as Mr. Soddy or Father himself were playing a trick on him by putting caterpillars and ladybugs and such in the room. Apparently most of them were dismembered or just legs or wings! Now we know what happened to those poor guys we tested with. Mr. Roget is quite the entomophobe, it seems, and let loose a series of female-esque shrieks when he found them throughout the day.
Lucky for me he was home when I appeared in his closet!
Oh, Elie! I can’t hold the letter still enough to read further until I stop laughing so hard and shaking my hands. We really did a number on those insects! I thought they might have been sent off in time, but I didn’t think they’d reach their intended destination in time. I can imagine Elie trying to keep a straight face as her father told her this story.
This tidbit lightens up the mood for me; I was increasingly hunched lower over the letter. Reading about her being mostly contented to be back at home makes my loneliness sharper. If I want her to be happy there, why is it not what I want to read?
Now I’ve gotten that out of the way—hopefully I’ve reassured you that I not only am in fine shape but in high spirits as well. We together achieved my goal of returning home, and I really do not know how to properly thank you. This letter does not do it justice, and I’m not sure I said it eloquently before I left. I truly owe you everything, William, for sacrificing your time—and possibly your legal record—for me . . . someone you barely knew but protected and helped survive nonetheless. You were wonderful, et merci mille fois. That is the only way I can express my gratitude: in two languages.
With that said I have some regret in saying what I’m about to say, but I would fail you if I did not say it. I owe you the full truth, if for no other reason than because you were always honest with me, you believed me when few others would have, and I want you to know how this whole experience feels and ends—for both of us. So here it is. The truth is, I’ve been home less than a day—and perhaps the shock of returning is the sole culprit—but I have a strange tugging in my heart that I do not fit in here like I used to. Though everything’s familiar, homelike, I know I’m not familiar to myself here. Does that make any sense at all? I can hear differences in my speech—and I know Father’s heard them too—and my reactions. I now see this era, my era, as one a bit touched by over-gentleness of the female sex, too much separation of the sexes, and a heavy weighting of propriety versus freedom of thought. All the improvements in your last hundred years have done a lot of good there. Oh, there’s plenty of security in how I’m living here, and in a way I’m relieved to be back in a role that’s relatively easier to live than one I would’ve had to build for myself in 2006, but the lack of independence is nothing less than stifling.
But that’s quite harsh of me to say of my own family and friends, as this is all they know to be. I cannot fault them for that. It’s just that I have seen another way, and that has made all the difference, to paraphrase Frost. Living here is much less complicated. Well, perhaps I should say there are different expectations for females here, but it’s also much slower. It’s too slow at times. Like a flood my memories came to me in full clarity once I returned, and I see my Donalda classes were dull in comparison to what I was taking at McGill this fall. I used to accomplish in a week around the house what I can do in two days in your era.
I know I’m an utter blighter to be complaining as I have. I truly am grateful to be home; I suppose it was naïve of me to think it wouldn’t be without struggle. All of a sudden this home of mine feels like a step backward, that’s all. Perhaps I merely need a new start here, and to forget what I have seen.
My mouth, hanging open for the flies to nest in, is as dry as the fallen leaves around me. A small part of me is skipping inside to read that she doesn’t love home 100 percent—possibly regrets going home—but my heart is also wringing itself for her. I really don’t want her to suffer there, really, I don’t. With all that we both went through these last few months, I want her to stay home and love it again.
Maybe that’s why she ended up moving to New Zealand—to get her fresh start there? I would hate myself if the reason she felt she had to abandon her family is because she saw the future.
I suppose I have little else to tell you, being back for a short bit so far. I wish I could tell Father about you and what amazing parts of the universe you’re researching. He’d be doubly as interested as I was, and I was enthralled. But I’ll keep my mouth closed.
So I will thank you once again, William, and hope you’re enjoying your life—a life free of this crazy lady from the past. Now I’m part of your past, as you are part of mine. I must confess that you’ve filled my thoughts ever since I returned. I want to know where you are and what you’re doing; mostly I want to know that you’re well. There is one cruel aspect of me being the one from the past: while you can dig up this letter from me and read my history long after I’m dead, I shall never know how you are. You might achieve world recognition—you might win a Nobel Prize in physics!—and I’ll be ignorant of it. You might be the one to marry and have four children, and I won’t be there to know. You’ll live on only in my thoughts, and those thoughts will no doubt become dreams, until I no longer recall how William Hertz’s brown hair curls. No one here will ever know you, but I’ll remember everything since the end of August: that other reality whose end I shall never see, but it satisfies me enough to know that, like me, you will go on.
Kindest regards, with all my heart,
Elie
And then it’s over, and she’s completely gone. My little sun is finally snatched away from me, an ephemeral star sent back to its own galaxy. The last paragraph makes me shake almost as much as the insect story, but this time it’s more a shiver starting from below my ribcage. Elie didn’t come out and say it, but I can’t be reading too much into it by saying she misses me. Missed me. That I was as important to her as she was to me . . . and that was exactly what I hoped to read. It wasn’t every word, but as much as I could hope for from my Victorian lady.
I reach down to put the letter back in the metal box, then I freeze; there is a second letter! This one looks like a single sheet and only has “William | Elie” scrawled on its folded front in hurried cursive.
I tear into this faster than I did the first.
Dear William,
So much has changed since I wrote to you; I fear writing this letter may jinx what I’m about to do. With Father’s blessing, I may have made the riskiest decision of my life a few hours ago, but I’m sure it’s not only the right decision but possibly the sole one to give me a chance at happiness. You should know very soon if I’ve succeeded. . . .