A few dry pumpernickel crumbs tumble from my hand onto my skirt. I pick these up and shovel them into my mouth like a starving beggar. A chunk of bread remains in my satchel for tomorrow, but moments ago I tore into half of what I had with little remorse. I had woken up to the same sounds to which I fell asleep: my stomach verbally threatening to eat itself if I didn’t give it food. Better to keep my strength up and consume what little food I have, bit by bit, than to faint of weakness and let my food rot wastefully.
“A cup of tea would be splendid right now,” I say. What a wimp I am. Less than one day on my own and I’m already yearning for my creature comforts. I suppose I’m only acting like a normal human, but I wish I was a little tougher.
Buck up, I keep telling myself. You’re stronger than this.
The lightheadedness accompanying my angry stomach’s early morning symphony is fading. Finally, I can think straight. While I chew—slowly now to fool my body into thinking I’m feeding it much more than I am—I’m considering how I’ll get help on Monday. Can I explain that I suddenly found myself in the library basement on Friday afternoon, but don’t know how I got there? Say Ernest Rutherford is my father, asking to be shown where the physics labs are? If I’m here in 2006, maybe Father is as well, but in a different location. I was in the room with him when it happened, so it stands to reason he came to 2006 as well. I’m sure someone will know where he is; someone has to.
Though nourished, that’s about all my brain can process at the moment. It’s not much of a plan, and I’m sure I need to figure out what else to say when questioned. But I’ll worry about that tomorrow. . . .
My thoughts fade into the ether; I’m distracted but for the solemn quiet enveloping me like a winter blanket. I should be used to the silence by now, but I associate this building with such a bustle of activity that this current state is deadening. Indeed, it makes me lonelier than I already am. Yet again, I almost succumb to tears and wallowing in sadness, but I have to push those emotions away. Forcibly, I stand from my makeshift bed and pack up my cardigan, which served as an ersatz pillow during the night, suddenly eager again to search the buildings. I hope against hope someone has come into the buildings to work.
It takes me much longer this morning to walk the halls than it did last night. Now I take my time, reading all the signs on the wall and room names: Computer Lab, Spectroscopy Lab, SONAR Equipment Lab, Computing Center. . . . I don’t understand a technical word longer than “equipment.” I might as well be on an alien planet right now; I can’t decide if this is disturbing or exciting.
Room after room I peer into, trying to make sense of their purpose. I find two gigantic, plain auditoriums in the new McConnell Building, but besides those there are no classrooms in any other buildings above the ground floor, just labs and offices. Machines, for lack of a better descriptive word of what they might be, fill the most interesting labs, whose walls shared with the hall are fully glass. With sun shining through the large banks of windows to illuminate their contents, I can see almost everything in each lab, to my delight. I stare into each for minutes at a time, taking in each detail and imagining what might go on in each lab, were it full with researchers and students, even though I can’t fathom how most of the equipment works. My thoughts all come back to how much Father would be interested in seeing all of this. Has he already?
Each hallway of each floor keeps my mind distractedly churning as I snake my way through the interconnected engineering buildings. More than once I get lost. A tidal wave of relief washes over me when I return to Father’s physics building—pardon, the library—accompanied by lightheadedness and loneliness again.
Collapsing onto a slotted wooden bench in front of the lobby windows, I lie down on my side and cradle my head in my hands. I shake a little as my emotions do battle.
“I’m so alone; I’m all alone here,” I whisper in despair. “Where is everybody?”
I think of my parents immediately. They must be sick with worry. My mother is probably searching our house and nearby parks for me in vain, and my father—if he’s still in 1906—searching the McGill Buildings.
Well, you’re in the right place, Father, but not the right time, I think to myself bitterly.
During my wanderings, my subconscious has admitted he probably isn’t here with me, or else he would have found me and I him by now, I reason. Where else would he have gone, if he’s also in 2006?
Of course, I have no answers, since I have no explanation for why I’m here either. I suppose if I was somehow transported to the old physics building basement, Father could have been sent to some other building—or some other year, who knows—but that makes less sense than him being sent to the same room as I was since we were a mere few feet apart last night. If I appeared in what used to be Father’s labs, then maybe I was sent to the exact same physical location, yet one hundred years to the day into the future. That would imply Father, if he was transported along with me, would have been ten feet in front of me when I came here last night. But he wasn’t, unless I’m thinking about this incorrectly, and he’s in the same spot but one hundred years to his past. . . .
This is all too much for my brain to contemplate right now. It starts to hurt in addition to being dizzy. My eyes turn up to a clock near the library doors, and I’m shocked to see it’s nearly two o’clock. No wonder I’m lightheaded—my body is telling me it needs food! That I can do, and then I’ll take a rest. . . .
*
* *
Though re-energized and feeling much calmer, I’m down to the apple and a small chunk of my pumpernickel bread still in my satchel. Relaxing on the bench, I glance again at the clock: 2:41. With a sharp pang of sorrow, I remember I had agreed to meet with Emma at two thirty in the Royal Victoria Library to research a Yeats work for a paper due in our poetry class.
So much for that. I’m sorry, Emma.
I picture her in the library right now, pulling books off the shelves and looking over her shoulder, expecting to see me arrive and getting angrier with me as the minutes pass. I have half a mind to run over to this Royal Victoria Library, but I know it’d be fruitless. She won’t be there; I’ll have to apologize when I get back home.
Assuming I can get back home.
Out of sheer boredom at this point, my feet begin walking back down to the basement labs. Perhaps it’s because of my previous affection to McGill basement labs, or perhaps the older, dustier, used feeling of all the items down here remind me of my era. All of this creates the sensation of getting something done, of making things, of figuring out how things work. In my head I hear Father’s booming voice echoing off the walls: “Let’s see some results!” And here, I’m sure, many results have been seen over the years.
After twenty minutes of prodding multiple workstations and their tools and test equipment, I don’t see much that could pass for a physics lab. It all seems very mechanical, and there’s even a small wood shop with lathes, mills, and drill presses.
My feet drag along the dirty cement floor with my heart not far behind. Father’s presence is merely a memory in these buildings. Nothing familiar lies in this basement, aged as it is. Nothing redeems this forlorn expanse of discarded works in progress.
Yet, gazing farther ahead, I spy something curious on the edge of what appears to be a makeshift desk in the corner of a side room in the main lab area. Atop a pile of mechanics books is a bright box of what looks like food of some sort: “Cranberry Morning Granola Bars.” I know what granola is, but I’ve never seen a bar of it before, nor any kind of food packaged as this is. Guiltily, but knowing what little food I have left, I decide whoever these belong to won’t notice a few of them missing.
I glance side to side like a squirrel guarding his acorn store, then press onward with a lift in my step.
Eventually I return upstairs, finding myself at the old enclosed staircase of the Macdonald Engineering Building. So the buildings all connect via their ground floors as well as the basements. With a sense of accomplishment, I peek around the corner and follow this little hallway past another washroom and water fountain—gratefully using both—and another mechanical shop area. At the end of all this is another stairwell looking very much like a traditional Macdonald design. I muster the courage to investigate this area I’ve never walked through before, past or present.
At first the area, landing me somewhere on the second floor, looks like everywhere else in this building I’ve walked through, and I find a little door opening into the main hallway of what must be professors’ offices. I don’t return to that area, however. I open a little disused-looking wooden door, unlocked, that creaks in pain as its hinges yield to me.
The stench of petrified dust and stale air streams out of the room. I open the reluctant door wider to let in light. The room, stuffed with discarded items, looks like it hasn’t been breached in years. Stacked brown boxes fill one corner. A dilapidated desk, one leg missing and a large fissure nearly splitting the thick wood top, lines one wall, barricaded by equally decrepit but probably still functioning chairs. On the opposite wall is an ugly hay-colored chesterfield, rough-textured and spotted on the arms though looking relatively comfortable otherwise. Piled elsewhere in the ten foot square room are odds and ends: a cracked brass table lamp, tottering mountain of ancient books, and yet another unidentified box with switches and dials. Hanging from the ceiling is a metal pull-cord; stepping inside, I impulsively pull it.
Instantly I’m awash in intense artificial light. I squint, then finally see the room’s objects properly. It’s not too filthy, although it has definitely seen better days. I test out the couch. It squishes obligingly, and I can almost imagine being comfortable atop it if I ignore the faintly sour smell wafting up. I can tell no one’s been here in months, if not years; this excites me, because I know I can stay here if I need to.
If I want to.
Perhaps I won’t sleep on the same stone bench tonight. . . .
No one would find me here, if I need to hide. I don’t know why this train of thought creeps into my head, but I file it away regardless.
Pulling the light cord again and slipping out of the room, I shut the door tightly. Dazedly, I promise myself that room will be my secret. Before I know it, I’m heading down the wide stairway that dumps me into the Macdonald Engineering lobby. Absently, I make my way down to the front doors, and as I’m midway through the portal I pause, suddenly cognizant of my environment again. To make sure I won’t be locked out, I wedge my British Literature book between the door and frame on my way out.
Immediately my eye is drawn to movement on the lawn and pathways in front of me. To my surprise, there are several people outside. The campus isn’t empty after all! It’s been just shy of one day since I’ve last seen a fellow human being, but it could’ve been ages. Despite feeling like I’ve been dropped into an alternate universe—oh wait, you have, silly Elie—in which I’m unsure what the people are like, I hone in on the students. Two boys are ambling slowly down the path; one is gesticulating with great energy as if explaining something complicated to the other. A few dozen students lounge in the sun or play catch on the great central lawn cleaved by the main road leading from Sherbrooke Street.
Impulsively, I trot down Macdonald’s front steps and head straight across to the lawn.
With some relief, I realize I don’t have to wait until Monday to see if anyone’s seen Father or can help me. It’s a chance that scares me, but I must take it.
It’s much less hot today, here, than it was yesterday in my Montreal of 1906. I wonder how it is at home right now, there. . . . But here I am, long black skirt flowing around my ankles as I walk with purpose to the big field. It’s freeing to be out in the open again, but just like the halls I’ve wandered, these grounds are almost unrecognizable—and it would completely be, had I been without Father’s physics building as my reference. I have to remind myself this is what a hundred years does to a place.
Dotting the green are endless maple trees—much taller than I remember them—casting long shadows. The buildings from my recent memory are crowded on all sides by towering monstrosities squishing the wide open and sparse campus I know into a mass of sky-scraping piled stone. At least I can still see the hilltop of Mont Royal beyond them all, but even her feet are obscured by square-topped behemoths so tall I’m astonished they don’t collapse under their own weight. When I sweep my gaze back and forth to take in the panorama, I stop dead in my tracks as I reach the main road—which is indeed a single, solid, homogeneous stone beneath my feet. To my left the downtown of Montreal is . . . gargantuan! There are almost no words to describe its size. It’s at least ten times that of the Montreal I know. Gone are the tallest five- and six-story buildings of the city center whose highest points were church spires and the double bell towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral down at the Old Port. There could be no church spires left by now for all I can see. Perhaps they’ve been squashed like little bugs by the herd of elephantine institutions filling my vision as far as I can see. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty stories up. I lose count, absolutely flabbergasted.
A minute or an hour might have passed while I stare dumbstruck at this new city. I’d seen the skyscrapers of New York City when my family passed through to take a ship to visit England when I was ten, but this far surpasses the scale of that supposed metropolis. Well aware cities change over time, I never expected Montreal to stay the same, but this skyline is beyond any of my wildest and far-fetched dreams. I wonder what les Montréalais do in all those buildings. How much wealth must the city have to expand into such a fortress? I swallow to rewet my mouth which is dry from gaping this long, then drop my gaze to my hands, which are shaking.
I strengthen my wobbling leg muscles and continue down the steps. When I reach the lawn, no one takes notice of me at first. Then as I climb slowly up to the little rise, intending to say hello to the others and ask them about where I am, a few of those lying on blankets stare at me. Their eyes zero in on my blouse and trace down my skirt, and one by one they cock their heads to the side as their faces turn to disapproval, even condemnation. I didn’t see this reaction coming, and I stop near the foot of the hill, stunned, then sit down on the grass.
Hunching my shoulders and hiding my face, I surreptitiously turn my eyes to view the others in my peripheral vision. They’re still boring holes in my body. I hunch over more, then look again to study them.
The more I look, the more alien they seem. Oh, their faces look the same as mine, but their clothing is like nothing I’ve ever seen, in Montreal or European fashion catalogs. My cheeks redden to see what they’re wearing, especially the girls. With the exception of two of them in extremely short skirts—the hemlines far above their knees—they all have on the shortest pants possible, like little knickers baby boys would wear. Women wearing pants? And such short pants! Their tops, barely more fabric than their bottoms, are plain, colored cotton with either sleeves cut midway up their upper arms or no sleeves at all, mere thin strings draped over their shoulders. And fully exposed necks and collars! Surely these girls must be an anomaly. Surely this cannot be an accepted form of attire.
However, the more I look around me—down the lawn and back behind me on the stone pathways—the more I see everyone is dressed nearly identically, and that I am the one sticking out. Even the men all wear the short pants and tiny shirts, or—gasp!—none at all. My face burns; I know my cheeks must be cherry-red with blush. I’m mortified for the scantily clad people around me—have they no shame?!—but also for myself. Suddenly I’m more concerned with how different I look.
“Hey, hey you!” calls a boy to my right. He was laying on his back with his friend, a girl, sharing a bright blue towel spread on the ground. Now he’s propped up on his elbows and regarding me with a rather unkind stare.
Low on courage, I manage to croak, “Heh-hello?”
“Hey, frosh week is over, dude! Did you miss the deadline for wacko dress day or something?”
No idea what he just said. “Uhh . . . umm . . . no, I—”
“Yo, what faculty are you from that they make you dress like such a freak? You’re, like, from the 1800s or something.”
His friend chimes in. “Yeah, Jane Austen called and she needs her ruffles back!”
My stomach churns like I’m about to retch. How cruel! How I’d love to tell him to check his history because he’s about a century off—and then to go back home because he forgot his trousers.
“Vous venez de Québec? L’Europe? Vous avez l’air d’une Européanne, là . . .” An older boy, seated near the other two and previously engrossed in a heavy-looking book, is asking me in French if I’m from Quebec or Europe, saying I look like a European. He must be from Quebec himself, maybe Quebec City, judging from the accent.
Without an idea what to say to him, I stare back with my mouth open. Do I make up a story? Do I say I’m from 1906 and desperately want to find my father and mother and go back home, to a Montreal I know and understand? A little voice inside my head tells me these people wouldn’t believe me if I tell them the truth, but I need to say something. I stall.
“Vous parlez français?” he asks.
“Oui,” I say, nodding.
“Alors, êtes-vous québéçoise? Du nord, peut-être?”
“Non, j’habite en Montréal.” That much is the truth; I live in Montreal, not northern Quebec.
“Ah,” he replies, staring at me a bit more curiously now through the messy brown hair draping down past his ears. Clearly my appearance does not fit his expectations of how a Montrealer should look. The other two students, plus a few more near to where I’m sitting, are listening in and watching the conversation bat back and forth. The boy next asks if it’s my first year here.
“Uhh, oui, c’est ça . . . mais mon père, il est professeur ici.” I don’t know why I blurt that out, that my father is a professor here. I’m flustered. It’s technically the truth, but how can I stop this conversation?
“Ah oui? Cool—”
What?
“—mais il est prof de quoi? L’histoire?” I hear a note of mocking in his voice.
I tell him no, he’s not a history professor, but he teaches physics. Immediately I regret this. What if this bloke is a physics student?
“Fantastique!” the boy exclaims, now leaning toward me in interest. Next, he says he says he probably knows him and asks his name.
Great, now I’ve gotten myself into trouble. There’s no way he knows my father because he doesn’t teach here. Well, he does, but not here here, so I can’t say that he does.
In fact, what do I say at all?
Everyone is staring now. A few of the boys stop tossing a baseball back and forth.
“Uh, non, probablement pas, je ne crois pas. Excusez-moi, il faut que j’y aille. C’était bon de faire vos connaissances. Au revoir.” I say in a polite rush he probably doesn’t know my father and that I have to go. Faster than the words tumble out of my mouth, I’m on my feet again and quick-stepping up the pathway.
If I had a penny for every eye fixed on my back at this moment, I’d be instantly rich. I don’t dare turn around. Never, not even when Ralph tried to talk to me about marriage, have I wanted to disappear more. I am so out of place, so . . . homesick.
Walking so the bushes lining the north edge of the green hide me from the students’ view, I hurry on my way and avoid the glances of those few crossing my path. Taking a roundabout way to the north end of the Macdonald Engineering Building, I look down at my clothes and wonder how I can make them look like those of the girls I saw on the lawn.
I don’t want to look like them—as if they are too poor to afford full clothes, or as if they wear only undergarments—but I don’t want to stand out so much I’m ridiculed like that again. I unbutton the three tiny pearl buttons at the end of each sleeve, then neatly fold them up to above my elbow. Amazed at how much cooler it is, I smile in spite of how silly I feel. Then I unbutton the front of my collar and fold that down as well, tucking the fabric inside to hide the lacy ruffles. Not knowing if I went too far or not far enough, I unbutton two more buttons below my collarbone.
Why should I worry about impropriety when those girls were nearly naked?
Cooler yet uncomfortable, I hope I won’t attract quite so much attention now. I had ventured out on impulse, and the result was a small fiasco. That’s what you get for not thinking ahead, Elie. For now, I’ll stay inside and decide what to do next.
*
* *
In the little room—now my room, as far as I’m concerned—I have no idea what time it is, because the hands on the wall clock have been stuck at 8:37 since goodness only knows when. But I have a feeling it’s near that time in the evening. Tomorrow is Sunday; I imagine everyone is home and readying for church tomorrow. I know I won’t be attending for the first time in a long while, but I can’t help that. After today, there’s no way I’ll risk venturing deep into the city to find a church. Mother used to tell me a little fear would do me good, and now I’m feeling it in spades.
For the past while I’ve been writing in one of my composition books. I figure I should start writing journal entries there since my actual journal is at home, far out of my reach at the moment. It is cathartic, really, jotting down the sights and sounds and emotions I’ve experienced in the last day. Like a torrential downpour, everything washes over me for the second time like fat, stinging raindrops, and I feel every surprise, fear, elation, and curiosity again. Somehow, everything’s stronger the second time.
The astonishment of seeing the date on the newspaper. The pit of my stomach sinking when I realized I’d missed my chance to talk to the librarian and was utterly alone. The fear of every dark hallway. The humiliation of looking like a complete misfit in front of the students on the lawn. The intense longing for being in my own home and with the familiar again. The sense of not knowing what to do next, whether to wait and see what unfolds or run around screaming for Professor Rutherford. Those last two are the strongest.
I’ve come to a conclusion about what my plan of attack should be, if I can call it that. My gut feeling is I should sit tight and observe before telling people I’m from a hundred years ago and am looking for my father. Beyond knowing today’s date and the few observations I’ve amassed since Friday night, I have little concept of the world of 2006. A lot could have changed which I may have no possible way of imagining. After thinking about how different 1906 was to 1806—and realizing no one in 1806 could have described life a hundred years later—I conclude there are too many unknowns to do anything but collect more information first.
What a bland, scientist’s answer this is to the problem, but then I suppose I am my father’s daughter. Too conservative to go boldly to city hall or the local police for help, and considering the dangers I might encounter along the way, I have no other choice but to play it safe. I can stay in this little room for now, and try to figure out this new world from here. Then I’ll devise a strategy after I better know what I’m dealing with.
Who are you kidding, Elie? You know the reason why you’re hiding away in this room! Everyone will think you’re as crazy as a bat in the daytime if you go out and tell them it was August 24th, 1906 yesterday for you and suddenly you found yourself in August 25th, 2006 a millisecond later!
Of course, there is that. I don’t want to be thrown into a loony bin for telling the truth. More terrifying than thinking about how I got here is imagining how people will react if I tell them I somehow, mysteriously, time traveled. If they react badly, I’ll never get back home. I have no clue how I appeared here—my subconscious has tried riddling it out since I “arrived,” although no scientific explanation has magically appeared, like I did—and until I do know, I have no way of returning home.
As I write in my new journal, I find myself devising a sort of survival strategy. A human has three basic needs: food, water, and shelter. Luckily, I have found the shelter, and I also have the clothes on my back. However, they do need a washing, as does my body. That’s something I can do tomorrow in one of the washroom sinks. I haven’t explored all of the bathrooms, and I’m holding out hope, however slim, that I might find a bathtub somewhere. If not, I’ll have to resort to little “bird-baths” from the sink.
Of the first two needs, access to water is no problem. Finding food, however, will be much harder. Right now I am absolutely ravenous, despite having forced down the stolen “granola bar,” which was nauseatingly sweet and made me thirstier than I’ve felt in a long while. If this is what food in 2006 is like, I might be in for a rough ride; I’d rather eat another than starve, however. Nevertheless, I still have my apple and a wee bit of now-stale bread with me to eat tomorrow. As pathetic as it is, I have no choice but to forage for food; perhaps people have left behind something other than the unpalatable granola bars I found. Too bad Montreal’s climate is much too cold for fruit trees to thrive.
This is barely a survival plan, I admit to myself, but it’s all I can do at the moment. I will spend tomorrow simply surviving, exploring my surroundings more, and searching for clues to my appearance here—and how to reverse it. I might wander outside again, but avoid other people until I’ve come up with a solid “cover story” of who I am and what I’m doing here.
Somehow I’ve found the courage to keep moving forward, to take this strange new reality day by day. It’s my only choice. But what will happen when I talk to people again?