Island in the Sea of Time (16 page)

“Science cannot explain it. We must ask ourselves, brothers and sisters in Christ,
why has this thing happened to us?
For this is a mighty and terrible thing that has happened, a thing to shake the earth. Not only earth: a thing to echo from the walls of Heaven, and make the gates of Hell rejoice.”

“Fallacy,” muttered a voice beside him.

Cofflin started. He had been caught up in the sermon, despite himself. Martha Stoddard was not; her gray eyes were cool and appraising.

“Fallacy,” she said again. “Two, in fact. Science couldn’t explain how the sun kept going, before Einstein. That didn’t mean science was inadequate, simply that it hadn’t gotten around to solving that problem yet. And just because something big falls on you doesn’t mean there’s an intention behind it. That’s the pathetic fallacy, historical division. Mount St. Helens didn’t blow up because God was mad at the bears.”

Cofflin grinned. They were
all
off balance psychologically, with a few exceptions. Martha Stoddard seemed to be one of them.

Pastor Deubel was winding up: “All this I have said to you before, my brothers and sisters. Today we must ask a new question. If science cannot explain this thing that has happened to us, and if some great purpose is here,
what is that purpose?”

He wheeled and pointed out into the crowd. “What is the purpose for which this miracle—for it can be nothing else—has been accomplished?”

Cries of
God!
and
Jesus loves us!
punctuated his gesture. He raised his hands.

“Why would God, a loving God, a God who watches as each sparrow falls, thrust the blameless into danger and hardship?”

“Oh, Lord have mercy, doesn’t that man’s church teach any theology at all?”
Martha hissed through clenched teeth.

“We have been thrust into the past
before Christ
,” Deubel shouted. “Christ’s sacrifice is not yet made. Moses has yet to bring God’s holy word down from Sinai to the Jews. We are lost in a world of pagans and devil-worshipers, cut off from the healing blood of the Lamb. To take the blood and wine now is
blasphemy.”

This time there were moans and cries of
no!
from the crowd. Many were weeping. Cofflin felt a touch of apprehension himself; he was a believing man, if not much of a churchgoer.
Come on, now,
he told himself, remembering something his own minister had said once.
God’s not in time. God’s
outside
time, He’s eternal.

“Some mighty power of the other world has done this thing. I tell you, there can be only one answer:
Satan!
And his purpose? Haven’t we all thought how our presence here must change the history of humankind? Can there be a Herod, if history is changed? A Roman Empire? Can there be an Augustus who sends out a decree that all the world is to be taxed? A Pontius Pilate? Will there even be a House of David?

“What else can the Evil One intend than to frustrate God’s plan by
preventing the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ?”

This time the reaction from the crowd included screams of fear. Many fell to their knees and began to shout prayers.

“Well, that’s original, at least,” Cofflin said quietly. He moved forward half a step, so that the clergyman could see him. It cut through the exaltation on the man’s face. The rest of the sermon was a call to pray for guidance.

“Man’s dangerous, Jared,” Martha said.

“Ayup. On t’ other hand, I was a policeman, and now I’m head of state, God help me—but this isn’t a police state. So long as the man does nothing but talk, I can’t stop him.”

“Later might be too late.”

Cofflin took his bicycle by the handles, and they turned and walked toward Martha’s house, not far from the Athenaeum with its white columns. The house she was using, rather; she’d moved into one of the fancy pensions on Broad Street, since the owners weren’t there and neither were the guests booked for the summer. A number of teachers had followed her; one thing the Town Meeting had been firm about was that the schools had to continue, somehow, at least part of the week. She and they weren’t the only ones that had switched dwellings. Some families were doubling up, and many single people were taking over the empty boardinghouses in groups. It saved on cooking and housework and made child care easier, and without television or radio or recorded music, or even electric light, most people found a whole house too cheerless for one person.

“No sense in allowing perfectly good broiled scrod to go to waste,” Martha said practically. “Held off on it when I heard you had trouble with Deubel.”

“Ayup,” Cofflin said, and nodded greetings to several of the people passing by.

She pulled back a cover on the basket she was carrying. “Dandelion greens, chicory, and pigweed, with sliced raw Jerusalem artichokes. Salad.”

Cofflin’s mouth watered, and he swallowed. “Thoughtful of you, Martha,” he said.

“Ought to get some use out of being a Girl Scout leader.”

They walked up the porch, through the dining room, and out into the backyard. Several of the teachers were sitting around, fiddling with a whale-oil lamp. They’d found hundreds of the lamps, maybe more, in antique shops, in the hotels as ornamentals . . . most of them functional, with a little work. The whale oil was abundant now, since they were harvesting the whales for their meat more than anything else. More of the oil had started off the wood in the barbecue, but the coals were low and glowing now. A pot burbled on one corner of it, sending out a savory, almost nutty odor.

“Dulse,” Martha said, jerking her head toward it and picking up a platter with two large breaded fish on it. She slipped them onto the grill. They began to sizzle immediately. Meanwhile she rinsed the wild greens from a bucket of water standing in the kitchen—the running water was on one hour a day—and dumped them into a bowl, adding something else from a Styrofoam cooler. “Sea grass,” she added.
“Ulva lactuca.”
She tossed them with a little oil and vinegar.

Both her own suggestions.
Bless her,
Cofflin thought. He’d never considered seaweed as anything but stuff that washed up on beaches and smelled, and him a fisherman and a fisherman’s son.

“Well, make yourself useful, Jared,” she said.

He flipped the fish, which were just firming up, and then slid them back onto the serving platter. They went into the dining room and sat; it was just about sundown, and someone had lit the lamp bracketed to the wall. It cast a puddle of yellow light around their table.

“Fine eating on these scrod,” Jared observed after a moment. “Haven’t been doing this well myself.”

“Bachelor,” Martha observed, serving the dulse.

There were some mussels cooked with it, in a thickened broth. Jared savored the green nutty taste of the cooked seaweed and the contrasting flavors of the wild herb salad. His forehead was sweating slightly, and not from the eating or the mild spring weather. Martha ate with the same spare economy she did most things; he was a bit surprised when she brought out a half-bottle of white wine and poured them both a glass.

“Ill wind that blows no good,” he observed after a moment. “Been meeting people I wouldn’t have, before the Event.”

Martha nodded. “Think I can guess what you’re leading up to, Jared,” she said.

He paused with a forkful of fish on the way to his mouth. The sweat rose more heavily on his forehead.
Christ, man, what sort of a fool are you?
he thought.
A high school graduate fool.
Just because the world had turned upside down didn’t mean
everything
was changed. If Martha Stoddard wanted someone, it would be someone from her own level.

“And I’m not saying no,” she added.

“You’re not?” An effort of will prevented his voice from turning into a squeak.

“Wouldn’t have asked you over if I were,” she said. “Or seen this much of you since the Event. I’m not a cruel woman by nature, though I can’t abide fools. Which is why I’m still single, despite a few offers. There was a man in university, archaeologist, did some excellent work on Mogollon pots, but then he started to talk about football. . . . Mind you, I’m not saying yes either.”

An even greater effort of will prevented him from saying
You’re not?
in idiotic counterpoint to his last contribution to the conversation.

“And the world was crowded enough as it was,” Stoddard went on meditatively. “None of that applies now, of course . . . and I’d say you’re not any kind of a fool, Jared. But we do have to find out how we’d suit, and that should take a while. Plus we’re none of us ourselves, right now. Best not to be hasty.”

“Bundling’s a little out of style, even here,” he said, feeling a laugh welling up. He let it out as a dry chuckle, and felt his shoulders relax. It seemed that some things went on despite glowing domes of light and journeys into the past. Even tentative middle-aged romance, apparently.

“It may come back, with a cold winter and no central heating,” she replied. They touched their glasses.

 

The Cappuccino Cafe was still open, although the days when it served what Cofflin had always thought of as yuppie fast food—quiches and such—were long past. There were still customers, although the food was made mostly from the same basic rations as everyone was eating. A new exchange system was growing up using the work chits the Council issued. They could be exchanged for food and fuel, but a lot of people preferred to trade some of them in and eat at a place like this now and then, rather than cook at home.
Barter, too,
he thought, watching two teenagers come in with a brace of rabbits and a duck and begin haggling with the proprietor. Their bicycles were leaned up against the lampposts on Main Street outside, and they had slingshots stuck in the back pockets of their jeans. It was the end of a chilly, foggy spring day; outside a few windows showed lit against the gray gloom. The light had an unfamiliar yellow tinge, lanterns or candles rather than the white brilliance of electricity.

“At least we’re not short of whale oil,” Cofflin said to Dennis Brown, the manager-owner, when the youngsters had collected their chits and IOUs.

“I should hope not,” Brown laughed.

He jerked his head toward the counter behind him. The pots and warming pans were suspended over improvised whale-oil heating lamps. Back in the kitchen an equally improvised stove with a chimney of sheet metal had replaced the electric ranges. It burned wood well doused with the oil, and twists of rendered blubber. The smell of the blubber was a little more ripe than the nutty odor of the oil itself, but they’d all gotten used to it . . . a little, at least. Here it was just an undertang to the scent of cooking.

“What’ll it be, Chief?”

“A turkey club sandwich, and a fresh green salad, with a banana and a couple of peaches for dessert,” Cofflin said. They both laughed. “What’ve you got?”

“Lentil soup with rabbit, mixed seafood chowder, and whaleburger. Or whaleloaf, if you want to call it that. And biscuits.”

“Rabbit and biscuits! Hot damn! The lentil with rabbit, and biscuits,” he said. “Three hour-chits do it, or do you want some sort of trade?”

Dennis shrugged. “I’ve got two kids, Chief; I figure we’re pulling through because of the way you got things organized. It’s on the house.”

“The town pays me to do my job,” Cofflin said gruffly. “I’m not taking freebies.” He held up a hand. “Not even when it’s all right. Bad example. Thanks anyway. Two orders, then.”

Dennis nodded. One of his people dipped out ladlefuls of the soup into bowls and surrounded them with the biscuits. There were only two each, but he still felt saliva spurt into his mouth at the sight and smell of them. Flour was getting scarce; there just wasn’t much on the island.

He took the tray and ambled over to a table, sitting with a bit of a groan of relief. He’d been on his feet all day, or pedaling the damned bicycle, and whatever Coleman said about it being good for them, he still missed cars. For a moment he sighed and remembered; you just got in, turned the key . . . and suddenly five miles wasn’t all that far. Less than ten minutes’ travel, warm and dry and comfortable. The power seemed almost godlike. At least Nantucket was relatively flat—although he’d become painfully conscious, mostly in his calves and thighs, that a rise that was barely perceptible behind the wheel was all too obvious when you were pushing pedals. Cofflin looked at his watch. Martha had said she’d be here at six, and it wasn’t like her to be late.

The bell over the door rang, and a man pushed through. Cofflin looked up, and smiled to see Martha behind him. The smile ended when he focused on the man’s face again. It was scraggly and unshaven, but no more than many in town these days—Cofflin had given up shaving more than twice a week himself, what with the razor blade situation, until he found an old cutthroat straight razor in the attic. The man stank of dried sweat, too, for which there was less justification, and his coat was crusted with food stains and dirt. Before the Event, Cofflin would have figured him for a bum—homeless, the jargon was—and seen that he got on the ferry back to the mainland first thing. These days, he looked like an islander who’d been letting himself go a bit.

Have to see about that proposal for bathhouses,
he thought. It was just too
hard
to heat water yourself and then haul it upstairs to a bathtub, particularly when you were exhausted already.

A few people gave the man room, wrinkling their noses at his smell. He marched over to a table, one where a quietlooking woman in her thirties was sitting with a half-eaten bowl of chowder and a book. She was as worn as he, but considerably cleaner. When she looked up at him, she frowned and snapped:

“Donald, what part of
no
don’t you understand? It’s over. Learn to live with it.”

“Do you understand this, bitch?” the man said.

Something in his voice froze Cofflin’s smile. His head was turning even as the Glock came out. Time slowed; he could even see the rims of dirt under the man’s fingernails, and the yellow color of his teeth as he snarled through a matted beard glued in clumps with old food.