The Far Time Incident (25 page)

That was true enough.

We got our first proper look at the shop.

It was a mess.

Pottery jars lay strewn all around, smashed into pieces and dripping some sort of dark sauce. The smell defied description and I realized that whatever was simmering on the brazier in the other room had been meant to counter it, unsuccessfully. The bald man I’d spotted earlier was working on sweeping the mess into the street, past the shop counter. The counter faced the street; the three round openings set into it held dry goods, undisturbed. Above, bronze ladles and funnels were suspended from a wooden rail—also undisturbed. A scruffy brownish dog lay to the side, lazily asleep in a shaft of sunlight. Deeper inside the shop, an old woman was wiping a wall where a jar had been flung against it, leaving a dark stain. I recognized her at once. I had last seen her in the courtyard of a Vesuvian villa, as she enjoyed an illicit scoopful of wine. Her dark shawl was gone and today her dress was sleeveless; I couldn’t help but stare at her arms—the skin was dried and cracked with age and use, but the strength was clearly still there. I looked away, not wanting to be rude.

Sabina’s father came over and greeted us, broom in hand. He was somewhat scruffy, with dark stubble under prominent cheekbones. When he turned to me after greeting Nate, our eyes locked for a moment. His gaze was bright, keen, alive. And suddenly it all felt so real. Secundus, Sabina, the woman wiping the
wall, they weren’t figures on History’s stage anymore, but living, breathing human beings at the mercy of the forces of the disaster that was about to descend on their heads. I had to tear my eyes away from Secundus’s gaze. I felt like he could see deep inside me. I felt like the harbinger of death. I didn’t want him to read all that I knew in my face.

The woman cleaning the wall, a much older and more sour-looking version of Sabina, shot us a disinterested look. When she noticed Sabina behind us, she barked something at the girl through a mouth missing several of its yellow teeth. Sabina hurried over, the Diana medallion around her neck bouncing against her chest. The old woman pointed at a spot on the wall where what looked like wine stains or dark-colored juice marred the plaster. Sabina dipped a cloth in a vessel, squeezed the excess water out, and started scrubbing at the stain, but I doubted it would give and felt a pang of pity for the girl. Her attempts at cleaning the wall seemed to have the effect of removing bits of plaster more than anything else.

Secundus said something to Nate.

“You have a beautiful wife,” Xavier translated, and it took me a moment to parse who he meant. “Your daughter must be a picture of beauty as well… He wants to know what business you engage in, Chief Kirkland.”

“Uh—tell him I’m the caretaker of a school.”

Xavier proceeded to do so.

“A strange occupation for a Briton,” Xavier translated Secundus’s reply. “He’s heard you’re all warriors who paint yourselves blue.”

“Tell him we’re sorry about what happened to his shop,” I said, deciding that I wasn’t going to be relegated into the background while the men conversed. I watched as Xavier relayed my words and a cloud descended onto the man’s proud,
strong-boned face. He said something back, with a quick glance in my direction. “All of his profits gone, months of work ruined,” Xavier translated. “He doesn’t know how he’ll cover the rent or get his shop back on its feet. It’s hard enough competing against Scaurus as is.”

Xavier didn’t bother to explain who Scaurus was, but added, looking around, “I’m a bit chagrined that I didn’t hear the intruder even though I was lying in bed awake, worrying about the volcano. Secundus had gone over to join in the festivities at the tavern, as he usually does in the evening. I decided not to because I wanted to keep an eye on Vesuvius. Sabina and Faustilla were asleep in the room next to mine. They didn’t hear anything either. Someone came in through the side gate, even though Secundus swears by all the gods that he had locked it after shuttering the shop for the night. Whoever it was went into the shop through the garden, emptied the small box Secundus used as a till, and proceeded to smash whatever they couldn’t take. The gate was swinging open when Secundus got back.”

During the professor’s explanation, Sabina’s father had been leaning on his broom, occasionally nodding when he recognized a name. I studied his features, not because of any sudden physical attraction, but because I felt a strange kinship with him. He was a man with a shop, a garum shop—about as far as you could get from the paperwork and organizing skills needed for my own job—but I understood. The shop was Secundus’s way of making his mark on the world, not just a means of supporting himself and his mother and daughter (not to mention his dog). I nodded my head toward the animal, still asleep in a corner. “Didn’t the dog hear the intruder?”

Xavier shook his head. “Celer is not much of a guard dog. He only barks at birds. He was asleep in the garden under the pear tree.”

The security chief nudged one of the broken garum jars with his foot. It broke into two additional pieces along the length of a crack. “It looks like an amateur job.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“A professional would have taken the money and beat a fast retreat. Wanton destruction like this speaks of a personal animosity, of anger. I’d say someone has a personal beef with Secundus.”

“A local who had a bit too much to drink at the tavern? Did Secundus insult someone without realizing it?” I was throwing out ideas as they came to me, surveying a sad glob of smooshed olives on the sole of my sandal. Faustilla gave her son a sharp look and he went back to sweeping the shop, with, I swear, a wink at me. “It’s horrible to see anyone lose their livelihood like this.”

“You’re forgetting, Julia,” the security chief said quietly.

I didn’t know why he was speaking in a low voice since neither Secundus nor his mother or daughter spoke a word of English, but I lowered my voice, too. “What am I forgetting?”

“The volcano.”

I hadn’t forgotten.

As we headed back toward the town gate, Nate carrying the clothes we had purchased for Helen and our two grad students, I asked Xavier, “Doesn’t it bother you that Secundus and Sabina and her grandmother will most likely perish in the eruption? We were able to interact with them so easily…and you have as well, for what—six months?”

“Julia, you can’t let yourself get attached,” he said evenly.

I didn’t believe him for a second. I struggled to find the right words. “Secundus—he looked straight into my eyes. I felt like he
could see deep into my soul and read the secret about his town that we all carry.”

“Because he said you were beautiful? You did seem to be fascinated by him, Julia.” This from Nate, on my left.

“What? No, I’m sure he was only being polite.”

“Deep into your soul, huh?” Nate certainly seemed to have forgotten that only yesterday he used to call me Ms. Olsen. His gait was off as he struggled to walk with his knees together and in the too-small sandals. “I didn’t feel like he could look deep into
my
soul.”

“Stop it,” I said, irritated at his effort to make light of what I was saying. Was this his way of trying to make me feel better? I didn’t want to feel better. “I’m serious. It must bother you, Xavier. I know it does.”

Xavier was staring straight ahead as he walked, his face expressionless above his salt-and-pepper beard. “Everyone I’ve ever met on my time-traveling runs was already dead, in a sense,” he finally said. “Just not at the time.”

“True, but you could say that about anyone, even back home.
Not dead yet
.”

He sighed and looked over at me. “I find it’s a little easier when you’re facing your own illness and mortality, but only just. If you must know, my plan had
not
been to go to Alexandria and escape the eruption. Forget what I said. I was going to secure my cache of notes and sketches, then share the town’s fate. I know it’s a bit dramatic, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. However—” He paused to formulate his words as we passed the flask fountain, which, unlike the theater-mask one, still seemed to be going strong. “I’ve come to believe that much of the town will evacuate in time. I haven’t had as much freedom of movement as I thought I would. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t encounter a crux person or a path that closes itself off to me. So when I’m
able to interact with people easily, like Secundus and his family, I assume that they’ll die when the eruption comes. It’s a problem,” Xavier admitted. “I know very well that nothing I say or do in Secundus’s presence can alter his fate. He is either going to perish or he won’t.”

As we walked through the town gate and onto the street of tombs, he quoted the poet and mathematician Omar Khayyam, in what might have been written as a motto for the Time Travel Engineering lab: “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.” He went on, “Still, many a time I’ve wanted to tell Secundus to drop everything and leave town before it’s too late. That the fate of the store and the garum jars matters not in the least.”

“And?” I asked.

“I could never get the words out. Not because of History. It just—it seemed like I would be trying to play the role of one of their gods.”

“Is there a chance that”—I paused to frame my words carefully, but they still didn’t come out as I intended—“the impact of Secundus’s life on history is so insignificant that we might be able to get him and his family out in time? Maybe he’s the opposite of a crux person,” I attempted to explain, thinking of that proud man with the deep eyes. I meant what I was saying with no disrespect. Not all of us were meant to move mountains and lead armies. Including me.

“I don’t believe in that possibility for a second,” Xavier said sharply. “Either scientifically or philosophically. All people’s lives, no matter how ordinary, impact their loved ones, their neighbors, strangers passing through town… Think of all the people Secundus’s shop has fed, the garum varieties he’s flavored, the dinners he’s elevated with his sauces, the wisdom he’s
imparted to his daughter, the dogs he’s taken on as pets. We can’t just pluck him out of the fabric of History as if nothing he’ll do between now and the eruption, and perhaps afterward, matters.”

“Xavier,” I asked without thinking, “do you feel bad that you left St. Sunniva and your lab and all your friends?”

Nate gave me a pointed look over the wicker basket, as if I had asked something inappropriate, but I thought bringing the issue out into the open might help Xavier. We had come to a stop just outside the Nigidii tomb.

The professor had gone a deep red from the neck upward, either out of anger or embarrassment. I rather thought it was a combination of the two. “Yes, I feel bad that I left. I feel bad that I’m ill. I feel bad that Vesuvius will erupt. I feel bad that many people in this town will die. I feel bad that there’s nothing I can do to save them. By the way, Julia,” he added, shaking off his mood, “the dress is supposed to go down to your feet.”

The dress was too long for unencumbered walking, so I’d hitched it up a bit by folding the material into the lower of the two belts, the one circling my waist. After the boots, the sandals were a delight for my blistered feet. “You mean because I’m wearing nail polish? Dusty rose is not a very bright color. I was hoping no one would notice.”

“No, it’s just proper dress code for this era.”

I decided to bring up something else. It had been impossible to miss as one walked along Pompeii’s streets. “Speaking of propriety, what’s with all the, uh—explicit imagery above doorways and on walls and fountains? The male genitalia with wings and bells and stuff?”

“Those are for luck. Different times, different hang-ups,” he said as we entered the tomb.

“We’re here. The Stabian Baths.”

The six of us were standing at the crossroads of two of the town’s main arteries, next to the somewhat gaudy statue of a man in a short red cloak and white tunic holding a spear. “Marcus Holconius Rufus. Local bigwig. Never mind him. The women’s entrance is down that alley,” Xavier added. The baths took up the entire block, with various shops and eateries at their front. We had decided that cleanliness took precedence over a sit-down meal, though it was somewhat early in the day to be heading to the baths, Xavier said. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from communal facilities, but clearly anything would be better than our current situation.