Christmas Carol (21 page)

“You may find it grim,” came the sad
answer.

“Are we to be observers this time, or will
the people we meet be able to see and speak with us?”

“For the few days during which we are there,
we will belong to that future time as though we were born into it.
Your ability to alter the future exists only in the present, so you
will not cause any harm. However, I hope that what you will
experience will complete your conversion into a new person.”

“I think I have already changed enough for
two lifetimes, but if it’s your opinion—or the opinion of your
superiors—that I need more experience, then let’s get this over
with.” Carol took a deep breath, bracing herself for what was to
come. “Take me where you want me to be.”

This time Lady Augusta did not embrace Carol,
or grasp her hand. She simply rested her pale, bony fingers on
Carol’s shoulder. Instantly, the dim light emanating from Lady
Augusta faded, and the silent darkness closed in around Carol once
more. It was like being smothered in wet black velvet. Carol felt
something move. It was not the ground, for that remained steady
beneath her feet, but she was aware of a dull, heaving sensation
that came from the very bowels of the earth and transferred itself
to her body. She suffered a momentary dizziness, and then her head
cleared. Lady Augusta removed her hand from Carol’s shoulder,
leaving her to stand alone.

Sound returned—loud, jarring noises, as if
someone was running a rusty piece of machinery, the various parts
of which were constantly scraping against each other as the machine
worked. Carol put her hands to her ears, but could not shut out the
racket.

Slowly the blackness receded until the sky
above was a dull gray. Cold rain fell heavily, freezing on the
ground.

Carol stared at the machine laboring in the
middle of the square. Then she looked at the rest of her
surroundings and recoiled in horror.

“Oh, my God.” She could say no more. The
black-draped figure beside her moved, stretching out an arm.

“Welcome to the twenty-second century,” said
Lady Augusta. “Welcome to the future

Christmas Future

Lond, 2168

“What is that thing?” The machine in the
square looked to Carol like some huge, rusty-red insect. “What is
it doing?”

“It is time to erect this year’s World Tree,”
Lady Augusta answered her.

“Is that like a Christmas tree? I don’t think
it will improve the appearance of the square.” Carol fell silent,
appalled by what she saw. On all sides once-elegant houses lay in
ruins. Only three or four of them looked as if they might still be
habitable. Gaps here and there, like open spaces between rotting
teeth, marked the spots where individual buildings had been
completely demolished. Through one such gap Carol had a clear line
of sight straight out to the horizon.

Carol searched for the house that was most
familiar to her. When she found it she understood why Lady Augusta
had not appeared to her in her room. Her bedchamber was gone and so
was Lady Augusta’s suite of rooms. What was left of Marlowe House
was just one story high. Piles of rubble in front and to either
side of the house were apparently the remains of the former upper
floors. The front doorway was barred by an assortment of heavy
wooden boards reinforced with metal strips.

The square was still an open space, but the
grass, the trees and bushes, and the flower beds were all gone, and
in their place was a solid gray paving material. In that paved area
a few figures wearing heavy layers of dark, tattered clothing were
directing the movements of the screeching, unwieldy machine.

Carol shuddered. Everything she could see was
dingy gray or black, broken, ugly, noisy. And cold. Icy rain
continued to fall, the drops running off her raincoat in streams.
The dampness seeped upward through the thick soles of her sensible
walking shoes. Water dripped off her hair and down her neck.

“If this is Christmas in the future,” she
said, “it certainly does not look like any Christmas I have ever
known. And that is no Christmas tree, either.”

The object now being lifted into the center
of the square by the rusty machinery was not a real tree at all,
but a heavy metal excrescence as gray and lusterless as the sky
above. Its trunk was at least twenty feet in circumference and
three times as tall as the men who were guiding it into place. This
bulky trunk had along its length a few crooked projections that
might have been intended to represent branches. At its uppermost
level the metal monstrosity divided into three sections that spread
wide like arms, and each of the arms then separated into five
gnarled fingers. The whole thing was wrapped around and around with
thick metal cords in grotesque imitation of vines.

“I don’t think I have ever seen anything so
ugly,” Carol said, staring at the fifteen upwardly stretched
fingers that appeared to be waiting— or perhaps aching—to grasp and
hold some huge object.

“Do not let anyone hear you say so,” Lady
Augusta advised.

“Is this the World Tree you mentioned?” When
Lady Augusta nodded, Carol asked, “What is it for?”

“You will need a bit of information if you
are not to make dangerous mistakes,” Lady Augusta told her. “Here,
Christmas is no longer celebrated. A century after your own time it
was abandoned, along with all other holidays kept by any faith. The
Great Leaders of the People claimed that such celebrations had
become too materialistic and commercial, and thus had lost their
true meaning. There were also too many holidays, almost two hundred
of them in each year. The constant celebrations were cutting into
productivity.

“Therefore, when the New Calendar was
instituted, all of the old holidays were eliminated in the interest
of economic revitalization after a terrible, twenty-year-long
depression that brought the world to the brink of chaos.”

“What, no Valentine’s Day or Halloween to
spend money on, either?” Carol’s tone was flippant, but after a
moment of more serious thought, she added, “I should think
abolishing holidays would hinder economic recovery. Eliminating
Christmas alone ought to cause a minor recession.”

“On the contrary. With no days off and no
distractions during the preparations for each holiday, workers have
fulfilled the hopes of the Great Leaders by increasing their
productivity. The changes have proven to be quite successful.”

“But if the workers have no time off at all,
that doesn’t seem fair,” Carol said. “This can’t be a very nice
world for the ordinary person.”

“I am pleased to hear you sounding concerned
for ordinary folk. There was a time when you would not have cared.
When, in fact, you would have cheered the absence of any holiday,
and of Christmas in particular.

“The Great Leaders were not without
understanding of the primitive needs of the workers,” Lady Augusta
continued. “Thus, they designated four major holidays, one at the
astronomical beginning of each season of the year. The summer and
winter solstices are celebrated, and the spring and autumn
equinoxes. Each of these events involves a three-day
celebration.”

“A long weekend,” Carol broke in.

“Precisely, though in the New Calendar there
are no weekends. There is simply one day of rest after each ten-day
work period, and an extra free day on the first of each new year.”
Lady Augusta paused to give Carol a chance to absorb all of this
information.

“This sounds like a remarkably dreary time,”
Carol said.

“It may lack charm, but it is a peaceful
age,” Lady Augusta responded. “After decades of ethnic and
religious wars, and of terrorism and economic upheaval, most folk
are grateful to be spared further violence, and do not quarrel
about repressive laws.

“Most folk,” she said again, speaking with a
peculiar emphasis. “Not all.”

“The economic recovery you mentioned
apparently hasn’t reached this part of town.” Carol glanced from
the dilapidated buildings to the rusty machine now pushed to one
side, and then on to the ugly sculpture sitting on a low cement
base in the exact center of the square. “It’s pretty obvious that
the Government hasn’t cleaned up yet after the last war, or spent
money on new machinery, and those workmen certainly don’t look
prosperous.”

“Actually, they are among the more
fortunate,” said Lady Augusta. When one of the workmen noticed the
two women and said something to his fellows, who all stopped
talking among themselves to look in their direction, Lady Augusta
added, “It would be best if we went indoors at once.”

She led Carol through a pile of rubble to the
side of Marlowe House, and thence down what remained of the stairs
to the recessed area and the servants’ entrance. Once there had
been a vestibule and a door with four large glass panes set into
its upper half. Now the charm of this low entrance was gone. The
door had been replaced by a solid wood barricade which blocked the
entry to the lower floors of the house. Lady Augusta knocked on the
wood. Receiving no response, she banged again, harder this time,
and using the same series of knocks.

“Is that a code?” Carol asked.

“It is always best to know who is coming.
Where is that man? We could be arrested before he lets us in.”

Carol was about to ask why they should be
arrested for doing nothing wrong, when the wooden barricade was
pushed aside and a middle-aged man with lank, dirty hair peered out
at her.

“Let us in, Bas,” Lady Augusta commanded. “I
have brought a guest to see your master.”

“I call no one my master. I am a free man.”
But Bas moved the barricade a little more, allowing enough room for
Lady Augusta and Carol to enter. In the dark and cluttered room
Carol recognized the outlines of the old servants’ kitchen. She
could see a bed and a chest of drawers in the room beyond, which
had once been the servants’ dining room and was apparently now
Bas’s quarters. Bas himself was clothed in layers of dark-colored,
worn garments.

“He’s in the book room,” said Bas, jerking a
thumb toward the servants’ stairs that led to the upper floor of
the house. Without another word he began to pull the wood back
across the entrance, blocking it again.

“This way.” Lady Augusta started up the
steps. Carol followed her.

The one remaining upper floor of the house
was reasonably clean, but in need of major repairs. The fine walnut
paneling in the hall was badly damaged and the marble floor was
cracked in many places. Some of the black and white squares were
missing altogether. It seemed there was no electricity, for there
were candles or oil lamps set on tables or benches along the hall.
The artificial light was necessary because all of the windows were
covered with several layers of rough boards, which allowed no
daylight to enter.

When she came to the library, Lady Augusta
did not pause to knock. With a motion of her hand to indicate that
Carol should accompany her, Lady Augusta pushed the door open and
went into the room.

Heavy brown curtains pulled across the
windows disguised the fact that, like all the other windows and all
but one door, these openings to the outside world were covered with
boards. Most of the bookshelves were empty. On the desk two candles
burned in a chipped pottery holder. The floor was bare of rugs. In
spite of the sad changes to its appearance, the room was oddly
similar to the library Carol remembered from her years of working
at Marlowe House, and from her journey into the distant past. This
was the room in which the Earl of Montfort had first kissed her on
the night of their betrothal ball.

An unmistakably masculine figure sat at the
desk, half turned away from the doorway and with an olive green
blanket wrapped around its shoulders against the cold. The man was
writing something, but Carol saw his hand go still and his
shoulders stiffen as they came into the room.

“Is that you, Aug?” The voice brought Carol
to a complete halt.

“It is.” Lady Augusta moved forward. “I have
brought a friend with me.”

“Your friends are welcome here.” The man
rose, shrugging off the blanket. He turned, so Carol could see his
face and confirm with her eyes what her ears had already told
her.

“Nicholas!” she gasped.

“Not quite,” the man said. “I am Nik.”

“This is the woman I spoke to you about the
last time I was here,” Lady Augusta said to the man who called
himself Nik. “She can be of help to you.”

“I will not ask if I can depend on her
honesty,” Nik responded. “You would not have recruited her if she
were untrustworthy.”

He put out his right hand and a mesmerized
Carol put her own into it, feeling the firm clasp of his long,
callused fingers.

“What is your name?” His voice was the same
as she remembered, deep and faintly amused. He possessed such
masculine power that, between his voice and the touch of his hand,
Carol could barely think, and for those first heart-wrenching
moments she could not speak one word. Nik put his own
interpretation on her hesitancy.

“While you are here, you may use a name other
than your own if you wish, but I insist upon knowing how you were
originally called,” Nik persisted, his fingers tightening around
Carol’s. “Among my friends, the revelation of a true name is a sign
of trust and fellowship.”

“I am Carol Simmons.”
Call me your love.
Tell me you recognize me
.

“You will be Car.” He released her hand and
Carol felt bereft, lonely, cast adrift in an unfamiliar world. He
was
her
Nicholas, and yet he was not. While her heart told
her this was the man she loved, she knew in her mind that he was
not, could not be, the same person.

Carol took the opportunity to study him as he
spoke to Lady Augusta. She could see now the differences between
Nicholas, the Earl of Montfort, and Nik, the man of the future.
Nik’s hair was the same glossy black, but straight instead of
curly, and it was fastened into a queue with a cord tied at the
nape of his neck. His clothes were worn, dark garments similar to
those she had noted on Bas and on the workmen in the square—a heavy
black shirt open at the neck, dark gray trousers, a loose gray
jacket. There were patches at the elbows and knees, but she could
tell the garments were clean.