The Gilded Age, a Time Travel (35 page)

“Yes,
yes,” she sobs. “Is true.”

Cameron
exchanges a long look with Zhu, and Zhu can see in Cameron’s eyes
self-righteousness and ferocity. And also that her soul flies out to this
abused girl.

Muse
posts a file in Zhu’s peripheral vision, alphanumerics dancing as the monitor tabulates
the probabilities. The Archives amply support Wing Sing’s presence at Nine
Twenty Sacramento Street. Or a girl a lot like Wing Sing.

At
least the probabilities look right to Zhu. And that will have to do.

“She
may keep the box,” Cameron says. “Go on, then, Eleanor. Clean her up.”

Zhu
follows Cameron out of the bathroom. Cameron shuts the door, leaving Miss Olney
to her task.

Wing
Sing screams, “I go home now, okay? I go home!”

*  
*   *

“I
do apologize for any misunderstanding we may have had earlier,” Cameron says as
she and Zhu sit again in her office, comparing their notes on Wing Sing’s
successful rescue. A new spirit of camaraderie graces them. They sip cocoa out
of exquisite rose-glazed cups, the scent of chocolate perfuming the air. “You
are good at rescuing, Miss Wong.”

“You’re
really good, too, Miss Cameron,” Zhu says. “You always will be.”

“Oh,
well, that remains to be seen. But you. You are a strong young woman. You
understand them. I confess I’m impressed. We could use you here.”

“I
confess I wanted to seek a position here.”

Surprise
flickers in Cameron’s eyes. “Why did you not?”

“Something
unexpected happened, and everything changed.” She couldn’t possibly leave
Daniel now. He needs her. She smiles a little to herself. Even if he doesn’t
know it himself yet, he needs her.

Cameron
ruefully examines her ravaged fingernails. Perspiration stains the underarms of
her plum shirtwaist. Her pompadour is wispy, her skirt less crisp.  She unpins
the gold brooch at her throat, tosses the dove onto her desk. She takes up a
ledger, dips a pen in an inkwell, and commences writing an account of the
rescue in precise curling script. “I feel so grateful to Our Father every time
we rescue a wretched girl.”

“Everyone
is grateful to you, Miss Cameron.” Zhu can’t resist adding, “You enjoy the
excitement, don’t you?”

Cameron
smiles a little. “Perhaps you are right. I only hope our Wing Sing will find
happiness here, but I cannot guarantee that.”

A
prickle of alarm climbs up Zhu’s spine.
I cannot guarantee that.
But of
course she can. She must. “How is Miss Culbertson getting on? Is she feeling
better?”

Cameron
raises her eyebrows. “Forgive me, Miss Wong, but how do you know about
Margaret?”

“Everyone
knows about Miss Culbertson. She, ah.” Muse helpfully posts a phrase in her
peripheral vision. “She’s been doing her good works in the city for years.”

“Very
true.” Suddenly Cameron looks gaunt and haggard. And fatigued. She sets down
the ledger, the pen, and sips her cocoa. “No, her illness worsens, and I am swiftly
assuming more of her duties. It’s a pity there’s so little time to train a
replacement. I have not received many responses to the advertisement I placed
in our congregation’s newspaper.”

“Advertisement?”

“For
a new director. A permanent director.”

Zhu’s
alarm deepens. Donaldina Cameron will be the new permanent director. She will
manage this mission till the day she dies. The Archives are unequivocal about
that. The spartan room suddenly seems gossamer, as if reality trembles. She
rubs her eyes. What can she do?

“I
assumed you would be the new permanent director.”

“Heavens,
no, Miss Wong. I intend to stay on only till the Chinese New Year next
February.”

“The
Chinese New Year?” Zhu swallows hard. That’s when she’s scheduled to depart
from 1895 and return to 2495. “What happens then?”

“Why,
I have a fiancé.” Cameron blushes. “We intend to marry in the spring. Charlie
is a wonderful man, God bless him.” She gives a troubled little smile. “Well,
you know, he is a man. But I am so looking forward to marrying and having my
own home, my own children.”

“But
you’re superb in this position.”

“Thank
you, Miss Wong, but I could not possibly stay.”

“But
you have to stay.” Zhu wants to say--
because you do stay. Because it is your
destiny to stay.
The Archivists know all about Donaldina Cameron. Her life
is thickly documented. Her single-mindedness, her faith. Her devotion to
this
Cause. Zhu’s stomach clenches. Will she violate Tenet Three of the Grandmother
Principle if she tries to influence Cameron? Or will she fulfill the object of
the Gilded Age Project by persuading her?

“Help
me out here, Muse,” she mutters under her breath.

Cameron
glances up curiously from her cocoa.

“Surely,”
Zhu says, her voice rasping in her throat, “you know how the girls need you.”

“They
need someone, certainly, but they do not need me.” She sets her cup down and
slumps, bowing her face in her hands. Her shoulders begin to shake. “I have a life,
Miss Wong. A life with books and music and flowers. Pretty clothes and jewelry
and fine furniture. I want my life back. I want my own house, not this place.
Charlie loves me, and we are going to marry, and that is that. That is our
plan.” She raises her face, her eyes anguished. “Oh, but I
hate
the
brothels! I
hate
the cribs. I
hate
what the highbinders do to these
innocent girls stolen away from their families and their faraway land. It is
more loathsome to me than I can possibly express. My very soul shrinks from
it.”

“Then,
Lo Mo, you must stay.”

“No!
I am not Lo Mo. I am not their Mother. Do you not understand? I can barely
sleep at night in this place. Food is ashes in my mouth.”

“You’ll
endure, Lo Mo.”

“Do
not call me that! Why should I give up my future happiness for this?”

And
then something outrageous and unexpected happens.

“Because
this is your Cause, Donaldina,” Muse says in a high, clear voice, projecting
its voice into a corner of Cameron’s office.

Cameron
gasps, clasping her hand to her throat, then stares at Zhu, a mix of awe,
suspicion, and a good dose of fear in her eyes. “What is this deviltry that
clings to you?”

“I
am Zhu Wong’s own sweet guardian angel,” Muse says. “Not that she deserves me.”

“Thanks
a bunch,” Zhu mutters.

“Fear
not, beloved sister,” Muse says shamelessly. Talk about violating every Tenet!
“Gird up thy strength and plunge ever onward, oh lady of mercy. Your blessed path
lies before you. Do not shrink from it.”

“My
blessed path lies with my husband-to-be and my family,” Cameron declares. “As
you surely must know, angel, since God knows all and everything that is to be.”

Zhu
snorts. Cameron is one tough nut. Zhu doesn’t know whether she would have the
nerve to argue with a disembodied voice claiming to be a guardian angel if she
were from a time before radio and television, never mind computers and
telespace. Zhu blinks and her left eye begins to throb. Damn. She hates when
this happens. Muse downloads a file from the Archives through her optic nerve.

“Open
your eyes, Z. Wong,” Muse commands.

Zhu
does, and Muse projects a holoid field into the center of Cameron’s office, a
blue wall of light hovering above the polished wood floor.

Cameron’s
cup of cocoa crashes to the floor.

“Don’t
give her a cardiac arrest, all right?” Zhu mutters.

“Behold
what is to be,” Muse says, its voice ringing like a little silver bell.

Zhu
sits bolt upright. This gets her immediate attention.
What is to be?

A
pastoral scene appears in the holoid field. Young people saunter across a grassy
field past a well-worn carousel, a gothic stone mansion.

“Why,
that’s Golden Gate Park,” Cameron says. “The carousel and the Sharon Building.
We took an outing there only last week to see the brand-new attractions. The
girls love the carousel.”

Now
a young man strolls by in a Prince Albert cutaway and top hat, his hair
straggling over his collar. Strangely, he also wears the blue denim trousers of
a coolie. He turns, and both Zhu and Cameron gasp. He wears no shirt beneath
the cutaway, and his face is painted pink, blue, and green, the bright colors
fashioned in the paisley shapes so popular for wallpaper and fabrics during the
Gilded Age.

“What
in heaven’s name has he done to his face?” Cameron whispers.

A
young woman runs up to him, and again Zhu and Cameron gasp. She wears a thin
cotton T-shirt through which her bare breasts bob alarmingly, a long paisley
skirt, and no shoes. Her feet are muddy. Zhu meets Cameron’s look—
no shoes?
No
San Franciscan, not even a very small child, walks about with no shoes in the
Gilded Age.

More
young men and women stroll past. Some appear more disheveled than immigrants
after a transoceanic steamship journey. Shaggy matted hair spills down skinny
shoulders. They wear clothes with holes and patches such as only the most destitute
beggars wear in the Gilded Age. Yet there strides a woman in a long scarlet
velvet dress and a feathered hat, a man in muttonchops and a straw boater.

Zhu
has never seen such a strange sight in her life.

“Behold
what is to be,” Muse declares again.

Now
an elderly Chinese woman, perhaps in her sixties or seventies, pushes a wheelchair
across the grass. She’s sturdy looking, her gray hair still threaded with black,
and wearing a padded jacket just like a thousand other Chinese women in San
Francisco. In the wheelchair reclines a
very
elderly woman, slim and
fragile, her white hair neatly tucked into a pompadour.

“Dear
God,” Cameron says, “is that me?”

Zhu
stares. The strong Scotch face, the mouth, the hairstyle. It’s Cameron, all
right. Now a tall, slim man in jeans and a leather jacket steps into view, his
bright red hair tumbling down his back.

“Chiron
Cat’s Eye in Draco!” It’s Zhu’s time to shout.

“You
know that young man?”

“Yes!
It’s 1967. Got to be!”

A
pretty young woman with light brown hair walks beside him. The lovely couple
strolls past Cameron and her escort.

And,
as Zhu stares, something really outrageous and totally unexpected happens.

Cameron
nods and smiles at Chiron, exchanges a few words, and the elderly Chinese woman
turns to stare at him. Zhu clearly sees the gleam of green in her eyes. Her
mouth gapes open, and she reaches into her padded jacket. She pulls out a tiny
object--something shiny, something gold, winking with diamonds and bits of
multicolored glass.

The
aurelia.

She
hands the aurelia to Chiron, and he slips it in his jacket pocket.

Then
the holoid winks off, leaving only the wall of blue light. The wall shrinks to
a pinpoint and disappears.

“Thanks,
Muse,” Zhu whispers, struck to her soul. “We both needed that.”

She
sits in silence with Cameron, the ticking of a clock the only sound, cocoa
pooling at Cameron’s feet. Then she says, “The reality is, Miss Cameron, that
you will never marry or live the lovely life you planned. But you will have
this—your Cause.” Just as Zhu has her Cause in 2495. And will have her Cause if
and when she returns to her Now. “Will you argue with an angel? With this
vision of what is to be?”

Cameron
stands unsteadily, goes the door, and summons a girl, who dashes in, sweeps up
the shattered cup, and mops up the cocoa, staining a white rag dirty brown. Cameron’s
lips are tight. “The vision proves nothing but my longevity, for which I am
duly grateful, Miss Wong.”

“But
don’t you see? Your companion is a Chinese woman. A green-eyed Chinese woman.”

“Are
you about to tell me that is you?”

“I
don’t think so, but I really don’t know.” In truth, Zhu
doesn’t
know. She
doesn’t feel that jolt of recognition other t-porters report when they witness
Archival evidence of themselves in the past. Still, she’s as shaken by the
vision as Cameron must be. Because she’s not supposed to stay in the Gilded
Age. If she does, she’ll be trapped in a Closed Time Loop. A Closed Time Loop
that could pollute the timeline. A Closed Time Loop that never ends.

Cameron
snaps at the girl cleaning up. “You may go.” She glares at Zhu. “I repeat, your
vision proves nothing! I have Chinese servants now. I will surely have Chinese
servants in my own house in the future.”

“How
cruel, Miss Cameron.”

“Nothing
can compare to the cruelty of this so-called vision. I shall always be kind to
the fair sex of the Chinese race. I shall always observe my Christian obligations.
What more, what more do you have a right to demand of me?”

Zhu
stands. “Then I shall leave you, Miss Cameron, to your obligations.”