What about us? (16 page)

“No, I’m not saying that, but I
am saying that as far as we know, he never killed anyone.  That was done by
others, not by him personally.  It was always done by people though, sometimes
soldiers and sometimes there was collusion by other prisoners, hoping that by
doing what they did they’d stay alive or perhaps someone they loved would stay
alive.  Don’t question their motives; you can never know what you would do in
the same position.”

He spoke so quietly and with
such heavy sadness that I had to agree with him.  I don’t know what depths I’d
sink to, to save him or myself and I don’t want to find out.  He stared into
the distance, blinking, clearly remembering things he had seen.

“Throughout history people have
done terrible things to each other, but the key thing is, whenever you look at
an atrocity within the context of the times, what you find are people making
choices using the information they have.  Not all of them were monsters.” he
said, shaking his head.

“Times were hard in the
nineteen thirties and we can’t forget that it was a period of desperate
economic depression.  Just getting through the day was very hard for a lot of
people and they didn’t want boatloads of refugees; more people that they would
have to share what little they had with.  For many it didn’t matter who they
were or where they were from, the fact that they would need housing and feeding
was enough to turn them away; there wasn’t enough to go round.  It can be
argued that few suspected the true terror that was to come, but there was an
almost unstoppable momentum taking humanity to that awful point. 
That
is what we have to understand.

“It has already happened, so we
can’t undo it.  We can kill Hitler while he sleeps in his cradle, but that
won’t change things, the times would still be as they were; someone else would
fill the void.  That person would make it happen in all the important ways,
even if some of the smaller details changed.  So the question has to be: How
many babies would we need to smother in their cradles before history would
change and then, how would that make us different from those we were trying to
save the world from?”

We sat in silence for a while.  What
could I say? What did I know? After all, he was the historian, not me.

After some deep thinking on my
part, some of what he’d said about his own time began to make a bit more sense.

“That’s why you collect
events.  To learn, to do things differently and make sure some things are never
repeated.” I said slowly.

“Yes Grace, that’s exactly why
we do it.  As a species we have made so many terrible mistakes, but we hope
that now we can make better decisions, both for ourselves and for future
generations.”

He was absent mindedly playing
with my fingers as he spoke, clearly remembering the life he had left behind,
the life he couldn’t share with me.

“But you don’t do that anymore. 
Now we just collect fragments, not enough to build a whole picture, not like when
we were in Napier Street.  Doesn’t that make you sad?”

I was acutely aware of just how
much he’d given up to be with me and I wasn’t sure that he was getting the best
part of the deal.

Even though I’m sure I didn’t
say any of that, only thought it, he smiled and understood.

“There are others who do the
same as I did and probably much better.  I’m not going back, so it doesn’t
matter; they must make those decisions without me.  Anyway, we collect more
than enough for my own interest and to be honest Grace, after just four years
in the elite HG unit, I had become weary of watching the awful things we do to
each other.  Now I get to witness much more positive aspects of the human race
and let us not forget the most important thing.” he said, looking up at me and
smiling.

“Which is?” I prompted, a
little puzzled.

“I get to start and end every
day with you.”

So we were never superheroes.  We
tried to change as little as possible and made contact with other people only
when necessary, in the hope that we wouldn’t be remembered or make much of an
impact.  We enjoyed the small things a good life has to offer; the fantastic
night skies before light pollution, food that hadn’t been tampered with in any
way, clear water in the rivers and streams and life that had a natural rhythm
with the sun and the seasons.

Of course we couldn’t trust the
doctors, so I tried not to get sick.  We often went to the twentieth century
just to have a bath, deflea ourselves and for me to buy sanitary stuff.  There
was no point in getting too attached to things; once we left a place or time we
left everything we owned behind.  I have no photos or souvenirs for my old age,
only my diary and my memories.  Without implants they are probably flawed, but
they are mine and they help me make sense of my life today.

Some of the clothes we wore did
nothing but make me itch and not everything I saw or experienced made me smile,
but I really believe that we were happy.  Until yesterday, or until a hundred
years ago I should say, on a cold night in a dark Moscow street.  We were found
and Jack was wrenched away from me before the shimmer had started, before we
could escape.

I turned to face him, my judge
and jury.

“You can stop pretending now, I
know it’s you.” I said quietly, without a shred of doubt either in my voice or
in my mind.

“How?” he whispered.  “I’m a
hundred and eighty years old and I’ve had throat surgery.  My voice isn’t the
same.”

“There’s enough of your voice
left for me to recognise it.  I admit it took a while, but that plus your
eyebrows convinced me.  They’ve got a life of their own Jack; you can’t stop
them once they get going.”

The remark brought the smallest
of smiles to his lips.

 Feeling more confident about
the present, but still very scared about the future, I went on.

 “And as I was speaking, you
were remembering.  A stranger would have been mildly interested at best in all
my ramblings, but you were reliving it with me, revelling in it.  You were like
a man who has spent a long time in the desert and is then given a glass of ice
cold water.  Oh and the fact that I love you.  That helped too.”

I stared into the face that I
hadn’t had the opportunity to watch grow old over time and reached for his
hand.

“I knew you’d come back.” I
told him, but he flinched and pulled his hands away.

“No Grace, that’s not why I’ve
come back.  It’s too late for us to pick up where we left off.  I’ve come to
take you home.”

I glared at him.  “You’ve
become a bit bossy in your dotage.” I said, accusingly.  “What happened to
‘let’s discuss this,’ or how about giving me a bit of time to get over the
shock of you being, what was it you said? A hundred and eighty, all of a sudden?”

He smiled, almost against his
will.  “It hasn’t been all of a sudden for me.  Since we were parted, I’ve
lived each of the hundred and forty-eight years, day by day, hour by hour.”

I’d have had to have been the
most selfish person in the world to not hear the deep sadness in his voice.

“Oh Jack...” I said, reaching
over again for his hands.  This time he let them rest in mine and they were
trembling ever so slightly.

A few drops of rain started to
fall and we both knew that the storm would hit in about half an hour.

“Come on, let’s go home.” he
said and waved to the waiter.

I began to get angry again and
opened my mouth to protest, but he saw this and shook his head, getting in quickly
before I could work up a head of steam.

“I meant to the apartment.  Earlier,
you called it home.  Let’s get out of the rain and discuss this properly.”

I relaxed at his words.  I was
still fuming, but I could see that he wasn’t about to bundle me back to 2001
without a by your leave.  And anyway, I wasn’t prepared to give up without a
fight.

“You used to like the rain.” I
reminded him.

“I still do, but we can enjoy
it from the balcony and you won’t ruin that charming dress.  You really are as
lovely as I remembered.” he said softly, wistfully even.

Lots of strange things had
happened to me since I’d met Jack, but nothing had prepared me for this.  There
was a great big hole in me, as if everything had been sucked out by some super
industrial strength vacuum cleaner.  I had to get a hold of myself, but for a
while there I struggled.  The walk back would be good; it would give me time to
think things over.  It would also give me time to try and find something even a
little bit normal in this new situation, one that I instinctively knew I didn’t
want to be in.

He put his hands in his
pockets, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.  He might have become an old
man overnight, but whatever time we had left together was precious and I was
going to make the most of it.  I put one of my arms through his and then put my
other hand on his wrist.

“I’m not the one who’s likely
to run away,” he said grumpily, but he didn’t try to shake me off.

“Old people fall over a lot, so
it’s for your own protection.” I said firmly.

“Humph.” Was all he had to say
in response and we walked in silence for a while.

“So, if you’ve aged what... a
hundred and forty-eight years... then we must have had what... four and half years
together, give or take?” I said, doing a quick bit of calculation, but as I
said before, it’s hard when years didn’t start or end in the normal way.

“Five years, seven months and
sixteen days, to be precise.” he told me, staring straight ahead.

“Oooh, that is precise.” I said
quietly.

“I’ve had time to go over it.  I
also had all the records we made together, so I still had your voice to comfort
me.” he replied, sounding wistful again.

“That’s more than a lot of
people get, but a lot less than I’d hoped for.” I told him honestly.

“Yes, but we had a good time,
didn’t we?”

His voice had a strange note in
it, as though he wasn’t sure anymore.

I moved to stand in front of
him and made him look me in the eye.

“We had a bloody amazing time mister,
as well you know! You had my voice all those years.  Did you ever hear any
doubt in it? Any sadness, or any regret? No you didn’t, so don’t try going down
that road; it won’t work!”

“You always did have a lot of
passion.” he said, chuckling.

That was better.  I took his
arm again and we carried on walking.

As we turned into that familiar
street, a stray memory leapt into my mind.

“Do you remember that time in 1754;
we’d gone to the country for a change and stopped in that nice village, down
Devon way I think it was and that bloke just stood pointing and staring at me
with his mouth hanging open?”

He thought for a moment and
then nodded.

“I always meant to ask what it
was you said to him, to make him turn tail and run away like that.  Did you say
I had some terrible disease or something?”

“No, I told him you were mother
earth personified and that I was your protector.  Then I told him that you
couldn’t be seen in this form by the undeserving and if he didn’t stop looking
at you I would be forced to cut his head off.”

There was a snarl in his voice
as he remembered.

“You never did...!”

We were both laughing as we put
the key in the front door and went up the narrow staircase to the first floor
apartment.

By unspoken agreement, we
headed into the main room.  But he didn’t sit down, he walked over to the
windows and opened them, stepping out onto the balcony and just standing there
looking out, feeling the wind and the rain on his skin.  Thunder rolled in the
distance and I went over, but I stopped a few feet away.  There was something I
needed to know and how he answered would help me decide what I did next.

“In all those years, was there
someone else, a Mrs Jack?”

He was thoughtful for a moment. 
I knew he wouldn’t lie, but perhaps he needed to find the right words.  So I stood
behind him, waiting patiently.

“Not for a long time.  I was so
eaten up, knowing that you would be waiting here and not being able to come
back for you.  Then I realised I was getting old and that even if I could come
back, you would be exactly as you had been the day I was forced to leave you;
as indeed you are.  For you it was only yesterday, but for me, yesterday was a
long time ago.”

He paused and hung his head.  I
couldn’t see his face, but I guessed his eyebrows would be going twenty to the
dozen.

“Have you been happy Jack?”

It was a big question and I
really, really wanted him to say yes.

“There were two of them over
the years and they were really nice people; caring and warm.  They were also
much nearer to my own age, but they deserved someone who didn’t have half of
himself missing.  You weren’t dead Grace, so I couldn’t mourn you.  You didn’t
leave me and we didn’t part because things had run their course.  You have
always been right here, waiting for me.”