Future Times Three Read online

  Two years had passed since the moment in the snow at Tremplin-le-Haut, when he had swallowed the noelite. Had they really passed with the speed predicted by Essaillon? From the snows of Champagne to the snows of Paris—had he leaped over those long months? He had such vivid memories of the alert on May 10, 1940; of the confidence with which he had entered Belgium; of the sky suddenly filled with planes, the bombs falling like hail, the crushed trucks; of six of his drivers dead and the retreat in disarray to the camp of Souges, near Bordeaux; of the flies that infested the excrement-filled camp, the dysentery and despair; of the departure for the Pyrenees, the demobilization; his replacement in Paris by the non mobilized; his nomination to a provincial college and finally his return to the capital at the beginning of the year.

  Certainly he had lived all that. He looked at himself in the mirror. He saw there the features of a man who had hardly learned to deal with the real. His face showed no mark of suffering. The night of Tremplin-le-Haut—had it been a dream? He closed his eyes and saw again the cripple with his beard of fire and his stomach, like a great gourd, in the chair. And the silent girl…

  He did not know what to believe anymore. Corrected exams were spread across his desk: forty students of Advanced Math, aged eighteen to twenty. He had spent part of the night on their homework. The night—two years? One second? Just time to swallow? Time? What was time? On the papers sat a small silver object, a souvenir of his stay at the Essaillon’s, a teaspoon taken inadvertently.

  He took it in his hand. It was icy cold. Shivering, he undressed, retaining his woolen underwear and slipping on a none-too-clean pair of pajamas. A bachelor’s pajamas. He sat down on his bed. His grasshopper knees folded under his chin, he felt the cold sheets with the ends of his toes, and slipped into the bed as into an icy river. He could not warm himself. He missed the straw of the stable at Vanesse, the heat and the odor of horses. That memory seemed very close to him. Like yesterday.

  He heard the clock strike three, then four. The hours never end. Had he traveled through two years in a lightning flash? The winter wind wailed through the sleeping city. In the next room Mr. Michelet, his neighbor, snored.

  If Essaillon kept his promise, he would arrive today. Es-saillon and his daughter Annette.

  He awoke to a rapping on his door. He shouted, “Okay, okay, I’m coming!” It’s them, he thought

  He leaped out of bed. Halfway to the door he remembered his freezing feet, went back to his bed and slipped on his socks. His teeth chattered with emotion and from the cold. Wrapping a blanket around himself, he ran to open the door.

  “Mr. St. Menoux?” a high melodious voice greeted him. He looked down. At the height of his belt buckle he saw the cap and red nose of a telegraph boy.

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  “Here you are, sir.”

  The boy held out a telegram in a mittened hand. Then he turned on his heel and rushed down the stairs, singing, “Baby, I want your love…

  St Menoux heard his landlady in the hall. His hands were trembling. The return address read: Noel Essaillon, 7, Racine Villa, Paris 16.

  MY DEAR FRIEND,

  WE HAVE RETURNED FOR THE RENDEZVOUS. WE AWAIT

  YOU FOR LUNCH. SINCERELY, NOEL ESSAILLON

  “Well, my dear neighbor. I hope it is good news!”

  Startled at hearing himself addressed, Peter realized that he was still standing on the threshold of his room. He shut the door, muttering, “Thank you. Thank you.” Locks of his pale hair fell across his eyes.

  Mr. Michelet shrugged his shoulders and went down to breakfast An unhappy architect Michelet, by the time he was fifty, had lost all of his clients and most of his fortune. He lived in this furnished house on St James Boulevard be* cause on the other side of the boulevard a building of his design was under construction. It was a kind of chalet with turrets and bell towers surrounded by about five feet of a garden of sorts and squeezed between a furniture warehouse and a coal depot. From his bedroom window overlooking the subway, Mr. Michelet could contemplate his masterpiece during the day.

  It was the only happiness that remained for him. Age and misfortune had shriveled him. His store-bought clothes seemed too large. His gray felt hat, turning a dirty brown, came down over his ears. His face had lost all color. Even his eyes were a vague color, like a pool where the muddy bottom is seen among a few reflections of the sky. In his youth, his moustache must have been triumphant Now it fell limply parallel to the bitter comers of his mouth and down to his poorly shaven chin. It was gray on the ends and the color of a cigarette butt all along the lip.

  To avenge the spitefulness of destiny, Mr. Michelet told his misfortunes to everyone. He clung to hotel tenants and people he chanced to meet who did not know better than to lend an ear to his tales of woe. He began each morning by pouring out his feelings to the customers of the Bougnat bar where he drank his national coffee.

  He arrived, impatient, before sunrise, as the percolator began to whistle. The owner yawned as he aligned the stemmed glasses jingling with little spoons on the counter* He always found the same shivering workmen who would take one of the early subways. His gabardine coat wedged itself against the bar between their threadbare overcoats and blue jeans. The plumber passed him the squirt of saccharine that replaced the regretted cognac, giving him an amiable tap on the back and asking if “things weren’t coming along better?” Then Mr. Michelet began to recount his misfortunes. Occasionally some impolite character interrupted him, saying, “We’ve already heard your song.” Even if they said nothing, they were not listening to him. They let him speak. They talked about the war. Each one knew how it was going to end.

  An alley opened between two houses in the icy air. It left the bourgeois street and was lost among the trees. Two walls set with rare doors and iron gates ran along each side, covered with a layer of snow pierced by pointed iron spikes. Some steps marked a path on the white blanket which covered the sidewalks. The trees intertwined their naked branches high in the sky. A forest silence bathed this patch of nature forgotten in the city.

  St. Menoux had to look for the numbers under the interlaced roots of ivy. He noticed some isolated houses through the trunks and clumps of trees. At No. 5, three wolf-dogs rushed from the further end of the park and threw themselves against the door. They jumped at the iron gate as he passed, growling savagely, their open jaws reaching for him between the bars.

  No. 7 was the last iron gate, a double door which closed on the end of the alleyway. St. Menoux rang the bell. Footsteps crossed the snow. An aged woman appeared. She was wearing a white headpiece with large starched wings and a black dress closed up to the neck.

  “Does Mr. Essaillon live here?”

  She nodded yes without saying a word. The wings of her cap fluttered. She made a sign to the visitor to follow her. Then she was running, the pleats of her skirt flying around her white cotton stockings.

  St Menoux, surprised, ran behind her along a path and climbed the flight of steps of a freestone house. She did not give him time to recover his composure as she drew aside two doors.

  Peter stood panting, trying to catch his breath. He was welcomed by Annette’s laugh. “Obviously,” he said, “I could never—make a normal entrance—at your house!”

  He remembered his wet boots on die floor at Tremplin-le-Haut This was the same room, the same furniture, illuminated by a similar light, coming from the windows veiled with pink curtains. Seated in the same chair, the invalid, his two hands on his beard, watched St. Menoux enter with the same benevolent and slightly ironic smile. Behind him, his daughter remained standing. She alone had changed. She had bloomed, but kept in her eyes that pure flame which shines in the eyes of very young children or those who have nothing to hide. She had grown up in isolation, near this father who was content to revel in her concern, her help and her beauty. No one had taught her to see evil where there was none.

  She took a few steps toward St. Menoux. She was clothed in a pleated navy blue skirt with suspen
ders over a lace bodice. She walked, her arms half-folded, her hands outstretched. She held out her hands and milky arms to the visitor. With each step, her free breasts swayed behind the lace. Her skirt surrounded her delicate waist, encircled her full hips and danced around her perfect legs. Two locks of hair fell in brunette swirls across her temples. Some wild wisps shadowed her forehead and nape of her neck, catching the light that surrounded her head. Her pink and golden complexion evoked the warmth of blood and sun. She was smiling, without opening her lips, the same smile that had welcomed St. Menoux two years earlier, which bathed her in sweetness and mystery.

  St. Menoux scarcely knew how to appreciate feminine beauty. He lived mainly in the mind, in those inhuman regions where mathematics lead a few privileged beings. As for Annette, he recalled her luminous face and the warm welcome she had given him. He did not separate her from the memory of her father.

  He was overcome by the beauty and manner of the girl, but when he held her hand, he no longer thought of her. He was the prey of an anguished curiosity.

  At the moment when the young man’s hand touched on hers, Annette suddenly stopped smiling. She turned around slowly to watch him walk away from her, advancing across the room toward her father.

  “We are very happy to see you again, my dear friend,” said the invalid. “I hope that my old Philomena did not receive you too badly. She’s my daughter’s nurse. You could not meet her during your first visit. She was dead.”

  These last words freed St. Menoux from his anguish. It seemed like a good joke. He began to laugh.

  “That’s something new,” he said. “One can always expect a surprise around you.”

  “Oh, that is not so surprising! Sit down, my dear St Menoux. You know the devotion of these old domestics. Philomena used to manage the house. So that “nothing would be wasted,” she used to eat the leftovers. One day she poisoned herself, no doubt with some piece of meat that she had left too long in the pantry. She died in fifteen days. Annette cried over her. A terrible grief. When the noelite was ready, I found Philomena again in the past and attempted to prevent her from dying. But I could not find the exact cause of her illness. Not knowing what had poisoned her, I locked her in her room and forbade her to eat for eight days, then one week with bread and water. She came out of it very thin and half mad, but alive. Since then, she has never left us.”

  “She must be terribly grateful.”

  “Don’t believe it,” answered Essaillon. “On the contrary, she won’t forgive me for it She lives in perpetual remorse for my having “stolen her time.” She hurries, she runs in the hope of finishing this stolen life more quickly. My new experiments hardly please her. She says that the devil possesses me.”

  His eyelids, folded over, almost entirely hid his eyes. Peter was astonished to see a shadow of anger pass over his face.

  Even before the war St. Menoux, held back by his budget, had never eaten such a meal. Lobster, chicken, leg of lamb, fresh peas, asparagus, and salad followed one after another across his plate. And to top it off, after a choice of creamy cheeses and butter cookies, he was served strawberries, cherries and grapes of unbelievable freshness in the middle of February.

  He had a small stomach. The miniscule portions at the restaurants of Category D had always sufficed him. He paid too little attention to eating. When he did notice a meal it was to suffer, like his neighbors, from the dull foods of the armistice.

  Philomena’s kitchen seemed to awake in him the faculty of taste. He marveled at each out-of-season delicacy. He stuffed himself with the first course and so could only taste the others. The white bread, ordinarily a treat, seemed dull to him. He smelled the coffee arriving before the maid had placed the cups on the table.

  Essaillon reveled in his newly discovered taste buds, Annette in his pleasure.

  The invalid ate for four and drank hard. His beard was filled with crumbs. He shook it after each course. His appetite seemed habitual. Seeing his daughter refill his plate, St. Menoux guessed that she must serve him as copiously for each meal. Essaillon confirmed this openly to his guest

  “You see,” he said, “I am at heart an ingenuous person. I can never have enough of the joys of this world—joys of the senses, of the heart and of the mind. It hurts me to see so many unhappy men around me when life could offer them such great and varied pleasures. Today I am the only one able to eat fruits ripened in their normal time and gathered in winter. But soon I hope everyone will be able to do the same. Come, I want to show you where I store these riches.”

  Annette pushed her father’s wheelchair. All three entered a neighboring room, which reminded St Menoux of a bank vault. Its walls were divided into a number of little metal gray doors, each one with a knob and a white button similar to that of a doorbell. The invalid seized one of the knobs and pulled. The hinged door opened into blackness. The light from the large windows did not penetrate an inch into the coffer. It seemed full of obscurity as though of a solid substance. The eye fell upon a total shadow, unable to perceive even the palest reflection. In a room opened to the afternoon light, this rectangle was irrational.

  “Put your hand in the safe,” said Essaillon.

  St. Menoux approached cautiously, reached out his arm and mumbled. His hand could not enter the void. It met with no resistance. He groped at the darkness with his fingertips. He felt nothing, no smooth or rough grain. No matter. No sensation of temperature. Nothing. There was no surface there at all. Yet his hand, which nothing stopped, could not go further. Then he put both hands into the door. He felt like a burglar groping for the secret of a lock. His fingers felt along the void. He leaned against the opening, his entire body supported by his hands placed flat against the blackness. His hands were in contact with nothing. He was leaning against nothingness.

  Essaillon had pulled his glasses from the pocket of his wool vest, placing them on his nose. His eyes danced behind them.

  “Do not persist, my dear Peter,” he said. “First of all, I am going to show you the content of this cupboard. I shall then explain the mystery to you. Watch!”

  He pressed the white button. St. Menoux saw the obscurity tremble, swirl and dissolve. A green lamp had begun to shine onto the ceiling from the cupboard. Its pale light lit four pats of butter placed on wooden trays. St. Menoux put out his hand. It went in this time without difficulty and his index finger made a hole in the butter.

  While Peter was sheepishly licking his finger, Essaillon leaned on the button a second time. A black fog veiled the lamp, stopped level with the door and lay there like a block. The invalid closed the hinged door.

  “You have seen my pantry,” he said. “Now I shall explain how it functions.”

  They returned to the next room. Philomena had placed an assortment of alcoholic beverages on the table.

  “Choose what you like and help yourself. You have just seen an application of noelite. I have succeeded in manufacturing a new variety of this substance. In my desire to remain near my cherished daughter as long as possible, I wished to eternalize the present. I obtained results very different from those I anticipated.

  “What is the present in our little universe? While I think of the sentence that I shall say to you, it is already a part of the future. As I pronounce it, it falls into the past. Is the present the moment when I taste this marvelous liqueur? No! As long as it has not reached my lips, it is the future. When the sensation of its taste, its warmth which fills my mouth, when this pleasure reaches my brain, it has already left my palate. It is the past. The future drowns in the past as soon as it has ceased to be future. The present does not exist. To eternalize it would be to eternalize nothingness. That is what I have done!”

  St. Menoux put down his glass. He did not even know what he had been drinking.

  ’Those cupboards that you saw are coated on the inside with a paint base of noelite 3. This paint removes whatever is inside the cupboard from the action of passing of time. The green lamp annuls the action of the noelite. I light the
green lamp and put a live chicken in the cupboard. I turn off the lamp. The chicken ceases to be. The present, which doesn’t exist for him, will thereafter be the unique form of his time. He no longer moves, because movement supposes quickness, departure and arrival, and the passing of time. His blood stops. His sensations no longer run through his nervous system. He remains fixed in the present. He can stay this way for a thousand years without growing old and without feeling. As soon as the green lamp is relit, he begins to exist again. A burning match can remain in my cupboard for an eternity without being consumed.

  “What is the state of the objects or living organisms thus preserved in an eternal present? We can only guess. We can not discover through the senses because light, odor, sounds, all stop under the action of the noelite. If you can not make your hand enter the cupboard, it is because there can be no movement inside this perpetual present Thus nothingness remains unknowable.

  “When I created noelite 3, I returned to 1938 with Annette, bought this hotel and had these coffers built. I applied a coat of paint to them and supplied them with various provisions. When one of them is empty, Annette makes a tour back to before the war and fills it.”

  “It’s so funny,” said Annette, “to find myself again as a little girl with my experience as a woman!”

  “Listen to her,” said the invalid. “Listen to her speak of her experience, this youngster.”

  Peter looked at her. He tried to imagine the return of this magnificent adolescent in her body of a grown woman. He saw her breasts grow smaller, become flat, her calfs grow thin, her face grow hard…She looked into his eyes, and he turned his head away first. He coughed. “Truly with you the miraculous becomes habit You walk through time as through the town streets. Have you found other uses for noelite 3?”