Once Beyond a Time (18 page)

“Yes.” He opens his eyes. “Once we get rid of capitalism and we’re living in a classless system. Think of it, Linda. No more war, no more poverty, crime, hatred, hunger. No more illness—”

“No more illness?” Okay, here’s where I draw the line. Seems a big stretch to me, saying no one’s going to get sick anymore just because there’s been an overhaul in the government.

“Well, yeah, eventually.”

“And how do you figure that?”

“Knowledge,” he says. “Progress. Education. We can master science; we can learn how to keep people from getting sick.”

I think about how far we’ve come in the way of medicine since 1916. Sure, we got antibiotics now, and we got the polio vaccine; I know that much. But I can hardly believe we’re going to get smart enough to keep people from getting either a cold or cancer. I mean, like what? We’re
going to start producing perfect bodies or something? Blame it on my upbringing, but I just can’t see things getting that good. Everything’s too much of a mess and, to me, people are basically rotten. I don’t know about the Fall and all that stuff, but it sure seems to me the world’s way too bad to ever be as good as Austin thinks it’s going to be.

“I’m not sure I can see it, Austin,” I admit. “I mean, the world’s a pretty bad place, you know? Bad things happen all the time, and I don’t know if we can change that. Dad says it’s because of the Fall.”

“The Fall?” he says. “Well, your dad’s a preacher, right?”

“Yeah. Used to be, anyway.”

“So, all right, he has to believe that. But listen, forget about the Fall. Forget about evil. It doesn’t exist.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No. Not really. But ignorance does. It’s ignorance that causes the problems. That’s why we have to get rid of ignorance. We need to keep moving forward, gaining knowledge all the time. That’s the only thing that’s going to save us.”

Baloney. And I’m not just saying that because I’m fifty years ahead of him, and not just because I’ve got Baptist roots, but because I’ve got eyes, and I can see where the world’s headed, and it isn’t toward any sort of Paradise on earth, that’s for sure. Just the opposite, far as I can see. Bottom line: I don’t think we can be saved. I think people are going to go on being rotten till we wipe each other out—probably in some sort of atomic war or something. But what, like Austin’s going to believe me if I tell him about flying across the ocean to drop atomic bombs? He probably can’t think any bigger than Molotov cocktails, and far as he’s concerned airplanes are nothing more than oversized kites. And I’m going to try to tell him we dropped a bomb out of a plane that wiped out an entire Japanese city in a matter of minutes? Right. Let his 1916 mind chew on that one for a while. Yeah, sure. Say Austin, we got this little thing called nuclear power now. So while you’re back there in time worrying about things like
chopping enough wood to keep your feet warm in the winter, over here we’re ducking under tables in air raid drills in case Russia decides to drop the big one on us. Think about it, will you? If I said the words “air raid shelter” and “nuclear fallout,” you wouldn’t have a clue what I was talking about. So welcome to the world of progress.

I’m not going to try to tell Austin any of that stuff, wouldn’t do it even if the Great Rule-maker let me. One, Austin wouldn’t believe me. Two, I like him too much to disappoint him.

“Well, I’ll say this much for you, Austin. You’ve got big plans for the human race.”

He nods, and he actually looks kind of proud. “It’s not just me, Linda. Lots of people believe it. Lots of people are working for it. I’m just sorry I won’t live long enough to see it, but maybe it’s enough to have a part in bringing it about. We’re building a kingdom here on earth better than anything heaven has to offer. I mean if there were a heaven, that is.”

“But there isn’t.”

“No. We can’t be hoping for some sort of eternal life that’s going to make up for this one. That’s why we have to work to change the world. All we have is now.”

I have to think about that for a while. Something’s bugging me, something I don’t understand, and I’ve got to figure out how to get it into words. Finally, I say, “Okay, I think I’m following you, Austin, but I’m wondering about one thing. If you’re right—and I’m not saying you’re not—but if you’re right, and all we have is now, would that be your now or mine?”

Austin looks at me like I’m asking him a trick question—even though I’m not really—and then he changes the subject. I guess he doesn’t know the answer.

Sunday, August 25, 1968

“I
F
I’
M NOT
being too intrusive, do you mind if I ask you what you’re doing with that machine?”

“Why, hello, Sheldon. I didn’t notice you. Have you been here long?”

“No, only a moment.”

Gavan looks from me back to the screen of—what did he say it was? A PC? A personal computer. He had been staring at it intently until I interrupted him. “It’s—well, I’m reading a letter. It’s from my wife, Melissa.”

“A letter?” I lean forward in the wing chair and try to see the words on the screen, but then I realize that if it is indeed a letter, it’s not addressed to me and not mine to read. I look away, settling my eyes on Gavan’s face again.

“It’s called an email,” Gavan explains. “That is, electronic mail.”

“But how did you get the letter into that, um … computer?”

Gavan is frowning in thought. “I didn’t put the letter in there. Melissa sent it to me from the computer where she is. It comes to me through cable modem.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Hmmm. You see, the message is sent from one computer to another,
something like—well, say, the way a telegram was once sent from one telegraph machine to another. Melissa types the message into her computer, then sends it to mine where I’m able to call it up and read it.”

The gap between our eras is somewhat too great for me. I can see why people must move forward moment by moment, taking in small bits of life at a time.

“Your wife,” I say. “She’s a soldier, right?”

“Yes, with the National Guard. Her unit has been deployed.”

This to me, too, seems inconceivable. The woman has gone off to war while the man is here on the home front. With the child. And this, not forty years from now. What lies in those individual moments ahead that would bring about this kind of change?

“How is it,” I ask, “that it’s the women now who go to war?”

He chuckles at that. “It’s not as though our troops are made up entirely of women. They’re still far in the minority as far as the military goes. And they aren’t drafted. Well, men aren’t drafted anymore, either. We have a volunteer military, at least for the present. Both men and women volunteer.”

“So the women who go to war, they
want
to go?”

“I suppose you could put it that way, though it isn’t that they want to go to
war
. What they want is to be in the military, whether our country is at war or not.”

“And so they become soldiers, just like men?”

“Well, for the most part, yes.”

“Women? Wives and mothers?”

“Yes.”

“They go to war and—get killed?”

Gavan nods solemnly. “Sometimes.”

I am stupefied. I try to imagine Linda marching off to war, and I can’t. She won’t, of course. Not Linda. Though, perhaps, her daughter might if this is indeed what the future holds. “And we as a country—we allow this?”

“We can’t
not
allow it. That’s what gender equality is all about.”

“I’m not sure I like the idea,” I say.

“You’re not alone in that,” Gavan assures me. “But women have many more choices today than they did even in your time.”

“I guess they must. But how do you—well, I’m not sure I could let my wife go to war.”

Gavan gives me an understanding smile. But then, just as quickly, he shrugs and says, “Melissa was a member of the National Guard when I married her. It wasn’t something she surprised me with later. Being a soldier was part of who she was.”

“But wouldn’t you rather the tables were turned? That is, that you were there and she were here?”

“You have to understand,” he replies gently, “it was her choice to go.”

“Does that make it right?”

“For her, I think it must.”

He seems unsure, and perhaps uncomfortable, as though I am questioning him as a husband, as a man. I’m not, really. I simply want to understand. But I’ll let it drop, turn the conversation to a slightly different vein. “At any rate, we’ve got ourselves into another war, haven’t we?”

“I’m afraid so.”

I think about Vietnam, of how little has been gained, how we likely shouldn’t be there. “Is it a necessary war, this one we’re fighting in your time?”

“I believe it is, yes. Though certainly not everyone thinks so. Many are dead-set against it. So, unfortunately, it’s a divisive issue in our country right now.”

“Something like Vietnam, then.”

“It’s similar, as far as our being unable to agree about it. Really, the last war that saw us unified was the Second World War. You know, Victory bonds, scrap metal drives, everyone pulling together—that sort of thing. Now Americans are too busy arguing with each other to present any sort
of united front to the enemy. So,” he smiles morosely and shrugs, “war within, war without. It can get rather ugly on the editorial pages.”

“The world seems a strange place in 2005.”

“Yes. But then, the world was a strange place in 1968.”

When I think of my own era, of the cultural upheaval and drug-induced sorrows, I have to agree. Every generation is immersed in its own fashion of peculiarity.

“But, Gavan?”

“Yes, Sheldon?”

“I’m sorry, but I have to ask. Aren’t you afraid? You and your wife have a child together. Aren’t you afraid of losing her?”

“Yes. Of course I am. I pray she’ll come home.”

“How do you live with it, then?”

He presses his hands together and lifts them to his mouth in thought. Finally he says, “I know that God is with her. Or, if she is killed, I know she will be with God. Either way, God is there. That’s how I live with it. Otherwise, I couldn’t.”

God is with her, or she is with God.

I nod thoughtfully. He turns back to his machine and goes on reading.

Monday, September 2, 1968

S
O THIS IS
Gail’s house, this brick rambler that looks about as interesting as peanut butter on white bread. I guess it’s a step up from a single-wide, but not by much. Compared to this place, I live in Elvis’s Graceland. But then again, plenty of the houses around here are about as classy as this one. Or worse. Unless you live in Uncle Steve’s neighborhood, where the wealthier folks hang out together in big new homes.

Well, anyway, I’m glad she’s coming with me to Uncle Steve’s party. That way she and I can find something to do, and I won’t have to go around being friendly to a bunch of people I don’t know and pretend like I’m having a good time just so Aunt Donna doesn’t feel bad. Like I really want to spend Labor Day with Uncle Steve’s family and a bunch of their weird friends, but then again there’s nothing else to do, is there?

I ring the doorbell and then I see Gail bouncing down the front hall. She swings the front door wide open, greeting me with that million-kilowatt smile. “Hey, Linda! Come on in,” she says. She’s dropped her northern lingo in favor of the local greeting, yelling “Hey!” at everyone she sees. I’d better be careful, or I’m going to end up mutating into some sort of southern hick myself.

“You ready?” I ask.

“Almost.”

Not that I’m in any sort of hurry to get to this particular party. I’d just as soon Gail and I skipped out and drove right past Uncle Steve’s and on over to Asheville to spend the day there shopping. But Mom would have a fit, and it wouldn’t be worth the wrath of Meg Crane. So we’ll put in an appearance, help ourselves to the food, and maybe do something fun later. Though I still haven’t figured out what’s fun to do around here. The only thing I really enjoy is seeing Austin, and that doesn’t happen very often, and it’s not like I can call him up and ask him to come over or anything. He just shows up out of nowhere, hangs around a while and disappears. All we can do is talk. I can’t even hold his hand. Yeah, Mom and Dad would get a kick out of that, I guess. Better than any chastity belt—this falling for someone who lives in another time.

I’m following Gail into the room off the hall, not knowing where she’s going or why we don’t just head out to the station wagon I’ve got parked halfway up the sidewalk out front. I never was good at parallel parking, and I didn’t realize I was on the sidewalk till I got out, but I figured I’d only be a minute. We enter what I guess is a living room but it doesn’t have carpeting, just a bare floor, and it looks like it’s been furnished with stuff you’d see piled next to a Salvation Army dumpster. Well, I guess not many people live in luxury when you’re a widow trying to keep your family together. I have to feel sorry for Gail’s mom, her husband dying on her and all that. And now she has to work. She’s even working
today,
on a holiday, because the stores are having their big sales and Mrs. Leland works in ladies lingerie over at Harris Dry Goods. What a life.