I’m afraid. It’s a scientific matter.”
“If it’s a question of physics, perhaps my father—”
“Your father would understand me even less.”
Nothing Waldemar said or did surprised her, not truly, because she’d always thought of him as alien. He was alien still, an unknown quantity, though he was struggling to disclose himself to her. She felt sympathy for him now—even tenderness, of a kind. The set of his jaw was as defiant as a child’s.
“It must be lonely for you, Herr Toula, having no one understand you.”
“It is, fräulein. It’s exceptionally lonely.”
He let himself be led, after some resistance, to a rusting iron bench between the chestnuts. Sonja waited to speak until he’d sat beside her. “Will you explain the source of your distress to me, Herr Toula, if only as an experiment? I promise that I’ll do my best to follow.”
“It’s strange,” he said, nodding. “We’ve sat like this before—we must have done—but I can find no remnant of it in my memory.”
“This seems familiar to me, too,” Sonja said, not entirely certain why she was agreeing. To reassure him, she supposed. But something in her gave a sort of quiver.
“Does it?” Waldemar whispered. “Then you must help me, fräulein.” He put a hand on her knee, gripping it roughly, nothing at all like a lover. “The villa is too far to walk, perhaps, but we can hire a carriage. You could come just as you are, in your nightgown and slippers.”
“Which villa do you mean? Not the widow’s, surely? Why on earth—”
“Don’t worry,” he said, already on his feet. “She’s at a spa in Baden, taking the waters. No one needs to be told.”
“Waldemar,” said Sonja, taking care to speak clearly, “if you don’t tell me—at once—what you need my help for, I’ll go straight back inside.”
“You require more information, of course. That’s only fair.” He smiled down at her. “I’ve found out about time, you see. That it travels in circles. Not in lines, but in circles—in spheres, to be more precise. This is happening everywhere, fräulein. All around us. Even now.” He squatted before her. “I haven’t managed to control it yet, that’s all.”
“Just a moment,” said Sonja. “Does this have something to do with those two Americans—Michaels and Murray?”
“To hell with Michelson and Morley. They’re still thinking in straight lines, fräulein. Everyone is. That’s why no one can make sense of their results.”
“I’m not sure you’re making sense just now, Herr Toula.”
“I’ve done the mathematics, fräulein. It comes out beautifully. I don’t need to make sense—not the kind that you mean. The numbers will do all that for me.”
Sonja looked hard at him. “But if time travels in circles—”
“In spheres.”
“—in spheres, as you say it does, then why hasn’t anyone noticed?”
“Excellent question! Because we’re all inside of them, you see.”
“Inside of what?”
“Of the chronospheres, of course. We’re trapped within them, stuck to their inner skins, like dust grains on the surface of a bubble.”
“Just a moment,” she repeated. “Did you say, just now, that you hadn’t managed to control it?”
“My work hasn’t advanced that far yet—I concede your point—but it follows from everything else. It’s a kind of observer-induced distortion: every action has consequences, even human attention. One can’t help affecting the phenomenon one studies, simply by studying it. Am I being clear?”
Sonja nodded uncertainly.
“All that’s required to affect time, by logical extension, is simply to begin observing it.” He waited impatiently for her to nod again. “The problem is that time is impossible, under normal conditions, for us to perceive. We can’t see it passing, and for exactly that reason—and for that reason only—it passes without conforming to our will. Do you follow?”
“I think so,” said Sonja. “What you’re saying is that, given the right set of conditions—”
“Exactly, Fräulein Silbermann! It’s like standing in the middle of an overcrowded city, or in the center of a maze: in order to understand where you are, to get a sense of the pattern, you need to attain a higher vantage point—the bell tower of Saint Stephen’s, say—to acquire perspective.” He rocked from side to side in his excitement. “That’s what I need your help for: to escape from the maze. I need your help to rise above the timestream.”
“I’ll be happy to assist you however I can, but I still don’t see how—”
“You can knock me out of time, Fräulein Silbermann. Kaspar told me that you did the same for him.”
“I did?” Sonja stammered, more baffled than ever.
“A week ago,” he said, triumphant now. “The same night as the widow’s dinner party.”
Finally she understood. It ought to have been obvious from the start, evident in the simple fact of his calling at that hour. There was nothing theoretical about what he wanted, nothing rarefied or obscure. She hadn’t expected it—not from him. That was all.
“Waldemar,” she said, as kindly as she could. “You’re going home now. Do you understand me? You’re going home and getting into bed.”
“Aren’t you listening to me, damn you? I’m giving you the opportunity to make use of your skill—of the gift that you have—to bring about an unprecedented—”
“I’m your brother’s sweetheart, Waldemar. Are you capable of grasping what that means? No, don’t bother answering. Go home and do your multiplication tables. And count your blessings I pity you enough not to tell Kaspar.”
Waldemar’s face went unnaturally still. “Pity me?”
“Good night, Waldemar.” She rose from the bench and walked straight to her front door without looking back. It was slightly ajar, just as she’d left it, and she slipped inside and pushed it shut behind her. Waldemar made no attempt to follow. When she looked out of her bedroom window, no longer bothering to keep out of sight, she saw that he was standing as he’d been when she’d first glimpsed him, with his head cocked to one side and his arms hanging slack, staring calmly at the bench where they’d been sitting. She watched him a great while, fascinated in spite of her distress, and at no point did she see him turn or shift. She imagined that time moved differently for him already—that he’d managed to escape its hold without her aid—and she couldn’t suppress a shiver at the thought. She drew back from the window, willing him away with all her might, and when she looked again she saw that she’d succeeded. She went to bed with the awareness that disaster had missed her—missed her by a hair’s breadth—and resolved to tell Kaspar as little as possible. She
