wonder how Resa is coping.
“Frau Svoboda,” Kaspar repeated, apparently on solid ground again, “what did you and my father talk about, when he paid you—well, when he paid you his calls?”
Marta replied that they’d talked about all and sundry, or—as she put it in her journal—“everything and nothing much at all.”
“I see,” said Kaspar, looking sideways at his brother. “Frau Svoboda,” he said a third time, gripping his beer stein like a bannister.
“Yes, Herr Toula? What is it?”
“Frau Svoboda—”
“Did he talk about his work?” Waldemar blurted out. It was the first time he’d spoken. “Did he mention the Lost Time Accidents to you?”
Marta looked back and forth between their sweet, impatient faces. “He was a great one for chitchat, your poor father was. I can’t say for certain. I lost track of him now and again.”
“I told you,” Waldemar murmured, with a bitterness that took Marta aback. “I told you so.” But Kaspar ignored him.
“Frau Svoboda—was my father in a state of excitement? The last time that he called on you, I mean.”
Marta sat back heavily and clucked, and the boy blushed even more violently than before. “I beg your pardon,” he stammered. “What I’d intended—”
“What my brother means to ask is this,” Waldemar cut in. “Was Herr Toula agitated about something in particular? Had anything of special interest happened on that day?”
Marta allowed that it had.
“Well, what was it?” said Waldemar. “Why the devil won’t you answer plainly?”
Kaspar silenced his brother with a look, then addressed his father’s mistress in a clear, unhurried voice that made him seem much older than he was.
“When our father was undressed at the hospital, Frau Svoboda, a scrap of paper was found in his pocket—a message of sorts, on which your name appears. Would you care to inspect it?”
She replied that she would, and a sheet of blue octavo paper, folded neatly in four, was spread before her on the grease-stained counter.
MARTA DARLING! DARE I DALLY? BEARS BOORS &BOHEMIANS BEDEVIL THESE LATERAL LABORS.LUCKILY, AN “ANSWER” SHALL ARISE. TIME CAN BEMEASURED ONLY IN ITS PASSING. BY *CHANCE* &*FATE* & *PROVIDENCE* EDEN’S ENEMIES EXCHEQUER &EXPIRE.
AS THE SOUL GROWS TOWARD ETERNAL LIFE, ITREMEMBERS LESS & LESS. CHRONOLOGY CRUSHESCHRISTIANS. A MISTRESS—PRAISE C*F*P!—ISMELLIFLUOUS. FOOLS FROM FUTURE’S FETIDFIEFDOMS FOLLOW FREELY IN MY FOOTSTEPS.BACKWARDS TIME IS IMPOSSIBLE, FORWARDS TIME ISABSURD. TRUTH TOLD TACTLESSLY TAKES COURAGE,LITTLE DUMPLING. TRUTH TOLD CUNNINGLY TAKESFENCHELWURST & TEA.
THE PULPIT FOR PREACHERS IN PAMĚT’ CATHEDRAL.DARLING MARTA! DO YOU FOLLOW ME? THEN SPIN MECOUNTERCLOCKWISE. PLACE YOURSELF PAST EVERYPRIMITIVE PROSCRIPTION. SILENCE, SYCOPHANTS! &LISTEN TO ME CLOSELY. JAN SKÜS IS THE NAME OF AFRIEND I ONCE MET, & SKÜS JAN IS A FRIEND I’LL MEETTWICE. SPACE & TIME AFFECT ALL, ARE AFFECTEDBY ALL. EACH FOOL CARRIES HIS OWN HOURGLASSINSIDE HIM.
TODAY IT HAS HAPPENED. TWELVE JUNE NINETEENHUNDRED & THREE ANNO DOMINI. TAKE THISLETTER—PRECIOUS DUMPLING!—& EXHIBIT NOMERCY. I’LL BE BACK FOR IT SOON. TODAY IT HASHAPPENED. TODAY IT HAS HAPPENED. THE LOST TIMEACCIDENTS. THE LOST TIME ACCIDENTS. THE LOSTTIME ACCIDENTS. HAVE MERCY ON US ALL.
OTTOKAR GOTTFRIEDENS TOULA,TOULA & SONS SALUTARY GHERKINS, S.M.ZNOJMO, MORAVIA.
“Note the number in the bottom left-hand corner,” said Kaspar. “Page number four, do you see? It follows that there must also exist—or have existed—additional pages, numbered one through three.”
Knowing Ottokar—having known him, Marta reminded herself—she didn’t necessarily think the rules of logic could be relied on; but she didn’t see much point in disagreeing.
“We also have reason to believe—from certain statements of our father’s, in the days before his passing—that one of those missing pages contains an algebraic proof. It is this proof—not any personal or sentimental information—that is of interest to my brother and myself.”
Marta smiled and acknowledged that such a proof, if it existed, would indeed be of interest.
Waldemar, who’d been so sullen and withdrawn, did something now that flabbergasted her: he sat stiffly forward, like a suitor on the verge of a proposal, and took her damp pink hand in both of his.
“Esteemed Frau Svoboda, kindly listen to me now. For the past seven years, as you may or may not know, our father has been engaged in a series of experimental inquiries into the physical nature of time.” He stared at her until she bobbed her head. “Until recently, my brother and myself had been allowed to assist him in his research; a few months ago, however, he forbade us to set foot in his laboratory. From the comments he made—the merest of hints, really—we know he was on the cusp of a major discovery: a new understanding, not just of the nature of time, but of the possibility of motion—free motion—within it.” Waldemar sucked in a breath. “Given what has happened, you can see what an unfortunate decision it was to exclude us from his work. On the morning of his death—or so this note would seem to imply—our father finally achieved the breakthrough he’d been seeking.” He glared into her eyes as he said this, neither wavering nor blinking, like a mesmerist or a vampire or a prophet. “Can you appreciate what this means, Frau Svoboda? Most people couldn’t—not for the life of them. But I have no doubt whatsoever that you can.”
Marta glanced away from him then, but only for an instant. “Why did he forbid you from entering his laboratory?”
“He wanted us to concentrate on our schoolwork,” Kaspar said, reddening. “Over the last few years, our marks—”
“He’d become suspicious of everyone,” Waldemar interrupted. “He spent all his time in that damned cave of his. Our poor mother—”
“What we came here to ask you, Frau Svoboda, is this: Might you have those three pages? Might they be in this house?”
Looking from one boy to the other, basking in the glow of their combined attention, Marta wanted nothing so much as to provide them with the purpose they so craved. She came close to inventing some clue, fabricating some relic, if only to keep them sitting at her counter. But the boys were too clever to be taken in by any trick of hers. The younger one, especially, seemed to dissect her with those chalky eyes of his, as if she were no more than a sack of fat and gristle. She permitted herself to think about Ottokar for a moment, and about what he’d told her of his conflict with time, a struggle he’d often predicted would end in his death. If he’d shut his boys out, as they claimed, then he must have had cause. For this reason—and for other, less defensible ones—she let her head hang and said nothing.
There was, in fact, something she wasn’t telling the boys, something that would have spared them and their future wives and children years of grief; but Marta had no gift of precognition. Their innocence is what makes them beautiful, she said to herself. Let them hold on to their innocence awhile.
“I’m sorry, boys,” she said at last. “There’s
