The Map of Time

  And why should I doubt you, since I did indeed discover your letter beside the big oak tree when I came out of the time tunnel from the year 2000. I need no further evidence, as you rightly say, to see that in seven months we will meet and love will blossom between us. And if my future self— which is still me—falls in love with you as soon as he sets eye on you, why shouldn’t I? Otherwise I would be doubting my own judgment. Why waste time, postponing feelings I am inevitably going to experience? Then again, you are only asking me to make the same leap of faith you yourself made. During our meeting in the tearoom you were obliged to have faith in me, you were obliged to believe you would fall in love with the man sitting opposite you. And you did. My future self is grateful to you for that, Claire. And the self who is writing these lines, who has yet to savor the softness of your skin, can only reciprocate that trust, believe that everything you say is true, that everything you say in your letter will happen because in some way it has already happened. That is why I can only begin by telling you Claire Haggerty, whoever you are, that I love you. I love you from this very moment until the end of time.

  Tom’s hand trembled as he read the author’s words. Wells had thrown himself wholeheartedly into the enterprise: not only had he respected Tom’s improvised tale and the history of the character he was playing, but, to judge from his words, he seemed as in love with the girl as she was with him, with Tom that was, or more precisely with the brave Captain Shackleton. He knew it was only pretense, but the author’s skill at deception went far beyond Tom’s own impoverished feelings, even though these should have been more intense since he rather than Wells had lain with the girl. If the day before Tom had wondered whether the fluttering feeling in his chest was love, now that he had the yardstick of the author’s words to measure it by, he was certain of it. Did Tom feel the emotions Wells attributed to Shackleton? After a few moments” reflection, Tom concluded the only one answer to that tortuous question was no, he did not. He could never keep a love like that alive for someone he was never going to see again.

  He placed the letter next to John Peachey’s headstone and began the walk back into London. He was pleased with how it had turned out, although a little disconcerted by Wells’s request to Claire near the end, which Tom considered worthy of a degenerate. He recalled the final paragraph with deep displeasure.

  I am longing as I have never longed for anything before for time to speed up, counting the seconds between now and our first meeting in seven months” time. Although I must confess that as well as being anxious to meet you, Claire, I am also fascinated to know how you will travel to my era. Is such a thing really possible? For my part, I can only wait and do what I have to do, that is to say, reply to your letters, complete my part of the circle. I hope this first letter does not disappoint you. Tomorrow I will leave it beside the oak tree when I arrive in your time. My next visit will be two days later, and I know that by then another letter from you will be awaiting me. You may find this request impertinent, my love, but could I ask you to describe our amorous encounter to me? Remember I must wait many months before I experience it, and although I assure you I will be patient, I cannot imagine a more wonderful way to endure that wait than to read over and over again the things I will experience with you in the future. I want to know everything, Claire, so please, spare me no detail. Describe to me the first and only time we make love, because from now I will experience it through your words, my darling Claire.

  Things here are hard to bear. Our brothers perish by the thousand under the superior power of the automatons, who raze our cities as though they wanted to destroy everything we have built, every trace of our civilization. I do not know what will happen if my mission fails, if I am unable to stop this war from happening. In spite of all this, my love, I can only smile as the world crumbles around me because your undying love has made me the happiest person on earth.

  D.

  Claire clasped the letter to her pounding heart. She had so yearned for someone to write such words to her, words that took her breath away and made her pulse quicken. Now her wish had come true. Someone was telling her their love for her transcended time itself. Dizzy with happiness, she took a sheet of paper, placed it on her writing desk, and began to describe to Tom all the things which out of respect for their privacy I drew a veil over: Oh Derek, my darling Derek: you have no idea how much it meant to me finding your letter where it was supposed to “be,” and to find it imbued with such love. It was the final incentive I needed in order to accept my fate without demur. And the very first thing I will do, my love, is to comply with your request, even though I shall no doubt blush with shame. How could I refuse to share intimacies with you which are ultimately yours? Yes, I shall tell you how everything happens, even though in doing so I will be dictating your actions, the way you will behave, such is the strangeness of all this.

  We will make love in a room in Pickard’s Boardinghouse, directly opposite the tearoom. I will agree to go with you there after deciding to trust you. In spite of this, you will notice how terrified I am as we walk down the corridor to the room. And this is something I would like to explain to you, my love, now that I have the opportunity. What I am about to say might surprise you, but in my own time, girls are brought up to repress their instincts, especially in well-to-do families like mine. Unfortunately, it is widely believed that the sole purpose of the sexual act should be procreation, and while men are allowed to express the pleasure they derive from physical contact, provided of course they do so respectfully and with moderation, we women must show perfect indifference, as our enjoyment is considered immoral.

  My mother has upheld this narrow-minded attitude all her life, and the same can be said of most of my married women friends. However, I am different, Derek. I have always hated this absurd inhibition in the same way I detest crochet and needlework. I believe we women have as much right as you men to experience pleasure and express it freely as individuals. Moreover, I do not believe a woman needs to be married to a man in order to engage in intimate relations with him: in my view it is enough for her to be in love with him. These are my beliefs, Derek, and as I walked down the corridor in the boardinghouse, I suddenly realized the time had come for me to find out whether I was capable of putting them into practice or had merely been lying to myself, and whether my fear was only a sign of my complete ignorance of such matters.

  Now you know, and I imagine that is why you treated me so gently and tenderly, but let us not get ahead of ourselves. Let me reveal everything step by step in an orderly fashion and, out of respect for you, I shall do so using the future tense, as from your point of view none of this has as yet happened. Well, I will not put it off any longer.

  The room in the boardinghouse will be very small but cozy. The winter evening will almost have set in, which is why you will first hurry to light the table lamp. I shall watch you from the doorway, unable to move a muscle.

  Then you will look at me warmly for a few moments, before walking towards me very slowly with a calming smile, like someone afraid of scaring off a nervous cat. When you are near me, you will gaze into my eyes, whether to read what is in them or for me to read what is in yours I do not know. Then you will lean very slowly towards my mouth, so slowly I will be able to perceive your warm breath, the warmth of the air inside you, before feeling your lips firmly and at the same time gently pressing against mine. This subtle contact will unsettle me for a few moments, and then it will be transformed into my first kiss, Derek. And although I will have spent many nights anticipating what it will feel like, I will only have imagined the spiritual side, the supposed floating feeling it gives you, but it will never have occurred to me to consider the physical side, the soft, pulsating warmth of someone else’s lips on mine. But little by little I will give myself over to this sensual touch, and I will respond to you with the same tenderness, sensing that we are communicating in a much deeper, more sincere way than with words, that we are putting all of ourselves into that tiny physical space.
Now I know nothing brings two souls together more than the act of kissing, of awakening desire for one another.

  Then a pleasant tickling sensation will ripple over my flesh, penetrating my skin and overwhelming me inside.

  Is this rush of sensations what my mother and my most prudish friends try so hard to suppress? I will experience it, Derek. I will taste it, delight in it, and cherish it, my love, in the knowledge that I will be experiencing it for the first and last time, for I will know that after you there will be no other men and I must live off these feelings for the rest of my life. Then the floor will give way beneath my feet and except for the pressure of your hands around my waist I will almost believe I am floating.

  Then you will take away your lips, leaving the imprint of your mouth on mine, and you will look at me with tender curiosity while I try to regain my breath and my composure.

  And then? It will be time for us to undress and lie down together on the bed, only you will seem as hesitant as I, unable to take the first step, perhaps because you think I will be afraid. And you will not be mistaken, my love, because I have never undressed in front of a man before, and all at once I will feel nervous and bashful and wonder whether taking off our clothes is really necessary. According to my aunts, my mother kept her marriage vows without my father ever having seen her naked. In keeping with the customs of her generation, Mrs. Haggerty lay down in her petticoats with a hole in her undergarments revealing the scented opening where my father was permitted entry. But it will not be enough for me simply to lift my skirts, Derek.

  I will want to enjoy our physical contact to the full, and therefore I will overcome my shame and begin to undress, fixing you with a gentle, solemn look. I will begin by taking off my feather hat, which I will hang on the stand, then I will slip off my jacket, my blouse with its high neck collar, my overcorset, my corset, my overskirt, my skirt, my bustle, and my petticoats, until all I am left wearing is my slip. Still gazing at you tenderly, I will pull down the shoulder straps so the garment slides off my body, like snow slipping off a fir tree, and lies in a furl at my feet. Then, like a final act of a long drawn-out ritual, I will slip out of my drawers, offering myself to you utterly naked, placing my body at your disposal, surrendering myself to the touch of your hands and your lips, giving myself completely, knowing it is to the right man, to Captain Derek Shackleton, the liberator of the human race, the only man with whom I could ever have fallen in love.

  And you, my love, you will watch the elaborate process, like someone waiting for a beautiful figure to emerge from a block of marble as it is teased out by the artist’s chisel.

  You will see me walking towards you, and will quickly take off your shirt and trousers, as if a gust had torn them from a washing line. Then we will embrace, the warmth of our bodies mingling in a happy union, and I will feel your fingers, so accustomed to touching hard metal and weapons, exploring my body, sensitive to its delicacy, with exhilarating slowness and respectful tenderness. Then we will lie on the bed gazing into one another’s eyes, and my hands will search your stomach for the scar from the bullet with which Solomon tried to kill you, and which you survived as one recovers from a fever, only I will be so nervous I won’t be able to find it. Then your mouth, moist and eager, will cover me with kisses, leaving a trail of saliva, and once you have thoroughly charted my body, you will enter it slowly, and I will feel you moving inside me with such gentleness. But despite the care you take, your intrusion will cause me to feel a sudden sharp pain inside, and I will cry out softly and even pull your hair, although immediately it will turn into a bearable, almost sweet ache, and I will become aware of something dormant inside me beginning to stir. How can I describe to you what I will feel at that moment? Imagine a harp marveling at the notes it produces when a pair of hands pluck it for the first time. Imagine a burning candle, whose melted wax trickles down the candlestick, oblivious to the flame above, and forms a beautiful latticed pattern at the base.

  What I am trying to say to you, my love, is that until that moment, I will not have known it is possible to feel such exquisite rapture, the ecstatic pleasure that will radiate through my whole body from a place somewhere inside me, and although at first my bashfulness will force me to grit my teeth, to attempt to stifle the gasps that will rise from my throat, I will end up abandoning myself to that overpowering joy, I will let myself be swept away by that torrent of icy fire, and will proclaim my pleasure with passionate cries, announcing the awakening of my flesh.

  And I will be insatiable, I will clutch you to me, trapping you with my legs, because I want you to stay inside me forever, because I will be unable to understand how I could have lived all that time without feeling you thrusting sweetly into me. And when, after the final ecstasy, you slip out of me, leaving a crimson trail across the sheets, I will suddenly feel incomplete, bereft, lost. With my eyes closed, I will savor the echo of joy you have left inside me, the delicious memory of your presence and when this has slowly faded, I will be overwhelmed by a feeling of extraordinary loneliness, but also of infinite gratitude at having discovered in myself a creature perfectly adapted to bliss, capable of enjoying the loftiest and most earthly pleasures. Then I will reach out, searching for the feel of your skin bathed in my sweat, your skin that still quivers and burns, like the strings of a violin after a concerto, and I will gaze at you with a radiant smile of gratitude for having revealed to me who I am, everything I did not yet know about myself.

  Tom was so moved and surprised, he had to stop reading. Had he really unleashed all these feelings in the girl? Leaning back against the tree, almost out of breath, he let his gaze wander over the surrounding fields. For him, the carnal act with her had been a pleasant experience he would always remember, but Claire spoke of it as though it had been sublime and unforgettable, like the foundation stone which as the years passed would hold up the cathedral of her love. Feeling even more of a savage than he really was, Tom sighed and went on reading: I was going to tell you now how I traveled to your time, Derek, but when I remember that during our meeting at the tearoom you still did not know how we do it, I feel compelled to keep it a secret in order not to change things that have already happened. What I can tell you is that last year, an author called H. G. Wells published a wonderful novel, The Time Machine, which made us all dream about the future. And then someone showed the machine to us. I can tell you no more than that. But I will make it up to you by saying that, although your mission in my time will fail, and the machine in which you travel here will be prohibited, the human race will win the war against the automatons, and it will be thanks to you. Yes, my love, you will defeat the evil Solomon in an exciting sword fight. Trust me, for I saw it with my own eyes.

  Your loving, C.

  Wells placed the letter on the table, trying not to show how it had aroused him. He glanced at Tom silently, gesturing almost imperceptibly with his head that he could leave. Once he was alone, he picked up the letter to which he had to reply, and flushed with excitement as he reread the detailed account of their meeting at the boardinghouse. Thanks to this girl, he finally understood women’s experience of pleasure, the sensation that crept over them with intriguing slowness, overwhelming them completely or scarcely touching them. How sublime, resplendent, and infinite their enjoyment was compared to that of men, so vulgar and crude, little more than a spurt of joy between their legs. But was this the same for all women or was she special, had the Creator fine-tuned this particular girl’s sensitivity to such an astonishing degree? No, doubtless she was a perfectly ordinary creature who simply enjoyed her sexuality in a way other women would consider brazen. Her simple decision to undress in front of Tom already showed an audacious spirit, a determination to experience to the full every possible sensation arising from the sexual act.

  Upon realizing this, Wells felt saddened, annoyed even by the chaste manner in which the women in his life had given themselves to him. His cousin Isabel was one of those who resorted to the hole in the undergarment, presenting him
with only her sex, which to Wells seemed like some terrifying entity, a sort of sucking orifice that appeared to have come from some other planet.

  Even Jane, who was less inhibited in such matters, had never allowed him to see her completely naked, thus sparing him the need to try to discover the shape of her body with his hands. No, he had never been lucky enough to meet a woman blessed with Claire’s delightful nature. There were no limits to what he could have done with a girl as easy to win over as she. It would have been enough to extol the therapeutic virtues of sex for women in order to convert her into an eager adept of carnal pleasure, a modern-day priestess ready to give and receive pleasure freely.

  She would have become a champion of copulation, preaching door to door that regular sexual activity improved women’s physiques, gave them a mysterious glow, softened their expressions, and even rounded off any of their bodies” unsightly angularities. With a woman like that, he would certainly be a contented man, relaxed, his appetites sated, a man who could put his mind to other things, throw himself into his interests, freed from the relentless male itch that began in adolescence and stayed with him until senility finally rendered his body useless. It was no surprise, then, that Wells immediately envisaged the girl named Claire Haggerty in his bed, without any clothes veiling her slender form, allowing him to stroke her with feline abandon, intensely enjoying the same caresses that scarcely elicited a polite sigh from Jane. It seemed incongruous to him that he should understand this unknown woman’s pleasure, while that of his wife remained a mystery to him. Suddenly, he remembered she was waiting somewhere in the house for him to give her the next letter to read. He left the kitchen to go and look for her, taking deep breaths on the way to calm his excitement. When he found her in the sitting room reading a book, he put the sheet of paper on the table without a word, like leaving a poisoned chalice then waiting to see the effect it had on one’s victim. For there was no doubt the letter would affect Jane, as it had affected him, forcing her to question her approach to the physical side of love in the same way that the last letter had made her question the way she experienced its spiritual side. He walked out into the garden to breathe in the night air and gazed up at the pale full moon laying claim to the sky. In addition to the sense of insignificance he always felt beneath the heavens, he was aware of his own clumsiness in comparison to the far more direct, spontaneous way others had of relating to the world, in this case the girl named Claire Haggerty. He remained in the garden for a long while, until he thought it was time to see the effect the letter had produced on his wife.