Colonel von Schwarzenau frowned. “That is loose thinking,” he said severely, in that overperfect English of his. “Ideas can exist for instance as mathematical formulas, or even as an unformulated series of sensory images. Please, Mr. Holding, more discipline in your thought.” Having put me in my decadent place, he turned back to his host as Antoine brought on the braised meat. “But granting, sir, your possibility of extension in the time dimension, to what practical purpose do you propose to apply this theory?”
I had my marked suspicion that the meat was horseflesh, but Antoine had accomplished such wonders with a sauce bordelaise that I didn’t give a damn. That sauce would have been enough to distract my attention from most conversations, but Dr. Palgrave’s next remark jerked me back.
“Propose to? But, my dear colonel, I have applied it. My time machine is already in operation.”
All of the colonel’s plump body shook with delight. “Ah, so? And what treasures do you bring us from the future, dear doctor? Ray guns perhaps, to aid us in perpetuating the New Order?”
“I must confess that I have so far succeeded only with the past, but—”
“The past? But there are treasures there, too. Perhaps you could fetch back and restore the honor and glory of France?” He chuckled at this one.
“I . . . I have not as yet ventured into the machine myself. But I consider my efforts with the transportation of inanimate objects and of small animals to have proved my case completely. Iron sent into the past, left there for a year, and brought back has returned covered with rust, while it remained in the machine for only a minute of our time here. My first guinea pig died of old age through a mistake in my calculations. He was not yet adult when I put him in the machine; when I took him out thirty seconds later, he was dead of senile decay.”
Colonel von Schwarzenau’s chuckle became almost a giggle. “You are so symbolic, my dear doctor. It is you and not our friend here who should be the poet. Iron that rusts and guinea pigs that die of senile decay, always while seeking the past and ignoring the future. What better picture could you paint of the Third Republic?”
I held my temper. “And you offer—”
“Steel that never rusts and men who never age while their eyes remain fixed on the future, on the glory of the New Order. Steel and the bodies of men and always the future, the German future that must be the future of the world.” For a moment he was in deadly earnest, but then the pudgy chuckle crept back into his voice. “Ah, it is good to be among representatives of your great democracy who still understand us. And such representatives. A scientist and a poet. A scientist who plays with time machines and a poet who plays with surrealism. There is your science and your art in a democracy. And yet you understand us, do you not, my friends? You are the admiring crowd who look up, the spiked wheels of the Juggernaut and cry, ‘How beautiful is the goddess Kali today!’ And because you see her beauty, she will spare you. Yes, you will be spared, and long may you be happy here in your haunted villa. Pursue your time machines and your surreal reality. And do not interfere. ” There was a fleeting expression of grimness, then a broad beam.
Dinner went like that. We were treated like two not-too-bright but understanding Quislings who were fortunate to be in the good graces of the potent representative of the New Order. I boiled inside. I seethed so that I forgot the excellences of Antoine’s miraculous makeshift cooking, even forgot the astonishing significance of Dr. Palgrave’s claims. I wanted nothing but to kick out the Herr Oberst’s shining white teeth, build them into a marimba, and play “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” on them.
But I had to be sensible. There was work for me to do. I had to put up with this until the fishing boat left. But Palgrave? He was staying here, living in the midst of this, putting up with it, liking it—
I couldn’t help myself. I boiled over when Colonel von Schwarzenau made a regretfully early departure for an evening tour of inspection. “How can you tolerate that man as a guest?” I burst out, pouring myself an outsize dose of my host’s notable brandy. “You, a free American, how can you listen to—”
Dr. Palgrave smiled calmly. “Why should it bother me? Much of what he says may be true. I don’t know. Politics are no concern of mine. But if I listen to him politely, he lets me work in peace. What more should I ask?”
I took a deep breath. “Politics,” I said slowly, “are no concern of yours. I never thought to hear those words again. I thought they were as dead as the grandfather of all dodos. Man, have you any notion of what your friend the colonel stands for?”
“Young man,” Palgrave said, with a certain quiet dignity, “I am a scientist. The petty squabbles of men hold no meaning for me. I have my laboratory here. It is a valuable possession, expensive and difficult to reconstruct. I shall certainly not risk it by bothering my head about matters that do not concern me. Shall we have Antoine bring us some more—well, let us continue to call it coffee, in the living room?”
I changed the subject when the coffee came. I couldn’t risk insulting my host. And a curious phrase of the colonel’s had recurred to my mind. “Your friend wished us happiness in this ‘haunted villa.’ What did he mean by that? Surely this is too modern a place to have its ancestral specters?”
Outside the large windows of
