“I could find no fresh fruit or vegetables,” he said. “The city is under siege. Food is expensive and in short supply.”
“So, I shouldn’t ask a lot of questions about this?” she said, poking the flank of meat with a fork.
“I am not certain I could provide more than a guess.”
“You’re not eating?” she said around a mouthful of Brie and bread.
“My needs are taken care of,” Samuel said.
“Are you a vampire, Samuel?”
His bewildered expression in response to that made her laugh hard enough to spit food across the table. It was the first time she witnessed a wrinkle in his unflappable cool.
She munched a strip of the shoe-leather-tough meat while making him a list on a sheaf of foolscap she found in a desk. Stephen would need cloth diapers or muslin rags, should commercially-made diapers not be available. She was no expert on the history of infant care or an expert of any kind in the care of babies, for that matter.
“I’ll need clothes and shoes. Find a dress I can wear outside. And a hat to match. It’s winter here, so I’ll need a coat and a hat. A scarf or shawl as well. Another dress to wear inside. And something for Stephen. I guess a few of those pullover dress-things. They dressed boy and girl babies the same back then. I mean, here and now.”
“What about sizes? I have never purchased clothes for a woman,” Samuel said, taking the list.
“I wear a size seven shoe. That’s roughly seven inches in length. Make it eight to give me some toe room. You can guesstimate the rest from my height. The clothing sizes probably won’t be that standardized even in Paris.
“Buy some thread, scissors, and needles. I can tailor the clothes some. I have the excuse of having just given birth, so that covers any frumpiness. It’s not like we’ll be doing anything social, right? Oh, and a bassinet or something like it for Stephen to sleep in.” She handed him back the list after making her additions to it.
“I will.”
“Do you have the money for this?” she asked.
“I have funds. Several million in period francs.”
“How is that possible?” she asked. “How long did you have to plan for this contingency?”
“My life is a series of contingencies,” he said, heading for the door.
“Wait,” she said.
He stopped and turned, his hand on the knob.
“What do I do if something happens—if you don’t come back? Have you prepped for that contingency?”
“I have left funds in the desk drawer. They should keep you indefinitely,” he said.
“A lifetime?” she said.
“I will be back. If I cannot return, then I have left word of where and when you can be found.”
“With whom, Samuel?”
“With myself,” he said.
“I suppose that will have to do, right?” she said.
“There are worse alternatives.” Samuel departed without saying anything further.
She pulled the desk drawer open and found a thick pile of paper money decorated with images of a seated woman wearing a robe. By it was a cloth sack of coins. She spilled some on the table. Thick, shiny discs decorated with the profile of Napoleon the Third. There were several thousand francs here. She had no idea of their current worth. Back in the present, they wouldn’t get her far. In this time, they might be worth a small fortune or be made nearly worthless by the inflation that comes inevitably with war. She spread the coins and found among them several hundred in American double eagles. What contingency did they serve?
Caroline replaced the bills and coins in the drawer and locked it. She placed the key in the pocket of her coat. She looked over the newspapers while she finished the heel of bread that remained.
The papers were dominated by the news of war with Prussia. Otto von Bismarck was featured in cartoons and drawings. The Prussians and their allies were closing on Paris from the north and south, taking a new French fort almost daily.
The stories mentioned Moltke and Prince Frederick as well as General Trochu and Wilhelm, the future Kaiser whose son would command Germany in the First World War. Napoleon III had been taken captive months earlier. She knew that Germany was not a nation at this time, just a collection of kingdoms, duchies, baronies, and principalities.
She recalled, from a required European history course years before, that this war was key in Bismarck’s strategy of “blood and iron” to unite the German people under one flag.
She could remember bits and pieces of other facts but had no sense of the overall course of the war or details of its outcome. This troubled her, and she searched her mind for what else she knew of this current conflict. At the moment, she desperately wished she had five minutes with Google or even Wikipedia to check a simple timeline of events.
She knew that France lost this war decisively. But what form did that take? She cursed herself for not paying more attention in required history courses or to the boring presentations of tour guides. Her area was physics. History wasn’t terribly interesting to her unless it dealt with the sciences. Now that she needed the advantage of being from the future to inform her as to what to do next, she was coming up ignorant. But she was as clueless of what the next few months held for Paris as anyone living their life out in these years.
The date at the top of the front page of Le Figaro was 4 January 1871.
The date troubled her. Searching her mind for the source of that unease was maddening. Caroline went into the bedroom and lay down by the sleeping baby and was soon asleep.
She awoke, startled, to the baby crying.
Caroline was not aware at first where she was. The room was dark,
