Paullina Simons: Inexpressible Island

“Would you like me to give you something to help you sleep?”

“Are you saying you don’t know how to help me save her, how to help me change her fate?”

Devi spoke low. “Yes, that’s what I’m saying. I don’t know how to help you change her fate.”

“But seven is not enough!”

“Seven is not enough,” Devi repeated dully. “Look what you’re doing, you’re making me repeat things, infecting me with your disease. Once more is not enough for you. Six journeys through time is not enough for you. Seven weeks is not enough for you. And if you had seventy times seven, what would you say? Would that also not be enough? And if you had seventy thousand times seven?”

“It would also not be enough,” Julian whispered.

“Seven weeks to change your life and hers,” Devi said. “Seven days to make the world. Seven words on the Cross. Seven times to perfect your soul so when you finally meet God, you’re the best you can be. Don’t be selfish, Julian. Think of her. You’d rather her immortal soul spin and toil for eternity? Over and over, trying and failing?” Devi shook his head. “Now that sounds like nothing but suffering for the sake of nothing but suffering. Look at yourself—your bones are crumbling. You are turning to dust before my eyes. Your body can’t take even one more time. But long gone are the days when you swore to me you were never going back, and I pretended to believe you. You’ve really gone out of your way to answer a question I of all people didn’t need answered: how does a man live when he must live without the thing he can’t live without? Poorly, that’s how. So go—for the last time go—and do what you can.”

“Like what?”

“To have something you’ve never had,” Devi said, “you must do something you’ve never done.”

This is it, ladies and gents!

Make it real.

Make it last.

Make it beautiful.

THE RIVER ENDS. HIS MAKESHIFT DINGHY GRINDS AGAINST A muddy decaying bed. Julian turns off the headlamp to find the light, but there is nothing to see and nowhere to climb. Dusting himself off, he turns his headlamp back on and proceeds down the dried-out riverbed. It’s better than walking on ice, that’s for sure.

After a long time, the tubular walls of the cave get smoother, grayer, and the rocks under his feet disappear. He bumps his ankle against something that feels like iron. He leans down. It is iron. It’s a single rail. If it was a live rail, he’d be in real trouble. He wonders why it isn’t live. He walks and walks and walks. To look for the light, he once again switches off the headlamp. Finally, in the dark tunnel ahead of him he sees a faint yellow glimmer and hears some distant noise.

The tunnel empties into a train station. He pulls himself up onto a platform in a cavernous space, all of it in near total darkness except toward the opposite end around a blind curve. Julian recognizes the station. He’s been here many times, a thousand times. In case there’s any doubt, on the wall, a red circle with a blue line through it tells him what it is.

It’s Bank.

It’s the Bank tube station in the City of London. He is on the Central Line platform, with its unmistakable sharp bend (the station was built around the vaults of the Bank of England). Julian can almost hear the shriek of the screeching wheels as the train turns the corner. Another day, that is, not today, because today there are no trains because the rail is cut.

Just past the curve, he sees a cluster of ragamuffin people spread out on the platform near the exit to the lobby that leads to the escalators that lead to the street. They’re jammed together and sunk to the ground amid a few lit lamps. From the lobby, he can hear a single voice talking, modulating up and down the octaves, as if giving a soliloquy. Intermittently, the voices on the ground laugh.

It looks as if the crowd might be using the Underground as a bomb shelter. Which would explain why there is no live rail. The rail is cut at night, because people sleep in the Underground.

Julian pats himself on his proverbial back. Finally, he has guessed his destination correctly.

It’s London, during the Second World War.

To fit in with the times, Julian bought a three-piece Armani suit, two sizes too big. No one wears fitted suits in the 1940s. On his feet are waterproof combat boots. On his head is a newsboy cap, the kind even King George liked to wear. Julian kept his hair curly and longish, slicked back, away from his forehead, and he shaved, though after time in the cave, his stubble feels an inch thick as he runs his hand over his face.

He steps into the lobby between the platforms and languishes at the rear of the crowd, trying to catch the voice echoing off the tiled tubular walls.

On the platform, some are already lying down, covered by blankets as if this is where they will sleep, but in the poorly lit lobby, people are sitting cross-legged on the floor next to their bags and sacks and coats and pillows. They’re listening to the voice in front of them. Lit by a kerosene lamp, near the stopped escalator, a singular girl stands on a makeshift stage—a wide door ripped off its hinges and laid flat over some two-by-fours. She stands on top of the door, her long strands of dark hair spilling out of a blue headscarf. She looks tall, larger than life, because she’s up on a stage. She wears rags like the rest, a skirt with a frayed hem, a falling apart sweater, and torn boots. But the beige wool fits snugly over her breasts, her neck is white, her skin translucent, and her huge eyes blaze as she gestures with her hands to amplify her words. There’s a diamond smile on her face.

Already Julian is warmer. Shae never smiled. Not in the beginning, and certainly not at the end.

The young woman is reciting a humorous ditty about romantic love. It takes Julian a few moments to recognize it as a pretty solid paraphrase of Oscar Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance. Her captive audience is moderately amused.

“Oh, the Ideal Man !” the woman yells cheerfully. “Let me tell you about him! The Ideal Man should talk to us as if we were goddesses . He should refuse all our serious requests and gratify every one of our whims. He should encourage us to have caprices, yet discourage us to have goals. He should always say much more than he means and always mean much more than he says. He should never run down other pretty women. That would show he has no taste. If we ask him a question about anything , he should give us an answer only about ourselves. That , ladies and gentlemen, is the Ideal Man !”

From behind the crowd collected at the girl’s feet, Julian raises his voice, steps forward, and speaks.

“ Cecily ?” he calls to her, switching to his own paraphrase of The Importance of Being Earnest . “Is that you? The dog cart has been waiting, my dear. Are you ready to leave with me at last?”

With barely a pause the girl squints into the darkness, her hand at her forehead like a visor. “Algernon, is that you ? Finally, you’re here. Come quick! Are you planning to stay until next week? I hope so, though my mother will be very cross to discover this is so. She doesn’t like the way you abruptly left me not long ago.”

Julian takes a few steps through the curious crowd. “I left you ? You mean, you left me. And I don’t care about your mother, Cecily. I don’t care about anybody in the whole world but you. I love you . You will marry me as you promised, won’t you?”

The girl laughs like a church bell. “Algernon, you silly sausage. Now you want to marry me? Don’t you remember we were already engaged to be married, and then I broke it off with you?”