The book of lost hours, p.13
The Book of Lost Hours, page 13
“We’ve been looking for you,” the man said in broken English. “Where is your American friend this time, German bitch?”
Lisavet tried to free herself, struggling against him. He struck her hard across the face, snapping her head to one side.
“Where is he? Who set you up to this? Who are you working for?”
“Nobody,” Lisavet gasped. “Nobody, I’m not…”
He hit her again and this time she saw stars. “Do not lie! You are an American spy, eh?”
“No! I…”
“You think you can interfere with our work?” He clasped one hand around her throat, squeezing the air from her lungs. “Well, I will teach you how we do things in my country. Consider this a warning to the American. When we catch a rat, we kill it.”
Lisavet grappled with his arm, fighting for air, but he was too strong. In a panicked attempt to free herself, she drove her knee up as hard as she could. She heard him grunt in pain, felt his grip loosen. Air rushed into her lungs. She drew an aching mouthful and struck again, this time driving her fist into his windpipe. He let out a howl of pain. Her other hand found the book on the floor, and she swung it hard, delivering a blow to his nose that sent blood spraying. Suddenly the full weight of the timekeeper’s body fell into her. His grip on her neck released. Lisavet struggled to free herself from the weight of him. There was blood on his face and on her hands and he wasn’t moving. She felt faint. What if she had killed him?
Panic made breathing even harder. But then she noticed the timekeeper’s chest rising and falling. He made a small noise, already beginning to stir. She needed to move. She made it to her bag and dragged it around the corner before collapsing onto the floor in a shaking heap. Blood on her hands and on the night blue dress, tender bruises blooming on her cheek. At some point she heard the timekeeper begin to move. Heard him drag himself to his feet and stumble a few times, cursing and shouting in Russian. She held her breath until she heard his footsteps fade off in the opposite direction.
The minute Lisavet heard him go, she began sobbing uncontrollably. This was where Ernest found her ten minutes later.
“Lisavet?”
She didn’t look up. She didn’t want him to see her like this.
“Lisavet?” He came closer, kneeling in front of her. “Are you okay? Look at me.” He put a hand on her head until she glanced up. His eyes widened at the sight of the bruises. “Oh my god. What happened to you? Who did this?”
Lisavet started to say something but ended up crying harder instead. Ernest lowered himself the rest of the way to the ground. He put his arms around her, pulling her into him.
“It was the Russian timekeeper who shot you,” she said through shaky breaths. “He thinks I’m some kind of spy. That I’m working with you, I guess.”
Ernest cursed under his breath and tightened his grip. She basked in the feeling of being held by him, in spite of the circumstances.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a long bout of silence.
“It isn’t your fault.”
“No, it is. If I hadn’t been following you in the first place, he never would have seen you the first time. I wouldn’t have gotten shot. Things wouldn’t have escalated between the American and Russian timekeepers, and he wouldn’t have targeted you again.”
Lisavet pulled away to look at him. “Things have escalated? What do you mean?”
“It’s nothing, just… tensions are higher. Things were fine before, just a little awkward given everything going on in the real world. Then I got shot and things got hostile. My boss… well, it doesn’t matter. It’s just a mess. And it’s my fault. I should have left you alone.”
Lisavet immediately shook her head. “No, I… I’m glad you didn’t. I mean, I’m not glad you got shot, or that things are tense now, I just mean… well, I’m glad I know you.”
Ernest held her gaze, his lips parting in mild surprise. She thought she saw a glimmer of emotion cross his face but then he shook his head. “You shouldn’t be. I’ve done nothing but cause you trouble. Before me, nobody even knew you were here. You were safe, and now…” He reached up and ran his thumb over one of the bruises. Gently. As if he might break her. “I should have never come after you. If I could change it… well, selfishly, I don’t even know if I would. For what it’s worth, I’m glad I know you too.”
Lisavet’s heart skipped a beat. They held perfectly still, looking at each other, his hand on her cheek. The air between them seemed to pulse. He pulled away, clearing his throat. To give him something to do, he took a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her.
“For the blood,” he said.
Lisavet took it gratefully. His initials were embroidered on the handkerchief, EGD.
“That’s a pretty dress by the way,” Ernest said. “Where did it come from?”
Lisavet looked down at the dress, stained with the timekeeper’s blood. “Oh. I got it from a memory of a burning house. It was supposed to be for tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“I was going to take you somewhere special.”
“Oh.” Ernest looked down at his own clothes, a cable-knit sweater and a pair of trousers. “Could have warned me. I would have dressed better.”
“You look perfect. Besides, it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“What do you mean? We can still go.”
“No. No, we can’t. It’s ruined now.”
“Why would it be ruined?”
Lisavet let out a huff of frustration. “Because. I had a plan, and it didn’t involve me crying on your shoulder for thirty minutes first.”
“Then let me take you somewhere.”
“What?”
“Yes. Actually, that’s a wonderful idea.” He stood up, pulling her to her feet after him.
“Let me take you someplace for once. A memory that I choose this time.”
“Where?”
Ernest thought for a moment. He smiled and took both of her hands in his. “You’ll see. I have an idea.”
He stooped to pick up her messenger bag, sliding it over his shoulder, and began walking. They were in the American section before they stopped. Lisavet watched him as he picked over the volumes on the shelves, his brow creased. That crease meant something different for him than it did for Azrael. Over the months she had learned to recognize such nuances of Ernest’s face. The delicate, almost feminine curve of his cheekbones. The way his jaw, strong and angular, ground together when he was contemplating something.
He pulled a book from the shelf and held it up to show her. Lisavet took his outstretched hand, placing her other palm on the volume. Ernest whispered as the air began to shift.
“This is one of my favorite memories.”
The world around them was replaced with another. The first thing Lisavet noticed was the music, which burst from the stage, filling every ounce of space. Tables lined a dance floor, and a bartender was serving cocktails to glamorously dressed guests. The sound of a saxophone blared through the air as glittering couples spun past them.
Ernest navigated them carefully through the crowd and up a set of stairs where the tables were farther apart and mostly empty, but where they had a full view of the stage and the crowd below.
“Where are we?” Lisavet shouted over the music.
“This is New York City. Manhattan. I came here a few months ago to see the show. That’s Billy Eckstine up on the stage. We’re in the memory of that man over there,” he said, pointing to someone seated at the table.
“What year are we in?”
“1949.”
“1949?” Lisavet whirled around to look at him. She hadn’t been this close to present day in… well, since she had been living it.
Ernest nodded, his eyes on the stage where a Black man wearing a green suit sang into a microphone. “Yup. Swing music has already lost some of its popularity but there are a few good places that still play.”
Lisavet was speechless. 1949. Her eyes scanned the room, noticing all the subtle changes. The length of the women’s skirts. The cut of their dresses.
“Come on,” Ernest said. He had set her bag down and was holding out his other hand. “Want to dance?”
“D-dance?”
“Sure. We’ve got plenty of space up here.”
“Oh… I don’t know.” Lisavet had danced alone hundreds of times before. She knew how to do it, having watched all different styles over the years. But the moves the people were doing below were new and unfamiliar.
“What’s the matter? It’s not like anyone can see us.”
He had a point. Lisavet took his hand and laughed in surprise as he swung her arm so fast that she nearly fell into him. It was immediately clear, as they started to move, that Ernest had absolutely no idea how to dance to this music, either. He guided her through a kind of mismatched samba, keeping her pressed tight against him so she wouldn’t stumble. They tripped over each other a few times until they found the rhythm, adjusting to each other’s movements like two birds learning to fly together. Eventually, Lisavet stopped worrying so much about where she was going to put her feet, trusting him to keep her from falling. She thrilled at the feeling of his arms around her. The closeness with which they danced. The music swelled and then ended with a final blaring note from the saxophone. Lisavet started to step back as applause sounded, but Ernest held on.
“Not yet,” he said. “The next one is my favorite.”
Lisavet’s stomach fluttered at the look in his eyes. Glowing, the way she’d seen him look in other memories, this time directed at her. Like starlight. Like someone who might possibly be in love.
The next song was slower, punctuated by the high keys of a piano. The tune of the saxophone rang low and mournful, and Lisavet marveled at how such an instrument could make two such different sounds, until the man started singing and then all she could hear were the words. The song was called “Blue Moon,” and it felt as though he were singing to them directly, and only to them. The rest of the memory was irrelevant. This time they danced slowly, fluidly, two birds soaring side by side. Ernest’s gaze held steadily on her own. His hands on her waist were real and solid. The only real thing she had ever known.
The song was coming to a close and so was the memory. The world had already begun to blur at the edges. Lisavet didn’t want it to end. She wanted to stay here in Ernest’s arms, reliving this dance for the rest of her life. The final note rang out and Ernest stopped dancing but didn’t let go. He moved closer, his head tilting toward hers. She had seen this happen before, the cautious descent before two lovers’ lips met. Was he going to kiss her? Lisavet put one hand on his chest.
“Wait…”
* * *
FOR A moment, Ernest feared she was rejecting him. That he had mistaken the look in her eyes. The momentary feeling was so crushing that it took all he had not to crumple beneath it.
“Not here,” she said. “Not at the end of a memory.”
“Where?” he asked her.
She took him to a field in the middle of Spain, full of stars and the most beautiful moon Ernest had ever seen. Off in the distance, a laughing girl in a yellow dress ran through the dewy grass, pursued by a young man. Close enough that they could hear their laughter, but not so close as to disturb their own walk under the stars.
Ernest held tightly to Lisavet’s hand as she guided them up the hill. In the moonlight, the bruises on her face were more obvious and he felt another pull of guilt. Your fault. This is your fault, the voices in his head scolded. But then she smiled at him, the moon making her blond hair glow white, and all other thoughts flew from his head. She turned toward him, letting go of his hand to twirl. The navy blue dress glinted like starlight, casting her in the same pallor as the sky.
“This is where I wanted to take you,” Lisavet said breathlessly, gesturing to the endless stars above them. “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?”
Ernest stepped toward her, smiling coyly. “Oh, I’ve seen better.”
“Where?”
“I’m looking at it.”
A blush rose in her cheeks. He caught her hand and pulled her closer, wanting to feel her against him once more. He held her the way he had in the dance, drunk on the feeling of being so close to her.
“But have you looked at the moon?” Lisavet asked, her voice soft, eyes wide.
“I don’t need to,” Ernest whispered, touching her cheek. “You are the moon.”
Lisavet let out a single trembling breath. Ernest felt it against his wrist as he moved closer. This time, she didn’t stop him. Her lips were warm and soft and anything but shy as they pressed against his own. She exhaled again and he breathed in the taste of it, wanting every part of her to become a part of him too. He kissed her over and over again, scarcely breathing himself, until they fell back into the grass. Until this memory, like the last, faded to a close. Lisavet moved them seamlessly into another, neither of them willing to let the new memory they were creating end so soon. Ernest barely registered that they were back in Switzerland in the hotel near her parents’ memory before he was swept away in the moment again.
He had been wrong, he thought to himself as Lisavet’s hands slid under his sweater, the first to give into their mutual desire for more. He had assumed that the way Lisavet lived her life, in stolen memories and moments long past, was somehow less real than his own. But this was real. Her lips, her hands, the warmth of her skin against his own as he removed her dress beneath the sheet she had taken from the bed to cover them. It was more real than anything he’d ever known outside the time space, made even more so by the shifting and fading of worlds as they fell in and out of the past. Only once did he stop in the midst of their dance, pausing to lay remorseful kisses along the bruises on her neck where the Russian had choked her. Proof that he had failed her, just like everyone else had. Never again.
Her long blond hair spilled over his arm as she lay beside him, and he ran his fingers through it, swearing a silent oath that he’d never let anyone hurt her again. Not the other timekeepers. Not Jack. And certainly not him. Even if it cost him his job. He fell into sleep with the taste of her still on his lips, the warmth of her nestled safely in his arms.
* * *
LISAVET PROPPED herself up on one elbow to watch Ernest’s face as he slept. She herself hadn’t slept in years, not even in memories. Her body had forgotten how to, it seemed. But to watch him sleep was fascinating. She marveled at the gentle rise and fall of his chest, and at the stirring within her own. She had spent years at a time walking through every age and era of history. Going everywhere yet belonging nowhere except for right here in his arms.
As time moved forward, she noticed a subtle stream of light hovering just over him, like luminous sand falling upward toward the ceiling. It reminded her of the sky inside the time space, the swirling tendrils of light that Azrael had said were living thoughts in motion. Those must be Ernest’s recent memories, she realized. Visible since he was already in the time space, his consciousness moving along to join his other memories. She wondered what they would be like. Memories untainted by retrospect, pure and unadulterated. She reached out a hand, wondering if she could see them that way. If it worked anything like time walking. Her fingers brushed the glowing tendrils. Instead of falling into the memory as she normally did, images of the past played like a foggy movie in the air before her. She saw the memories as though through a frosted pane of glass, and to her surprise, they weren’t of their time together that day at all, but something else entirely. A well-lit office. A man with blunt features seated behind a desk, tossing a ball up and down in the air.
You owe me an update on the German girl, Ernest, the man said, his voice crackling like a poorly rendered recording.
Lisavet drew back in surprise. She looked down at Ernest’s sleeping face, wondering if she should stop. Maybe he wouldn’t want her to know about this? But the pull of the memory was too strong. Something about it raised the hairs on the back of her neck. After a moment’s hesitation, she reached out and watched the memory take shape.
* * *
WHEN ERNEST awoke, Lisavet was no longer beside him. It was still dark in the room. He wondered what had woken him until his pants flew through the air and hit him in the face. He let out a grunt of surprise and sat up, legs still tangled up in the sheet. Lisavet was standing in front of him, one foot on the blanket. She was fully dressed, coat and all. She had the book of memories clutched tightly over her chest, a look of betrayal in her eyes.
She stepped forward and thrust the book in his face. “Here,” she said forcefully.
Ernest blinked. “Wh—”
“Take it,” Lisavet said, dropping it on his lap. “It’s what you want, isn’t it? That’s what your boss sent you here to get?”
Ernest’s heart sank. “How…”
“I saw it in your memories,” she said.
“You what?”
“I think you should leave,” she said, tears filling her eyes. “Just take the book and go.”
“No, Lisavet, I can explain…”
Before he could finish, she turned away from him and stormed out onto the balcony. The sheet passed right through him in her absence. He scrambled to put his pants on, ignoring the fact that he had no idea where his sweater was, and ran after her. Leaving the book on the floor.
“Lisavet…” he said, stepping out onto the balcony.
“What?” she snapped, turning to glare at him.
Ernest opened his mouth to speak but suddenly realized how utterly indefensible his actions were. The bruises on her face had deepened overnight and the sight of them made his stomach churn with fresh guilt.
“It doesn’t matter. You have your book now. There’s no reason for you to toy with me anymore. Just go away.”
