Devon wanted to smother him with reassurances, but it was important to stay cool. At least, it seemed like it was important to stay cool, to keep himself safe if Stanley turned out to be a con artist. But it was hard and growing more difficult with each passing moment because the things Stanley needed were so easy to give. Not to mention that those big eyes of Stanley’s were tugging at Devon’s heart.
“Sure,” said Devon, swallowing. “Sit down, help yourself.”
Stanley pulled out the chair and sat at the table, and when he picked up the orange, his hands were shaking. Devon drank his wineand looked away while Stanley peeled away the skin, though his eyes were drawn back so he could watch when Stanley ate the first piece.
His mouth was tender around the slice of orange, as though slowing the moment down to savor it. Except when he looked like he was about to bite into it, he shoved the whole thing in his mouth, cheeks bulging, eyes closed, dark lashes long on his cheeks. He chewed slowly, and Devon was easily able to imagine the burst of sweet flavors, the tang of it.
When Stanley opened his eyes, it was slowly, as though from a dream. It took a little of the shell-shocked look away, the look of a man who had seen too much too soon, and shaded him a little softer, to that of a young man, a boy from home who had come to visit Devon while he worked on his paper.
“So you realize why I have a hard time believing this,” said Devon, clearing his throat. “Time travel is just a theory, right, and not something that just happens.” Then he laughed, thinking of his life of study and silence. “Well, not to me anyway.”
“Nor to me,” said Stanley. “As far as I know, I died and I’m a ghost right now.” His voice trembled, and Devon felt bad for doubting him.
“That,” said Stanley, as he took another bite of his orange, seeming to rally himself. “That or this is heaven.”
Devon smiled and sighed inwardly, warning himself against the cascade of feelings in his heart, and how that smile made him want to be able to see it forever. Which was impossible.
“Do you think you died from mustard gas?” said Devon, making himself stay serious and focused.
He knew all about the terrible effects of chemical warfare, which was partly why he’d been dragging his heels for a while. The futility of war, especially when he’d gotten into the details of different ways that had been invented for men to kill each other, made it hard to be disciplined about writing.
Before he’d started his master’s degree, in his mind the war contained images of bon voyage parties, and doughboys in hastily erected dining halls being served hot coffee and donuts or was thatWorld War II? The fact that there’d been more than one worldwide conflict always depressed him.
“Yes,” said Stanley in a low voice, as though dragging himself from his own memories. “One minute I was running along the trench—”
“On the top or along the bottom?” asked Devon before he could stop himself because it looked like all of this talk about war was upsetting Stanley, and Devon should really stop asking questions. “I’m sorry, go on, but mustard gas is most potent at a certain level. On the top of the trench, you’re golden, except for the bullets. At the bottom of the trench, it can be safer from bullets, but you’re more at risk from mustard gas. Plus the damp weather made the gas even more dense, so it really collected at the bottom of the trenches. Sorry. Go on.”
“Sometimes I had to go to the top to cross over, but mostly I was at the bottom. Then, when I was climbing up the side of a trench, I heard the click over my head. It’s a really tinny click, that means—”
“That means it’s too late,” said Devon, filling in the blank.
He wanted to ask about the sound of the mustard gas canister coming open, and whether it came down with a sound like wings falling or whether it was something else. How long you could breathe, really breathe, before the effect of it overtook you. What had happened to the gas masks for Stanley’s battalion anyway? How had they gone astray when they were such an important part of a soldier’s kit?
It would be unnecessarily cruel to make Stanley go over these details, whether or not he was delusional. More importantly, why was Devon staring? He tried not to as Stanley finished his orange, but it was hard. Stanley was an American doughboy, Devon’s dream, sitting right here at his table, eating an orange, dusting his hands as he finished. It must be that Devon was obsessed with doughboys, and that was why he was staring, and not because of Stanley himself. Right?
Regardless, Devon wanted to sit at the table with Stanley and ask him questions, listen to him talk, and encourage him to talk about anything, anything at all. Then Devon could watch his eyes brighten, and his mouth move, and his hands make gestures in the air. It hadhappened from time to time, but then Stanley would remember the war. His features would fall silent, and his hands would fall to his lap, and all the joy would go out of him. It was difficult to watch, so Devon reminded himself not to poke for information about the war, but to talk about something else.
“So,” he said, brightly. “Now that you’re here, do you know what this is?” He pointed to the fridge, sure that Stanley wouldn’t know, not if he really was from 1917.
“It looks like an icebox,” said Stanley. “A really big icebox, but I don’t see where the ice will go—”
He leaned from his chair to get a better view, and Devon waved him into the kitchen. Stanley got up and came to Devon’s side, which was distracting, so Devon made himself concentrate on his little tour.
“You’re right, only we call it a fridge. See?” With a sweeping gesture, Devon opened the door and presented all of the food inside, thinking that, as it was a French fridge, it was a little smaller, more compact, than an American one, but it still held a lot.
“Is thatmilk?” asked Stanley. “It’s not in a bottle, but it’s got a cow on it.”
“You want some?” asked Devon. Without waiting, he got out a glass, poured milk into it, and handed it to Stanley. He wanted Stanley to know it was for him so that he wouldn’t be able to try and pretend that he didn’t want any.
Stanley got up, reaching for the glass with both hands.
The mistake on Devon’s part was to stand so close while Stanley drank from the glass because his throat moved as he swallowed, and his eyes closed in pleasure, and the sleeve of the t-shirt fell away from his thin wrist, where the bones were pushing through. Devon wanted to take him, hold him close, and feed him till a flush came to his cheeks, and his bones weren’t so stark, so obvious beneath his skin. But that would be pushing it, pushing too fast for someone who came from 1917.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Just when was it exactly that Devon decided he believed Stanley? He hadn’t, not really, mostly because it was impossible. Except he had decided to believe, in a way, because nothing Stanley had yet done or said jarred with what Devon knew about the era, and nobody knew more about it than Devon.
“And this,” said Devon with a slight cough, “is a microwave.”
