“Where do they all come from?” asked Stanley.
“People upload them,” said Devon. The explanation might not be enough, but any gulf between him and Stanley seemed to vanish as they explored the internet together. “Tons and tons every day—”
“Yes, but where—how did they gethere?” Stanley pointed at the screen and traced the edge of an adorable gray kitten wearing very serious black glasses.
“On the screen?” asked Devon, scratching his head. “I used to know this a bit better, but technology keeps changing, so this is what I know. You take a picture with your phone, or scan any image on a scanner, and then upload to a server, and then the server has it and you can look at what the server has. That’s what I know.”
“Okay,” said Stanley. “I guess.” He looked distraught, which maybe was because Devon was terrible at explaining or because he didn’t understand any of what Devon had just said. Either was possible, but Devon didn’t know.
“Listen, why don’t we eat, and we can watch a bit of—” said Devon, then he stopped. If pictures of cute kittens were too much, then reruns ofThe X Fileswere way too much, not to mention the news, regardless of the source, or Facebook feeds, or any social media. Devon had stopped using most of them since coming to France, notbecause France didn’t have them, but because he had so much work to do.
“We can eat and have an early night?” asked Devon. “Tomorrow, maybe, if you’re willing, we could walk around the trenches and you could show me what you know. If that’s okay.”
“Okay,” said Stanley.
Stanley didn’t seem very enthusiastic.
“We don’t have to,” said Devon. He knew it was his responsibility to take care of Stanley, not to take advantage of him. Plus, while somebody else would have calledles gendarmesimmediately, Devon was here and nobody else was, so it was up to him to do the best he could.
“No, it’s fine,” said Stanley. “I should probably get the lay of the land, anyway.”
“Here, have another orange, and I’ll get the steaks going,” said Devon.
He got up and handed Stanley the last orange, feeling a little bit sad at the reverence with which Stanley took it. If anything was proof that he really was from 1917, his attitude towards oranges was one of them. Of course, he could be crazy, he could be a liar, or he could be a time traveler. Devon wanted it to be the latter, but that would mean Stanley had come through something horrific and would need the tenderest of care, the kindest handling. Which Devon could do, could most definitely do.
He turned on the burner, put the cast iron pan over the heat, and tried not to stare as Stanley ate his second orange.
CHAPTER NINE
Stanley ate his second orange while standing at the counter. Slice by moist slice, he worked his way through it, enjoying the sweetness on his tongue, the stickiness of his fingers. Not to mention it was the biggest orange he’d ever seen and the easiest to peel. As he ate, he noticed that Devon, who was frying steaks on the stovetop, was watching him eat.
Devon might have been laughing at him for enjoying the orange so much, and he’d not quite believed Stanley when he’d said he’d not had an orange since he’d enlisted earlier that year. In spite of this, Stanley felt comfortable and safe, and that feeling was growing with every passing moment.
Rain continued to fall outside the windows as the sky grew dark, and the cottage was filled with the smell of hot butter and salt. Those scents wafted through with the crispness of citrus and the sound of frying steak, and the war seemed very far away. If he never had to leave the cottage, never had to leave Devon, and could always feel the way he felt right now, he would be happy for all the days of his life.
“Here,” said Devon, interrupting Stanley’s reverie. “Sit down and eat this.”
Devon brought over a platter with the steaks, and a bowl of slicedpotatoes layered with cheese, which Devon had put in the oven to heat rather than the microwave, and which now bubbled contentedly in front of Stanley. There was also a dish of cut lettuce that glistened with olive oil, and though Stanley didn’t care much for vegetables, he was going to have some, out of courtesy.
“You old enough to drink, soldier?” asked Devon, jocular even as he poured red wine from a bottle into two short glasses that looked suspiciously like old jelly jars. “Well, here you are anyway.”
They sat down and ate together for a companionable while, each appeasing his hunger, both focused on their own plates, but it did not feel solitary. Every now and then, Devon would glance up at Stanley through his dark lashes, as if contemplating his presence at the table, or the truth of his tale. As Stanley drank his glass of wine, the taste of which curled like butter on his tongue, and ate the warm food, he grew more relaxed and felt more at ease. And began to feel that he might be safe here in the future, and that he would not get yanked back into the past.
Devon didn’t look like he meant to throw Stanley out anytime soon, and had made no calls toles gendarmesin the hopes of finding out where Stanley had come from. Whether or not he believed that Stanley had come from 1917 was another matter, but for the moment, Stanley was safe, though in the wake of his earlier panic, as his body relaxed, the clamps in his brain relaxed too, probably from the wine. His mouth opened and words began to come out.
“I killed them, you know,” said Stanley. When Devon sat up straight, his eyes wide and all of his attention focused on Stanley, he nodded. “I mean, I didn’tkillkill them, but if I’d asked them to sit on the other side of me when that shell hit this morning, they’d be alive now. You know? But that shrapnel, it just cut through them,torethrough them—”
“Was that the blood on your uniform?” Devon gestured to the bedroom where the uniform was stored, safely out of sight. “Did this happen in the trench?”
“Yes,” said Stanley. He blinked at the remains of his supper and licked his lower lip, finding traces of salt. In that warm room withfood in his belly, the war seemed far away. “It all happened so fast. One minute, Lt. Billings was standing there in front of the bunker, about to go up, you know, to get the lay of the land. He had a map in his hand to consult that I guess Commander Helmer had left behind—”
“Commander Helmer was the one who deserted?” asked Devon. He drank the rest of his wine in one large gulp and then waggled his glass at Stanley as if to ask him whether he wanted some more. Stanley nodded, and Devon poured them both more wine.
“He was the commander of our battalion,” said Stanley. He was a little surprised that Devon already knew about the desertion, but then he remembered that the last battle of the 44thBattalion was the focus of Devon’s research. Plus, it was nice to talk out loud about his troubles because in the trenches you had to keep your doubts to yourself. “He deserted in the middle of the night, at least that’s what we think, what the lieutenant thought.”
Devon drank some of his wine as if to fortify himself against the fact that Stanley might be lying. Stanley drank as well, taking a large gulp, and almost choked, and Devon laughed at him. It wasn’t a cruel laugh; there was sympathy in it, and Devon moved his hand in the air as if to wave the laugh away.
“Go on, the lieutenant had the map.”
