How could she live without him? Yet he belonged to another woman, another place, another time.
“Alex? Please, what’s going on?”
Alex shook her head, and allowed Beth to lead her up the front steps of the brownstone. Beth unlocked the door and they walked up the three flights to Alex’s apartment. The moment the door was open Alex slid to the floor, hugging her knees. She began to weep.
Behind her, she heard Beth close and lock the door.
Alex cried until she had no tears left.
She looked up, wiping her eyes with her shirtsleeve. “I’m sorry,” she said hoarsely.
“Do you want to tell me what’s happened? You never went to Tripoli, did you?”
Alex inhaled, hard. “I went to Tripoli, Beth. How can you even ask? I’ve been gone for three years.”
Beth’s eyes widened. “Alex, you’ve been gone for three days.”
Alex stared, speechless. “I beg your pardon?” she finally said.
Beth hesitated. “Why would you tell me that you’ve been gone for three years? And why are you wearing a wig?”
Alex stood. There was a rolled-up newspaper on the kitchen table, and she walked over to it. She slipped off the rubber band and unfolded theNew York Times.That day’s date was July 15, 1996.
She had embarked for Tripoli via Paris July 13, 1996.
Beth was right. She had been gone for three days, but in the past, she had lived through three entire years.
Alex walked into the bathroom and looked at herself.
Her hair was six inches past her shoulders now, wild and disheveled from Blackwell’s lovemaking. There were small cuts on her face from the shards of marble and stone that had fallen on her from Preble’s incessant bombardment of the palace. And she was wearing clothes that must appear incredibly comic to a twentieth-century observer.
But there was no question about it. She had traveled back in time. She had been living in the past. And now she had returned to the present. She had traveled through time again, without the magic lamp.
Alex didn’t understand it, would never understand it.
And as she stood there looking at herself in the bathroom mirror, she recalled again the exact moment when Blackwell had told her that he had a wife—the moment when she had begun to time-travel. An unholy rage had possessed her. Had the force of her emotions sent her back to the future? In any case, the rage was gone. There was only shock and grief.
“Alex? Are you going to tell me what has happened?” Beth asked, having come to stand in the bathroom’s doorway behind her.
Alex turned. “Yes, Beth, I am going to tell you everything.”
But first Alex showered. Her body was bruised and battered from the bombing, and as she soaped herself, she found Blackwell’s semen between her legs. She was not imagining anything.
Hardly refreshed, she put on her oldest, most faded and worn Levi’s, with a big sweatshirt, as tattered and as soft. Beth eyed the shirt dubiously. It had to be ninety-five degrees outside, and Alex’s air-conditioning had never worked well.
Alex curled up in her bed, hugging her knees to her chest. “I have been gone for three years, Beth,” Alex started. Beth appeared about to interrupt, but Alex cut her off. “I am not wearing a wig. These are not hair extensions. My hair has grown for three goddamn years.”
Beth, pale, was silent.
“Want to look for little knots?” Alex asked with some bitterness.
Beth hesitated, wet her lips. “I believe you. About the hair, that is.”
“When I arrived in Tripoli I began to explore immediately. I went to the palace, which is now a museum. Just outside of it there was this little antiquities shop. Inside, I met this man.” Tears seeped from Alex’s eyes as she recalled Murad. She would always miss him. “A young man named Joseph. And I wound up buying a small blue oil lamp that was at least two hundred years old.”
Beth remained still.
“When I left the store, I began to feel dizzy and strange. The lamp was growing hotter and hotter in my hands. My legs were becoming numb. And the next thing I knew, I was being sucked down into what felt like a cyclone. And then I was waking up. I was flat on my back on this small dirt street. I was disoriented, confused. Everything seemed strange and out of place; the houses seemed old-fashioned, but I figured I was in a ghetto neighborhood in northern Africa. But the people were strange too.” Alex paused, taking a sip of Diet Coke. “Beth, I was chased by these Turks wielding scimitars. They’re called janissaries. The soldiers of the bashaw—not twentieth-century soldiers—nineteenth-century soldiers.”
