Mira's Diary Page 8

  Degas frowned. “Who wants to paint such blandness? I prefer faces with that saving touch of ugliness, that detail that gives character, that makes a face truly interesting.” When he said that, I wanted to hug him. It was the kind of thing that made me like him so much, even though he was so wrong about Dreyfus. He might agree with Madame politically, but that didn’t mean he liked her.

  “That, my friend, we can all agree on. Let’s drink to Character, to the Truly Interesting!” Whistler held up his glass. Mary, Claude, and Degas all lifted theirs.

  So maybe Claude wouldn’t be fired as Degas’s assistant if they could all drink together after such a heated argument. I didn’t stay to find out, though. I had to find Hubert-Joseph Henry. And thanks to Whistler, I had an idea of where. I wasn’t eager to go back to the War College, but this time there’d be no mob. Just me and a chance to set things right.

  I circled the War Ministry and the War College, tried to get into both places, but each time I was turned away. I waited outside the War College for hours, staring across the green at the Eiffel Tower. Funny to think it hadn’t been here when I was last in Paris in 1881, and now here it was, that landmark everyone associated with the city.

  I waited so long that I had time to invent a whole story to explain myself, using Degas’s family as an example. I planned on introducing myself as a long-lost cousin from the American branch of Henry’s family and saying I was tracking him down because he had come into an inheritance. If he thought he would get something valuable from me, he’d want to talk. If I got that far.

  “Go home, girlie,” barked the guard. “No visitors allowed.”

  “I’m not visiting. I’m waiting.”

  A carriage rolled up and the guard snapped to attention. A thick man in an elaborate uniform with gold braid epaulets and buttons, shiny high boots, and a Napoleonic hat stepped out.

  “Excuse me, sir,” I said, rushing up before the guard could shoo me away. “I’m looking for Hubert-Joseph Henry, an officer here. It’s urgent that I speak with him. This guard has refused to let me pass.”

  “And you are?” the man asked gruffly. His face wasn’t kind at all, but severe and shut off, as if he saw only the things he wanted to see—and I wasn’t one of them.

  I launched into my story. “I’m a relative of his from New Orleans. My mother told me to find him here. I have some important news to deliver to him.”

  “Is the news military?” snapped the man. “I think not! Then you can find Monsieur Henry at home.”

  “Now go!” roared the guard.

  I went, but not so far that I couldn’t see Henry when he left, if he was there in the first place. I didn’t know what he looked like, but I figured I’d approach every officer until I found the right one. Except long minutes stretched by and nobody came out. Or went in. I’d almost dozed off when I heard another carriage roll up to the entry. It waited there until a man came out of the War College. His uniform was less elaborate than the gruff man’s, but he still looked like an officer.

  “Lieutenant Colonel Henry.” The guard saluted. “A young lady was here looking for you. Said she’s from your family in America.”

  “America?” Henry frowned. “I have no relatives in America.” He stepped into the carriage.

  Two more men followed him, but the strange thing was that although they carried themselves rigidly like soldiers, neither of them wore military uniforms. One was tall with a big bushy beard, and as I peered at him, I realized that it hooked over his ears, like a disguise. The other was short with blue-tinted glasses, like props in some play.

  “Come on, Henry, let’s go!” the short one yelled, leaning out of the carriage to thump on the door. “Allez-y!”

  Could I keep up with a carriage? I had to try. I must have looked strange holding up my skirts and jogging along behind them, but they couldn’t see me and I didn’t care about anybody else. When the horse trotted, I had to run to keep pace, but when it got crowded and the horse slowed to a walk, I had a chance to catch my breath. Luckily for me, it was late in the day, the streets were thronged, and the horse was forced to walk most of the time.

  The carriage slowed to a stop in front of the Jardin du Luxembourg. Fake Beard and Blue Glasses got out, but they didn’t walk away. Instead they leaned against the carriage and waited. For who or what I had no idea.

  I thought of approaching Hubert-Joseph Henry then, but decided to see what they were waiting for first. I stood by the park gate, pretending I really was waiting for somebody. If I’d had a watch to check, I would have, but all I could do to mime my impatience was to stomp a foot now and then and mutter, “Where could he be?” I felt like Winnie the Pooh trying to convince the bees that he was an innocent rain cloud so he could grab their honey.

  The two men weren’t looking at me at all, so I was probably wasting my act, but I kept it up until a third man arrived. Then I inched closer so I could hear what they said.

  “Why do you need to see me?” the third man shrilled. He was shorter than Blue Glasses, with ears that stuck out like jug handles and an even bigger mustache than Whistler’s.

  “Henry’s waiting for you in the cab,” Fake Beard hissed.

  “You idiot!” Blue Glasses snarled. “They found your other note, the shredded one from the German attaché! Dreyfus is on Devil’s Island, chained to his bed, guarded day and night, yet you’ve proven that the traitor is a free man, still passing information to the Germans! Picquart wants you arrested, but fortunately for you, if you hang, so do we all! This isn’t about saving your skin but preserving the reputation of the army.”

  “Then hadn’t you better treat me more kindly?” huffed Jug Ears. Or I should say, the real traitor, because obviously that’s who he was. This man was the officer selling military secrets to the Germans. And being protected by the French military for his crimes!

  I wanted to squeeze into the carriage with Jug Ears. But all I could do was wait like the two men wearing their oh-so-fake disguises. At least now I knew why—they had to be military officers too. But instead of arresting the traitor, they were plotting with him.

  The minutes stretched on. People walked by, carriages passed. A girl chased a hoop through the gates and into the park. A small dog yapped, straining eagerly at its leash.

  Jug Ears clambered out, smoothing his waistcoat. He tipped his hat at Fake Beard and winked. “You’ll be taking care of me now, it seems. So long as I have no worries, you have no worries. Otherwise, we’ll all end up covered with mud—you more than me, I should think. Good day, gentlemen!”

  Fake Beard clenched his fingers into tight fists. “We have to protect that scum!”

  “Calm down,” said Blue Glasses. “We’re protecting ourselves. Esterházy is innocent and Dreyfus is guilty, and that’s that.”

  Esterházy must be Jug Ears’ name. I wanted to write it down to be sure I remembered it, but I didn’t have time. The two men were getting into the carriage with Henry. Before it could drive away, I ran up and opened the door.

  “Excuse me!” I said. “Monsieur Henry, I need to talk to you!”

  The man in uniform leaned forward in his seat. “Who are you? What do you want?”

  “Can I talk to you in private, sir? Please, it’s urgent! It’s a private family matter!”

  “This is nonsense!” Fake Beard said.

  “Please!” I begged.

  Henry looked torn, like he wanted to listen to me, but Fake Beard slammed the door shut, and the carriage lumbered away. At first I could keep up, but as we came to a broad boulevard, the horse broke into a trot.

  I stopped at a fountain, trying to catch my breath. It was no use; they were too fast. I sank down by the water, ready to cry in frustration. I could try the War College again tomorrow, or maybe I could write to Henry there and convince him somehow to show the public what was in the secret file
. After all, if the evidence was true, it would stand up to scrutiny. If it wasn’t, it deserved to be discovered for the fraud it was.

  I stared into the water, searching for an idea. The fountain was mock Egyptian, with a palm tree capital in the middle surrounded by four sphinxes. “Can you answer the riddle for me?” I asked the sphinx nearest me. “Can you tell me how to solve this mystery?”

  Of course, the sphinx said nothing, but when I stretched out a hand and touched its paw, a shiver run through me. Light and dark blinked past, and I swirled away in the haze of time flooding around me. The fountain was a touchstone.

  I was back at Notre Dame on the walkway with the gargoyles, and Malcolm was standing next to me, grumbling that he was hungry and could we go get some crepes.

  I hugged my brother so hard that he squeaked.

  “Hey, let go! What’s the matter?” He pulled away.

  “I’m sorry. I just missed you so much.” It was true. I had missed him, though I hadn’t let myself think about him or Dad much.

  “Dad!” I hugged him tightly, and though he looked as surprised as Malcolm, he hugged me back.

  “Are you okay?” Dad asked, looking at me as if I was made of glass and might shatter any second.

  “This is going to sound crazy, but I saw Mom. I know where she is.” Now they both stared at me as if I had sprouted an extra eye. “It’s complicated, but let me explain. Just listen first and then you can think I’m a nut job.”

  We wound our way back down the circular stone staircase, coming out onto the modern street of the modern city with cars and bicycles and huge tour groups led by banner-waving guides. The city sounded different, with the noise of cars, sirens, cell phones, airplanes overhead, and conversations swirling by in several languages. It even smelled different, less like coal burning, trash, and that distinctive sewage aroma, and more like car exhaust, cigarettes, and something else, something indefinably modern. I wondered if I was sniffing technology, the Internet, all the cell phones buzzing around me.

  Dad steered us to a café. It was strange to think I’d been in this city so much longer than they had, but this was still my first meal in modern Paris. There was no easy way to explain the whole time-travel and Mom thing, so I just started at the beginning and went all the way up to the weird meeting with all the disguised military guys and Esterházy. (Yes! I remembered the traitor’s name!)

  Dad didn’t say anything. He just waited for me to finish my bizarre explanation. Malcolm didn’t ask anything until the end when he said, “Really? We’re supposed to believe this? C’mon, Mira, what’s the joke here?”

  “It’s not a joke! Dad, you believe me, right? Didn’t Mom tell you she could time-travel?” I hoped she had, or no way Dad would believe me either.

  To my relief, Dad looked me straight in the eyes and nodded.

  “What?” Malcolm gaped, his eyes bugging out. He clearly didn’t believe either of us. “You’re kidding! You’ve got to be!”

  “It’s true,” Dad said. “But I thought that was over. She hadn’t traveled for such a long time…since we met again in college.”

  “What do you mean ‘again’?” I asked.

  “It’s complicated, as you know, Mira, but I actually met your mom many times as she was time-traveling, never for very long. I couldn’t understand why she’d disappear for so long, so suddenly, without a word of warning. She explained it all when we were both twenty. She told me she was finally in the time where she belonged, where she could stay. And be with me.”

  “So you must have suspected that’s what happened when she went missing. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it, to find Mom?” Now Dad’s blind faith in Mom made sense. He knew she hadn’t left on purpose, but she hadn’t been kidnapped either.

  “I admit I hoped she’d find us. The postcard was a clue, both of time and place—you saw how old the stamp was.” Dad rubbed his forehead. He looked worried, not relieved, the way I thought he’d be. “She promised she was through with time travel, that it was too dangerous, so I didn’t suspect that at first.”

  “What do you mean dangerous?” I asked.

  “There are rules that have to be followed, and if you don’t, there are serious consequences for the future.”

  I leafed through my sketchbook, hoping Mom’s letters were still tucked inside. They were! I unfolded the one Morton had given to me and handed it to Dad.

  “She sent me a couple of letters. This first one tells the rules. You’re not supposed to take things back, but I think I still have these because they don’t belong to the past—they belong to Mom from the future. I’ve kept my sketchbook the same way. You also can’t take people back with you or tell anyone you’re from the future. And it’s better for family members not to travel in the same time and place. Are those all of them?” I couldn’t help thinking there were things Mom hadn’t told me, things Morton knew but didn’t tell me either for some reason.

  Dad gripped the letter, reading it with a frown. “These are some of the rules, but she’s leaving out the most important one: you can’t change anything in the past. Mom said she traveled like a tourist to see, appreciate, experience, but never to change. She insisted all time travelers had to obey that. That’s why she stopped traveling once Malcolm was born. She didn’t want to risk doing anything to upset our children’s future.”

  “But that’s not what she told me!” I blurted out. “Just the opposite! We’re supposed to change what happens to Dreyfus, keep him from being punished as a traitor. She was absolutely clear about that. Look, she says so in her last letter.” I gave Dad the other two letters, remembering how sweaty and panicky Morton had been when he gave me Mom’s message that day on the bench. He was breaking the most important rule of all—not to change the past—and he knew it. He’d said something about owing Mom a big favor so he felt obligated to repay her, but he sure wasn’t comfortable about it.

  “Wait,” said Malcolm. “This is all going too fast. Why didn’t you tell us all this when Mom first disappeared, Dad? Why did you let us worry like that?”

  “You would have thought I was crazy.”

  “Instead you think I’m crazy!” I said.

  “No, I know you’re not,” Dad insisted. “And I bet Malcolm believes you too.”

  Malcolm shook his head. “I guess I have to. Otherwise, I’m surrounded by crazy people.”

  “What I need to know is why Mom is trying to change history,” Dad said. “There has to be a reason.” His face suddenly turned pale, and his eyes widened in fear. “There’s only one possible explanation. She knows something horrible is going to happen to one or both of you, and she’s trying to stop it. She would disobey such an important rule for only one reason—you guys.”

  “But she told me this has been her job, changing events so bad things won’t happen. And there are other time travelers who try to stop her and her friends.” I described Madame Lefoutre, how she attacked me in Notre Dame, how she followed Mom.

  “She grabbed you!” Dad looked really terrified now. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. She just knocked the wind out of me. But she had such a grip on her, like a robotic hand, that I swear she didn’t seem human.”

  “Time travel is hard enough to believe. Now you’re asking me to believe in aliens?” Malcolm wagged a french fry at me like an admonishing finger.

  “So maybe she wasn’t an alien.” I shrugged. “But she was plenty creepy.”

  “Creepy and beautiful. That I’d like to see.” Malcolm dipped the french fry in ketchup and ate it. The weirdness of all this hadn’t affected his appetite at all, though I could barely choke down a crumb.

  “This is all really strange. Mom trying to change history—which she shouldn’t. Another time traveler attacking you—which she really shouldn’t. What’s going on?” Dad hadn’t touched any of his french fries. Lik
e me, he was too freaked out to eat.

  “Maybe the rules have changed. Maybe Mom knows something the other time-travelers don’t. All I know is she’s scared and this is important to her.” I looked at Dad. “We have to trust Mom, don’t we? You said we did.”

  Dad didn’t answer right away. Then he said slowly, “Of course we do.” He rubbed his temples the way he does when a crossword puzzle really has him stumped. “You’re right. So what is it Mom is trying to do? What does she want you to do?”

  “According to Mom and her supposed friend, Morton, we need to do something to clear Dreyfus’s name. The military has to admit their mistake and punish the real traitor, Esterházy. But that hadn’t happened when I left. Just the opposite. They were protecting him to cover their own butts. I couldn’t believe they’d go that far, but they did.”

  “Sounds like a great conspiracy theory,” said Malcolm. “Is this for real? You’re trying to prove the military framed Dreyfus? That’s like trying to prove the CIA was behind the Kennedy assassination.”

  “Come on, Malcolm, be helpful here,” Dad reproached him, then turned to me. “So you need to uncover the conspiracy?”

  “I don’t really know. At first I was supposed to get Degas to like Jews so he’d support Dreyfus, but that didn’t work. Then I thought maybe I could get Henry to confess or something. I think he’s the guy who forged papers to prove Dreyfus’s guilt. But I couldn’t get close to him.”

  “This all sounds totally ridiculous!” Malcolm said. “You met Degas and tried to make him like Jews? What were you supposed to do, sell him on the merits of bagels?”

  The way Malcolm said it, it did sound silly. But when Mom asked for it, somehow it made sense. How could I explain that?

  “Do you know what Mom was doing?” asked Dad.

  “Something to do with Zola, this writer guy. I’m guessing she was trying to get him to write something, but I don’t know what.”