The Map of Time (36 page)

What I am trying to say to you, my love, is that until that moment, I will not have known it is possible to feel such exquisite rapture, the ecstatic pleasure that will radiate through my whole body from a place somewhere inside me, and although at first my bashfulness will force me to grit my teeth, to attempt to stifle the gasps that will rise from my throat, I will end up abandoning myself to that overpowering joy, I will let myself be swept away by that torrent of icy fire, and will proclaim my pleasure with passionate cries, announcing the awakening of my flesh.

And I will be insatiable, I will clutch you to me, trapping you with my legs, because I want you to stay inside me forever, because I will be unable to understand how I could have lived all that time without feeling you thrusting sweetly into me. And when, after the final ecstasy, you slip out of me, leaving a crimson trail across the sheets, I will suddenly feel incomplete, bereft, lost. With my eyes closed, I will savor the echo of joy you have left inside me, the delicious memory of your presence and when this has slowly faded, I will be overwhelmed by a feeling of extraordinary loneliness, but also of infinite gratitude at having discovered in myself a creature perfectly adapted to bliss, capable of enjoying the loftiest and most earthly pleasures. Then I will reach out, searching for the feel of your skin bathed in my sweat, your skin that still quivers and burns, like the strings of a violin after a concerto, and I will gaze at you with a radiant smile of gratitude for having revealed to me who I am, everything I did not yet know about myself.

Tom was so moved and surprised, he had to stop reading. Had he really unleashed all these feelings in the girl? Leaning back against the tree, almost out of breath, he let his gaze wander over the surrounding fields. For him, the carnal act with her had been a pleasant experience he would always remember, but Claire spoke of it as though it had been sublime and unforgettable, like the foundation stone which as the years passed would hold up the cathedral of her love. Feeling even more of a savage than he really was, Tom sighed and went on reading: I was going to tell you now how I traveled to your time, Derek, but when I remember that during our meeting at the tearoom you still did not know how we do it, I feel compelled to keep it a secret in order not to change things that have already happened. What I can tell you is that last year, an author called H. G. Wells published a wonderful novel, The Time Machine, which made us all dream about the future. And then someone showed the machine to us. I can tell you no more than that. But I will make it up to you by saying that, although your mission in my time will fail, and the machine in which you travel here will be prohibited, the human race will win the war against the automatons, and it will be thanks to you. Yes, my love, you will defeat the evil Solomon in an exciting sword fight. Trust me, for I saw it with my own eyes.

Your loving, C.

Wells placed the letter on the table, trying not to show how it had aroused him. He glanced at Tom silently, gesturing almost imperceptibly with his head that he could leave. Once he was alone, he picked up the letter to which he had to reply, and flushed with excitement as he reread the detailed account of their meeting at the boardinghouse. Thanks to this girl, he finally understood women’s experience of pleasure, the sensation that crept over them with intriguing slowness, overwhelming them completely or scarcely touching them. How sublime, resplendent, and infinite their enjoyment was compared to that of men, so vulgar and crude, little more than a spurt of joy between their legs. But was this the same for all women or was she special, had the Creator fine-tuned this particular girl’s sensitivity to such an astonishing degree? No, doubtless she was a perfectly ordinary creature who simply enjoyed her sexuality in a way other women would consider brazen. Her simple decision to undress in front of Tom already showed an audacious spirit, a determination to experience to the full every possible sensation arising from the sexual act.

Upon realizing this, Wells felt saddened, annoyed even by the chaste manner in which the women in his life had given themselves to him. His cousin Isabel was one of those who resorted to the hole in the undergarment, presenting him with only her sex, which to Wells seemed like some terrifying entity, a sort of sucking orifice that appeared to have come from some other planet.

Even Jane, who was less inhibited in such matters, had never allowed him to see her completely naked, thus sparing him the need to try to discover the shape of her body with his hands. No, he had never been lucky enough to meet a woman blessed with Claire’s delightful nature. There were no limits to what he could have done with a girl as easy to win over as she. It would have been enough to extol the therapeutic virtues of sex for women in order to convert her into an eager adept of carnal pleasure, a modern-day priestess ready to give and receive pleasure freely.

She would have become a champion of copulation, preaching door to door that regular sexual activity improved women’s physiques, gave them a mysterious glow, softened their expressions, and even rounded off any of their bodies” unsightly angularities. With a woman like that, he would certainly be a contented man, relaxed, his appetites sated, a man who could put his mind to other things, throw himself into his interests, freed from the relentless male itch that began in adolescence and stayed with him until senility finally rendered his body useless. It was no surprise, then, that Wells immediately envisaged the girl named Claire Haggerty in his bed, without any clothes veiling her slender form, allowing him to stroke her with feline abandon, intensely enjoying the same caresses that scarcely elicited a polite sigh from Jane. It seemed incongruous to him that he should understand this unknown woman’s pleasure, while that of his wife remained a mystery to him. Suddenly, he remembered she was waiting somewhere in the house for him to give her the next letter to read. He left the kitchen to go and look for her, taking deep breaths on the way to calm his excitement. When he found her in the sitting room reading a book, he put the sheet of paper on the table without a word, like leaving a poisoned chalice then waiting to see the effect it had on one’s victim. For there was no doubt the letter would affect Jane, as it had affected him, forcing her to question her approach to the physical side of love in the same way that the last letter had made her question the way she experienced its spiritual side. He walked out into the garden to breathe in the night air and gazed up at the pale full moon laying claim to the sky. In addition to the sense of insignificance he always felt beneath the heavens, he was aware of his own clumsiness in comparison to the far more direct, spontaneous way others had of relating to the world, in this case the girl named Claire Haggerty. He remained in the garden for a long while, until he thought it was time to see the effect the letter had produced on his wife.

He walked slowly through the house, with almost ghostlike footsteps, and, unable to find her in the sitting room or in the kitchen, he went on upstairs to the bedroom. There was Jane standing by the window, waiting for him. The moonlight framed her naked, tempting body. With a mixture of astonishment and lust, Wells examined its elements, its proportions, the supple wisdom with which her womanly parts, always glimpsed separately or divined through fabric, formed a greater landscape, creating a liberated, otherworldly being that looked as though it might fly away at any moment. He admired her soft, malleable breasts, her painfully narrow waist, the placid haven of her hips, the dark woolliness of her pubis, her feet like small, appealing animals.

Jane was beaming at him, delighted to feel herself the object of her husband’s astonished gaze. Then the writer knew what he must do. As though obeying an invisible prompter, he tore off his clothes, also exposing his nakedness to the light of the moon that instantly outlined his skinny, sickly-looking frame. Husband and wife embraced in the middle of their bedroom, experiencing the touch of each other’s skin in a way they never had before. And the sensations that followed also seemed magnified, for Claire’s words etched in their memories redoubled the dizzying effect of each caress, each kiss. Real or imagined, they abandoned themselves hungrily, passionately, anxious to explore each other, to venture outside the boundaries of their familiar garden of delights.

Later on, while Jane slept, Wells slipped out of their bed, tip-toed into the kitchen, took up his pen, and began to rapidly fill the paper, prey to an uncontrollable sensation of euphoria.

My love, How I long for the day when at last I shall be able to experience all the things you have described to me. What can I say except that I love you and I shall make love to you exactly as you describe? I shall kiss you tenderly, caress you softly and reverently, enter you as gently as I can, and, knowing as I do everything you are feeling, my pleasure will be even more intense, Claire.

Tom read Wells’s passionate letter with suspicion. Even though he knew the author was pretending to be him, he could not help thinking those words might just as well come from both of them.

Wells was evidently enjoying all this. “What did his wife think of it?” Tom wondered. He folded the letter, replaced it in the envelope, and hid it under the stone next to the mysterious Peachey’s tomb. On the way back, he went on mulling over the author’s words, unable to help feeling as if he had been left out of a game he himself had invented, relegated to the mere role of messenger.

I love you already, Claire, I love you already. Seeing you will simply be the next phase. And knowing we will win this bloody war gives me renewed joy. Solomon and I locked in a sword fight? Until a few days ago, I would have wondered whether you were quite sane, my love; I could never have imagined we would settle our differences with such a prehistoric weapon. But this morning, picking through the ruins of the History Museum, one of my men came across a sword. He deemed the noble relic worthy of a captain, and, as though obeying your command, solemnly presented me with it. Now I know I must practice with it in preparation for a future duel, a duel from which I shall emerge victorious, for knowing that your beautiful eyes are watching me will give me strength.

All my love from the future, D.

Claire felt her knees go weak, and, lying down on her bed, she luxuriated in the wave of sensations the brave Captain Shackleton’s words had unleashed in her heart. While he had been dueling with Solomon he had known she was watching him, then … The thought made her slightly dizzy again, and she took a moment to recover. Suddenly, it dawned on her she would receive only one more letter from her beloved. How would she survive without them? She tried to put it out of her mind. She still had to write two more letters. As she had promised, she would only tell him about their encounter in the year 2000 in her last letter, but what about the one she had to write now? She realized, somewhat uneasily, that for the first time she was free to write what she liked. What could she say to her beloved that she had not already said, especially considering that everything she wrote must be carefully examined in case it conveyed information that might jeopardize the fabric of time, apparently as fragile as glass? After some thought, she decided to tell him how she spent her time now, as a woman in love without a lover. She sat at her desk and took up her pen: My darling, You cannot know how much your letters mean to me. Knowing I shall only receive one more makes me feel dreadfully sad. However, I promise I will be strong, I will never falter, never stop thinking of you, feeling you near me every second of each long day. It goes without saying that I will never allow another man to tarnish our love, even though I will never see you again. I prefer to live from my memories of you, despite the best efforts of my mother to marry me off to the wealthiest bachelors in the neighborhood—naturally I have told her nothing of you (my love would seem like a waste of time to her, for she would see you as no more than a pointless illusion). She invites them to our house and I receive them courteously, of course, and then amuse myself by inventing the most outrageous reasons for rejecting them, that leave my mother speechless.

My reputation is growing worse by the day: I am doomed to become a spinster and a disgrace to my family. But why should I care a fig for what others think? I am your beloved.

The brave Captain Derek Shackleton’s beloved, although I have to hide my feelings for you.

Apart from these tedious meetings, I devote the rest of my time to you, my love, for I know how to sense your presence swirling around me like a fragrance even though you are many years away from me. I feel you near me always, watching me with your gentle eyes, although at times it saddens me not to be able to touch you, that you are no more than an ethereal memory, that you cannot share anything with me. You cannot slip your arm though mine in Green Park, or hold my hand as we watch the sun go down over the Serpentine, or smell the narcissi I grow in my garden, whose scent, my neighbors say, fills the whole of St James’s street.

Wells was waiting in the kitchen, as before. Tom silently handed him the letter, and left before the writer could ask him to. What was there to say? Although in the end he knew it was untrue, he could not help feeling as though Claire were writing to the author instead of to him. He felt like the intruder in this love story, the fly in the soup. When he was alone, Wells opened the letter and began to devour the girl’s neat handwriting: In spite of all this, Derek, I shall love you until my dying day, and no one will be able to deny that I have been happy.

And yet, I have to confess it is not always easy. According to you, I will never see you again, and the thought is so unbearable that, despite my resolve, I try to make myself feel better by imagining you might be mistaken. That does not mean I doubt your words, my love, of course not. But the Derek who uttered them in the tearoom was only guided by what I am saying now, and it is possible the Derek who hurried back to his own time after making love to me in the boardinghouse, the Derek who is not yet you, will be unable to bear not seeing me again and will find a way of coming back to me. What that Derek will do, neither you nor I can know, for he is outside the circle. This is my only hope, my love—a naïve one perhaps, but necessary all the same. I dearly hope I see you once more, that the scent of my narcissi will lead you to me.