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Part Three

Cadenza

And of course we hope there will be an exchange,

that something will come toward us if we abandon our old lives.

—Lewis Hyde, The Gift

Life Indoors

Tuesday, April 18, 2028 (Alba is 24, Oliver is 65)

Alba: It’s raining. It was raining when I arrived at the Yellow House four days ago and still raining when Oliver showed up yesterday. I called the library reference desk this morning and asked for the date and the weather report. The librarian wearily told me it was April 18 and it would be raining again today and tomorrow. April 18 of what year? I asked, timidly. 2028, she said, sounding more alert. I thanked her and hung up.

“It’s 2028,” I tell Oliver. “Time to build an ark.”

“Someone did that once,” he says.

“And filled it with animals, two by two.”

“No, I mean someone in my time. A man in Florida, in the Everglades,” Oliver says. “It happened when I was a kid, I remember watching it on TV.”

“Did he fill it with alligators?”

“No, children.”

“Did it end well?”

Oliver looks as though he’s sorry he brought it up. “No.”

“Oh.”

We sit in the kitchen with our coffee and the remains of breakfast, listening to the rain. When I was a kid Mama used to say: April showers bring May flowers. This rain is drowning any vegetation that might have been trying to emerge. Lightning cracks nearby. We both jump in our chairs.

“It’s so noisy here,” Oliver says.

“Don’t you have thunderstorms in your time?”

“Oh, we do, yes. But we don’t have trains, or cars. London is much quieter now than it used to be.” He looks a little sad. “I’d forgotten birds were so loud.”

“You don’t have birds in London?”

“No.”

“No pigeons?”

“Sorry, no.”

“We call pigeons ‘rats with wings,’” I tell him.

“We have plenty of rats. I’m glad they don’t have wings.” Oliver frowns. “The pigeons were beautiful. I’m sorry they’re gone.”

“All gone? There are so many of them. How can they all be gone?”

“You usually say you don’t want to know, Alba.” Oliver lights a cigarette, his first of the day. He tries and fails to ration them because when he is in his own time there is no tobacco. He exhales and stares out the window. The diffuse morning light outlines Oliver’s face and hands in silver, and the smoke wreathes him, giving the momentary illusion that his long white hair is floating. I’ve never noticed before how long his eyelashes are. He is extraordinarily beautiful.

“Oliver, how old are you?”