“I have something of a confession to make, Tim,” Luas said. “Unlike Brek here, I dropped you in cold with your first postulant as part of a little experiment I was conducting. I couldn’t tell you in advance for fear of tainting the results.”
“What kind of experiment?” Tim asked.
“Well, as you know,” Luas explained, “the object of every presentation is to project an accurate and unbiased representation of the postulant. I wanted to test whether this could be improved upon by removing any trace of personality of the presenter.”
Tim seemed unamused. “You mean you subjected me to the memories of my first postulant without preparing me at all?”
“You, among others,” Luas said. “I also maintained a control group for comparison.”
“What if I wasn’t able to handle it?” Tim said. “What if I’d lost who I am?”
“I knew you would do well,” Luas replied. “And I was obviously correct. Besides, I kept a cache of your most important memories handy to bring you back in case of emergency.”
“I guess,” Tim said, resigned, but still annoyed. “Well, did you learn anything useful?”
“Yes. There’s no difference among well-trained presenters-and you were well trained.” Luas smiled slyly. “I also discovered that you care for me far more than I could have imagined.”
I laughed uneasily. Tim stood frozen-faced.
“Well,” Luas said, “I thank both of you for your flattery and would very much enjoy hearing more, but I must attend to some administrative matters. Tim knows the way out. Would you be so kind as to escort Ms. Cuttler?”
“Sure,” Tim said.
“Splendid. She’ll still need the blindfold before entering the hall.”
“Understood.”
“I’ll check in with you periodically, Brek, to see how you’re doing. Sophia knows how to reach me if there are difficulties. Make no effort to evaluate Ms. Rabun’s case; there’ll be opportunity for that later. Just get accustomed to her memories and emotions, both of which are quite powerful, as you well know. You should spend most of your time relaxing. Sophia will be with you. You’re okay?”
“Yes…yes, I’m fine.”
“If she starts taking breakfast orders, we’ll know who to blame,” Tim said, getting in the last jab and letting Luas know he was no longer angry.
“Guilty as charged,” Luas said, bowing in mock apology. “I must be off.”
We watched him walk to the end of the corridor, disappearing through a set of locked doors.
“How long have you been here?” I asked, eager to learn about Tim’s experience and everything he knew about Shemaya.
“I’m not sure exactly,” he said.
“I know what you mean,” I replied. “Where are all the clocks and calendars? That’s been one of the most difficult parts of the transition for me.”
We started walking toward the great hall.
“Have you done any presentations on your own yet?” I asked.
“No, I’ve only watched,” Tim answered. “Luas says the next one’s on my own though.”
“Me too…after Amina Rabun. Are these all presenters’ offices? There must be thousands.”
“Yeah, I just got mine. There are a bunch of empties down at this end. Where are you staying?”
“With my great-grandmother, at her house-or what used to be her house.”
“I stayed in a tent with my dad when I first arrived. He and I used to go hunting in Canada, just the two of us. He died a couple of months before I got here.”
“Sorry- Or not…you’ve got him back now.”
“I guess. It was great seeing him at first, and he really helped me adjust, but he’s gone again.”
“Gone? Where? I didn’t know you could leave here.”
“I don’t know where he went. One day he said I was ready to live here on my own, but that we’d see each other again someday. You can live anywhere you want when you’re ready.”
“What do you mean, anywhere?”
“Well, anywhere…let’s see, I’ve lived at Eagle’s Nest and Hitler’s bunker in Berlin-I’m really into Nazi history-let’s see, the White House, Graceland. If you can imagine it, you can go there.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s amazing. I thought you could only go to the places you’ve visited during your life. That’s all I’ve been doing.”
“No, anywhere you want. I’ll show you when we get outside. You can’t do it in here.”
When we reached the train shed, Tim opened a bin near the doors, removed a blindfold, and tied the thick felt cloth over my eyes. I peeked again as we passed through the great hall, sampling paragraphs from the thousands of autobiographies cramming the room, each authored by a different hand but, like all autobiographies, revealing the same truths, pains, and joys. I closed their covers when we reached the vestibule on the other side, neither confused nor weakened as I had been before.
For the first time since arriving at Shemaya, I felt a flicker of hope rather than apprehension, the way a visit from a friend brightens the darkness of an extended illness. I flipped off the blindfold and Tim and I literally raced outside like two kids let out of school. The entrance to the train shed somehow bordered the western boundary of Nana’s property; it was little more than a disturbance in the air between two maple trees that had been there all along, since before I was a child, diaphanous, like a faint patch of fog. Could the entrance to heaven have been so near all along? I wondered. But, of course, we were nowhere near Delaware or her home; it was all being made up spontaneously, conjured from…I had no idea if there was even air. In any case, I could see the roof of Nana’s house through the trees, however it emerged, and hear the sound of light traffic along the road.
“Nice place,” Tim said, looking around. “Okay, so where do you want to go?”
“Um…”
“Just pick any place, you can see them all.”
“Well, okay… Tara,” I blurted, of all possible things.
“I’ve never been there,” Tim said. “What would it look like?”
All at once we were there, standing on the wine colored carpet sweeping through the foyer and up the grand staircase of the fictional plantation mansion. Crystal chandeliers tinkled softly in a gentle spring breeze that stroked the plush green velvet curtains of the parlor, carrying the sweet afternoon scents of magnolia, apple blossom, and fresh-cut lawn. With our heads turning, we walked out to the portico with its whitewashed columns and made our way to the rail fence over which Gerald O’Hara leaped but never returned, then under a giant sycamore, through the gardens and back onto the sun-drenched veranda. We examined the dining room, with its sparkling tea service and glassware, and the study lined with Farmer’s Almanacs, English poetry, and some French volumes. It didn’t matter that Tara had been only a description in a novel or a set in a movie any more than it mattered to readers of the book or audiences in the theaters. Nor did it matter that I could not remember the details as they appeared in the book or on the film: my mind instantly provided what I expected to see, feel, and smell, extrapolating outward from memory. I was panting when we reached the top of the stairs, and felt a very real stab of pain when I banged my shin into the corner of a dry sink, proving that we were not wandering through a mere illusion. Everything was in its place, except Rhett and Scarlet. I bounced on her bed, giggling uncontrollably, intoxicated by the dream turned reality. Tim had never read the book nor seen the movie and did not share my enthusiasm, but I dragged him through each room anyway like a star-struck movie studio guide: “And this is where she shot that Union scoundrel,” I squealed. “And this is where Rhett left her.”
We went back into the parlor; Tim sat down on the formal sofa, bored and unimpressed with the mansion, but amused by my first giddy moments at the controls of such magical powers to re-create it. I admired the porcelain figurines on the shelves and stopped to examine a miniature ship in a bottle on the fireplace mantel. As quickly as my mind recognized the ship, my thoughts replaced the plantation with ocean, and the mansion with masts and hull. Suddenly, we were deposited onto the deck of a sixteenth-century caravel on the high seas, and Tim was all enthusiasm. She was leaning-to in rough weather off the coast of a Caribbean island; there we were, dressed in our business attire like a pair of farcical bare-boat charterers. The caravel rolled sharply to port, forcing us to claw our way on hands and knees toward the starboard rail through a drenching saltwater spray; we kicked off our shoes to gain better hold of the slimy oak decking. With the next wave the ship listed heavily starboard, sending us scrambling back across the deck for the port rail. Despite the battering, the ship carried full sails on the foremast, main, and missen, and the tattered red and gold stripes of Spain. The deck was deserted. I made my way to the wheel to bring the ship under control and Tim went for the rigging to bring in the sails. He found a hatchet and cut loose the yards, sending the beams, ropes, and sails plummeting to the deck with a tremendous thud. With the reduction in wind power, the rudder responded and I was able to steer a course directly into the waves, stabilizing the ship. Tim made his way back to the transom over the heaps of canvas and rope littering the deck. He was dripping wet by the time I saw him, the long locks of his dark brown hair matted to his forehead in jagged inky stripes, his shirt, pants, and suspenders torn almost to tatters and his round glasses lost to the sea.