FOR THOSE WHO MIGHT ENJOY A TIME-SLIP NOVEL

WHERE FORTUNE LIES

On a Cliff and Out of Time

Dory stood very still when she heard the rushing beat of the hooves. The night fog fitted over her like a glove, so she could see nothing at first—not even the edge of the cliff, which was just a few feet away. Shouts seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Then, a smudge of light appeared seemingly suspended in the air. The light swayed and bobbed and quickly grew. Suddenly the heat struck her, deprived her of breath, and out of the fog the horses erupted wild with panic pulling the wagon in flames. One horseman pursued, then two, then three, their faces distorted by rage.

She retreated a step, wanting to hide in the fog, wrap it around her, layer after layer, like thick gray curtains. The terrorized beasts, trying to escape the burning wagon harnessed to them, reared at the edge of the cliff, but it was too late and they went over. The first rider desperately reined his horse back from the chasm. That final fragment of a second, in the light of the receding flames, Dory glimpsed a man kneeling on the brink, either putting down or picking up an object. She closed her fists, pressed her arms to her chest, shivering as it all vanished.

The Child in the City of Lights

“You’re a hopeless little beggar.” Penny winced while her mother roughly examined her hands, squeezing them hard before letting go. “Your fingernails are as filthy as sin. Didn’t I tell you to scrub them?”

“Where are we going today, Mama?” Penny asked, fumbling for the glasses in the pocket of her dress so she could see what upset her mother. She pushed the glasses hard into her face, hoping they would stay. The world was clearer now, although smudgy clouds still remained where her fingers had touched the lenses. They were riding in a coach along a muddy road lined with a collection of wattle and thatched houses. She looked down at her fingernails.  She had no idea how they became so dirty.

The coachman turned and asked Penny’s mother a question in a funny language. When her mother answered in the same funny language, he wrinkled his brow and shrugged his shoulders.

“Where are we going, Mama?” Penny asked again.

“Remember the nice man we met at the hotel, Monsieur Girard? He runs a special school for little girls here in Paris. Monsieur Girard is a very great man. I want you to behave for him.” Her mother smiled and mechanically patted Penny’s knee.

Penny did remember Monsieur Girard—mostly his large cold hands. She thought he must have dipped his hands in a bucket of ice water before he lay them on her cheeks. “I don’t want to go to his school.”

“It’s an honor to attend his school and be taught how to speak French and comport yourself like a little lady.”

Penny knew better to say that she didn’t care about speaking the funny language and didn’t want to be a lady, little or big. She had hoped Monsieur Girard intended to marry her mother because everyone said her mother was beautiful. Maybe, if mother married, she wouldn’t be so bad-tempered all the time and say angry things that didn’t make sense. Penny could endure Monsieur Girard’s ice-water-bucket hands if he made mother feel better.

They stopped. Penny wiped off her glasses again with her sleeve and peered closely at her surroundings. “This doesn’t look like a nice place,” she said staring at a hut with a gray mud-splattered curtain hanging across an open door.

“No, this is not a nice place. I told Monsieur Girard that you were an impossible little girl, and he told me to bring you here so you can see what happens to impossible little girls when they disobey.”

Penny hoped her mother was wrong. The people walking around didn’t look mean, although their clothes were ragged and many went barefoot. They were lucky they weren’t her mother’s children. Mother used a switch whenever she caught Penny barefoot.

“Does Monsieur Girard like you?” Penny asked hopefully.

Mother pinched both of Penny’s cheeks painfully. “Monsieur Girard likes little girls with pink cheeks.”

They got out of the coach. A woman with henna-dyed hair, triple chins and arms splotched with a purple skin rash pulled aside the curtain at the door and curtsied to them.

“Now you be a good girl and wait with this nice lady,” her mother said. “I’ll return later.”

“I don’t like this nice lady,” Penny forcefully declared.

“Don’t worry, silly girl. Monsieur Girard will be here soon. After he teaches you how to behave, you’ll have your own very special outing with him to his school.”

“I don’t want to have a special outing with him. Monsieur Girard speaks funny, so I don’t know what he says.” Penny saw through the clouds on her glasses the raised hand of her mother. She quickly took her glasses off and put them in her pocket again so they wouldn’t be knocked somewhere difficult to find. Miraculously, the hand didn’t fall on her.

“Monsieur Girard speaks French. If you are a good girl, he will teach you to also speak French. If you are not, then he will first teach you how to be a good girl.”

Her mother couldn’t fool her. This was all wrong. Penny did not care how much her mother hit her, she wasn’t going to stay here. The triple-chinned woman restrained Penny by the shoulders when her mother left, receiving several kicks for her trouble. The triple-chinned woman probably expected Penny to stop wriggling, which Penny’s mother could have informed her wasn’t going to happen. And her captor obviously didn’t anticipate the glass-shattering shriek that Penny’s lungs could keep up for a very long time. Being a practical soul, the woman ended up tying and gagging Penny, slapping and pinching her cruelly in the process.

Monsieur Girard arrived just as Penny had hurled herself to the ground and was trying to roll out of the hut. He had a brief conversation with the woman that seemed to be about the advisability of untying her.

“N’est pas possible,” he said, ending the discussion, and pushed his broad flushed face into Penny’s. “Ma petite chérie,” he whispered in a growly voice as his large cold hands undid the gag and unknotted the cords.

Penny sprang out of his grip like a jackrabbit and sprinted through the door. She bit the coachman who momentarily snagged her by the dress and then tore down the muddy road. The chickens squawked out of her way. A dog joined the chase. She slipped three times in puddles, covering herself from head to toe in mud and earning a fortnight’s worth of switchings. The coachman got hold of her again, but she was now so slippery with the filth from the road that she was able to slither free. Monsieur Girard snagged Penny by her long hair and reeled her in. He lifted her up and held her at arm’s length to avoid her furious kicks.

When Penny started screaming and calling for help, Monsieur Girard responded by shaking her as if he wanted to break her in half. Then he stopped although his grip tightened. Penny felt a presence loom up behind her and heard a deep voice intone, “Why were you running away, little girl?”

“I don’t like these people,” Penny wailed, trying to turn her head and get a look at the man with the deep voice.

“Ma fille,” Monsieur Girard snarled.

“If she is your daughter, tell me in English,” the voice commanded.

Monsieur Girard started to speak, but suddenly that was interrupted by a loud crack as a cane descended heavily on his arm. He dropped Penny, and she scampered behind the tall well-dressed black man who now stood as impenetrable as a fortress wall between her and Monsieur Girard and the coachman.

What To Do?

Franklin raised his cane again. The man inched backward, and with a flush of high indignation and a flood of curses, claimed he was the director of a school for young ladies, and that the little girl hiding behind his leg and pressing her wet face into his mid-thigh was his charge.

“You have the look and manners of a pimp,” Franklin muttered in English, then repeated the accusation loudly in French. “Where is your school?” Franklin demanded.

The now purple-faced Monsieur Girard gave an address.

“I have walked down that street a dozen times, and I’ve seen nothing which could be mistaken as a school for young ladies there,” Franklin said coldly, although he did vaguely recall glimpsing in that neighborhood behind a rod-iron fence a half dozen shivering sad children in a yard. “However if you insist this girl is your charge, I’ll accompany the young mademoiselle to your school.”

Monsieur Girard seemed about to reply, but instead, he snarled, shook his head in disgust and retreated into his coach.

For a minute, the little girl’s chest heaved with more sobs, then she quieted, nuzzling the now moist spot on Franklin’s trousers. Franklin turned and knelt in order to look more directly at the child. He took out his handkerchief and wiped off her face and dress the best he could.

She had an odd appearance. Light freckles reached all away around her face, except for a small splotch of discoloration on her chin. Ears stood out at an angle as if they were making an effort to listen. Her hair, more golden than blond, fell untidily on her shoulders. And there was something about her eyes he couldn’t quite put his finger on, that is until she tried to clasp his cheeks between her small hands and bring his face closer to hers. He resisted, of course, so she fumbled in a pocket of her dress and produced a pair of spectacles with lenses three-quarters of an inch thick. She pushed the spectacles against her forehead—her nose was too small to serve as a bridge for anything—and peered again with huge blue eyes that seemed to swim in the glass of the lenses.

“What’s your name?” Franklin asked.

“Penny,” she replied and hiccupped.

Franklin wanted to say something that would make the child feel better: “Bright as a penny,” he said, feeling foolish mouthing such a mundane phrase.

“No, Penny,” She corrected.

“Where do you live, Penny?”

“Hotel,” she replied slowly.

“Which hotel?” Franklin asked.

There was a sniffle, the wiping of a forearm across her nose, a blank stare followed by a smile. “Big hotel.”

“Does the big hotel have a name?”

She wiped her nose again, frowned, and then her face lighted up with comprehension. “Hotel name is Otel.”

“What did the hotel look like?” Franklin realized that this was a hopeless question as soon as he asked it.

“Many horses. Neigh, neigh, neigh.” Penny laughed.

This wasn’t funny to Franklin. “There are many hotels with horses that neigh. Anything else?”

“Cho-cho-co-late.” She smiled.

Franklin didn’t remember himself being so dim at that age. He saw no other alternative, however, than to play along. “What is your mother’s name?” He asked, praying she wouldn’t reply, “Mommy.”

“Mad-loon.” Penny said.

“Mad loon?”

“No, Mad-o-loon,” she insisted.

“Madeleine!”

“Yes, Mad-loon.”

“What’s your father’s name?”

“Dead.”

At least, that was clear. “What is your name that comes after Penelope?”

“Boller.”

“Penelope Boller. How old are you, Penny Boller?”

She studied her fingers. “Four and a half.”

“Well, Penny, we must find your mother in the hotel with horses and chocolate.”

Her hand found his. Franklin wanted to shake free that tiny encumbrance, but didn’t.

Cabs could not be found in this poor rough neighborhood, so they started walking. Although the child’s mood had brightened considerably, she tired easily. Franklin, thinking the recent struggle with Monsieur Girard and his coachman had exhausted her, picked Penny up. She was light and fitted comfortably into his arms.

When he put her down several blocks later, she said, “Again, please.”

Franklin didn’t like to be told what to do, but after repeating herself eight or nine times in the same sweet voice, he complied. Franklin finally encountered an empty cab. He directed the driver to the Sûreté where he had several acquaintances. In this present dilemma, these acquaintances could be the handiest sort because not only were they policemen, they were policemen who owed him favors for recovering stolen jewelry.  

In an office three stories above street level, Franklin explained the situation to his good friend, Jacques Duval, a portly man whose passions for work and good food had never left him time for family life. Jacques agreed to help, claiming that “La femme américaine” was the easiest creature in Paris to spot because she was either as stiff and awkward as a marionette or spilling out of herself, like soufflé in a too small pot. Even “La femme allemande” was more proper and self-contained.

When Franklin explained to Penny that he was going to leave her with this kind man who was an expert at finding mothers, she ungratefully let loose a wail of surprising volume and unendurable pitch. After a futile effort to soothe the red-faced and quaking child, and trusting Jacques’ assurances that a French policeman, who throughout his career had single-handedly captured dozens of murderers and anarchists, would be able to handle “La fille americaine” with the loud voice, Franklin made his exit, relieved.

Franklin paused on the sidewalk before resuming his day. The screams didn’t cease and then, even more ominously because it showed the last degree of desperation, Jacques began to sing a lullaby. When Franklin returned to collect Penny, the formidable detective surrendered her gratefully and predicted that the child would become the most notorious female criminal in the history of the United States.

Holding his hand again, Penny became serene and cheerful. Franklin took her to a café where she drank three cups of hot chocolate all the while keeping up a cheerful monologue about horses, cats, and dogs. She was very eager to see things, and bent this way and that way, continually pressing the spectacles to the bridge of her nose to get a better look.

Smiling at him, the child then said something apparently nonsensical about “going to the water.” Not put off by Franklin’s lack of understanding, she repeated herself until he realized that she needed to use the latrine. After an embarrassing consultation with the wife of the owner of the café, he solved the problem, or so he thought.

A few blocks later when they were passing another café, which Penny probably deduced by the clinks of the cups and the conversations, she made the same request, and Franklin made the same arrangement. He had to pay this time because the unsympathetic maître’d couldn’t understand why the little girl with the mud-spattered dress couldn’t “faire pipi” in the gutter like other children of her class. After the third latrine stop at one of the most fashionable cafes in Paris, Franklin decided he had had enough. The cheerful child seemed more interested in cups of hot chocolate than in getting back to her mother. If he was ever to rid himself of her, he had to act with dispatch. When Penny requested chocolate again, he bought a baguette, which she was happy to munch and had the beneficial result of keeping her mouth busy.

Franklin hailed another cab, promised the driver a week’s takings if they were successful at finding the child’s mother. They started with hotels that catered to well-heeled foreign clientele. Franklin was fortunate in that, at the fourth stop, the concierge recognized Penny. He was surprised to see the child because Madame Boller had left for the train station an hour before. Her luggage had been forwarded to Calais, so he believed she was planning to cross the channel.

When they set off in another cab at breakneck speed to the train station, Penny yelped with delight and continued to do so between bites of the soggy baguette. The train to Calais was beginning to pull away, so Franklin had to board it at a sprint with Penny and her baguette tucked under his arm. He paid the conductor for the tickets and explained that he was delivering this little girl to her mother. The description of Mad Loon which he had gotten from the concierge—black hair, thirty or so, attractive, tall—drew a blank response. Then Franklin added that she was “américaine.”  

When there was no response to the calls and knocks on the door of the compartment of Penny’s mother, Franklin gave the conductor a fifty-franc note and asked him why the latch hadn’t been fixed. The conductor winked and said he would bring some tools to repair it immediately. As soon as he was out of sight, Franklin applied a resolute knee and shoulder to the door.

Inside, he found the woman who fit the description of Mrs. Boller leaning her head back as if asleep. That she could have slept through the noise of her compartment door being broken open seemed beyond improbable. Penny was now clutching two fingers of his hand very tightly.

“Madame!” Franklin shouted and received not a flicker of a response. He touched her on the shoulder. The eyes opened languorously, anger slowly welling up out of them, ugliness spreading over her beautiful features.

“Why, Penelope, what are you doing with this stranger?” Her voice seemed far away. “Didn’t I tell you to stay with Monsieur Girard who was going to teach you how to be a proper young lady?” She then started to address Franklin in French, “Monsieur, je ne…

Franklin interrupted in English. “Where did you find this Monsieur Girard, Mrs. Boller? He runs no school worthy of the name.”

Mrs. Boller’s lips pursed in disapproval as she ran clawed fingers through her daughter’s tangled hair. “What are you implying, sir? I was informed that Monsieur Girard’s establishment was of the highest caliber.”

“Did you visit the place, madam?”

Mrs. Boller’s eyes narrowed and shifted. “Well, I did not have the time, sir, yet I’m sure this is a terrible misunderstanding on your part. Bringing Penny here has caused me no end of trouble. Furthermore, since when can an African invade the compartment of a lady?”

“Be more careful, madam, the next time you choose a school for your daughter. You would not want to put her in harm’s way.”

“Harm’s way? Me put my daughter into harm’s way?” She clasped her hands to her chest and swayed. Franklin saw clearly now the drug induced illness in her features. “This is simply too much for a mother to bear. Leave my compartment, sir, or I’ll have the conductor throw you off the train for insulting and threatening me.”

Franklin bowed his head and started to exit. Job done. Was it his responsibility to tell this mother how to treat her daughter? Of course not, he told himself. However, he couldn’t erase from his thoughts the puffy face of Monsieur Girard. He believed each kind of vice makes a special imprint on its possessor’s features—and Girard’s imprint was especially disturbing considering the profession he had claimed. Franklin turned towards Mrs. Boller again. “I repeat: do not put your daughter in harm’s way. Good-bye, Penny.”

“Bright as a Penny,” she sang, pressing her glasses to her face and squinting at him.

Franklin went to the dining car and ordered a cup of chocolate for Penny.

When he returned to Paris, Franklin visited the hotel, out of curiosity he told himself, and obtained the address of Madeleine and Penelope Boller. Although the town of Solvidado in the state of California wasn’t the ends of the earth, it was certainly an out-of-the-way corner. In any event, he would never return to the land where he had spent the first decade of his life as a slave. Although they had fought a war, he was skeptical that the heart of that sprawling nation had changed.

Franklin then went to his rooms. He was a man of quiet habitual enjoyments such as long walks or delving into scientific journals. He had looked forward to replying to a German geologist on the subject of the formation of diamonds, but he discovered that he didn’t have the taste for correspondence at the moment. He considered going to the theatre, which he normally avoided.

Instead, he visited Monsieur Jerome Landau, the man who had helped him start his career as a dealer in gems. Landau now lived with his daughter in a comfortable room with a view of the Champs d’Elysée. Landau had good days when his worldly humor was as sharp as ever and bad days, now more frequent, when his eyes seemed like those of a child lost in a crowd.

This evening, Landau was gazing out of the window at the city lights disappearing into a bank of fog. Franklin couldn’t discern his state of mind at first. When Landau became aware of Franklin’s presence and looked up at him, his gaze was unfocused. Then a glimmer shone through. He studied Franklin further, his face lighting up. “Ah, finally an affair of the heart?”

“No,” Franklin said, surprised that the comment gave him a sense of unease. “Not at all.”

“Then is it worth talking about?”