Illustration by Randy Asplund

"There’s a timelessness about this place," Jeff said. Antique gardens always had a special attraction for Laura and him–perhaps because it reminded them of that night long ago, in Wave Hill across from the Palisades, in the 1960s.

Laura just smiled. They entered a room with a skylight dome, slightly cloudy and cracked now with age. A keen blue sky shone through anyway.

Jeff breathed in the honeysuckle and looked at the dome. "Hard to believe it’s finally up there again," he said. "They took their time."

"They had to be careful," Laura said. "The Discovery has to fly a successful mission. It was worth the thirty-two-month wait. It’ll deploy its communications satellite and come back home with its crew safe and sound. And the space program will slowly recover."

Jeff shuddered. He recalled the last launch they’d seen–the Challenger. They hadn’t the heart to see this one launch in person. And they had tried to stay far away from the space program after the Challenger–let the world take its natural course, the course Laura remembered. That was the best way to get back on track in space.

"There are some nasty things coming up soon that I’d like to stop," Jeff said. "The Pan Am plane blowing up over Scotland is the worst, I think–that’s due to happen right before Christmas–but I guess we have no choice but to leave well enough alone for the sake of the space program. At least 1989 looks to be a pretty good year."

"Yeah," Laura said, patting her belly and smiling. "I’d say a very good year." She was six weeks pregnant with Jeff’s child.

"It’ll be a good year to be born," Jeff said, and pulled Laura close for a gentle hug. "Berlin Wall comes down, beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. Not the greatest for space–though that should be OK now with the US program in gear again. But a good year for freedom."

"Don’t be so sure about the Soviet Union," Laura said. "Andropov’s a pretty tough customer."

"Loser." Laura shut off the television. "His voice is like–what’s that numbing stuff the dentist gave me last year?–novocaine." Michael Dukakis had just been talking about the economy.

"He’s the least of our problems," Jeff said. He had just returned from a long microfiche session at the NYU Bobst Library.

"Don’t worry, honey," Laura said and kissed him. "They’ll have it all up online in the next decade or two."

"Right," Jeff said. "But that’s not what I’m worried about. I checked the newspapers almost day by day. Brezhnev dies all right on November 10, 1982, and Andropov succeeds him. And that’s it! In my timeline, Andropov dropped dead in 1984, some old guy Chernenko took over, he kicked the bucket in 1985, and Gorbachev’s in–with glasnost, perestroika, the end of the Cold War. It’s in every mirrorim-book in every school."

Laura shook her head. "None of that at all where I come from. The Soviet Union’s still going strong a hundred years from now. They play a major role in the space program in the twenty-first century–"

"How could I have missed that?" Jeff barely heard her. "I mean, I’ve just been assuming these past few years that Gorbachev was in power . . ."

"You weren’t here during that crucial time," Laura said. "Remember? You took Landry’s damned device straight from 1972 to 1986."

There always was an edge in Laura’s voice when she spoke of that, and Jeff couldn’t blame her. He had left her alone for fourteen years, living through realtime the hard way, while he had made that desperate attempt to get himself on board the Challenger. He had been willing to sacrifice his very life for the space program . . . The space program . . . was that truly the only thing that mattered in this world?

"And after the Challenger, you were still thinking day and night about the space program," Laura said, almost reading his thoughts like she always did. "You still think about it day and night."

"Did the Soviet Union do . . . much damage in your twenty-first century?" Jeff asked.

Laura made a face. "Not so much the Soviet Union. But, yeah, a few of its client states, especially in the North Atlantic dome."

George G. Landry walked along the beach, and squinted at the dawning sky.

"So quiet, so clear," his companion said, a woman with carbon hair and violet eyes, in her early twenties. "Hard to believe a hurricane’s roaring up the coast–they say it’ll hit us here on the Cape in a couple of hours."

"There’s a storm roaring through the Soviet Union right now," Landry said. "Much worse than a hurricane. Human backlash . . . They say it could wash away everything that we’ve worked for."

Karina put a toe in the water. "Warm as a bath," she said. "There’s nothing you can do about Moscow now. It’s out of your hands. We’d better get back to the cottage and start boarding up the windows–Hurricane Bob could blast it to pieces."

"Yep, out of my hands," Landry said. "Pity you can’t board up timelines as easily as windows."

"Well, you’ve done more than most," Karina said. She took his hand and steered him back in the direction of their little cottage on the bay. "And all of this may yet turn out your way anyway."

"Hey, folks," a man called down from a cottage near theirs. "Gonna be a nasty one–I’d get out of here to a shelter if I were you. The Brewster Elementary School has one–and I believe Ocean Edge is taking people in."

"Thanks, Gil," Karina shouted back. "I see you and Chris got most of your rentals boarded up already."

"Ya," Gil answered. "This one’s gonna be one to remember–the hurricane of August 19, 1991."

Sam McKenna had aged remarkably well in the past sixteen years, Jeff thought–though not as well as Jeff had appeared to age, of course, because in fact Jeff had only aged two years, from 1986 to 1988, having travelled instantly from 1972 to 1986 courtesy of Landry and his fast track to the future.

Sam had apparently accepted Jeff and his story when he’d reappeared after the Challenger explosion–the corrected but still tragic explosion, the one that didn’t veer off course and take out that schoolhouse in Miami–because professors after all were like that, known for their penchant to suddenly take a special last-minute appointment in some other part of the country, even the world, that started for a year but grew into a decade or more. At least, that’s what Jeff assumed Sam believed. For all Jeff knew, Sam really thought he was a madman and was just humoring him. But that was OK too.

Sam certainly always played along with Jeff as he spun out what must have seemed to Sam to be wild what-if scenarios . . . What if Nixon had nuked Cambodia, what if the space program had died a total death in 1986 . . .

Now Jeff sat on a bench with Sam in Washington Square Park–not far from where Jeff had first hustled into the past, to November 1963, all those years ago–and spoke of a new what-if, of a Soviet Union headed towards disintegration and freedom, of a dictator named Gorbachev who paradoxically used his totalitarian powers to order his society to be more open, his people to be more democratic. And of a people who once so charged removed that totalitarian system, including its benevolent dictator, altogether . . .

"And this revolution proceeded without a hitch?" Sam asked. He was a political scientist, so this scenario was catnip for him.

"Well, nothing in this world proceeds without a hitch," Jeff replied. "You know that. But this one unfolds pretty smoothly–the only serious threat crops up about two and a half years from now, in the summer of 1991, when the hardliners stage a brief coup against the liberating dictator."

"Against Garbage . . . chef?"

"G O R B A C H E V," Jeff spelled out the name. "Gorbachev–though, if I remember correctly, it was pronounced something like Gahr-bah-chawf."

"If you remember correctly?" Sam asked, and laughed.

Jeff returned the laugh. "Well, I really get caught up in these alternate history scenarios–"

"Right, you’re a regular Man in the High Castle," Sam said. "You oughta write some of this stuff up. But OK–what do you see as the result of this hypothetical coup against this hypothetical self-effacing dictator?"

"In the reality I’m sketching, it fails."

"Hmm . . . OK, so there’s your access point," Sam said. "You remember the article I had in the Atlantic Monthly last year–‘Other Choices’?"

"Yeah . . ."

"Well, its thesis is that people with clear agendas and some kind of power do best not to stage a revolution themselves, but wait until a time of turmoil–when someone else has incurred the great start-up risks of getting the turmoil underway–and then strike. In fact, that’s how the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia in the first place–riding on the coattails of the democratic revolution against the Czar."

"And the relevance of this to the failed coup against Gorbachev in my alternate history would be?" Jeff pressed.

"Obvious," Sam said. "If there’s some sort of coup against Andropov in 1991 in our current reality, that’s the time to get rid of Andropov and install Gorbachev. The Soviet Union turns out just the way you want, except a few years later."

"Right," Jeff said. "But how can we know if there’ll even be a coup against Andropov?"

"We can’t," Sam replied. "But I know someone who might know–Yelena Grinko. She used to be Professor of Philosophy in Minsk–she has the Soviet political climate down pat. She’ll be in New York next month. Shall I arrange a meeting?"

Jeff nodded, and thought: the last friend of yours that you arranged for me to meet was George G. Landry.

"Dammit, I can barely hear you." Landry pulled the phone away from his ear, and shook it. "Damn Soviet Union–I’d have a clearer connection to Mars."

"Take it easy, honey," Karina said. "It’s the Cape Cod service–full of static in the best of times." She stroked his shoulder.

Landry turned his attention back to the phone. "Yeah, that’s a little better. No, I’m not in the car–we’ve got bad weather here, and the car phone is useless. I’m in the basement of some school. No, no point in my giving you the number–I don’t know how long we’ll be here–"

"Excuse me, sir. Will you be on much longer? One of the campers needs to make a call–"

Landry started to curse–

Karina overrode him. "He’ll be off in a minute," she said, soothingly. "It’s a business emergency."

"OK," the woman said. "I’ll come back in five minutes. Please have him off by then. Otherwise–"

"Absolutely," Karina said. "I promise."

"OK," the woman said. She gave Landry a glare, then strode away.

"Nothing like a counselor who takes her campers’ needs to heart," Karina remarked.

Landry was straining to hear what was coming through the phone. "OK, you got him, good. Right. That’s good. OK. No, no–you don’t do a thing to him until you get the word from me."

* * *

"The Soviet Union is a sick country–we suffer from an illness, an illness of the mind, that was introduced into our country more than seventy years ago. That’s what you must remember when you deal with us–you are dealing with a society not in its right mind." Yelena Grinko ended her talk to a round of sustained, impressed applause.

"She’s got a pair on her," Jeff said over clapping hands to Sam, who had just returned from the bathroom. "To talk like that and not be worried about retribution back home."

"She’s not going back home," Sam said. "Her dream is to land a job in a philosophy department over here. That’s what every Russian academic in America wants."

They left the auditorium in Tisch Hall, and adjourned to Gavin’s. "One thing I can say about NYU," Sam said, "the food’s a lot more exotic than up at City College. Too bad Laura couldn’t join us."

"Well, her taste in food is changing," Jeff said. "But you used to love the soul food up in Harlem."

"I did, but it always laid heavy the next morning."

"You sound like my great-great-grandmother," Jeff said.

Yelena joined them a few minutes later. Sam made the introductions.

"That was a courageous speech you gave," Jeff said.

Yelena smiled over her menu. "I deconstruct my country."

"I’ll have the escargots to start," Sam said.

Yelena frowned. "I had them with Derrida in Paris last May–they gave me, how do you call it, the hives . . . "

"Try the shrimp," Jeff said. "They’re delicious."

"Yes," Yelena said, "they’re very fresh. I had them here last time."

"So do you see any chance for improvement in your country?" Jeff asked, as the waiter scurried away with the orders, not a single one for a main course with a backbone.

"No, I’m pessimistic," Yelena said. "Andropov is a very ruthless man–far brighter than Brezhnev. He’s consolidated his power in the past seven years."

"And the stirrings in Poland? And Hungary?" Jeff asked.

"Andropov will crush them." She shattered a breadstick on the table. "Just like he did in East Germany last year."

Jeff sighed, shook his head.

"You see, Yelena," Sam said, "my friend has an idea that there’s a new regime under the surface in the Soviet Union–that somehow something in your recent history went wrong to suppress it, but that maybe there’ll be a chance in a few years to get it on course again."

Yelena looked puzzled, then laughed. She turned to Jeff. "Ah, you are a science fiction writer then–like Isaac Asimov! He was born in Russia, you know."

"Yeah, I know," Jeff said.

Yelena put her hand on his. "I’m only making a joke at your expense, forgive me." She smiled, then grew very serious. "But, you see, there is nothing bubbling under the surface in my country now, except for more illness. Even if there was a revolution tomorrow, no one would know what to do. My people are all quite happy being children."

"No talk at all of openness, of a new vision?" Jeff asked.

"A new openness? You mean glasnost? Shevardnadze talked about glasnost during his leadership of free Georgia in March of 1985, but . . . "

"Andropov ended that and had him killed that September," Sam said.

"Yes." Yelena nodded, gravely. "And I left my country then for the last time, never to return. No, the last chance we had for any freedom was maybe 1982 to 1984, before Andropov fully mastered his office. By the time poor Shevardnadze made his stand in Georgia in 1985, it was already too late."

* * *

"God damn you! I’m almost five months pregnant! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?" Laura turned away in a fury.

"Of course it does," Jeff replied. "It’s just–"

"Just what?" Laura whirled around. Her eyes were brimming with tears. "It’s always something with you, isn’t it. You think you can change the world, perfect it to your ideals. Don’t you get it yet? Haven’t you learned anything in all of these years? Nothing in this insane loop of a universe we’re in ever turns out the way we plan it. If were lucky, very lucky, maybe we find we’re in the right place at the right time, and somehow tip the balance in our favor."

"We tipped the balance in favor of a Challenger explosion that didn’t destroy the space program," Jeff said. "Actually, I tipped nothing–you tipped the balance–"

"That’s what you wanted! That’s what we wanted, remember?"

"Yes," Jeff said. "That’s what we wanted. A world in which space exploration had some chance in the twenty-first century. The world you knew. The world I wanted. But what I didn’t know was that that world was somehow tied to the Soviet Union continuing on into the twenty-first century. I didn’t want that world–it may be too much of a price to pay."

"Maybe the Soviet Union is necessary to keep humanity in space in the twenty-first century and after," Laura said. "You can’t know that it isn’t. Maybe it is–after all, Sputnik and Gagarin and the Soviet Union started it all in the first place. And before that, Hitler and the V2s. Those origins are the same in both of our realities. Maybe space needs some kind of totalitarian hand to help push it forward."

"No." Jeff shook his head. "I can’t accept that. We’ve got to try for something better–the best of both of our realities. A vibrant space program in the twenty-first century and a world free of sick dictatorships. You should have heard Yelena Grinko–"

"I don’t give a damn about Gringo," Laura said. "You can’t just splice two different realities together like they were a piece of tape."

"I can’t just leave the world like this," Jeff said.

"How do you propose to get back there? Landry’s vanished, his Western Coordinating Sciences Institute’s been replaced by some sort of online psych center. Even if you went back in time, you don’t speak a word of Russian–you’d be arrested as a spy and sent to some frozen gulag hell the minute you set foot in Moscow."

"I know. I haven’t figured it all out yet. Yelena has some ideas–"

Laura stalked out of the room. Then she stalked back in.

"You want the best of both of our realities–here she is." She pulled Jeff’s hand, and put it against her midsection.

Jeff kept his hand there. Then he got down on his knees, and put his ear to the same place. Amnio had told them just last week that their baby was genetically fine–at least, according to the dim lights of twentieth-century science–and she was a girl.

"I love you," Jeff said softly, to Laura and the baby.

"I don’t like conducting business this way. Strangers all around us, I feel like someone’s listening to my every word, it’s absurd." Landry looked fitfully around the hall.

Karina followed his gaze, stopping on a nearby couple. "That guy’s hand is halfway up her shorts–they couldn’t care less about our business."

"All it takes is one–one person, one act, one word at the wrong time–and what we set in motion will be as out of control as this hurricane. This place is way too public."

"The hurricane is precisely the reason we’re stuck here now," Karina said.

"It wasn’t here the last time," Landry said.

"Weather patterns are even less predictable than people–you say so yourself in the primer–"

"OK folks," a voice boomed down the hall. "I think it’s safe to go home now. Watch out for fallen trees and downed wires. It’s a real mess out there. Bob took his toll."

Landry and Karina eventually made it to their car, and on to Route 6A.

"Jeez," Landry said, as they turned onto Ellis Landing Road. A huge locust tree was on top of the pretty yellow cottage on the corner, crushed now in the center like a piece of rotten cake. The road around it looked like the floor of some insane giant’s barbershop, strewn with cuttings and clippings and trees pulled out by the roots.

They made their way through the debris. "Our cottage looks OK." Karina pointed to the "Sea Piper" silhouetted at the end of the road against the bay.

"So far, so good," Landry said.

But on closer inspection, the view was less promising. A thick branch had taken out their overhead phone wire, and they discovered once they were inside that their electricity was gone.

"I thought I heard someone at the school say that they were shutting off the power for this whole part of the Cape," Karina said, as they settled in and took stock. "As a safety measure, until the central cables are repaired." She handed Landry a glass of chablis.

He sipped slowly, said nothing.

"Well, it is romantic in a way," Karina said, lighting a hurricane lamp. "Food in the fridge will definitely be good this evening. If we don’t open the door too often, most of it should still be OK in the morning."

"I’m more concerned at this point with food for thought," Landry said, scowling. "I can’t command the situation if I have no information." He sat down on the couch and began fiddling with the small transistor radio he’d taken out of the bathroom. "Nothing but static and more bullshit about the hurricane," he said.

"Well, keep trying," Karina said, and pushed over a stool so she could reach the top cabinet. "I’m pretty sure I saw another kerosene lamp up here somewhere . . ."

"Ah, wait a minute," Landry said. "Here’s something–"

"–no further word as yet on the fate of the Soviet Premier," a crackling voice on the radio intoned, "though the BBC says–"

Someone rapped sharply on the front door.

"Looks like some kids from the school," Karina said. "Maybe we left something there . . ."

She opened the door.

She saw a fist.

But instead of hitting the door it veered towards her face . . .

Her head throbbed, her stomach ached, her eyes felt like broken glass . . .

She lifted herself up slowly from the floor. Across the room, a bunch of people were around Landry, slapping him around, talking angrily–in Russian. They all had their backs to her, except Landry. One had a knife . . .

Landry caught her eye for a second, and gave her a signal, a subtle signal, but as clear as day for her. It said: get the hell out of here.

"You idiots," Landry said loudly, perhaps to distract their guests. "You can’t do anything to influence events over there by beating on me here. Everything’s already in motion–"

Karina bolted out of the door. Her only chance for escape was the beach, which stretched for miles in either direction, with houses aplenty, at the bottom of their long flight of stairs.

But a big ugly man was on top of the stairs, blocking her egress, turning slowly around now to face her–

She rushed towards him, shoved him with all of her might, before he had turned fully around. She caught him off balance, and he fell, startled, backwards, down the weathered wooden stairs.

His head hit the big rock that served as the stepping stone at the foot of the stairs, making a sound like the cantaloupe that had slipped off the seat of the car onto the pavement last week . . . Karina stepped over the rock and the head, and ran in the direction of Orleans on the sand.

She ran and ran. The beach felt crusty under her feet, sand half baked in the sun that had prevailed after the hurricane. It was easy to run on . . .

She looked behind her several times. Not a soul on the beach–unless she counted the terns and sandpipers.

Finally she saw the cottage–set off on a rise, about a quarter mile past the old Linger Longer by the Sea resort. The bleached grey cottage was their fallback place, George had said, in case anything went wrong.

She’d never been here before, but now she’d have to trust her fate to the people within. A nice couple with a little boy, as she recalled. And an old grandmother, named Sarah.

"Late Lessons" copyright 1999, Paul Levinson