A Handful of Time (2 page)

“Well, never mind the theory then. The point is, the machine is all built and we need someone to test it.”

“I understand,” Mercedes quivered. “It’s dangerous. No one would
willingly
risk their neck…”

“No, no. Not at all dangerous. Whether it works or not the machine itself is perfectly safe.”

“Then why me? Why not you? Or father? Or anyone at all except me?”

“For a very good reason. The machine requires three people, two to work it from this end, and the subject who travels. No one can work it but Jack and me. Anyone, of course, could be the traveler, but we’re afraid to get anyone else in on it. You were entirely Jack’s idea. It would keep the experiment in the family.”

Mercedes glowered at him and reached for the bell pull. “I
won’t
go.”

“Wait!” Kim caught her hand. He gazed into her eyes with all the sincerity of three summers with the Little Theatre. “You’re a terribly attractive woman, you know.”

Mercedes let her hand fall. There was a certain brute honesty about the man.

Kim lit a cigarette and threw the match into the rose-patterned hand-stenciled sewing box. “For a woman of your taste and intelligence this offers an unparalleled opportunity. I imagine, just as an offhand guess, that you would enjoy a trip back to the time of King Victoria the Great.”

Mercedes winced.

Kim laughed at himself. “Queen, I mean, of course. Good Queen Victoria. For one of your temperament…”

“You misinterpret my character entirely,” Mercedes replied. It was her turn to lean forward interestedly. “I am, of course, a devotee and advocate of the neo-Victorian revival, for reasons which someone of your class couldn’t
possibly
understand. My real interests, however, lie deeper. Much deeper. I am a Graecophile.” She paused triumphantly, expecting him at last to cower before the Grandeur of her Interests.

“You like Greeks?” he asked innocently.

“Ancient
Greeks, you ninny,” she shouted and, like someone (probably Prometheus) suddenly released, she threw the paperweight. It missed him and demolished an innocent shepherdess. Recovering herself slightly, she tossed the heavy, leather bound, antiqued volume of Aristophanes in his lap.
“That’s
what I like.
Intellectual
wit.
Real
art.
Classic
refinement.”

“Naturally,” Kim said. He longed to pull off his loincloth to mop his sweaty brow, but some instinct told him this would not be
de rigeur.
“We can easily send you back to ancient Greece. You’ll go?”

“Of course I’ll go. But then,” she said regretfully, “there’s the matter of the language barrier. I wouldn’t be able to understand a word, or ask for a glass of water or where the ladies’… come to think of it, there might be many complications.”

But Kim was on his feet. “Come,” he said, taking her hand. “Let’s go right now. No use torturing yourself with these doubts. Surely a woman of your Intelligence and Refinement will find a welcome niche in ancient Greek society. The language is the least problem. We’ve got a logophone right in the study and you can take it with you. You won’t just get a translation in time‌—‌you’ll also understand and speak the language as if it were your own.”

When Mercedes materialized in the front row of the Athenian Theatre of Dionysus in the year 416 B.C., during the Greater Dionysia and specifically during the performance of Aristophanes’
Frogs,
she immediately turned on her logophone.

The first thing she heard was an incredibly crude noise, apparently made by one of the actors. “Static,” she thought and blushed anyhow. The crowds about her were roaring with laughter and watching the stage.

The next several lines of dialogue caused Mercedes to turn off her logophone in sheer horror. The flow of obscenity mercifully became a meaningless babble.

She leaned forward myopically to get a better view of the stage because she had forgotten her glasses. This was the flower of Greek drama. The actors were dressed very oddly. They carried the strangest looking objects. Almost like totem poles‌—‌no, they reminded her of something else. Something‌—‌unmentionable.

Huffily arranging the folds of her indignation about her, Mercedes rose to leave.

She made her way up the tiered rows of seats and out onto the slope of the hill. She stood awhile in pensive thought, nursing her disillusion and wishing fervently she had chosen the Lake Poets instead of Aristophanes.

Well, Aristophanes was all washed up as far as
she
was concerned. But then, this was an age full of great names. There were people she should meet and talk to, if she could think of the names. Her mind ground ponderously through Greek Literature in Translation. Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides‌—‌and of course people like Pericles and‌—‌well, others. And why were they all men? There must have been
some
women.

Aspasia‌—‌ah, yes. The wise Aspasia, companion to the noble Pericles and center of a brilliant
salon.
Anyone, Mercedes was sure, would be able to point
her 
out.

As these thoughts flashed upon her inward eye people began to surge out of the theatre. Mercedes turned on her logophone and approached a thinly veiled young woman who was heavily made up and seemed to be chewing vigorously on something.

“Sure, honey,” the girl answered with comradely spirit, “Everybody knows old Aspasia. Come on, I’ll point her out.” The girl began to lead Mercedes toward the other side of the theatre. She stopped, finally, and eyed Mercedes curiously. “You from Crete, honey?”

“No,” Mercedes answered. “I’m from the Future.”

“Refugee from Boeotia,” the girl concluded. “I thought you looked corn-fed. Aspasia’s got a heart as big as a house. She’ll help you out. By the way, my name’s Phye.”

The girl searched the crowds pouring from the theatre. She finally spotted a tall, regal-looking woman dressed in what looked to be a robe of lavender chiffon.

“Aspasia!” Phye shouted. “Here’s someone who wants to see you!” She presented Mercedes. “She’s a refugee. I imagine she wants to be introduced around a little. Either that or to locate in a good House.”

Aspasia smiled affectionately at the girl and turned to Mercedes. “My dear, you’re too
fat
to go around without body bands. And where did you get that
impossible
costume. It doesn’t show a thing!”

Mercedes was, for a moment, speechless. Aspasia did not look nearly so regal on close inspection. She was far on the worst side of fifty. Powder and rouge caked her face and mascara was beginning to edge down her cheeks. Her hair was frankly a screaming yellow and tortured into an impossible intricacy of curls that bounced gleefully as she walked.

“You’re… Aspasia?” Mercedes asked haltingly.

“Sure, honey. You come on home with me for a day and then we’ll see if we can place you.”

It began to dawn on Mercedes that perhaps she was
not
misunderstanding Aspasia. How she wished all this had been Lost in Translation! Still, there would be advantages to being received in Aspasia’s house. They walked in silence for a moment, Aspasia waving to her friends along the way. Finally Mercedes turned to her.

“Would it be possible, do you think, for me to meet your husband, the noble Pericles?” Mercedes’ heart thudded at the mere thought. She missed her sal volatile badly.

Aspasia looked shocked and spoke in a hissing whisper. “Sh, honey. I’m
legally
married now. My husband is terribly jealous of my past. Pericles is dead twelve years this Dionysia. Where have you been?”

Mercedes berated herself for not having read up on history before she came. It would have been so easy to get a few more facts. But Kim had been so masterful and had rushed her into the machine so fast…

“If I told you, Aspasia, you might not believe me.”

“Never mind, dear,” Aspasia said comfortingly, “you’ll look like an Athenian hetaira by the time I’ve finished with you.”

Mercedes was, really, in a state of shock. She kept trying to tell Aspasia, “Really, you know, I’m not that kind of girl.”

And Aspasia would answer, “Either you’re the daughter of an Athenian citizen or you’re not. If you’re not, you’re a working girl and what other sort of work is there? I mean for a woman with any self-respect at all?”

While Aspasia was painting her face with a practiced hand, Mercedes, almost overcome by the smells of various perfumes, put the question that had been uppermost in her mind for some time. “Do you still hold your brilliant
salons?”

Aspasia shook her head in puzzlement. “I used to run a House,” she said, “when I first came here from Miletus. But after I met Pericles‌—‌well, I gave up my career.”

“Then you really were his Intellectual and Spiritual Companion?”

Aspasia put down the tweezers with which she had been plucking Mercedes’ eyebrows. She sat in thought for a moment, and a hint of tears dampened her eyes.

“We used to recline around the tables in the evening, talking the night away and settling the problems of the world. We thought we owned it. For a while, I guess we did. And now look at it!” She sighed, and picked up the tweezers. “Don’t you think the Sicilian Expedition is what we need to put new life into us?”

“Why, I don’t know,” Mercedes answered. It was her turn to be puzzled. “I don’t know anything about war and politics.”

“Don’t know!” Aspasia gasped. “What do you expect to talk to men about? You don’t know anything about the art of politics, the art of war, or even the art of love! What
do
you know?”

“Well,” Mercedes began. She was about to say she was Interested in Greek Culture, but it occurred to her that, considering the ignorance she had displayed thus far, Aspasia might receive this rather rudely.

Aspasia stood up. “Now you’re all painted and dressed and you look very nice if I do say so myself. I don’t like to be unkind, dear, but I think you’d better begin your education from the very basic things. I’ll have a slave take you to the temple of Aphrodite Pandemos. Remember, it’s a sacrilege to refuse yourself to anyone, be he ever so old or ugly. You can’t accept money, of course, but it’s very good practice.”

Mercedes had no intention of hanging around the temple of Aphrodite. However, it was clear that she could expect no more from Aspasia, who had shown her a real, if misguided, kindness. She therefore followed the slave out into the thronged and evil-smelling streets.

As they made their way through the marketplace, she experienced an entirely new and unexpected pleasure. Men, she noted, were staring at her with looks she could only describe as “admiring.” She found herself clutching unconsciously at the neck of her vermilion peplum, which dipped dangerously low. She gasped with surprise and (admit it) some delight when a handsome man with an expensive-looking bracelet on his arm fell into step beside her and began murmuring exaggerated compliments. Life began to take on an entirely new meaning.

They reached the temple of Aphrodite and stood in the shade of a pleasant little grove of trees. The slave left and the young man stood with arms folded, watching her with a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. Mercedes took one look at the drunk sailors and clumsy, embarrassed-looking farmers standing around. She shuddered and turned to her new admirer, who now looked to her like a heaven-sent protector.

“What’s the matter, kitten?” he asked. He had a languid, self-possessed air that reminded Mercedes, with a (no other way to describe it) slight thrill of Kim. “Got cold feet? Can’t say I blame you.”

“I’m cold all over. Oh, I do wish I had my‌—‌” There was no Greek word for it. “Salts,” had entirely the wrong connotation… “I simply don’t know what to do,” she went on, thinking that with her eyebrows plucked she must look rather appealingly helpless.

“I do,” he said with a disarming smile. “You just come along with me and let your sacred obligations go for a while. It happens, by pure luck, that I’m having a little party tonight and we’re short one flute girl.” He took her elbow and guided her along a narrow, winding street.

“I don’t play the flute.”

“Darling, you’re marvellous!”

“But I really don’t. Whatever gave you that idea?”

“Never mind. The flute-playing part always bores me anyhow. Do you want to come home with me now or have my slave come for you tonight?”

Tears trembled on Mercedes’ lashes. “I don’t know where I’d go. I have no home here and I can hardly go home with a complete stranger.”

The young man laughed and hugged her briefly. “Stranger! You really don’t know who I am? I’m Callias!”

“Callias?”

“Son of Hipponicus. Of course everybody and his brother in Athens is named Callias. It’s annoying. But I’m Callias rich as Croesus,
not
Callias the charcoal seller. Zeus, I thought every woman in Athens knew me. My person may pall but my money never fails to fascinate…”

Mercedes spent the afternoon alone in a room in the women’s quarters. It was well furnished with mirrors, cosmetics and unguents, and she spent her time repainting her face. She had drifted far, she realized, from her neo-Victorian principles. But somehow, now, especially in view of her new face in the mirror, the
Bifurcate Review
seemed very far away.

Evening was well under way when the flute girls arrived, swirling in their bright dresses and chattering like a swarm of little tropical birds. Mercedes recognized Phye, her friend from the theatre, and reintroduced herself.

“Darling, Aspasia’s done
wonders
with you. Only
do
try not to talk through your nose.” Phye introduced her around and Mercedes winced at some of the nicknames which were much too obvious to be Lost in Translation.

“You must be for Callias,” a bland-faced little brunette said. She patted Mercedes confidentially. “I had him last. If he’s not carrying a purse get a nice bit of jewelry. He’s stingy when he’s sober.”

Mercedes found this kind of talk distinctly unpleasant. It was becoming too obvious that Callias’ Intentions were not Honorable. She began to wonder wildly when Kim and Jack would translate her back to her own time. In the excitement of being practically pushed into the little telephone booth that was the time machine, she had forgotten to ask.