Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict (4 page)

Anna, who has been watching me with a tight line to her mouth and a little line between her brows, relaxes into a broad smile. She’s actually quite pretty, she, too, with very white teeth and a little dimple in her left cheek. “Paula’s not the forgiving type, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Whatever did he do to her?”

Anna’s brow furrows again, all the amusement gone from her countenance. She opens her mouth as if to speak, then closes it. The door opens and Paula flounces in, varicolored tresses bouncing.

“Good,” she says, with a sweeping glance that assesses me from head to toe. “Come. We’ll miss Suzanne.”

I touch my bonnet-less head and note that in addition to their other oddities of dress, the two women are also bareheaded. “Bonnet?” I say, looking to each for an answer. Anna’s eyes widen, as if in fright, while Paula simply strides over and takes my arm.

“Come on, you,” she says, propelling me out of the room. As if comfortable trousers for women were not agreeable enough, the thought of not having to wear a hot, close bonnet in summer is felicity itself. Paula leads me into a room even smaller than the bedchamber. It appears to be the servants’ dining parlor. And at the perimeter of this room is a folding screen that is not completely extended, and beyond it is a bright orange sofa with a long, low table before it and a large armchair piled high with a colorful mass of unfolded garments beside it. Where is the rest of the house? This cannot be the extent of it. Wait, there is another door ajar, near a tall upright rectangular object. I move towards it and—

“Courtney? We’ll be late.”

“For God’s sake, Paula. Let the girl go to the bathroom,” Anna says.

“Bath room”? Ignoring Wes’s stare, I brush past him, put a hand on the door and push it all the way open, slip in, and close the door behind me. I have had enough of all this staring. Except that now I am staring, too. At the reflection in the mirror, the blond-haired woman who is supposed to be me but who is an absolute stranger to me.

I regard the woman in the mirror; she does fill out the white bodice rather well, and the waistband of the trousers rests against the form in a way that shows off the smallness of her waist in comparison to the roundness of her hips. I can only imagine what my mother would say if she saw me in a pair of trousers. The O her little mouth would make at the scandal of it, followed by the cold blue glare of her eyes and an imperious “You will change clothes at once,” the same tone she took when I dared to wear my yellow gown when Edgeworth was once expected for dinner, instead of the pale blue she had chosen.

The woman in the mirror is smiling.

A drip-drip sound captures my attention—under the mirror there is a curved, glossy metal pipe from which water steadily drips. I fumble around the curved surfaces of the pipe, which protrudes from a thicker pipe, atop which is—a pump-handle? Could it be possible that this meager dwelling has piped water? Sure enough, it yields to my touch, and a trickle, then a powerful stream, of water issues from the curved pipe. And neither a creak nor a shudder, neither a dead insect nor a hint of sulfurous stench nor a brown tinge. Just clear, cold—and dear heaven, when I move the handle to the left, the water is warm, then hot! How can such a miracle exist? I move the handle until the water is the perfect temperature and hold my hands under the luxurious stream, splashing water on my face. I glance up at the mirror, and the face looking back at me reflects delight in the refreshing sensation of the water. I’ll wager there isn’t a house in London that has such clear water pouring out of its pipes. And none of them has hot water unless it is heated under a fire.

If only there were soap. Ah, yes. A clear bottle which looks to be glass but has not the heft of glass, and which gives under the pressure of my fingers, has a label which proclaims it “geranium liquid soap.” The pumplike top produces a thin stream of pearly liquid, which foams easily in my wet hands, and I use the sweet-smelling mixture on my face. Heaven indeed to be clean and smell lovely.

A quick rap at the door—“It’s me,” says a female voice, and in walks Paula. I see there is little respect for closed doors in this house.

“Thought I might as well in case we hit traffic,” she says, and lifts the lid of a white cylindrical object, which reveals a white, horseshoeshaped thing atop a bowl of water. She hitches up her tiny skirt, pulls down a light blue undergarment like the one I am wearing, sits upon the horseshoe, and relieves herself. I am about to protest her vulgar behavior, but I am so fascinated by what she does next that I can only stare with as little manners as she possesses. She grabs some soft-looking, thin white paper from a roll which is fastened to the wall and uses it to clean herself, readjusts her clothing, and depresses a lever on the bowl which flushes everything away with a mighty gush of water.

“Almost forgot,” she says, opening a cupboard and removing a blue box. “I’d better steal one of these.” She holds up a thin white cylindrical object with a paper wrapper. “I’m going to start bleeding any moment. I can feel it.” And down comes the undergarment again, up goes the skirt, and ripping off the paper wrapping, she actually pushes the white tube inside her body!

“Are you okay?” she says, her brow creased with worry. “Stupid question. Of course you’re not okay. But you’re done, right? Can we go?”

“I, well—if you would be so kind—” I indicate the porcelain bowl. “I will just be a moment.”

“Hurry up, then,” she says, and, thankfully, leaves me to try out the device myself. It is a thousand times more impressive than the flushing water closet in Miss Allens’s London town house, and far more comfortable, too. Miss Allens’s barely has an edge to perch upon, let alone a bona fide seat. And this soft, delicate paper is far more agreeable than waste paper.

They are all staring at me when I emerge from the bath room. Paula grabs my arm and steers me towards another door, and I get a glimpse of an astonishingly lifelike picture of the two actors from
Pride and Prejudice,
under which are the numbers 2009 and a calendar of all the months and days of the year.

“Two thousand nine?” I hear myself say, in that strange voice, before I am aware of having spoken. “Two thousand nine?” I disengage my arm from Paula’s grasp and search the faces of the three strangers. “Is this a joke?”

If it is, they are not laughing, and I am suddenly so dizzy that I grip the top of one of the chairs.

Five

“C
ourtney, we’ll be late.” Paula reaches for my hand.

“Late? As in later than 2009? How much later can one possibly be?”

“Sweetie,” Anna says, stroking my arm, “we’ll talk about it on the way to the doctor.”

A sudden blast of noise—music, I believe, but unlike any music I have ever heard. A male voice singing and yelping almost, something about “loving you,” accompanied by soaring, wailing instruments. There must be musicians outside, but how they achieve such loudness is beyond imagining.

Paula stomps her foot on the floor. “That idiot again,” she shouts, or at least I think that is what she says, for the roar of the voice and instruments practically drowns her voice.

“Let’s get out of here,” yells Wes.

Anna opens the door and holds it open for us. Paula tugs on my arm, and I let her lead me outside.

Paula steers me down a flight of steps. The noise is still strong, but slightly muffled.

“Damn,” says Paula. “If it’s not Shostakovich down there conducting the best of the eighties, it’s the soothing sounds of LAPD helicopters circling the skies.”

“Not to mention the occasional gunshot,” Anna adds.

“When are you gonna move out of here?” says Paula.

“I’ll talk to him later,” says Wes.

I lock eyes with Wes. “Is this truly 2009?”

His eyes widen, and his face turns pale.

“I must be dead, then, for no one can live that long. Oh, dear God. And Belle, is she dead, too?”

Suddenly I no longer care about piped hot water and cleverly fashioned water closets and being a pretty blonde. I want to be alive, in my life, not in this strange place—this heaven or hell or whatever it is.

“Courtney, you are not dead,” says Wes. “Thank God. You just hurt your head, that’s all.”

“Which is why you’re confused,” Paula says.

I hear myself gasp as she propels me down the street. “What sort of place is this?” The outside of the house is defaced with indecipherable black-and-red scrawls of paint. The pavement we walk upon is hard and tan-colored and cracked with sprouts of grass protruding from the cracks here and there.

Tall wooden poles tower over the street, each connected to the other with black cord. Most astonishing of all are the hulking, shiny wheeled things in various shapes and colors—black, white, silver, red, a multitude of shades—which line each side of the street. One of them begins to belch smoke and moves. It makes a loud humming noise. What sort of equipage moves without horses pulling it, and without anyone to hold the reins, if there are indeed horses to rein?

“Ouch, you’re hurting me,” Paula says, and I realize I am gripping her arm with considerable force.

I loosen my grip and point my free hand at the now rapidly moving equipage. “What is that thing?”

“I know; do you believe it? Another hybrid SUV. What a joke. Unlike my baby here, nearly as fuel-efficient as a Prius.” She stops at a shorter, more rounded machine than the so-called SUV; this one is of a light blue color with a black roof. Paula reaches into her bag and retrieves a small object, which she points at the machine and then opens what is apparently a door. She motions for me to enter.

“You are not serious.”

“Sit in the front then.”

“I do not know if I wish to sit in this—thing—at all.”

“Since when do you not like my car?”

“Car.” I am, in truth, curious. And so I settle into the forward-facing seat, which is far more comfortable than a carriage; Wes sits beside me. Paula and Anna sit in the front, entering by a different set of doors. Instead of their seat facing ours, as in a carriage, they, too, face forward. Paula inserts the object she used to open the door into a slot next to a wheel-like thing that is level with her chest, and the car makes a fast whirring noise. She turns the wheel, and the car begins to move!

It is as fast as a fast-moving carriage, and without horses! But then it is much faster than a carriage, and the street is full of other cars in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors, all moving faster and faster until ours speeds onto a vast stretch of road divided by painted lines into equally spaced sections full of these strange machines, all racing as if the devil were in pursuit, and I realize that I have grabbed on to Wes’s arm with one hand and am gripping a handle protruding from my door with another.

“Wait—no—too fast, I—”

“Are you all right?” Wes says.

“Please—do slow down.” I can barely get the words out. I am beginning to gasp for breath—all these cars speeding down this endless road, racing one another, emitting blasts like a ship’s horn; a large black squarish monster of a machine roars past Paula’s car and slips in front of her, and we nearly crash into its rear—this is hell, this is hell, I know this is hell, how did I end up in hell; cannot get enough air, cannot breathe.

“She’s hyperventilating,” says Wes.

Paula meets my eyes via a mirror that is above the inside wheel. “You want me to pull over, darling? Are you going to be sick?”

“Courtney?” Wes says.

I cannot answer just yet; I force myself to slow my breathing until I am able to take in a long, deep breath. “Of course I am not going to be sick. I may be frightened out of my senses, but I am not one of those fainting misses who needs to be physicked every minute.”

Anna turns round and leans over the back of her seat. “You’re perfectly safe, sweetheart. I promise you.” She looks sharply at Paula. “Would you stop with the Indy 500 lane changes? And a little less pressure on the gas pedal, okay?”

Paula bridles. “For God’s sake, I’m only doing forty-five. I couldn’t do more in this traffic if I wanted to.”

Wes simply pats my hand and gives me a reassuring nod. Behind him I get a glimpse of a white car that is next to ours; inside it is a party of young children. They see me watching them and wave and smile. One of them, a boy of about six, pulls his mouth into a grotesque grin with both hands while a younger boy of perhaps four years jostles him and giggles.

I feel my own mouth lift in a smile, and I realize that I have relaxed my grip on both Wes’s arm and the door handle. The sensation in my stomach is no longer a sickening lurch—the cars on either side of us and the trees and houses become a blur—and I surrender to the speed, the colors, the refreshing wind on my face, for somehow the glass next to me has lowered partway. If this is heaven, then I am traveling with the angels, and what indeed is there to fear?

“Car”—what an apt name for such a mythical equipage! “Car,” a word which summons Shakespeare and Spenser and verses on Phoebus’s “fiery carre.”

We race past shops, houses, and buildings which are as varied in color and shape as the human beings who stream in and out of their doorways. Some of the buildings are so tall and have so much glazing that the window tax alone must be beyond reckoning. The many structures we pass are in various states of dilapidation or elegance: some smoke-scarred and ragged, others sleek and shining. No uniformity of style at all.

Here and there the brickwork and lintels are reminiscent of a London town house, but most of the facades are either devoid of ornamentation or else adorned in a manner that I have never even imagined: green and red panels in rectangular shapes; whimsical paintings of flowers and animals; enormous, looping letters that are sculpted of what appears to be glass; and giant mosaic tiles. It is as if a child had reign over this city and, laughing all the time, created whatever it wished for its inhabitants, willy-nilly, and without any regard for artistic harmony.

And the trees! Immensely tall, stalklike things with bark marked by geometric zigzags and topped by a mop of giant spiky leaves.