Once more upon the waters! Yet once more!

- Lord Byron "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"

For the last few weeks Mr Tuniak had been talking about his life on the Island Leviathan and in the Villa Atterton. From time to time I had asked him, if he could remember the exact date when an event had happened. But his answers were not very exact. „It was the end of the 60ies“ or „middle of the 19^th century“. Answers like that.

„Can you remember the precise dates of what you did in your youth?“, he asked me in return.

I protested that I didn't consider my youth to be over yet, but he had a point. When I think back to my childhood I can't say exactly when something happened.

„And you aren't even a hundred years old“, Mr Tuniak said. „And you have the advantage that for you the years pass in a linear fashion. I can't say the same is true for me.“

When he remembered a precise date, it was usually due to other circumstances.

„I know when I got my first job as a photographer, for instance“, he said today. „It was in 1978. The reason why I know that is that this was the year when Thor Heyerdahl went on his last big expedition. The Tigris expedition.“

I was surprised. I had thought that he had finished his „education“ to become a photographer in the middle of the 70ies.

„I had expected the same thing back then“, Mr Tuniak said. „But I actually spend more time learning to become a photographer than if I had just visited a college. I didn't just need the time for my education. I also had to put together my portfolio afterwards which took me at least another six months.“

He also wanted to age at the same rate as his friends, so if he spent two days in the past, it meant that he would return to his present two days after he had left.

„I kept to this rule nearly all the time“, he added. „I cheated only a little.“

„I never met Thor Heyerdahl in person, but he still had a... a big influence on my life“, Mr Tuniak said. „Once I had finished putting together my portfolio, O'Jack helped me to get meetings with the editors of several well known magazines. But none of them went especially well.“

„Despite your photos?“, I asked.

„Probably because of them“, Mr Tuniak said. „I went a bit over the top, when I put the pictures together. I'm pretty sure most of the editors didn't believe me when I claimed to have taken all of them myself.“

„Why not?“

„Because it seemed impossible to them, that I had been able to find so many rare motives for my pictures“, Mr Tuniak explained. „And without the time machine it probably would have been impossible. At the very least, it would have taken me a lot longer.“

„And you didn't want to work as a freelance photographer?“

„No, because I didn't want to spent a large amount of time going to different magazines to sell my photos. Every time I would have had to convince the editors to buy them.“ He shook his head. „But lucky for me, Thor Heyerdahl decided to build the Tigris in 1978. A magazine took the opportunity to publish a series about unusual ships. The first instalment would be about the different ships of Heyerdahl, the second would be about submarines.“

„And what is that?“, the editor asked.

„It's the first navigable submarine, built around 1620 by Cornelis Drebbel in London“, Alexander said. “Don't you recognise it?”

The editor looked at the five photos on his desk and then to the young man sitting opposite him.

„A reconstruction of it, of course“, Alexander added hastily. „But as you can see, it can actually swim. It was tested on the Mississippi.“ All of that was a lie. Alexander had travelled to the past to take hundreds of pictures of this submarine, but only very few of them he could actually present. Most of them showed the huge crowds that had gathered on both sides of the Thames to see this momentous occasion. Alexander was especially proud of a photo that showed King James I. first entering the submarine and then, after a short journey of several minutes, leaving it again. But he couldn't show the editor these photos, without explaining how he managed to get them.

„Mhm“, the editor said. He did not seem convinced. Alexander had told him that an American millionaire with a fondness for old ships, had ordered the reconstruction. „What else have you got?“

„Another reconstruction“, Alexander lied and put an additional seven photos on the desk. „This time of the Nautilus, originally built by Robert Fulton around 1800.“

„The Nautilus?“, the editor repeated.

„Jules Verne gave Captain Nemo's ship in his honour the same name, you know“, Alexander explained. He hadn't managed to shoot a photo of the Nautilus on water and had had to content himself with pictures of her in the workshop.

„I'll buy the Nautilus photos“, the editor finally said. „And I may have an assignment for you, if you want it.“

„Do you know why he didn't buy all of your photos?“, I asked.

„The old reason, I guess: He thought they were fakes“, Mr Tuniak said. „He had probably heard of the Nautilus, but maybe not of Cornelius Drebbel and his boat. He probably thought I lied to him, at least that's what the job he offered me implied.“

„What was it?“

„He wanted me to go to the Arctic and shoot pictures of ships there“, Mr Tuniak said. „Ships that supposedly were built with ice. The editor apparently didn't really believe his source and didn't want to send one of his photographers on a wild-goose chase. In his eyes I was the perfect candidate for the job. And I was considerably cheaper than his other photographers.“

He was freezing. Alexander was standing on the deck of the ice-breaker wearing a thick coat. He had pulled his hood down over his face and his scarf was wound around his head, so that only the tip of his nose could be seen. Against the wild snow storm and for the protection of his eyes he was wearing darkened glasses. He also wore thick boots and gloves. And still he was freezing.

„Are we there yet?“, he asked the similar clothed man standing next to him. But it was impossible to hear anything out there. The other man, Thomas Fielding, pointed to his ears and shook his head. They continued to stand on deck for several more minutes, before they returned to the warm belly of the ship. But in spite of the heating, they kept their coats on.

„When the storm lessens tomorrow, we will see them“, Fielding promised.

The rest of the crew, Alexander included, was not convinced.

„They were built using only ice”, Fielding repeated for what seemed to be the thousandth time. “Churchill had them built, he wanted to be prepared for a war against... well, I guess I shouldn't really talk about that. They are so sturdy that you would think that they were made of steel. Two were built. The third one – they never started its construction – would have been so big that you could have landed a plane on it.” Fielding claimed that he had gained his knowledge by reading secret documents from the British government. Of course, he couldn't prove any of it.

But the next day changed everything. As Alexander was coming on deck, the rest of the crew had already assembled there. Nobody had stayed at his post. And Alexander saw immediately why: Not far from the ice breaker was a huge wall of ice, at least forty metres high. And in front of it were two big white ships. Ships made of ice. Ships that looked as if the children of giants had become bored of snow men and turned their creative energies to the sea. Both of them were partly merged with the ice wall, but no one could seriously suggest that these forms could be anything other than man made. No iceberg would form like that naturally. Alexander was so fascinated by those ships that he nearly forgot to take pictures.

“We even climbed inside those ships”; Mr Tuniak said. “Most of the corridors had collapsed – which was to be expected since we were the first people in over twenty years to enter them – but some of them had still survived.”

“And where did those ships really come from?”, I asked.

“It's quite probable that it really was Churchill who had them built”, Mr Tuniak said. “It is known nowadays that he had played with the idea of ships like these. He wanted to be ready for a war with the Soviet Union. But it was always believed that he never actually acted on this idea. His successors definitely never pursued his plans any further.”

“And this Thomas Fielding really had access to secret documents?”, I asked.

“It seems so, yes. Fielding was... well, I'll probably tell you about him another time. But today I have to tell you about another thing that happened during that voyage.”

There had been a strong storm which had caused the ice-breaker to veer off course. It took the captain quite some time to fix their new coordinates and find the quickest way to their home port. But they had just started their engines again, when an alarm sounded on the whole ship.

“What is that?”, Fielding asked. He shared a cabin with Alexander and both of them were running on deck.

“A warning signal”, Alexander answered. “Something must have happened.”

They reached the deck but there seemed to be no reason for the signal.

“What happened?”, Alexander asked a passing sailor.

“Ship capsized”, he answered in broken English.

“But not us, right?”, Fielding asked, but the sailor had already continued on his way.

“No, them!” Alexander pointed with his arm out to the sea. Not far off there was an unusual sight. A ship rose vertically from the ocean, as if it was stuck in a piece of earth. As the ice-breaker swam closer, they could see the crew of the capsized ship. But none of them seemed to be especially distressed by their situation.

Alexander was waiting expectantly about what would happen next. The captain finally shut off the alarm. A dinghy was lowered and Alexander managed to get a place on it, next to the captain and two of his officers.

“Welcome aboard the RP Flip”, the other captain greeted them.

“What happened to your ship?”, Alexander asked.

“Nothing”, the captain of the Flip answered. “We are a science vessel and right now in service of the Gemini Foundation.”

“Your ship is undamaged?”, the captain of the ice-breaker asked.

“Of course it is”, the captain of the Flip answered. “We just... flipped it to get better readings on our instruments. We are measuring the currents and conditions of the ocean here. Which reminds me: I have to ask you to leave as soon as possible, because the noise of your machines distorts our readings.”

“The Flip was a ship that was sunk on purpose?”, I asked.

“No, it was never sunk”, Mr Tuniak corrected me. “Think of it as putting a ship on its head. Turned ninety degrees. The floor is turned into a wall, one wall is turned into the ceiling and the ceiling itself is also turned into a wall.”

“And it is still swimming?”

“Quite well, actually. Only a sixth of it is above the surface. And once they want to move again, they just pump air into the lower sections and thus get it into the right position again.”

“And what is the Gemini Foundation?”

“Oh, Gemini is...” He stopped and looked at his watch. “It's late, but we can visit Gemini next week. Well, a small part of it. What do you say to that?”

NEXT WEEK:

La mer n'est que le véhicule d'une surnaturelle et prodigieuse existence; elle n'est que mouvement et amour. c'est l'infini vivant, comme l'a dit un de vos poètes.

Une photographie, c'est un fragment de temps qui ne reviendra pas.

(A photo is a fragment of a time that won't come again.)

- Martine Franck

„Since O'Jack was the only photographer that I knew, I asked him to teach me everything about photography“, Mr Tuniak said. “O'Jack was of course willing to help, but he didn't have an unlimited amount of time. He did recommend me several schools that offered training courses and seminars.”

“And you went there?”, I asked.

Alexander came home and threw his backpack on the ground. It slithered several metres across the floor and nearly landed in the fire place, where Mowgli was just starting a fire.

“Do you want me to burn that too?”, Mowgli asked.

“I guess they didn't take you at the school”, Sarina said. She was lying on the couch in the living room and looked up from her newspaper.

“No, they have”, Alexander said, but he didn't seem particularly happy about the news.

“So, what's the problem then?”, Mowgli asked.

“Do you know how long it takes to become a professional photographer?”, Alexander asked. “And according to the curriculum, most of it is just sitting in a room and listening to someone talking about theory. If I wanted that, I would have stayed at the university.”

“I really doubt it will be like that”, Sarina said. “But if you don't want to study, you better look for a job where you don't have to learn anything.”

“It's not learning that I have a problem with”, Alexander said. “It's the way things are taught.”

“Is school going to be very different in the future?”, Mowgli asked.

“I don't know”, Alexander admitted. “Once the 21^st century starts, everyone will be using digital cameras, so it's no use going there. Oh!”

“What?”, Mowgli asked.

“I could travel into the past and learn everything about photography there”, Alexander said. “I'll learn all the necessary things. The principles haven't changed that much, I'm sure. And I can quickly catch up on the few things that have changed. Without wasting several years. Sarina!”

“I know, I know.” Sarina sighed. “You want me to help you find out everything about the early pioneers of photography. The day after tomorrow, ok?”

“Back then I developed a method of learning I kept for the rest of my life”, Mr Tuniak said.

“Travelling back to the beginning of whatever profession interested you and learning it from the ground up?”, I asked.

“Not just professions”, Mr Tuniak said. “Later, a lot later, when I learned to drive a car, I did the same thing. Technologies might change, but the principles and theories behind them rarely do.”

“So you always got your knowledge from the people who invented the things you were interested in?”, I asked.

“Precisely. And it has proved to be quite useful. When my cars broke down, for instance, I was able to repair them myself most of the time.”

“And where did you go to become a photographer?”

“Well, photography was basically invented in the late 1820ies in France. So that's where I went first”, Mr Tuniak explained. “But I didn't stay long. The methods were too different then. It took another twenty years, before the process started to resemble the one used in my present.”

“Your present being the 1970ies?”, I asked to clarify.

“Yes”, Mr Tuniak said. He put a photo album on the table. “Do you want to see some of my first shots?” He opened it. Right on the first page there was a picture of him, around the age of 25. It was slightly smaller than the size of the average playing card and the name 'Alexander Khanna' was written below it. “That's the name I used back then”, Mr Tuniak explained. “I claimed to come from Indian aristocracy and this was my carte de visite. Coming from a noble family, I was able to sponsor several inventors without attracting attention.”

“How did you get the necessary money?”

“I'm a time traveller, it's easy. And I had the help of the Spider and Philip has always been one of the wealthiest people on the planet”, Mr Tuniak laughed. “Of course, none of the inventors every actually asked me, where I got my money. Most of them were happy about the financial support I offered and allowed me to test or use their inventions in return.”

“Doesn't that mean that modern photography was developed thanks to you?”, I asked.

“Yes, in part, although I didn't realise it at the time.” For a moment there was a strange look on Mr Tuniak's face, a mixture of sadness and regret. Then he turned the page. There were a lot of photos in the album and every single one told a story.

“What is that?”, Alice asked, as Alexander was leaving the time machine. In his hands he was holding something that she had thought to be a rifle at first. But the barrel was too short for that and at its end there was big, black wheel.

“My good friend Jules let me borrow it”, Alexander said. “Or I'm sure he would have, if I had asked him.”

“You stole it?”, Alice asked.

“I paid for it... more or less”, Alexander said. “And I will take it back.” He pointed to the time machine behind him. “He won't even notice that it was gone.”

“And what is it?”

“ A fusil photographique”, Alexander said. “A camera gun.”

Together they entered the villa, where they found Mowgli.

“Are you planning to join a hunting party?”, he asked grimacing.

“Don't worry, the only thing this gun shoots is photos”, Alexander assured him. “It can shoot up to twelve photos in one second. Now: Where are your dogs, I want to test it?”

He turned a page.

Several days later Alexander returned again with a new camera. This one looked as if someone had taken two separate cameras and melted them together.

“Where have you been this time?”, Bill asked during dinner.

“1902 or 1903, I think”, Alexander answered.

“And what kind of camera is that?”

“A 3D-camera”, Alexander explained. “It shoots two photos at the same time from slightly different angles. Combining these two pictures, you can then create a 3D photo.”

“Like that film they showed in cinemas some time ago?”, Mowgli asked. “The Frankenstein film?”

“Oh, that one was terrible”, Alice said. She shuddered visibly. “Those are ninety minutes of my life I'd like to forget.”

He turned a page.

Alexander had asked during dinner if someone wanted to accompany him the next day. He said that he would follow a camera man who was shooting footage of a war for news reels. But the way he said it, seemed off to his friends. He asked them with a smile and not at all in the manner of someone who was going to see a battle field with hundreds of dead soldiers the next day.

Mowgli and Sarina decided to take him up on his offer.

“Here we are”, Alexander declared. “England, 1897.”

“There was no war in England at that time”, Sarina said.

“Not in England, no, but it is the time of the Greco-Turkish-War.”

They exited the time machine and Alexander led them along a road and into a small village. They continued walking. At the other side of the village they came upon several trenches. Soldiers were sitting on top of them and were talking with each other and drinking tea. Some way ahead there were additional fortifications and several officers were exercising their horses.

“What kind of war is that?”, Mowgli asked. Then he saw the spot lights and cameras. “That's a film set! They are shooting a film!”

“We are doing a report”, one of the camera operators said. He greeted Alexander, whom he had met before, and showed the three of them around.

“Does that mean you are re-creating the battles of the war here with actors? And the stuff you shoot here you are presenting as 'real' footage in the news reels?”, Sarina asked. The idea of reporters lying that openly and blatantly to their audience seemed to be a personal insult to her.

“Of course”, the camera operator replied. “It's much safer here than on a real battlefield. And the light is also better.” He lit a cigarette. “I had a friend, went to Mexico to film some rebels and their attacks there. Had a terrible time getting shots that he could use... Finally, he had to ask the rebels to attack only during the day, because he needed the sun light to shoot. Lucky for him, they agreed, because they wanted to be filmed as much as he wanted to film them. I guess Villiers is having similar problems right now.”

“There was one disadvantage in the way I was pursuing my... education”, Mr Tuniak said. “I learned everything a professional photographer should know, but I had no way to prove it.”

“You had no references you could show in your job interviews”, I said. “Couldn't you fake them again?”

“I could have, but I chose another way. I asked O'Jack and he suggested to put together a portfolio of my work. If it was good enough, if it was liked, then no one would ask about my qualifications. But of course the catch was that I had to have not only very good photos, but if possible photos very few other people ever shot.”

“So what did you do?”

“Doryanthes in Australia!” Alexander put the encyclopaedia down on the table and pointed to the drawing. “That's what I want to shoot.”

“But you haven't even visited London's sewers yet”, Mowgli said. “Maybe you'll find some crocodiles there.”

Alexander ignored the laughter of the others that followed this remark. To get photos for his portfolio he had returned to the sewers of Paris to get a good shot of a rat king, a very rare animal and one he had discovered by accident several years ago. He had then heard rumours of crocodiles living in the sewers of New York and spent three days there trying to get a picture of them too. Without success. In the end he had had to admit that the animals didn't exist.

“It's only blooming every ten years or so”, said Sarina, who had quickly read the entry in the encyclopaedia. “That would be a very rare photo.”

“And she can survive bush fires”, Alexander added. “I can already imagine the photo: A burnt wasteland, ashes everywhere and then, right in the middle a single flower in full bloom.”

“Can I come with you?”, Alice asked and Bill decided to join him as well.

The next several days they spent in Australia and tried to locate the flower. They read old news paper reports to find out when and where the last big bush fires had taken place and this way found a very likely date and location for Alexander's photo.

“It's going to be unique, I promise you that”, Alexander said. The time machine had just arrived at their destination. “We'll be the only people who'll ever shoot a photo like that.”

But as Alexander exited, he saw that the flower was not alone. It was surrounded by a dozen people. They were all Alexander himself.

“What am I doing here?”, Alexander asked, but the others just waved and grinned.

Alice repeated the question and one of the other Alexanders took her aside and answered her quietly. “The first photo he's going to shoot won't be good”, he explained. “And he won't like the second one that much either. He – or I – will return several times here, before getting a perfect picture.”

The photo of the Doryanthes flower was on the final page of the album. It really was perfect.

NEXT WEEK:

Once more upon the waters! Yet once more!

Jeder hat in tiefstem Dank derer zu gedenken, die Flammen in ihm entzündet haben.

(You should feel deepest gratitude to those people who kindled a flame in you.)

- Albert Schweitzer

„The villa Atterton was located in a small village where there was also a pub“, Mr Tuniak said. „It was right at the border, you couldn't miss it when you drove into the village and it was called Little World. We went there on a regular basis, once every two weeks or so.“

“You four together?”, I asked.

“No, mostly just Mowgli and me”, Mr Tuniak answered. “Sarina accompanied us once or twice, but she had another favourite pub and we were never able to convince here that the beer in the Little World was the best beer in the world.”

Bill had come for a visit. He was thinking about leaving Leviathan and moving into the villa as well, but he wasn't sure about it yet. That's why he had asked to spend a week there, to see how he would fare.

Bill was greeted enthusiastically by the others already living there. He had learned to cope better with his concentration problems and wasn't as easily distracted as before. But he never left the villa alone. Alexander thought that he was worried he would forget where he was or why he had gone out, but Mowgli was sure that Bill was paranoid and believed that some kind of secret service was watching him. The truth was somewhere in the middle.

When Mowgli and Alexander wanted to visit the pub on the last day of Bill's visit, it took some convincing before he agreed to join them.

It was a Wednesday evening and there weren't that many people in the pub. Half the tables were empty. As they sat down, Mowgli whispered to Alexander that Bill had chosen a seat, where he had a wall at his back and could watch the entrance and the door to the kitchen at the same time.

The owner of the pub probably had a family name, but everyone just called him Old Jack, or O'Jack, because of his Irish ancestors. As the three young men entered, he greeted them humorously with: “The princes of India deign to visit my humble abode. And who are you?”

“Bill”, Mowgli introduced his friend, when Bill didn't answer himself. He put a hand on Bill's shoulder and shook him slightly as a sign, that he should say something.

“It... You have a very nice pub here”, Bill said.

“Oh, American”, O'Jack recognized immediately. “From Florida, I'd say.”

“Yes.” Bill was alarmed. “How do you know?”

“I've got an ear for accents”, O'Jack said. “You can call me Professor Higgins.”

“Can he really recognize someone's accent that quickly?”, Bill asked, after sitting down and ordering something do drink.

“Yes”, Alexander said. “Supposedly he has travelled the whole world, before he bought this pub here. When he is in a good mood, which he usually is, he tells stories of his often crazy adventures, but you should only believe half of what he says, if at all.”

“But the true question is: Does he have a wooden leg?”, Mowgli said.

When O'Jack came back with their drinks, all three of them tried to take a look at his legs, as discreetly as possible. He kept his right leg straight and never bent his right knee.

“Was he really paranoid?”, I asked. “Bill, I mean.”

“Yes, he was”, Mr Tuniak said. “He never told us what had happened to him in his childhood, but in the past few years he has made several remarks... Let's put it this way: I can understand why he had such difficulties leaving Leviathan. He had trouble trusting other people.”

“A big city like London... It must have been a nightmare for him then.”

“It definitely was”, Mr Tuniak said. “And for him, leaving Leviathan was the bravest thing he ever did. And everything started this one evening in the Little World.”

“Why is it called Little World?”, Bill asked.

“If you'd stop staring at the door and look around, you'd see”, Mowgli said.

“The pictures on the wall?”, Bill asked. “I saw them, when I was sitting down.”

But pictures were not only behind him, but on every free space in the whole pub. They were photos from places all round the world and maps were engraved on the table tops.

“O'Jack claims to have taken all the pictures himself”, Alexander explained.

“Claims? Don't you believe him?”, Bill asked.

“We never really asked him directly”, Mowgli admitted. “It would be too disappointing if it wasn't true.”

Bill nodded. Then he took his full glass of beer, drank all of it in one gulp and stood up. Mowgli and Alexander looked after him in surprise. Bill went to O'Jack and started talking to him. They couldn't hear what he was saying, but suddenly O'Jack burst out in loud laughter. Then he disappeared for a few moments behind the kitchen door. When he returned he was carrying several magazines in his hands. He came with Bill back to their table and sat down on an empty chair.

“So, my princes, you're not sure if you should believe me?”, he said, still laughing. “But I can assure you, everything I ever told you is true.”

“Even the lake with the water so hot, you could use it for tea without heating?”, Mowgli asked and pointed to one of the pictures. It seemed to have been taken during a very foggy day and showed a lake, but O'Jack had always claimed that the fog was actually the vapour rising from the hot water.

“How were you able to travel around the world?”, Alexander asked. “How did you get the money for that?”

“Did I never tell you? I was a photographer”, O'Jack said. “I was paid for my travels. And here you have your proof.” He gave them the magazines he had brought. Many of the photos featured in those credited him as the photographer.

“And his wooden leg? Was that real?”, I asked.

“It was”, Mr Tuniak said. “But of course, it wasn't really a wooden leg, the way you imagine them when you think of pirates. It was an artificial leg, quite modern, at least for its time.”

“Did he loose his leg during one of his voyages? Was that why he had to quit and buy the pub?”

“No, he lost his leg as a young men, before all that”, Mr Tuniak said. “O'Jack was part of the invading force during D-Day. He only started his career as a photographer afterwards, despite his injury.”

O'Jack had taken off his artificial leg. To Mowgli's, Alexander's and Bill's delight it wasn't a simple prosthesis, but it actually had a secret lid with something that can only be described as a hidden storage space behind it.

“Perfect, if you want to smuggle something”, O'Jack said.

“What did you smuggle?”, Mowgli asked.

“Rolls of film”, O'Jack answered. “I was once part of a group who got permission to shoot at certain places in Nicaragua. But of course, once there, we wanted to get pictures of places that weren't on the list of things we were allowed to shoot as well. So I had to smuggle those rolls out of the country when we left.” He knocked on the artificial leg with one hand. “It's also great to put snacks in for when you're hungry. Makes everyone else jealous.” He put his leg back on. “Of course, you have to pay extra attention sometimes, because you obviously can't feel anything. Once we were taking pictures of a volcano at night that had erupted the previous day. You can see the glowing lava in the photos over there! I was so concentrated that I didn't notice that I had gotten too close to the lava and my leg had started to melt.”

“He also told us of a dangerous river in Yorkshire”, Mr Tuniak said. “Probably because he thought it would be the only place we could afford to actually visit.”

“Didn't he call you Indian princes?”, I asked.

“Yes, but that was just his nickname for us”, Mr Tuniak explained. “Contrary to most other people in the village, he never believed that was who we were. He had noticed, for instance, that we didn't have any servants at our villa. And he had actually met real Indian aristocracy during his travels and knew that we acted nothing like them.”

They were standing close to the little river and watched the water passing by. Mowgli and Alexander had convinced Sarina and Alice to join them for a weekend on a trip to Yorkshire. Bill had returned to Leviathan, but he had promised that he would come back and stay with them as soon as possible.

“That's your big, scary river?”, Alice asked.

“No one said that it would be big”, Mowgli answered. But there was a clear note of disappointment in his voice. The river Wharfe was only about two metres width. “Shall I try and jump to the other side?”

“Better not”, Alexander said. He was lying on his belly on one of the many stones that bordered the river and narrowed its bed. “It's slippery and you know what O'Jack has said.”

The former photographer had told them, that the river, although it seemed to be nothing more than a shallow brook at this place, had actually a depth of at least ten metres. Its current was so strong, that everyone who had the misfortune of falling into the water, was immediately pulled under the surface and drowned. Several people had already underestimated the river which was why warning signs had been posted at its banks.

“We should trust O'Jack. If someone, who has seen as many things as he has seen, calls this a dangerous river, I'm willing to follow his advice”, Sarina said. Secretly she was hoping that her future career as an archaeologist would enable her to go on similar journeys as the pub owner.

“Yeah, he surely was sitting his whole life in an office”, Alexander replied. “I want to become a photographer as well.”

“When I first said that, I didn't really think much about it, but that changed on our journey home”, Mr Tuniak said. “And as we returned to the Villa Atterton I was completely sure that that was what I wanted to do with my life. I quitted my job at the university and decided to learn how to become a professional photographer.”

NEXT WEEK:

Une photographie, c'est un fragment de temps qui ne reviendra pas.

Machine. Unexpectedly, I'd invented a time

- Alan Moore

The time machine was working perfectly today, so Mr Tuniak took me on a short trip again. Of course, he didn't tell me where we were going.

Therefore, when the doors of the time machine opened, I had no idea where we had landed. It was warm, but not uncomfortably so. I saw some familiar looking trees and bushes which meant that we couldn't have travelled very far into the past. I didn't see any animals, but I heard the sound of huge amounts of rushing water.

We left the time machine and went in the direction of the sound. What was in front of me can only be described as a blend of a big river and enormous cascades. It was clear that the water was flowing downhill, steeper than any mountain river I've ever seen, but not steep enough to actually be called a fall. On both ends were enormous seas, so big that I couldn't see the opposite shore.

Right in front of us was a grey machine, three metres high at least and a cable was running from this machine into the rushing river.

“Did you build this?”, I asked Mr Tuniak.

“No”, he answered. “My mothers did. I'll tell you about it later.” He pointed to a bench standing next to machine and we both sat down. “If you got a packet from an unknown person, how would yo go about to find this person?”

I knew immediately that we were going to talk about the search for the mysterious woman who had invented the formula for time travel. “The package your professor got, had been delivered by the postal service?”, I asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I'd first go to a post office”, I said. “There I'd try to find out where the package had been sent from.”

Mr Tuniak nodded in agreement. “That's what my mothers and I did as well. We found out where the package had been posted very quickly and went to that post office. But nobody there could remember who had been the addresser. They only knew that it had been none of their regular customers.”

“A dead end then”, I said.

“Yes”, Mr Tuniak agreed. “So, what would be your next step?”

I couldn't think of any right away. “Maybe ask other customers if they could remember something and hope to get lucky?”, I said, not because I thought that was a good idea, but mostly to say anything. “Or read through all her notes. Maybe there's something useful there.”

“Precisely”, Mr Tuniak said. “And we did find something. We found several sheets of paper with a date and the letterhead of a university in Paris. The date was several years in the past. You know: I was living in the 70ies then, but the notes came from the 60ies.”

“I can't imagine that that would have caused any problems for you.”

Chaos reigned in the streets. The student demonstration had gone bad and there were several confrontations with the police. Violent confrontations.

Alexander had gone underground. He was walking in the sewers of Paris. He had a 2-way radio set, no bigger than a small button, in his ear. This way he could keep contact with his mothers who were right now in another part of the city. It had been easy to go to the university at the date written in the notes but it had taken them another three days to narrow it down to two students who could have been responsible for the notes. Unfortunately the confrontation between the students and the police forces had escalated at the same time, which made their search not only more difficult but also potentially dangerous. But they had to stay, because this was the only time when they knew for sure where the writer of the notes had been.

“Where am I?”, Alexander asked. Shortly after entering the sewers he had completely been lost.

“Just go straight ahead”, Miriam answered. She was sitting in the time machine, where she could pinpoint the location of his radio.

Alexander followed her directions. From time to time he could hear the sound of battle from above.

“Ah!”, he cried out suddenly.

“What is it?”, Miriam asked worriedly.

“Just a rat”, Alexander answered. “Or maybe ten rats whose tails have melted together, I don't know.”

He continued walking but after another few metres he was startled again.

“What is it now?”, Miriam asked immediately.

“Just... me”, Alexander said. He was standing right in front of himself. The other Alexander didn't seem a lot older than himself and he was hiding something behind his back.

“Where did the rat king go?”, Future-Alexander asked.

“Down that way”, Alexander answered.

“Thanks”, Future-Alexander said. “You're nearly there. Just continue going this way and turn right at your next opportunity. You'll be right below her apartment building then.” And then he left.

“We had gotten two names from the university and visited both women”, Mr Tuniak said. “Once we had met them, I became clear very quickly who the woman was we were looking for.”

“Can you tell me her name?”

“Of course. Juliette Belloq.”

“And did she really develop parts of a theory of everything?”, I asked. “Why does nobody know her name?”

“When we found her, she had already discovered everything my mothers knew”, Mr Tuniak said. “All of her writings they had found in the future, she had already written. But then she had suddenly stopped.”

“Why?”

Before confronting Juliette, there had been a short discussion between Helen, Miriam and Alexander if they should tell her about themselves and where they had come from. They had decided unanimously that they would. Juliette had a right to know what her work had accomplished.

They had left Paris and gone to the Orient of the 16^th century. Juliette had wished for that specific time and location because that's where her ancestors had come from. They were sitting close to a trading route, where traders and their camels were passing by from time to time. They were below some palm trees which offered them shadow and protected them from curious looks.

“We never found any other writings from you”, Miriam said. “Actually, we found nothing, absolutely nothing else from you. Why did you stop writing?”

“You know the world I live in”, Juliette answered. “And you know what Einstein accomplished with his formulas. Without wanting to, he had invented the atomic bomb and now the world is always living close to the edge, always close to destruction.”

“I can assure you that the world will survive mostly unchanged for the next three hundred years”, Helen said.

“And after that?”, Juliette asked.

“We've never travelled farther into the future”, Miriam admitted. Alexander was surprised. He hadn't known that.

“Or think of Oppenheimer”, Juliette continued. “I know what my theories and formulas mean. I even know how to finish this... theory of everything. But I also know the destructive power inherent in such a theory. I could not live knowing that I had given something like that to the world.”

Helen nodded sympathetically. She had had similar concerns when she had developed the time machine with Miriam and it had been one of the reasons for keeping their discovery a secret.

They spent a few more days in the Orient before returning to Paris. It was a difficult decision for Alexander and his mothers, because they knew that Juliette wouldn't leave any other traces and they were afraid of what that meant for her future.

“You never found anything about the remainder of her life?”, I asked. “Does that mean that she died during those protests?”

Mr Tuniak was smiling slightly. “You should wait with your questions until I have fini...” But then he stopped in mid-sentence, because another time machine had appeared next to his own. I had expected to see one or both of his mothers getting out of it, but instead a woman around forty with dark, curly hair opened the door and came straight at us.

“Who is...?”, I asked.

“That is Juliette Belloq”, Mr Tuniak said.

They had landed their time machine in a field outside Paris. They had said goodbye to Juliette and watched her walking towards the city. But she hadn't gone more than a hundred metres, when suddenly another time machine appeared next to her and an old man was exiting it.

“You were the old man, weren't you?”, I asked Mr Tuniak.

“I will be”, he corrected me. “When I will no longer be needing the time machine, I will give it to her.”

“And that's why she was so difficult to find”, I said. “Because once she started her travels through time she basically stopped leaving any traces.”

“Except here”, Juliette said. She had a strong French accent.

“Why?”, I asked. “What makes this places different?”

Juliette and Mr Tuniak led me to the other side of the grey machine. There five metal boxes were placed and in each box there was a red leather bound book, as well as a feather and a bottle of ink. “Here is where we write down when and where we have been”, she explained. She opened one of the books and I could see that it was full with dates and coordinates. She was adding another entry to the list.

“This is our fixed point in time”, Mr Tuniak said. “Every time traveller needs one, otherwise it would be nearly impossible to find other time travellers.”

“And why here?”

“Because no one else is here who can read our books”, Juliette said and put her book back into its box.

“And another thing: Have you never wondered where our time machine gets its energy from?”, Mr Tuniak asked. “It needs a surprisingly small amount of energy, but nevertheless it needs it.”

“A small nuclear reactor?”, I suggested. “Nuclear fusion?”

“No, simple water power”, Mr Tuniak said. “The river you see over there is no river. We are at Gibraltar and what you see here is the Atlantic Ocean pouring into a salt desert that will become the Mediterranean Sea. It will only take about two years. My mothers decided to build the Recharge Station here. The time machine only has to be here for a few hours at most, even if its batteries have been completely empty.” His time machine sounded a short gong as if in agreement. “Ah, that signals the end of its recharge cycle. Come one, we can go back again.”

NEXT WEEK:

Jeder hat in tiefstem Dank derer zu gedenken, die Flammen in ihm entzündet haben.