Mckenzie let his gaze move quickly past these older pictures and settle on the space where Paiget’s photographs of her had been arranged, almost as a memorial. Tonight they weren’t there. That space in the wall was blank, empty.
“Exquisite aren’t they?”
Mckenzie had sensed the presence of the man as he moved up to his side. He turned in response to the voice and immediately recognized him. They had actually met in 1982. Ingres, the owner of Les Caves, was a short, stocky man with close cropped gray hair and a face creased with laugh lines - born to be a good host.
Mckenzie carefully modulated his response. “Yes, they are. They are all lovely.” Then almost as an afterthought, he gestured toward the blank space.
“What about Mireille Marchand? You don’t have any of her pictures on your wall.”
Ingnes chuckled. “Not yet. Oh, she is equally beautiful. You know she used to live just two streets over and she came here often. So far, though, she has only had lead roles in two English films.” Ingres sounded mildly displeased that Mireille Marchand was wasting her talent on non-French movies.
“I will wait to see how her career proceeds, see what sort of work she will do.” He smiled brightly. “I think she will be here someday. I expect great things from her.”
With a quiet chuckle, Ingres walked away leaving Mckenzie staring transfixed at the wall. The “work she will do?” Was it possible that Ingres didn’t know? That was insane. She had died four years ago. How could Ingres expect her to work? Unless. Unless this was not 1982.
Mckenzie’s limbs felt wooden, robotic as he struggled to walk rather than run toward the door to the outside. The night air, even colder than it had been when he had gone inside, struck him with a sharp slap as he stepped onto the sidewalk. The ceaseless traffic still filled the Rue Oberkampf but now he realized the cause of his earlier discomfort when he had threaded across the street. Why were there no new cars? Why did all the passing automobiles look like older models?
Mckenzie felt his breathing accelerate as if his heart had wildly increased its rhythm. He looked frantically up and down the street until he spotted it almost a block away. A tabac - the French version of an urban convenience store, a source of snacks, cigarettes, cheaper wines, a variety of household items, and newspapers. Newspapers. No longer caring if he drew attention to himself, Mckenzie sprinted toward the store. Dodging through the press of other pedestrians, ignoring the protests of those he cut off or bumped, he reached the tabac. Still gasping for breath, he pushed open the door and sought out the newspaper rack.
There were only a few papers left - two copies of Le Figaro, two or three Le Monde and one remaining L’Europe. They all had the same date, Monday, October 16, 1978. October 16! Her accident had taken place in the early morning hours of October 17. She was not dead! Mckenzie looked frantically at his watch. It was shortly after 7:00 p.m. She would not die for at least another eight hours.
He still had time.
CHAPTER 10
Did he actually have enough time? The moving second hand on his wristwatch taunted him mercilessly. He might have eight hours, but she was still half a country away. What was the best way to get there? If in whatever dream, hallucination, alternate reality, or dying fantasy, he now found himself, it was 1978, there was no distance devouring TGV train to Lyon. It would not exist for another three years. There would be normally operating rail transportation but at what times? Suppose he were to go to the Gare de Lyon, that elegantly constructed turn of the century station serving as the Paris terminus for trains to Lyon and nothing was scheduled for tonight? Precious minutes would be lost. The same logic applied to air flights. If he were to go to Charles de Gaulle airport, but couldn’t get on a plane, every squandered moment would lessen his chance of reaching his destination, of reaching her in time.
“Pardon, Monsieur, may I help you?” The clerk behind the counter of the tabac sensed there was something distinctly odd about this young man who had bolted through the door with such a visible sense of urgency. Now he stood transfixed, staring blankly at the few newspapers remaining in the metal rack. Better to find out if there was some potential problem taking shape.
The young man did not react to the first inquiry. Then as the clerk began to repeat his question, he suddenly spun around as if something had shocked him back into an agitated awareness.
“Metro? Where is the nearest metro station?”
The clerk took a small step backward. The intensity in the man’s stare, the fierce emotion in his voice cast a chill into the room. He felt an overwhelming desire to answer the question quickly so that this frightening figure would leave. Raising his right arm he pointed to the street outside.
“One street up, turn right, one over.”
The man did not respond, he simply turned and burst out the door. He was gone so quickly it seemed as if he had vanished, as if he had never even been there. The clerk breathed a low sigh of relief before realizing that he had recognized the man’s accent. “Americans!!! - All crazy!”
It was the clerk’s voice that had jolted Mckenzie into movement and forced him to resolve his dilemma. He could not simply stand in a frozen torpor and debate alternatives. He had to go. For good or ill, it was time to take matters firmly into his own hands. His choice was made. Forget the trains or airplanes. Rent a car and get on the road! Go!!
Running now at full speed down the sidewalk, plowing heedlessly through irritated pedestrians, Mckenzie’s earlier sense of unease had vanished. He was no longer caught in a hopeless attempt to harmonize the physical world around him with a collection of dusty memories. He could concentrate solely on solving the problem.
“The problem.” What a choice of words, he thought, as the saw the red sign above the entrance to the Paris Metro system glowing before him. He was trying to define the situation in his usual dispassionate fashion, but he failed. There was a chance in this ghostly dream to save Mireille’s life. His knowledge of another existence ceased to matter to Mckenzie. Until it ended, this was reality now.
He bounded three at a time down the steps of the Metro station to the train platform below. He had considered renting a car when he had been here in 1982. He still remembered a central rental location on the Rue Saint Ferdinard and there had been a Metro station nearby. He looked again at his watch. Twenty six minutes after seven. He still had almost eight hours. There was enough time. There had to be enough time.
In the nocturnal world of nightmares many experience the dream of interminable struggle. Whether it takes the form of a relentlessly pursuing monster that can never be eluded or a physical task that resists all efforts to complete, the dreamer is left frustrated, mocked by a cruel fate with a perverse sense of humor. With his knuckles clenched white with tension as his hands squeezed the steering wheel, Mckenzie wondered whether he was caught up in such a bitter dream. The world itself seemed to be conspiring against him. For a moment, he thought he could hear his father laughing in delight.
The hands on the clock set into the ornate dashboard climbed inexorably toward midnight and he was still almost 50 kilometers from Lyon. He should have passed this point an hour ago. The multi-lane A6 highway from Paris to Lyon covered a distance of just over four hundred and sixty kilometers. The speed limit was 130 kilometers an hour and he had been pushing that limit aggressively. Unfortunately, each step forward was marked with the appearance of a new hindrance, an invisible anchor that dragged him to a crawl, robbing him of precious minutes, irreplaceable