Besides, our world would be gone, vanished, erased from space time.
“We’ll live out our lives in the twentieth century,” I told her. “And we’ll know that our own time will be far better than it is now.”
“How can you be sure it will be better?” she asked me softly.
I smiled patiently. “There will be no World War II. Europe will be peaceful for the rest of the century. Commerce and art will flourish. Even the Russian communists will join the European federation peacefully, toward the end of the century.”
“You’re certain?”
“I’ve run the analysis on the master computer a dozen times. I’m absolutely certain.”
“And our own time will be better?”
“It has to be. How could it possibly be worse?”
She nodded, her beautiful face solemn with the understanding that we were leaving our world forever. Good riddance to it, I thought. But it was the only world we had ever known, and she was not happy to deliberately toss it away and spend the rest of her life in the a bygone century.
Still, she never hesitated about coming with me. I wouldn’t go without her, she knew that. And I knew that she wouldn’t let me go unless she came with me.
“It’s really quite romantic, isn’t it?” she asked me, the night before we left.
“What is?”
“Translating across time together. Our love will span the centuries.”
I held her close. “Yes. Across the centuries.”
Before sunrise the next morning we stole into the laboratory and powered up the translator. No one was on guard, no one was there to try to stop us. The council members were all sleeping, totally unaware that one of their loyal citizens was about to defy their decision. There were no renegades among us, no rebels. We had always accepted the council’s decisions and worked together for our mutual survival.
Until now. My wife silently took her place on the translator’s focal stage while I made the final adjustments to the controls. She looked radiant standing there, her face grave, her golden hair glowing against the darkened laboratory shadows.
At last I stepped up beside her. I took her hand; it was cold with anxiety. I squeezed her hand confidently.
“We’re going to make a better world,” I whispered to her.
The last thing I saw was the pink glow of dawn rising over the eastern mountains, framed in the lab’s only window.
Now, in the Paris of 1922 that I had created, victorious Germany ruled Europe with strict but civilized authority. The Kaiser had been quite lenient with Great Britain; after all, was he not related by blood to the British king? Even France got off relatively lightly, far more lightly than the unlucky Russians. Germany kept Alsace-Lorraine, of course, but took no other territory.
France’s punishment was mainly financial: Germany demanded huge, crippling reparations. The real humiliation was that France was forced to disarm. The proud French army was reduced to a few regiments and forbidden modern armaments such as tanks and airplanes. The Parisian police force was better equipped.
My companion glanced at his watch again. It was the type that the army had issued to its officers, I saw.
“Could you tell me the time?” I asked, over the drunken singing of the German tourists. My wife was late, and that was quite unlike her.
He paid no attention to me. Staring furiously at the Germans who surrounded us, he suddenly shot to his feet and shouted, “Men of France! How long shall we endure this humiliation?”
He was so tall and lean that he looked like a human Eiffel Tower standing among the crowded sidewalk tables. He had a pistol in his hand. One of the waiters was so surprised by his outburst that he dropped his tray. It clattered to the pavement with a crash of shattered glassware.
But others were not surprised, I saw. More than a dozen men leaped up and shouted, “Vive La France’.” They were all dressed in old army uniforms, as was my companion, beneath his frayed leather coat. They were all armed, a few of them even had rifles.
Absolute silence reigned. The Germans stared, dumbfounded. The waiters froze in their tracks. I certainly didn’t know what to say or do. My only thought was of my beautiful wife; where was she, why was she late, was there some sort of insurrection going on? Was she safe?
“Follow me!” said the tall Frenchman to his armed compatriots. Despite every instinct in me, I struggled to my feet and went along with them.
From cafes on both sides of the wide boulevard armed men were striding purposefully toward their leader. He marched straight ahead, right down the middle of the street, looking neither to the right nor left. They formed up behind him, some two or three dozen men.
Breathlessly, I followed along.
“To the Elysee!” shouted the tall one, striding determinedly on his long legs, never glancing back to see if the others were following him.
Then I saw my wife pushing through the curious onlookers thronging the sidewalks. I called to her, and she ran to me, blond and slim and more lovely than anyone in all of space time.
“What is it?” she asked, as breathless as I. “What’s happening?”
“Some sort of coup, I think.”
“They have guns!”
“Yes.”
“We should get inside. If there’s shooting—”
“No, we’ll be all right,” I said. “I want to see what’s going to happen.”
It was a coup, all right. But it failed miserably.
Apparently the tall one, a fanatical ex-major named de Gaulle, believed that his little band of followers could capture the government. He depended on a certain General Petain, who had the prestige and authority that de Gaul himself lacked. Petain lost his nerve at the critical moment, however, and abandoned the coup. The police and a detachment of army troops were waiting for the rebels at the Petit Palace; a few shots were exchanged. Before the smoke had drifted away the rebels had scattered, and de Gaulle himself was taken into custody.
