“It must be difficult for you, seeing me.”
“No. It’s been wonderful to be with you again. Because you really are the same in more ways than you’re different.”
“Was I a good father to you? I always wondered how it would have been, if I’d had the chance.”
“You were the best.” All the little irritations I ever had with my dad—the way he refused to let me borrow the car, or made fun of my addiction to the Vampire Diaries, or sometimes just would not stop doing the Monty Python Spanish Inquisition bit—none of it mattered, not in the least. “You let me be myself, me and Josie both. Our home was always so weird, not like any of the other kids’, and I never cared. Everybody else had to fit in. They had to worry about what other people would think. You and Mom—you never did that. You wanted us to find our own way in the world, but you were always there to help out. You told us you loved us every night before bed. At night, after dinner, you’d wash the dishes and hum Beatles songs. ‘In My Life’ was your favorite, and I’m never going to be able to hear that song again without thinking of you. I wouldn’t want to. I love you so much.”
I bury my head back against his shoulder, and his arm tightens around me again. After a very long while, he says, “How do insects come into it?”
“Insects?”
“Beetles?”
“The Beatles were a rock band.” That’s not going to make any sense to him; I laugh through my tears. “Singers. They were singers you liked.”
His hand pats my arm. “And your mother and I were happy?”
“Almost ridiculously happy.”
“Sophia has a good life?”
“She’s a well-known scientist, working on the research that interests her more than anything else. She has me and Josie, and—she’s a pretty great mom, but I guess you got to see that for yourself. I think she would have said her life was nearly perfect, before she lost you.”
“Thank you,” Dad says. “It will help, remembering that.” Then he pauses. “What about the Grand Duchess Marguerite?”
“What do you mean?”
“If and when you leave, what is the effect on the grand duchess? Will she remember any of this? Will she—” His voice catches again. “Will she even know I’m her father?”My first impulse is to tell him no. I saw how the Paul in the London dimension behaved after my Paul had moved on; he lost memory completely, had no idea what had happened to him.
But Paul and I travel through dimensions very differently, it seems.
So who’s to say what the other Marguerites will and won’t remember?
“I don’t know,” I say to Dad. “For her sake, I hope so. She needs you.”
“I need her, too.”
Remember, I think, trying to sear this moment in my brain so that the traces will be left even after I’m gone. Dad’s arm tightens around my shoulder, as if he understands what I’m attempting to do. Maybe he does. Always remember.
We finally glimpse the battlefield from atop a high ridge, and at first it looks only like speckles of black and scurries of movement across the vast expanse of white. But as we draw closer, I begin to see the red stains in the snow. The wind shifts, bringing the scent of battle: gunpowder and something I can only call death.
Dad has scarcely stopped the sleigh. A few of the soldiers have rude looks on their faces—a lady sweeping into their midst?—until one of the generals recognizes me. When he calls me “Your Imperial Highness,” the others snap to attention. I draw myself up like the grand duchess I am and demand, “Take me to Paul Markov.”
I knew medical care in this dimension was far more primitive than in my own, but I’m not prepared for the first sight of the infirmary. Soldiers lie on cots, makeshift bandages binding limbs that have lost a foot or a hand. Metal bowls hold medical instruments and blood. The men are in terrible pain, most of them; morphine exists here, but there’s little to go around. I can hear screaming, moaning, prayer, and one boy younger than I am pitifully crying for his mother.
Paul is silent.
I come to his side, looking down at him in horror. He’s swaddled in bandages: around his shoulder, both knees, and worst of all, his midsection. I’ve read enough war novels to know what a gut wound meant in the days before antibiotics.
No. It’s not possible. Paul won’t die. He can’t. I’ll see him through it, somehow. I’ll write Theo in Paris and tell him to leave the petri dishes out overnight so he can invent penicillin. I’ll stay with him every second. Paul will pull through.
When I kneel beside his cot and take his hand, Paul stirs. His head lolls to one side, like it’s too heavy for him to move. He opens his eyes, and when he recognizes me, he tries to smile. As badly wounded as he is, he wants to comfort me.
“Everything’s going to be all right,” I say. The lie is bitter in my mouth. Even if he survives, I know his legs will never be the same. Can he even remain a soldier? It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except saving him. “I’m here now. I won’t leave you.”
Paul tries to speak, but he can’t. His fingers shift around me as if he wants to hold my hand, but he’s too weak.
Surely the doctors are nearby; surely other soldiers can hear. To hell with them all. I bend my head to his hand and kiss it. “I love you, Paul. I love you so much. I’ll never, ever leave you again.”