Page 30 of Nineteen Eighty
The remainder of Elizabeth’s summer in Paris was underscored by a joy that left her wondering what evils lurked behind corners. These fears were the mortar holding the bricks of happiness together, and she tried her best to push them to their rightful place, but she couldn’t live in her brick house without the mortar to hold it together. Her joy and fear coexisted in a symbiosis she wished wasn’t necessary.
As their final day approached, the mortar seeped out from the cracks, coating the bricks. She’d managed not to think about their future at all, but without the magic of Paris to shield them from what lay ahead, it was all she could think about. It was everything. Their happiness now meant sorrow later. One wasn’t possible without the other.
Their dinner that evening was one they’d enjoyed a dozen times before, at their favorite Italian restaurant. Connor liked to joke that the best food they’d eaten in Paris was anything but French, and he was right, but she saw Paris as a portal to the world and everything in it. The restaurant closed at midnight on Saturdays, and so they’d enjoyed first one, then two, and then a third bottle of wine, laughing and replaying their favorite memories from the perfect summer as evening turned into night.
When at last they stumbled out on the cobblestone, the clear sky was full of stars. Elizabeth threw her arms out and spun around, losing the pattern to a blur of space. Connor joined her until they both were dizzy, giggling, and falling over each other.
But even this joy caused her sorrow. The mortar, seeping out over the brick, coating it.
With every step, Elizabeth felt she pulled them closer to the inevitability of their destruction. Every delighted sound Connor made cast a dark pall over her heart, and she hated this, hated it! Why, why was she built this way? Why?
The Seine was quiet, or so it seemed. Connor stepped forward onto the bridge, to bring them to the right side of the river, but Elizabeth paused midway.
“Do you remember”—she closed her eyes, pushing a breath into the breeze that smelled of three kinds of wine—“when we tried to stop that steamship?”
Connor, giggling, stumbled back toward her, careening into the steel with a dramatic thump. “Mostly I remember us almost getting arrested.”
“Stop. They weren’t going to arrest us,” Elizabeth said. “They were afraid for us.”
“Well, yeah.”
Elizabeth leaned forward over the railing. The light tide of the river below held just enough clip to carry anything away that might fall in. “I think I know now, why it didn’t work.”
“It didn’t work because it can’t work. We don’t have that kind of power.”
“We don’t have power over things we have no power over.”
Connor leaned his head back, taking in the stars once more. They were both so drunk, but there was courage in intoxication, and she was finding it now. “I just said that,” he said.
“There are things we do have power over, Connor. Things we always have, we just never tried them.”
“Lizzy, I think I might barf.”
Elizabeth climbed up to the first rung, the bottom edge. She again leaned forward, testing her bravery. “I can’t control what a steamship captain will do, or any of the people on that ship.”
“No, really. Do you think if I barfed in the river they’d arrest me?”
“Doubtful. But I can control… what I’m saying is… I can control what I do. My own choices.”
Lizzy wedged one of her feet into the carved fleur-de-lis pattern in the railing, raising herself higher.
Connor heaved over the side, oblivious to what she was doing.
She climbed higher, this time enough for her balance to wobble. “I know what I saw, for us. But if I jumped… if I went against what I saw and did something else, that would change the future. And no one could stop me, don’t you see? A million things might have kept the captain on time for his departure, but nothing, no one, can stop me but me.”
Connor wiped at the bile on his mouth and looked up, squinting against the lights. He blinked, not quite grasping. “Elizabeth, what are you doing up there? Get down.”
“You’re not listening.”
“I am, I just really need some water.”
“Connor, I’m being serious.”
Connor sucked at the air around him, eyes glassy, as he tried his best to focus. “What are you saying?”
“I could change the future. Me. I can change what I know to be true.” She climbed up so she was now balanced on the top of the railing. If she stood, she’d fall. She meant to fall, but not just yet.
“Stop it now.” Connor’s eyes flashed with heavy fear. He was suddenly sober. “Elizabeth, get down now, this isn’t funny!” He reached for her, but when she wobbled, he leapt back in horror. “Elizabeth Jeanne!”