Valley of the Moon

It was exhausting, trying to act normal around her when what I really wanted to do was ply her with questions. Instead she plied me with questions—clearly she’d never spent time on a working farm. Still, she was not a prissy woman. She didn’t hold her breath in the pigsty, or shudder when she learned she would have to relieve herself in a privy. I could see she was fit. Her hands were red and rough like Martha’s; she used them to make a living.

“Where in San Francisco do you reside?” I asked.

“Noe Valley.”

“Where do you work?”

“At a pub.”

“You’re a barkeep?”

“I’m a waitress, but don’t look so shocked. Women bartend, too. Where are we going?”

She was afraid I was taking her back to the fog. I have to admit, if I’d been told I’d traveled back in time nearly seventy years, I’d have run back to my own time as fast as I could. That would be most people’s natural reaction. Instead she’d worked hard to keep an open mind. She listened intently and soaked up every little detail, and gradually, over the course of the afternoon, I’d seen Greengage cast its spell on her. She hadn’t said anything to that effect, but it was written on her face—awe.

Despite my misgivings about her, I was heartened to see Greengage had lost none of its charms. Indeed, it had a beauty and goodness that seemed to transcend questions like the ones we were grappling with today. If she really was from 1975 (and I still wasn’t convinced), I couldn’t begin to imagine the things she’d seen. The kind of life she lived. That our simple community had dazzled her gave me hope.

All at once I realized how badly I wanted for her to be real. To be who she said she was.

“I’m taking you to the house for a rest. I’m sure you must be fatigued.”

She smiled. “I am. I am fatigued.”

“We eat early. The dinner bell rings at six.”

Her face clouded over. “I don’t have any money to pay for dinner. I didn’t bring any with me. I’m sorry.”

That was four times in the last hour that she’d apologized. I couldn’t hold my tongue.

“You must stop saying you’re sorry every other minute. It’s—there’s simply no need for it.” I stopped myself from saying how unattractive it was to hear a woman apologizing all the time. “There is no fee for dinner. You are our guest.”

I hadn’t laid my hand on any currency in four months. That had been one of the unforeseen boons of our strange circumstances, not having to worry about money, dispensing it or making it.

She stared at me, her color high.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” I said.

“You’re right. I apologize too much. I hate that about myself.” She looked off into the middle distance. “I’ll help clean up, then.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“But everybody here pulls their weight. You just showed me that. I can’t take something from you without giving something back.”

“You are our guest,” I repeated. “We don’t expect anything in return.”

Her eyes welled up with sudden tears.

“Joseph, you old boot,” said Fancy. She sat on the front porch, waiting for us. “You’ve monopolized Lux for far too long. Give somebody else a chance.”

“We were on a tour,” I said.

“What did he show you? The boring workshop? The chicken coop? I would have taken you to meet Dear One.”

Dear One, known to everybody else as Eleanor, was the daughter of Polly Bisbee (our childhood cook) and was Fancy’s closest friend. Dear One as in “Dear One, would you get me a cup of tea?” “Dear One, would you mind ever so much closing that window?” She’d been Fancy’s companion until my mother died, and then she became her lady’s maid. Fancy would never refer to her as a maid now. My sister had been slower to evolve than me, but eventually she had come around.

Fancy and Eleanor were not permanent residents of Greengage. In fact, they’d arrived for their annual visit just days before the earthquake. It had taken them four weeks to travel by steamship from London to New York and then another week on the train from New York to San Francisco.

“I would love to meet Dear One,” said Lux.

Fancy jumped up from her chair. “We’re off, then!”

“No, she is in need of a rest,” I said.

Lux nodded at me gratefully. She’d been too polite to turn down Fancy’s invitation, but she really did need to sit down. She looked quite pale.

“I suppose you’ve had quite a shock,” said Fancy.

“Well, you’ve had quite a shock, too,” said Lux.

Fancy was usually steadfastly upbeat, it was one of her great strengths. But this was not one of those times; she now slumped in despair. I drew my sister to me. She laid her head against my shoulder and sighed.

“Yes, I guess we have,” she said.

Dinner was a strange affair. Some people came and paid their respects to Lux; they bobbed and curtseyed and welcomed her, making me feel I was sitting next to royalty. Others avoided her like a leper, going out of their way to bypass her, walking down another row so they wouldn’t risk having to say hello.

It was terribly awkward. Twice I got up to leave and twice Martha stopped me.

“They are looking to you to set an example,” she said. “They’re nervous. They don’t know how to make sense of what’s happening. Give them some time.”

Lux was polite. She greeted everybody with the same warmth. She looked them in the eyes and shook their hands like somebody who wanted desperately to be accepted. She started on another round of I’m sorries—“Sorry for what’s befallen you,” “Sorry it hasn’t befallen me,” “Sorry I’m free and you’re not”—but I kneed her under the table and she immediately stopped.

“Sorry,” she said to me under her breath. “This is just so weird. I don’t know what to say.”

“Do something,” said Martha to me.

I stood and clinked on my glass with a knife. The room quieted.

“Listen up,” I said. “These are the facts. This is what we know. This woman, Lux, accidentally found her way here through the fog. It seems she can come and go through the fog, though we cannot.”

I couldn’t bring myself to voice the unfathomable, that according to Lux, on the other side of the fogbank it was 1975. I paused, expecting somebody to start interrogating me about it, but the room was complicit with silence. We all needed some time to grapple with this news.

“I know you want answers. You want to know what’s happening. What does this mean? Her arrival.” I took a deep breath. “I don’t think it means anything.”

This was a lie. Her arrival changed everything and we all knew it, but because we didn’t know what it really meant for us, everybody agreed to let this lie stand for now.

“Not for us, anyway. For us life goes on as it has for the past four months. Nothing has changed. We will get up in the morning and meet with our crews and put in a good day’s work, and then we will sleep, knowing we’ve earned our rest. And the next day we will wake up and do it all over again.”

“Is she staying?” Matteo asked.