The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(130)

Their research had not been so misguided after all. Newton’s disappearance proved that those infected with the virus could indeed jump, but only between the stages of a single theater. Apparently, what they couldn’t do, to employ Dodgson’s metaphor, was cross the street to the theater opposite.

That was why Newton hadn’t jumped when they injected him with the serum on the Other Side, because there was no other stage to jump to in their theater. Perhaps the virus only made it possible to jump between parallel worlds that together formed a single theater, reflected Wells. Good heavens! If only he had known, he wouldn’t have regarded the lack of results on the Other Side as a failure. He would have pursued his investigations, he would have made the necessary modifications to the serum in order to obtain that movement between theaters, he would have . . . But there was no point worrying about that now. There was nothing he could do in that primitive world where they had only just discovered fire. His moment had passed. He had done what he could, and so had the other Dodgson, and now he knew they had both of them been partly right . . . His world would simply have to get by without him, he told himself. However, the discovery that both branches of research had been on the right track made him more hopeful that in the future one of their successors might be able to perfect one of them.

And so, amid astonishing discoveries and golden afternoons, the Wellses gradually adapted to their new existence. The most difficult part was undoubtedly learning to live with the cacophony caused by randomness, that constant, irritating murmur in their heads whenever they had to make a decision: in other words, at every waking moment. But they soon devised a few strategies and mental techniques to help them put up with that continuous drone, and when either of them felt they were flagging, they could always count on the other’s support, or that of Dodgson, who never stopped watching over them. Fortunately, as the days went by, they found it easier to ignore that agonizing sensation. To their surprise, one of the activities that most helped them to control it was photography. That laborious process, with its antiquated alchemy that impregnated them with mysterious odors, became an unexpected balm for their exhausted brains. It was not uncommon for students and teachers alike coming out of an afternoon lecture to bump into Professor Dodgson and his two new friends lugging the heavy apparatus from one place to another, planted opposite Christ Church Cathedral’s imposing spire or the little sweet shop nearby, operating the gleaming camera, grappling with its various joints and hinges, like hunters laying a complicated trap with which to capture a fleeting glimpse of beauty before it faded.

The Wellses took several remarkably skilled photographs of the environs, in the words of Dodgson, who would marvel over the appearance on the light-sensitive plates impregnated with silver nitrate of herds of deer, the rectilinear courtyards of the colleges, the illustrious silence of their libraries, or the beautiful tree-lined pathway along the Cherwell, perpetually overrun by groups of idling students. It was an inexhaustible source of pleasure for Dodgson to try to appreciate his ordinary everyday reality from those fresh angles that gave it a magical air. But more than the surrounding world, Dodgson liked photographing the dean’s adorable daughters: the charming Lorina, little Edith, and Alice, the prettiest and most intelligent of the three, his favorite, and the one he would end up marrying in the world the Wellses came from. The photograph sessions with the girls were always a joy. Dodgson would open his costume box and take snapshots of them dressed as Chinamen, Indians, princes, or beggar girls, sprawling on divans or acting out complicated scenes from mythology, always aware that he was capturing for eternity a brief instant, a moment in their lives never to be repeated, a memory they would always return to when they were grown women. The Wellses soon realized that, apart from them, Dodgson did not cultivate many adult friendships. He appeared to feel at ease only in the company of little girls, perhaps due to his shyness, his stammer, or his dreamy nature. Boys terrified him, for they invariably poked fun at him, and he could never get along with them, but with girls it was different. Girls were sweet natured and thoughtful, they possessed a fragility that moved him to tears, and they aroused in him feelings of affection and protectiveness. But, above all, he knew what tone to use with them. It was so obvious to him that he was amazed no one else could see it, that the other adults, whether parents or teachers, spoke to girls the same way they spoke to boys, as if they belonged to one and the same race, a race of little people, when this was so clearly not the case. Girls required different treatment, and to any adult who provided that, the girls would not hesitate to give them their affection, astonished and grateful at having won the support of an older person. Consequently, Dodgson never seemed so happy to the Wellses as when he was surrounded by the Liddell sisters. With them he could spend hours chatting about a hundred and one nonsensical things. One afternoon, for example, during a boating trip, Wells and Jane heard him explain to the girls that they couldn’t sign off a letter “millions of kisses,” because at twenty kisses a minute, and if they were generous and fixed such an imprecise quantity at two million, it would take twenty-three weeks of hard work to be true to their word. Like the Charles from their universe, Dodgson seemed allergic to exaggeration.

And whenever they could, Wells and Jane were delighted to join those outings, in which Dodgson proved the most charming playmate imaginable; he shared the girls’ innocent pleasures, was hopelessly infected by their childish woes, and above all he told them made-up stories, which drifted idly on the summer breeze like shimmering soap bubbles. He narrated them with such ease and enthusiasm that when he finished, the girls, oblivious to how tired they were, would invariably exclaim, “Tell us another!” For the Wellses, those afternoons filled with laughter and games became another perfect way of silencing the persistent clamor inside their heads.