The Ministry of Time

After the attack on Graham and the narrator, the Ministry moves all the expats and bridges to new safe houses and confines them to the premises. Adela gives the narrator a gun. Graham will barely look at the narrator as they transition to the new house. She accuses him of being weird about her kissing him. He says it shouldn’t have happened but then admits he’s been trying to court her. He doesn’t understand what women of this era want or what he has to offer. He says he stopped things because she was drunk and frightened. The narrator can’t understand his attitude. She asks him what he wants, and he asks her to undress. They have sex, and the narrator guides Graham through ways to please her. Later, she expresses surprise that he didn’t seem completely inexperienced. His responses intimate he’d had sexual experience but only with men, adding: “One is a long time at sea” (235).

The next day, the narrator meets with Adela, who explains that the number of people who can “free travel” through time via the time-door is finite. The Brigadier, who is from the future, wants to go home. To do so, he must kill one of the current free travelers, like Graham, to “make a space in the door” (238). The narrator tells Adela that the Brigadier used her fingerprint to disable the Ministry’s security cameras when Quentin was killed. Adela says she’ll deal with it.

Over the next few weeks, Graham, Cardingham, and the narrator spend time practicing their field agent skills, especially at the shooting range. Back at their safe house, the narrator and Graham escalate their relationship into a full-fledged romance. One night, Graham suggests they break the rules and go for a bike ride, citing the narrator’s need to let off steam because she’s been so stressed and afraid. He takes her to a field away from the city lights, where they can see a sky full of stars. She’s overcome by happiness.

By April 1848, Gore has been missing and presumed dead for eight months. Nine officers and 15 other men from his crew have died. The others now abandon the ships, hoping to walk 800 miles to reach civilization. They haul small boats containing all the supplies they need. Inuit natives try to help them survive, but they’re too weak and are unaccustomed to the harsh climate. Their number dwindles as they march. Only 30 or so of the original 100 or more make it to the final camp, which is still hundreds of miles from the nearest European outpost and which later explorers dub “starvation cove.” Far in the future, Gore learns what happened to his crew. He dreams about the horrors they endured and vows not to be responsible for another death.

The Ministry begins moving its top-secret data to a new and (they hope) secure server. The process is chaotic, riddled with glitches and malfunctions. While Simellia can no longer get a meeting with Adela or even a timely response to communications, the narrator retains a privileged status. She notices that the Ministry is devoting much less effort toward Arthur and Maggie’s adjustment and well-being than to Graham and Cardingham’s. At Adela’s urging, the narrator takes a course in unarmed combat. After six sessions, she spars with Adela, who’s a much stronger fighter. They talk about Graham’s introduction to historical tragedies like Auschwitz. Adela oddly emphasizes that the narrator hasn’t yet told him about the 9/11 attacks.

With special Ministry permission, the narrator takes Graham to Greenwich to see the memorial for the Franklin expedition, the Arctic voyage from which he was extracted. The memorial appears to receive little attention as if forgotten. Graham requests some time alone in the memorial chapel. Later, he asks the narrator about the report of cannibalism on the 800-mile march. Having known the crew, he can’t believe they’d resort to that. The narrator recalls when her mother took her to Cambodia to see the remains of what was once her family’s summer home, now only floor tiles buried under dirt and weeds. This helps the narrator understand that though the expats’ situation is technically different, they experience the same “rhythms of loss and asylum, exodus and loneliness” as other refugees (270). Graham and the narrator are making love when two calls come through from Adela, which Graham urges the narrator to ignore. When they finish, the narrator sees a text from Adela telling her to come in immediately.