Chap­ter 2 opens with the nar­ra­tor reflect­ing on their expe­ri­ence at the Min­istry after rid­ing the Lon­don Under­ground with Gra­ham Gore, an expat from a past era. Despite his dis­place­ment, Gore adjusts sur­pris­ing­ly well to mod­ern life, though he often ques­tions con­tem­po­rary con­cepts, such as the com­plex­i­ties of dat­ing in the 21st cen­tu­ry. His open­ness to the changes around him is clear, but the nar­ra­tor feels their bud­ding rela­tion­ship is taint­ed by the emo­tion­al weight each of them car­ries from their respec­tive his­to­ries. Upon arrival at the Min­istry, Gore is escort­ed to meet with oth­er expats, while the nar­ra­tor meets with Quentin, their han­dler. Quentin, how­ev­er, express­es con­cern over the cog­ni­tive sta­bil­i­ty of the expats, par­tic­u­lar­ly Gore. This intro­duces the key theme of the chap­ter: the immense chal­lenges faced by those who have been extract­ed from their his­tor­i­cal peri­ods. As Quentin and the nar­ra­tor dis­cuss the psy­cho­log­i­cal strug­gles of these indi­vid­u­als, it becomes clear that rein­tro­duc­ing them into mod­ern soci­ety is far from straight­for­ward. The expats are left to nav­i­gate a world so for­eign to them, and the toll it takes is just begin­ning to emerge.

Quentin’s con­cerns regard­ing Gore’s men­tal state are revealed in a con­ver­sa­tion where he explains that Gore had orig­i­nal­ly assumed his expe­di­tion had sur­vived its dire cir­cum­stances. This mis­con­cep­tion fur­ther high­lights the dis­con­nec­tion that many of the expats feel with the cur­rent era, adding anoth­er lay­er to the strug­gles they face. The chap­ter delves deep­er into the con­cept of time trav­el and its effects on indi­vid­u­als who are placed in a future they do not rec­og­nize. This strug­gle is also reflect­ed in the oth­er expats, such as Regi­nald-Smyth, who finds it dif­fi­cult to adapt to mod­ern life. Dur­ing a meet­ing with Vice Sec­re­tary Adela, the top­ic of expat wel­fare is dis­cussed in detail. Adela, along with oth­er offi­cials, grap­ples with the moral­i­ty of the project. Is it eth­i­cal to bring peo­ple from the past into a future they can bare­ly com­pre­hend? This rais­es ques­tions about the psy­cho­log­i­cal toll of being dis­placed through time. The expats are sub­ject­ed to a life that not only iso­lates them phys­i­cal­ly but men­tal­ly, as they are forced to con­front their own irrel­e­vance in this mod­ern world. Simel­lia, anoth­er bridge in the project, shares her expe­ri­ence with her own expat, empha­siz­ing the psy­cho­log­i­cal trau­ma they all face. The com­plex­i­ties of iden­ti­ty, his­to­ry, and time are woven through­out the chap­ter, mak­ing it clear that this project is fraught with moral ambi­gu­i­ty and unfore­seen con­se­quences.

The narrator’s rela­tion­ship with Gore is fur­ther explored, as the com­plex­i­ty of his char­ac­ter becomes more appar­ent. Gore is por­trayed as charm­ing but dis­ori­ent­ed, strug­gling with the notion of how to fit into a world that feels for­eign. Their inter­ac­tions are filled with both humor and dis­com­fort, as Gore’s efforts to under­stand mod­ern cus­toms often lead to moments of cul­tur­al dis­so­nance. One of the most telling moments occurs when Gore express­es a desire for a dog, sym­bol­iz­ing his yearn­ing for nor­mal­cy and com­pan­ion­ship in a time he does not ful­ly under­stand. This request is met with skep­ti­cism, which fur­ther high­lights the chasm between him and the mod­ern world. It is in these small moments that the depth of his strug­gle is revealed, as he longs for con­nec­tion and sta­bil­i­ty in an envi­ron­ment that offers lit­tle of either. At the same time, the nar­ra­tor is grap­pling with her own com­pli­cat­ed iden­ti­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly her mixed-race back­ground, which com­pli­cates her under­stand­ing of mod­ern soci­etal norms. While edu­cat­ing Gore on con­tem­po­rary life, she is also forced to con­front the com­plex­i­ty of her own posi­tion with­in this mod­ern soci­ety. The jux­ta­po­si­tion of the expats’ yearn­ing for con­nec­tion and the nar­ra­tor’s strug­gle to under­stand her place in this world high­lights the deep themes of iden­ti­ty, cul­tur­al adap­ta­tion, and the bal­ance between per­son­al his­to­ry and the expec­ta­tions of the present. Their evolv­ing inter­ac­tions explore these themes in sub­tle, yet pow­er­ful, ways, sug­gest­ing that their friend­ship will con­tin­ue to grow despite the chal­lenges they face.

The chap­ter also dives into the idea of cul­tur­al and soci­etal expec­ta­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly through the lens of the expats’ attempts to adjust to mod­ern life. As Gore begins to engage more with the cus­toms of the present, it becomes clear that adapt­ing to this world is not as sim­ple as it may seem. The bur­den of his­to­ry weighs heav­i­ly on each of the expats, and the con­trast between the world they once knew and the one they are thrust into con­tin­ues to gen­er­ate ten­sion. This cre­ates a com­plex nar­ra­tive that explores not only the prac­ti­cal chal­lenges of adjust­ing to a new soci­ety but also the emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal impli­ca­tions of liv­ing in a time that is not one’s own. The evolv­ing rela­tion­ships between the expats and the nar­ra­tor serve as a reflec­tion of these larg­er themes, point­ing to the pos­si­bil­i­ty that, despite their dif­fer­ences, they might find a way to rec­on­cile their past with the present. In this way, the chap­ter offers a nuanced explo­ration of iden­ti­ty, belong­ing, and the dif­fi­cul­ties of nav­i­gat­ing the com­plex ter­rain between the past and the future.