Curiosity (12 page)

“You are going to try it inside the Turk?”

“It'll be easier on my lungs than a candle—and much safer, too.”

I didn't bother to tell Maelzel about the lamp; he might have forbidden it, out of spite. The next day, I slipped into the exhibition hall an hour before the performance and placed the lamp inside the Turk's hollow torso. When Maelzel arrived at one-thirty, I was sitting innocently on a stool, reading
Elements of
Phrenology
.

“Ah, so you have seen the error of your ways. I trust there will be no more displays of disobedience.” He said this with an air of self-satisfaction, just as though he, and not I, had won our contest of wills.

I wasn't about to contradict him. “No,” I said.

“
Sehr gut.
Now, I have some new instructions for you. There is no need for you to comment. Just listen, and do as you are told.
Verstehst du?
” When I nodded, wincing a bit from the pain in my back, he went on. “I have decided that it would be best if the Turk loses occasionally.”

“You want me to
lose
?” I said, incredulously.

“What I
want
,” he snapped, “is for you to be
silent!
” I nodded again, and he calmed down. “What you must realize is that people have a secret mistrust of machines, a fear that machines will somehow replace them. And that is happening already,
nicht wahr
? The cotton gin, the spinning jenny, the power loom. So, as fascinated as they are by the Turk's ability, they want to see him defeated by a human being. Besides, if the Turk always wins, then there is no feeling of suspense, no wondering whether man or machine will prevail. It is a foregone conclusion, and people do not want foregone conclusions; they want to be kept guessing.

“We have been challenged to another complete game, and this time the challenger is a woman, a Mrs. Fisher. You must agree, it would be very ungentlemanly of the Turk not to let a member of the fair sex win.” When I didn't reply, he gave a wry smile. “All right, you may speak now.”

“I'm not sure Turks are noted for being gentlemanly.”

“Perhaps not. All the same, you will see to it that the lady wins. And make it look as though it is
her
doing, not yours, will you?”

“I'll try.” I didn't particularly mind the idea of deliberately losing. It actually took more skill to lose convincingly than it did to win. When I played against my father, even after I could trounce him without much effort I still threw a game occasionally, just to keep him happy. And if that was all it took to keep Maelzel happy, I was willing to humor him.

F
OLDING MYSELF UP INSIDE THE CABINET
was even more painful than usual after the drubbing Maelzel had given me. On the bright side, the Carcel lamp proved to be a big improvment over the candle. It gave off far more light and far less fumes. It was also quite sturdy and stable, and I knew from childhood experience that, even if I did manage to knock it over, I wasn't going to immolate myself or the Turk; the flame would simply go out.

Otso and I made short work of the two audience members who played endgames against us. After a short interval, Maelzel set the board up for my game against Mrs. Fisher—whoever she was. I didn't know what to expect; I'd never played against a woman. If she wasn't a strong player, it would be nearly impossible for me to lose without making it obvious that I was doing it on purpose.

Early on, she did something that suggested she was a rank beginner: She made an illegal move with her knight, moving him two spaces forward and then two to the side, instead of two and one. I shook the Turk's head, picked up the offending piece, and returned it to its previous spot.

But a few moves later, she made the same mistake with her other knight, and I concluded that it wasn't a mistake at all; it was a test, to see how the Turk would react. Maelzel could have corrected her, of course, but he obviously preferred to let the machine handle it, to demonstrate how clever it was. This time I drummed the Turk's fingers impatiently and replaced the knight more forcefully than before.

It soon became clear that she was no beginner; in fact, if I didn't pay attention I might conceivably lose
without
meaning to. But ultimately she made a genuine mistake—the same one that I've seen hundreds of others make. You may already know what castling is; if not, I'll just say that it's a move in which the rook and the king swap places. Cautious player that I am, I usually castle early on. That way my king isn't right in the thick of things, but tucked safely away in a well-protected corner.

Some see castling as a defensive move, a wasted play; they'd rather take the offensive. Mrs. Fisher was one of those. The trouble was, she couldn't move all her pieces freely, because some were needed to protect her king. All I had to do was keep threatening the Black monarch and I could pick off his subjects one by one.

Out of old habit, I started to do just that. And then I remembered that, oh, yes, I was supposed to
lose
. I was going to have to hold back, to make some inconspicuous error of my own, to give Mrs. Fisher the advantage. But for some reason I couldn't bring myself to do it.

As I've said, prior to the game I had no real qualms about throwing it. But from inside the Turk, things looked different. It wasn't that I'd changed my mind and was suddenly determined to win. It was more like the machine had a mind of its own, as if a drive to win had been built into it, as if that were its purpose, in the same way that a loom's purpose is to weave cloth, or a reaper's to cut down grain.

Normally, when I operated the Turk, I experienced that heady and unaccustomed sense of being in control. Now I had the disturbing feeling that I wasn't really deciding the moves at all, that the Turk had somehow taken over.

I'd always thought that his gaze held a sort of challenge, as though he considered everyone a potential foe. And when I'd examined his waxy skull, I'd felt a distinct bump in the area that denoted Destructiveness. Perhaps I was a bit light-headed from the pain in my back and from so many days without food. Or perhaps in such close confines the colza oil fumes had some kind of hallucinatory effect. Whatever the reason, I had the peculiar notion that the Turk saw poor Mrs. Fisher as the enemy and was bent on destroying her.

When I reached for my bishop, meaning to subtly sacrifice it to her queen, the Turk's arm suddenly became stiff and unresponsive. I struggled with it and finally got his hand poised over the bishop, but then I couldn't manage to grasp the piece properly. It must have fallen from the wooden fingers and rolled across the board, for several of the metal disks dropped, which meant that I'd toppled some of the other pieces.

Once Maelzel had replaced all the chessmen, I tried again. Again the mechanical arm resisted my attempts to put the bishop in harm's way. I was sweating profusely now, and could barely keep hold of the mechanism that controlled the fingers. For the first time since we'd begun performing, Maelzel opened the rear door of the cabinet in the middle of a game. I heard him say loudly to the audience, “I shall just be a moment.” He stuck his arm inside, as though to adjust the clockwork, but his hand seized my sleeve instead. “What the devil is the matter with you, boy?” he whispered.

“It's the machine!” I protested softly. “It's not working properly. We'd better concede the game.”

He slammed the door shut. After a minute or two, the cabinet began to move. He was wheeling us to our hiding place behind the curtain. He rapped the all-clear signal and I climbed out, stiff and sore and sweating.

“Are you trying to sabotage me?” demanded Maelzel. “Is this your way of getting revenge?”

“No! The arm was giving me trouble, that's all!”

“It was working well enough before. What did you do to it?”

“Nothing, I swear.”

“
Ja,
well, we shall see. I will have Jacques examine it.” While he was gone, I slid into the cabinet and tried the mechanism again, to make sure I hadn't just been imagining things. The arm moved smoothly and effortlessly. “Oh, Lud!” I breathed. Maelzel was sure to think that I'd faked the problem, just to get even with him.

Jacques arrived with his tool kit and set about testing the Turk's arm while I watched anxiously. Finally he turned away, scratching his beard thoughtfully. “The boy is right. Perhaps one of the wires is twisted or bent.”

Malezel cast me a disgusted glance, as though he'd been hoping to catch me in a lie. “Have it fixed by tomorrow. I told Mrs. Fisher she could have a rematch.”

He left us alone with the Turk. But instead of tinkering with the machine, Jacques turned to me and growled, “
Eh bien
. What is your game?”

“My game?”

“There is nothing wrong with the arm.”

I spread my hands helplessly. “I know; it's working all right now. But during the chess match it wouldn't let me move one of the pieces.”

“Which piece?”

“I tried to let Mrs. Fisher win by giving her one of my bishops. But it was almost like . . .” I gave a sheepish grin. “. . . like Otso didn't want to lose.”

Jacques neither scoffed at me nor struck me. He merely frowned and scratched his beard again. Finally, he said, “You play this woman again tomorrow?”

“I guess so.”

“Who is she, this Madame Fisher?”

“I have no idea. I never even saw her. One thing I do know—Maelzel will still want me to let her win.”

“Then you had better find some way of doing so.”

“What if the Turk doesn't cooperate?”

Jacques shrugged. “You beat Maelzel in a contest of wills. Surely you will not let a machine tell you what to do.”

“How can it tell me
anything
? It's just a bunch of gears and levers.” There was no reply. “Isn't it?” When Jacques continued to ignore me, I heaved a sigh. “I know, I know. I ask too many questions.”

All through the endgames the following afternoon, the Turk performed flawlessly. But then I came face-to-face—metaphorically speaking—with Mrs. Fisher again. I tried to give her an advantage by neglecting to castle my king. But as soon as I did, I felt something change. I don't know whether it was something in me—maybe deep inside I just hated losing—or in the machine. Each time I tried to make a deliberately stupid move, the Turk's arm resisted. I knew that if I tried to force it, I'd end up knocking over half the pieces again.

I put the brass dial on 3, to indicate that I needed more time. Then I slid my seat to a more comfortable position, took a deep breath, and said in a soft, reasonable voice, “Look. I can't pretend again that the arm isn't working right. Maelzel won't believe me. If I don't finish the game and let this Mrs. Fisher win, Maelzel's going to give me another beating, and this time he'll pick someplace where Jacques won't interfere.” I wasn't quite sure who I was talking to—myself or the machine. Either one seemed a little odd, but I didn't know what else to do.

“Sometimes it's okay to lose a battle in order to win the war,” I went on. “And anyway, Mrs. Fisher isn't the enemy, Maelzel is. So. I'm going to let Mrs. Fisher take my knight, now.”

I wiped the sweat from my hands, took hold of the pointer, gently lifted the knight, and moved it into the path of the Black bishop.

When I emerged from the cabinet half an hour later, Maelzel didn't exactly look pleased, but neither did he look enraged. “For once you were smart and did as you were told. Just remember who the boss is, boy, and we will get along.”

“Did Mrs. Fisher enjoy winning?”

“Very much. In fact she gave us a . . . what do you call it?”

“A bonus?”

“
Ja
. A bonus.” He tossed a half-dollar coin to me. “That is your share.”

“Who is she?”

“Frau Fisher? Who knows? Who cares? She will boast to her friends, and they will all try to duplicate her success.”

“And should I let them?”

“Not unless I say so. The Turk has a reputation to uphold, after all.”

When I returned to the workshop, Jacques said, “Well? Did Otso let you lose?”

I grinned wearily. “
Oui
. Though I did have to coax him a little.”

Now that I was in Maelzel's good graces—or as good as his graces ever got—I decided to push my a luck a little. The following day, I asked whether I could leave the workshop on my own. “I'll go late at night, when nobody will see me.”

“For what reason?”

“To take some money to my father.”

“He is still in debtors' prison, is he?”

“Yes. He needs a bed, and better food.”

Maelzel contemplated this for a moment, then shook his head. “I am afraid not. If you go wandering the streets alone, the night watch will pick you up, and you will be put in the House of Refuge again.”

That possibility had never occurred to me. I'd been incredibly lucky to avoid the watchmen on the night I raided the Parsonage. “You could come with me,” I suggested.

He gave a contemptuous snort. “I am not your servant, boy.”

“I don't suppose . . .”

“What?”

“I don't suppose you could ask Mulhouse to take me?”

He scowled at the very mention of the man's name. “
Nein
. I do not even know where he is, and I do not really care to know.”

I could hardly ask Jacques and his mechanical legs to trudge all the way to the prison with me. I did, however, ask him to send the money by messenger. “Yes, yes, all right!” he snapped. “Now pay attention to what you are doing!”

“What
am
I doing?” He had me sewing together wide strips of leather, but I had no idea what for.

“Making a back brace,
évidemment
.”

I stared at him, dumbfounded.

“Close your
grande gueule
,” he said. “And hold still.” With a cloth tailor's tape, he briskly measured the length of my curved spine, the width of my shoulders, and the girth of my waist, and jotted down the dimensions—which would have been excellent for constructing a scarecrow. There was no point in asking why he would want to build me a back brace. He would only have made some disagreeable reply, or else ignored me.