Curiosity (21 page)

I
CAN'T POSSIBLY TELL JACQUES'S STORY AS
he told it to me, nor would you want me to. He mumbled so much and slurred his words so badly and used so many unfamiliar French words and expressions that I understood only about half of what he said. I didn't dare ask too many questions, for fear he might get disgusted and quit talking altogether. All I can do is take the bits and pieces and try to assemble them into something sensible, the way Maelzel's craftsmen took all those tiny figures and miniature buildings and constructed the Conflagration of Moscow.

I already knew that, after a year of touring England with Madame Tussaud, Jacques had returned to France, where he met Maelzel. That must have been around 1825, because the Battle of Trocadero, in which Jacques lost his legs, took place in 1823. Though he had new wooden limbs, he couldn't fix the damage done to his mind. Nearly every night he relived the horrors of the battle in his dreams.

Maelzel was having nightmares, too, but they were of the financial sort. Apparently someone else owned the Turk at that point, and Maelzel was supposed to be making payments on it. But you know how much he hated parting with his money. To make matters worse, the Turk was out of commission, thanks to Mademoiselle Bouvier's clumsiness.

Before Maelzel hired her, she had been an actress, but her stage career had ended when she damaged her vocal cords somehow. She was slight enough to fit into the cabinet easily and clever enough to master the endgames quickly; more importantly, she was willing to work for next to nothing. But of course she ended up costing Maelzel far more than he anticipated, when she accidentally set his star attraction on fire.

Maelzel searched for someone to help him repair the machine and found Jacques. The Frenchman's handicap had made him practically unemployable so he, too, was willing to work for a pittance. And since his violent nightmares had gotten him booted out of one boardinghouse after another, he was happy to sleep in the workshop, where he wouldn't disturb anyone.

Maelzel had decided to give the Turk a voice, and Jacques threw himself into the task. If he worked hard enough, he could block out the memory of his brief, catastrophic military career. But at the end of each day, he was drawn to those raucous, run-down taverns near the Paris docks, where soldiers and sailors gathered to squander their pay on drink and women. It was the only place he could mingle with men who understood what he'd gone through and what he was going through now, who saw him not as a cripple but as a comrade.

Not that he sat around swapping war stories and singing indecent songs. Mostly he kept to himself, nursing a single beer or coffee for hours. It was better than returning to the workshop and lying there waiting for the dreams to come. One evening, to his surprise, he heard someone speak his name and looked up to see Otso, the Basque who had fought alongside him at Trocadero, who had bound his bleeding stumps and carried him to safety.

With no more wars in the offing, Otso had grown tired of army life and mustered out. Now he was drifting about aimlessly, with no money and no prospects, not even a place to lay his head. Jacques had been warned not to let anyone into the workshop, but this wasn't just anyone. It was his closest companion, the man who had saved his life. He offered to let Otso stay the night, provided he was gone when Maelzel arrived the next morning.

The Basque was good company; he even made Jacques laugh with his outrageous accounts of all the adventures he'd had, all the women he'd seduced, all the pompous officers he'd played tricks on. When they finally turned in, Jacques had the feeling that, for once, he might not have his usual, terrible dream.

And he didn't. Instead, he relived an incident that had taken place a few days before the fateful battle. He'd gone off in the woods to relieve himself and was attacked, not by the enemy, but by a fellow Frenchman, a starving deserter bent on stealing his rations.

There was no warning, just a sudden blow to the back of his head that brought him to his knees. He felt someone yanking at the strap of his haversack. When he clung to it stubbornly, the deserter knocked him flat on his back and then, straddling his body, closed a hand around his windpipe. Jacques tried to call for help, but the man clamped the other hand over his mouth. Just before he lost consciousness, Jacques managed to fumble his bayonet out of his belt and thrust the point between his assailant's ribs. The man cried out and toppled sideways.

Jacques sat up, gasping for breath. Everything was dark. He fumbled around with one hand and felt, not rain-soaked leaves, but a mattress damp with sweat. He was not in some godforsaken woods in Spain, but in Maelzel's Paris workshop. His other hand clutched an implement that was slick with blood. But it was not a bayonet; it was one of his woodworking chisels. And the man who lay groaning next to him was not the French deserter. It was Otso.

“Ah,
Jacques,”
the Basque whispered,
“c'est moi
.
”
Oh, Jacques, it's me. They were the last words he ever spoke, and they had been echoing in Jacques's brain ever since:
Ah, Jacques, c'est moi.

Later on, when he could think more clearly, Jacques tried to reconstruct what had happened. He had probably shouted aloud, as he often did in the grip of one of his nightmares. Perhaps Otso feared that someone would hear the noise and investigate. Not wanting to get Jacques into trouble, he had tried to silence his friend by clamping a hand over his mouth.

Though Otso's death was an accident, Maelzel knew that the police wouldn't see it that way. The following day, he packed up his automata and other exhibits and booked passage on a packet ship for New York, taking with him Mademoiselle Bouvier and Jacques—who, as you know, was concealed inside the Turk. With one blow, he had rescued Jacques from the gallows and himself from bankruptcy. The Turk's owner could hardly collect rent when both the machine and Maelzel were on the other side of the Atlantic.

When we boarded the post coach in the morning, Jacques was his usual sullen, silent self. It was as if his rambling confession of the night before had never happened—and in truth, I'm not sure he even remembered it. I wish I could say the same. The awful scene he described haunted me for years. That's the trouble with being so all-fired curious; sometimes you find out things you'd rather not know.

We stayed that night at an inn near Alexandria, and the following night somewhere outside Baltimore. Each time, when Jacques brought out his bottle of bourbon, I took a long walk and didn't return until I was sure he would be dead to the world. I didn't care to hear any more confessions.

After four days of cold, tedious travel, we reached Philadelphia, and there we parted ways. “What do you plan to do?” I asked Jacques.

“I plan to find someplace,” he growled, “where no one will ask me any questions.” With that, he hobbled off.

“Thank you!” I called after him—for, though he had treated me roughly, he had also saved me from Maelzel's abuse and straightened my bent back. He made no sign that he heard me.

If Mr. Dunn was going to find a place for me, as Maelzel promised, I wanted to look presentable when I presented myself to him. With my last remaining dollar, I rented a chilly room in a boardinghouse, where I washed myself and my linens. The clothing took so long to dry that I lost patience and donned them while they were still damp. Then I set out for the offices of Nathan Dunn & Co.

As I've said, Mr. Dunn was a very prosperous merchant, so I expected his headquarters to be rather grand. It was, in fact, a very ordinary room with rows of high desks at which clerks perched uncomfortably on stools. Well, it
would
have been ordinary, if not for the exotic array of Oriental art and artifacts that sat or hung about the place: silk kimonos, lacquered boxes, ivory fans, jade Buddhas, porcelain vases, Japanese paintings—souvenirs of his many trading trips to the Far East.

The man himself was much like his establishment: quite plain and ordinary in appearance, as befits a Quaker—except that in the lapel of his drab gray sack coat he sported a silver stickpin in the shape of a dragon. There was nothing grand about his manner, either. I expected him to treat me as Maelzel had—as though I were hardly worth bothering with. Instead, he greeted me cordially, showed me to his private office, and offered me a seat while he opened the sealed letter I had brought. I was very glad to sit, for the coach trip had left me thoroughly exhausted.

It took him only a few moments to read the message. He perched on the edge of his desk, a thoughtful expression on his face. “How long did thee work for Mr. Maelzel?”

“Most of a year,” I said.

“Hmm. And what were thy tasks?”

Even though the Turk's secret was out, or would be as soon as Mr. Poe published his piece, I didn't think it wise to reveal my role as the machine's operator. “I swept the floors and helped repair the exhibits.”

“So, thee can work with thy hands? Good, good. There is always a demand for craftsmen's apprentices.” He stood and donned a broad-brimmed hat and a greatcoat that was as drab as his suit. “I'm done here for the day. I may as well take thee there in my carriage.”

He didn't say where he was taking me and, for once, I asked no questions. I was grateful to have any sort of position at all. Whoever my new employer was, he could be no worse than Maelzel. I was so worn out from my weary journey that I didn't feel much like talking, in any case. Mr. Dunn's carriage had a very soft seat, a fur rug to pull over me, and a soothing rocking motion; in a matter of minutes, I was sound asleep and didn't wake until we reached our destination.

At first, I wondered whether I actually
was
awake, for it felt more like a bad dream—a dream in which I climbed from the carriage and discovered that, instead of taking me to meet my new employer, Mr. Dunn had delivered me to the House of Refuge.

I
T WASN'T UNTIL I TWISTED MY ANKLE ON
the uneven cobbles and felt a jolt of pain that I realized it was no dream. “Why did you bring me here?” I demanded, but the words didn't have the force I intended them to; they came out in a hoarse whisper.

“Mr. Maelzel instructed me to,” said Mr. Dunn, taking hold of my arm. “Thee was in the House of Refuge when he took thee on, and, since thee did not prove suitable, he said I should return thee here.”

There was a time when I would simply have accepted my fate, as I had been taught to do. But that time had passed. “No!” I protested. “I won't go back to being a pawn!” Pulling away from him, I turned and headed for the main gate, which was still hanging open.

But my body wouldn't cooperate. My movements seemed painfully slow and labored, the way they sometimes do in dreams. My legs felt as though they were made of wood and wires, and I couldn't manage to operate them properly. I stumbled again, and this time I did more than just twist an ankle; I went flying face-first onto the cobblestones—or at least I started to. I don't remember actually hitting the ground; I suspect that Mr. Dunn caught hold of my back brace at the last second and saved me.

Well, I say saved, but what he actually did was condemn me, just as that merciless magistrate had done many months before. I later learned that Mr. Dunn was more than just a merchant; he was also one of the directors of the House of Refuge. I suppose he thought he was doing the best thing for me; I would have a roof over my head, after all, and food in my belly, and a chance to learn reading and writing and a trade of some kind. Never mind that I could already read and write, probably better than he could, that the food was mostly inedible and the work intolerably dull, and that I would share the roof over my head with boys who found great delight in tormenting me.

Of course, none of this was going through my head at the time. That's because, for the next several days, I was out of my head with fever. When I became foggily aware of my surroundings again, I was lying on a hard cot in the infirmary and someone was leaning over me, someone with only one arm. “Ezra?” I murmured.

“Yep, 'tis me. Or what's left of me. I never expected to see you here again. What happened?”

“It's a long story,” I started to say, before I was seized by a fit of coughing.

“Sorry,” said Ezra. “I reckon you shouldn't try to talk. You've got pneumony, or so they say. How d'you feel?”

“Not bad,” I said, which set off another spate of coughing.

“Oh, now, don't give me none of that
accept your fate with good grace
bunkum. Anybody can see you feel just awful.”

I nodded.

“Well, that's all right. You just lie there till you feel better, and even when you do, don't you tell 'em so. You'll get treated a lot better in here, and fed a lot better, too. After they took my arm off, I played sick for two whole weeks before they caught on.”

Now, as you know, when a character in a novel has a high fever, as soon as the fever breaks the doctor always says something like, “Well, he's out of the woods now.” But I wasn't a character in a book, and I wasn't out of the woods, or even on the fringes. I'd just passed through a little clearing, you might say, and before long I was lost again. Each time I rallied a little, the nurse seized the opportunity to dose me with calomel. It made me vomit so violently that I thought I'd turn myself inside out. As I later learned, that's what calomel is meant to do—though I can't imagine why you'd want to take someone as sick as I was and make them even sicker.

Ezra was right about the food being better; unfortunately, I couldn't keep any of it down. With each day that passed, I grew a little weaker. I couldn't even find the strength to cough; the nurse had to turn me over and pound on my back to clear my lungs. My brain seemed as feeble as my body; when I tried to play mental chess, after half a dozen moves I lost track of where the pieces were.

Each afternoon, Ezra managed to escape his chores long enough to pay me a visit. I'm afraid I wasn't very good company, but he talked enough for both of us. Despite his last disastrous attempt to escape, he hadn't given up on the idea. In a low voice, he filled me in on his new scheme, which involved a hot-air balloon, I think—though that may just have been a product of my addled brain.

I had other visitors from time to time but, as far as I can tell, they were all imaginary. My father even turned up several times. Though he seemed intent on conveying some message to me, I never could make out what it was. I thought perhaps he'd discovered that there really was an Afterlife and was welcoming me to it. I feel sure I would have joined him, too, if I'd stayed in that infirmary much longer.

But one evening—or it may have been morning; in my fevered state I had no sense of time—two strange men appeared. They lifted my limp body from the cot, laid me gently on a stretcher, covered me with blankets, and carried me outdoors, where they slid me into the back of a van and hauled me away. I was so far gone that I supposed the vehicle was a hearse, and I was headed for the graveyard.

The prospect didn't worry me particularly. I would have been more alarmed had I known what my real destination was: The Friends' Asylum for the Insane. I was vaguely aware that I was being placed in another bed, and that it was more comfortable than the infirmary cot, but that was all.

Well, not quite all. Just before I drifted into unconsciousness, I noticed—forgive me for using this threadbare phrase one more time—a familiar figure bending over me. I assumed I was hallucinating again, for in my faint, fogbound vision the woman resembled the mysterious, black-clad Mrs. Fisher.

I have no memory of the days that followed; I know only what I've been told: that the doctors and nurses at the Friends' Asylum gave me the best of care. There were no more debilitating doses of calomel, only beef tea and red wine diluted with water, fed to me a spoonful at a time by my friend in the dark dress who, they say, never stirred from my bedside.

You may wonder why someone I scarcely knew would be so concerned about my welfare. Well, I wondered the same thing—as soon as I was able to wonder anything at all. Actually, the first thing I wondered was how I could possibly still be alive. The second thing I wondered was where I'd been taken, and why. Only then did my thoughts turn to Mrs. Fisher. She was still sitting in a chair, not three feet away. When I turned my head and gazed at her through crusted, half-open eyelids, she smiled and put a hand to my forehead.

“The fever is gone,” she said.

“Does that mean I'm out of the woods?” I murmured.

“I think so.”

I went on gazing at her face for a long while, trying to recall whether we had met before, and drew a blank. We had encountered each other, of course, just not face-to-face. She had a pleasant countenance—a little melancholy and careworn, but attractive and intelligent and kind all the same. She clearly didn't mind my staring at her. In fact, she gave as good as she got. But she didn't appear puzzled at all about my identity; she seemed to know exactly who I was.

“I'm sorry,” I said, finally. “Do I know you?”

“No. Not really.” I expected her to go on, to offer some explanation for her presence there. And she did seem about to speak several times, but each time she simply sighed, as if she couldn't find the right words. After a bit, she leaned over and picked up something from the little table next to the bed. It was my father's journal, which I had left in its paper wrapping all this time. It was no longer wrapped. She opened it to a page near the back and handed it to me. “This will explain better than I can,” she said. Then she stood and, as softly as a shadow, left the room.

I rubbed the crust from my eyes and peered at the page. Luckily my father wrote in a very bold and expansive hand; otherwise I couldn't have hoped to make out the words. Though the journal entry was fairly short, by the end of it his handwriting was growing unsteady, as if he was having trouble holding the pen.

 

My dear boy,

By the time you read this, I will be in—I nearly said in Paradise, but I'm not so certain of that as I once was. At any rate, I'll be gone to wherever it is we go after death, even if it is only under the ground. I can't depart this world, though, without revealing to you the secret that I have suffered with, like a festering wound, these many years. I thought I was doing right to keep it from you, but I'm no longer so certain of that, either. I suspect that you are stronger than I ever gave you credit for.

I have led you and everyone else to believe that your mother, my beloved Lily, died soon after you were born. The truth is, she lived for some months afterward—though not with us. You see, she had always been subject to melancholy moods; after giving birth, she descended into that deep state of melancholia that some doctors term depresssion, and nothing anyone did could rouse her from it.

We were not well off financially at that time, to put it mildly. Her wealthy parents, who had always disapproved of me, claimed that her condition was a result of having to live in such poverty, and they insisted on taking her home with them. I thought it would be for only a short while, so I consented. But there she sank into such despair that, fearing for her life, they committed her to a mental hospital—they would not say which one. I tried my best to find her, but they must have admitted her under a false name.

A few months later, I received a brief, impersonal note from her parents, informing me that she had taken her own life. I was not even permitted to attend the funeral. Perhaps I was wrong to hide all this from you, and if so I ask your forgiveness. I just felt you had enough burdens to bear; I didn't want to saddle you with another, even heavier one. I told no one else, either, for the stigma of insanity would surely have been attached to you.

I regret that I leave you no inheritance of any kind, only this sad and rather shameful secret. But as I said, I've come to believe that you are strong enough to make your own way in the world after all. And I do leave you one other thing, for what it's worth—a father's love.

 

P.S. If the worth of my scientific theories should ever be recognized within your lifetime, and my book reprinted, please add to it the notes in this journal.

 

My hands trembled, the way my father's must have when he set down those last shaky sentences. The journal slipped from my grasp and, bouncing off the bedclothes, fell to the floor. Mrs. Fisher bent to retrieve it. I hadn't even been aware of her presence; she came and went as quietly as a ghost. I reached out shakily and touched her to reassure myself that she was flesh and blood. She closed her hand around mine; I felt the warmth of her skin, and the faint throb of her pulse.

“I still don't understand,” I whispered.

She turned her hand over and pulled up the sleeve of her dark dress so I could see the rough scar that marred her thin wrist. “I did try to take my life,” she said. “But I didn't succeed.”

“Then you're—?”

Have you ever seen a rainbow splashed across the sky in the middle of a downpour? Well, when my mother smiled and, at the same time, her eyes overflowed with tears, that's what it made me think of. “Yes,” she said. “Oh, yes.”