Curiosity (5 page)

The platform where Jacques ordered me to sit was in that large, relatively open compartment on the right. Attached to one wall was a small chessboard that folded down into my lap. That was the board I actually played on, using a set of miniature chess pieces with pegs on the bottom. The pegs fit snugly into holes in the board; that way, if I bumped the board, the pieces wouldn't go flying.

As you can see, there was a full-sized chessboard on top of the cabinet, with full-sized chessmen. Hanging from the roof of my little compartment was a mechanical arm with a pointer on it. This was connected to the Turk's left arm (when his arm was actually in place) by a complicated system of levers and wires. It worked in much the same way a pantograph does—you know, those devices that let you reproduce a drawing in a larger or smaller size.

When I placed the pointer on a particular square of the small chessboard, it moved the Turk's hand to that same square on the big board. If I twisted the end of the pointer, it made the Turk's jointed fingers open and close, so that I could actually pick up the big chess pieces and move them around—well, not at first, of course. It took me some time to master that skill.

Alongside the pantograph-like arm were several levers. When the Turk was fully assembled, one lever moved his eyes; another moved his head. The third operated a bellows that pumped air through a mechanical voice box, enabling him to speak a few essential words.

As I said, people had been trying for decades to find out the Turk's secret, and in a matter of a few moments it had been revealed to me, just as I'm revealing it to you. “I am sure,” said Jacques, “that Maelzel warned you to say nothing about this to anyone.” I nodded. “Good. Make sure you heed that warning. If you do not . . . well, I am not sure what he will do. But I know what
I
will do.” Next to him stood a sturdy wooden bench with woodworking tools lined up in neat rows. He selected a carving knife with a wicked curved blade and shook it like an admonishing finger, a few inches from my face. “I will split you down the middle like a stick of balsa wood.”

For the second time that day, I experienced that strange and slightly sickening sensation—fear.

By the way, there's no need to worry about the fact that you, too, are now privy to the Turk's secret. You may reveal it to whomever you like. As you will discover in due time, it no longer matters.

I
WAS EAGER TO TRY OPERATING THE TURK,
but of course I couldn't, since his chess-playing arm was out of commission. For the moment, all I could do was ask questions. “If I'm controlling the machine, what are all the gears and springs for?”

“To mislead the audience. Also, the noise they make covers up your farts and sneezes.”

“But if the audience can see the clockwork, why can't they see me—” I broke off as one of Jacques's large-knuckled hands struck me alongside the head.

“I will tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it. In the meantime, shut your face.” He snatched up a twist of chewing tobacco and bit off a hunk large enough to choke a horse. “Now get out of there,” he said, his words muffled by the wad of tobacco. “You are in my way.”

For nearly a week, all I did was sit in that room, watching Jacques work on the machine and playing mental chess. When the amputated arm was reattached and working smoothly, he turned his attention and his curses to the Turk's voice box. Twice a day he crossed the street with his strange, hobbling gait and had his dinner or his supper at the Oyster Cellar, while I stayed shut up in the workshop. Each time, he brought back some food for me; though it was always cold and usually greasy, I was grateful enough to have it.

I slept in that same room, on a sack full of wood shavings. I didn't even leave to use the privy, for we had an indoor earth closet; once a week or so, the night soil men came by and collected the contents.

It didn't matter much to me that my life was limited to a single room. Thanks to my poor health, I had spent much of my childhood confined to my bedroom, so in a way this felt reassuring, safe. I only wished that I had better company, and a few books to read. Of course I also wished to visit my father, to see how he was faring, to let him know that I was all right.

Another thing I would have liked was to air the place out; the room was stuffy, usually hot, and always smelly—though Jacques washed himself regularly, he also sweated copiously. But we weren't allowed to open the room's single window for fear some curious passerby might spy on us and learn the Turk's secret. As long as the sash was closed, no one could see in, for the panes were made of frosted glass.

The one feature of the room that bothered me most, though, was the Turk's disembodied head. It sat on a high shelf, still wearing its turban. Though I did my best to ignore it, I fancied I could feel those dark eyes staring at me. Sometimes they challenged me to meet their gaze; other times they seemed to accuse me of something, though I didn't know what. I often woke in the night and peered at the shelf, thinking that perhaps the eyes would be closed in sleep, but they never were. In the little light that came from the streetlamps, I could see the whites glowing like two miniature moons, half eclipsed by the dark orbs of the pupils.

Once, when I was feeling feverish—as I sometimes did, for no good reason—I heard the head speaking to me. The words were slurred and almost inaudible, but I thought he was asking why the gift of life was wasted on someone as frail and useless as I was, when he clearly deserved it more.

I was most aware of the head when I was left alone with it. One day while Jacques was at dinner, I climbed onto a chair and carefully draped a clean rag over the thing. “There,” I murmured. “That's better.” Then, for some reason, I added, “I'm sorry.” There was no reply.

The head couldn't actually speak, of course; in fact, Jacques was still struggling to get the voice box in the neck to say a few words. In between bouts of cursing he revealed that, when the Turk put an opponent's king in check, he was supposed say
“Échec,”
; when he checkmated the other player, he said,
“Échec
et mat
.
”
But there was something amiss in the artificial vocal cords, and it came out sounding more like “A sheep say baa”—a phrase that I couldn't imagine having much use for.

Jacques was so obsessed with restoring the voice that he completely ignored me and the job I'd been hired to do. Finally I decided that I might as well educate myself, as I had always done. The next time I was left alone, I set up the board, climbed inside the machine, and tried my hand—or rather the Turk's hand—at moving the pieces about. At first, I was hopelessly inept. I can't tell you how many times I failed to lift the hand high enough and ended up strewing the chessmen all about the room. But after a few days, I began to develop a feel for it.

I still had very little idea what was expected of me. I assumed that at some point I'd be playing against another person. But if I couldn't see the big chessboard, how would I know what moves my opponent was making? Jacques hadn't bothered to explain this. As I got more adept at moving the chess pieces, though, the answer became obvious.

Beneath each square of the main board was a little pin with a thin metal ring on it. Each chess piece had a magnet in the base; when I picked up a piece, the magnet let go of the metal ring, and it dropped; when I set the piece down again, the magnet lifted up the metal ring on that square.

Von Kempelen, the Turk's inventor, had clearly been a clever fellow. I wanted to know more about him, and about how the machine had come into Maelzel's hands; I wanted to know who had operated it before me, and who I was to play against and when, and so many other things, but I didn't care to risk Jacques's wrath—especially after what occurred about a week into my apprenticeship.

At some small hour of the night, my already fitful sleep was disturbed by the sounds of someone struggling and crying out. In my stuporous state I imagined that it was the Turk's head, protesting the fact that I'd covered him up with a cloth. Then I realized the clamor was coming from Jacques's bed. Thinking that he must be ill or in pain, I rose and shuffled across the room, banging into unseen objects on my way.

Jacques was tangled up in his blanket and thrashing about as though assailed by demons.
“Non!
Non!”
he called out, in a voice as tortured and indistinct as the Turk's.
“Laissez-moi tranquille, je vous
en prie!”
Not knowing what else to do, I bent down and, catching hold of his shirtsleeve, shook it a little. There was no response. I shook it harder. His eyes sprang open and the look in them was wild, desperate; one huge hand shot out and seized me by the throat.

I tried to shout in protest, but his grip was so tight that I couldn't breathe. Frantically, I flailed at his arm with my fists; it had no effect at all. Just as I was on the verge of passing out, he seemed to come fully awake at last, and to realize what he was doing. He released me and I sagged to the floor, gasping.

Jacques swung his legs awkwardly over the edge of the bed and sat up, holding his head in both hands.
“Idiote
!”
he growled. “Never do that again!”

In a choked voice, I said, “I—I was only—”

“Do not explain! And do not ask any questions! Just go back to bed. And in the future, when I am asleep do
not
come near me, no matter what I may do or say.
Compris?
”

A few nights later, his cries and struggles woke me again. I lay listening, wondering what sort of torments he was suffering, and why, until at last he grew quiet again.

After nearly two weeks of being cooped up with Jacques and the Turk, I was once again rescued—temporarily—by the amiable Monsieur Mulhouse. He convinced Maelzel that, if I was to stay in good health—as good as my health ever got, anyway—I needed fresh air and exercise. Maelzel reluctantly agreed to let me out, but only at night. No one was to see me coming and going from the hall, lest they guess what we were up to.

The streets were dark, except for the widely spaced coal-gas lamps, and deserted except for a drunk making his unsteady way home. “I imagine you would like to visit your father,” said Mulhouse.

“Oh, yes! Will you take me?”

“
Oui.
But you must not let Maelzel know. I think he would prefer to keep you two apart. He likes his minions to have no loyalty to anyone but himself.”

“Are you his minion?”

“I was. Until he no longer had any use for me.”

“What did you do?”

“What was my job, you mean? Or what did I do to make him dismiss me?”

“Both.”

Mulhouse took his time in replying. “I am so accustomed to keeping it a secret, it is difficult for me to say. But I suppose I may tell you. I operated the Turk.”

“Really? How did you fit inside? It's close quarters, even for me.”

As we passed beneath a streetlamp, I saw a pained smile on the Frenchman's face—or perhaps it was a wince. “It was not easy. By the end of even the shortest game, I was stiff and aching all over. I don't know how I bore it as long as I did.”

“When did you begin?”

He gave me a look of mock exasperation. “You ask many questions, Rufus.”

“No one else will tell me anything.”

“I am astonished. I supposed that you would have long, heartfelt conversations with Jacques nearly every day.”

I laughed weakly. “No. And I seldom see Maelzel.”

“He gives far more attention to his machines than to his human workers. Now, what did you ask me? Ah, yes, when I took over the Turk.” Mulhouse sighed, as if it wearied him even to think about it. The sigh turned into a cough. He dug out his lozenges and let one soothe his throat as he spoke.

“Perhaps thirty years ago, Maelzel bought the machine from its inventor and restored it. It quickly became the main attraction in his exhibition of automata and dioramas. Around 1820, he brought his show to Paris. I was still young enough to think that it was my destiny to become the best chess player in Europe. The fact that dozens of others had played the Turk and lost did not worry me; I was confident that I could defeat a clockwork man.

“Imagine my shame when he checkmated me in twelve moves. I knew there had to be a human player concealed inside; my pride would not let me think otherwise. But another six years passed before I found out for certain.

“A letter was delivered to me at the Café de la Régence, where I was the resident chess master. It was from Maelzel. He was touring America, he said, and he offered me a good deal of money to demonstrate the Turk for audiences in Boston and New York. It was not until after I arrived that he revealed the truth: I would be
operating
the Turk.”

“What happened to his usual operator?” I asked. The Frenchman didn't reply at once. When we passed beneath another gaslight, I saw that his expression had turned grim. “Monsieur Mulhouse?”

He coughed again, but it didn't seem due to an irritation so much as to nervousness or a reluctance to answer. At last he said, “Well, the fact is, no one quite knows what became of her.”

“Her?”

“A young woman named Mademoiselle Bouvier—not an expert player, I gather, but good enough for Maelzel's purposes. He hired her in France and brought her to America with him. But shortly after they arrived, she disappeared.”

“She quit, you mean?”

“No. I mean she simply disappeared. No one has seen her since.”

“Did you ask Maelzel about her?”

“Of course.”

“And . . . ?”

“He told me to mind my own business and to never mention the woman's name again. I can think of only two reasons why he would despise her so much. One is that he made advances toward her, and she rejected him. The other is that she sold him out.”

“Sold him out?”

“Revealed the Turk's secret. To some rival, perhaps, or to a newspaper. If she did, nothing came of it. Still, I can't help wondering . . .”

“What?”

“Well, whether Maelzel had something to do with her disappearance.”

“You mean . . . ?” I drew a hand across my throat.

“I don't know. All I know is that, when it comes to business matters, he can be ruthless.”

“But surely not
that
ruthless.”

“To be honest, I would put nothing past him. Or Jacques, for that matter. I don't know much about the fellow, and I don't care to, but in France there were rumors that he killed a man; some say it was the reason he fled to America.”

I shivered as I thought of Jacques waving that carving knife in my face.

“Are you cold?” asked Mulhouse. “Here.” He draped his jacket over my thin shoulders.

“Thank you.” We walked on in silence for a time, then I said, “Why did you stop operating the Turk? Because it was too cramped?”

“Partly. But also because of this cough of mine—a result of being shut up in that infernal cabinet for so long, with a burning candle next to me. It became such a problem that Maelzel feared the audience would hear me, and he let me go.”

“You're not worried that you'll disappear? Like Mademoiselle Bouvier?”