Curiosity (8 page)

Late that night, some noise woke me and I opened my eyes to see Jacques sitting at his worktable. By the light of two candles, he was tinkering with some device or other. At first, I thought it must be one of the Turk's body parts. But then he lifted the thing off the table, and I got a better look at it. It was a wooden leg, fashioned of three separate pieces—a thigh, a calf, a foot. They were held together at the knee and the ankle by some sort of spring mechanism that allowed the joints to move.

As I watched, Jacques pulled up his right trouser leg; for the first time, I realized that there was no limb inside it, only a stump that ended well above where his knee should have been. He fitted the artificial leg onto the end of the stump and fastened it in place with a web strap, then pulled down the trouser leg again. When he slid off the stool, the movement hiked up his left trouser leg a little, revealing that the limb inside it was also made of wood.

How curious, I thought; the man who keeps the Turk's machinery in order is half machine himself. Jacques took a few shuffling steps across the floor, testing whatever repairs he'd made. I quickly closed my eyes; it wouldn't do to let him know that I had been spying on him.

A
FEW DAYS LATER, MULHOUSE TURNED
up at the workshop. In contrast to his fellow Frenchman, he was even more agreeable and easygoing than usual, but also a bit unfocused, the way our old friend Father Barry used to get when he'd had a glass or two of my father's brandy. “I was supposed to teach you the Knight's Tour,” said Mulhouse, “but I understand you taught it to yourself. I trust you were a good teacher. And a good student.”

“Shall I show you?” I said eagerly.

Mulhouse laughed. “If you can do it to Maelzel's satisfaction that is all that matters. We will work on endgames, instead.” He drew a small morocco-bound book from the pocket of his frock coat and opened it to a drawing of a chessboard with six pieces of each color arranged on it. “There are seventeen endgame positions in this book. Your opponent will have the opportunity to choose any one of them, and also to choose which color he will play.”

Now, an endgame, as you may know, is just what the name implies: the final series of moves that decides the outcome of the game—although in fact the outcome is often predetermined by the first few moves. “I won't be playing complete games?”

“No, no. Our audience is made up of ordinary folk, not chess aficionados. They would never have the patience to watch a game that took several hours. These endgames seldom last more than fifteen minutes.”

I glanced at several of the drawings. “Who gets first move?”

“You do. That is, the Turk does.”

“But that's not fair. In all of these positions, whoever makes the first move is bound to win, unless he does something stupid.”

“It is not meant to be fair, Rufus. The purpose is not to prove what a good chess player you are, but to prove what a clever machine the Turk is.”

I sighed and nodded glumly. I didn't need reminding that, to Maelzel, I was not a boy with an extraordinary skill; I was only another cog in his machine, another pawn in his game—a game whose object was to make as much money as possible.

Using the chess set from Maelzel's office—which was still lacking a rook—we spent several hours going over the various endgames. When dinnertime came and Jacques had hobbled out of the room, I asked Mulhouse, “What happened to his legs?”

“I am not sure. Like the Turk, Jacques keeps his secrets well. But my friends in France—the same friends who say that he murdered a man—told me that his legs were shattered by a cannonball at the Battle of Trocadero.”

“He did say he'd been a soldier.” I shook my head sadly. “How awful. Do you suppose he made the wooden ones himself?”

“Perhaps. For all his faults, he is very clever with his hands. According to Maelzel, Jacques once worked for the celebrated Madame Tussaud, sculpting wax figures for her museum.”

“Really?” I glanced over my shoulder at the Turk, whose dark eyes were fixed on our chessboard as though following the moves. “Perhaps he fashioned Otso's head, then.”

Mulhouse laughed. “Otso?”

“Isn't that what you call him?”

“I have always just called him the Turk.”

Our next endgame seemed very familiar to me. I stopped and put a hand to my head, which had begun to ache.

“Is something wrong, Rufus?”

“It just struck me: this is identical to a game I played years ago, against my father. It was the first time I ever beat him.” A few moves later, I said, “Have you been to the debtors' prison to check on him?”

Mulhouse hesitated before replying, as though confused by the question. Then he smiled faintly. “
Excuse-moi;
I was searching desperately for a way to avoid being checkmated. Your father? Yes, yes, he is well taken care of—for the moment. We shall have to give the keeper more money soon, though. Apparently one cannot actually
buy
a bed for a prisoner; like the boards at the Chess Club, one only rents them.”

“I don't have any money; Maelzel still hasn't paid me.”

Mulhouse frowned. “I shall have to speak to him about that.” For the first time that afternoon, a cough rose in his throat.

“Is your cough improving?”

“
Pardon
? Oh, no, not really. It is just that I have found a way to keep it under control.” From the other pocket of his coat he took a small, tapered glass bottle with a label that read
GODFREY'S CORDIAL
. He withdrew the cork, swallowed a sip of the dark liquid, and gave a slight sigh of satisfaction.

“I remember Godfrey's Cordial,” I said. “When I was three or four and feeling badly, Fiona would give me a spoonful of Godfrey's. I never knew adults took it, too.”

“The pharmacist recommended it. I have never trusted patent medicines, but this works. Not only does it calm the cough, it gives one a sense of . . . I don't know . . . well-being, I suppose—as if all is right with the world.”

“I remember that feeling.” I grinned sheepishly. “Sometimes I only pretended to be in pain, in order to get a dose. But then my father found out, and that was the end of that. Fiona meant well; she didn't realize there was laudanum in it.” As a four-year-old, I'd had no idea what laudanum was, of course; it was only after I began to read widely that I discovered it was made from opium. “I wonder,” I said wistfully, “what's become of poor Fiona. She was always so kind and good.”

“Do you know her family name?”

“Grady. I remember because she used to make a joke of it. It means ‘illustrious' or ‘grand,' I guess, and she'd laugh and say, ‘Sure, and am I not the grandest lady you've ivver seen?'”

“I shall try to find out something about her. As I said before, you just have to ask the right person. How is your new nursemaid treating you?”

“Jacques, you mean? He's been in a sour mood toward me lately.”

“Quelle surprise!”

“Well, even more than usual. I tried to tell him about Carcel lamps, but he thinks I'm making it up. You've seen them, haven't you? “

“The ones with an oil pump that is run by clockwork? In France, yes. In America, no.”

“I thought it would be safer than a candle, and less smoky, but he couldn't find one.”

“I shall add that to my list of things to find out about.” He clapped the book of endgames shut. “Eh,
bien
. I have had quite enough of these infernal exercises. What do you say we play a real game?”

Perhaps he was trying to boost my spirits, or perhaps the Godfrey's Cordial had made him more careless than usual; whatever the reason, I beat him handily.

In the week that followed, Mulhouse came around nearly every day to work on the endgames with me, but he had nothing to report about my father or Fiona, and just as little concerning Carcel lamps or my chances of being paid. One thing he had done was to convince Maelzel that I was ready to make my public debut.

Though I was responsible for operating the Turk, Maelzel was the one running the show. He insisted on rehearsing the act over and over until every detail, no matter how small or insignificant, was exactly the way he wanted it. Perhaps the most crucial moment was at the very beginning, when Maelzel opened the doors of the cabinet to show the audience that there was no dwarf or trained monkey inside, only that impressive array of gears and springs and levers.

You probably assume that I wasn't in the cabinet yet, otherwise the audience would notice me, right? Not at all. You see, the shelf where I perched was on tracks, so that I could slide it forward and back. When Maelzel opened the two doors on the right, I slid all the way to the left. My body was concealed by that maze of machinery, and my legs were hidden by a drawer in the bottom of the cabinet. When he closed those doors and opened the one on the left, I slid forward, behind the first two doors, and crunched myself up so tightly I could scarcely breathe.

Though Maelzel demanded perfection, he also knew that, no matter how diligently we practiced, occasionally something was bound to go wrong, and he had made provisions for that. On the rear wall was a brass disk with numbers engraved on it. If I had a problem, I could turn it, like the combination lock on a safe, to a specific number that indicated what the trouble was. Let's say I dropped one of the miniature chess pieces; I'd turn the dial to the number 6. If the candle went out, it was a number 4. If my shirtsleeve got caught in the gears—well, I just had to tear it loose.

Obviously, I kept as quiet as I could, but if I couldn't help making a noise—ripping my shirtsleeve, for example, or sneezing—I could cover it up by turning a small crank that produced a loud ratcheting sound. Of course the audience thought it just was the machinery at work.

Following a week of intensive practice in the workshop, we wheeled the Turk into the main hall; each evening, after the exhibit closed, we spent several hours rehearsing every move we would make during an actual performance. Initially, the Turk would be concealed behind a heavy curtain. “Once you are inside,” said Maelzel, “I will roll the machine over to this spot. I will stretch a rope across
here
, to keep the audience from getting too close. There will be a table
here
, where your opponent will sit.”

“He won't play on the Turk's chessboard?”

Maelzel shook his head emphatically. “That would be far too risky. He might hear you, or he might damage the mechanism somehow. No, he will have a board of his own. I will go back and forth between the players, making your moves on his board, and his moves on yours. When the game is over, I will roll the Turk behind the curtain again and give you the all-clear signal.”

I have always considered myself a careful person, but after half a dozen practices I felt pretty confident. Not Maelzel. When we had chalked up twenty run-throughs, I began to wonder whether he'd
ever
consider us ready for a public performance.

To make sure I had no idle time, Jacques put me to work sanding the chessmen and finishing them with a special gritty lacquer that made them easier for Otso's fingers to grasp. One morning, while we were busy with that task, Maelzel strode into the workshop and said matter-of-factly, “I have placed a placard out front, announcing that on Tuesday next the famous Turk will again take on all challengers.” Then he strode out.

“What day is today?” I asked, forgetting Jacques's rule once again.

“Friday,” he said. For a time, we sanded in silence. Then Jacques glanced at me with his usual scowl. “You do not seem worried.”

I shrugged. “There's not much to worry about. I won't even be playing complete games, just endgames that are designed to let me win.”

“I did not mean about winning or losing.”

“What, then?”

“It is the small mistakes you should worry about. The ones that tell the audience there is a person inside the machine.”

“I'll be careful.”

He gave a skeptical grunt. “
Alors, Bébé
; you had better be.”

“Why do you call me that?”

“You are asking too many questions again.”

“Sorry. But why?”

Jacques gave an exasperated sigh. “
Bébé
was a famous hunchbacked dwarf. The king of Poland bought the boy from his parents and gave him to the queen as a birthday present. I saw his skeleton once, at the Musée de l'Homme. It's about three feet tall. And he was fully grown.”

“What happened to him?”

“He did something stupid; I forget what. The king had him beaten. He died not long after that.”

“The king?”

“No,” said Jacques. “The hunchback.”

A
FTER JACQUES'S WARNING, I DID BEGIN
to worry
;
despite the long days of work and rehearsal that wore out my weak body, I had trouble falling asleep at night. To occupy my mind, I sat up reading the phrenology text by candlelight until the book fell from my hands.

Though phrenology has lately fallen out of favor, for several decades it was considered a serious science. As you may know, it's based on the premise that our personalities are controlled by specific areas in the brain. Let's say that, like me, you have an insatiable curiosity; the part of the brain devoted to curiosity—or Causality, as it's called—will be larger than normal, and that part of your skull will protrude a little, to make room.

I spent a lot of time feeling my skull to see where the bumps were. There's no bump specifically for Chess, but there is one for Ability to Pattern, and mine seemed pretty sizable. Of course, so did the bump for Matrimony, and I didn't have the slightest desire to get married.

One odd thing about the system is that it deals mostly with desirable traits, such as Hope and Spirituality and Harmony. There don't seem to be many bumps for the despicable parts of human nature. There's one for Acquisitiveness and one for Combativeness, but nothing for Murderousness or Ill-Temperedness. I suppose the theory is that, if you're nasty, it's not because you have
too much
of a thing, such as Ill Temper; it's because you're
lacking
something, such as Agreeableness. So those areas are sort of sunken in.

I would have liked to poke around a bit on Jacques's skull; the organ of Agreeableness must have been severely shriveled. And Maelzel's organ of Acquisitiveness was undoubtedly huge. But I suspected they would not be very willing subjects. Otso, on the other hand, wasn't likely to mind very much.

For the past two weeks or so, the Turk had been exiled to the exhibition hall, which certainly suited me; I no longer woke in the night to find his eyes glaring at me or his voice speaking to me. In the evenings, Maelzel often left me there alone with him, so I could practice manipulating the chess pieces. And sometimes I did practice, but other times I wandered through the hall, examining the other exhibits. Even more fascinating to me than the automata were the dioramas, especially the one that depicted the 1812 burning of Moscow.

I never got to see the display all lit up, with music playing and fake flames fluttering from the windows and miniature people in motion, fleeing the conflagration. But even without light or music or movement, the scene was eerily life-like. Really, I think that seeing it in the dim light from the Argand oil lamp overhead gave it even more semblance of reality. Since I couldn't see the brushstrokes or the marks of the carving knife or the ends of wires sticking out, the figures seemed organic, like some new species specially bred to be small in size. It was easy to imagine that the tiny townfolk themselves, and not Maelzel's craftsmen, had built those little buildings and wagons and raised those little horses, including the rearing white steed on which Napoleon sat brandishing his sword.

I was tempted to remove the Little Corporal's bicorne hat and feel his skull to see whether he had a bump indicating an excess of Ambition, but I would have needed smaller fingers. I returned to where the Turk sat staring at me, waiting for me to animate him. “You'd like to be phrenologized, wouldn't you, Otso?” He didn't say yes, but he didn't say no, either.

Part of me dreaded touching the head, but a larger part of me was curious to see what I would find. I carefully removed the turban and set it aside. The only hair Otso possessed was his drooping mustache, which was made of actual human hair, pressed into the wax. Since the top of his head was entirely covered by the turban, he had no need for tresses. “This won't hurt a bit,” I said, as much for my own benefit as for his.

Gingerly, I placed the tips of my fingers against his skull. The wax felt warmer than I expected, and more yielding to the touch—almost like human skin. My hands trembled slightly as I moved them about, searching for telltale bumps. “Let me see. Ah. Obviously you have high Self-Esteem. And . . . a Love of Home. A strong capacity for Friendship. And for Fun. You actually seem to be quite a likable fellow, Otso. Except . . .” My fingers found a protuberance just above the ear. “Sorry, I'm not quite sure what that represents.” I concentrated on my mental picture of the phrenology chart. “Oh. Now I remember. Destructiveness.” I wanted to stop, to take my fingers away, but they had become adhered to the wax. I felt Otso's head move slightly under my hands, as though he were trying to shake me off, but I couldn't seem to let go.

“What do you think you are doing?” demanded a hoarse voice that might have been the Turk's. Then I heard the sound of heavy feet shuffling across the floor of the hall. My hands unstuck themselves, and I managed to cram the turban back on Otso's head a moment before a rough hand seized my arm. “I asked what you are doing!”

“I—ah—it seemed to me the Turk's head was wobbling a little. I was just checking, that's all.”

“That is
my
job!” shouted Jacques. “If you think there is a problem, you ask
me
!” He cuffed me alongside the head, right where my organ of Secretiveness lay. “You are never to place your hands on the Turk's head,
compris
? The heat from them could soften the wax!” His anger spent, he growled, “Now, get inside,
Bébé
, and do what you are paid to do.”

There was no use pointing out that I hadn't, in fact, been paid at all. A few days before, when Maelzel seemed in an unusually good mood, I had found the courage to mention it to him, but he only said what he always said: “First, we shall see how well you perform.”

Tuesday arrived at last, and with it my chance to prove myself. First on the program was the Mechanical Trumpeter, who played several marches, accompanied by his creator on the piano. Then came the Slack Rope Dancers and, for the grand finale, the first appearance in over three months by the Celebrated Chess-Playing Turk.

The show began at two. Before Maelzel opened the hall to the public, I secreted myself behind the curtain, next to the Turk, until it was time to climb into the cabinet; any noise I made was masked by the audience's enthusiastic applause for the Slack Rope Dancers. After a few minutes, the cabinet lurched, throwing me off balance; I nearly fell out the rear door before I caught hold of the platform and righted myself.

I could see nothing at all, inside the machine or outside it, but we had rehearsed so many times that I knew exactly what was going on. Maelzel was rolling me and Otso to a spot about ten feet from the audience, who stood behind a velvet rope. For exactly a minute and a half, he delivered his spiel about how the Turk had withstood the finest players of Europe and America and excited universal admiration.

When I heard his key turning in the lock, I slid my seat carefully backward and closed my eyes so the light wouldn't blind me. Through the open doors, I heard his voice: “As you may see for yourselves, ladies and gentlemen, this side of the cabinet is entirely empty except for a few levers and dials that are necessary for the proper functioning of the machine. And now—” As soon as the doors swung shut, I slid forward into my fetal position. The left-hand door opened. “—that there is nothing behind this door but the Turk's intricate and ingenious clockwork mechanism. Once I have wound that up, we may begin.”

While he inserted a crank and noisily wound the mainspring, I opened a small cavity in the Turk's abdomen and lit the candle, then pulled the folding chessboard down onto my knees. For the next several minutes, I knew, Maelzel would be conferring with someone from the audience, someone who was confident that he could defeat a mere machine. All I could do was sit and wait.

Though the inside of the cabinet was cramped, it didn't feel claustrophobic, as you might expect. It felt . . . How can I explain it? It felt like a sanctuary, like pulling the bedclothes over your head, like the den you make for yourself beneath an overturned armchair. It felt like playing hide-and-seek and knowing that, if you stay perfectly still and quiet, the seeker will never discover your secret hiding place, no matter how hard he tries.

At last I heard the brass dial being turned; it stopped on 14, indicating that my opponent had chosen endgame number 14. Then Maelzel began setting up the board. As he put down each chess piece, it lifted the little metal ring beneath it, and I stuck a corresponding peg into my little board.

The last piece Maelzel set down would indicate which color my opponent had picked. Mulhouse had pointed out that, since White had one more piece than Black, nine out of ten players would choose White, not noticing that Black actually had the stronger position. Sure enough, the last piece in place was the White king. Maelzel released the mainspring; the clockwork began clicking and whirring. I put the mechanical arm into action and threatened White's queen with my knight.

I checkmated the poor fellow in just seven moves. I assume it was a fellow; in my experience, women don't seem to care much for chess—except, of course, for the ill-fated Mademoiselle Bouvier. Anxious to avoid a similar fate, I checked the candle to make sure it couldn't possibly fall over and catch the felt on fire.

A second player challenged us, with the same swift result, and then Maelzel wheeled the automaton back behind the curtain. I snuffed out the candle and sat in the dark, replaying the two endgames in my mind, until I heard the series of raps that meant the coast was clear. But I found myself curiously reluctant to climb out of the cabinet. Partly it was because I wanted to savor that delicious sense of sanctuary a little longer. But there was more to it than that.

When I was inside that felt-lined box, I inhabited a small, well-ordered world, like the one in which I grew up. And when I played those two endgames, it gave me an unaccustomed, almost heady feeling of . . . well, of power, I suppose. After months of being nothing more than a pawn in someone else's game, I was actually in control of something, however inconsequential and artificial. Instead of being shuffled about or cast aside at the whim of others, or at the whim of Fate, I was the one calling the shots, dictating the moves—for half an hour or so, anyway. Is it any wonder I wanted to put off returning to the real world for as long as possible?

Finally, Maelzel yanked open the rear door of the cabinet and pulled me out. “What are you doing in there? Sleeping?”

“No. I—ah—I dropped one of the pieces, and I was searching for it.”

“In the dark?”

“The smoke from the candle was choking me.”

“Well, you had better get used to it. If someone asks to play a full game, you could be in there a long while.”

“Aren't we only doing endgames?”

“During regular hours, yes. But if you continue to play as you did today, I may welcome more serious challengers after the hall closes.”

“So, I did well?”

He shrugged. “Well enough.”

“You'll pay me, then?”

He gave an exasperated sigh. “If you do not stop pestering me about it, I shall pay you right enough, but you will not like the currency.” He waved an arm toward the spot where the spectators had stood, now empty. “Did you see the pitiful size of our audience?”

“I couldn't see anything. There was a lot of applause.”

“
Ja, ja
, they were enthusiastic. But take my word for it, I did not make enough profit even to cover the rent; the devil knows how I shall manage to pay my workmen.”

Any lingering feelings I might have had of power or control had vanished. I was back to being a helpless pawn once again.