My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time (29 page)

‘Guess again,' challenged Fru Jakobsen, attacking her foliage.

‘Well, she was a creature of habit. So I would wager she remarried. Her pattern was to kill them or drive them away, was it
not? I'd bet fifty kroner that she had more than one husband, after the Pastor.'

‘Three!' cried Fru Jakobsen. ‘Making five in all, including Professor Krak! You genius!'

‘It's not so much genius as observation, for she is of the parasitic persuasion,' I countered. ‘Being a Fine Lady born & bred.'

‘Well, in the end she died alone & fat at the age of sixty,' finished Fru Jakobsen, ‘from a surfeit of cakes & chocolate liqueurs!'
At which she blushed & crossed herself, & added guiltily: ‘Bless her soul.'

That afternoon we took a train (that sold coffee! From a trolley! Where newspapers were freely available, & a little plastic
rubbish bag hung beneath the table!) to the far-flung town of Roskilde. The Sankt Hans was an imposing building, within whose
reception hall we were immediately hailed by a sharp little gent with a distracted air, smelling oddly enough of glue, who
with some perspicacity semed to have anticipated our unannounced arrival. He introduced himself as Ivor Winkel, & informed
us that the Medical Commandant was currently on holiday in Madagascar observing wildlife ‘such as hyenas, baboons and wildebeest',
but as his ‘right-hand man' he would be happy to assist us, whatever the nature of our business. He then led us to a large
airy room with much furniture, where he gestured us to sit while he settled himself behind a plastic-topped table upon which
was sprawled a large & most elaborate miniature stage-set featuring a scenario of chunky, viciously armed warriors, odd-shaped
attack tanks, & tiny models of trees, hills & boulders, with a spear-bristling fortress behind. He explained that this all
consisted of ‘Dark Elf, from the Fantasy range'. Were we familiar with Warhammer?

We apologized for our ignorance on the subject, & he sighed that it was of no matter, as many members of the institution were
into it, ‘especially those who tune in to voices'.

‘Might we conduct some research into a former inmate, Doktor Winkel?' I asked tentatively. ‘If you have records going back
as far as the turn of the nineteenth century?'

Yes, he supposed we might investigate the archives & indeed if he was clever & pulled some strings (for he had friends in
high places if we knew what he meant) he could probably get hold of a key to the archive room, but he warned that once in
there, we had best keep a low profile & avoid the nurses, or they'd medicate us or worse, ask questions about how we were
feeling ‘in ourselves'.

Although this was most maddeningly puzzling in a way quite typical of the future, the Doktor proved as good in deed as he
was in word. He left us ‘in the capable hands', as he put it, of the television, & for ten minutes we were transfixed by a
children's programme in which a venomous snake dislocated its jawbone & – gorily fascinating! – swallowed an entire white
mouse in one slow & wriggling gulp, before the Doktor returned, having procured the requisite key. He then led us through
a labyrinth of corridors, in which we passed many intense-faced people of all shapes & sizes, none of whom gave either us
or the Doktor a second glance, until we came to a door marked Archives. ‘If you're looking for early records, it will probably
be on paper rather than CD-ROM,' Doktor Winkel said knowledgeably. ‘But forgive my haziness about the precise filing system.
Would you like to sleep in here tonight, even though there may be the odd rat?'

‘Er, I think not,' said Fru Jakobsen delicately, nudging me in the ribs & shooting me a wide-eyed look. ‘Just leave us the
key, if you would be so kind, Doktor. We'll lock ourselves in instead, & that way we won't be disturbed.'

This seemed to satisfy the Doktor, & so without further ado, Helle Jakobsen & I set about hunting for the name Poppersen Muhl
in the long narrow musty room that housed the hospital's archives.

‘Our Franz is lurking in here somewhere, you can be certain of it!' cried Fru Jakobsen, expertly sliding open the drawers
in which documents were kept. ‘Under P!' Swiftly, she ran her fingers through, throwing up clouds of dust, then stopped &
whipped out a yellowed piece of paper. ‘Franz Poppersen Muhl!' she cried in delight. ‘Good grief,' she said, tapping the sheet,
‘it says he was a patient here from 1899 until his death in 1980! Do you realize, that means he lived to be a hundred!
Private funeral . .
.
buried in the tomb of the
Poppersen Muhl family … invented & patented the dust-sucker
whilst a patient…
Ah! Look here, it seems that he left all his scrapbooks & diaries! Twenty volumes of them!'

‘But look at this place: they could be anywhere!' I cried, for the room was stuffed to the gills with archival memorabilia.
‘Where to start?'

‘Try row twenty-five, shelf ten,' smiled Helle Jakobsen, consulting the paper again (how clever she was!), & sure enough,
high up (stepladder required & found), squatted a row of bulky volumes bound in grey leather. Wobbling on my perch, with Helle
Jakobsen keeping the ladder stable below, I pulled one out & coughed as the particles flew: it was dated 1897-8, & labelled
in red ink:
To London & Back.
Did I not recall Franz working on just such a scrapbook in London, in which he made spidery notes & glued in ephemera such
as cinema tickets, flyers for pizza deliveries, photographs of historic monuments, & cards from phone booths advertising HOT
LESBO CHICKS GO WILD? But Satan's underwear: twenty volumes! We could never smuggle them all out of here, & even if we could,
reading our contraband would take an eternity!

Flustered by this thought I opened one at random, dated 1923, & read an entry.

June 25th. My bowels have been giving me gyp again, & I am
queased. Heigh ho sweetcorn! I played four rounds of gin rummy
with Herr Lagerfeld, then spent one hour & twenty minutes working
on the design of my ‘rat suicide' device. The trapping mechanism
still has me stumped. Nettle soup for tea: this will do nothing to
improve matters gastric. Mama visited & left a packet of geranium
tea, which I threw in the rubbish as soon as she had gone. Papa has
sold some more stocks & shares, she says, & they have a new
pianoforte upon which she plays Für Elise' despite her arthritic
fingers. We discussed Brahms, & I speculated that science might one
day come up with a way of modifying nature, so that crops might
glow in the dark, the sea become boiling hot, pigs grow wings, etc. ‘O
dear Franz, not that conversation again,' she pleaded finally, after I
had aired my thoughts & predictions on these & other matters
futuristic, so we then sat in silence, punctuated by Herr Gunn's
monstrous burping, until she left. Weather mildish. Saw a starling,
& fed it some crumbs. In the night Frøken Jette Sørensen died
writhing in agony like Madame Bovary after taking an overdose of
toilet cleaner, & we all had to say a special prayer for her, even
those of us who, like me, do not believe in God, & were not quite
sure who Frøken Sørensen was or what she was for. Oh well: another
day, another dollar, as they say in the US of A!

Lord, trawling through pages & pages of such self-absorbed nonsense in the hope of a clue concerning my Scottishman's fate
could take for ever!

‘We shall have to settle for taking four or five scrapbooks,' I decided. ‘From the first few years solely. We will simply
walk out of here with them, behaving as though we own the world: that is the way to do it'

‘You mean
steal
them?' asked Fru Jakobsen, looking mildly aghast, but I could see she recognized we had little choice. ‘But Charlotte
skat,
how can we be sure to get away with it?'

‘Experience,' I said. ‘For in my Østerbro days, Fru Jakobsen, I am sorry to tell you that as well as plying my trade as a harlot, I was also a dab hand at shoplifting.'

While my refined friend absorbed this shameful fact, I, all a-cough with dust, selected what I judged to be the most relevant
volumes, then went in search of a vessel in which to smuggle them out, leaving Fru Jakobsen to riffle through the pages of
a scrapbook from 1970 entitled
Important Things Life
Has Taught Me & Other Reflections.
Eventually I unearthed a box in a storage cupboard housing supplies of toilet paper & tampons, & when I returned, found Fru
Jakobsen smiling to herself in a most contented & dreamy way.

‘You know, I think Franz had rather a good life here after all,' she said. ‘For the thoughts expressed here are not the conclusions
of an abject creature who felt that his life had failed. On the contrary. I would say that in the Sankt Hans, our delicate
young friend transmogrified into a wise & fulfilled man, with much to live for.'

Glad though I was to hear this, & keen to see the evidence for myself (for I will admit to some surprise at this notion!),
the reasons for Fru Jakobsen's assessment would have to wait for a later juncture, it now being urgent to make away forthwith.
It was with some relief that we discovered Doktor Winkel nowhere to be found, so we left the key dangling from a warrior's
spear atop a Dark Elfin tower with an anonymous note of thanks, & made a speedy exit, returning to Roskilde train station
& thence to Østerbro, stopping only to purchase a mushroom & pepperoni pizza with extra olives from the Turkish gentleman on Nordrefrihavnsgade,
that we might set to work on our researches straightway, without the distraction of hunger-pangs.

Once at our lodgings, we settled down with diaries & victuals. ‘No rest for the wicked!' smiled Fru Jakobsen, still bearing
vestiges of that earlier, dreamy look on her face. Quite unlike me (for I was all agog to learn what had befallen my Fergus),
my elegant friend seemed in a state of quite mystifying unhurriedness, & resolutely determined to ‘enjoy her evening', as
she put it, & to this end she drew from her handbag two small bottles of flying-machine Rioja & poured us each a glass, raising
hers in the air with a jaunty ‘skål', & declaring that all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds. What spirit of lassitude had suddenly possessed
her,
for helvede?

Stifling my annoyance at my companion's inexplicable nonchalance, I devoured my half of the pizza (Fru Jakobsen, meanwhile,
took her ladylike time) & began to read furiously, skipping & jumping my way through Franz's aches, pains, hopes, passions
& disappointments, past drawings of suction mechanisms & sketches of the Time Machine & lists of favourite meals, most of
which seemed to involve white comfort food such as tapioca, potatoes, whipped cream & cauliflower, all the while keeping my
eyes skinned for a single name: Fergus. At last, I found an entry.

‘Ha!' I cried. Fru Jakobsen languidly set aside her pizza & sat on the bed next to me. ‘Listen to this!' I said, & read aloud.

4 January 1898, Østerbro:

Calamity! Did I not predict that things would go most horribly
awry? Yes indeed I did! And now they have, & I know not what to do,
& Mama has gone to see Herr Bang to ask for some special soothing
potion for my nerves, for I have not been myself since my return from
London, & now this, this … Words cannot describe the psychic
turmoil that has been engendered in me! Anyway, Charlotte's beau
Fergus McCrombie, who should have returned to London, materialized
on the family doorstep at a
MOST
inauspicious time, rightin the middle
of luncheon (a
flæskesteg,
my favourite). Fortunately it was I who
answered the bell, it being the servants' afternoon off. He was quite
unkempt, his face injured & scarred & his arm in a sling & he
insisted most vociferously that I must come to his aid. It seems that
after I had escaped via the ventilation shaft as instructed, Mr
McCrombie had been assaulted by thugs whilst the others
–
namely
Professor Krak, Charlotte and her mother & the child Josie – had
time-travelled back to London, leaving him becalmed in what he
(rather insultingly, to my mind) referred to as ‘history'. He is most
determined to return, but the Mother Time Machine is now
smithereened, & the house in Rosenvængets Allé permanently occupied
by the Pastor & his bride.

Lord, what a jinxy palaver! I had him clean up, then begged Mama to
let Mr McCrombie stay with us, & came up with a story of sorts about
how he had missed a ferry-boat to Harwich & sold his daughter to a
travelling circus, at which Mama looked most concerned & sceptical so I
flew into a rage, & remained in that state until she said, ‘Please anything you like, dear Franz, so long as you calm down,' & so we gave
Mr McCrombie one of the spare rooms, & I asked Father the next morn
to let our English friend, who is in fact apparently Scottish, teach me
more of his most agreeable if vocabulary-laden language, as my fluency
had fallen away since my coming home, & he looked doubtful but then I
started to blub. Papa, having a low tolerance for unmanly men, said
hastily, ‘Very well, whatever you want, my boy, take it easy now,
remember your nerves.' But I was by then in a genuine state of anxiety,
& my stomach could barely stand it & my bowels became disturbed in
diarrhoeic fashion. Is there no end to my troubles?

‘So Fergus had his wits about him enough to escape, & make it to the home of the Poppersen Muhls, thank Heaven!' cried Fru
Jakobsen, adding in a lower voice: ‘But Lord above, that young Franz never ceases to whine, does he?'