The Map of Chaos (24 page)

He had wanted to make her laugh, he told himself. That was his intention. The instructions in the letter had been clear. That was the reason why he was in that hot-air balloon that kept swaying perilously from side to side, dressed in that ridiculous, clownish outfit. And he was determined to succeed. Even if he had to die trying. He imagined himself falling out of the balloon, crashing onto the grass, but instantly rejected the idea as impractical: he hadn't taken the trouble of orchestrating the whole thing merely to sacrifice himself. And so he clung with renewed vigor to the sides of the basket, determined to arrive in one piece at Horsell Common, where in a few moments' time the most spectacular Martian invasion he had been able to stage would commence, allowing him to win the heart of the woman he loved. Or, if the Creator considered that too ambitious, then at least to make her laugh.

Because, unfortunately for Gilmore, the tactics he employed to win over other women didn't work on Emma Harlow. He had tried everything: he had presented her with thirty-seven hats, fêted her parents, and placed his immense fortune at her feet, assuring her over and over that he could grant any of her wishes, however impossible it seemed. But with his insistence he had only succeeded in making the girl, tired of his clumsy advances, throw down a challenge as cruel as it was unachievable: she would agree to marry him if he succeeded in reproducing the Martian invasion the author H. G. Wells described in his novel
The War of the Worlds.
Naturally, he needn't go so far as to destroy the Earth and all its inhabitants; he only had to re-create the beginning of the invasion credibly enough so that every newspaper in England picked up the story. If he succeeded, she would give him her hand. But if he failed, he had to admit that even he was unable to grant her the impossible and give up his ridiculous courtship of her once and for all.

When he heard her utter that whimsical request, Gilmore wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. Wells. H. G. Wells. That fellow again. Once more fate was obliging him to joust with the author's imagination. Would he never be rid of that man? Would their lives be forever joined until one of them died, untangling the infuriating knot?

But despite realizing that the girl had only proposed that challenge to rid herself of her most relentless suitor, the only man she had failed to dissuade with her arrogance and animosity, Gilmore had taken up the gauntlet and traveled to London, ready to make the world believe that Martians were invading the planet, even though this time he was doing it for love. However, he soon discovered that reproducing a Martian invasion realistic enough to deceive the whole of England wasn't as easy as he had first thought. No matter how hard he tried, after various failed attempts, and with the time limit Emma had given him about to expire, Gilmore had been forced to appeal to the only person who could help him: H. G. Wells himself, author of the novel he was supposed to reproduce. He had been driven to it by despair, certain that, having read his letter, Wells would instantly screw it up and throw it in the wastepaper basket, although somewhere deep down he had a faint hope that Wells might reply, for Gilmore was convinced the author considered himself superior and would take every opportunity to demonstrate it to him. And so it proved. A letter with Wells's name on the return address had appeared in Gilmore's mailbox a few days later, as miraculously as a flower in the snow:

Dear Gilliam,

This might strike you as odd, but knowing you are in love has filled me with joy. However, there is little I can do to help you, except to advise you not to waste your time reproducing the Martian invasion. Make her laugh. Yes, make that girl laugh so that her laughter spills into the air like a pocketful of silver coins.

And then she will be yours forever.

Affectionately,

Your friend, George.

Yes! Wells, his biggest enemy, probably the person who most hated him on the planet, had written back to him! And not only that, he had also honored his love, offered him advice, and, most amazing of all, had signed off affectionately, proclaiming himself his friend. Gilmore couldn't have hoped for more, given everything that had passed between them two years before. Indeed, initially, unable to rid himself completely of his old mistrust, Gilmore had thought he glimpsed a veiled threat between those apparently harmless lines, above all when Wells had addressed him by his real name. Was the author warning him of the power he wielded over him now that he knew his secret? Was he intending to blackmail him later on, or, not possessing the torturer's patience, would he be content to destroy him by revealing to the world the true identity of the mysterious millionaire Montgomery Gilmore? What was Wells playing at? However, after that bout of suspicion, Gilmore had calmed down. His fears seemed absurd, especially as he himself had written to Wells confessing what he had probably suspected all along—a secret no one but his most loyal henchmen knew about: that Gilliam Murray, owner of Murray's Time Travel, the famous Master of Time, had not been devoured by a dragon on the pink plains of the fourth dimension, as the press had shouted from the rooftops, but had staged his own death and was in fact still alive, masquerading as the millionaire Montgomery Gilmore, no less. Alive and in love.

However, Wells had not given him away, but nor had he explained in his letter, as Murray had hoped, how to produce a Martian as credible as those in his novel. No, Wells had told him to make her laugh. That was all. As if he were sure that would suffice. And Murray had decided to follow his advice. Not that he had any choice. And that was why he now found himself in that accursed hot-air balloon full of acrobats who couldn't stay still.

A series of sharp jolts interrupted his reflections. Murray glowered at the acrobats, who were currently dangling from the sides of the hot-air balloon, until he realized that could only mean one thing: they were arriving at their destination. His heart began racing. He looked uneasily at the ground, and his suspicions were confirmed. Beyond the soft treetops over which they were now floating, he could see the green pastures of Horsell Common, where, under cover of darkness, his assistants had positioned the Martian cylinder. A noisy crowd had gathered around the object, and as the balloon began to its descent, Murray could smell the air thick with gunpowder from the fireworks display. (He himself had arranged for the first ones to be let off from inside the cylinder to inaugurate the spectacle.) He could hear the band playing below, and gradually he was able to make out the colorful procession of horses, elephants, dancers, conjurors, sword swallowers, clowns, and jugglers he had hired, which, as far as he could tell from above, were delighting the crowd. And, squinting, he could just make out the shape of the would-be Martian, a puppet poking out of a trapdoor in the cylinder and moving to the rhythm of the festive music even as it waved a banner, whose slogan Murray had no need to read from there because he had written it himself: “Emma, will you marry me?”

Just then, a crescendo of rolling drums made everyone turn around, eager to see what fresh marvels they heralded. The hot-air balloon descended another yard or so, though no one seemed to have noticed it yet. However, Murray was close enough now to the crowd to be able to see some of the faces turning this way and that. His heart skipped a beat when, peeping out from beneath a parasol that was continuously twirling, he made out Emma's face, expressing a look of charming astonishment. There she was, fearless as an Amazon, delicate as a blossom, honoring the appointment she herself had agreed to as the deadline for her challenge. On August first, Martians will land on Horsell Common, he had promised her. You have my word, Emma. They will come all the way from Mars just so that you marry me. She had kept the appointment, ready to see him fail in his attempt to achieve the impossible. And there she had found a cylinder, like a cornucopia from which had spilled an entire circus . . . Murray swallowed, unable to contain his excitement. What would the girl's reaction be when he climbed out of the hot-air balloon, revealing himself to be the person responsible for all that jubilation? However, before he had time to answer his own question, he spotted Wells standing a few feet beyond the girl. He had on a garish checked three-piece suit, which only he could wear with such naturalness, and next to him, looking for all the world as if Wells had used up all the colors, was a lanky fellow dressed in a plain dark suit. Despite his agitation, Murray couldn't help grinning when he saw him. Not only had Wells deigned to give him advice, he had come there to support him in person. Did his future happiness matter so much to Wells? The thought moved him more than if he had heard a whale sing, and he felt a sudden wave of affection for the author and, by extension, for the rest of the human race, excepting the unflappable hot-air balloon pilot. Overcome with emotion, he swore to himself that if he succeeded in marrying Emma, Wells would be his best man, and he would never again hate anyone as he had hated him, nor would he ever exchange blows with anyone again, or make another enemy so long as he lived. He would be the most generous man on the planet, someone whose happiness made it impossible for him to desire the unhappiness of others. A man cleansed by love, a pure altruist, a pure philanthropist.

It was then that the balloon's enormous shadow slid across the crowd, and a hundred faces turned and looked upward. Murray hurriedly recoiled from the edge. He didn't want anyone to see him until the basket had touched the ground and he stepped out with the grandiose flourishes he had spent the past few days rehearsing in front of a mirror. His arrival must be triumphant, he reminded himself, as the acrobats began to perform pirouettes, descending the multicolored ropes and dangling gracefully from the ends. When the balloon had reached the place where it was supposed to land, next to the cylinder, the acrobats leapt to the ground and, like the most outlandish collection of footmen imaginable, spread out across the grass, genuflecting gracefully as they prepared to welcome their master. Then Murray took a deep breath, activated the vapor machine inside his hat, as well as the device operating his rotating bow tie, and mustered his most dazzling smile: the moment had arrived for him to make his appearance in the spectacle he had orchestrated to make the woman he loved laugh.

However, if that was Murray's interpretation of the scene, Wells observed it through very different eyes. When the enormous shadow passed over their heads like the darkness of an eclipse, Wells and Clayton looked up and contemplated in silent awe the huge hot-air balloon descend toward the cylinder as it prepared to land. Wells, his mouth set in a pale line, watched the gigantic, brightly colored globe with its pompous, glittering “G.” Suspended from it was a small basket, rocking from side to side, and although for the moment only the underneath was visible, Wells knew perfectly well who was inside it. He gave a sigh as he saw the troupe of acrobats dressed as footmen dangling from the basket. There was only one man who could have planned such a vulgar, ostentatious entrance. What Wells remained unsure of was whether he would have the stomach to contemplate Murray's contemptible face again after two blissful years of believing he was rid of him for good.

He was of half a mind to turn on his heel and leave, but finally he stayed where he was, because he wasn't completely sure in what capacity he had requested that Clayton accompany him. That skinny detective with the fake hand, who registered his astonishment at the spectacle by raising his right eyebrow, had arrived at Wells's house to tell him that a Martian cylinder had landed on Horsell Common exactly as he described in his novel. And had Wells not received a letter a month before announcing that madness, he would have taken him for a lunatic or a prankster.

The letter, the accursed letter . . . He had opened it tentatively when he saw the sender's name, but after he finished reading it, an almost savage fury had erased any other sensation.

Dear George,

I imagine it will come as no surprise to you to receive a letter from a dead man, for we are both aware that you are the only man in all England who knows I am still alive. What will doubtless surprise you is the reason for my writing, and that is none other than to request your help. Yes, that is right, I am sending you this letter because I need your help.

Let me begin by not wasting time dissembling. We both know that our distaste for each other is unmitigated. Consequently, you will understand the humiliation I feel at having to write you this letter. However, I am willing to endure that humiliation if it means obtaining your help, which gives you some clue as to how desperate I am. Imagine me kneeling and begging at your feet, if it pleases you. It is of no consequence to me. I do not value my dignity enough not to sacrifice it. I realize the absurdity of asking for help from one's enemy, and yet is it not also a sign of respect, a way of admitting one's inferiority? And I fully recognize my own: as you know I have always prided myself on my imagination. But now I need help from someone with a greater imagination than mine. And I know of none comparable to yours, George. It is as simple as that. If you help me, I will happily stop hating you. Even though I don't suppose that is much of an incentive. Bear in mind I will also owe you a favor, and, as you know, I am a millionaire now. That might be more of an incentive. If you help me, George, you may name your price. Any price. You have my word, George.

And why do I need your help? you must be wondering. Well, at the risk of rekindling your hatred of me, the matter relates to one of your other novels, this time
The War of the Worlds
. As your brilliant mind has no doubt already deduced, I have to re-create a Martian invasion. However, this time I assure you I am not attempting to prove anything to you, nor do I intend to profit from it. You must believe me. I no longer need either of those things. This time I am driven by something I need more than anything in the world, and without which I will die: love, George, the love of the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. If you have been in love you will understand what I am referring to. I daresay you will find it hard, perhaps impossible, to believe that a man like me can fall in love, yet if you met her it would seem strange to you if I had not. Ah, George, I was unable to resist her charms, and I assure you her immense fortune is not one of them, for as I told you, I have enough money to last several lifetimes. No, George, I am referring to her charming smile, her golden skin, the savage sweetness of her eyes, even the adorable way she twirls her parasol when she is nervous . . . No man could be immune to her beauty, even you.