The Clockwork Man (29 page)

Herr Lentz continued to speak to me as he examined my inner workings, explaining what he was looking for as he went along. For a moment I almost expected a warm hand to take hold of mine, a soft voice telling me everything would be all right.

“Hmm. No serious internal damage. Some of these gears and cogs could stand to be replaced. I have some this size in my shop. Have you heard any strange sounds from inside?”

“A few creaks and whistles, but nothing extraordinary.”

“That’s good. Gruber certainly made you sturdily. I’ve never seen workmanship like this.”

“He said I was his masterpiece,” I replied, quickly realizing the immodesty of the statement.

“You certainly are that.” He made a tiny adjustment with one of his tools, a miniscule screwdriver with an ultrafine point, and my ticking, which, with my chest cavity open, echoed in the silent room with a sickly scratching sound, immediately returned to its normal, quiet rhythm. “That’s better. Those noises shouldn’t bother you anymore. And the mechanism should run more evenly now—no more running out of gas so quickly.”

“Yes. I feel better already.”

Herr Lentz smiled and gently patted my shoulder. “Now, let’s take a look at that eye.”

For several hours he examined every part of me, making notes as to what parts needed replacing. As he worked he asked me about Sachsenhausen and Frankfurt, my travels with the Master, the works I had seen him create. He recognized a few I had described for him. The one in Vienna still stands, and he had seen and even serviced several of his smaller models, those the Master created both before my inception and after I allowed myself to wind down. I find it heartening that the Master’s work is still appreciated, and though the rest of my days will almost certainly be spent in servitude, if I can help cement that legacy, I shall be content.

When he was finished, he helped me back into my clothes, a gesture I greatly appreciated, as it in some small way helped preserve my dignity. Though he needed to go back to his workshop that evening, he promised to return with all the parts he needed to restore me to good working condition. Before he took his leave, locking thesteel door behind him, he removed my damaged eye for closer study, that he might better fashion me a new one. Aside from my “brain,” my eyes are my most complex components, designed after years of anatomical study, and are not easily replaced. While the eye had lost its usefulness, I find the cosmetic implications of being cyclopic somewhat embarrassing, and have avoided looking at my reflection since its removal.

Pleasant as he was, however, I have not forgotten that Herr Lentz is only preparing me for my return to the display window. But, it seems, this is to be my fate, and I have not the will to challenge it.

Yesterday morning at 7:24, Herr Lentz returned with two large, black leather satchels containing the various replacement gears to restore my range of motion. He seemed appalled at Herr Greeley’s makeshift repairs, as though he were personally offended that I should be tinkered with by unskilled hands. I apologized for Greeley, and indicated that, under the circumstances, it was the best we could do.

He worked for sixteen hours, thirty-two minutes, opening each limb in turn and installing several tiny new wheels and gears. I am pleased to say my range of motion is now greater than it was even under the Master’s ministrations. He also opened my chest cavity and, in addition to restoring my internal timepiece (which was, he said, losing several seconds per day—an intolerable defect), replaced the reeds in my voicebox, so that the graininess has been erased from my voice.

This morning he arrived pale and sluggish, with dark circles under his eyes; he had worked all night rebuilding my damaged eye, butwhen he finally inserted it into its socket and I informed him it worked properly, he smiled proudly. (I have not the heart to tell him the eye sees only in muted color.)

Then it was time to open my head, something even the Master did only sparingly, to clean the sensitive mechanism inside (my years of inactivity, he said, might have caused some dust buildup, which could also account for my unnerving glitch). I offered to wind down that he might work undisturbed, but Herr Lentz wished me to remain awake so I might talk him through the process. Though my knowledge of the workings of my brain is not complete—the Master never had time to complete that part of my education—I helped as best I could. Herr Lentz gently brushed and blew at the paper-thin discs that comprise my brain, his every movement slow and precise. I looked up into his face, saw his eyes squinting in intense concentration, as if he were in a trance. Even his breathing was soft and controlled. Then, suddenly, he was gone.

“It will be all right, Ernst,” a light, gentle voice echoed in my ear. I was on an old wooden bench in the Master’s workshop, and a small, delicate hand squeezed my fingers tightly. I felt a nagging pressure in my lower back—the same place I had dented while climbing the tree after Jakob’s kite. The Master was at his workbench, his back turned to me; he did not speak.

“Giselle?” I said. The vision had not returned to me since my first encounter with the florist, and I had begun to think the glitch had somehow corrected itself.

“Of course it’s me,” she said softly.

“I stopped those men. The florist and his henchmen.”

“I knew you would. Do you feel better now?”

“I feel fine now. Herr Lentz is very thorough.” (Though I knew what she was asking, I did not wish to have the conversation.)

“You know what I mean.” She sighed. “Did stopping those men make it better?”

My chest open, I raised myself from the bench. As this was a hallucination I saw no harm in it. “No. And nothing ever will.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, taking my hand, and with our first steps we were in the park, leaves crunching under our feet as we walked.

The colors were as vivid as ever I have seen: a wash of dark reds, oranges, and yellows in the setting sun, and more intense and varied than I thought possible.

“What will you do now?” she asked.

“Herr Linnhoffer wants to put me on display.”

She sighed again. “To make a window ornament out of you, I suppose. You’re so much better than that, Ernst. Even Father knew that.”

“I do not see how.”

“Of course you don’t. Father didn’t realize it himself, until the end. But you are. Is this what you really want?”

I looked around, at the trees, the small children running through the leaves, her, and had never seen anything so beautiful. “I do not think it matters.”

“Yes, it does. I wish you could see that.” The approximation of Giselle exhaled softly, shook her head. “You shouldn’t come here anymore. It only makes you sad.”

The sky instantly darkened, and the leaves under my feet gave way to slushy snow. It took me a moment to regain my bearings before I realized the light had gone, and we were at the foot of the Iron Bridge. To my left I could hear the last, raspy whinnies ofthe wounded horse, stabbed through the neck and bleeding to death on the frozen ground. Giselle had vanished. I walked through the snow behind the tree where I had initially found her, and there she lay, blood trickling from her lips and throat, and from between her legs. Immediately I knelt beside her and took her in my arms. In the distance, little more than a faint echo, I could hear the townspeople trudging through the snow, crying out angrily.

“I did not wish to come here.”

“I know,” she said, air bubbling from the wet, darkened line at her throat. “But you’ve been living here since you woke up. You have to let it go now.”

“I will not leave you.” She smiled, blood staining her incisors. “That’s sweet. But there’s no other way.” She turned her head in the direction of the oncoming mob. “You have to go.”

I did not wish to leave.

I would have endured the branches and mallets of the townspeople a hundred times over if it meant spending even a moment longer with her. “I will not go.”

Giselle sighed. “You don’t have a choice. Just say good-bye.”

“No. Not like this.”

“Oh, all right,” she said, raising her pale torso off the snow. She took my hand in hers, as gently as she had ever held it in life. I took her in my arms, and I became aware of a rhythm I could not hear, but which was nonetheless present. The darkness gave way, replaced by an overpowering sunlight, silver-white and nearly blinding. We were at the Master’s doorstep, and she in her nightgown, barefoot in the snow, all signs of that horrid night erased.

She stopped, raised a perfect, soft hand to my face. “Is this better?”

“Yes.”

“Then dance with me.”

And, though I know that, in my hallucinatory state, there was no time, we turned to inaudible music for what appeared to be several minutes. Then, finally, she let go of me and began a slow, graceful pirouette beneath my outstretched hand until her fingers released their hold on mine and she receded into the snow and sunlight, and her gown and pale skin passed from my view.

“Good-bye,” I said.

Another voice pierced the vision. “You mean, hello, don’t you?” It was Herr Lentz, leaning over me. I was back in our basement room, staring up into his face, which was creased with concern. “Thought I’d lost you for a minute there—these things are touchy, that’s for sure.”

“Yes. I did not mean to frighten you. How long?”

“Just a few seconds,” Herr Lentz said. “There was some dust caked on one of the discs. I had quite a time getting it off. Feel anything wrong?”

I took stock of my functioning, listened to the inner workings of my limbs, chest, and head. “Nothing.” I confess I was not paying attention, my only wish to return to the vision I had for the briefest time inhabited.

“Whew. I’d hate to be the one to ruin a treasure like you.”

He spent the rest of his time with me recalibrating and testing my motor functions, treating and restoring my suede skin where it had been scuffed, scratched, or otherwise damaged. Giselle—or thevision of her—did not return, and if that approximation of her is to be believed, she will not. Since my reawakening in May, I have constantly felt she was with me; yet now that constant presence has faded to a memory, albeit a sweet one. I will miss it.

As he was finishing, a young woman entered the workroom bearing a new suit of clothes for me; Herr Linnhoffer wished me to look “presentable” when he finally sent for me. Herr Lentz helped me into the garments before taking his leave. They are very tasteful and appropriate—a toffee-brown corduroy suit and matching bowler hat, pale orange shirt, deep brown wingtips, and a rust-orange bowtie. I would take some pride in this ensemble, as I have not been so sharply dressed since my days in Sachsenhausen. But I sense a certain, unlocalized hollowness in my being, one I last felt in the days after Giselle’s passing.

“Thank you so much for the honor of working on you,” Herr Lentz said. “It’s been a dream of mine since I was a little boy.”

“It is I who should be thanking you.”

He smiled, a touch of sadness in his eyes. “I do wish you didn’t have to go back to that Linnhoffer fellow. You’re too precious to be someone’s window dressing. If only I could take you with me … The world could learn so much from you.”

“I belong to him now,” I said.

“Pity that.” He shook my hand, gathered up his tools and briefcase. “By the way, who is Giselle? You said that name just before you winked out.”

I saw no point in denying it. “She was the Master’s daughter.”

Herr Lentz’s brow wrinkled, as if he was deep in thought. “The one who was murdered?”

Though I did not wish to discuss it, he had been kind to me, and I felt I owed him a response. “Yes. On the thirteenth of December, 1893. I tried to save her, but failed.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry. You and she were close, then?”

“Yes. Very close.” (Though I did not wish to divulge to him the full extent of our relationship, at the mere mention of her name, I wished very much to tell someone.)

“Does Linnhoffer know?”

“No. And please do not tell him.”

“I promise. I read that she was quite the young genius. Astronomy, I think. Had a comet named for her, if I recall.”

“Yes.” (The news of her comet comforts me, as her name has been known throughout the years since her death—she would have been thrilled.) “She was magnificent.”

“I see.” Herr Lentz stared down at his shoes and sighed deeply. “Well, then,” he said. “I should go. But I look forward to seeing you again, Ernst.” He extended his hand to me, and I shook it.

“And I you.”

He turned quietly and closed the heavy wooden door behind him. I did not hear the loud click of the lock—perhaps this was an oversight on his part. It occurred to me that I might seize upon his oversight to make my escape, and for thirty-seven seconds, I stood at the door considering how I might quit this place.

But finally, I sat down in his chair by the workbench to wait for Herr Linnhoffer’s orders. I might indeed have made a hasty exit, but I would only be pursued, and in broad daylight my chance of eluding capture would be miniscule. Worse yet, whether or not I found freedom, Herr Lentz would certainly have suffered legal sanction, and I would not trade his freedom for my own.

And then the decision was out of my hands; two minutes after Herr Lentz departed, I heard the lock click shut, accompanied by the sound of Herr Linnhoffer swearing loudly at the security guard.

But this hardly matters. I hereby resign myself to this fate; there will be no more running.

It has been a curious day indeed.

This morning I heard commotion from the rear entrance of the store: a woman, with a deep voice whose English occasionally gave way to the language of my homeland, was arguing angrily with a security officer. She insisted several times that she be allowed to see me, the reason being that she had some sort of claim on me that superseded any Herr Linnhoffer might make.

“You cannot keep him from me,” she said. “I will see him
now
.”

The guard’s voice echoed in the hall. “Yes, but you can’t …”

Immediately the curtain behind me swung open, and there stood a tall woman of perhaps sixty-five, in a blue satin dress. Her hair was heavily grayed, but there were still a few wisps of reddish-gold in it, and her eyes and lips seemed to me so familiar that, for a moment, I believed I recognized the face, however many years it had aged. I immediately recalled her staring in my window soon after I awakened, almost lovingly.