The Clockwork Man

by William Jablonsky

  “Stay back!” the red-bearded man said, pointing his cane threateningly and stepping back a few paces.

  “I always knew this would happen,” the woman said.

  I paid no attention, my only thoughts focused on the assailant. “It was Herr Maier, the butcher,” I repeated. “He ran. Did anyone see him?”

  Several others had come to see what had happened and were gathered round Nicholas’s still form. They backed away from him as I stood, but one held his ground when I approached: a pale, gaunt man with round wire-rimmed glasses—the baker who had first noticed my predicament. “I saw someone run that way,” he said, pointing to the bridge leading to Sachsenhausen. “He’s probably a mile away by now.”

  But I had already spotted the tracks leading to the other side of the bridge, perhaps headed into the park across the river. “Stay with them, please,” I said, and began to follow where the butcher had gone. The red-bearded man and three or four other men followed me awkwardly, several paces behind, stumbling in the slippery snow. Despite my smooth-bottomed shoes my feet found hold easily, with the grace of purpose, and soon I had far outpaced them, my eyes tracing the footprints on the bridge to the darkened park on theother side. The trees blotted out much of the moonlight, but as I wandered under the trees I finally found him, attempting to hide behind a leafless elm, watching me. The only sound was the slow, uneven ticking of my automation.

  “I can see you,” I said. “You cannot hide from me.”

  He turned to run, but tripped on a branch buried in the snow. Before he could regain his footing I was upon him. Three steps more and I had seized his scarf in my hand, twisted it around his neck.

  “Why?” I asked him. He did not respond, only looked behind me. The men from the park were coming closer, and I could hear their voices.

  I gripped him by the collar with both hands and hoisted him up high against the elm tree. His face was drawn back in what I believed to be fear, but his mouth contorted into a painful grin. “I admired her,” he said in a strained whisper, and struggled against my grasp. His strength was alarming for a man of his bony stature, though mine was far greater. He kicked at my knees and chest, his blows only marked by dull metallic clangs. I felt a sharp point stick into the skin of my torso, then saw a boning knife fall from his hands into the snow.

  I heard footsteps in the snow behind me as I shoved him against the tree trunk—once, then again, and again, holding him suspended against the dry bark.

  I must interject that I did not intend to kill him, though I could have done so with ease. The Master has always been adamant that such things are the purview of the authorities, and that vigilantism is the first step toward anarchy. I intended only to incapacitate him and deliver him to a magistrate once one had been summoned. Fräulein Gruenwald said she wished I had brought him to a swift and merciless end, and I must now wonder if I was wrong not to have done so.

  I turned to face my pursuers, rapidly approaching behind me. “Wind me, please,” I said. “Use the key on my right hip. And please call the police.”

  But no one offered to assist me. Instead, three of the four men flung themselves onto my back and attempted to break my grasp on the butcher.

  “This man is the murderer,” I said. “Please wind me, or he will escape.” Something large and heavy clanged against the back of my head—a stick, perhaps, or a cane. The ticking changed to a slow, irregular click; my vision blurred, the grunts of the men faded to a whisper. I saw only the butcher’s dark eyes, felt strong arms trying to pry my grip from his throat, my hand squeezing.

  Then my limbs lost all strength and I began to tilt backward into snowy darkness.

  I awoke on a bench in the Master’s workshop, Fräulein Gruenwald staring down at me, her moist red eyes magnified by her thick spectacles. The room was dark but for a lantern she had set on the bench by my head. I sat up immediately, so quickly that she jumped back, startled. I looked about in the dim light for a moment—I am often disoriented after being inanimate for so long—until my eyes found hers.

  “Giselle …” I began.

  “Yes,” she said. “I know.”

  “I was too late.”

  “Yes.”

  “It was the butcher. Was he apprehended?”

  Fräulein Gruenwald shook her head. “They said you tried to strangle him. He ran away when you wound down.”

  “I see.” I pulled on my overcoat, which had splotches of dry, darkened blood on the sleeve and lapel. My hands were spotted with crusty maroon splotches.

  Through tears, she explained what had happened after I lost consciousness. The three men had pried my hand from the butcher’s throat; he staggered off into the darkness as they repeatedly struck me with dead limbs in an effort to destroy me. The baker, who had witnessed the incident, tried to rescue me, but was unable to stop them until a policeman arrived and he explained what had happened. By the time their reason returned the butcher had vanished. Some time later the police carried Giselle, Nicholas, and me to a waiting carriage, which took us to the police station.

  “Where is the Master?” I asked. I longed to explain what had happened, to reassure him his creation had not suffered some hideous malfunction, and to ask forgiveness for failing him, though he could never extend it. Above all, I wished simply to hear his voice.

  “In the sitting room,” she said. She gently touched my arm, as if to hold me back. “He may not want to see you now.”

  “Thank you for waking me,” I said out of politeness. “I will continue to serve him until he wishes otherwise.” I started up the staircase, but turned at the open door. “I am sorry I startled you,” I said.

  The house was dark but for a few candles in the dining hall, and quiet—the immense silence broken only by the soft ticking of my motor and the light whine of my bending knees.

  The Master sat on the davenport in the sitting room, holding apartial glass of brandy; he had not drawn the curtains, and his face and torso were cast in a faint silvery moonlight from the window. Though the room was dark I could see dark circles like bruises under his eyes. So as not to frighten him, I announced my presence, asking if I might provide him some small bit of aid, but he did not lift his head to face me.

  “Eva wound you?” he said, his voice soft and gravelly.

  “Yes. Please do not be angry with her.”

  “No. No point in that.”

  I stood before him in silence, unable to find words appropriate to his loss. The wrong word might draw him into a rage, or cause him to smash me with a fireplace poker or table leg. Had he risen with that intent I would not have moved to evade him.

  “I am sorry. I failed her. And the young man.”

  “Where were you?”

  “I was trapped under the carriage.”

  He nodded, gripped his brandy glass so tightly I thought he might break it and injure himself. “Trapped,” he repeated.

  “By the time I found her it was too late,” I explained. “I apprehended the murderer, but he escaped when I wound down.”

  “Edison,” the Master said, and the glass cracked in his grip. A trickle of blood began to run down his hand. “Yes, Edison must have gotten to Maier. He couldn’t leave my family alone. And all so he could have mechanical butlers to sell.” He dashed the broken glass to the floor, leapt to his feet, and cupped my face in his trembling hands, staining my suede-skinned cheek with blood and brandy. “Or that Ford. I saw how he looked at her. Yes, it had to be him. You and I, Ernst, will go to America and kill them both.”

  Upon reflection, I believe at that moment I was experiencing terror. The Master’s eyes were wide and bloodshot, his yellow teeth bared, and he gripped my face with such a strength he might have twisted my head off with a single motion. Then his features relaxed, his grip loosened. He ran his palms down my jacket and fell into desperate, gasping tears.

  Gently, I took the Master’s hands in mine, and explained that the butcher had committed the murder, that he had no connection to Herr Edison. But
I believe he already knew.

  “Please let me help you to bed. Fräulein Gruenwald will treat your hand.”

  “Yes, of course. This is all a dream, isn’t it? In the morning I will wake up and she will still be here.”

  Fräulein Gruenwald appeared in the doorway soon after, one hand covering her mouth in surprise. “What has happened?”

  “Herr Gruber’s hand is injured,” I said. “Please tend to him.”

  I slung one of the Master’s arms around my neck and supported his weight as I led him into the kitchen where Fräulein Gruenwald dabbed at his wound with a wet napkin, then wrapped it in gauze. As she treated him he slouched on a wooden stool, looking wide-eyed at her like a child. The sight was utterly alien to me, since I was accustomed to seeing the Master strong and upright. When she had finished, I helped the Master to his feet and led him upstairs to bed, where he lay curled atop the blankets in his clothes. I remained there until his snoring filled the room, then crept out as quietly as my mechanical legs would allow.

  I retreated to my library cubby, but found it too insular; there I have only Giselle’s collage and the ceramic ballerina to look at, andthose offer no comfort at the moment. Instead I have retired to the attic, where I am unlikely to disturb the Master or Jakob from their much-needed slumber. I envy them their sleep. The copper telescope pointing aimlessly at the heavens is yet another cruel reminder of her absence—one wonders how many twinkling spheres and comets will now go undiscovered—and so I have covered it with a swatch of black cloth. Until such time as the Master sees fit to summon me, I will remain here. My peculiar nature has afforded me a special gift: I remember perfectly every moment of my life, and may revisit any experience with but a thought. I have been told this is an enviable quality. Thus, I will take refuge in my most prized memory, still pristine and vivid as the moment at which it occurred: the lovely girl pirouetting beneath my outstretched hand, soft and luminous as the dawn.

  18 December 1893

  10:47 p.m.

  It has been a sad day. This morning the Master buried his only daughter next to his late wife in the family mausoleum, a large square of white marble, atop which rests a carved mother cradling a child. People from all over the city came to pay their respects, and to comfort the Master and Jakob as best they could. Nicholas’s parents stood beside them during the service, clutching his hands tightly. Their son’s funeral is tomorrow, and the Master has promised to attend in kind. I will not be present at that service.

  As the family gathered at the Master’s house, Frau Gruber, clad in a black veil behind which only her eyes were visible, madeit known she would not remain there while I was present. The rest of Herr Gruber’s family seemed to share this sentiment. Two of his brothers volunteered to help him dismember me with hatchets, though the Master politely declined. And so I was banished to the workshop until the funeral. It was, perhaps, better that way: out of sight I could not cause any further distress to the family, who, despite knowing the truth, still harbor a grudge against me in relation to her death. The cellar is quiet, and the chill in the air does not affect me, so I mourned in silence, revisiting pleasant memories of Giselle, the intricate blueprints on the wall my only distractions.

  Though Herr Gruber would have been justified in forbidding me to attend, before sunrise he sent Fräulein Gruenwald down to relay his permission, and to prepare me. I would be allowed to walk behind the Master’s carriage during the procession, at some distance, and could view the funeral from the carriage outside, provided I was sufficiently disguised and caused no distractions. I was forbidden to enter the church. I did not object; even from the carriage I would be able to see and hear the service quite easily, and God’s grace is reserved only for those of flesh and blood. During the burial I was to remain behind the trees at the cemetery’s edge.

  I sat quietly on a stool Fräulein Gruenwald had brought me while she scrubbed the set-in maroon stains from my hands and cheek. “You poor creature,” she said, massaging my damp cheek. “They shouldn’t be punishing you.”

  “The Master knows best.”

  Fräulein Gruenwald stopped scrubbing my face for a moment and set the handkerchief down. “There was nothing you could have done. No sense in blaming yourself now.”

  “Thank you,” I said politely, though I did not agree. She was simply trying to comfort me—a meaningless task—and I did not wish to upset her.

  “She loved you. You should know that.”

  “You should finish soon. The Master will need you.”

  “Of course.” She resumed dabbing at my cheek with oil soap.

  At eight minutes to eleven, Fräulein Gruenwald returned, descending the stairs carrying a black overcoat and bowler hat, and a heavy red scarf. “They’re ready. Herr Gruber wants you to wear these.”

  “As the Master wishes,” I said as she helped me into the coat.

  I saw the carriages in front of the house, the Master helping Frau Gruber and Jakob into their seats. Jakob seemed more pallid than usual, nearly blending in with the snow, and even from the doorway I could see his face bore no expression. I have seen little of him in the three days since Fräulein Gruenwald reawakened me, and in the odd times when he passed me in the hallway he did not speak or otherwise acknowledge my presence. His relationship with Giselle was at times strained, and I suspect he does not know how to reconcile her death. I do not think he blames me.

  The Master, as well, barely registers my existence, and I wonder if my presence is a reminder of her death—I was there, a witness to her murder, and held her as she died.

  As the horses began to pull the carriages through the snow, the Master called out to Fräulein Gruenwald, who shuffled outside to join them. Halfway to the rear carriage she stopped, shook her head, and began trudging back toward the house in her snow boots.

  “Are you not attending?” I asked.

  “Of course I am. I’m walking with you.”

  “The church is over a mile away. You will be cold.”

  “It’s not so bad. Come, now. Don’t want to fall too far behind.”

  She took my hand and we began to follow the Master’s carriage down the narrow road leading to the church. Halfway there she began to shudder noticeably, so I slid off my overcoat and draped it over her shoulders.

  “Thank you, dear,” she said, and held tight to my gloved hand. “You really are a gentle soul.”

  I stood at a respectable distance from the church for the duration of the service, having no desire to anger or otherwise distract the Master and his family at such a time. Perhaps two dozen carriages stood in the frozen courtyard, and I still fail to see how such a large number might fit inside that narrow white hall. Its congregation is small, but the Master is well known here, and his many friends came to pay respects. Though I could not see inside, I easily heard Rev. Schuchardt’s sermon: a mournful, almost poetic elegy likening Giselle’s death to a young lamb cut down by wolves. I recall the Master saying the minister had known her since her birth, and the pain was evident in his voice, however muffled it may have been from my vantage point.

  I remained there until the black-clad mourners emerged: the Master, his brothers, and Rev. Schuchardt bearing Giselle’s casket to the waiting hearse, then followed as the procession began its slow crawl to the city’s main cemetery. Fräulein Gruenwald once again made ready to walk beside me, but because of the cold I insisted she ride with the Master and his family.

  The funeral procession made its way to the Hauptfriedhof, our city’s principal cemetery, and I was easily able to keep up despite the snow and slippery ground. When we had crossed the river to Frankfurt proper, many people lined the sidewalks of the Eckenheimer Landstraÿe, the great central street of Frankfurt, standing outside the tightly packed shops, their hats removed and placed over their hearts. In this part of the city, where I so often ran errands with Fräulein Gruenwald, Giselle, and Jakob, I can walk unconcealed. Some of the mourners waved sadly; others tossed flowers in the street before the approa
ching carriages. The baker, whose intervention had spared me from destruction, stepped from the crowd and offered me a lily to lay upon her grave. I accepted it and expressed my gratitude, though when we reached the cemetery I gave the lily to Fräulein Gruenwald as thanks for her kindness.

  The Hauptfriedhof itself was quite beautiful, though winter had rendered its landscape an unremitting white. I had seen it before, accompanying the Master and his children to pay respects to the late Frau Gruber in the family mausoleum. The monuments, some of them several hundred years old, were quite ornate and extraordinary: copper angels, green with age though no less grand; gleaming white crucifixes and obelisks; near translucent blue and green marble hexagons.

  The Gruber mausoleum had been brushed clear of the recent snowfall, and I found it difficult to comprehend that, in a few moments, Giselle would be laid to rest inside it.

  I stepped behind a waist-high rock wall at the cemetery’s edge as the mourners disembarked from their carriages. The Master and Jakob stood at the mausoleum’s doorway, the Master’s face full of loss and confusion, Jakob’s an unmoving pale mask, as if he still had not grasped the full measure of what had happened. In this, we three are alike; Giselle was so intensely alive to us that her death seems impossible to accept.

  The graveside service was brief, perhaps owing to the cold. Rev. Schuchardt gave a quick prayer; then Giselle’s coffin was carried into the mausoleum. The Master and Jakob each touched the casket, then the mourners each laid a flower upon it.

  I remained behind the wall until the last carriage had departed and the attendants sealed the door. Only then did I approach. On seeing me up close the attendants backed away, startled; I did not apologize. I simply looked down upon the closed marble door, and said, “Good-bye.”

  19 December 1893

  2:47 p.m.

  As I feared, my presence in the house has offended Frau Gruber, who has decided to stay on for a few days to take care of the Master and Jakob. Regardless of the Master’s explanation, I believe she blames me for the loss of her granddaughter. Fräulein Gruenwald later explained that, irrational as she was, she would have blamed me even had I not been present at Giselle’s death. Still, her suspicions have led to a violent disruption of the Master’s home, and I fear there is nothing I can do or say that will ease her animosity toward me.