by Liz Jensen
‘All sorts. Men & women. Children with them, sometimes. But no one ever came asking about them afterwards. I never got it. Where did they go, & why did no one care that they had disappeared?’
And so Gudrun sat dealing the cards, & Else sat advising me to discover all as soon as I could, but to apply caution, & then Gudrun counselled the opposite, but nevertheless fished in her purse for a rusty key which she said she had pilfered from the Kraks when she left, & which operated one of the back doors, though she could not recall which, & Else warned in her usual dramatic way that I would probably die in the process of uncovering the truth, & Gudrun echoed that if I valued my life, I should stay away, & throw the key in the lake, & fingered her scar in a most meaningful & disconcerting manner.
‘I’ll be grief-struckto lose you, Charlotte!’ wailed Else with a tear in her eye as Gudrun dealt another set of cards. ‘We’ve had such larks together you & me, & I’ll miss your company something rotten!’ And she stifled a dramatic sob while scooping up her cards, surveying her hand & doing some nifty rearranging. But O, had we only known that for once Else had no need to exaggerate! That I would indeed die, at least in a manner of speaking, & lose all hope of seeing her dear face again!
As I watched them play on, I considered again what Herr Bang had told me, which I had promised not to disclose, & saw how it fitted in with what Gudrun had said. And then a notion struck me, clear as a pearl, & my heart went pit-a-pat, & while the aces & the kings & the queens & the numbers flew again, I watched the two women with their fast fingers & their quick flashes of argument & the red & the black, & then suddenly all hearts & diamonds, spades & clubs ranked up in groups of flushes & they laughed & cheered. And quietly I took my leave of the two of them in the candle-light, with the first scent of Christmas spices hanging in the air.
We would feast upon a tasty fat goose with apple & prune stuffing, accompanied by sugared potatoes with lashings of gravy; & then, when even Fru Schleswig thought she could eat no more, there would appear before us a palely fragrant rice pudding bloated with whipped cream & flavoured with chopped almonds, served with cherry sauce, & the prize of a marzipan pig for whichever one of us found the whole nut hidden in the pudding, followed by as much port as we could glug down. Such were the opulent temptations I described to persuade the obese one – who is not a creature of intelligence, as you will have gleaned, O precious reader – into assisting with my plan, for I told her there might be money to be had by it, & money meant a succulent Christmas meal, if she complied. Soon she was drooling, for being of a gluttonous disposition, the prospect of large quantities of fine victuals made enough of an impression to win her assistance – for what it was worth. (Though as you shall shortly see, it was worth nothing, & it was thanks to her that the whole scheme went so horribly awry.)
Fired up with a quart of schnapps, we waited until the clock chimed half past eleven, then made our way in the freezing, owl-hooting dark to the Krak residence, Fru Schleswig waddling behind me & grumbling all the while about her pore neez.There, thanks to the enterprising Gudrun’s pilfered key, we entered quiet as church mice (or should I say quiet as one small discreet church mouse & one large clumsy ox), & descended the spiral stairs that debouched directly into the basement, where we waited for the church bell to ring midnight, for my plan was for Fru S to attack the lock just as it tolled, & time the blows of her pickaxe to coincide with their ringing, thus muffling the sound of our illicit activities. I must pride myself here on coming up with such an inspired scheme, for it worked so brilliantly that within three mighty strokes, Fru S had forced the lock open: with a sudden lurch the door swung wide like a gaping mouth, exposing a yawning darkness within. Here was what Gudrun Olsen had called the Oblivion Room.
Tick, tock.
We stood in silence for a moment, our eyes straining against the pitch dark, which the lantern barely permeated. So far, there was no sight or sound of human life. But what was I hoping for? Had I really been expecting to come face to face with Professor Krak?
Feeling both relieved & disappointed not to see the man step out in person, I shooed Fru S on to the landing & ordered her in a fierce whisper to stand guard there, in case Fru Krak awoke & came to interrupt us. Well aware that the slothful creature was capable of falling asleep at any moment (even when standing up, in the manner of a horse or cow), I instructed her to sing ‘Tragic Johanna’ under her breath, & in this way stay conscious while I performed my survey of the Oblivion Room. And so off she lumbered to the landing of the spiral staircase & settled herself there, mumbling incoherencies under her breath about what had she done to be so cursed with her only child, & ‘howe dare any dorter boss her pore old mutha so’.
Fru Schleswig dispatched to her duties, I wielded my lamp aloft before me & stepped with some trepidation back into the room – where suddenly (and believe me, I drew in a sharp breath, O my dear one!) my eyes, growing accustomed to the gloom, fell upon the most inexplicable set of objects I had ever seen in all of my twenty-five years on this harsh earth. The first thing that struck me, for it was nearest to hand, was a most unusual-looking bicycle, whose wheels seemed quite motiveless, for the contraption was clamped to the floor by a protective casing made of metal. Its handlebars faced the corner of the room, in which, standing on a corner shelf halfway up the wall – good grief! – sat a huge glass case, that looked to contain an orange, fur-covered creature with a humanoid face & big moody eyes that seemed filled with pain & reproach. For Fanden,it was some kind of monkey, or my name was not Charlotte Dagmar Marie of Østerbro I could not meet its eyes: indeed, I feared they were alive, & scrutinizing me. For some reason, the sadness in the creature’s child-like face made me awash with a strange emotion I could not identify, & I felt like screaming at it tearfully: I have done nothing! I am innocent! ‘Looking down, for I could not keep my eyes on the thing a second longer, I spied below it a chair, & next to it a small occasional table with a dainty white tablecloth, frilled with lacework, upon which stood a half-full bottle of schnapps, another bottle, medical-looking but unmarked, a mound of cotton wool, and a small open box, velvet-lined. I approached, & drew a breath: inside lay a silver scalpel. Good Lord, what bloody business went on here? What ritual tortures & sacrifices were carried out beneath the monkey’s baleful gaze, in the name of the Great Beyond? No wonder Gudrun had heard screams!
I felt that I had witnessed enough for one evening, but I was not to escape so readily: turning to leave, I drew in another sharp breath. For there in the corner, gleaming in the gloom, squatting four-square on the floor like a huge, elaborately carbuncled toad, was the strangest contraption I had ever seen. Claiming a quarter of the room’s space, the demonic machine in whose construction Gudrun had colluded gave almost a vegetal impression, sporting as it did a leathery skin, pocked like ostrich-hide. Lord, I half expected it to sigh & breathe! Its shape was rectangular, but with rounded corners, & a humped roof, like the engine-carriage of a train, & at its centre was a sliding door made of dark leather & wood, with murky glass panes in which nothing could be seen but the reflection of my own petrified face.
Would you have done as I did, reader, & hesitated before opening the door & peering inside? I think you would! But excitement & curiosity would have got the better of you, just as they did me, & after that brief moment of doubt, you would have slipped in there in a flash. I cast my lamp around & saw that the interior of the machine comprised a single, small room into which perhaps ten people might be squeezed, & in contrast to the outside, all within it appeared most man-made & functional. As I stepped in, my eyes first fell upon an array of brass pulleys, wheels & cogs, parts of nickel, & parts of ivory akin to piano-keys, & adorned – in a seemingly haphazard manner – with myriad clock-faces, all telling different times. At the centre stood a red velvet chaise-longue upon which I supposed the victim must lie, & beside it, a great translucent sphere of what might have been glass, or crystal or – yes! Quartz, it seemed to be, though transparent enough to reveal that inside it
lay the dregs of a pinkish liquid. The orb was in turn connected by wires to a series of dials & a metal lever which it appeared that one must push or pull, & a map of the world upon which were marked heavily the Equator & various meridians.
The strangest contraption I had ever seen
I was just beginning to run my hands across the cool, smooth surface of the orb when a loud, shuddering noise – a deep dragging reverberation, followed by a whistling hoot – emanated from the landing. With a lurch of panic followed swiftly by rage, I recognized it as one of Fru Schleswig’s mighty snores.
Satan’s underwear! More inauspicious it could not have been, that Fru Schleswig should choose this most crucial of moments to fall asleep at her duties, & flagrantly countermand my most precise instructions. As if to mock me, the snoring seemed then to deepen in pitch & heighten in volume, thunderously. O Lord! I had to silence it, for I knew it would be only a matter of time before the noise awoke the nervous & light-sleeping Fru Krak. So, quickly – and whimperingwith frustration, I do assure you – I hastened out, casting only the quickest of parting glances back at the mysterious machine that I had now finally seen for myself
I was mounting the spiral stairs & approaching the small landing where Fru Schleswig slept so raucously when I became conscious of a shaky light emerging direct from above, whereupon a huge quivering shadow then appeared which I knew at once to be none other than that of Fru Krak, clad in a preposterous pink balloon-shaped garment adorned with sea-horses, her head knobbled with hair-devices, hovering at the top of the stairs. There was no time to react, for only a fraction of a second later the shadow was followed by the nightgowned figure that cast it, its shaking hand brandishing what appeared to be a very ancient & rusted revolver.
‘Halt right there & do not move a muscle!’ my employer threatened with a shaking voice. ‘Or I shall shoot your brains out!’ At this, the prone Fru Schleswig changed the rhythm of her snoring & twitched mightily before rolling to one side & snorting suddenly into a confused but vengeful state of wakefulness.
‘O no you duz notte!’ the old creature boomed, heaving walrus-like to her feet. ‘Yoo duz notte fryten me for wun minnit with yer silly gunne!’
How to keep her at bay? Then came a veritable brainwave.
‘Fru Krak, remember you are not just a daughter of the esteemed Bischen-Baschen family, but a fine Aquarian Lady, too!’ I called up the stairs. ‘Your horoscope is forever reminding you not to descend below ground level, if you value your moral standing!’ And then, to Fru Schleswig, I hissed: ‘Quick! Follow me!’ For I knew that if we did not instantly rush to barricade ourselves within the chamber, all was lost, for there would be no getting past Fru Krak & her pistol. Once in the Oblivion Room, I imagined we would find another exit, perhaps taking us to a secret passage which led to a room elsewhere in the mansion or even, if we were lucky, outdoors, enabling us to flee – but with Fru Krak now opening up her firearm & cramming its barrel with three brass bullets the size of marbles, there was no time to lose – a realization which finally penetrated the consciousness of Fru Schleswig, who burst into action, thundering down the stairs & storming hard on my heels into the Oblivion Room. Swiftly, I leaped into the machine, hoping to slide shut the door to the contraption & lock myself inside – but Fru Schleswig was having none of it, & fair wrestled me to the ground.
‘O no you duz notte, yung lassy!’ she bawled, gripping the door & preventing me from closing it. ‘Do notte dreem of lokkin out yor old ma! Yu think I am goin to let yu giv me the slyppe a second tyme you ar kwite rong!’
And with that she came blundering & squeezing her way in, shoving her massive body through the wood & glass portal – bruising my ribs something terrible in the process – & crashing down on to the chaise-longue next to me, which groaned with her weight & threatened, for one terrifying split second, to topple. Frantic to right it, I put all my weight the other end, while she grabbed hold of the big brass lever to steady herself, & forced it down just as –
No!
Fru Krak’s concern to protect her property had outweighed the dictates of the stars, for she had now descended the stairs, & loomed upon us in her pink sea-horse nightgown, her eyes popping from her head as she levelled the bulky weapon at my heart. Quite visible through the open doors, she was but five metres away.
The end had come.
‘No!’ I screamed. ‘Madam, do not shoot!’
But it was too late.
The last thing to be heard in that life was a deafening, thunderous explosion, & the last thing I saw was the ugly, vengeful face of Fru Krak, & the last thing I smelled was sulphur. For Fru Krak had fired her murderous blunderbuss.
And of the three people in that basement, one of us was surely dead.
Part the Second: The Tin City
And thus did the world end.
But not as I had thought. For although I had indeed been witness, in that heart-stopping moment in which Fru Krak fired her gruesome firearm, to the destruction of a human life (viz: my own), it was not through death that I was to pass away and enter another realm. For Fate had other plans.
They say that we humans are no more than a collection of the thoughts, knowledge & memories we have accumulated through experience. If so, then what worse plight can you conjure, dear reader, than to wash up like Gulliver, on that eerie beach where all one has thought, known or remembered has no meaning? Where all the lessons of one’s life are set at naught? Where one must start with nothing, like an innocent babe fresh-shot from the womb? Such was my predicament when I encountered the strange new world that lay before me, a world in which my existence was jinxed with dire danger, far beyond the compass of my courage, & worse than anything the most fevered psyche could have cooked up.
But I jump ahead of myself, for the fact was, I saw & thought nothing when I first landed, & certainly had no inkling that I was anywhere else but in the Great Beyond.
After the violent explosion from Fru Krak’s gun, I felt myself flung backwards & then seemed to reel in a slow & circular way before plummeting down into a vast prairie of nothingness that was then filled with a whole confusion of images & thoughts that tumbled before my eyes, from the earliest years of my childhood: I saw the orphanage with its dark windows & peeling ochre paint; I witnessed myself wandering barefoot in the kitchen garden among the giant knobbled stalks of Brussels sprouts, winkling out woodlice to force into curled balls which I devoured like sweetmeats; I spied the mouldering books stacked in the cellar – Great Thoughts of Great Men, A Jutland Housewife s Almanac & Fifty Favourite Folk Tales, with the illustration of Baba Yaga Bonylegs & her chicken-leg house; I quailed as the mountain of Fru Schleswig towered above me in a broad apron, her forearms caked in flour, her shadow blackening the wooden floorboards upon which I squatted; & then I was on the train to Copenhagen, where on arrival I straightway spotted Else on the platform, pick-pocketing gentlemen, so pretty & distracting in her peach striped bonnet adorned with posies; I beheld us dreaming up & practising our act, & then performing it, with the screaming crowds cheering the sight of our petticoats in the music-hall; & then I winced at Else slipping on the sausage-skin & cracking her poor heel; & then re-encountered in a flash the first man I sold my body to & then the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth & so on, until they whirled together in a mad confusion of faces & organs, & the pile of thrown-off breeches grew higher & higher on the floor; & then came a blurred picture of Herr Møller’s bakery on Classensgade & Fru Krak’s house on Rosenvængets Allé & the door of the Oblivion Room upon which hung rotting pig’s trotters; & then I saw once again the machine, with the red chaise-longue & the quaking sphere of quartz, & then the furiously swollen face & lopsided eyes of Fru Krak which briefly sparked with sick triumphant relish as she aimed the antique firearm at my cleavage & pulled the trigger. Such was the sum of my life, & as I spun there in that chilly space that was surely death’s antechamber, I was seized with rebellion, for I thought – no! My time has not yet come! Please, dear God, if you do
indeed exist, which hitherto I will confess that I have much doubted, due to such supreme unfairness dominating this unhappy world, then grant me a little more time, for I am not finished! I am unspeakably far from done, sir! I have not yet lived, not yet loved! Only lost! I am not ready for death, you most cruel of bastards! I insist! Fie upon you, celestial torturer, I cannot & I will not die!
And then, as if in answer to my humble prayer, there came a ghostly hooting in my ears, & such was the discomfort of that sensation – which was much akin to an appalling ear-ache, dear one (& I felt, too, as though I had been doused in freezing brine, for I ached & shivered with cold all over) – that I was confronted with a strange feeling of recognition: pain. Pain: life! Life! Life after all! And I felt that I was lying on a floor. It was dark & so I could see nothing, but I knew one thing: that I existed still.
‘I have come back from the brink!’ I yelled aloud, & weak & cracked though my voice sounded, & terrified through and through though I was, there came a sudden warm rush in my heart when I heard my own words, for they confirmed again that my blood had not quit pumping in my veins, & that the most unexpectedly merciful Almighty had indeed listened, & that it was therefore –
No! Yes! No! –
That dear, loyal, innocent, brave, stalwart martyr Fru Schleswig who had taken the bullet that was intended for me!
At which I found myself choking, & seized by a confusion so coruscating as to nearly kill me, for much as the lugubrious creature has been a ball & chain to me & I have oft wished her dead & gone from this earth, I have been acquainted with her for as long as I can remember, & that does not count as naught Indeed, so much did it suddenly mean that my heart knew not what to do, & had I been standing at that point, my knees would have jellified, & I might have collapsed there & then into a dead & most feminine faint.
But then, as if my thoughts had been read by the creature herself, there came from some distance to my left the all-too-familiar sound of breaking wind, followed by a deep groan, & I knew that she was yet with us, at which a morsel of me felt assuaged but then – instantaneously – another larger morsel felt another thing: a giant writhing snake of rage, for despite it being my most fervent wish to be free of Fru S, I realized that – pox & damnation! – she had yet again succeeded in forcing herself along with me!