Einstein

by Einstein (retail) (epub)

  ‘They’ll start again.’

  ‘But they can’t start again.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They’ve already squandered the planet’s resources. They’ve stripped the Earth of its timber. They’ve burned the reserves of coal and gas. They’ve clawed out the iron and copper, bauxite and phosphates, tin, lead, chrome, nickel, zinc and tungsten. They won’t have the raw materials. It’s already too late. If they blow themselves into the Stone Age, that’s where they’ll have to remain.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Charlie demanded.

  ‘You’re not the only one who watches a lot of television,’ Einstein said.

  The Mariner grew impatient, tore the box apart in his hands and sprayed the kitchen with cornflakes.

  11.

  Charlie might have been comforted to know there were hundreds of organisations dedicated to Doomsday. But none of them had the power to evacuate cities, maintain essential services, construct mass graves or direct survivors to underground bunkers. They were more concerned with their own salvation through spells, incantations and prayer. They wanted to see the planet burn because God was going to make them fireproof. Some of them would inherit the cinders while others believed they’d be flown as far as paradise in a fleet of chauffeur-driven spacecraft. Since they had so much to gain from the forthcoming global misery, they’d become obsessed with picking the date of the world’s destruction.

  The Jehovah’s Witnesses had announced the end of time, the day of wrath, the fire and flood, finger of God, return of Christ and a football team of Old Testament prophets as far back as 1874 after Charlie Russell had announced he’d been hearing voices—he thought they were angels telling him that Jesus would return wrapped in a Cloak of Invisibility. When the world failed to end in 1914 the faithful pinned their hopes to 1918, 1925, 1940 and 1975. They were still counting.

  The Children of God had braced themselves for the Battle of Armageddon in the August of 1993. August is a wicked month. Nice try but no cigar.

  The Daughters of Nostradamus had expected the God of Terror riding a starship disguised as a comet in 1999 or 2000. The pyramids were astral beacons built to guide him down to Earth. When he failed to make an appearance, they settled for 2062 or possibly 2242. They kept looking wistfully into the heavens.

  When he arrived they expected handsome rewards for suffering the years of ridicule. They’d survive the reign of terror and be given special, secret powers. Amazing strength. X-ray vision. Anything they wanted. Their every wish would be granted.

  Members of the New Revelation Church had been promised that the death of non-members by giant hailstones and the resurrection of the dead would take place on a Saturday. They hadn’t been told which Saturday but it certainly made the weekends exciting.

  The flock of the Early Apocalyptics, who thought they were reincarnations of Christian martyrs from Ancient Rome, predicted that the New Jerusalem would be carried down from Heaven on a huge cloud of brimstone during a lunar eclipse in the winter of 2002 or the spring of 2003. Once the city had landed a thousand angels would march through the gates, blowing trumpets and killing the wicked with magic swords. The faithful would be spared and blessed with eternal life. They’d never grow old. They’d never need to work again.

  The Church of the Righteous Living had told its congregation that God would blast the wicked with bolts of lightning. The Heavens shall pass away and the Elements will melt with a fervent heat. It would happen when they least expected it, so they sang hymns in rubber shoes.

  Converts to the Star Church of Tampa, who’d been told they were really visitors from a number of distant planets, had been expecting to leave the Earth for another galaxy in 1987, 1991, 1993 and 1999. The transport would be a nuclear starship and they were told to assemble in the church with a packed lunch for the journey. Every time it happened they gave away their furniture.

  The German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, who thought he’d been possessed by an alien spirit from Sirius, was alone in having no date for the apocalypse. But he was writing the music for it.

  Everyone waited for something to happen. But all these doomsday prophets had made the same mistake—they were looking to an egocentric God whose sole concern was the genuflection of one particular kind of primate. It had never occurred to them that any superior force in heaven might be more concerned with the welfare of the okapi or plight of the flying opossum.

  12.

  ‘It’s time we were gone,’ the Mariner said, turning to Einstein. He tried to bend down and scoop up the dog in his arms.

  The dog yelped and scrambled under Charlie’s chair. ‘It’s my duty to stay with my master,’ he growled.

  ‘Is that your final word?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You want to die here with your monkey-man?’ the Mariner roared. ‘I don’t understand it. Can you imagine what this does to my paperwork? We go to all this trouble to save your species, and you want to die with your monkey-man? What’s wrong with you dogs?’ He snorted and shook his great head. He looked baffled and angry.

  ‘You’ll find another dog,’ Charlie said, impressed by Einstein’s loyalty. ‘The city is teeming with dogs.’

  ‘He can hardly wander the streets, hooting and banging a feeding bowl,’ Einstein said.

  ‘Don’t you understand?’ the Mariner thundered. ‘It has to be this dog. Those are my instructions. This operation has already been planned down to the smallest particular. Can you imagine the organisation required to evacuate a planet? I can’t ignore my instructions—if I get it wrong they’ll have me collecting swamp flies and fleas.’

  Charlie looked down at Einstein and surveyed the dog from the tip of his quivering nose to the end of his dusty tail. ‘He’s only a mongrel.’

  ‘I may look like a mongrel to you,’ Einstein said, in a very superior tone of voice, ‘but my ancestors mixed with kings and emperors. They came from the courts of China and the forest kingdoms of Africa, they played in the harems of Persia and battled with bears in the snows of Russia.’

  ‘You’re a mongrel.’

  ‘Dogs are very proud of their mixed blood,’ Einstein said.

  ‘This dog holds the entire history of his kind,’ the Deep Time Mariner said. ‘He’s an important animal. If he won’t come with me we’ll be obliged to strike dogs from the list.’ He stepped back, crunching cornflakes under his boots. ‘It’s probably not important. We have the wolves and coyotes, foxes and jackals. I’ve always felt the domestic dog was something of an aberration…’ He seemed to lose interest in the debate and started checking the buckles and clasps on his spacesuit.

  Wait! Einstein thought. I can only abide by this rule if he makes the same judgement against the common alley cat. That venomous, flea-bitten bag of bones! That fur-wrapped parcel of piss and wind! That saucer-eyed killing machine! That miserable mouser! That grizzling grimalkin! Would the cat be borne aloft in the arms of the Mariners? The universe could not tolerate the cat without the dog!

  ‘Is that it?’ Charlie asked anxiously. ‘Are you leaving?’ He wondered how the monster would make his escape. Would he spread his arms and fly from the window? Would he wrap himself in the shower curtain and vanish in flames and smoke? Would he open the door and hurry downstairs, rushing like a vampire through the shadows, trying to shield his face from the dawn? Charlie didn’t want him to leave, but he didn’t know how to stop him.

  ‘I’ve no time to waste,’ the Mariner said.

  ‘What will happen now?’ Charlie demanded.

  ‘Anything could happen,’ the Mariner said, strolling cheerfully from the kitchen. ‘The forests will shrink, the oceans will stink, the deserts will spread and you’ll starve. You’ll murder for a scrap of potato, wage war for a field of rice.’

  He walked slowly through the apartment, touching the furniture, peering at the paintings on the walls, lingering like a departing tourist, bidding farewell to exotic sights. He was so tall that the top of his head clipped the lampshades, m
aking them shudder and throw out dust. In the living room he paused by the window, dipped a hand in his flying suit and pulled out something that looked remarkably like an old-fashioned pocketwatch. He flipped open the lid with his thumb and studied the intricate hieroglyphics.

  ‘What do we have to do?’ Charlie pleaded. ‘I’m scared. I don’t understand what we have to do to help ourselves!’ Everyone knew that something was wrong. The air was poisoned. The oceans were dead. The world’s great cities were in decline. There were millions starving to death. They made TV shows about them. Hollywood stars were flown to Africa and photographed blessing pot-bellied babies. Everything was changing so fast. It was out of control.

  ‘I’d be scared if I were a monkey-man,’ the Deep Time Mariner said. ‘You’re losing one species every twelve minutes.’ He glanced down at his pocketwatch. ‘Ten minutes. You’re losing one species every ten minutes. It’s like walking around with a stick of dynamite lodged up your arse. In a few years, if the planet survives, there’ll be nothing left here but monkey men, cockroaches, rats…’

  ‘And dogs?’ Einstein asked hopefully.

  ‘They’ll eat you!’ the Deep Time Mariner said.

  ‘But you can’t… you can’t leave us here to die!’ Charlie cried. He was standing in the court of eternal justice, pleading for mercy on behalf of mankind. But he didn’t have the knowledge to argue their cause. What did they want beyond survival? What did they want beyond control of the world and domination of heaven?

  ‘You don’t understand, monkey-man. It’s far too late. You should have read the signs.’

  ‘You could help us find another home,’ Charlie begged. ‘Take us to another planet. We could start again.’

  ‘You’re joking,’ the Mariner said, staring at him with astonishment. ‘Is he joking?’ he asked Einstein.

  ‘No,’ Einstein whispered. He looked ashamed of Charlie. He swung his head away and pretended to study the stains on the wall.

  ‘Don’t leave me here alone,’ Charlie said. He was quite convinced that once his visitor had left the lights would go out all over the world.

  ‘You won’t be alone,’ the Mariner said. ‘There’ll be six or seven billion of you kissing the world goodbye.’

  ‘And I’ll be here,’ Einstein said, a little annoyed to find that his sacrifice was not providing Charlie with comfort. ‘We’ll go together.’

  ‘No!’ Charlie shouted. ‘I need more time to prepare myself. I'm not ready to die.’

  ‘You were warned,’ the Deep Time Mariner said. ‘You were warned many times. You should have prepared yourself for the worst.’

  He was most surprised by Charlie’s despair. He’d been told that monkey-men were the most destructive force in the universe. He had seen the evidence all around him. They were cruel and stupid and violent. They were butchers. They were criminals. He couldn’t afford to let them escape to infest another planet. He had his instructions. But when he looked at Charlie he also had his doubts. How could this ridiculous animal have established such a reign of terror? They should have broken their necks when they first fell from their trees.

  ‘It’s not his fault,’ Einstein argued. ‘Why pick on him? What could he do to save the world? Look at him. His life has just been one damned thing after another.’

  ‘He doesn’t look very dangerous,’ the Deep Time Mariner agreed.

  ‘Dangerous?’ Einstein hooted. ‘He’s nothing but a danger to himself. Why, if it weren’t for me, he’d probably have killed himself years ago. He’s an accident waiting to happen.’

  The Mariner paused and considered Charlie for a few moments. ‘What have you done with your time that makes you so special? Why should you alone be spared the fate of your species?’

  ‘There must be something,’ Charlie said, catching the faintest glimmer of hope.

  ‘Are you worth saving?’

  ‘Yes,’ Charlie said without hesitation. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And if you came with me,’ the Deep Time Mariner said, ‘I suppose you’d bring the dog?’

  ‘Don’t worry about him,’ Charlie said, not daring to catch the little dog’s eye. ‘He’d follow me through Hell if I asked him.’

  ‘Then show me,’ the Mariner said. ‘Show me something you’ve done with your life that made a difference to the world.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He doesn’t understand,’ Einstein said.

  ‘Are you sure he’s not soft in the head?’

  ‘They’re really rather primitive.’

  ‘Make him show me something of his miserable past,’ the Mariner instructed. ‘We’ll go back there and look around.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ Charlie shouted as he struggled to follow the conversation. ‘It’s gone. Lost forever. No one can go back again. If we knew the secret of calling up the past we might not have destroyed the future.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ the Mariner said. ‘I was here when you summoned the dead. You spoke to your mother and father.’

  ‘Was it you?’ Charlie said. He stopped moaning and stared in surprise at the Mariner. ‘What did you do to me?’

  ‘You were dreaming. I picked your brains.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I couldn’t resist the temptation and, besides, I wanted to know how you worked. It’s a simple trick but more than you’d understand.’ He bent very low over Charlie and breathed on him. ‘Now show me the rest of your life. Close your eyes and dream yourself into the past.’

  ‘And then what happens?’

  ‘I’ll watch,’ the Mariner said.

  ‘But how?’ Charlie asked suspiciously. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ’You’re just a monkey-man—I don’t expect you to understand more than a fraction of what’s happening here!’ the Mariner hissed impatiently. ‘Close your eyes. I don’t have time to argue with you.’

  ‘I don’t know where to begin…’ Charlie stammered.

  ‘Tell him about your mother and father,’ Einstein said. ‘Begin at the beginning.’

  13.

  So Charlie began to tell the Mariner about his father, the barber, and tried to describe the shop with its large revolving leather chair and window of engraved glass. As a young man the barber had lived in the attic over the shop and when he wasn’t cutting hair he was drinking Guinness with his friends. He was tall and slow with heavy hands and ears sprouting tufts of coarse, grey hair. He wore a dainty Errol Flynn moustache and a lot of scented brilliantine.

  The shop was in Church Street on a corner of the Edgware Road. On Saturdays a market ran the length of the street, turning it into a shantytown of wooden crates and canvas stalls.

  You could find anything in this market. There were pineapples fresh from the Ivory Coast and turnips wrapped in Normandy mud. There were perfumes from Arabia, blankets from Bolivia and towers of white, enamel bowls from beyond the Great Wall of China. Between the cabbages and yams, beneath loops of sausages and pyramids of cheese, there were fat men with shining eyes hawking goldfish, gloves and cut throat razors. Brown men with gold teeth stood on boxes selling soap and ivory buttons. Old women, mad as gargoyles, sat scowling over heaps of dead men’s shoes. There were rolls of carpet, bundles of spoons, fireworks, firewood, candlesticks walking sticks, mothballs and glass eyes.

  Between the stalls, young men with crafty fingers prowled the pavements picking pockets. Where the market met the Edgware Road a few girls with nothing to offer but themselves beckoned strangers into doorways, leading the lonely into danger with crooked smiles and promises of paradise.

  Charlie’s father had often been tempted to spend his profits on these painted poppets. But he never found the courage to talk to them. Eventually he married the daughter of a grocer. Her name was Geraldine, a local beauty with tight curls and a bright Max Factor face. He was fifty years old and it was time for him to be married. She drove him from the attic above the shop and settled him into a yellow brick house set back from the street by a privet hedge.

  Charlie was born in a
bad winter. The first few years of his life had been spent in his mother’s bed, curled beneath the sheets in the hot and suffocating darkness. The barber slept in another room, for fear of disturbing the child, and Geraldine would never again let him press home his affections. He continued to admire her from a distance but he knew that he couldn’t win her away from the child that snored between her breasts. He retired with his cronies to suckle on stout.

  The woman, for her part, rarely left the bed and never left the child alone. They ate together and bathed together and on the few afternoons that she spent standing upright, dressed and working in the kitchen, Geraldine would lift up her skirts and push him under her petticoats where he’d cling to her ankles in silence.

  When he finally learned to walk, he only walked behind his mother, following her footsteps, stopping when she stopped or trapping his toes beneath her heels. He was a small moon caught in a dangerously narrow orbit. He spoke rarely and only to echo his mother' s words, repeating the questions she directed at him and then waiting for her to give him an answer.

  ‘The boy’s an idiot!’ the barber grumbled.

  ‘He’s a mother’s boy,’ Geraldine said.

  This peculiar state of affairs lasted until a week after Charlie’s fifth birthday when a nasty twist of fate prised the mother and child apart.

  It was a brilliant summer’s morning and Geraldine was hanging fresh curtains at the bedroom window. She was balanced on a chair, her arms full of floral print, while Charlie stood beneath, eclipsed in the gloom of her petticoats and clinging miserably to her feet.

  He was a large child and already finding it difficult to fit snugly into his mother’s shape at night. He was uncomfortable under her skirt. The petticoats were hot and peppery with perfume. There was not enough room to breathe. He clung to her feet and tried to stifle the sneeze that had seized his throat. He buried his face in her legs. He screwed up his eyes. He held his breath. He tried everything he knew to swallow the dust in his nose and mouth. But nothing worked.