Tomorrow

by Damian Dibben

  My master returned with a plate of instruments. He inserted a quill tip into the hub of a syringe, before siphoning droplets into the chamber. He heated a blade in the yellow part of a candle flame, before saying to Aramis, ‘I suppose you shall be used to this by now. Be brave.’ He incised the scar with the blade and drove the nib of the syringe into the cut, squeezing the piston. Aramis squealed. An uncomfortable pang heated me from inside, an obscure memory turned over to the light: being taken from a burrow, from the pockets of warmth nestled around me, carried through the air, wild wind, arriving at the castle by the sea, then upstairs to the workroom, fog pressing to the windows as my master held me fast against the sharp pricks in my side. Of course I understand it all now: taken from my litter, still with my eyes closed, to Elsinore, my first home, the gruelling medications administered over and over again.

  Aramis seemed to calm, and soon drifted into sleep. They waited. The sun rose and gradually a bank of light crept up the far wall. Vilder leant against the wall behind his lover, swigging brandy. He was not tactile with Aramis, but rather offered virile encouragement, as a coach might a prize sportsman. ‘Come, come, you shall be well,’ or, ‘You shall improve, I guarantee.’ But Aramis worsened. He grew hotter than ever, trembling so his knuckles drummed against the table, chest wheezing up and down in ragged crackles. When he spotted me in my hiding place behind the door, he blinked, half smiled and his breathing calmed for a moment, only for him to drift off once more. The day ticked by; hammers pounded from the construction sites of the city, and heat boiled up from the canals, seeming to press all the air out of the room.

  ‘All will be well, all will be well.’ Vilder tapped his knuckle against the patient. ‘Soon we shall be back in Opalheim. Think of the lake there. You are always nagging me about taking a picnic beside it. We shall do it. No, better, we shall hold a ball. Yes. In my father’s stateroom. Ha, that would be revenge on the miser. In his stateroom where he liked to play king, the glorified coal miner he was. Richer than Croesus, but what a miser my father was—with his heart as with his money. A curse on the old devil. We shall dance in his hallowed stateroom. Us and all the reprobates of Europe. We’ll open the shutters, clean the murals and dance. Enough of this now, Aramis. You must get better.’

  I grew almost insanely agitated by his bullish behaviour. Hours later, when Aramis had grown so delirious with pain that his mouth had set into a rictus box, did Vilder hang his head and say to my master, ‘Take off the cursed thing. Take off his leg.’

  My master prepared the operation, choosing instruments, setting them out, before touching more drops of jyhr into Aramis’s mouth. When the soldier looked to me, my master noticed the door ajar. I thought finally he would give me a pat of comfort, but he just shut me in, and this time the latch drove home. I was glad for it. If I had been able to watch, I would have done, but from the moment I heard the first shriek I nudged open the windows so the noise of the hammers would drown it out. They must have put a leather in Aramis’s mouth, for the screams became whistles. I climbed on to the bed, pushed my head beneath the blankets and pressed my front legs hard against my ears. I tried to concentrate on the sound of my breath, on the warmth of it in my cocoon, and ignore the crack of metal against bone.

  I was half aware of shouts getting louder, of someone knocking from the hall, and my master sending them away. More screams and banging, more people coming and going. In the end there was silence. I came out from my hiding place and cocked my ears to the room, but there was no sound at all. I waited by the door until it opened and my master came in to fetch the coverlet from the bed. Aramis’s face was pivoted towards me, no longer frantic but unanimated, with round blanks of glass where his eyes had shone. He was dead.

  Vilder sat in a chair, legs crossed, blankly watching my master arrange the coverlet over Aramis’s body. ‘Leave the face,’ he said plainly.

  Instead, my master set about mopping up the dark slick on floor below the table.

  ‘Shall we take a walk?’ Vilder asked when he was finished. ‘It is a feast day, is it not? I am sure it is.’

  My master was perplexed. ‘Walking? Now?’

  ‘Yes. Get out of this sickroom. I can’t bear to look at all your apparatus a minute longer. I need air.’

  ‘But—where do you wish to go?’

  ‘To the street. Anywhere.’

  ‘And what about—’ My master motioned towards the table.

  ‘Aramis?’ Vilder said. ‘I don’t think he’s up for walking.’ He stood up malevolently, once more brandishing the hilt of his dagger.

  ‘Of course, as you wish.’

  My master was about to lock me in again when Vilder said, ‘You can’t keep him shut in all day. Bring him. I know how you like a creature at your side.’ It was the first time he had properly looked at me, and I could tell he did not realize it was I he had met before.

  We trailed through the afternoon crowds up the side of the Amstel. It was impossible not to recall the frost fair in London, for, as well as the three of us, it seemed the same cast of jugglers and entertainers peopled this alternate version, though now there was heat in place of the cold. Vilder was apparently fascinated by it all and kept pointing things out to my master. ‘Here come the guildsmen. How proud they are. And these creatures here with wings.’ My master, unsure how else to reply, smiled and nodded where it was due, every now and then shifting a glance towards me. We were both thinking the same thing: that a corpse lay in our darkening workroom, its leg half hacked off—the old part of its body dead, and the new part, the army of black, marching on to victory.

  On we went into the brand-new part of the city. Beyond the old perimeter wall, where marshes and slums of timber shacks had become stately crescents of canals and double-fronted mansions, vast buildings waited to be filled with the self-regarding families of merchants and bankers—those black-clad, God-fearing humans who must surely have been secretly bursting with joy at their good fortune. Lamplighters appeared with their ladders and began illuminating the new bridges until the whole quarter sparkled. I had been, at best, unsure of Amsterdam, but on that peculiar evening, as we toured those unoccupied streets, the toy houses waiting to be filled, I, my master and the man who would soon become my enemy, I began to see the city in a different light. It had changed. Without my noticing it had alchemized from a base thing to something valuable.

  We double backed towards the festivities, until we found ourselves in Dam Square, in precisely the spot we had met Vilder the night before.

  ‘I shall take him to Opalheim,’ he said.

  ‘Of course. Shall I—should I accompany you? To assist?’

  ‘No. You are not welcome. Our association is over. I regret searching you out in the first place.’ He spat on the street. ‘Is there an ice house in the city?’

  Whilst he thought about how he should reply, my master studied his fingertips. ‘Yes, there is a place.’

  ‘Arrange for ice to be brought. And a crate of some description. Not a coffin, they’re abominable, as pretentious as the merchant classes that like to be put into them. This city is peopled by coffins, walking ones. A plain crate will do. I will pack him in it, take him to Opalheim, and entomb him in the family crypt.’

  ‘Vilder—’

  ‘Do not speak as if we are friends. Take your hand off me. We are not friends.’ He took a pause before speaking again. ‘Do you think what you do is important?’

  ‘What I do?’

  ‘This part you play around the grand houses of Europe. The sage. Progressing from one gilded cocoon to another.’ Vilder’s tone had a newly malign and sarcastic edge. ‘For what? Potions for lovesick princesses and incontinent dukes, back salves and gout treatment for minor royalty? Good fortune for the already fortunate. And I can’t guess what you might prescribe for the Van den Heuvals. Are there cures for bad taste? Do you consider it a good use of your time, of the endowment you bestowe
d on us, the gift of long life? Well, has it been important, what you’ve done?’

  My master did his best to keep his tone friendly. ‘All great houses have their share of the ridiculous, granted, but they are also centres of learning. They are magnets for the enlightened.’

  ‘Yes, yes, you “learn” of course. You gather information. You enlighten yourself. And then what? Who do you help with all this intelligence? Huh? Whilst the world tears itself apart beyond the walls of your sanctuaries? Whilst men die on battlefields?’ He jabbed my master’s shoulder, once, then again harder.

  On the third push, my master said, ‘What is it you are trying to say, Vilder? That you’re heroic now, because you had a lover that was a soldier?’

  In a flash Vilder drew his dagger. I barked and would have snatched it in my teeth, but my master motioned me back with a snap of his fingers. He seemed to know exactly how to behave, that this was not the first time he’d faced his companion’s anger.

  ‘I never sought to be heroic,’ Vilder shouted. ‘That was your game. Well, once upon a time anyway. I have always had the courage to own up to my shortcomings.’

  ‘Come now, put your dagger away.’

  ‘You took me down this road remember? You are the reason I am here.’

  ‘No. Absolutely not. We were equal in that matter. We decided together.’

  ‘You took me down the road and left me stranded.’ Vilder clenched the dagger tighter, but kept it at his side.

  My master nodded, and his tone was entirely placatory. ‘My friend, we are both overwrought. Let us leave this for now, I beg you.’

  A guard at the doors to the town hall, having heard raised voices and seen a drawn dagger, came over. Vilder sheathed his blade and said to him, ‘Don’t worry, I’m leaving this swamp.’

  From that moment, barely a word was exchanged between the two men. My master made the necessary arrangements, and by the following morning Aramis had been packaged up and loaded into the carriage. They couldn’t fit the box lying down and had to sit it up against the seat, which made for a surreal sight. When my master saw the coach was about to leave, he went out to say goodbye, but Vilder still refused to talk to him. Rather he gave word to his driver and they set off through the gates.

  I had never seen my master so distracted as he was that day, sitting down only to sigh and stand again, endlessly tugging his hand through his hair. I trailed him as he worried back and forth about our rooms, groaning, mumbling to himself, occasionally halting to regard the scrubbed-down table where Aramis had lain. At one point, he picked up the bottle of jyhr and warily studied it, before putting it in his trouser pocket. ‘What have we done? We have not done well. What have we done?’ In the evening he called for wine and drank cheerlessly, until his pupils desiccated and he fell asleep in his chair.

  Past midnight, I heard a carriage creep along the lane behind the house and stop. It was not unusual for vehicles to come so late, but I had an uneasy presentiment. It was too dark to see anything from the window, but I heard the coach door thump and low voices. My master’s eyes flicked open and he tilted his head to the sound.

  ‘Who is that?’ I was so frightened I barked. ‘Sssh.’ He craned his ears, but there was silence now. He went into the workroom. The moon cast an extravagant shadow across it. Just as he turned back to the parlour, a knock came on the door and the fur on my neck lifted.

  ‘Yes?’ said my master.

  Our footman put his head round, and we were relieved until he said, ‘The gentleman. He returns.’ He was bewildered and shaken. ‘Upstairs.’ He indicated the principal part of the house where our employers lived.

  ‘Thank you.’ My master went up the little flight of steps and along the passageway into the great hall. I followed on his heels, certain that he would send me back, but he didn’t. I had always found the mansion forbidding, all dark, creaking mahogany and austere dressers of blue and white china that was never used—but that evening it was more uninviting than ever. A staircase, raked at an unkindly steep angle, led to a landing of many identical doors. Our patrons were fastidious at keeping them closed, but one of them was ajar, the library, and flickers of firelight came from within. A fire, on such a hot night. We ascended and entered the mausoleum of a room that looked on to the Herengracht. Shelves of fanatically organized books towered to the ceiling. Whoever had lit the fire had apparently gone, as the room was empty. My master turned, and I must have made a sound, when I saw the figure sitting at a table in the corner, for he stopped, and saw it too.

  Vilder was turning the pages of a book. For a moment a charged stillness shook between us.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ my master ventured, glancing at the hearth.

  ‘I had travelled some miles before something grave occurred to me. I have a question, a pressing one.’

  ‘That is all very well, but return to my rooms at least?’

  ‘No. I like it here. Amongst all this clever writing, which nobody reads, all this enlightenment.’ He held up the book. ‘I found this, or it found me. Ajax, Sophocles. I was looking for a particular passage—’

  ‘Vilder, let us take our conversation elsewhere. We will be discovered here at any moment.’

  ‘Really? By the Van den Heuvals? All the better. I long to be acquainted. We have so much in common. I could discuss mines and metallurgy with them, talk about our dynasties, being born into obscene wealth, the benefits and disadvantages thereof, compare the modern magnate—’ he indicated the room, before turning his hand to himself ‘—with the medieval variety. It would be fascinating. But sadly I have already understood from your footman that the Van den Heuvals are gone for August. We have the mansion for ourselves.’ He shook the book. ‘Have you read it? This short jolt of a tragedy?’

  ‘Vilder, I implore you.’

  ‘You know the myth in any case? The soldier Ajax should be awarded for his bravery, but is passed over in favour of the lesser Odysseus. He becomes so obsessed with revenge, he goes mad and hacks to pieces a herd of swine believing they are his enemies and at once his shame is tenfold. I overcomplicate—it is about suicide.’

  ‘Let this alone now.’

  Vilder reads. ‘“Come bright daylight and look on me, for this last time, and then no more. O sacred land that was my home, ye springs and streams and Trojan plains, to you that fed my life, I bid farewell. This last, last word do I, Ajax, speak, and all else I say will be in Hades. And he drives down on to his sword.”’

  ‘Vilder, believe me, I too am heartbroken about Aramis—’

  Vilder laughed. ‘Heartbroken, really? With a caprice you’ve barely met?’ He got up and threw another log on to the fire, and stoked it with a poker. ‘My question. You said something to me in London, something very curious. You said, when I asked for help with Aramis’s conversion, it would be unconscionable in the extreme, immoral, you said, to burden another living thing with a life with no plausible end. It would be a curse, you told me. That is the reason you refused the request. Am I correct?’

  ‘I do not remember the conversation well, or the words I might have used, but that is my belief.’

  ‘Unconscionable in the extreme to burden another living thing with a life with no plausible end. I suppose you must have thought, from time to time, how marvellous it might have been, if you could convert one of those sparky women you used to like, to keep as a mate, one of those intelligent, often unattractive ladies you were drawn to, the ones always trying to prove themselves, fighting for their place at court, good markswomen, fast-talkers and even quicker thinkers. Thin little creatures with brave hearts. Who was that one in Rome you fell for? The would-be architect, who was she?’

  ‘Stop this.’

  ‘She’d come from the slums of Malta, hadn’t she? To try her hand at the game of society, to make her way in a man’s world. What was her name? Ariadne? She was pretty that one, but for her moustache. No, Adri
ana, that was it, that’s what she called herself. What rhapsodies you made over her “architectural diagrams,” her “vision.” She’d designed “a hospital for the poor.” What a saviour. You showered her with encouragement, before you broke her heart. Do you think she ended up back in Malta, in a slum? No doubt. You could have had such a prize for all time. But of course you were too honourable for that. “What if it should go wrong?” you always whimpered, if I even began to bring the subject up. Or worse still: “We cannot play god with other people.”’ His voice had been low since we came in, but suddenly he shouted. ‘Why not?!’ The fire took a breath before blazing on. ‘Why should we not play god when he plays us?’

  ‘Isn’t your behaviour now the reason why?’ my master replied. ‘Is it not proof how things can go wrong?’

  ‘My behaviour?’ Vilder advanced towards my master very slowly, and I stood at his side, chest out, to show my courage, even though I was terrified. ‘What do you mean by my behaviour? That I suffer, sometimes? That I find it interminable, sometimes? That I wish to burn to death—sometimes?’ He shot a glance at the fire and as it reflected against his face he could have been a demon. ‘Well, have you considered the favour I sought from you would have helped me? But you turned me down, you played god. And in doing so, you have made my situation infinitely worse. You have compassion for the rest of the humanity, why not for me? Deny it all you wish, but you brought me to this pass. You are responsible, not I. You owe me.’ He was so close to my master by then, their faces almost touched. ‘In any case, I veer from the point. My question. This grave principle of yours, to never afflict another living thing? Have you stuck to it?’

  ‘You know I have.’

  ‘Really? You have stuck to it?’

  ‘Yes, Vilder.’