Tomorrow

by Damian Dibben

  Sporco, mercifully, continues to be untroubled by our imprisonment. In fact, as days pass, he grows even more content. Apart from having shelter, warmth and company—food, a good deal of it meat, is delivered from above morning and night, usually by Braune, but sometimes by Vilder, who’ll often linger in the shadows watching us. Sporco has everything he needs, that any dog would need. I, though, battle every moment to stay calm. I tell myself that Vilder is bound eventually to unlock the door and set us free—only for fears to come to me, a dread I’ll never escape, I’ll never find my master, or know what happened to him, that I’ll watch Sporco grow old and die. I worry too, conversely, that my master might return, be ambushed by our captor and slain before we even have the chance of reunion.

  To keep myself from turning mad, I go through his things, meticulously studying the reams and reams of inscribed papers. Ninety years of our life together. I had always considered him a fine artist who underrated his talents, so it gives me pride (at least I have that) to see how beautifully realized the sketches are, indeed how he has grown in skill as time passed.

  There are all manner of familiar vignettes, charting our progress through the courts of Europe—Elsinore, London, Amsterdam and all the others—but when I come across illustrations of people and places I do not know, which must have been before my time, a compelling idea strikes me: that they might contain clues of my master’s beginning, of his family. I select a number from the pile and study them closely. Almost all are set in a sunny land of rolling valleys, cypress trees and hilltop towns, of bustling cities scattered with ancient ruins, where everyone is outdoors in the warmth. A place that must be Italy.

  The clothes are certainly from a century or two prior to my birth, but they are familiar from paintings I’ve seen: the women with conical silhouettes, wide farthingale skirts and bodices; the men with square padded shoulders, short hose, codpieces and hats with halo brims. There are a number of individual portraits—engineers, sculptors and architects I guess from the emblems around them—but they tell me little more about my master than I already know. I don’t have the sense that any are related to him by blood, or that one of the buildings they stand before might be his home.

  Gradually I become diverted, focusing instead on the people and places I remember. There is one of us with an old bearded gentleman on the parapet of the Campanile in Pisa, Signor Galileo my master called him. He spoke in the singsong way of Venetians, was a professor at the university, and, in common with my master, a fellow disciple of science. I remember clearly the hot summer night when the three of us ascended the spiral stairs of the Campanile, the enchanting marble tower that tilted slightly away from the cathedral as if it were trying to set off on its own. At the top, the professor covertly unveiled his ‘wonder-instrument,’ a long cylinder of wood with convexes of glass at each end, pointed it high above the gables and minarets of Pisa, to the moon, and motioned for my master to peer inside the box.

  ‘You’d think it would be as smooth as polished alabaster,’ Galileo said in an energetic whisper, ‘but look how uneven and rough it is, full of cavities and prominences.’

  ‘I see, I see,’ my master thrilled, even picking me up to allow me to observe. I peered through the hole to see into what I thought was another world, a desert sphere of craters and fissures, before realizing it was the moon itself, startlingly magnified. That was one such moment when I was in awe of humankind.

  There are all manner of other tableaux. Several of us in the bewitching realm of Andalusia, in the Moorish fortress of the Alhambra, with its complex of watchtowers and courtyards, brightly tiled miradors, and a thousand chattering fountains. There’s one of my master and I sitting side by side in a box at the Palais-Royal, the theatre in Paris. I remember the night we went to see his favourite actor perform (the same unfortunate man who a year later, during a performance of a play about double-dealing doctors, La Malade Imaginaire, coughed up chunks of blood and crumpled to his death on stage). As the curtain came down, the audience, the queen included, stood as one, cheering, buzzing, tapping fans, waving the edges of their clothes until the entire acting troupe was in tears. Reminded of these moments, I feel ashamed that I’ve chosen to remember so much of our time together as work, a drudge almost, following armies, stalking battlefields, and waiting with scant patience whilst my master worked at the furnace in palace workrooms. There was a whole other universe to our travels. He showed me the realms.

  Coming across a group of drawings of a lady my master was close to in our Amsterdam days gives me a particularly keen jolt. The memory of that city, to which I never returned, has been so entwined with my feelings for Vilder, I’ve all but forgotten the other great event that took place there: of my master falling for a woman in a way that was deeper, and ultimately more painful, than ever before. How shameful of me to not have remembered Jacobina more. She was a rare individual, the type that people call ‘a force of nature,’ vital and kind and brilliant.

  ‘I am from Ghana,’ she boasted in her powerful voice when he met her at the entrance to the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. She was even taller than he and had an all-encompassing smile that she wore permanently, with the exception of one time. ‘I have come here to pick the brains of you rich merchants, to see all your clever tricks, so one day us Ghanaians can live as you.’ My master was almost tongue-tied to begin with, following her as she swept through the prim, self-conscious gatherings of Amsterdam society, a giantess, as dark and rare as obsidian and as assured as the wind.

  It was delightful and then unbearable to behold: the harder he tried to stop himself from falling, the greater he fell. Rather than compliment her in person, and show the extent of his adoration, he shared his thoughts with me instead, boasting day after day of ‘her outlook,’ ‘her courage’ and ‘character,’ ‘her exquisite neck,’ ‘the way silk sits about her shoulders,’ ‘her titanic sense of humour,’ and her ‘ears’ and ‘feet’ and ‘hands.’

  ‘Tonight, she goes to the ball of the Dutch East India Company, my champion,’ my master boasted one day. ‘Though not invited, categorically not, she goes anyway, into the very lion’s den, to charm the bankers and guildsmen and millionaires, even as their wives twitch in horror beside them, to raise money for her homeland. And she’s frightened of doing it, but still she goes. And she’ll do it magnificently. And if she fails, she’ll do that magnificently too.’ Another time, he bragged, ‘The risks she has taken, my champion, for the good of others, setting off on her own, crossing seas, escaping the grubby hands of slave-traders, whore-masters and bigots, all of who would do her down.’

  After almost a year of keeping the full scope of his infatuation a secret from everyone but me, as we took a boat out of the city one summer’s afternoon, along a canal where fields of flowers were grown, he suddenly asked her: ‘Would you like to live forever?’ I sat up so urgently the boat rocked and almost capsized. He seemed to have taken even himself by surprise: his mouth hung open and he looked terrified to hear her answer.

  It was preceded by one of her mighty peals of laughter. ‘I could think of nothing worse!’

  ‘Oh.’

  She threw her hand around at the expanse of blooms, which seemed to go on forever in that flat land, stocks and peonies, honesty and sweet rocket, and the welcoming sunlit walls of Amsterdam far behind. ‘We only enjoy all this because we know it will pass.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Like that, it will pass.’ My master smiled and squeezed her hand, but inside I knew he was crestfallen, not because she’d said no to him, which she had without realizing it, but because she may have been right.

  I think she’d been guarded about giving her heart too, but when she did, with her ‘quiet Knight,’ her ‘laughing sage, who travels always with his four-legged soul beside him,’ she did so with all the strength of her personality, and when he let her go, that same strength destroyed her. And he too.

  * * *

  It’s late, the light almost g
one from the window and I’m doing my best to tidy the drawings, as my master would have done, when I realize Vilder is watching me from above. I hadn’t heard him come in. Even in silhouette, there is something different in his demeanour: he’s more composed, steadier on his feet. He studies me very plainly, like a man might watch a caged bear from a place of safety. I stare back and, for a moment, I fancy we exchange the tiniest spark of understanding, of compatriotism even, before he goes for the night, locking the door.

  An idea strikes me and by the time he returns to the gallery the following afternoon, I have laid out more than a hundred of my master’s best drawings very neatly, edge to edge, making a carpet of them across the floor. Vilder saunters down to the far end of the gallery and back, looking at them with not one iota of surprise or interest, before leaving again. Later, wondering whether I should leave them or neaten them back into a pile, the main door opens, at ground level, and Vilder stands on the threshold, a lantern in his hand. I chill with anticipation. Leaving the door open, he stares at me, stark light on his craggy face (to think how once I longed for him to notice me, that I braved the iced-over Thames alone to catch one last glimpse of him), before walking over to the bed, deliberately treading on the drawings, not looking down even as they tear beneath his feet. Sporco wakes, but I cut round Vilder, broadening my chest.

  ‘You think he’s a saint?’ Vilder says. ‘For this you have made your exhibition? He was no saint. Let me put you right on that.’ He picks up a drawing, one of the dozens of his reimaginations of the battlefield. ‘He told me of his “crusade,” his would-be atonement for Aramis. He did not atone and it was ill judged in the extreme.’ He shakes the drawing at me. ‘You think this makes him righteous? Purifies him? Did he think that? A soul here and there, the bestowing of a little additional time on this earth? And he lectured me about playing god.’

  Sporco sidesteps me, drops on to Vilder’s lap and licks his hand. Vilder freezes and I brace myself for an attack, but surprisingly he gives a little chuckle and lets Sporco carry on, even strokes his head. ‘What are you?’ he says. ‘An ordinary thing?’ Then a thought strikes him and he turns Sporco on his side to study his abdomen, running his fingers through his fur and making Sporco giggle. ‘Yes, an ordinary thing,’ Vilder says, finding no scar. ‘Good for you. You are a dog I could endure. One who does not take himself too seriously. Good for you.’ As Sporco lassoes his tail, I steal a peek at the half-open door. Vilder notices, pushes Sporco away and gets up, stamping back through the drawings and exits. As the bolts hammer home, a new plan, a better one, occurs to me.

  * * *

  ‘I—I’m not sure I understand, no.’ Sporco frets. ‘I—I’m not good with schemes and—’ He stops and sighs. ‘You want that I should—?’

  ‘Sssh. Just howl, loudly. Urgently. That’s all you have to do.’ It’s the middle of the following night and Sporco’s walking in circles trying to comprehend.

  ‘And you’re going to—’

  ‘I’m going to play dead. Pretend to be dead.’

  ‘Right you are, right you are,’ Sporco mumbles, still understanding nothing.

  My species is exasperating: the lack of vocabulary, the recall only for food and punishment. ‘Look, this is my blood.’ I tip over the bottle of cochineal that I found amongst my master’s things, and it slicks into a puddle.

  ‘What?’ Sporco gasps, his ears pinning back. ‘Blood?’ He hazards a sniff and I bash his snout.

  ‘False blood. Not real. False. And when he comes—he will come to look, if you howl well—you get out first. Don’t wait for me. Run fast. I’ll follow. Understood?’

  Sporco’s brows make a fretful dance before setting in a knot. ‘I’m not good with schemes and plans.’

  ‘Just howl. You’re maddening. Howl.’ I calm myself. ‘Just try.’

  Sporco takes in a deep breath and lets out a waspish bark. ‘A howl is what I need, anguish.’ His next attempt is no better. ‘Think of a lady dog. You want her attention, badly. Howl.’ This time he manages it. I thump him. ‘Louder, urgent.’ He does as I tell him and this time he succeeds. I wet the side of my head in the dye and take my position, on my side, my legs at unnatural angles. Whenever my master and I watched a man play dead in the theatre, he’d always lean forward to see if they moved, and wink at me knowingly if he caught them. I join in with Sporco for a greater effect, until finally comes the sound of footsteps above, the gallery door opens and lantern light swings across the room. It falls on me, catching the crimson shine of the liquid. Vilder makes a choking sound and hurries away, then there’s a pattern of feet descending steps, of them approaching, a bang of bolts and he rushes in. For a few moments there’s just the sound of him panting, before he comes in and puts the lantern down.

  ‘What happened here?’ he says, inching towards me. His voice could be someone else’s: I never thought I’d hear fear in it. His chest draws in and out quickly, and he fidgets his fingers about his mouth. ‘What happened here? Dead?’ More than fear: abject terror. He takes the hexagonal bottle from his pocket and crouches down to look at me.

  ‘Run,’ I shriek, leaping up, pushing Sporco on, before smacking my weight against Vilder, upending him again. He drops the bottle, which skitters towards the door and his head hits the bed leg. ‘Run!’ I push Sporco through the door, then knock over the lantern so it extinguishes, before seizing my master’s glass phial in my teeth and going after him.

  ‘Braune! De la Mare!’ comes Vilder’s cry, as we sprint on, towards the chapel on the ground floor, where the window was broken. The door to it is shut. I reach up and nudge the handle with my snout. Now two pairs of footsteps are approaching from different directions. ‘Braune!’

  ‘They’re coming,’ Sporco says, and I realize we’ve left a trail of paw prints in the dust.

  I get the handle in my teeth, turn it and finally it gives, the door opens and we race inside the chapel, boots thumping behind us. Vilder stalks in and we hide in the shadows beneath the pulpit stairs. He hates the room and the bronze effigies in their railed-in pen—his parents I presume. The man’s stern face has no fat upon it, and his vainglorious wife is crowned with outstretched veils. And there is a third effigy, of Aramis, standing on a newer tomb, a young soldier striking out, one leg off the ground, pointing his swagger stick ahead.

  When Braune hurries in with a pistol, we tear from our hiding place to the hole in the window and I shoulder Sporco through.

  ‘You! Stay!’ Vilder snatches the gun, points it to the ceiling and there’s a click of metal, a shrill whistle, a flash of phosphorescence and chunks of the wall hail down, setting half the colony of bats about the room. ‘You!’ He wings across the room and catches me as I try to jam through the opening. Outside Sporco is apoplectic. I drop the bottle, dig my claws against the ground, but Vilder’s too strong.

  ‘Run,’ I bark at Sporco. ‘Run!’

  Vilder pulls me back, smacks my ear and I could be in Amsterdam again. Braune is reloading the pistol and black powder is tipping from its snout.

  At once there’s a rush of air and Sporco barrels back through the window, leaping up and butting Vilder aside. There comes a kick of pure heat, a backdraft of sulphur, and Vilder’s shoe rips open to a warm spray of blood. He drops the gun and falls against the tomb, gaping his mouth at me, palms out. This time, Sporco and I get away.

  Outside, there’s a mist of rain, a vacuum stillness teased with hot wind, a storm about to break. ‘You’re not hurt?’

  ‘I am well,’ says Sporco.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, pressing my snout to his. ‘For coming back.’ I snatch up the bottle in my mouth and we take off across the ruined gardens, towards the wooded hills. I look over my shoulder at the house, tipping from side to side. There come trembles of thunder, rumbles of light, and just as we reach the edge of the trees, the sky chokes, folds back in dark chasms and the deluge comes down, a hiss of water.

/>   There’s a cry behind us and Vilder, too far away to catch up, is half running, half limping from the back of the house. ‘You should help me...’ His voice trails off in the wind. ‘Help me find him.’ He stops and pulls off his wig, to reveal a thin straggle of hair beneath. He stands, solitary on the vast grid of bygone gardens, minute against his doom palace and the great sweep of the prairie. Torrents of water throttle down and smoke rises in fantastical mists.

  ‘You should help me,’ Vilder calls as we drive into the woods.

  12

  THE DANCE OF THE DEAD

  Brussels, June 1815

  On we go, Sporco and I, through the trees, through thickets of brambles and gorse, ascending the slope. It’s gentle at first, but soon begins to rake steeply, and we have to scramble up rocks and mossy steps, all the while blinking rain from our eyes. When I pause to reposition my master’s bottle in my mouth, Sporco takes the lead, swift and uncomplaining. The stray that never left his city quarter has become a pioneer. More than that: my saviour at Opalheim. And, I notice now, his body has changed too from his period of good eating: his once skinny frame has filled out and his fur has become shinier.

  Eventually the trees thin out, and there are boulders instead, sharp facets of stone offering little purchase. On we clamber, higher, steeper. The rain stops and layer by layer clouds lift to reveal a coral dawn. I halt to take breath, but slip, and the bottle drops from my teeth, hits the corner of a rock and smashes.

  From a dazzle of broken glass, the pale yellow drains on to the rock. I clamber down and paw together the pieces, furious with myself. Not only has the artefact survived centuries, but it is all I have of my master. The tonic is his too—the last drops remain in a little crack of stone. A sudden impulse strikes me: to drink it. I discount it, worried of the effect it might have. But that fluid is more my master than anything. I press out my tongue, but stop when I see the engraving on one of the shattered pieces. I had noticed before that its neck had been inscribed with a faint insignia, but I’d never had the chance to examine it closely. Now I see it, the marks emblazoned by the sun: three towers below a crescent moon. I have been mistaken all along: the bottle was Vilder’s in the first place. But not the liquid. Without thinking, I press my tongue down on the residue of it and blot it from the rock. There is more of it than I realized, a good gulp.