by Lavie Tidhar
truth, one not so visible to the naked eye.
Come, and come soon.
Yours,
J. Maskelyne
"What does he want?" Tom asked.
Orphan shrugged. The words of the magician's simple sympathy had affected him, and for a moment he couldn't speak. Once again he was overwhelmed with that image of Lucy, smiling, the book held in her hands, and then the bright searing explosion that had ended her life, and changed his forever. And he thought, I must act. I must find the Bookman. He had almost forgotten, in this momentary haven; but now that ghostly, mist-like figure seemed to re-form around him, to press against the windows with its silence and to watch him as he stood there helpless. The words of his friend Gilgamesh returned to him. This is the time of myth, he had said, and Orphan thought, then I am the minotaur, and I am trapped in the Bookman's maze.
"He invited me to visit him at the Egyptian Hall," he said. "He was very kind."
"The Egyptian Hall?" Belinda said. She rose from the bed (where Ariel was now sitting cross-legged, an open tin box on her knees, and rolled a cigarette with Tom Thumb's cannabis, which he regularly bought at Captain Powers' Pipe Shop near Leicester Square), "Me and Ariel went there only last week. You must go see it! They have the most amazing machine there, an old, old automaton that plays chess and can beat any man or woman what tries to challenge it!"
More automatons. Was his life now bound into the aspirations of machines as well as human beings? He thought, I would send him a note and apologise for not being able to come. He would understand.
"Yes!" Ariel said, "And the funny thing is, it's made up to look like an old Turk!"
The words trickled, slow and with a stealthy smoothness, into Orphan's mind. "What did you say?"
His voice sounded to him like it emerged not from him at all but from some place far away. What had Byron said?
Ask the Turk. And he had not paid it much attention. Why?
"I said it looks like an old Turk," Ariel said, her fingers smoothing out a cone-shaped cigarette. She lit it with a match and a sweet, pungent smoke rose into the air. "With a turban and a drooping moustache and hands that move across the board like they was real." She inhaled deeply from the cigarette, shrugged, and said, "You should go see it. There's also a mechanical duck that eats food and then shits it out."
"French," Belinda added.
Orphan looked at the two of them, turning from one to the other. Ask the Turk, he thought. And here, then, was the Turk.
"Is it open now?" he found himself saying.
"It's always open," Tom said. "There's always a show on at the Egyptian Hall." He looked at Orphan for a long moment, as if trying to decipher something he could only half-see. He said, "Are you sure it's a good idea?"
Orphan said, "No."
Tom slowly nodded.
With a sense of inevitability stealing over him Orphan went to the door and put on his shoes and his coat. He turned to Tom, began to say, "Thank you," but Tom merely shook his head. "You're always welcome at Old Nelly's," he said. "Just be careful, OK, china?"
"I'll try," Orphan said. "But I seem to be doing a bad job of that, recently."
Tom shook his head. "It can't be that bad," he said, "if you're still around."
Orphan smiled in return.
"If you're going to the Hall," Tom said, "say hello to my old friend Theo. He works there as Jo Jo the DogFaced Boy."
"How will I recog… ah," Orphan said. And, "I'll do that."
Then he said goodbye to the two girls, who both hugged him and told him to come back soon and, if they weren't there, to ask for them at the Shakespeare's Head.
"I will," he promised. Then he opened the door and, stepping out into the cold dark night, left both warmth and the Nell Gwynne behind him.
THIRTEEN
A Night on the Town
"Oranges and Lemons," say the bells of St Clement's. "Bull's eyes and targets," say the bells of St Margaret's. "Brickbats and tiles," say the bells of St Giles'. "Halfpence and farthings," say the bells of St Martin's. "Pancakes and fritters," say the bells of St Peter's. "Two sticks and an apple," say the bells of Whitechapel. "Pokers and tongs," say the bells of St John's. "Kettles and pans," say the bells of St Anne's. "Old Father Baldpate," say the slow bells of Aldgate. "You owe me ten shillings," say the bells of St Helen's. "When will you pay me?" say the bells of Old Bailey. "When I grow rich," say the bells of Shoreditch. "Pray when will that be?" say the bells of Stepney. "I do not know," says the great bell of Bow.
– Traditional nursery rhyme
It was a surprisingly warm night, and the residents of the great capital, welcoming this unexpected change in the always-precarious weather, had abandoned their homes and taken en masse to the streets. Orphan walked up Charing Cross Road and listened to the cries of hawkers who, even at this late hour, were busy advertising their wares to the busy burghers of the city.
"Ripe strawberries!"
"Buy a fine table-basket!"
"Eels! Eels!"
"Buy a fine singing bird?"
"Old shoes for some brooms!"
"Fine writing ink!"
"Buy a rabbit, a rabbit!"
"Crabs, fat crabs!"
"Fair lemons and oranges!"
"Buy a new almanac!"
"White mice, see the white mice!"
"Knives or scissors to grind?"
"A brass pot or an iron pot to mend!"
"Pens and ink, pens and ink of the highest quality!"
"Bread, fresh bread!"
"Figs!"
"Sausages, good sausages!"
He stopped in his walk through Leicester Square and bought one of the sausages so advertised, covered in oil, dripping fried onions, held in a soggy bun. Everywhere there was the smell of cooking foods, and the lights in all the public houses were burning, and the cries of the drinking class sounded, merry and loud, from every open window but were drowned by the street merchants.
"Buy a pair of shoes!"
"Buy any garters?"
"Wigs! The best wigs in town!"
"Maps on display! See the wilds of Vespuccia, admire the steppes of Siberia, marvel at the secrets of Zululand!"
"Worcestershire salt!"
"Buy a fine brush?"
"Ripe chestnuts!"
"Buy a case for a hat?"
"Fine potatoes!"
"Hot eel pies!"
"A tormentor for your fleas!"
He stopped at the last one and watched the old man whose cry this was, trying to decipher what the tormentor was, but all he could see was a series of strange, pen-shaped devices that could serve no obvious purpose. He shrugged and walked on through the throng, towards Piccadilly.
"New-born eggs!"
"Spices! Spices from Zanzibar!"
"Hot curry powder!"
"Cannabis! Home-grown cannabis!"
"Puppy dogs!"
"Bananas! Bananas fresh off the ship!"
"Ladders! Sturdy ladders!"
"Marjoram and sage!"
"Do you want any matches?"
He passed a solitary woman standing on the corner of Haymarket who was singing in a high, clear, beautiful voice. It was a wordless song, a melody that, for a moment, reminded him of the songs of the whales, and he stopped on a whim and put a coin into the box that lay beside her on the pavement.
She did not stop her singing but she looked at him, and inched her head slightly in acknowledgment, and he was moved by the beauty of her face, and by the unexpected sadness that he found there, reflecting his own. He hurried away then, suddenly uncomfortable. He kept glancing at women in the crowd only to think he had discovered Lucy, but as he looked the women always turned out to be someone else, without the remotest resemblance to his love. Would she appear to him again? he wondered. Was she even now seeking him out, lost in undeath, a prisoner of the Bookman?
But she did not reappear.
"Hot spiced gingerbread, smoking hot!"
"Turnips and carrots!"
"New love songs, very cheap!"
"Primroses!"
"Jam! Blackberry jam!"
"Onions! Buy a rope of onions!"
"Music boxes for sale!"
"Edison records! Get the latest sounds for a peaceful sleep! The call of African birds and the sleep-song of the Nile!"
And here and there as he walked past the Circus the songs of merchants, as old as the city itself, rose to greet him as he passed, a hundred salutations assailing his ears.
Young gentlemen attend my cry,
And bring forth all your knives;
The barbers razors too I grind;
Bring out your scissors, wives.
And:
With mutton we nice turnips eat;
Beef and carrots never cloy;
Cabbage comes up with Summer meat,
With winter nice Savoy.
He was nearly there. The street was clogged with horsedrawn carriages and, in between them, though much aloof, were the curious steam-powered baruch-landaus that carried inside their shining metal bodies those rich enough to afford them. They were shaped a little like a conventional carriage, but with a large, round, black pipe sitting on their heads like a top hat, and they belched constant steam. The wheels were large and wide. In the back of the machine an enclosed black box contained the engine, and a stoker could be seen crouching in his own small space (similar to a theatre's whisper-box, Orphan thought) like a semi-naked demon caught in an eternal inferno. Past the engine was the passenger box, windows darkened to prevent the rabble from looking in on the distinguished riders, while in the front the driver sat in full majestic uniform and controlled the vehicle by means of a large metal stick.
The baruch-landau drivers had at their disposal an array of loud noises (to clear traffic) and flashing lights (for purpose of the same) and as they passed through Piccadilly they were cursed at by the common drivers of the public carriages, to which they replied with cool indifference and the application of louder and even less wholesome noise.
"Sand! Buy my nice white sand!"
"Young radishes!"
"Read the Tempest! Read the publication they don't want you to read! Find out the truth about–"
This one cut short as two uniformed bobbies came past (walking slowly) and the caller hastily disappeared up Glasshouse Street. It was Jack's publication; and Orphan shrugged and walked on. He was not interested in conspiracies.
"Door mats!"
"Quick periwinkles!"
"Song sheets! Get the latest Gilbert and Sullivan for half the price of the theatre!"
"Southernwood that's very good!"
"New Yorkshire muffins!"
And from a seller of brooms and combs came:
All cleanly folk must like my ware, For wood is sweet and clean;
Time was when platters served Lord Mayor And, as I've heard, a Queen.
And from a stall nearby:
Let fame puff her trumpet, for muffin and crumpet, They cannot compare with my dainty hot rolls; When mornings are chilly, sweet Fanny, young Billy, Your hearts they will comfort, my gay little souls.
And then, almost without noticing, Orphan was there. He stood outside the imposing façade of the Egyptian Hall.
What did it look like?
Imagine a grand and ancient temple built for the long-vanished kings of a desert country, wide and rich beyond imaginings. To either side of it stood ordinary, red-and-grey bricked apartment buildings, as ordinary and staid as two elderly gentlemen who had stayed out too late. The Hall, though… Wide columns rose on either side of the entrance, each twice the height of a man, and above them, in lonely splendour, stood the goddess Isis and her husband, the god Osiris, magnificent and tall, while above and all around them the rest of this mock-temple sprawled, covered in unknowable hieroglyphs, a sturdy and faithful imitation of the temple in Tentyra.
Above them all stood, in giant letters, the single word: MUSEUM.
Carriages and baruch-landaus alike carried people to and from the busy entrance, and a steady trickle of visitors, both wealthy and less well-to-do, came and went through the large front doors of this temple of learning. Even lizards, Orphan saw – a party of five, all dressed in full regalia and attended by a host of human servants – came to this place of wonder, and paid the admission price.
He could still taste the mustard in his mouth from the sausage he had earlier devoured; it was not a bad taste, exactly, but it lingered unpleasantly. Like the Egyptian Hall, he thought. It looked, for all its mock-antiquated brashness, like a doll dressed up in once-fine rags.
At the door he showed the usher his letter from Maskelyne and was admitted in without questions.
The inside of the Egyptian Hall was a wide, cavernous space. It was an amalgamation of junk and of rarities, of curiosities and oddities: a mixture of the deeply strange and the everyday.
In the centre of the room stood a rounded enclosure and, inside it, all manner of animals were on display, identified with large signs that were hung around the enclosure: there was a giraffe from Zululand and an elephant from Jaunpur; a dancing bear from the forests of Transylvania and a zebra from the Swahili kingdoms; a peacock from Abyssinia and, in a cage all to itself, a sleepy tiger from Bengal. The animals looked lethargic to Orphan, almost as if they were drugged. The tiger opened one eye when Orphan passed him, looked at him for a short moment and then, as if that exercise was too much for it, closed it again. The bear declined to dance, and crouched on the ground like an elderly fisherman, while the peacock seemed reluctant to spread its plumage to the onlookers, who tried to encourage it by cheering at it and waving their hands in the air, to no avail.
Dotted around the room were the human curiosities. Here, in an alcove with a gas lamp burning on its wall, sat the human whale, a giant male dressed only in a loincloth, whose naked flesh rolled and rolled, like waves in a pool, each time he stirred. He had his own crowd of admirers, who came up to him by turns and poked him with their fingers, in order to better see the fat roll from the point of contact and spread outwards across the giant frame.
Here, sitting on long raised chairs like the legs of flamingos (there was one of those birds, too, in the an imals' enclosure), were the Scarletti Twins, one smaller than a child and as fat as she was tall, the other towering over six feet up and as thin as a rope. "They look like a small fat mushroom under a tall and gangly tree, the poor dears!" Orphan heard an excited customer say to her husband, who nodded with obvious satisfaction at his wife's wit.
Here was the Skeleton Dude, a thin, ill-looking man in a tuxedo (hence the name, dude being a Vespuccian slang-term for urbanite), and beside him was the Translucent Man, whose pale skin allowed the observers to examine the circulation of his blood through his arteries and veins. Here, too, was the Fungus Man, whose body sprouted numerous additional appendages, spots and boils (which you could pop at your leisure for a modest sum).
Orphan walked in a daze through this gallery of unfortunates. Everywhere he looked in that wide, open space some man or woman stood or sat or – in one instance – floated (the Mermaid, a woman floating inside a large water-tank, whose lower body was made to look like the tail of a fish), some unfortunate soul was displaying an affliction for the amusement and elucidation of the paying public. On and on it went: in a side room he saw a man with no legs and a man with no arms ride a bicycle together; in another, a bearded lady shared a rolled-up cigarette and a cup of tea (apparently on her break) with a woman who had three breasts (and drew an unwanted crowd of male admirers even as she sat there).
Where was Maskelyne?
As he passed a man with bricks on his head – the bricks were being pounded into rubble by a second man with the use of a great sledgehammer – a small figure bounded up to him and grabbed him by the arm.
"Are you Orphan?" this startling person asked.
Recovering from his momentary surprised, Orphan nodded, then said, "You must be Theo."
The man who had stopped him was short of stature,
and dressed in short, loose-fitting trousers and an open vest that exposed his hairy chest. His arms were equally hairy, as were his legs. His face was dark and deeply grooved, covered in a straggly beard all over that looked like wild-growing weeds. Deep, sorrowful eyes looked up at Orphan from that extraordinary face.
"You can call me Jo Jo," he said. Then he shook his head, twice, as if shaking invisible water from it, and said, "Come with me."