Moby Jack & Other Tall Tales (34 page)

And still it laughed at me, until I knew I was going insane.

Finally, I began singing to myself, not to keep up my spirits like brave men are supposed to, but because I was beginning to slip into that crazy world that rejects reality in favour of fantasy. I thought I was home, in my own house, making coffee. I found myself going through the actions of putting on the kettle, and preparing the coffee, milk and sugar, humming a pleasant tune to myself all the while. One part of me recognised that domestic scene was make-believe, but the other was convinced that I could not possibly be trapped by a malevolent entity and about to die in the dark corridors of its multi-sectioned shell.

Then something happened, to jerk me into sanity.

The sequence of events covering the next few minutes or so is lost to me. Only by concentrating very hard and surmising can I recall what might have happened. Certainly, I believe I remember those first few moments, when a sound deafened me, and the whole building rocked and trembled as if in an earthquake. Then I think I fell to the floor and had the presence of mind to jam the helmet on my head. There followed a second (what I now know to be) explosion. Pieces of building rained around me: bricks were striking my shoulders and bouncing off my hard hat. I think the only reason none of them injured me badly was because the builders, being poor, had used the cheapest materials they could find. These were bricks fashioned out of crushed coke, which are luckily light and airy.

A hole appeared, through which I could see blinding daylight. I was on my feet in an instant, and racing toward it. Nails appeared out of the woodwork, up from the floor, and ripped and tore at my flesh like sharp fangs. Metal posts crashed across my path, struck me on my limbs. I was attacked from all sides by chunks of masonry and debris, until I was bruised and raw, bleeding from dozens of cuts and penetrations.

When I reached the hole in the wall, I threw myself at it, and landed outside in the dust. There, the demolition people saw me, and one risked his life to dash forward and pull me clear of the collapsing building. I was then rushed to hospital. I was found to have a broken arm and multiple lacerations, some of them quite deep.

Mostly, I don’t remember what happened at the end. I’m going by what I’ve been told, and what flashes on and off in my nightmares, and using these have pieced together the above account of my escape from the Walled City. It seems as though it might be reasonably accurate.

I have not, of course, told the true story of what happened inside those walls, except in this account, which will go into a safe place until after my death. Such a tale would only have people clucking their tongues and saying, ‘It’s the shock, you know—the trauma of such an experience,’ and sending for the psychiatrist. I tried to tell Sheena once, but I could see that it was disturbing her, so I mumbled something about, ‘Of course, I can see that one’s imagination can work overtime in a place like that,’ and never mentioned it to her again.

I did manage to tell the demolition crew about John. I told them he might still be alive, under all that rubble. They stopped their operations immediately and sent in search parties, but though they found the bodies of the guide and policemen, John was never seen again. The search parties all managed to get out safely, which has me wondering whether perhaps there is something wrong with my head—except that I have the wounds, and there are the corpses of my travelling companions. I don’t know. I can only say now what I think happened. I told the police (and stuck rigidly to my story) that I was separated from the others before any deaths occurred. How was I to explain two deaths by sharp instruments, and a subsequent hanging? I let them try to figure it out. All I told them was that I heard John’s final cry, and that was the truth. I don’t even care whether or not they believe me. I’m outside that damn hellhole, and that’s all that concerns me.

And Sheena? It is seven months since the incident. And it was only yesterday that I confronted and accused her of having an affair with John, and she looked so shocked and distressed and denied it so vehemently that I have to admit I believe that nothing of the kind happened between them. I was about to tell her that John had admitted to it, but had second thoughts. I mean, had he? Maybe I had filled in the gaps with my own jealous fears? To tell you the truth, I can’t honestly remember, and the guilt is going to be hard to live with. You see, when they asked me for the location of John’s cry for help, I indicated a spot... well, I think I told them to dig—I said... anyway, they didn’t find him, which wasn’t surprising, since I... well, perhaps this is not the place for full confessions.

John is still under there somewhere, God help him. I have the awful feeling that the underground ruins of the Walled City might keep him alive in some way, with rejected water, and food in the form of rats and cockroaches. A starving man will eat dirt, if it fills his stomach. Perhaps he is still below, in some pocket created by that underworld? Such a slow, terrible torture, keeping a man barely alive in his own grave, would be consistent with that devious, nefarious entity I know as the Walled City of the Manchus.

Some nights when I am feeling especially brave, I go to the park and listen—listen for small cries from a subterranean prison—listen for the faint pleas for help from an oubliette far below the ground.

Sometimes I think I hear them.

 
This is an
indulgence which
grew out of my love of the stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe. Other lovers of their tales may enjoy the references herein, which are many, if a little obscure in places.

I do not remember precisely where it was that Hawthorne and I held our –
th
meeting, nor do I recall the exact means by which I travelled there. That it was some central landlocked country on a continent with an extensive history is within the limits of possibility, and certainly the climate was inclement, inclining towards low temperatures and high winds, for I have vague memories of heavy figures promenading along slippery cobbled streets, their thick tall-collared coats casting shadows on the mean little bulls-eye windows of myopic houses. That it was north of the Tropic of Cancer, is beyond doubt, for there were long grey hours of twilight in which the shade of thin church spires invaded narrow alleys, and most assuredly it was not above the Arctic Circle for the period of daylight matched the darkness almost to perfection.

Although the name of the city has now slipped beyond recall, when my concentration is at its most powerful, which is not frequent in these days of increasing age and poor health, there is an ill-defined impression of a certain species of fungi growing between the pitted bricks of a high garden wall. This particular type of mushroom is used in the recipes of a soup found only in a Principality west of the region where two transcontinental rivers have their confluence. The actual rendezvous point however is indelibly printed on my memory and took place at the Café M—, a pavement restaurant on the east side of the city in the vicinity of the graveyards, where it is said several poor souls have been immured while still drawing shallow but life-sustaining breath, the scratch marks of desperate fingers having been discovered on the inside of certain coffin lids.

Although he was heavily disguised I recognised my enemy, the despicable Mr Hawthorne, by the venomous-looking purple bloom he wore in his lapel buttonhole, and by the strange strawberry birthmark that marred his otherwise flawless complexion. These two marks of identification he had communicated to me before our meeting, so that I should not make the mistake of approaching the wrong person. I, in turn, had warned him to look for a man whose throat bore the scar of a razor, from ear to ear. There were similar cicatrices to be found on my chest, caused by another honed instrument, somewhat larger than a barber’s razor, but these striations were of course hidden beneath my shirtfront.

To be absolutely certain of each other we immediately exchanged tokens. Out of sight of prying eyes I passed Hawthorne a small gilded cockroach. I received in its stead the most delicate of model insects, possibly a tiger moth, which fluttered in my cupped palm until I applied pressure and the beautiful tinsel creature was crushed. On seeing what I had done, Hawthorne contemptuously flicked my golden bug down a nearby sewer. We glared at each other, knowing the artefacts had taken infinite patience, and not a little skill, to construct. Finally, to be triply certain we were
each dealing
with the person who professed to be, in his case, Hawthorne, and in mine, Poe, there were prearranged passwords, or rather pass-phrases in the jargon of real estate agents (under which guise we were both travelling) to be voiced for the benefit of the public. We referred to each other by agreed pseudonyms, arranged previously by correspondence.

‘The market is not good, M. du Mirror,’ I said, so that others might hear and not suspect. ‘Prices of houses are coming down. Why only the other day a client of mine, a Mr. U——–, the owner of an old manse, remarked upon how his property was falling...’ ‘Quite so, Mr Wilson,’ interrupted Hawthorne, ‘and clock-towers too, for there are those that possess such edifices, are quite unstable in the current economic climate.’

Thus we established our credentials and sat at separate tables, able to converse in whispers over our shoulders, while others in tall hats and long coats passed us, never guessing the true nature or purpose of our presence in the city. It may seem to the casual observer that our precautions with regard to one another’s identity might be regarded as over-elaborate, but such enquiries were entirely necessary, as will be revealed in the course of this narrative.

‘How was your journey?’ he sneered. ‘Did you experience any difficulties on you voyage to this remote corner of the civilised world?’

‘Uneventful,’ I said, staring coldly ahead, ‘apart from the descent into maelstrom, but that was no fault of the ship’s captain. And you? What of your travels across land?’

‘Likewise,’ he said, ‘though some narrow-minded folk took exception to my presence in a southern town and sent me on my way suitably attired in hot pitch adorned with the feathers of an eiderduck. Hardly distressing to one such as myself, who has frequently entered nightmare situations and come through mentally unscarred.’

‘Let us be about our business then,’ I said, finishing my glass, and received a murmur of assent from my enemy. ‘You have, in your custody a person most dear to me.
My lady, Lygia.
The hate I bear you for abducting my wife is beyond all reason...’

‘Matched only,’ he interrupted with barely suppressed passion, ‘by the hate I have held for you these past three decades...’

I should perhaps explain at this point that Hawthorne and I are secret agents for two separate central European States of differing ideologies. We are rival spies who have thwarted each other time and time again, though our methods are antithetical, his inclining towards dark elaborate plots, and mine favouring straight-forward action. Over the years whilst each of us has pursued his nocturnal and clandestine career we have countered and counter-countered each other’s moves like expert chess players, so that until this time every game has ended in stalemate and the Principality to which I owed my allegiance was no further in gaining superiority over the Duchy to which Hawthorne had pledged his loyalty, nor vice versa. We had repeatedly blocked and stifled each other’s attempts at subterfuge.

There was however one marked difference between us. I treated such rivalry as a natural part of any espionage activity, while Hawthorne took my interference personally and had always vowed that he would destroy me. Several attempts had been made on my life but I am a difficult man to assassinate. Now the agent Hawthorne had stooped to
kidnapping
one who is dear to me, possibly to lure me into some devious trap. My darling Lygia, whose history is as mysterious as my espionage activities, was in the hands of this foul creature. I had come with the purpose of wresting her from his clutches and restoring her to my bosom. ‘One hour,’ he said, swallowing the last of his coffee. ‘We will meet at the W——– Inn.’

‘One hour,’ I agreed, draining my own cup to the lees.

We separated, following our different paths to the same destination, an
inn which
lay beyond the dreary houses and gloomy shops with their gabled windows, down by the river where the mists rose through iron gratings to invade the foul passageways of the harbour wharves. At first my footsteps echoed in the cobbled alleys, but once in open streets the creaking of shop signs on rusty hinges disguised the sound of my progress through the night. Exactly an hour later the masts of ships hove in sight through the fog, their dark crosstrees like thin gallows, and I knew I had reached my journey’s end when a river rat made his passage across the toe of my shoe on his way from a basement window to the dirty waters.