The Map of Time (8 page)

This was announced with great fanfare in the newspapers and on publicity posters: Gilliam Murray could make our dreams come true, he could take us to the year 2000. Despite the cost of the tickets, huge queues formed around his building. I saw people who had always maintained that time travel was impossible waiting like excited children for the doors to open.

Nobody wanted to pass up this opportunity. Madeleine and I couldn’t get seats for the first expedition, only the second. And we traveled in time, Andrew. Believe it or not, I have been a hundred and five years into the future and returned. This coat still has traces of ash on it; it smells of the war of the future. I even picked up a piece of rubble from the ground when no one was looking, a rock we have displayed next to the Shefeers trays in the drawing room cabinet. A replica of the rock must still be intact in some building in London.” Andrew felt like a boat spinning in a whirlpool. It seemed incredible to him that it was possible to travel in time, not to be condemned to see only the era he was born into, the period that lasted as long as his heart and body held out, but to be able to visit other eras, other times where he did not belong, leapfrogging his own death, the tangled web of his descendants, desecrating the sanctuary of the future, journeying to places hitherto only dreamt of or imagined. But for the first time in years, he felt a flicker of interest in something beyond the wall of indifference he had surrounded himself with. He immediately forced himself to snuff out the flame before it became a blaze. He was in mourning, a man with an empty heart and a dormant soul, a creature devoid of emotion, the perfect example of a human being who had felt everything there was for him to feel. He had nothing in the whole wide world to live for. He could not live, not without her.

“That’s remarkable, Charles,” he sighed wearily, feigning indifference to these unnatural journeys. “But what has this to do with Marie?” “Don’t you see, cousin?” Charles replied in an almost scandalized tone. “This man Murray can travel into the future. No doubt if you offered him enough money, he could organize a private tour for you into the past. Then you’d really have someone to shoot.” Andrew’s jaw dropped.

“The Ripper?” he said, his voice cracking.

“Exactly,” replied Charles. “If you travel back in time, you can save Marie yourself.” Andrew gripped the chair to stop himself from falling off. Was it possible? Could he really travel back in time to the night of November 7, 1888, and save Marie? he wondered, struggling to overcome his astonishment. The possibility that this might be true made him feel giddy, not just because of the miracle of traveling through time, but because he would be going back to a period when she was still alive: he would be able to hold in his arms the body he had seen cut to ribbons. But what moved him most was the fact that someone should offer him the chance to save her, to put right his mistake, to change a situation it had taken him all these years to learn to accept as irreversible. He had always prayed to the Creator to be able to do that. It seemed he had been calling upon the wrong person. This was the age of science.

“What do you say, Andrew? We have nothing to lose by trying,” he heard his cousin remark.

Andrew stared at the floor for a few moments, struggling to put some order into the tumult of emotions he felt. He did not really believe it was possible, and yet if it was, how could he refuse to try: this was what he had always wanted, the chance he had been waiting eight years for. He raised his head and gazed at his cousin, shaken.

“All right,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

“Excellent, Andrew,” said Charles, overjoyed, and clapped him on the back. “Excellent.” His cousin smiled unconvincingly, then looked down at his shoes again, attempting to digest it all: he was going to travel back to his old haunts, to relive moments already past, back to his own memories.

“Well,” said Charles, glancing at his pocket watch. “We’d better have something to eat. I don’t think traveling back in time on an empty stomach is a good idea.” They left the little room and made their way over to Charles’s carriage, which was waiting by the stone archway. They followed the same routine that night as though it were no different from any other one. They dined at the Café Royal, which served Charles’s favorite steak and kidney pie, let off steam at Madame Norrell’s brothel, where Charles liked to try out the new girls while they were still fresh, and ended up drinking until dawn in the bar at Claridge’s, where Charles rated the champagne list above any other. Before their minds became too clouded by drink, Charles explained to Andrew that he had journeyed into the future on a huge tramcar, the Cronotilus, which was propelled through the centuries by an impressive steam engine. But Andrew was incapable of showing any interest in the future; his mind was taken up imagining what it would be like to travel in the exact opposite direction, into the past. There, his cousin assured him, he would be able to save Marie by confronting the Ripper. Over the past eight years, Andrew had built up feelings of intense rage towards that monster. Now he would have the chance to vent them. However, it was one thing to threaten a man who had already been executed, he thought, and quite another to confront him in the flesh, in this sort of sparring match Murray was going to set up for him. Andrew gripped the pistol, which he had kept in his pocket, as he recalled the burly man he had bumped into in Hanbury Street, and tried to cheer himself with the thought that, although he had never shot a real person before, he had practiced his aim on bottles, pigeons, and rabbits. If he remained calm, everything would go well. He would aim at the Ripper’s heart or his head, let off a few shots calmly, and watch him die a second time.

Yes, that was what he would do. Only this time, as though someone had tightened a bolt in the machinery of the universe making it function more smoothly, the Ripper’s death would bring Marie Kelly back to life.

7

Despite being early morning, Soho was already teeming with people.

Charles and Andrew had to push their way through the crowded streets full of men in bowlers and women wearing hats adorned with plumes and even the odd fake bird. Couples strolled along the pavements arm in arm, sauntered in and out of shops, or stood waiting to cross the streets. The streets were filled with a slow torrent of luxurious carriages, cabriolets, tramcars, and carts carrying barrels, fruit, or mysterious shapes covered by tarpaulins, possibly bodies robbed from the graveyard. Scruffy second-rate artists, performers, and acrobats displayed their dubious talents on street corners in the hope of attracting the attention of some passing promoter. Charles had not stopped chattering since breakfast, but Andrew could hardly hear him above the loud clatter of wheels on the cobbles and the piercing cries of vendors and would-be artists. He was content to let his cousin guide him through the gray morning, immersed in a sort of stupor, from which he was roused only by the sweet scent of violets reaching him as they passed one of the many flower sellers.

The moment they entered Greek Street, they spotted the modest building where the office of Murray’s Time Travel was situated. It was an old theater that had been remodeled by its new owner, who had not hesitated to blight the neoclassical façade with a variety of ornamentations alluding to time. At the entrance, a small flight of steps flanked by two columns led up to an elegant sculpted wooden door crowned by a pediment decorated with a carving of Chronos spinning the wheel of the Zodiac. The god of time, depicted as a sinister old man with a flowing beard reaching down to his navel, was bordered by a frieze of carved hourglasses, a motif repeated on the arches above the tall windows on the second floor. Between the pediment and the lintel, ostentatious pink marble lettering announced to all who could read that this picturesque edifice was the head office of Murray’s Time Travel.

Charles and Andrew noticed passersby stepping off the section of pavement outside the unusual building. As they drew closer, they understood why. A nauseating odor made them screw up their faces in disgust and invited them to regurgitate the breakfast they had just eaten. The cause of the stench was a viscous substance which a couple of workmen, masked with neckerchiefs, were vigorously washing off part of the façade with brushes and pails of water. As the brushes made contact with whatever the dark substance might be, it slopped onto the pavement, transformed into a revolting black slime.

“Sorry about the inconvenience, gents,” one of the workmen said, pulling down his neckerchief. “Some louse smeared cow dung all over the front of the building, but we’ll soon have it cleaned off.” Exchanging puzzled looks, Andrew and Charles pulled out their handkerchiefs and, covering their faces like a couple of highwaymen, hurried through the front door. In the hallway, the evil smell was being kept at bay by rows of strategically placed vases of gladioli and roses. Just as on the outside of the building, the interior was filled with a profusion of objects whose theme was time. The central area was taken up by a gigantic mechanical sculpture consisting of an enormous pedestal out of which two articulated, spiderlike arms stretched up towards the shadowy ceiling. They were clutching an hourglass the size of a calf embossed with iron rivets and bands. This contained not sand, but a sort of blue sawdust that flowed gracefully from one section to the other and even gave off a faint, evocative sparkle when caught by the light from the nearby lamps. Once the contents had emptied into the lower receptacle, the arms turned the hourglass by means of some complex hidden mechanism, so that the artificial sand never ceased to flow, like a reminder of time itself. Alongside the colossal structure enthroned in the entrance were many other remarkable objects. Although less spectacular, they were more noteworthy for having been invented many centuries before, like the bracket clocks bristling with levers and cogs that stood silently at the back of the vast room and, according to the plaques on their bases, were early efforts at mechanical timepieces. Apart from this distinguished trinket, the room was lined with hundreds of wall clocks, from the traditional Dutch stoelklok adorned with mermaids and cherubs to Austro-Hungarian ones with their seconds pendulums. The air was filled with a relentless, overwhelming ticking sound, which for the people working in that building must have become an endless accompaniment to their lives, without whose comforting presence they doubtless felt bereft on Sundays.

Seeing them wandering about the room, a young woman stood up from her desk in the corner and came over to speak to them.

She walked with the grace of a rodent, her steps following the rhythm of the insistent ticking of the clocks. After greeting them courteously, she informed them excitedly that there were still a few tickets left for the third expedition to the year 2000 and that they could make a reservation if they wished. Charles refused the young woman’s offer with a dazzling smile, telling her they were there to see Gilliam Murray. The woman hesitated briefly, then informed them that Mr. Murray was indeed in the building and, although he was a very busy man, she would do her best to arrange for them to meet him, a gesture for which Charles showed his appreciation by unleashing an even more beaming smile. Once she had managed to tear her eyes away from his perfect set of teeth, the young woman turned round and gestured to them to follow her. At the far end of the vast room was a marble staircase leading to the upper floors. The girl guided Charles and Andrew down a long corridor lined with tapestries depicting various scenes from the war of the future. Naturally, the corridor was also replete with the obligatory clocks hanging on the walls or standing on dressers or shelves, filling the air with their ubiquitous ticking. When they reached Murray’s ostentatious office door, the woman asked them to wait outside, but Charles ignored her request and followed her into the room, dragging his cousin behind him. The gigantic proportions of the room surprised Andrew, as did the clutter of furniture and the numerous maps lining the walls, reminding him of the campaign tents from which field marshals orchestrated wars. They had to glance around the room several times before they discovered Gilliam Murray, lying stretched out on a rug, playing with a dog.

“Good day, Mr. Murray,” said Charles, before the secretary had a chance to speak. “My name is Charles Winslow and this is my cousin, Andrew Harrington. We would like a word with you: if you are not too busy, that is.” Gilliam Murray, a strapping fellow in a garish purple suit, accepted the thrust sportingly, smiling at Charles’s sardonic remark. He had the enigmatic look of a person who holds a great many aces up his sleeve, which he has every intention of pulling out at the first opportunity.

“I always have time for two such illustrious gentlemen as yourselves,” he said, picking himself up from the carpet.

When he had risen to his full height, Andrew and Charles could see that Gilliam Murray seemed to have been magnified by some kind of spell. Everything about him was oversized, from his hands, which appeared capable of wrestling a bull to the ground by its horns, to his head, which looked more suited to a minotaur. However, despite Murray’s remarkable build, he moved with extraordinary, even graceful, agility. His straw-colored hair was combed carefully back, and the smoldering intensity of his big blue eyes betrayed an ambitious, proud spirit, which he had learned to tone down by means of a wide range of friendly smiles his fleshy lips were capable of producing.

With a wave of his hand, he invited them to follow him over to his desk on the far side of the room. He led them along the trail he had managed to forge, no doubt after lengthy exploration, between the accumulation of globes and tables piled high with books and notebooks strewn all over the office. Andrew noticed there was no shortage of the ever-present clocks there either. Besides the ones hanging from the walls and invading the bookcase shelves, an enormous glass cabinet contained a collection of portable bulbdial clocks, sundials, intricate water clocks, and other artifacts showing the evolution of the display of time. It appeared to Andrew that presenting all these objects was Gilliam’s clever way of showing the absurdity of man’s vain attempts to capture the elusive, absolute, mysterious, and indomitable force that was time. Murray seemed to be saying with his colorful collection of timepieces that man’s only achievement was to strip time of its metaphysical essence, transforming it into a commonplace instrument for ensuring he did not arrive late to meetings.

Charles and Andrew lowered themselves into two plush Jacobean-style armchairs facing the majestic desk with bulbous feet where Murray sat, framed by an enormous window behind him.

As the light streamed in through the leaded panes, suffusing the office with rustic cheer, it even occurred to Andrew that the entrepreneur had a sun all of his own, while everyone else was submerged in the dull morning light.

“I hope you’ll forgive the unfortunate smell in the entrance,” Gilliam hurriedly apologized, screwing up his face in disgust.

“This is the second time someone has smeared excrement on the front of the building. Perhaps an organized group is attempting to disrupt the smooth running of our enterprise in this unpleasant way,” he speculated, shrugging his shoulders despairingly, as though to emphasize how upset he was about the matter. “As you can see, not everyone thinks time travel is a good thing for society. And yet, it is society that has been clamoring for it ever since Mr. Wells’s wonderful novel came out. I can think of no other explanation for these acts of vandalism, as the perpetrators have not claimed responsibility or left any clues. They simply foul up the front of our building.” Gilliam Murray stared into space for a moment, lost in thought.

Then he appeared to rouse himself, and sitting upright in his seat looked straight at his visitors.

“But, tell me, gentlemen, what can I do for you?” “I would like you to organize a private journey back to the autumn of 1888, Mr. Murray,” replied Andrew, who had apparently been waiting impatiently for the giant to allow them to get a word in edgeways.

“To the Autumn of Terror?” asked Murray, taken aback.

“Yes, to the night of November seventh, to be precise.” Gilliam studied him in silence for a few moments.

Finally, without trying to conceal his annoyance, he opened one of the desk drawers and took out a bundle of papers tied with a ribbon. He set them down on the desk wearily, as if he were showing them some tiresome burden he was compelled to suffer in silence.

“Do you know what this is, Mr. Harrington?” he sighed.

“These are the letters and requests we receive every day from private individuals. Some want to be taken to the hanging gardens of Babylon, others to meet Cleopatra, Galileo, or Plato, still others to see with their own eyes the battle of Waterloo, the building of the pyramids, or Christ’s crucifixion. Everybody wants to go back to their favorite moment in history, as though it were as simple as giving an address to a coachman. They think the past is at our disposition. I am sure you have your reasons for wanting to travel to 1888, like everyone who wrote these requests, but I’m afraid I can’t help you.” “I only need to go back eight years, Mr. Murray,” replied Andrew. “And I’ll pay anything you ask.” “This isn’t about distances in time or about money,” Murray scoffed, “if it were, Mr. Harrington, I’m sure we could come to some arrangement. Let us say the problem is a technical one. We can’t travel anywhere we want in the past or the future.” “You mean you can only take us to the year 2000?” exclaimed Charles, visibly disappointed.

“I’m afraid so, Mr. Winslow,” Murray apologized, looking forlornly at Charles. “We hope to be able to extend our offer in the future. However, for the moment, as you can see from our advertisement, our only destination is May 20, 2000, the exact day of the final battle between the evil Solomon’s automatons and the human army led by the brave Captain Shackleton. Wasn’t the trip exciting enough for you, Mr. Winslow?” he asked with a flicker of irony, giving him to understand he did not forget easily the faces of those who had been on his expeditions.

“Oh yes, Mr. Murray,” Charles replied after a brief pause.

“Most exciting. Only I assumed …” “Yes, yes, I know. You assumed we could travel in either direction along the time continuum,” Murray interposed. “But I’m afraid we can’t. The past is beyond our competence.” With this, Murray looked at them, a look of genuine regret on his face, as though he were weighing up the damage, his words had done to his visitors.

“The problem, gentlemen,” he sighed, leaning back in his chair, “is that, unlike Wells’s character, we don’t travel through the time continuum. We travel outside it, across the surface of time, as it were.” He fell silent, staring at them without blinking, with the serenity of a cat.

“I don’t understand,” Charles finally declared.

Gilliam Murray nodded, as though he had been expecting that reply.

“Let me make a simple comparison: you can move from room to room inside a building, but you also can walk across its roof, can you not?” Charles and Andrew nodded coldly, somewhat put out by Murray’s seeming wish to treat them like a couple of foolish children.

“Contrary to all appearances,” their host went on, “it was not Wells’s novel that made me look into the possibilities of time travel. If you have read the book, you will understand that Wells is simply throwing down the gauntlet to the scientific world by suggesting a direction for their research. Unlike Verne, he cleverly avoided any practical explanations of the workings of his invention, choosing instead to describe his machine to us using his formidable imagination—a perfectly valid approach given the book is a work of fiction. However, until science proves such a contraption is possible, his machine will be nothing but a mere toy. Will that ever happen? I’d like to think so: the achievements of science so far this century give me great cause for optimism.

You will agree, gentlemen, we live in remarkable times. Times when man questions God on a daily basis. How many marvels has science produced over the past few years? Many such as the calculating machine, the typewriter, or the electric lift, have been invented simply to make our lives easier, but others make us feel powerful because they render the impossible possible. Thanks to the steam locomotive, we are now able to travel long distances without taking a single step, and soon we will be able to relay our voices to the other side of the country without having to move at all, like the Americans who are already doing so via the so-called telephone. There will always be people who oppose progress, who consider it a sacrilege for mankind to transcend his own limitations. Personally, I think science ennobles man, reaffirms his control over nature, in the same way education or morality helps us overcome our primitive instincts. Take this marine chronometer, for example,” he said picking up a wooden box lying on the table.