The Map of Time. Felix J. Palma

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СКАЧАТЬ his descendants, desecrating the sanctuary of the future, journeying to places hitherto only dreamed of or imagined. For the first time in years he felt a flicker of interest in something beyond the wall of indifference with which he had surrounded himself.

      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 scandalised tone. ‘This man Murray can travel into the future. No doubt if you offered him enough money he could organise 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.’

      Andrew gripped the chair to stop himself falling off it. Was it possible? Could he really travel back in time to the night of 7 November 1888 and save Marie? The possibility that this might be true made him feel giddy not just because of the miracle of travelling 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 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, 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 the chance for which he had waited eight years. 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: 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 travelling back in time on an empty stomach is a good idea.’

      They left the little room and made their way 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. They dined at the Café Royal, which served Charles’s favourite 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 with imagining what it would be like to travel in the exact opposite direction, into the past. There, his cousin had 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, quite another to confront him in the flesh, in the sort of sparring match Murray would 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 practised 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 to make it function more smoothly, the Ripper’s death would bring Marie Kelly back to life.

      Chapter VII

      Although it was 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 dead bird. Couples strolled along the pavements arm in arm, sauntered in and out of shops, or stood waiting to cross the streets, along which moved, as slowly as lava, a torrent of luxurious carriages, cabriolets, trams and carts carrying barrels, fruit, or mysterious shapes covered with 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. He was content to let his cousin guide him through the grey morning, immersed in a sort of stupor from which he was roused only by the sweet scent of violets as they passed one of many flower-sellers with fragrant baskets.

      The moment they entered Greek Street, they spotted the modest building where the offices of Murray’s Time Travel were situated. It was an old theatre that had been remodelled by its new owner, who had not hesitated to blight the neo-classical façade with a variety of ornamentation that alluded to time. At the entrance, a 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 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 that this picturesque edifice was the head office of Murray’s Time Travel.

      Charles and Andrew noticed passers-by stepping off the section of pavement outside the unusual building. As they drew closer, they understood why. A nauseating odour 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 the aid of brushes and pails of water. As the brushes made contact with the dark substance, it slopped on to 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 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 spider-like arms stretched towards the shadowy ceiling. They were clutching an hourglass the size of a calf embossed with iron rivets and bands. It 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 СКАЧАТЬ