Stories for Chip (56 page)

But for Plaquette, there was only day after day, one marching in sequence behind another, in this workroom. Stringing tiny, shiny pieces of metal together. Making shift nowadays to always be on the other side of the room from Msieur whenever he was present. She was no longer the board-flat young girl she'd been when she first went to work for Msieur. She'd begun to bud, and Msieur seemed inclined to pluck himself a tender placée flower to grace his lapel. A left-handed marriage was one thing; but to a skinflint like Msieur?

Problems crowding up on each other like stormclouds running ahead of the wind. Massing so thick that Plaquette couldn't presently see her way through them. Ma said when life got dark like that, all's you could do was keep putting one foot in front of the other and hope you walked yourself to somewhere brighter.

But as usual, once Billy set Claude up and the automaton began its recitation, her work was accurate and quick. She loved the challenge and ritual of assemblage: laying exactly the right findings out on the cloth; listening to the clicking sound of Claude's gears as he recited one of his scrolls; letting the ordered measure take her thoughts away till all that was left was the precise dance of her fingers as they selected the watch parts and clicked, screwed, or pinned them into place. Sometimes she only woke from her trance of time, rhythm, and words when Msieur shook her by the shoulder come evening and she looked up to realize the whole day had gone by.

Shadows fell on Plaquette's hands, obscuring her work. She looked around, blinking. When had it gone dusk? The workroom was empty. Billy had probably gone on about his other business hours ago. Claude's scroll had run out and he'd long since fallen silent. Why hadn't Msieur told her it was time to go? She could hear him wandering around his upstairs apartment.

She rubbed her burning eyes. He'd probably hoped she'd keep working until the mechanical George was set to rights.

Had she done it? She slid her hands out of the wire-and-cam guts of the mechanical man. She'd have to test him to be sure. But in the growing dark, she could scarcely make out the contacts in the George's body that needed to be tripped in order to set it in motion.

Plaquette rose from her bench, stretched her twinging back and frowned—in imitation of Mama—through the doorway at the elaborately decorated Carcel lamp displayed in the shop's front. Somewhat outmoded though it was, the clockwork regulating the lamp's fuel supply and draft served Msieur as one of many proofs of his meticulous handiwork—her meticulous handiwork. If she stayed in the workshop any later she'd have to light that lamp. And for all that he wanted her to work late, Msieur would be sure to deduct the cost of the oil used from her wages. He could easily put a vacuum bulb into the Carcel, light it with cheap units of tesla power instead of oil, but he mistrusted energy he couldn't see. Said it wasn't “refined.”

She took a few steps in the direction of the Carcel.

C-RRR-EEEAK!

Plaquette gasped and dashed for the showroom door to the street. She had grabbed the latch rope before her wits returned. She let the rope go and faced back toward the black doorway out of which emerged the automaton, Claude. It rocked forward on its treads, left side, right. Its black velvet jacket swallowed what little light there still was. But the old-fashioned white ruff circling its neck cast up enough brightness to show its immobile features. They had, like hers, much of the African to them. Claude came to a stop in front of her.

CRREAK!

Plaquette giggled. “You giving me a good reminder—I better put that oil on your wheels as well as your insides. You like to scare me half to death rolling round the dark in here.” She pulled the miniature oil tin from her apron pocket and knelt to lubricate the wheels of the rolling treads under Claude's platform. It had been Plaquette's idea to install them to replace the big brass wheels he'd had on either side. She'd grown weary of righting Claude every time he rolled over an uneven surface and toppled. It had been good practice, though, for nowadays, when Pa was like to fall with each spastic step he took and Plaquette so often had to catch him. He hated using the crutches. And all of this because he'd begun taking a few sips of jake to warm his cold bones before his early morning shifts.

Jamaica Ginger was doing her family in, that was sure.

Her jostling of Claude must have released some last dregs of energy left in his winding mechanism, for just then he took it into his mechanical head to drone, “…nooot to escaaape it by exerrrtion…”

Quickly, Plaquette stopped the automaton midsentence. For good measure, she removed the book from its spool inside Claude. She didn't want Msieur to hear that she was still downstairs, alone in the dark.

As Plaquette straightened again, a new thought struck her.

The shutters folded back easily. White light from the coil-powered street lamp outside flooded the tick-tocking showroom, glittering on glass cases and gold and brass watches, on polished wooden housings and numbered faces like pearly moons. More than enough illumination for Plaquette's bright eyes. “Come along, Claude,” Plaquette commanded as she headed back towards the work room—somewhat unnecessarily, as she had Claude's wardenclyffe in the pocket of her leather work apron. Where it went, Claude was bound to follow. Which made it doubly foolish of her to have been startled by him.

She could see the mechanical porter more clearly now; its cold steel body painted deep blue in imitation of a porter's uniform, down to the gold stripes at the cuffs of the jacket. Its perpetually smiling black face. The Pullman Porter “cap” atop its head screwed on like a bottle top. Inside it was the Tesla receiver the George would use to guide itself around inside the sleeping-car cabins the Pullman company planned to outfit with wireless transmitters. That part had been Plaquette's idea. Msieur had grumbled, but Plaquette could see him mentally adding up the profits this venture could bring him.

If Msieur's George was a success, that'd be the end of her father's job. Human porters had human needs. A mechanical George would never be ill, never miss work. Would always smile, would never need a new uniform—just the occasional paint touch-up. Would need to be paid for initially, but never paid thereafter.

With two fingers, Plaquette poked the George's ungiving chest. The mechanical man didn't so much as rock on its sturdy legs. Plaquette still thought treads would have been better, like Claude's. But Msieur wanted the new Georges to be as lifelike as possible, so as not to scare the fine ladies and gentlemen who rode the luxury sleeping cars. So the Georges must be able to walk. Smoothly, like Pa used to.

The chiming clocks in the showroom began tolling the hour, each in their separate tones. Plaquette gasped. Though surrounded by clocks, she had completely forgotten how late it was. Ma would be waiting for her; it was nearly time for Pa's shift at the station! She couldn't stop now to test the George. She slapped Claude's wardenclyffe into his perpetually outstretched hand, pulled her bonnet onto her head, and hastened outside, stopping only to jiggle the shop's door by its polished handle to make sure the latch had safely caught.

Only a few blocks to scurry home under the steadily burning lamps, among the sparse clumps of New Orleans's foreign sightseers and those locals preferring to conduct their business in the cool of night. In her hurry, she bumped into one overdressed gent. He took her by the arms and leered, looking her up and down. She muttered an apology and pulled away before he could do more than that. She was soon home, where Ma was waiting on the landing outside their rooms. The darkness and Pa's hat and heavy coat disguised Ma well enough to fool the white supervisors for a while, and the other colored were in on the secret. But if Ma came in late—

“Don't fret, darling,” Ma said, bending to kiss Plaquette's cheek. “I can still make it. He ate some soup and I just help him to the necessary, so he probably sleep till morning.”

Plaquette went into the dark apartment. No fancy lights for them. Ma had left the kerosene lamp on the kitchen table, turned down low. Plaquette could see through to Ma and Pa's bed. Pa was tucked in tight, only his head showing above the covers. He was breathing heavy, not quite a snore. The shape of him underneath the coverlet looked so small. Had he shrunk, or was she growing?

Plaquette hung up her hat. In her hurry to get home, she'd left Msieur's still wearing her leather apron. As she pulled it off to hang it beside her hat, something inside one of the pockets thumped dully against the wall. One of Claude's book scrolls; the one she'd taken from him. She returned it to the pocket. Claude could have it back tomorrow. She poured herself some soup from the pot on the stove. Smelled like pea soup and crawfish, with a smoky hint of ham. Ma had been stretching the food with peas, seasoning it with paper-thin shavings from that one ham shank for what seemed like weeks now. Plaquette didn't think she could stomach the taste of more peas, more stingy wisps of ham. What she wouldn't give for a good slice of roast beef, hot from the oven, its fat glistening on the plate.

Her stomach growled, not caring. Crawfish soup would suit it just fine. Plaquette sat to table and set about spooning cold soup down her gullet. The low flame inside the kerosene lamp flickered, drawing pictures. Plaquette imagined she saw a tower, angels circling it (or demons), a war raging below. Men skewering other men with blades and spears. Beasts she'd never before heard tell of, lunging—

“Girl, what you seeing in that lamp? Have you so seduced.”

Plaquette started and pulled her mind out of the profane world in the lamp. “Pa!” She jumped up from the table and went to kiss him on the forehead. He hugged her, his hands flopping limply to thump against her back. He smelled of sweat, just a few days too old to be ignored. “You need anything? The necessary?”

“Naw.” He tried to pat the bed beside him, failed. He grimaced. “Just come and sit by me a little while. Tell me the pictures in your mind.”

“If I do, you gotta tell me ‘bout San Francisco again.” She sat on the bed facing him, knees drawn up beneath her skirts like a little child.

“Huh. I'm never gonna see that city again.” It tore at Plaquette's heart to see his eyes fill with tears. “Oh, Plaquette,” he whispered, “what are we gonna to do?”

Not we; her. She would do it. “Hush, Pa.” It wouldn't be Billy. Ma and Pa were showing her that you couldn't count on love and hard work alone to pull you through. Not when this life would scarcely pay a colored man a penny to labor all his days and die young. She patted Pa's arm, took his helpless hand in hers. She closed her eyes to recollect the bright story in the lamp flame. Opened them again. “So. Say there's a tower, higher than that mountain you told me ‘bout that one time. The one with the clouds all round the bottom of it so it look to be floating?”

Pa's mouth was set in bitterness. He stared off at nothing. For a moment Plaquette thought he wouldn't answer her. But then, his expression unchanged, he ground out, “Mount Rainier. In Seattle.”

“That's it. This here tower, it's taller than that.”

Pa turned his eyes to hers. “What's it for?”

“How should I know? I'll tell you that when it comes to me. I know this, though; there's people flying round that tower, right up there in the air. Like men, and maybe a woman, but with wings. Like angels. No, like bats.”

Pa's eyes grew round. The lines in his face smoothed out as Plaquette spun her story. A cruel prince. A fearsome army. A lieutenant with a conscience.

It would have to be Msieur.

That ended up being a good night. Pa fell back to sleep, his face more peaceful than she'd seen in days. Plaquette curled up against his side. She was used to his snoring and the heaviness of his drugged breath. She meant to sleep there beside him, but her mind wouldn't let her rest. It was full of imaginings: dancing with Msieur at the Orleans Ballroom, her wearing a fine gown and a fixed, automaton smile; Billy's hopeful glances and small kindnesses, his endearingly nervous bad jokes; and Billy's shoulders, already bowed at 17 from lifting and hauling too-heavy boxes day in, day out, tick, tock, forever (how long before her eyesight went from squinting at tiny watch parts?); an army of tireless metal Georges, more each day, replacing the fleshly porters, and brought about in part by her cleverness. Whichever path her future took, Plaquette could only see disaster.

Yet in the air above her visions, they flew. Free as bats, as angels.

Finally Plaquette eased herself out of bed. The apartment was dark; she'd long since blown out the lamp to save wick and oil. She tiptoed carefully to the kitchen. By feel, she got Claude's reading scroll out of the pocket of her apron. She crept out onto the landing. By the light of a streetlamp, she unrolled and re-rolled it so that she could see the end of the book. The punched holes stopped a good foot-and-a-half before the end of the roll. There was that much blank space left.

Plaquette knew
My Lady Nobody
practically word for word. She studied the roll, figuring out the patterns of holes that created the sounds which allowed Claude to speak the syllables of the story. She could do this. She crept back inside and felt her way through the kitchen drawer. She grasped something way at the back. A bottle, closed tight, some liquid still sloshing around inside it. A sniff of the lid told her what it was. She put the bottle aside and kept rummaging through the drawer. Her heart beat triple-time when she found what she was looking for. Pa did indeed have more than one ticket punch.

It was as though there was a fever rising in her; for the next few hours she crouched shivering on the landing and in a frenzy, punched a complicated pattern into the end of the scroll, stopping every so often to roll it back to the beginning for guidance on how to punch a particular syllable. By the time she'd used up the rest of the roll, her fingers were numb with cold, her teeth chattering, the sky was going pink in the east, and the landing was scattered with little circles of white card. But her brain finally felt at peace.