The Clockwork Man (2 page)

In your most recent correspondence you inquired as to whether I could be truly “happy,” which, up to that point, no one had ever asked me. I found your concern most moving, if unwarranted. An Italian engineer once compared me to the fabled Pinocchio, the puppet come to life, who embarked on a quest to become a flesh-and-blood child. I cannot imagine a more fruitless pursuit. I accept my state without reservation: an approximation of life, the creation of a brilliant man, meant to live out my days in a shell of tin and bleached suede. Whatever satisfaction I derive from my existence must be had within that framework. But I have no complaints; mine is a full life, replete with admirers, conversation, and travel.

And there are always new and often unexpected experiences to be had: for instance, I have recently begun to study the art of ballroom dancing. Giselle’s first ball is to take place in six days—a formal affair between her girls’ school and the military academy just across the Main River—and she has conscripted me to be her practice partner so she might make a good impression on the cadets. As we waltz across the Master’s dining hall, shoes sliding gently on the hardwood floor, her soft hand in mine, I often study the serenity on her face, the simple joy in her movement, and I begin to understand what it means to be alive.

But these are trivial things of little interest to a community of learned men. Henceforth, I will do my best to record more meaningfulthoughts, which I hope will be more worthy of you and your colleagues. I do not know what insights you might glean from them, but I hope they will prove worthy of your attention.

I am pleased to report that Giselle’s ball was a splendid success, and she the hit of the evening. According to her own account, several of the young men complimented her on her dancing, and she herself took the lead with some of the less-experienced cadets. Since then, she has been twirling about the house, playing various waltzes on the phonograph to accompany herself. She is so pleased with her success that she insists we continue to practice at least once a week when I am not assisting her father with his work.

She is a highly intelligent girl, and despite her age—she is but three months from her seventeenth birthday—she has demonstrated an intellectual curiosity that matches her father’s. She has been the Master’s closest companion since the death of Frau Gruber two years before I was first wound, and he has on many occasions benefited from her assistance in his workshop. Just last night, in fact, she stayed up well past her usual bedtime of eleven o’clock (despite it being a school night) helping him perfect the rotation on a multi-ringed carousel clock meant as a gift for Jakob’s middle school. She has, with the Master’s help, built herself an impressive attic observatory, where she often retreats after dinner to peer at the stars through the homemade telescope she and her father built together. It is her place of refuge, where she records whatever new phenomenon shemight observe in the hope of discovering something heretofore unknown. In fact, she believes she has charted a new comet that has thus far gone unnoticed, and is in the process of taking notes to submit to the Astronomical Society. Her only qualm is that she will undoubtedly have to submit her findings through her father, as her recent posts to the Society have gone without response. The Master has remarked several times that she may well become the next Copernicus, and that he ought to send her to Oxford or Wittenberg to foster her magnificent intellect, but as soon as the words leave his lips, his face falls and he goes quiet. I have observed his behavior long enough to know her absence would fill him with great sadness. I myself can scarcely imagine life in this house without her.

At times, while accompanying the Master and his family in the city, I have heard the gossip of people who believe they are out of earshot. They say she walks too confidently and is too aggressive in conversation, and fills her mind with ideas no young woman should bother herself with. Mostly they blame it on Herr Gruber for failing to teach Giselle her place in his wife’s absence. Some of the older women seem to believe their sons could make a proper young lady of her. Their words do not escape my ears—few things do—and I find myself unsettled by them. Giselle has always treated me with great kindness and dignity, and I have never known her behavior to be untoward in any way. I do not know whether Herr Gruber has heard the same rumblings, but for his sake I think it unwise to report them.

Her special relationship with me seems to be an irritation to Jakob, the Master’s ten-year-old son, who at yesterday morning’s breakfast remarked that Giselle should forget about the young men at the academy and marry me instead.

“Maybe I will,” she said, throwing a white napkin over her head like a veil and linking her arm with mine. “I do.”

“You can’t marry him,” Jakob said. “He isn’t real.”

Giselle laughed. “Of course he’s real.”

“You know what I mean. He isn’t really alive.”

The Master grumbled, a sign that the children should cease their banter, but they persisted.

“How silly,” Giselle said, flicking her honey-soaked roll at him. “I suppose next you’ll tell me he doesn’t have a soul?”

The Master knocked his teacup against the table. “Enough.”

“Why, Father?” Giselle pulled the napkin off of her head and tossed it at Jakob. “Don’t you think he has one?” She turned to me. “Do
you
think you have one, Ernst?”

“I said that’s enough,” the Master interjected, before I could answer. “Finish your breakfast, both of you. And no more of this nonsense.”

Because my treatment has been of such great concern to you, I should indicate that I was not offended. Herr Gruber is a religious man, his views grounded in strict principle, and he has never filled my head with the illusion that I am somehow the equal of living beings. I do not believe the matter is worth further consideration, and thus offered not a word in protest.

Later that afternoon the Master instructed me to accompany the children into the park along the Main, near the Iron Bridge. The autumn leaves are quite breathtaking in this part of Germany, with reds and oranges as vibrant as any painting, though this fall has been my first opportunity to truly experience their color. I am something of a work-in-progress, owing my newfound vision to a pair of blue marble-housed eyes the Master designed for me as a gift last Christmas; previously, I possessed two different sets of eyes, the first allowing me to see in gray scale, the second in sepia tones. These new models, he says, allow me to see color as precisely as any person—perhaps even better—and bear reflective coatings to allow me to see in the dark. They are, Giselle tells me, also quite striking in color themselves, though I have never stared into a mirror long enough to admire their hue—there are too many other things to see.

Giselle wished to collect a few of the fallen leaves to preserve for an art project for school, and so I followed, carrying a small burlap potato sack in which to store them. Jakob followed at some distance, flying a kite she had made him out of skewers and wax paper from the kitchen.

Giselle knelt beneath the elm trees, her skirt and red-gold hair billowing behind her in the gentle breeze, carefully selecting specimens for her endeavor. Every so often she found leaves with particularly complex vein patterns, and held them up for me to see. “Maybe I’ll do a collage of you all in leaves to decorate that cubby of yours. Would you like that?”

“Very much,” I said.

As we selected leaves for her project, the wind blew Jakob’s makeshift kite into the high shedding branches. He stood beneath the tree, grinning curiously out of one corner of his mouth.

“You did that on purpose,” Giselle said.

“Did not.” He turned to me. “Climb up and get it.”

“Get it yourself,” Giselle said. “I won’t make you another one.”

Jakob laughed. “It’s too high. I want Ernst to get it for me.” He turned to me. “You’re not afraid, are you?”

“Not at all.” I had never climbed a tree before, and was not certain I had the faculties to do so, but the Master clearly stated I was to obey the children’s wishes so long as they were not unreasonable. (I am to exercise my own discretion as to what this means.) So I took hold of a low, sturdy branch and hoisted myself up.

“Come down, Ernst,” Giselle said. “He’s playing with you.”

I called down that I was fine, and after finding my footing was making slow but steady progress up the tree, the limbs bending under my weight. I was an arm’s length away from the kite when a branch cracked and gave way; I lost my balance and fell like a stone to the ground.

Giselle ran to me immediately, asking me to speak, to bend my elbows and fingers. I rose to my feet—still something of a struggle, despite my constant practice—and brushed the yellowed grass off my jacket. My houndstooth suit was covered with pale dust, and I noticed a large dent in my lower back. I had fallen on an exposed root, and felt an unpleasant, nagging pressure on that spot (while I feel no “pain,” as you might describe it, the vast network of thin wires beneath my skin does give me some sensation). I was otherwise undamaged. I am built sturdily, with an outer shell of thick tin and an interior skeleton of nickel and steel, which is fortunate, as I have yet to attain what one might call “grace.”

Laughing, Jakob tugged at the kite, pulling it free. It fluttered down from the branches and landed at my feet. Giselle was furious. She ordered him to follow us home and promised to tell her father what he had done. He ran ahead of us toward the Master’s house, the kite under his arm, giggling the whole way.

Giselle stroked my arm with her soft hands, rested her head against my shoulder. She seemed ready to cry. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I said. “But the Master will be very upset with me.”

“I’ll clean you up. Father won’t be angry once I tell him what Jakob did.”

“Thank you.”

She took my hand and led me back to the Master’s workshop. “I’m so sorry, Ernst. No one should treat you like that.”

As I feared, the Master’s anger was considerable. I had taken a great risk, and could have been severely damaged. He warned me, rather sternly, that I ought to exercise my judgment more carefully—what use was giving me the capacity to think if I refused to use it? Thankfully, my design is durable, the dent only superficial. As of this writing Jakob is still in his room awaiting punishment. Despite the Master’s patience and kindness, he does not tolerate insufferability in his children, and Jakob will no doubt incur a heavy penalty. I take no satisfaction in this.

Herr Gruber immediately sent me to his workshop, a teeming labyrinth in the cellar whose walls are covered in diagrams and blueprints of his automated clocks, the many workbenches littered with half-finished scale models. Giselle cleared off one of the benches and gently removed my jacket so her father could repair the dent in my outer shell with a thick, heavy suction cup. I lay facedown on his workbench, forbidden to move lest I cause him to slip and damage me. As he worked Giselle gently intertwined her fingers with mine, and I was not afraid.

This morning I accompanied Giselle and Fräulein Gruenwald on a number of errands in town, strolling back and forth along Elisabeth Street to patronize the densely packed shops that line this part of the city. I am told the ancient buildings and cobblestone streets, some of which are several hundred years old, are part of the charm of this city, though I must admit, having known them for the entirety of my existence, I cannot fully appreciate their beauty. Jakob did not accompany us on this particular excursion, as he remains somewhat angry at me for his whipping four days ago, the result of his misbehavior.

The elder Frau Gruber, the Master’s mother, is coming to visit her grandchildren, and will arrive tomorrow, thus the need for provisions. She is extremely particular about what foods Fräulein Gruenwald serves (roasted meat and fresh vegetables, no poultry of any kind, no eggs, nor potatoes or carrots, which she considers “peasant food”), what sorts of flowers may be arranged around the Master’s house, and what attire Giselle is to wear. (She is not so strict about Jakob’s, but insists her granddaughter should dress like a lady.) As I will be confined to the workshop for the duration of her stay, Giselle suggested I accompany them, to, as she put it, enjoy my last hours of freedom.

As will become apparent as this journal progresses, Frau Gruber is not comfortable in my presence. She is a deeply conservative woman, her religious leanings far more strident than her son’s, and she has frequently accused him of impinging on territory that is God’s alone. The first time I met her, two weeks after I was first wound and brought to consciousness, the Master introduced me andbade me shake her hand. As I approached, she screamed and began to strike me with her handbag, telling the Master to destroy me before I did harm to the children. Our relationship has improved since then; she no longer refers to me as “that loathsome monstrosity,” nor does she believe I represent an immediate threat to her grandchildren. So long as I remain out of her field of vision, she will be comfortable enough to enjoy her stay.

But there, on those familiar streets, we walked past pedestrians and cyclists without incident. One of the Master’s early modifications was to sheathe me in a skin of bleached Italian suede, and to give me hair and a mustache woven from black horsehair—all to allow me to look more fully human, that my presence in public places might cause less unease. (The monocle was Giselle’s idea, and is a concession to style, not need.) Many Frankfurters have told me that, from a great distance, I am almost indistinguishable from other pedestrians on the sidewalks. Only my great height (I am six feet, six inches tall) and the stiffness of my movements give me away.

But my singular appearance is rarely a concern. The Master is well liked in Frankfurt, for the most part, and I am familiar enough of a sight near his home that, even when recognized, I cause no panic. Instead, people glance at me, smile, perhaps even wave and say
“Guten Tag
, Ernst,” then pleasantly go on their way—due, I suspect, not out of any admiration for me, but in deference to the Master’s genius. Several of his works adorn this city’s parks and squares, including an automated clock depicting Herr Bismarck, which stands in the center of town, and at the noon hour hoists the flag of the new Germany high into the air as our national anthem plays. By comparison, I imagine, I must appear a vastly inferior spectacle. The clockwas completed before I was wound, and in his den the Master has a photograph of himself and the Chancellor together at its unveiling, one of his proudest moments.