The Clockwork Man

by William Jablonsky

  I did not know whether she was joking. “That would be cruel.” She shrugged. “You’re right, I suppose. I could never do that to you.”

  “Thank you,” I said, in lieu of a better response.

  She sighed, rolled her eyes in the dim hallway. “I have to go back downstairs. Grandmother will be asking after me any minute.”

  “Of course.”

  She drew her hand gently down my arm, then crept quietly downstairs, while I returned to the attic and continued reading in the dark.

  4 December 1893

  10:46 p.m.

  As the family prepared to leave yesterday, I was called upon to help carry the bags out to their respective carriages. Frau Gruber, as usual, would not allow me to touch her luggage, and attempted to carry her heavy valise downstairs herself until the Master came to her aid. Though he tried to explain that my motor coordination hadimproved considerably since the last time I ported her bags—unfortunately, I had dropped them two years earlier and broken an expensive ceramic vase she had purchased in town—she would have none of it. “I don’t want it anywhere near me,” she told him as he followed her outside. I would very much have liked to speak with her awhile, in the hope that she might realize my good intentions, but she neither looked at nor spoke to me, and never came near Giselle’s observatory the entirety of her stay.

  However, I seem to have earned the trust of little Kurt, who hugged me round the legs before he left, which drew many smiles from the Master’s family. He asked to hear “Rumplestiltskin” next time he visited, and I promised to commit it to memory by the time he arrived. (In point of fact, I have already done so—the unique brain the Master fashioned for me allows me to instantly memorize every word.)

  Giselle kept primarily to her room after the feast, though her grandmother intruded several times, urging her to redo her hair in a more feminine style, perhaps in tight curls, and giving her advice on the proper use of makeup. Since Giselle’s mother was gone, Frau Gruber said, someone had to teach her these things, and her father was too busy with his clocks and mechanical monstrosities to bother. However, when her grandmother entered her room and began picking over her skirts and blouses, tossing away the more frayed and worn garments (her preferred attire round the house and in the Master’s workshop), Giselle stormed downstairs to the library to vent her frustration to me. Despite Frau Gruber’s obvious contempt for me, I believed she at least had Giselle’s best interests at heart, and I urged her to tolerate the situation.

  “I can’t stand all her needling,” she said. “Now I know how you must feel all the time.”

  I was inclined to agree.

  By this afternoon, when the house was empty, things began to return to normal. The Master seemed as relieved as Giselle after Frau Gruber’s departure, and took to sipping brandy in the sitting room, staring quietly at the frost-covered hills in the midday sun.

  I had not seen him this pensive in some time. When I entered to ask him if he required anything, he looked at me curiously, his head tilted to one side as if he were lost in thought.

  “I’m sorry, Ernst,” he said. “Mother can be … difficult at times.”

  “She did not offend me.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Of course not. You’re above that sort of thing. But you’re a part of my household, and she shouldn’t have acted that way toward you.”

  I refilled his glass from the crystal decanter. “Frau Gruber is entitled to view me as she wishes. And the gathering was not disrupted.”

  The Master grunted, presumably in agreement, and swirled the brandy in his glass. He stared into the pale amber liquid for some time, then looked up at me, lines creasing his brow. “Giselle told me how you took care of the children.” He enunciated slowly, as if pondering each word. “You’re much more than I expected.”

  “I am flattered that you should think so.”

  “I haven’t always treated you as well as you deserve, have I?”

  “I have no complaints,” I reassured him.

  “No. I’m sure you don’t. But tell me—is there something you want that I haven’t given you? Anything at all?”

  “Nothing. I am perfectly content.”

  He shook his head. “No, no. You’re just telling me what I want to hear. Be honest.”

  I paused to reconsider, as my response was obviously important to him. For a moment the light streamed through his brandy snifter and cast a pale reddish hue across my chest. After a time I finally arrived at an answer. “I would very much like to have looked into the Kinetoscope.”

  The Master placed a hand on my shoulder. “Forgive me. In my excitement I never invited you to look. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  “There is nothing to forgive,” I said, and he seemed much relieved.

  Since then I have been considering our conversation at some length without arriving at an explanation. Perhaps the Master has seen some additional quality in me that makes me a more perfect approximation of life. Giselle believes that since our business trip, he is closer to viewing me as a living being in my own right; though her sentiments are flattering, I myself remain unsure of their truth. In the meantime the Master has offered me greater freedom outside his home, should I wish to go somewhere (accompanied by Giselle or Fräulein Gruenwald, of course, to avoid any misunderstandings), a relaxation of my household duties, additional books as my interests grow. But my earlier statement holds: I want for nothing within the Master’s power to grant, and my contentment is assured so long as I remain in the service of his family.

  6 December 1893y

  1:43 a.m.

  I hesitate to include these lines, as I fear the Master’s wrath should he discover them. Yet at the beginning of this exercise he indicated that he considered these musings private, and in light of his recent decisions regarding my autonomy, I have no reason to believe that will change. I have in no small way exceeded my boundaries; yet somehow I feel little guilt over this betrayal, and find myself strangely compelled to record it. In the interests of good taste, I urge anyone in a position to edit this volume for public consumption to use his own judgment as to whether the account that follows should be censored.

  Giselle’s seventeenth birthday is in two days, and we are to have a grand party at the house in celebration. The Master has hired a caterer and, as Giselle was adamant that there should be dancing, a string quartet. She made certain I was formally invited, which pleased me immensely. As her school friends have long since been accustomed to seeing me about the house, there is little concern that my presence will be disruptive.

  Yesterday afternoon, she traveled into town to choose an outfit for her party, accompanied by Fräulein Gruenwald, to whom the Master gave leave to assist her, as he is unschooled in matters of women’s fashion. She returned with three; unable to make up her mind, she insisted the right one would reveal itself just before the party. Fräulein Gruenwald seemed pleased that she had taken a sudden interest in her attire, though Giselle indicated this occasion was different than all the others—it was a party in her honor, with all eyes upon her, and thus she needed to be elegant.

  Upon their return Giselle insisted on showing them to us, holding each up against her body for us to see.

  Jakob, giggling, volunteered that he thought the white lace dress made her look particularly old, at which point she kicked her shoe at him.

  “That’s the idea,” she said.

  The Master too seemed uncomfortable, almost sad, as if he knew she was slowly drifting away from him.

  “They all look wonderful, my dear,” the Master said when she was through. “I’m sure you’ll look splendid.” He rose from his armchair and hugged her for a long while, Jakob staring curiously at them.

  When he finally released her Giselle laughed nervously. “Father, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” He sighed long and loudly, kissed her cheek, and began to walk away. “I have some work to do,” he said, and slowly lumbered downstairs to his workshop.

 
; After dinner, when Jakob went to bed and the Master sequestered himself in his workshop to look over some new designs, Giselle wandered into my alcove. “I want to try on my outfits again,” she said. “I need you to help me decide on one for the party. Come upstairs with me.”

  “I doubt I can be of any help,” I said, “but if you wish it, I will try.”

  “I do wish it,” she said. “I just want an audience.”

  I followed her upstairs and waited outside her room as she tried on the first, entering only when she opened her door and waved me in. It was a blue silk dress with slender white sleeves, which gently and tastefully clung to her, highlighting the lines of her slenderbody. I told her it was lovely, and was about to leave so she could try on another, but she asked me to remain. In the interests of propriety, I did insist on turning my back while she undressed. But try as I might, as she pulled the dress off I could not help but notice her bare white shoulders, her hair bouncing as it spilled over her back, the smooth crevice of her spine.

  In my own defense, I should explain that I have no eyelids to close, and that I have a much wider field of peripheral vision than human beings. I began to cover my eyes with one hand, but Giselle only laughed. “Oh, Ernst,” she said. “Such a gentleman.” I thanked her, believing the incident had passed.

  She sighed. “It wasn’t entirely a compliment. Have you never thought about touching a woman before?”

  “That would be wrong,” I insisted. “Something terrible might happen.”

  She smiled sweetly. “What’s going to happen? Right now I’m with someone I trust completely. I’m the safest girl in the world.”

  I replied that I was not sure and shielded my eyes until she instructed me to uncover them again.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “Do you want to look?” She shuffled up behind me and gently pulled my arm down. She stood before me, unclothed but for a pair of thin, white cotton leggings extending from just below her navel to the middle of her thighs. Her skin was pale, with light freckles on the shoulders; her small breasts were bare, perhaps six inches from me, the areolae wide and pink.

  “You’ve never seen a woman before, have you?” she said softly. “Not like this.” She smiled and ran her palm from the base of her breasts down to her lower abdomen, flat and soft, gently rising andfalling with each breath.

  “No.” I had, of course, viewed photographs and diagrams in the Master’s anatomy texts, but this was quite different. She was so close I could feel the warmth of her skin.

  “So have you ever thought about it?”

  I told her I had never given it much thought, as I was not made for such things.

  She covered her lips with one hand, and her gaze dropped to the floor and her small bare feet. “Would you like to touch me?”

  “I am not able. Not in that way.”

  “Of course you are.” She inched slowly to the bed, lay down, and pulled her briefs down to her knees. “But do you want to?”

  For some time I neither spoke nor moved my eyes from her body. Though I cannot explain it, all the Master’s years of tutelage suddenly abandoned me.

  “Yes. But how?”

  She beckoned me to kneel beside her, took my hand, pulled it toward her, extended my index and middle fingers. “Like this.”

  When it was over she smiled and curled her body up into a ball atop the blankets, arms crossed tightly over her breasts. “That was wonderful,” she said.

  “Yes,” I replied, after a moment—I could find no other words. My hearing, as I have indicated, is excellent, but while I gazed at her taut, pale body her words nearly failed to register. When they did, however, I was brought back to the moment, and began to fear discovery—perhaps Jakob wandering the hallway, or Fräulein Gruenwald, or worst of all, the Master himself. His anger at finding us in such a positionwould have been tremendous, and I thought it not unreasonable to assume he might disassemble me for my betrayal. But I feared far more for Giselle.

  “I must go. Your father might find me here.” Slowly, and with some effort, I began to rise. But Giselle grabbed my hand before I could stand and pulled it close, kissing my gloved fingers.

  “Please stay. For just a few minutes more. I won’t tell Father if you won’t.”

  “Of course,” I said, listening carefully for the slightest footfall outside her door.

  She rested her head in the crook of my elbow and looked at me, her deep green eyes glinting in the lamplight. “Oh, Ernst,” she said sleepily, drawing back my sleeve and stroking the suede sheath of my forearm. “It’s so unfair.”

  I stayed with her, holding her hand, until she fell asleep, then turned out the gaslight and crept quietly to my alcove, where I have remained since.

  I should be deeply ashamed; my behavior was ungentlemanly, and worse, I have violated the Master’s trust beyond hope of forgiveness. Yet I am not; because of this indifference, I have concluded that I am in some way defective. In my mind I have replayed the experience several times over, searching for the one moment that cements my guilt, but in recalling it, I find only a vague sense of warmth coursing through the thin copper beneath my suede skin. I shall call this “contentment,” for lack of a better term. In any case, my transgression shall remain secret.

  8 December 1893

  11:48 p.m.

  Giselle’s party was a smashing affair, attended by a great many friends, family members, and some of the Master’s more influential associates and their sons. She suspects her grandmother’s hand in this, as in the past Frau Gruber has been adamant that the Master attempt to marry her off as soon as she finishes her schooling. Giselle has other ideas, of course: it is, as I have mentioned previously, her ambition to attend university in Vienna, or perhaps even Oxford, and throughout much of the afternoon she seemed irritated with him for giving in. But as she dressed and assisted Fräulein Gruenwald with the final preparations for the party, her mood seemed to lighten and the smile returned to her face.

  We did not speak of our intimate encounter, which came as a great relief to me, as the Master was often within earshot.

  I spent much of the evening drifting about the dining hall, watching Giselle laugh with her schoolmates, absorbing bits of conversation among the Master’s colleagues, stopping from time to time to be admired by his associates and their wives, some of whom opted to test the limits of my education by asking me questions on history and literature. Though I confess I was not able to answer correctly every time, I found it refreshing that they did not shrink from me, as have many in my travels; in fact, more than one of the wives praised me for my poise and excellent manners. For that, I gave full credit to the Master; my behavior and bearing are a reflection on him, and I take my role quite seriously.

  An hour and thirty-three minutes into the festivities the Masternoticed the three waiters he had hired were somewhat overwhelmed, and he instructed me to assist in filling the guests’ glasses with champagne and Spätlese. I had refilled but a few glasses when Giselle broke away from her revelry and snatched the bottles from me.

  “Stop it!” she said, and handed them to a passing waiter. “You’re an invited guest. You don’t ask a guest to serve drinks.”

  “But the Master asked me …” I began.

  “I don’t care! Father should know better. Besides, it’s my birthday, and if I don’t want you to work at my party, you ought not to.”

  I asked her forgiveness, which she readily gave. She took hold of my gloved hand and gently stroked it with her thumb before returning to her friends.

  The quartet began to play around seven o’clock—a short Mozart piece—and soon after, one of the sons of the Master’s guests, a cadet at the military academy, approached Giselle and asked her to dance. He was tall, lean, with short-cropped blond hair and a pinkish complexion. She spoke to him as if she knew him—I assumed from the formal ball. She paused for a moment, as if to consider his request, then held up her index finger, left his side, and headed toward me. I stepped forward, but rather than
coming to me, she grasped Fräulein Gruenwald’s hand, and led her to the butcher, Herr Maier, whom she had also invited (I suspect she had been planning this all along). She placed Fräulein Gruenwald’s hand in Herr Maier’s and bade them dance; they did so reluctantly, and only after the applause of the gathered guests.

  Fräulein Gruenwald blushed brightly, but appeared to be enjoying herself; for his part, Herr Maier smiled politely and kept a gentlemanly distance. Giselle smiled and took the cadet’s hand, and theybegan to move across the floor. Others soon joined in, and the dining hall was full of revolving pairs young and old—a scene reminiscent of one of the Master’s clocks, albeit rhythmically inconsistent.

  Frau Gruber retreated to the sitting room; she disapproved of dancing, and would not watch her granddaughter debase herself so crudely. The Master followed, perhaps to convince her to rejoin the party.

  Throughout the tune I stared past the other dancers, my attention fixed solely on Giselle and the young cadet. His left hand was but a few inches above her right buttock, and there was little space between them. She smiled back at him, eyes locked with his for the entire waltz.

  As the tune ended, he twirled her under his arm in much the same way I had done. Her gaze finally met mine for an instant before her face fell. When they parted, her smile seemed forced.

  I deemed the fire too low, and headed for the door to gather a few more logs from the woodpile outside. Jakob was inside the doorway, watching me, one corner of his mouth upturned.

  “Jealous?” he said.

  I stopped. “Not at all.” I have never known jealousy; the Master has taught me to be above such things.

  “You wish that was you out there with her. Father doesn’t know, but I do.”

  “I’m afraid the young master is mistaken.”

  “I bet she’s going to marry that boy. And soon, too. Grandmother is anxious to see her married.”