The Echo Chamber

by Luke Williams

  Inspired by the din in the attic, the sounds of my past begin to rise to a clamour. The remnants of all I have heard, once clear but now shrill and indecipherable, are screeching in my ears, as though I have walked into an aviary. Father’s lectures merge with the sustained babble of his dying days. My own history combines with legends of sailors and witches that were read out to me from books. City sounds – Lagos, Oxford, Edinburgh – are alike, so what I thought might be a childhood memory is really only a memory of last week.

  How can I write amid this commotion? I have to find a way of controlling these voices no longer guided by the clock. When one’s history is not governed by past, present or future, when every sound mimics another, one must order it by another principle.

  Something closed must contain my memory. I will, then, enclose these stories within the tent-shaped margins of the attic; and the little I do let out – tales, lives, cities, monsters – will come by way of the attic; for all that will live, will live in the attic. The attic serves no function but to hoard all kinds of objects – not forgotten but buried, hidden at the top of the house; objects that are each decaying in their own way; objects that are still, meaningless and silent.

  The only object that emits a sound is Father’s pocket watch. It sits upon a pile of maps in the south-east corner of the attic. It has lain there since Father, in a fit of madness, snatched it from his breast pocket and threw it to the attic floor, only later placing it on the topmost map in the pile.

  The watch has been well handled. The silver casing is tarnished black. A deep scratch on its underside, an even curve about one inch in length, obscures three words of an inscription, which reads:

  Could not our tempers move like this machine,

  Not ____ by passion nor delayed by spleen.

  And true to Nature’s ____ power,

  By virtuous acts distinguish every ____

  Embossed on the inner casing, below the Roman numeral VI, is the signature Breguet et Fils. The watch winds at the centre of the dial. The bezels and bow are gold. Originally a pair of tiny diamonds decorated the hands of the watch, although now both the minute hand and its jewel are missing. If I have made a special point of describing the pocket watch, leaving no doubt, I hope, that the minute hand is absent; if indeed I have gone so far as to call the whole chapter Pocket Watch, it is because I know how much I owe to it. After all, it was because of that decrepit piece of clockwork that my parents came together. Listen!

  …

  There was once a stranger, formerly a watchmaker, who would become a grandfather. He had an address but was never home. He spent his days in second-class compartments, his nights in sleeper cars or station-side hotels. And yet if you looked in the registers of these hotels, the Turnberry, the Great Eastern, the Laharna, the Caledonian, the Liverpool Adelphi or the Yarborough New Holland, you would not find his name but a hundred different names.

  There was once a student who would become a father. He was travelling to Balliol College, Oxford, to train for the overseas civil service. His name was Rex Steppman, he had a scar on his chin, and he carried a pocket watch in his left breast pocket.

  There was once a stranger, formerly a watchmaker, now a murderer, who would become a grandfather. He had a house in Oxford, where his daughter lived, but he himself was never there. He spent his days in second-class compartments, evading the law, and in one of these compartments, on the London and North Eastern line, he met a student with a scar on his chin, who would become a father, and who carried a pocket watch in his left breast pocket.

  Once there was a second-class compartment on the London and North Eastern line. It had twin banks of seats, upholstered in umber. Looking in from the corridor, through the glass-panelled door, one would see it had a window with a pomelle frame, four lamps and marquetry depicting antelopes leaping between palm trees. Beneath the window was a radiator which filled the compartment with an infernal heat. On one particular day, an October morning in 1938, there was a single passenger in the compartment. It was the student. As the 10 o’clock to London King’s Cross heaved itself out of Edinburgh Waverley, he was reading an article entitled ‘An Elephant’s Sagacity’ – the animal had been proceeding along a narrow road in the Punjab, towards a water pump, when she found her way blocked by an unconscious child. Seeing cars approaching, she swept the child up in her trunk, stepped to the roadside as the cavalcade passed, then gently laid the child on the verge and resumed her journey to the pump.

  Suddenly, there was a commotion in the corridor. A squat man, dressed in a black suit, brogues, sable tie, with a Bombay Bowler pressed low over his brow, hurried through the corridor, banging his suitcases against the side of the carriage.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience!’ the stranger said in an exaggerated English accent. He shouldered open the door and surveyed the compartment.

  ‘May I …?’ he said. ‘You don’t mind if …?’ Without waiting for an answer he entered the compartment. The stranger had a round face, crow eyes and a thin-waxed moustache that seemed to point to ten-past-ten.

  The train rolled slowly through the outskirts of the city. Restalrig ambled by, then the green hump of Duddingston Mains. The track curved left, and Leith Strand came into view, with the Firth of Forth beyond. The sky was vast and cloudless and the sunlight came and went.

  ‘Let me introduce myself,’ the stranger said, holding out his hand. ‘My name is Julien Le Roy.’

  ‘Rex Steppman,’ said the student, shaking hands without standing up.

  ‘A pleasure.’ The stranger glanced suspiciously around the carriage then brought his lips to Rex’s ear. ‘What are you reading?’

  ‘The newspaper.’

  ‘… which is the very reason I intend to sit beside you! One ought to read the paper on the train. At least this is preferable to taking a window seat, since there’s always the danger of looking at the scenery.’

  The student said nothing.

  ‘Don’t you think?’

  The train was gathering speed. Gardens and allotments rushed by, rubbish dumps, radio masts, and, at Joppa, a cluster of houses whose windows threw back a blistering, fragmented reflection of the sun. The line of buildings soon dispersed, and there were green fields and, beyond, the North Sea, broken here and there by tiny white crests.

  The student removed his jacket and placed it across his legs. He twisted himself towards the window, hunched his shoulders and buried his head in the newspaper – now the elephant was performing pirouettes, creating a rumpus among crowds of British Indians; now she was fountaining water from her trunk; now producing ice-creams, as if from nowhere, and passing them to small children in the crowd –

  The train followed the contours of the cliff top; the sea, indistinguishable from the horizon, was quivering, as if a thousand fish were turning on the surface. Blades of sunlight streamed mercilessly through the window – refracted, splintered – and crept towards the travellers. The stranger began to sing.

  My heart is warm with the friends I make,

  And better friends I’ll not be knowing,

  Yet there isn’t a train I wouldn’t take

  No matter where it’s going.

  ‘A pretty tune, don’t you think?’ he said. ‘But where was I … ah … one should never stare out of the window because the scenery – right at this moment there is a copse – don’t look! – about a mile’s worth passing by. It can make one’s head spin.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Better stick to your Scotsman.’

  ‘That’s what I am trying to do! But you are distracting me. Please, leave me in peace.’

  ‘No need to raise your voice. I haven’t introduced myself properly. My name is Sylvain Mairet –’

  ‘That is the second name I have heard you use! First you introduced yourself as Julien Le Roy and now you say your name is Mairet.’

  ‘I have more than one hundred names,’ the stranger said. ‘And what about you? I see you’re studying at Oxford. Balli
ol – I’d recognize that crest anywhere.’

  The student was taken aback.

  ‘What are you studying?’

  ‘I’m training for the civil service – overseas,’ he said after a short time.

  ‘And that is why you keep a pocket watch in your left breast pocket.’

  The student placed his hand over the bulge in his jacket, then took the pocket watch out.

  ‘Where did you get it?’ asked the stranger.

  ‘From my parents. On my twenty-first.’

  ‘It’s a pretty one.’ The stranger took the watch and turned it in his hands. ‘You are in company with one of the most illustrious travellers. Phileas Fogg made his journey keeping time with a Breguet.’

  ‘Breguet?’

  ‘Abraham-Louis. What was it that French fellow said? Breguet makes a watch that never goes wrong for twenty years, and yet this wretched machine, the body we live with, goes wrong and brings aches and pains at least once a week.’ The stranger broke off the conversation and turned towards the window. A shadow fell over his face, as if the train had entered a tunnel. He gave the impression that he wanted to be alone. He stretched his arms out towards the ceiling in a curious way.

  ‘Where are we?’ he asked.

  The sun had not yet reached its zenith when the 10 o’clock to King’s Cross approached Berwick. It was quiet in the compartment. But as the train curved past the town and over the Royal Border Bridge, with its high arches of black and earth-coloured brick, a soft whimpering could be heard. Berwick receded out of sight, and the train resumed its passage through the countryside. Sun-bleached fields stretched as far as the horizon.

  When the stranger spoke again the shadow had lifted from his face.

  ‘Let me tell you about Breguet. He was the greatest of all the eighteenth-century watchmakers! He cut a striking figure – tall, round face, scar under his left eye, bald as an egg-timer. From the age of fifteen Breguet studied with the famous watchmakers Berthoud and Lépine. But perhaps you know this already? No? I’ll go on.

  ‘By the time the French Revolution had begun, he had made his name with a number of important horological advances. He’d also joined the Jacobins. Following the beheading of Louis XVI, he was forced to escape from France. When he returned in 1795, he found that the Revolutionaries had started time all over again …’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ interrupted the student.

  ‘Not at all. The Revolutionaries threw out the Gregorian system and replaced it with the calendrier républicain. They proclaimed 1792 as year one of the new calendar. Weeks were ten days long, with three weeks per month. Days were divided into ten hours, each of a hundred minutes, and every minute contained a hundred seconds.’

  ‘Time,’ interrupted the student, pompously, ‘is one straight line extending without end.’

  ‘Don’t believe that blockhead Locke. Where was I? … ah … the Revolution. French watchmakers produced clocks with ten hours. Not Breguet. He continued to make clocks according to the Gregorian system, which was re-established in 1806. He went on to invent the first carriage clock, the montre à tacte, which made it possible to tell the time by touch, the tourbillon regulator, and the finest military pedometers. Although he continued to labour into his antique years, Breguet lost the power of hearing. But he was never morose, which is the usual result of this malady.

  ‘Your pocket watch is in good condition,’ the stranger said, scrutinizing its face, ‘although the minute hand is slightly rusty.’

  The stranger took out a hip-flask and offered it to the student, who refused.

  ‘I’m deviating. I realize I haven’t answered your questions. When I entered the compartment I immediately noticed you were studying at Oxford. I knew I would have to speak to you about an important matter. You see, I have something for you … I have something that I wish for you to pass on. The person who should receive this article lives in Oxford. What is it? A letter!’

  The train was belching clouds of black smoke. The wheels chattered unceasingly against the track. The stranger produced a packet of cigarettes, and the student accepted one.

  ‘Before I entrust you with this letter, I ought to tell you about the situation in which I find myself. I’ve told no one before. I’ve had no reason to until now. But I need your help. You must promise on your honour that you won’t tell a soul what I am about to say.’ The stranger gave the student a searching look.

  ‘That depends upon what you tell me. I can’t promise when I know nothing about you.’

  ‘I give my word,’ said the stranger. ‘Nothing of what I say will cause you harm or adversely affect you in any way.’ The student hesitated. He took quick puffs from his cigarette. The train charged through a wooded incline, and light and shade fell on his face. The student folded his newspaper and placed it by his feet. And then the train emerged from the copse and sunlight bleached the compartment. The stranger offered the student another cigarette.

  ‘I promise,’ the student said, taking it and putting it between his lips.

  The stranger opened a suitcase, from which he produced a folder in a dark grey binding. He pushed it towards the student. Inside were more than a dozen passports, issued in several countries. Each was marked with a different name: Thomas Mudge, George Graham, Joseph Winnerl, Taqî ad-Dîn, Julien Le Roy, Edward Prior, Ulysse Nardin and several more. The student, his head tilted in curiosity, looked at the stranger, who went on blowing smoke from his mouth for a while.

  ‘As you have guessed, I’m trying to mask my true identity. I’m wanted for murder. The charge is false, of course. Nevertheless, should the law catch up with me, it is the hangman’s noose, or the madhouse, I’m told. But they never will. Once the warrant for my arrest had been issued, you see, I decided to flee. Not only is this the surest way to evade capture – the police really are a dull bunch! – but if I were to go into hiding, cooped up in some attic or basement under the stair, I’d become wolf-mad. So, I decided that I would remain constantly on the move, under a hundred different guises, taking one train after another – the Orient Express, the Trans-Siberian railway, the Flying Scotsman, the Indian-Pacific. Oh, how I love to travel on the Iron Horse!’ The stranger, beating out a rhythm on the seat, broke into song.

  Faster than fairies, faster than witches,

  Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;

  And charging along like troops in a battle,

  All through the meadows the houses and cattle.

  ‘By train I can run much faster than a fox or a hare and beat a carrier pigeon for a hundred miles. I feel as if the mountains and forests of all countries are advancing on me in the compartment. Even now, I can smell the German linden trees; the South Sea’s breakers are rolling against my door!’

  The stranger inched forward and gripped the edge of his seat.

  ‘Travelling by train enables me to fend off the two great fears of my life – loneliness and crowds. I want either companionship or solitude. The train solves this problem because it permits one privacy, if one desires, or the company of strangers. The intimacy of travelling in a compartment allows me to strike up a conversation. Alternatively, when a mood of melancholy draws me in, I can retreat into the echoes of the train, which are very distinct, and whilst traversing the corridors one seems distant from all communication with the world.

  ‘Consequently, I have disguises to suit these opposing moods. Today, for example, I have chosen to be an English gentleman. This is because I’m in a talkative mood. Other times I might put on a pinstripe and a Homburg and become an American industrialist burying his head in his papers. In the first suitcase, the round one, I pack my clothes, together with various travelling papers. The second holds a range of timing devices. The third holds my accessories – jewellery, moustaches, toupees, wigs, kohls, spectacles of all kinds, false eyelashes, padding, tweezers and so forth. Oh, the battles I have with railway porters to keep the luggage by my side. English and Indian officials cause the biggest fuss, you know.

/>   ‘Enough! Let us go to the dining car. I’d be honoured if you would be my guest for lunch. I will tell you what I know about the events leading up to my being charged with murder. Nothing but the truth. And in what can one believe if not the truth?’

  There was once a stranger, formerly a watchmaker, now a murderer, who would become a grandfather. He met a student with a scar on his chin, who would become a father. The stranger carried a letter, which he asked the student to deliver. First they went to the dining car. As they ate the stranger told his story.

  ‘Ever since Julia fell sick I have been in a state of grief and agitation. But, you understand, I had my work to distract me. At the time of Julia’s death I had almost solved the most pressing problem of my life. Julia had a weak heart. No, I should say, the most extraordinarily fragile heart and I knew she was not long for this world. Of course, I hoped she would survive … And as I hoped, I realized that the fact that she and I had met; no, the happy fate of our meeting and marrying, was a sign that I could help to prolong her life. You see, I am, or, I ought to admit, was a watchmaker. Not only this, I also made automata – you know, those miniature dolls that look so lifelike and even move like humans, their hearts made of boxed clockwork. I was quite famous. Tsars and princes were commissioning my work. Perhaps you have read about the little Mozart whom I made for Sophia von Hohenberg, the Austrian princess. I sat him at a miniature Hammerklavier and he played the finale from the 1777 sonata in C major, and he played as well as the Austrian himself. But it was not just little people I made. My most lucrative venture was musical clocks. I managed to compress air through pipes in such a way as to produce devices that perfectly imitated the song of certain birds – the golden plover, the shearwater, the bluethroat, the nightingale, the curlew and countless others. It was this which gave me the idea to try to preserve Julia’s failing heart. She had the heart of a bird; I can hear it now, quivering, flute-like, below her breast. I thought, if I can reproduce the song of the curlew, I might be able to reproduce a human heart in clockwork. I had tried everything else. I had read everything concerning the nature of time. I conducted research into the arcane science of anamnesis. If, as I believed, it were possible to stall time, that is divide it into such small portions that it were impossible to measure the present second – for this is the logical upshot of the watchmaker’s art – then time just might stand still, and Julia would not be ravaged by its decaying effects. I can’t tell you the trials I put poor Julia through, all in her best interest you understand, although she didn’t see it that way at the time. There were instances – I admit – when I had to use force, against my conjugal duty, in order to realize these experiments. Oh how she would beg me to let her depart in peace. But I couldn’t see my beloved leave me without feeling I had done everything in my power to try to prevent it. So when these experiments into the practical application of theories of time had run their course, failed that is, I turned to the aforementioned idea. I now attempted to build Julia a clockwork heart.’