The Experimentalist
Page 43
O he rode high and he rode low,
He rode through wood and copses too,
Until he came to a cold open field,
And there he espied his a-lady, O!
What makes you leave your house and land?
Your golden treasure for to go?
What makes you leave your new-wedded lord,
To follow the wraggle-taggle gypsies, O?
What care I for my house and land,
What care I for my treasure, O?
What care I for my new-wedded lord?
I’m off with the wraggle-taggle gypsies, O!
Last night you slept in a goose-feather bed,
With the sheet turned down so bravely, O.
Tonight you’ll sleep in a cold, open field,
Along with the wraggle-taggle gypsies, O!
What care I for my goose-feather bed
With the sheet turned down so bravely, O?
For I shall sleep in a cold open field
Along with the wraggle-taggle gypsies, O!
Postscript
Annie Jacobsen’s definitive work Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America has been a constant recourse for me in providing a factual background to what is essentially fiction in The Experimentalist.
My novel is much more romance than reality. I was a small child in the war and at the time the German language did indeed sound to us like the devil speaking. My grandfather’s family were Jewish (though he himself married a girl who hailed from the Shetland Islands) and it was a matter of life and death for us who won the struggle against Germany. So I am on the side of those who regard Paperclip (as well as the British version of it) as deeply flawed and completely regrettable, but in terms of the reality of the Communist threat at the time, it was understandable. We have survived because of it. But, with our survival, we have taken on some of its poison.
Something happened in Germany to corrupt respected scientists and make them willing to experiment on human beings, to the point that some of those unwilling subjects died in pain, and to make others willing to drive slave labour to starvation, exhaustion and death in pursuit of their determination to further the ends of an evil regime. My anti-hero, Middleburg, simply could not, and cannot, get that sense of godlike superiority, power and control out of his system.
As someone remarks in the novel, once you let evil in, it thrives. The responsibility for that lies not just with those who carried out the Paperclip programme.
Acknowledgements
Anyone who wants to know about Los Angeles in 1970 and, of course, the trial of Charles Manson, could not do better than consult Vincent Bugliosi's brilliant book Helter Skelter. It has been a most revealing source of information, for my purposes especially, on the atmosphere in LA in 1970. Beyond that I am indebted to Graham Wade of that city (which I personally rather equate with Shakespeare’s cities like Milan, Verona, Venice and Florence in his time – places of glamour and danger to onlookers from afar). My thanks to him for his perspicacious suggestions on: where my heroine should live, where Merrymaids should be located, where girls would go for a coffee downtown in 1970, where to find a good castle around LA, and what the weather is like in August. Google can furnish these things if you dig, but Graham has the eye of an artist.
Finally, I should like to thank my editor and publisher Rebecca Lloyd for her endless patience and editorial genius. I should also say that without Penny Hunter’s beady eye a large number of errors and absurdities might well have been perpetrated. Any that remain are entirely down to me. The Experimentalist would have been a shard of a tale without their input, enthusiasm and belief. Also, I should like to express my appreciation to The Dome Press itself, my new publishers, who have had all the business and brouhaha of starting a major imprint, but have spared time and energy for myself and The Experimentalist from the start. My thanks, too, are very much due to my agent, Laura Morris who as usual has been tireless with her support and suggestions. And finally, of course, thanks to my wife Lyndsay whose patience during the research and writing of this work has been monumental.
Published by The Dome Press, 2018
Copyright © 2018 Nick Salaman
The moral right of Nick Salaman to be recognised as the author
of this work has been asserted in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organisations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781999855932
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