by Jo Nesbo
“Now, Lisa, are you trying to save that poor slob up there?” Raspa asked, nodding toward the guillotine and Doctor Proctor, who was staring out over the crowd in desperation while Bloodbath read the rest of the sentence to occasional jeers from the audience, which was clearly starting to get bored.
“Whatever,” Lisa groaned. “If they cut off his head, I could just travel back in time a few hours and save him then.”
Raspa laughed and shook her head. “It’s not as easy to change history as you idiots obviously think it is. Haven’t you noticed that? Not even Victor seems to understand that it’s impossible to change what’s happened without giving up your life. Or have you forgotten what I told you in the shop? History is carved in stone and you can only change what’s written if you’re willing to die.”
Now Lisa remembered. Was that why they hadn’t managed to prevent anything from happening?
“Why do you know more about changing history than Doctor Proctor?” she asked to win herself some time as she tried to wriggle her hand that was holding the trumpet free.
“Because no one has studied or knows more about time than me, my girl. After all, I was the one who invented the time soap.”
“Time soap?” Lisa groaned. She thought about the clocks in the Trench Coat Clock Shop and knew instinctively that Raspa was telling the truth. But she also realized something else at the same time.
“But … but if history is carved in stone, then Doctor Proctor can’t die now! If he did, fartonaut powder would never be invented, which would change history. And that’s not possible. At least according to you.”
“You’re not hearing what I’m saying, you stupid girl,” Raspa said, letting her black made-up eyelids slide down over her enormous eyeballs and lowering her voice, “Death is the exception. Only if you die can you change history. Because then you yourself disappear into time and never come back. And, see? It’s about to happen now. Victor is about to die, to disappear forever, which will change history.” Her eyes were open wide, and there was an icy laughter in her voice: “It will all be mine and only mine!”
Lisa had managed to tug her arm halfway free, but couldn’t get it any further.
“What do you mean it will all be yours?”
“If Victor Proctor dies in 1793, who do you think will patent the time-traveling bathtub? Who will become the greatest inventor in the world?”
Up on the stage Bloodbath stopped reading. He skimmed down the rest of the page and then shouted over the increasing chorus of boos, “All right, people, there’s a bunch of other stuff here, but it’s pretty much the same as all the others. So I suggest that we get on with it.”
Enthusiastic cheering.
Raspa tilted her head back and laughed an absolutely gruesome laugh.
Lisa seized this opportunity to try one final, vigorous tug. She got one hand free from Raspa’s grasp.
“Hey, you miserable landlubber—” Raspa began, but didn’t make it any further. A trumpet hit her on the head and the towering spectacle of a woman listed to the side and then capsized.
Lisa hurried, sneaking under the arms of the guards who were stationed on either side of the stairs, and ran up the steps onto the stage. There she jumped up onto the back of Bloodbath, who was already holding the cord preparing to release the knife blade.
“Stop!” she screamed. “Doctor Proctor is innocent! You’re making a mistake!”
Bloodbath twitched his back, as if what had landed on him weren’t much more than a fly. “Guards!” he yelled.
“We’re coming!” a voice responded.
“Forgive us, Mr. Bloodbath,” another voice said.
And immediately thereafter Lisa felt strong arms ripping her off Bloodbath’s back and holding on to her tightly. There were three faces in front of her:
A blotchy face with a Fu Manchu mustache.
An equally blotchy face with a handlebar mustache.
And one that wasn’t a face at all but a black mask with holes for the eyes.
“You are trying to stop a beheading,” growled Bloodbath, pointing a trembling finger at her. “I accuse you and demand that you be beheaded. Does the accused have anything to say?”
Lisa gasped. “I, uh … the professor, uh … we’re innocent!”
“And what does the jury have to say?” Bloodbath growled, staring at Handlebar and Fu Manchu.
“I, uh … I …,” stammered Handlebar. “She’s just a little girl.”
“Just a little girl, yes,” Fu Manchu said. “So I, as far as I’m concerned, uh …”
Bloodbath stared at them. “Is there anyone else here who wants to try to stop a beheading?” he growled in a deep voice.
“She’s guilty!” yelled Handlebar.
“Guilty!” yelled Fu Manchu.
Bloodbath walked over to the guillotine and opened the pillory holding Doctor Proctor in place.
“There’s room for one more. Get her over here. Let’s make it a doubleheader!”
The guards pushed her head down next to Proctor’s. Then the pillory slammed back into place over their necks and they were locked in.
“Hi, Professor,” Lisa said. “Nice to see you again.” She craned her neck struggling to look sideways, but it was quite difficult since her head was locked in.
“Hi, Lisa,” Doctor Proctor said. “I’m sorry I got you into this mess. Really very sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not that important,” Lisa said, tilting her head back so she could look up and see a little of the sky over the crowd. And up above, a few yards over them, the sun gleamed on a very shiny, very sharp knife blade.
“Then give me a CHOP!” shouted Bloodbath, holding onto the cord. “Ready, everyone?”
“OUI!” the answer rang out from the Place de la Révolution.
“Give me a C!” Bloodbath cried.
“C!” the crowd shouted.
“Give me an H!”
“H!”
“I’m supposed to say hi to you from a bunch of people,” Lisa said. “Anna from Innebrède, Gustave Eiffel, and Juliette, of course.”
“Oh, Juliette,” Proctor whispered, tearing up and closing his eyes. “I’ve failed Juliette….”
Lisa’s eyes welled up, too. And maybe that’s why she thought she saw what she saw, as she looked out over the crowd and caught sight of Raspa’s face there in the second row. Because it really looked like Raspa had tears in her eyes, too.
“Give me an O!”
“O!”
“Give me a P!” Bloodbath shouted.
“P!”
Behind her, Lisa heard Bloodbath hurriedly ask the guards in a whisper:
“Is there only one P in ‘chop’ or two?” Bloodbath shouted.
“I’m going to go with one,” Handlebar whispered.
“I think it’s obviously two,” Fu Manchu said.
Lisa blinked away a tear. So this was how it would end. The sun was shining, the air smelled of jasmine and freshly baked bread, and she could hear birds singing and pigs oinking in the distance. Her eyes filled with tears again. Was she really never going to see her mother or father or Nilly again? She blinked two more times. Something was dancing over the top of people’s heads out there, maybe a butterfly.
“Give me another half a P!” Bloodbath shouted.
“P!”
A blue butterfly. With white pants. And a three-cornered hat that was on backward. And it was heading this way.
“What does that spell?” Bloodbath shouted.
“CHOP(P)!”
“I can’t quite hear you.”
“CHOP(P)!”
The butterfly was getting bigger. It was getting clearer. Lisa could tell now that it wasn’t flying, but jumping from one person’s head to another’s, making its way over the top of the crowd. And it had … freckles?
“What do we do now?” roared Bloodbath.
“CHOP!”
It was … it couldn’t be … but it was … IT WAS NILLY!
How wonde
rful! Oh, and how awful! Because it was too late. Lisa heard Bloodbath yank on the cord, and the birds stopped singing and the pigs stopped oinking. The only thing you could hear now was the whistle of the blade on its way down.
Head over Heels
A NOTE SANG out in the air, and that note was the sound of the edge of a freshly released knife blade racing toward Lisa’s and Doctor Proctor’s necks. Soon it would separate their heads from their bodies, and history would be changed. No girl named Lisa would ever live in the red house on Cannon Avenue and no Doctor Proctor would ever live in the blue one. Fart powder, fartonaut powder, and French nose clips would never be invented. And the time-traveling bathtub would be invented by someone else, specifically Proctor’s rather evil assistant, Raspa. True, Nilly was on his way toward the stage, but he was too late. Bloodbath had already released the guillotine blade.
Future prospects were—in other words—rather bleak.
Lisa closed her eyes.
Then the knife was there, and the whistling stopped with a loud clang.
Lisa was dead. Of course she was dead, she’d just been decapitated, and besides she was surrounded by a deathly silence. True, it was a little weird that the sound the blade had made when it hit her was clang! instead of chop! but so what? When she thought about it, it was a little weird that she had heard any sound at all since she didn’t have a head anymore. Actually it was weird that she was thinking all this stuff what with being headless and all. Lisa hesitantly opened her eyes, half expecting to see the inside of a woven basket and—above her—her own headless body. Instead she was looking out at the crowd, which was staring at her and the professor, speechless, their mouths open, looks of disbelief on their faces.
Then she heard a familiar voice:
“Dear citizens of Paris! The day of liberty has arrived! Just as my saber has saved these two innocent children of the revolution, it will liberate you, yes, YOU, from tyranny, exploitation, corrosion, and other miseries!”
Lisa turned her head. Just above her own and the professor’s necks, she saw a saber blade with its tip jammed into the guillotine. The saber had obviously stopped the guillotine blade at the last possible nanosecond before they’d both become headless. Or bodyless. Depending on how you looked at it. Next to her she heard the professor moan quietly, “Are we still alive?”
“Yup,” Lisa whispered, her eyes following the blade of the saber out to its handle, to the small hand holding on to the saber, and to the little guy in the blue uniform who was addressing the crowd while gesticulating wildly with his free hand: “I promise to lower all conceivable kinds of taxes and fees on tobacco, gasoline, toys, and vacation cruises!”
“Nilly!” Lisa hissed quietly. “What are you doing?”
Nilly stopped and whispered, “Shh! I’m good at this. I recently convinced seventy thousand guys with rifles to go home. Just listen….”
Nilly cleared his throat and raised his voice again. “I will do away with toothaches, P.E. class, and that slushy, sticky snow that’s no good for skiing on. And I will do away with the death penalty. Especially for nutty professors and quarrelsome little girls. If you will agree with me on this, everyone will get a PlayStation for Christmas!”
He lowered his voice again and whispered, “You see? They’re nodding. I’m winning them over.”
“Not quite, I’m afraid,” Doctor Proctor said.
And the professor appeared to be right. An irritated murmur was spreading through the crowd. A few people were shaking their fists at the stage.
“We want a beheading!” a voice screamed from somewhere in the crowd.
“We want to see this little guy’s head chopped off too!” someone else yelled.
Behind him on the stage Bloodbath had recovered from the shock of seeing a little boy come swooping in, jabbing his saber into the guillotine to stop the blade and—even worse—possibly dulling the blade so that it would have to be sharpened yet again. But this little boy was obviously a raving lunatic, so Bloodbath and the two guards approached him from behind with the greatest of care.
“But my dear countrymen.” Nilly laughed good-naturedly. “Aren’t you listening? I’m going to do away with rain on Sundays!”
A slice of bread with brie on it came sailing out of the crowd and was about to strike Nilly. He turned to avoid it and caught sight of Bloodbath and the two guards, who had their swords drawn.
“And a raise for everyone!” Nilly cried, but he didn’t look that confident anymore. “Especially … uh, executioners and guards with mustaches. What do you guys say to that?”
But no one said anything to that. Bloodbath and the guards just continued to slowly close in on him, as did the crowd, its threatening murmur getting louder and louder.
“Darn it! I don’t get it,” Nilly mumbled. “This worked so well at Waterloo!”
“You’d better think of something else,” Doctor Proctor said. “And fast. They’re going to rip us to shreds.”
“Well, like what?” Nilly whispered. “I’ve already promised them everything! What do these people actually like?”
“I think,” Lisa said, “they like … music.”
“Music?” Nilly asked dubiously.
“Behead the little guy twice!” someone bellowed and several others said, “Oui!”
Nilly looked around in despair. He knew the jig was almost up. Soon, but not quite yet. Because wasn’t he a resourceful little guy who knew a thing or two? Maybe. He could run fast, he could lie so well that even he believed himself, and he could play the trumpet so that even the birds would weep with joy, and—
The trumpet!
He looked at the brass instrument that Lisa was still holding in her hand. And the next second he let go of his saber, hopped down from the guillotine, ducked under the guards’ arms, and snatched the trumpet. He put it right to his lips and blew.
The first two notes rose up toward the blue sky and just like that the larks and warblers stopped singing and the bees and blowflies stopped buzzing. As the third and fourth notes surged out of the trumpet, the threatening murmurs fell silent as well. Because unlike the Norwegian national anthem, this song was one everyone in the crowd had heard before.
“Isn’t that …?” said a buxom woman with two children on each arm.
“Why it has to be …,” said a farmer, using his pitchfork to scratch himself under his warm, red-striped hat.
But Nilly didn’t get any further, because then the two guards grabbed him under his arms.
“Get him into the guillotine,” Bloodbath shouted. “He tried to prevent two beheadings, which means we need to behead him three times! What do you say, people? Give me a C!”
“C!” replied the crowd. True, not as loudly or enthusiastically as Bloodbath had expected, but if there was one thing he knew it was how to whip them into a bloodthirsty mood:
“Give me a—”
“No!” The voice came from the crowd and was so small and frail that Bloodbath could have easily drowned it out. But it threw him for such a loop that he simply forgot to continue. In his time as executioner no one at the Place de la Révolution had ever talked back to him, protested, or spoken out against what had been decided. Because everyone knew that was tantamount to asking to be a head shorter themselves.
“Let him play the trumpet,” cried the voice. “We want to hear muthic! The way it uthed to be here on Thundayth.”
Not a sound was heard in the Place de la Révolution. Bloodbath gaped at the crowd, his face contorting into an enraged grimace, which no one could see because of his hood.
“Who said that?” he roared.
“Me,” the voice said. “Marthell.”
“Marthell?” Bloodbath repeated. “Marthell, now you’re going to—”
“I agree with Marcel,” another voice said. This one was hoarse and dry as a desert wind. “We want to hear the rest of the song. After all, it is the Marseillaise.”
Bloodbath was speechless again. He was staring at a bizarre, black-h
aired witch of a woman in a black trench coat.
“I want to hear the song,” called a voice from the very back of the crowd, followed by two approving pig grunts.
“Me too!” yelled a woman.
“And me! Play the Marseillaise, kid.”
Bloodbath turned toward the two guards.
“Humph!” he said. Then he gave a dissatisfied nod and they released Nilly. Not waiting to be asked a second time, Nilly put the trumpet to his lips and started playing. He wasn’t far into the first verse before people started singing along. Hesitantly at first, then more earnestly.
“Contre nous de la tyrannie
L’étendard sanglant est levé.”
Or, for those of you who don’t have your French nose clips on at the moment:
“The bloody banner of tyranny
is raised against us.”
Nilly leaped up onto the guillotine so that he was straddling the heads of Doctor Proctor and Lisa, both of whom were singing at the tops of their lungs:
“To arms, citizens,
form your battalions.
Let’s march, let’s march!
May impure blood
fill our gutters.”
There was no doubt about it. Those were some catchy lyrics. And even after Nilly stopped playing, people kept on singing. Out of the huge number of people singing, Nilly was able to pick out three voices: A high, frail voice with a bit of a lisp. A hoarse, desertlike voice. And behind him, Bloodbath’s gravelly vibrato.
“Let us release everyone who’s been sentenced to death,” Nilly screamed when the song was over. “We don’t want any more death. Because what do we want …?”
“What do we want?!” the people in the Place de la Révolution cried.
“Give me an L!” Nilly shouted.
“L!”
“Give me an I!”
“I!”
“Give me a F!”
“F!”
Give me an E!”
“E!”
“And what does that spell?”
“Life!” the crowd answered. “Life! Life!”
