Anachronist

by Andrew Hastie

  The memory of ‘Timid Timmins’ did remind him of something else that the colonel had asked about.

  ‘I’m fine, Mum, honestly, but there is something I have been meaning to ask you . . . Was there anyone in our family that was kind of special?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know, like, gifted. Did any of our ancestors have special abilities, weird psychic stuff, like seeing ghosts or having visions?’

  She thought for a moment, chewing on a rather sticky toffee penny. Josh could see the wheels going around inside her head, one of her fingers twitched as if she were counting something.

  ‘Well, your Great-aunt Agatha was supposed to be able to talk to animals, and my mum’s uncle George claimed he’d met Napoleon. But he was definitely mad, and Agatha just spent too much time on her own with her cats. Why?’

  ‘What about on my dad’s side?’

  Her expression soured as though the toffee had pulled out a filling.

  ‘I’ve told you before — there’s nothing to say about your dad. Don’t ask me any more about it. I’m tired.’ With that she closed her eyes and shuffled down on the pillow.

  Josh took the hint, adjusted her blankets and put what was left of the chocolates in the bedside cabinet.

  ‘Try and stay out of trouble,’ she whispered as he left.

  23

  Second Lesson

  [Paris, France. Date: 11.971-02-21]

  Josh spent the next two days researching a test mission that the colonel had prepared for him. He knew it was going to be set somewhere during the French Revolution; the clues he’d been given were: a painting of a woman with a swan, an address in Paris and the words liberté, égalité, fraternité — which had meant nothing to him.

  To complicate matters further, the colonel had taken him back to a safe house in Paris in 1971. There was no internet, and no computers to work with, just the books in the house’s extensive library.

  ‘Can’t I at least work in a time with a search engine?’ Josh complained as he leafed through the second volume of Encyclopaedia Britannica.

  ‘You won’t always have the luxury of Google at your disposal,’ the colonel muttered as he read a French newspaper. ‘A good watchman has to be able to work with what he’s got.’

  ‘But I’m rubbish with books,’ said Josh, not wanting to admit to his dyslexia.

  ‘Then think a little harder about how you would approach the issue,’ the colonel answered without looking up. ‘Humanity seems to have done quite well without search engines for the last twelve thousand years.’

  Josh looked over his notes. He’d learned some interesting facts about the revolution: how the republic took shape around certain key figures like Robespierre and Danton, and how the masses had gone on a rampage that had destroyed palaces and churches all over France. Many of the most precious artworks had been ‘liberated’ from the aristocracy and taken to the Louvre for the benefit of the masses. This had been his first breakthrough: the address turned out to be the ‘Tuileries Palace’, which was once the home of the French King, Louis XVI, until he was deposed and replaced by the National Convention, who turned it into a court of justice for the rich during the ‘Reign of Terror’. It finally burned down on the twenty-third of May, 1871, exactly a hundred years earlier, which Josh knew couldn’t be a coincidence.

  ‘So how about we go to the Louvre?’ Josh suggested. He wanted to get out into the fresh air. Two days locked up in the house was beginning to make him a little crazy.

  The colonel nodded and smiled. ‘A fine idea,’ he agreed, grabbing a hat and coat from the stand. ‘You’ll learn that institutions such as galleries and museums become very useful in our work.’

  That made a lot of sense, Josh thought. They would be full of old artefacts. He kicked himself for not having thought of it before.

  The sun was shining on the gardens where the Tuileries Palace had once stood. The Louvre was sitting to the East and behind him was the River Seine. It was a serene place, a cultivated garden that gave no hint of the turmoil and horror it had seen during its history. There was nothing left here for them to work with. He turned to the colonel, who was sunning himself on a nearby bench.

  ‘Dead end!’ said Josh in frustration.

  ‘Not quite.’ The colonel pointed to the Louvre building. ‘Let’s go and visit one of my favourite places.’

  Josh had read that the Louvre was once a grand palace, the exclusive playground of the rich and powerful. Back in 1971, the iconic glass-pyramid entrance had not yet been built, and the large square was flanked on three sides by the colonnaded facades of the three wings. Above each portico stood a sculpted figure staring blankly down over them. Josh wondered whether the architecture alone would have enough history for them to work with, but as he moved his hand out to touch one of the columns the colonel caught his sleeve.

  ‘We try not to use stone,’ he whispered as he shook his head. ‘Natural materials tend to be too messy, something to do with their geological origins. Too bloody old.’

  Josh shrugged and followed the colonel as he made his way to the ticket queue. The seventies were a bit of a culture shock; the line was full of long-haired hippy types with bad body odour and ridiculous flared trousers, taking photos of everything with clunky wind-on cameras. From their accent he could tell they were Americans. One of them wore an anti-Vietnam T-shirt with the words ‘Make Love, Not War’ on the front and — ‘Weather Underground’ on the back.

  ‘What’s the weather underground?’ Josh whispered as they shuffled slowly inside the building.

  ‘Bunch of militant anti-war protestors, formed at Michigan University — started a bombing campaign of government buildings in the US as a way to force them to stop the war. They usually gave enough warning to get the buildings cleared, but they did manage to blow themselves up once in Greenwich Village.’

  ‘I thought it was all about making love, not war?’

  ‘Not all of them,’ said the colonel as he showed a piece of paper to the one of the attendants, and she waved them through. ‘The weathermen declared war on the US government over Vietnam and the whole civil rights issue. They were put on the FBI’s ten-most-wanted list in 1970,’ he chuckled.

  ‘What’s so funny about that?’

  ‘Weatherman means something else in the Order — one who cannot predict the future accurately — a fool, basically.’

  The interior of the Denon wing was even more stunning than its grand facade promised. The vaulted ceilings were painted with images of angels and gods, framed in gold that seemed to float in the air above their heads. Along each side of the long corridor stood Greek and Roman statues on marble plinths.

  ‘Ah, the blind heroes of antiquity,’ the colonel said in admiration. ‘Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.’

  He turned to Josh for some kind of reaction, but Josh had none, he didn’t really get art — especially sculpture. He never really had the time or the opportunity to appreciate it, and didn’t really see the point of it.

  ‘This way,’ ordered the colonel, opening a service door. Behind it stood a stony-faced guard, who simply nodded and moved aside to let them through.

  ‘Aren’t we going to the exhibits?’ Josh asked under his breath, looking back towards the guard, who was paying no attention to them whatsoever.

  ‘Those are for the tourists. Never did see what all the fuss was about — Mona Lisa is nothing more than Da Vinci in a dress. No, the best part of the collection lives below stairs.’

  Josh knew about the Mona Lisa. It was probably one of the only paintings he could name if asked.

  He followed the colonel down a series of poorly lit stairs until they came to a large metal door that would have looked at home in a bank vault. In front of it stood another, even more surly looking guard with his arms crossed.

  ‘Tempus fugit, Marfanor,’ recited the colonel, pulling back his sleeve to reveal a tattoo on his forearm. It was a snake eating its own tail. ‘Young man here would l
ike to take a look at your Reign of Terror archives,’ he added in perfect French.

  Josh had seen the symbol before, but couldn’t remember exactly where.

  The stoic Frenchman’s face cracked into a smile and he replied in English. ‘Rufius. So good to see you.’ He waved the tattoo away. ‘You think I have such a bad memory that I can’t remember that face? Who could forget it? Eh?’ Marfanor winked at Josh as if asking for agreement. ‘Even if it is covered in all that fur.’ He produced an enormous set of keys and turned towards the massive metal door. ‘So La Terreur is it? Not a very safe place to take the boy. I assume he’s on probation?’ he asked, looking Josh up and down. ‘Bit old for that, though, no? Which test?’

  ‘Ferrara. Leda and the Swan.’

  ‘Ah.’ There was a nod of approval as the locks on the door clicked. ‘Say hello to Madame Déficit.’

  The Louvre was built on the site of a much older castle, and as they entered it became apparent that the vault was the only remaining evidence of its existence. The walls were made of large grey stone blocks from the medieval fortress. It was damp and very cold. Josh could see his breath the moment they walked through the door.

  Marfanor led them through a maze of long corridors, each lined with carefully wrapped paintings, vases and other precious objects until he stopped at another metal door with 11.790-793 engraved in roman numerals. The key he used to open it was even more intricate than the previous one.

  He waved them in. ‘Good luck, my friend! Bon chance!’

  ‘Another time,’ said the colonel, shaking the man’s hand.

  The door closed behind them with a thunderous clang, one that reverberated along the metal walls of the tunnel in a neverending echo. It was as if they had walked inside the barrel of an enormous gun.

  ‘So,’ the colonel said, blowing on his hands, ‘can we get a move on? I’m freezing.’ He pointed to a row of mannequins dressed in revolutionary costumes as if to say: ‘Help yourself.’

  Josh chose a slightly torn blue velvet jacket and white, bloodstained breeches, along with a pair of muddy black boots. Near the lapel, the coat had a rosette of red, white and blue pinned over the seared edges of a bullet hole.

  From his research, Josh recognised that the colonel had opted for something more militant; taking his inspiration from the ‘Sans-Culottes’ — the revolutionary army. He wore a red waistcoat, leather overcoat, red-and-white striped trousers, and a tricolour sash. Neither costume smelled as if it had been washed in decades, which he guessed was the kind of detail that kept you alive — turning up in a freshly pressed uniform in the middle of a revolution was as likely to get you killed as a powdered wig.

  He looked around for some kind of weapon, but there were none, which was kind of a relief — they weren’t expecting to get into a fight on this mission.

  The metal vault was long and quite dark. The lights were kept low for reasons of preservation, the colonel told him. There was a timer switch by the door, as well as a set of clockwork flashlights.

  The colonel took a torch and began winding the handle until the bulb began to glow. Josh did the same, and soon they had enough light to make their way down the central aisle. The space was divided by old wooden shelving that ran along the length of the space for at least twenty metres. As far as Josh could make out, it was a vast storehouse of objects from the French Revolution. He began browsing the shelves with no real idea of what he was looking for, but knew that just one of these valuables would be able to set him and his mother up for life.

  There were all manner of treasures. It was like shopping at a B&Q that had been restocked by the Antiques Roadshow. Each item was neatly wrapped in hessian or brown paper and labelled with a brass tag that had a long-date stamped into its tarnished metal. He assumed from the amount of dust surrounding them that they had been there for a very long time. Josh brushed at a few of the objects with his fingers and caught flashes of memories of dark rooms in forgotten palaces.

  ‘You will have to be quite selective in your choice. There are many objects here that are not relevant to our task. Try to find something with resonance that would have intersected with your target destination.’ The disembodied voice of the colonel spoke from somewhere beyond the light. It seemed distant and weak in the oppressive silence of the vault.

  ‘Why exactly are we doing this?’ whispered Josh. ‘I know it’s a test. But why this one? Art doesn’t really make a difference to history, does it?’

  The colonel coughed. His voice sounded even further away.

  ‘Without art, what do you have? A bunch of books about logic and algebra? Art is the very expression of life! Of our hopes and dreams. Imagine how dull the world would be without artists like Da Vinci, Michelangelo or Picasso. Who would help us to celebrate the beautiful complexity of life?’

  There wasn’t time to celebrate as far as Josh was concerned. Art was for people who could pay their gas bills.

  ‘Don’t forget this was before photography. It was also one of the only ways to capture the zeitgeist,’ added the colonel, suddenly standing right next to him.

  Josh had no idea what a zeitgeist was and was far too proud to ask.

  He walked on a little further until he spotted a stack of letters that had been tied carefully with a red ribbon. There was something odd about them, they seemed to shimmer slightly, and he realised that unlike the rest of the shelf there was no dust on them — they’d been recently moved.

  ‘Ah, the diamond necklace affair,’ sighed the colonel, picking up the parcel of notes. ‘Eighty-seven point five per cent chance that this scandal was responsible for the downfall of the French monarchy and the instigation of the Revolution — I think this will do nicely.’

  He handed the bundle to Josh, who immediately felt the strange prickling sensation as the timelines unwound from the surface of the paper. The black ink seemed to lift from the page as faint and sinuous moments rose like smoke, curling around his fingers. Josh began to explore the expanding matrices of the past, tentatively teasing out the knots of events. He caught glimpses of the people and places that had been involved in the affair: the woman who pretended to be the queen, the cardinal who was tricked into believing that she wanted such an extravagant necklace, and the secret room in the palace where the incriminating letters had been locked away for so many years afterwards.

  He tried to pinch at a point with his thumb and forefinger, but it slipped away.

  ‘Take your time. You need to find a point before the room’s discovery. It was very close to the queen’s trial,’ the colonel advised gently. ‘Let the time flow — don’t snatch at it.’

  Josh steadied his breathing and relaxed his mind; the line of events stretched out once more, and he followed it again until he came to the night the room was discovered. He watched the fine silver lockpicks in the rough hands of the locksmith as he worked on the secret door in the king’s apartments. Then he moved slowly backwards to a few hours before.

  ‘Now concentrate on that moment. Imagine yourself standing there in that room. Find something to focus on,’ the colonel whispered.

  Far off, Josh could hear the cries of the crowds as they bayed for the death of another aristocrat. As he focused on the noise, he felt the floor shudder and vault fall away.

  24

  The Palace

  [Paris, France. Date: 11.793-09-21]

  The sounds of the crowd grew louder as he felt the space around him stabilise, and he found himself standing in the apartments of the King of France. Ignoring the small, lingering wave of nausea, he went to the secret door and when he touched the smooth wood, looking for a seam or hinge, he sensed the power of the history that pivoted on the objects stored within it.

  There was no sign of the colonel. The baying of a rabble cursing at the top of their voices came from outside the apartments and Josh tentatively opened the door and went outside.

  He followed the sound until he came to a balcony. Peering down into the ornate theatre below, he could feel the
violence and hate emanating from the crowds. A woman in a torn gown was standing within a circle of very angry-looking peasants. Her wig had been thrown onto the floor and what was left of her own hair was stuck to her head in limp strands. There was blood on one side of her mouth, and one eye was nearly closed with the swelling. She sobbed silently as a grim-faced judge sat on a theatrical throne, reading out something in French from a long sheet of paper.

  Josh searched the faces for any sign of the colonel. He didn’t like the thought of being alone in one of the most violent periods of French history — especially when he couldn’t speak a word of their language.

  The cries of ‘Guillotine!’ needed no translation as the woman was dragged away in hysterics. The crowd parted to allow her to be escorted out by two burly guards in the red-and-blue uniforms of the Sans-Culottes. As they passed underneath his balcony, Josh saw the familiar face of the old man — the colonel was helping the woman out of the room.

  Josh had read that the Tuileries Palace had been used by the Revolutionary Council as a kangaroo court for the sentencing of the aristocracy — including royalty. Their leader, Robespierre, had been a lawyer and insisted that they should follow the rule of law when they prosecuted the gentry. His Jacobin deputies were not so bothered about justice. They were the ones that eventually brought Robespierre down and had him executed as well.

  Josh visualised the floor plan of the building in his mind. Maps were something of a speciality, as if he had an internal GPS that instinctively told him the right way to go — useful when evading cops at 90mph through the back streets of London.

  He moved quietly down the marble staircase, passing through the mass of onlookers who were using the stairs to get a better view of the spectacle. They were hysterical, like wild animals — spitting and screaming for blood as the prisoners were brought before the court. The crowd had become judge and jury, and the chief prosecutor was playing up to them as if it were some deadly game show. Josh had read that life had been hard for them under the king, but the hatred that was being unleashed in this room was the worst side of humanity he had ever witnessed.