A case of curiosities (35 page)

"But I thought ..." Claude could not go on. How could he explain so monumental a misunderstanding to the Abbe? To himself? How could he reveal that he had mistaken a mechanical puppet for a human musician? That a silhouette had caused a misperception, and that a misperception had caused a hasty departure, which in turn had led to self-exile and the humiliations of the Globe. How could all that be explained?

What Claude thought had been homicidal rage was in truth the expression of an inventor's frustration, a sense of hopelessness he himself had experienced frequently when at work on his own designs. He looked at the jumble in the box and turned to the Abbe. The old man's appearance had changed. The frontal horns Claude had drawn mentally from the Abbe's bushy brows now turned into delicate angels' wings. All Claude could say was: "You did not tell me of your mechanical troubles."

"You were not yet ready to know. Almost, but not quite. I was pushing you in that direction. Or, more precisely, pushing you to push yourself. All of your training was directed toward the world of Madame Dubois, to the world of the automat. Anyway, she was not ready to know you. I wanted to make the introductions when she played her tune smoothly. But as you can see" — the Abbe picked up an arm that still held a mallet— "I never managed that."

"Why did you leave her uncompleted?"

"Why do second-rate portrait painters turn to landscapes when they cannot master facial expression or drapery? I did not finish her because I could not finish her. I checked and double-checked the gearing calculations and was unable to find what was wrong. She simply refused to play. That failure forced me to confront an even greater failure suffered many years earlier." The Abbe's head dropped. He gazed around the chapel sadly.

Claude asked a question he had wanted to ask since the very first day at the mansion house. "Are you referring to your removal from the Church?"

The Abbe looked up, almost glad that the matter had, at last, surfaced. He sighed. "Yes. The one part of my life that I refused to narrate. But I shall tell you now, since it might explain why Madame Dubois troubled me so. In truth, she was much more than a KurzweiL"

With that, the Abbe allowed Claude to enter his final chamber, one fashioned not of stone and mortar but of memory and despair.

"I told you," the Abbe began, "about my travels as a missionary. I did not tell you why I traveled or why I later left the order. It concerned my involvement with a teacher I had, a brilliant Belgian named Everard Mercurian, a lineal descendant of the great Jesuit general . . . Oh, my gout! I think we should continue the conversation in a warmer setting. Besides, this room depresses me." They made their way back to the library, where the Abbe lifted himself into the confessional chair.

"As I speak, I feel it is you who should be sitting in this seat, but I hope you don't mind if age takes precedence over symbolism. Where was I?"

"A certain father named Mercurian."

"Ah yes, Everard. A grand mechanician. It was never clear to me whether God was his science or science his God. I suspect I embraced that tension soon after I joined him in his work at the college. I was young, quick, and eager. He took an instant liking to me and I to him, all for reasons that cannot be fully explained. He called me le bouget, the Fidgeter, the One Who Moves. I would rush around for him, as you once did for me, tending to the work at hand.

"Our troubles began soon after he agreed to care for my spiritual, intellectual, and yes, physical development. That was the reason for my initial departure for the Indies. The Provincial thought travel abroad would weaken the bonds we had formed, but, of course, distance did not weaken anything at all, especially not desire. When I returned, after nearly six years, we renewed our friendship and our work. The Provincial was off bettering the world. We were left to deal with the Provincial's assistant, a socius who was forever looking for reasons to separate us. In the first months after my return, we gave him little opportunity. We kept quiet and did little besides concentrate on Everard's mechanical plans, he as my master, I as his assistant. That is how we expressed devotion to each other and to God.

"You might wonder what business a Jesuit has worrying about clockwork when there are more pressing matters to confront. Let me say this: patience and faith are essential to watchmakers and clerics alike. It should come as no surprise to you that the priesthood has a long tradition of invention. Who brought the first clock to China? A Jesuit. Who gave the world the magic lantern? Do you remember?"

"Of course," Claude said. "Athanasius Kircher. A Jesuit. Livre had a fine copy of his Ars Magna. I consulted it regularly. It recalled the time we spent in the color cove looking at the slides of the nebulous jaw."

The Abbe continued. "Everard, while in Rome, had been lucky enough to tour the Kircherianum itself. He would keep me up for hours with descriptions of the mechanical and hydraulic apparatuses amassed by the much misunderstood German. He judged Kircher's collection of animalia to be finer even than that of the Maurists in Paris, which, as you must know, is fine indeed. He used to tell me, 'I think Noah might have picked up a thing or two walking through Kircher's.' But again I've digressed. Where was I?"

"The mechanics of Jesuit faith."

"Oh yes, that's right. What of Camus? He was bound for the priesthood before he started making playthings for the king. And Pierre Jaquet-Droz? A student of theology, ready to toy with religion before he realized he should make a religion out of toys. The Company of Pastors in Neuchatel may have lost a foot soldier in the army of God, but the world was made a happier place. All to say, it is not strange to find two Jesuits — one young, the other old — spending their time filing and hammering for the greater glory of the Creator."

Claude moved his stool closer.

"The first substantial project we pursued after my return was a Nativity scene. We stated our intentions to the socius, who, suspicious of enthusiasm, tried to encumber us. He couldn't. There were pockets of support for Everard's talent, and I was insulated from innuendo by the substantial donations my family made.

"The Nativity took its inspiration from the Spiritual Exercises. This was not to be a boring manger scene. We paid full and lasting tribute to St. Ignatius's meditation on the Kingdom of Christ. Do you remember it?"

Claude and the Abbe repeated the lesson of the first day of the second week, alternating phrases.

The Abbe started: "The first point is to see people, of this and that kind . . ."

(Claude took over) ". . . and first of all those on the face of the earth in all their variety of garments and gestures ..." . . some white and others black. . ." . . some in peace and some at war. . ." . . some weeping and others laughing. . ." . . some healthy and others sick. . ." . . some being born and others dying. Yes," the Abbe said, "we even put death in our mechanical manger, as a full expression of Loyola's spiritual teachings. We had all sorts of humanity doing all sorts of things. The other fathers were amazed to observe that when a coin was placed on a balance pan, the heads of the Three Wise Men nodded, and six wooden arms raised to a glimmering Star of Bethlehem — actually, a piece of rock crystal cleverly lighted.

"Then came the criticism, which seems even more ridiculous in retrospect than we thought it was back then. The visage of the Christ child did not please the socius. He told Everard to give it 'more piety.' (The idiot didn't recognize himself as the stablehand mechanically heaving a pitchfork of manured hay.) Everard was so annoyed that the day before public display he purposefully dropped the baby Jesus on the steps of the altar. It was too late to repair him. When the congregation inspected the Nativity, they saw the Savior as nothing more than a beeswax candle overpowered by the other wonders, outshone by the rock crystal star.

"After that, Everard said, 'If it's a Christ imbued with piety he wants, it is a Christ with piety he shall have.' That is when he started work on a full-size figure. You can imagine the reaction. The socius tried to prohibit the project, but Everard prevailed, making handy use, once again, of the Exercises.

'As Jesuits,' he said, 'we are obliged "to see and to consider the three divine persons . . . how they look down on the whole face and rotundity of the Earth and all the people who are in such blindness, and how they die and descend to Hell." ' Since Everard justified his tinkering theologically, he was granted a kind of spiritual building permit. He gave himself three months. He said, 'Our Christ will be ready for Easter Sunday.' '

"The day of resurrection," Claude said.

"Precisely. Our mechanical Savior was to be a tribute to Kircher, to Camus, and to all the other disciples of the Watchmaker God. Not that it was simple watchmaking. There was much more to it than that. Everard had a nickname among the novices: 'The Man of the Cloth — and Resin and Ivory and Gold.' I won't bore you with the details of his research."

"Please!"

"Very well. As I said, it was to be life-size, that is to say, five feet tall. We were determined to give motion to the head, arms, feet, and fingers. All of that wasn't too daunting. Everard even came up with a clever system that allowed His eyes to roll up toward Heaven. What caused us headache was the means of fluid transport, the channeling and pumping of the blood and tears. After much experimentation, we devised a system of vascular tubing made of India rubber — and this, I should say, was before Macquer published his study of caoutchouc resin. We worked though a cold winter, and the tubes kept cracking. It was not until early March that we finished our first successful test for the transport of teardrops, which were, in point of fact, beads of whale oil. We were feeling quite confident, when we were visited by not one but both of our adversaries: the socius and the Provincial himself, back from a troubled trip to Peru. The two fools inspected the work in progress. They poked about but kept quiet until the end. That is when the Provincial turned to Everard and said, 'Christ did not cry on the Cross.'

" 'A detail in the expression of God's wonderment.'

" 'Hardly a detail," the Provincial said. "A blasphemy. You must take away the tears."

"Everard tried to argue, but the Provincial was adamant. He quoted chapter and verse and informed us that the whole project would be stopped if we did not remove our tear ducts. Unfortunately, the Provincial had a point. We were forced to toss aside more than a month of labor. That left us with the flow of blood. If there was one undeniable fact, it was that Christ bled on the Cross. So we expanded our network of blood channels. For blood, I remember, we used a cochineal mixture, since tests of pig's blood led to unpreventable clogging. We spread the channels from the bottom of His nail-pierced feet to the top of His thorn-bound brow. The reservoir was controlled by an Archimedes screw connected to a spindle." The Abbe spiraled his finger upward. "The rest was very simple. The screw went to a hollow piston rod. When it turned, the chamber closed, and the piston advanced, forcing the blood out of the appropriate wounds. We tested Him more than once, in various conditions. He worked quite nicely.

"On Easter Sunday, Everard's masterpiece was ready for the general admiration of the congregation. We cranked up the Mechanical Christ to the requisite tension, a tension that was almost as great as our own.

"The parishioners couldn't keep their eyes off the purple drape in front of the altar, though they didn't know what it was covering. Only His fingers poked out. Everard was no dupe. He was aware that suspense wins half the battle.

"The Provincial's Easter sermon was ignored more than usual that year. At the end of the pieties, we were called forward. Everard removed the drape, and all eyes fell on the Mechanical Christ, which was modeled upon an especially bloody Crucifixion that Everard had seen in Rome. We waited a few moments for the gasps to die down. Then Everard allowed me the honors. Everything went flawlessly. I turned the two crank handles at the base of the cross and released the pressure. The tearless eyes rolled up and then down, the head tilted, and the blood began to flow.

"The blood. First it came out of the left foot, then the right foot, the left hand, then the right hand. The most distant wounds — the tiny punctures around the forehead — bled just as the parishioners thought the miracle of hydraulics was complete. One of the richer observers quickly pledged a substantial sum to the Church. At this point, the Provincial felt he should take some of the credit for the magnificent tribute. He stood up and chanted the A.M.D.G. — Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, the motto of the Society.

"The tithe plate at the first service filled well beyond the expectations for the paschal holiday. When the donations had been collected, we were told to turn Him off. I released the pressure, closed the valves, and put the drape — a cassock provided by a bishop in sympathy with the project — back over His holy frame.

"We had a hard time emptying the church. Flocks of children, normally the toughest and most impatient members of the congregation, wanted to stay for the next service. And I can assure you, this had nothing to do with the oratorical skills of the Provincial. Just as everyone was moving to the door, a young fellow poked his nose under the cassock. He noticed something wrong. 'Look!' he shouted, pointing to the dark stain on the cloth. I removed the cassock to inspect. I should have waited until the church emptied." The Abbe shook his head.

"I do not know why, but the blood would not stop flowing. It flowed and flowed and flowed. I tried to cover up the Mechanical Christ as quickly as I could, but the young fellow yelled out, 'It cannot be stopped. It cannot be stopped.' The mood grew anxious. Prayers were mumbled, hands reached for rosaries. The Provincial marked the points of an invisible cross.

"The blood never could be stopped. Only after the reservoir was completely empty did the trickle end, and by that time the blood had dripped onto the altar cloth and had stained the marble floor.

"At the next mass, the church was filled. Not for the sermon but to see our Mechanical Christ. He wasn't there. The only traces of His visitation were the red stains that dotted His departure through the vestry door. We had been forced, between sermons, to carry off the Savior. The Provincial yelled at Everard. He said the matter would be resolved after the services were completed. To no one's surprise, the tithe plate at the second sermon was substantially lighter than from the first.