My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time (9 page)

The end had come.

‘No!' I screamed. ‘Madam, do not shoot!'

But it was too late.

The last thing to be heard in that life was a deafening, thunderous explosion, & the last thing I saw was the ugly, vengeful
face of Fru Krak, & the last thing I smelled was sulphur. For Fru Krak had fired her murderous blunderbuss.

And of the three people in that basement, one of us was surely dead.

Part the Second: The Tin City

And thus did the world end.

But not as I had thought. For although I had indeed been witness, in that heart-stopping moment in which Fru Krak fired her
gruesome firearm, to the destruction of a human life (viz: my own), it was not through death that I was to pass away and enter
another realm. For Fate had other plans.

They say that we humans are no more than a collection of the thoughts, knowledge & memories we have accumulated through experience.
If so, then what worse plight can you conjure, dear reader, than to wash up like Gulliver, on that eerie beach where all one
has thought, known or remembered has no meaning? Where all the lessons of one's life are set at naught? Where one must start
with nothing, like an innocent babe fresh-shot from the womb? Such was my predicament when I encountered the strange new world
that lay before me, a world in which my existence was jinxed with dire danger, far beyond the compass of my courage, & worse
than anything the most fevered psyche could have cooked up.

But I jump ahead of myself, for the fact was, I saw & thought nothing when I first landed, & certainly had no inkling that
I was anywhere else but in the Great Beyond.

After the violent explosion from Fru Krak's gun, I felt myself flung backwards & then seemed to reel in a slow & circular
way before plummeting down into a vast prairie of nothingness that was then filled with a whole confusion of images & thoughts
that tumbled before my eyes, from the earliest years of my childhood: I saw the orphanage with its dark windows & peeling
ochre paint; I witnessed myself wandering barefoot in the kitchen garden among the giant knobbled stalks of Brussels sprouts,
winkling out woodlice to force into curled balls which I devoured like sweetmeats; I spied the mouldering books stacked in
the cellar –
Great
Thoughts of Great Men, A Jutland Housewife s Almanac
&
Fifty
Favourite Folk Tales,
with the illustration of Baba Yaga Bony-legs & her chicken-leg house; I quailed as the mountain of Fru Schleswig towered above
me in a broad apron, her forearms caked in flour, her shadow blackening the wooden floorboards upon which I squatted; & then
I was on the train to Copenhagen, where on arrival I straightway spotted Else on the platform, pick-pocketing gentlemen, so
pretty & distracting in her peach striped bonnet adorned with posies; I beheld us dreaming up & practising our act, & then
performing it, with the screaming crowds cheering the sight of our petticoats in the music-hall; & then I winced at Else slipping
on the sausage-skin & cracking her poor heel; & then re-encountered in a flash the first man I sold my body to & then the
second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth & so on, until they whirled together in a mad confusion of faces & organs, & the pile
of thrown-off breeches grew higher & higher on the floor; & then came a blurred picture of Herr Møller's bakery on Classensgade & Fru Krak's house on Rosenvængets Allé & the door of the Oblivion Room upon which hung rotting pig's trotters; & then I saw once again the machine, with the
red chaise-longue & the quaking sphere of quartz, & then the furiously swollen face & lopsided eyes of Fru Krak which briefly
sparked with sick triumphant relish as she aimed the antique firearm at my cleavage & pulled the trigger. Such was the sum
of my life, & as I spun there in that chilly space that was surely death's antechamber, I was seized with rebellion, for I thought – no! My time has not yet come! Please, dear God, if you do indeed exist, which hitherto I will confess that I have
much doubted, due to such supreme unfairness dominating this unhappy world, then grant me a little more time, for I am not
finished! I am unspeakably far from done, sir! I have not yet lived, not yet loved! Only lost! I am not ready for death, you
most cruel of bastards! I insist! Fie upon you, celestial torturer, I cannot & I will not die!

And then, as if in answer to my humble prayer, there came a ghostly hooting in my ears, & such was the discomfort of that sensation – which was much akin to an appalling ear-ache, dear one (& I felt, too, as though I had been doused in freezing brine, for I ached & shivered with cold all over) – that I was confronted with a strange feeling of recognition: pain.
Pain: life! Life!
Life after all! And I felt that I was lying on a floor. It was dark & so I could see nothing, but I knew one thing: that I existed still.

‘I have come back from the brink!' I yelled aloud, & weak & cracked though my voice sounded, & terrified through and through
though I was, there came a sudden warm rush in my heart when I heard my own words, for they confirmed again that my blood
had not quit pumping in my veins, & that the most unexpectedly merciful Almighty had indeed listened, & that it was therefore –

No! Yes! No! –

That dear, loyal, innocent, brave, stalwart martyr Fru Schleswig who had taken the bullet that was intended for me!

At which I found myself choking, & seized by a confusion so coruscating as to nearly kill me, for much as the lugubrious creature
has been a ball & chain to me & I have oft wished her dead & gone from this earth, I have been acquainted with her for as
long as I can remember, & that does not count as naught Indeed, so much did it suddenly mean that my heart knew not what to
do, & had I been standing at that point, my knees would have jellified, & I might have collapsed there & then into a dead
& most feminine faint.

But then, as if my thoughts had been read by the creature herself, there came from some distance to my left the all-too-familiar
sound of breaking wind, followed by a deep groan, & I knew that she was yet with us, at which a morsel of me felt assuaged
but then – instantaneously – another larger morsel felt another thing: a giant writhing snake of rage, for despite it being
my most fervent wish to be free of Fru S, I realized that – pox & damnation! – she had yet again succeeded in forcing herself
along with me!

All of which cruel psychic pain expressed itself in a single choking cry, to which some moments later Fru Schleswig (being
slower on the uptake) replied with a similar cry, but deeper & less ladylike, followed by a panting & a wheezing sound, for
she too had finally absorbed the painful & incontrovertible fact that we were both miraculously alive, yet still in the grip of the invisible shackles that bind us together for all eternity on this planet.

But what planet, precisely? What manner of place was this, that Fru S & I had spun to? I could see nothing at first, but gradually
my eyes adapted themselves to the murk, which was odourless & with a greenish tinge, as though the walls, like a subterranean
cave, were clad in a phosphorescent alga that cast an eerie light all of its own.

I cast my glance around in mental disarray, my heart beating like the clappers, but saw no trace of the contraption in the
emerald glow of the hall in which we found ourselves. Had we been debouched & then abandoned by the mechanism that brought
us here? Or had it simply catapulted us to this place, & remained
in situ
in the basement at Fru Krak's? It certainly felt I had undergone a long & unprotected journey, for my flesh & bones ached
as though I had been battered ferociously by a sea-storm, my clothes seemed chilly & wet, & when I put my fingers to my hair,
I realized it too was moist, & all undone & tangled around my shoulders like a hank of seaweed, with grains of sand in it:
I licked my finger then, & tasted salt. Good Lord, had Fru Schleswig & I travelled the high seas unawares? Flown through the
air, got too close to the ocean, & been tossed by waves en route? If so, it was even more of a miracle that we were still
alive!

Gulping back my horror, I staggered weakly to my feet, whereupon the sensation of having been shaken up & bruised hit me with
shocking forcefulness. In the darkness I looked around for Fru Schleswig, & found her lying on her back some three metres
away from me in a pool of water, helpless as an upturned Galapagos turtle, her new apron seemingly torn to shreds & her straggled
hair all dripping & unkempt A small crab dropped from what remained of her scrazzled chignon, & scuttled away into a dark
corner.

‘Come, madam, we must get out of this place & hide ourselves somewhere & then work out the lie of the land!' I urged, hauling
her to her feet, a strenuous & exhausting operation performed to the accompaniment of her nonstop grumbling, wheezing & moaning
about her poor freezing swollen-up legs & her half-broken back, & punctuated by a further series of foul retorts from her
nether sphincter.

‘Shh!' I whispered. ‘Restrain yourself, madam, or we are undone!' (You would not believe, dear one, what a mass of noise can
emanate from a single humanoid figure under strain.) When she was finally in an upright position, & steadied there with one
hand against the wall, we were able to take in our surroundings a little better, & see for the first time how unaccountably
strange indeed they were, for it now appeared that we stood beneath a huge dark metal structure – Lord, a giant telescope, high
above which –
for Fanden
!
–
hovered a dead-straight line of shimmering green light, suspended seemingly in thin air but vibrating like the wing of a frantic
trapped moth. This emerald line lit up the high domed roof above itself, & did not stop at the window but shot outwards from
it, & into the far distance of the night. What strange wizardry was this? A mystery enshrouded in an enigma, in turn wrapped
deeply up in preposterousness & danger!

‘Oi duz notte lyke it here,' muttered Fru Schleswig. ‘Letz go strate bakke.' And it was then that she, too, spotted that the
machine had vanished, at which she let out a loud low of anger, like a maddened bull. ‘Tiz all yor fork!' she fumed, turning
on me with red-faced rage. ‘Look wot u dun now! Herez anutha fyne mess u hav gotten us into, & it is thanques to u, u silly
gurl. I did notte spankke u enuf wen u woz a babby! I shudve –'

But I straightway clapped my hand to her mouth, & then forced her tuberous arm sharply up behind her back to further restrain
her, for I had heard a sound: the distant click & clack of a door opening & then closing, though where it emerged from I could
not tell, such a strange echo was there in that dark place, that bejozzled everything around. Fru Schleswig was by now rolling
her eyes at me, grunting & trying to say something in a repellently moist & spitty way, which I would not let her do, until
finally she squirmed free of my grip & pointed with her sausagey finger in the direction of a side-hallway I had not seen,
where appeared an extremely tall, dark, lanky-limbed man who was walking fast, nay almost running towards us & who, from the
way he scarecrowed out his long arms, as if to grab or embrace us, & cried hoarsely, ‘Welcome!', appeared to have been expecting
us. My hand still slapped firm across Fru Schleswig's now fighting mouth (‘Bite me & you're mincemeat,' I hissed in her ear),
we stood rooted there as he made his gangling way towards us, & as he approached closer I saw that he was clad in the plainest
& most dismal clothes imaginable, some kind of fancy dress, one might surmise, if one were to disguise oneself as a prisoner
from a bygone era, or another country where they do things differently. So preoccupied was I by the bald, undecorated lines
of the outfit he wore that I did not immediately take in his face. But when I did, I gasped. For there, most unmistakable,
were the high temples & bulging forehead; the dark, flashing eyes: as sure as Fru Fanny Schleswig was not my mother, it was
the man whose portrait hung in the hall, Professor Frederik Krak! The artist had captured his likeness, particularly the sheen
on his face which I now saw to be not an effect of oil-paint so much as good old-fashioned sweat, that dampened the man's
forehead & reflected the overhead light in a streak of green luminescence which shone like a wound, as though an enraged Thor
had split his head apart with a mighty hammer.

‘Welcome, dear ladies! Welcome indeed!' he cried, beaming twitchily. His voice sounded most familiar.
Put a
balaclava on him,
I thought suddenly,
& I would swear we
have already met.
‘Another success story!' he continued, clearly – for reasons I could not fathom – quite pleased with himself ‘I am honoured
to make your acquaintance formally at last!' But something nervous behind this hearty welcome hinted that his delight was
matched by a sense of relief. God knows, I thought, what is going on inside that bulging brain. Best beware.

‘Let us free this good woman,' he murmurs, at which he bends to forcibly unclamp my palm from Fru Schleswig's mouth (thus
unleashing a torrent of expletives on her part, all directed at me), & gives a small, formal bow, introduces himself as my
humble servant, Frederik Krak, Professor of Physics, & Explorer of the Unknown, & kisses the back of my hand in the manner
of a Hungarian nobleman (I had one once, who liked to tickle my fanny with a goose feather), & then he takes Fru Schleswig's
big greasy flipper & kisses it too, which renders her straightway all a-goggle because you can be sure she has never had her
hand kissed before, nor any part of her I should imagine, & the surprise of it has the same effect as an entire cooking apple
being stuffed in her gob, stuck-pig-wise, ie complete silence, which is a relief after the hellish hoo-ha she's been kicking
up.