The Map of Time (Trilogía Victoriana #1)(13)
“Anyway,” Charles concluded rather wearily to end the conversation, “the poor wretches in Whitechapel have formed vigilante groups and are patrolling the streets. It seems London’s population is growing so fast the police force can no longer cope. Everybody wants to live in this accursed city. People come here from all over the country in search of a better life, only to end up being exploited in factories, contracting typhus fever or turning to crime in order to pay inflated rent for a cellar or some other airless hole. Actually, I’m amazed there aren’t more murders and robberies, considering how many go unpunished. Mark my word Andrew, if the criminals became organized, London would be theirs. It’s hardly surprising Queen Victoria fears a popular uprising— a revolution like the one our French neighbors endured, which would end with her and her family’s head on the block. Her Empire is a hollow fa?ade that needs progressively shoring up to stop it from collapsing. Our cows and sheep graze on Argentinian pastures, our tea is grown in China and India, our gold comes from South Africa and Australia, and the wine we drink is from France and Spain. Tell me, cousin, what, apart from crime, do we actually produce ourselves? If the criminal elements planned a proper rebellion, they could take over the country. Fortunately, evil and common sense rarely go hand in hand.” Andrew liked listening to Charles ramble in this relaxed way, pretending not to take himself seriously. In reality, he admired his cousin’s contradictory spirit, which reminded him of a house divided into endless chambers all separate from one another, so that what went on in one had no repercussions in the others. This explained why his cousin was able to glimpse amid his luxurious surroundings the most suppurating wounds and forget them a moment later, while he found it impossible to copulate successfully, to give a simple example, after a visit to a slaughterhouse or a hospital for the severely wounded. It was as if Andrew had been designed like a seashell; everything disappeared and resonated inside him. That was the basic difference between them: Charles reasoned and he felt.
“The truth is these sordid crimes are turning Whitechapel into a place where you wouldn’t want to spend the night,” Charles declared sententiously, abandoning his nonchalant pose, leaning across the table and staring meaningfully at his cousin. “Especially with a tart.” Andrew gaped at him, unable to conceal his surprise.
“You know about it?” he asked.
His cousin smiled.
“Servants talk, Andrew. You ought to know by now our most intimate secrets circulate like underground streams beneath the luxurious ground we walk on,” he said, stamping his feet symbolically on the carpet.
Andrew sighed. His cousin had not left the newspaper there by accident. In fact, he had probably not even been asleep. Charles enjoyed this kind of game. Certain his cousin would come, it was easy to imagine him hiding behind one of the many screens partitioning the vast dining room, and waiting patiently for his stunned cousin to fall into the trap he had laid, exactly as had happened.
“I don’t want my father to find out, Charles,” begged Andrew.
“Don’t worry, cousin. I’m aware of the scandal it would cause in the family. But tell me, are you in love with the girl or is this just a passing fancy?” Andrew remained silent. What could he say? “You needn’t reply,” his cousin said in a resigned voice. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t understand either way. I only hope you know what you’re doing.” Andrew of course did not know what he was doing, but could not stop doing it. Each night, like a moth drawn to the flame, he returned to the miserable room in Miller’s Court, hurling himself into the relentless blaze of Marie Kelly’s passion. They made love all night, driven by a frantic desire, as though they had been poisoned during dinner and did not know how long they had left to live, or as though the world around them were suddenly being decimated by the plague. Soon Andrew understood that if he left enough coins on her bedside table, their passion could continue gently smoldering beyond the dawn. His money preserved their fantasy, and even banished Joe, Marie Kelly’s husband, whom Andrew tried not to think of when, disguised beneath his modest clothes, he strolled with her through the maze of muddy streets in Whitechapel. Those were peaceful, pleasant walks, full of encounters with the girl’s friends and acquaintances, the long-suffering foot soldiers of a war without trenches; a bunch of poor souls, who rose from their beds each morning to face a hostile world, driven on by the sheer animal instinct for survival, and whom a fascinated Andrew gradually found himself admiring, as he would a species of exotic flower alien to his world. He became convinced that life there was more real, simpler, easier to understand than in the luxuriously carpeted mansions where he spent his days.
Occasionally, he had to pull his cap down over his eyes in order not to be recognized by the bands of wealthy young men who laid siege to the neighborhood some nights. They arrived in luxurious carriages mobbing the streets like rude, arrogant conquistadors, in search of some miserable brothel where they could satisfy their basest instincts with impunity, for, according to a rumor, Andrew had frequently heard in the West End smoking clubs, the only limits on what could be done with the wretched Whitechapel tarts were money and imagination. Watching these boisterous incursions, Andrew was assailed by a sudden protective instinct, which could only mean he had unconsciously begun to see Whitechapel as a place he should perhaps watch over. However, there was little he could do confronted with those barbarous invasions, besides feeling overwhelmingly sad and helpless, and trying to forget about them in the arms of his beloved, who appeared more beautiful to him by the day, as though beneath his loving caresses she had recovered the innate natural sparkle that life had robbed her of.