The Map of Time (Trilogía Victoriana #1)(67)

While Lucy scanned their fellow passengers, listing the names of those present in a way that clearly revealed her likes and dislikes, Claire gazed in awe at the marble figure of a man not yet born. The twice life-size statue of Derek Shackleton on his pedestal looked like some strange descendant of the Greek gods, fixed in a similarly heroic and gallant pose, except that the casual nudity usually flaunted by the Greeks was in this case concealed by something more substantial than a fig leaf. The captain wore a suit of elaborately riveted armor apparently designed to protect as much of his body as possible from the enemy, and which even included a sophisticated helmet that left only his jutting chin visible. Claire was disappointed by the headdress as she would have liked to see what the face of a savior of the human race looked like. She was convinced the ironclad visage could not possibly resemble anyone she knew. It had to be a face that did not yet exist, a face that only the future could produce. She imagined a noble, calm expression with eyes radiating confidence— not for nothing was he commanding an army—casually revealing, almost like a natural secretion, his proud, indomitable spirit. Although now and then the dark desolation surrounding him would cloud those handsome eyes with tears of nostalgia, for a vestige of sensitivity still survived in his warrior’s soul. Finally, giving in to her romantic nature, Claire also imagined a glimmer of yearning in his gaze, especially during those moments of intense loneliness that would assail him between battles. And what was the cause of his sorrow? Naturally, it could be none other than the absence of a beloved face to contemplate, a smile that would give him courage in moments of weakness, a name he could whisper in his sleep like a comforting prayer, an embrace to return to when the war was over. For a brief moment, Claire pictured that brave, indestructible man, so tough on the battlefield, murmuring her name at night like a helpless boy: “Claire, darling Claire …” She smiled to herself; it was only a silly fantasy, and yet she was surprised at the thrill she felt when she imagined being loved by that warrior of the future. How was it possible that a man who had not yet been born could stir her feelings more than any of the young dandies courting her? The answer was simple: she was projecting onto that faceless statue everything she yearned for and could not have. This Shackleton fellow was probably completely different from Claire’s imagined portrait. Furthermore, his way of thinking, acting, even of loving would be utterly incomprehensible and alien to her. The century between them was more than enough time for man’s values and concerns to have changed into something unrecognizable to anyone viewing them from the past. This was one of life’s laws. If only she could glimpse his face, she thought, she might find out whether she was right, if Shackleton’s soul was made of opaque glass through which she would never be able to see, or, on the contrary, whether the years between them were merely anecdotal, because there was something inside man, an essence that was rooted in his very being, which remained unchanged over the centuries: perhaps the very air God had breathed into his creatures to give them life. But there was no way of knowing this because of that blasted helmet. Claire would never glimpse his face. She must be content with the parts of him she was able to see, which were impressive enough: his warriorlike posture, his raised sword, his right leg flexed to reveal sculpted muscles, his left firmly planted on the ground, although with the heel slightly raised off the base, as though immortalizing him in the act of charging the enemy.

Only when she followed the direction of his charge did Claire realize that his statue stood facing another to the left of the door.

Shackleton’s defiant gesture was aimed at a startling figure almost twice his size. According to the inscription on the base, this was an effigy of Solomon, king of the automatons and the captain’s archenemy, whom he defeated on May 20 in the year 2000 following an endless war that had razed London to the ground. Claire gazed at the statue uneasily, shocked at the terrifying evolution of the automaton. As a little girl, her father had taken her to see the Writer, an animated doll invented by the famous Swiss watch-maker Pierre Jaquet-Droz. Claire still recalled the smartly dressed boy with the sad, chubby face sitting at a desk, dipping his quill into the inkwell and drawing it across a piece of paper. The doll had traced each letter with the alarming slowness of someone living outside time, even pausing occasionally to stare into space, as though waiting for another wave of inspiration. The memory of the doll’s staring eyes would forever cause a shiver to go down the young Claire’s spine when she imagined the monstrous thoughts it might have been harboring. She had been unable to rid herself of this uncomfortable feeling, even after her father had shown her the interlocking rods and cogs in the phantasmagorical child’s back, with the lever that turned, bringing the parody to life. And now she could see how over time, that grotesque but ultimately harmless child had transformed into the monstrous figure towering above her. Struggling to overcome her fear, she examined it closely. Solomon’s creator, unlike Pierre Jacquet Droz, had apparently been uninterested in reproducing something as realistically human as possible, limiting himself to a rough copy of the two-legged model. For Solomon had more in common with a medieval suit of armor than a man: his body was a series of joined-up metal plates crowned by a solid, cylindrical head like a bell, with two square holes for eyes and a slit for a mouth, like a letterbox.

It almost made Claire’s head spin to think that the two statues facing one another commemorated an event that had not yet happened. These characters were not only not dead, they had not even been born. Although, in the end, she reflected, no one there could be blamed for mistaking them for memorials, because, like the dead, neither the captain nor his nemesis were among the living who were paying tribute to their memory. It made no difference whether they had already left or had not yet arrived: the main thing was they were not there.