The Map of the Sky (Trilogía Victoriana #2)(129)



“T-thank you,” he stammered, a catch in his voice.

At that moment, Cornelius Clayton collapsed on the floor. They all looked with irritation at the crumpled figure lying at their feet.

“I hate it when he does that,” said Murray.





XXX

DAWN MATERIALIZED WITH EXASPERATING SLOWNESS. And beneath its fitful light, London awoke confused and in pain, like a dog after its first beating. The tripods had marched down the Euston Road, demolishing buildings as they went, including Clayton’s house, although happily the debris had not buried the trapdoor. Around them, all was devastation: many of the buildings had been reduced to mounds of smoking rubble, and all over the place lay half-crushed or upturned carriages. The only one that seemed to have survived miraculously intact was Murray’s, his horses standing obligingly where he had left them, planted amid this orgy of destruction. But what convinced them this was the beginning of the end were the bodies strewn about, cinder dolls that looked vaguely human, gradually dispersed by the breeze. They were forced to step around them on their way to the carriage with the ornate “G” as they carried the unconscious Clayton, whom they had scarcely managed to get through the trapdoor.

The decision as to what to do with the inspector had been hastened by the approaching dawn. It seemed most practical to leave him behind in the safety of his lair, comfortably stretched out on a couch, with a note beside him explaining that he had fainted and promising to return for him once they had resolved the matter of Wells’s potential widowerhood. But the few hours they had spent together, each moment of which seemed to conceal an unexpected turn of events that changed the course of their lives, had made nonsense of their ideas about what was practical. They had no notion what might become of them during their excursion to Primrose Hill, and whether or not they would be able to return to Clayton’s cellar, and so they finally resolved to take the inspector with them. It was perfectly clear to them: they were in this together. And so, eschewing the common sense with which most of them had led their lives until the arrival of the Martians, they hauled the inspector from his refuge, even remembering to bring his hat.

Although the tripods had already passed through, and a strange calm had settled over the street, they could still hear shots and blasts coming from the surrounding neighborhoods, which made them realize the invasion was far from over. With Murray once more grasping the reins, they set off for Regent’s Park. Wells gave an anguished sigh. In a few moments—the time it took to cross the park—they would find out whether or not Jane had survived the invasion. Whenever their eyes met, Emma, who had the air of a weary, worldly Madonna as she sat opposite Wells cradling the inspector’s head in her lap, gave him a reassuring look. But it was obvious she knew as well as he did that the likelihood of Jane still being alive was slight. Jane could have been dead for hours, Wells told himself, she could be lying under a mound of rubble or have been transformed into one of those baleful cinder figures strewn up and down the Euston Road, and he had not yet shed a single tear for her. Yes, perhaps she was dead and he still believed her alive. But could that have happened without his somehow knowing it? How could she have died without his sensing it physically, or without the universe having made him aware of it? And shouldn’t sacred love be like a spider’s web that not only encircled them but, with a tremor of its threads, informed each of them when the other had abandoned the web? The author took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to ignore the rattle of the coach in order to concentrate on the inner music of his being, lest with a discordant note it had been trying to inform him for hours that Jane was dead. Yet his body did not appear to feel her death, and perhaps that was the strongest proof that she was still alive, for it was inconceivable to Wells that the person he most loved in the world had stopped existing without his perceiving it, or that he had not, out of solidarity, died seconds later from a heart attack, with a synchronicity more sophisticated than that evinced between twins. From the moment he found the note pinned to the Garfields’ door, Wells feared Jane might have been killed or fatally injured in the invasion, but he had forced himself not to think about it. And he must continue that strategy, sealing off the wellspring of pain until he had actually confirmed her death.

The uneasy veneer of calm that lay over the Euston Road had spread to Regent’s Park. There was no one around, and in the park itself, everything appeared in order. Every tree, stone, and blade of grass was unharmed, doggedly clinging to the planet. If a tripod had passed that way, it must have been sufficiently moved by this oasis of vegetation in the heart of London to spare it. The only reminder that they were in the throes of a Martian invasion was a dog, which crossed in front of the coach carrying a severed arm in its mouth. At least someone was benefiting from this, Wells reflected, while Emma averted her gaze with a look of revulsion. But besides this macabre detail, the journey proceeded uneventfully until they glimpsed the contours of Primrose Hill.

They came to a halt at the foot of the rise and then, not daring to abandon Clayton in the carriage, carried him to the top of the hill, where they propped him against a tree. From there, they were able to get a more precise idea of the total and utter destruction that was spreading across the city. London was expiring before them, wounded and in flames. To the north, the houses of Kilburn and Hampstead had been reduced to jagged heaps of rubble among which three or four tripods moved languidly. To the south, beyond the green waves of Regent’s Park, Soho was in flames, and through its streets, moving with the ungainly elegance of herons, a handful of tripods opened fire from time to time. Far off in the distance, they could make out what had once been the magnificent mansions of the Brompton Road, almost all razed to the ground. Westminster Abbey was reduced to a ruin. Farther off, through a veil of smoke, St. Paul’s Cathedral was still standing, although a Martian ray had perforated its dome. Wells contemplated the devastation before him with a feeling of humiliation more than of fear. It had taken so much time to build this vast city, this anthill where millions of souls lived out their lives without realizing they meant nothing to the universe, and only a single day to reduce it to ashes.

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