7.
 “A clock?” Arthur said. “Our clock?” At last the major seemed to broach the object of this trip in the middle of the night during a winter storm. They passed through intersections, past billboards, past darkened buildings, as Jarlid drove with a slow and steady hand. Now he fumbled in a trouser pocket and pulled out a shiny object.
“Yes, our clock, and also this watch,” said Major Jarlid. He pressed into Arthur’s hands a large vest pocket watch, of the kind worn long ago by train conductors, and earlier by men like Benjamin Franklin. It felt cool to the touch, and Arthur weighed it idly from one hand to the other. It was moderately heavy, and finely tooled in beaten silver and brass with elaborate, well-worn scrollwork. For a moment, he felt blood rushing in his ears. Arthur flicked the watch open. He gazed upon an antique watch dial, with black Roman numerals on a brown-pitted, creamy surface like mottled parchment, under thick glass.
“That,” said Major Jarlid “is the heart of the thing. There I was, in the company of this strange pasha, and the old woman, in an empty room with fine oak floor boards and simple wall paper in a delicate design of tiny flowers, not unlike her sari I just described. We walked up to the clock and we each tapped a fingertip on its broad base. It sounded hollow, but echoes careened from wall to wall inside. It was intricately made, with many fine touches.
“That’s when he told me it was made at the Court of the Sun King in France, Louis XIV, in the Year 1710 Anno Domini. Of course they didn’t call them grandfather clocks then, but floor clocks or long-case clocks.”
Latchloose nodded. He too knew this story. An American composer, Henry Work, in 1875, had written a little ditty called The Grandfather Clock. Work was staying at the George Hotel in Piercebridge, North Yorkshire, England, which had a remarkable—and dead—floor clock. It was some seven feet tall, as was customary, because of the required pendulum length, and the drop need of its weights. As the weights slowly dropped, the mechanism unwound, so to speak; raising the weights back up reset such a clock. Two very aged brothers named Jenkins owned the hotel, and their clock was renowned for its accuracy. When one of the brothers died, the clock seemed, however, to become sick, eventually losing up to an hour a day. No clockmaker—and plenty came to the challenge—was ever able to fix it, and the clock totally froze the minute the surviving Jenkins brother died, 90 years old. Like that, the clock sat in the hotel lobby for many years—the world’s first grandfather clock. But enough of such digressions.
“So there it was,” Jarlid said of his own clock that he was selling to Arthur. “What a beauty. Made by an English clockmaker in Paris, and remade in some Turkish atelier with Moorish and Saracen touches. The craftsmen perfected it with Ottoman flowers of delicate soapstone mosaic, mother of pearl, and carved scrolls in sandalwood and other fine woods, inlaid and lacquered, so that it made one dizzy to look into its many facets and faces.
“That strange little pasha said to me, This clock will buy you the time you need. Touch it, and move on to the rest of your life. The old woman held open a door, showing me a tranquil desert outside, while the pasha made waving motions for me to get out of there. I was torn by conflicting emotions—part of me wanted to stay, and sink deeper into the timeless ennui of that peaceful oasis, while the other part of me longed to escape back to fresh air, sunshine, and wonderful life.
“I stopped in my conflict and anguish, in the midst of that marbled monument, that tomb of minutes and hours, that gilded and mosaic shrine of pillars and domed ceiling, and boomed at them: Who are you anyway? Why do you care about me, and how do you know where I am going? I shuddered at the sound of my own voice, which shuddered like the drowning bell of a sinking ship.
“But the pasha and the old woman had disappeared. I heard wind sighing in the desert outside. Somewhere, distant artillery boomed in the never-ending wars over Armageddon’s horizons. I stood alone, looking up into a lapis-lazuli dome, where the gilded twelve tokens of the Zodiac shimmered in gray shadow. For a moment, I inhaled a cosmic connection, which interlaced the twelve hours of day, and the twelve hours of night, with the twelve months of the astrological year (which was invented not far from that place, by spirits still hovering in the sands). For a moment, I thought I saw huge hands sweeping around, past the Waterman, past the Virgin, past the Scorpion, past the Twins, and the other gilded symbols of time.
“I hesitated, while wind kicked up across the marble tiles, and threw sand and grit around the feet of that marvelous clock. On impulse, I lifted the clock—it was light as a feather, despite its weight and wooden hull riveted with steel like a ship’s hull. It only took me a few seconds to carry it on my back, out into the desert, while the doorway to that magical place closed behind me.”
“You stole it?” Latchloose said with a gasp. “What if it is cursed? What if it kills me? Look, you are already half dead…” Latchloose grabbed Jarlid’s wrist and squeezed his thumb against the joint—but it felt warm to the touch. A pulse ticked away in slow beats, one every second.
Jarlid’s eyes were black, blazing coals. “I prefer to think of myself as half alive if anything!” He yanked his hand away with annoyance. “You certainly think of nobody but yourself.”
“Very well,” said Latchloose. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic freezer bag, the size of a sandwich baggie, but of a far thicker mil rating. Inside was a stack of hundred dollar bills circled by several stout rubber bands Arthur had found in his bank’s supplies closet. “Here is the money, if you’ll be so kind as to take me to my clock.”
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Copyright © 2014 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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