The Map of Time (10 page)

According to the telegrams, once they had located the village, Kaufman and Austin had no real difficulty being accepted as guests. In fact, the Reed People were apparently compliant towards everything, incapable of putting up any form of resistance. Nor did they seem particularly interested in Kaufman and Austin’s reasons for being there. They simply accepted their presence. The two men asked for no more, and rather than lose heart when faced with the difficulty of carrying out the essential part of their mission (which was nothing less than discovering whether these savages could actually open up passageways to other worlds) they resolved to be patient and treat their stay as a paid holiday. Although they did not say so, Gilliam could easily imagine them lounging around in the sun all day, polishing off the crates of whiskey they had sneaked with them on the expedition while Gilliam pretended to be looking the other way. Amazingly, they could not have thought up a better strategy, for their continual state of alcoholic stupor, and the frequent dancing and fighting they engaged in naked in the grass, drew the attention of the Reed People, who were curious about the amber liquid that generated such jolly antics. Once they began sharing their whiskey, a rough camaraderie sprang up between them, which Gilliam rejoiced in back in his office, for it was without doubt the first step towards a future coexistence. He was not mistaken, although fostering this primitive contact until it grew into a common bond of trust and friendship cost him several consignments of the best Scotch, and to this day he wondered whether that many bottles were really necessary for such a small tribe.

At last, one morning, he received the long-awaited telegram in which Kaufman and Austin described how the Reed People had led them to the middle of the village, and in a seemingly beautiful gesture of friendship and gratitude, had opened for them the hole through to the other world. The explorers described the aperture and the pink landscape they were able to glimpse through it, using exactly the same words as Tremanquai five years earlier.

This time however, the young Gilliam no longer saw them as part of a made-up story: now he knew it was for real. All of a sudden he felt trapped, suffocated, and not because he was locked away in his little office. He felt hemmed in by the walls of a universe he now realized was not the only one of its kind. But this constraint would soon end, he thought to himself. Then he devoted a few moments to the memory of poor Oliver Tremanquai. He assumed the man’s deep religious beliefs had prevented him from assimilating what he had seen, leaving him no other course than the precarious path of madness. Luckily, that pair of oafs Kaufman and Austin possessed far simpler minds, which should spare them a similar fate. He reread the telegram hundreds of times. Not only did the Reed People exist, they practiced something Gilliam, unlike Tremanquai, preferred to call magic as opposed to witchcraft.

An unknown world had opened itself up to Kaufman and Austin, and naturally, they could not resist exploring it.

As Gilliam read their subsequent telegrams, he regretted not having accompanied them. With the blessing of the Reed People, who left them to their own devices, Kaufman and Austin began making brief incursions into the other world, diligently reporting back to him on its peculiarities. It consisted largely of a vast pink plain of faintly luminous rock, stretching out beneath a sky permanently obscured by incredibly dense fog. If there were any sun behind it, its rays were unable to shine through. As a consequence, the only light came from the strange substance on the ground, so that while one’s boots were clearly visible, the landscape was plunged into gloom, day and night merging into an eternal dusk, making it very difficult to see long distances. From time to time, a raging wind whipped the plain, producing sandstorms that made everything even more difficult to see. The two men immediately noticed something strange: the moment they stepped through the hole their pocket watches stopped. Once back in their own reality, the sleeping mechanisms mysteriously stirred again. It was as though they had unanimously decided to stop measuring the time their owners spent in the other world.

Kaufman and Austin looked at one another, and it is not difficult to imagine them shrugging their shoulders, baffled. They made a further discovery after spending a night, according to their calculations, in the camp they had set up right beside the opening so that they could keep an eye on the Reed People. There was no need for them to shave, because while they were in the other world their beards stopped growing. In addition, Austin had cut his arm seconds before stepping through the hole, and as soon as he was on the other side it stopped bleeding to the point he even forgot to bandage it. He did not remember the wound until the moment they were back in the village and it started to bleed again. Fascinated, Gilliam wrote down this extraordinary incident in his notebook, as well as what had happened with their watches and beards. Everything pointed to some impossible stoppage of time. While Murray speculated in his office, Kaufman and Austin stocked up on ammunition and food and set out towards the only thing breaking the monotony of the plain: the ghostly mountain range, scarcely visible on the horizon.

As their watches continued to be unusable, they decided to measure the time their journey took by the number of the nights they slept. This method soon proved ineffective, because at times the wind rose so suddenly and with such force they were obliged to stay awake all night holding the tent down, or else their accumulated tiredness crept up on them the moment they stopped for food or a rest. And so all they could say about it was that after an indeterminate length of time that was neither very long nor very short, they reached the longed-for mountains. These proved to be made of the same luminous rock as the plain, only they had a hideous appearance like a set of rotten, broken teeth, their jagged peaks piercing the thick cloudscape that blotted out the sky.

The two men spotted a few hollows which looked like they might be caves. Having no other plan, the two men decided to scale the slopes until they reached the nearest one. This did not take long. Once they had reached the pinnacle of a small mountain, they had a broader view of the plain. Far off in the distance the hole had been reduced to a bright dot on the horizon. They could see their way back waiting for them, acting for the moment as a guiding light. They were not worried the Reed People might close the hole, because they had taken the precaution of bringing what remained of the whiskey with them. It was then they noticed other bright dots shining in the distance. It was difficult to see clearly through the mist, but there must have been half a dozen of them. Were they other holes leading to other worlds? They found the answer in the very cave they intended to explore.

As soon as they entered it, they could see it was inhabited. There were signs of life everywhere: burnt-out fires, bowls, tools, and other basic implements—things Tremanquai had found so conspicuous by their absence in the Reed People’s village. At the back of the cave they discovered a narrower, darker enclosure, the walls of which were covered in paintings. Most depicted scenes from everyday life, and judging from the willowy rag doll figures, only the Reed people could have painted them. Apparently, that dark world was where they really lived. The village was no more than a temporary location, a provisional settlement, perhaps one of many they had built in other worlds. Kaufman and Austin did not consider the drawings of rustic scenes particularly significant.

But two caught their attention. One of these took up nearly an entire wall. As far as they could tell, it was meant to be a map of that world, or at least the part the tribe had succeeded in exploring, which was limited to the area near the mountains. What intrigued them was that this crude map marked the location of some of the other holes, and, if they were not mistaken, what they contained. The drawings were easy enough to interpret: a yellow star shape represented the hole, and the painted images next to them, their contents. At least this is what they deduced from the dot surrounded by huts, apparently representing the hole they had climbed through to get there, and the village on the other side, back in their world. The map showed four other openings, fewer than those they had glimpsed on the horizon. Where did they lead? Whether from idleness or boredom, the Reed people had painted only the contents of the holes nearest their cave. One of these seemed to depict a battle going on between two different tribes: one human-shaped, the other square and rectangular. The remainder of the drawings were impossible to make out. Consequently, the only thing Kaufman and Austin could be clear about was that the world they were in contained dozens of holes like the one they had come through, but they could only find out where any of them led if they passed through them themselves, for the Reed People’s scrawls were as mystifying to them as the dreams of a blind man. The second painting that caught their eye was on the opposite wall, and showed a group of Reed People running from what looked like a gigantic four-legged monster with a dragon’s tail and spikes on its back. Kaufman and Austin glanced at one another, alarmed to find themselves in the same world as a wild animal whose mere image was enough to scare the living daylights out of them. What would happen if they came across the real thing? However, this discovery did not make them turn back. They both had rifles and enough ammunition to kill a whole herd of monsters, assuming they even existed and were not simply a mythological invention of the Reed People. They also had whiskey, that marvelous drink that would fire up their courage, or at least turn the prospect of being eaten by an elephantine monster into a relatively minor nuisance. What more did they need? Accordingly, they decided to carry on exploring and set out for the opening where the battle was going on between the two different tribes, because it was closest to the mountains. The journey was grueling, hampered by freak sandstorms that forced them to erect their tent and take refuge inside if they did not want to be scoured like cooking pots. Thankfully, they did not meet any of the giant creatures. Of course, when they finally reached the hole, they had no idea how long it had taken them, only that the journey had been exhausting. Its size and appearance were identical to the one they had first stepped through into that murky world. The only difference was that instead of crude huts, inside this one was a ruined city. Scarcely a single building remained standing, and yet there was something oddly familiar about the structures. They stood for a few moments, surveying the ruins from the other side of the hole, as one would peer into a shop window, but no sign of life or other telltale evidence seemed to break the calm of the razed city. What kind of war could have wrought such terrible devastation? Depressed by the dreadful scene, Kaufman and Austin restored their courage with a few slugs of whiskey, and finally, donning their pith helmets, they leapt valiantly through the opening and into the other side.

Their senses were immediately assailed by an intense, familiar odor. Smiling with bewildered emotion, it dawned on them that they were simply smelling their own world again, which they had unconsciously stopped being aware of during their journey across the pink plain.

Rifles at the ready, they scoured their surroundings, moving cautiously through the rubble-filled streets, shocked at the sight of so much devastation, until they stumbled across another obstacle, which stopped them dead in their tracks. Kaufman and Austin gazed incredulously at the object blocking their path: it was none other than the clocktower of Big Ben. The half-crushed tower lay in the middle of the street like a severed fish head, the vast clock face a great eye staring at them with mournful resignation. The discovery made them glance uneasily about them.

Strangely moved, they cast an affectionate eye over each toppled edifice, the desolate ruined landscape where a few plumes of black smoke darkened the sky over a London razed to the ground. Neither could contain their tears. In fact, the two men would have stood there forever, weeping over the remains of their beloved city, had it not been for a peculiar clanking sound that came from nearby.

Rifles at the ready again, they followed the clatter until they came to a small mound of rubble. They clambered up it noiselessly, crouching low. Unseen in their improvised lookout, they saw what was causing the racket. It was coming from strange, vaguely humanoid metal creatures. Judging from the vapor seeping out of their joints, they were powered by what looked like tiny steam engines attached to their backs. The loud clanging noise they had heard was the sound of their clumsy iron feet knocking against the metal debris strewn on the ground. The bemused explorers had no idea what these creatures might be, until Austin plucked from the rubble what looked like the scrunched-up page of a newspaper. With trembling fingers, he opened it up and discovered a photograph of the same creatures. The headline announced the unstoppable advance of the automatons, and went on to encourage readers to rally to the support of the human army led by the brave Captain Derek Shackleton. What most surprised them, however, was the date: this loose page was from a newspaper printed April 3, 2000. Kaufman and Austin shook their heads as one, very slowly from left to right. But before they had time to express their amazement in a more sophisticated way, the remains of a rafter in the mound of rubble fell into the street with a loud crash, alerting the automatons. Kaufman and Austin exchanged terrified looks, and took to their heels, running full pelt towards the hole they had come through without looking back.

They easily slipped through it again, but did not stop running until their legs would carry them no further. They erected their tent and cowered inside, trying to collect their thoughts to absorb what they had seen—with the obligatory help of some whiskey, of course. It was clearly time for them to return to the village and report back to London everything they had seen—convinced Gilliam Murray would be able to give them an explanation.

However, their problems did not end there. On the way back to the village, they were attacked by one of the gigantic beasts with spikes on its back, whose potential existence they had forgotten about. They had great difficulty killing it. They used up nearly all their ammunition trying to scare it away, because the bullets kept bouncing off the spiked armor without injuring it in any way. Finally, they managed to chase the creature away by shooting at its eyes, its only weak point as far as they could determine. Having successfully fought off the beast, Kaufman and Austin arrived back at the hole without further incident, and immediately sent a message to London relating all their discoveries.