Curiosity by Gary Blackwood Page A

wanted to put off returning to the real world for as long as possible?
    Finally, Maelzel yanked open the rear door of the cabinet and pulled me out. “What are you doing in there? Sleeping?”
    â€œNo. I—ah—I dropped one of the pieces, and I was searching for it.”
    â€œIn the dark?”
    â€œThe smoke from the candle was choking me.”
    â€œWell, you had better get used to it. If someone asks to play a full game, you could be in there a long while.”
    â€œAren’t we only doing endgames?”
    â€œDuring regular hours, yes. But if you continue to play as you did today, I may welcome more serious challengers after the hall closes.”
    â€œSo, I did well?”
    He shrugged. “Well enough.”
    â€œYou’ll pay me, then?”
    He gave an exasperated sigh. “If you do not stop pestering me about it, I shall pay you right enough, but you will not like the currency.” He waved an arm toward the spot where the spectators had stood, now empty. “Did you see the pitiful size of our audience?”
    â€œI couldn’t see anything. There was a lot of applause.”
    â€œ Ja, ja , they were enthusiastic. But take my word for it, I did not make enough profit even to cover the rent; the devil knows how I shall manage to pay my workmen.”
    Any lingering feelings I might have had of power or control had vanished. I was back to being a helpless pawn once again.

A LL THAT WEEK, I DID MY CHORES IN the workshop even more cheerfully than usual, knowing that, when the afternoon came, I would have my moment in the sun—or rather in the dark. For a short while, I would be transformed from servant to master, from pawn to queen. I was like some perverse species of prisoner who felt free only when he was locked inside a tiny cell. It made me think of poor Ezra’s attempt to escape the House of Refuge by cramming himself into a packing crate.
    As I swept up sawdust and shavings and dumped them into the bin in the earth closet, I hummed the Mechanical Trumpeter’s march. I noticed Jacques eyeing me suspiciously, as though wondering whether I was right in the head. “If you like work so much,” he growled, “I can always give you more.”
    â€œNo, thank you,” I said. “I’m just trying to do as I was taught: accept my situation with good grace.”
    â€œHmm. And I suppose you think I do not.”
    â€œWell . . . no.”
    â€œOf course I do not! Nor would you, if you had lost all the things I have lost!”
    I was tempted to tell him that I’d had my share of losses—my mother and my surrogate mother, Fiona, and my home and my pleasant, privileged life—but I didn’t. I might have pointed out that my father was in debtors’ prison with no hope of gaining his freedom, but I didn’t. No doubt it would have only earned me another blow.
    Jacques pounded at his chisel for a time and then said, a bit more civilly, “If you always accept things as they are, Bébé , then nothing changes.” That reminded me of Ezra, too. It don’t mean you have to just give up, he’d told me. Sometimes you got to fight back.
    â€œBut some things can’t be changed,” I said.
    â€œNo. Some can only be mourned and regretted.”
    â€œOr accepted.”
    He turned on his stool and, to my surprise, hiked up the legs of his trousers to reveal his wooden limbs. “When they took off my legs, I could have accepted it and been a beggar on some street corner in Paris, surviving on people’s pity. Instead, I got these . When the Turk burned, we might have let him die. But we resurrected him and made him better than ever.”
    I stared at him, openmouthed. This sudden spate of speech contained more words than he usually uttered in an entire week. Seeming surprised himself by the outburst, he went back to his work.
    At the risk of inviting his curses, I said, “Was it the