The Map of Time and The Turn of the Screw. Felix J. Palma
before it goes cold,’ he said, shuffling to the table in the centre of the room.
Wells did not respond immediately, horrified by the way Merrick was obliged to walk. Everything was an effort for him, he realised, observing the complicated manoeuvres he had to make to sit down. Wells had to suppress an urge to rush over and help him, afraid this gesture usually reserved for the elderly or infirm might upset him. Hoping he was doing the right thing, he sat down as casually as possible in the chair opposite his host. Again, he had to force himself to sit still as he watched Merrick serve the tea. He mostly tried to fulfil this role using his left hand, which was unaffected by the disease, although he still employed the right to carry out minor tasks within the ceremony. Wells could not help but silently admire the extraordinary dexterity with which Merrick was able to take the lid off the sugar bowl or offer him a biscuit with a hand as big and rough as a lump of rock.
‘I’m so glad you were able to come, Mr Wells,’ said Merrick, after he had succeeded in the arduous task of serving the tea without spilling a single drop, ‘because it allows me to tell you in person how much I enjoyed your story.’
‘You are very kind, Mr Merrick,’ replied Wells.
Once it had been published, curious about how little impact it had made, Wells had read and reread it at least a dozen times to try to discover why it had been so completely overlooked. Imbued with a spirit of uncompromising criticism, he had weighed up the plot’s solidity, appraised its dramatic pace, considered the order, appropriateness, and even the number of words he had used, only to regard his first and quite possibly his last work of fiction with the unforgiving, almost contemptuous, eye with which the Almighty might contemplate the tiresome antics of a capuchin monkey. It was clear to him now that the story was a worthless piece of excrement: his writing a shameless imitation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s pseudo-Germanic style, and his main character, Dr Nebogipfel, a poor, unrealistic copy of the exaggerated depictions of mad scientists already to be found in Gothic novels. Nevertheless, he thanked Merrick for his words of praise, smiling with false modesty and fearing they would be the only ones his writings ever received.
‘A time machine …’ said Merrick, delighting in the juxtaposition of words he found so evocative. ‘You have a prophetic imagination, Mr Wells.’
Wells thanked him again for this new and rather embarrassing compliment. How many more eulogies would he have to endure before he asked him to change the subject?
‘If I had a time machine like Dr Nebogipfel’s,’ Merrick went on dreamily, ‘I would travel back to ancient Egypt.’
Wells found the remark touching. Like any other person, this creature had a favourite period in history, as he must have a favourite fruit, season or song. ‘Why is that?’ he asked, with a friendly smile, providing his host with the opportunity to expound on his tastes.
‘Because the Egyptians worshipped gods with animals’ heads,’ replied Merrick, slightly shamefaced.
Wells stared at him stupidly. He was unsure what surprised him more: the naïve yearning in Merrick’s reply or the awkward bashfulness that accompanied it, as though he were chiding himself for wanting such a thing, for preferring to be a god worshipped by men instead of the despised monster he was. If anyone had a right to feel hatred and bitterness towards the world, surely he did. And yet Merrick reproached himself for his sorrow, as though the sunlight through the window-pane warming his back or the clouds scudding across the sky ought to supply reason enough for him to be happy. Lost for words, Wells took a biscuit from the plate and nibbled it with intense concentration, as though he were making sure his teeth still worked.
‘Why do you think Dr Nebogipfel didn’t use his machine to travel into the future as well?’ Merrick then asked, in that unguent voice, which sounded as if it were smeared with butter. ‘Wasn’t he curious? I sometimes wonder what the world will be like in a hundred years.’
‘Indeed …’ murmured Wells, at a loss to respond to this remark, too.
Merrick belonged to that class of reader who was able to forget with amazing ease the hand moving the characters behind the scenes of a novel. As a child Wells had also been able to read in that way. But one day he had decided he would be a writer, and from that moment on he had found it impossible to immerse himself in stories with the same innocent abandon: he was aware that characters’ thoughts and actions were not his. They answered to the dictates of a higher being, to someone who, alone in his room, moved the pieces he himself had placed on the board, more often than not with an overwhelming feeling of indifference that bore no relation to the emotions he intended to arouse in his readers. Novels were not slices of life but more or less controlled creations reproducing slices of imaginary, polished lives, where boredom and the futile, useless acts that make up any existence were replaced with exciting, meaningful episodes. At times, Wells longed to be able to read in that carefree, childlike way again but, having glimpsed behind the scenes, he could only do this with an enormous leap of his imagination. Once you had written your first story there was no turning back. You were a deceiver and you could not help treating other deceivers with suspicion.
It occurred to Wells briefly to suggest that Merrick ask Nebogipfel himself, but he changed his mind, unsure whether his host would take his riposte as the gentle mockery he intended. What if Merrick really was too naïve to tell the difference between reality and a simple work of fiction? What if this sad inability and not his sensitivity allowed him to experience the stories he read so intensely? If so, Well’s rejoinder would sound like a cruel jibe, aimed at wounding his ingenuousness. Fortunately, Merrick fired another question at him, which was easier to answer: ‘Do you think somebody will one day invent a time machine?’
‘I doubt such a thing could exist,’ replied Wells, bluntly.
‘And yet you’ve written about it!’ his host exclaimed, horrified.
‘That’s precisely why, Mr Merrick,’ he explained, trying to think of a simple way to bring together the various ideas underlying his conception of literature. ‘I assure you that if it were possible to build a time machine I would never have written about it. I am only interested in writing about what is impossible.’
At this, he recalled a quote from Lucian of Samosata’s True Histories, which he could not help memorising because it perfectly summed up his thoughts on literature: ‘I write about things I have neither seen nor verified nor heard about from others and, in addition, about things that have never existed and could have no possible basis for existing.’ Yes, as he had told his host, he was only interested in writing about things that were impossible. Dickens was there to take care of the rest, he thought of adding, but did not. Trêves had told him Merrick was an avid reader. He did not want to risk offending him if Dickens happened to be one of his favourite authors.
‘Then I’m sorry that because of me you’ll never be able to write about a man who is half human, half elephant,’ murmured Merrick.
Once more, Wells was disarmed. After he had spoken, Merrick’s gaze wandered to the window. Wells was unsure whether the gesture was meant to express regret or to give him the opportunity to study Merrick’s appearance as freely as he wished. In any case, Wells’s eyes were unconsciously, irresistibly, almost hypnotically drawn to him, confirming what he already knew full well – that Merrick was right: if he had not seen him with his own eyes, he would never have believed such a creature could exist. Except, perhaps, in the fictional world of books.
‘You will be a great writer, Mr Wells,’ his host declared, continuing to stare out of the window.
‘I wish I could agree,’ replied Wells, who, following his first failed attempt, was entertaining serious doubts about his abilities.
Merrick turned to face him. ‘Look at my hands, Mr Wells,’ he said, holding them out. ‘Would you believe that these hands could make a church out of cardboard?’
Wells gazed at his host’s mismatched hands. The right was enormous and grotesque while the left looked like that of a ten-year-old girl. ‘I suppose not,’ he admitted.
Merrick nodded slowly. ‘It is a question of will, Mr Wells,’ he said, striving