Problems crowding up on each other like stormclouds running ahead of the wind. Massing so thick that Plaquette couldn’t presently see her way through them. Ma said when life got dark like that, all’s you could do was keep putting one foot in front the other and hope you walked yourself to somewhere brighter.
But as usual, once Billy set Claude up and the automaton began its recitation, her work was accurate and quick. She loved the challenge and ritual of assemblage: laying exactly the right findings out on the cloth; listening to the clicking sound of Claude’s gears as he recited one of his scrolls; letting the ordered measure take her thoughts away till all that was left was the precise dance of her fingers as they selected the watch parts and clicked, screwed or pinned them into place. Sometimes she only woke from her trance of time, rhythm, and words when Msieur shook her by the shoulder come evening and she looked up to realize the whole day had gone by.
Shadows fell on Plaquette’s hands, obscuring her work. She looked around, blinking. When had it gone dusk? The workroom was empty. Billy had probably gone on about his other business hours ago. Claude’s scroll had run out and he’d long since fallen silent. Why hadn’t Msieur told her it was time to go? She could hear him wandering around his upstairs apartment.
She rubbed her burning eyes. He’d probably hoped she’d keep working until the mechanical George was set to rights.
Had she done it? She slid her hands out of the wire-and-cam guts of the mechanical man. She’d have to test him to be sure. But in the growing dark, she could scarcely make out the contacts in the George’s body that needed to be tripped in order to set it in motion.
Plaquette rose from her bench, stretched her twinging back and frowned – in imitation of Mama – through the doorway at the elaborately decorated Carcel lamp displayed in the shop’s front. Somewhat outmoded though it was, the clockwork regulating the lamp’s fuel supply and draft served Msieur as one of many proofs of his meticulous handiwork – her meticulous handiwork. If she stayed in the workshop any later she’d have to light that lamp. And for all that he wanted her to work late, Msieur would be sure to deduct the cost of the oil used from her wages. He could easily put a vacuum bulb into the Carcel, light it with cheap units of Tesla power instead of oil, but he mistrusted energy he couldn’t see. Said it wasn’t “refined.”
She took a few steps in the direction of the Carcel.
C-RRR-EEEAK!
Plaquette gasped and dashed for the showroom door to the street. She had grabbed the latch rope before her wits returned. She let the rope go and faced back toward the black doorway out of which emerged the automaton, Claude. It rocked forward on its treads, left side, right. Its black velvet jacket swallowed what little light there still was. But the old-fashioned white ruff circling its neck cast up enough brightness to show its immobile features. They had, like hers, much of the African to them. Claude came to a stop in front of her.
CRREAK!
Plaquette giggled. “You giving me a good reminder – I better put that oil on your wheels as well as your insides. You like to scare me half to death rolling round the dark in here.” She pulled the miniature oil tin from her apron pocket and knelt to lubricate the wheels of the rolling treads under Claude’s platform. It had been Plaquette’s idea to install them to replace the big brass wheels he’d had on either side. She’d grown weary of righting Claude every time he rolled over an uneven surface and toppled. It had been good practice, though, for nowadays, when Pa was like to fall with each spastic step he took, and Plaquette so often had to catch him. He hated using the crutches. And all of this because he’d begun taking a few sips of jake to warm his cold bones before his early morning shifts.
Jamaica Ginger was doing her family in, that was sure.
Her jostling of Claude must have released some last dregs of energy left in his winding mechanism, for just then he took it into his mechanical head to drone, “... nooot to escaaape it by exerrrtion...”
Quickly, Plaquette stopped the automaton midsentence. For good measure, she removed the book from its spool inside Claude. She didn’t want Msieur to hear that she was still downstairs, alone in the dark.
As Plaquette straightened again, a new thought struck her.
The shutters folded back easily. White light from the coil-powered street lamp outside flooded the tick-tocking showroom, glittering on glass cases and gold and brass watches, on polished wooden housings and numbered faces like pearly moons. More than enough illumination for Plaquette’s bright eyes. “Come along, Claude,” Plaquette commanded as she headed back towards the work room – somewhat unnecessarily, as she had Claude’s wardenclyffe in the pocket of her leather work apron. Where it went, Claude was bound to follow. Which made it doubly foolish of her to have been startled by him.
She could see the mechanical porter more clearly now; its cold steel body painted deep blue in imitation of a porter’s uniform, down to the gold stripes at the cuffs of the jacket. Its perpetually smiling black face. The Pullman Porter ‘cap’ atop its head screwed on like a bottle top. Inside it was the Tesla receiver the George would use to guide itself around inside the sleeping-car cabins the Pullman company planned to outfit with wireless transmitters. That part had been Plaquette’s idea. Msieur had grumbled, but Plaquette could see him mentally adding up the profits this venture could bring him.
If Msieur’s George was a success, that’d be the end of her father’s job. Human porters had human needs. A mechanical George would rarely be ill, never miss work. Would always smile, would never need a new uniform – just the occasional paint touch-up. Would need to be paid for initially, but never paid thereafter.
With two fingers, Plaquette poked the George’s ungiving chest. The mechanical man didn’t so much as rock on its sturdy legs. Plaquette still thought treads would have been better, like Claude’s. But Msieur wanted the new Georges to be as lifelike as possible, so as not to scare the fine ladies and gentlemen who rode the luxury sleeping-cars. So the Georges must be able to walk. Smoothly, like Pa used to.
The chiming clocks in the showroom began tolling the hour, each in their separate tones. Plaquette gasped. Though surrounded by clocks, she had completely forgotten how late it was. Ma would be waiting for her; it was nearly time for Pa’s shift at the station! She couldn’t stop now to test the George. She slapped Claude’s wardenclyffe into his perpetually outstretched hand, pulled her bonnet onto her head, and hastened outside, stopping only to jiggle the shop’s door by its polished handle to make sure the latch had safely caught.
Only a few blocks to scurry home under the steadily burning lamps, among the sparse clumps of New Orleans’s foreign sightseers and those locals preferring to conduct their business in the cool of night. In her hurry, she bumped into one overdressed gent. He took her by the arms and leered, looking her up and down. She muttered an apology and pulled away before he could do more than that. She was soon home, where Ma was waiting on the landing outside their rooms. The darkness and Pa’s hat and heavy coat disguised Ma well enough to fool the white supervisors for a while, and the other colored were in on the secret. But if Ma came in late –
“Don’t fret, Darling,” Ma said, bending to kiss Plaquette’s cheek. “I can still make it. He ate some soup and I just help him to the necessary, so he probably sleep till morning.”
Plaquette went into the dark apartment. No fancy lights for them. Ma had left the kerosene lamp on the kitchen table, turned down low. Plaquette could see through to Ma and Pa’s bed. Pa was tucked in tight, only his head showing above the covers. He was breathing heavy, not quite a snore. The shape of him underneath the coverlet looked so small. Had he shrunk, or was she growing?