The moon was red. It snuck out
from behind the curtains like a drunkard’s face, bloated with the promise of
dawn. Young Stoker got up from his bed and wandered over to the window, his
feet cold on the damp floorboards. He couldn’t see anything because it was dark
outside and he didn’t have eyes like mine, eyes that could pierce the blackest
of licorice. So he listened.
Can you hear it?
The sounds of the city bled
through the walls -- stray horses, slurred songs, women with rough voices,
constables on the beat and beating people and eating beats, as the situation
required. I can hear it, even though I wasn’t there then, even though I’m not
there now. You believe me, don’t you? Yes, you do. Because you can hear it,
too. You can hear the noises through your paper or screen, white page or
backlight. And you can’t escape them. Just as I can’t escape from this little
room with its thin bed and thin walls because they’ll find me if I do. Just as
they’ll find you.
But I digress.
Stoker opened the window with his
clumsy five-year-old’s hands and leaned out. Wind stirred his hair and mussed
the blankets he’d left tangled on the floor. Across the street, a row of tall,
thin buildings made of black brick rose like tombstones below the red moon. Stoker
could barely see lines of windows reflected in the night. No candles burning in
Mr. Tiller’s flat. None in the O’Connell house, either. The widow Kateman had a
candle burning in her window, but she was a strange one, prone to flights of
convention-breaking fancy. Next to the widow’s flat, on the left, was a wide
window. It started above the...
On second thought, I probably
shouldn’t give too much of a description. The place still stands, you know. It’s
in one of those huge, ugly nineteenth century buildings that they haven’t torn
down around central Dublin.
Start in the middle of the city,
dead center. Bring a flashlight, and something warm.
After you finish a cold pasta at
Pirelli’s, cross the street, turn left and go down the first alley you see. Keep
walking. If you see an old woman with yellow hair, tell her you’re sorry about
her mother, bite a coin and press it into her palm. Don’t shrink away when her
hand touches you. Pass a flight of stairs that isn’t there, two steps right,
another right, and stop. Look up. More. Does your neck hurt yet? Then keep
looking. More, more, more...
There. A huge, ugly nineteenth
century building, just like I told you. You should really learn to believe me. The
clockmaker’s shop was in there, a tiny flat that’d been converted into a family
business. Sorry, I won’t tell you what room number. I’ve already said too much.
I do, after all, want you to live long enough to help me.
