Free The Clockwork Man by William Jablonsky Page B

accustomed to being in the presence of masterpieces, will appreciate me there.
    Later, after the younger children were put to bed, Fräulein Gruenwald instructed me to watch over them and intercept them before they went downstairs and disturbed the adults, who would by then be drinking and playing cards. When together, the Master’s extended family tends to talk bawdily about neighbors and absent relatives, telling stories inappropriate for children, all the while Frau Gruber insisting they will suffer in hell for it. Tonight’s topic was the Master’s second cousin Dieter, who recently emigrated to London to become an actor and likely preferred the company of men.
    I moved quietly (lest I cause a scene with Frau Gruber, who believed I was safely locked in the basement), answered several calls for water and warm milk, adjusted blankets, obtained several mugs of brandy-laced hot chocolate from Fräulein Gruenwald to help them sleep. The children—five in all, ranging in age from three to eight—jammed their fingers into the pockets of my jacket, flicked my monocle to the floor, and tugged at the ends of my mustache. It was all I could do to keep them from unraveling it completely.
    Once the hot chocolate began to take effect, five-year-old Kurt, the Master’s youngest nephew, demanded I read him a bedtime story. I told him I had several memorized, and asked him to choose one.
    “Pinocchio,” he said. (Though I might have wished it be another, considering certain rude and uninformed comments leveled at me in the past, I know the story well and was happy to oblige.)
    So while his sister Deirdre, aged three years, curled up on the bed next to him, I began to recite the story as I had read it. They seemed more interested in listening to me speak than hearing the actual story, and several times interrupted me to ask how I talked when I had no lips, how I had memorized the whole story, whether I ever needed to make use of the water closet. I answered each question in turn and then continued. As I recounted Pinnochio’s transformation into a donkey and subsequent conscription into the circus, Giselle entered quietly behind me, sat on the bed and held Deirdre’s hand, smiling as I told the story.
    Finally, when I was done, Kurt looked up at me thoughtfully. “Do you ever wish you were real?”
    I looked at Giselle, covering Deirdre with the blankets. (The child had fallen fast asleep in the middle of the story.) “No. Though sometimes I should like to be able to taste hot chocolate.”
    “Ernst
is
real,” she responded. “As real as you and me. Uncle Karl made him very well.”
    “Oh,” Kurt said. “Will you stay until we’re asleep?”
    “Of course we will,” I said.
    “Will you leave the lamp on?” Kurt asked, throwing off his little slippers and climbing under the covers.
    Giselle tucked him in tightly. “If I do that, you won’t be able to sleep. But Ernst can see in the dark. He won’t let anything happen to you.”
    “All right,” he said, and laid his head upon the pillow. It took him one minute, twenty-two seconds to go to sleep.
    Once they were both sound asleep Giselle and I left their room quietly. “You’re very good with children,” she said. “I wish you’dbeen around to read me to sleep when I was their age.”
    I remarked that I would have done so gladly, and she smiled.
    “I’m sorry Father sent you away. Grandmother actually believes you’re some sort of monster who’s going to harm me or Jakob.”
    “Never.”
    She laughed her light staccato laugh. “I know. And so does Jakob—that’s why he teases you so. I’d like to lock Grandmother in a small room with you so she can see just how gentle you are. Or die of a heart attack. Either would be fine.”
    I did not know whether she was joking. “That would be cruel.” She shrugged. “You’re right, I suppose. I could never do that to you.”
    “Thank you,” I said, in lieu of a better response.
    She sighed, rolled her eyes