The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart Page 0,26

cuckoo begins to sing. She jumps. Turning the key, I whisper:

‘I’m sorry. It’s my secret. I wanted to tell you about it sooner, but I was scared of frightening you for good.’

I explain to her that this clock has functioned as my heart since the day I was born. I don’t say anything about love – along with anger – being strictly off limits. She asks if my feelings would alter if the clock were changed, or whether this would simply be a mechanical operation. There’s something malicious in her voice; she seems to find it all rather amusing. I explain that my clockwork heart can’t function without emotions, but I don’t venture any further into that slippery terrain.

She smiles, as if I’m explaining the rules of a fabulous game. No cries of horror, no laughter. Until now, Arthur, Anna, Luna and Méliès are the only people who haven’t been shocked by my clockwork heart. I take it as an important love token, the way she seems to be saying: So you’ve got a cuckoo between your bones? AND? Simple, so simple . . .

But I mustn’t get too carried away. Perhaps it’s just that the clock looks less repulsive through her defective eyes.

‘That’s very handy. If you grow weary of love as all men do, I could try replacing your heart before you replace me with another woman.’

‘According to the clock in my heart, we kissed for the first time exactly thirty-seven minutes ago, so I think we’ve still got a bit of time ahead of us before we need to think about that sort of thing.’

Even when she’s telling me that she’s no pushover, there’s something gracious about the way she does it.

I accompany Miss Acacia on tiptoe back home, stealthy as a wolf. I embrace her like a wolf, and like a wolf I disappear into the night.

I’ve just kissed the girl with the voice of a nightingale and nothing will ever be the same again. My clock is pulsing like an impetuous volcano. But nothing hurts. Apart from a stitch in my side which is a small price to pay, though, for being drunk on such joy. Tonight, I’m going to climb to the moon and make myself comfortable in its crescent, as if I were slung in a hammock. And when I dream it won’t be because I’m asleep.

CHAPTER EIGHT

In which our hero solders his dreams to reality and finds the entry code to Miss Acacia’s heart

The next day, Brigitte Heim wakes me with her witch’s voice devoid of charm.

‘Get up, midget! Today you’d better start frightening people, or I’m kicking you out on no pay.’

First thing in the morning, her vinegary voice makes me feel sick. I’ve got a lover’s hangover; and waking up is a shock to the system.

Perhaps I got dreams and reality muddled up last night? Next time, will I still be able to feel that fizz of excitement? Just thinking about it makes my clock tingle. I know I’m blatantly disregarding Madeleine’s advice. I’ve never felt so happy, or so distraught.

I go to see Méliès to get my clock checked.

‘Your heart has never worked better, my boy,’ he reassures me. ‘If you could only see yourself in the mirror as you talked about what happened last night, you’d know from your eyes that your heart’s barometer is showing fair weather.’

All day long I drift about the Ghost Train, thinking about how I’ll play alchemist again this evening, transforming my dream into reality.

We only see each other at night. Miss Acacia’s proud coquettishness gives her away, because she always bumps into something. It’s her way of knocking on the door of the Ghost Train.

We love each other like two matches in the dark. We don’t talk, we just catch fire instead. Our kisses are an inferno as an earthquake registers across my entire body, all one metre sixty-six and a half centimetres of it. My heart escapes its prison. It flies away through the arteries, settling in my head. My heart is in every muscle, all the way through to my fingertips. A savage sun, everywhere. It’s a romantic disease with reddish glints.

I can’t survive without her; the scent of her skin, the sound of her voice, the mannerisms that make her the strongest and most fragile girl in the world. Take her obsession with not wearing glasses, so she only gets to look at the world through the smokescreen of her damaged sight; perhaps it’s a form of self-protection? That