The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman by Angela Carter Page B
Authors: Angela Carter
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pact with the Devil. The condition was this: the man delivered up his soul as soon as Satan had assassinated God. “Nothing simpler,” said Satan and put a revolver to his own temple.’
‘Do you cast Dr Hoffman as God or Satan?’
The Minister smiled.
‘As my parable suggests, the roles are interchangeable,’ he replied. ‘Come. Let us go.’
But, for myself, I was bewildered, for certain timbres in the young man’s voice had reawakened all my last night’s dream and, as if his voice had struck those mysterious notes which are supposed to shatter glass, a fine tracery of cracks had all at once appeared in the surface of my indifference. The young man fascinated me. As the Minister signed the check, I saw the curious ambassador had left behind him on the chair he had occupied a handkerchief of the same exquisite lace as the fabric of his shirt. I picked it up. Along the hem, stitched in a flourish of silk so white it was virtually invisible, was the name I had only seen before in my dream, the name: ALBERTINA. The hieratic chant of the black swan rang again in my ears; I swayed as if I were about to faint.
The Minister slipped the head waiter a fat tip and lit a fresh cigarette as he led me by the arm into the equivocal afternoon, where the sunlight was already thickening.
‘Desiderio,’ he said. ‘How would you like to go on a little trip?’
2 The Mansion of Midnight
The Minister was clutching at straws but he clutched ferociously.
That very morning, as I tested the Ambassador’s letter in another part of the Bureau of Determination, the Minister’s computers had startled him by registering a significant analogy. They posited certain correspondences between the activities of the proprietor of a certain peep-show who had operated his business upon the pier at the seaside resort of S. throughout the summer and now showed signs of quartering himself there for the winter. It seemed a small enough clue to me; hardly worth the importance the Minister placed on it – and hardly enough to justify my new promotion. Nevertheless, promoted I was; between lunch and teatime, I became the Minister’s special agent and my mission was, if I could find him, to assassinate Dr Hoffman as inconspicuously as possible.
I was chosen for the mission because: (a) I was in my right mind; (b) I was dispensable and (c) the Minister’s computers decided my skill at crossword puzzles suggested a facility in the processes of analogical thought which might lead me to the Doctor where everyone else had failed. I think the Minister himself thought of me as a kind of ambulant computer. Even so, in spite of the encouraging voice with which he wished me farewell, I guessed it was something of a forlorn hope.
The computers constructed me an identity sufficiently foolproof to take me past the checkpoints of the Determination Police, for I was the most secret of agents. I was to pose as an Inspector of Veracity, first class. At the town of S., some sixty miles further up the coast, I was to make a special report on the mysterious affair of the Mayor, who had disappeared some time before. The inscrutable business of bureaucracy went on, war or no war, and my bureaucratic credentials were impeccable. I was issued with a small car, a complement of petrol coupons and a pocket arsenal of revolvers, etc. I packed a bag with a notebook or two and a shirt. I took with me no souvenirs or objects of sentimental value because I had none. Even though I did not know when, if ever, I would see it again I did not bother to say good-bye to my arid room. I left the city the next morning; as I passed the Bureau of Determination, I saw a slogan had appeared on the wall. It read: DR HOFFMAN PISSES LIGHTNING. I drove off through a gigantic storm. It was still before breakfast time but the sky was so black that an unnatural darkness filled the streets which today, as if on purpose to speed my departure, had reverted to the forms I had always known,
‘Do you cast Dr Hoffman as God or Satan?’
The Minister smiled.
‘As my parable suggests, the roles are interchangeable,’ he replied. ‘Come. Let us go.’
But, for myself, I was bewildered, for certain timbres in the young man’s voice had reawakened all my last night’s dream and, as if his voice had struck those mysterious notes which are supposed to shatter glass, a fine tracery of cracks had all at once appeared in the surface of my indifference. The young man fascinated me. As the Minister signed the check, I saw the curious ambassador had left behind him on the chair he had occupied a handkerchief of the same exquisite lace as the fabric of his shirt. I picked it up. Along the hem, stitched in a flourish of silk so white it was virtually invisible, was the name I had only seen before in my dream, the name: ALBERTINA. The hieratic chant of the black swan rang again in my ears; I swayed as if I were about to faint.
The Minister slipped the head waiter a fat tip and lit a fresh cigarette as he led me by the arm into the equivocal afternoon, where the sunlight was already thickening.
‘Desiderio,’ he said. ‘How would you like to go on a little trip?’
2 The Mansion of Midnight
The Minister was clutching at straws but he clutched ferociously.
That very morning, as I tested the Ambassador’s letter in another part of the Bureau of Determination, the Minister’s computers had startled him by registering a significant analogy. They posited certain correspondences between the activities of the proprietor of a certain peep-show who had operated his business upon the pier at the seaside resort of S. throughout the summer and now showed signs of quartering himself there for the winter. It seemed a small enough clue to me; hardly worth the importance the Minister placed on it – and hardly enough to justify my new promotion. Nevertheless, promoted I was; between lunch and teatime, I became the Minister’s special agent and my mission was, if I could find him, to assassinate Dr Hoffman as inconspicuously as possible.
I was chosen for the mission because: (a) I was in my right mind; (b) I was dispensable and (c) the Minister’s computers decided my skill at crossword puzzles suggested a facility in the processes of analogical thought which might lead me to the Doctor where everyone else had failed. I think the Minister himself thought of me as a kind of ambulant computer. Even so, in spite of the encouraging voice with which he wished me farewell, I guessed it was something of a forlorn hope.
The computers constructed me an identity sufficiently foolproof to take me past the checkpoints of the Determination Police, for I was the most secret of agents. I was to pose as an Inspector of Veracity, first class. At the town of S., some sixty miles further up the coast, I was to make a special report on the mysterious affair of the Mayor, who had disappeared some time before. The inscrutable business of bureaucracy went on, war or no war, and my bureaucratic credentials were impeccable. I was issued with a small car, a complement of petrol coupons and a pocket arsenal of revolvers, etc. I packed a bag with a notebook or two and a shirt. I took with me no souvenirs or objects of sentimental value because I had none. Even though I did not know when, if ever, I would see it again I did not bother to say good-bye to my arid room. I left the city the next morning; as I passed the Bureau of Determination, I saw a slogan had appeared on the wall. It read: DR HOFFMAN PISSES LIGHTNING. I drove off through a gigantic storm. It was still before breakfast time but the sky was so black that an unnatural darkness filled the streets which today, as if on purpose to speed my departure, had reverted to the forms I had always known,
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