Neuchâtel, 1783

On the way from Vienna to Paris with his family Wolfgang von Kempelen stopped in Neuchâtel, where on 11 March 1783, at the inn on the marketplace, he presented his legendary chess machine, an android in Turkish robes that could play chess. The Swiss did not give Kempelen and his Turk a warm welcome. The automaton-makers of the principality of Neuchâtel, after all, were considered the best in the world, and now along came an imperial civil servant from the Hungarian provinces – a man who built clockwork devices just as a hobby, not for a living – and who had successfully taught his automaton to think. An intelligent machine. An apparatus consisting of springs, cogwheels, cables and cylinders that had beaten almost all its human opponents at the Game of Kings. Compared to Kempelen’s extraordinary chess machine, the Neuchâtel automata were merely outsize clockwork toys, a frivolous amusement for noblemen with more money than was good for them.

In spite of local resentment, however, the chess-playing automaton’s performance was sold out. Those who could not get seats had to watch standing behind the rows of chairs. The people of Neuchâtel wanted to see how this miracle of technology worked; secretly, they were hoping that Kempelen was a fraud and under their expert scrutiny the most brilliant invention of the century would turn out to be an ordinary conjuring trick. But Kempelen frustrated their hopes: when, with a confident smile, he showed them the internal arrangements of the device at the beginning of the performance, all that could be seen was its mechanism, and when that mechanism was wound up and the Turk began playing chess, it did so with the unmistakable movements of a machine. The Neuchâtel patriots had to acknowledge that Kempelen was nothing short of a genius in the field of mechanics.

The Turk defeated its first two opponents, the Mayor and the President of the Neuchatel Chess Club, in a humiliatingly short space of time. Then Kempelen asked for a volunteer to play the third and last game of the day. A few minutes passed before anyone finally offered. Kempelen and the audience looked around for the volunteer, but he could be seen only when he emerged along the path cleared for him as the spectators moved aside – for the man was so small that he came only just above waist-level of the others present. Wolfgang von Kempelen took a step back and put one hand on the chess cabinet for support. The sight of the dwarf had visibly shaken him, and he went as pale as if he had seen a ghost.

Gottfried Neumann – for such was the dwarf’s name – was a watchmaker himself, and had come to Neuchatel from neighbouring La Chaux-de-Fonds especially to see the Mechanical Turk play. The dwarf’s hair was black with a few strands of silver-grey, tied back in a Prussian queue at the nape of his neck, and his eyes were chestnut brown, like the eyes of the chess-playing Turk. His expression was severe. His forehead seemed naturally furrowed, and the dark brows above his eyes might have been frowning since his birth. He was about the height of a six-year-old boy, but clearly stronger. It was as if too much body had been fitted into too little skin. He wore a close-fitting dark-green coat tailored to his special measurements, and had a silk cravat around his neck.

A murmur filled the hall as Neumann approached Kempelen. None of the audience had ever seen Neumann play chess. The president of the chess club asked for other volunteers, men known to be good chess players, hoping that the automaton might yet be forced into a draw, but he was hissed down: yes, the Turk had proved itself unbeatable, but at least a match between a machine and a dwarf would be well worth watching.

Kempelen did not pull out the chair for the little watchmaker as he had for his two predecessors. Like them, Neumann sat at a separate table with a separate chessboard, leaving the audience a clear view of the Turk. Kempelen waited until the dwarf was seated, then cleared his throat and asked the audience to be quiet and pay attention. Meanwhile, Neumann was looking at the chessboard and the sixteen red chessmen in front of him as if he had never seen their like before. His shoulders were hunched; he was sitting on his hands like a child.

Kempelen’s assistant wound up the chess automaton with a crank, and the clockwork began to move, creaking. The Turk raised its head, moved its left arm over the chessboard and with three fingers placed a pawn in the middle of the board – the opening that it had used in the other two games. The assistant copied the move on Neumann’s chessboard, but the dwarf did not react. He didn’t even look up. He just examined every one of his chessmen like old friends whom he had long thought dead. The audience began to shift restlessly.

Wolfgang von Kempelen was about to speak when Neumann finally bestirred himself. He moved his king’s pawn two squares forward, challenging the Turk’s white pawn.

Venice, 1769

On an anonymous November day in the year 1769 Tibor Scardanelli had woken up in a windowless prison cell, with encrusted blood on his swollen face and a splitting headache. He groped in vain for a jug of water in the dim light. The reek of alcohol on his ragged clothes turned his stomach. He dropped back on the straw mattress and leaned against the cold lead of the wall. Certain experiences in his life were obviously bound to recur – he was destined to be cheated, robbed, beaten, arrested and left to starve.

On the previous evening the dwarf had been playing chess for money in a tavern, and he spent his first winnings on brandy instead of a proper meal. So he was already drunk when the young merchant challenged him to play for a stake of two guilders. Tibor was winning the game easily, but when he bent to pick up a dropped coin the Venetian put his queen back on the board, although she had been taken long ago. Tibor protested, but the merchant wouldn’t give way – much to his companions’ amusement. Finally he offered the dwarf a draw, and took back his stake, amidst the laughter of the spectators. The alcohol had clouded Tibor’s reason. He seized the merchant’s hand as it clutched his money. In the ensuing scuffle he and the Venetian both fell to the floor. Tibor was getting the better of it until one of the merchant’s companions smashed the brandy jug over his head. Tibor did not lose consciousness, even when the Venetians took turns beating him up. After that they handed him over to the carabinieri, explaining that the dwarf had cheated them at play and then attacked and robbed them. Thereupon the carabinieri took him to the nearest prison, the leaden chambers of the piombi at the top of the Doge’s palace. Tibor’s assailants had left him neither what little money he had nor his chessboard, but at least his amulet of the Madonna was still around his neck. He clutched it with both hands and prayed to the Mother of God to get him out of this hole.

Before he had come to the end of his prayer the jailer opened his cell door and let a nobleman in. The man was about ten years older than Tibor, with an angular face and dark-brown hair receding at the temples. He was dressed à la mode, without aping the foppishness of the Venetians: a nut-brown frock-coat with lace-trimmed cuffs, breeches of the same colour tucked into tall riding boots, and a black cloak over these garments. On his head he wore a three-cornered hat, now wet with rain, and he had a rapier at his belt. He didn’t look like an Italian. Tibor remembered seeing him the night before among the guests in the tavern. The nobleman was carrying a jug of water and a crust of bread in one hand, and in the other a finely worked travelling chess set. The jailer brought him a candlestick and a stool, on which he seated himself. The man put the bread, water and his hat down beside Tibor’s mattress, and without a word he opened the chessboard out on the floor and began setting up the chessmen. When the jailer had left the cell again, closing the door behind him, Tibor could bear the silence no longer and spoke to the newcomer.

‘What do you want?’

‘You speak German? Good.’ He took a watch out of his waistcoat pocket, flipped it open, and placed it beside the chessboard. ‘I want to play a game against you. If you can defeat me within quarter of an hour, I’ll pay your fine and you’re a free man.’

‘Suppose I lose?’

‘If you lose,’ replied the man, when he had put the last chessman on the board, ‘I’d be disappointed… and you would have to forget you ever met me. But if I may offer you a piece of advice: make sure you win, because there’s no other way you’ll get out of this place. They’ve fitted a few more gratings here since the Chevalier Casanova’s time.’

With these words, the stranger picked up his knight and held it above the pawns. Looking at the board, Tibor noticed a gap in his own ranks. His red queen was missing. Tibor glanced up, and the nobleman anticipated his question. He patted his waistcoat pocket, where the queen was tucked away.

‘It would be too easy with the queen.’

‘But without a queen how am I supposed to… ?’

‘That’s up to you.’

Tibor made his first move. His opponent riposted at once. Tibor made five quick moves before he finally had time to turn his attention to the bread and water. The nobleman was playing an aggressive game. Intent on taking advantage of his superior numbers of chessmen to decimate Tibor’s ranks, he deployed a chain of pawns and moved into Tibor’s half of the board. But Tibor held his ground. His opponent’s pauses for thought grew longer.

‘Your thinking is costing me time,’ protested Tibor, when five minutes had passed by the watch.

‘You’ll just have to play faster.’

And Tibor did play faster: he leaped over the line of white pawns and drove the king into a corner. Five minutes later he could see that he was going to win. His opponent nodded, put his king aside, and sat back on his stool.

‘Giving up?’ asked Tibor.

‘I’m calling a halt. You know I can’t win now. So I can make better use of your last five minutes in captivity. Congratulations. You played well.’ He offered Tibor his hand. ‘I’m Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen, from Pressburg.’

‘Tibor Scardanelli, from Provesano.’

‘Pleased to meet you. Tibor, I want to make you an offer. I must go a little way back in time in my story here: I am in the service of Her Majesty Empress Maria Theresia of Austria and Hungary. She has entrusted a number of tasks to me since I took up my position as a civil servant attached to her court, and I’ve carried them all out to her complete satisfaction. But other good men could have done them equally successfully. I, however, want to do something out of the ordinary. Something that will raise me higher in her eyes… and may even make me immortal. Do you follow me?’

Wolfgang von Kempelen waited for Tibor’s nod, and then went on.

‘A few weeks ago the French physicist Pelletier showed off some of his experiments at court: he was playing around with magnetism – hocus-pocus, nails flying through the air, coins apparently moved over a piece of paper by an invisible hand, hair suddenly standing on end, that sort ofthing. Dr Mesmer’s already curing people with his knowledge of magnetism, and now along comes this French conjuror with his tricks, wasting my valuable time – and the Empress’s too. After the performance Maria Theresia asked me what I thought of Jean Pelletier, and I spoke my mind: I told her that science had already progressed much further, and I myself, even without studying at the Academie like Pelletier, could show her an experiment that would make his act look like mere mumbo-jumbo. That aroused her curiosity, of course. She took me at my word… and gave me leave of absence from all my duties for six months to prepare this experiment.’

‘What sort of experiment?’

‘I didn’t know myself at the time, but I’d already made up my mind to construct some extraordinary kind of machine. I must tell you that I’m not just a civil servant; I also have a good knowledge of mechanics. My original plan was to build the Empress a machine that could speak.’

‘But that can’t be done,’ Tibor instinctively protested.

The baron smiled and shook his head, as if many others before Tibor had already reacted in the same way. ‘Of course it can be done. I shall build the world a device that speaks as distinctly as a human being, and in every language too. But six months, as I realized, isn’t long enough for such a Herculean labour. There just isn’t time to get hold of all the materials and test them. And one doesn’t keep an empress waiting. So I’m going to build a different sort of machine.’ Kempelen took the red queen out of his waistcoat pocket and put her down with the other chessmen. ‘A chess machine.’

Kempelen stopped to relish Tibor’s inquiring expression, and then went on. ‘An automaton that plays chess. A thinking machine.’

‘It can’t be done.’

Kempelen laughed as he took a sheet of paper out of his waistcoat and unfolded it. ‘You said that before. And this time you’re right. No machine will ever be able to play chess. In theory, yes, it’s possible, but in practice…’

He handed Tibor the paper. It was the sketch of someone sitting at a table, or rather at a cabinet with several closed doors. Both the figure’s arms rested on the table-top, and a chessboard lay between them.

‘That’s what the automaton will look like,’ explained Kempelen. ‘And since it can’t function of its own accord, it needs a human brain.’

Tibor shuddered at the idea, and Kempelen laughed again. ‘Never fear, I’m not going to saw anyone’s skull open. What I mean is, someone will guide the automaton from inside.’ Kempelen placed one finger on the closed cabinet.

And now at last Tibor understood why the Hungarian baron had sought him out and followed him here, why he sounded so friendly, and why, above all, he was prepared to buy his freedom. Kempelen crossed his arms over his chest. Tibor was shaking his head long before he answered.

‘I won’t do it.’

Kempelen raised his hands in a conciliating gesture. ‘Take it easy, take it easy. We haven’t even discussed terms yet.’

‘What terms? It’s a fraud.’

‘It’s no more or less of a fraud than magnetizing a couple of pieces of iron and talking about “magical attraction”.’

‘Thou shalt not bear false witness.’

‘Thou shalt not play for money either, if you’re going to throw the Bible up at me.’

‘People will examine the machine and find out the deception.’

‘They’ll examine it, yes, but they won’t find anything. That’s my part of the business.’

Tibor was still unconvinced, but he could think of no more reasons.

‘Just one performance in front of the Empress,’ said Kempelen, ‘and then I’ll dismantle the machine again. Even great sensations have only a short lease of life these days. I want to impress Maria Theresia just once, and then my fortune’s made. She’ll back my other projects. And by the time I unveil my Speaking Machine, the chess automaton will be long forgotten.’

Tibor looked at the sketch of the android.

‘Listen to my offer: you’ll get generous wages, with good board and lodging until the performance. And then you’ll be playing chess in front of the Empress, perhaps even against her. Not many people can say that.’

‘It won’t work.’

‘And suppose it doesn’t, what do you have to fear? I may be censured, but you? You keep your wages and make yourself scarce. You can only gain by the deal.’

Tibor said nothing for a while, and then looked at the watch. Time had run out. ‘If I don’t do it… will you still pay for my freedom?’

‘Of course I will. I gave you my word. Just as I give you my word that our chess automaton will be an unprecedented success.’

Tibor carefully folded up the sketch and handed it back. ‘Thank you very much. But I don’t want any part in a fraud.’

Kempelen gazed into Tibor’s eyes until he looked away. Only then did he take the paper.

‘A pity,’ said Kempelen, and began packing the chessmen away. ‘You’re missing a unique opportunity to take part in a great venture.’

Wolfgang von Kempelen said a brief goodbye on the steps outside the Doge’s palace, giving Tibor the name of his inn, just in case. Tibor watched him as he walked over the Piazza San Marco and disappeared from sight. The Hungarian made it look as if Tibor had been only one of many candidates for this strange assignment.

It had started to rain again: a fine, cold, persistent November rain. Tibor went back down the deserted alleys to the tavern on the Rio San Canciano, where the landlord and his two barmaids were still busy clearing up. The landlord was not pleased to see the troublemaker back. He told Tibor that the merchant had taken Tibor’s stake and his chess set away as souvenirs. When Tibor asked for the Venetian’s name and address, the landlord sent him packing.

Outside the tavern, Tibor stood in the rain, undecided, until the two barmaids put their heads round the door. They’d tell Tibor the man’s name and address, said one of them, but in return they wanted a look at his prick, because yesterday evening they’d been wondering if it was really true that dwarves have bigger cocks than ordinary men. Tibor was left speechless, but he had no choice. Without his chess set, he was finished. He made sure they were alone, and then briefly exposed himself. The delighted barmaids giggled and gave Tibor the address.

Tibor spent the rest of the day keeping watch outside the Venetian’s palazzo. He was soon drenched by the rain, but the advantage of the weather was that the citizens – and most important of all, the carabinieri – hurried past and took no notice of him. With his hood over his head, he looked like a lost child.

Tibor had to possess his soul in patience until evening. Then the merchant came out of his house. He was wearing a black cape over a showy frock-coat, with a plumed hat to keep the rain off. Tibor followed him at a suitable distance. In spite of the rain, the Venetian’s sweet perfume was so strong that Tibor wouldn’t have lost track of him even blindfolded. When they had walked down several streets, Tibor caught up with him. The merchant was surprised to see the dwarf again, and put one hand to the hilt of his rapier to make sure it was at the ready. He did not stop, and Tibor had difficulty in keeping up.

‘Go away, you little monster.’

‘I want my stake and my chess set back.’

‘How you managed to get out of the piombi I don’t know, but I can make sure you go back there in no time at all.’

‘You should be shut up there! Give me my chess set!’

The merchant put a hand inside his cape and brought out Tibor’s set. ‘This one?’

Tibor lunged for it, but the Venetian held it out of reach. ‘I’m off to play a few games with my lady friend. We have our own chess sets, of course, one pewter, one very valuable with marble chessmen, but this one,’ and he shook Tibor’s shabby chess set so that the chessmen inside rattled, ‘this one will give the whole thing a rustic touch. More personal.’

‘I can’t live without my chess set!’

The merchant put the set away again. ‘All the better.’

Tibor tugged at the man’s cape. With one swift movement the Venetian had freed himself, drawn his sword, and held the blade to Tibor’s throat. ‘Any aesthete would be grateful to me for slitting your throat, so don’t give me an excuse.’

Tibor raised his hands in a placatory gesture. The Venetian pushed the sword back into its sheath and walked away, laughing.

By the time the Venetian left his mistress’s house just before morning to retrace his steps home, Tibor had spent eight hours imagining the two of them in the warm, surrounded by delicious food and wines and silken cushions, playing amateurish chess and then making love, laughing all the time at the thought of the inebriated, well-thrashed dwarf who now, in wet clothes and without a roof over his head, was longing to have his pathetic chessboard back. Tibor was prepared: he was ensconced in a narrow alley beside the canal on the Venetian’s way home, hidden among the construction materials on a building site. He had found a rope and tied one end to a basket full of bricks standing at the side of the canal.

When the merchant came along, Tibor stretched the rope. His enemy fell to the ground, and Tibor was on him at once, tying his hands behind his back. Tibor had never stolen anything in his life; he just wanted to recover his own property. He would even forego his stake. Once the merchant realized what was happening he shouted for help. One of Tibor’s hands closed over his mouth. With his other hand, the dwarf tugged the chess set out from under the man’s cape. But then the Venetian suddenly reared and threw Tibor off his back. The chess set dropped to the ground and fell open. The chessmen were scattered over the paving stones, and some of them fell into the water of the canal.

The Venetian was faster than Tibor. Since his arms were still pinioned, he gave Tibor a powerful kick. As the dwarf fell, his back hit the basket of bricks and sent it toppling over the edge into the canal. The rope stretched taut, hauling the merchant over the paving stones by his bonds. He screamed in horror as the weight of the bricks pulled him into the canal. Tibor, lying in his path, was dragged into the water with him.

No sooner was Tibor immersed than he started swimming, paddling vigorously like a dog. Underwater, a violent kick from the merchant connected with him. Tibor’s clothes, which had been soaked immediately, dragged him down. His head hit a wall, and he felt his way up it. Back on the surface, he spat out the filthy-tasting canal water and clung to a projecting ledge.

Only after he had taken a couple of breaths did he realize that the merchant had not come up with him – and that the bricks and the rope were anchoring the man to the bottom. Motionless, Tibor watched as the ripples and rising air bubbles subsided. A last set of bubbles burst on the surface, and then all was still, except for Tibor’s own gasping breath.

Tibor worked his way along the wall to the nearest ladder. As he moved along, he struck the drowned man’s head with his foot. The contact filled him with sheer horror, and he expected the dead body to grasp him and pull him down at any moment. In panic, he grabbed the rungs of the ladder and hauled himself out of the water.

When Tibor had solid ground under his feet again, he stared at the black waters of the canal. He thought he saw a rat swimming on the surface, but it was only one of his chessmen. The Venetian’s silly plumed hat was drifting past the opposite wall like a garishly coloured duck. Nothing else was left of him. Tibor rapidly retrieved some of his chessmen, but the set was incomplete. In his haste, he threw the whole game into the water, and realized too late that neither the board nor the pieces would sink. Then he ran for it.

The nearest church was San Giovanni Elemosinario, but its doors wouldn’t open. San Polo and San Stae were locked too. Tibor saw the rosy sky of dawn through the gap between two palazzi. He felt as if the sun were the eye of God, and he must hide from it at any price. He wasn’t going to face the light of day again until he had confessed his dreadful deed before an altar.

Finally the oak door of Santa Maria Gloriosa gave way, and Tibor breathed a sigh of relief when he was alone in the church. The smell of candle wax and incense calmed him. He dipped his fingers in some holy water and anointed his wet forehead. Then he went along the side aisle, straight to the altar of the Virgin Mary, for he couldn’t bear the sight of Jesus on the cross just now. The Saviour in his bonds reminded him too vividly of what the Venetian would now be looking like in the canal.

Tibor fell on his knees before the mourning Madonna, repented of his sin and prayed. Occasionally he glanced up, and from time to time it seemed to him that Mary was smiling a little more understandingly. Now that the tension was ebbing away from his body, Tibor began to freeze with cold. The chill crept up from the stone slabs into his wet clothes, and soon he was shaking all over. He wished himself in the warm arms of the Mother of God, where the naked baby Jesus now lay. But it was right that he should suffer: he had just killed a man.

Even in the war, Tibor had remained free of that sin. At the age of fourteen, when he had been chased away from his parents’ farm, his native village of Provesano and the Republic of Venice, because the neighbours made out that the little goblin was molesting village girls, he was picked up near Udine by a regiment of Austrian dragoons passing through. The soldiers were on their way north to take Silesia back from the thieving Prussians, and they recruited Tibor as boot-boy and lucky mascot.

So in the spring of 1759 Tibor found himself in the middle of the Seven Years War, which at this point had been raging for three years. The boot-boy accompanied his regiment to Silesia by way of Vienna and Prague, and the dragoons ascribed the defeat of the Prussian troops at Kunersdorf to his influence as a lucky charm. Tibor was present during the occupation of Berlin, and led a reasonably good life in the army camps and occupied cities. He learned German, had a little uniform made to fit his small body, was well fed, and sometimes joined the soldiers in their drinking sprees.

But luck deserted the Austrians in November 1760. At the battle of Torgau, Tibor’s regiment was wiped out by the Prussians. Although he had not been involved in the fighting, he took a musket-ball in his thigh, so he didn’t get far during the retreat by night. Mounted soldiers took him prisoner. Since the Prussian cuirassiers had lost more than half of their own men on the battlefield, they were bent on vengeance. The dwarf was an unusual item of loot, too good to be wasted in a quick execution. So the Prussians emptied a provisions barrel of the salt fish it had contained, stuffed Tibor inside it instead, nailed the lid back on the barrel and threw the unfortunate dwarf into the river Elbe.

Tibor was imprisoned there for two days and two nights. He couldn’t move, let alone free himself. The wound in his thigh had been only sketchily bandaged, and the icy waters of the Elbe seeped through a crack between the staves of the barrel. Tibor either had to caulk the leaky place or get it up above his head to keep from drowning. The barrel was both a prison and a lifeboat to him, for he couldn’t swim. At first the overpowering smell offish made him vomit, but two days later, starving, he was licking the salt from inside the staves. The exhausted dwarf shouted for help until his voice failed him. Then he remembered the medallion of the Virgin around his neck, and he sought salvation in prayer, promising Mother Mary never to touch a drop of drink again if she would free him from this floating dungeon. Six hours later he also promised her his virginity, and three hours later still he vowed to go into a monastery.

If he had waited one more hour, he would have been saved anyway, even without that oath, for by now the barrel had reached Wittenberg. It was here, of all places, that some ferrymen fished Tibor out of the Elbe and freed him, and here of all places, in Luther’s own city, he fell to the ground, covered it with kisses, and stammered Catholic prayers of gratitude – as if a salted dwarf stinking of fish and wearing a bloodstained dragoon’s uniform wasn’t a strange enough sight in itself.

Tibor was taken into custody, his wound was tended, and his evil-smelling uniform burned. He quickly recovered and equally quickly grew impatient: he had given the Virgin Mary his word, and he wanted to put his vow into practice as soon as possible. But he had to wait three months before he was released. Then, although the war was still in full swing, keeping Tibor a prisoner was costing the Prussians more than anything he could be worth to the Austrians.

A free man again, Tibor joined a group of travelling showmen on their way to Poland. That was the quickest way back to Roman Catholic soil.

When the sound of bells roused Tibor from his devotions, the stone beneath his knees was dark with canal water. A few morning church-goers had assembled in the pews and outside the confessional. Tibor lit a candle for the dead man, said a prayer for his soul and set off for Wolfgang von Kempelen’s inn.

But the Hungarian baron had already left. Even as Tibor was trying to quell his sense of panic, however, the porter added that Kempelen had been going to stop off to see a glass-blower on the island of Murano before travelling home.

Tibor crossed to Murano, and despite his disreputable appearance was taken to Signor Coppola’s study at once. A servant led him through the glass-works to a door on which he knocked three times. While the two of them waited for some signal from within, the servant looked Tibor up and down, or rather one of his eyes looked Tibor up and down, for the other was still staring fixedly at the door as if it had a life of its own. And as if that wasn’t enough, one of his eyes was brown and the other green. Tibor was toying with the idea of turning back when a voice inside the room told them to come in. Thereupon the squinting servant opened the door for Tibor.

Coppola’s study looked like an alchemist’s workshop, except that here the various jars, flasks and phials themselves, not their contents, were the objects of interest. Wolfgang von Kempelen was sitting at the only table left clear in the middle of the room, which had no windows in its walls, and opposite him was Coppola, a portly, chinless man wearing a leather apron. A flat box lay on the table between them. Kempelen did not seem particularly surprised to see Tibor again.

‘You’ve come at just the right moment,’ he greeted him. ‘Sit down.’

Coppola nodded towards a stool, which Tibor drew up beside Kempelen. The master glass-blower said nothing, nor did he seem much discomposed by Tibor’s unusual build. However, he looked once into his eyes so penetratingly that Tibor blinked and had to glance away.

With a wave of his hand, Kempelen requested the stout Venetian to carry on. Coppola turned the box towards Kempelen and Tibor with its clasp facing them, and ceremoniously opened it. Inside, embedded in small eye-sockets lined with red velvet, lay twelve eyes – six pairs – with all their pupils staring at Tibor. It was such a shock that Tibor visibly started and crossed himself. Kempelen broke out laughing, and Coppola hoarsely joined in.

‘Excellent!’ Kempelen praised the glass-blower in faultless Italian. ‘You could hardly ask for a better testimonial to your work.’

Drawing a fabric glove over his fingers, Coppola picked a deep-blue eye out of its velvet socket and placed it on a piece of cloth in front of Kempelen. Kempelen picked the eye up with rather less ceremony and turned it in his hand, so that the pupil kept peering out between his fingers. Then he put the eye back in the velvet lining beside its companion, but at such an angle that the lifeless pair of eyes now squinted horribly. Coppola handed Kempelen more eyes.

Tibor realized that they were made of glass, and were not preserved eyes taken from dead bodies, as he had initially supposed. That, however, didn’t make the sight of those six pairs of eyes much more tolerable.

When Kempelen had seen enough, he asked Tibor, ‘And which pair will be your eyes?’

‘My… ?’

‘For the automaton. Which would you choose for it?’

Tibor pointed to the squinting blue glass marbles. Coppola grunted approvingly, but Kempelen shook his head. ‘A blue-eyed Turk? The Empress would feel really cheated.’

Wolfgang von Kempelen was in a hurry to get back to Pressburg, and that suited Tibor very well. Some time or other a gondola was going to bump into the merchant’s body, and then people would start looking for the dwarf. Kempelen didn’t ask why Tibor had changed his mind so quickly. On the mainland, in Mestre, he bought him new clothes and they climbed into a barouche.

The next day Tibor had a bad attack of influenza. Kempelen provided medicine and blankets for the invalid, but did not interrupt their journey. Meanwhile, he negotiated the terms of their contract with Tibor. Kempelen was offering a weekly wage of five guilders, with free board and lodging, and an extra bonus of fifty guilders if the performance before the Empress was a success. Tibor was so overwhelmed by these figures that he never even dreamed of haggling.

Tibor had last held a steady job in the summer of the year 1761, in the Polish monastery of Obra, to which he had fled from Prussia. He worked as a gardener, learned to read and write, and daily thanked God the Father, the Saviour, and above all the Holy Mother of God for the safety of the monastery walls. He did not become a monk, but then he hadn’t actually promised the Virgin Mary to take vows.

In fact, Tibor’s time in the monastery lasted not for ever but only four years. A small group of novices indulged in playing chess, in defiance of the abbot’s ban on it, and Tibor was initiated into the Royal Game himself. One of the novices explained the rules to the dwarf, and from his first game on Tibor defeated all his opponents. It seemed incredible that he had never played chess before. Over the weeks he became a great attraction: more and more monks were admitted to the secret chess club, played against this newly discovered chess genius and lost to him. The dwarf enjoyed the admiration of the brothers, until one bad loser alerted the abbot to the gaming going on within his walls. A scapegoat was required, and the lot fell on Tibor. With one accord, all the novices swore that the dwarf had tempted them to play, and he had to leave Obra. He was paid his wages and given the chess set, for after all – or so the novices told the abbot – he had smuggled it into the monastery himself.

In the autumn of 1765, then, Tibor was on the road once more, and as it was a cold autumn, he decided to go south. It took him three more years to get back to the Venetian Republic. The chess set had cost him his job in the monastery, and now it was to earn him a living: he made money in the taverns along his way by winning his opponents’ stakes. Often he would play for payment in kind: a meal here, a bed for the night there, a seat in the mail-coach. He could undoubtedly have earned more in towns, but he avoided places of any size. It was bad enough to have a whole village gawping at him.

The small chess player was a sensation in the villages, but he was never popular, certainly not when he won the villagers’ money. Tibor sought comfort from their hostility in praying to the Madonna, and he took time off to visit every roadside shrine and every chapel along his way. But the remote Mother of God wasn’t always there for Tibor, so he found another and far more physical comfort: brandy. Since he spent most of the time when he wasn’t on the road in hostelries, strong liquor was readily available. One night, on the border of the Venetian Republic, the inebriated Tibor was beaten and robbed on the road by villagers from whom he had won over forty guilders the day before.

Now aged twenty-four, he returned to his native land in the summer of 1769 – on foot, in rags, a drunk. A few months later he left it again in Kempelen’s fine carriage, wearing good clothes, and with a purse full of coins.

Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen and Tibor Scardanelli reached their journey’s end on the afternoon of St Nicholas’s Day. Shortly before they came to the bridge over the Danube leading to Pressburg on the far side of the river, Kempelen had the carriage halted on a slight rise. Gentle snow was falling, but it melted as soon as it touched the ground.

When Tibor had urinated, he scrutinized the city. By comparison with Venice, Pressburg appeared almost boring: a neat, tidy place that had spilled beyond its original town walls, with the huts of fishermen and ferrymen in front of it, and vineyards stretching away behind. Only St Martin’s Cathedral with its green tower really caught the eye. To the left rose Castle Mount, with the bulky shape of the castle lying on it like a table turned upside-down, the four corner towers reaching into the grey sky being the legs.

The Danube rolled lethargically past Pressburg and on along its course, divided by an island in the middle of it. Kempelen came up beside Tibor and pointed to a pontoon bridge linking the two banks. ‘See that? A floating bridge. If ships want to get past, the two halves of the bridge come apart and join up again later.’

‘A floating bridge?’

‘Exactly. Extraordinary structure, don’t you agree? Now ask me who built the bridge.’

‘Who did build the bridge?’

‘Wolfgang von Kempelen. And a man who can build a floating bridge across the biggest river in Europe will surely be able to hide a dwarf in a piece of furniture.’ Kempelen knelt down beside Tibor and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Take a good look at the city, because you won’t be seeing much of it for the next few months.’

‘Why not?’

‘Simple. Because none of the people of Pressburg must ever set eyes on you.’

‘What?’

‘A man of your height who’s also a brilliant chess player is living in the Kempelen household, and a few months later Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen unveils a chess-playing machine… don’t you think someone might put two and two together?’

Tibor’s eyes lingered on St Martin’s Cathedral. He would very much have liked to see the Madonna there, just once.

‘I’m sorry, but those are my conditions. Don’t forget, I have far more to lose than you.’ Kempelen clapped Tibor encouragingly on the back. ‘But never fear, my house is a city in itself. You’ll lack for nothing there.’ Kempelen stood up again, brushed the soil off his knees, and went back to the carriage. He stood there like a footman, holding the door open for Tibor, and sketched a bow.

‘Now, your first rehearsal in keeping out of sight, please.’

Tibor clambered into the barouche, and a little later the two of them crossed the river over Kempelen’s pontoon bridge.

Pressburg, Donaugasse

Kempelen’s house lay just outside the city walls, not far from the Lorenz Gate, where Klemensgasse led into Donaugasse. It had three storeys, and unlike the neighbouring houses it had bars over not only its ground-floor windows but the windows on the first floor too. Darkness had already fallen, so no one saw the small, dwarfish figure climb out of the carriage and enter the house. As soon as they were in the front hall, Kempelen asked Tibor to go ahead up to the workshop on the top floor. Tibor climbed the dimly lit staircase, taking off the scarf, cap and heavy coat that Kempelen had bought him. Portraits and maps hung on the walls, and he saw the family emblem on the first-floor landing – a tree above a crown. Up on the top floor, Tibor opened the double doors leading into the baron’s workshop.

The room where Tibor was to spend almost every waking hour during the coming months was about eight paces long and six wide. The left-hand wall had three tall windows in it, and since the curtains were not drawn over them, a little light from the street lamps outside fell into the workshop. Two doors, one in the right-hand wall and one at the far end of the room, opened into other rooms beyond them. Countless books stood on oak shelves, most of them behind glass doors to protect them from the dust of the workshop. The tools of the joiner’s, metalworker’s and watchmaker’s trades lay on two tables and a workbench – T-squares, planes, hammers, drills, chisels, gravers, scissors, knives, clamps, rasps and, above all, files and pliers in every imaginable size, as well as other instruments that Tibor had never seen before, and finally magnifying glasses and mirrors which reflected the faint light from the street. Materials were stacked under the tables and along the walls: boards and battens, paint, wires, cables and cords, iron pins and nails, thin metal discs and many different kinds of textiles. Where the walls had no furniture against them, the French wallpaper was almost entirely covered by engravings and drawings. Most of these sketches were construction designs that Tibor didn’t understand, but in the twilight he could also make out several more representational drawings which reminded him of the sketch that Wolfgang von Kempelen had shown him in his prison cell in Venice.

But Tibor saw all this only out of the corner of his eye. What held him spellbound from the first was the object in the middle of the room, covered with a linen cloth and waiting for its maker’s return. The shapes outlined under the fabric told Tibor that it was the chess machine. He could make out a head and shoulders and the table-top for the chessboard in front of them. Tibor approached the automaton with care, as if approaching a corpse, and just as one might draw back a winding-sheet, Tibor lifted the linen.

The sight made him shudder. The chess player sitting on a stool behind the cabinet with his legs crossed – or perhaps her legs, for the sex of this artificial human being could not yet be determined – was no more than a mutilated skeleton. Its breast and back were open, revealing not ribs and muscles but battens and cables; its left arm ended just above the wrist, as if someone had chopped its hand off, and three cables stuck out of the stump. Most horrible of all, however, was the chess player’s face, or rather its head, because there was no face at all. There was the end of a tube where the mouth should have been and, instead of eyes, two strings ended in the eye sockets like useless optic nerves. The skull in the shadows behind the sockets was empty. Tibor was so spellbound by the sight of this wooden monstrosity that it was a long time before he remembered to cross himself.

Suddenly, the door that Tibor had closed behind him opened, and a man who wasn’t Kempelen came in with an oil lamp. Was Tibor supposed to hide from him? As his head hardly came above the top of the chess cabinet, the man didn’t see him. He was lighting all the oil lamps in the room, his back turned to Tibor. He was slender, his untidy dark-blond hair almost flopped into his eyes, he wore a pair of spectacles and had gloves with their finger-ends cut off on his hands. He was probably about Tibor’s own age. A floorboard creaked under Tibor’s weight. The man spun round and saw the dwarf. The sight startled him so much that he clutched at his heart with his free hand and swore.

For a moment the two of them scrutinized each other in silence, and then a smile spread over the face of the man looking at Tibor. He started roaring with laughter and seemed unable to stop.

‘Amazing,’ said the man, once he had pulled himself together. ‘You really are a… a small sensation.’ He laughed again at this joke, and went on laughing until Kempelen joined them.

‘Ah, so you two have met! Tibor, this is my assistant Jakob. Jakob, meet Tibor Scardanelli from Provesano.’ Reluctantly, Tibor took the proffered hand. The assistant shook it vigorously.

‘You’ll be spending a lot of time together,’ said Kempelen. ‘Jakob is helping me to design the chess player. He made the cabinet, now he’s going to build the Turk too.’

‘The Turk?’

‘Yes, first we planned our automaton as a young woman, a charming creature with porcelain skin and a silk dress, but then we changed our minds.’ Kempelen laid a hand on the unfinished android’s shoulder. ‘This will be no pretty mademoiselle but a fierce Mussulman. A Saracen, the terror of the Crusaders, murderer of Christian children, answerable only to himself and Allah. We want to scare our opponents a little. And after all, the game of chess comes from the Orient. So who should be master of it if not an Oriental?’

Jakob moved to take Tibor’s topcoat from him. ‘That’s enough talking. Let’s see how his brain fits into the skull.’

‘Not now, Jakob. We have a long journey behind us, and we don’t want to let our guest out of one box and force him straight into another. Take him to his room.’

Jakob led Tibor into a small room opening off a corridor behind the door on the right. It was furnished with the necessities, a bed, table, chair and washbasin, and there was a small window looking out on the inner courtyard, but even a man of normal height could have seen out of it only by standing on tiptoe. Kempelen’s assistant brought Tibor bedclothes and a chamberpot, and a little later Kempelen himself came in carrying a tray laid with Tibor’s supper: some brown bread and ham, hot tea and two glasses. As they drank, Kempelen told Tibor about the rest of the household.

‘My wife and child and three servants live in this house. I’ll soon introduce my wife to you, but you’re not likely to be seeing the domestic staff. My manservant gives me no cause for concern, but the maid and the cook are simple folk, and women at that. The fair sex isn’t exactly known for its discretion, so they mustn’t find out anything about you. They have instructions to enter my living quarters only by permission, and to keep out of the workshop entirely, so you won’t see them up here at all. If you want to take a bath or relieve yourself, you’ll have to do it at night. And if there’s anything you need, ask Jakob first. He has lodgings near the Castle, but when he’s working late he often sleeps in the workshop. I’m not afraid of spies; it’s the ordinary people of Pressburg, the peasants, the servants, the Slovaks – they all have the bad habit of curiosity, which is outdone only by their superstition.’ Kempelen sipped his tea. ‘I’m sorry to have to burden you with so many rules and regulations, but this is an ambitious project, and I can’t afford to let it fail. One careless mistake could ruin everything.’

Tibor nodded.

‘Are you happy with your room? Is there anything else you need?’

‘A crucifix.’

Kempelen smiled. ‘By all means.’ Then he rose to his feet. ‘Goodnight, Tibor. I look forward to working with you. I feel sure that our meeting will prove very advantageous to both of us.’

‘Yes. Goodnight, Signore Kempelen.’

In the morning light next day, Tibor had a chance to examine the automaton at length. The chess table, or rather cabinet, at which the android sat was four feet long, two and a half feet deep and three feet high. There were castors on its four feet. It had three doors in front: a single door on the left, a double door on the right. Below these doors a long drawer ran the entire length of the cabinet.