The Great & Calamitous Tale of Johan Thoms by Ian Thornton - preview excerpt

7/27/2019 The Great & Calamitous Tale of Johan Thoms by Ian Thornton - preview excerpt

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The Great &Calamitous Tale of

Johan Thoms

How One Man

Scorched the Twentieth CenturyBut Didnt Mean To

Ian Thornton

Published by Simon & Schuster CanadaNew York London oronto Sydney New Delhi


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Simon & Schuster CanadaA Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.166 King Street East, Suite 300oronto, ON M5A 1J3

Tis book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places areused fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the authors imagi-nation, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirelycoincidental.

Copyright 2013 by Ian Tornton

Tought for a Sunshiny Morning, from HE PORABLE DOROHY PARKER by Doro-thy Parker, edited by Marion Meade, copyright 1928, renewed 1956 by Dorothy Parker;copyright 1973, 2006 by Te National Assoc. for the Advancement of Colored People. Used

by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any formwhatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Canada Subsidiary Rights Department,166 King Street East, Suite 300, oronto, Ontario M5A 1J3, Canada.

First Simon & Schuster Canada edition September 2013

SIMON & SCHUSER CANADA and colophon are registered trademarks of

Simon & Schuster, Inc.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & SchusterSpecial Sales at 1-800-268-3216 or [email protected].

Designed by Aline C. Pace

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN 978-1-4516-7848-2ISBN 978-1-4516-7850-5 (ebook)


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o Mum and Dad


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The Great &Calamitous Tale of

Johan Thoms


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Prologue

A Refracted Tale of Two Wordy

Old Gentlemen in a Blue Prism

A rural cricket match in buttercup time, seen and heard through the trees; it is

surely the loveliest scene in England and the most disarming sound. From the

ranks of the unseen dead forever passing along our country lanes, the English-

man falls out for a moment to look over the gate of the cricket field and smile.

J. M. Barrie

2009. Northern England

Isat with my grandfather Ernest in a very comfortable, spacious ward inthe hospital in Goole. Te doctors had said that he would not live formuch more than a week.

Goole is as Goole sounds, a dirty-gray inland port in Yorkshire not far

from Englands east coast. More than one hundred years earlier, Count Drac-

ula might well have grimaced as he passed through, en route from Whitby

to Carfax Abbey. Most foreigners (and some southerners) think it is spelled

Ghoul,especially after their first, and invariably only, visit. Tis is where Er-

nests final days were to be spent, though at least the hospital sat at the very

edge of town and his window faced the more pleasant countryside.

It had been a rapid decline for a man who, well into his nineties, on

the eleventh day of the previous November, had walked the three and

three-quarter miles to the train station before daybreak. He had traveledsouth on three trains of varying decrepitude and two rickety tubes to stand

by the Cenotaph on Whitehall with thousands of others. Many were be-


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2 IAN THORNTON

medaled, some wheelchaired, but each had a shared something behind the

eyes and a similar thought focused just above the horizon, as the high bells

of St. Stephens in Westminster struck eleven and the nation fell silent.Ten, with only tea accompanied by Bovriled and buttered crumpets from

the Wolseley on Piccadilly as fuel, he had made the return trip the same

day, pushing open, with untroubled lungs, his unlatched door way past

the time that saw most decent folks in bed. He had told me that it was the

only day he could ever remember when he had not conversed with a single

person. He had had his reasons.

Now he tugged at a length of clear plastic tubing, which disappeared

under sterile white tape and into the wattle of his forearm; an artificialtributary into the slowing yet still magnificent deep red tide within. He did

not appear to be uncomfortable. On the contrary, he exhibited a strong

and urgent desire to speak.

He gestured toward the clock above his bed with his right hand. In

the story I am about to tell, please bear in mind the possible minor defects

and chronological leaps in the memory of a dying man or two. Exaggera-

tion is naturally occurring in the DNA of the cadaver known as the tale.

Tis is important. He looked straight at me in the way that he alwayshad, in order to let me know that this part of the game was not to be taken

lightly.

I do not paraphrase, for my grandfather spoke this way from as far

back as I can recall. His deliberate and florid verbals had always trans-

formed the planning, execution, and completion of what for a young lad

might otherwise have been everyday chores, into marvelous adventures of

joyous nonsense. He turned tuneless whistles into lush arias effortlessly.

He had been my mentor and teacher, instructing me on how to hold

a fish knife, stun a billiard ball. He taught me the subtleties and implica-

tions of en passant on the chessboard. He knew whether to introduce the

team to the Queen or the Queen to the team. He taught me that the cor-

rect answer to How do you do? is indeed How do you do? Of his early

life, I vaguely recall references to his days as an emetic, vicious, ear-tugging

martinet of a schoolmaster; his inherited connections to and shares in the

Cunard shipping line, gained through an ancestors good fortune in a Capeown card game over ever-cheapening rum with bothersome (but luck-

ily pie-eyed and wobbly) pirates; his junior partnership with Sir Tomas


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THE GREAT & CALAMITOUS TALE OF JOHAN THOMS 3

Beecham,1 Englands greatest-ever conductor and founder of both the

Royal and the London Philharmonic orchestras; dinners with royalty, with

Niven and Korda, Gielgud and Fonteyn, Olivier and Churchill. I remem-ber framed monochrome photographs of him at that time, as a young man

in a Savile Row tuxedo, Jermyn Street cuff links, well-heeled Bond Street

shoes, a heavily starched shirt, and a head of black hair expertly topped off

with a light Brylcreem.

Tis did not seem to me to be the same person who, from the bound-

ary rope on summer afternoons of my boyhood, taught me the lengthy

names of Welsh railway stations, chuckled at cricketers being struck in the

groin or on the backside, and joyously read to me Kipling, Barrie, and TeCaptain Erasmus Adventurers Book for Boys, Daredevils and Young Kings.

And he was far from the man who lay before me now, though from the

neck up, at least, he appeared unchangedhis matinee idols widows peak

proudly silver, his eyes active and mischievous. Te sunken contours of the

bedsheets, however, suggested that much of the man I had known all my

life was already gone.

I suspected that it was right to remain silent. I thought it misplaced to

counter his statement about dying men, for we knew each other too well.He would indeed die, in this bed constructed for such purposes. He would

soon be not breathing. And cold. I knew I must simply listen.

I had always loved my grandfathers stories. At first, I believed them

absolutely. Later, I tried to distinguish between truth and fairy tale. I often

got this wrong. Of course, I had been spoon-fed cynicism from an early

age by Ernests wife, Betty, my dear late grandmother, who had told me

repeatedly, Lad! Never believe anything of what you hear, and only half

of what you see.

But of all the stories he ever told me, not one compared to the one he

now told me in the last hours of his life. I believed him then. I still believe

him.

It was during a stint as the mayor of Goole that Ernest, a very sprightlyeighty-eight, spent two weeks in the hills outside Sarajevo in the sublimely

warm and cloudless April of 2003, attempting to find a twin town for his


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4 IAN THORNTON

parish. Sarajevo had been chosen for personal reasons; Ernest had recently

read his fathers wartime diaries, in which the old city had featured heavily

and whose characters had enthralled him.Very early one Friday morning, Ernest stumbled across a shack in a vil-

lage destroyed by war, a hermitage surrounded by a sea of flowers, a prism

of blues, azures, cobalts, teals, and beryls. Of lilacs and violets.

Ernest recalled with absolute clarity the fine sapphire haze through

which he walked. Peeking through a grubby, splintered pane, he saw a

small, square room, with unsure blue light leaking in from another win-

dow on the opposite wall. An old man was moving slowly within, declaim-

ing loudly enough for Ernest to hear from outside.

I am the Resurrection.

And I am the Life . . .

Ernest tapped on the window. Te old man stopped moving and

turned slowly to him, seeming to beckon him in.

Ernest entered the shack hesitantly. Te door opened slowly and re-

quired the help of Ernests upper arm to overcome the resistance, thoughthere was neither lock nor latch. Tere were minimal signs of a womans

recent presence: a tray with two plates, cutlery and an empty goblet, a jug

of water, a vase of yellow roses. By them he saw an exquisite old man, with

a mournful, creased countenance and worldly-wise eyes that appeared a

youthful blue.

Welcome to my humble abode, the old man said in a superb English

accent. You might be in a position to help me. Te alignment of events is

quite remarkable, and I see now perhaps necessary. Are you fond of math-

ematics, my friend? Symmetry? Patterns? Te Laws of Physics? I suspect

you think I am a madman. I always proudly confess this to be true. For

what is the blasted point otherwise?

Ernest chuckled, and then chuckled again when he realized that the

old man was being totally serious.

And what about time travel? the old man continued. I think I may

be about to crack it. Johan Toms is the name, he said.Ernest moved cautiously across the worn boards into an area less

cramped by relics and reminders whose relevance he was soon to under-


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stand. Tis old mans collection appeared to him to encapsulate a life, and

to fill his nostrils with a poignant aroma, a scent of a moment in time.

He watched as the man edged forward, barefoot. Barely keeping hisbalance, he shuffled to a stop. Ernest continued to observe the solitarian.

Tese things you see here are my vortex, my portal, a wormhole in the

space-time continuum, my passage back in time.

Tey heard a noise in the corner of his shack.

Tat bastard thug of a rat is back to ruin my day!

He started to reach for a rusty old fork that lay on the stained side-

board beside him. But before he had managed any back lift with which to

propel the missile, the toothy rodent was gone.One of these old friends shall allow me to slip through, slip back. My

escape route.

Te old man waved at a handful of aged objects, nestled around him

in his makeshift hermitage; a trilogy of aged books, some sepia photo-

graphs, a wireless radio set, a crystal paperweight within which a bit of

paper seemed to float, a battered typewriter, several bound manuscripts,

an empty bottle of cologne, a remarkable open sea chest filled with yel-

lowed, crispy letters and powder-blue ones written in the same tidy femi-nine handwriting. If I concentrate hard enough at the right time, when

the stars are in the right constellation, he explained to Ernest, Im sure

Ill be transported back through history. Back to the time when the paper

was new, without words. o when the ink was royal blue, fresh and wet,

still on the nib hovering above the top left corner of the sheet and about to

leave its indelible and permanent message.

Johan picked up a handful of the blue sheets, inhaled deeply, a trace

of a smile on his lips, and then passed them to Ernest, keeping his eyes on

them. Some were addressed in identical fine calligraphy to Miss Blanche

de la Pea.

Johan continued. I shall now glide back to our belle poque. I shall

balance the books and save mankind. And thistime around I shall perhaps

allow myself the small luxury of being with her.I know where and when to

find her. Even if I did not, my pulse should be drawn to her conductivity.

Here he paused, closing his eyes and gathering his breath. Tistime I shallbathe in her. Tistime she will be my perpetual banquet of roasted delights

and also my scarlet Bacchus with which to wash her own self down. I swear


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6 IAN THORNTON

it. His diatribe gathered momentum and volume, reaching a crescendo.

As a youth, I shall keep one eye on the white June night when we shall

meet on the lawns of the Old Sultans Palace, but I shall glide there andnot burn my precious days en route. I shall bask in the knowledge of dev-

ilish, God-given treats ahead to be devoured over decades. She will feel a

vampiruscoming through time. She will demand it and recognize it when

it comes with uncomfortable, pleasurable consternation. Lorelei!

He paused, and tilted his head back to speak to a higher power.

Dionysus! Inform those spirits to clear the way, for my dry run is over,

and what sort of cretin does not learn by his mistakes, particularly ones of

the magnitude and the severity in which I infamously deal?I have attempted to cultivate the mythical and elusive Blue Rose of

Forgetfulness to erase my memory forever and to therefore discover the

ecstatic state of knowing no pain, but I have merely succeeded in shroud-

ing and blanketing the landscape around this hut in a mass of flowers of

varying hues of azure. Indeed, the shades of the flora only haunt me more,

reminding me of my pivotal summer almost ninety years ago. ime is so

short. I have to escape this scabby quod, this jail, this grimmest of prisons

which I call my mind, which is right now closing in on the remnants of myconsciousness and the shards of my sanity. If only I could find that portal

back. For the sake of all mankind.

I am the Resurrection

And I am the Life.

He repeated this until his deluded mantra was broken by his own

words.

I have afflicted every soul on this planet. Believers and infidels. Here-

tics and blasphemers. I defy you to find a life I have not changed or ended.

Te twentieth century was mine. Just the final Apocalypse to welcome in.

Should I have the politeness, should I display the etiquette to die first?

My grandfather Ernest did nothing all Easter weekend but sit in one of

Bosnias most dilapidated chairs, in an excuse of a dwelling, with another

old man. He did not budge except to urinate and to move his bowels.Uncharacteristically, Ernest hardly said a word himself. He just sat and

listened. It was one old gentlemans story to another; that of the host, a


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tale which covers a life of over one hundred years; the other not far off, and

therefore (as in many biographies and autobiographies) one where a day

may seem to last an age and where a decade may slip by within a sentenceor paragraph.

According to my grandfather, Johan claimed to have changedactu-

ally to have destroyedthe twentieth century.

Ernest had hoped to keep the story for a time when we would have an

adequate number of days together to record the magnum opus of Johan

Toms. Tere remained within him a discipline to do things correctly

and with due process, though this was marvelously mixed with a sense of

the romantic and the truly delicious. My grandfather, the ordered musi-cian, the headmaster, the recounter of fine and giant fables. ime, though,

would have her wicked way. And so it was my task, my solemn duty, not

only to hear the tale of Johan Toms, but to complete it. Ernest pleaded

with me, Glide gently, my dear boy. In buttercup times. Down country

lanes. Never forgetting to fall out from the ranks, look over that old gate,

and to smile.


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Part One

I should like to bury something precious in every place where Ivebeen happy and then, when Im old and ugly and miserable, I couldcome back and dig it up and remember.

Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited


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One

Around the Time

When Adolf Was a Glint inHis First Cousins Eye

Give and it shall be given to you. For whatever measure you deal out to others,

it will be dealt to you in return.

Luke 6:38

February 1894. Bosnia

Johan Toms (pronounced Yo-han omes) was born in Argona, a smalltown twenty-three miles south of Sarajevo, during the hellish depthsof winter 1894.

His family was not overly religious. Tey were, however, surrounded

in the village by enough Catholicism to expose Johan osmotically to the

curse of guilt.

Johan was an only child, and had been lucky to live through a worrying

labor. He was a breach birth, and arrived a month early, on the twelfth of

February. He had jaundice and coughed up blood. Te umbilical cord was

wrapped tight around his neck. Tick black curls crowned his large head.

Te cause of his parents worry was that another boy had been born to them

four years earlier in exactly the same manner. Hed shared the same charac-

teristics: the yellow skin, the breach, the cord, the blood, the hair. Carl hadnot survived. Drago and Elena feared a repeat. It was probably from this fear

that there developed an extra-special bond between parents and child.


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chiming, charming), or bright red socks; or, to complement a handlebar

mustache, he would loop around his sinewy neck a gold chain with a min-

iature comb attached. He christened the comb Jezebel and would runher through his hirsute top lip.

Drago had flat feet and a tendency to waffle on about absolutely noth-

ing for an age, often to complete strangers. But he had a huge heart. Te

whole town knew it, as he teased and trundled through his daily life with-

out setting their world on fire.

The Great & Calamitous Tale of Johan Thoms by Ian Thornton - preview excerpt

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