The Map of Time by Félix J. Palma Read Free Book Online

partially decapitated, sliced open, her intestines pulled out, and her womb removed. Andrew stammered that he was sorry, as shocked at the killer’s attention to detail as at having collided with him moments before the crime. Evidently that particular client had not been satisfied with the usual service. But Marie Kelly had other worries. According to her, Anne was the third prostitute to be murdered in Whitechapel in less than a month. Polly Nichols had been found dead with her throat slit in Bucks Road, opposite Essex pier, on August 31. And on the seventh of that same month, Martha Tabram had been found brutally stabbed to death with a penknife on the stairs of a rooming house. Marie Kelly laid the blame on the gang from Old Nichol Street, blackmailers who demanded a share of the whores” earnings.
    “Those bastards will stop at nothing to get us working for them,” she said between gritted teeth.
    This state of affairs disturbed Andrew, but it should have come as no surprise: after all, they were in Whitechapel—that putrid dung heap London had turned its back on, home to more than a thousand prostitutes living alongside German, Jewish, and French immigrants. Stabbings were a daily occurrence. Wiping away the tears that had finally flowed from her eyes, Marie Kelly sat head bowed in silence for a few moments as though in prayer, until, to Andrew’s surprise, she suddenly roused herself from her stupor, grasped his hand, and smiled lustfully at him.
    Life went on. Whatever else happened, life went on. Was that what she had meant by her gesture? After all, she, Marie Kelly, had not been murdered. She had to go on living, dragging her skirts through those foul-smelling streets in search of money to pay for a bed. Andrew gazed with pity at her hand lying in his, her dirty nails poking through her frayed mitten. He too felt the need to concentrate for a moment in order to change masks, like an actor who needs some time in his dressing room to concentrate in order to become a different character when he goes back on stage. After all, life went on for him, too. Time did not stop just because a whore had been murdered. And so he stroked her hand tenderly, ready to resume his plan. As though wiping condensation from a windowpane, he freed his young lover’s smile from its veil of sadness and, looking her in the eye for the first time, he said: “I have enough money to buy you for the whole night, but I don’t want any fakery in a cold backyard.” This startled Marie Kelly, and she tensed in her seat, but Andrew’s smile soon put her at ease.
    “I rent a room at Miller’s Court, but I don’t know if it’ll be good enough for the likes of you,” she remarked flirtatiously.
    “I’m sure you’ll make me like it,” Andrew ventured to say, delighted at the bantering tone their conversation had finally taken, as this was a register at which he excelled.
    “But first I’ll have to turn out my good-for-nothing husband,” she replied. “He doesn’t like me bringing work home.” This remark came as yet another shock to Andrew on this extraordinary night over which he clearly had no control. He tried not to let his disappointment show.
    “Still, I’m sure your money will make up his mind for him, Marie concluded, amused at his reaction.
    So it was that Andrew found paradise in the dismal little room where he was now sitting. That night, everything changed between them. When at last she lay naked, Andrew made love to her so respectfully, caressed her body with such tenderness that Marie Kelly could feel the hard shell she had carefully built to protect her soul begin to crack, that layer of ice preventing anything from seeping into her skin, keeping everything locked behind the door, out there where it could not hurt her. To her surprise, Andrew’s kisses marking her body like a pleasurable itch made her own caresses less and less mechanical, and she quickly discovered it was no longer a whore lying on the bed, but