‘Emil!’
The way she barked dried up any tears he had been threatening to cry. Emil looked plaintively up as the soldiers formed a ring around him. ‘I was trying to save us. All this time, and that’s all I’ve been trying to do. But he wouldn’t listen. They wouldn’t listen. They thought I was evil, and all because I wanted to play my Long War. They were going to bring us down. You see that, Cathy, don’t you? They were going to bring us down and Nina, she was going to take my boys.’
‘She took your boys anyway. The Emporium still came to an end.’
‘But I had to try. You see that. I had to …’
Behind Cathy, Martha reappeared, the remaining soldiers trailing behind.
‘Emil,’ she uttered, ‘what did you do?’
‘It was the night we laid Papa to rest. Nina said it had to change, that something had to be done. She was right, wasn’t she? Whatever else she was, she was right on this. We couldn’t go on … So I did the only thing I thought I could do.’ Emil pointed down. The soldiers had abandoned their watch on him now and, under the Imperial Kapitan’s instruction, were drilling another word. ‘Parley,’ he read. ‘I woke my brother in the night and begged him to come to a parley.’
Midnight came too quickly on the night that Kaspar Godman disappeared. As the clocks chimed, Emil prowled up and down the length of his workshop, repeating some petition beneath his breath. Later, the wooden eyes watching him from the skirting would look back and think: if only we’d understood, if only we’d had the capacity to anticipate, to plan. But those things came later, too late to save anyone that night, and instead the painted faces just watched him, wound each other up, and watched him again.
Nina was already in bed. She had taken the boys with her, meaning for Emil to sleep alone in his workshop – but, damn it, Emil didn’t care if he never went to bed with her again, just as long as his boys grew up like he did, making their battles up and down the Emporium halls, pouring their every dream, every ounce of imagination, into the toys that would one day populate the shelves.
He held one of his papa’s pinecone figurines between his fingers. Every time he touched it, memories breathed themselves back into being in the shadows around him. One moment he was in the Emporium; the next, he was back in that little hovel where he and Kaspar were born, and Kaspar was helping him clean the grazes on his knee. But the memories were too vivid, they played on him in ways he could not abide, and were it not for the thought of his papa being ashamed, he would have crushed the soldier between thumb and forefinger right then. Instead, he set it down. The clocks had finished tolling. It was time.
Besieged by too many memories, he took the long route to the shopfloor. By the time he made it to the paper trees, navigating around the blockaded aisles, he had already stopped twice, each time forcing himself to go on. But through the trees he could hear the whirr of a thousand motors turning. The parley had already begun.
He had taken only one step beneath the branches when he heard the footfall behind him. He knew it was Kaspar by his strange, stilted gait, and turned to meet him.
‘Little brother.’
‘Kaspar,’ Emil breathed, ‘thank you for this. Thank you.’
‘I’ve made no promises, remember.’
‘It’s for the best, you’ll see. What’s good for the Emporium, it’s good for us all. Good for Cathy, Kaspar, and good for Martha too. Don’t forget them …’
Kaspar raised a hand. ‘It isn’t me you have to convince.’
No, thought Emil, and tried not to bunch his fists, but I know how to convince them. ‘Shall we?’ he said. He would help his brother this last little way under the trees, take his arm or allow his arm to be taken. If this was the end, it was the least he could do.
Above them, the Wendy House seemed more derelict than ever. The slats nailed across its windows gave it the appearance of a blind man, scar tissue crowding its sockets. Emil paused before venturing in, allowing Kaspar to go first.
He counted to ten, then followed.
Inside, the floor was thronged with toy soldiers, every last one who once swarmed in the Emporium walls. Kaspar was already among them, and they spun around him in dizzying array. As Emil approached, they turned and formed ranks.
‘Are they all here?’
‘All but the Imperial Kapitan. None has seen him.’
‘Let us not worry about the Kapitan. Perhaps he’s wound down already, somewhere out there. Let us begin.’ Emil lifted his hands – but tonight he would not flinch. ‘I’ve come in peace,’ he said, and watched as the soldiers turned in circles, each winding its neighbour up.
In the middle of the army, Kaspar stood. ‘Tonight, he’s here as a friend. So let’s hear what he has to say.’
The soldiers bristled, but at least they obeyed. That was good, thought Emil. Their loyalty to Kaspar was the thing he had staked the future of the Emporium upon, the last chance he had for a life with his boys.
‘I know what you think of me,’ he began. His voice was trembling, but desperation made heroes of mortal men, and he fought it back down. ‘You think me a coward … and you’re right. But the war’s gone on too long. I concede it.’ He looked across the soldiers to address Kaspar alone. ‘I beat a retreat, Kaspar. The Long War is over. The triumph is yours. All I ask is that the Emporium goes on.’
Emil was not certain that the soldiers heard – or, if they heard, whether they had the capacity to understand. Perhaps theirs was the primitive intelligence of mice; perhaps they knew only fear. He tried not to startle as a troop of infantrymen made a sally for his shins – and was still holding his ground when a single gunshot popped in the middle of the army, bringing the infantry to a halt.
‘They’re listening,’ said Kaspar.
‘Well?’
‘It isn’t a parley unless you agree terms. So what are the terms … of your surrender?’
‘If we must share the Emporium, then we share it.’ Emil hardened himself. ‘I’m willing to give them the attics. The burrows in the cellars and the deep layer storerooms too. They can live there and do whatever it is soldiers do in peacetime, build their towns and cities and make toy children of their own. I won’t interfere with them, and they won’t interfere with us. It will be like night and day. Two states, inside the Emporium, and never the twain shall meet.’
There was uproar on the Wendy House floor. The soldiers swarmed around Kaspar, seeming to squabble for his attention. Others pirouetted and danced.
‘The Emporium is their mother country. You ought to know how fiercely a man can fight for his home. What guarantee do they have that you’ll stay true to your word? What guarantee that, the moment they’re safely tucked away, you don’t start making soldiers again – dumb, obedient ones who have to do your every command?’
The chaos stopped. Ranks re-formed. On either flank, the soldiers advanced, as if in a pincer with Emil at its head.
‘It is my Emporium, Kaspar. I must be allowed to make what toys I can.’
‘We have spoken of this, Emil.’
‘I don’t remember any conversation. All I remember is orders. Orders, ever since I was a little boy. Well, it’s my life too, Kaspar. And next winter, when the frost comes, these shelves are going to be full. The Emporium’s going to be alive. It’s what Papa would have wanted. It’s what I want.’
‘They came here tonight to reach an accommodation. What are you giving them, if you mean to just make more—’
Emil hung his head. ‘Don’t make me do this, Kaspar.’
‘You’re still a little boy with a puffed-up sense of his own importance. Haven’t you—’