فصل نوزدهم

19

ON THURSDAYS the village had a good market under umbrellas around the fountain and statue of Marshal Foch. There was a briny vinegar on the wind from the pickle merchant and the fish and shellfish on beds of seaweed brought the smell of the ocean.

A few radios played rival tunes. The organ grinder and his monkey released after breakfast from their frequent accommodation in the jail, ground out “Sous les Ponts de Paris” relentlessly until someone gave them a glass of wine and a piece of peanut brittle, respectively. The organ grinder drank all the wine at once and confiscated half the peanut brittle for himself, the monkey noting with his wise little eyes which pocket his master put the candy in. Two gendarmes gave the musician the usual futile admonitions and found the pastry stall.

Lady Murasaki’s objective was Legumes Bulot, the premier vegetable booth, to obtain fiddlehead ferns. Fiddleheads were a great favorite of the count, and they sold out early.

Hannibal trailed behind her carrying a basket. He paused to watch as a cheese merchant oiled a length of piano wire and used it to cut a great wheel of Grana. The merchant gave him a bite and asked him to recommend it to Madame.

Lady Murasaki did not see any fiddleheads on display and before she had the chance to ask, Bulot of the Vegetables brought a basket of the coiled ferns from under his counter. “Madame, these are so superlative I would not allow the sun to touch them. Awaiting your arrival, I covered them with this cloth, dampened not with water, but with actual garden dew.” Across the aisle from the greengrocer, Paul Momund sat in his bloody apron at a butcher-block table cleaning fowl, throwing the offal into a bucket, and dividing gizzards and livers between two bowls. The butcher was a big, beefy man with a tattoo on his forearm—a cherry with the legend Void la Mienne, où est la Tienne? The red of the cherry had faded paler than the blood on his hands. Paul the Butcher’s brother, more suited to dealing with the public, worked the counter under the banner of Momund’s Fine Meats.

Paul’s brother brought him a goose to draw. Paul had a drink from the bottle of marc beside him and wiped his face with his bloody hand, leaving blood and feathers on his cheeks.

“Take it easy, Paul,” his brother said. “We have a long day.”

“Why don’t you pluck the fucking thing? I think you’d rather pluck than fuck,” Paul the Butcher said, to his own intense amusement.

Hannibal was looking at a pig’s head in a display case when he heard Paul’s voice.

“Hey Japonnaise!”

And the voice of Bulot of the Vegetables: “Please, Monsieur! That is unacceptable.”

And Paul again: “Hey Japonnaise, tell me, is it true that your pussy runs crossways? With a little puff of straight hairs like an explosion?” Hannibal saw Paul then, his face smeared with blood and feathers, like the Blue-Eyed One, like the Blue-Eyed One gnawing a birdskin.

Paul turned to his brother now. “I’ll tell you, I had one in Marseilles one time that could take your whole—” The leg of lamb smashing into Paul’s face drove him over backward in a spill of bird intestines, Hannibal on top of him, the leg of lamb rising and slamming down until it slipped from Hannibal’s hand, the boy reaching behind him for the poultry knife on the table, not finding it, finding a handful of chicken innards and smashing them into Paul’s face, the butcher pounding at him with his great bloody hands. Paul’s brother kicked Hannibal in the back of the head, picked up a veal hammer from the counter, Lady Murasaki flying into the butcher stall, shoved away and then a cry “Kiai!” Lady Murasaki held a large butcher knife against the butcher’s brother’s throat, exactly where he would stick a pig, and she said, “Be perfectly still, Messieurs.” They froze for a long moment, the police whistles coming, Paul’s great hands around Hannibal’s throat and his brother’s eye twitching on the side where the steel touched his neck, Hannibal feeling, feeling on the tabletop behind him. The two gendarmes, slipping on the offal, pulled Paul the Butcher and Hannibal apart, a gendarme prying the boy off the butcher, lifting him off the ground and setting him on the other side of the booth.

Hannibal’s voice was rusty with disuse, but the butcher understood him. He said “Beast” very calmly. It sounded like taxonomy rather than insult.

The police station faced the square, a sergeant behind the counter.

The Commandant of Gendarmes was in civvies today, a rumpled tropical suit. He was about fifty and tired from the war. In his office he offered Lady Murasaki and Hannibal chairs and sat down himself. His desk was bare except for a Cinzano ashtray and a bottle of the stomach remedy Clanzoflat. He offered Lady Murasaki a cigarette. She declined.

The two gendarmes from the market knocked and came in. They stood against the wall, examining Lady Murasaki out of the sides of their eyes.

“Did anyone here strike at you or resist you?” the commandant asked the policemen.

“No, Commandant.”

He beckoned for the rest of their testimony.

The older gendarme consulted his notebook. “Bulot of the Vegetables stated that the butcher became deranged and was trying to get the knife, yelling that he would kill everyone, including all the nuns at the church.” The commandant rolled his eyes to the ceiling, searching for patience.

“The butcher was Vichy and is much hated as you probably know,” he said. “I will deal with him. I am sorry for the insult you suffered, Lady Murasaki. Young man, if you see this lady offended again I want you to come to me. Do you understand?” Hannibal nodded.

“I will not have anyone attacked in this village, unless I attack them myself.” The commandant rose and stood behind the boy. “Excuse us, Madame. Hannibal, come with me.” Lady Murasaki looked up at the policeman. He shook his head slightly.

The commandant led Hannibal to the back of the police station, where there were two cells, one occupied by a sleeping drunk, the other recently vacated by the organ grinder and his monkey, whose bowl of water remained on the floor.

“Stand in there.”

Hannibal stood in the middle of the cell. The commandant shut the cell door with a clang that made the drunk stir and mutter.

“Look at the floor. Do you see how the boards are stained and shrunken? They are pickled with tears. Try the door. Do it. You see it will not open from that side. Temper is a useful but dangerous gift. Use judgment and you will never occupy a cell like this. I never give but one pass. This is yours. But don’t do it again. Flog no one else with meat.” The commandant walked Lady Murasaki and Hannibal to their car. When Hannibal was inside, Lady Murasaki had a moment with the policeman.

“Commandant, I don’t want my husband to know. Dr. Rufin could tell you why.”

He nodded. “If the count learns of it at all and asks me, I will say it was a brawl among drunks and the boy happened to be in the middle. I’m sorry if the count is not well. In other ways he is the most fortunate of men.” It was possible that the count, in his working isolation at the chateau, might never have heard of the incident. But in the evening, as he smoked a cigar, the driver Serge returned from the village with the evening papers and drew him aside.

The Friday market was in Villiers, ten miles away. The count, grey and sleepless, climbed out of his car as Paul the Butcher was carrying the carcass of a lamb into his booth. The count’s cane caught Paul across the upper lip and the count flew at him, slashing with the cane.

“Piece of filth, you would insult my wife!!” Paul dropped the meat and shoved the count hard, the count’s thin frame flying back against a counter and the count came on again, slashing with his cane, and then he stopped, a look of surprise on his face. He raised his hands halfway to his waistcoat and fell facedown on the floor of the butcher’s stall.