Naked, on the Edge (11 page)

Surely he hasn't shoes to mend on Sunday, she thought. Perhaps cows' udders cannot wait, but a man's bare feet can.

They returned in the mid-afternoon, and the barn was still empty. "Perhaps he's gone to his own church," Danielle said to herself as she gathered her stool and buckets and settled down by the pear trees. "His own peculiar Bible, perhaps his own peculiar sect. No matter." She selected the first of the four cows and brought her down for the milking. The teats were slathered in feces, and she spent a good five minutes scrubbing off what she could. Shortly afterwards, Marie came out and took her by the sleeve. "Do you know what they've brought to Bicetre? Do you know what they have set up in the courtyard on the other side of the hospital?"

Danielle shook her head.

"Guess!"

"No, Marie."

"The Louisette! The beheading machine! It's been brought from the Cour du Commerce to us this very morning. Madame Duban told me just a moment ago that as she was crossing the courtyard the wagon came in, bearing the beams and blade. They mean to test it on sheep, and on the unclaimed corpses of prisoners and patients to see if it is ready."

Danielle let go of the soft teat and brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I should like to see it," she said. "The Assembly promised the poor should have the right to a quick death as do the wealthy. No more rack or garrote for those who are covered with an honest day's filth. How can we get to see it, Marie?"

"I don't know. Unless you'd like to go as one of the corpses. I could tell Madame Duban about your trysts with Alexandre and she would choke you for certain."

"Ah!" screeched Danielle gleefully, and she flicked milk from her fingers at her friend. "You are dreadful!"

When there was no more milk to be had from this cow, Danielle led her back to the paddock to get the last of the four who were producing. She hung the bucket on the fence post and kicked at the wall-eyed creature. "Come on, you little slut," she said. "I let you have your peace until last. And don't flare those nostrils at me."

"Danielle!"

Danielle whirled about. Alexandre was there, hands on his hips, a line of sweat on his forehead.

"Dearest!" said Danielle. "I'd come for you for mass, but you weren't there. Where have you been?"

"Shoes for Monsieur LeBeque," said Alexandre. "He's been after me these past days to come measure a new pair for himself and this morning insisted I take care of that business."

"Indeed? Shoes on Sunday? God will not approve, I can tell you that."

"Nor do I," said Alexandre. "Come with me to the barn. I must speak with you."

He glanced around anxiously, to the pear trees, the wall, the kitchen door up the path.

"I've got milking," said Danielle. "The cook makes a great deal of bread on Sunday afternoon to last the week, though we aren't supposed to labour on the Lord's Day. It cannot wait. But I'll come tonight as I've always—"

"Tonight I shall be gone."

"Gone? Beloved, no, you cannot . . ."

"And you with me, yes? Dearest Danielle, I could not leave without you, but we must be very careful."

"Why? What has happened?"

"Come to the barn. I won't speak of this in the daylight. There are eyes and ears we may not see, and which we do not want to know our business."

Danielle's heart kicked, and her arms tightened. What had happened? She didn't want to know, but she had to know. She latched the gate to the cows' paddock and followed Alexandre to the barn.

Huddled in the back stall, Alexandre took Danielle's hands in his. "I've made an enemy with Monsieur LeBeque. He is furious that I've spurned his advances."

"He wanted you?" Danielle's eyes widened. "I thought the man married."

Alexandre made an exasperated sound in his throat. "Married, to show the world his respectability. The man spouts words which he feels are acceptable to those whose status at this place is above him. But then I've seen him take patients from their cells to his own room, and have seen the fear in their eyes as he closes the door. He's pulled me aside and has tried to charm me with hideous quotes from writings of Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, thinking, perhaps, that I was as twisted a libertine as he fancies himself. This afternoon, as I sat in the laundry room nailing a sole back on to an officer's boot, LeBeque staggered in and said it was time to pay for my employment."

"Dear Lord!"

Alexandre put a finger to her lips. "Shh, my dear, don't fret. I said I would have nothing to do with a man who so cruelly and selfishly uses others. I pushed him away, and said I would be gone by tonight, and he could keep the pay which is owed me and shove it up his own blustery dung hole."

"You didn't? Sweet Mary! You're in trouble!"

"I think if I leave quickly, the man will soon forget about it. He's not bright, and he's got many around him who he can use much more easily."

Danielle wiped her eyes and dragged her fingers through her hair. "Yes, leave. I have little here that I need to take. I will get it right away and return before you can blink three times."

Alexandre closed his eyes, then opened them, and drew her to himself. "To have you, my only love, will make any journey a pleasure, any struggle a joy." He kissed her forehead, her ear, her cheeks. His breath on Danielle's lips made her body arch into his. Instinctively she shed her blouse and skirt and nestled into him and into the straw. "Love me quickly, dearest, most darling, for one last moment before we…”

The barn door was yanked open and the dusty room was filled suddenly with a swirl of dim afternoon light. Three men in breeches and crumpled jackets burst in, stopped short, and stared at the couple in the shadows.

"Ah, love amid the manure!" cooed one, his tone dark and ugly, his blue eyes frosty with contempt. "I remember it well when I was young."

Danielle snatched her blouse and held it before her. Alexandre jumped to his feet and grabbed the pitchfork that was leaning on the stall door.

"Get the hell out of here!" he shouted.

"Such an order from such a criminal!" laughed a second. He was a bald man with a greasy moustache and boils on his chin. "To make demands of us!"

"Criminal?" said Alexandre.

"Nearly killed LeBeque, knocked his skull and almost cracked it open," said Blue Eyes.

Danielle stared at her love, stunned. "Criminal?"

"You make a mistake," said Alexandre. "I pushed the man away, but I did not harm him in any way!"

"Pushed him away, and down against the fire grate," said the man with boils. "I found him dazed and bloody, wailing that the cobbler tried to murder him. Came up behind him and struck him what he'd hoped was a deadly blow! But you are not so lucky, my friend, and we've come for you."

The three men fell on Alexandre then, knocking the pitchfork across the stall, and in spite of his struggles, Alexandre was pinned with his arms back. Blue Eyes tied the hands with a rope. Alexandre tried to kick and knock the men off, but they wrenched the rope upward and his shoulders popped noisily. Alexandre paused in his struggling. His teeth were set against each other and his eyes wide with rage.

"Monsieur LeBeque is abed now," hissed the man with boils, "tended by one of the best surgeons at the hospital. But he made demand for you to be done with and out of his sight."

Danielle saw hope. "We are leaving," she said as she slipped into her sleeves and fumbled with the hooks. "Please, do you hear me? We will be away from Bicetre in but a minute, if you just let Alexandre go!"

"No, girl, we've other plans. Plans from Monsieur LeBeque himself. They have a few corpses from the hospital morgue, but the cobbler shall be the first live one to experience the Louisette, the first to feel the kind, cold bite."

"Dieu a la pitié!" screamed Danielle.

Alexandre began to writhe again. Danielle saw the world swaying violently, but she held tightly to the wall so she would not fall. "No, you cannot do that! He's not been tried, nor convicted!"

"Convicted enough," said Blue Eyes. "And he should be pleased! Why, this is the method of execution provided by the Assembly. This is the humane way of putting to death those who deserve it. No rack for him. No slow, piteous strangulation in the garrote! We are a civilized society now."

"Stop!" wailed Danielle. "Sweet mercy in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and all the saints!"

Suddenly Alexandre looked back over his shoulder at the black volume on the beam. Danielle thought he was going to ask for it, to carry it with him as a charm against harm. But he said, instead, "I remember. Oh, God. I remember now!"

The men struck out at Alexandre's heels to make him move, and tugged him from the barn. Danielle tugged on her skirt and stumbled after. "What do you remember, fool?" asked the man with the boils.

But Alexandre was addressing Danielle, as if he thought she would understand. "I remember the blade on my throat, the quick slash, the smiles of those sunburned faces. Ah, so very civilized, they said! We are indeed a humane society, they claimed!”

"Alexandre?" cried Danielle.

"He's mad with fear," laughed Blue Eyes. "He's soft in the mind now. Maybe we should just lock him up in the hospital? But no, we've got our instructions. We should gag him, though, to keep his tongue silent."

Alexandre looked at the sky, the grey and cloudy sky which was threatening an early April rain. His eyes reflected the grey, and his teeth were barred in anguish. "I remember now! Why again? Why again? Forgive me, and no more!"

"Madman!" laughed Blue Eyes.

The third man, who had said nothing up to this point, mumbled simply, "Shut your mouth," and he drove his fist into Alexandre's jaw. Alexandre doubled over, groaning and spitting. Then the man pulled a handkerchief from his front jacket pocket and gagged Alexandre tightly. Then the man with boils pointed a finger at Danielle. "Stay here, wench. We've no patience for your whining!"

They dragged Alexandre from the Little Farm and around the north side of the huge brick building. Danielle ran after, staying back so they would not see her.

They did not notice her as she scurried through the stone archway into one of the smaller courtyards within the confines of the hospital. No one spied her as she crouched behind a two-wheeled cart in the shadows and stared, horrified, at the tall contraption erected on the barren centre ground. The three men who held Alexandre drove him to his knees to watch the preliminary beheadings. First, a sheep was locked into the neck brace, and with a swift movement the blade was dropped from the top of the wooden tower and severed the head. It flopped into a basket. From windows in the upper stories of the hospital came whoops and shouts of the prisoners. Some banged and screamed.

"Better," said the man at the control to the small gathering of witnesses - finely dressed men in hats, ruffled shirts, and heeled, buckled shoes, standing with feet planted apart and hands clasped behind their backs. "The angle of the blade, you see, makes for a cleaner cut." Heads nodded. Genteel faces, concerned with the civility of it all, clearly pleased to be part of the advancement.

Two corpses were beheaded then. One a fat, naked man with wiry yellow hair, the other a muscular cadaver with only one foot. The already lifeless heads popped from the lifeless necks and, spewing not a drop of blood, dropped into the wicker basket.

"What have we here?" The man at the control turned to where Alexandre was held to the ground. "Who is that there? We're not using it for executions yet. We've got no papers for that man. The first is selected already, a Nicolas-Jacques Pelletier. As soon as the machine is perfected, he shall die."

Blue Eyes said simply, "Just one more test subject, sir. At the request of one of the officials here at Bicetre." He nodded towards a second-storey window, where the visage of LeBeque could be seen, his head wrapped in a bandage, his arms crossed furiously.

"We've got no papers," repeated the man at the control.

"Who's to care? Who’s to know?" asked Blue Eyes. "He's a dangerous maniac who's been housed at Bicetre for years. He nearly killed the official in the window there. He'd kill you or me were we to unbind him. Who's to know, but you, these witnesses and a few babbling idiots in the windows above."

The man looked at Alexandre, then at the blade which he'd just raised back into position.

"A live one will tell you more of what you need to know," said Blue Eyes. "And then he'll merely be a third corpse."

Alexandre tried to scream around the gag, but only garglings came out. Danielle put her hands over her ears, but could not take her gaze from the dreadful sights.

"Well," said the man, whirling his hand impatiently and pursing his lips as though he had his doubts, though the temptation of a live subject was too much to pass. "All right. Quick, then. This should be our final test."

And they made quick business of Alexandre Demanche. The man was bound at the ankles and placed with much huffing and grunting upon the wooden gurney. His head was slipped through the neck trough, and then secured when the wooden slat above was brought down and locked. Alexandre, still in his gag, strained to look around as the man in charge reached out to release the heavy blade.

He spied Danielle trembling in the shade behind the wagon. His expression screamed what he had spoken back in the barn, though the words did nothing but confuse the already terrified mind of his young lover.