by John Boyne
“Me? No. Why do you ask?”
“Your central character is a musician, isn’t that right?”
“Aye. A fiddle player.”
“And you don’t play the fiddle?”
“No.”
He scratched his chin and considered this.
“Is that a problem?” I asked. “Would it be better if I did?”
“A little,” he replied. “There have been some people of late writing letters to the literary pages complaining of authors who do not share the same experiences with their characters.”
I considered this. “If they did,” I said, “would that not be an autobiography?”
“It would, yes, and their argument is entirely fallacious, of course. But it’s gaining some ground. Recently, another writer of my acquaintance was spat at in the street for writing about a Russian, when he himself is English.”
“I’ve never heard such nonsense,” I told him.
“And a lady novelist has been brought up on charges for employing a male narrator for her latest book. The shops have refused to stock it, such is the uproar.”
“But she has met men, I would assume,” I replied. “She knows what a man is?”
“Of course.”
“So she’s using her imagination, you might say, to create his voice.”
“Yes.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Well, take her out and stone her in the streets,” I said. “The woman must be insane!”
He smiled. “It’s ridiculous, I know. But the letter writers will get overheated about the smallest things. One can only imagine the levels of fury that go into every scratch of pen on paper as they’re composing their missives. Still, if it gives their life some purpose and keeps them out of the lunatic asylums, then it’s a boon for society. In the meantime, if anyone asks whether you are a musician, we can simply say that you embrace all forms of artistic expression.”
“So Sir Walter thinks that my book might be published?”
“Oh, my dear fellow, he’d like to publish it himself,” explained Mr. Zéla. “In a little magazine that he edits. In serial form, that is. Perhaps over twelve issues? He can offer a small fee, but due to your current”—he searched for an appropriate word—“circumstances, Sir Walter feels that it might make more sense for him to hold the money on your behalf and offer it to you upon your release. The public might not take kindly to a prisoner being in receipt of money they spend on their leisure magazines. And for that same reason, he thinks it would make sense for you to employ a pseudonym. So no one can trace your writing back to the Bridewell.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “I’m very grateful to Sir Walter for giving me this opportunity. And to you.”
“No need to thank me,” he said, brushing this aside. “I’m just the messenger, that’s all. But I can come back in a week’s time to collect the first rewritten installment, if that would give you enough time to complete it? Just the opening chapter about the narrator’s youth in Rome. Tell me, have you been to Italy?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Well, again, let’s not tell anyone that. They might accuse you of having an imagination, too. Until next week, then?”
“Next week,” I agreed, standing up to shake his hand.
AUSTRALIA
A.D. 1880
ON THE NIGHT BEFORE he was due to be executed, my neighbor and I stayed up late, talking quietly to each other through the walls. There was a melancholy to our conversation as we knew it would be the last time that we would have an opportunity to enjoy each other’s company. So we spoke of nostalgic matters, of our childhoods, our families and the women we had loved throughout our lives.
“Do you regret any of your deeds?” I asked him, and he considered this for a long time before answering. The prospect of a noose, I found, made a man contemplative.
“I’ll admit that there are some deaths that weigh more heavily on me than others,” he admitted. “Them coppers were only doing their jobs and I daresay they had mothers and sisters and wives who miss them. If they’d only let me alone to get on with things, then there wouldn’t have been any need for killing, would there? But they had to throw their noses in. Leave a man alone to get on with his business, that’s what I say.”
“There are those who would suggest that robbery is an immoral business,” I suggested, adding a hint of humor in my tone so he would not think I was being cruel.
“And maybe they’re right,” he conceded, laughing a little too. “But it gives a man purpose, don’t it, taking a thing that ain’t his own. It did me, anyway. There’s plenty have too much and there’s plenty don’t have enough. Share it out, that’s my view on it. Them judges, they don’t like killing, that’s what they always say, but they don’t seem to have any concerns about sentencing a man to death. That’s a thing that ain’t never made much sense to me. My way is honest, at least. Give a man a gun, give his opponent a gun, a few bullets in each to make things fair, and let’s see who’s still standing at the end of the conversation.”
“An eye for an eye,” I said. “Biblical, I suppose.”
“Or maybe it’s the numbers that count,” he replied. “I’ve got so much blood under my belt that my keks have turned from white to red. At least you’ve only got that one girl in Sydney on your conscience, am I right? And they’re not even killing you for that, are they? They just gave you ten years a-laggin’. What was her name again?”
“Betty,” I said. “My wife’s daughter.”
“I knew a Betty in Brisbane once. She had some tricks up her sleeve, I don’t mind telling you. But then she’d lived her younger years in Paris and they do things there that would make a man’s toes curl.”
“I take no pleasure in her death, though,” I insisted. “She had been through so much in her life and for it to end in such violence was undeserved. But I acted rashly. In a temper. Had I controlled my fury, Melbourne Jail would have had one less inmate right now.”
“Count yourself lucky that you’re not following me to heaven or hell tomorrow morning,” he told me. “I’m not afraid of death, but I’m no great fan of it either.”
“The truth is,” I admitted, “if they knew everything about my past, then I’d probably be going to the scaffold, too.”
“The truth?” he asked. “And what truth might that be, then?”
I wondered whether I should divulge some of my darker moments, but a man like him would sooner cut his own throat than dog on someone to the screws and, even if he had been the type to spill my secrets, he wasn’t long for this world anyway.
“Betty isn’t the only person I’ve killed,” I told him. “There were four others.”
“Four?” he repeated, surprised. “I wouldn’t have taken you for someone with a bloodthirsty streak.”
“I’m not,” I protested. “At least, I don’t think I am. The truth is, I’m not sure how I ended up with so many deaths on my conscience. The first was a boy who attacked my sister when she was young. I thumped him over the head with a statue of Minerva.”
“That’s the worst kind of crime,” he said, and I could hear him spitting his phlegm on the ground in disgust. “His, I mean, not yours. Only an animal would do something like that. He was better off being sent to hell. I never took a woman who didn’t want me, nor did any of my gang. If I’d heard of such devilment, I’d have shot the fella’s todger off.”
“Then there was a man who tried to marry my sister against her will. Abby had a hand in that one, too, though. She forced me to do it.”
“No one forces a man to kill,” he said calmly. “Don’t fool yourself on that, friend. If you did it, you did it.”
“Then there was my sister herself,” I added. “She caused me no end of trouble but I was angry and stuck a knife in her belly without thinking. If I could take that strike back, then I would. And then a gi
rl, an innocent girl whose death I facilitated. I don’t mind telling you, that crime weighs heavy on me. There’s a couple of others who would still be alive, too, were it not for my actions but who I did not personally kill. And finally, Betty. The irony is, the only person I ever wanted to kill—my cousin, Heath—is the only one that escaped my wrath. He took his own life in the end.”
“But you would have killed him, had you been given the chance?”
“Probably,” I said. “But I’m not so sure anymore. Maybe I would have let him live. Who can tell what might happen from the moment you strike out in anger? Something might have stopped me from shooting. The trouble is, my good angels have often been in conflict with my bad. And I’ve never been able to pull the two apart.”
“I don’t think there are many good angels in Melbourne,” he replied with a grunt. “Not so many as I’ve seen anyway.”
“At least I know that I will never kill again,” I said. “All that trouble is behind me now. There’ll be no more anger, no more acts of revenge in my life. For once, I feel relatively at peace. Or as much at peace as a man can be when he’s trapped within these stone walls.”
I stopped talking when I heard the sound of keys unlocking the cell next door. From the other side of the wall I heard Governor Castieau’s voice and as I stood up to look through the bars, I saw two officers standing on either side of him, along with a priest who was carrying a leather satchel.
“Ned Kelly,” he said to my neighbor, his chest puffing up with the solemnity of the moment. “It’s time.”
* * *
• • •
The inmates of Melbourne Jail stood proudly in the front of their cells as a mark of respect when Ned passed them by as he made his way along the upper corridor for the last time. He was permitted to bring a friend for company on this final march and he chose me, saying that he might as well have a friendly face nearby when the terrible moment arrived. I looked into the eyes of the men as we passed; some were openly weeping, these brave, strong souls, as they watched their hero passing into myth before their eyes. Some simply stared at him, as if they wanted to commit this moment to their memories, a story they could tell their grandchildren, if they were ever released from this godforsaken place. Others just watched him with curious expressions on their faces, as if they almost envied the fact that his pain would soon be over. One thing we all shared, however, was a belief that he was achieving immortality in this world when the rest of us, most likely, would be forgotten before the last breath left our bodies.
At the end of the corridor, we were taken into a small holding room where Chaplain Donaghy asked whether Ned had anything that he wanted to confess to the Lord before he began the journey to meet Him.
“I’ll wait outside,” I said, turning away, but Ned called out to me and asked me to stay.
“At a moment like this,” said the chaplain, “it would be best if you spoke to God without an audience.”
“And what are you, then?” he asked. “You invisible or something?”
“I’m nothing more than a conduit,” explained the priest, smiling as he opened his hands before him.
“A conduit who’ll sell my words to the Argus before my body’s even turned cold, I’d wager. No, anything I have to say to God, any man can listen to. I’ve no secrets. You know what I’ve done and I’ve never denied it. Stay, friend,” he added, looking across at me and, for the first time, I saw a certain vulnerability in his expression. He didn’t want to be alone with the chaplain or with God. The former didn’t interest him much and the latter, well, there’d be plenty of time for that before many more minutes had passed.
“Tell me this, are you sorry for your crimes?” asked the chaplain, and Kelly shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m sorry for those I hurt who didn’t deserve to be hurt. I ain’t sorry for stealing. I ain’t sorry for punishing those who laid hands on my mother. This all started with how they treated her and any man who says otherwise is a born liar. Actions have consequences, tell them I said that when you’re talking to them reporters, Chaplain, tell them that Ned Kelly said that actions have consequences and if you lock up an innocent woman who never did any harm to man, woman, or dog in her life just to try to catch hold of her son, then you’re lower than a snake in the grass and don’t act surprised if that same son comes knocking on your door late one night with the intention of putting a bullet in your head.”
“You may regret words like that when they come for you shortly,” replied the chaplain, who had grown red in the face now. He’d tried to counsel me on a number of occasions, too, but I’d never given him much quarter.
“Ain’t a man ever gone to his grave without a few regrets,” muttered Kelly.
The chaplain sighed and opened his prayer book; it was obvious that he was not going to convert Ned in his final hour. “Perhaps we could say a few prayers together, then?” he suggested. “Something to give you comfort?”
“Send one of those doxies standing outside on Russell Street in here to me and give me ten minutes alone with her. That’ll give me comfort enough.”
“Or I could read some verses from the Bible?” he continued, ignoring this last remark. “Something for you to think about as you prepare to meet your maker?”
“He’s the one for reading,” he said, nodding over at me. “He writes stories, did you know that, Priest? He even sent some to one of them famous writers. Who was it again?” he asked me.
“Marcus Clarke,” I told him.
“Marcus Clarke?” asked the priest, turning to me with a look of utter disgust on his face. “Why, that fellow is a ruffian of the worst order. Why would you communicate with such a degenerate?”
“He read some of his stories out loud to me,” continued Ned. “On account of me not being good with words, I mean. All about the men who got sent over on prison ships from England for crimes they didn’t commit and they end up seeing the worst of humanity in the way they’re treated when they arrive here in Australia. They weren’t too bad. He can put a yarn together when it suits him.”
“I can’t believe the guards permit you to write such appalling things,” said the priest, looking at me with an indignant expression on his face.
“Well, believe,” I said.
“I hope you’re not telling tales about prison life,” he continued, pointing a finger at me. “And saying that you’re treated worse than you really are, just to play the victim? Nothing good ever came from writing stories, I can tell you that.”
“Then what about that book you’re holding?” I asked, pointing toward the leather-bound volume in his hands that looked as if it must have cost a pretty penny.
“This is a Bible, you blasphemous cretin,” he said, his face now growing even redder than before. “This is the word of the Lord.”
“If you say so,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “He only had one book in him, though, didn’t he? Couldn’t write another?”
Ned burst out laughing but the chaplain simply closed his eyes and breathed heavily through his nose.
“Keep talking like that,” he said, “and I’ll make sure that not a single pencil or piece of paper reaches your cell again. I’ll stop your brother visiting altogether. You should be using your time in here in a more productive way, communing with Jesus Christ, our Savior. It’s not as if Marcus Clarke will ever write back to you.”
“Actually, he sent a friend of his to talk to me,” I told him. “Reckons he wants to publish one of my stories in this magazine of his.”
“Disgraceful,” the chaplain replied. “You’re in here to pay your debt to society, not to form even worse habits than before.”
He glanced up at the clock then and both Ned’s and my eyes followed. It was five minutes to ten. And, as if our very actions had willed it to happen, the doors opened at that precise moment and there was the governor once again, standing proud a
nd excited, like a fat man at a buffet.
“He’s made his peace with the Almighty?” he asked, nodding in Ned’s direction.
“As much as he’s ever going to,” replied the chaplain with a sigh. “I don’t think there’s much chance of the two meeting any time soon.”
“All right, then,” said the governor as the officers walked forward and lifted my friend from his seat, taking an arm each in their own. “Time to pay the piper.”
* * *
• • •
Ned remained thoughtful as we made our way along the final corridor to where the scaffold had been set up. It was a frightening thing to lay eyes on this instrument of death for the first time. A sisal rope had been slung across a steel girder that stretched from wall to wall and a well-tied noose hung from the end of it. We were standing on the first floor of the jail, removed now from the other prisoners, and a gate opened before us from where the condemned man could either jump or be pushed.
A half-dozen guards had gathered to watch, as well as a few reporters from different newspapers who’d been admitted to watch Australia’s most famous criminal breathe his last. They gave a cheer of encouragement when they saw the man who sold more papers than anyone else appear before them, probably wondering who they could use for stories once his neck had snapped. He turned in their direction, a frown on his face.
“What the hell you all cheering for?” he shouted, shaking his head and, even at this moment, when there was no chance that he could hurt them, they looked a little shame-faced.
The governor read out a legal document to state that Ned had received a fair trial and been convicted of numerous murders and that sentence had been passed by Sir Redmond Barry on the nineteenth of October in this, the year of our Lord 1880, in the city of Melbourne, in the state of Victoria, in the great commonwealth of Australia, and that this would now be carried out according to the demands of the law.
