Retribution Road

by Antonin Varenne

  “The people who lived there left at the start of winter. There’s enough left for you to move in. We have to meet the other citizens of Reunion before we can decide what to do with you.”

  “What to do with me?”

  “We can’t make the decision without them.”

  Bowman got down from the carriage and watched as it moved away. The inside of the house was covered with dust but otherwise in order. A table and some chairs, three beds without mattresses, a brick chimney, and – next to the blackened hearth – a brick bread oven. Draughts blew through the planks of the cladding where the nails had come out. Bowman put his bag on the table and went out again. Behind the house, he found a pile of wood – shingles that had fallen from the roof – and gathered up an armful. Near an empty vegetable garden, he snapped off branches from a bush for kindling. He lit a fire and, when the shingles began to burn, he went out again. Using a rock, he nailed back the planks that were falling off. A bell was ringing. He saw men and women – some alone, some in pairs, some holding their children by the hand – come out of their houses and converge on the central building.

  The chimney did not draw well and the room filled with smoke. He took one of the beds apart and threw the bits of wood in the fireplace. The chimney stones began to heat up and the fire burned more easily. He sat on a chair and uncorked the bourbon.

  Brewster knocked on the door one hour later. The old herbalist was holding a lamp and a basket. Bowman brought another chair close to the fire and offered him the bottle. Brewster politely refused.

  “I brought you some food.”

  The old man rubbed his eyes as he sat near the flames.

  “Mr Bowman, your arrival was the subject of a lively discussion. The citizens of Reunion would like to know how long you will be staying.”

  “No idea. One day. I might even leave tomorrow. All I have is a few questions. I don’t expect to find much here.”

  “The others do not wish to speak with you, but you can rely on Alexandra and myself.”

  With the toe of his boot, Bowman pushed another plank onto the fire.

  “Alexandra?”

  “Mrs Desmond.”

  “Does she live here with her husband?”

  “The Desmonds arrived from France with the first citizens of Reunion. Mr Desmond died three years ago, of malaria. Like many others. The winters are cold in Texas, but the summers are suffocatingly hot and the banks of the Trinity are infested with mosquitoes. We also suffered badly with a lack of food. Jerome Desmond was already in a weak state, and he didn’t survive the fever.”

  The old man paused.

  “How will you find the man you are looking for?”

  “Everything I know ends here. After this, I don’t know where I’ll go.”

  Brewster looked at the bits of bed burning in the hearth.

  “Every time I look at a fire, I think the same thing. That a person’s first memories are always of campfires when they were children, and that when they come towards the end of their lives, old people pull their chairs close to the fireplace so they can remember them.”

  The old man smiled, lost in his thoughts.

  “Do you know Charles Fourier, Mr Bowman?”

  “Who?”

  “He’s a French thinker, a philosopher. It is his books and his ideas that led us here, to found this town. What Newton called ‘universal gravitation’, the fundamental law of the universe, Fourier imagined as a human law, which he called ‘passionate attraction’. A force that rules over the relations between men. Our passions and our natures are finite, and a society is a combination of those natures; individuals too. By identifying and cultivating them, we can choose the life that will most truly fulfil us. Find the job that we love, find our lifetime companion. One condition for harmony and happiness is the avoidance of repetition. If a job no longer satisfies us, we must change jobs, and the same thing applies to our partners. Fourier called this the ‘butterfly passion’. A pretty expression, don’t you think?”

  Bowman wondered if there was a connection between this butterfly passion and the redheaded woman in her dressing gown at the hotel in Fort Worth.

  “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “Because I’ve been thinking about it since you told me about that murderer.”

  Bowman swallowed some bourbon. It was strong and it burned his throat.

  “What’s the connection?”

  “You say you’ve been searching for him for a long time. That you have made the same journey as him and that in England, you were mistaken for him. Passionate attraction, Mr Bowman. The connection that exists between you and him.”

  With the flames reflected in his glasses, Brewster reminded Bowman of Captain Reeves in his living room by the Thames.

  “What a load of bull. It doesn’t exist, this attraction. Anyway, you said it was a force for building towns.”

  “Harmonious cities, yes.”

  Bowman and Brewster watched the fire, perhaps playing with the idea of thrusting their hands into those embers, so full of memories.

  “You said there was another murder in London. As if this murderer had an attraction to horror, a passion that drove him to start again. You, his pursuer, perhaps you have a complementary passion?”

  The old man waited for the Englishman’s reaction, but Bowman did not reply.

  “The news that you bring, Mr Bowman, is that there will be no new world. Because, here, the freedom to become oneself is also available to monsters like your friend. And, faced with people like that, we are not sufficiently armed. That is a battle for men like you, and as long as you exist, we will remain mere utopias. You are an objection to our project.”

  The old man stood up, the light from the flickering flames deepening his wrinkles.

  “I understand why you are reluctant to tell your story. I have seen that fear in your eyes, Mr Bowman. The fear of being thought a monster. But you should not be afraid. No-one knows what you will become here, what sort of free man you will be.”

  Brewster opened the door. An icy gust of air blew through the room and flattened the flames in the fireplace.

  “We will help you tomorrow. But please, once we have answered your questions, you must leave.”

  Bowman watched the wood being consumed as he sipped at his bottle. Then he took apart the other beds in this abandoned house until there was nothing left to burn.

  5

  “He doesn’t feel well. His journey to St Louis tired him out.”

  She took a step back on the porch.

  “He asked me to take his place.”

  Bowman had not slept. His face was gaunt and drawn, his eyes sunken. He put on his cap and went outside without a coat. Reunion, under a blue sky, still had the same desperate appearance: a ghost town, an abandoned dream. The men and women who passed in the street had skin the same colour as the earth and the houses, grey figures with pale faces; even the children, who had lost the desire to play, and dragged their feet as they walked behind their parents between deserted shacks. Brewster and his dreams of the perfect city had made an impression on him, the previous night, by the fire. In the cold light of day, the gap between his theories and the reality just seemed laughable. Bowman had seen villages in Africa filled with half-naked negroes that seemed more desirable than this place.

  The woman stopped outside a house with closed shutters.

  “This is where Richard lived. And where we found him.”

  Bowman looked at her.

  “What accent do you have?”

  “If you wish to enter, please go ahead. I’ll wait here.”

  Bowman turned to face the house. It was one of the most solid and best-designed buildings in the town. With its log walls, it was the only one that would resist an attack for more than a few minutes. It was also the only place in all of America where Bowman knew either Peavish or Penders had come.

  “Who found him?”

  “Someone who has since gone away. Back to France.”

>   “You speak good English. I don’t know any other languages. Except a few words I learned from the monkeys.”

  Alexandra Desmond looked at Arthur Bowman.

  “The monkeys?”

  “The natives in the Indian army.”

  Bowman stared at the door of Kramer’s house.

  “I’m going to take a look.”

  Though covered in dust, the inside was still fully furnished. Glasses, plates, kitchen utensils, a rug under the dining table, framed pictures on the walls of engravings of plants and city streets. On the table, a plate of dried fruit covered with a blanket of mould. There were two doors in the opposite wall, on either side of the fireplace. He opened the one on the right, entered a smaller room, opened a window, then pushed open the shutters. The bedroom. The bed was neatly made, the quilt and pillows grey with dust. There was a wardrobe full of clothes, a book on the bedside table. Everything he touched became marked with his fingerprints. There was another door in the bedroom. Bowman entered the third room – an office this time – and in the light from the window discovered a bookcase, filled with books of all shapes and sizes. He read a few titles on the spines. Scientific works: chemistry and mechanics, botany, agricultural handbooks. On the desk were papers, notebooks, letters, pens, and an inkwell, which Bowman touched with his finger. The bottom was dry and black. In the office, another door led back to the main room. The house had been constructed around the large fireplace.

  In the living room, Bowman opened the two windows overlooking the street and saw Alexandra Desmond on the other side, watching him. Her pale dress and red hair stood out against the black-painted doors of a barn behind her. They exchanged a look, then he turned around and moved towards the fireplace.

  Bits of rope hung from either side of the wooden lintel, attached to large roofing nails. Bowman crouched down by the hearth. The stones were black with soot and the floorboards burnt by flying embers.

  No.

  There were other stains on the stones. And the floor was dirty, as if a cooking pot that was warming over the fire had been knocked over. The blood had dried and blackened a long time ago. But there were still these traces of it, on the stones of the fireplace. Signs. Letters. Black on black. He deciphered the first few. S. U. R. V . . . Bowman stood up and looked again at the bits of rope on the lintel: for holding the arms outstretched.

  He came out of the house and bent double to vomit. Outside the black barn, the woman watched him. Bowman walked over to her, his legs like jelly, his vision blurred. He opened his mouth to ask where he could find some water, because he was so terribly thirsty, when his entire body prickled with pins and needles and his hands, dangling heavy at the ends of his arms, seemed to swell up. He couldn’t speak. The street grew wider as he crossed it. The woman took a step towards him, with her hair red as flames. He wanted to slide his fingers through it, to feel its heat. Dizziness overcame him and he lost his balance, rolling over in the dust.

  When he opened his eyes again, she was leaning over him. She had dragged him to the shade of the barn and leaned his back against the wall. His mouth was full. He spat. From his slack lips, a thread of saliva and blood trickled down over his jacket. Clumsily, he wiped it on his sleeve.

  “Can you hear me?”

  He couldn’t speak.

  “What happened to you?”

  Bowman managed to articulate:

  “Too much light.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Too much light. It hurts.”

  Bowman closed his eyes and let himself be swept away by another spell of dizziness.

  *

  Brewster made him drink a decoction of plants, a cloudy liquid, thick and bitter, that turned his stomach. Slowly, the tingling in his limbs faded and he came back to his senses. He was slumped on a chair. The redhead was there, with Brewster sitting on a chair next to her.

  “You should eat, Mr Bowman. You need to get your strength back. Mrs Desmond will take care of you. I’ll drop by later.”

  The old man waved to Alexandra and left. Outside, night was falling. Bowman’s travelling bag was on the dining table, along with his coat. A saucepan was warming on a stovetop, and a sickening smell of soup rose through the air. The windowpanes were covered with steam. She was busy in the kitchen, her back to him, and Bowman guessed that she was doing all this to avoid looking at him. His tongue was cut and swollen.

  “I’ve had these fits for a while.”

  “How long?”

  “Two years.”

  She put a plate on the table and looked at him with a mixture of mistrust and indifference.

  “I didn’t think you were so sensitive.”

  “Sensitive?”

  “There’s nothing left in Richard’s house.”

  “You don’t understand. It’s because I’ve already seen it.”

  She opened the drawer of the stove and the fire started purring.

  “Alfred explained it to me. That thing in London – I don’t believe a word of it. I don’t know who you are or why you have come to Reunion, but what happened to Richard has nothing to do with you. You’re lying. There’s something else.”

  It was growing hotter and hotter. Bowman could feel the sweat beading on his forehead. His head fell backwards against the headrest of the chair. Maybe it was Brewster’s plants, or that floating sensation – his body still weak after the fit – but he felt good.

  “You don’t understand. I’ve seen it dozens of times.”

  She turned around. Her eyes were the colour of those grey pearls that you found in the oysters of the Indian Ocean.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Over there, they didn’t do that to kill us, although half of my men died from it. And all the Burmese. They killed the Burmese more quickly, but they were all my men.”

  Bowman rolled the words around his mouth, like those little round stones that the soldiers used to suck during long marches to fight off thirst. She was sitting at the table, her hands on her thighs. Strands of hair fell over her frowning brow. She listened.

  “I was the toughest sergeant in a fleet of ten thousand men, maybe in all of the Indies. That’s what Wright said, and that’s why he chose me, so the Company would win the war against the Burmese king. It was a lie. Captain Reeves told me that. And a man who burns a village, with women and children, is a man you can believe. The river mission failed. We were taken prisoner, in a camp in the middle of the jungle. It took us days to walk there, getting further and further away from the coast, where the Company’s troops were stationed. There were twenty of us, including the monkeys. We walked to a village with houses on stilts, a little river, women in red clothes and children. Min’s soldiers evacuated the village and we were left alone with them and a few peasants who looked after the camp. For a year. First, they wanted to know what we were doing on the river, if we were spies, if other boats were going to arrive. After that, we had nothing else to tell them. We didn’t know anything, in any case. But they didn’t stop. By the end, there were only ten of us. The man who killed Kramer, he was in a cage next to mine. That’s where he learned it. By seeing what the guards did to the others and what they did to him. It’s true that there’s nothing left in Kramer’s house. Nothing at all. As if it was just a nightmare, all in my head, a hallucination. That’s the worst part. Because I have to remember it all – the forest, the cages and the sewer – to know that I’m not mad. I look at my scars to be sure they’re still there. And sometimes I don’t know what they are anymore. I wonder if they’re decorations, like the marks the negroes make in their skin to show that they’re warriors. Once, I thought they looked good, after Frank’s wife cleaned them in the hut. The man I’m looking for, it could have been the other way round. Like Brewster said. Passionate attraction and all that. It could have been me who killed Kramer, and a pastor sitting here, or the other sergeant, Penders, with his smile. We could do like you did with the young lad in Fort Worth, like butterflies of the night. Change roles when
we got bored of being the same person.”

  Bowman smiled, ecstatic.

  “Then we could make a perfect town together. Like this one. A ghost town in the dust.”

  He closed his eyes and a smile remained on his face. Before falling asleep, he had an image in his mind of the little opium den in China Court and the dreams he used to have there. Maybe there was opium in Brewster’s potion, or other plants that had the same effect. He had forgotten how good it felt to smile at the monsters in his memory.

  Alexandra Desmond approached the English soldier, who was still muttering and mumbling incoherently, pursuing his delirium in a world of dreams. She pulled back the blanket, unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it open.

  The next morning, she prepared a meal for two. Bowman, sitting opposite her, observed his surroundings with apprehension, unable to separate his dreams from what he had said and done. The woman’s attitude had changed. Her hostility had given way to a cautious attentiveness. Instead of ignoring him, she kept pacing around him. They ate in silence, then she pushed her plate away.

  “Richard Kramer was a friend. An intimate friend. But he was also a difficult man, who struggled to find his place in the community. Some people are more complicated than others when it comes to living together. If you’re feeling better, I can show you around town. What’s left of it. And explain it to you.”

  Bowman stood up when she did. Despite the sunshine, he put on his coat, feeling too weak to face the cool air. She walked next to him, following his rhythm, stopping whenever he needed to rest. She wore only a skirt and a blouse. Her hair hung loose. He could see freckles on her cheeks and nose.

  “The land was bought from France by Victor Considerant’s company. We all gave money and one of the company’s partners, here in America, took charge of the transaction while we prepared for our journey. Considerant had come here himself to negotiate for the land, but his emissary was conned by the representatives of the Texan government, who receive bonuses for every acre of land they sell and every immigrant they bring in. They keep the best land for themselves and their friends. When we arrived, the plots of land were not those we’d been promised and we discovered that the prices were far too high. The soil is like clay, unfit for cultivation, and the land is nearly three miles away from the river. Part of it was marshland, infested with insects. We did some drainage work, but nothing grew well, and the owners of the land along the Trinity refused to let us irrigate our fields or to sell us a few farmable hectares. We dug wells, but they didn’t give enough water. For three years, we had droughts and harsh winters. When the situation became difficult, conflicts arose between us, and with the company directors. Alfred was in St Louis to meet a lawyer; we are still trying to assert our rights for the land Considerant agreed to buy during his visit.”