Retribution Road

by Antonin Varenne

  Bowman opened the saddlebags and spread out their contents on the ground. Cornflour, dried meat, a little flask of rum, black beans, three apples, coffee and some cooking utensils. He focused on inventorying these objects, aware that his survival no longer depended on food but on his will not to let himself die. He put the food aside. As well as clothes, a flint lighter, a purse containing about thirty dollars, ammunition for the rifle, a bar of soap, a razor, a pipe and some tobacco, he also found a book among Penders’ things – a large, leather-bound notebook – and a little tin box. He opened the box: inside were some pencils and a small penknife to sharpen them.

  The book was wrapped in paper, dirty where Penders’ hands had touched it. Bowman read the flyleaf. The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne. He thumbed through it, then put it down and looked at the notebook again. The name of a bookshop and its address in London were printed on the leather. He undid the strap that held it closed. There were only a few blank pages remaining; the others were covered in a tightly spaced handwriting, the letters more regular than Bowman’s clumsy scrawl. The pages were covered with paragraphs of varying lengths, sometimes preceded by a date, sometimes containing only a single sentence.

  He read the first page.

  London, 16 February, 1857

  Today, it took all my strength to keep standing.

  Bowman skimmed the other pages without reading the words, just looking at the lines of writing. He closed the notebook, put it on top of his clothes, and sat on a stone without taking his eyes off it.

  The powder horn.

  Bowman was no more. He now had a whole life before him, a life with a new identity. Bowman reached out to the journal, opened it again and found the last page. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, opened his eyes and read the final paragraph. The letters were bigger and the lines less straight. It had been written in a rush.

  Salt Lake City, 22 April, 1860

  Bowman was here at the same time as me. Never, in all these weeks, have I been so close to him. I will get back on the track to catch him up in the coming days or hours. The end of my journey is near. The end of his crimes, too, and perhaps of my nightmare.

  Bowman felt his stomach turn. He threw the notebook away as if he’d been holding a snake in his hands, uncorked the flask of rum and drank it down in one. Then he ran to the stream and lay down on the slab, his face against the stone, letting the water flow over his body.

  *

  Back on the road, he rode slowly for four hours in the hot sun, hatless, draining his two flasks without worrying about where he would next find water. In late afternoon, throat swollen and face burned, he caught up with a convoy that had stopped for the night and headed towards the carts without responding to the greetings of the pioneer families. He asked a young couple if he could buy water from their barrel. The man and the woman exchanged a nervous look before accepting. Bowman filled his flasks. The husband, a man of about twenty-five, smiled at Bowman while glancing back at his wife and the other pioneers who were watching them.

  “Where are you headed?”

  “Erik Penders.”

  “Sorry?”

  Bowman looked at him.

  “My name is Erik Penders.”

  He took some coins from his pocket and put them in the man’s hands.

  “Is that enough?”

  The young man saw the two one-dollar coins and lifted his head.

  “No, that’s far too much.”

  He tried to return the money, but Bowman refused and walked away. The woman called out to him: “Wait!”

  She gave a hat to her husband, who walked over to the Englishman and handed it to him. Bowman refused, and did the same again when the man tried once more to give him his money back.

  “It’s far too much. We can’t accept it.”

  Bowman finally took the old hat from him, then walked away from the camp, stopping a little further on. He poured the two flasks into the mare’s mouth, and on the white earth in front of the horse he laid out the bag of flour and the apples. Then he lay down on the rocks and opened the journal.

  London, 23 February, 1857

  I look at them and wonder how they do it. They get up, go to work, bring children into the world. The fathers who will go off to die in the war or the factories smile sweetly at their children, their future already set out before them from the slums to the grave, and they strive to believe that their descendants will have a better life. This is not confidence or hope, it’s madness. If I’m mad, then they are absolute lunatics and somewhere, in the boards of directors and the corridors of Parliament, other men are sniggering along with me.

  London, 11 March, 1857

  The gangs on the docks rob anyone who sleeps in the street. Last night I got into a fight with three children who tried to steal from me. I knocked two of them out and the other one ran away. They’ll come back in greater numbers. I have to move to a different part of London.

  The workers’ charities won’t let me in the dormitories anymore or give me any food. Too many problems with the other tramps, and my screaming wakes everyone up at night. A noisy madman. A pastor wanted to talk to me. He reminded me of Peavish, with his gentle voice while I wanted to rip his head off. I would have liked to make a confession, slide a knife over his belly until he denied his God and admitted that omnipotence exists on earth. I would have told him about Min’s soldiers and about Sergeant Bowman. But he would have refused to believe that they were men. He would have said they were agents of the Devil. My ghosts are not demons. They are men, and a priest in London should meet them once in his life before asking anyone to repent. He had no idea what he was talking about, that madman.

  Yesterday, I fell down in the street. My legs gave way and I collapsed.

  I went to see the Company’s boats in the port, the goods being unloaded and the soldiers disembarking. I shouted at them, asking how their trip had been, if they’d killed lots of people and how many of their comrades they had thrown overboard on the way home. I shouted until some soldiers fell on me and beat me up. But I saw at least three soldiers who were terrified by what I shouted. I’ll see those men again one of these days, sleeping on the same pavement as me.

  Bowman read until nightfall, then he closed the journal and looked over at the pioneers’ fires. He fell asleep without eating or drinking, next to the mare, who he hadn’t tied up.

  At dawn, Penders’ horse was still there, rummaging under stones in search of dry grass. Lying in the sun, Bowman watched as the convoy broke camp and passed him on the road.

  London, 18 May, 1857

  I’ve been working on the docks for three weeks. My muscles ached to begin with and I feel disgusted as I sense my body gaining strength again. This machine is relentless and has a life of its own. It demands food to stay alive. It demands health and couldn’t care less about the mind that lives inside it. Like the companies want to become rich and powerful. But I still manage to revolt. With the money I earn, I drink as much alcohol as I can, and when I’m drunk I take control again. I make my legs stumble and slam my shoulders against walls. I make my body fall down, my body that thinks it can stand straight without me. I also get it into fights. In the taverns, I always find someone to fight with, to help me tame my muscles’ arrogance.

  I wonder where the others are. What they’re doing. If any of them live here in London, and if we could talk. I wonder what I’d do if I met Bowman. In fact, he’s the one I think about. I’d like to know if he’s managing any better than I am. I don’t know if I’d want to see him again. Thinking that he’s still stronger than us – that’s something that hurts me. Because he deserves to be destroyed, but if a man like him can’t make it through, that means we have no chance.

  How many are dead already?

  Who still has the strength to keep going?

  Where is Sergeant Bowman?

  I have to leave this city.

  Portsmouth, 1 September, 1857

  What difference does it make?


  The streets are just as filthy. The docks stink just as bad. The faces are the same. Here too I work, I drink and I fight. But I like looking at the sea.

  There was a storm. A boat ran aground on the reefs and I went to the beach to walk amid the wreckage. Blue, swollen corpses rolled in the waves. I slept down there. Fifty tons of goods were lost and seventeen men from the crew were killed. It was strange to see corpses again. Among the living, you forget too quickly the importance of death. This association of the body and the mind is a problem. We learned that over there. You can’t abandon your body to the waves or to the hands of Burmese soldiers, you can’t separate yourself at will. Because if you do, you can’t put yourself back again.

  I want to escape my skin.

  It took me a while to remember their first names.

  Arthur

  Edmund

  John

  Peter

  Edward

  Christian

  I don’t remember the last three.

  Erik.

  London, 4 October, 1857

  I come out of the hospice tomorrow. The cuts on my legs have scarred over and I can walk. The doctor and the sisters think I’m getting better. I reassure them. I lie because I couldn’t make them understand that it’s normal for a man like me to want to die. There’s this barrier between us and it’s not just a religious thing. What they lack is experience.

  I listen to the noises of London outside and I’m almost happy to go back there after having to put up with the nauseating solicitude of these people. Malice is much safer than generosity, because its motives are less suspect.

  I can’t quite remember the exact reason why I wanted to do it. I think my reasoning was solid, but my hand was not precise enough, or else it betrayed me.

  I am very tired and dejected. Surprisingly, this deep melancholy seems to calm my dreams. I manage to sleep a few hours each day and I have fewer nightmares.

  The sun was high, the heat sweltering. Bowman put the journal away and strapped the saddle to the mare’s back. After a few miles at a walking pace, he dug his heels into the horse’s sides. Four hours later, they caught the convoy, which had stopped by a half-dry river. He passed the carts and stopped a little further on by the water.

  When he led the mare there, it drank only a few mouthfuls before sinking to the ground, breathing heavily. Bowman watched it curiously, lying there in its death throes. He drank some water and listened to the animal’s lungs roaring as if they were filled with gravel, then sat down next to it.

  “So you’re tired too?”

  Bowman turned around. The young man from the previous day, the one he had bought water from, was walking towards him. Hat in hand, with his thin moustache, he looked like a child. In his other hand he held a folded cloth.

  “Mr Penders? Are you well?”

  “What?”

  “Is everything alright?”

  Bowman did not reply. The man looked at the mare.

  “Your horse is dying, Mr Penders. She’s too weak to drink.”

  Bowman turned to face the mare.

  “Yeah, you’re right. She doesn’t look too good.”

  The pioneer put down the cloth and his hat, filled a flask in the river and slowly poured it into the mare’s drool-filled mouth. The animal drank it. The young man kept glancing up at Bowman, who sat on the ground, turning a stone in his hand.

  “You should bring her some food. She doesn’t have the strength to get up.”

  Bowman looked up.

  “What?”

  The young pioneer went over to the circle of carts and came back with a bucket. He reached inside and shoved handfuls of oats mixed with water into the horse’s mouth.

  The mare was breathing more easily now. She ate the whole bucket of oats and closed her eyes.

  “That’s a good horse you’ve got there, Mr Penders. She’ll be all right, but if you keep on like that you’ll lose her. My name is Jonathan Fitzpatrick.”

  The pioneer held out his hand to Bowman, who did not move.

  “Erik Penders.”

  “Yes, you told me yesterday, Mr Penders.”

  He put the cloth in front of him.

  “I brought you some porridge.”

  “You wouldn’t have anything to drink, would you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  He filled a flask with water and brought it to Bowman, who stared at it uncomprehendingly.

  “Whiskey?”

  “Sorry, Mr Penders, but I don’t drink alcohol. If you like, I could ask one of the others.”

  Bowman rummaged in his pockets, took out the purse and gave it to Fitzpatrick, who waved his hands in refusal.

  “With what you gave me yesterday, I have plenty already.”

  When he came back fifteen minutes later, Fitzpatrick put a jug in front of Bowman and placed the cloth back on top of the untouched porridge, which was beginning to attract ants. He helped the mare drink some more water.

  “Your horse needs to rest. And you should eat something too, Mr Penders. If you need anything, we’re just over there.”

  When he had walked away, Bowman opened the saddlebag that was tied to the prostrate horse, then lay down with his head on the animal’s belly. Listening to its irregular breathing, he started to read again.

  London, Lavender Hill, 1 December, 1857

  It wasn’t really a decision to come here, still less to find work. I went for a walk because I wanted to get out of town. When I reached the fields and farms, I felt good and I fell asleep on the building site of the new park in Battersea. Finally, I asked if there was any work, and for a while I shovelled earth and pushed carts. And then they told me there was work in the porcelain factories by the Thames.

  I went to work there.

  I like this place.

  I feel better.

  The work with the porcelain is delicate and it does me good to concentrate.

  London, Lavender Hill, 11 February, 1858

  I found a room to rent in a widow’s house, just over a mile from the factory. Her husband worked there. Some people who knew her told me about the room. Her name is Mrs Ashburn. She is elderly. She used to be a schoolteacher. She has books in her house.

  I still don’t really understand what is happening to me. Maybe I finally hit rock bottom, like I’d been trying to do, and maybe I’m starting to get better.

  I came back to England more than four years ago and suddenly I have the feeling that I am seeing the world as it is, not merely through my own hallucinations.

  I’m not under any illusions. I may be healing, but I’m definitely not healed. The forest is still part of the world as it is. But I can look at the other side.

  I see the other side.

  London, Lavender Hill, 3 June, 1858

  It’s getting hotter and hotter at the Battersea factory. I suffer in the heat and I’ve had fevers, but I still feel good. I hardly dare to write this, but the books I’m reading are starting to give me ideas. I surprised myself at the factory by thinking about a journey. Going away again.

  Mrs Ashburn looked after me when I was ill. I hide my scars from her.

  Mrs Ashburn did not have any children and I think I’m a sort of son to her. A son returned from the war. I lie to her. I pretend I’m fine whenever I feel bad. And pretending, although it’s difficult sometimes, also helps me feel better. I don’t lie to myself, only to her, and each time is a little step towards a small new remission.

  She’s not fooled. She listens to my lies like a mother to her child’s. We pretend when it’s difficult, so most of the time we talk about the books we are reading.

  London, Lavender Hill, 11 July, 1858

  Today is Sunday. I’ve just come back from a walk in town. The situation is taking on biblical proportions. The Thames is now just a trickle of shit and all of London seems spooked by the threat of a catastrophe. I am not giving into the panic of those people who are terrified by the toxic air, but it’s true that the atmosphere in the streets is enough to m
ake you imagine the strangest scenarios. As if the bad weather and the technical problems in the sewers have become signs of something that has been rotten for a long time. I walked along the empty docks. On the way back to Lavender Hill, I made my decision. As if being able to bear this horror had confirmed that I was ready and that I had the strength to go through with it. I don’t know where yet, but I have to leave. What worries me most is having to announce my decision to Mrs Ashburn. Coming back here, I wondered again what had become of them. If they were in London, hiding in houses to escape the stink. If they were like me, finding something calm and soothing in this deserted city. And I wondered what he was doing. Bowman. The sergeant would be at home in filthy, rotten London. And I shuddered as I imagined that I might see him, wandering the empty docks like me.

  London, Lavender Hill, 18 July, 1858

  In a few days, the rain swept away all the city’s fears. The Thames began to flow again past the factory. But since the Great Stink began, my nightmares have come back. Several times I woke screaming and Mrs Ashburn is worried. And yet I interpret it differently this time, the return of my ghosts. They are telling me that I have to get away from here. I am going to work for a few weeks longer and put some money aside. I know now where I will go.

  Bowman could no longer make out the tiny letters. The mare had fallen asleep and her belly rose and fell in a steady rhythm. The pioneers’ campfires glowed. He lifted up the jug of hooch, looking up at the stars over the desert, listening to the howls of the coyotes come out from their dens to hunt.

  In the morning, he let the convoy go. The mare was on her feet and had found some food along the riverbank. He unfolded the cloth and ate some porridge, then opened the journal while he waited for the horse to finish its meal.