I stopped midsentence. He was not alone. He was crouched down next to a child, a boy of perhaps seven or eight years, lying much, much too still on the stone floor.
“He is alive,” he said, “but I did not dare to move him. I don’t know what kind of injuries he has.”
The boy was filthy. His near-black hair was matted to his skull in an unhealthy way, and it looked as if he had wet in his pants multiple times. At the edge of his hairline were the remains of dried blood. I knelt next to them both and felt for the boy’s pulse. His breathing appeared untroubled, but his pulse was fast and pronounced under my index finger, and the pallor under the filth was alarming. His lips were cracked, and at the corner of his mouth clung a crust of dried-up puss from some kind of infection.
I examined his skull cautiously, first around the wound at the temple, and then proceeded to probe the neck and spine, but I found no clear indication of a fracture.
“The wound is old,” I said. “It has started to heal. I don’t think that is why he is unconscious. But who is he, and what is he doing here?”
“I can’t say with certainty,” said the Commissioner. “But I think this is Louis Charles Napoleon Mercier. Named after two kings and an emperor.”
It was now completely dark in the chapel except for the play of pale moonlight and leafy shadows on the smooth stone floor. The tall, narrow windows were set so high that it was not possible to look out, but then, there would be nothing to look at right now, apart from various degrees of darkness.
Being left here alone with the boy had not been pleasant, but someone had to get help, and the Commissioner could do it more quickly and more effectively than I. He would be back soon, I consoled myself, an hour and a half at the most, he had promised, and by now an hour must surely have passed. I was quite safe in here in any event; no one could get in. I myself had locked the door to the chapel from the inside, and I could feel the outlines of the heavy iron key between my breasts. I had not dared to set it down anywhere for fear of not being able to find it again in the dark.
There was no question of turning on a light. I might as well send a lighthouse signal into the darkness: here—here—here . . . An unnecessary risk, in spite of the locked door.
I had folded two of the blankets from the hunting cabin a few times to create a sort of mattress for the boy to lie on, and covered him with the third. I had the Commissioner’s jacket to sit on, but it was not sufficient to prevent the cold from creeping through my body from below. If it had been a summer evening, the stones beneath us might have released the heat that they had absorbed during the course of the day, but at this time of the year the damp of winter still clung to the stone walls, and the temperature in the room dropped dramatically as soon as the sun went down. It was not good for the boy. His hands and feet felt ice-cold, and my attempts to rub life into them were only partially effective.
“What has he done to you?” I murmured, and was spooked to hear my own voice in the darkened space. It was a lonely and sinister prison in which to place a child, I thought. A chamber pot, a tin plate, and a pitcher of water stood by the door, and someone had given him an illustrated edition of Perrault’s fairy tales to occupy his time. Otherwise nothing had been done to ease his captivity.
What was most remarkable, however, was not that the boy was hurt, unconscious, and incarcerated—but that he was alive at all. If it was Louis Mercier, and that seemed likely, then the unavoidable inference had to be that the man who had given him the false message for Father Abigore was Antoine Leblanc. Which led to the equally inevitable conclusion that he was the man who had later killed Abigore with a single well-aimed blow of a coal shovel. If a man is so corrupt that he does not hesitate to kill a priest in this way, what prevents him from killing an inconvenient witness he has completely in his power?
“Don’t be afraid,” I whispered to the unconscious boy. “I am here with you, and I won’t leave you.”
My words echoed hollowly in the dark in spite of their sincerity. Outside I could hear an owl hooting, a shrill and lonely sound, and I caught myself listening, not just to the owl and the wind out there but also to my own heartbeat. I had begun to shiver. It is the cold, I said to myself. It is much too cold in here. In an attempt to keep warm, I wrapped Cecile’s faded green dress around my shoulders like a shawl.
The fabric rustled.
Examining the dress once more, I forgot the owl and the cold. Along the hem of the skirt there was one spot where the seam was detectably thicker. The stitches had been partially undone to create a small pocket, and in that pocket my searching fingers found a few folded sheets of paper.
Cecile had written something. And hidden it as well as she could.
It was almost unbearable to sit there in the dark with her words on the paper in my hand without being able to read them. There were wax candles by the image of the Madonna, and presumably also matches, but did I dare? I had already made the decision that light would be too dangerous. No, I had to be patient. It could not be long now before the Commissioner returned.
A sound interrupted my deliberations—a faint noise at the door that at first filled me with hope. But instead of the Commissioner’s imperturbable voice, there was a snuffle and a short, sharp bark.
“Iago, here!”
It was Leblanc and his dog.
I unconsciously clutched at the key, which lay cold and heavy against my breast. The thought struck me that we had assumed that it was the only one, and that the locked door offered protection against the man out there. But what if that was not the case?
I heard a muffled scraping of stone against stone. Leblanc was in the process of lifting the brick under which the Commissioner had found the key to the chapel. This was the moment when Leblanc would discover that all was not as he had left it. He turned the door handle and found it locked.
“Imogene?” he called. “Is that you?”
For a wild moment I wondered if I should pretend to be Imogene and ask him to go away. But although people often hear what they expect to hear, he knew his daughter’s voice too well. I would not be able to mimic it.
Even if I had been able to carry off that deception, I suddenly thought, he would still have been unlikely to leave peacefully. I remembered the fear I had seen in Imogene’s eyes when she thought her father had come to take her away from the convent.
I pushed Cecile’s papers into my bodice next to the key and waited.
“Imogene! Open the door!” He hit the door with a heavy fist. “I know you are in there!”
He hammered on the door and then rattled its handle as if he thought this would make the lock give.
Where was the Commissioner? Where was the help he was supposed to be bringing? An hour and a half at the most. Surely that had passed?
Bang.
He was using something else to hit the door now. Something harder than a fist.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Oh, God. Was that an axe?
No, I said to myself. There was no sound of splintering.
“Imogene. I am counting to ten. If the door is not open by then, I will shoot out the lock.”
He began to count, slowly but inexorably. I did not know what to do. Would he really use a rifle on the door and risk hitting his own daughter?
“Three. Four. Five . . .”
And the boy. He risked hitting the boy.
“Six. Seven. Eight. Imogene—last chance. Open up or stand aside.”
He was going to do it.
“Nine.”
“Wait!” I shouted.
“Then open up.”
“I do not have the key,” I said. “I cannot open it.”
Would he believe me? And would it change anything?
The only warning I got was the sound of a loading gun. I threw myself down on the floor next to the boy just as the shots rang out. Two shots, so close together that the first had not finished echoing between the stone walls before the last blew door, lock, and handle to smithereens.
I raised my head slowly and sat up. A few meters from me stood Antoine Leblanc with a lamp in one hand and the hunting rifle held in the crook of his arm.
A few seconds passed before I could speak.
“Monsieur Leblanc?” I said. “How fortunate that you came. I am afraid this poor boy has been badly hurt. I tried to help him as well as I could, but the door was shut on us, and I could not get it open again, someone must have locked it . . .”
Helpless, innocent, ignorant. It was the only defense I could think of.
It actually made him hesitate for a moment.
“Were you locked in?” he asked.
“Until you freed us.”
Behind him stood the dog, large and gray and rough coated as described, growling and with its hackles raised. I tried not to look at it.
“I have seen you before,” he said slowly, and set the lamp down on the floor. “You were at the convent. And at the funeral.”
The funeral? Was he speaking of Cecile’s? That was the only funeral I had attended recently, but I had not seen him. Or, wait . . . the broad-shouldered man with the carriage, the one who had driven some of Cecile’s friends and teachers. Had that been Leblanc and not just a random coachman?
“I don’t believe we have been introduced,” I said, and forced a smile that was about as natural as the naked grin on a skull. “I am Madeleine Karno. I met your daughter a few times . . .”
This did not help. His face went rigid, and his lips pulled back so I could see his tobacco-stained teeth.
“That doctor,” he said. “Doctor Death. You are his daughter.”
“Yes.” I began to get up, holding out my hand as though we were at a tea party and about to be introduced.
“Stay where you are!”
“But, monsieur . . .”
He raised his rifle and reloaded rapidly.
“Sit down, I said!”
I let myself slide to the floor. It was not difficult; my legs were already shaking so much that they were having a hard time supporting me.
“It is probably best if I stay with the boy while you go for help,” I tried, and knew that my little performance was getting more and more labored and less and less credible. I fumbled for the boy’s cold hand under the shelter of my petticoat. Not that he could feel anything, it was more to console myself. We wanted to save you, I thought, and now . . .
Now it looked instead as if we had given Monsieur Leblanc the final push.
“He would have died anyway,” he said. “The priest. I just saved him a few days of suffering.”
Don’t tell me such things, I thought urgently. The more he revealed, the more likely it was that he would feel impelled to fire that gun.
“Of course,” I squeaked. “I am sure they will understand that if only you . . .”
“May God have mercy on me,” he said, and began to take off his left boot.
I did not understand why, just sat completely paralyzed by fear and tried to think of something, anything, that could prevent the unpreventable.
“Down, Iago,” he said.
The dog looked up at him, then reluctantly lay down. He took a step backward, on one bare and one booted foot, took aim, and put a bullet through the back of the dog’s head. I was still sitting there with my mouth open, trying to comprehend what was happening, when he reloaded, placed the rifle’s stock against the floor, placed the barrel under his chin, and used his naked toes to pull the trigger.
He was clearly more used to handling guns than Monsieur Montaine. Most of the back of his head disappeared in a cloud of blood and bone splinters, and he was dead before he hit the floor.
When the Commissioner finally returned about ten minutes later, with a carriage and some men from the convent, I was sitting next to the unconscious Louis Mercier, shaking so badly that my teeth were rattling against each other with a tiny, brittle sound. The cavalry stopped quite abruptly in the doorway, it seemed to me, staring at Leblanc and the mess at the back of his head, at the dead dog, and at me.
“Dear Madeleine,” said the Commissioner, “I think you may put down the rifle now.”
IV
March 28–30, 1894
Louis Mercier regained consciousness a few hours later on the chaise longue at Carmelite Street. It was easier for my father to examine him there than if we had brought him to Saint Bernardine, and both Inspector Marot and the Commissioner waited impatiently to question him about Antoine Leblanc’s deeds and misdeeds.
We now knew with certainty that it was Louis Charles Napoleon Mercier, because after one look at the unconscious child, Marie Mercier had thrown herself to her knees at his side and kissed his face again and again, and then—still on her knees—she had seized both of the Commissioner’s hands and covered them with just as many kisses while she stuttered her incoherent gratitude for saving her son.
The Commissioner stood with a most peculiar expression on his face—it had to be his version of disconcerted unease—and repeated, “My dear lady, my dear lady,” as if it were the refrain of a song, all the while trying to persuade her to stand up. Apparently, this was what it took to crack the Commissioner’s monolithic self-control.
I did not feel cracked, I felt blown to bits and pieces. At first I had been able to hold myself together to some extent. I had cared for Louis Mercier on the trip back to Varbourg, had insisted on warm blankets and great caution in the handling of the unconscious child, and had perhaps clung to that task so insistently because it was better than thinking about Antoine Leblanc and his hunting rifle.
During the trip, the boy came closer to consciousness, though he still did not answer when I tried to rouse or soothe him. His eyes flitted under closed lids, and he moved his lips a little. I moistened them with cold water, and he sucked on the cloth like an infant, still without waking up. Thirst and dehydration were part of the problem, I concluded, and I began systematically wetting the cloth and dripping water into the boy’s mouth, only a few drops at a time so it would not end up in his windpipe instead.
But when we got home and my father took over this responsibility, my defenses began to crumble. I sank down into the Commissioner’s chair and could not move any farther. I was filthy, and my suit was in a sorry state. I ought to wash myself and change my clothes and do something about my hair. I ought to get up and help my father with the examination and care of Louis Mercier.
But I could not.
I just sat.
I did not say anything, and that was probably one of the reasons no one really noticed me, especially not when Marie Mercier arrived a little later and performed her tearful identification. But I sat with the sensation that my hands were not my own, that my body did not belong to me, and that my head had detached itself from my neck and was floating around like a balloon on a string a few meters above the rest of me.
Then the string broke.
I did not understand myself what happened; I was not asleep, nor was I unconscious, yet what I saw had to be a dream.
Cecile was walking toward me through the salon. She moved among the others, stepped aside in order not to bump into Marot, but no one else saw her, of that I am certain, because no one reacted. Even though she was naked.
Her black hair fell across her back and shoulders, her lips were moist and vividly colored, precisely the same delicate shade of rose as her nipples. Her eyes were full of life. Her hair was wet, and her naked body also, as if she had just walked through the rain, and glittering trails of water ran down her breasts and across her stomach and thighs. She smiled, but she was not smiling at me. She looked past me, and I turned my head in reflex.
From the other side of the room, by the window, came Emile Oblonski. He, too, was naked, and his member stood unashamedly erect without him making any attempt to cover it. His compact muscular form was whole and free of the injuries I knew he had, and he was just as wet with rain as she was.
They met in the middle of the room. Their bodies slid
together, slid into each other without difficulty, without clumsiness. She folded her legs tightly around him and let herself slide down until she engulfed him, and he carried her effortlessly.
At first it seemed that her long black hair enveloped them both. But then I could see that it was not just hair; it was fur. Smooth, shiny black fur broke through the skin along her spine, spread down across her buttocks, covered her legs. They both turned, in a physically impossible way, around the axis that was the joining of their sexes. And with one long smooth jerk it was no longer two people I saw but a black wolf and a golden one, in close coupling.
Infinitely long.
That is how it felt. I could not look away and did not want to, because the sight filled my body with a rush of desire, a pounding pulse I would not have been able to stop. I wanted to have fur. I wanted to be an animal. I wanted to surrender myself as they did, without thought, without guilt, without shame. And when they finally parted and trotted off on moist paws, through the salon, past the people, and out the open door, I wanted to follow. Everything in me wanted to follow. But I could not. I sat bound in a chair and a salon and a body, a body that could not be transformed. A body that was not a wolf’s.
I fell back into myself with a dull impact, as when an insect hits a window. A small moan of protest escaped me, but I do not think anyone heard me. For at that moment Louis Mercier opened his eyes and looked around him with a blank confusion that was even more fundamental than mine.
Or perhaps not.
I knew where I was. I was just no longer certain who or what.
Inspector Marot led the boy through his testimony with a gentleness I had not expected. He was soothing, attentive, sympathetic. He waited patiently when the child stopped, prompted him with simple open-ended questions, and of the aggressive walrus there was no trace.
Yes, Louis had been called over by a gentleman who wanted to pay him to run an errand. And though he did not discover the man’s name, it was clear from his description, not least of the dog Iago, and from his further explanations, that it was indeed Antoine Leblanc. He had been paid a good sum and promised an even more princely reward to carry a message to the priest’s residence at Espérance at precisely a quarter past eleven. He had carried out his end of the bargain and had delivered the note precisely as he had been instructed, but when he showed up to collect the franc he had been promised, the dog had jumped on him and toppled him so he hit his head on the curb, after which the man held him down and “choked him with a rag.”
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