Battlesaurus (7 page)

*   *   *

Marcel and Ambroise Lejeune were tearaways as younger men, even wilder than their sons would turn out to be. They fought, they danced, they chased girls and drank too much wine. They climbed mountains and swam rivers. They made lifelong friends, and mortal enemies. They gambled both their money and their lives.

It seemed a miracle to some in the village that the pair survived to adulthood. By the time of their conscription into Napol
é
on's Great Army they were both married: Marcel to a girl from the village, Ambroise to a girl from nearby Fichermont.

But Napol
é
on wanted them for his army, along with most able-bodied men in the region, and in 1798 they both marched to war, leaving wives heavy with child.

Ambroise returned to Gaillemarde a year later, having left half a hand and a quarter of his blood on the wild desert sands of Syria. He stayed for a while in the village, recovering. But Ambroise was not the same person who had proudly donned his shako and plume in service of his emperor. He spent most of his time in the church, communing with God, and that led to the seminary in Tournai. During the six years Ambroise was studying for the priesthood, Father Constantin, the village priest, died. Mass was conducted by visiting priests from Brussels for nearly two years, until Ambroise was ordained. Now Father Ambroise, he returned to the village and became shepherd to the village flock.

Under church law, Ambroise, a married man who turned to the priesthood, was allowed to remain married, but he and Agathe were no longer permitted to live as man and wife. When he returned from the seminary, he moved into the small rectory on the church grounds, while Agathe remained in their cottage, with Fran
ç
ois and his older sister,
É
milie.

Jean's father stayed in the army for much longer, surviving the long and devastating Russian campaign of 1812. The things he saw and the things he endured on that terrible winter retreat must have been horrific beyond comprehension. Half a million soldiers went into Russia with Napol
é
on, but fewer than thirty thousand returned. Cold, hunger, disease, murderous Cossacks, and the dreadful, shredding Russian cannonfire accounted for the rest.

On his return to the village Marcel Lejeune took over the family smithy and never spoke of the war. Nor did he attend church, except at Easter, Ascension, and Christmas.

*   *   *

Willem is beginning to wonder whether he has misunderstood Jean's father, and if he was supposed to follow him to the house, when the blacksmith returns to the smithy with a small leather pouch and an object wrapped in an oilcloth. Laying the object on a workbench, he unwraps it carefully.

It is his flintlock pistol. When he left the Great Army, one of his two pistols somehow remained in his possession.

Willem had completely forgotten about the pistol. He had done as his mother said and chosen just a few simple tricks for the f
ê
te, and no grand illusion. But he had also forgotten to tell the blacksmith.

Monsieur Lejeune looks deeply at Willem, and gestures toward the weapon.

“What is your purpose with it?”

Willem hesitates. “You would still allow me to use it, after what happened in the forest?”

Monsieur Lejeune picks up the pistol and turns it over in his hands.

“This is no mere thing,” he says. “This weapon saved my life on countless occasions on fields wet with the blood of my brothers. And look what a vile thing it is. A tool designed not to create or shape or sow or reap, but only to take life. I should destroy it. Cast it into the deepest lake. Yet I keep it.”

“Why?” Willem asks.

“Because it holds the memory of the fallen,” he says. “In battles lost and won. I cannot remember them all. But the weapon remembers, as it remembers the lives of the others. The lives it has taken.”

He replaces the pistol on the bench.

“I do this
because
of what happened in the forest,” he says.

“I don't understand,” Willem says.

“Jean told me about that day. How you warned them not to go, but when they insisted, you would not let them go alone. You are small, but show more heart than men twice your size.”

“Jean overstates the truth,” Willem says.

“I think not,” Monsieur Lejeune says. “He told me also how you stopped them from fighting the meat-eater. Had you not done that, we would have had two, maybe three, funerals this week, instead of one patient at Gertruda's. Of all the young men in the village, you are the most levelheaded. The smartest in the village, from what Jean tells me.”

That Jean considers him the smartest in the village is news to Willem. That Jean would say such a thing to his father is an even greater surprise.

Monsieur Lejeune says, “I will use the pistol for you, as part of your act, if that is what you ask. As long as nobody will be in danger. And thank you for saving the life of my woolly-headed son.”

Willem hesitates again. “After the raptor, I had more or less decided not to use the pistol,” he says. That is almost the truth.

“The decision is yours,” Monsieur Lejeune says, wrapping the pistol up again.

“Can you show me how it works?” Willem asks.

Monsieur Lejeune considers that, then nods and removes the gun from the cloth.

“First you must prime the pistol,” he says. “Pull the hammer back to halfway, and open the frizzen.” The frizzen is a short piece of metal above a small pan. A cap at the bottom covers the pan when the frizzen is closed. “A little powder here in the pan, then the rest of the powder in the barrel. Close the frizzen to keep the powder safe. Then ram the pistol ball and the wadding tightly into the barrel.”

“The wadding?” Willem asks.

“The paper,” Monsieur Lejeune says.

He opens the leather pouch and brings out a paper cartridge, a small tube glued at each end and in the middle to create two distinct sections. In one half is a round object that Willem knows must be a pistol ball. The other half looks to be filled with gunpowder.

“Tear open the packet and pour the powder into the pan and barrel, as I told you,” Monsieur Lejeune says. “Then ram the ball and paper into the barrel. The paper acts as wadding, keeping the ball steady. To fire, pull the hammer back all the way. This piece of flint”—he points to a small rock-like object clenched in a jaw at the top of the hammer—“strikes the frizzen and makes sparks. At the same time it pushes the frizzen back, revealing the powder. The sparks ignite the powder in the pan and that sets off the powder in the barrel.”

Willem nods. It is much as he has read, although he has never seen a pistol up close before.

“I will fire the pistol for you tonight if you wish,” Monsieur Lejeune says.

Willem stares at the pistol for a moment. He promised his mother he would not perform a grand illusion. But compared to the card and coin tricks he intends to show, this will be spectacular. An illusion worthy of the final act of the festival.

But he promised his mother.

“Merci, monsieur,” Willem says. “Please bring the pistol tonight.”

He is still undecided as he picks up the pails of water and carries them home.

It is his destiny.

But he promised his mother.

 

LA FÊTE DU PRINTEMPS

The festivities commence with the lighting of the bonfire, and will conclude near midnight with fireworks.

The entire village is there, along with some invited families from nearby towns. It is the biggest event of the year.

All the gas lamps in the square have been turned up high and people radiate out from the focal point of the stage. Groups of families and friends have spread blankets on the grass, or sit on stools or upturned pails.

The stage is a low wooden platform, half a meter off the ground, with strong posts at each corner. It is erected each year on the river side of the square, in front of a large stone building, next to the stable that is the village market hall.

At the front and rear of the hall are large barn-style doors. The doors that face the square are open wide, and a heavy, dark curtain is draped across the entrance, so that the interior of the building becomes a kind of backstage area. Lamps hang from wooden posts at each corner of the stage, and from ropes strung between the posts. The wicks are turned up, and the stage is brightly lit.

Now fifteen, Willem is no longer required to sit with his family and instead sits with Jean and Fran
ç
ois in a group of other young men from the village, near to, but separate from, a group of girls of similar age that includes the Delvaux sisters, Ang
é
lique and Cosette, and Fran
ç
ois's sister,
É
milie.

On a low wooden bench nearby, the old blind woodcutter, Monsieur Antonescu, sits alone, guzzling happily from a bottle of plum brandy. He hums to himself, tunelessly, although Willem is sure that in the old man's head the melodies are vibrant and joyful.

At seven, just after the setting of the sun, the mayor strikes a flint to light a tallow torch, then hands the flaming brand to the oldest resident of the village, Madame Gertruda. She has had this honor for five years, since the previous oldest resident, Madame Monami, passed over.

Madame Gertruda walks steadily toward the bonfire: a pile of wood and scrub in the center of the village square. After closing her eyes in prayer for a brief moment, perhaps thanking God for another year (or maybe cursing him for it, depending on her mood), she tosses the torch onto the pyre and steps back quickly as the dry brush, some of it dripped with pig fat, whispers, then howls into flame.

Within minutes there is a lively fire leaping in the square, putting out heat and light to counter the cooling air and slowly fading glow of the sky.

There is applause from the audience, and Madame Gertruda turns and curtsies happily.

Today, apparently, is a good day.

The feast is waiting on long tables around the edges of the square. Wooden plates are handed out by the children, who have to wait for the adults to fill theirs before helping themselves.

Willem, in his first year as an adult, is handed his plate by Cosette, and thinks as he takes it that she will be prettier than her sister when she is fully grown. She is nearly an adult already, at fourteen years. She has long, golden-brown hair just a little darker than her sister's. A narrow face but wide, straight teeth. A lazy eye adds to a kind of asymmetrical lopsided beauty. Unlike some girls in the village whose aspirations mainly revolve around finding a suitable husband, Cosette talks of being a writer and of living in Paris or Salzburg, two cities that hold some special romantic appeal for her. He smiles at her, but she ignores him and saves the white perfection of her teeth for Jean, next in line.

For a moment there is a quickening of his pulse with anger, with jealousy. But it fades quickly. Willem shrugs as he moves on. He should not be offended. This is the way of things. But that brief pain? What was that? Was that like the feeling his father had for his mother? She often spoke of love, but that is something alien to Willem.

Father Ambroise—Fran
ç
ois's father—raises his hands for silence when all have overflowing plates on their laps. One of those hands is half gone, shot away in the same war injury that had nearly claimed his life, over a decade ago. All that is left are the thumb and forefinger, all-important as without them he could not have been ordained. A one-handed priest cannot perform communion.

He offers a prayer for the coming season, blesses the food and the villagers, and wisely keeps it short, knowing that after a day of fasting, the people will be impatient for their plates.

After the prayer, Willem sees Cosette helping Monsieur Antonescu back to his seat. She holds his arm to guide him and carries his plate with her other hand. Once he is settled she hands him the plate and Monsieur Antonescu nods briefly in thanks. Only then does Cosette return to the tables to fill her own plate.

Fran
ç
ois eats just a small amount, then sets his plate aside. A moment later his pipe is in his hand and he tamps tobacco into it while he watches the others eat. He rises and finds a half-burned switch that has jumped from the bonfire. He blows on the end till it glows, then uses it to light his pipe.

As he returns to his seat beside Willem, a log collapses somewhere in the midst of the bonfire, sending up a shower of sparks, spitting at the stars.

The wine flows freely. Most of the other Flemings in the village prefer beer but Willem has never developed a taste for it, preferring the crisp tartness of the grape to the cloudy malt of the hop.

He is sparing with his wine, sipping slowly, not wanting to haze his mind before his act. Jean drinks freely, but it seems to have no effect on him. He has been drinking wine since he was four, and claims to be immune to its powers.

Fran
ç
ois also seems to have a mug constantly refilled and is happy, although already his words sound slow and blurred. In most ways he appears to have recovered fully from the accident. He smokes his pipe and drinks with them, wiping rivulets of red from his chin with the back of his sleeve.

The first sour note of the f
ê
te occurs during the feast.

“See the wild animal,” Jean says, nudging Willem with his knee.

Willem follows Jean's eyes to where H
é
lo
ï
se sits on the ground, near a group of girls but not part of them. He has never seen her at the f
ê
te before, and he wonders how Madame Gertruda has convinced her to attend. H
é
lo
ï
se eats by bringing the plate to her mouth, and wolfing at the food like a dog from a bowl. The girls around her are staring, or laughing behind their hands.

Cosette laughs also, but her eyes do not share the humor.