Lea walked up the stone steps. She had barely passed the threshold of the farmhouse when the slap sent her reeling into the desiccated flowerbed. Christophe emerged from the farmhouse and lifted the child into his arms, soil and loose weeds falling from her naked body as he gripped her tightly.
Where the hell did you go. Have you lost your head. Are you all right. Are you all right. They did not find you. Thank god. Are you all right, he said.
Christophe held his wife and whispered these things into her ear. She remained silent. The old man carried Lea into the farmhouse and cleaned her in the bathtub, noticing bruises on her arms and legs, and a red swelling in her right cheek. There was even a faint purple rim around the bottom of her eye. He dried her with a towel and checked for clean clothes, but found none that were Lea’s. And so Christophe wandered into his bedroom and found the white dress she used to wear when they drove out to the Bois de Vincennes and picnicked on the grass, her smiling and pouring him wine, ground uneven below the blanket, glass tipping over and spilling, wife laughing as he scrambled to push it upright, making jokes about the new pattern on the blanket, a modern swedish designer working only in dark red hues. Wine, she meant, wine not blood, did he always have to be so grim. Did she always have to be so foolish. Blankets cost money and money did not grow on trees. Yes teach me about money please Christophe, that always ends well, and he looked at her vicious face and said nothing, and wished he had never spoken to begin with. Christophe left his empty glass on the blanket and looked at her. She sipped her wine and turned to stare at the lake, people drifting along in barques, paddling and chatting and sometimes laughing, and Christophe thought about saying he was sorry, just to get her started again, so she would continue filling the empty air with her words, but he said nothing.
The old man carried the dress back into the bathroom where Lea was sitting on the edge of the tub, her face more swollen than before. She squealed when she saw the dress and Christophe helped her into it and she ran her hands down the bodice, smiling at the old man, but he was staring at something above the child. Eventually his eyes seemed to focus and he patted Lea on the head and gestured for her to join the others outside. He needed some time to think. She walked out of the dining room and made her way slowly up the stairs, on the left side of each step so it wouldn’t creak, and into the room where Florian was sleeping.
The old man sat in his rocking chair, aware only of the woven rattan supporting his arms and back. He was alone. Blacker and deeper than before, his eyes dipped elegantly into their sockets like bird’s nests in a cliff face, pitted and stained by the autumn showers. Christophe no longer harbored any fear of insanity. His wife was gone. The country had changed. The children were here, gathered. He was born and born again into these familiarities. She didn’t do accounting. He was good with numbers. He kept her feet on the ground. She was grateful for this, but sometimes it would be nice to know what he felt, and was that too much to ask? And maybe that’s why she left, because he was an empty thing, a structure laboring emptily and without human guidance. Suddenly the old man felt very tired. His hands were locked to the armrests and his knuckles had turned white. And without any of the children watching, Christophe wept.
Marc lay in the wheat, the dry grain infested with flour beetles and rat turds, in the cold room where the concrete walls were humid and rough. He could see the old ladder leading to the crawlspace where the wooden beams and red shingles loomed. The grain hissed and shifted when Marc moved his limbs, reshaping to accommodate his body, and he did this several times before remaining motionless and silent. He could not see Sabine. She had left him in the wheat pile and disappeared. He could not hear anything save the rustling of the fields, which trickled through the open doors with shafts of light from that other world.
Materializing in the silence: a skittering from the crawlspace and the sound of somebody inhaling up there in that crouching darkness.
Rodolphe had been playing quietly with his plastic soldiers. First the boy had heard footsteps, then the movement of grain, and finally a long period of silence. No sound. Bad silence. The soldiers were no longer enjoyable. He had pushed the grenadier forward, trying to imagine the projectile, the way it might scatter the sandbags and dismember an enemy, blowing him into pieces, and the way the pieces would fly everywhere, with all the blood spraying, but Rodolphe didn’t care about the stupid plastic soldiers anymore, and they were just toys, and he was scared of this silence, of whatever was lying in the grain pile below. He had swept his trembling hand to gather the soldiers, swatting an infantryman by mistake and watching it skip several times across the concrete, causing him to gasp.
Grain fell from the folds in Marc’s jumpsuit as he rose to his feet and walked over to the ladder. He pulled at the wood on each rung, making sure it would not break, securing his feet, left and right, mechanically, left and right, gripping the ladder tightly as he climbed. The boy found himself at the mouth of the crawlspace, his muscles burning, the ache in his testicles gone, and ready to continue his exploration of things, of how they worked and how he might reshape them to his liking.
Rodolphe held his breath and watched the older boy’s dark silhouette. If he rushed forward now, like a soldier forward, he might push the enemy out and make him fall over the edge. Like I did with the frogs, thought Rodolphe. Like a real soldier. But instead he held his breath and crouched, palms pressed into the plastic soldiers, hands hurting but no matter, cornered, hoping the older boy would change his mind and leave.
Marc could see the rat’s shape. It stood among the turds, breathing scared, which excited Marc, who began salivating rusted metal and moving towards the animal, fists closed and jaw tight. Rodolphe threw the plastic soldiers at Marc and spun around desperately, trying to find a way out, but there was none, and so he put his head down and tried to crawl past Marc, who struck him in the ribs, causing the boy to fall over onto his side. Marc slammed his knee into the rat’s belly and watched it curl up breathless, grunting and breathless, and Marc flipped it onto its back, Rodolphe scratching at the older boy’s face as Marc spread the animal open, pinning a knee over each arm so it would stop scratching his face, face bleeding onto the younger boy. Marc used a fist to press down on the animal’s scrawny neck, fist rolling off the cartilage and flesh and onto the concrete, scraping his knuckles, rocked back and forth by the rat’s flailing legs, knees bouncing off his back, then opening his bloody fist and strangling Rodolphe with both hands, holding his windpipe closed until the animal gurgled and slipped one arm, surprisingly strong, from beneath Marc’s knee, and unzipped the jumpsuit, and clawed the older boy’s chest and nipple, with his uncut fingernails full of blood and skin. He gripped Marc’s swollen nipple and twisted with his nails. The pain was connected to Marc’s testicles and it became unbearable and he was forced to release Rodolphe’s neck, which had become smaller and smaller, almost completely quiet, but now Marc fell backwards, twisting his forearms to make Rodolphe release him, and found the younger boy strong, desperately strong, and the two boys tumbled together until Rodolphe loosened his hold, and they fell away from each other and stayed that way for a moment, lying on their backs, Rodolphe gasping thinly and Marc clutching his injured breast.