At the edge of the courtyard Lea held Florian’s hand as they watched the old man speak to himself. His voice rose and fell. He nodded. Then his eyes closed and his jaw hung open and Christophe turned his grey face to the sky.
Lea squeezed Florian’s hand and the boy looked up at her. She made him understand what she wished them to do. He nodded. Recently the old man had taken to seasoning meals with sugar instead of salt, or cooking vegetables until they grew black and limp. Sometimes he even forgot to serve meals altogether and when the children gathered to be fed at the appropriate time, the old man reacted with anger. And so Lea had taken it upon herself to visit the garden and gather a small batch of vegetables every so often, distributing these in a relatively even manner among the children.
When Florian and Lea reached the northernmost edge of the farmhouse they turned to look at Christophe one last time. His eyes remained closed. They walked around the farmhouse and into the garden, where the gnarled apple trees stood in uneven rows, branches lined with young flowers. Florian did not like spending time in the garden, no matter how many times Lea brought him there without consequence. He still remembered the beatings of his early days on the farm, before he had learned the old man’s rules. The boy crawled the periphery of the garden while Lea performed her best imitation of Christophe’s daily inspection, bending leaves between her thumb and forefinger, staring at blossoms, and smelling certain plants.
Florian was a restless and gangly creature now. He had lost the grace of his pre-pubescent years and his body was long and thin, the ankles and wrists and knees disproportionately large, a giant head lolling back and forth like an untethered balloon. He had real difficulty staying balanced, and often knocked his shoulders against walls or trees, but used them as springboards to resume his enthusiastic stride. His nature was gentler, too, and he often smiled, but it was a sad and diffuse smile.
Something about that day did not feel conducive to food collection. Lea followed Florian into the field where there was no shade. There he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her down into the weeds. Soon she was hysterical with laughter and began rubbing the top of her head on the boy’s chest and stomach, which caused Florian to roar with laughter and push her away. She squealed and continued to throw herself at him headfirst, and soon they were both in a state of nervous exhilaration bordering on mania. Florian’s crooked grin floated between the stalks and his face was pink and flushed, and Lea chased him through the grass until she grew tired from the heat and lay down to rest.
When Florian found her she was lying on her stomach and he rushed forward and fell to his knees and tickled her ribs but she squirmed in disapproval and he stopped. Her dress was hiked about her midriff and he could see her white underwear stained in little overlapping rings of dried excreta. Florian put one sweaty palm on each side of Lea’s underwear and she said nothing. Then he put his palms on the small of her back, where sweat had gathered in a pool, and he kept them there for a while, warm and wet. Finally Florian pulled down Lea’s underwear so that her buttocks were exposed.
He kneeled over the girl, transfixed by these two glistening moons, her pores like tiny reflective pools scattered across these white surfaces. The boy placed one palm on each side of the narrow canyon. His hands trembled and he was filled with a strange joy. Lea was silent and her brown hair spread unevenly to each side of her nape among the dust and broken stalks. They remained that way for a long time, the boy perfectly suspended above these moons like the black universe itself pressed to their flawed and glimmering surfaces. Eventually the boy saw reflected in these two mirrors his own awful image, split-eyed and leering, and there was nothing bizarre about it. He closed his eyes and felt the heat of Lea’s flesh beneath his fingers, at once a part of him and not, and he was happy for the first time in years.
Marc turned to Sabine to see whether she was also watching Florian. She was. The boy’s head appeared above the weeds, eyes closed, long black hair moving with the breeze. Marc could not see what was happening in the grass below, but he had seen the two enter the garden and remain there for a period. It was not the first time Marc had seen such a thing. Perhaps the old man no longer held authority there. When the forests are dry, Marc thought, we will gather food of our own from the garden, real food, and use it to tend to our family. They will no longer spit any part of our meals onto the ground, and they will not cry. Instead our children will love us and look to us for protection and do whatever we tell them to. I will be the father, and she will be the mother. Then everything will be in order once more. As long as the old man does not interfere.
Marc left the shade of the mirabelle tree and walked towards the courtyard to see if Christophe could still be found planted on his chair in the courtyard. Sabine stayed two paces behind Marc and trod lightly.
Isabela’s uncle and his wife were the first to arrive, him with the discomfited dignity of a poor man wearing a suit to a stranger’s wedding, and her looking absolutely disoriented as she followed him. A waiter led them into the back room and Christophe greeted them and showed them to their seats near the head of the long wooden table. The uncle was stout, built of tough material, maintaining a serious look. His wife was an unassuming creature, and she remained silent unless spoken to. They sat facing each other across the wide table, and after a few attempts at small talk Christophe left them alone and walked over to a mirror, where he adjusted his tie. Isabela had returned the night before, looking exactly as she had before her disappearance. No trace of strange hands. Carrying only the blue sports bag and her usual black leather purse, one of the only physical remnants of her life before Christophe. She did not wear an apologetic look but instead kept her chin thrust forward and acted as if the whole episode was something they had planned together. As if she had accomplished her duty by disappearing during the weeks leading up to the wedding. In his belly Christophe could find nothing but the dregs of his previous anger.
The siblings sat cross-legged in the dirt of the courtyard, observing the old man as he wandered back and forth across the grass and spoke to himself, avoiding unseen objects and holding the sapling with one hand as he stared out over the fields. Christophe seemed distraught and Marc thought it best to stay with Sabine where the old man had forced them to sit.
Gaëlle led Rodolphe and the others along the hedgerow. They had spent the day climbing trees and chasing each other through the forest. They had killed each other with rifle-sticks and sword-sticks and spent a long time arguing over who was dead and who was alive. The children trusted Gaëlle to give the final verdict on such matters. She was more trustworthy than Rodolphe. Again today the boy had refused to accept his own death, even though the children had all seen his killer pierce Rodolphe’s chest with a sword. When Gaëlle would not change her decision, Rodolphe sat on a log and refused to play, even though the smaller children, idiots that they were, continued to shoot and stab his unresponsive body. He kept his arms folded across his chest and pretended not to notice until they left him alone. As the others resumed their game Rodolphe forced his eyes to look uninterested and his face to appear blank. He wanted very badly to join them again, and they probably would have welcomed him back, but now it was too late. Rodolphe hated being in this situation, but he could not change the way he was. He wanted the children to beg him to participate. He would slap away their hands and they would insist and finally he would join them and everybody would cheer. He wanted to be the king and the leader and the best soldier. But instead he was alone with his rotten thoughts and he loathed himself and everybody else. But Gaëlle always managed to coax him back into the game. She was the better leader and he knew it. So did the others. But he did not hate her.