Christophe placed Rodolphe’s soiled clothes in a wicker basket at the base of the bathtub. The boy stood squirming on the bathroom mat, limbs streaked with grime, hesitating to step over the enamel edge. But boils had been swelling where the clothes chafed his skin, and the boy knew the cold water would soothe these.
Christophe watched Rodolphe climb into the tub, this one always wincing at first, but after a few gasping breaths complaining very little. Christophe soaked and lathered the washcloth before scrubbing the boy. Rodolphe gritted his teeth and held the side of the tub with both hands.
Sit down, said the old man.
And Rodolphe did, feeling the cold enamel beneath his buttocks as he leaned forward to let the old man wash his hair. After a thorough rinsing, Rodolophe stood shivering in silence as the old man dried him, clipped his toenails and fingernails, brushed his teeth, and clothed the boy.
Now go, said the old man.
Rodolphe did not hesitate. Out in the courtyard a breeze combed through his damp hair, filling his belly with a wobbling joy. Christophe looked over the remaining children to make sure nobody had disturbed Florian. He pressed his ear to the boy’s chest and listened to his breathing. Improvement. The swelling seemed to be subsiding. The old man walked into the kitchen and poured a glass of water, forcing the boy to drink most it. Likely the child would survive. Christophe passed his hand back and forth in front of the Florian’s eyes. They did not move. Let us hope the venom has not caused any permanent damage to his system. The old man did not want to think of what he would have to do if Florian were to lose his eyesight.
That night a full moon rose over the farmhouse, and the shingles shone blue where a century of rain had streaked slime across the roofing. In the courtyard grass grew sparsely between the stones, spreading in fading rings from the lone sapling at its center. From the pond came the anguished croaks of frogs attempting to couple. They crouched in the moonlight, bodies shining wetly, eyes black and unresolved. Inside the abandoned building across the courtyard rats could be heard burrowing through the moldy grain vats. On the upper floor of the farmhouse, the children slept in two rows of cots filling a single room, some snoring and others simply with their mouths open, curled in the fetal position beneath the sheets, or with their limbs splayed, having kicked the bedding to the floor.
Lea could not sleep. She lay on her back watching the moon through the square skylight and listened to Florian’s labored breath. He had kissed the world and the world had kissed him back. It was punishment, but for what? The boy’s eyes were open, but they refused her gaze. A world without eyes, she thought to herself, is not a good world. And now Christophe had confiscated her dress, and for how long? She had only torn it a little.
In the gloom of half-sleep, Marc felt his father’s hand holding him by the collar, squeezing his soft neck as he pulled him back onto the sidewalk. The cars screamed past, one after the other, their hard surfaces reflecting the buildings and streetlights. Sabine and mother were not there that day. It was Marc and father alone in the city. What are you doing, you little piece of scum, his father shouted. Then after the light had turned green and they had crossed the street, squeezing his hand until it hurt, father kneeled, his face appearing as big as a building. I’m sorry Marc, dad should not have used those words, but you scared him, understand.
Then Sabine was smiling at Marc, because everything had gone so quiet. There were three men in the apartment and Marc couldn’t do anything. Mother and father were gone. He felt the boot against his chest, holding him down, the sound of a bird very scared, and Sabine smiling because of the quiet, and the men leaving, how they looked tired and dirty, and her breathing not very far away, and his breathing also, and the night, long and black.
10.
Florian watched the light. It shone a deeper yellow as the days grew shorter. Always it made its way across the room, over the beds of the smaller children where it first appeared in the morning, across his sheets in a hot yellow square, shifting up the mud-lime wall, illuminating bits of straw between the beams, to flatten there and mysteriously disappear. The ceiling was slanted in sections like the dark red skin of a fish and it got darker and heavier once the gold was gone. What remained in the room was a different kind of light, blue and aimless, with no fire whatsoever, and so without interest to Florian.
The snake had left more snakes. They were under his bed, making their little tongues disappear and whispering softly to one another. They could not climb the bed, they could not climb the bed, they could not. The room was snakeless. But sometimes he heard them slithering under his bed in a great pit. The other children fed them dead rats to keep them alive. He knew this to be true. And sometimes when nobody was around, no child and no sound, Florian flopped onto his belly and dragged himself to the edge of the mattress, where he hung his head over the edge and peered beneath the bed at the dust balls on the moldy carpeting. Florian would then crawl back to his previous position, arranging his body to match the shape of his pain.
Every night the children joined him in his creaking upper room and filled it with noise. Christophe rarely appeared. He did not like to interfere. Lea used these few minutes before bedtime to stare at Florian. The boy could hear her quiet sounds, like wind blowing through open eaves, and he was surprised by his desire to touch her, which came immense and overwhelming. This was something entirely new for the boy, as Florian usually avoided contact with his kind. Over and over he would picture the movement, the way his hand might reach through the air and touch hers, but in his mind he could see a great wall of snakes frozen together and sleeping like fish in a lake, and so Florian did not move and Lea stood there staring, fingers bent, knocking her nails together. Then Christophe’s footsteps could be heard coming from the dining room and he yelled up the stairs.
Bedtime, he said.
Once the candles were blown and the quiet returned, Florian watched the bat as it flew from beam to beam in the darkness. The boy squirmed in silence, careful not to wake the others.
11.
Rodolphe stood in the courtyard throwing stones at the cement wall. He enjoyed the sharp sound this produced, the fading echo, the pain in his shoulder. Images of Marc’s face appeared and dissolved into pulsing yellow dots, eyes opening and closing, now aiming for the metal ring hanging from a hole in the cement. When finally he struck it, a sound like a bird’s chirp ricocheted into the eaves of the farmhouse. To Florian lying in bed, it rang out in the mist of his half-dream, dispersing the snakes in a slithering frenzy. Still the boy did not wake until the sound of Christophe’s steps grew louder, a sound he had learned to detect even in a state of deep slumber and that signified only one thing: danger. If the old man found out that Florian could crawl to the edge of the bed, walk even, he might force him to his feet and out into the world where he would surely be swallowed and perish.
Christophe stood over Florian and watched him tremble. He slipped his arms beneath the boy’s body and carried him slowly down the stairs, teetering back and forth to stay balanced on the smooth wooden steps, careful not to fall and break his coccyx, for that would truly be the end. Afterwards the old man rested for a moment, sitting on the lowest step and holding the boy in his lap, fairly reeking of piss and looking truly forlorn, with his arms and legs very thin and his prick hanging between his legs like a solitary worm. The old man’s face was expressionless and his eyeballs seemed to retract into his skull as he observed the boy.
There was a natural order to things.