After that little display Frankenstein hardly needed further proof of the presiding regime’s ruthlessness. Nevertheless, new and compelling evidence arrived the very next morning. That and the lesson to be very careful in your choice of words in further interviews with whoever the Bureaucrat was.
Whilst scouring his new offices clear of all traces of the Egyptian’s presence Julius was informed a delivery had arrived requiring his personal attention.
It proved to be a wagon, under escort by Old Guard and also under tarpaulin. Straightaway, Frankenstein feared the worst. A cull of innocent peasants perhaps, plucked from the fields for him to start a new program of mummy-free research? Or maybe a selection of battlefield or guillotine fresh cadavers, hand-picked to be of fit-for-an-Emperor quality?
Julius cautiously sniffed over the draped tarpaulin. The fall of the material and lack of stench suggested happier alternatives.
Some of the Guardsmen smiled wickedly, wrinkling their moustaches in cruel amusement. They knew but weren’t saying.
‘You could at least look pleased, monsieur,’ said the most senior or shameless. ‘We sweated blood to get these for you!’
They were watching and waiting. There was nothing else for it but to plunge in.
Frankenstein lifted a corner of the tarpaulin—and recoiled.
‘How… how could you?’ he spluttered.
That was, he realised even at the time, a weak and womanish thing to say. It would do the rounds of Old Guard drinking holes for years hence. Oh, how they would laugh!
For the space it took to say it, Julius didn’t care. The cart did contain corpses after all, of a sort. But not the kind he was hardened to. Not the usual abused Divine handiwork, torn into components ready for the attentions of Dr. Frankenstein.
And yet that same Dr. Frankenstein, who’d worked on the very worst that robbed graves could offer with unchanged expression and undiminished appetite, could now hardly bring himself to look.
At the same time it was sickeningly brought home to him how far he’d come, how far he’d sunk, and the barbarians he’d sold his talents to. Here and now, spread before his appalled gaze, were the fruits of all those concessions and compromises.
Julius now recalled with great force the Bureaucrat noting his suggestion about how lenses would speed the sun-drying process. Accordingly, an order must have been framed and soldiers sent out. Merely a footling detail in the daily round of Government.
But also a most memorable day, surely, for the observatories that were ransacked as a result. All the signs indicated little patience and still less compunction. Where mountings had been too troublesome to detach, they’d simply been wrenched off, or hacked away by sword.
After all, it was only the lenses that were required. What did blade marks on the telescopes matter when their insides had to come out anyway?
Frankenstein chilled himself considering the streamlined logic of it. He declined to look too closely lest he see astronomers’ blood on their kidnapped babies, or severed hands still gripping tightly.
There must be several whole observatories worth here—major ones too, judging by the scale of the instruments. One casual causal word from Dr Frankenstein and all astronomical endeavour in a broad swathe round Paris had ceased. Yet another of his family’s glorious contributions to science!
Julius’ thoughts had raced far in a short time; a wobbly tightrope walk over an abyss. Meanwhile, back in the material world, the soldiers were still chuckling at his expense.
‘How “could” we?’ mimicked their spokesman, a man with a rift valley of a scar down his brow, ending in the obliteration of an eye. ‘How could we? Well, its pretty simply, ain’t it lads? ‘Specially when you’ve got a decent sized axe!’
It was like a bucket of cold water in the face to Julius, a necessary corrective. Quite inadvertently, while only intending to being cruel they had been kind.
Julius realised that he was the odd one out, the one individual out of step in the parade of life, not them. Outwardly at least he must confirm his pace with theirs.
He reached into the cart and heaved out a murdered telescope. He peered down the tube that would see the stars no more. The lens lurking inside must be eight centimetres breadth or more—the pride of some observatory or wealthy amateur. Then he cradled it in his arms and beamed.
‘Perfect!’ he said, praising the vandals.
‘You like it?’ queried their scarred spokesman, a mite saddened that the fun seemed over.
‘I love it. I wish you’d got more. Now take the lot to the workshops and have them strip the glass out…’
It was a mark of his success that Frankenstein got to meet the man he termed ‘the Bureaucrat’ again. His first impressions were confirmed by subsequent discreet enquiries. This gentleman only arrived from the outside world in circumstances of some secrecy and great need, for the ‘alphas and omegas’ of Versailles: the launching and ending of projects and careers—and people too, probably. Julius ought to have been honoured—and to have guessed.
He got part way, in speculating that ‘the Bureaucrat’ was somehow linked to the Conventionary Government. Normally, to observe the constitutional decencies, it kept its distance from Napoleon’s operation, but earlier that day Julius had observed state coaches deliver high-ups for consultations. Maybe his Bureaucrat had been amongst them.
Whatever the case, by the time Julius was summoned the rest were gone, although their presence lingered on in the form of minor changes of scenery. The marble bust of the Emperor had been put to sleep under a drape and, in deference to outside dogmas, Fouché was wearing a work costume of flamboyant tricolour cravat and cummerbund. Or rather he was in the process of removing them in haste. Which was a good idea: on him they looked like bouquets on a flood victim.
As Julius entered he was handing the offending garments to a ‘New-citizen’ dresser and being fitted with less committed substitutes.
Fouché had the knack of making all conversations seem like his first and most important of the day. It was flattering and frightening in equal proportions to be the focus of such total attention. The effect was the same as with Julius’ newly constructed system of ransacked lens, now up on the Palace roof sun-drying serum-soaked strips of meat. Everything was both speeded up and intensified.
Julius had already mentally girded himself for a ‘mauvais demi-heure’ of carefully watched words and potential pitfalls. It was like dining with someone you knew to be homicidal—sometimes. From second to second the question arose, what use would he put his knife to next?
‘How are things proceeding would you say?’ said Fouché, without preamble, sitting down and arranging the few items on his desk into perfection-plus. ‘Well or not well?’
‘Well.’
That got noted in the little golden notepad, like it was either an admission or wisdom worth preserving. Or maybe, once down in written form it could actually be considered as real.
‘Yes,’ said Fouché, after leisurely delay. ‘That is my assessment also. And, more importantly, it is likewise the Emperor’s opinion. He has confided in me. He has noticed a difference. Therefore you will too.’
‘In what way?’
Fouché indicated something above Julius’ head. Julius looked but could see nothing but air and then a baroque ceiling.
‘An extra thread securing the sword of Damocles over you,’ the unsuspected Minister explained. ‘A slight strengthening of its suspension…’
Dear old Damocles again. He’d hovered over Frankenstein so long they were almost pals. Julius recalled Sir Percy Blakeney wielding that weapon at the Heathrow Hecatomb. Clearly, certain types kept it close to hand in their armoury of cliché.