‘I should be delighted, monsieur.’
The levity ended there. That one exchange had probably spent the soldier’s annual supply. His moustache bristled.
‘That mood will soon pass, spy bitch,’ he said.
‘You disappoint me,’ said Fouché. ‘Please don’t disappoint me.’
He hadn’t the stomach for the interrogation room and had swiftly withdrawn, handkerchief clapped to his nose against its accumulated perfume of sweat and fear. Yet, out of sight of the gory details, he nevertheless was ravenous for its end-products, like a devotee of sausage suppressing abattoir thoughts.
However, it wasn’t meat Fouché hungered for, but information—a substance he was addicted to. Mentally, he was salivating freely.
‘It is a simple question, Herr Frankenstein,’ said Fouché. ‘Are they the former travelling companions you previously referred to? Yes or no?’
‘Yes,’ said Julius, distracted. Over time, the superficially cultured life of Versailles had lulled him into forgetfulness: forgetfulness of the Egyptian’s fate and the shocking telescopes incident. Now the sudden stripping off of the silk glove to reveal the fist beneath disarmed him.
‘Pardon, monsieur?’ said Fouché. ‘You speak too softly.’
True enough. Julius’s voice was a whisper and easily drowned out by the screams from behind the door.
‘I said yes. It’s them.’
Fouché noted that in his golden book. Frankenstein wanted to ram it so far down the man’s throat that it erupted out the other end.
‘How relieved I am to hear you say that. A Lazaran lady and her thug? One such menagerie in the vicinity was remarkable enough. If you had proposed that there were two it would quite stretch my faith in you…’
In his present vulnerable state innocent words could explode in Julius’ face with extra meaning. Just a door’s breadth away, Foxglove was presently ‘stretched’ out for real, and being worked upon by experts. Their tools and ingenuity had stripped away all English reserve and speech was flowing free as his blood.
In Ada’s unfeeling flesh the torturers could get no purchase, nor transmit any messages along her dead nerves; but their imagination knew of other ways. Instead they made her watch, eyelids clamped open, in order to torment that most sensitive of human organs: the brain. It proved just as effective. She pretended to be hard but soon enough her testimony was matching Foxglove’s in eloquence.
Ada had noticed Julius come in and they exchanged glances. She might well have drawn the wrong conclusions, for whereas she was strapped to a board, skirts raised and hair deliberately messed to strip her of all dignity, he was merely under escort. To the uninstructed eye, Minister Fouché’s company did not look much like compulsion. Frankenstein started to explain but she spat at him like a cat. Which said it all. Fouché made his hasty departure and drew Julius with him.
Now, second by second, the Minister was recovering what little colour he ever had and all his oyster-style self-sufficiency. Soon he was his polished-marble self again.
‘So,’ he said, ‘may I take it that you were unaware of their intrusion?’
‘You may,’ answered Julius.
‘And that you have not solicited and encouraged it.’
‘They had no word from me.’
Fouché shook his head in distaste.
‘That is not the question I asked.’
Frankenstein considered his words. At the same time he seized the opportunity to gather his frayed edges, to be as seamless as the Bureaucrat pretended to be.
‘Very well then. I hereby affirm that I’ve had no part whatsoever in their being here…’
‘Then what do they want?’
Frankenstein wanted to shout back ‘can’t you hear the poor devils telling you?’ but did not. It wasn’t that kind of honesty that might keep him still breathing by day’s end. It was this variety:
‘Me,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘The woman thinks I can work miracles. Or that I know a man who can.’
‘So,’ Fouché mused, ‘she is here under false pretences…’
‘No, she is here for the reason she states. However, she labours under an illusion.’
‘Which is what precisely?’
It hadn’t worked. The mix needed even more honesty: a proportion that could take it to toxic levels.
‘That I can give her life back,’ said Julius. ‘Real, full, life; as it was before. Specifically, her genius…’
The tiny golden pencil hesitated an instant before continuing to move over the notepad—but something was amiss. A second’s focus revealed it. The scratching that signalled marks being made on paper was absent. Frankenstein pondered that lack and then, without moving his face a fraction, exulted.
No matter how shrewd they thought they were, no matter how careful, excitement betrayed all. Excitement, whether it be sexual or status-based or sordid, knew ways round the mental barricades; it bypassed the personas people constructed over long years. Statesmen blew decades of painstaking advancement for five minutes madness with a floozy. Princes of the Church blasted their professed beliefs to bits to get wealth that their faith warned against. Yet in this case there was nothing of flesh or coin about it: ‘the Bureaucrat’ had scented advancement and was instantly intoxicated.
Fouché was pretending to write, for form’s sake, but his mind was off the leash and running.
‘‘Genius’ you say?’ he said, slightly breathless. ‘And was she one?’
‘Some thought so,’ answered Julius. ‘She certainly does. Her faith has led her all this way. To this fate.’
‘And in vain? said Fouché, his voice level after the initial lapse. ‘I mean regarding this ‘miracle’ you mention…’
It was faint but unmistakable, the hint of a ghost of an embryo of almost erotic abandonment; the incautious question blurted out despite a life-time of caution. What a powerful weapon this thing ‘honesty’ was for ripping through the toughest of shields! Especially when now coated with the poison of falsehood…
‘Not necessarily…,’ replied Julius.
‘No?’
‘No. Merely premature…’
The notepad was snapped shut.
‘I see,’ said Fouché—but he didn’t. Then he departed, trying and failing to conceal urgency.
In that short and bloodless battle Frankenstein had won a great victory. He now knew what to do and that he would have revenge for what was going on behind the door even as they spoke. Most importantly, he realised he would after all survive until dawn—which was all the time he needed.
His hand had been forced, as it always needed doing, but now he was steely and implacable. He had his plan and a third party had just set it in motion. Any ‘if’ had been resolved; now it was merely a question of ‘when.’
Julius considered the question. Lunch would be on the table soon and he was rather peckish. So, after lunch?
No. The continuing screams reminded him that now was probably best.
Chapter 12: EAT! AND BE MERRY
‘Eat,’ Julius ordered, and the Lazaran obeyed.
It was a fairly fresh specimen, still bemused by basic training. That and fuzzy memories of being a soldier before (right up to encountering an Austrian bayonet) pre-disposed it to obedience. Even before crossing the Great Divide it had been conditioned into accepting officer-class instructions. Now, after being dragged back, further tuition had broadened that to any ‘warm-blood’ in authority. They were in charge it had been told repeatedly. Lazarans who couldn’t grasp this blissfully simple message were recycled—in public, on the parade-ground, to hammer home the point.