And the swim ring.
When he is fifty yards from the shore he knows he will make it, even if the swim ring sinks.
It doesn’t sink.
Out of breath, he steps on the island, collapses to his knees. And he immediately notices that there is something wrong. Before the words even take shape in his mind, it surges through his body, a discharge of shock and fear. He leaves the punctured swim ring to the waves, the sack of potatoes on the shore, and leaps to his feet.
For a start, there is no one on the watchtower.
And there is blood on the ground.
-
His breathing, hoarse and heavy, at the foot of the deserted tower. Louie puts one hand on the cinder blocks to support himself. He can see the blood ten yards away.
The blood, but not only: the lump of flesh next to it.
He knows what it is. He recognizes it. That’s why he’s holding on to the tower. Once again he is gasping for breath, in shock, he ought to sit down but there’s nothing, so he collapses on the ground and is afraid he won’t be able to get up. His nails scratch the warm cinder block, and gradually he gets his breath back.
At the same time, tears. The only thought he has is, I’ll kill them.
A manner of speaking. But those really are the only words that spring to mind at that moment.
One step, then another. He glances around furtively, then turns away without stopping: yes, it is indeed one of the hens lying there. Well, its head. He imagines that the rest of it is in the pot.
I’ll kill them.
The fact they took advantage of his absence, when he was going to get potatoes in order to feed them, to make them happy, to be able to spare his hens. He had told them he didn’t want to. They weren’t hungry enough, not yet. He can’t help but see the image of the severed head again: which one did they take? Chosen at random, of course. The one that was easiest to catch. A black one. He goes through their names in his mind.
Rage.
Which hampers his breathing, enough to cause the walls to tremble when he goes into the house and roars:
“What have you done, shit!”
Bent over a body of feathers, Perrine and Noah give a start. Noah begins screaming, jumping from one foot to the other, “It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me!”
And Louie: So what are you doing?
Perrine is trembling and sniveling; she lets go of the hen and it falls to the ground.
“I can’t get rid of the feathers.”
Oh, what a sight. They have been trying to pluck the feathers just like that, because they didn’t know you’re supposed to scald the hen to make it easier to pluck. In the end they took scissors to shear the bird, and Louie is horrified by the sight of blood on Perrine’s hands and on the hen’s neck, this hen that looks like a strange hedgehog, pricked with hastily pruned stalks, a battlefield, a massacre. For a few seconds he stands with his mouth open on a word that won’t come out. The two children watch him, paralyzed.
“It was to have with the potatoes,” sobs Perrine.
“I told you,” Louie begins. “I really told you…”
So this is how it starts, first with disbelief, and then he sees it’s true, the hen is there on the floor before him, half torn apart, and suddenly he explodes with rage, grabs Perrine and pulls her down onto the tiled floor, his hands raised, slapping her relentlessly, Noah screaming, pulling him back, blows, tears, all three of them in a fury. For several minutes they fight and scratch and bite, they shout. Their hearts are racing, their voices turn husky, their pleading, too.
“Stop, I’m bleeding, I’m bleeding!” says Noah as he crawls away.
For the first time there is no one to pull them apart, no Madie or Pata, no voices to contain them, no arms to send them to their bedrooms, what could possibly stop them—fatigue, it is fatigue which suddenly leaves them sitting on the floor in the kitchen, heads lowered, faces scratched, Noah is holding a handkerchief over his wounded nose, no other sound but that of tears and sniffles.
Louie’s rage has yielded to a huge sadness, the one he has been hiding for days, and he looks at his little brother and sister and frowns, serves them right, and between two sobs he shouts:
“And anyway, we’re all going to die!”
But dying doesn’t mean anything to them just then, nothing more, nothing worse then the crushed hen in the middle of the kitchen. They sit around her in a circle, legs outstretched and spotted with blood. Die? So what. For all the difference it would make.
“I don’t care!” shouts Noah.
Louie slides across the floor toward him and kicks him; the little boy whimpers, shrinks. Then there is silence. Perrine is hiding her face in her hands. They look at one another on the sly, watchful, gradually their tears dry as time passes. Before long their cheeks are dry, they have wiped them on their sleeves. All that remains is rancor, and shame, they don’t want to forgive. Noah is the first to stand up, head high, acting the grown-up, doesn’t even hurt, not even afraid, he motions to the hen with his chin.
“So, what are we going to do? Are we going to eat it or not?”
Now Louie is on his feet, so close to hitting him that the little boy can sense it, and backs up to the wall, glaring at him, he doesn’t want to let go, after all. Perrine reacts:
“No, no. We’re not going to eat it. And anyway, we don’t know how.”
Noah stamps his foot. What the…
“We’re going to bury it,” Louie interrupts. “You are going to bury it, since you killed it.”
Perrine nods. She knows it’s better to be reconciled with her older brother, and that they were wrong to decapitate the hen, she tries not to think about it anymore—the terrified squawking, they had to start again four times over, she and Noah, before they managed to chop off its head, she almost gave up; but once you’ve made the first gash, you can’t let the creature die in agony, can you. She wanted to throw up. Then those damned feathers clinging to its flesh as if they were embedded in cement; how did Madie manage to bring out those platters of chicken with that smooth and crispy brown skin?
So little Perrine goes out to the barn and takes the shovel. Louie follows her and Noah stays ten yards behind them to signal his discontent. She places the hen’s body in a basket, along with its head, which she went outside to fetch where the ants were already beginning to lurk around it.
“Here,” she says to Noah, handing him the basket.
He slowly steps closer, then balks. Perrine raises her voice. Go on! He obeys reluctantly, watching Louie and his hands that are only too ready to strike. He sulks. Not a word. Perrine has gone down to the lower part of the island, where the earth will be softer, she thinks. In silence, she digs a little hole, glancing at Louie for his approval.
As for Louie, he is staring at the basket containing the hen. He is eager to get her buried. Not a pretty sight, a skinned creature, with the flies arriving in droves, drawn to the metallic smell of blood. He waves them away. After a while he looks up, because of the silence: still no one has said a word, and Perrine has stopped digging. He can see that she is waiting. Gazing into the hole. He too waits, perhaps a minute. The only sound the buzzing of insects. And then he says, “All right.”
He takes the basket and lays the hen on the black earth, arranging her head so that it will look as if it is attached to the rest of her body. He mutters a few words in a low voice, ending with a murmured Amen, he remembers that’s how you end prayers, then he gestures to Noah.