"No," said Kline. "It's true."
"But why, Mr. Kline? Surely you could have easily applied a tourniquet and called a doctor?"
"Then I wouldn't have been able to kill the man who cut my hand off."
"The so-called gentleman with the cleaver," said Borchert, nodding. "But surely you could have killed the fellow later?"
"No," said Kline. "It was either him or me, right then. I cauterized the arm to distract him. He couldn't quite take in what I was doing, which gave me a certain advantage. Otherwise, he would have shot me."
"Yet you could take it in, Mr. Kline, even though it was your own arm. And afterwards your remaining hand was steady enough to shoot him through the eye. You were God for a moment, even if you didn't realize it. I suspect you tapped into something without knowing it, Mr. Kline. An ecstasy. I almost begin to suspect we have something to learn from you."
"I wouldn't think so," said Kline.
"Modest, too," said Borchert. "You know what you've done to our community? You've started something, Mr. Kline. Everybody is talking about self-cauterization. The creed is threatening to transform. Schism. No selfcauterizers yet, but it's only a matter of time, and then smoothly cut surfaces," he said, gesturing at his missing arm and leg, "are likely to give way to hard-puckered and rippled stumps, ugly and dappled. A little bit rough trade, no? I can't say it's to my taste, Mr. Kline, but perhaps I'm becoming antiquated."
"Perhaps," said Kline.
Borchert looked at him sharply. "I doubt it," he said. "In any case, Mr. Kline, despite my personal objections to you, now that you are here, I can't afford to let you go. Too much is at stake. I send you out of here without an investigation and we'll have a schism."
"I'm not staying," said Kline.
"You leave and I'll have to kill you," said Borchert. "For the good of the faith. Nothing personal."
Kline looked at his hand, then looked at Borchert.
"Wouldn't you like to at least hear about it, Mr. Kline? Before deciding if it's worth dying for?"
"All right," said Kline. "Why not?"
"A crime has been committed. You are not to discuss the specific details of this crime with anyone with fewer than ten amputations. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes," said Kline.
"And in any case, Mr. Kline, I expect you to be discreet. This is a somewhat precarious society. The only one who knows the full extent of this crime is myself and, in a moment, yourself."
Kline just nodded.
"In short, we've had a murder," said Borchert.
"A murder," said Kline. "Murder's not exactly my specialty."
"No," said Borchert. "But you're all we have."
"May I ask who was murdered?"
"A man called Aline," said Borchert. "He organized this community, this brotherhood. A prophet, a visionary. Both arms lopped off at the shoulder, legs gone, penis severed, ears removed, eyes removed, tongue cut partly out, teeth removed, lips peeled away, nipples sliced off, buttocks gone. Anything that could be removed removed. A true visionary. Murdered."
"How was he murdered?"
"Someone broke open his sternum, chopped his heart out."
"Do you have any idea who-"
"No," said Borchert. "And we'd like the heart back if possible."
"Why do you need the heart back?"
Borchert smiled. "Mr. Kline," he said. "We're a brotherhood. This is a religion. His heart means something to us."
Kline shrugged.
"I don't expect you to understand," said Borchert. "You're an outsider. But perhaps you'll understand one day." He moved awkwardly in his chair. "By the way," he said, "What became of your own hand?"
"I don't know," said Kline.
"You don't know," said Borchert. "Imagine that. Colonel Pierre Souvestre's leg was buried in a full-blown state funeral when he lost it in 1917. Your hand, on the other hand, is probably rotting in a pile of garbage somewhere."
Kline stood up. "When can I see the body?" he asked.
Borchert sighed. "I've told you everything you need to know about it," he said. "There's no need to see the body."
"You don't have the body anymore?"
"No," said Borchert. "It's not that."
"Then what?"
"His body is sacred to us," said Borchert. "Even without the heart."
"Are there any witnesses?"
"You're not to approach anyone with more than ten amputations without an invitation."
Kline looked about the room. "That makes the investigation a little difficult."
"I'm sure you'll manage," Borchert said.
"Can I at least see the room?"
"Yes," said Borchert, slowly. "I suppose we could manage that."
"So I'm to investigate a murder without seeing a body and without being able to interview witnesses or suspects?"
"Don't exaggerate, Mr. Kline. Just don't break in on anyone unannounced. Talk to me and I'll make arrangements."
Turning, Kline made for the door.
"Oh, and one more thing, Mr. Kline," said Borchert.
"What's that?" asked Kline.
Borchert held up one of his two remaining fingers. "As an act of good faith," he said, "to show you I have nothing against self-cauterization, that I'm an open-minded man, I'd like your help removing the upper joint of this."
"You want me to cut it off."
"Just the top joint," Borchert said. "Little more than a symbolic gesture, a pact if you will. You'll find a cleaver in the top drawer," he said, gesturing to the back of the room with a flick of his head. "There's a stove there as well, Mr. Kline, built into the counter, which I'll ask you to turn on."
Kline looked at him, looked into the back of the room, shrugged. "Why not?" he asked.
Opening the drawer, he removed the cleaver. He placed it on the counter, resting it on a butcher's block, the wood of which was laced with dozens of thin crosshatched marks. He went back to Borchert, and dragged his chair to the back of the room, set it flush against the counter.
"You don't know what an honor this is for you," said Borchert. "It's quite a gesture of intimacy. Almost anyone here would kill for it. A shame it's wasted on you."
"I'll take your word for it," said Kline.
He took Borchert by the wrist and placed the hand on the butcher's block. He folded the index finger back into Borchert's palm, leaving the remaining finger, the middle finger, angled down against the butcher's block. The burner had warmed now and was glowing red, smoking slightly. He rested his stump just above Borchert's knuckle and held the finger steady, pushed it down slightly so that the first joint was firmly against the wood.
"Just the first joint?" he asked.
Borchert smiled. "For now," he said.
He lifted the cleaver and brought it down hard and fast, as had been done to him, to his hand. The blade was sharp; there was almost no resistance as it went through the joint, perhaps a slight snap as it chopped through bone. The finger's nail and the flesh and bone just below it sat on one side of the blade, the rest of the finger on the other. Borchert's face, he saw, had gone pale.
"Well done," said Borchert, his voice strained. "Now, Mr. Kline, if you would see your way clear of releasing my hand. ."
Looking down, Kline realized that his stump was pushing down on Borchert's hand so hard that Borchert couldn't move. Blood was sputtering a little out of the finger's end, weakly. He lifted his stump and Borchert moved his finger away from the blade slightly and blood came puddling up now against the blade. He watched Borchert swing the hand about and, stretching his arm, bring the fingertip down onto the burner coil.
The flesh hissed, the blood hissing too, the air quickly filling with a smell that seemed to Kline like the smell of his own burning flesh. Now, he thought, it is time for Borchert to pick up the gun and shoot me through the eye. When Borchert took his finger away, Kline could still hear it hissing a little.