Yet these different skulls were trepanned.
Besides the skulls, the boxes also yielded several flint arrowheads, in a soft cotton bag, and a file of slender documents, written in exquisitely mannered old handwriting, tiny but entirely legible. The notebooks of a layman Victorian scientist. They were but a few pages long. Ten minutes later she sat back.
Her friend-with-benefits looked up from the wounded skulls he was examining and gave her a sly smile. He said, “C’mon, don’t tease. What did he say? Prunières?”
“He found exactly what I found, on the Cham. Skeletons with wounds, lots of them; and skulls with trepanations. Little rondelles cut from the cranium. He was hunting in the caves of Lozère, to the west, near the Tarn.”
“I see. And?”
“And he made notes for a lecture, summing it up. Here, I’ll read it out.” She picked up one notebook and stolidly translated: “‘In the Baumes-Chaudes caves, situated in that part of the valley of the Tarn which belongs to the department of Lozère, I picked up numerous bones bearing scars, characteristic of wounds produced by stone weapons. Some fifteen of these bones, such as the right and left hip bones, tibiae, and vertebrae, still contain flint points flung with sufficient force to penetrate deeply the bony tissue. I have also presented to the Congress at Clermont many bones bearing traces of’…” She paused. “I’m not sure of this word… no, hold on. Ah, it’s cicatrized. “‘Many bones bearing cicatrized wounds, from the cave of l’Homme Mort, and beneath the Aumède dolmen.’…” She turned the page and looked at Alex. “There’s lots more like this. He found thousands of wounded bones, and dozens of trepanations, across Lozère.”
Alex whistled, low, appreciatively.
“Hmm! And the upshot, does he speculate a link?”
She said, “Yes. It’s vague, and he admits it is kinda theoretical. But he wonders if…” She quoted again: “‘If we may posit the existence of a relatively advanced society, in upper Languedoc, many thousands of years before the birth of Christ, prone to severe violence. In this regard, perhaps the trepanations can be seen as a reaction to the violence. We know from the estimable Doctor Mantegazza, of Peru, who did such prodigious research in the Sanja-Huara cave, in the Anta province of that distant land—’”
“He’s a bit wordy.”
Her smile was excited. “He is. But he gets there! Listen. ‘We know from Mantegazza’—blah blah—‘that certain civilizations in pre-Colombian antiquity practiced the same cranial surgeries, probably as a way of exorcising evil spirits, allowing demons to escape. It is surely’”—she leaned closer to the page, squinting at a word—“‘plausible that our ancestors on the wild Causses of the Lozère attempted similar interventions: they tried to excise the violence in their culture by freeing the demons in their brains. By drilling holes in their skulls.’”
Alex said, “Intriguing. Very intriguing. He thinks they were all killing each other, so they tried to save their culture with some primitive brain surgery — to get rid of violent urges. Not entirely impossible. It helps to explain Stone Age trepanation.”
She lifted a hand.
“This last paragraph is even more curious.” She quoted the conclusion: “‘If I am permitted the liberties of a veteran, in our war on scientific ignorance, I might add one more thought. Could there be a connection between my modest discoveries and the strange objects recently reported by Garnier, in his gallant explorations of the Mekong River in upper Cochin China?’”
Alex sat forward.
“Cochin China. That’s the old name for French Indochina?”
Her nod was vigorous. “‘The valiant French imperialist, so recently returned from the terrors of the Khone Falls and the delights of Louanghprabangh, tells us that he unearthed several large jars, on a plateau near Ponsabanh, which contained very similar remains as to those discovered in our very own Lozère: many dozens of skulls, trepanned, and evidence of disturbing and coeval social violence. The connection is piquant and intriguing, and of course quite fantastical. It is for younger and better scholars to discover if there is any truth in my fantasies.’”
The notebook was closed. Alex was uncharacteristically silent. Then he spoke:
“A link with Indochina. Laos, Cambodia. Wow.”
“It’s time we told Rouvier about some of this, there are too many links. Too many. We need to go.”
Alex agreed; he stood and stretched and said he was impatient for coffee, a proper grand crème. A nice bar where they could talk all this over. Quick and efficient, they put lids on the cartons, replaced them on the shelf, then made swiftly for the exit and the rain.
But something nagged Julia as they went toward the big swing doors with the big grimy windows. Something had been nagging her for a while. She turned to Alex.
“Meet me at that brasserie, OK? That one we drove past — couple of blocks back.”
“Sure. But why?”
“There’s something I want to ask that asshole at the office. You go and have your coffee. Three minutes.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him, her arms slung around his neck; she liked the fact that he was taller.
He smiled. “You’re getting gay on me, Julia.” But he was still smiling as he turned and quit the building. Julia watched him for a moment, happy amid the terrors that she had Alex. But now she had a more difficult duty than kissing Alex Carmichael.
Walking to the office of the dour Frenchman, she tapped on the glass partition. Sighing, tetchily, the curator put down his sports paper and slid back the glass.
Julia asked him about the pile of boxes in the study room. Obviously, whoever had examined the boxes had not used them to archive the discoveries that Julia had made: the new skulls had not been added. So who had been in to look at this specific collection? What had been their exact purpose in using the Prunières boxes?
She phrased the question directly: Did the archivist remember anyone who had come searching for the archives of Prunières de Marvejols?
The Frenchman nodded, and wearily explained that a scholar had been in for the last three days, frantically hunting down the very same boxes, finally locating them yesterday afternoon. This scholar had been quite annoying in several ways — the archivist yawned theatrically to underline the point — because the scholar had also demanded an obscure back issue of an obscure magazine of French anthropology, so that a specific article could be photocopied.
Julia asked if the archivist remembered the name of the writer of the article.
A petulant sigh.
“Non, mais je me souviens bien du titre. Nous n’arrivons pas à trouver l’article. Il a disparu. Voulez-vous connaître le titre?” No, but I remember the title. We could not find the article. It is missing. Do you want to know the title?
“Oui!”
The archivist sighed and turned and sorted through a pile of documents on his desk; then he handed a piece of paper through the window. The paper had one line written in capitals: it was the title and the author of this missing article.
The author’s name might have been underlined in blood, it was so conspicuous and alarming: Ghislaine Quoinelles.
Her anxiety and her speculations were cut short, the archivist spoke: Is that it? We are finished?
“Non… une autre question.”
Julia asked her final question. She wanted a description of the scholar. Picking up his copy of L’Equipe, the archivist yawned and answered without looking up: The woman is about thirty. She is a little strange. She has long dark hair, and a very white face. Perhaps she is Oriental.