‘Si, capisco. Maybe he didn’t love his muse enough? If so, he’ll have to ask for her hand all over again.’
Could writers marry their muses afresh? Should Max, Cuneo and he dance naked and chanting around a fire of vine twigs in the middle of a wildflower meadow?
‘What are muses like? Are they like kitty cats?’ asked Cuneo. ‘They don’t like people grovelling for their love. Or are they like dogs? Can he make the muse jealous by making love with another girl?’
Before Jean Perdu could reply that muses were like horses, they heard Max yell something.
‘A deer! There. In the water!’
It was true: ahead of them, an utterly exhausted young doe was flailing in the middle of the canal. It panicked when it caught sight of the péniche looming up behind it.
It tried again and again to find a foothold on the bank, but the smooth, vertical walls of the man-made canal made escape from the lethal waters impossible.
Max was already hanging out over the railing, trying to rescue the exhausted animal with the life buoy.
‘Leave it, Massimo. You’ll fall in.’
‘We have to help it! It won’t make it out on its own – it’s drowning!’
Max now formed a lasso with one of the mooring lines and threw it repeatedly in the direction of the deer. But the animal panicked and writhed even more, disappeared underwater and then resurfaced.
The complete fear in the deer’s eyes touched off something inside Perdu.
‘Keep calm,’ he beseeched the animal. ‘Keep calm, trust us, trust us … Trust us.’ He throttled back Lulu’s engine and threw the barge into reverse, though it would continue to glide for another dozen metres.
The deer was already level with the middle of the boat.
It struggled more and more desperately with each splash of the rope and the life buoy on the water. The animal twisted its slight young head towards them, its brown eyes wide with panic and dread.
And then it screamed, making a sound somewhere between a hoarse whimper and a plaintive cry.
Cuneo was whipping off his shoes and shirt, readying himself to dive into the canal.
The deer screamed and screamed.
Perdu feverishly assessed the options. Should they tie up? Perhaps they could grab hold of it from the land and pull it out of the water.
He steered the boat towards the bank and heard the side scrape along the canal wall.
The deer kept on screaming the same shrill, desperate call. Its movements were growing ever wearier, and its efforts to gain a grip on the bank with its front legs were flagging. It couldn’t find one.
Cuneo stood by the railing in his underpants. He must have realised that he wouldn’t be able to help the little doe if he was unable to climb out of the canal himself. And Lulu’s hull was too high to heave the struggling deer aboard or to clamber up the emergency ladder with it in his arms.
When they finally managed to moor, Max and Jean leaped onto the bank and raced back through the undergrowth towards the deer. In the meantime, it had pushed away from their bank and was attempting to reach the far side.
‘Why won’t it let us help it?’ whispered Max, tears running down his cheeks. ‘Come here!’ he croaked. ‘Come here, you stupid bloody animal!’
All they could do was watch.
The deer mewled and whimpered as it tried to scale the far bank. Then it even stopped doing that. It slid back into the water.
The men watched in silence as the deer struggled merely to keep its head above water. Again and again it glanced at them and tried to paddle away from them. Its fearful gaze, full of distrust and defiance, pierced Perdu to the bone.
The deer gave one final desperate, lingering scream. Then the screaming ceased.
It went under.
‘Oh, God, please,’ whispered Max.
When it reappeared, it was floating on its side, head below the water, and front legs twitching. The sun shone, the midges danced, and somewhere in the woods a bird trilled. The deer’s body turned in lifeless circles.
The tears trickled down Max’s face. He lowered himself into the water and swam out to the corpse.
Jean and Salvatore watched Max pull the deer’s limp body along behind him until he reached Perdu’s bank. Max raised the slender, wet body into the air with unsuspected strength until Jean was able to grasp it. He was barely able to lift it out onto the bank.
The deer smelled of brackish water and leaf litter, and carried the aroma of an alien, ancient world far from the city. Its wet fur was bristly. As Perdu laid the deer carefully beside him on the sun-warmed ground, with its small head on his lap, he hoped that by some miracle the deer would shake itself, stand up on wobbly legs and dart off into the bushes.
Jean ran his fingers over the young animal’s chest. He stroked its back, then its head, as though his mere touch might break the spell. He felt the remaining warmth in its spare frame.
‘Please,’ he begged softly. ‘Please.’
Over and over he caressed the head on his lap.
The deer’s hazel eyes stared glassily past him.