Apollo ventured two steps out of the corral, turning his huge head to survey in all directions, before crossing the dooryard to a temptation he had desired countless times from inside the fence: Pierre’s herb garden, which flourished behind a circle of small rocks. Rosemary, lavender, thyme, all sweeter than ordinary grass. Bending his long neck, and with dainty bites, Apollo began to eat.
Back in the hedgerow, DuFour could not bring himself to finish the animal. It was like felling a tree: in which direction would Neptune tip? Probably into the path, blocking the way. And what was he to do with the carcass? He had no idea. Taking out the pistol, he opened it and loaded the chambers. Then, reasoning that he would only need one round, he unloaded it completely. Over the hours he repeated these actions several times while rain dripped from the leaves and a pair of finches chased one another down the path. The horse whimpered and shook. DuFour marched off, stopping a few hundred steps away before returning to stand beside Neptune. She had closed her eyes, holding her broken leg bent at the knee.
As the sun set, still DuFour had not acted. When night fell and no one could see, he took his broken umbrella and went home, returning at dawn to find the horse still there, of course, still suffering, of course. Traffic along that hedgerow was nil, such that no one came along to share DuFour’s hesitation, to commiserate, to buck up his courage or help him do the job.
Neptune had drawn within herself, silent and unmoving, as fixed as a commandment, and DuFour began to hate the horse for its predicament. The torment continued for two full days, the veterinarian’s assistant keeping vigil without taking action, until the blue bicycle returned.
“Where have you been?” DuFour demanded as the veterinarian pedaled up the lane. “It has been an agony here.”
“Did I not leave you with my gun?” he replied.
“Here it is, the vile thing.” DuFour held out the pistol. “I did not know what to do. You told me not to treat anything.”
Guillaume ran his gaze along the horse, her lowered head, the broken leg now drawn high against her haunch. He murmured to Neptune, then turned to speak through clenched teeth. “You are no longer my apprentice.”
He took the satchel of medicines away from DuFour’s feet, finding a round and loading the gun. “Your empathy for a creature in pain should have overcome my orders.”
“I did what you told me. I did what you said.”
“Neptune,” Guillaume called loudly, the huge horse lifting her head out of a fog of pain. “I am sorry you suffered so long.”
He pressed the pistol to the horse’s ear and fired. She collapsed knees-first, then fell on her side with a sigh. DuFour stood there, not making a sound.
“You are in exile from me,” Guillaume said, pressing two fingers under Neptune’s jaw to confirm that there was no pulse. “Never come near me, never speak to me.” He stood to his full height. “You have one last task, though. Go fetch Odette, and tell her to bring butchering tools. We shall all have meat tonight.”
Chapter 8
Within a month of Neptune’s death, old émile, the town clerk who had avoided conscription at the last moment, died in his sleep from heart failure. Immediately DuFour took his place. His title was assistant to the acting mayor, himself a puppet from another town installed at the Kommandant’s direction. Now all papers passed through DuFour’s hands, all requests landed on his desk.
At first people considered this change an improvement, because émile—might he rest in peace, but truth be told—was afflicted with savagely bad breath, as though he breakfasted on rotted garlic, and wore black coats whose shoulders were always distractingly snowed with dandruff. Also émile moved at the pace of a snail, laboring out of his chair with a sigh, bending over a filing cabinet with one hand at the small of his back, and maintaining a pace such that a job which required at most three hours’ work would instead occupy the entire day.
By contrast, DuFour was as sharp as a map pin. Stamping forms and filing papers, after each transaction he rang a little bell. His efficiency compensated for his lack of charm.
Soon enough, however, the people of Vergers realized that DuFour was the worst sort of person to install in this position, because it gave him power. A request for increased rations because a child had been born, an application for permission to travel, formalization of a marriage license—everything passed within his bureaucratic jurisdiction. He was the waist of the hourglass, the throat of the bottle, and one thumb could stop the entire flow. After Mass one Sunday, Marguerite the tobacconist remarked that not even Saint Peter in heaven made so stinting a gatekeeper.
But there were consequences. A rations paper delayed meant hunger for a child, a travel form ignored thwarted the opportunity to visit an ailing relative before death arrived, and DuFour calculated with expert accuracy the villagers’ desperation for such things. He extorted shamelessly, scorned personal appeals, proved impervious to pleas for mercy or haste.
One Monday morning when he arrived at work, Odette stood at his office door, wanting compensation for damage three drunken soldiers had done to her café on Saturday night.
“Wait,” he said with a sneer of superiority, turning to fumble with keys and unlocking his office door with a flourish. As Odette followed him through the open door, DuFour stopped in her path. “Wait.”
She paced in the hall, though there was no one ahead of her, while he pulled the door nearly closed. After some minutes passed, she peered through the opening. DuFour stood over the piles of paper on his desk, moving this stack here and that one there, then rubbing his hands together as if warming himself by a fire. More documents cluttered the windowsill.
“You worm,” she cried, throwing the door wide so that it banged against the wall cabinet. “These drunken oafs broke five of my chairs. Who the hell made you prince? I knew you before you wore trousers.”
DuFour drew himself up with a haughty sniff. “The compensation solicitation form,” he drawled, offering a long sheet of paper. “Complete it in triplicate and it will be processed in due course.”
“I see how it is.” Odette nodded. “Each of these pages is a little game for you, isn’t it?”
“The mayor and his advisers are pleased with my work.”
“So I fill out your form, and you take your sweet time processing it.”
He tented the fingertips of one hand on the fingertips of the other. “Naturally we give priority to the most urgent requests.”
“Naturally.” Odette tugged down on her shirt, by which she intended to convey a businesslike air, but which also inadvertently emphasized her large bosom. She leaned forward, palms atop all of his collected papers.
“Careful,” he warned. “These are my responsibilities.”