A Beast in Paradise

by Cécile Coulon

  Approaching the wide earthen circle ringed by a low fence, Alexandre froze. The pigs squealed, their attention drawn by his arrival. The young man leaned over the fence. The pen was shallow, broad, and clean. The shady part of it, where Louis normally emptied the scrap pail, was bathed in coolness by the tall oaks.

  The pigs were grunting more and more loudly now. He remembered that day in the bedroom upstairs, when they’d made love for the first time while one of the beasts was slaughtered outside. He remembered its horrible cry, so long, so deep, so human. A shiver ran through him. The quiet of the farm clashed with the pigs’ frenzy. They were now butting hard against the fence, ramming into it with all their weight. Frightened, Alexandre took a step back. The sound of leaves crunching made him jump. Someone was there, behind him.

  Alexandre whirled around. The path was empty, its dry grass waving gently in the breeze. Only the faint, far-off noise of the chickens disturbed the silence.

  “Is someone there?”

  An answering moo from somewhere in the distance. A shudder of remembrance ran down his spine, the childhood memory of cows’ eyes mocking his fear. Louis had left Paradise; Émilienne was barely hanging on, and Blanche, Blanche—he murmured her name, rubbing his temples to dispel his anxiety and collect his wits—Blanche was about to make him a rich man. Alexandre leaned his elbows on the gate. His pounding heart calmed at the thought of the contract he would be signing in less than an hour. Chin lifted, eyes closed, he savored the moment. These were his last few minutes as a poor man, a subservient employee, a hard-working husband and father. This evening, this afternoon, he would be a landowner.

  Before he could turn, he felt something shove him against the wooden gate. The undone latch gave way and Alexandre toppled with the full force of his tall body, the body of an adult, so confident and soon to be rich, into the pen. The pigs rushed toward him, drawn by his scent, by the sudden movement. He sprawled in the shallow pit, his left ankle twisted at an odd angle, his hands fouled with dirt and liquid manure. Stunned, he tried to pull himself up on his forearms. A heavy mass struck him in the gut, spinning him back around, his leg now dragging uselessly behind him. The pigs surrounded him. He began screaming in terror. The pigs, which Blanche hadn’t fed in two weeks, recoiled for a moment and then charged, tearing at the clothing, the skin, the guts of this scarecrow that had been suddenly thrown to them. Alexandre screamed for as long as he still could, his body being ripped apart, a prisoner of the voracious animals, and in the midst of his screaming, he saw Blanche’s face, gaunt, emaciated, above the gate.

  No one came. Émilienne was old. Louis wasn’t here. No one came, except the pigs, clustering around him, famished, thrilled by this unexpected offering that had fallen from the sky. Alexandre let out one last scream and lost consciousness, the pigs’ frenzied mouths shredding and tearing again and again at his beautiful body, his charming face. A large brownish pool spread along the dirt floor of the pen until it licked at the boards of the fence. As the body stopped quivering beneath the snouts dripping with blood and viscera, Blanche turned away from the gate of the pen and ran, her limbs flailing crazily, like a marionette shocked by an electric current, back to the house.

  Sapped of what little strength remained to her, crushed by her own madness, she collapsed in the vestibule, grief and vengeance and savagery battling within her. Her love had died in Paradise, as all great hopes do.

  LIVING

  They recovered Alexandre’s body, or what was left of it. The pigs were destroyed, one after the other. Blanche, dazed, answered the questions that were fired at her two, three, four times: at what time, where were you, how long has it been since you ate a proper meal, where is your farmhand, what was your relationship to the deceased. At such-and-such o’clock, she said, I was in this place, I haven’t eaten in a very long time, Louis is on vacation, but I don’t know where, Alexandre and I used to be boyfriend and girlfriend, and then lovers, and then he left me. She told the truth, always the truth, and, faced with this young woman on whom life had turned its back, they looked away. She was hard to look at, truly. Eaten up by death.

  One more corpse in Paradise; one more death added to the pile. The Émard charnel house’s toll was increasing; it was impossible to think about anything else when you set foot in the yard: another death. Who will be next? Will they keep living here? Impossible to stay under a roof sheltering more ghosts than living people. Death in Paradise.

  Aurore and Louis were summoned to the police station the day after the tragedy. The previous afternoon, at three o’clock, Gabriel had been on his way to the elementary school for one last interview; he’d been seen walking toward the village. Aurore had been working at the bar. As for Louis, on whom the majority of suspicion fell, he had been spotted in the city. He had spent his two weeks’ vacation there, presenting himself at Alexandre’s real estate office as a potential buyer. He’d been warmly welcomed, no one suspecting his true identity. Rarely venturing beyond the boundaries of Paradise, Louis was a stranger wherever he went.

  The boss had greeted him obsequiously, and Louis had spent two weeks insisting that he accompany him to visit houses and apartments; then, one day, late in the afternoon, Louis had suggested that they go for a beer together; they deserved it, after all those visits. Calmly, Louis had grilled the man; he was a nice fellow, a bit money-hungry, but a good egg. It hadn’t been difficult; he was a businessman, talking the same way he breathed, easily and loudly. Louis had mentioned that he thought he might know one of the employees whose picture he’d seen at the office. “Alexandre!” the man had laughed. “Ah, yes, our young newlywed!” And he’d gone on at length about Alexandre’s honeymoon in New Zealand with his wife, and how he’d scored a big commission off a certain Doctor Neyrie when he’d gotten back. Alexandre had gloated about the deal for weeks, but business was bad, and the boss had almost fired him, “Last in, first out; I’m sure you understand.” Alexandre had begged for another chance; he had an idea, a brilliant one, to buy up farmland in areas that were soon to be urbanized and resell it as buildable lots. What a fine young man Alexandre was; what a bright mind. Louis nodded, drinking more than was wise, repeating, “We’re all looking for a fellow like that. When you find one, you don’t let him get away.”

  The summer finally drew to an end with the arrival of newborn calves and scarlet leaves. Blanche was presiding over lunch on this Sunday in late August for the first time, Émilienne having yielded her place at the head of the table. Next to the Émards’ daughter sat Louis, making sure her plate was never empty, that the silverware didn’t fall and hit the muzzle of the dog, lying at Blanche’s feet. She kept feeding the animal bits of chicken skin, feeling its rough tongue and smooth teeth against her fingers. Soon, the surface of Sombre-Étang would be covered with wide, round water lilies, the thick hedges trimmed back for the winter. Louis would cut down the chestnut trees ahead of the first frost, as always; Blanche insisted that it was the best wood for heating. She repeated the same actions every day, said the same things. Whenever her napkin fell on the ground, Louis picked it up for her, and she always chided him, “Why are you crouching down like that? You’re not a dog.” He would straighten up, setting the napkin on the table, or the dishcloth on the rim of the sink. Blanche would murmur again, and he never responded.

  Aurore and Gabriel had come earlier than usual on this particular Sunday, helping Louis in the kitchen, the queen outside, calling out orders every now and then without getting up. They bustled around, and she believed she was directing them, pointing to the barn, the house, the chicken coop, Louis nodding. Reassured, she sat back in her chair, shoulders jutting out on either side of her thin, pale neck. When she wanted anything, she tapped twice on the table with her first and middle fingers, and the farmhand would fetch her a dish, or the salt, or a pitcher. Just before noon, Louis had set out the silverware and smoothed the tablecloth embroidered with the Émard family’s initials in the shade of the red oak
, the table held steady by wedges. The tree’s leaves drooped in the summer heat. Blanche had to wipe sweat from her forehead whenever she left her chair or stretched an arm over the plates. Gabriel lolled in his chair, digesting the chicken he had carved. His fingers left brownish smudges on the tablecloth. Even before Blanche could get annoyed, Louis was soothing her, “Those things don’t matter, Blanche. It doesn’t matter.”

  “We’re having a baby.”

  Aurore shivered. There, Gabriel had said it. They had agonized over the right day, the right place, the right time to break the news. Everyone at the table registered shock, Blanche staring at the porch steps, palms pressed flat against the sky-blue summer dress that draped her body like a shroud. She sat unmoving, mouth open, silent.

  “Blanche? It’s wonderful, they’re going to have a baby!”

  Slowly she turned her head to look at Louis; between the hollow, pale cheeks shaded gray in places from lack of sleep, her lips twitched. Aurore huddled against Gabriel. It was as if Blanche had left her body, as if her spirit was roaming somewhere outside her, indifferent to the trouble it was causing. The Émards’ daughter murmured, dry-eyed:

  “Let’s go and tell Alexandre; he’ll be happy to hear it.”

  Mechanically, she slipped a hand into her pocket, pulling out three flower stems withered from the heat, the same kind of flowers that grow along the asphalt road all year round, a wild little bouquet that she would place, as she did every day, in the pigpen. Then, wobbling on her bony legs, she rose from her chair and flung her arms wide in a shambling movement that seemed as if it might rip her body open from throat to belly button. Head thrown back, she embraced this yard, this chicken coop, this house, these distant meadows, this barn, and this Sombre-Étang, broken by the mad love she had for Paradise.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The author is deeply grateful to Marie Nimier and Sylvie Pereira for their editorial advice.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Cécile Coulon is the author of seven novels, including Trois saisons d’orage, which won the Prix des Libraires, three prize-winning collections of poems, and a collection of short stories. A Beast in Paradise is her English-language debut.