Michel And Axe Bury The Hatchet (The French Bastard Book 2)

by Avan Judd Stallard

  Even though she knew there was a man dying in her barn while she dallied with Godewyn, Axe could not help but smile. There was no other person in the world quite like her eccentric neighbor. “Later, Godewyn. Thank you.”

  “Yes, of course, of course. Later.” He swiveled around. “Esmee!”

  7

  Godewyn spent five minutes feeling, prodding, looking and holding, when all Axe wondered was why he did not just do something. She held her tongue and said naught, even as her frustration built.

  Her right foot tapped the bare ground faster and faster. One particular thought expanded till it could not be denied.

  The Frenchman must be so badly injured that Godewyn cannot help him. He’s going to die.

  Finally, the old veterinarian turned his head and looked at Axe. He smiled a mischievous smile and stroked his moustache. “And you say he won the fight?”

  A joke. At a time like this, a joke … But what better time?

  They needed all the jokes they could get, if they were to stay sane. Axe exhaled. Her foot stopped slapping the dirt. She tried to smile and failed.

  “Yes,” she said plainly.

  Godewyn was on his knees; he made to get to his feet. Axe rushed across and helped him. He stood then stumbled a step as the blood rushed into his limbs. He leaned heavily on Axe and she kept a firm grip.

  “I must tell you a story,” said Godewyn. He transferred his weight so he was leaning against the worn old table that passed as Axe’s work bench, dinner table, ironing board and desk.

  “When I was nineteen, before I married Esmee and she confined me in our little cottage, I took a grand voyage down through France, all the way to Spain and an old city called Pamplona. It’s famous for a festival. Bulls stampede the streets, chasing crazy men who run for their life.

  “I had intended to run with them and return to Belgium with fabulous stories. Before I got married, you see? But the afternoon before the festival I went and looked at the bulls, safely locked in their pens. That was all it took, seeing the brutes stomping around, sharpening their long horns against the stone walls, just waiting for a little Belgian man to trip over and become a piñata. I’d always had my suspicions, but I found out that day that I, Godewyn Faas, am a coward.

  “What a relief to know! Such a weight lifted. I knew then that no bull would ever gore me; no pointless fight over hurt pride would be my end. From that day forth I could be a proud coward and watch all the valiant fools of the world from a safe distance.”

  Godewyn paused to get his breath. Axe knew it was Godewyn’s way to tell a long story to make a short point and that once he began there was no stopping him. Yet she was desperately impatient for him to hurry and finish, so she shuffled from foot to foot, consciously trying to avoid the foot-tapping that her mother had warned was an ugly habit of intemperance.

  “The next day I watched from the safety of a high balcony. Men dressed in white, with sashes of red hanging from their belts and shirts, sprinted around the corner. Those at the front were a little like me; they understood the danger and they wanted to live, so they ran fast and did not stop! Then came the great heroes. They did not sprint. They sauntered—as only Spanish men can saunter.”

  Godewyn adopted a low and gravelly voice. “ ‘No bull scares this matador! I shall not run from their puny horns. Ándale! Ándale!’ The bulls came. They were angrier than when I had seen them the day before. Snot dripping from nostrils, some of them foaming at the mouth. All those bulls wanted was to crush the daylights out of a dirty great Spaniard, seeing as there were no Belgians to poke.

  “I watched big brown and white steers twisting and turning, slipping on the cobblestones, trying to find someone to punish, and then came the real fellow, a bull, a gargantuan toro they called El Diablo. Of course, everything is called El Diablo in Spain, but this bull, it was enough to make one wonder. Raw muscle and fury. Black as the night, with a long brown streak running along his spine.

  “I knew straight away he was not like the others. Smarter. He didn’t twist around on himself the way a dog chases its tail. He focused. The eyes of El Diablo met the eyes of a man with a stunning red scarf draped around his neck. A beautiful man. Tall and dark and handsome. Esmee would have loved him,” said Godewyn, turning and winking at his wife.

  Esmee rolled her eyes.

  “The Spaniard thought he was clever and the bull stupid, because he waited for it to come, dancing on the spot, then when it was two or three yards away he skipped to the left. I had seen him do it for one of the white steers that ran straight past.

  “Not El Diablo. His body turned easy as the rabbit fleeing the hawk. He reached down and with his long horn scooped up the man’s legs. He yanked his head and the man did a flip in the air, all the way around, and landed hard on the stone. He was all right. Sore I’m sure, but all right. Then El Diablo stopped, turned and came again.

  “The man ran. There was a tall stone wall in front of him, with dozens of people atop, calling down to the man. ‘Venga! Ándale! Arriba!’ He had the bull right there, on his heels, boom boom, boom boom. I’ll never forget the thunder of his hooves on the cobblestones. Boom boom, boom boom. The man must have been scared, because he jumped too early. Hit the wall halfway up and dropped. His feet got in their own way and he was suddenly on his knees. Boom boom, boom boom. He turned his head to see El Diablo, the devil, come to take him.”

  Godewyn slapped his hands together.

  “Crack! That noise, terrible. Terrible. Breaking open a walnut shell. His head was caught between the stone wall and the devil’s own skull. El Diablo stayed to gore him for a few moments, thrusting his horns into his body, then he was gone, searching for another brave fool. The Spaniard did not get up.”

  Godewyn shook his head.

  “Men climbed down and carried him away. I was fascinated by the man and spectacle, so I followed. They took him to a building where doctors treated others, at least a dozen, cut and broken, snapped bones and bashed heads, a mess. More would come, that was certain. The bulls had only run half the route, and El Diablo was not done. By the end of the day he would kill two men!

  “Not our brave hero, though,” said Godewyn, wagging a crooked finger. “Within a handful of minutes one side of his head had swelled up. The doctors cut away his magnificent black hair. Even from the doorway I could see a small melon. Blood in his ears. And the man was limp. Unconscious.

  “The doctors argued, I don’t know exactly what they said. I suppose the younger of them won, because he gave a command to a man who ran out. He came back a few minutes later with a brace, the drill with the square handle you swing around and around. The young doctor put the end of the drill right against the man’s skull and turned.

  “A lot of blood, oh yes, there was a lot of blood. It ran onto the floor and across the blue tiles and pooled in the corner. But the swelling began to go down! The melon, disappearing before my eyes! By the following morning the man was awake and talking. He had a cracked skull and hole in his head, but he lived!

  “That is what I went to Pamplona for. You can see bulls anywhere; there is nothing special about bulls, even angry ones or unusually smart ones. But for a near-dead man to be saved thanks to a hole drilled in his skull to relieve swelling on the brain … that is special.

  “Trepanation. Yes, it is called trepanation—and that, my girl, is what our French friend here needs.”

  8

  Axe stared at the old veterinarian. She understood what Godewyn was saying, and yet the thought of taking a drill and boring through a man’s skull to expose his brain was too much. Doctors did many strange and horrible things—giving morphine to babies to shut them up, gruesome amputations of infected limbs without anesthetic or proper tools, cutting open sores and poking in dried peas and sewing them back up until a good and proper suppuration got going—but this somehow was worse. It was the head! The source of a man’s mind! Perhaps even his soul …

  “So you’re telling me that … you’re going to d
rill through the bone of his head …” Axe said slowly.

  “Oh, heavens no,” said Godewyn. “I haven’t the stability or strength left for that. I would slip and kill him! No, my dear, you—it is you who must do the drilling. He is your guest, after all.” Godewyn smiled that mischievous smile.

  “Me?

  “You.”

  “But … but you will help? You will tell me what to do?”

  “Of course!”

  “And you have done this before? It is safe—it has worked on other animals?”

  “I’m a veterinarian, dear Axe. We don’t cut into animal’s heads, not unless it is to cut their head off for the taxidermist! Why, if it’s that far gone, it’s time to get a new horse. Vets drilling into animal’s heads … Did you hear that, Esmee? What a thought. What a thought. But I did see it. In Spain. Done to that beautiful Spanish man. It was only fifty years ago. Still fresh in my mind! So nothing to worry about, my dear, nothing to worry about …”

  Axe’s father had put together a decent set of tools over many years of farming. They were still sitting in their precise positions on the shelves where her father had kept them.

  Axe brought a dusty hand drill across to Godewyn and held it out. “This?”

  “Perfect,” he said. “Perfect, and a perfect size.”

  The drill bit was not much wider than a fat lead inside a fat pencil. Godewyn took it from Axe and proceeded to clean the drill with an alcohol-soaked cloth.

  With considerable difficulty, the three of them had already lifted Michel onto the table. Esmee now separated Michel’s hair, then used a razor to shave a small patch bald. She dabbed at it until the area was wiped clean; it glistened with sterilizing alcohol. Esmee looked up. “He is ready.”

  Godewyn handed the drill to Axe and pointed to the side of Michel’s head. “There, my girl. That is the spot.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Sure? No. Not at all. But that is the spot. You will have to use a good bit of pressure at first. The bone is thick. Then ease off, and feel your way through. You don’t want to drill into the brain itself. You’ll know when to stop.”

  “What if I do … go into his brain?”

  “Then you will either have a dead man or a moron on your table. If he dies, you already have a big hole dug outside for the body. If he wakes a moron, then you will have someone to fill in that dirty great crater!” Godewyn laughed at his own joke, then said, “Well, shall we?”

  Axe pressed the end of the drill against the right side of Michel’s head. She looked to Godewyn. He nodded eagerly. She turned.

  The drill chewed into the skin and the bleeding began immediately. Axe felt sick—not at the sight of blood, but at the thought of what she was doing to this man. The blood was merely a reminder that she was cutting through that which ought never see a blade. She kept turning.

  Esmee was busy mopping up the flow of blood. There was a lot of it. Godewyn leaned close and watched.

  “That’s it. Nice and steady. Excellent. Keep going, keep going.”

  Axe was through to the bone. It felt hard and smooth against the drill bit. She pressed firmly and turned. As the fluted needle of steel bit into the bone, the resistance increased and Axe had to focus, work her shoulder. There was no mistaking the sensation; it was just like when a drill bit into wood.

  Axe became hyper-conscious of the whisper of breeze rustling leaves outside, Godewyn’s heavy breathing and the simple scraping sound of steel drilling toward a human brain. So little sound for such great violence.

  “I must be close,” said Axe with panic in her voice. She stopped and looked at Godewyn.

  “Keep going. Ease the pressure and keep turning, gently. When you break through, don’t try to yank it out. You will need to reverse the motion and wind the drill bit out.”

  Axe focused. Both her shoulders hurt from the effort to remain steady and exert just the right amount of pressure. She turned, turned, and then the resistance disappeared. Axe froze.

  “I think I’m through,” she whispered.

  “Good, good. Wonderful work! No moron or dead man, not today. Now, reverse the motion. It will come as easy as a knitting needle in cake.”

  Axe wound in the opposite direction, finding no resistance. She was careful to keep the drill steady so it did not flex and snap while still stuck in Michel’s head. Another turn and the drill bit pulled clear, followed by a spurt of blood that shot out and sprayed Axe. She jumped back.

  The spray reduced to a fast ooze. Esmee moved in and pushed her bloodied rag against the wound, but Godewyn called out, “No! Let it bleed. He must bleed.”

  Blood spilled down Michel’s head and drained from the lip of the table to the ground, where it pooled. Esmee looked at the blood coming from the wound and then the blood in the dirt, a veritable lake of red.

  “It’s too much blood, Godewyn,” said Esmee.

  “If he does not bleed, he dies anyway. I say let him bleed!” Godewyn yelled. Then in a small voice: “Just let the poor man bleed, and hope I have not killed him.”

  Seconds, seconds, more seconds … the flow of blood started to ease. Esmee looked to Godewyn and he nodded. She moved to place the rag against the wound, when the top half of the inert body shot upright and Michel’s mouth twisted in grimace, his lips barely open.

  “Arrggh! Arrggh!” he screamed, and kept screaming an inarticulate wail, both bloodcurdling and bloodthirsty.

  And indeed there was blood, blood everywhere. It streamed down Michel’s face and sprayed from his lips, carried by his scream into the face of Godewyn. The old man stumbled back and fell.

  Esmee stepped clear, quick and spry for an old woman, while Axe stood frozen to the spot a few yards away. She too would have screamed if she had the voice, but it scared clean out of her, so Axe stood there, hands to her face, her mouth half open, with a single thought stabbing into her heart—I have killed him and this is his ghost—a crazy thought, insane, yet was it not insane to drill into a man’s head and expect anything normal or good to come from it?

  Just as abruptly, Michel’s scream quit. He balanced a moment, his eyes having never opened, his mouth still a barely open snarl. Blood dribbled from the hole in his skull down the side of his head, around his ear, along his chin and onto his lap. His upper body tipped back and he slammed onto the table. Unconscious again. Or perhaps he always had been.

  As Godewyn and Axe tried to pull themselves together, Esmee—the practical one, the unflappable one, the truly brave and tough and ever-underestimated one—went to Michel. There could be no doubting now, no need for a nod from Godewyn. The Frenchman had bled enough. Esmee pushed her rag against the wound.

  9

  A ray of afternoon sunlight had found a gap in the wooden slats. It sparkled in the dusty air, a flawlessly straight beam of the subtlest yellow that ended its long journey through the enormous desolation of space in a humble Belgian barn where it tickled a beat-up Frenchman’s face.

  Michel turned his head enough for the beam to leave his eyes. No, not eyes—eye. There was color in just the one. The light now spilled across Michel’s cheek, where it felt warm. The warmth was good.

  Michel opened and blinked one eye. The impression of red eventually reduced, and he began to see. He saw wooden rafters. They were brown and silver. He mumbled, not knowing what he wanted to say, but knowing he should speak.

  Esmee had been watching over Michel since the morning. Godewyn slept, slumped against a pile of hay. Axe cut wood outside; they would need a fire to keep Michel warm in the evening. So it was Esmee who heard Michel. She rushed across and leaned over his face.

  Michel saw a close shape. His mind jolted at the sudden movement and change. He grunted.

  “Hallo? Hallo? Kan je me horen?” said Esmee.

  Michel heard sounds coming from the shape. From the face. They did not mean much. They were … words … words that made no sense …

  Jesus, German! Michel’s body jolted and he gasped.

  The fa
ce continued: “Makkelijk, makkelijk. Alles is prima, maak je geen zorgen, vrienden zijn hier. Jij bent veilig.”

  Wait, no, not German, there were different sounding words that were German, words he spoke and understood—yes, that is right, words learned at that miserable boarding school for the bastards of wealthy men with real families, respectable families.

  A string of those words came to him. Words he had spoken to that cruel old Frankfurter who never for a second let Michel and his fellow bastards forget they were beneath him, beneath even the education he deigned to—was paid to—give them. In a moment of anger and shame a young Michel had said in excellent German the thing that now came into his mind.

  Du solltest nach hause gehen und deine schweine ficken, schweine ficker!

  You should go home and fuck your swine, swine fucker!

  Oh, how he had been beaten for shrieking those delicious words. Yes, he understood German … he understood the words they cried when he killed them with bullets and ran them through on the end of his bayonet, for he was a soldier … a soldier … thank God he was a soldier … but there was something about that fact missing, he did not know what, only that it felt incomplete and wrong, all wrong, when being a soldier had come to fill him with intangible things—to give him the purpose he needed, the identity he sought—and now he was not complete and did not know why. There were gaps, starting with the words that were not German, yet like German … of course, Dutch … the language of inhabitants of the Low Countries.

  He had been due to go to the front, to advance on the Germans spread across the Ypres salient and send them packing toward the Rhine. So he was in Belgium.

  But who was this person speaking to him? Why could he not move? He was obviously not in an infirmary, so where was he? And what had happened to cause such pain and confusion, to knock so much memory and sense from his throbbing head?

  He heard another voice in the same language. A man. Then he heard creaking followed by a heavy thud, and a different woman’s voice. His vision cleared with each second. There was an old woman. A young woman joined her, the two of them taking turns to put their face close to his own and speak, as if he could understand a damn thing they said.