Heartsong

by James Welch

  “It is a grave matter, my friend, very grave indeed. But why would the vice-consul engage himself in such a matter? Surely, you have a legal attaché to handle such an unfortunate incident. Or perhaps you have a personal interest....”

  Bell listened to the voice trail away, and he wondered how much the columnist knew. He had read the articles in Le Petit Marseillais when Charging Elk had been kept in the jail of the Préfecture the first time. And he had grudgingly admitted that St-Cyr had done more with those two pieces of overheated journalism than he himself ever could, even with the weight of the United States government behind him. The weight had been surprisingly light and completely ignored by the Marseille authorities. St-Cyr had probably saved Charging Elk s life. The power of the press, thought Bell, in this case more powerful than two of the most powerful governments in the world.

  The waiter came with a basket of bread, and both men ordered salades niçoises. St-Cyr insisted that they also order a bottle of wine, and Bell, tired physically and emotionally, put up no resistance.

  When the waiter had gone, Bell said, “I’m sure there’s a reason you asked me to lunch with you. And I’m quite sure I know the reason. We might as well have at it.”

  St-Cyr laughed, a surprisingly deep laugh for such a thin body, and said, “Ah, I am afraid you are too quick for me, Mr. Bell. It is supposed to be my job to initiate this interview.” Then he leaned forward, his sudden burst of mirth behind him. “It is about the Indian, of course. I have not been able to acquire any information from our police about the case. I talked to the reporter who initially wrote the news article, but he knows nothing more.” St-Cyr paused for just a moment, toying with a piece of the dry bread, as though he were hesitant to ask the big question. “I was hoping—could you give me an account of what happened in Rue Sainte?”

  This time it was Bell’s turn to hesitate. He glanced up at the buildings on the other side of the courj. Rue Sainte was just behind them. They were sitting, having lunch, less than two blocks away from where it happened. Tired as he was, Bell tried to estimate the pros and cons of speaking frankly with a journalist. Of course, he knew the whole incredibly sordid story, at least the story as told to him by the scolding Chef de Police Vaugirard. But how much could he divulge to a man who would undoubtedly twist it into something that would reflect badly on the American Consulate and probably Bell himself? Should he tell him anything at all? Wouldn’t it be better, if rude, to just get up and walk away?

  Bell tried to think of something positive that might come from such a revelation. He sat silently as the waiter poured the wine, then automatically lifted his glass to St-Cyr and drank. The wine was cool and tart to the tongue, just the way he liked it, and he was a little relieved that he could enjoy something so simple. He glanced across the table at St-Cyr, who had taken a notebook and pencil from his pocket and was poised with a slight smile. Bell suddenly felt too big, too shabby and unwashed, in the presence of the elegant journalist. But he had made up his mind.

  The only positive thing Bell could think of was that he would tell the story. And he would tell it from the very beginning, from his first meeting with Charging Elk in the hospital, then again at the Préfecture. It was important that the journalist have all the facts so that he might understand why Charging Elk had done what he had. What he did with the facts—well, who knew? At least, Bell could walk away with a somewhat cleaner conscience. It wouldn’t ease his burden any—he was a goner—but it might help Charging Elk in a way his muddy mind couldn’t foresee just then. He simply knew that St-Cyr had a reputation for a sympathetic ear and voice for the downtrodden working classes and the misfits of society. Ironically, that’s just what Bell wanted at the moment.

  And so he told the journalist everything he knew about Charging Elk’s history in Marseille. He told of the family (without mentioning the name) who had taken care of the Indian. He told of the crucial mistake the doctor had made in pronouncing Charging Elk dead instead of Featherman. Then the fake death certificate to justify his decision. Bell’s own futile attempts to get Charging Elk documents so that he could rejoin the Wild West show. His frustration at every turn in dealing with the French authorities. And surprisingly—Bell hadn’t meant to reveal this—his ultimate helplessness and subsequent surrender to the system. He had simply given up and purposely lost track of Charging Elk until today.

  Bell took a sip of wine and watched the pencil scribbling furiously down the sheets, one after another, each one snapping back as the pencil missed not a beat. Bell noticed the salads, the lettuce wilted and the olive oil and vinegar separated, lying in glistening amber globs around the tuna. He looked around and noticed that the lunch crowd had pretty much dispersed. Only one other table at Chez Louis was occupied—by a young couple who were drinking citrons pressés between long soulful kisses. Right now he was too drained to envy them.

  Finally St-Cyr put the pencil down, rubbed his eyes, and leaned his head back to ease the stiffness in his neck. Bell studied the slender neck, the slight protrusion of the Adam’s apple, and the dark goatee, which was so thin he could see the chin clearly outlined, and he realized that he had not had time to shave. St-Cyr slowly leaned forward, murmuring, “Well, well, such a story, my friend.”

  “You can understand why I hesitated to tell you my role in this sorry mess. If I had been more dogged, perhaps Charging Elk would be back in America with his people—instead of. . .” Bell shrugged.

  “Of course! But you mustn’t blame yourself. The French are famous for their bureaucracy. Everything must be rubber-stamped three times, then three times more. Sometimes things get ‘lost.’ Always there is a petty bureaucrat in the way who does not get enough loving at home and takes it out on the people.” St-Cyr caught himself and laughed. “Of course, that is not your case. You are the United States, but sometimes that is enough to make the bureaucrats even more recalcitrant. They feel threatened with a loss of power and so they do the one thing they do well—they obstruct until the aggrieved party, even the United States of America, finally gives up. It is natural, Mr. Bell, to give up at a certain point in this interminable process. But you are blameless. What else could you do?”

  Although Bell was suspicious of the journalist’s sympathetic response to his part in the Charging Elk affair—after all, he was a bureaucrat too—he felt a great deal lighter in spirit than he had just an hour ago. He knew that this interview was political suicide, but the unburdening of his story, of his very soul, after four years of carrying his load of guilt and bad dreams made up for his fear that St-Cyr would turn this story on its head.

  St-Cyr was sharpening his pencil with a small silver penknife, carefully shaving the lead to a perfect point. Without looking up, he said, “But the story is only half finished, of course.”

  “Ah yes, the juicy part.”

  “Juicy?”

  “Sorry. The sensational part.”

  “Voilà!” It is distasteful, I know, but you see the importance of my having all the details of this dreadful incident. If I am to help our friend.”

  “Of course.” But again Bell hesitated, taking a sip of the Chardonnay, which was warm by now. He wanted an American coffee. But he wanted this interview to be over even more. He would go back to the consulate and face the music. Atkinson would relieve him of his duties and probably set up a debriefing session in the morning, at which time he would give up his documents and explain the status of his current projects. Then he would be free to pack his steamer trunk, his suitcases, and when he stepped on the ship bound for Philadelphia, he would be a private citizen. A fitting end to what had become an increasingly ineffectual career.

  So Bell, because he could think of no reason not to, told St-Cyr the story of the murder as he had heard it from Chief Vaugirard. But unlike the chief’s stern, animated manner, Bell’s was flat and monotonous. He had never been a good storyteller—he always thought of the perfect phrase, the devastating punch line, the next day while shaving or eating dinner—but this time
he did not care that he was boring. Nonetheless, St-Cyr muttered to himself as he wrote, sometimes exclaimed in disbelief and wrote faster. Only once did the pen stop moving.

  “Breteuil? You mean Armand Breteuil? The chef?”

  “Yes. He owns a restaurant called La Petite Nani over on Rue de la Croix.”

  “But I have eaten there. He is considered the best chef in all of Provence.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “Oh! This is dreadful, Mr. Bell.”

  Bell looked at the foppish journalist in astonishment. Was the death dreadful—the multiple knife wounds, the cut throat, the sea of blood—or the fact that St-Cyr couldn’t eat Breteuil’s fine food at La Petite Nani again?

  “Of course, the whole incident is very tragic.”

  “Isn’t it?” Bell said in a dry voice, but he finished the story as rapidly as he could manage. He was very tired, even a little sleepy from the wine, but he left out no detail. And when he had finished, he sat back in his chair and listened to the furious pencil while watching two sweepers, leaning on their long crescent-shaped brooms, smoke in the shade of a chestnut tree. He wondered, with just a little envy, what it would be like to be a simple street sweeper in a complex world.

  “You said you had the chance to speak with the Peau-Rouge—Charging Elk. How did he seem?”

  “They only gave me twenty minutes. Surprisingly calm. As though he didn’t grasp the magnitude of his situation.”

  “And you said you thought he wanted to be caught.”

  “He was lying in the street. He put up no resistance.”

  “And the girl—the prostitute—in whose room this murder took place—you say she has also been arrested?”

  Bell’s eyes had begun to twitch from exhaustion. “Vaugirard said she is being held. He said nothing about charges against her.”

  “And does she have a name?”

  “None that I heard.” Bell fished out his watch. Five-thirty. My God, he thought. Twelve hours since I received the telephone call from the Prefecture. It had not been a long time, but it had been the longest twelve hours of his life. He stood. “I’m afraid I have to get back.” In truth, he felt a great wave of relief that it was five-thirty. Atkinson would be gone for the day.

  St-Cyr stood then and offered his hand in that peculiar way. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Bell. I know it’s been a great strain on you.”

  “Yes.” Bell took the hand and squeezed it. “Adieu, Monsieur St-Cyr.”

  “Adieu, Mr. Bell. And good fortune to you.”

  Bell turned and began to walk away, but he suddenly stopped and turned back. “I hope you will be kind to Charging Elk, Monsieur St-Cyr. I know what he did was unspeakable.” Bell tried to think. “But it was a matter of honor, you see. I think he had to do what he did. He had no choice.”

  “Code of the savage, I suppose.” The journalist did not look up. He was flipping pages in his notebook, which lay on the table.

  “Something like that. He said Breteuil did something to him that men do not do to each other. He was quite firm on that point.”

  St-Cyr looked up. “He speaks French now?”

  “A little. He was not very forthcoming, but he did ask about the prostitute. He was very concerned about her.”

  “Interesting.” St-Cyr made a notation in his notebook, then closed it and tucked it into his pocket. “Again, I thank you for your time, Mr. Bell. And please assure yourself that I will be completely fair. You may rest easy on that point.”

  St-Cyr watched the vice-consul walk away down Cours Estienne-d’Orves. His shoulders slumped under the dark coat of the bureaucrat and his walk was the trudge of a man who wasn’t going anywhere anymore. Even the straw hat seemed to sag under the weight of the bright sunlight. From the back, one wouldn’t know that he was a big man, handsome in a rumpled way. But there were too many lines in his forehead. His eyes were too old.

  St-Cyr felt a small pity for the man. True, he didn’t like the Americans and more than once, in his column, had chastised them for being arrogant and demanding. He did not like their ships in the harbor, he did not like the sailors, and he did not like the trade delegations who demanded more and more and gave less than fair value. They are the new Romans, he thought, who came to Massilia with their big ships and demands for tribute.

  Still, he felt a little sorry for Bell, who would surely lose his job over this scandal. And he had given St-Cyr enough material to make sure that this would be a full-blown scandal, with all the trimmings. It had been a strange afternoon. Never had St-Cyr watched a man hang himself so willingly with his own rope.

  He opened his watch. Five forty-five. Too late to go to the Préfecture. Plenty of time, though—his column wasn’t due until tomorrow evening. And too, he didn’t know yet who was the villain and who the victim. Can one feel sympathy for a savage who murders a pervert? Can one be outraged over the death of a man who performs a sex act on a drugged, helpless savage? He took the notebook out of his pocket and flipped back to the beginning. Vautrin. Sergeant Vautrin. Desk sergeant. On his salary he could probably do with a box of good cigars, perhaps a bottle of Rémy-Martin. Thank God not all the desk sergeants were as incorruptible as Borely.

  St-Cyr placed the boater on his head and stepped out from the shade of the table umbrella. The heat of the day struck him, and he realized that he had been in a cocoon of pure concentration the past four hours. He hadn’t noticed that the breeze had shifted from north to south and the heat wave hadn’t really broken. The morning coolness had been a deception. But as he walked down the cours in the opposite direction from Bell, he felt light and lively, perhaps even giddy, the way he used to feel when he went to visit Fortune. In a way, he could understand Charging Elk’s infatuation with the whore at Le Salon.

  At the end of the cours, he caught a hansom cab back to the La Gazette du Midi offices. As he settled back in the black leather seat and listened to the sharp clip-clop of the horse’s shoes on the cobblestones, he closed his eyes and wondered if Fortune was still doling out the clap. He missed her. Although they had gotten together only once in a while, two or three times a month, he hadn’t been lonely then.

  Then he suddenly knew what it was about Bell that had been playing around the edges of his mind all afternoon. He had no one to go home to. He had no one to talk to, to comfort him. That was why he had unburdened himself so completely. St-Cyr opened his eyes and stared at the gray horse’s dappled rump. He now knew what he would do. He would make the Charging Elk affair a cause célèbre in the Gazette. He would cover the trial until its conclusion, however it came out. All of Marseille would come to know the exotic creature from America and his strange habits, his pathetic attempt to become a Frenchman, and the clash between his savage code and the laws of civilization.

  St-Cyr almost kicked the dappled rump himself to make the horse go faster. He felt good about his life now, as though everything about it had been leading up to this moment. He pitied Bell, and he knew he would pity Charging Elk tomorrow when he interviewed him, but right now he was reaching for the top—and it was there for him to grasp.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The cell, because it was underground and stone, was almost cold, but Charging Elk lay on his cot clad only in his trousers. He had been looking at the ceiling, at first remembering the cracked, stained ceiling in Marie’s room at Le Salon, but now wondering how the ceiling was made to stay up. There were no supports, only the walls of the cell. Even when he had watched the building going up along the omnibus route (it seemed so long ago, yet it was less than a year), he had not questioned the magic of the builders. Now he wondered why the massive stone building did not crash down on him, crushing the life juices from his body like an insect underfoot.

  He would have welcomed it, for he had no pleasure left in his life. He would never go home. He knew that in spite of Brown Suit’s reassurances that the Americans would help him get through this trouble. What could they do? Brown Suit hadn’t helped him in the sickhouse or in t
he stone house the time before. What could he do now? No, this time the police would cut off his head with their big iron knife, and he didn’t care. He didn’t even wish to rejoin his people in the real world. How could he face them without his head? How would they know him? And how could he tell them that he was Charging Elk, son of Scrub, the shirtwearer, and Doubles Back Woman, grandson of Scabby Bull, the great band chief, and Goodkill, who had been in the shadowland for so long he only knew them by name. Even his brother and sister—lucky ones!—would not know him. And when Strikes Plenty came, he would laugh and make jokes about his old friend Charging Elk, not knowing that he was talking to him. No, it was better to die and let his spirit wander, blind and mute, over a world he now knew it could never be part of.

  Even so, two sleeps later, he still felt strong about killing the diyoko. It was simple enough—when one comes upon evil, one kills it. Evil is not a dangerous animal. One does not kill a bear or a big cat or a rattlesnake simply for the sake of killing. These things were put on earth by Wakan Tanka and one lived harmoniously with them—unless they threatened. Or were meant to provide food. Then one offered up prayers upon killing them, prayers that honored the spirit of the animals. And the world remained in balance—or did in the old days. Now the circle was broken and the people had been dying in flesh and spirit. Even the sacred Paha Sapa had been taken away from the people. The wasichus gouged holes in the holy hills, looking for the yellow stuff that made them crazy. They cut down the trees and built their villages. They changed the course of the streams with their wooden troughs and dams. They tried to kill the Lakotas who went there to pray and to have visions that would make them strong in life. These sacred hills that had begat the Lakotas were now lost to them forever. And the buffalo that had entered the cave in the hills, the buffalo in Bird Tail’s dream, would never come back to this world. The evil that the wasichus brought was everywhere.