Bordeaux

by Matthew Thayer

  Bolzano: “I do not remember any Latin prayers.”

  Martinelli: “You do a good job, I’ll let you sing a few songs. You know how the people love to hear you sing.”

  Bolzano: “I will think about it, see if I can dredge something up out of the recesses of the Bolzano brain.”

  Martinelli: “You do that.”

  From the log of Cpl. Salvatore Bolzano

  Firefighter II

  (English translation)

  We returned to the hospital beach and its comfortable rock to find the place deserted. I took a well-deserved seat on my throne as Lorenzo’s boys marched the baby rhino up and down the gravel, several times fighting like mad to keep it from charging into the water. Lorenzo endured their antics far longer than I expected before he ordered them to take it up to the lake and tie it securely to a tree. Even Wallunda was evicted, leaving with orders to make sure the women had fires burning and food cooking before he arrived.

  When we were alone, Lorenzo walked to the edge of the river and stood looking out over its waters for as long as it takes to listen to the entirety of Brahms’ “Paganini Variations” on the tin-sounding speakers in my helmet. It sounded like a child’s toy piano. After a while, I noticed he was kneeling in prayer. I hope if he talks to God again he mentions I could use a new set of ear peas.

  I must have nodded off, for I was startled awake by a nudge from Lorenzo’s knee.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Martinelli: “Where is he?”

  Bolzano: “How would I know? He could have run into any kind of trouble. You yourself were nearly laid low today.”

  Martinelli: “Woulda liked that, wouldn’t ya?”

  Bolzano: “No comment.”

  Martinelli: “Let’s go up to the lake. He can meet us up there. I’m hungry.”

  From the log of Cpl. Salvatore Bolzano

  Firefighter II

  We followed the sounds of drums, flutes and the disturbingly guttural stylings of natives attempting to carry the tune of “La Donna é Mobile.” The Duke of Mantua’s lament to women’s infidelity never sounded so sour to my ears. What have I done?

  We caused a stir by entering the circle of fires by the lake. Lorenzo headed for his Tattoos and where the baby rhino was lashed to a stout tree. I sought out my porters. Spotting Tomon and Gertie turning a small antelope on a spit over a modest cook fire, I waved and headed their way. My progress was stopped by a dark-haired beauty from the Green Turtle clan. I wondered why she was not off on the hunt as she stepped squarely in my path to block my way. Locking her bright blue, tear-filled eyes on mine, she reached for my hand. Raising it, turning it over, she dropped a pair of ear peas into my palm.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Martinelli: “Pull out those ear peas and get off the damn computer! Now!”

  Bolzano: “Relax. It is not even mid-morning. I am sure Andre will wander in soon.”

  Martinelli: “He’s run off, the thief, and I know where he’s gone.”

  Bolzano: “Where did he go?”

  Martinelli: “As if you don’t know. South. He went straight south.”

  Bolzano: “What is it you plan to do? Let us not act in a rash manner.”

  Martinelli: “Rash? Rash is stealing my gun, my suit and my helmet. I’m going to track Corporal Amacapane down and retrieve the equipment which is rightfully mine. This is all your fault, you know.”

  Bolzano: “My fault? What did I do?”

  Martinelli: “Don’t waste time. The better question is, ‘What didn’t you do?’ As I think about it, you’re the master thief, you probably planned the whole caper. Get up. You’re going with us.”

  Bolzano: “I do not want to. Let me wait here, get things organized. We need to leave soon if we are going to make it to Nice by Christmas.”

  Martinelli: “Put your computer away and let’s go.”

  Bolzano: “Andre is my friend. I do not want to be part of this.”

  Martinelli: “Where did you get those ear peas? Did you steal mine?”

  Bolzano: “No, they belong to me.”

  Martinelli: “Your peas were lost on the river. Tell me, where did you get the ear peas?”

  Bolzano: “Andre left them, for me. It was part of his boon.”

  Martinelli: “Oh yes, one half of his payment to you. A boon won by cheating, I might add. Is this the other half, this woman?”

  Bolzano: “Yes, she, oh, no. No. Don’t. No! No! Oh, Lorenzo! She did nothing!”

  Martinelli: “You see, now that was rash. Speaking of which, you have 15 seconds to get up and get moving, or I’ll shoot Tomon’s bitch. Fifteen more and I’ll shoot him.”

  Bolzano: “We go. We go.”

  From the log of Cpl. Salvatore Bolzano

  Firefighter II

  (English translation)

  How much blood and despair can one man endure? The moment a glimmer of hope shines in my direction, this cruel world reaches out to snuff the flame.

  I am a widower, I am alone and Cpl. Andre Amacapane is dead. The enigmatic man from Bologna drowned in a lake at the base of a glacier. Poor Andre plunged to its icy depths rather than surrender. Rather than witness the carnage of Tattoo dogs set loose upon his Green Turtle clan. I was there to witness his jump, and to stand waiting for more than an hour to know he did not surface.

  This is not the image which scrolls through my mind as we camp overlooking the Rhone River Valley. In the two weeks since his murder (it was no suicide), my memory often returns to a sunny afternoon about two months ago, as Andre and I paddled along a placid stretch of the Loire River. Though his swollen face was a patina of red mosquito bites, he was in an especially talkative mood. My suggestion that conversation would distract him from the urge to scratch the bites must have opened the gates.

  We were conversing about girls and sports, his two favorite topics, when Amacapane grew serious and asked if I thought the jump had altered us in some very deep and basic way. He put forth that our personalities had been condensed to make us more of what we already were. Haltingly, in his own vernacular, he argued this distillation of our personalities made it easy for our flaws and failings to dominate our actions. He said each of us became “a bigger asshole every day.”

  “You watch, Thief,” he said. “Someday you’re gonna open a casino, cheat these people out of all their things. Me, I know I get under people’s skin. Used to do it for fun. Now, I can’t help myself. And look at Lorenzo. Guy’s a certifiable maniac.”

  Our united distrust of Lorenzo finally gave Andre and me common ground on which to base a friendship. Through training we had grown to disdain, if not hate, each other. He envied my height and money, my education and talents. I had no time for his cocky showboating. Once he discovered I was a pacifist who wouldn’t thrash him for insolent behavior, I became one of his favorite targets. His schoolboy mockery was met with an acid wit that, more times than not, left him looking the fool. He found the Bolzano tongue sharp indeed.

  Somehow, we became friends.

  Perhaps that is why his sudden escape took so long to sink in. After the hunt, amongst the Tattoos jostling the baby rhino on the beach, I viewed the last of the sunset expecting any minute for him to return. As the fires grew dark and hunters drifted to sleep, I awaited his entrance with a rhino or at least a rant. The next morning, waking with a blue-eyed girl curled close to my side, I thought of ways to thank him.

  When Lorenzo kicked me in the ribs and insisted Andre and his clan had bolted, I sat up thinking, “You are wrong! He would not have left without me.”

  Lorenzo studied my bedmate as I droned through a feeble defense of the corporal. His eyes never left her body as he refuted each of my claims. Stella is what I called her.

  The winsome beauty, with her high cheekbones and fine white teeth, had attracted my interest for some time. From the start of our journey with the clans, I had watched her through the sides of my eyes. Andre must have had a notion we would make a good pair. Unknown to me, on the morning of the great h
unt Andre separated the girl from the clan and broke her bond with the man with whom she shared a bed for the past two years. He ordered Stella to stay back, to serve the misfits’ leader. She was to become the mate of the king of the porters. Me.

  Gertie escorted the girl to my pallet that very night. I wasn’t sure what to make of things. Gertie explained the girl now belonged to me. She answered my questions while Stella struggled to stem her flood of tears. The girl knew the Green Turtle clan would not return, as did Gertie. Why was I the only one left out of the loop?

  Crying babies and crying women are the same. One is never sure how to hold them, or what to do to turn off the faucet. I attempted to calm her fears and make her feel at home. I fussed over her for a bit and then gave up.

  As I lay down for the night, well apart from the girl, I discovered my gentlemanly ways were not appreciated. She collapsed across my shoulder with ever more copious leaking and sobbing. Finally, using hand sign, she was able to convey that my rejection on our matrimonial night was a great insult to her family.

  I generally prefer my lovers not cry as they take to my bed, but decided to make an exception this time. I would like to think my efforts brought honor to everyone involved.

  It had been more than two years since I had lain with a woman. I guess it is akin to what they say about riding an air bike, you never forget. A man of Milano, if he pays attention, will learn more than a few lovemaking tricks to make the women swoon. I was employing one of my favorites when I glanced over to see Tomon, Gertie and Flounder sitting in the dirt nearby, silently observing our humpfest. They appeared bored, like patrons of a dull porn show in the floating city of New Amsterdam.

  “They are just doing their jobs, documenting the big event for Stella’s family,” I told myself. Forcing their faces from my mind and concentrating on the task at hand, I soon regained my rhythm. For what it is worth, they went to sleep before we did.

  I believe Lorenzo must have sensed my happiness, or gauged what life would be like with Wallunda and Stella butting heads. Or perhaps, as Andre said, his spirit has condensed to pure evil.

  Blood splattered across my face as his bullet struck Stella in the pelvis. Her body leaped with the impact, and then lay still. Blood oozed from her nostrils and open mouth as her heart pumped its last few beats. I did not mean to anger him. I had just been stalling for time, trying to wrap my head around Andre’s betrayal, when Lorenzo’s patience snapped. If I had only moved faster, she would still be alive.

  I did not have time to wipe the blood from my face or even say goodbye. I dropped my gear in the dirt and followed him south in search of Andre and the Green Turtles. I must have stumbled along in a daze, for I don’t remember much of anything about the journey up into the mountains.

  Lorenzo’s computer allowed him to follow an ever-so-faint radioactive trail left in the wake of Andre’s ill-gotten pistol. If the dummy would have left the gun behind, he probably would have lived the rest of his life a free man. I doubt the Tattoos could ever track down the Green Turtles on their own. Not if the Turtles did not want to be found.

  With Lorenzo’s computer it was easy. He caught up to them two days later, about 70 kilometers to the southwest. The Turtles were camped along the banks of a milky, aqua blue lake which reflected like a mirror at the mouth of a narrow glacial valley. The glacier’s leading wall was more than a kilometer thick, a cerulean blue cliff of ice filling the valley from side to side.

  Lorenzo and his scouts waited for us to join him in the trees about two kilometers from the lake before he made his assault. The men and women of the Turtle clan were clustered around the morning fire. Lulled to overconfidence by the great distance they had covered and the many streams they had crossed, they chatted amiably while shaking off their sleep. Some were tending to chores, while others stood by the fire gorging on smoked meat.

  The clan had halted to skin out a collection of deer hides to make leather capes for the trek over the mountains. Andre and Pimples moved about the group, urging them to expedite their duties. Andre had the pistol in his hand, pointing it this way and that as he handed out orders.

  “Watch this,” Lorenzo said as he extracted his computer from a pack locked around the chest of one of his most trusted Saints. I considered shouting a warning, but knew I was too far away to be heard over the hundreds of waterfalls running off the glacier into the lake. My mind cast about for ways to help the Turtles escape. Reading my thoughts, Lorenzo pointed a spear at my throat and said, “Don’t try anything, Sal. I probably won’t kill you, but I’ll hurt you bad. Real bad. So you won’t forget.”

  His words took the starch out of my resistance. He tapped on the keyboard a few more times then ordered me to “Look!” Lorenzo waited until Andre gestured toward Pimples with the pistol, then hissed, “Now!” as he pushed a key. With a roar of flame, the gun went off in Andre’s hand. The bullet missed Pimples, but it sailed past to wound two warriors by the fire.

  Andre held the bucking revolver straight in the air as Lorenzo triggered its three remaining shots. After the final blast, Andre dropped the pistol to the ground and swiveled his head back and forth as he searched for a way to retreat. The disoriented group of men, women and children were still trying to gather their gear and beloved dogs when the Tattoos rushed forward to pin them between the wall of the glacier and the frigid lake.

  Lorenzo whistled his bloodthirsty troops to a halt less than 100 paces from the Turtle camp. Andre’s clan had assumed a defensive posture, huddling so close and prickling so fiercely with spears it resembled a great porcupine. Pushing me to the ground with a mighty shove to my back, Lorenzo abruptly fired six shots that struck six Turtle warriors. From my spot in the dirt, I watched him calmly load and fire 12 more shots. Each blast claimed a warrior.

  When I tried to rise, or beg Lorenzo to stop the slaughter, he pointed his finger and issued a warning.

  “Don’t push me, Sal. I’ve been thinking about ways to punish you. Believe me, it won’t be pretty.”

  After he reloaded for the third time, he waved me to stand. “Get up. Let us go say hello to Andre.”

  With nearly all of his men dead or dying, including leaders Pimples, Black Eyes and Fat Head, Andre’s clan had been decimated. Apart from a few valued ancients, only women and children remained alive.

  “Let them live,” Andre shouted as Lorenzo and I reached the ranks of Tattoo warriors. Lorenzo motioned for his Saints to follow as we moved to within 25 yards. Squatting to pick up the spent revolver, Lorenzo called out to Andre.

  “I won’t hurt you, Andre. Not too much at least. However, I’m afraid your people needed to pay for your sins. ‘Thou shall not steal.’ They need to understand. We have great things to accomplish. The three of us. You know it. I told you. It is God’s will.”

  “Lorenzo, you wouldn’t know God if He bit you on the nose,” Andre screamed. His look was feral as he swiveled his head in search of escape, frantically pining for a way to save the day. “How about you, Sal, are you buying this crap?”

  “Andre, he says he won’t hurt you. Let us go back to camp.”

  “After he killed all my men? Fuck that, and fuck you, Lorenzo.”

  Cpl. Amacapane turned to take a running dive into the waters of the milky blue lake. Knifing through the surface in a graceful arc, wearing native skins and leather moccasins that laced up to his thighs, Andre dropped swiftly out of sight in the mineral-rich waters.

  The defiant move caught Lorenzo by surprise. “No!” he shouted. Sprinting to the lake, he peered down into its opaque, blue waters. “This is not what God and I planned!”

  His fury flared into a childish rage. He punched the air and kicked at stones. “You cannot do this to me!”

  I imagine the depredations which followed were not unique, or any more inhumane than other atrocities which will take place through the history of mankind. Mass murder, rape and torture will long be man’s specialties. I had read about the phenomena, but never witnessed it.

 
Following Lorenzo’s orders, the Tattoos forced the Green Turtle women and children to drag their dead and dying warriors to the lake and roll their bodies in to the water. When that grizzly, gut-wrenching chore was completed, the sobbing, sniffling survivors were lined up along the edge of the lake by spear point.

  “Kill the pups,” he growled in Tattoo dialect. Nine youngsters, ranging in age from several months to perhaps 11 years old, were shoved to their watery deaths. Those who tried to escape were caught amid whoops and cheers and tossed headfirst into the icy water. Those who bobbed to the surface with teeth chattering had their heads stomped under until they struggled no more.

  The barbarity transformed the surviving women into wailing lunatics. A few mothers attempted to break free, to join their husbands and children in death. A few gouged sticks at their own eyes and smashed rocks against their front teeth. The horror was just beginning for the women, and they knew it. Tattoo warriors closed in to grab the survivors by the wrists and drag them to flat spots on the muddy ground. Tattooed wenches cheered their men on as they took turns rutting atop the shattered women. Some wives poked burning sticks on the abused women’s feet to make them jump and twist.

  Lorenzo and Wallunda stood placidly off to the side, carving pieces of venison off a smoldering deer carcass and idly chatting as the clan played its evil games. Lorenzo caught me staring and motioned me over with a jerk of his head.

  “Go through these packs, see if there’s anything of value.”

  “Make them stop!”

  “No. They must have their fun. Inside the packs, check them! Start with this one.”

  “Have Wallunda or someone else do it. I cannot stand the screams.”

  “I told you to do it. So do it.”

  Without dogs to carry the load, the Green Turtles had been traveling light. The first few leather bags held only essentials, turtle shell bowls, leather cooking bags, braided sealskin ropes, ivory fish hooks, flint knives, skinning blades, several ivory moon calendars, packets of ivory and porcupine needles, coils of gut string, and a few other trinkets. Tucked inside Andre’s pack was his jumpsuit, helmet and computer.