The Unknown Huntsman

by Jean-Michel Fortier

  You can take Cantarini out of Italy, but you can’t take Italy out of Cantarini, him and his Dante—he must have brought up Dante a thousand times since we’ve known him, Mrs. Latvia shushes him and addresses us:

  “I’ve read it somewhere too. It’s quite obvious, the girl must have copied it from a book lying around the house. All we have to do is ask Roger or Morosity.”

  Logical enough, but even if she had copied the passage, she must have done so intentionally, to say something, but what? Mrs. Latvia, who’s never afraid to get her feet wet, raises the question:

  “What could the child possibly have been trying to say with such grown-up words?”

  And the baker replies:

  “Obviously, she’s telling us that someone killed her. Really, Mrs. Latvia. Use your common sense.”

  Ahh, the florist and her idiotic questions—we’d laugh if it weren’t so entirely inappropriate, but in any case, the child clearly showed signs of psychological instability—we would never tell her parents, but perhaps, yes perhaps, it’s just as well for them that Amelia is dead and buried.

  14

  Two weeks with no sign of our Professor! We have never experienced such agony. It has taken all our courage and patience to endure the wait, especially with everything that’s been happening in the village lately. We study the others. Wherever we look, we see worried members. Will the Professor show? Will he stand us up? We perspire heavily, the lady in front of us has beads of cold sweat on the back of her neck, poor old thing.

  There he is!

  Before us, on the stage. He has appeared—once again—out of thin air. A sense of relief fills the hall, we jump to our feet and break out in thunderous applause. Some pull out handkerchiefs, what emotion, what a feeling of reunion. He is radiant. His cheeks are pink, with joy, no doubt. His little gold-rimmed spectacles tremble on the tip of his nose. He laughs loudly.

  “My friends!”

  A clamour arises… and his voice warms our hearts, after two weeks without hearing it.

  “My friends! What a joy to be here with you again this evening. Because, as you probably noticed, I wasn’t here last Friday.”

  How could we not have noticed, he’s teasing us, our brilliant leader.

  “That’s right, I took some time out for myself. To reflect on what comes next. Whether we like it or not, my friends, we’re in for a fight. Me, for the survival of our group. For the future of our meetings. You, for the survival of your Professor.”

  We’re shocked. The survival of the Professor? Who would threaten him? Who would want to harm him? We would never let anyone do that.

  “Last Monday they read the diary of the deceased girl. And someone—yes, an enemy of this group, it goes without saying—falsified the document. That’s right, someone forged a passage in the diary! The epilogue, to be precise, was written after the child’s death. Her parents swore it to me; it’s not their daughter’s handwriting. Someone took it upon themselves to add these words at the very end of the diary:

  Someone has certainly killed me.

  Then slipped away.

  On tiptoe.”

  Whatever could it mean? We eye each other, we suspect each other, who would want to insinuate that the child was murdered? And why the mysterious style? Who in the village writes that way? So many questions our Professor attempts to answer:

  “For now, I’m as much in the dark as you, my dear flock. One thing is sure: whoever this forger is, they must be an enemy of the deceased’s family to spread such vile accusations. Who would dare torment two grief-stricken parents in such a way? It’s shameful! It was simply bad luck and the clumsiness of a poor man too old to be working as much as he does, yet still as devoted as ever.”

  His gold-rimmed spectacles begin to fog up.

  “Whoever came up with this nonsense shall be punished, I promise you! We do not slander others without proof, I will not allow it!”

  He dismisses us with a wave of his hand, his nose bright red, and as we’re filing out of the hall, we hear him in the distance repeating:

  “An accident, yes. That’s what it was, an accident. No one must know. An accident. The end of the diary was forged. No one will know.”

  15

  Monday marks the return of Mayor Gross and his wife to our meetings, not that we really missed them, but after all, it’s the mayor’s duty to take part in the village’s political life, and we presume that Morosity didn’t have the courage to stay home alone in their empty house playing her depressing tune on the piano again, because she’s here with her husband. A real bourgeois couple, that’s what they are, him with his bowtie and her with her wedding-cake hairdo, if anything, they seem even more bourgeois since Amelia’s death—fortunately they haven’t brought along Albania, whose thyroid is still causing her no end of grief. As is only logical, the mayor speaks first:

  “Dear friends, we would like, my wife and I, to express our happiness at being back among you tonight. We have been through a very trying time, indeed we have! A very trying time. But it’s time to move on. The village has moved on, and it’s time to forget. Forget the tragedy of our little Amelia, forget all the business about the unknown huntsman, let Lisa Campbell rest in peace… life goes on.”

  What a strange speech from a man who was so heartbroken at his daughter’s funeral only last week, and even Morosity finds the strength to smile, yes, the same Morosity to whom the apothecary says he gave enough tranquilizers to knock out a horse, to keep her from throwing herself off her piano—his words—and now they’re imploring us to forgive and forget, how odd, the baker seems to think so too:

  “Seriously, Mr. Mayor, with all due respect, what about Sybille? What about Blanche Bedford? What about the Petition? Need I remind you that the mystery of the unknown huntsman has yet to be resolved?”

  “Yes, Mr. Leaven, you’re right. There are a number of pieces still missing from the puzzle. But the wave of misfortune that washed over us has now passed. Father Wavery will address this in his next sermon, I am quite sure. It’s time to move forward and stop spouting the malicious talk these walls have heard in the past few weeks. The death of my daughter—God bless her soul—has broken the spell, I promise you, yes I do!”

  What’s our mayor playing at? Since when has he ever spoken with such self-assurance, such firmness, and without a single stutter? This about-face astounds us, it stupefies us: a hairdresser is shot dead, a bullet between her eyes, and he wants to drop the investigation, allow the damned huntsman to go free, the baker’s not going to let him off that easily:

  “Honestly, Mr. Mayor, are you out of your mind? The huntsman could strike again any minute! And strike anyone: he targeted Lisa Campbell, and who’s to say Amelia’s death was really an accident? No one here can understand how a healthy young girl could succumb to a tooth extraction. And need I remind you that she herself wrote that she was killed!”

  What a nose for drama the baker has, it’s all so very Greek. Mrs. Latvia, who loves a good tragedy, adds:

  “The baker is right! We’ll never find the murderer by burying our heads in the sand, upon my word!”

  For once, we’re in full agreement with the baker and Mrs. Latvia, and we almost feel like shouting it from the rooftops, but they don’t need us, they’re self-sustaining, if we dare say so, and we anxiously await the mayor’s response:

  “I’ve seen enough of you all. Go! Off you go home, all of you!”

  Go home? What on earth has gotten into Mayor Gross? The baker, Mrs. Latvia, Angelina White, Cantarini, and the others, looking stunned, stand and make their way like robots back up to the sacristy. And we follow them, spell-bound. Troubled. The mayor removes a pair of gold-rimmed glasses from his pocket as we climb the stairs.

  16

  “Them! They were watching me with their scheming eyes, they suspected me, yes them! You know who I mean by them, they always sit together
, watching, spying, you can tell they’re recording everything in their evil little minds.”

  The Professor hasn’t kept us waiting this week, he’s already pacing the hall when we enter. Now he’s furious, our poor guru, he shouldn’t get himself so worked up.

  “Do you know who I’m talking about when I say them?”

  It’s us he’s talking to, what an honour, we reply spontaneously, enthusiastically, without further thought, a broad smile on our lips:

  “Oh yes, Professor!”

  He seethes:

  “Stop smiling, you morons, there’s nothing funny about it. Them, that little group that thinks they’re better than the rest, them, you know, those four nameless idiots who speak only with their eyes, with their gawking stares, their wandering hands on their knock knees. Them, they make me want to vomit.”

  We feel like vomiting along with him, but our stomach is empty, ahh, what a shame. There’s a burning question on our lips, one we don’t dare ask: Who’s them? The Professor continues, waving his fists in the air:

  “Them… Lucky for them they don’t come to our meetings. Because if they did, let me tell you… POW!”

  We jump. We can make out his gun by the lump in his pant pocket. Always prepared, he’s all-powerful.

  “It was them who nearly spoiled it all on Monday. When the dead girl’s father agreed to let me take matters into my own hands. It’s time for the village to move on. It’s time to forget, yes, we must.”

  Take matters into his own hands—that’s our leader all right—an iron fist in a velvet glove, and fox eyes looking out from behind his golden glasses.

  “My friends, my lambs, desperate times call for desperate measures, isn’t that so? On Monday I tried to talk sense into all those imbeciles who want to complicate things unnecessarily. But the idiots seem immune to my charisma, damn them all, I say! And then as I told you, there’s them plotting and bad-mouthing, what a nuisance! We need to eliminate them, get rid of them. But most of all, yes most of all, we need to stop talking about the girl. It’s time to move forward, to move on to other things. To put this story of the unknown huntsman to rest once and for all. And anyway, who’s to say they are not the huntsman? What makes them all so sure the unknown huntsman is a single person? Couldn’t it be that accursed little group? I can well imagine them making a pact with death to achieve their ends, believe you me!”

  We jump to our feet, we break into finger- stinging applause, all for our Professor. We feel like shouting “All for you, Professor!” but that would be pure youthful folly. He bows humbly:

  “Out of my sight, you drudges.”

  Ahh, Professor!

  17

  It’s hot this week in the church basement, and not just because the warm days of June have arrived—prompting Sybille to break out her summer attire: now she wraps herself in kilometres of jute (her lightweight summer wear)—no, it’s stifling hot in here because Angelina White, despite the woolen wraps she dons every morning, is sitting, as always, next to the woodstove, which she stuffs full of twigs every ten minutes and, quite frankly, her old bones can’t possibly be still feeling the cold, and even the baker seems in agreement with us:

  “For God’s sake, Angelina, it’s absolutely ridiculous stoking the stove like that in the middle of June—have you ever seen such a thing?”

  Angelina White retreats, embarrassed, into her layers of clothing, her chignon drooping slightly, and turns to Mrs. Latvia for encouragement, but we have to agree with the baker: the meetings these days are exhausting enough without this suffocating heat to boot, ahh, there goes the mayor now:

  “G-g-g-good evening, m-m-my friends. It’s true the month of J-j-june has brought nice weather. And as I t-t-t-told you last week, it’s b-b-best to leave the s-s-sad moments of the p-p-past few weeks behind us. I hope that each of you will do your b-b-best to m-m-move forward.”

  Well, well—the mayor’s stutter is back with a vengeance this week, otherwise nothing new in the Gross camp, he’s still got his strange habit of wanting to sweep everything under the rug, it isn’t enough that Father Wavery sometimes forgets to give his Sunday sermon—the other morning, the baker had to go and drag him out of bed because the entire village was waiting in church while he slept on, something to do with communion wine, it seems—we really have no need for an elected official who buries his head in the sand, but he’s off again:

  “D-d-d-on’t think for a m-m-minute I’ve forgotten my d-d-dear sweet Amelia…”

  Morosity Gross, who appears to have rediscovered the will to live since last week, if her exotic hat is any indication, nonetheless cries a crocodile tear in agreement with her spouse, who looks at her, eyebrows raised, before carrying on:

  “B-b-but this village cannot c-c-c-continue to live in f-f-fear. This is p-p-precisely what the unknown huntsman wants. Fear and p-p-panic that scatters our senses, c-c-c-louds our judgment, that’s all he wants, it’s quite obvious.”

  He seems quite sure of himself, our mayor, but really, what could he possibly know about the psychology of the lunatic killer on the loose, we can sense the perplexed looks of those around us, and it’s good because even Angelina White has forgotten her woodstove for a moment and is wearing a look of suspicion and, of course, the baker dives right in:

  “Mr. Mayor, with all due respect, I must warn you that the village has been asking itself some serious questions since last week. Can you really just brush aside the numerous tragedies that have hit our villagers in recent months and clear the slate on your own child’s murder? Allow a predator like the unknown huntsman to roam unchecked? I’m not trying to pick a quarrel with you, you know, but that would be reason enough to have you relieved of your duties, Mr. Mayor, again, with all due respect.”

  Relieve Mayor Gross of his duties! The baker isn’t pulling any punches, we know full well who he would like to see in the mayor’s place, and we can assure you it’s not Mrs. Latvia.

  “M-m-mister Leaven, I haven’t seen you consult anyone else during the meeting, therefore I c-c-cannot conclude that what you’re p-p-putting forth is the result of a valid and verifiable d-d-democratic vote.”

  He’s got a bit more verve about him now, our mayor, especially up against the baker, and if he keeps it up, he may well grow as brazen as the newly departed Blanche. For now, the baker grunts and snorts like a buffalo, perhaps he’s preparing to charge, but no, he simply scowls and crosses his arms, and Mrs. Latvia takes her turn:

  “Mr. Mayor.”

  Our florist’s voice is hoarse, she must have exhausted herself looking after the Campbell kids, it’s true the oldest boy still hasn’t recovered the nighttime habits of a normal human being. We sometimes hear him wailing at night, his little curly-haired head visible in Mrs. Latvia’s window, and that surely hasn’t helped the poor old woman’s sleep.

  “Mr. Mayor, you’re talking nonsense.”

  Well, she doesn’t beat around the bush, does she? We sink down in our seats, even the baker’s eyes widen—for once he must be feeling a little less alone—and Angelina White gathers her scrawny self and adds another stick to the fire, what an annoying habit.

  “You’re talking utter nonsense. We must find the unknown huntsman. If only for my own mental well-being. Oh, I know, no one gives a hoot about old Latvia, but the fact remains she’s the one who looks after the three little ones all day long and, God knows, their days are long indeed.”

  We’d probably feel sorry for Mrs. Latvia if she didn’t lay it on so thick.

  “The other night the eldest snuck out of bed and went into my shop, where he ruined all my bouquets, going at them with a pair of secateurs! At least twenty bouquets, I’m not exaggerating! All that work out the window! There goes Latvia’s money, straight into the garbage! I don’t need to tell you I spent a terrible day cleaning the mess and redoing everything, not to mention that I couldn’t see a thing through my tears. What
have I ever done to the Good Lord to deserve this?”

  Out comes the hankie, here come the sniffles, you know the routine and so do we. Only Angelina White still has any sympathy for our florist, rubbing her back with one hand while, with the other, she feeds a twig into the woodstove where it shrivels and curls up, like a spider crossing its legs, before being consumed by the fire.

  “Miss White, enough already with the fire!”

  Even Father Wavery has lost his patience—that’s saying something—and Giorgio Cantarini clucks his tongue and crosses his arms, what a strange meeting, what suffocating heat, what strange times, my friends, we murmur all together, what strange times, my friends: only two months ago we were considering a simple bread theft and now here we are, sweating profusely and in distress. The glow from the ceiling light flickers, like when you stare too long at a candle flame, and everything around us shimmers in a haze, it’s as if Angelina has thrown the entire church into the blaze. Fortunately the baker brings us back to our senses:

  “For crying out loud, that fire is unbearable! We’ve got to get out of here. Have you lost your mind, my poor Angelina? I could bake my baguettes right on the floor.”

  And he stands up, turns his piercing gaze on us as if to say “This time you won’t stop me from leaving.” What dramatic flair! We follow him, and only Angelina White remains, prostrate before her woodstove, she’s not in her right mind, that woman, anyway Mrs. Latvia can look after her—she’s got nothing else to do, the layabout.

  18

  The professor is already there waiting for us, standing on his pedestal. He paces nervously, as he has at every meeting since the whole unknown huntsman affair began haunting him, but really, we’re just speculating: we would never dare claim to understand the psychology of our guide.

  We look around us. Everywhere, necks crane. Toward the sacristy stairs.