Retribution Road

by Antonin Varenne

  The next day, she went back to the hut. The fire was out and it was cold inside. Bowman had not touched his food. This time, she walked up to the stove, keeping as far away from the sergeant as she could. The coal started to crackle. The light from the flames flickered on Bowman’s immobile face. His pale eyes still stared fixedly, while in his hands was the famous powder horn that Frankie had told her about.

  “I’ll come back tomorrow, Mr Bowman.”

  And she did come back the next day. This time, Mary waited a longer time for the hut to warm up. She did some tidying, hoping that her activity would catch Bowman’s attention. But it was no good. He remained prostrate on the bed, blind to her presence. He still hadn’t eaten anything. By her fourth visit, Bowman had moved. He had drawn closer to the stove, presumably to keep warm when the fire died down. He was lying on the floor, wrapped up in his blankets, and he had eaten a bit of bread. Mary watched him for a longer time, sitting on the bed just across from him. It was so strange, this man who was alive and dead at the same time, who did not see her at all. The whole port of Dunbar could have passed through the cabin and he wouldn’t have moved a muscle. The stove grew too hot and Bowman got up, slowly, like an old man with an aching back, and went to his bed. Startled, Mary got out of his way to let him lie down and took refuge in a corner of the room. Then she came close to him again.

  He stank. His shirt collar was unbuttoned and she could see some of the skin on his shoulder. Mary bit her lip. She wanted to see those scars Frankie had told her about.

  Holding her breath, she lifted one side of the shirtfront, revealing Bowman’s shoulder. She almost cried out. Her hand covered her mouth. But she was at least as curious as she was horrified, and her other hand brushed the line of the scar, descending from the back of his neck to the end of his shoulder. Bowman shivered. Mary leapt backwards and rushed out of the hut. That night, she prayed for a long time.

  Frank’s wife believed in the world as God had created it. She believed in good and evil, in the battle and the balance between them. Only saints suffered out of pure injustice, and Bowman was no saint. Perhaps he was no longer the man he had been, but those marks on his body were the proof that he had been a monster. After her prayers, after dwelling on these dreadful thoughts until late at night, she fell asleep and the next morning she refused to believe in her dream.

  Mary did not dream. Or only about the day she had just lived through, or sometimes the next day and what she had to do, like someone making a grocery list. This dream was completely different.

  Before going to the hut, she went to the local church and asked to see the pastor. She told him about her dream, explaining the situation: a sick man she didn’t like but who she had to look after. The pastor told her she was a good Christian and that her dream was good, perhaps even a sort of vision.

  “But that man scares me.”

  “Your dream is telling you to help him. It’s an order from God.”

  At the hut, she did nothing except leave the food near the bed and take care of the stove before going home. The next night, Mary had the same dream, even more detailed and disturbing this time. When the children had left, knowing that she could no longer ignore this divine injunction, she prepared herself, exactly as God had asked her to. She heated some water, got undressed and washed herself in the kitchen, combed her hair, put on a clean skirt, a white blouse with a high collar, and the bustier that Frankie had given her for Christmas. She hid her clothes under a large winter coat and quickly walked through the streets.

  Bowman was sitting on the bed, the horn on his lap, watching the last embers in the stove. He’d eaten a few mouthfuls of food. His face, this morning, was marked by an expression of deep sadness, and his eyes had an anguished look. Mary shovelled coal into the stove and opened the air door as wide as it would go. Her movements were nervous. She murmured to herself: “Don’t be scared, my girl. You have to do what you did in the dream. It’s the good Lord who wants this. Don’t seek to understand, just do it and that’s all.”

  Outside the hut, rainwater dripped from the roof gutter into a barrel. Mary used a stone to break the ice and filled some buckets with water, then she put a kettle on to boil and got a bowl ready.

  “Do what the pastor told you. Don’t think about it.”

  Inside the wooden cabin, the temperature was rising. She stood in front of Bowman, controlling her breathing. The bustier felt too tight: it was not the most practical thing to wear for this kind of activity. Her dream was stupid, from beginning to end. Her voice sounded weak. She started again and tried to clear her throat.

  “You’re not going to hurt me, Mr Bowman?”

  Bowman did not react. He was staring at the mother-of-pearl powder horn.

  “The pastor said it was a duty. So you’re not going to hurt me, alright?”

  Mary began to unbutton his shirt, sliding the sleeves over his arms and taking it off. She felt troubled by a feeling of déjà vu. Repulsed by the smell of his body, intimidated by his scars, she stood up straight.

  “We have to wash them, Mr Bowman. Wash your wounds.”

  Mary knelt down, dipped a cloth in the warm water, wrung it out and rubbed a bar of soap against it. She began with one of his shoulders, barely daring to press down, then, little by little, her maternal instinct took over and she washed his arms, his chest and his neck. She talked to herself as she cleaned his skin: “It’s because you did something bad, but the pastor said I had to wash you.”

  Lifting up his arms, she rubbed his sides, then his belly. Beads of sweat formed at Mary’s temples. She took off her bustier and put it on the bed. When she leaned over him to wash Bowman’s back, her breast, beneath the fabric of the blouse, brushed against his scar-striped shoulder. She shivered.

  There was another part of the dream that she had not told the pastor.

  Drops of sweat ran from her scalp down to her neck. She unbuttoned her collar and wiped her face with the back of her hand. The heat was making her head spin. Her brisk motherly gestures were becoming slower and slower. She bent down and traced, with the damp cloth, the lines of the scars running over his shoulder blades and down his back, her breast pressed firmly against Bowman’s arm.

  Delicately, she picked up the horn from Bowman’s lap and put it on the bed. Bowman followed her movements with his eyes.

  “You’re not going to hurt anyone anymore, Mr Bowman. Not me, not Frank, not anyone. I’m going to wash you, and after that you’ll leave.”

  She put her hands on his shoulders and gently pushed him back until he was lying on the bed. Then she undid the buttons on his trousers and pulled them off.

  Mary knelt against the bed, turning her eyes from Bowman’s penis, and began to clean his feet, his calves and his knees, which were covered in scars. Then she rubbed his thighs.

  His penis too was scarred.

  Mary soaked the cloth in the water. Bowman’s face was blank. As Frank’s wife touched his penis, it grew erect. She closed her eyes. She felt a tingling between her legs. Letting out a little cry, she stood up, threw a blanket over Bowman’s body and stepped back from the bed. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and undid a few more buttons on her blouse. When she had woken this morning, her hands had been gripping her breasts; her fingers followed the same path they had followed in her dream, between the open folds of her blouse, caressing her hot skin, down to her breasts.

  “I’m going mad.”

  Her fingers played with her hardened nipples and she pinched them until they hurt. She breathed in deeply and then exhaled, hollowing her belly, and her other hand moved down under her skirt. Her legs were giving way beneath her. She touched herself, squeezing hard, then jumped as if someone else had done it. Both her hands moved to her face and she covered her mouth with them. She turned back towards the bed, crouched down and dipped the cloth in the water to wash Bowman’s face.

  “You are in purgatory, Mr Bowman. And so am I. You’re going to leave now. You’re washed. Just like in my dream.
You’re going to leave and so am I.”

  Feeling sure that he couldn’t hear her, she continued speaking, as if to herself: “In my dream, I washed you. And then . . . there was this love. Not God’s love, but . . . a woman’s love.”

  Mary, kneeling on the floor, pressed her breasts against the edge of the bed, squeezing her legs together.

  “But I can’t. I mustn’t.”

  She was no longer holding the cloth. She caressed Bowman’s face with her hand.

  “That woman . . . the one who was supposed to come to our house. If you want, I can go and fetch her.”

  Mary pulled at the blanket that covered Bowman. She leaned her head down and put her cheek on his arm.

  “I can go and fetch her.”

  She was speaking more and more quietly.

  “Perhaps she will give you that love. Because I can’t.”

  Tears welled between her eyelids.

  “I’m scared of you. I judged you. That was wrong of me. It’s my punishment to look after you. I’ll go and fetch that woman for you. After that, you’ll leave.”

  Mary caressed her own neck and Bowman’s at the same time. She was whispering now, as she hoisted her skirt up over her thighs, pulled her knickers down and slid her hand between her parted legs. She kissed the sergeant’s shoulder, then his belly, her mouth moving down towards his crotch, her tongue touching him ever more firmly. She had never done this to Frank. Bowman did not move. Only his penis was hard between her lips. As in her dream, she felt herself about to climax and tried to stop it, all the while rubbing herself with her fingers and masturbating Bowman with her other hand and swallowing him whole. She climbed on the bed, pulling her skirt over her head so she wouldn’t see him, biting the fabric, and sat on him. Bowman’s voice made her shudder. Mary fell backwards onto the bare earth floor, her legs and breasts exposed. She couldn’t stop herself coming now, closing her eyes and squeezing her crotch with both hands, as if to muffle the cry that was about to come out. Bowman feebly repeated the same words, which she didn’t understand. She bit her hand while she got her breath back. The sweat on her back turned cold. On her knees, she advanced towards the bed, pressing her ear to Bowman’s mouth.

  “Peavish. Pastor Peavish. Peavish. Pastor Peavish. Peavish . . .”

  Mary started to cry out. Foul drops were leaking between her legs. She spun around like a dervish in the hut, grabbing her clothes and getting dressed as she wept, throwing the coat over her shoulders and running out of there.

  The next day, trembling with fever, Frank’s wife went back. Bowman was asleep on the bed, his face against the wall, his back to her.

  “Mr Bowman? Can you hear me?”

  She stayed close to the bed, unmoving.

  “You mustn’t say anything about what happened. It was nothing, just a moment of madness. I didn’t know what I was doing . . . I was scared. Are you going to leave?”

  Bowman did not reply. On the shelf, next to the food, she saw an envelope. A letter addressed to the pastor of the chapel in Herbert Street, in Plymouth. Mary crossed herself, picked up the letter and left with it, swearing never to come back.

  *

  When Frank returned from his fishing trip, he found his wife in bed with a fever. She told him she had caught a cold because she had to walk to the cabin in the wind and rain. Mary told him that Bowman had not moved, that he had eaten almost nothing, and that he had written a letter that she posted for him.

  “A pastor?”

  “In Plymouth.”

  Mary was tired and didn’t want to speak anymore. Frank insisted:

  “In Plymouth? I think he did go down there, before he started working with us. Didn’t he say anything?”

  “Let me rest. I did what you told me. I don’t want to go back there. I won’t ever go there again. Let me sleep now.”

  Frank left her in peace.

  In the days that followed, he and Stevens took turns to go and see how Bowman was. The sergeant seemed a little better. Sometimes he looked up as they came in, answering their questions with a yes or a no. He was no longer the ghost of the first weeks, but he seemed to be waiting for something else before he fully came back to life.

  Mary stayed in bed for a long time, but she too regained her strength. She never asked about Bowman.

  At the end of January, a pastor arrived at the port in Dunbar, looking for two fishermen, Frank and Stevens, owners of the Sea Sergeant. He was led to the place where the boat was moored. He introduced himself to the two men and asked where he could find Arthur Bowman. The two partners, hats in hands, explained the way to the hut and watched as the pastor disappeared between the warehouses.

  The man knocked at the door of the hut. Bowman looked at the white collar around the man’s neck, then his face.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am Pastor Selby. I received your letter to the chapel.”

  “Where’s Peavish?”

  The young pastor moved closer to the stove. Bowman watched him.

  “I’ve taken over the Herbert Street congregation from him. May I warm myself for a moment before I answer you? I can’t feel my fingertips and it’s difficult to speak.”

  Selby rubbed his hands over the fire.

  “I apologise that I am not the visitor you were expecting. I also apologise for having opened your letter. It’s just that Pastor Peavish would never have received it. After reading it, knowing that he would not be able to come here to help you, I decided to make the journey in his stead.”

  “Where is he?”

  Pastor Selby smiled.

  “Pastor Peavish left England more than a year ago now.”

  “Left?”

  “Excuse me, Mr Bowman, but in your letter it said something about a murderer, a killing in London and another in America. I didn’t understand what it meant, but your letter worried me.”

  Pastor Selby moved towards him.

  “That is why I decided to come here. You see, Pastor Peavish has followed the teachings of our founding father, John Wesley, and has taken the same path as him. He left for America to preach the Methodist faith. And as you mentioned a murder over there, I thought it was important to come.”

  Bowman sat on the bed.

  “What did you say?”

  Selby, with his smooth chin and his slender hands, couldn’t be more than twenty-five years old. He was pale, tired from his journey, and wore a worried look on his face.

  “Pastor Peavish left for the United States of America in September last year. You must tell me what this is all about, sir. I gathered, reading between the lines of your letter, that you and the pastor knew a murderer. Is Pastor Peavish in danger? Please, tell me what’s going on.”

  “September?”

  Bowman looked up at the young pastor.

  “Just after my visit?”

  “Your visit?”

  “He left just after?”

  Selby sat next to Bowman.

  “I know I shouldn’t have opened that letter. I still feel badly about it. But at the same time, I think it was a good thing. There is no way of knowing where Pastor Peavish is now. You said you needed his help. He isn’t here, but I am. You can count on my discretion, sir. But please, answer me. Is your friend, Pastor Peavish, in danger?”

  *

  When Stevens went to visit the hut, Bowman was no longer there. His belongings were, but the room was in a state of disorder, overturned in a fit of rage. The bed and the furniture had been knocked over, clothes thrown all over the floor.

  The next day, it was Frank who passed by. The hut had been tidied up, but Bowman was still not there. On the table was a pile of wrapped presents, each with a name handwritten on the paper. For Stevens, his wife and their children, and for his children too, and for him. Next to this pile was an envelope, addressed to Stevens and to him.

  Frank took the gifts and the letter, put them on the kitchen table and handed the letter to Mary. Frank didn’t know how to read. Mary was pale, and the page trembled betwee
n her fingers as she began to read it out:

  The boat is yours. I leave you my share.

  I don’t know when I’ll be back. Everything in the hut is for you too. And the presents, which I’d bought for Christmas.

  Arthur

  Frank collapsed onto a chair.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  Mary was silent.

  “He left? Just like that? Bloody hell, it’s because that pastor came!

  He smashed everything up, and after that he left . . .”

  Frank searched his wife’s eyes.

  “Do you understand any of this, eh? He didn’t say anything when we were at sea? About the letter to the pastor?”

  “He didn’t speak a single word the whole time you were away. One morning, I found the letter, so I put it in the post. That’s all.”

  Mary rummaged among the presents and found a little packet tied with a blue ribbon. She weighed it in her hand, stroked it with her fingertips. A book. Written in ink on the paper: “For Mary.”

  Frank was horrified.

  “You’re sure he didn’t say anything? You have no idea where he might have gone?”

  Mary’s voice went up an octave:

  “Stop questioning me. I don’t know any more about it than you do! And if he has gone, it’s the best thing that could have happened for everyone!”

  She left the kitchen, furious, taking the book with her. Frank remained sitting at the table, head in his hands.

  2

  Bowman entered the vast lobby of the Peabody, Morgan & Co. bank, on Commercial Street. The clerk recognised him and asked him to wait for a moment. He returned with another bank employee holding a leather briefcase under his arm.