Eat Him If You Like

by Jean Teulé

  Head lolling back, Alain was surprised to see the upside-down faces of his helpless protectors. He had thought he would never see them again, certainly not on the way to his grisley end! The whole affair was tragic. No one but the devil would delight in such a vicious game. Lord have pity on those men. They flung him to the ground. Alain glimpsed whips, batons and hooks in their hands, and felt the thwack of sticks.

  ‘Knock him out! Knock him out!’

  People jostled to get at him, vying to deal the hardest blow. Thibaud Devras, a pig merchant from Lussac, raised his stick and waited for Alain to leave his head exposed. Alain had paid for his daughter’s headstone. He tried to remind Devras of this as he hit him full in the face.

  The crowd pushed and shoved in their attempts to strike him and leave their mark on the enemy. One man hit him and then stepped back, leaving his place to another, who, once he had struck Alain, stood aside to be quickly replaced by someone else. The instinctive, collective nature of the massacre diluted responsibility. The bloodshed gave youngsters at the fair the opportunity to prove themselves and join the men. Thibassou was back again. The fourteen-year-old swaggered up and down the streets of Hautefaye, showing off his bloodstained baton. He vaunted his ferocity.

  ‘Hey, you, have you hit him? No? You’re a coward!’ he said, as he and Pierre Brut’s son questioned a boy of their own age.

  ‘Go and give him what for, ’Poleon,’ a mother commanded her five-year-old.

  The child hit Alain. He withdrew his hand and it was spattered with blood. Old Moureau urged people to throw stones at Alain’s head.

  ‘Three goes, one sou. If you kill the Prussian, you take him home.’ He handed out stones, turning the killing into a sideshow. People trod on Alain with their left foot, superstitiously believing it would bring them luck. They thrashed him as if they were threshing wheat.

  ‘We haven’t threshed much wheat thanks to you, scum! Lébérou!’

  Alain was being likened to the mythical monster from Périgord, condemned to roam the country by night. Legend has it that the lébérou, his body swathed in an animal skin, would eat dogs, impregnate village women and jump on the backs of nocturnal walkers, forcing them to carry him. The following morning he would take on the form of a caring neighbour.

  ‘Lébérou, lébérou!’ the cry was immediately taken up by other villagers. Men made the sign of the cross with their forefingers as if warding off a vampire. ‘Prussian, it’s your fault we found the Lac Rouge farmer dead at the bottom of his well, with a dog paw in his mouth!’

  ‘Prussian, it’s your fault that my brother hanged himself with the halter of his last cow when he came back from burying it!’

  ‘Prussian, it’s your fault that I don’t know where to get fodder this winter. There’s no maize, no beans, nuts or turnips. Scoundrel! Here, take that!’

  It’s your fault! It’s your fault! They blamed Alain for all their woes. The drought, his fault! The problems with Prussia, his fault! His heart, bones, blood, feet and eyelids became a mush, barely held together by pieces of flesh. They were smashing his entire body. The earth of the main street, arid for so long, was joyfully soaking up his blood. Alain was jostled and kicked by clogged feet. He was no longer present; his dilated pupils were vacant. Murguet dragged a fork across Alain’s stomach as though he were turning clods of earth. Enough is enough!

  There was a crossroads in the town centre. On the left, on the corner of the road leading to Nontron, sprawled the long inn belonging to Élie Mondout, grocer and tobacconist. In painted lettering on the pink-brick façade were the words:

  Chas Mondout

  lu po ei boun,

  lu vei ei dou,

  la gent benaisé.

  (At Mondout’s,

  the bread is good,

  the wine is sweet,

  the people happy.)

  The tables were set with pewter dishes and iron forks, and Élie Mondout’s customers sat gawping at Alain. By now he was nothing more than pig or poultry feed.

  ‘Filthy Prussian, take that for my son who you sent to Reichshoffen!’

  Piarrouty bashed him once more in the head with his weighing hook and made for the inn, shouting, ‘I saw his brains!’ He drew vast amounts of water and went to wash his hook, much to Élie Mondout’s astonishment.

  The innkeeper had been busy rushing to and fro, making soup from leftover meat, slicing ham and bread, cooking up last year’s chestnuts, and bringing up demijohns of wine from the cellar. No doubt he hadn’t even realised what was happening in the town square behind the kaleidoscope of colourful clothing.

  But now, emerging from the kitchen, he was speechless. He found his comfortably seated customers following the spectacle that was unfolding in the thronging inn. People rose in turn to participate in the carnage. Roland Liquoine stamped on Alain’s chest, sending pain searing through his heart. A miller with a flail said he was threshing barley, and his ferocious zeal caused Alain even more suffering. Murguet took a swing at Alain’s crotch, shouting, ‘Snake! Snake!’ with unparalleled fury. He roared several times and then sat down. Another man aimed at Alain’s face, which was streaming blood. Alain was terrified. The Marthon notary, whom Alain had arranged to see on Bretanges business, pitched in too. Clutching his leather briefcase and wearing a white silk tie, he kicked Alain on his already battered mouth with the tip of his black patent-kid shoes. Lamongie left the table and planted a fork deep in Alain’s right eye, blinding him. He then returned to his seat and ordered a carafe of wine from the appalled ashen-faced innkeeper.

  ‘Get away! Get away from my inn, you savages! Get away from here or I’ll shoot you!’ he said, going off in search of his gun.

  ‘Don’t do that, Élie. There are six hundred of them and you can’t stop them,’ said his wife, waylaying him.

  ‘But we can’t let them kill him like that! Where’s Anna?’

  10

  MOUSNIER’S INN

  Scared off by the threat of Mondout’s blunderbuss, the vast, frenzied mob moved towards the village square. Antony, Mazerat and Dubois hurried over to Alain. They had been forced to skirt round part of the village, until they found Alain being kicked around outside Mousnier’s inn. His friends, together with Bouteaudon and the mayor’s nephew, picked him up and tried to help him into the inn but the door was banged shut, crushing his hand. Three fingers fell to the floor.

  As the door swung back open slightly, Alain used his good eye to scour the inside of the newly restored inn. It was an open room with light wooden beams. He could just hear the ticking of a gold clock standing on the mantelpiece. The pendulum shone momentarily behind the glass. The wallpaper had a pretty, delicate floral pattern. A picture of Alain’s fellow sufferer, Christ crucified on Golgotha, hung on the wall. Alain was facing a looking glass, where he was able to see himself for the first time that day.

  His head had become a bloody globe, with death laughing impatiently in his left eye. His face had suffered an avalanche, and was pitted with holes and craters. He was unrecognisable, a pitiful sight. His naked torso was deformed, his whole body twitched. In the mirror’s reflection, he could see a man in a straw hat approaching him from behind, armed with a hatchet. It was Jean Brouillet, the owner of the Gaugrilles estate. As boys, he and Alain had built tree houses together. Now, however, a sly Brouillet seemed in a hurry to finish Alain off, even though he had done him no harm. Finally! Alain turned round and focused his remaining eye on the brute, who no longer recognised him.

  ‘Go on, hi’ me, hi’ me, migh’ as well! Go on! Go on!’

  Alain’s jaw was broken in several places and he was unable to articulate clearly. He awaited the inevitable blow that would perhaps kill him, but Bouteaudon stepped in front of the hatchet.

  ‘Stop, Brouillet! Leave him be!’

  Bouteaudon was all the more supportive of Alain since he himself had always been something of an outsider, as millers often are. Mazerat and Dubois came to his aid, pushed Buisson aside and forced the Campot br
others back, while Antony begged Mousnier to let Alain in. But the innkeeper – a man with a weak chin who was wearing a black wide-brimmed felt hat – stood blocking the doorway, and refused.

  ‘You’re out of your mind! A Prussian in my inn?’ he said, from the entrance.

  ‘He isn’t a Prussian, he’s Monsieur de Monéys!’ retorted Antony angrily.

  ‘Is that so? I don’t recognise him,’ replied Mousnier, looking at Alain. ‘What if he is a Prussian? My newly renovated inn will be destroyed if I let a Prussian in.’

  ‘This young man lent you money for the work, interest free …’

  ‘I never borrowed money from a Prussian!’

  ‘Ach! ’Ousnier, iss ’e, A-ain!’ protested Alain, trying to force his way in.

  ‘I don’t even recognise that voice,’ said the innkeeper to Antony. ‘He’s got a strange accent, he has. I didn’t understand a word he said. Was that German?’

  And Mousnier slammed the door in Alain’s face, leaving him to the mercy of the baying mob. Someone threw a stone that hit the wall to the right of his head. Alain stood hunched, clutching his head in his hands. A mason known to be gregarious and to love dancing – the life and soul of the party – eyed him slyly and smiled. He thought deeply, sure that he could dredge up some vice that would do just as much damage as any shining sword.

  ‘The report that this man wants to send to the government is not a plan to divert the course of the Nizonne! In fact, it’s a ludicrous plan to stop people keeping their cows’ horns, unless they dress like him!’ he sniggered.

  ‘What? Why?’

  So it was that this strange tale now spread like wildfire through Hautefaye.

  ‘Who on earth does he think he is? Let’s pull off the rest of his clothes and then he’ll have to remove his cows’ horns too. Strip him! Strip the Prussian!’

  They flung themselves at his legs and tore off his trousers. Alain was now completely naked and still being attacked. The torment was unending.

  ‘When the time comes, the Emperor will know who hit him and he will reward everybody. He will pay out!’ promised a woodcutter from Fontroubade.

  ‘Really?’

  A child aimed a slingshot at Alain’s nose.

  ‘Come now,’ shouted Antony. ‘Surely there are fifty men here who will help us put a stop to this atrocity? Who’s with us?’

  His pleas went unanswered. Instead, people repeated, ‘The Emperor will pay us for doing his work!’ They pummelled Alain relentlessly, carefully aiming their clogs at his kidneys, stomach and face. Hautefaye’s schoolmaster, whose whiskers were reminiscent of General Cambronne’s famous moustache, stood with one hand in the pocket of his white drill trousers. He kicked Alain in the head as though he were kicking a ball. His lower leg was covered in blood. Even he was under the influence of these thugs. At that point, Alain was like a small ship that has lost its mast yet still battles against the storm. He pitched and rolled under powerful eddies of kicks.

  ‘Over there, the corn exchange! There was no corn this year. Let’s take him there and quarter him!’ bawled the roofer from La Chapelle-Saint-Robert, as though he had just discovered land from the crow’s nest.

  And so it was that Alain’s soul, victim of a terrible shipwreck, prepared to cast off.

  11

  THE CORN EXCHANGE

  Alain lay on his back, his arms and legs splayed out like a starfish. He was suspended in midair, three feet off the ground. The Campot brothers, Chambort and Mazière had bound his wrists and his huge swollen ankles with ropes, and were pulling him in four different directions. The taut ropes were keeping Alain aloft.

  ‘Heave ho!’

  There were shouts of encouragement. When Alain’s tormentors pulled, he was raised off the ground and when they slackened their hold, his back – an open wound – hit the tiled floor. Their movements became rhythmic and soon they were off again. Alain rose towards the rafters supporting the tiled roof.

  ‘Heave ho!’

  His tormentors sniggered, slithering and sliding in Alain’s blood. They started again. Lord, if only it were an amusing game and not an attempt to tear Alain limb from limb. Other men arrived. Soon there were a dozen of them pulling each rope. Alain’s shoulders dislocated; his femurs were wrenched from their sockets. Did it hurt? How to be sure? His eyes were wide open yet he seemed to be asleep. His sense of time and space was distorted as the universal order was shattered. The sky itself seemed frozen.

  ‘This is a disgrace!’ said Antony’s voice from afar.

  ‘You’ve got no right!’ protested Mazerat by his side.

  ‘There’s no law and order any more,’ came the reply.

  ‘Animals, animals!’ sobbed Dubois. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

  ‘To wash my hands in his blood.’

  Alain swung back and forth depending which side pulled the hardest. When they pulled in unison and the ropes were stretched to their limit, Alain’s raised body flapped like a sheet. His blood sprayed everywhere in a mist of tiny droplets. It looked like a constellation. Mingled with the specks of light filtering through the tiled roof, it was a beautiful sight. His blood fell like drizzle as he plummeted towards the tiled floor. He was yanked up once more and all his joints exploded.

  The crowd, in their straw hats, smocks, clogs and colourful ribbons, gathered on three sides of the corn exchange to watch. People linked arms to support each other as they swayed back and forth, screaming insults, a harsh tide of cruel words.

  The men strained like beasts of burden. Anyone would think they were torturing the man who had attempted to assassinate Louis XV. What was his name? Alain could no longer remember. His mind was gone. They hauled on the ropes. Good God, what strength! Their anger was unjustified and senseless (well, anger always is unjustified and senseless). Alain rose into the air, taking with him his morose concerns. Try not to think about the final plunge.

  His healthy blood drained away by the bucketful, spurting from his arteries, forming pools. Jean Campot, at Alain’s right foot, slipped in the blood and fell, taking with him everyone on his rope. This sent the group opposite off balance and they toppled backwards. Drunk, the men to the right and left doubled up laughing and let the rope slip between their fingers.

  With no one restraining him, Alain jumped up and rushed bleeding out of the hall, leaving a trail of bloody footprints behind him.

  12

  THE WOOL MERCHANT’S CART

  Alain was escaping! People in the corn exchange had believed he was well and truly dead this time, when suddenly he had risen to his feet. The astonished mob, taking him for some kind of ghost, a mythical creature – a lébérou for certain – parted in fear, clearing a path for him. He ran with an incredible surge of energy, like a headless chicken. There was no doubt it was a miracle.

  His horseshoes grated on the gravel path, and his long shadow formed a strange lolloping silhouette under the burning sun. His outstretched arms were at a strange angle; his shoulders were almost halfway down his chest. His legs were also all askew. His knees rolled in a figure-of-eight movement, something not even seen in the circus. The whole spectacle was terrifying. A howl rattled in his chest like a hurricane whistling through a ruin.

  ‘Catch him! The Prussian’s escaping!’ yelled Chambort.

  Resembling a fallen gargoyle, Alain ran. He mistakenly thought he was on the road to Nontron, but arrived at a dead end, where the wool merchant – Donzeau – had parked his cart. A fatal error – especially since the mob was closing in on him, like a raging army.

  Like bloodhounds on his trail, they continued to hurl abuse at him, in a volley of slanderous accusations. Their forked tongues hissed venomous words. Such shameful and disgraceful human behaviour had never been seen before. Enough of this Waterloo! Enough of this mob! He could take no more from his attackers. Enough! Leave him alone!

  ‘’Eave ’e! ’Eave ’e!’

  He sprang forward – how was this possible? – and grabbed a stake from the wool
merchant’s cart. He turned to face his pursuers. Naked and covered in blood, shit and wounds, a half-blind amputee, Alain faced the raging horde alone. He was the scion of a long line of Périgord knights and he wanted the family name to live on. Determination burnt in his tearful, throbbing head! His limbs beat the air like wings. He stumbled. His thoughts flitted like bats. Étienne Campot stepped forward and removed the stake from Alain’s hands without difficulty, raised it and dealt him a massive blow. Alain keeled over backwards between the shafts of Donzeau’s cart, horseshoes waving in the air. His body rolled and finally came to rest under Mercier’s wagon.

  13

  MERCIER’S WAGON

  Clogs clattered on the wooden planks, like a spatter of heavy raindrops. Alain lay on the ground, curled in a bleeding ball, eyeing the many feet that were trying to kick him.

  He was safe between the wheels of the large horse-drawn carriage parked against a wall. Feet could not reach him there. Men gathered round in ascending circles, banging on the wheels, the suspension, and the planks of the cart, which was used to drive families to funerals and weddings or to take them to Périgueux market.

  They stamped up and down in their heavy clogs, the studs in their soles hitting the metal frame and sending up showers of sparks. Their heels came thumping down on the rotting shafts, which splintered. The floor caved in. Between the broken slats, Alain could now see the underside of the seats and the thin upright columns at the four corners of the carriage. The curtains came loose and flew off. It was surreal! Tornadoes of dust glittered in the sunshine.

  The carriage, specially decorated for the parades, was like a motorised machine. With pistons and explosions, it seemed to be turning into an automobile and moving all by itself. Wait, no, men were pushing it. Buisson and Mazière hauled Alain out by his legs. His head dragged behind, bumping on the stones. He was back in Hautefaye village square once more. Bernard Mathieu appeared, sporting his mayor’s sash, jiggling the tassels and fringes.