Eat Him If You Like

by Jean Teulé

  ‘Hey, Moureau, don’t you think he’s had enough?’ he asked the old farmer from Grand-Gillou, who was pelting Alain with stones.

  ‘But, Your Worship, he’s a Prussian. He must pay the price!’

  The old farmer’s reply was met with cheers of ‘Prussian! Villain! Villain!’ The men surrounding Alain laughed and boasted, playing up their horrific behaviour to impress each other. Look how many of them supported Napoleon III. They weren’t fooled by a Prussian except … Alain was no Prussian. But he no longer had the strength to contradict them. Battered and weary of the constant attacks, the gratuitous jibes, he let them drag him along without putting up the slightest resistance.

  Some of his attackers were tired as well. They could be seen wandering around, dishevelled and clutching bloodstained sticks. ‘Hitting a man for two hours is exhausting!’ They left to have a drink.

  Despite Alain’s cordial greeting earlier, they did not even deign to say goodbye. He could not endure any more, but his few friends still did not desert him. Brutal hands continued to pummel him and his situation became ever more desperate. Antony shouted at Bernard Mathieu – a good-for-nothing king presiding over an execution.

  ‘Your Worship, rather than putting on airs and strutting around in your sash, help us save him! A terrible crime is being committed in your village!’

  ‘Why are you meddling?’

  ‘I’m meddling because someone is being murdered and you’re doing nothing!’

  ‘Get this man out of here,’ the mayor ordered the men holding Alain’s ankles, taking a step towards them. ‘He’s blocking the road. Take him somewhere else.’

  Antony sighed in despair.

  ‘What shall we do with him somewhere else?’ enquired Buisson and Mazière.

  ‘Whatever you want!’ replied the mayor, completely out of his depth. ‘Eat him if you like.’

  14

  THE WHEELBARROW

  Well, to think that Alain was deemed to have a weak constitution by the medical board! He did not know why he was still alive, but his heart continued to flutter in his chest. The people towing him turned to the right, towards whatever fate awaited him.

  ‘Burn him! Roast him!’

  ‘Burn him! If not, the Prussians will come and set us alight!’ urged the villagers, hoping to ward off the spectre of a fire.

  ‘After shoeing him like an ox, we’ll cook him like a pig!’

  ‘He needs to be plucked before we cook him!’ proposed a raucous female voice that sounded familiar.

  The mob paused to think. A large group went in search of wood – branches, planks and broken furniture. They tossed it onto Alain’s chest with needless brutality. He had become a wheelbarrow – his legs the shaft and his head the wheel.

  ‘Take the Prussian over there, where the firewood is!’

  They also needed some straw and a means of lighting the fire.

  ‘Hey, Thibassou, here’s one sou. Run and fetch some matches from Mousnier’s inn and bring some newspaper as well. The Dordogne Echo will do fine!’

  Chambort arrived with a bale of straw, followed by a villager yelling at him for stealing his fodder.

  ‘That’s worth thirteen sous, you know!’

  ‘Never fear. Napoleon III will pay you back for your straw bale because we’re using it to save France!’

  ‘I know the mayor’s a coward but where’s the priest?’ cried Mazerat from afar.

  ‘Passed out in the church from drinking in an attempt to avert this disaster. He’s snoring at Christ’s feet,’ boomed Bouteaudon’s voice.

  Mazière and Buisson dragged Alain along by his legs. Bumping on the ground, his head oozed a long trail of brains and blood. The tragic carnival was reaching its climax. The villagers had destroyed his body and now they were going to burn it. Alain was going to the theatre of hell. He was nothing more than a rag doll, and burning him would mark the end of the festivities. He was driven out of the village on a tidal wave of abuse.

  Menacing river banks closed in on him, echoing with baying voices. Memories of profoundly happy, peaceful occasions from his comfortable former existence came rushing back. Alain had fallen from grace and was now being dragged by his ankles towards the fairground. The murder that the crowd was about to commit was a declaration of love for France. People hurled chestnut branches onto Alain’s chest, onto the man they saw as a human wheelbarrow, all the while shouting ‘Long live the Emperor!’ Alain endured their blows without much struggle. They hauled him along the path to a place that seemed to be a rubbish tip. They had arrived at the dried-up lake, where each year a bonfire was lit on midsummer’s night.

  15

  THE DRIED-UP LAKE

  Mazière, Buisson and the younger Campot brother came to help the other men, and they dumped Alain’s body on the dried-up lake bed. The water had evaporated after months of searing heat. Alain lay on his back on the parched, cracked earth, his head turned slightly to one side. He was still breathing slightly.

  ‘Hooray! He’s not dead! He’s not dead! We’re going to burn him alive!’

  Alain had been dreaming of a quick and easy death. Or rather, he had been praying for it. He heard the voice of his childhood friend Chambort – now a blacksmith in Pouvrières – organising the construction of the funeral pyre. Alain had known him so well; how could his old friend have turned against him so suddenly?

  ‘Bring more wood; bring vine shoots and cartwheels, and pull up the fence posts!’

  They had now reached the fringes of the livestock fair. Chambort spread straw over his former playmate’s chest. Alain could still move his left foot. He wanted to escape. Chestnut branches and planks were piled on top of him. Alain still needed to go and buy a heifer for Bertille. He pushed at the heap of wood with his fingers, but Chambort jumped on him.

  ‘Trample on the pyre to make a good fire!’

  Chambort stood on the vine shoots and packed down the wood with his feet. He waddled around, putting on airs. He trampled the wretched Alain underfoot from his makeshift platform.

  ‘Long live the Emperor!’ he called. ‘Long live the Empress and the young imperial Prince!’

  Some cattle farmers and horse traders who had been at the far side of the fair all afternoon were oblivious to what had been happening. They were astounded to see a pyre being erected atop a fellow human being.

  ‘They’ve caught a Prussian and they’re going to burn him! War has reached Hautefaye!’ shouted some in a panic, hurrying along their cattle and getting away from the fair as quickly as possible.

  ‘We must go to Nontron and tell the police!’ said a farmer’s wife, losing her headdress as she raced downhill, prodding her heifer’s rump into a gallop.

  Some visitors, having grasped the situation more clearly, were appalled by the mob’s brutality and cradled their heads in their hands. Many, mesmerised, watched what followed. Chambort descended from the pyre.

  ‘The youngest should light the fire,’ he decided, ‘just like on midsummer’s night. Come closer, children. Hey, you there, what’s your name?’

  ‘Pierre Delage, but people call me ’Poleon,’ replied a young boy of five with bruised bare feet who was clinging to his mother’s threadbare skirt.

  ‘His father gave him that nickname after the Emperor,’ she explained, ‘when he returned from fighting the Russians in the Crimea.’

  ‘Very good. And where is your heroic husband?’

  ‘He died in the Battle of Forbach.’

  ‘Really?’ said Chambort, looking pained. ‘Then come, Napoleon, set this Prussian alight. The Emperor will send you a medal and some shoes.’

  ‘Shoes? Go on,’ said the poor mother to her child.

  ‘Don’t do it, Pierre!’ shouted Dubois and Georges Mathieu.

  ‘If you do, the police will put you in prison!’ added Antony and Bouteaudon.

  ‘Don’t do it!’ yelled Mazerat.

  The villagers turned and chased Alain’s protectors away. The child hesitated, but Jean Campot l
it a match and held it out to him.

  ‘Come on, Napoleon, burn the pig …’

  The child knelt to light the paper, but he couldn’t keep the flame alive. The match went out too quickly; he had to start again. Alain could smell the wood. A third match sparked near one of his ears and the Dordogne Echo caught fire, the flames spreading quickly to the straw and the vine shoots. He tossed about beneath the conifer branches. Logs blazed and the smell of resin hung in the air. Alain still appeared to be moving behind the curtains of fire as they sprang up.

  Alain watched the hazy crowd dance through the yellow and orange waves, throwing their hats and sticks up to the sky. A low, regular drone like a beehive filled the air.

  ‘Long live the Emperor!’ coughed the mayor, still sporting his sash, as he inhaled a cloud of smoke.

  The men found killing a human being just as easy as harvesting their crops, and they danced and spun in circles. Alain was still alive and his heavy breathing sounded like air escaping a bellows. The end was nigh. His hair smouldered, his chest caught fire. He was finding it harder and harder to breathe. A woman was yelling wildly. It was the schoolmaster’s wife, her treacherous red lips drawn back in a grimace, revealing her fangs. Near her stood Anna – the girl whose hand Alain would have liked to hold as he watched their child playing in the vineyard. She gazed at him, weeping, and mouthed a sentence he could not hear. It seemed she was promising him something. Her look fuelled the flames round Alain’s heart and it burst from his shattered chest. One crazed yet dreamy eye remained open.

  His ashes floated towards the blue sky, a sky that sang and called to him. He left the pleasures of this world, victim of a misunderstanding that could not have had a more gruesome outcome. His ashes finally rose above the fathomless world of fools and the depravity of these people, guilty of a crime beyond their comprehension. His flesh was now roasting in its own juice. It was a wretched end. Several people asked, ‘Who was he?’ They had spent all afternoon massacring a man without even enquiring who he was.

  ‘We’re cooking a fine pig!’

  Alain had become a spit roast. The skin on his thighs and shoulders crackled and blistered, swelling with bubbles full of boiling fat. They burst and a glistening, even appetising juice spurted out.

  ‘It would be a shame to waste this fat!’ said Besse ruefully. ‘Does anybody want to try it?’

  A mother took a six-pound loaf of bread from her basket and sliced it up. With a spatula, she scooped up some of the fat pooling near Alain’s elbows and spread it on the bread, distributing it to her children.

  ‘Eat up! Eat up, darlings. It’s not every day you get something on your bread these days. Blow on it. It’s hot.’

  More slices of bread dripping with scalding human fat were passed around, and good men wolfed them down.

  ‘What does it taste of?’

  ‘A bit like veal.’

  People started flocking towards Alain’s remains for a slap-up feast. Everyone gave an opinion, sounding like great culinary experts.

  ‘It would taste better washed down with a little glass of white Pontignac.’

  Alain could never have imagined they would say such things about him, the deputy mayor of Beaussac. His ashes rose higher, swirling around in the air above the crowd who were feasting as they did on the most important holidays. They devoured their cannibal sandwiches. Anna saw Thibassou take a mouthful and wash it down with white wine. Eating this body would purge the community. Small satisfied burps mingled with the sounds of chewing. It was a joy to hear. Boiling fat caused overhasty lips to blister.

  ‘Ouch!’

  ‘He burnt you! He’s still hurting you.’

  A heavy, acrid smoke hung above the dried-up lake, rising slowly. Families danced and children squalled. Unmarried men continued drinking and eyed the charred body that the fire had transformed. Like clouds in the sky or logs in the fireplace, the body changed according to where the person was standing.

  ‘Look, he resembles a wild boar. What do you think?’

  ‘A bird.’

  ‘Those two embers glowing side by side look like Beelzebub’s eyes. You can see his yellow tongue flickering.’

  Everybody saw their own personal demons appear. They stood there mesmerised, like children.

  ‘A stag!’

  He was no longer a man. Madame Lachaud delivered a sharp blow between the legs of his charred remains with a spade. His chest split open to reveal a dazzling interior. Fire tongs in hand, she continued rummaging around inside. Her husband started to worry.

  ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘His treasures. Ah look, look, his nuts!’

  Madame Lachaud’s proud husband observed her passing Alain’s testicles from one hand to the other to cool them down. He found her devilish attitude amusing.

  ‘You wouldn’t …’

  Perverse like no other, she did as she pleased and munched them defiantly, staring at Anna. She bit down hard. With her bodice open and her voluminous breasts glistening with sweat, she looked like a rabid dog. From between the jaws of the victim’s burnt skull, big bubbles emerged and popped noisily, giving her a fright.

  ‘What’s that Prussian gibbering about now?’

  ‘He’s saying: “I’d love to fuck you, but my cock’s burning”,’ translated her husband.

  Around them, people roared with laughter. A man takes a long time to burn. On the horizon, the setting sun was weeping blood. The scene was grisly. The ashes from Alain’s charred corpse were dispersed in all directions by the wind. They slipped under the soles of the men who were leaving as they wiped their greasy mouths contentedly on their sleeves.

  ‘There are too many Prussians in Lorraine to put up with one in our village! This one’s burning. I think we’ve made an example of him.’

  ‘I’m glad I hit him in the face four times with my stick, and that those blows really counted against that de Monéys.’

  ‘Against who?’

  ‘Against the Prussian.’

  ‘Oh yes, me too. I whacked the Prussian too.’

  ‘You missed a wonderful roast!’ they told everyone they met. ‘He had as much fat as three sows, that Prussian. He would have lasted us the whole week!’

  The ratter retched on hearing all the culinary details.

  ‘Oh, don’t act all high and mighty!’ laughed the cannibals. ‘You eat rats, and old ones at that!’

  ‘But that was Monsieur de Monéys.’

  ‘What?’

  As they exhaled, fatty residue landed on men’s shoulders. The burnt remains of Magdeleine-Louise and Amédée de Monéys’s son floated up in the air and drifted southwards. The moon gave off an oppressive light that night. Falling leaves whirled and sparred on the path that led to Bretanges. A young man carrying a lantern ran in the direction of the distant house. A frail mother stood at the open drawing-room window worrying about her son. Even though it was dark, the heat was still suffocating. She closed the lid of the piano and saw a plume of smoke rising up over Hautefaye. The sound of running footsteps was like a downpour on the dust. It was their servant, Pascal.

  ‘Why is he running so fast when it’s so hot?’ wondered Alain’s mother, in surprise.

  ‘Madame de Monéys! Madame de Monéys!’

  Pascal burst into the seventeenth-century house.

  ‘It’s Alain, he’s been …’

  A terrible scream tore through the countryside and the night.

  16

  THE NEXT DAY

  A large hand with stubby fingers unceremoniously prodded the stomach of an inert recumbent figure, an extremely fragile white statue whose features were frozen in an imploring expression.

  ‘Oh, forgive me! I’m very sorry!’ exclaimed the doctor, hastily withdrawing his hand.

  ‘Grim,’ muttered his assistant, taking from his satchel a notebook and quill, which he dipped in ink. His fingers poised, he added, ‘I’m ready, Dr Roby-Pavillon.’

  The portly doctor, who was also mayor of Nontron,
rubbed his palms together, sending up a cloud of ash like rice powder. He wiped his hands on his clothes, leaving white smears on his black trousers.

  ‘We are no longer of the same clay, Monsieur de Monéys,’ sighed the doctor, sadly.

  His voice echoed through Hautefaye’s small church, where Alain’s charred remains had been carefully transferred. Alain lay on a white sheet draped over the altar. It was lit by several church candles, and others from the grocer, Élie Mondout, their flames flickering in the dim light of mournful day. A ray of sunlight shone through the stained-glass window and danced prettily over Alain’s neck and shoulders, like a brightly coloured scarf, a tiny, unexpected delight.

  The victim of the execution, carried out by means abolished centuries earlier, lay on the slab. Silence reigned, shattered only by the doctor’s stentorian voice dictating the autopsy report to his assistant.

  ‘The body is almost entirely burnt and is lying on its back.’

  The doctor had a trim beard and a round head of tight curls. He walked around the altar and examined Alain’s remains, giving a meticulous description.

  ‘The face is turned slightly to the left, and the lower limbs are extended. The right hand is missing three fingers and is raised in supplication.’

  Occasionally the doctor stumbled over an empty bottle which rolled noisily over the flagstones. The whole place smelt of wine, and the fragrance of incense mingled with the stench of vomit. The doctor’s shoes crunched on broken glass.

  ‘The left hand sits on the corresponding shoulder, the fingers splayed as though begging for mercy.’ Alain’s facial features were frozen in an expression of agony, his twisted torso thrown back. The flames had captured Alain’s dying moments and preserved them as evidence.