Epitaph

TWENTY-THREE

Once upon a time in the little French town of Auxerre there lived a boy called Marcel. Marcel Petoit. One day, when Marcel was nine years old he took his aunt's dog, Max, for a walk. Good dog, he whispered, as Max trotted faithfully beside him. Good dog, as he settled down beneath an ancient ash tree, rubbing the soft fur between Max's eyes. Very good dog, as he used some hatbox twine to tie Max to the trunk of the tree. Great dog, as he lifted the carving knife from his coat pocket. Excellent dog, as he slit Max's stomach from his collarbone down to his tail. Dead dog, as he watched his intestines slide out onto the autumn leaves. Little Marcel Petoit decided then and there to be a doctor.

Once upon a time Marcel joined the army.

Three months later, he joined the walking wounded in the military hospital at Sers. Just about a stone's throw from the Aisne valley where he'd gone and had his leg blown up on ordinary maneuvers.

Marcel didn't much like the military. And he liked the military hospital even less. What he particularly disliked about it was the haunting babble that surrounded him every night like crickets in the dark. His fellow soldiers, his comrades in arms. Some of whom had injuries just like his. Though, strictly speaking, that wasn't why they were there. This ward's business had nothing to do with healing injured bodies. This was the mental ward. This was the ward of babble. Which is where they put you when you did things like blow up your leg on purpose. Or, at least, when they caught you at it. He'd been hoping for his discharge papers. Instead, he'd been rewarded with an admission to loon land.

It quickly occurred to him that the only way out of the crazy ward was to act crazier. Too crazy for the French army. Sure, they wanted you insane enough to charge a hill with several hundred automatic weapons trained at your head. But not crazy enough to turn one on yourself. It was all right to yell charge. As long as you didn't do it in strange tongues.

So he added a few more symptoms to his file. He developed the shakes, the trembles, and the faints. He was constantly seen rubbing his hands together as if trying to start a fire. He threw in a little self-mutilation here and there as well.

There was just one problem with all this. He was starting to have a little difficulty telling the difference. The difference between the charade and the non-charade, between the mentally disturbed him and the non-mentally disturbed him, between faking it and feeling it. He found himself trembling when he hadn't asked himself to do it. He found himself recovering from a dead faint when he'd never actually planned on fainting. And his hand rubbing had gotten completely out of control.

There was a bright side though.

It worked.

Four months later he was discharged with a noticeable limp and an eye-catching diagnosis of severe paranoid psychosis.

Once upon a time in a little French village somewhere in the Dordogne, there lived a doctor called Marcel.

The doctor fell in love. With a charming local girl called Lousette. Then the doctor fell out of love with the charming local girl called Lousette. She no longer seemed so charming to him. She had, in fact, become annoying and irritating.

It was, truth be told, her complete and maddening inability to understand him. To understand his little thefts, for example. His little transgressions. His little faux pas. To comprehend, for instance, that it wasn't the things he took that excited him, but the actual act of taking them. To understand that there was something positively, dare he say it-godlike-about his astounding ability to rearrange the physical world. For example, to rearrange Madame Rouel's diamond necklace from her bedside jewelry box right into his armoir. Something godlike about his ability to get away with it too. And yet she seemed completely unable to grasp that.

She'd begun making vague noises about exposing him, to issue veiled threats about restitution, to talk about his having to own up or else. This was a major mistake on her part. It had, he was sad to say, doomed her. Too bad too. It wasn't like he wasn't just a little fond of her. Still, there was one Godlike act he hadn't yet attempted. One he'd been musing about, pondering, even planning. The one reserved solely for God.

And on a warm summer night when the cicadas were in full chorus, the time came to try it.

They were lying naked in bed. Not exactly in post- coital bliss either. More like postcoital tension, regret, and recrimination. So he whispered some soothing words in her ear. Words like love and marriage and children. In no time at all they were fast approaching bliss again. She relaxed and dug herself into the crook of his arm.

She'd been complaining all day about her woman's pains. He'd been promising all day to give her just the thing to cure them. It was time to keep that promise.

He reached into his black bag, where the syringe lay primed and waiting. Roll over, he told Lousette, roll over so you won't see the shot and become scared. Dutifully, she rolled onto her side, her small body tense and barely trembling; for a moment, for just a moment, Marcel had second thoughts. She was, after all, pretty-and not too bad a cook either. But then it was as if he was back in his aunt's garden, with Max the dog staring stupidly up at him. He eased the needle into her hip.

The syringe was filled with water and air, the two basic elements of life, the irony of which wasn't lost on him for a second. In fact, he kind of relished the irony-saw an almost beautiful symmetry at work here. The water, of course, was for show-it was the air that would carry the day. And God breathed life into Adam. But what God gives, God can take back.

He withdrew the needle from her trembling body, leaving the tiniest bubble of blood, which he wiped away with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball. You have a soft touch, Lousette told him, I wish… But she didn't complete her sentence, not because of the air bubble he'd injected into her body-that would take a while-but because she wished for so many things, and couldn't, at least for the moment, decide on one. She fell asleep.

Marcel cradled her from behind, cradled her for an hour, then two, and then into the third, when suddenly, it started. She began to twist and shake; her eyes popped open, her mouth contorted. He'd expected convulsions, absolutely, but not like this. He watched, completely bug- eyed fascinated. She fell off the bed, but like a maimed insect, she couldn't stay still. Her elbows and knees beat a weird tattoo against the floor while she writhed about like an earthworm on a hook. She saw him now-help… she mouthed the word as best she could, though even with him straining to hear her, not very loudly. He stood up to get a better look as her hands reached for his ankles, reached and almost touched them. But three quarters there they suffered one last spasm and froze, resembling, he thought, unearthed roots-so crooked and hungry were they.

Death didn't become her.

Now the hard part. The murder hadn't taken long- cleaning it up would. The white enamel bathtub was waiting for her body; he'd have to slice it in sections and drain the blood from it. Not exactly a walk in the park. Then everything into the stove-nicely stoked for her faithful heart and pretty little head. Preparation was his strong suit, he thought. And given the relative ease with which he'd managed so far, he was beginning to feel the satisfaction of a job well done. And beginning to feel something else, of course, too. The power and burdens of God.

Once upon a time, Marcel moved to Paris.

He had a thriving practice.

He had a wife.

He had two sons.

But what he didn't have on the night of May 12, 1939, was an excuse.

He was in the house of Aime Hausee's mother. And Aime Hausee-the daughter-was dead. He'd overshot her with morphine, a clumsy mistake. Of course, he'd been a wee bit preoccupied at the time. Mainly with staring down at her teeny breasts as he got ready to pull her wisdom tooth. The fact is, she should have gone to a dental surgeon-impacted teeth weren't exactly his specialty.

An hour after he left, the mother, the hysterical bitch, had called him up screaming. Her daughter wasn't re- sponding-not to her name, not to long and repeated prodding, not to anything. Caught in the middle of his favorite dinner, veau a la creme with scalloped potatoes and a good Cabernet, he'd had to leave it half eaten and rush out into the night. Once he'd arrived, still hungry, still irritated, he'd told the weeping mother to wait downstairs.

Aime-his wife's dressmaker, and not at all a bad one- was not dead yet. She was in the more remote stages of coma, remote enough so that there was nothing he could do for her, nothing that is except loosen her nightgown, which he'd already done-loosened it enough so that her little breasts were now more or less exposed.

This would be his fourth. Imagine that.

And this one more or less an accident. Not like Madame Debaure for instance-who'd run a dairy cooperative, who'd entertained Marcel in her bed, but who, in the end, had refused to go along with his plans concerning her money. Not like poor Frascot either, who'd had the unfortunate luck to know about Madame Debaure, and worse yet, the dumb effrontery to try and profit from it. And of course, this one was nothing at all like Lousette. Four now. He had four, and the truth was, it was getting easier all the time.

He grasped the bottom of her powder blue nightgown and lifted it slowly up, up, up… underneath she wasn't wearing a thing. Look at that. He was struck dumb by the smoothness of her skin, by the color as well, pale as skimmed milk, except, of course, in her cleft where the color was rosy pink. He wondered how long the grief- stricken mother would wait downstairs before she'd be back up knocking at the door, yakking at him, blaming him too no doubt.

Ah well. He separated her legs, separated them in a wide welcoming V as he moved his mouth to her nipples warm as sand.

Then he literally fucked her to death.

Once upon a time in the city of Paris, the good Dr. Petoit went house hunting.

He found himself staring at 21 Rue la Soeur.

Then he found 21 Rue la Soeur staring back. He was quite sure of this, absolutely positive. The house was looking back at him. And it was talking too. It was telling tales out of school. Hidden, beastly, dark little tales. He didn't know exactly what they were yet, not the details, but he knew they were filled with blood and fury. Which is what most of Paris was filled with those days.

It was July 1941, and Paris was occupied. Paris was occupied and so was Marcel. He was occupied with this house. Twenty-one Rue la Soeur. It had housed nobility, no question, princesses and dukes and regents and chancellors. It was four and one half stories high; it had twelve gaunt windows. It was yakking away at him.

He stood across the street in its shadow, and though it was the hottest part of July, in the shadow of the house it was frigid as winter. This was a clue, he thought, a hint. He began to understand things standing there across the street from the house. Remarkable things. Things brutal and fierce and captivating. He understood that the tales weren't finished for instance. They weren't finished. The house needed him to finish them. That's why it was talking to him. That was what it was trying to tell him.

This is what he found when he explored the house: It had a huge kitchen in the basement, and in the huge kitchen a huge drain that led directly into the Paris sewers. In the courtyard of the house there was an office, and near the office a triangular room with one false door and an aperture in the wall where you could see in without anyone seeing out. He could do a lot with the place. No question. He could do just about everything with it.

The house would talk to him and he would listen.

Even on the day he bought the house he stood there again, ears cocked, stuck in its shadow again. He drew odd stares: from the passing lorries carrying German platoons to the Eastern Front, from the Jewish couple next door who'd negotiated the purchase, even from the two members of the French Gestapo who were on their way to headquarters just a few blocks down.

But he didn't move, not until he'd collected all the whispers and laid them end to end till they made sense. Then he rubbed his hands together and answered yes. Yes. It was just as he'd thought-the house had a place for him after all.

Once upon a time Marcel got his first customer.

He'd only put the word out several days ago, like casting a gleaming lure into the middle of a deep black pond, waiting only for something to bite hard. Now something had.

Marcel waited for him in 21 Rue la Soeur, staring through the window at the bare branches of the ash trees that lined the opposite sidewalk from corner to corner. It was a bitter night, the eighth day of Christmas according to the calendar. And why not? Wasn't Marcel about to receive a gift? Not eight geese a-cackling though; more like the golden egg.

Finally he saw him, trudging forward at the far end of the block, just a small dot beneath the trees. Gushenow the furrier. Gushenow the Jewish furrier, who by his own best guess had but several weeks before deportation to the East. But he didn't intend to be there when they came for him. He was going south. Petoit had promised to get him there-all the way to Argentina. They'd met once to settle on the price-five hundred thousand francs, steep for sure, but then what was a life worth? Marcel hadn't needed much time to persuade him-Gushenow had said yes almost immediately. Besides, he was leaving Gushenow more of where that came from, wasn't he? Much more-over one million francs that Gushenow had carefully sewn into the lining of his coat and hidden in the handle of his suitcase. And all those furs-silver sable, black lynx, red fox-that Marcel promised to send after him. All this Gushenow was carrying with him now, flitting between the tree trunks like a fat squirrel burdened with nuts. Marcel opened the latch, then walked back into the living room to wait for him. Seconds later, the door squeaked, creaked open. Petoit… Gushenow whispered, Petoit, are you in there…? Come in, Marcel answered. Gushenow was flushed and sweating, animal fur enveloping animal fear. Marcel could smell it. I have the pictures, Gushenow whispered. I didn't forget… Pictures…? Yes. For the passport. Oh. Of course. The passport. Marcel remembered. He offered Gushenow, fat, flushed, furrier Gushenow, a seat. But Gushenow fumbled for the pictures and handed them over. Will they do? he wanted to know. They're fine, Marcel said, barely glancing at them. Oh good… good. Gushenow wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. It was very hard for me, he told Marcel. Hard? Saying goodbye to my wife. Marcel patted him on the back and said, I understand. Not telling her. That was hard. Hardest thing I've ever done. You must understand the risks, Marcel explained. The dangers. I do. But all the same… Do you have everything? Marcel asked. For instance, the money? Yes, Gushenow whispered. But I have a question. About the currency. Currency? The currency in Argentina. What do they use there? Shillings. They use shillings in Argentina. Gushenow blinked. Isn't that what they use in England? I'm sure they use that in England… And Argentina, Marcel explained. England and Argentina both. Gushenow was more or less unconvinced; Marcel could plainly see that, but he also knew Gushenow was too nervous to care. What do I do now? Gushenow asked. Wait. That's all. Marcel reminded him about all the work he'd put into this, all the meticulous planning. Gushenow had to put his faith in him-after all, that's what he'd paid him for, wasn't it? Gushenow had to agree. But all the same, he wanted to know when they'd be leaving. It's hard to say, Marcel told him. There are factors. For instance… the moon… Moon? But I don't believe there is a moon tonight. Just my point, Marcel explained. With so little light, the patrols will be more diligent than usual. We'll have to pick our time carefully. Okay, Gushenow said. But isn't there anything for me to do? Well, Marcel explained, now that you mention it, there is one thing we've forgotten. What is it? Gushenow asked, looking nervous, that is, more nervous than usual. Nothing really. Just your vaccination. Vaccination? Against smallpox. I've got to vaccinate you against smallpox. That's the rule in Argentina. But I've already been vaccinated against smallpox, Gushenow whined. Why do I have to have another? There's typhus too, Marcel explained. Argentina insists on both. Gushenow pouted. Is Marcel sure? Couldn't he just say that he was vaccinated? Marcel frowned, a good frown too, one he'd practiced in front of mirrors from time to time. Just as he'd practiced looks of concern, of passion and joy and paternal warmth, all of them acted out in front of the looking glass till he'd gotten them more or less down. There's something called professional ethics, Marcel said. Besides, typhus is a problem in Argentina. Did Gushenow really want to run the risk of catching it? Gushenow sighed, resigned. Where do I have to get it? he asked timidly. There's a room in the courtyard… No. Gushenow shook his head. I meant what part of the body? Could he have it in the backside perhaps? It hurt him when they gave it to him in the arm. Of course, Marcel said reassuringly. Wherever you want it. Gushenow stood up. Where's this room then? I might as well get it over with. Marcel led him out of the drawing room toward the back of the house. They passed through the back door into the closed courtyard where a cat shrieked at them from the top of an ivy-shrouded wall. Where are we going? Gushenow asked. There. Marcel pointed to an outcrop of brick and mortar that was fastened to the back wall like coral. My office. They entered a small doorway: several finely polished chairs, a recently waxed desk, a glass bookcase with a stuffed mongoose sitting on top of it. Further down, Marcel said, moving off into a dimly lit hallway. Then, suddenly, they were in a room. What a strange place, Gushenow said, wrinkling his nose as if in the presence of bad cheese. It's a triangle. Yes, Marcel said. Three sides. Should I lie down? On that table? Good idea, Marcel said, then began rummaging in the black bag that he'd left by the doorway. You will be gentle, won't you? Of course, Marcel said. As gentle as a lamb. But isn't that needle a little large? Gushenow said now, staring at the syringe that Marcel was holding up to the ceiling. Not at all. Gushenow had already loosened his pants-they were lying bunched around his knees. He rolled onto his stomach and shut his eyes. Marcel began to push the needle into Gushenow's left buttock and in fact had it halfway in when Gushenow asked him about Argentina. Argentina? Yes, Gushenow said. Could Marcel talk to him about it? About it? About Argentina. About what Argentina's like. Anything at all. Well, Marcel said. They have coconuts there. Ahh… coconuts… Argentinians have to watch out for the coconuts. They have to remember to look up for them because the coconuts can drop on their heads and hurt them. I'll remember that, Gushenow said. What else? Beaches. Nice beaches? Very nice beaches. White and sandy beaches. And the people there? The people? Are they nice? Are they a friendly sort of people? Yes. Very friendly. No Nazis? No Nazis in Argentina? No, Marcel said, feeling Gushenow tremble. No. No Nazis.

They don't hate Jews in Argentina? They don't want to kill them?

No. They're friendly in Argentina.

No Nazis, Gushenow repeated, like a prayer, like a prayer he thought God might actually be listening to.

No, Marcel said, no Nazis, withdrawing the needle and wiping Gushenow's buttock with a swab.

Just coconuts.

Once upon a time there was a fire at 21 Rue la Soeur.

The smoke began billowing out of the house around daybreak, a thick, black, nauseating smoke that caused almost every resident on Rue la Soeur to batten down their windows, as if a violent storm was just minutes away.

In a sense, it was.

It was spring. Spring 1944, the kind of Parisian day songwriters liked to write about, the kind of day that sent people out into the Bois de Boulogne to feed the elephants and stare at the painted-on nylons. The kind of spring that renewed faith. For even though the Germans had begun their fifth year of occupation much the same as they began their fourth-it was common knowledge the tide had turned.

But on Rue la Soeur, the windows were shut tight, and the black smoke that had been coming out of 21 since morning kept coming and coming and hanging there up around the rooftops like a rain cloud come to earth.

Someone on the block, someone who could no longer stand an odor that was not exactly wood and not exactly coal and not exactly oil and not exactly anything they'd ever smelled before-finally called the police.

They arrived in minutes, faster than they would've responded to a murder, to a beating, or to a simple scream in the night. Gestapo headquarters, after all, was right down the block, and the German military police building and the office of the French Gestapo were more or less in the neighborhood. Screams could get policemen in trouble. Fires were safer.

There was a problem however.

They couldn't get in.

And the smoke became worse, drifting over them like a cloud of stinging locusts, leaving them teary-eyed and half blind. Not able to push in the door, and unwilling to smash a window-you never knew which German official owned which house-they called the fire department, which arrived within five minutes, launched a ladder up to the second-floor window, and broke in.

The shattered glass reopened several windows on the block. The crowd of police and firemen and fire trucks and passing dog walkers and gaping soldiers began to draw the residents out into the street. They held handkerchiefs of all colors up to their mouths, but within seconds each was black as widow's weeds.

Two of the firemen entered the upstairs window and began to warily make their way down. Down and down and down-following the odor like nervous bloodhounds.

It led them all the way to the furnace room, to the very bottom of the house, where two cast-iron furnaces were at full burn. And down there was Hades, like the one described in books: hot and red and searing and the odor, that peculiar odor, thick as steam.

One of the firemen used a metal stoker to pry the furnace door open. The blast of heat hit him full force: a wrenching, overpowering, blistering heat that almost toppled him like the aftershock of a bomb. But he didn't feel it, not really, couldn't feel what came out of the furnace, because he was thinking of what he saw in the furnace instead.

What he saw: a skull, two leg bones, several arms, one of which, detached from the elbow, was twisting in the flames as if waving at him. It was the wave he kept seeing, as if someone was welcoming him to hell.

The fireman threw up.

His partner, flashlight in hand, walked over to see what kind of mess he'd made. But he found a different sort of mess than the one he was expecting. It reminded him- he said this later, to the local magistrate, the chief of police, the two Gestapo officials, the three newspapers-of a butcher shop at the end of the day, reminded him of that because maybe that's what he was hoping, desperately hoping, it would turn out to be. It was a butcher shop of sorts, but just of sorts. It was littered with humans, with pieces of them, scattered about as if waiting to be wrapped, then priced for sale. In the basement were several torsos, some sawed-off legs stacked against the wall, four or five arms piled like firewood, and three human heads. Like mannequins before they're put together, he thought now, like that, his mind leaping to another allusion in a mad dash to get out. But there was no place to go. There were the bodies, raw and naked, and there was his partner kneeling beside them, making the sign of the cross, over and over, as if he were baptizing himself in a river of blood. it it it

After they cleaned out the furnace, after they accounted for every bone on the floor, after they dredged up every skeleton from the lime pit they discovered in the courtyard, after they added up all the bodies and pieces of bodies they found in the sewers under the house, after they tagged and catalogued every piece of furniture, every fur, every bracelet and necklace and ring and hat pin they found scattered throughout the four floors of the house, after they interviewed and interrogated and investigated, they came up with this figure:

Two hundred and fifteen men, women, and children.

Some found this figure too low. Some found it too high.

They never found Marcel.