Memory of Flames

CHAPTER 18

THE needles were lined up on the table along with the terracotta pots. Their geometrical neatness reassured him. The first needle had been soaked in curare forty-eight hours earlier, the next one thirty-six hours, then thirty, twenty-four, eighteen, twelve, nine, six, five, four, three, two and finally one hour previously. He picked up the oldest one and went over to the rabbit he had bought at Les Halles. The animal was trembling in its cage, trying to squeeze out through the bars ... The man injected it. The beast squealed and began to leap about its prison. The movement should have accelerated the circulation of blood and hastened the action of the poison. But the rabbit continued to thrash about and bang into the sides of the cage. Failure. After forty-eight hours the curare must have evaporated or mutated on contact with the air and was no longer effective. He had expected problems like that ... Little was known about curare, partly because it was so hard to come by and partly because there were so many variants.

He took the next needle and injected his victim again. Another failure. The animal’s movements, more erratic than ever, contrasted with the irreproachable order of the lined-up needles. A third attempt led to a third failure. Had the product deteriorated in the pots? A fourth injection, still no result. He started to lose his temper. He would have liked to wring the stupid rabbit’s neck, making its vertebrae crack so that it would be rendered as motionless as the other objects in the room. But he controlled his mounting rage. He was used to doing that.

The four-hour needle was effective: instantaneous death. So once the needle had been soaked in curare he would have to try to take action within four hours. That was not very much ... As a result he would have to have the pot with him, in case too much time elapsed and he had to impregnate the needle again. What did it matter? He had the poison, everything else was just a question of organisation and method.