J. Janes - Sandman

Somehow the child found her voice. ‘I’m not, Sister,’ she quavered. Neither of them realized they were no longer alone or that he was but two metres behind the nun. ‘ You didn’t kill Andrée, Sister, but … but you killed all the others and I … I must tell myself not to cry. I must! ’

Something went out of Céline then. Her voice dropped to a weary sadness. ‘Please just trust me, child. There are things you cannot possibly understand, but as God is my witness, I have killed no one. You must believe me. Violette, she … she is not well. It’s the devil who makes her do what she does. She must have put those … those filthy things in my pockets when I was last with her. You had no right to touch them.’

‘ Then did she put them there also after les Halles? ’

‘ You’re lying! Don’t lie! It isn’t right! It’s shameful! ’

The outburst passed. Again the child somehow found her voice. ‘She gave me the coins the soldiers throw away because they cannot spend them in our country, Sister. She told me all about you. She said you were E-VIL and that we were R-IGHT about you.’

The beam of the torch wavered but then it came back to shine more fully on the child. ‘Please come to me, Nénette. Let’s both ask God to help us. That man Violette calls her priest will kill you to protect her.’

‘And you?’ croaked Nénette all but to herself. ‘What, please, will he do to you?’

The child was evil. The child was afraid. She could so easily freeze to death, an accident … ‘He will ask to hear my confession. He will try to be the priest he once was.’

‘He’ll kill you, too, won’t he?’

‘Céline … Céline, is that you up there?’ called out Debauve.

She switched off her torch. She whispered. ‘ Nénette, we must leave here at once! ’

St-Cyr took a step. The child did not throw the eggs. She leapt at the sister and smashed them into Céline’s face, smashed them and smashed them. There was a cry, a shriek, another and another. He tried to wrap his arms about the nun and pull her down, down, tried to stop the child … the child.

The girl kicked and bit and scratched and smeared broken eggs fiercely into the sister’s face, shrieking, ‘ LET ME GO. LET ME GO. YOU DID IT! YOU DID IT! ’

Ah merde, merde , the child had escaped. She ran full tilt into something in the darkness, fell back, scrambled up-dashed across something else, slipped, threw baskets behind her, chickens, anything that came to hand, and when he reached where he thought the ladder had been, it was no longer there.

‘Nénette …’ he began. He coughed. He tried to catch a breath. Something touched his back. It sent shock waves through his spine. It made him cry out, ‘ H … e … r … mann! ’

He threw out his hands and tried to grab something … anything. He twisted, he turned, and as he fell, he was reminded briefly of himself as a boy falling from the roof of his Uncle Alexandre’s barn. He must never do that again. Never .

There was a crash, a splintering of flying boards, the stench and taste of manure, hard and frozen in the straw.

Dazed and in shock, numb all over and then in pain, much pain, he tried to move, and only when he had rolled over on to his good side, his right side, did he see between the canted iron spokes of a barrow’s wheel the first flames being sucked up and teased against a far wall.

‘Hermann …’ he managed. ‘ Hermann, where the hell are you? ’

The bears in the bear pit were not friendly. Captured in 1934 perhaps, and now unaccustomed to the cold but intuitively rejoicing in the blizzard, they had heard him climbing the fence to he had known not what, and when he had slid and rocketed down into the pit they called home, they had come to find him.

But now they sniffed the air. Now they stood on their hind legs and even he smelled the smoke.

Polar bears, ah Gott im Himmel!

Cautiously Kohler pulled himself up to a sitting position. The female-was it the female? — moved away to climb out of the pit and up to the fence. The male still sniffed the air. Then he, too, romped up to the fence.

Driven by the wind, the flames soon filled the snowy air with soot and sparks and glowing bits of debris. Now he saw the fence and the bears, now he didn’t. He climbed. He dragged himself up the opposite wall of the pit. There was sheet ice under the snow. He slipped, he went right back down again, all the way.

One of the bears had turned to keep an eye on him, but the pit was large. There was ice beneath the snow on the pond at its bottom. There was a den, a roof over its entrance. That den would lead to a cage door that would be padlocked.

Half-way up the slope, he heard a rush of flame, felt the blast of it and scrambled up to the fence, but the damned thing was too high. There was barbed wire at the top, three strands. He’d been able to cross the wire going in but now … now as he climbed, the top of the fence protruded above him towards the pit. He dangled in space. He pulled himself along, hand over hand, the mittens catching on the barbs, reminding him of the Great War, the war …

When he came to a post, he pulled himself up, bounced uneasily, his boots on the strands, and then was over.

One of his mittens remained behind.

He ran. He tried to reach the farm. He ducked sparks and cried out, ‘ Louis … Louis …’

The nun was on the roof, the child was nowhere to be seen and neither was Louis.

‘ Burn … let her burn. She did it. I know she did! ’

Hot … it was so hot. Torn by the wind, flames poured from under the eaves at both ends of the barn. The mare tried to free herself. Her screams were mingled with the constant bawling of the cattle and goats. Why had he not taken the time to see to them?

Aching all over, St-Cyr knelt in the driving snow behind the barn, still clutching the child he had caught and dragged down.

‘She did it. She really did.’

‘ Sister ,’ he cried out. ‘ Sister, run down the tiles and jump. It is the only way .’

Her back was to them. Caught in the blizzard, perched standing astride the crown of the roof well above and to one side of the dormer window she had crawled out of, Céline clutched something in the crook of each arm. The heavy black woollen cloak blew about, revealing black skirts and black leather boots.

One after the other, she released the chickens she held and they saw the things fly panic-stricken to be singed, torched and taken by the wind.

‘Sister, don’t make me do this.’

‘You can’t go up there,’ swore Nénette.

‘I must. Don’t argue. Behave yourself.’

‘I won’t.’

‘You had better. The Petite Roquette, the prison for women, it is not very nice and is at present terribly crowded.’

‘You’re cruel.’

‘One has to be.’

‘There are some barrels. If we put them on the wagon, you can climb up there.’

‘Thanks.’

The tiles were cracking with the heat. They popped. They shattered. Smoke seeped from under them. The snow melted instantly. The roof sloped up and up, and what the hell was he doing this for?

Caught in the chimney funnels of the loft’s dormers, flames roared out at him only to be taken by the wind, torn upwards and then pushed away. Sparks, glowing bits of rubbish and dense smoke filled the air. His eyes watered. His nostrils burned. Swallowing tightly, he clung to the tiles and cried out, ‘ Sister, give me your hand .’

She must have heard him, for she turned, and when he reached her, Céline said bitterly, ‘You fool. Why have you come? I wanted those girls to die.’