Paul Christopher - The Lucifer Gospel

“Where?”

“Where the hell are we going again?”

“Lyon.”

“Main line or local?”

“It’s not a bullet train, it’s one of the old ones, so it’s probably local.” She shrugged. “I’m not really sure. Does it make a difference?”

“Some. That’s why I didn’t want to go straight into Switzerland. They’re not EU, they’re neutral, so they still check your passports. Sometimes they spot-check them on the fast trains too, but if we’re on a local there’s less chance.”

“We’re going to need passports sometime.”

“Let’s both be Scarlett O’Hara and think about that tomorrow,” Hilts suggested. “For now we have to ditch our Libyan friend Badir.”

Finn and Hilts sat in the bar car of the humming train as it threaded itself through the alpine darkness. Finn was drinking black coffee as Hilts nursed a bottle of grape Fanta. Marco the bar-tender was fast asleep on his stool behind the U-shaped counter, arms crossed, head back and snoring. Badir, smoking endlessly and sipping from a foam cup of cold tea with lemon, was seated at the other end of the car, pretending to read an old copy of Jours de France. It was almost two in the morning and they were the only people in the bar car except for an old woman fast asleep over her knitting, a plastic aperitif glass vibrating gently on the round table in front of her.

“Where are we?” Hilts asked, taking a sip of Fanta and puckering at the unbelievable sweetness of the concoction. Finn had taken a sip just for fun. It tasted like liquid bubble gum.

“According to the porter putting down our bunks, we’re right on the border,” Finn answered quietly. “A place called Bardonecchia. We’ll be going into the Frejus Tunnel in about three minutes. The tunnel is the border. We come out in France. A ski town named Modane.”

“Do we stop?”

“Five minutes to switch crews.”

“That’s when we dump him, then.”

“How?”

“You’ll see.”

A moment later the train slid into the tunnel and the lights flickered and died. In the darkness Hilts stood up, grabbed Finn’s hand and headed back toward their sleeping car. Almost immediately they heard the sound of Badir as he clambered to his feet. Hilts pulled open the door leading into the next car and there was a sudden explosion of sound from the tracks below. Instead of moving into the adjoining car, Hilts pushed Finn into the small bathroom cubicle and eased the door shut behind them. Finn’s nostrils suddenly filled with the smell of antiseptic and liquid soap. She couldn’t see a thing. They heard the heavy door being pulled open a second time as Badir headed into the next sleeping car and then there was silence.

“Come on,” Hilts whispered. He led Finn out of the bathroom cubicle and they stepped back into the bar car. Hilts headed back the way they’d come with Finn trailing behind. It was still almost pitch dark but there was a warning flicker from the lights overhead. “Hurry!”

They made their way into the sleeping car ahead of the bar. A passage curved to the left. Moving around the corner Finn saw that the carriage was the same as their own: passageway to the right with a line of windows, a dozen or so compartments on the left, each compartment with a varying number of bunks, from the private two-bunk room like theirs to the Cabine 8, where the narrow beds were crammed in four to each side with no more than a foot between your nose and the bottom of the bed above. They moved along the passage as the blue night-lights overhead began to flicker on again. The doors to the compartments were all closed. At the very far end of the carriage they found a Cabine 8 with the door open, which meant presumably that it was unoccupied.

“In here!” whispered the photographer.

Finn stepped into the compartment and pulled back the curtain over the lower bunk on the right. Before she could slip into it, the curtains on the bunk above slid open and a pajamaed hand clutching a very realistic-looking rabbit appeared and then spoke in English, with a dreadfully theatrical French accent.

“Bonjour, mon ami, my name is Henri. Would you like to come fishing with me?” Henri then rolled his eyes and gave a fiendishly evil laugh, like a furry Hannibal Lecter.

“What the hell is that?” said Hilts from behind her.

A face appeared behind the rabbit-a young boy with dark tousled hair, big intelligent eyes, and his other thumb stuck securely in his mouth. He took the thumb out of his mouth and poked it hard into the pale fur of the rabbit’s chest. There was a brief pause and then the French accent again: “Bonjour, mon ami, my name is Henri. Would you like to come fishing with me?”

Then the boy put the rabbit down, drying his wet thumb in the armpit of his pajamas. “My name is Harry. I’m on vacation with my mother and father, who are sleeping in the next compartment, so you’d better not try anything funny. My rabbit’s name is Henri. Do you like him? I do. Are we in France yet? What is France?”

Finn held her finger to her lips. “Shhhh,” she whispered and smiled at the little boy. He didn’t smile back.

“Why should I shhhhh? You’re not my father or my mother. I don’t have to do as you say.” Young Harry poked Henri in the stomach again and the bunny repeated his suggestion. Hilts leaned in over Finn’s shoulder.

“I’m not your mommy or your daddy, but if you don’t be quiet and go back to sleep I’m going to twist your stupid rabbit’s head off and cook him up in a frying pan over a red-hot fire for breakfast, okay?”

Silently the boy and Henri retreated behind the curtain, which closed with a swish. Hilts gestured toward the lower bunk directly opposite. Finn slid into the bed and Hilts came in after her. He scrunched around so that he could look back through a crack in the curtains. They could hear a faint sniffling sound coming from the other side of the compartment.

“You didn’t have to be so hard on him,” whispered Finn.

“It worked, didn’t it?” Hilts said. “Besides, the rabbit was a pervert.” Suddenly Hilts pushed himself back onto the berth, squeezing Finn against the rear wall of the compartment. He eased the curtain completely closed. It was pitch-black in the berth. Finn could feel the hard muscles of the photographer’s back against her chest and wondered if he could feel the pounding of her heart. She heard the sound of the compartment door opening. She knew if it was Harry’s mother coming to check on the boy then they were doomed. There was silence for a few seconds, and then a voice.

“Bonjour, mon ami, my name is Henri. Would you like to come fishing with me?”

Finn froze, waiting, wondering if Badir was armed. There were a few whispers and then silence again. A second or two passed and then Finn heard the compartment door open and shut again. The train began to slow. In the darkness Finn felt Hilts slip off the bunk. She followed him out into the cramped, eight-bunk compartment. Hilts opened the sliding door and peered out. In the spill of blue light Finn could see Henri staring at them from between the curtains across the aisle. Hilts turned back to Finn.

“All clear,” he whispered. “Looks like we gave him the slip.” He stepped out of the compartment. Finn patted Henri between the ears.

“You did good, rabbit,” she said and grinned. Henri was silent. Finn followed Hilts out of the room. Ahead of her he opened the door at the end of the car and motioned her forward, and she stepped into the small area between the cars.

“He’s somewhere up ahead, I think,” said Hilts.

Finn nodded and Hilts threw open the door of the train car. He jumped down to the ground without letting down the short flight of metal stairs built into the car and looked left and right. Satisfied, he gestured to Finn, and she dropped down to the concrete platform. She shivered. Even in midsummer it was cold this high in the mountains. She stifled a sneeze. Ragweed. The air was full of pollen.