Сандрин Коллетт - Just After the Wave

Bent over a body of feathers, Perrine and Noah give a start. Noah begins screaming, jumping from one foot to the other, “It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me!”

And Louie: So what are you doing?

Perrine is trembling and sniveling; she lets go of the hen and it falls to the ground.

“I can’t get rid of the feathers.”

Oh, what a sight. They have been trying to pluck the feathers just like that, because they didn’t know you’re supposed to scald the hen to make it easier to pluck. In the end they took scissors to shear the bird, and Louie is horrified by the sight of blood on Perrine’s hands and on the hen’s neck, this hen that looks like a strange hedgehog, pricked with hastily pruned stalks, a battlefield, a massacre. For a few seconds he stands with his mouth open on a word that won’t come out. The two children watch him, paralyzed.

“It was to have with the potatoes,” sobs Perrine.

“I told you,” Louie begins. “I really told you…”

So this is how it starts, first with disbelief, and then he sees it’s true, the hen is there on the floor before him, half torn apart, and suddenly he explodes with rage, grabs Perrine and pulls her down onto the tiled floor, his hands raised, slapping her relentlessly, Noah screaming, pulling him back, blows, tears, all three of them in a fury. For several minutes they fight and scratch and bite, they shout. Their hearts are racing, their voices turn husky, their pleading, too.

“Stop, I’m bleeding, I’m bleeding!” says Noah as he crawls away.

For the first time there is no one to pull them apart, no Madie or Pata, no voices to contain them, no arms to send them to their bedrooms, what could possibly stop them—fatigue, it is fatigue which suddenly leaves them sitting on the floor in the kitchen, heads lowered, faces scratched, Noah is holding a handkerchief over his wounded nose, no other sound but that of tears and sniffles.

Louie’s rage has yielded to a huge sadness, the one he has been hiding for days, and he looks at his little brother and sister and frowns, serves them right, and between two sobs he shouts:

“And anyway, we’re all going to die!”

But dying doesn’t mean anything to them just then, nothing more, nothing worse then the crushed hen in the middle of the kitchen. They sit around her in a circle, legs outstretched and spotted with blood. Die? So what. For all the difference it would make.

“I don’t care!” shouts Noah.

Louie slides across the floor toward him and kicks him; the little boy whimpers, shrinks. Then there is silence. Perrine is hiding her face in her hands. They look at one another on the sly, watchful, gradually their tears dry as time passes. Before long their cheeks are dry, they have wiped them on their sleeves. All that remains is rancor, and shame, they don’t want to forgive. Noah is the first to stand up, head high, acting the grown-up, doesn’t even hurt, not even afraid, he motions to the hen with his chin.

“So, what are we going to do? Are we going to eat it or not?”

Now Louie is on his feet, so close to hitting him that the little boy can sense it, and backs up to the wall, glaring at him, he doesn’t want to let go, after all. Perrine reacts:

“No, no. We’re not going to eat it. And anyway, we don’t know how.”

Noah stamps his foot. What the…

“We’re going to bury it,” Louie interrupts. “ You are going to bury it, since you killed it.”

Perrine nods. She knows it’s better to be reconciled with her older brother, and that they were wrong to decapitate the hen, she tries not to think about it anymore—the terrified squawking, they had to start again four times over, she and Noah, before they managed to chop off its head, she almost gave up; but once you’ve made the first gash, you can’t let the creature die in agony, can you. She wanted to throw up. Then those damned feathers clinging to its flesh as if they were embedded in cement; how did Madie manage to bring out those platters of chicken with that smooth and crispy brown skin?

So little Perrine goes out to the barn and takes the shovel. Louie follows her and Noah stays ten yards behind them to signal his discontent. She places the hen’s body in a basket, along with its head, which she went outside to fetch where the ants were already beginning to lurk around it.

“Here,” she says to Noah, handing him the basket.

He slowly steps closer, then balks. Perrine raises her voice. Go on! He obeys reluctantly, watching Louie and his hands that are only too ready to strike. He sulks. Not a word. Perrine has gone down to the lower part of the island, where the earth will be softer, she thinks. In silence, she digs a little hole, glancing at Louie for his approval.

As for Louie, he is staring at the basket containing the hen. He is eager to get her buried. Not a pretty sight, a skinned creature, with the flies arriving in droves, drawn to the metallic smell of blood. He waves them away. After a while he looks up, because of the silence: still no one has said a word, and Perrine has stopped digging. He can see that she is waiting. Gazing into the hole. He too waits, perhaps a minute. The only sound the buzzing of insects. And then he says, “All right.”

He takes the basket and lays the hen on the black earth, arranging her head so that it will look as if it is attached to the rest of her body. He mutters a few words in a low voice, ending with a murmured Amen , he remembers that’s how you end prayers, then he gestures to Noah.

“You can fill it in again.”

The boy reaches for the shovel.

Afterwards, all three of them stand there unspeaking in the waning daylight, hesitant, should they leave, should they wait some more. Perrine and Noah don’t dare move, but they sway from side to side. Finally, Louie sighs and walks away.

“Now what do we do?” shouts Noah.

The older boy doesn’t answer. Perrine has gone to fetch the bag of potatoes and is dragging it behind her.

“We’re going to cook the potatoes,” she says. “I know how to do that.”

During dinner they do not say much. Louie has locked the hens in one of the bedrooms and will keep the key on him at night and whenever he’s got his back turned. He’ll let them out during the day. Neither Perrine nor Noah complain about the squawking from the other side of the wall.

“It was Little Black,” murmurs Louie suddenly.

Silence.

“You made such a mess of her I didn’t recognize her. So I counted them when we got back tonight. It was Little Black.”

The two siblings bite their lips, bent over their plates, and they plant their forks in the overcooked potatoes. Louie looks at them.

“I liked her.”

And then:

“You really are assholes.”

In the night, Noah shivers. Not from cold, he’s scared.

Punishment.

Louie said: Tonight you’re on watch. No point looking for support from Perrine, she has turned her head not to see her little brother’s wide open eyes.

Nothing for it.

There are sounds out there, all the time, sounds and mosquitos. Noah wraps himself in the sheet, then immediately tears it off—it’s too hot. He looks constantly toward the house behind him. There’s no light, they blew out the candles a long time ago. But the sky is clear, and there’s a moon; Noah gazes at the sea, darkness engulfing everything twenty or thirty yards from there. Even if a boat went by just then, he wouldn’t see it.

A rustling sound, he jumps.

Louie?

He listens: nothing. He feels for the stick he put down next to him for reassurance. Earlier, he said to Perrine:

“If there’s a thief, I’ll split him open.”