NOT SO LONG AGO

4

Roland tried to open the door—just a dozen or so short wooden slats tightly nailed together to form a rectangular grid. When the hinges creaked, he tilted his head and hunched his shoulders. He held his breath for three or four seconds, praying to the God of Dabblers so that the noise would not alert the farmer.

Nothing.

He turned. It took a moment for his eyes to get used to the darkness. Without being day-blind, Roland saw particularly well at night. “You have cat-eyes, boy,” Miss Graham, the primary school teacher of the boarding school, often told him, one of the only people in the institution who didn’t do her job with a sigh.

Around him: straw, straw, and straw. Then details: some droppings, some feathers, and eggs.

A hissing sound behind him made him shudder, a kind of indistinct snorting. He jumped in search of a possible reason he could conjure; he already felt the weight of a horny knuckled hand settle firmly on his shoulder.

He swirled. No sinister farmer, no, just a cackling hen that had slipped between two planks, associating the presence of a human in the hen house with corn and wheat, which she demanded by swinging her neck back and forth. A second hen began to cackle in the corner of the hut, hidden in a hatchery below that the boy hadn’t seen. Oh! Lucky, she just laid. Fresh eggs, thought Roland, elated.

Impatient, he picked up a dozen eggs and lodged them delicately in the front pocket of his bag. Then he left the hen house and cautiously approached the farmhouse, which was constructed on one floor. The towering grey stone walls, covered with moss and a yellowish earthy deposit, had been built several centuries before. There were many identical houses in the area, but none were so gigantic. The property of a wealthy landowner, certainly...

Roland hesitated. Of course, he could settle for fresh eggs—after all, the stolen booty was already beyond his expectations, and they would have enough to be full—but fortune was perhaps at hand? Such an opportunity wouldn’t happen again. There, behind this solid oak door, was enough to sustain them for a good stretch. All he had to do was enter the place, rummage a little here and there and leave with the hoard. As simple as hello. Roland was convinced that he was able to get into the mind of the rich. After all, wasn’t he going to become rich himself? It would only take him a good quarter of an hour to guess where the money and the jewels were hidden. You don’t have to search for possible double drawers and poke around behind the tables to find a safe. The rich were simple: their greed always drove them to hide the fortune in the bedroom, where they could watch it day and night—Roland had read it in a very serious survey at the back of a stolen magazine from the closet of the headmaster’s son.

Roland remembered a story where a burglar scrabbled for an hour on a lock before finding that the door was open. It wouldn’t be right not to try it. He pressed the handle, but nothing happened. He went around the house advancing on tiptoes. When he surveyed the north side, he saw the crouching silhouettes of Adam and Erma at the edge of the cornfield. While Adam was shelling a corn cob that wasn’t yet ripe, Erma was gesturing to him that he should join them. You’ll see, baby, when I come back with the big money, you’ll fall into my arms.

He ignored the warnings of his friend and continued his exploration. All the windows on the ground floor were locked. It was impossible to get inside anywhere.

Roland not discouraged one bit, found a piece of wire in a nearby open shed, a kind of barbed wire entangled in some empty wooden crates. He removed the staples stuck in the loops of scrap metal and returned to the front door.

He tried to insert the wire into the lock. This scraped at the inside of the cylinder and the teenager panicked when he heard an awful high-pitched sound. He abandoned his fumbling attempt at lock picking and hastily returned to the hen house. Humiliated, Roland swore to the great gods that he would not return empty-handed. In addition to the eggs, he would take the most beautiful of trophies, it was a matter of honour.

Another hen had joined the previous pair, a Warren with red plumage so bright that it became mahogany. Roland hesitated. He stared at the one who had startled him a little earlier before he had taken the dozen eggs. With her marbled plumage stained with black spots, she was less beautiful than the other two, but she was unquestionably the plumpest. We don’t care about her colour, he thought, we’re not going to eat her feathers...

He walked towards her slowly. Roland knew about catching chickens. Quite a bit younger, before landing in welfare services, he was sent to the four corners of the county, sometimes in the towns, to very nice houses, but more often to the farmers and sharecroppers who needed cheap labour. Above all, don’t rush. If you do, you’re going to freak her out. Quickly catch her and trap her in the crook of your arms so that she doesn’t scream... Roland held out his hands slowly, carefully, millimetre after millimetre.

“Who’s there?” shouted a male voice that came from the house.

It took several seconds for Roland, focused on approaching the chicken, to understand the situation. He forgot his prey and left the henhouse. There, right in front of him, stood an old man in overalls. His chest was bare under the worn and stained garment. On his head, he wore a straw hat with holes that revealed two tufts of scraggly hair over his ears. He must have been a good sixty years. Skin hung under his arms on the other side of his biceps. In his hands: a rifle.

“Who the hell are you?” he growled with a voice to smash rocks.

“Oh, me? No one, sir,” controlling his breathing Roland tried to explain. “I... I was looking for you. You’re the owner?”

“No, I’m watching, me. But what’re you doing here?”

“But, nothing!”

“What’s in your bag? You stole eggs, right?”

“No, no! I wanted... to buy them from you. That’s why I was looking for you. I can buy your eggs, right?”

The old man laughed loudly. He leaned backwards, without letting go of his weapon.

“Don’t screw with me, you little prick, you wanted to get me eggs, I can see it. Do you know what we do to thieves, around here?”

A hen chose this moment to move between the boy and the man, in search of grains. When she was within reach, Roland threw his leg forward, with all his strength, trying to aim. Like France’s Raymond Kopa at the World Cup, he thought, thinking back to the competition that had ended in Sweden a few weeks earlier. His foot kicked the animal in the wing.

The chicken flew about five feet up, towards the farmer, in a firework of feathers. The man with the hat let out a gasp of surprise and Roland took the opportunity to make a run for it. He ran as if he had the devil on the heels, hoping that further on, at the edge of the cornfield, Erma and Adam would see him and take the lead. He could run fast, of course, but little Adam, two years his junior, would he keep pace if the man wanted to keep chasing them? And Erma? Erma’s a girl. And girls, they’re not fast...

A gunshot sounded and Roland, who knew he wasn’t safe, accelerated without even realizing it. A shiver of fear rolled down his spine. He was desperate to turn around to find out if the man was near, but he thought it wiser to maintain his pace.

“Dirty thief! You’ll see!”

The response: close behind. Right there. Just a few steps away.

He’s going to shoot. He’s right behind me and he’s going to shoot. s**t, he’s old, he shouldn’t run that fast, normally. He’ll shoot me. I’m going to get a hole through my hide for some eggs... And even if I get away with it, he’ll kill Erma or Adam... just for those damn eggs...

“Go, Roland!”

Erma’s voice didn’t motivate him.

“Get out of here, Erma! Why don’t you get out of here?”

Another ten yards and Roland reached the first forage crops. He took Erma by the elbow and dragged her after him.

“Why did you wait for me? You have to go!” he shouted breathlessly.

Roland risked a look behind him. The man in the overalls had lost ground, but he didn’t give up. He shouted, spitting out his anger, spinning arms as if he wanted to throw his rifle.

“Now, get gone. Don’t stop, Erma!”

Astonished, Roland found that his friend was much faster than him. She was already ahead by a good 3 feet and seemed to take the lead at each stride. It’s because I ran before, I’m tired, that’s all…

The two fugitives crossed the field at full speed. The corn was so high that they could no longer locate the man, but they chose not to stop and continued their running. It was only once they crossed into a small wood, as the landscape surrounded them with its flatness, that they bent forward, leaning on two-hundred-year-old ash trees, to catch their breath.

Suddenly, Roland straightened up with his hands on his head, as if a great revelation had struck him.

“Damn! What about Adam?”

Erma smiled. “Don’t worry,” she said simply, hardly troubled.

Roland dropped at the foot of the tree, wedging his buttocks between two protruding roots, and resting his back on the flank of a gnarled trunk. He was furious that Erma was losing interest in the fate of her little brother, but his burning lungs gave him no respite.

He finally got back to his knees, pausing, until the dizziness stopped. As he rummaged in his bag, he realized that all the eggs had been broken during the flight. All for this... Then he put both his hands in a visor over his forehead. He saw a silhouette on the other side of the wood, between two trees lit by the setting sun.

“The man!” he whispered, “I see him. Over there.”

He pointed to the shape and Erma stood at the same height as him, on tiptoes. She frowned and concentrated.

“No,” she said. “It’s not the man. That’s Adam.”

And indeed, five minutes later, Adam was at their side. Miserable, Roland put his two fists on his hips.

“Damn it, Adam, why didn’t you run? Where have you been?”

Adam bent down to pull up the elastic waistband of his trousers. Despite a little smirk, he didn’t seem mentally or physically affected by recent events.

“You know, there are some people who run like hell. And others sit idly by like they don’t have a care in the world. Shall we get back on the road?”