Chapter 1-4
950 Words
Joe opened his eyes.
He never slept through the night. There was a grenade inside his body that blew up every night, precise as a clock, merciless as a soldier throwing a gas bomb over enemy lines.
In the earlier days, Joe had tossed and turned, trying to find sleep again, but nowadays, he just waited.
Waiting was breathing.
Breathing was waiting.
Tonight, the cell was different. He wasn’t alone. Joe could hear Dubois’s slow, rhythmic breaths, and turning to his side, Joe watched the ginger-head. Covered by darkness, Joe didn’t have to try anymore. For the next hour, he belonged to himself. For sixty minutes in the night, he was a man again.
He hadn’t been able to study Dubois’s face until now, because he’d trained himself not to study beautiful things. Even in the woods out there, Joe never let his eyes stray up to the black-blue sky. If he heard the first notes of a bird’s song, he’d chop harder and faster. Beauty was a promise of better days. Beauty was elevation, but elevation supposed a fall.
The men were quiet down in the hole. He remembered he’d been down there last winter.
Joe blinked. Shut the terrible memory out.
In his bunk, Dubois made a sound and his body jumped. The wolves had made it into his dreams. Joe knew Dubois was running now, through the forest, through the vast white, with the branches snapping at his face. He stared at the curve of Dubois’s shoulder, giving him strength, until soon, Dubois resumed his deep sleep.
What a beautiful face the man had. If only Joe could touch it.
Tomorrow, he’d ask to meet with Warden Cooke. Tomorrow, Dubois had to be transferred to another cell.
Joe thought of his mother. Of her sad, frantic face as they’d dragged him out of her home in shackles. He wouldn’t debase himself in here. He’d marry Claudine.
Get out of here and marry Claudine.
“Victor?” Dubois was sitting up, looking around at the darkness. “Victor?” His voice was too loud.
“Hey, be quiet,” Joe whispered.
“What―”
“Lie down. Just lie down. You’re dreaming.”
“Why is it so cold? Why is it so dreadfully cold?’’
“The butler forgot to stoke the fire. Lie down.”
Dubois wrapped the blankets around his shoulders and sat up against the wall. His shivers were turning into spasms. The fever was overtaking him. It would last all night.
Joe got out of his covers and gathered the heaviest of them. He offered it to him. “Put this on.”
“Yes,” Dubois said, taking the blanket. But he couldn’t manage it. He was shaking too violently.
Joe pulled the blanket out of his hands and dropped it over Dubois’s shoulders. For a moment, his hand touched his hair.
Dubois peered up at him. “My goodness, your head nearly grazes the ceiling.” He clutched the blanket around his neck, his tremors subsiding a little. “How tall are you, Joe?”
“I don’t know.” Joe sat on his cot again.
“I’m missing half of a finger. Did you notice it?” Dubois’s voice shook from the cold. “See.”
Joe looked at Dubois’s left hand. He could barely make it out in the dark. But the ring finger was cut at the middle joint. “What happened to it?”
“I cut it off myself.”
Dubois had Joe’s full attention. “Yeah?’’
“You see, I was mad with love and desperate to make a point. The knife was within my reach, and before I knew it, I’d sliced my finger off. The ring went flying.” He laughed morbidly. “Sliced my finger off like a carrot.”
“What was the point you were trying to make?”
Dubois shrugged. “I suppose I wanted to prove the ring didn’t matter to me. It was my grandfather’s. It was worth a thousand dollars.”
A thousand dollars could buy Joe’s mother a life.
“So why not throw the ring in the St. Lawrence or something?”
Dubois held his eyes to his. “Because there’s no river deep enough to hold my shame.”
The admonition made Joe look away.
“Oh, what I’d give for a cup of tea,” Dubois said, after a while.
“We used to have a fire pit and boil our water. Too many men set their beds on fire.”
“And you?”
“I just drank tea.”
Dubois laughed and pulled the blanket over his head. Only his eyes were visible in the dark. Eyes as vivid and piercing as a child’s. “Will you work tomorrow?”
“No, not with my hand like this.”
“Are you married?”
“No.”
“But you have a fiancée.”
“Yeah.” Joe remembered Claudine’s capable hands. Her cool smile. Would she wait for him? He wished she wouldn’t. He wished she’d stop writing. She should marry a man with a future ahead of him.
“What’s her name?”
“Claudine.” Joe rubbed his hands together for heat. “She’s a nurse. She’s good to my mother.”
Dubois changed positions, stretching his legs out. “My mother died when I was a boy.”
“I’m sorry…she was sick?”
“No, she died delivering me.’’
Silence slipped in between them again and Joe was thankful for it.
But then Dubois spoke again. “Joe,” he called out softly. “The truth is, my father despises me. He loved my mother. He couldn’t possibly love her murderer. And that’s what I am. He’s not going to come for me. You see, he’s disowned me. All I have of my mother’s now, is her maiden name.”
“What’s your father’s name?”
“Henri Cardinal,” Dubois breathed.
“The name rings a bell.”
“Of course it does. As it should. My father is an affluent man and favorite candidate for the liberal party.”
“And you’re in here, in the Icebox?”
“Oh yes, I am.’’
“You say he’s a liberal. Why? I thought all eminent French guys were fervent nationalists, working hard with the clergy to keep us all on our farms and knees.”
“My father is much too ambitious to consider language or culture. He goes where the money goes.”
“So, you’re the son of our future prime minister?”
“No. I’m no one’s son.”
There were steps in the hall. A guard was making his rounds. “Be quiet now,” Joe whispered.
The glow of a lantern passed their cell and Joe shut his eyes. He heard Dubois pretending to snore. Then the guard was gone, his steps echoing through the silence.
“The guards here, what are they like?”
“Just follow the rules and you’ll be all right.”
“When I first saw you, I thought you were a brute.”
“I am.”
“Good night, Joe.”
Joe finally closed his eyes and sleep rolled over him like an avalanche.
- Writer
