Linhart’s Beautiful Beast

Chapter 1-2

Joe woke to the sound of keys turning in the lock. Whatever they’d given him was wearing off, but he still felt slow. Williams was pushing a man into his cell. “You’ve got company,” Williams announced, grinning. Williams unshackled the man. “Okay, Dubois,” he said, to the inmate whose face Joe still couldn’t glimpse. “Don’t you worry your pretty little ginger head about this guy, all right? Vega here might look like a big stupid beast, but he won’t hurt you.” Williams’s eyes flickered with malice. “Not with his hand like that, right, Vega?”

“Look,” Joe said, breaking his vow of silence for the day. “Warden Cooke said he wouldn’t force a cellmate on me, if I kept out of brawls and did the work―”

“Yeah, well, as you may have noticed, times are hard these days, and you French nationalists and dirty immigrants are piling up at our doors.”

“I ain’t no dirty immigrant. I was born in Montreal same as you―”

“Sure, Vega. That’s a real blue-blooded name. Sure, your father was a loyalist soldier born in Upper Canada. Right. Right.” Snickering, Williams shoved his shoulder into the young man. “And Dubois, I suppose you ain’t French either.” He laughed and shook his head. “You’re both sons of whores, for all I know.”

Once, Joe had almost killed Williams for calling his mother a w***e. He’d given Williams that scar under his eye. But he knew better now.

Williams seemed a little surprised at his poise. He walked back into the hall and locked them in.

The young man, Dubois, looked down at the empty bunk. “Is this mine?” The man couldn’t be a day older than twenty. His pale face was tense with fear, but his eyes were strangely serene and very green. And that ginger hair. Joe knew that hair. He knew this man. He’d seen him before.

Joe nodded his head and looked away. He hadn’t had company, a visitor, in three years. He didn’t even think he remembered how to carry on a conversation with anybody, except for Levin and Novak, his only friends in here.

On the opposite bunk, Dubois curled himself into the fetal position, facing away from him, staring at the wall.

Joe tried to go back to his book, but suddenly, Dubois flipped to his back and turned his face to him, looking straight into his eyes. “What happened to your hand?” he asked gently.

Joe looked down at the white gauze wrapped around his hand.

“Well,” Dubois said, before Joe had had a chance to answer, “I want you to know that I won’t be a nuisance to you very much longer. My father will sort all this out. I’ll be released very shortly.” He looked back at the ceiling. “A matter of hours, I suppose.”

His father had better come for him, because Joe knew this young man would be dead in a week. Men like him didn’t make it in here. They barely made it out there.

“Your name is Vega?” Dubois looked at him again. He had a thick French accent and a voice too soft for this place. “Is that your first name?”

The sound of his own voice was strange to Joe. “No,” he said, surprised at himself.

Dubois seemed to be patiently waiting for more.

“I’m…I’m Joseph,” he finally said. Joe couldn’t remember the last time he’d said his name out loud.

Dubois sat up. “Christophe is my name.” He extended his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

He wasn’t sure what to make of this man. Joe shook his cold hand and sat back again.

“Well,” Dubois whispered, patting himself down. “I’ll be out of your way in no time at all.” In his front pocket, he found what he’d been looking for: a golden cigarette case. He put a long thin cigarette to his lip. “Do you smoke?” He was looking at Joe through a strand of that unruly, ginger hair. Joe’s mother had always feared redheaded people. She’d said they were in cohorts with the devil.

Joe wasn’t sure he believed in all that. “No,” he said. “I don’t smoke no more.”

Dubois blew a curl of smoke out, looking away at the bars. There was something about the way he sat, cross-legged, and the way he held his cigarette, very elegantly, that told Joe he wasn’t going to make it in here.

Joe went back to reading. The book he’d borrowed was one of the last few he hadn’t read in here. The prison library contained five-hundred and thirty-seven books, and he’d read five-hundred and twenty-two in the last three years. Most of these books were sweet romances―donations from the good nuns in Montreal. Warden Cooke had faith in their “corrupted criminal minds” and wanted to educate his inmates, but Joe had yet to get his hands on a book that could teach him anything worth his while in here. The one he was currently reading wasn’t so terrible. It told the story of a Russian man who dreamed of being someone important but ended up killing a man. Joe would have to return it this week. They weren’t allowed any possessions. Especially not books.

Across from Joe, Dubois dropped his cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his polished boot. Those leather boots would be torn in a month. Joe wondered why Dubois had been allowed to keep them on his feet. And how had he managed to smuggle his fancy cigarette case in here?

To Joe’s surprise, Dubois gathered the extinguished butt and pushed it into a crack in the wall. Now, he stood by the bars, looking out. There was no use in looking out at the hall, at the cells across theirs. No use in it at all.

Then Joe noticed how badly Dubois was shivering. He remembered his nights here. Nothing had warmed his body in those days, not even his anger. Despite the fact that he was dressed in Linhart’s standard uniform; thick denim blue pants and shirt, under a heavier sweater of coarse wool, Dubois’s teeth were clattering. Joe no longer needed to wear the wool sweater. He could go days without even wearing the shirt. He could sit here in his under shirt and stand the cold in a way he couldn’t explain. The cold was inside him now. They were one and the same.

But after a while, Dubois’s shivering bothered Joe. “Wrap that blanket around your shoulders,” he told him. “It’ll help with the chills.”

Dubois looked at him as though he’d forgotten he was even here.

“The blanket.” Joe pointed to it on the bunk. “Put it on.”

But Dubois didn’t bother with his advice. He looked back and through the bars, at the silent hall. The cold kept them all sedated. There was barely any noise in here. Not like the mental asylum a city jail could be. Their thoughts never had a chance to thaw in the Icebox.

Joe returned to his book, but every sentence got lost before his eyes could trail down another set of letters. He needed to clear his throat, but that would call attention, and he didn’t want Dubois to look at him. He didn’t want him here. Yes, it came over him, quick and urgent, like the need to empty his bladder in the night: Dubois had to go.

“Could you spare a sheet of paper?” Dubois asked, turning to him again. “I’d be much obliged.”

Joe had a lot of paper. He wrote most inmates’ love letters to their wives or girls. He’d started doing it two years ago. He wrote about two or three letters a week, depending on the period of the year. Christmas was coming. He’d be writing up to ten letters a week by December fifth. His paper was precious.

“Could I have one of those?” Dubois meant the loose sheets Joe kept tucked away near his pillow. “I desperately need to write my father a letter.”

He could afford to give him one sheet. But there was no use in writing his father a letter. The letter would be censored, every suspicious word struck out with ink, and if it did, in fact, manage to get to its destination, the letter would be unreadable. A paper full of cut up sentences. Joe wondered why he bothered with writing those long letters to women who probably never read them anyway. It was something to do. A skill to hone.

“Thank you,’’ Dubois said, taking the sheet from Joe’s hand. He settled himself on his cot, leaning up against the wall behind him, with his knee upright, and Joe waited for him to realize he didn’t have a pencil. Pencils were very hard to come by, but he had a stash of them hidden away under his cot. Buck, the librarian, gave them to him. He’d once had a Waterman fountain pen, but it had run out of ink a long time ago.

Nothing lasted in here, not even men.

After a few minutes of staring at the paper, Dubois delicately placed the blank sheet under his pillow. He tucked his knees under him again and leaned his head back on the wall. He said something Joe didn’t catch, before turning his eyes to the bars once more.

Joe went back to reading.

“They wouldn’t send it out to him.” Dubois said, after a long moment of silence.

Joe wasn’t sure if he needed some kind of response from him, or if Dubois was merely speaking his thoughts out loud. A lot of men talked to themselves in here. He preferred to read.

“Wouldn’t they burn it or censor it?”

Joe suddenly felt like he was sitting across a hot cauldron boiling over with something. This ginger-head was trouble.

“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway.” Dubois drew another cigarette out of his case and lit it. His hand was shaking. He had the hands of an aristocrat. Joe wanted to tell him to save his cigarettes for a rainy day, because he wasn’t going to have access to that kind of tobacco in here, but Dubois inhaled the smoke deeply and sighed it out as though his life depended on it, so Joe kept quiet. Dubois smoked and smoked, until the ashes made up half of the cigarette and dangled limply over his cot. He shook a thought off and laughed a nervous little laugh.

“You’ll burn a hole in your blanket.” Joe didn’t know why he cared. There was nothing else to do.

Dubois glanced down at the long tube of ash between his fingers. “Quite right.’’ He carefully stood and dropped the ashes into the pail, then spat into it.

They resumed their positions, but soon, Dubois stood and began to pace. There wasn’t much room to pace in the cell, but five steps was enough to keep a man pacing all day and night.

“The horses were spooked tonight.” Dubois finally stopped and looked out through the bars. “The escorting guards had to drag me through the blizzard, and I tell you, it was so cold, that after an hour, I was longing to see the prison doors.” He had a very cynical smile, but his eyes were young and naive. “Can you believe that? I never knew one could be so cold and not die.”

New arrivals got here by carriage every last Friday of the month. If this man had walked through the blizzard last night, he was stronger than he looked.

“And do tell me, Joe, how did you get so big?” Dubois frowned at him as though he was studying an animal he’d never come across until now.

Joe’s father had been six-foot six and could carry a horse in his arms. Joe had inherited his father’s stature and worked on the rest. There had been nothing else for him to do in the old neighborhood, but get big and shove his way through everything.

“You don’t say much, do you?” Dubois raised a thin eyebrow at him.

Joe found himself sitting up, leaning in. “I guess I lost the habit of talking,” he blurted out.

Dubois’s whole countenance changed. Suddenly, he looked terrified and lost. “Would you like a cigarette?” he asked Joe again. “I’ve only three left, and three is a terrible number, don’t you think?” He plucked two cigarettes out of his golden case and Joe took one without touching his finger. He lit it. He hadn’t smoked in a very long time, but the taste was still the same, golden and dry, and now Joe knew he’d be wanting more tomorrow. It didn’t matter. What did it matter if he smoked or not?

“Bonté divine,” Dubois said, in French, and under his breath. He sat and smoked angrily, casting quick glances up at Joe. “I hope he dies while he’s buggering one of his precious uptown boys.”

Joe watched Dubois through the thin cloud of smoke between them.

What had the man just said?

Dubois jumped to his feet and leaned his forehead to one of the iron bars. “God, God.”

Joe put his cigarette out and closed his book.

“They must let me out,” Dubois said, suddenly, looking over at him. “How do I get out of here? Tell me!”

He couldn’t help him. He was no good to him.

“Joe,” Dubois said, calling him by his name as if they were brothers. “There must be a way. How long have you been here? You must know of ways to―”

“Look,” Joe cut him off, standing, “forget all that, all right? Forget it. There ain’t no way outta here. And look at you. You wouldn’t make it three miles on foot. The wolves would get you. And if the wolves don’t get you, then the bears will, and if you ain’t eaten alive, the cold is sure to get you and freeze you mid step.” He hadn’t spoken so many words in three years and he was winded. “And besides, your father will get you out, like you said. It’s obvious you don’t belong in here with any of us, so why don’t you just stay calm and wait a couple of days. You won’t be assigned to work detail until you’re past your first medical check, and that’s gonna take a while.”

Dubois listened with a look of confusion on his face. “Work detail?”

“Yeah, work.”

“Oh.”

But Joe saw Dubois still didn’t understand. “Outside. Cutting down trees.”

Dubois blinked. “Yes, of course.”

“That’s the whole purpose of Linhart. That’s why we’re here. We’re cheap labor, all of us. Unwilling employees of the James Murphy Aluminum company.”

“Murphy, you say? The American millionaire?” Dubois was coming around now. “You’re cutting down trees for him?”

“That’s right. Phase one of the Murphy power station project is deforestation.”

“They want to bring electricity here? Why?”

“‘Cause it’s gonna take a whole lot of juice to power up Murphy’s new gigantic plant.”

“But aren’t we on Native soil? Doesn’t this part of the land belong to the people here?”

What they were doing here, against their will or not, Joe knew was wrong. It was the raping of the natives’ homes. This was where the people still hunted and taught their children their ancestral ways. The forest was their church, and they, the convicts, put an ax to it every day.

“Do you mean to tell me I’m expected to go out there in this hellish cold to chop down trees for man I don’t even care for?”

Joe looked at Dubois’s hands, his white neck, his clean red hair. “What’d you do for a living out there?”

“I’m a…I was a student. I was set up. I’m not supposed to be in here.” He looked out the bars again. “It’s all a sordid mistake. A plot for revenge.”

Joe half believed him. It didn’t really matter if Dubois was lying or not. Whatever he needed to tell himself to get through his first night in the Icebox was fine by him.

“Why are you in here?” Dubois asked. “Did you murder someone?”

“No, but I wanted to. I was drunk and he was lucky.”

“Will they ever release you from here?”

“Yeah, in four years.” He’d be twenty-five by then. The world would be a different place and his mother would be broken down from the washing and ironing she did for other people. People like Dubois. “How long d’you get?” Joe asked him anyway, though he knew he shouldn’t care.

“Two years.”

“What’d you do?” Joe sat down again, aware that he towered over Dubois when he stood. “Break somebody’s grand piano?”

Dubois scoffed, but didn’t answer him.

Joe picked up his book and opened it. But suddenly, the Russian’s man’s story was less appealing to him than Dubois’s tale. He tried to read.

“If you must know, I was arrested and charged with forging checks.”

“Forgery? That’s it?” The Icebox was for violent tempers who needed to cool down. Every man here was in for a violent crime. No rapists. No kidnappers. None of those child molesters. But forgery?

“Of course, it’s all lies. Why would I need to forge my checks?” The bell rang and Dubois stepped back from the bars. “What does that bell mean?”

“Time to eat.”

“Well, I’m not hungry.” Dubois sat and drew his knees to his chest. “I’ll eat tomorrow, when they release me from here.”

Joe heard the commotion in the hall and keys turning in locks. They were going to be let out for an hour. He stood at attention by the cell gate. “You’ll regret it,” he told Dubois.

Dubois waved his remark off.

Fine. Let him starve tonight.

Gauthier turned the key, and Joe was finally let out, but against his will, he looked over his shoulder at Dubois.

“Tu viens, oui ou non?” Gauthier asked Dubois. Coming or not?

Dubois didn’t answer.

Gauthier shrugged and looked over at Joe. “First night here, so I’ll let it go.” He looked back at the cell. “And the smoking too. But tonight, Vega, you explain the rules to him.”

Joe nodded his head. Yes, he’d explain the rules to the new brat.