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Hannibal watched as patriotic fervor swelled the artery in the traitor Ferrat’s forehead and caused the jugular and carotid to stand out in his neck—an eminently injectable head.
“Yes, vive la France!” Hannibal said, redoubling his efforts: “Our letter should emphasize that, though they call him Vichy, he was actually a hero of the Resistance, then?”
“Certainly.”
“He saved downed airmen, I would imagine?”
“On a number of occasions.”
“Performed the customary acts of sabotage?”
“Often, and without regard for his own safety.”
“Tried to protect the Jews?”
Quarter-second hitch. “Heedless of risk to himself.”
“Was tortured perhaps, he suffered broken fingers for the sake of France?”
“He could still use them to salute proudly when Le Grand Charles returned,” Ferrat said.
Hannibal finished scribbling. “I’ve just listed the highlights here, do you think you could show it to him?”
Ferrat looked over the sheet of notebook paper, touching each point with his forefinger, nodding, murmuring to himself. “You might put in a few testimonials from his friends in the Resistance, I could supply those. A moment please.” Ferrat turned his back to Hannibal and leaned close to his clothing. He turned back with a decision.
“My client’s response is: Merde. Tell the young fucker I’ll see the dope and rub it on my gums first before I sign. Pardon, but that is verbatim literatim.” Ferrat became confidential, leaning close to the bars. “Others on the tier told him he could get enough laudanum—enough laudanum to be indifferent to the knife. ‘To dream and not to scream’ is how I’d couch it in a courtroom setting. The St. Pierre medical school is giving laudanum in exchange for … permission. Do you give laudanum?”
“I will be back to see you, with an answer for him.”
“I wouldn’t wait too long,” Ferrat said. “St. Pierre will be coming round.” He raised his voice and gripped the neck of his combination underwear as he might clutch his waistcoat during an oration. “I’m empowered to negotiate on his behalf with St. Pierre as well.” Close to the bars and quiet now: “Three days and poor Ferrat will be dead, and I’ll be in mourning and out a client. You are a medical person. Do you think it’s going to hurt? Hurt Monsieur Ferrat when they …”
“Absolutely not. The uncomfortable part is now. Beforehand. As for the thing itself, no. Not even for an instant.” Hannibal had started away when Ferrat called to him and he went back to the bars.
“The students wouldn’t laugh at him, at his parts.”
“Certainly not. A subject is always draped, except for the exact field of study.”
“Even if he were … somewhat unique?”
“In what way?”
“Even if he had, well, infantile parts?”
“A common circumstance, and never, ever, an occasion for humor,” Hannibal said. There’s a candidate for the anatomy museum, where donors are not credited.
The pounding of the executioner’s mallet registered as a twitch in the corner of Louis Ferrat’s eye as he sat on his bunk, his hand on the sleeve of his companion, the clothes. Hannibal saw him imagining the assembly in his mind, the uprights lifted into place, the blade with its edge protected by a slit piece of garden hose, beneath it the receptacle.
With a start, seeing it in his mind, Hannibal realized what the receptacle was. It was a baby’s bathtub. Like a falling blade Hannibal’
s mind cut off the thought and, in the silence after, Louis’ anguish was as familiar to him as the veins in the man’s face, as the arteries in his own.
“I’ll get him the laudanum,” Hannibal said. Failing laudanum, he could buy a ball of opium in a doorway.
“Give me the consent form. Collect it when you bring the dope.”
Hannibal looked at Louis Ferrat, reading his face as intently as he had studied his neck, smelling the fear on him, and said, “Louis, something for your client to consider. All the wars, all the suffering and pain that happened in the centuries before his birth, before his life, how much did all that bother him?”
“Not at all.”
