Chapter 68: Jean – Pierre’s smell
Jean felt Pierre’s smell but Pierre wasn’t there. It was the burnt men who smelled ot him; it was Maurice, Gaul of Tuen. Jean walked close to the wall, stayed in the shadows, threatened by the smell, by the weight of Pierre who wasn’t even there.
Maurice was the most excited. He looked like a bumble bee bumping on every flower. Bojet and Germon drank in silence, watching the whirlpool of people and home, hunger for change. Gaul of Tuen drank with them, also silent, and Manó of Fabec leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. Upstairs a father and a daughter were reunited. Both broken, sick, but together.
And Pierre.
‘What now?’ asked Gaul.
‘We follow Pierre,’ said Germon.
‘Which raises the question: will he guide us?’ said Bojet.
Jean closed his hands into fists, his arms looked like two hairy tree trunks. Beside him, one-eyed Luc, unmoved. Leonard was missing. Many minutes went by before the Accident came downstairs. Jean’s beard stood on end. Leonard had been upstairs with Pierre.
Jean had to leave. He waited by the door, shaking, his nails digging holes in his skin. A long time passed before Leonard noticed and joined him. It took Luc even longer. Words like justice, finally and can it be? flooded the Plume and hung to the one-eyed man’s ears. Imprinted in the white of his one eye was the image of Maurice, laughing triumphant by Joanna’s counter.
Laughing at Luc?
No. Maurice had changed very little while Luc was away in Patire. To Maurice, Luc was still family, but Luc had no family. He had learned that the things you love, in the end become hurt. He followed Jean outside.
‘Aren’t you going to follow him?’ Joanna asked Maurice.
‘Nothing I say will make a difference. He needs to convince himself. All I can do is keep on showing him that there is… I don’t even know what is there. A couple of weeks ago I didn’t believe that there was anything, but look at us now.’
Joanna began polishing na already clean part of the counter. Maurice held her hand.
‘Look at us, Joanna.’
She became very still.
‘What is it that you clean?’ he asked. ‘I’ve always wondered.’
‘Blood,’ she said. ‘If I stop cleaning, things begin to bleed.’
His thumb carressed the inside of her wrist.
‘Is that why you left the Caravan?’ he asked. ‘I remember the year Rimbaud left and you stayed. Back then, you cleaned even more frantically. It was when your fingers got these calouses. The Caravan, that year, was half the size of the previous year.’
Joanna avoided blinking so she wouldn’t shed any tears. It had been an apidemy in Qoniadra. The skin dried and cracked and bled. You couldn’t stop the bleeding. They bled until they died. Joanna cleaned and cleaned the wounds, but the blood kept on flowing. Friends died, her children died, everything she loved died. Afterwards she didn’t have the strength to travel anymore. She, who had dreamed to see the world, had lost her entire world.
Maurice came to her side of the counter, picked a cloth and began to clean.