The Silent Boy Read online

  Chapter Two

  Marie holds tightly to Charles’s arm. She pulls him from the shadowy, urine-scented safety of the alleyway leading to the court and into the crowded street.

  She tugs him along, jerking his arm to hurry him up. He is a fish on a line, pulled through a river of people.

  It is the first time he has been outside since the night he came to Marie’s. Everything is brighter, louder and noisier than it should be – the clothes, the cockades, the soldiers, the checkpoints, the swaying, seething parties of men and women. There is urgency in the air, an invisible miasma that touches everyone. He wants to be part of it.

  Before they came out, Marie combed his hair. He is wearing his shirt and breeches, which she washed the day before, though her best efforts could not remove all the blood from them. They do not go north towards the river but west. They pass Saint-Sulpice and turn into the Rue du Bac.

  Marie drags him across the street, threading their way through the coaches and wagons by force of personality and a steady stream of oaths. She stops outside a great house with black gates, studded with iron.

  The black gates are shut. Marie mutters under her breath and tugs on the bell handle with her free hand. She does not let go of Charles with the other hand. She grips his wrist so tightly he fears it will snap.

  The bell clangs on the other side of the gates but no one comes. Marie bounces up and down on her little feet. She rings the bell again. A passer-by jostles Charles, wrenching him from Marie’s grasp. He sprawls in the gutter and grazes his knees. Marie swears at the man and hauls him to his feet. She pulls the bell a third time, for longer and harder than before.

  A shutter slides back in the wicket. A man’s eyes and nose are revealed in the small rectangle.

  ‘The house is shut up,’ he says. ‘Go away.’

  ‘Where’s Monsieur the Count?’ Marie demands.

  ‘Gone. All gone.’

  The shutter slams home. Marie rings the bell again. She hammers on the door. Nothing happens.

  She knocks again. By now a crowd has gathered, watchful and silent.

  Marie turns from the gates and asks the bystanders what they think they’re staring at. Such is the force of her authority, of her anger, that they drift away, shamefaced.

  Muttering under her breath, Marie leads Charles away from the gates in the direction of the Grand École. He starts to cry.

  A slim gentleman is coming towards them on foot. His left leg drags behind him. He is dressed plainly in a dark green coat. Charles recognizes him and so does Marie.

  She leaps forward into the man’s path and pushes the boy in front of her. ‘Monseigneur!’ she cries. ‘Monseigneur!’

  He stops, frowning, his face suddenly wary. ‘Hush, hush – I am plain Monsieur Fournier now. You know that.’

  ‘Monsieur, you came to Madame von Streicher’s.’

  He frowns at Marie. ‘I am sorry. There is nothing I can do for you. Whoever you are.’

  ‘Monsieur.’ She shoves the boy forward, so forcefully that he bumps against Monsieur Fournier’s arm. ‘This is Madame’s son. This is Charles. You must remember him.’

  Monsieur Fournier has large brown eyes that open very wide as if life is a matter of endless astonishment to him.

  ‘This?’

  ‘Yes, monsieur, I swear it. On my life.’

  Fournier motions them to move to one side with him. They stand by the outer wall of the great house. The passers-by ebb around them.

  Fournier takes Charles’s chin in his hand and angles it upwards. ‘Yes, by God, you’re right.’ He bends closer, bringing his head almost on a level with the boy’s. ‘What happened? Are you hurt?’

  Charles says nothing.

  ‘He won’t speak, monsieur,’ Marie says.

  ‘Of course he can speak.’ Monsieur Fournier touches Charles’s shoulder with a long white forefinger. ‘You know me, don’t you?’

  ‘He won’t say anything, monsieur. Not since that night.’

  ‘Are you saying he was actually there? When …?’ His voice tails away, rising into an unspoken question.

  ‘Have you seen Madame?’ Marie says. ‘Is she …?’ She runs out of words, too.

  Fournier looks at her. ‘You weren’t there yourself?’

  ‘No, monsieur. I was at my – my brother’s house. Charles came to me in the night. He was …’

  ‘He was what?’ demands Fournier.

  ‘There was blood all over him.’ She paws at the faded stains on Charles’s shirt. ‘See? Everywhere. On his clothes, in his hair.’

  ‘Dear God.’

  Her voice rises. ‘He won’t even tell me what happened. He won’t tell me anything. I can’t keep him at home. My brother will throw him out.’

  ‘You did well to bring him.’ Monsieur Fournier takes out a handkerchief and wipes his face. ‘We can’t talk here. Follow me.’

  He sets off in the direction he came from, walking so rapidly despite his limp that Charles and Marie have to break into a trot to keep up. He takes the next turning, a lane running along the side of the house. There are no windows on the ground floor, only small ones high up in the wall, far above Charles’s head. These windows are protected by heavy grilles of iron bars, painted black like the gates.

  They turn another corner into a narrow street parallel to the Rue du Bac. Here is another, much smaller gate set in the wall of the house.

  Monsieur Fournier looks up and down the lane. There is no one else about. He knocks twice on the gate, pauses, knocks once, pauses again and then knocks twice again.

  The shutter slides back. Nobody speaks. On the other side of the gate there is a rattling of bars. The key turns. The gate opens – not to its full extent, merely enough to allow a man to pass through.

  Fournier is the first to enter. Marie pushes the boy after him. As she does so she ruffles his hair.

  They are in a cobbled yard with a well in one corner. A fat old man in a dirty brown coat stares open-mouthed at them. Fournier limps towards the great grey cliff of the house. The old man jerks with his head towards the house, which means that Charles must follow.

  Charles breaks into a run. Behind him, he hears the gate closing.

  It is only when he is inside the house, when he is following Monsieur Fournier up a long flight of stone stairs that he realizes Marie is no longer there. She has stayed on the other side of the black gate.

  The room is almost as large as a church. Despite the sunshine outside, it is gloomy, for the shutters are still across the windows. Light filters through the cracks. One of the shutters is slightly open and a bar of sunlight streams across the carpet to a huge desk.

  The desk is made of a dark wood ornamented with gold which sparkles in the sunshine. Its top is as big as his mother’s bed and it has many drawers. It is covered in papers – some in piles, some lying loose as if blown by a gust of wind.

  Behind the desk, facing into the room, is a stout gentleman whose face is in shadow. He looks up as Monsieur Fournier enters, and Charles recognizes him.

  ‘I thought you’d be halfway to—’ The gentleman sees Charles behind Monsieur Fournier. He breaks off what he is saying.

  ‘This is more important,’ Fournier says.

  ‘What the devil do you want with that boy?’

  Fournier advances into the room with Charles trailing behind him. One of the piles of paper is weighted down with a pistol. Charles wishes that he were back with Marie, lying in her bed against her great flank and smelling her strange, unlovely smell.

  ‘You don’t understand. He’s Madame von Streicher’s son.’

  Charles knows that this man is very important. He is Count de Quillon, the owner of this house, the Hotel de Quillon, and so much else. The Minister, Maman says, the godson of the King and once the King’s friend. He sometimes came to see Maman, though more often he would send a servant with a message and Maman would put on one of her best gowns and go away in his great coach.

  Only now, when the Count rests h
is elbows on the desk, does the sunlight bring his face alive. He is a broad, heavy man, older than Fournier, with a small chin, a big nose and a high complexion.

  ‘This is Augusta’s son?’ the Count says. ‘This? Are you sure? Absolutely sure?’

  ‘Quite sure, despite the dirt and the rags.’

  ‘How does he come here?’

  ‘He ran away and went to an old servant’s. She brought him a moment ago.’

  ‘So was he with his mother when—’

  Fournier interrupts: ‘I don’t know. He was covered in blood when he turned up at the old woman’s house.’

  ‘It is of the first importance that we discover what happened. Where is the servant? She must know something.’

  ‘She ran off as soon as we came through the gate.’

  The men are talking as if Charles is not there. He might be invisible. Or he might not even exist at all. He cannot grasp this idea. Nevertheless, part of him quite likes it.

  ‘Come here, boy,’ says the Count.

  Charles steps up to the desk. He makes himself stand very straight.

  ‘What happened at your house that night? The – the night you ran away?’

  Charles does not speak.

  ‘Don’t be shy. I can’t abide a timid boy. Answer me. Who else was there? I must know.’

  ‘The woman said he simply won’t speak,’ says Fournier. ‘No reason why he shouldn’t, of course – he’s perfectly capable of it. I remember him chattering away ten to the dozen.’

  ‘Answer me!’ the Count roared, rearing up in his chair. ‘You will answer me.’

  Tears run down Charles’s cheeks. He says nothing.

  Fournier shifts his weight from his left leg. ‘Give the lad time to get his bearings,’ he suggests. ‘Gohlis can see him.’

  ‘We don’t have time for all that,’ the Count says. He adds rather petulantly, ‘Anyway, he’s not some lad or other – his name is Charles. I should know.’ He beckons Charles closer and studies the boy’s face. ‘Were you there? Did you see what happened to—’

  ‘My friend, I think this—’

  The Count waves Fournier away. ‘Did you see what happened to your mother? Did you see who came?’

  Charles stares at the pistol on the pile of papers. Is it loaded? If you cocked it and put it to your head and pulled the trigger, then would everything stop, just like that? Everything, including himself?

  ‘It is most important that you tell us,’ the Count says, raising his voice. ‘A matter of life and death. Answer me, Charles. Who was there?’

  But Charles is still thinking about the pistol. If he shot himself, would St Peter take one look at him and send him down to the fires of hell? Or would there simply be nothing at all, a great emptiness with no people in it, living or dead?

  ‘Oh for God’s sake!’ the Count snaps.

  The boy recoils as if he has been slapped.

  ‘Very well, then.’ The Count tugs the bell pull behind him. ‘We’ll talk to him when he’s past his absurd shyness. Someone will look after him and give him some food.’

  Fournier rests a hand on Charles’s shoulder. ‘But what about later? If we leave?’

  ‘Then he comes with us.’ Monsieur de Quillon bends his great head over his papers. ‘Naturally.’

  Chapter Three

  Charles is placed in the care of an elderly, half-blind woman. She lives in a room under the roof over the kitchen wing. Opening out of her chamber is a smaller one, which has a barred window. This is where Charles sleeps.

  On the second night, he has bad dreams and he wets the bed.

  On the third day, Monsieur Fournier summons him. He is in a salon overlooking the great courtyard at the heart of the Hotel de Quillon.

  He is not alone. Dr Gohlis is there. He is another gentleman who used to call on Maman in the old days. He is young and stooping, a German from Hanover. He has cold hands.

  In heavily accented French, the doctor asks Charles his name, and Charles does not answer. He asks Charles how old he is. Then he asks exactly the same questions in English and German, and all the while Charles stares out of the window at the weeds in the courtyard and imagines the words rising into the sky like startled birds.

  Dr Gohlis examines him, looking at his teeth and poking at his belly with his forefinger. He walks behind Charles and claps his hands, making Charles twitch.

  ‘There is no physical cause for his silence that I can see. Everything is perfectly normal,’ he says. ‘You tell me he eats and moves his bowels. I could try purging or bleeding, but I doubt it would answer.’

  ‘He has sustained a great shock,’ Fournier says, throwing an unexpected smile at Charles. ‘Could that have disturbed his faculties and made him mute?’

  ‘Indeed, sir – that may very well be the case. If the hypothesis is correct, then it follows that the best course of treatment may be another shock. If one shock has removed his powers of speech, then a second may restore them.’

  ‘They say he wet the bed the other night.’

  ‘Really? Was he beaten for it?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  ‘If it happens again, I would advise it, for his own good. He will achieve nothing without discipline.’

  ‘Thank you, Doctor,’ Monsieur Fournier says after a moment. ‘I won’t detain you any longer.’

  Dr Gohlis bows and leaves the room. He does not look at Charles, who is still standing by the window.

  As the door closes, Fournier opens a bureau. He takes a sheet of paper from one of its drawers and a quill from another. He puts them on the flap and uncovers the inkstand. He places a gilt chair in front of the bureau.

  ‘Sit, dear boy. Take the quill.’

  Charles obeys. He dips the pen in the ink without being asked.

  ‘Good,’ says Fournier. ‘Your mother told me that you are an apt student. Pray begin by writing your name.’

  Charles bends his head. He writes. The quill scratches on the heavy paper.

  ‘Now write my name.’

  Charles writes.

  ‘Excellent. And now – write the names of those who visited your mother in your cottage in the Rue de Richelieu.’

  The pen moves again. The tip of the feather brushes Charles’s chin.

  Monsieur Fournier comes to stand at his shoulder. ‘Let me see what you have written.’

  Charles hands him the sheet of paper, the ink still glistening. He has answered each question with lines that go up and down, across and diagonally. They are black marks on white paper. They reveal nothing other than themselves.

  The following morning, Charles wakes with the light.

  Before he opens his eyes, he is aware of rustles and small movements which he thinks must be rats and mice, which come and go at will and treat the place as their own. He opens his eyes.

  Without warning, his stomach gives a painful twitch as if someone has punched him there. He gasps and sits up in bed.

  A boy is standing beside the window, his outline clearly visible in the light filtering through the cracks of the shutters. He is smaller than Charles and he is very still. He has his back to the room. He stands upright, his shoulders squared like a soldier on parade.

  Just for an instant – for a hundredth of a second – Charles feels joy. He is not alone.

  His feelings are no sooner there than they are gone. His lips move. They form the words: Who are you? But the words have no sound so the boy cannot hear them.

  Charles is afraid as much as excited now. He swings his legs out of bed.

  The boy does not move.

  The boards are cold. Draughts swirl around Charles’s ankles and rise up his legs under his nightshirt. He shivers, partly from fear.

  He takes a step nearer the window, nearer the boy. Then another, and another. Between each step he pauses. It is like the game he used to play with his mother when he was very, very young.

  The strange boy does not even twitch. Step by step, Charles draws nearer to him. Still the boy does not move. He
has been turned to stone, Charles thinks, he is a statue. He feels pity, though he knows the boy cannot really be like this; but, if he were, surely that would be even worse than losing your voice?

  Charles takes a deep breath, stretches out a hand and touches the boy’s shoulder. It is cold, a little damp and hard – hard like wood, not stone. Charles walks around him and opens one of the shutters. The light from the window falls on the boy’s face.

  Or rather – the light falls on the place where the face should have been.

  The boy’s eye sockets are empty. There is nothing but a hole where the nose should be. The cheeks are sunken. The lips are almost gone. He still has some of his teeth. He is grinning. He will always grin because he can do nothing else.

  Charles draws in a long, shuddering breath. His face contorted, he breathes out: a silent scream.

  The door creaks. A current of cold air sweeps into the room.

  Dr Gohlis is on the threshold.

  ‘I see you have found my little friend,’ he says in his strange, thick voice. ‘His name is Louis.’

  As he speaks, he comes closer. Charles cannot move.

  ‘Who knows who this boy was?’ the doctor says. ‘Were you aware that before the Revolution, the poor were so desperate that they sent their children to prison – they sold them on the streets – they disposed of them like unwanted kittens?’

  Charles stares at Dr Gohlis over the boy’s shoulder. He wishes with all his heart that the boy was still alive, that he was not alone with the doctor.

  ‘But even dead boys may be worth a few sous. In life they were quite useless to society. But in death, the lucky ones are granted the chance to serve a higher good.’

  Dr Gohlis is standing by Louis’s shoulder now. He throws back the second shutter. More light floods over the boy. Charles covers his mouth with his hands when he sees what has been done.

  ‘So their parents take the money and drink themselves senseless in the nearest wine shop,’ the doctor continues. ‘And a man of science takes the boy.’ He stretches out a surprisingly long arm and grips the right wrist of the figure. ‘The dead boy. The man of science conveys the boy to another man, a man skilled in the art of flaying skin from a body. Believe me, it is not easy to do it properly, to do it well. It is one thing to remove the skin. It is quite another thing to do it without harming what lies beneath.’