Where the Light Falls(83)
“Only then, this lot won’t be melons. I heard that old General What’s-His-Name is on the short list.”
“Shame to waste such a good melon.” Harsh laughter echoed down the silent street.
Sanson. Jean-Luc repeated the name and felt a constriction around his throat. He paused, frozen in his steps; Sanson was the name of Paris’s official executioner. Known as the Gentleman of Paris, master of ceremonies, and functionary of the guillotine. Jean-Luc realized, his legs leaden beneath him, that he had wandered into La Place de la Révolution. There, in the feeble light of dawn, emerged the shapes of the massive limestone façades that hemmed in La Place, grand buildings built for the governments of Louis XIV and his heir, Louis XV, cutting a silhouette against the graying sky. And even closer to Jean-Luc stood the raised platform and sleek shape of that murderous device, its blade catching the first glints of early-morning light.
Jean-Luc didn’t take a step closer, nor did he turn to walk away. Workers, it appeared, were prepping the apparatus for the day’s show, a show that promised to be one of the most attended since the deaths of the Bourbon monarchs.
It was still dark enough that Jean-Luc, by remaining a safe distance back, had not been detected. The workers moved about their business diligently—scrubbing the platform, sweeping the steps, checking the nails and ropes that held the device upright. One of the men struggled under the weight of a large woven basket, filled with what appeared to be round cargo. His raspy breath was audible, even from where Jean-Luc stood, as the squat man heaved the basket up the steps toward the executioner’s spot. On top of the platform now, he reached in, and Jean-Luc felt his heart begin to race, preparing him for what he was about to see. The man pulled out one of the objects from the basket, which to Jean-Luc’s relief appeared to be a melon. With skilled hands that moved quickly, the man nestled the melon into the central groove of the apparatus. He must have done this many times by now.
Workers were scampering about, jumping off the platform and shuffling into a row, all eager spectators. Only the squat man remained up top.
“Ready, get in position!” One of the workers below yelled, and another man took his place on the platform behind the raised blade. He put his hand on the extended lever.
“Ready, steady, let her fly!”
Jean-Luc watched as the man, his hand gripping the lever, pulled hard and fast. That motion set free the blade, previously suspended aloft at the top of a long track. Descending downward, it dropped with a powerful and brutal force; anything in its way must either stop its fall or be sliced in two.
A whirring noise rippled across the square, reaching Jean-Luc and prompting him to shiver in dread. Then, a second later, the whir turned into a crunch. The workers applauded, hopping back up onto the platform to see the outcome of the demonstration. “Cut clean through, she did!”
“The ole girl never fails.”
Jean-Luc stumbled forward and let out a muffled groan. Just then the men turned and squinted into the darkened street. “Oi, you, what you doin’ here? No spectators ’til the appointed hour!”
“Maybe he just wants to try the ole girl out for himself?”
“Go on then, climb up and have a look. Mind your head!”
Bellowing laughter echoed through the square, but Jean-Luc didn’t reply. He felt faint and heard only the sound of the retching that poured the bile out of his gut and spilled it out over the street. He wiped his mouth and gazed back across the square that in a few hours’ time would be washed in red.
The day of Kellermann’s execution dawned clear and cold. The crowd came out early, the women staking out the prime spots at the front before the platform, where they unfurled their knitting and awaited the tumbrils that would bear their ill-fated passengers across the river and into La Place de la Révolution.
As the hour approached, André felt drawn to La Place by the pull of some unseen force, as if he owed it to General Kellermann to bear witness as the great man departed an ungrateful world.
André noticed the abundance of carts and vendors present on days like this, merchants selling apples, plums, barrels of wine and ale, and even linen for dresses. The summer heat kept most people outdoors anyway, but on execution days the crowds gathered in exceptional numbers, and a crowd meant customers, business. André couldn’t blame a man for trying to provide for his family, but the mere fact that it had become customary to gather and profit from the machinery of death was a sight he never accepted. A young girl, no older than five years, approached him with her hand out. She was clothed in little more than an oversized brown shift, her arms and legs stained a lighter brown. Her eyes had little light in them, and she refused to meet his gaze as she begged for his charity. With an ache of pity, André knelt and handed her a sou, and wondered what more executions would do to improve her life, and indeed the lives of the countless other impoverished children left hopeless and begging on the streets.