Stealing Life
It was only
the dreams of skulls that spoiled things.
René Lefevre
was a local celebrity in the south of France.
“You have to
work at wealth,” he told a local reporter, eying up her trim figure with
approval. “I am the most successful importer-exporter
in the region, and it’s all down to my own hard work.”
“Not the work
of the workers who complain that you underpay and overwork them?” asked the
reporter.
René regarded
her with disfavour; she was not as pretty as he thought.
“There are always
malcontents in any organisation,” he said, loftily.
“Is it true
that you have paid off the Union Corse to make sure you stay in business, and they
beat up anyone who complains? And use the same tactics to make small businesses
sell out to you?”
“Where you
hear such things I cannot imagine,” René’s tone was contemptuous. “I don’t ask anyone to work harder than I
do. You are jealous of my success.”
He believed
his own words. It made it easier to
sleep at night.
He also had a
word with the Union Corse to make sure that the reporter’s paper did not
misrepresent him.
The article
was much less hard-hitting than its originator had hoped, but it had an
unexpected side effect.
René received
a letter.
“My dear Cousin René,
You cannot imagine how delighted I am to
discover that I have a living relative!
I saw an article about you in ‘L’Heralde du Sud’. My name is Henri LeFevre, and I live in Haiti,
where I have a factory, canning fruit.
Perhaps we might some day meet each other?
Henri.”
René made enquiries,
and travelled to Haiti
as soon as he might conveniently manage, once a little matter of degats contre la personne
corporeale, offences against the body of a person, had been made to
go away by a present to the local Gendarmerie.
He was met at
the airport by a voluble and admiring Henri, who hugged the startled René.
“René, I
cannot believe how successful you look!
Why, is that suit actually silk? I declare, you will dazzle all the
girls, man!” Henri laughed.
René twitched
his immaculate Chinese knock-off Armani suit back into shape with
distaste. He claimed not to be racist but
he did support the more right-wing political parties in France, and many generations had passed since
his ultimate ancestor in France
had been a page boy to Rose Bearnhais, better known as Napoleon’s Empress
Josephine. The generations had left
René’s own skin tone no darker than many tanned residents of his native Marseilles. Henri was very
black, and though he was a good-looking man, René had the distaste of a man who
had buried his roots for any reminder of his genetic heritage. René frankly despised blacks and made sure to
hide his own origins.
“It pays to
wear the best,” said René, who thought Armani suits were priced largely for the
name. His diamond-studded Swiss watch was genuine, and that he did feel worth
it, if only for the investment and portable wealth.
It had not
been so very long ago, after all, when having portable wealth was a wise
precaution, before he could afford to pay off the Union Corse and the local police.
He must make
the most of Henri, however, and hoped that the man at least knew how to make
cocktails. It was damnably hot here, and
even one inured to the heat of summer in the South of France noticed it. The beaches looked inviting though.
Henri had not
got his own car, René noted with disapproval, as he ushered his guest into a
dilapidated taxi. This drove past fields
of half-naked and ragged labourers, who hardly looked a step removed from the
slavery of the past. René shuddered,
feeling as though he had been caught in a time loop from the page boy’s
past. What a foolish fancy!
Henri chattered
non-stop, on the way to his home and as the taxi rounded the corner in a cloud
of dust, René stared, aghast.
The place was,
in his opinion, a shack.
“I thought you
were doing well in the canning business?” he asked, sharply.
“Oh I am, very
well,” said Henri. “I can afford to
employ many indigent families who might otherwise starve.”
“Ah, and who
have to accept the terms and conditions you lay down?” René smiled; Henri was a
man after his own heart after all.
Henri looked
outraged.
“I am no such
exploiter!” he declared. “I pay them a fair wage for as much as they can do.”
“Henri, are
you saying that you employ freeloaders?
That is not good business practice,” René chided.
Henri
shrugged.
“Maybe not,”
he said, “but I have enough for my own needs, and for a wife and family, when I
marry, and the satisfaction of knowing that others may eat because of me, and
what man needs more?” He grinned happily.
René was
appalled.
He had come
out to Haiti
with some idea of offering his cousin a partnership, with the injection of some
capital to expand, and somehow forcing Henri out of the partnership at some
point in the future.
His plans were
going to have to change.
Henri would
have to die before he married and bred an heir.
As clear heir,
the only living relative, René could then modernise the canning factory, get
rid of the dead wood, and make it profitable.
The dream
evaporated as Henri, still chatting on, said,
“I have drawn
up my will to make the factory a co-operative with all my workers, they are to
own half the shares and the other half for my own family.”
“You’re
insane,” said René.
Henri looked
perturbed.
“You think I
am greedy to will half of it to any family I might have?” he asked. “Natissia, my intended bride, is a lovely
girl but not very practical at business.
And we shall have children.”
René bit his
tongue.
Plainly there
was more work needed here than he had anticipated.
It did not
take René long to discover that everyone on Haiti, even those who attended
Mass, believed in Voudon, what he called Voodoo. René had parted from religions when the
verger had caught him, as an angelic-looking choir boy, helping himself to the
collection. Thrown out on his ear, René had visited the church one last time,
but not during Divine Service. He had
returned one night to help himself to as much silverware as he could carry,
which he melted down in a makeshift smelter to avoid any of it being recognised.
The value of medieval treasures might have been higher than the scrap silver
value, but so was the concomitant risk, and René had few contacts in those
days. He had never been officially accused of the crime, but he had been
excommunicated; the priest knew who to blame.
Not that René cared for that, to him it was immaterial.
He sneered at
Voudon as he had at the religion to which he was reared.
Until, that
is, he saw a man who had been buried a few days before, working in the factory.
He spoke to
Henri.
“That man,
Guillaume Dubois; I thought he died?”
Henri nodded,
smiling.
“Oh yes! But
his wife, Jacquette, is pregnant, and could not afford to live without her
husband’s wage. She considered it an
investment to pay the Mambo, what I think you would call a witch, to bring back
Guillaume as a zombie, and I assure you, Guillaume would have urged her to do
so, for he doted on Jacquette. His death
was so sudden! No-one knew he had a
heart condition.”
“Can you only
turn willing, er, corpses into zombies then?” asked René, casually.
Henri laughed
again.
“Oh, the
consent of the corpse is not necessary, but Jacquette would not wish to
discommode Guillaume, and I would not wish you to think me so unscrupulous as
to employ zombies, as it is rumoured some do, and without pay, too, if you can
believe such iniquity!”
“Terrible,”
said René, thinking how many overheads might be cut in the use of such. “How do, er, Mambos learn their trade?”
“From another
Mambo or a Houngan, the male counterpart,” said Henri. “Some say that anyone can do it, others that
it runs in families. I try, so far as is
humanly possible, to steer clear of Voudon.”
“Probably
wise,” said René, who was busy making plans.
Guillaume looked no different to a living man, save that he was a little
jerky of movement, and his eyes stared at nothing.
It could be
done.
There was
nothing jerky about the movements of Henri’s fiancée, Natissia, when Henri
threw a dinner party in René’s honour, and invited his intended bride and her
family to meet his cousin.
Natissia was a
slender reed of a girl but she had enough curves for René to appreciate
them. Her face was a perfect oval, with
a sweet and placid expression on it, the sort of contentment that might be
found on the best icons, if only René had recognised it. René associated such an expression with
absolute brainlessness, a trait he admired in women. Especially when they had lips that were full
and kissable without being too pouty.
Her almond-shaped eyes were exotic enough to arouse him. Her skin was
flawless and her face as beautiful as the famed Josephine Bearhnais was said to
be, and René thought her too beautiful for Henri. But then, she, too, figured in his plans.
“Sweetie, you
are something else,” René admired her.
“My cousin is a lucky man to have won you as his bride, he surely is!”
Natissia
smiled.
“You are too
kind,” she murmured. “Henri is so happy
to have relatives, and what makes Henri happy, makes me happy too.”
“You must be
mighty proud of Henri,” he said to Natissia’s father, Mattheu.
“He is a good
boy, and has done well for himself, and for the community,” said Mattheu. “We are proud for Natissia to marry him. And we are so happy to meet you! Henri has always wondered if he had family in
France,
there being a family tradition that this was so.”
“I should like
to visit France;
perhaps we might make a reciprocal visit one day,” said Natissia.
“Sure thing,
baby,” said René, who felt that women liked to be talked to in an American
idiom. He had no intention of presenting his Haitian relatives in France,
but there was no need to mention this!
It took months
for René to find a witch who was prepared to take him as an apprentice. He finally found one venal enough to take his
hard currency and not make too much insistence on his learning of all the
basics before progressing to the making of zombies.
“You will need
a Loa as a patron,” she warned.
“Loa? They are
just useless figureheads like the saints the priest said we needed to intervene
with his useless God,” sneered René.
The Mambo,
Mother Amatiste, shrugged.
“Suit
yourself,” she said. “But don’t be surprised, honey, if one comes calling, one
day.”
“Don’t call me
‘honey’,” growled René, not for the first time.
Killing Henri
was easy, and René almost split his tongue in two, chanting the incantations to
make him into a zombie.
And then it
was downhill all the way.
‘Henri’
changed his will, making René sole beneficiary, and fired all his workers,
including Guillaume, who had families.
The rest, by stages, became Zombies.
Productivity
rose; and so did the profits. ‘Henri’
bought a car, which René planned to rig to crash spectacularly in a fireball,
because he doubted that the resources of the Haitian authorities would equal
those of the Surêté in terms of forensic ability. René did not think that they would readily
discover that the burnt corpse at the wheel had been dead for some weeks. He would have liked to have left it longer, but
Natissia was becoming a nuisance, wanting to see Henri, to find out why he was
refusing to see her.
Being busy
with plans for expansion with his cousin’s money only took care of some of the
time ‘Henri’ spent away from Natissia.
René sent her expensive gifts instead, in Henri’s name, but Natissia
still turned up at the door.
“I want to see
Henri; why is he sending me stupid things, instead of talking to me?” she
demanded.
“Sweetheart,
he told me he was afraid you’d be offended and wanted to send you gifts, so
you’d know he hadn’t forgotten you,” René temporised.
“It’s not like
Henri at all,” she bit her lip. “René,
please tell me! Is it someone else? Has he stopped loving me? Only I can’t see why he would send me junk if
he still wanted to see me.”
René bit off
the comment that rose to his lips that French perfume, orchids, couture dresses
and fine wine were not junk. Apparently
this simple country girl was not like the sort of girls he had known in Marseilles, where an
expensive gift was often preferable to personal attention.
“Now, honey,
don’t you fret your pretty head,” he said. “It’s nobody else, just Henri
feeling guilty at the time he is spending at the factory.”
“I don’t
understand why he has laid off so many people,” Natissia persisted. “Many of the families are in real distress,
and people are saying that if Henri, who is the kindest employer there is, has
sacked them, it must be for dishonesty, and I would vouch for all of them!”
“Oh, my,
didn’t he tell you?” René assumed a look of shock. “There had been a planned takeover of the
factory; one of them objected to Guillaume being dead, and they feared that
Henri would see how well he worked and ask to have them made into zombies. It was better to let them go, when they had
offered violence.”
“They should
know better than that! I will talk to
them, and if they apologise for such foolishness, then they can return to
work?”
“I’m sorry,
sweetheart, it’s too late. I wouldn’t
talk to them if I were you, they were very angry and I fear they might offer
you violence.”
“I cannot
believe that they would do so,” she declared.
“Nevertheless,
I would feel happier if you did not do so, I would hate to think of you being
unsafe, and so would Henri.”
“I wish he
will tell me all this himself, and look me in the eye to do so,” said Natissia.
“Well, as it
happens, he was planning to come over to see you this Saturday,” said René,
coming to the decision that the time had come for ‘Henri’ to make his final
exit. He had not learned enough to
recognise that Saturday, Samedi, was the province of the Loa known as Baron
Samedi, who was known, at times, to be whimiscal.
Henri crashed
the car, and René was the first to call on Natissia, and to hold her, sobbing,
in his arms.
“It’s all
right, honey,” he murmured. “Poor
Henri! I told him he was working too
hard, that he was overtired.”
“Why didn’t he
walk over?”
“I think he
wanted to show off his new car, honey.”
“Oh, but
why? Such things are not important! Oh how he has changed lately!” she sobbed harder.
“I am sorry if
the ambition he gained from knowing me has caused this,” said René, stroking
her hair. “But be assured I will not
forget Henri’s obligations. He has
trusted me with seeing that all is carried out as seems best to me.”
René assumed
control of the factory, and employed the sort of tactics he had learned in
Marseille to make sure other canning factory owners sold their businesses to
him at giveaway prices. He usually
employed them as managers, so little changed
save that his managers were dead, as were, very quickly, the employees.
René was very
pleased with himself, although he did not enjoy the dreams of skulls, one of
them horribly burned. Otherwise life was
good.
He continued
to visit Natissia, who was very quiet after the funeral. He left it a decent
two months before he said,
“My dear, I
know Henri would have wanted me to care for you. And I have become very fond of
you on my own account. Will you marry
me?”
She regarded
him thoughtfully.
“Yes, René, I
shall,” she said. “You have been good to
us and my family think the world of you.
I am no good at business, but I will always mediate in the factories if
need be. I am good at that.”
“You are so
very good with people,” said Henri, thankful that she had not managed to be
good with the people he had sacked, since he had had them run out of town
before she had the chance to visit them.
She was
decorative enough to keep him amused while he consolidated his position in Haiti,
and when he left, he would arrange a quiet divorce so that he could take his
wealth to buy himself into an old family.
Then at last he would have social position as well as wealth, and well
worth spending a year or two in the hell-hole that was Haiti. Especially with a pretty girl to while away
the time.
Of course he
would need to find a manager prepared to continue in the same way, making more
zombies, and replacing the manager-zombies when they started to look dead. He had a man in mind, who would expect a
large cut, but it would be worth it.
That man happened to be in Marseilles. René, however, was certain that he could
leave things running themselves in Haiti,
and make a business trip to Marseilles,
so Natissia was not suspicious until she received her decree nisi. Then he could
prepare his protégé to come out to Haiti.
Meanwhile, the
marriage took place, and René managed not to sneer at the sad devotion of the
locals to the old religion. Natissia
looked beautiful, if a trifle wistful and lost in a dress from River Island. René was looking forward to taking it off;
Natissia had been quite firm in how far she would permit him to go before the
Catholic church had planted its seal of approval on the union. Once they were married, Natissia was a good
and pliant wife, and if she did not initiate any lovemaking, well, that made
her a better wife for not having too many ideas of her own. René did not believe in the concept of women
thinking. It was, to his mind,
unnatural. He was just thankful that she
never even mentioned Henri’s name, nor spoke again about the conditions at the
factories he owned. She was plainly a
real woman after all, who was content with a comfortable life and no need to
think or worry.
Once
everything had settled to a routine, and René was beginning to be bored with
his bride, he called Natissia over to him.
“What can I do
for you, husband?” she asked.
“I will need
to go back to France,
briefly, to sort out some matters there,” he said. It was no less than the truth, as well as
training a protégé he also wanted to look over his businesses based in Marseilles.
“That will be
fun,” said Natissia.
He flicked a
careless finger down her cheek.
“I was going
to leave you here to see nothing goes wrong,” he said. “You’d be bored; I won’t
have time to show you about, I’ll be in meetings all the time. Business in France
isn’t like business in Haiti,
where meetings happen over meals. I’ll be stuck in board rooms for hours with
people who don’t even know what outdoors smells like.”
“It sounds
horrible,” said Natissia. “Why don’t you
sell your businesses in France
and then you won’t have to visit?”
“Oh, I’ll
think about it,” said René, mendaciously.
“But I will want a manager here who can leave me more time to spend with
you, honey, and I believe I know someone who could do the job well, who
deserves a promotion. But I wasn’t
planning on wasting time talking about my trip; I wanted to throw a party,
invite all the local notables. Can you
organise that, sweetheart?”
“Oh yes!” said
Natissia. “That sort of thing I do very
well. Watermelon for the last course, I
think.”
“Yeah,
grand. I’ll leave the details to you,”
said René.
“You’ve become
a big man locally, René,” said Hercule Froissart, who grew much of the fruit
that René’s factory canned. René
preened. People who would not have given him a second look when he first
arrived, now sat at his table, eating the excellent food, and drinking the
imported wine.
“Henri was
very excited about all the expansion, it’s a shame he bought a car that was too
powerful for him to handle,” René said.
“We could have been sharing in all this.”
“I wonder if
the idea of all that wealth went to his head?” M. Guizot spoke up. Nobody could imagine M. Guizot having a
personal name; his gravitas was too great, and all the other plantation owners
deferred to him. He went on, “He was
acting uncharacteristically, I thought.
Of course it has been to the ultimate good of the firm, but I did wonder
what had got into him.”
“Oh, Henri
just needed some Old World advice,” said
René. “Time for the watermelons, I
think!”
Natissia gave
the word, and two smiling houseboys brought in … a crate. René tutted impatiently. He would have liked to have had nice obedient
zombies, but he dared not risk it around his wife; she might notice. One of the house boys cracked open the seal on
the crate to reveal the watermelons, rich, green-rinded fruit, still inviting,
even if not prettily cut and displayed.
Inviting, that
was, until they started to move.
“Snake!” cried M. Guizot, in lively
alarm.
But it was not
a snake that burst out of the melons.
It was a
grinning, black skull.
And then
around it, the melons were decaying, stinking and rotten. Maggots, worms and beetles seethed and
crawled amongst the foetid mass.
The guests
fled intemperately.
René started
to try to rise, but somehow he was held in his seat. Only his wife remained in the room as the
servants joined the mass exodus.
“Natissia ….”
He croaked.
She smiled
brightly.
“Won’t you
greet our final guest, husband?” she gestured to the skeleton which had been
clothing itself in living flesh even as the melons decayed, and had climbed out
of the crate.
“Henri ….”
René gasped.
“Erzuli has
granted me one hour of life, Cousin René,” said Henri. “And if the one-way plane tickets in your
pocket had been for Natissia as well as for yourself, then I might have merely
made you sign over your Haitian goods to her father, who could sort things out,
for I would have understood if you had killed me for the love of her. But you have used her too.”
“I am no
sentimental fool,” said René. “What do
you intend to do?”
“I intend to
kill you,” said Henri. “Your guests will
remember nothing but that you had an apoplectic fit over a practical joke
played on you by the servants. It’s
easier to convince people to believe something with some basis in truth. All I require you to do is to sign a will,
stating that you leave everything you own to your wife, Natissia.”
“I will not,”
said René.
Henri
shrugged.
“Then Natissia
will make you into a zombie to right the wrongs you have done,” he said,
simply.
René stared at
his wife.
Natissia
smiled. It was a brittle smile.
“Henri never
told you that the Mambo who created Guillaume was me,” she said. “I follow the Loa, Erzuli, who only permits
the making of zombies for good purpose.
I knew when you had killed Henri, but one cannot denounce Voudon to the
authorities; they take a dim view of such reports. So, I placed my unborn son
by Henri into a limbo, so he might bide his time before being born; and I
waited for a chance of revenge. That
time has come. I shall be a tragic rich
widow and my posthumous son assumed to be yours. If you sign, your death will be quick,
merciful and eternal. If you do not,
then you will know the torment of being a trapped soul as my abject slave.”
Her tone was
almost indifferent; no hatred, no anger.
Somehow that made her words more chilling.
René had never
considered how any of his tractable zombies felt. The idea of being aware that one was a zombie
filled him with horror beyond the atheist fear of death.
He signed.
And then he
prayed fervently for the first time in his life as the face of his cousin drew near,
partly the handsome, ebon features of Henri in life, and yet somehow carrying
the semblance of the charred remains of the burned skull laid over the jovial
face.
Henri’s hands
were at René’s unresisting throat, and all the teachings of the priest came
back to René, who knew he was excommunicate, and that there was no heaven for
those who did not repent.
With a
despairing wail as Henri exerted pressure on René’s carotids, René realised
that regret for consequences did not constitute repentance.
Henri kissed
Natissia lightly on the lips.
“Alas, you
already grow cold, my love,” said Natissia.
“The grave
calls me. Rear our son to be a good
man.”
“I will. I will teach him to wield the power with
compassion. And when he is grown, I will
join you.”
“Fare well, my
love.”
The flesh was
already melting from his bones, and the melons restored to their former shapes,
rather over-ripe, perhaps, for no power comes free, and some payment must be
made for the transformaton.
The skeleton
slumped in the box of melons, held together with wire, like the practical joke
it had been supposed to be, and Natissia telephoned for an ambulance for her
husband, her hand protectively on her belly as her son, released from limbo,
began to kick.
