First Blood (11 page)

“Sodium chloride.”

“That’s salt, isn’t it?” Leroy asked.

“Coarse table salt,” the medical examiner responded.

“How did it get there?”

“I see only one possibility. The killer or killers left it there intentionally.”

Chadoutaud dug in the burned flesh and found more salt crystals.

“That’s what happened. After ripping out his heart, they stuffed the wound with salt.”

“They replaced the heart with salt? But why?” Leroy asked.

“Salt increases the pain of open wounds, but not if someone is already dead,” Eva said. “Maybe it’s some kind of superstition.”

“I don’t have an explanation,” the medical examiner said. “I can only give you the facts. Whatever the reason, the person or people who did this were prepared and knew exactly what they wanted to do to him. Nothing was left to chance.”

Leroy nodded.

“A deadly grudge.”

“No kidding.”

“Could this be some kind of personal vendetta?,” Eva asked Leroy. “Tearing out his heart because he broke someone’s else’s heart? Or was it a message that this man had no heart? Maybe someone who had been terribly wronged was taking justice into their own hands.”

Pauline Chadoutaud watched the two of them and then added, “I see what you’re thinking.”

Eva stiffened. She knew they would get to it at some point.

“We have finished with the first victim. I would like to proceed with the post-mortem examination of the second victim now.”

The second victim.

The child. The baby. That tiny body lying on the steel table, waiting for the scalpel, the saw, the cutter, and the organ scale.

She suddenly could not breathe.

Pictures flash on the large screen in the lecture hall: children laid out, naked, sacrificed to gods of bygone days. There is murmuring in the tiers. The boys are making jokes. The girls are annoyed.

“Infanticide is a crime that has been taboo in every culture, alongside patricide and incest.”

After nearly a year of lectures, the professor in the red jacket still has an unbearable voice. His classes are extremely soporific. The class has thinned considerably over the months. Fewer than a third of the seats still hold students.

“You must admit that killing your own offspring is one of the most unnatural acts imaginable. Why unnatural? Because the natural order of things dictates that our children are meant to outlive us.”

Ismael and Madeleine are sitting in the first row. They attend more regularly than the others, although they are not necessarily the best students, according to Mr. Parme.

He recites the lecture, which he has given for years, at a deliberate pace with pauses to allow the students to take careful notes.

“When a person kills his own child, he puts his own death into perspective. It denies life and humanity.”

Madeleine gnaws on her pen. From time to time, she jots down a name or a reference. Ismael sits next to her, loyal to his habit of reading a book. This time, it is a photo album of human bodies preserved in formaldehyde. She admires his ability to do two things at once, like exploring such hard-to-stomach books and listening to the class. Ismael, despite his detachment, is listening to every word.

He even looks up at that moment. He focuses on Mr. Parme’s lecture, his clear eyes shining. Madeleine has already seen him in this state of excitement when he talks about serial killers and gods, saints and madmen. His enthusiasm is contagious sometimes. And dangerous at others.

“Modern pop philosophy,” he grumbles. “Ancient indigenous people didn’t have our westernized ways of seeing life and death. On the contrary, they encouraged patricide and infanticide for clan survival.”

Madeleine is used to this kind of reaction to Mr. Parme’s assertions. She feels tension in the air. This has happened several times before. She has the strange feeling that she can visualize people’s emotions as if they bubble up and slough off. At that moment, she is seeing the emotion beneath the dark skin of her friend.

She blinks, and the illusion stops.

On the stage, the professor continues his amplified monologue. The giant screen shows a dark and terrifying painting of a monster holding a child’s body. The monster is closing its mouth over the body to devour the child. Its eyes are crazed, devilish, and yet filled with distress.

“Saturn devouring his son,” Ismael whispers. “I love this painting.”

“As we will see, infanticide has always been the privilege of the gods in their blood struggles,” Mr. Parme goes on. “Every system has divinities that committed this sin. The painting you see is by Francisco de Goya. You will note that it is not beautiful. In fact, it is violent and powerfully ugly. It’s like a vision of hell.”

Ismael grumbles. “What bullshit.”

Madeleine chuckles.

“It represents the Greek God Cronus, called Saturn by the Romans, eating his child. You should know that Cronus attacked his own father, cut off his testicles, and took his place. His father had sworn that one of his own sons would dethrone him. To keep the curse from coming true, Cronus ate his own offspring.”

“Now, that is true,” Ismael says.

Madeleine glances at him. He is half smiling.

She looks back at the screen, where another picture appears.

It is an ancient Greek banquet. Men and women in armor are seated around a table. They are sharing meat set out on multicolored plates.

“And here is Tantalus,” the professor says. “He is seen at the right in this painting, which is from the Delphic temple. You are probably familiar with his eternal punishment in the underworld. Does someone remember what it was?”

High up in the tiers, a boy in a hoodie raises his hand and hesitantly says, “To suffer eternal thirst and hunger?”

“Exactly, Guillaume. Tantalus was sentenced to eternal thirst and hunger. He was chained to a tree in a pool of water, with branches of fruit hanging just beyond his reach and the water would retreat every time he leaned over to quench his thirst. Why was he punished in this way?”

This time, Ismael’s voice rises from the first row, “Because he killed his son. He served him up for the gods to eat.”

Students murmur in the tiers. A girl groans in disgust. Ismael puts on a carnivorous smile. This is one of his favorite legends.

Mr. Parme nods. “That’s correct, Ismael. It is a terrible story. Tantalus brought together the gods and served them his own son. He thought he would please them. But the opposite was true.”

“Not exactly,” Ismael responds.

Madeleine tries to pinch his leg. She feels another confrontation coming on. They had already occurred far too often. She doesn’t want to be thrown out of the class another time.

The professor continues as if he hasn’t heard anything. “The price to pay for having killed his child was being condemned to the underworld with an exemplary punishment.”

Ismael waves his hand.

“Excuse me, but that is not at all what happened. For Tantalus, infanticide was a way to become immortal. He came up with that evening with the gods for just that purpose. It was designed to be a ritual of passage. It didn’t work the way he planned it because he was betrayed.”

The professor clears his throat.

“My dear Ismael, I see that you once again have a very interesting theory.”

“These are not theories,” the young man says. “There are numerous studies that discuss Tantalus in terms of infanticide leading to divinity, like Medea, who organized every detail of her children’s sacrifice to become divine. And...”

Madeleine shakes his arm. He sighs. Around him, students exchange amused looks. They are all used to this kind of fuss. Constantin is putting on his show. The teacher doesn’t find it funny. He returns to his lecture without further consideration of his student.

“It’s true,” Ismael says.

Madeleine smiles. She hates to admit it, but she finds her friend’s way of fighting the entire world with his unbelievable ideas—true or not—to be terribly attractive.

There is a half hour of class left. Ismael dives back into his book.

He does, however, look up when the professor starts in on Judeo-Christian mythology. While the other students take notes without thinking, Ismael listens and dissects. He has no interest in accumulating knowledge just to pass an exam. He wants to understand. He is looking to find the thread of meaning in myths.

“There is another very interesting case in the Bible,” Mr. Parme explains. “God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son by fire. It was a way of testing his faith. At the last minute, when Abraham had gone to the mountain to sacrifice his son, God stopped him.”

Ismael can’t keep quiet any longer.

“That is the official version of the story. But nobody knows exactly what happened.”

“What are you talking about, Ismael?”

“Wouldn’t it be interesting to ask what could have happened—or perhaps what really did happen—had Abraham gone through with the sacrifice?”

The professor looks at him, already on the defensive.

“God stopped him. It was nothing but a test of faith.”

“Exactly. Why would God have done that? He didn’t hesitate to kill his children in the flood, did he? Couldn’t it be possible that Abraham was looking to imitate him and that he did actually kill his child on the mountain? The text talks about a holocaust, a sacred immolation before God. At the time, the practice was very common.”

“The very idea is ridiculous,” the exasperated professor says. “Ismael, we have already discussed this, and I do not think that your wild imaginings really interest any of your classmates. Mythology is not a game of supposition. You are here to learn the curriculum.”

Ismael shakes his head and looks bitter.

“Of course. As soon as there’s an idea that doesn’t fit into your conception of things, it’s ridiculous. Is your course so sacred? It’s true that you learned it by heart without understanding it, and you would like all your students to do the same, also without understanding it. Isn’t that right?”

“I order you to be quiet,” the professor shouts, his face matching his jacket. “You don’t know anything. You’re just a freshman.”

“This class isn’t what I thought it was going to be.”

Murmurs that sound like a multitude of insect wings rise in the lecture hall. All eyes are on the young man with braided hair.

“Enough. If that’s what you think, please leave immediately. I’ve had enough of you disturbing my class.”

“You can’t do that. I’m a student like the others,” Ismael says.

“Get out,” the professor shouts, his voice amplified by the microphone.

In the tiers, other students start shouting their own opinions.

“Ismael, he’s right,” one student yells. “You’re being a pain in the ass.”

“We have an exam in a month.”

The contagion spreads. The students are getting worked up.

“Leave if you think you’re smarter than the teacher,” a girl shouts.

Mr. Parme stands on the stage, his hands on his hips, smiling at the girl like a conqueror.

Ismael Constantin stands up, his braids swirling around his neck like snakes poised for an attack.

“You’re right. I have no reason to be in this ridiculous farce. Thank you for opening my eyes to that.”

“My pleasure,” says the professor. “Now get out of here and leave me to finish my class.”

Madeleine gets up with her friend while the man, who is trembling slightly, goes back to his lecture. The other students dive back into their notes.

“This child was frozen about fifteen years ago,” the medical examiner said.

Eva crossed her arms.
Stay detached.
She had fended off dizziness since the beginning of the autopsy—the scientific desecration of this little body. She was fighting to continue standing, to ignore the sparkling colors dancing in the corners of her eyes. She was weak from lack of sleep. She had not eaten anything since the night before. Her blood sugar was low.

“The external examination of the wounds indicates that he had his throat cut. The subject died from blood loss.” Chadoutaud pointed out the wounds, allowing her assistant to take pictures. “I can distinguish three deep lesions that were caused by a sharp instrument, undoubtedly a knife. I see residual metal in the wounds. I will remove it for analysis. The cut was made by someone who was left-handed and very strong.”

Constantin was left-handed,
Eva thought. She was repeating what she had thought from the first instant. He had to be the murderer. But why was he keeping the child like that? For fifteen years in a freezer? And why would he put the freezer in a room behind an armored door? What kind of morbid fetish was that?

“Vertebra growth indicates that the child was between three and four months old.”

Leroy paced, nodding and shaking nervously. He was not looking at the body.
The baby.
Eva was having trouble swallowing. As hard as she tried to concentrate, she was losing her grip. The medical examiner listed her observations, most of little importance to the investigation, in a soft, melodious voice. As in the previous autopsy, the electric saw attacked the skull first. Then the scalpel cut into the child’s belly, progressively taking him apart. Eva watched as the ribs were sawed open, and the heart--no larger than a strawberry--and the stomach, liver, spleen, and lungs were removed, washed, weighed, examined, and commented upon. She realized that her jaw was hurting because she was clenching it so hard. The scissors continued to dig into the flesh, to separate the muscles. She desperately fought the nausea.

There was a knock at the door.

A respite. Eva finally breathed in.

Attention turned to the bald security guard who had bags under his eyes and a paunch spilling over the top of his front-pleated pants. He was waving a large envelope.