Piano Wire

“Francois, Francois c’mon, let go of my neck!”

Etienne’s plea for mercy was delivered with a giggle, muffled as it was. The stiff green collar of his parade uniform twisted and scrunched behind his head. Etienne’s hair was the sort of blonde colour that ought to have the purity of a wax crayon, but is darkened by a perennial soot-black undertone stretched across the scalp. The soot was inseparable from the blonde hair, but noticeably different. Even in Francois’ hand, the strands pulled to attention, the black blended into the yellow, but contrasted with it. Like titanium in beach sand, thought Francois.

“Francois, Francois this is getting old.” Etienne grunted between phrases. “Get your ape arms off me, man. Dammit, you’ve got piano wire on your arms!” Francois returned the jibe with a squeeze of his bicep and tug of the dirty blonde hair, bringing Etienne’s face into his ribs, and contorting the smaller man’s now throbbing ear a few degrees more.

“Now what’d you say about my mom?”
“Nothing! Nothing man. I’m sorry?”
“Sorry for nothing? That won’t do.”

Francois squeezed again, wringing the small man’s neck and forcing Etienne to twist his body to maintain the unbroken state of his vertebrae. His face was buried in Francois’ muscular and unnaturally hairy armpit. Captive, he noticed it wasn’t the density of Francois’ hair that was extraordinary so much as the thickness of each individual strand. Incredible. Like a bloody horse’s main. This situation called for dramatics.

“Hmmmmmpf!” Etienne gurgled from beneath the clamp of flesh, putting on his best suffocation voice.
“What’s that you midget devil?”

Etienne screamed something inaudible, and the sound wasn’t intended to form words. Etienne just felt a desire to regurgitate the salty mass of hair from his mouth. Like lifting a great weight, that sort of thing was better accomplished with a loud grunt. And disgust. This was disgusting. Francois released the smaller man from his salty grave.

“You bastard.” Etienne spat and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
“Quit it, you’ve already gobbed in my armpit. I hate taking extra showers.”
“Extra showers? Start with your first one, and work from there.”

"Ah." Dammit. Francois wanted to say something but felt his diaphragm twist and contort, and no air would come out over his vocal chords for him to say what he felt in the pit of his stomach and the black behind his eyes, to cut Etienne in half with his wit. He buttoned his shirt and fixed the loose medals to his breast pocket. Etienne could really piss him off sometimes.

“Men! Fall in!” The Lieutenant’s heals clacked on the stone of the courtyard.

“Le Roux! What in the name of Proux’s mother are you doing?”

Again, that lead in his chest. He really ought to read a few Oscar Wilde books, thought Francois. He ignored the gleeful stare shot in his direction from under the eyebrows of now composed Etienne Le
Roux.

“I was fixing my collar, Sir”, Etienne barked in a clear tone across the barracks courtyard, the slight rasp of his voice was more evident in the echo from the grey sandstone walls.

“Le Roux..." Lieutenant took a few steps to consider his words carefully.

"You’re a complete cock-up. Twenty minutes from parade and you see fit to dress yourself. How many times have you been promoted, Caporal-Chef Le Roux?”
“Eight times, Sir.” Etienne protruded his chin.
“And how many times have you been demoted?” Etienne suppressed a smile.
“Five times, Sir.”
“I see you’re smiling, Le Roux. Are you happy that this son of a Poilu is of a higher rank than you, Le Roux?” The Lieutenant gesticulated in the direction of Francois as he spoke while keeping his eyes fixed on Etienne (whom he disliked as much as Francois, but for different reasons).
The Lieutenant mulled over how much he disliked people almost constantly, and he had reduced the problem to a simple formula over dinner the evening before. He explained to his wife, who had mastered the skill of hearing without listening, that if Etienne le Roux was a hair, and Francois Proux was a tortoise, then he did not like races very much at all.

Francois mentally preened his parade stance: straight back, chin thrust out, buttocks pulled tight. Conduct befitting a French “sergent”, apparently.

Sergent Francois Proux. It was a satisfaction for Francois to say the word, sergent. It wasn’t quite
“Marechal de France”, but it wasn’t rank and file either. Besides, it rolled off the tongue pleasantly.

“Sergent…”

“Fall back in, Le Roux. Proux, over here, now.”
“Yes, Sir!”
“Present your weapon. Good. Good. Open the breach. Fine. Remove the magazine. Red only. Good. Japrisot! Over here. Present your weapon. Excellent. Open the breach. Good. Red safety cartridge? Very good. Fall back into line. Clemence! Over here n…”

The Lieutenant continued down the line, inspecting the weapons of the soldiers with the factory foreman method. He spoke with a weary tone, as if every word had shoulders to shrug, and each phrase was capable of sighing.

When Etienne’s turn came, the blonde man noticed Francois was staring at him intently, or rather staring at his hands. Francois snapped out of his reverie only when Etienne thrust a pointed finger into his clenched fist. coupled with his hands, Etienne's expression conveyed the message to Francois.

“You’re a homo….”

Francois looked down and away, to the side. Etienne smirked.

“Good, fall back in, Le Roux.”
The Lieutenant turned to addressed the troops, and spoke in a tone slightly higher and more businesslike (if that was at all possible) than he had a few moments before. The troops recognised it
as the Lieutenant’s parade voice. A good deal of collective chin-thrusting, back-straightening and buttock-clenching was about to ensue.

“Listen carefully! All of you have heard that horse manure before. I don’t need to tell you what a Soldat of the French Army is, a man of honour and what-not. Frankly, the French Army doesn’t exist. Not how they think of it, anyway.”

The Lieutenant raised a leather-gloved finger and pointed toward the parade stands outside the courtyard walls.

“Point is, the men sitting on those stands rather enjoy their ideas, and I enjoy them too, because they feed me. And I feed you.”

The Lieutenant had the habit of clacking the steel heels of his boots against the flagstones of the courtyard whenever he addressed a matter besides discipline. This meant he was in a more amiable mood than normal.

“Let’s get this over with. You know the drill. One rifleman to fire three blank shots into the air upon exiting the courtyard. Thereafter, follow my commands.” The Lieutenant scanned the first line of soldiers in the column. “And wouldn’t you know it, Le Roux, today’s your lucky day to do duty to God and Country.”

“Excuse me, Sir?” No one knows what Etienne was about to say then.

“Shut up. Viva la France!” The Lieutenant spun to face the opposite direction almost as quickly as he’d answered Etienne, and then proceeded to clack his way forward. In perfect unison, the troops hailed the echo, “Viva la France!”

Upon Francois’ order the troops snapped a quarter turn to the right and blended more or less seamlessly into a column two men abreast. Two awkward-looking soldats collided, one dropped his rifle. Etienne stood a metre in front of the column as the designated rifleman. The Lieutenant clacked ten meters ahead. Francois commanded the rear of the column as the deputy officer.

“Forward march! Rifleman!”

It was then that Etienne half-turned his body, and turned his head a fraction more. Those who had served with Etienne Le Roux long enough knew exactly what the glimmer from the white of his eyes meant. In a few seconds, the left hand corner of his mouth would to grow a millimetre; it would turn slowly upward, excruciatingly subtle, but instantly noticeable.

The crack formed by the meeting of his lips and cheek would slide slowly upward, drawn like water skin up the side of a glass. His eyes were strained in their sockets; the chin raised a fraction upward and to the left. He gripped the rifle with soft hands, nursing it against his chest. Francois saw the entire scene in silhouette, the muzzle Etienne’s rifle grew from his mouth. Francois couldn’t agree more with his own musing. Etienne’s mouth was a gun.

Most would agree that Etienne had the theatre in his blood. Today his audience would all be
wearing uniforms. Perfectly composed, Etienne brought his right hand up in a smooth motion, slowly and deliberately, his thumb extended in an over-exaggerated thumbs-up that asked, “Are you
watching closely…?” The column held its collective breath. Even the clumsy ones made sure of pressing fragmentation grenades fast against their bodies – the sound of metal clinking against metal would break the magic.

“Rifleman!?”

Etienne lowered his thumb, extended his index finger and pressed it against his lips just as deliberately as he had extended his thumb. The subtle smirk broke like a small lake wave against a shore, rippling across his face and revealing white teeth that were previously hidden.

The column stood fast in anticipation. Francois did not blink, his expression was completely vacant except for what a young soldat would later describe as a moment of sheer excitement. It is said that the tiniest gap appeared between his lips, and he drew a short, sharp breath inward.

The leather of Etienne’s leather boots squeaked and complained as it flexed against the flagstones. Etienne held his breath, bending his knees a fraction, contracting muscles and tightening sinews. Etienne was stalking.

“Rifleman!” The Lieutenant, God in his universe: the barracks, would never have considered turning back around to reissue an already plainly-given command. His words carried more weight than that. The column was still, Francois was silent. Etienne grinned like the Cheshire cat.

Etienne’s movements were beautiful though ominous-looking, and part of a joke. A lion stalking a stuffed toy under the big top. In one moment he was stiff like toffee, controlled and constant in
movement, and suddenly water and then toffee again. Now he lay flat against the flagstone, legs spread ridiculously wide for would-be balance. Troops suppressed giggles and agonisingly breathed laughter out. A single snort of the nose would spell an end to the fun. Everyone loves pantomime.

The same soldat would recount that at this moment, Sergent Francois Proux began to quiver. Small flecks of sweat beaded over his lip.

“Sergent?” Francois Proux appeared not to hear him, fixated on the scene ahead.

“RIFLEMAN!”

It was then that Etienne’s grin threatened to explode like a coil off his face a bound over the floor, unleashed. Grins and furtive glances were had all round. Expressions of glee and “Oh my gosh,” and elbows in the ribs. In the milliseconds before Etienne Le Roux pulled the trigger he drank it in, the warmth of an adoring audience. Francois thrilled in anticipation.

The shot rang out. The parade had begun. The Lieutenant spun around characteristically on his heals. He opened his mouth as if to speak but said nothing. He said nothing, but looked down to the messy hole ripped in his chest. Bewilderment splashed his expression when he noticed claret pumping nauseatingly from the wound. The smell of acid filled his nostrils. One of the troops had vomited. In front of him stood the column, all sharing his expression except for the junior with hands on knees, spitting bile. The Lieutenant thought Le Roux looked silly on the floor like that. He
could taste iron.

Etienne watched in disbelief as rich, oxygenated blood welled-up in the Lieutenant’s mouth and
oozed it’s way over the crest of his lip and down across his porcelain chin. He saw a single rib leering at him from the wound, shocking white in between so much red.

Not a sound could be heard but for the gargling of the Lieutenant and the retching of the soldat. Etienne spasmed in shock and dropped his rifle with a clang from his hands. He rolled onto his back, before drawing his legs upward and curling into the fetal position. He began to moan. Short animal moans to punctuate the rocking motion he was now engaged in.

Footsteps were heard from the rear of the column. Francois appeared next to the dying Lieutenant, now collapsed on the floor. He appeared to be suffocating. Francois was perfectly composed, his mood completely removed from the situation. It was mild, almost pleasant.

He breathed in, took a moment to admire the wind in the treetops that peered over the roof of the barracks, and the clouds ambling across the sky.

Francois spoke to his boots, in the same manner that one would speak to a baker who had sold out of a favourite cake. “Ah yes, what a pity.” A few of the soldats heard the remark, and looked at Francois Proux.

He cocked his head to one side, and politely countered their dazed gaze with, “It was such a lovely day for a parade, was it not?”

Then he looked down bashfully, “I'm rather fond of parades...”

As he was trailing off the soldats could find no words to speak, but felt strangely compelled to follow manners and look down at their boot laces, almost to the point of chuckling shyly in acknowledgment of a friendly and awkward social exchange that was forced upon them.

Sergent Proux remembered himself, and brought his head up. He exhaled stiffly, tensed his stomach muscles, protruded his chin, furrowed his brow and presented his chest in a full manner, as a means of marrying the resolve in his mind to the sight of his body, and expression.

“For God and Country, Francois.”

Sergent Francois Proux smooth the sleeves of his jacket, and skewed and then readjusted his cap. His fingers checked an inventory of brass buttons and ribbons, epaulets and ribbons. He addressed the wretched troops.

“I’ve assumed command as the deputy officer. You all saw what he did. This is the French Army. What you have just witnessed is treason. You three, get him against the wall.”

Etienne was incapable of moving, a Pompeii figure in the flesh. Two junior soldats took hold of his arms and moved him as close to the wall as his body position would allow. He was still moaning, still rocking back and forth.

“FIRE!”

Before the triggers were squeezed, Sergent Francois Proux was smiling softly, sweetly, distantly. The chaplains on the parade grounds could be heard from over the wall, blessing the gathered
crowd, the Army and the parade in a manner that was a curious mix of pious paternity and military efficiency. Someone else to Francois' left muttered a blasphemy, one of the firing squad.

And in his coat pocket his fingers amused themselves between eight small, red, blank rifle cartridges.