#lm2000

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Javert wonders, sometimes, if he has gone mad. The people of Montreuil-sur-Mer love their mayor. He hears as woman call the man a bear, and suffers a moment of excitement, uncomfortable twitch all through his body, almost energetic: thinks that she, too, can see how those hulking shoulders move slow and threatening through a crowd, the menace that is like a red light in eyes under heavy brows, the heavy hands that are paws which would rend apart—but no; she is startled, he is quiet, and she did not know he was present, and she is puzzled as she explains an entirely different metaphorical figure. Accused of some gothic cave in place of a bedroom, he invites women to view it, and when Javert hears of it he shudders with the question of their safety—but they laugh, they twitter, the mayor was merry over it, in his slow booming way, and it was like any man’s bedroom. 

Monsieur Madeleine goes his way, and Javert follows behind, slow and cautious, and tries to tell himself that a rich man’s eccentricities are not his concern. Such things have never been of interest to him. He is a hunter of thieves and poachers, unlicensed whores and counterfeiters, not—this, whatever this is. A threat, and if there’s something about the bulbous nose and broad shoulders that seem familiar, well, his unease is enough already. Then—there’s the whore’s wedding. Loose morals are not his business any more than a rich man’s sins, unless they are expressed in real crime. Still. It troubles him, Madeleine’s strange slanting humor over it. He could be convinced of the value of a woman exchanging a fille publique’s license for the marriage papers. Perhaps. Unless she is still to work, as a married woman? Well, whoever fathers the children, they’ll serve France, he supposes.

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Despairing, he thinks: it ought not have come to this. Why must he roam as he does, and seem to find himself in every place? Madeleine’s hand is at Javert’s throat, but he’s silent. Javert wishes he would speak. 

It starts like this: the café was not one of his usual haunts, a complaint to follow up on, a conversation overheard, slang and filth from the galleys taken up by the mouths of men who had never been there but wished to consummate a crime common to the chained and the desperate and the womanless. He notes their names and makes his way back towards the station house to open a file, itching under the close brick of the ramparts to his left and the house walls to the right. He thinks wistfully of forests and the baying of the bloodhounds. He prefers poachers and brigands for prey, but he goes where his superiors send him. He must pass by the mayor’s house, so disreputably kept in the low town, and is displeased to see him emerge from the front door and come down to the fence. He touches his hat and hopes he may pass by, but Madeleine makes a sign for him to wait.

Javert halts, his chin lifted but his gaze respectfully held at the level of Madeleine’s breast. Waits. God, the man’s silences! He flicks a look up, meets inscrutable eyes, lets himself focus instead on one uneven ear. Is it the consequence of head trauma, he ponders, the kind that cracks and slides the skull about to reform ever so slightly yet grotesquely wrong?

“Inspector,” he says, low, “you look like you are off to a fine meal. You were smiling, slightly. I might want to follow you to see where in town can make Javert look eager.”

“I found a pair of buggers,” he says, offended at the accusation he would spend his wages prodigally on such pettiness as food, then frowns in tired distaste at Madeleine’s guffaw. “Forgive the unfortunate implication, monsieur. I was not smiling, but grimacing. I will file a preliminary report at the station so that myself and your other agents of the police can monitor them.”

“If that is a grimace, then all the world is a frown.” He’s smiling, now, as he leans his thick hands on the fence. “Buggery isn’t a crime.” 

“Indecency. Disturbing of the peace. Obscenity. These are crimes, monsieur. The buggery is merely a revolting mechanic of a perversion that disorders society. If the state’s law does not persecute based on God’s law, then it is because God will handle His business. We handle ours.”

Madeleine opens the gate, and an invitation can be derived from his gaze. Or an order. “If it is a revolt, it comes from what were the galleys.”

“These were not galériens. They were not, that is to say, bagnards, or forçats, or whatever name you want for them. Men who are not convicts will bugger each other.”

“You know so surely? Come in, inspector. You recognized them by the words they used, didn’t you? You are familiar with them. You were a guard. Guards see much, though they stop little.”

The hair prickles on the back of his neck, unease, the bristling of a hound. “I will not take your time with this.”

“You won’t take anything of mine. I’ll take yours—your time, that is. Come in.” 

It is a command. He proceeds with a slow step, his long hair falling over his cheeks. There is a blush there he cannot account for. Shame. There is no fire in the hearth, no ashes. He stares at the naked stone and murmurs, “You do not call dogs fucking in the street obscene. You merely beat them into the kennel, where they do not make an offensive sight for citizens. The bagne is a kennel, of sorts.” 

“Do you know, inspector, your voice has a kind of hypnotic quality. Not unpleasant.” Madeleine seizes him by the upper arm, fingers slipping over the leather of his coat before they clench tight, tight, the seam of the sleeve pressing into skin. “You might say more pleasant of things.” And turns him, roughly. “Look around you. I keep my home a kind of kennel, to remember humbleness.” 

“Dogs do not read so much, I think, or keep silver on the mantle. Forgive the argument, monsieur.” 

“You often argue. It is unpleasant. Did I not say that you ought to do elsewise?” His hand slides up to his shoulder, too harsh to be a caress, and pauses to dig a moment into the meat of his shoulder. “I think you ought to tell me what you know about buggery. Pleasantly. I think when we are done you will find it isn’t the state’s business, that it is not disordering. You are incapable of causing disorder—isn’t that what you think, inspector? I think you will not be able to hold yourself above others, unless you change your mind on the matter. Then those men you overheard will not be at risk of your report-writing, and they will not go to the bagne, where no-one should go. Though—who knows! Maybe I do them wrong.” He shows his teeth. “They might think the hard labor worth a hard fucking. One of the, at least, who’s looking to play woman. I don’t hazard the minds of the buggered.” He gives him a little shake. “You should explain to me.” 

“If I were to so fall as you suggest,” Javert says, in a last quietly-spoken attempt to save himself, “I would report on them and myself and you, and resign. I am upright, monsieur, in truth, and no hypocrite.” He makes eye contact, and feels hope, in the pause that follows. It hurts, a throbbing in his temples, to threaten a magistrate. He tries to frame it to himself as a warning, as he might warn a man about to step in shit with his fine boots. He feels the strength of the hand on him, and thinks of other strong men he has known. No, no. 

Madeleine’s fingers close around his throat, harsh, the grip exact: Javert will be able to speak, with discomfort. A practiced torture. “Do as I’ve said.”