Hannibal Rising Page 0,46

faces from his dreams, and comes at last to the gibbon skull, first shining white on the great fangs and then the brow above the deep eye sockets. From the dark inside its skull, the gibbon watches Hannibal asleep. Hannibal 's face is childlike. He makes a noise and turns on his side, pulling his arm away from an unseen grip.

Standing with Mischa in the barn beside the lodge, holding her close, Mischa coughing. Bowl-Man feels the flesh of their arms and speaks, but no sound comes out of his mouth, only his vile breath visible in the freezing air. Mischa buries her face against Hannibal 's chest to get away from Bowl-Man's breath. Blue-Eyes is saying something, and now they are singing, cozening. Seeing the axe and bowl. Flying at Blue-Eyes, taste of blood and beard stubble, they are taking Mischa away. They have the axe and the bowl. Breaking free and running after them, feet liftingtooosloooow to the door, Blue-Eyed One and Bowl-Man holding Mischa by her wrists above the ground, she twisting her head to look back desperately at him across the bloody snow and calling-

Hannibal came awake, choking, holding on to the end of the dream, clamping his eyes tight shut and tried to force himself past the point where he awoke. He bit the corner of the pillowcase and made himself go over the dream. What did the men call each other? What were their names?

When did he lose the sound? He couldn't remember when it went away. He wanted to know what they called each other. He had to finish the dream.

He went into his memory palace and tried to cross the grounds to the dark sheds, past Mr. Jakov's brains on the snow, but he could not. He could endure to see his mother's clothes on fire, his parents and Berndt and Mr. Jakov dead in the yard. He could see the looters moving below him and Mischa in the hunting lodge. But he could not go past Mischa suspended in the air, turning her head to look at him. He could remember nothing after that, he could only recall much later, he was riding on a tank, found by the soldiers with the chain locked around his neck. He wanted to remember. He had to remember. Teeth in a stool pit. The flash did not come often; it made him sit up. He looked at the gibbon in the moonlight. Teeth much smaller than that. Baby teeth. Not terrible. Like mine can be. I have to hear the voices carried on their stinking breath, I know what their words smell like. I have to remember their names. I have to find them. And I will. How can I interrogate myself?

Chapter 36-37

36

PROFESSOR DUMAS WROTE a mild, round hand, unnatural in a physician. His note said: Hannibal, would you please see what you can do in the matter of LouisFerrat at LaSante?

The professor had attached a newspaper clipping about Ferrat's sentencing with a few details about him: Ferrat, from Lyon, had been a minor Vichy functionary, a petty collaborator during the German occupation, but then was arrested by the Germans for forging and selling ration coupons. After the war he was accused of complicity in war crimes, but released for insufficient evidence. A French court convicted him of killing two women in 1949-1950 for personal reasons. He was scheduled to die in three days.

LaSante Prison is in the 14th arrondissement, not far from the medical school. Hannibal reached it in a fifteen-minute walk.

Workmen with a load of pipe were repairing the drains in the courtyard, the site of guillotine executions since the public was barred from attending in 1939. The guards at the gate knew Hannibal by sight and passed him in. As he signed the visitors' log he saw the signature of Inspector Popil high on the page.

The sound of hammering came from a large bare room off the main corridor. As he passed by, Hannibal caught sight of a face herecognized. The state executioner, AnatoleTourneau himself, traditionally known as "Monsieur Paris," had brought the guillotine from its garage on the Rue de laTombe-Issoire to set it up inside the prison. He was twiddling the little wheels of the blade carrier, the mouton, which prevent the blade from jamming on its way down.

Monsieur Paris was a perfectionist. To his credit, he always used a cover at the top of the uprights so the subject did not have to see the blade.

LouisFerrat was