Forty Seconds

Paris, 1793 — 4:17 p.m.

Pierre jerked his head back when he saw Jacques standing among the condemned.

There were twelve in the tumbril, and Pierre had already looked over most without thinking much about them. He had learned not to look too closely at the people he was expected to kill. He checked whether they could walk without assistance and whether any might fight when brought to the guillotine.

Then his eyes landed on Jacques.

Jacques stared back, his face revealing nothing.

Pierre looked away as the tumbril continued along the cobblestones towards the scaffold. The smell of horses, manure, and too many bodies filled the street. People shouted insults while others cheered because Paris had grown accustomed to executions.

People who complained they could not afford bread stood beside merchants, labourers and men dressed well enough to suggest they had never missed a meal. Some wanted revenge against the aristocracy, others wanted justice, while some simply wanted to watch another head fall into the basket.

Pierre had stopped wondering why they came, but today he wished they would all go home.

When the tumbril stopped, Jacques climbed down and looked directly at Pierre again. There was no fear on his face, and that frightened Pierre more than anything.

4:19 p.m.

The first prisoner was brought forward, and Pierre performed his duties while his mind remained stuck on Jacques. Once the prisoner was positioned, Pierre released the blade and listened to the crowd roar.

One.

Pierre looked towards Jacques and found him watching.

Of course Jacques recognized him. He knew what Pierre did for a living and had known since the day they met. He knew the hood and clothing, but more importantly, he knew the way Pierre stood and moved around the guillotine.

Pierre needed some indication of what he should do, but Jacques gave him nothing.

When the next prisoner stepped forward, someone shouted that another aristocrat was about to die. A woman near the scaffold spat towards the prisoner.

Pierre could tell Guy everything.

He could tell him Jacques was innocent, that Jacques was his lover, and that the letters were about him.

The thought made Pierre feel sick. Guy would know, Elodie would know and, within moments, everyone around the scaffold would know.

Paris would know.

Pierre released the blade.

Two.

4:22 p.m.

Pierre looked towards Elodie, who stood near the front without cheering.

She had been Jacques's landlady, although she had wanted to be considerably more than that. Pierre knew about the dinners, invitations and walks she had suggested. Jacques had always tried to be polite while making it clear he wasn't interested.

Now Jacques stood on the scaffold because Elodie had discovered what he had tried so carefully to hide.

Pierre didn't know everything she had told Guy, but he knew enough. She had wanted Jacques humiliated, and Guy had given her considerably more than she asked for.

Another prisoner was brought forward.

Jacques's brown eyes remained fixed on him.

Why don't you say something?

Jacques didn't.

Pierre released the blade for the third time.

4:24 p.m.

The executions continued, but every time someone left the line, Jacques moved closer.

Pierre wanted him to fight or shout his name. He wanted Jacques to accuse Elodie, Guy, Pierre or even God, but Jacques stood straight with his hands together and watched him.

Pierre knew those hands. They were the hands of a mason, rough from years of lifting stone and working mortar into the spaces between them.

Those same hands had touched Pierre.

He swallowed hard as the next prisoner was positioned and hesitated before reaching for the clasp.

“Get on with it!”

Other voices joined in.

Pierre pulled the clasp and completed the fourth execution.

4:26 p.m.

Guy stepped closer. “Is something wrong?”

Pierre thought everything was wrong, but said, “No.”

Guy glanced towards Jacques.

“You're certain?”

Pierre could tell him now. Guy stood close enough that he wouldn't have to raise his voice. He could explain what Elodie had done and demand that Jacques's execution be stopped.

Pierre opened his mouth.

“Yes.”

Guy nodded and walked away, and Pierre hated himself before the magistrate had taken his second step.

Pierre completed the fifth execution and watched Jacques move closer to the guillotine.

4:28 p.m.

The crowd grew restless. Pierre checked the mechanism even though he knew there was nothing wrong with it.

Guy approached him. “Pierre.”

“I need to check it.”

“You've already checked it.”

“Something could be wrong.”

“We don't have time for this.”

Time was the only thing Pierre wanted. He needed enough for someone to stop what was happening, for Elodie to admit what she had done or for Guy to change his mind. More than anything, Pierre needed enough time to find the courage he had been searching for since seeing Jacques in the tumbril.

Their eyes met again.

Jacques gave him nothing.

Pierre turned back to the guillotine.

“It's ready.”

4:30 p.m.

Pierre released the blade on the sixth prisoner, although his hands had begun to shake. By the seventh, the crowd grew louder, and when the eighth came forward, Pierre noticed Elodie had stopped watching Jacques.

She was watching her brother.

There was fear on her face now, and Pierre was glad to see it. Whatever she had intended when she went to Guy, she was finally beginning to understand what she had set in motion.

After the ninth execution, only two condemned men remained ahead of Jacques.

Pierre could still tell them the truth, but when he imagined saying the words aloud, his courage failed again.

4:32 p.m.

The tenth prisoner died quickly.

Pierre stared at Jacques, searching his face for anger and then fear but finding neither. Jacques wasn't asking Pierre to save him, and Pierre couldn't understand why.

The eleventh prisoner fought the assistants, forcing two of them to hold him while he begged.

“Please!”

Pierre released the blade.

Jacques stepped forward.

4:34 p.m.

Everything around Pierre seemed to slow when Jacques walked towards the guillotine. Guy read the sentence, but Pierre heard little of it.

When Guy finished, he addressed Jacques directly.

“If you have anything further to say, speak now.”

Jacques looked at Pierre.

Pierre waited.

Jacques could expose him with one sentence. He could tell everyone the executioner standing before them was the man he loved. He could tell them about Elodie and what had actually led him to this scaffold.

He said nothing.

Guy waited.

“So be it.”

As the assistants positioned Jacques beneath the blade, Pierre stepped towards the mechanism and tried to close his hand around the clasp.

His fingers wouldn't cooperate.

He looked at Jacques and finally began to understand what Jacques had been telling him all afternoon.

Jacques hadn't stopped loving him, nor was he staring because he expected to be rescued. He had made his own decision.

He would not expose Pierre, even if remaining silent cost him his life.

Jacques knew Pierre was afraid. He knew what could happen if Pierre admitted their relationship before an enraged crowd and understood why Pierre had spent years hiding the part of himself Paris would not accept.

Jacques could destroy that secrecy with a few words.

Instead, he intended to die with it.

Pierre's hand shook against the clasp. He almost wished Jacques hated him because hatred would have been easier to survive.

What Pierre saw in Jacques's eyes wasn't hatred.

It was love.

Pierre wrapped his fingers around the clasp. He wanted to tell Guy everything, tear the hood from his head and tell everyone below that Jacques was the man he loved.

He tried to speak.

Nothing came.

The crowd shouted impatiently.

Pierre pulled the clasp.

The blade fell.

4:35 p.m.

Jacques's head fell into the basket while his body landed on the other side of the guillotine.

Pierre stared when he saw movement. He had heard stories throughout his career about what happened to the body after the blade fell and had dismissed most of them.

This time the body belonged to Jacques.

Pierre began counting.

At one second, Jacques's hand moved. By the third, Pierre could barely breathe. Jacques had protected him, and Pierre allowed it. He could have spoken. He could at least have tried.

The crowd became distant as Pierre reached twenty-seven, then twenty-eight.

Someone called his name.

Pierre continued counting.

At thirty-five seconds, Jacques's hand lay still.

By thirty-six, Pierre finally understood what Jacques had been telling him with his eyes all along.

He wanted Pierre to live.

Pierre reached thirty-seven before everything went dark and he hit the boards.

He never reached forty.

4:41 p.m.

When Pierre opened his eyes, Guy was standing over him.

“Pierre?”

Pierre pushed himself upright. The crowd had begun to leave, having got what they wanted, but Pierre cared only about the one person still on the scaffold.

He forced himself to stand.

Guy reached for him, but Pierre pushed his hand away and went to Jacques. He lifted his body and started towards his cart.

“Pierre, what are you doing?” an assistant asked.

Pierre ignored him.

The man followed. “You can't take him.”

Pierre kept walking.

“Pierre!”

Guy directed his response to the assistant.

“Leave him alone and let him go.”

Pierre carried Jacques's body and head to his cart without looking back.

4:44 p.m.

Pierre drove through Paris with Jacques's severed head and body in the cart.

He didn't cover him.

People looked.

Some pointed as they recognized the man who had just been executed. Others recognized Pierre.

Pierre kept his eyes on the road.

The wheels struck a rut, and the cart bounced.

All those years, Pierre had feared people discovering who Jacques was to him.

Now he hoped everyone in Paris would see Jacques's body in his cart.

His fear had turned to shame.

4:51 p.m.

Pierre stopped outside his house and carried Jacques's body inside. He returned for his head.

When the door closed, Pierre's legs gave way.

He sank to the floor and wanted to cry. His entire body ached with torment, and grief raked across his heart like broken glass.

Yet no tears came.

He crawled towards Jacques and pulled his body against his.

Pierre rocked him back and forth.

A sound rose from somewhere deep inside him.

He moaned.

Still, Pierre couldn't cry.

He wasn't sure he would ever love another person again.

4:55 p.m.

A knock stopped him.

Pierre lowered Jacques and went to the door.

Laurette, his sister, stood outside.

Neither spoke.

She stepped forward and put her arms around him.

Pierre pulled her inside and took her to Jacques.

Laurette stopped.

She looked at Jacques and then at her brother.

“Pierre, I know a place where we can bury him so you can visit him without fear.”

“Okay. I think that's a good idea. We'd better go now.”

Pierre looked down at Jacques.

“I'll carry his head.”

Laurette returned from the kitchen with two towels and wrapped Jacques's head before Pierre lifted it into her arms.

Pierre placed Jacques's body over his shoulder, grabbed his spade from the shed and followed Laurette.

5:02 p.m.

They walked towards the Seine.

Pierre recognized the place before Laurette stopped.

They had played there as children.

Their parents were buried nearby.

Pierre lowered Jacques to the ground.

“Here?”

Laurette nodded.

Pierre pushed the spade into the earth.

And dug.

Laurette remained beside Jacques.

After a while, she sang. Pierre knew the songs too.

He continued digging, and his voice joined hers.

Brother and sister sang together as Pierre dug the grave of his lover.

Laurette wandered a short distance while Pierre worked, gathering wildflowers and bringing them back by the handful.

When the grave was deep enough, Pierre climbed out.

Laurette scattered the flowers across the bottom.

Pierre knew how much Jacques would have loved it.

They wrapped Jacques's body in two sheets.

Pierre lowered him onto the flowers and placed his head where it would have rested had the blade not severed it.

They knelt beside the grave and said the rosary.

When they finished, Laurette sang again, and Pierre joined her straight away.

After the third song, Pierre picked up the spade.

He dropped the first earth onto Jacques.

Laurette helped.

Together they filled the grave until the sheets and flowers disappeared beneath freshly turned earth.

Laurette placed the last clod onto the grave and reached for Pierre's hand.

Pierre took it.

They walked hand in hand back to his house in silence.

5:38 p.m.

Laurette put the kettle on.

Pierre sat at the table while she cut bread and poured the tea.

They ate and drank without speaking.

When they finished, Laurette stood.

Pierre followed her to the shed, where he kept his tools and did much of his work.

She looked through the stone pieces until she found one that would do.

Pierre understood.

They had done this once before.

Together they had made a similar stone for their parents.

Now they would make one for Jacques and Pierre.

Pierre put the stone on his workbench.

Laurette steadied it.

Pierre picked up his hammer and chisel.

He placed the point against the stone and struck.

A small piece fell away.

He struck again.

Laurette brushed the pieces aside.

For the first time since Jacques had climbed down from the tumbril, Pierre's hands no longer trembled.

The first name appeared.

JACQUES

Pierre stopped.

There was room beneath it and beside it for Pierre's name someday.

He stared at the empty spaces.

On the scaffold, he had been given the chance to show Paris who Jacques was to him.

Fear had held his tongue.

Jacques understood that fear, and he died protecting Pierre from having to face it.

Pierre placed the chisel against the stone again.

This time, he knew what he wanted it to say.

He lifted the hammer and struck.

Laurette remained beside him while the words appeared letter by letter.

Pierre finished and put down the hammer.

He ran his fingers across the letters.

JACQUES JOLIE

BELOVED OF PIERRE

Pierre stared at the words.

He had been too afraid to say them when Jacques was alive.

Now they were carved in stone to last forever.