Gaston was good at his job. As an executioner during the Terror, he dispatched aristocrats, clerics and other enemies of the Revolution with the calm efficiency of a butcher preparing meat for the market, the dispassion of a bookkeeper filling the pages of a ledger. If the abject cowardice of a former tyrant might give him a moment of contemptuous satisfaction, or the severed head of a pretty girl a twinge of regret, he showed no sign of either. To all appearances he was merely a smoothly-functioning instrument of the Revolution, doing what had to be done with the least possible fuss.

He never mentioned any family, friends or mistress, living or dead, locally or in some other part of the country. His accent suggested an origin in one of the southern provinces, though none in particular. What had brought him to Paris was equally obscure. He had simply appeared when the need for him arose, spoke of nothing but the work to be done and no more than necessary of that, and at the end of each working day vanished until the next. His most inquisitive colleagues, after some vague thoughts of following him that always gave way to more pressing business, had long since given up trying to find out more about him.

The day when the Comte de Soissons turned up in the tumbrel started no differently from many another. There was a rather chilly breeze, enough to give the prisoners an excuse for shivering, but most appeared to be calmly resigned to their fate; after all, death was inevitable sooner or later, the guillotine at least put a swift end to material anxieties, and if there was anything to follow, they had the clearest possible warning to prepare themselves for it. The few in an open state of funk, and even fewer who tried to disguise their fear with a show of bravado, at most irritated the more stoical. The Comte, however, was an exception to all this; he seemed almost cheerful. For all his seventy-odd years he trotted up the steps as though to a promising assignation, winked at Gaston and drew him slightly aside. "You seem a reliable sort," he said. "I’d like you to look after this. You might even find it useful." And producing a curiously-designed ring, he passed it over. Gaston was too nonplussed to do more than stare at it for a moment and put it in his pocket. "Right," said the Comte. "Better get on with our business. Adieu - or should I say ‘Au revoir’?"

**********

Eric scowled at his word-processor. Where the hell was this story going? He had no idea beyond the vague possibilities suggested by the last sentence, and the evidently crucial significance of the ring. It sat there on his desk, defying him to think up anything remotely interesting to follow what he flattered himself was quite a respectable start; respectable, that is, as far as it went - just three paragraphs, not enough to fill a single page. He picked up the ring and gazed at it as he had done scores of times before.

He had bought it for Miriam many years before, when they were courting, and it had caught her eye as they looked through a collection of bric-a-brac in an antique shop that offered the nearest refuge from a sudden cloudburst. Nothing else had interested them there, the shopkeeper was as gloomy as his stock, and the purchase was little more than a sop to conscience over taking advantage of his shelter and fruitlessly occupying so much of his time. Nevertheless Miriam had become quite attached to it, until after a piece of more than usually crass thoughtlessness on his part she had hurled it at him and walked out. He never saw or heard from her again, and only months after the event had he learned from a friend about her death some years later in a particularly stupid road accident. If only … But what was the use? Their relationship had been worsening for some time, and Eric knew himself well enough to realise that the break would have come eventually in any case; his own character would be intolerable in the long run to any woman not prepared to be a doormat.

Doormats were boring, and he could find better company in a book than with most of the unattached women he had met. Miriam had been unusual, and the memory of how he had treated her still made him cringe with shame. As the only way to restore a measure of self-esteem he had carefully built up a façade of consideration for others. It must have been at least superficially convincing, to judge by his enduring friendships with many people he respected for their personal qualities, but he knew that it was supported only by a conscious effort of will and unlikely to pass any sustained test. With other acquaintances, an easy affability came naturally and cost nothing. Of course, the usual instincts had lost none of their power, and occasionally drew him into brief, unsatisfactory flirtations: however, they never looked like developing into anything more, and he remained essentially alone.

The ring was a constant reminder of his fundamental selfishness and the need to control it very firmly, much as in former times a skull might be kept in a prominent position as a memento mori. Moreover its design had a curious fascination for him, with an elaborate Celtic knot cut into the otherwise plain metal band. A double symbol of eternity there; the ring itself, with no beginning or end, and the knot more flamboyantly making not quite the same point. Over the years he must have wasted hours in idly tracing the pattern through every bewildering twist and reversal before returning inevitably to wherever he had started. What if by some miracle he could get back with greater wisdom to that point in his life where he had wrecked that one promising chance of a congenial marriage? Would he behave any differently? Probably not. The pattern was already fixed.

**********

Gaston’s lodgings were in a quiet street near the site of the Bastille. He rented a single room from a cabinet-maker, taking his evening meals with the family, but casually evading all attempts to draw him into deeper social intimacy. Since he seemed thoroughly respectable with regular and unobtrusive habits - eminently desirable qualities in a lodger during those troubled times - no one ever pressed the attempts. His business was his own, and he might have sound reasons for keeping quiet about it, while some things were better not known.

Even so, the two daughters of the family remained intrigued long after the parents had ceased openly speculating. Despite his being at least half a generation older, one of them for a while had romantic notions about him, weaving complicated fantasies of how he might have fallen into his present humble condition and of the noble deeds she might yet call upon him to perform for her, until his gentle discouragement, the chaffing of her brother and finally the arrival of a more tractable prospect next door put a stop to them.

There was one very good reason for saying nothing about his background: he knew nothing himself. His earliest memory was of a few years earlier, being nursed through a bad case of concussion by a kindly slut in Marseille. Before that was a blank, and "Gaston" was simply the name she gave him in memory of a childhood companion. She could tell him only that after a disturbance on the quay-side, a friend in the militia had found him unconscious with a nasty wound on his head. Whether it came from a blow or a fall no one could be sure, but the emptiness of his pockets suggested foul play. Fortunately his rather well-made coat proved to have a useful cache of money sewn into the lining, enough to pay off some worrying arrears of the woman’s rent and keep him going until he found work with a nearby cartwright. The mystery of his past eventually gave a disagreeably nosy neighbour an excuse to denounce the woman to the local Committee of Public Safety for supposedly harbouring royalists, and he was lucky to escape arrest, heading for Paris where he hoped to be lost in the crowd. As an odd-job man at the Bicêtre hospital, he helped competently in Dr. Guillotin’s experiments and had no objections when he thus became a natural choice to continue operating the machine in earnest.

The episode with the Comte de Soissons continued to puzzle him. Quite apart from the unnatural chirpiness of the fellow, what on earth could he have meant about the ring’s possibly being useful? Most evenings Gaston spent some time studying it, or rather letting his mind wander over the possibilities. He wasn’t one to go in for the Arabian Nights stuff about rings with occult powers. He knew, of course, that rings were sometimes used to hold a suicide capsule in case of need, but this one was obviously not of that sort. There was no room for any kind of hidden mechanism, and even if there had been there was no sign of a trigger. More plausibly, the unusual design could be the symbol of some secret society; showing it might indeed serve as a discreet signal. But when would such a signal be needed? The only likely occasion would be a plot against the regime, and if that were so, anything linked with it could prove a very dangerous possession. He would be wise to get rid of it. But he feared it might perhaps still be traced to him, and the attempt would be taken as a sign of guilt. Besides, for some reason he was reluctant to disregard the Comte’s dying wish for him to take care of it. His thoughts went round in convolutions as twisted as those in the design, never leading to any conclusion.

Then there was that ambiguous farewell. What did the Comte mean by it? It might be no more than suggesting a meeting in the afterlife, if he believed in one. Gaston didn’t. A tantalising notion - if there turned out to be one, would unbelievers be included? He supposed they would have to be. There was something deeply objectionable about the idea of being hauled willy-nilly into a future existence that he had always denied. Always? He really had no idea of his views on the subject before the incident that had erased past memories. Now there was a thought; could the significance of the ring be as a clue to his past? Had the Comte in fact recognised him from earlier acquaintance and tried to give him the key to some important fact? The money sewn into his coat, now he belatedly came to think about it, suggested that he had once been prosperous: was it possible that he might himself be one of the aristocracy? No, the coat was good, but practical, not ornate. It might belong to a tradesman, or just possibly a professional of some kind, never a nobleman.

**********

Eric sighed: he appeared to have written himself into a corner again. Often his characters seemed to take on a life of their own, almost independent of his conscious thought, but after that initial burst, prompted by seeing a film on the Pimpernel theme, Gaston was proving thoroughly uncooperative and had to be pushed every inch of the way. Eric mentally cursed the day he had been landed with providing a short story for Janice’s magazine. After all, he was an engineer, and writing fiction was only a hobby. A technical manual was a different thing altogether; well before the deadline, with no great mental effort, he would produce a clear, concise text that even the apprentices should be able to understand, if they could be bothered to read at all. Half of them apparently couldn’t. Their idea of literature was one of the more lurid tabloids, and their interest in structural mechanics confined to the distribution and elasticity of soft tissue over various examples of the female skeleton, actual or imagined.

That, however, was not the present problem. His immediate difficulty was in devising any sort of credible, coherent and satisfying plot for the story he was committed to write. How had Janice talked him into it? He had told her his ideas had dried up, at least for the time being, and in any case he needed to get on with other tasks, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. She was one of those people who simply don’t hear what they don’t want to know. On this occasion she blithely said, "You’ll think of something," and had changed the subject before he could get in a suitable rejoinder. He never managed to work back to the topic and insist that he wasn’t going to do it - couldn’t do it - positively refused to do it. She departed expecting it to be done, and that was that: he hadn’t the guts to defy her.

He suddenly realised with alarm that this seemed to have become a pattern. Over the past year or so she had started asking him to do little tasks for her, then some not so little, and in time, for various allegedly good causes, some that were definitely more than he was willing to do, although he found his protests and excuses firmly overridden. Why did he allow it? Feminine wiles? He had to admit that she never descended to that kind of approach. Somehow he couldn’t imagine it of her. Not that she lacked the means had she wished to use them; she was no beauty, but definitely personable, with pleasing features and a good figure that she neither emphasised nor disguised by her style of dress.

She had been widowed young and childless, and found some consolation by involving herself heavily in the activities of the church she attended. From time to time friends had tried match-making, without success: interests were usually compatible, but principles and desires were not. Eric had got to know her (not in the Biblical sense, more the pity) when he needed her help as head of the typing pool with a particularly important manual that he was preparing, since it was to have a layout according to the customer’s specification, very different from the company standard. She had gone well beyond the strict call of duty in not only meeting his requirements but making various useful suggestions, such as pointing out several instances where an extra diagram would greatly clarify the text.

The custom when typists had been especially helpful was to present a box of chocolates. However, Eric felt that in the circumstances something more was needed, so he asked her out to dinner, which proved a mutually pleasurable occasion. He couldn’t resist hinting gently at further possibilities, and although she declined them, it was in a way as sympathetic as it was definite. Neither ever referred to the subject again on subsequent dates, which without becoming routine calendar entries tended to happen every few weeks.

Eric was diffident about mentioning his literary hobby, fearing that it smacked of dilettantism, but it slipped out and Janice was immediately interested in seeing some of his work. She was impressed, assuring him that he had a genuine gift for writing, and looking back he supposed that it must be true; after all, those first three paragraphs had practically written themselves. When last week the editor of her church magazine mentioned wanting an original short story for some purpose, he was the obvious person to ask. Besides any other difficulties, he couldn’t possibly write on a religious theme, but apparently that didn’t matter. So here he was, stuck with it. And stuck, at least for the present, was indeed the word.

**********

Gaston had few heroes. Since his recovery he had come across no one who deserved the title. If he were inclined to put anyone of his acquaintance on a pedestal, it might be the militiaman who, no doubt at considerable risk, had saved his life, or perhaps the woman who despite her poverty had tended it. Outside his circle there was just one: Maximilien Robespierre, who of all the revolutionaries was noted for his altruism. Gaston occasionally dreamed of some day meeting the great man, or at least being in his presence. The actual meeting when it came, with Robespierre under the guillotine, was the greatest shock of his life, and for several days afterwards he was practically an automaton.

Marie, the more practical of his host’s daughters, noticed that he was even more taciturn than usual and sensed that something was wrong. She was a good-natured girl with a capacity for sympathy unspoiled by the horrors of the time, and one evening after the meal, before he retired to his room, she risked a rebuff by asking tentatively if he were unwell. For once a moment of genuine human contact was welcome, and he confided that no, it wasn’t a physical illness, but he was worried. It was not a matter he could discuss, though he appreciated her concern. The fact was that he was not sleeping well. Had he tried counting sheep? Yes, but it hadn’t worked; he could hardly tell her that the image of animals leaping a gate always changed to heads falling into a basket, his own among them.

Another suggestion was simply to think of nothing. Difficult; to concentrate on not thinking about anything was in fact to think about it. Marie, however, had once got through her distress at a friend’s death by repeating over and over again a fidgety task - sewing handkerchiefs or something of the sort - that occupied her mind just enough to keep other thoughts out, and that seemed worth a trial. The question was, what kind of task? It need not be constructive. All he could think of was tracing the pattern on his ring. Obviously he would have to stay awake to do it, but it might calm his mind. Rather to his surprise, it did. Could that perhaps have been what the Comte meant by finding the ring useful? Possibly; the old codger must have had many causes for anxiety over the last few years.

**********

Picking up the ring yet again, Eric fiddled with it, only half-consciously tracing the pattern with a pencil tip. Round and round it went, always inevitably coming back to the same point before starting another circuit. It reminded him of the Buddhist concept of repeated death and reincarnation. But that was never supposed to be the same life over and over again, rather a different life according to what the previous existence had earned, and there was always at least hope for eventual escape into nirvana.

Good lord, what could he be thinking about? The pencil was trapped in an unending circuit only so long as it stayed in the two-dimensional pattern; real existence was in three dimensions. He had only to lift it out and it would be free.

He would be free … That settled it. He had better things to do than to keep banging his head against the sheer lack of inspiration. He would simply tell Janice that he couldn’t produce her story.

She took it badly. "You promised!" "No, I didn’t. You only assumed that I’d do it." "You didn’t say you wouldn’t." "You didn’t give me a chance." "You might at least have had a go at it." "I’ve tried my best. It didn’t work." "You could try again." "I’ve done my damnedest. I can’t do it, and that’s that." "Then how am I going to face Tim after I’ve told him how reliable you are?" And so on and on, in utter futility. That evening’s dinner date was obviously off. He didn’t suppose there would be another.

When she had gone and he had calmed down a little, he realised that he had had a perilously narrow escape. So, of course, had she. And maybe, so had Gaston.

**********

When the political situation had eased, a nephew of the Comte de Soissons, known to be populist and in good standing with the government, made enquiries about the ring and eventually tracked it down to Gaston. Evidently it was a much-cherished family heirloom, although not intrinsically valuable, and relief at finding it safe made him talkative. He had been fond of the old man, who had lived kindly with a clear conscience and never feared death, only the possibly painful and protracted ways it might come, so he would have been grateful for a quick end. The nephew too was grateful, and not stingy in his thanks.

With the money Marie and Gaston bought a small property near Saint Cloud. Carefully tended, it supported them with a little surplus for extras and to put by. In time, with additions as the opportunity offered, it also supported their children, and later on their children’s children. As Voltaire had said, in dangerous times, the thing to do is to cultivate one’s garden.

Peter D. Wilson
Seascale, April 2004
Copyright © 2004

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