Holy Fire - Bruce Sterling [131]
The three of them ate in the car. The condemned man ate a hearty lunch. They finally drove up into some dense patch of forest north of the Czech border. This didn’t seem to be the actual Black Forest, but this seemed to matter not at all. The trees were leafing out and there was a warm spring breeze. The car—it belonged to Emil’s ex-wife—protested bitterly at being ordered into the shrubbery at the side of the road. But there they left it.
Bruno retrieved a folding shovel and a heavy valise from the boot of the car. Then they set out on foot. Bruno knew very well where he was going.
They emerged in a small hillside meadow. Bruno opened the sharp ceramic shovel, hung his hat and jacket neatly from a branch, and began digging. He removed a wide circle of sod and carefully set it aside. As he dug, he began reminiscing.
“He says this is an old secret resting place,” Therese translated. “Romany people used it a long time ago. Later, some other people put some troublemakers here.”
Bruno wiped sweat from his brow. Suddenly he spoke up in English. “A man,” he pronounced, “does his own work in this life.” He looked at Maya and smiled winningly.
Bruno dug until he hurt too much to dig anymore. He sat down ashen faced and puffed at a gunmetal inhaler. Therese dug for him. When she got too tired, Maya had a turn. She’d dressed in flats and pants and a light sweater, not too bad for gravedigging. The only fashion touch was the furoshiki. She’d set it for olive and khaki. Something not too alluring.
They followed Bruno’s direction. The result was not a normal grave. It was a conical pit with a round rim the size of a manhole cover. Bruno tossed out a few final wedges of dirt, and then explained to them the theory and craft of concealed burials.
The crux of the matter was rapid and complete decomposition. Truly high-speed decomposition caused the corpse to bloat rapidly. This side effect would disturb the surface of the grave. Therefore it was necessary to saw through the ribs up both sides, and to ventilate the intestines.
Bruno opened his valise. He had thoughtfully brought all the proper equipment. It had seen plenty of use. He had an old-fashioned ceramic bone saw, battery driven. He also had some kind of horse-doctoring veterinary hypodermic, with a great spike of a steel needle that could have stitched sheet aluminum.
Bruno now disrobed. He was covered from neck to groin in tattoos. Snakes. Roses. Handguns. Mottos in gutter Français. At least Therese had never lacked for things to read.
Bruno heartily pinched his own goosefleshed hide to show where the needle should go in. Into the thighbones. Into the meat of the calves. Into the biceps. Into the buttocks. Into the skull. He had a little canister of some highly carnivorous rot bacterium. Eating its way out from the injection sites, the decomposer would cook him down like tallow.
After he was settled nicely into the pit, they would have to shovel the dirt around him and carefully replace the lid of sod. It was best to leave a dome of extra dirt below the lid. This looked suspicious at first, but it would look much better in the long run because of the settling. The leftover dirt had to be scattered in the forest. And of course they must remove his clothes and the tools. Nothing metal to be left around the site. Nothing to attract attention.
“Ask him if he has