clamping bench on engine parts on patient human feet. At the top of it all, an old man’s too-big bearded face looks down at him with obscure curiosity. In his beard, a steam train the size of a cudgel, its chimney venting smoke into the bristles. The old man wears a larva on his head. Some limb-long bright caterpillar, gripping an outsized leaf. It wriggles and the leaf-hat flutters, hedgerow chic.
A random totality, components sutured by chance. It stands. Thibaut stares at this thing. It looks back at him,as the first manif he ever met, its cousin, did through its helmet grill, years before.
Sam’s camera clicks. “Exquisite,” she whispers. For the first time, Thibaut hears fear in her voice. “Exquisite corpse.”
—
An ugly percussion shocks them out of awe. There are shouts and shots. Out of the dark, German soldiers come running.
Thibaut ducks behind the remains of the car and fires.
Behind the attacking Nazis a jeep is rocking over the rubble toward them. How long have these soldiers been waiting?
Thibaut fires as they come and tries to focus and counts and calculates what he can see. There are too many. His heart slams. Too many. He holds his breath and reaches into his pocket, for the card,
this time,
he thinks,
in time.
But the exquisite corpse is striding into the road. The soldiers gape and fire. It raises its limbs and all the German bullets, even those misaimed, curve in the air, fly right into it, stud its body with resonant sounds.
Some of those shots were at Thibaut.
The soldiers have nets and strange engines. He can feel them. A lasso whips and snares the manif. In the jeep Thibaut sees two men, a thickset uniformed driver, a black-coated priest. He glances at Sam and she looks as ifshe is saying a prayer. Thibaut slams his rope cosh, the twisted wolf-table lash, against the ground.
The exquisite corpse leaps. For the moment of its jumpeveryone in the Paris street feels as if they are on the mezzanine of a snake-flecked staircase.
The world torques—
—and Thibaut and Sam and the exquisite corpse are standing a long way from where they were, meters from the Nazis. There is the silence of confusion.
The rope still snags the manif, stretching back into a now-distant engine on the jeep’s flatbed. A pulley starts to grind, and the cord tightens, strains to reel the exquisite corpse in.
It tugs back like a playful horse. It turns in ancient-eyed attention to the officers of the Reich. It puffs out its cheeks and semaphores its limbs, wheezes into its beard, rips into the street with the edges of its machinery body.
A tear full of white. The edges of reality break. The Nazis stagger on the wrong side and broken bits of car crumble into that papery void.
The exquisite corpse nods, and the Nazis all lurch and fall and slide away as if it shoved them.
Sam is running away from the rip and the soldiers. Thibaut hesitates, grips with his innard sinews, and goes to the exquisite corpse. He pats it gently with the tip of the rope-cudgel.
Its body resonates under his tap like a hollow oven. It turns slowly and looks down at him with its man’s head and eyes. He moves back. With skittish steps, the manif follows him.
“Come on!” Sam shouts. The Nazis fire from beyond the reknitting hole, and Thibaut spreads his pajamas into a shield, like a weaponized sail, and, the exquisite corpse behind him, he runs.
—
“Did you smell the exhaust from that jeep?” Thibaut says.
“Blood smoke,” Sam says. “That doesn’t run on petrol any more. They must’ve refit it with the help of demons.”
“They were trying to snag this thing,” Thibaut says. “Like with the wolf-tables. They’re trying to
control manifs.
And they almost did.”
“Not this one they didn’t,” Sam says. She looks back uneasily and away again. “They didn’t have a hope.”
It treads behind them.
Thibaut has unwound his cosh and dangled the table-wrangler’s cord around one of the manif’s metal extrusions,
A random totality, components sutured by chance. It stands. Thibaut stares at this thing. It looks back at him,as the first manif he ever met, its cousin, did through its helmet grill, years before.
Sam’s camera clicks. “Exquisite,” she whispers. For the first time, Thibaut hears fear in her voice. “Exquisite corpse.”
—
An ugly percussion shocks them out of awe. There are shouts and shots. Out of the dark, German soldiers come running.
Thibaut ducks behind the remains of the car and fires.
Behind the attacking Nazis a jeep is rocking over the rubble toward them. How long have these soldiers been waiting?
Thibaut fires as they come and tries to focus and counts and calculates what he can see. There are too many. His heart slams. Too many. He holds his breath and reaches into his pocket, for the card,
this time,
he thinks,
in time.
But the exquisite corpse is striding into the road. The soldiers gape and fire. It raises its limbs and all the German bullets, even those misaimed, curve in the air, fly right into it, stud its body with resonant sounds.
Some of those shots were at Thibaut.
The soldiers have nets and strange engines. He can feel them. A lasso whips and snares the manif. In the jeep Thibaut sees two men, a thickset uniformed driver, a black-coated priest. He glances at Sam and she looks as ifshe is saying a prayer. Thibaut slams his rope cosh, the twisted wolf-table lash, against the ground.
The exquisite corpse leaps. For the moment of its jumpeveryone in the Paris street feels as if they are on the mezzanine of a snake-flecked staircase.
The world torques—
—and Thibaut and Sam and the exquisite corpse are standing a long way from where they were, meters from the Nazis. There is the silence of confusion.
The rope still snags the manif, stretching back into a now-distant engine on the jeep’s flatbed. A pulley starts to grind, and the cord tightens, strains to reel the exquisite corpse in.
It tugs back like a playful horse. It turns in ancient-eyed attention to the officers of the Reich. It puffs out its cheeks and semaphores its limbs, wheezes into its beard, rips into the street with the edges of its machinery body.
A tear full of white. The edges of reality break. The Nazis stagger on the wrong side and broken bits of car crumble into that papery void.
The exquisite corpse nods, and the Nazis all lurch and fall and slide away as if it shoved them.
Sam is running away from the rip and the soldiers. Thibaut hesitates, grips with his innard sinews, and goes to the exquisite corpse. He pats it gently with the tip of the rope-cudgel.
Its body resonates under his tap like a hollow oven. It turns slowly and looks down at him with its man’s head and eyes. He moves back. With skittish steps, the manif follows him.
“Come on!” Sam shouts. The Nazis fire from beyond the reknitting hole, and Thibaut spreads his pajamas into a shield, like a weaponized sail, and, the exquisite corpse behind him, he runs.
—
“Did you smell the exhaust from that jeep?” Thibaut says.
“Blood smoke,” Sam says. “That doesn’t run on petrol any more. They must’ve refit it with the help of demons.”
“They were trying to snag this thing,” Thibaut says. “Like with the wolf-tables. They’re trying to
control manifs.
And they almost did.”
“Not this one they didn’t,” Sam says. She looks back uneasily and away again. “They didn’t have a hope.”
It treads behind them.
Thibaut has unwound his cosh and dangled the table-wrangler’s cord around one of the manif’s metal extrusions,
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