The Silent Boy Read Online Free Page B

Believe me, it is not easy to do it properly, to do it well. It is one thing to remove the skin. It is quite another thing to do it without harming what lies beneath.’
    The doctor releases the wrist. His fingertips play on the arm of the boy, patting it gently, rising from the wrist up to the elbow up to the shoulder and then to the neck. He points at a place on the neck.
    ‘See? This is the line of the great artery which carries blood to the heart. This is bone, here, and here the humerus, and here we have the scapula.’ The hand flutters higher. ‘Note the cheekbone. Do you see how some of the skin is still attached? The man who did this was truly an artist.’
    The doctor’s hand sweeps down and grips Charles’s neck. Charles tries to pull away but Dr Gohlis tightens his hold. His hand is as cold as a dead thing, colder than the flayed boy.
    ‘After this boy was flayed, shall I tell you what happened then? He was covered in plaster, every inch of him. When the plaster was dry, they cut it open – and there is a mould of the dead boy. When you have a mould, you can make many copies. The copies are painted, in this case by another artist who is trained in the work of portraying what lies beneath, the inner mysteries under the skin. See how the muscle and tendon and bone stand out in their proper colours. Is it not a marvel?’
    His grip is painfully tight. He forces Charles to move around the boy and to come closer. Now he is looking at the boy’s back.
    ‘These poor simulacra of humanity are called
écorchés
,’ Dr Gohlis says, ‘the flayed ones. Isn’t that droll? They assist in the instruction of students of medicine and drawing who are obliged to learn about the inward architecture of the human body. Observe.’
    He picks up Charles’s right hand with his own left hand. Charles wills himself not to resist, not to pull away. The doctor forces him to extend his index finger. He runs the finger down the spine of the
écorché
.
    ‘Here are the cervical vertebrae,’ the doctor announces. ‘And below, in the middle of the spine, here are the thoracic ones. See the natural curve of the spine. Is it not elegant? And further below still, here are the lumbar vertebrae. They are much larger than the cervical ones, are they not? That is because they need to be, for they carry a greater burden.’
    The doctor lowers his head to the same level as Charles’s.
    ‘You see?’ he says. ‘You will never forget this lesson, will you? Not while you live and breathe. You will always remember what lies beneath.’
    He stares into Charles’s face. Charles stares back and thinks of nothing but the blank grey sky beyond the window.
    ‘Above all, you should draw this conclusion from it. You should remember that a boy who is useless in life may at least be useful in death.’ Dr Gohlis releases Charles’s neck and pushes him against the
écorché
boy. ‘You are no use at all to us if you will not talk.’
    As he is speaking, Dr Gohlis moves towards the door. He pauses on the threshold.
    ‘I should examine him carefully if I were you. If you do not find your voice, you may be like that yourself one day.’

Chapter Four
     
    On the very night before the letter arrived, Savill thought of Augusta. He had not thought of her for months, perhaps years. These were the dog days of the summer. Perhaps that had something to do with it, for the heat bred unhealthy desires. The long scar on his right cheek itched.
    Before getting into bed, he had tied back the curtains and opened the window as wide as it would go. The smell from the cesspit wafted up from the yard beneath. These houses in Nightingale Lane were as old as Good Queen Bess, and so was their sanitation.
    It was not the heat alone that kept him awake. He had the toothache, a savage sensation that drilled into the right-hand side of his jaw and sent tendrils of discomfort among the roots of the surrounding teeth. He had taken drops that had blunted the pain. But they did