Chapter Eleven
It was the worst lunch ever. Tintin could remember times when he had been in prisons, minutes away from going up against a wall, and had enjoyed lunch more than he did right now.
Everybody was still acting nice, of course. They asked for Hazar to pass the sugar and Freeh for the tray of digestive biscuits; they complimented the cucumber sandwiches and said the pate was excellent. After a while, they turned on the radio and listened attentively to the news, as if their minds weren't far off elsewhere. They ignored the flickering of the lights and the screaming of the wind. They pretended that snow wasn't blanketing over the windows, blocking off the doors, cutting them off from the rest of the world; that the fireplace on the other side of the room compensated for the finger-numbing cold that was breaking into every room in the house. They pretended like everything was normal.
The house shook, and the Venetian chandelier over their heads flickered dimly. Tintin's eyes followed Odette's as she cast a nervous glance upward, then tried to look as if she was involved in the taut, empty conversation. She shivered with cold and wrapped her jacket closer to her body.
A strange feeling of dread clenched Tintin's stomach. It was as if they were all… waiting for something. Calculus and Snowy, alone, were oblivious to the tension. Everyone else was as tight as rubber band, pulled back as far as it could go.
There was a burst of static, and the radio shut off.
Everybody stared at it for a long moment, as if it had snapped them out of a dream, and they suddenly weren't sure where they were. Without the familiar droning sound of the radio, the stunned guests were unable to form coherent thoughts, unable to look normal. The conversation had lost its anchor and left them moored in a place called Moulinsart Hall; where they were holed up, frozen, and alone.
A deathly silence began to fill the room.
"Captain," said Tintin brightly, "do we have any more tea?" He fingered his napkin and looked polite.
Haddock stared at Tintin for a moment, then seemed to understand what his young friend was doing. Trying to keep it all normal. He's trying to keep us sane.
"Yes…" he began, hesitantly, realizing that he needed to look buoyant, self-assured. He was aware that he was probably failing miserably, but he needed to keep it up. The show must go on. "I believe… we do… Nestor?" he called.
"More tea?" nodded Nestor, and walked off without another word.
Seven people looked at each other blankly around the table, utterly silent. Outside, a shutter banged against the house, and Hazar winced.
He's on edge, noted Tintin. "Thank you, Captain," he said, needlessly; he couldn't think of anything else to say.
"You're welcome," replied Haddock.
There was a long, interminable silence.
Hazar rose from his chair suddenly, slamming his fists on the tabletop. They all jumped at least an inch from their seats. "Heilige moeder!" he burst out. "I'm sick of this- this lie! We sit here and pretend, we pretend that nothing is wrong. What's wrong with us?"
Freeh rose from the table to meet Hazar. "Stop it, Schuuring, calm yourself!" he sputtered. "Can't you see that we're doing our best?"
"Doing our best? You're just a fake!" Hazar screamed, and Tintin could see the almost feral, desperate look in his eyes.
"Ich sagte, schlieben Sie den Mund!"
"Du Lügner…" Hazar slowly sunk to his chair. He seemed to have calmed, but his entire body was still trembling. "Du dreckiger Lügner…" His anger was like a short fuse that had burned out, leaving him drained and powerless, confused. He turned to Odette suddenly. "What about you, Odette? Speaking of liars. What are you hiding?"
"What?" Her face started to go pale. "What do you mean?" she retorted, almost defensively.
"Murderer. Three-time murderer. Come on, just say it, okay?" Getting to his feet, he took a staggering step towards her, his hands clenched into tight fists. "Say it!"
Odette clutched her right shoulder, covering her tattoo. "But I…"
"Stop it," Tintin interrupted.
Hazar and Odette turned to look at him. He had stood up, and was glaring at Hazar from across the table. His grey eyes, usually calm, were storm clouds of anger and threat.
Haddock looked down and realised with a shock that Tintin's hand was wandering dangerously near the breadknife.
Time seemed to slow.
They stood there, for a long time, before Hazar finally backed down.
"Whatever," he muttered, slumping back into his chair.
The grateful look Odette gave Tintin, and the nod he gave back, were subtle, but the Captain saw them immediately.
"Blistering barnacles…" he muttered.
Just then, Nestor returned with an empty tray. His face was pale.
"No tea, sirs."
"No tea?" Freeh almost shouted.
"Not a drop," Nestor replied sombrely.
Freeh muttered, "Gütiger Himmel… what kind of stupid…"
"Tintin?" the Captain interrupted, clearing his throat. "Can I talk to you? In the kitchen?" Without waiting for a reply, he pushed himself from the table and stalked off.
Tintin's eyes followed him wordlessly, wondering what Haddock had to say, and at the same time knowing exactly what it was. It wasn't long before he stood up and followed.
Their departure left the room even emptier than before, and somehow even colder.
"No tea…" muttered Freeh, shaking his head.
/
Haddock felt awful. He felt so awful that the word 'awful' seemed like an understatement. But for the life of him he couldn't think of any better one. Perhaps 'rotten.' Yes, that was it: Haddock felt downright rotten, and there was no denying it.
It wasn't that he felt bad about what he was going to ask. He was the adult; the parent figure. He was almost 40 years older and Tintin. Haddock knew more about the world. Well, perhaps that was debateable, but he certainly knew more about some things, and it was those things that were concerning him right now.
He stood in the kitchen, pretending to read the book on the counter—something about the Enlightenment, but he'd never heard of the author and didn't care one bit about the words on the page—and waited to hear Tintin's footsteps approaching the door. He wasn't sure why he was waiting. He felt rather is if he should be dreading.
When the door opened, his heart staggered a bit.
"Yes?" Tintin asked, his voice bright. He looked at Haddock with an expression of wide-eyed innocence.
Haddock swallowed, fingering the pipe in his hands. He found it hard to meet Tintin's childlike grey gaze. "Tintin."
"Hi. What is it?"
"Tintin, can we…er… talk?"
Raising an eyebrow, Tintin closed the door behind himself, crossing the room and settling on a chair across from Haddock. It was Nestor's chair, the one he would sit in to read Blaise Pascal while dinner was simmering on the stove; as Nestor was not in the room, Tintin took the seat freely. "Yes…? What's on your mind?"
The pipe rolled over and over between his fingertips. "Look… lad… I want you to…"
"You want me to do what?" he asked, not exactly suspicious, but cautious all the same.
"Okay, look." He closed his eyes for a second. He felt a little wretched asking Tintin this, especially after he'd set up that date for them earlier this morning. But he had been hoping Tintin would find something out that would incriminate her. But had that plan backfired. "I don't think you should be spending so much time with that woman."
"She has a name," Tintin remarked casually.
"Bienvenue. Whatever. Did you even hear what I just said?"
"Yeah, I heard you." Tintin lifted the book onto his lap and aimlessly flipped the pages, completely unconcerned with what was written on them.
"And…?" the Captain asked cautiously.
"If you want me to wait until after this is all cleared up, I understand. I might not agree, but I get it."
"I mean… there's not going to be an after." Realising how strange that sounded, he quickly added, "I mean, not for her."
Tintin stared at Haddock like he had suddenly begun speaking in tongues. Haddock watched his expression change from confused to aghast as he slowly put together what he was saying. "You don't mean to say that… you don't think that she did it?"
"You took the words from my mouth."
"But that's crazy! She's a girl!"
"I know. That's why you refuse to believe it." The Captain got to his feet, pipe in hand. He added, a sarcastic ring to his voice, "It's a little something called hormones, lad."
"Hormones?" He stared at the Captain, thoroughly confused.
Haddock's jaw slackened. "Don't tell me—"
"Snakes, Captain, I know what you're talking about," he interrupted quickly. The room suddenly became a good deal warmer. "I don't know what you mean, is 's that got to do with anything?"
"Everything," said Haddock, rolling his eyes. "You're sixteen, lad. Your head is probably spinning every time you see a pretty face—whether you admit it to yourself or not. You're going to look back one day and realise how mad you—"
"Ca—captain! What does that have to do with it?" Recoiling back just a bit, Tintin's eyes narrowed as he squinted at Haddock, as if suddenly he wasn't seeing right. The book, forgotten, dropped to the floor.
"Tintin, Odette did it." Agitation was creeping into Haddock's voice. "That girl's playing you like a piano."
"Give me one reason why she'd do it."
"She was being blackmailed. She'd already killed one man. What other proof do you need? Put the pieces together, lad!"
Tintin pursed his lips, making Haddock think of an angry housewife. "Then who killed the man on the 19th?" he challenged.
"That—what—I don't know! Who said they have to be the same pers—"
"Yeah!" Tintin interrupted. "You don't know! But I know, Captain, that she didn't do it. I know she didn't! Captain, you have to believe me: she didn't kill her husband, and she didn't kill Bastian, either."
The silence that ensued was filled only with the sound of the wind, and their heavy breathing.
After the pause, Haddock said, in a much quieter tone. "Yeah, I know, Tintin."
"Y—you do?" His eyes widened.
"I know that you think you know. But it's only because you like her."
"What? I don't like her." He could feel his cheeks start to burn again. "Not in that way. But I honestly do think she was being manipulated, and I can't see why—"
"Lad. You're being manipulated." He raised his hands to the sky hopelessly. "She has a pretty face, I admit it, and you don't get around girls much, but—"
"And why's that?"
The words stopped the Captain in his tracks. He swallowed, unsure how to answer. "Why—why's what?" he repeated.
"I asked, why's that? Why don't I have a girlfriend?"
"I—I don't know," he stammered. He began to feel frustrated, and repeated, with more anger in his voice, "Look, I don't know! You're too busy. But—but you don't have to be, you can stop doing so much reporting, cut back on the adventu—"
"It's because I'm a scrawny little ginger who's barely five and a half feet tall!" Grey eyes blazing, he sprung to his feet and wheeled on Haddock, his face blazing red with anger. "That's why! I'm 16 and I look 10 and don't you dare try to deny it. The last girl who held me was my mom, 12 bloody years ago!" he shouted, stamping his foot for emphasis. "And Haddock, if there's one girl in this world who'll be nice to me, I'm sorry if I don't want to charge her with cold-blooded murder!"
The words dried up in the Captain's throat. He'd never seen Tintin like this before. He tried to speak, but his mouth wouldn't move right. "Tintin…" He bit his lip, taking a hesitant step forward. "Tintin, I…"
"Don't. Just don't. Okay?" Shaking his head, he leaned against the back of the chair, his hands braced against the frozen wrought-iron. "Just… please. Don't do this."
"I'm sorry," Haddock said softly.
"No you're not," said Tintin, almost casually, as if he was simply stating a fact. "You'll keep on believing whatever you want to believe. How can you be sorry you said what you did?"
The Captain swallowed. Tintin, as usual, was right. "I just want you to see objectively," he said weakly.
"Yeah, well, you try seeing objectively. Next time you're sober enough." His voice broke off jaggedly, and the boy seemed to blanch, suddenly realising he had gone much further than he had intended.
There was a long pause.
"Okay," seemed to be all the Captain could say.
Tintin stood there, his chest heaving, his hands closed tight into two fists. It was only a few beats before, muttering something about being sick, he staggered from the room, as quickly as his numbing body could take him.
Author's Note: Tintin/Haddock arguments are so incredible (and hard) to write, since they almost never happen in the comics. I don't think they're terribly OOC, considering that as innocent and idealistic Tintin may seem… he is still a human (gasp). And of course, there's nothing unusual about Haddock getting angry. Anyway, let me know how you think it went, if it was too OOC or whatever. ¡Gracias! (that's my three years of Spanish, coming in handy right there)
Yeah, I know the plot is super slow right now, but it's going to be fast again next chapter!
But until then… reviews?
