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rodents came scurrying around in its craw.
    One year after the accident, and following recurrent problems with power cuts, a complete overhaul of the Zerstor’s controls revealed a problem with the circuit-breaker lever. A faulty switch was no longer doing its job properly and allowed the current to flow at whim, even when the lever was in the OFF position. After that, all the safety mechanisms were reinforced, most of them even doubled, to ensure that such a tragedy would never occur again. Furthermore, management had agreed that perhaps Carminetti, former chief operator of the Zerstor 500, had been the victim of an unfortunate incident leading to the sudden resumption of operations while he inopportunely happened to be in the tank. Consequently, Giuseppe, who had already come to terms with the idea of having to survive on minimum benefits, had ended up being compensated to the tune of 176,000 euros for the loss sustained. ‘88,000 euros per leg!’ Giuseppe had announced tearfully over the phone. It wasn’t so much the money but rather the fact that they had finally accepted the word of a wino that had made Giuseppe truly happy that day, Guylain thought. He had always wondered on what basis the experts calculated the value of a death, a trauma or a limb, as in Giuseppe’s case. Why 88,000 and not 87,000 or 89,000? Did they take the length of the leg into account? Its estimated weight? The use the victim made of it? Giuseppe and he were no fools. They were well aware that this outcome in no way resolved the matter of the rats. That it took a bit more than a faulty switch to explain how the diesel engine managed to start up in the middle of the night. Guylain had not mentioned it to Giuseppe again, but he still regularly found rats, or rather what remained of them. They were like big dark red flowers, sometimes with a tiny black eye sparkling like a droplet of ink in their centre, strewn over the bottom of the vats.
    It had taken Giuseppe nearly three months to come round to the fact that his legs were not going to grow back. Three months to accept those hideous pink stumps once and for all, two swollen lumps of flesh reminiscent of the gnarled branches of an ancient lime tree. According to the doctors, this was good going, excellent even, compared to others who never came to terms with their loss. Watching him whizz around the rehabilitation centre in his brand-new wheelchair, Guylain himself believed that the old man had managed to accept the loss of his legs. ‘A Butterfly 750, kiddo! Amazing, not even twelve kilos! And the colour, look at the colour. Mauve. I chose it just for the colour. What do you think?’ Guylain had not been able to suppress a smile. Listening to him, it almost made him want to go and have his legs gobbled up by the first Zerstor he came across, just for the pleasure of having a nice new wheelchair too. And then Giuseppe had begun to say worrying things, talking of ‘getting them back’. ‘When I’ve got them back, things’ll be better. Just you wait, kiddo’, he’d say each time Guylain visited, his eyes bright with hope. At first Guylain told himself that perhaps the Thing had devoured a bit more than Giuseppe’s legs and partially destroyed his mind in the process. It wasn’t the alcohol talking – the old boy had become a teetotaller overnight. Now that he was away from the plant, he no longer drank. Guylain had asked him exactly what ‘them’ were and what he meant by ‘when I’ve got them back’, even though of course he had his own ideas on the subject. Giuseppe would then clam up, promising to tell him everything when he was ready. For as long as he lived, Guylain would remember his friend’s radiant face when he’d opened the door to him a few weeks later, clutching the precious book. Giuseppe had solemnly held out the book to him before making the introductions in a voice faltering with emotion: ‘ Gardens and Kitchen Gardens of Bygone Days , by Jean-Eude Freyssinet,