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for the insurance company often involved nights away from home. They took a table at the back away from the bar, a pack of cards disguising the true purpose of their meeting. In low, bitter voices, they told each other much the same story. She’s changed. She’s no longer the woman I married. That little
salaud
has destroyed our marriages, with his greasy smile and the obscenity of his shorts. As they sat there, the cards forgotten in front of them, their outrage feeding on pastis, their voices grew violent and loud. Tooloud. The postman, the least fuddled head at the table, proposed another meeting, somewhere private, where they could talk about what was to be done.
    By now it was nearing the end of September, and the hunting season had begun. And so they agreed to meet in the hills the following Sunday morning, five friends with their guns and dogs in search of the wild boar that caused such havoc rooting through the vineyards every autumn.
    Within minutes of sunrise, Sunday was hot, more like July than September. By the time the five men reached the crest of the Luberon, their guns and bandoliers were weighing heavy on their shoulders, their lungs burning from the climb. They found shade beneath the branches of a giant cedar tree, eased their backs, passed a bottle around. The dogs explored the undergrowth by nose, following invisible zigzag paths as though they were being jerked along at the end of a cord, the bells on their collars chinking in the still air. There was no other sound, there were no other people. The men could talk undisturbed.
    To punish the wives, or to punish the butcher?
    A good beating, a few broken bones, his shop destroyed—that would teach him. Maybe, said one of the husbands. But he would recognize his attackers, and then the police would come. There would be questions, possibly jail. And who was to say it would stop him? Men recover from beatings. He would have the sympathy of the wives. It would start all over again. The bottle passed around in silence as the five men imagined living through long months, maybe more, in jail. If their wives were able to deceive them now, how much easier it would be when they were left alone. Finally, one of them said what they had all been thinking: It was necessary to find a permanent solution. One way or another, the butcher must go.Only then would their lives and their wives return to the way they had been before this young goat had put them to shame.
    The postman, always the most reasonable among them, was in favor of talking to him. Perhaps he could be persuaded to leave. Four heads shook in disagreement. Where was the punishment in that? Where was the revenge? Where was the justice? The village would laugh at them. They would spend the rest of their lives the target of whispers, the butt of jokes, five weaklings who stood by while their wives jumped in and out of another man’s bed. Five men with horns and no guts.
    The bottle was empty. One of the men got to his feet and placed it on a rock before coming back to pick up his gun and slide a cartridge into the breech. This is what we do, he said. Taking aim, he blew the bottle to fragments. He looked down at the others and shrugged.
Voilà
.
    It was agreed, in the end, that they should draw straws to decide who was to carry out the sentence. When this had been done, the men went back down the mountain to have Sunday lunch with their wives.
    The executioner chose the time with care, waiting for the dark of the moon, leaving the house when night was at its thickest. To be sure of a kill, he had loaded his gun with two shells of
chevrotine
, even though one blast of the heavy buckshot was enough to stop an elephant, let alone a man at arms length. He must have wondered if the others were lying awake thinking of him as he went softly through the empty streets and up to the butcher’s shop. And he must have cursed the time it took the butcher to come downstairs in response to the persistent tapping on his