Pilgrim (60 page)

Die N.Z.Z.
’s lead headline on Thursday, July 4th, had to do with the hundred-and-thirty-sixth anniversary of American Independence. A second headline declared that the Emperor of Japan was sinking towards death—and indeed, he would die some three weeks later.

Jung, being angered by America’s recent sabre-rattling in Honduras, paid no attention to the lead article. As for the Emperor of Japan, he had been given to sabre-rattling of his own—most notably with Russia—and his regime had been entirely one of
power-mongering. Jung skimmed the piece and turned to what remained on the page.

A mysterious fire in the cathedral at Chartres in France.

Good God
.

He skimmed the short article: fortunately, little damage…authorities baffled…investigation about to begin…

Pilgrim. It could only be Pilgrim.

First he had stolen the
Mona Lisa
—it must have been him—and now he had set fire to his beloved cathedral. Did he intend to sack the whole of France of its treasures? Somehow, he must be stopped.

On reaching the Clinic, he asked Fräulein Unger to find out how to get in touch with the French Ambassador at Berne. Jung’s reputation would lend credibility to what he had to say—that an escaped patient had “declared war on art” and that, undoubtedly, the incidents at the Louvre and Chartres were his doing. How to find the man would be another matter, but surely at least to know who he was would help.

At Küsnacht, Emma regarded the day’s news with equal despair, but for a different reason. If Mister Pilgrim was captured, what would it do to his passionate quest to reclaim the past? This was her interpretation of Pilgrim’s dilemma: all that stood between an ominous present and a disastrous future was recognition of the true meaning of the past. In his writings, she had found again and again a plea for the innate integrity of art. P
AY ATTENTION
! he had shouted in capital letters, over and over. But no one had listened.
Now, in order to draw attention to that integrity—and its double message of compassion and reconciliation—he was on a campaign to destroy the very presence of its most articulate voices.
Once the evidence of compassion and reconciliation is gone
, he had written in one of his journals,
our memory of it will turn us back to its true meaning
. Now, he had begun his rampage—and where would it end?

10

As Pilgrim and Forster arrived at Tours in the evening hours of Wednesday, July 3rd, news of the fire at Chartres had already reached the press. F
IRST THE
MONA
L
ISA
,
NOW THIS
! one headline read. C
HARTRES AFLAME
! read another.

There were photographs of smoke pouring from the cathedral’s doors and of the ruined choir stalls, but the story itself was sadder than that.

It was not until investigators began probing the damaged areas that the remains of a man had been discovered. It seemed that one of the lepers in the churchyard, seeing the flickering light of fire on the stained-glass windows, had crawled inside to fight the flames any way he could, and had perished in the process. Other lepers and beggars had already formed a bucket brigade by the time
les pompiers
arrived and finally brought the fire under control—but no one had managed to save the first man in.

When Pilgrim read of these things, he fell silent and
refused to eat. Nonetheless, he and Forster went and sat in the dining-room of L’Hôtel Touraine, shuffled the menus and drank wine.

“I shall take up smoking again,” Pilgrim said at last, and sent Forster to buy cigarettes. He had not smoked for some years, having given it up when he noted that Sybil Quartermaine had become addicted to it.
Most unbecoming
, he had told her,
particularly in a woman.
But now he needed the distraction—something to fiddle with—fuss with—concentrate on when the boredom of Forster’s pathetic countenance became too much to bear. Forster had started to look not unlike Mole in
The Wind in the Willows
—a little lost, a trifle disoriented—endlessly sad. Like Mole, Forster wanted to go home.

In the night, Pilgrim dreamt of the fingerless, toeless man who had been described in the newspaper accounts, crawling to the flames, unable to subdue them. A life had been lost. The last thing Pilgrim had had in mind—and the only thing he had prayed would not happen. The cathedral stood, largely undamaged, but a man had died. Pilgrim’s dream addressed this irony with images so vivid that he called out for them to stop and Forster had to wake him.

In the morning it rained. Too late.

At noon on Thursday, the 4th of July, Pilgrim and Forster got into the Renault, having eaten a light breakfast. They headed south.

“May we know where in Spain?” Forster asked, attempting to sound casual, as if the question was of no real interest.

“Avila,” Pilgrim told him. And that was all.

Forster had never heard of Avila. It meant nothing to him.

At two o’clock, they stopped on the outskirts of a small village by the name of Le Virage, which meant
the bend
, referring to an elbow in the river—the river being the Loire.

There was an inn at the crossroads. The next stop was to have been Poitiers, but Forster was doubtful they could achieve it by nightfall.

Having had only café au lait and a shared croissant, they decided to pause at the inn, named for the family who had owned and run it since before the Revolution—L’Auberge Chandoraise.

Pilgrim, discontented and restless, sent Forster in to see if a meal could be arranged.

“Get us a decent table,” he said, “and order a bottle of claret. Tell them we are ravenous, and to kill the fatted calf.”

Forster did not even smile. Standing beside the motor car, he nodded, pushed back his cap and made for the entrance.

I shall go and look at the river
, Pilgrim thought, watching his valet go his way.
I have always been partial to rivers, and the Loire is amongst the most beautiful.

Sliding into Forster’s seat behind the wheel, Pilgrim threw the still-vibrating engine into gear.

As Forster entered L’Auberge Chandoraise, he imagined that he heard the Renault drive away, but knowing this was impossible—since Mister Pilgrim had
never driven—he proceeded to find the
propriétaire.

Pilgrim was approaching the river on a cart track when he had a moment of blind panic, suddenly realizing he did not know how to stop the motor car.

He had watched Forster do so at least twenty times, but all he could think of was the gesture that had accompanied the end of each journey.
Handle. Handle.
He had pulled a handle. But where, where?

Left hand. Left hand.
It had to be with the left hand. Frantically, his eyes still on the cart track, Pilgrim grasped at the air between his left leg and the door.

Brake! Brake! For God’s sake!

At the very last minute, he found it and gave a mighty pull. The Renault shuddered to a stop, throwing Pilgrim against the steering wheel so violently that he thought it might have pierced his diaphragm. The breath was knocked completely out of him and he had to struggle to regain it.

The river was no more than five feet from the front wheels—five feet of tall grass and willow wands and five feet of incline—downwards.

Pilgrim got out and leaned for a moment against the hood of the Renault. From a bridge nearby, he heard the sound of children at play. A dog barked. The proximity of the river was pleasing to him. He had always enjoyed the sight and sound of water. And its smell.

Here the Loire was wide and somewhat treacherous. Its undercurrent was swift and powerful, though its surface seemed languid enough, moving at a seemingly leisurely pace. But, standing at the edge and
looking down, Pilgrim could see the turmoil in the depths, where a profusion of dangerous weeds could drag a man under in seconds.

The image of Sybil rose in his mind—he could not tell why. Possibly it had to do with his near disaster with the motor car and the fact that she had been swept away by an avalanche just as he had so nearly been swept away by the river.

He gazed across the water at the opposite bank. There were cows over there in a field. And a dog. A cowherd’s dog. A black dog. A dog at the river’s edge, who eyed him with an almost merry look and wagged its tail.

The river,
he thought.
The Styx, Loire, the Thames, Las Aguas, the Arno, the Scamander at Troy…There has always been a river near at hand.

Once, he had attempted to drown himself in the Serpentine. To no avail.

But who was to say that water could not become his ally and his accomplice, now that Sybil was dead and the gods were departing?

In the wilderness, I found an altar with this inscription:
TO THE UNKNOWN GOD
…
And I have made my sacrifice accordingly.

Here was wilderness enough. Fields where vistas had no visible conclusion—a sky as wide as Creation—trees and the chatter of unseen children—a river whose depths he could barely fathom. Pilgrim did not even know where he was, except that he knew it was somewhere south of Chartres en route to Spain and Avila.

He glanced over his shoulder at the Renault, where it sat amidst the tall grass looking like an intruder from another planet.

Almost all the way
, he thought.

And then:
why not?

He tried to conjure
the Unknown God
—the one remaining god of whom he had no experience.

Pray.

There may be answers. There may even be forgiveness for the death of that man I killed at Chartres.
Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa…

Pilgrim lightly beat his breast, and as if the dog were not enough, he swept the sky in search of a further sign.

It was there, as always. The ever-present wings of an eagle.

Pilgrim walked back to the motor car.

Think nothing. Do.

He opened the door and climbed inside.

The incline was such that he need not even start the engine. Releasing the brake would be enough.

He smiled.

There is a willow grows aslant the brook…
he remembered. And there it was before him—Ophelia’s willow tree—standing to one side as if making way for his passage, just as it made way for hers.

Slowly, he reached down and released the brake.

May it finally be over
, he murmured—and closed his eyes.

Someone presently came running into the courtyard of the Auberge Chandoraise. A boy who had
been fishing from the nearby bridge with an older friend.

An automobile had been driven into the river, he claimed, and his friend was diving to see if the occupant could be saved.
Come at once!

That was all.

Everyone ran.

The boy who had remained behind was pulled from the water, exhausted. Men stripped off their clothes and took his place.

“I saw him! I saw him!” the boy kept repeating. “He was in there! I saw him! But when I went down to find him, there was no one…”

The motor car was empty, except for its baggage.

Forster waited. He begged to be allowed to join the divers but they would not allow him. These men knew the river. He did not. He was unaware of its dangerous currents and its weeds. One life was enough to lose. Two would be pure waste.

Police, villagers and passing travellers all collected on the riverbank. For a death site, it was a scene of extraordinary vibrancy, what with its naked divers, its women, its children and the resplendent figures of overdressed tourists, some of whom retrieved picnic hampers from their motor cars and told their chauffeurs to spread blankets on the grass.

The search lasted for four hours—and then the local prefect called it off. “We shall find the deceased,” he announced, “at some future time down-river. Clearly, he has been swept away.”

Forster stayed until it was dark. Had Mister Pilgrim
succeeded at last in committing suicide, or had he survived some accident that had befallen him? Forster would never know—but he could guess. On the far side of the river, a black dog raised its head towards the moon and bayed.

11

One week later—on Thursday, July 11th—Jung received an envelope at the Clinic. It had no return address, but had been mailed from Dieppe, in Normandy.

It was from
H. Forster, Esq
.—and Jung had to smile at the mild pretension of the signature, clearly long contemplated but never before used.
Mister Forster is now a gentleman
, he thought.
Well—as the English say
, bully for him!

On the other hand, it was not a welcome letter, containing as it did the news of Pilgrim’s presumed demise.

Oddly, neither Forster in his communiqué nor Jung in his reaction to it could bring himself to use the word death. It was as though, in reference to Pilgrim, the word was forbidden.

Forster did not write of the events at the Louvre, nor did he write of what had taken place at Chartres. He did admit to having played a role in Pilgrim’s escape and he described their flight in the Renault and
what he called Mister Pilgrim’s desire to pay his final respects to certain temples of art.

And how were these respects known to be final?

The enclosed letter from Mister Pilgrim would explain.

Forster had written with a kind of simple respect for another man’s integrity that was rare and touching. There was not an ounce of condescension to Pilgrim’s illness or mental distress. The man was simply who he was, and that was that. He had beliefs and passions that were both unique and disturbing, moving and unsettling. His love of art and of nature—especially of birds—and of his dog Agamemnon had been unyielding.

He had a most original sense of dress
, Forster wrote,
and it was a privilege to lay out his clothes.