Quartet for the End of Time (61 page)

—

I
N ALL OF THE CONFUSION THAT AFTERNOON
, A
LDEN HAD ENTIR ELY
forgotten his appointment to meet Marie-Claude—and then the next day, and the next, when he
did
go to meet her, she failed to appear. Three days passed, and each day that she failed to appear at the usual hour, Alden's heart beat with greater insistency and longing. He
willed
her to come—but she did not. Finally, when he could bear it no longer, and heedless of snipers who still peppered the streets with occasional fire, he picked up his bicycle and went flying, all the way to Franz Eckelmann's flat on the Rue de Vaugirard.

—

W
HO IS IT?

It was Marie-Thérèse who asked from behind the closed door.

Alden informed her, but the door did not immediately open.

I'm looking for Marie-Claude, Alden said, though this was something that would have been immediately clear.

The door opened a crack. Marie-Thérèse peered out—Alden could see just a single sharp cheekbone as it gave way to an angular jaw. The rest of her face was either obscured by the thick door or fell into shadow.

She isn't in, Marie-Thérèse said. Her voice sounded strangely mechanical and cold.

Alden said he would wait.

No—no, Marie-Thérèse said. Now her voice broke and trembled on the word. No, she said again. You mustn't do that.

Her words—something in the way her voice had trembled on them (a timbre that was far more forbidding than the cold, mechanical sound that had echoed within it just moments before)—filled Alden, suddenly, with agonizing dread. It was a feeling not unlike absolute desire; that point at which it becomes a physical thing; pressing with such maddening force from within that at last the body can no longer bear the pressure, and—

I must see her! Alden said, attempting to push past Marie-Thérèse at the door. But Marie-Thérèse, with surprising strength, held it firm. Still, he had managed to wedge himself partway into the door frame and so now could see Marie-Thérèse more clearly—could see, glowing there, in her eyes—it was unmistakable—a hatred that bordered on madness.

He was so startled he almost withdrew his position. But he did not.

Let me see her, he said—though now his own voice trembled.

No.

Listen— Alden said, but he discovered, suddenly, that he had nothing to say. No words with which to defend himself. He had been terribly amiss, it was true. He realized it in a wave. But all that—he had never felt more certain of anything before in his life—would change now! He felt it deeply: a firm resolve, which he could not possibly explain to Marie-Thérèse. If he could only—

He plunged into the dark hall. Once he decided to, it was easy. Marie-Thérèse's weight gave easily away.

You can't see her, she won't be seen, she called out after him—but by that time he was already well past her, heading toward the darkened room where Franz Eckelmann, as usual, gazed out the window toward the empty courtyard where nothing, as far as he was concerned, had changed in seventy years.

When Alden entered the room, the old man's face clouded with the first signs of confusion as he attempted to make sense of his unexpected guest—but Alden did not pause long enough for him to do so, continuing on down the long hall, which led, he knew (though he had never ventured there), to Marie-Claude's room. In the long period of time before she allowed him to sleep with her, he could not help but keep its doorway in view, at least peripherally, on each of his visits to the house— imagining the clandestine space where as a child she had caught fire, and within which she had always slept alone, perfect and (except for the flame and her father's hands, which had, once, descended upon her in order to extinguish them) untouched.

It was through this doorway he burst, and there saw, as he knew that he would, Marie-Claude. He could not say later, even with the state he found her in, that it was not still a relief to see her. The abstract fear and longing that had driven him through the house was much worse than anything real, though it was indeed terrible what he saw, and if he had not known that no other possibility existed but that the body that lay on the bed before him in Marie-Claude's room (that sacred space into which, at last, he had penetrated, which he knew to be hers alone) was indeed Marie-Claude's, he would not have recognized her.

Her face was scratched, raw in places, and both eyes had been swollen shut. Her thick, beautiful hair had been clumsily shaved and still stuck out in matted tufts, gleaming with congealed blood and medical ointment. Alden had come to an abrupt halt just inside the door, and he stood there—dazed—breathing in the air, which smelled strongly of antiseptic and another smell—slightly sweet—like diabetic urine.

His hesitation had given Marie-Thérèse, who had been following him closely behind, the opportunity to pass, so that now she stood facing him at the head of the bed. He looked at her and did not speak. She did
not speak, either, but only stared at him. Then something flickered. He saw, for an instant, that same recognition he had seen in Franz Eckelmann's eye as all at once all the disparate, conflicting signals he received from the world around him clicked and, for at least a brief moment, he understood his place in it. It was with this look that—each time the old man saw him—he made sense of Alden's presence by recognizing him all over again as his nephew, Felix. And then—
that was it.
In a flash, Alden saw it, too. It was
he
—the
real Felix
—who was responsible for all of this. It was for
him
that Marie-Claude suffered now.

Marie-Thérèse must have seen by the changed expression on his face that he at last understood. She nodded. Then turned, ushering him back through the door and into the dark hallway from which they'd come. Alden obeyed—he had no choice—but, also, he was no longer opposed to doing so.

When she closed the door behind them and they walked together into the dim light of the next room, where Franz Eckelmann waited, as he perpetually did, for the world to assemble itself around him in accordance with some sort of recognizable meaning, and she paused and turned to face him, Alden could see that, though there remained in her eye a trace of the cold glow he had first detected there, there was something else now, too. Perhaps she hoped she wouldn't need to hate him.

What—? he began, though he knew now. How foolish they had been! Who—? He began again.

Marie-Thérèse burst into sobs.

Who? she cried. Her own schoolmates even! I used to watch them playing together—happily in the street!

Why, oh, why had it not occurred to him? For three days as he had waited anxiously for Marie-Claude to arrive, attempting to calm his nerves at Marcello's bar, he had overheard rumors of the punishments already being meted out to those, among others, who had been cooperating with the Germans—if not in any official capacity, then in the bedroom. The collaborators themselves, and other “war profiteers,” had begun being rounded up by the French police and gangs before the Germans had even left the city. There were public beatings and executions;
day and night, police vans trolled the streets, delivering collaborators to Fresnes Prison in Val-de-Marne, and La Santé. It was no wonder Alden's nerves were so exceedingly on edge; that he kept a low profile; that he spent nearly every one of his waking hours drinking, slowly, but nonetheless deliberately, in Marcello's bar. Really, though (and over the course of those three days he repeated these words often to himself, like a prayer), he had nothing to worry about. He was American—first of all. And if that wasn't enough: he'd spent time in a German prison camp—having risked his life fighting for France. His work for the Germans? He had been forced into it; absolutely anyone would be sensible to that. There had been no other way.

And if that still wasn't enough? There was the “lieutenant colonel.” Whose true identity he had, all that time—and for good reason—kept to himself.

And there was the manuscript. Even if (Alden told himself, again and again) the code remained uncracked; even if his efforts had ultimately led him no closer to solving the puzzle as it first revealed itself to him than in the moment it had—his intentions, at least, had been good, and … he had been close. The poor girls he saw beaten on the streets, their clothes stripped, their heads shaved—what did they have with which to defend themselves or their intentions? These “horizontal collaborators,” as they were sometimes called, were (it was said)
no less traitors—
and should not be permitted to get off easily. Alden had thought immediately of Paige, when he'd heard—but she was American, too, and anyway safe by then with her sister, in Châteaudun. Why had it not occurred to him that Marie-Claude would be vulnerable? Caring day after day for the old German, Franz Eckelmann, German blood flowing in her veins, seen, no doubt, on the arm of the real Felix, her cousin, who from time to time came to call?

How dare he! Alden was filled with sudden disgust at the clumsiness of it all. How her own cousin had exposed her to this outrage—and where was he now? Had he fled? Like everyone else? Alden hoped sincerely that wherever he was he felt every bruise and burn on Marie-Claude's body.

I didn't think— Alden said. Of course.
Felix
, he said. They would not think to make the distinction that … well, he is only her
cousin
; that it was not a matter—

Marie-Thérèse had covered her face with her hands, but now she looked up at Alden, surprised.

Oh, no, she said. It wasn't
him
… But here she paused.

Alden waited.

Well, he said. What then? The vague thought that Marie-Claude had been seen with other German soldiers—that she had even had “horizontal” relations with them—flashed into his mind like a hot flame, but it was quickly dampened. Impossible.

Don't you understand? Marie-Thérèse asked him slowly, still staring at him with a blank expression of surprise and disbelief.

He must not have replied. There was a strange feeling in his throat like something was trying to catch at it, but there was nothing to hold on to, and whatever it was kept slipping away.

Don't you understand? she asked again. She stood there shaking her head, waiting for him to reply, but he did not.

Alden, she said, finally. It's … Her voice trembled again as it had at the door.
It's you.

He shook his head. There was indeed nothing to hold on to. He felt he was not made out of flesh and blood, but only the absence of where flesh and blood once imagined itself to be. He could see himself as if from above. And Marie-Thérèse, too, Marie-Claude's mother. The way she looked at him, almost curiously now, all hatred dissolved; her face concerned, her hands fluttering like two pale birds.

Alden, she whispered. You must be careful; they will be looking for you now. And you must— she added. You must—Alden—do you promise me?—never come here again.

Her voice broke.

Alden nodded his head and somehow managed, with the help of Marie-Thérèse, who led the way, to navigate his way to the door. She opened it; the sun streamed in, temporarily blinding them.

Tell her, he said … But just at that moment whatever had been
attempting to catch in his throat caught, and there was no way for him to open his mouth again, or utter any sound at all, and that was a great mercy, because he did not know what—even if he could speak—he would say.

He turned, and exited onto the street.

VIII.

AWAITING TRIAL. THE JUDGE'S STUDY AND ANALYST'S OFFICE, WASHINGTON, D.C., 1944
—
WITH A BRIEF DETOUR TO TUCSON, ARIZONA, 1936
.

S
utton comes. Twice a day to the door. She stands there, hovering for a while, as though she has something to say, but can't bring herself to say it. When she does speak, it is always the same thing that she says. She admonishes him, for example, for his poor eating habits when she takes up a tray of food he's left out for her, more often than not untouched, or for not resting properly, or for straining his eyes. It is very dim in the room, there being only an empty ceiling hook where, if it were the last century, a chandelier might have hung. The only light comes from a small lamp on the desk, which casts—even when he remembers to light it—only a very limited glow.

He rarely remembers. Even when, each time she enters, he picks up a book kept open nearby, and for this very purpose—burying his nose in it the instant he hears her at the door. He suspects she knows the book is only a ruse—especially if she enters the room after it has already been
plunged (the lamp still unlit) into darkness—but she uses it as her own. It provides her with an excuse to linger awhile longer, as she fusses with the light—turning it on, then adjusting it, so that it illuminates the stillunread page. Only then does she disappear again down the hall.

As soon as her footsteps fade, he shuts the book and switches off the lamp again.

Sometimes she comes with papers for him to sign, or with information on doctor appointments, and from time to time she shuttles him herself to the hospital in their father's old Hupmobile and sits beside him, flipping through magazines in the waiting room.

And they wait. She snaps the pages deliberately:
snap snap snap
, as regular as the ticking of a clock, and doesn't say anything until his name is called. It is as if she is waiting for this cue—which indicates that the time in which to say anything is already gone.

You must remember, she warns him, just as he is obliged to rise and follow the starched white nurse into the cavernous hall, the more information you can give him—here she pauses; the word even before she says it rings out ridiculous and false—
the better
, she finishes. Apologetic now.

He nods.

A
LL RIGHT, THE ANALYST
says as he enters, indicating a chair adjacent to his own where Alden should sit. It is, after all, the only unoccupied chair. It is hard-backed and upright. Funny. He always imagined he might be allowed to recline.