The Avignon Quintet (10 page)

It would perhaps have been more reasonable to dwell on the existence of frost on the roads which started to climb upon the steepish flanks of the Alpilles, but this did not seem to enter into his calculations at all. I think the capricious visibility played a little on his nerves, or else perhaps his eyes were weak and old. And at any rate we jogged along, carefully verifying our safety at every corner, while he engaged me in a string of commonplaces about the weather and the problems of motorcars in winter. The tricks of the mist were certainly dramatic – as dramatic as in the dream-memory I had just dreamed – and in one of these sudden snatches we suddenly came upon a sleek black hearse which was ahead of us, and moving in the same direction. Bechet expelled his breath in a whistle and said in a superstitious sort of voice: “That must be the body of Piers being taken up to the chateau – the hearse belongs to the morgue and they gave me a rendezvous for seven.” My heart did a double somersault at this ominous and dramatic vision. We now began to play hide-and-seek with the hearse in the shifting mists as we climbed. There was no frost but a deal of wet, with swatches of sodden leaves clinging to our tyres. The forest grew up round us, sombre and darkling. It was eerie to follow Piers like this, sometimes losing the hearse in the mist only to recover it again at a corner. Once or twice we were right on top of it and Bechet let out a sort of exclamation, at once exasperated and concerned. As a Frenchman from the south he would have had a superstitious nature and might have read something ominous into this long pursuit.

But darkness had already fallen now, and in the frail glow of our headlamps the country looked forlorn and all but deserted. Bechet’s anxiety had increased in inverse ratio to his speed. Once or twice cars came in the opposite direction and he shied like a frightened horse and came almost to a standstill. The road had become narrower. I think, too, that he deliberately slowed down his pace in order to lose the hearse, and I was glad of the fact, for its presence afflicted me with a foreboding which was not less unpleasant for being, I knew, senseless. Half-way up the ascent he asked permission to take a rest and a cigarette, drawing the car off the road and halting it while he smoked. The darkness which descended on us when the headlights were switched off was not reassuring either; a deep thawlike night declared itself and the trees dripped moisture on the canvas roof of the car. Bechet did not speak, indeed seemed suddenly weary and distressed as he puffed his thin cigarette. The reason perhaps was that he did not quite know what to expect up at the chateau, and he wanted to give the mutes time enough to deliver the coffin and take their wretched hearse away before we arrived. At any rate the halt was not too badly calculated as matters turned out for by the time we sneaked and skidded down the last reaches of the avenue leading to the house the black car had already unloaded, and was backing to tackle the return journey to the morgue, its mission accomplished.

But the scene outside Verfeuille was an unusual one, not lacking in colourful strangeness. A tall fire of logs had been lighted – almost the height of a pyre, of a stake, on which to burn a martyr. It contested the warmth with the wet night sky. One would have thought it the eve of St. John – the only occasion in the year which is celebrated thus – but this was not the case. The logs were red hot and noisy, loosing a thick column of hot air which drove a broad trail of sparks up into the canopy of forest trees which were grouped around the main porch like silent onlookers. The front doors of the house were open and inside there were bright lights; but also wide open were the doors of the barns and stables on the left, and they too were brilliantly illuminated within. Against these complementary flamelights moved a group of rapt figures thrown into deep silhouette by the dark which stood between us, and which the feeble headlights of Bechet’s car could do little to qualify. Their movements seemed slow and laboured – almost hieratic; and the object they so clumsily manipulated seemed very heavy. For example, a farm cart of the old-fashioned sort with brightly painted sideboards and a long wooden tongue which took a double yoke, was being man-hauled out of the barn. An object more fit for a fair than for a funeral, one would have said; perhaps there was nothing else which would do? One figure turning, though standing and watching the work without helping, identified itself as a thin man in priest’s robes. Briefly, too, in that jumping light the painting on the side of the cart came into view – a picture of angels ascending into a blue empyrean, their dark curly heads and olive eyes conspiring with each other as they threw their appeals upward, skyward; their little white untrustworthy hands were raised in tapering fashion to form poses of prayerful propitiation. Hoof thunder followed this tableau, as a gigantic farm horse was backed out of the obscurity of a barn into the light, to be harnessed and blinkered by a hissing shadow. The fire made it nervous, it rolled its kind eyes and agitated its carefully plaited tail. It had been polished all over for the occasion like a grand piano. It moved awkwardly from one large hoof to the other as it submitted to the last ministrations of its keepers.

A group of figures, four or five, were busy about the cart now, arranging the couplings. Something black and damascened – a sort of scrolled blanket – was thrown over the cart and then a smaller one over the horse. The priest had taken up a pose like a golfer about to drive off a tee – he had a prayer book in hand. Bechet swore and jumped smartly into action. It was obvious that the peasants could do nothing against the venerable figure of an Abbé, even supposing them to be in the know about Piers’ will and his last instructions. There was a brief but sharp little altercation in which the Abbé came off worst, for he hung his head and put away his book; but Bechet was quite out of breath and red-cheeked from the intellectual effort, and I was amazed to see that he had, after all, a backbone.

But he was not in time to prevent the manufacture of this home-made hearse by old Jan and his staff, and it would have been cruel to make them change it now. They had managed already to take possession of the coffin and push it on to the back of the cart; and now somebody ran up with a glossy black plume and fixed it to the crown of the horse’s head. What a religion to be buried in, no wonder Piers had renounced it! Nor could I coax up more charitable feelings by glancing at the thin foxy face of the priest as he scornfully watched the proceedings; then he bowed his head defiantly and appeared to sink into deep prayer. I glanced at Bechet to see whether he had noticed this illegal performance or not; but he was looking the other way. I vaguely recognised old Jan, walking about in shaky fashion, but still very much in charge of things, giving orders in a low voice, and setting everything to rights. The flames rose higher, shining on the sweaty peasant faces and great paws sticking out of dark Sunday suits.

A slight powdery snow had begun to fall, but was melting instantaneously in the hot column of sparks from the fire. Cumbrously the cart was reversed now and set square upon the gravel path. The priest woke from his intercession with the forces of darkness and moved towards the cart; I caught a glimpse of a long deceitful face, narrow as a dog’s. His lips were drawn back over yellowish teeth. He was very tall and skeletonic, and must have been in his seventies. The whole set of his face suggested contemptuous vexation – presumably due to the lawyer’s insistence. Bechet now stepped within the pale of the firelight and introduced me. I received a glance like a swordthrust. He must have known of my existence to look at me so keenly. Then his priest’s face went hard as a rock and he turned away. But by now all was in readiness. Out of the front door came shawled women
endimanchées
and Sunday men, all the retainers of the place in fact, and we formed up behind the towering farm cart in a sad procession.

We set off into the darkness, away from the crepitations of the fire, with only the music of the huge hooves to guide us. We had one or two lanterns and by common consent they headed the procession. Jan walked holding the horse’s head, his own lantern held aloft to light his path. So we crunched across the gravel and then on to a wide mossy pathway which led to the family vault which had been built in a secluded part of the forest, thick with sycamores and planes. During this slow descent I somehow managed to make myself known to Jan and his son, while two of the women darted at me to take my hand and press it to their wet cheeks. We spoke hardly at all, but there was a note of reproach in their voices which was not hard to interpret; it was as if this perfunctory burial were robbing not only death of its proper dues, but also them of their time-honoured rights as mourners. This was not a fitting way to do things. What would become of the spirit of my poor friend if his body was rushed to the grave without any religious rites to smooth its sad way? Had the place and time permitted they would have interceded with me on this score, I knew that; and I was glad that we had delayed our journey. Now it was too late to change things. As we approached the vault in the deep woods we were joined by other little lantern-led groups of neighbours and friends. Jan waved his old warped hand to them bidding them join us, and gradually a long glowworm of light followed the cart.

Soon we were walking down a pathway bordered by a broad canopy of shrubs on either side; they met overhead and sheltered us from the powdery snowfall. I found all this a winding and gloomy walk to the burial place. The sky above us was silent and void of stars. We came at last to the site of the vault with its dilapidated urns, crude
putti
and detestable cypress trees, which had always made my heart contract with distress – even before, I mean, there was any association involving Piers. I hated them as Horace had once hated them. Here we halted irresolutely, the place was in darkness; but old Jan had the key and he now addressed himself to the task of opening the iron grille. It was a bit rusty, and I stepped out to give the old man a helping hand. After much coaxing the thing yielded. By the light of the lanterns which had been placed on the ground, we descended the flight of broad steps which led to the door of the vault. This by contrast was quite new and the lock had recently been changed. Pushed gently, it opened on blackness. We turned back for our lanterns. It seemed to me that the place had not been swept out for some long time; dead leaves littered the floor, and there were dead snails curled up in one corner. But all this was quickly remedied for one of the women had brought a straw broom with her and, while the rest of us were busy manoeuvring to get a purchase on the coffin and convey it down the shallow stairway, she set to and swept out the vault at full speed.

Now there was light which enabled us to look around a bit. It was a musty enough place but larger than it had at first seemed. There were tombs of several periods and not a few cobwebbed side-chapels; but there were several blank, unoccupied emplacements, and it was towards one of these that we headed with the covered coffin. Shadows by lantern-light bobbed and danced; figures suddenly became giants or diminished to dwarfs. Here normally Piers should have lain at rest for a whole night and a day, while his friends and servants filed by for a last look at his quiet face before leaving the chapel to be bricked in by the masons. But now the absence of a formal ceremony created a peculiar hiatus. By the light of lanterns on the ground everyone looked at his or her neighbour, then crossed himself and muttered a prayer. From the Abbé’s point of view this unorganised praying was little short of scandalous. He stood motionless, chin on breastbone, as if in deep meditation. In an unvoluntary and sheepish fashion we had formed up behind him in the posture of a congregation, waiting until he should return to this world and give us permission to depart. It was awkward. He stayed thus for what seemed an age; then slowly turning round he gazed at us with a vague and abstracted eye, as if his thoughts were far away. He opened his mouth as if to say something and then appeared to think better of it; he closed it again and shook his head, uttering as he did so a profound sigh. “So we must leave him,” he said and turned round on his heel.

For no reason that I can fathom this ordinary remark touched off something in me, an irrational feeling of self-contempt – perhaps because I had been too cowardly to go and visit Piers in the morgue. At any rate I was seized by a kind of panic as I saw one of the farm hands advancing with a screwdriver and a fistful of brass screws. I must, I felt, look once more, for the last time, on the face of my friend before the coffin was screwed down and the embrasure irremediably bricked up. I had noticed that the coffin was of the continental kind with a hinged lid to reveal the face in the case of a lying-in-state. I stepped impulsively forward to put my feelings into practice – I had almost pushed back this section of the coffin – when they laid firm hands on my arm. Priest and notary on either side of me prevented the execution of the deed with a sudden alarm which was hard to understand. “But why?” I cried angrily as they forced me slowly back. But they were as incoherent as they were adamant. Against my will I submitted and allowed myself to be gently pushed back to the grating, and finally up the steps. It was astonishing; but of course this was no place and time for violence or an altercation. What struck me was that Bechet and the Abbé both participated in this restraining action. Their vehemence as well as their unity of purpose struck me as highly irrational. What could it be to them that I should take a last look at Piers before they closed him down? I was furious and also puzzled, but I swallowed my resentment temporarily and stood for a while on the steps gazing into the yellow pool of light and reflecting. The wind whimpered in the trees. At last there came the tapping and the screech of coffin screws being sunk into place. Then one by one the stragglers assembled once more in the dark holding their lamps and lanterns. On the way back to the house the procession slowly dissolved as we traversed the dark woods. Bechet walked beside me with the Abbé on his right. For a while he said nothing and then, feeling no doubt that silence without a platitude to ornament it would make us uneasy, gave a sigh and said: “Human life! How short and how precarious it is.” But the priest said nothing as he trudged on with a kind of dogged misery. Nothing!