The Avignon Quintet (106 page)

She thought this episode over very carefully as the lift swung her down to the main hall; trivial in itself, it nevertheless vibrated inside her like the echo to something long wished for, ardently desired. At dinner she asked the Prince to tell her about Affad, and followed with great concentration an account of his business life and his education in three countries. “He is really a sort of strange mixture of businessman and mystic. Perhaps he is a homosexual without being aware of it – I don’t know.” The Prince made a face to express his amusement at this hypothesis. “I certainly don’t think so myself,” he added more vehemently.

All this and the emotional indecisions provoked by the encounter with Affad she recalled with great vividness bordering indeed on a sort of anxiety because of its ambiguousness. She was not ready to love anybody. Turning and tossing in bed she squashed the tepid water bottle against her toes to try and warm them. But even though sleep came, it was late and unrefreshing. At dawn she was up and dressed, anxious to take a walk across the town. Her feet on the stairs woke the night porter who had overslept and he let her out of the front door on request but without approval. “What will you do?” he said in a wondering tone. “Just look,” she replied, and set off for a brisk walk to fill in the time before the planned arrival of Madame Quiminal who was coming at ten to take her to the offices which had been proposed as a centre for Red Cross operations. The town had always been somewhat dirty and dilapidated, so that at first blush little seemed remarkably different about it. Then the smell of rotting garbage became pronounced and she observed mountains of it, overflowing from dustbins and packages everywhere – the stray dogs had enjoyed a field-day in dragging all this stuff about the main square where it mingled with the drifts of fallen leaves. No café was open so early, and the only public phone booth opposite the post office had been used during the hours of darkness as a sort of urinal by persons unknown. There were wall-portraits of the Marshal in a number of places but they were mostly defaced or covered with impotent graffiti. More imposing, for they reflected a history more recent, indeed of burning actuality, were the large command posters attached to walls and trees around the main square; they recorded the death sentences pronounced upon captured
franc-tireurs
by the German High Command. In some curious way the letterpress, crowded together as it was, gave a faint hint of Gothic script most appropriate to the subject, while the red ground upon which the whole was printed was precisely the dull red of arterial blood which had been, from time immemorial, used on the bullfighting posters. The dark red of bull’s blood, upon which the crooked cross had been overstamped. Sighing, she read through these condemnations, heavy in spirit, wondering how human beings with so short a span of life at their disposal should seek in this way to qualify and abbreviate it with their neurotic antics. It was a mystery. A deep-seated self-destructiveness was the most one could diagnose about such a state of affairs. But it involved everyone. You could not opt out. Even those comfortable neutrals up in Geneva, though they thought themselves out of reach, were involved in this calamitous historic process – it would reach them in time. Her absorbed steps led her in and out of the medieval cobweb of streets, past the Princes Hotel, where once (so Felix Chatto had averred) Blanford had spent an afternoon with a girl in a room belonging to Quatrefages the clerk. She had completely forgotten this incident until now. She followed the curving walls of the outer bastions, past the little bread shop which had always been the first to open in the mornings because it supplied the buffet of the railway station. But now there was no light in the interior and on the door there was a notice which read
Plus de pain
, which must have struck a heavy blow of dismay at the French soul: such an idea was unthinkable. Maybe it would bring home to the citizens of the town the reality of the New Order. On she walked and the north wind rose and sparkled through the bright sky.

Back at the hotel the Prince sat in the breakfast-room with a bad-tempered expression on his face, spooning up the meagre fare provided for him while opposite him, with an ingratiating expression on his goat-like face, sat the Professor of last night, Smirgel, who seemed to have taken a great fancy to this new friend. “We could not speak freely last night in Von Esslin’s mess,” he said, “and I wanted to ask your help with the question of the Templar treasure.” The Prince in a somewhat irritated tone said, “I’ve told you all I know.” Smirgel made a soothing gesture with his hands and said hastily, “I know, sir, I know. But I have only recently arrived, sent by the Führer specially to deal with this problem and this has put me in rather a delicate position. For example your clerk, Quatrefages, has been very difficult; first he lied and then he pretended that he was tortured, while now he is pretending that he has lost his reason. I say ‘pretending’, but I am not sure.”

“Why should he be pretending? He will probably die under interrogation like the secretary of Lord Galen – he was ‘pretending’ he was a deaf-mute, I suppose?’ Smirgel hung his head and allowed the Prince’s high indignation to sweep over him in a wave. He even nodded, as if he accepted full weight of the incriminating charge. Then he said, “All that was before I arrived; now things are different; we are proceeding in another manner now, with caution and sincerity.”

The Prince looked as if he were about to throw a plate at him. He swelled up for a moment, filling his lungs with air, and then said, on an expiration, “The last information we had from Quatrefages was that we now knew the names of the five knights who were in the secret. It was a question of trying to trace through them the famous orchard with its quincunx of trees – I ask you! A hopeless quest, I should say.”

“You do not believe it exists?”

“I did not say that. Lord Galen seemed quite convinced that it did; but he is a strange whimsical man and could, I should think, be capable of believing anything. But Quatrefages offered us hope, and that is as far as it went. Clearly your inquisitors have driven him out of his mind, thus ruining any chance of getting hold of such information as he might hold. How typical! Where is he now? Is he to be seen?”

The Professor deliberated for a long moment before answering; then he said, “In the asylum at Montfavet – where he can receive treatment and follow a sleeping cure to try and straighten out his mind. He was in the fortress but there was an attempt to help him escape by the gypsies – he was always their friend, no?”

“Of course he was; they were doing a lot of the digging in the part of the town known as Les Balances – they found most of our statuary. We bought it for very high prices.”

The Professor gave an elf chuckle. “Our people thought it was Foreign Intelligence which wanted to free him because of the secrets he knew. Hence the interrogation. But you have confirmed my own surmise – it was just a friendly act by the gypsies who were his friends. Thank you, Your Highness.” He stood up, for in the mirror among the clustering palms in tubs he had caught a glimpse of Constance returning. “I don’t wish to disturb you any longer. But if there are any other afterthoughts please let me know – here is my number. I could arrange for you to visit him, if you so wished – either of you.” For Constance had seated herself and after nodding good morning, was looking from one face to the other to try and seize the thread of their conversation. The Prince explained, “It’s about Quatrefages. He is in the local asylum. This wretched treasure – now it’s Hitler who is after it, one can’t imagine why. He can’t need the money I shouldn’t suppose!”

The Professor permitted himself to say, with a becoming unction, “The Führer’s motives are not pecuniary, I can assure you; his interest is a mystical one, to trace the roots of the Templar beliefs, the secret of their downfall. German freemasonry was also involved in their history – I suppose you would know that?”

He seemed anxious to justify himself and indeed re-open the conversation, but he received no encouragement from the Prince, who nodded curtly and with a dismissive air said, “Ah, I see Madame Quiminal coming into the hotel. Let us order some more breakfast for her, shall we?” The Professor accepted his cue and made his departure but not before giving Constance a card with his phone number on it. “In case you might ever have news for me, or information for me,” he explained hastily and saluting turned away to make room for the newcomer who came smiling to their table. She was grateful to spend a moment with them before the office opened. “I will be frank,” she said. “I have been told that the hotel can afford real coffee because its patrons are army people.” But though the coffee was good the hotel seemed completely empty. Although Nancy Quiminal was handsome in her unusual fair-skinned way she was clad in rather a perfunctory fashion, and her shoes were very worn. She caught Constance’s eye as it roved over her attire and she said,
“Eh bien
, I know. You are looking at my shoes with surprise.” “On the contrary,” said Constance, “I took a walk this morning to look at the shops – there is nothing in them! And when I think how
chic
the town was as a shopping centre.” Quiminal made a grimace. She did not comment further. But when they rose to go she asked if they might take the bread and croissants with them because one never knew … She wrapped them swiftly in a paper napkin and placed them in her much used shopping bag. Then she led them to where their new office was to be created in the back block of apartments which adjoined the handsome central Mairie which looked out over the famous square with its formal Monument des Morts wreathed in metal tracery of breath-taking flamboyance, and contrasting so definitively with the sobriety and ampleness of the theatre. The great central court of the Mairie with its fat classical columns was swept with icy draughts, for a traditional mistral had begun to blow. “We will call on the mayor,” said their mentor, “but don’t say much to him; he is one of them.” She jerked her head with contempt and looked as if she were about to spit. They climbed the beautiful staircase in silence, digesting this information. But it was only to be expected that the Germans would appoint people they could trust, and Constance said as much,
sotto voce
. But Nancy Quiminal said, “No. He was here before. Anyway it is for you to judge.” And she threw open a door on the first landing and ushered them into a handsome high-ceilinged apartment where M. le Maire sat at a vast desk, his shoulders bowed under a quilt whose function was to keep him warm enough to sign the documents which issued from his department. He looked both pleasant and quite intelligent, and offered them chairs with courtesy and a certain dignity. “I have heard nothing official, but I gather from common gossip that you are going to come and install yourselves here for the Red Cross. I would say welcome, if things were not so difficult. My poor country!” He saw them eyeing a portrait of Pétain on the wall behind his desk, and made a grimace of distaste and sadness. “Ah, the Marshal,” he said tenderly, “without him it would have been worse – a
total
defeat! He is saving as much as he can, but even he is not superhuman.” There was an awkward pause; Madame Quiminal rose and excused herself, saying that she would precede them to the offices which had been set aside for them. “I think M. le Maire will want to talk to you for a moment by himself,” she added tactfully.

For the mayor it seemed an unexpected idea. He asked them a few questions about the sort of organisation they were minded to father upon the town, and seemed quite pleased at the idea that through the Red Cross they might have access to medical supplies and food parcels for the new prisoners. “All is chaos,” he said, “for the moment. There are new camps being used as transit camps for prisoners.… Supplies are always short.” Then, somewhat to their surprise, he said that while all knew that Madame Quiminal was indispensable to the Red Cross she was not … here he paused to seek the right phraseology: she was “not a woman to whom one could say everything”. Constance showed her surprise so plainly that the mayor went on to explain that he had nothing against her personally, she was very good at her job. “But there are ambiguities. They say, for example, that she accepts the favours of a German officer, indeed the head of the Gestapo here!” This really took the wind out of Constance’s sails; she felt her nascent indignation subside in astonishment and sadness at the thought. “She must have her reasons,” she said with asperity and the mayor agreed with his gestures that there was no doubt about the matter. “Nevertheless,” he said, “it makes one hesitate. You see, there are many people who are frankly on the side of the … enemy. One has to be rather careful. But there, I don’t want to depress you with such matters. Come, I will take you to your offices myself.”

Together they negotiated several corridors until at last tall doors opened upon a pleasant suite of rooms in one of which sat Nancy Quiminal at a desk devoid of paper as yet, knitting and reading. The mayor made his adieus with a formal correctness full of reserve.

Outside in the square there came the tramping of boots as a contingent of infantry crossed it on the way to the fortress where they were quartered. It was a strange sight. Constance stood at the window watching the soldiers, lost in thought; the town was all but deserted. Where, one might wonder, were all the inhabitants of the famous city, normally so eager for diversion that the faintest hint of marching feet, or of drum and trumpet, impelled them immediately into the open streets and squares, keen to mingle into a procession or join a dance-measure? A few shabby housewives skulked here and there like mangy cats, holding empty shopping-bags. Members of the new Milice –
les barbouzes
as they came to be called – strutted awkwardly about in their newly minted apparel. Latins are always conspicuously dangerous when they are serving an unpopular cause for money. It would have been folly to smile at their get-up for they were armed with out-of-date but still quite serviceable weaponry.