The Avignon Quintet (173 page)

They claimed – at least the two officers commanding the operation – that their men had stumbled upon an oaken door set in the rock in the very heart of the labyrinth – a steel-studded door which when forced opened upon a small nest of caves of a beehive pattern. These were of fine workmanship, the walls carefully rendered to secure the place against damp. These nooks were positively crammed with treasure, all the crates carefully assembled and tidily disposed. Their astonished eyes took in not only gold bars and coin but also a small mountain of precious stones and other specie, while a Latin wall inscription gave them to understand that the hoard was of Templar provenance! Templar! At first there was some confusion and a good deal of scepticism, for the lieutenant in charge of the Austrians was a renowned liar and drunkard. Moreover he intimated that in order to safeguard their find they had carefully mined and booby-trapped the corridors which surrounded the entry to the principal cave with its door set in the rock, and that it would be perilous to attempt to visit the site without a detailed map of the booby-traps, not least because of the fear of setting off the explosive stored all round – the original stockpile which occupied the surround of caverns and corridors! If there was at first some disposition to disbelieve the contentions of the Austrian lieutenant, his story was given substance and force by the fact that he and his fellow-soldier were both able to produce some precious stones which they alleged they had abstracted from one of the great oaken chests, before shutting the place up and wiring up the surrounding caves with defensive explosives.

What irony! So thought Constance when she learned of these developments. “The Templar treasure, though at long last discovered, remains as always obstinately out of reach due to the freakish developments of a new war.” She smiled ruefully for she could see in her mind’s eye the expressions which would flit like bats across Lord Galen’s face – hunger, elation, fear, vexation, if ever she got to tell him the astonishing story, as she supposed she one day must – foiled again! And yet … surely there
must
have been a map at some time, if only to enable the Austrian discoverers of the place to gain access to it once more? Somewhere, somebody must have kept a record of the booby-trappings. But all the sappers were dead, executed by the Nazis for the crime of refusing to destroy the city! And who would risk treasure-hunting in this vast stockpile of ammunition? How maddening all these contingencies were! The old soldier was all sympathy for her exasperation; yet when she told him of her excursion to the Saintes Maries and of the gipsy pronouncements upon the treasure – namely, that it was real enough but guarded by dragons – he chuckled and struck his knee with his palm, saying: “One strange thing – the Austrian sappers had been formed from a disbanded regiment of Imperial dragoons and were entitled to wear a dragon on their shoulder-flash in memory of their origins. There you have your so-called ‘dragons’ if you wish to interpret the prophesy like that!” It was highly plausible to a superstitious mind and she could just see the Prince lapping it up with delight. But of course the principal dilemma remained – namely, what if anything could be done about the treasure hoard? Presumably nothing in default of further information. “I see that you are vexed and disappointed,” said old Von Esslin with compassion, for familiarity had done nothing to quell the ardour of his admiration for Constance, “and I quite understand. I will have a further think about the matter and see whether any solution could present itself. But of course it would be madness just to wander about in the
cache
without knowing what one was doing. This group of active mutineers were not joking. They meant business and they knew their jobs.”

For a while it seemed that the whole subject had reached a stalemate and that no further advance was to be expected. Then there was a diversion which was provided by the sudden appearance of the doctor, Jourdain, at Tu Duc one middle-morning, riding a bicycle, and bringing news of the reappearance on the scene of Smirgel, the wartime double agent who had so much occupied their thoughts. “He has re-emerged from hiding to provide evidence before a war crimes tribunal about criminal activities during the last days of the occupation. He is in quite a state, as you can imagine, and is trying to save his skin and his name by betraying a number of his erstwhile colleagues! At least so it looks to me. He is an incorrigible fellow, and a liar of the first order. I have a sort of unwilling admiration for him as a specimen. From the medical point of view he astonishes me by remaining just this side of a fine full efflorescent paranoia. I wonder how he does it.” Aubrey Blanford, who was listening and playing a hand of solitaire with himself, said, “Perhaps he should be writing novels?” and Jourdain smiled. He went on: “At any rate with a matching effrontery he dropped in on me for a drink and tried to sound me out as a possible witness in his favour – a role I carefully sidestepped, as I don’t know what he was up to during the occupation, how should I? But I told him that you, Constance, were trying to locate him, hoping to question him in your private capacity about Livia and her mysterious activities. This seemed to make him startled and a bit distrustful. He seemed somewhat unwilling to be met again – I feared he would disappear – but after I had talked to him for a while he calmed down and listened attentively. I stressed that you would be a valuable ally for him in case of trouble with investigating tribunals and it might be worth his while to humour your request. So suddenly he gave in and said that he would meet you on condition that only you knew of the place of rendezvous. He proposes this afternoon at four – hence my appearance all of a sudden here. I bring a letter with the details.”

He extracted the sealed envelope from his pocket and placed it in the hand of Constance saying, “Ouf! I am rather out of breath with all this activity, but I have done my duty. What about treating me to a glass of wine before I take myself off? It would be an act of kindness …” They hastened to comply with his request and the three of them sat on for a while on the terrace, in the shade of the apple trees, while Constance with a mixture of curiosity and elation opened her envelope and started to read her message, written in the spidery hand of the evasive Smirgel it was written in German – so he had not forgotten! “Dear Madam, I understand from our mutual friend, the good doctor Jourdain, that you wish to see me. I would be glad to comply with this wish and ask you to accept a rendezvous which, owing to my present activities and preoccupations, seems suitable, as I am not entirely my own master and am very busy. Therefore I will wait for you between four and five tomorrow at the Montfavet Church which of course you know so well. I will sit in the fifth side chapel. I trust this is acceptable to you. Yours Sincerely.” The signature was a squiggle. She replaced the letter in the envelope and thanked Jourdain for his good offices. They had decided in the course of these exchanges to keep him for lunch, and from the kitchen came the agreeable clatter of pans and pots.

So it was that with a westering sunlight she took her little car along the familiar roads towards the city; Jourdain sat beside her for she had persuaded him to double his bicycle into the back of her little car, folding it up as far as possible, so to speak. She dropped him first and then drove back into the shady little square with its quiet tenantry of olive trees and cypresses. She parked it against the wall in the shade and switched off the motor to sit for a moment recalling her last weird meeting with Livia in this pleasant precinct so many years ago. She recalled the precise tone in which she had said the words “I have lost an eye!”; and how she had all the time kept her face turned away from her sister, as if ashamed of the deformity. How had she lost an eye? Ruminating upon these forgotten events she slowly crossed the sunlit-dappled grove and entered the quiet church, now deserted and shadowy, to find herself at last in the side chapel under the oil-painted witnesses, so gauche and awkward. On the wall at her back was a plaque with an inscription commemorating the death of some now forgotten priest.

ICI REPOSE

PLACIDE BRUNO VALAYER

Evêque de Verdun

Mort en Avignon

en 1850

The painting was of a poor style, a poor period. And how wan, abstracted and faraway were the faces of the three presiding over this silent edifice. Yet not entirely silent, for somewhere outside among green leaves and bowers of shade a nightingale stammered out a phrase and then was suddenly silent, as if it had grown abashed. Well, she had arrived a few minutes early, so it was too soon to become anxious about the arrival of Smirgel. She closed her eyes for a moment, the better to dream of the past in this rich corner of silence with its opaque afternoon light – a place for guided loneliness across the breathing silences and the one-pointed plains of deliberate unreason towards the mystical nudge which might set the dreamer off on a new trajectory towards the light! Towards a new objective – to try and make death fully conscious of itself! In the midst of these lucubrations she found herself falling asleep in the pew she sat in, and it was with something of a start that she woke at last to find that Smirgel had succeeded in entering the little church noiselessly and sat in the pew beside her, looking smilingly at her sleeping face. She was a little bit put out of countenance as she tried to muster her questions. “Of course it must be you,” she said, to which he replied, “Have I changed so very much, then?” In truth he had. He had become extremely thin and now dressed shabbily enough, while his hair had been cropped rather short – it was fairly grey. But the old deviousness and invincibility of spirit still shone in his eyes; they had narrowed with cunning and he was saying, “I have no idea what I can tell you that you don’t know, but I will do my best to meet with your demands. But will you in return help me if I need help one of these days? I suppose that Jourdain told you that I am being called before a war tribunal to answer for so-called criminal activities just before the collapse, our collapse. The truth of the matter is that I was working for the British on the promise that they would take the fact into account after the war. But now on the plea that I was a double agent working for my own side they claim that they owe me nothing for such work! Can you beat it?” He sat back in his pew and shook his head self-commiseratingly. Constance felt it was wise not to allow any strings to be attached to the transaction and said, “I can’t make any promises, I am afraid – otherwise we can go no further. I cannot pose conditions myself either. I was just curious to find out something more about my sister Livia and her strange and tragic ending. At that time you seemed to know a good deal about her, but I refrained from asking you anything. It might not have been felt suitable while war conditions were such as they were. But now that things are changing back to peacetime conditions I thought I might try once more. Do you see?”

“Ah! Livia!” he said, sighing deeply. “Who will ever find out the truth about Livia?” Was it an illusion or did he swallow a lump of chagrin as he spoke? It was as if the thought of Livia came suddenly upon him, without warning, to drown him in the toils of an unrequited desire and memory. She found herself watching him curiously to study the sorrowful lines which these thoughts hatched upon that deceitful countenance. He was thinking deeply, painfully – perhaps re-creating her image with its wounded eye. He said gruffly, “Of course it is useless to tell you how much one could care for such a girl – you know that only too well! But in my case memory goes back beyond the war to when I first met her. We were both much much younger, and I did not know you or your family or your home. I was a German student of archaeology, specialised in the restoration of historic objects – paintings, pottery, glass and so on. The Society had sent me to Avignon to help restore its most famous painting. I was young and ardent, a keen National Socialist as we all were then. To my surprise so was she. You cannot realise what it meant to have someone English approving of one’s political direction – it filled one with relief and happiness. Moreover a girl, a beautiful one. I could not help but love such a person. I became a slave to Livia. We met every day before the great painting. She held my brushes and paints for me. Her patience was exemplary. But sometimes she disappeared from view for several days, though she would never say where she had been. For a while after we became lovers I was wildly happy and then a kind of doubt began to seep in. It was as if inside herself, deep down, she enjoyed a profound reserve which prevented her from really giving herself in love. It was as if in her heart she were listening to faraway music or voices; they gave her a kind of dreamy detachment, of abstraction which left her lover baffled and somehow unsatisfied despite the passion they exchanged. I felt cheated and sometimes proposed to break off the affair, but she pleaded with me not to – pleaded with intensity and force that convinced me to stay on as her humble servant. I realised that I loved the girl, but that she did not love me in the same way, or in the same degree. I wondered why. Then, during one of her disappearances, I had a chance to see some new sides to her character, for one of the gipsies came to me and said that I should go to her as she had fallen ill – from smoking
quat
, he said. He led me to a corner of the town near ‘les Balances’: and there, on the third floor of a dilapidated house which was most likely a bordello, I found Livia, deadly sick in bed, just as the gipsy had indicated. The reasons were evident also. I was alarmed and debated whether to call a doctor or not. But at last I decided to get her home first, to my lodgings which were respectable enough, before calling in a doctor.”

He paused to light a cigarette and she was intrigued to see how much his fingers trembled as he did so; by contrast the tone of his recital was dry, monotonous and without emphasis. But the expression on his face remained withdrawn, almost deceitful in its deliberate expressionlessness. After a brief hesitation – as if he was not quite sure in which order he should present the facts of his story – he went on with a trifle more animation. “The gipsy had a two-wheeler, a barrow on which he exposed his wares for sale, mostly old clothes. I persuaded him to help me place the sleeping form of Livia on it and cover it with clothes and blankets. At break of day nobody noticed us wheeling her through the silent streets to my own lodgings where we managed to get her up to my rooms and into the comfortable bed, while I talked the landlady into sanctioning the new visitor who had, as I told her, fallen ill of a stomach ailment due to the highly spiced food: a common enough event. I had built up a reputation for seriousness and studious application to my books, so everything was all right. The young doctor whom the landlady summoned was also discreet and pleasant and I was able to confide fully in him, which was a relief. So Livia hovered for a week or so between sleep and waking while we fed and protected her. But for long periods during this time she lived in a state of hallucination, she had visions; this is how I made some new discoveries, unpleasant ones, about her past. Because of her state of mind she was off her guard and confided in me things which perhaps in her ordinary state she would not have wanted known. That is how I discovered about Hilary, her brother …”