The Janeites (4 page)

“No, she wasn’t on the tap, not with Ray anyhow. Little sums maybe, he bought her things but no jewellery or stuff – keepsakes. It would be a big mistake to think of her as grabbing or even false. A generous streak and a lot that was genuine. Of course, I can only go
by what he told me. I think she made up stories, didn’t know herself whether they were true or false; all muddled together as I’d guess, in her mind. But when it came to trouble I wasn’t surprised.”

One would give a lot of weight to William’s view of people seldom met and scarcely known. Among others ‘M. le Marquis’ confirmed that; said William was unusually shrewd at summing up a character and that he’d often found it so. Pretty shrewd himself as well as crooked; probably a good witness. Especially as to whores. Back for a moment to William –

“No I don’t think you’d call Janine a whore. Came awfully close perhaps, now and then. She was quite intelligent. On the whole, possibly, she was too damn complicated.” Ray himself said that she was given to ‘acting out her own fantasies’.

“You don’t understand her” warm in her defence. “So very vulnerable, so sensitive, so little confidence in herself. A broken family, nobody to care for her, she’s had some hard times.” It is fairest no doubt to all concerned to leave it at that.

Doctor Valdez has no ‘consulting room’. He has his being in the office at the Institute, where his mail goes, and he keeps his papers. Here now he sits, and he’s thinking that ‘this won’t do’.

This so far is nothing but bits and scraps; jerky, jagged fragments of life. Now he must put it together, smooth it out, and make a plan.

I was called into consultation quite a time ago, to go to Paris, take a look at Monsieur le Marquis. This suggestion did not come from eminent colleagues in Paris who were already treating him. That could happen, does occasionally, but hadn’t. Which makes for difficulties. Deontology: one will not criticize nor interfere with treatment prescribed by eminent colleagues who haven’t asked my opinion. It came from the Marquis himself, who had heard of me God-knows-where and wasn’t saying. He was very insistent that I should have a shot. He has of course the right to consult whom he pleases, including charlatans. I was not in a happy position but did not see my way to refusing.

I didn’t get far with this. Clinically the crab had got too much of a grip on him. He had refused surgery. The eminent whosis had put
him on a good standard treatment which would keep him going quite a while yet. I made efforts to get inside this man, and the best I could do was to get alongside. We liked each other, had some good talk about this-and-that. It stopped short of any real understanding. A politician in all his fibres, hardened and polished by the years; intensely secretive, incredibly devious, and one has to say it, fundamentally dishonest. I had to say what I had been in little doubt of from the start.

“I can’t treat you.” No foothold, but this old man neither needs nor wants explanations, metaphors, illustrations. He has courage, an immensely sharp intelligence, a remarkable lucidity.

“You need not worry about it, Raymond. Most men are tools; they come to my hand, I use them. You are not a tool. I enjoy knowing you. You increase my self-knowledge. That is a gain I do not think lightly of. There are those who prolong my life and I am grateful. Others – yourself – I gain in profundity.”

“I don’t much like this profit and loss talk.” The old man has a delightful smile. No doubt it has often served him well but that does not interest me.

Six months later I get a call from him, asking me to look at William. Of course I accept – I owe him that much. I don’t even have to go to Paris; William lives in my back yard.

Very likely I shall have to go to Paris. This wife – Joséphine – separated, not divorced, is a key, no doubt of it. If I am to do serious work here I must try to know something of this woman.

Clinically speaking – I have seen the dossier, and Rupprecht’s notes: I have talked to him. I have a chance here. Rupprecht’s policy is mostly defensive. He doesn’t think there is much he can do beyond a skilful delaying action. I am not so sure. For the crab to step backwards is not unknown. To abandon altogether – not unheard of. That depends upon the subject. I call William a pretty good subject.

It begins to be sure with this firm principle, the refusal of violence. There at our first meeting, in that country restaurant, he had a good and well-told tale.

“Violencia… Once, a while back, this wasn’t Marky but old Lavigne when he was President, I was drafted for state visits in
South America. The Ol’ Man was mad on Incas or whatever, there we were, Olmecking & Toltecking. One temple, we were lodged in a tourist place, I was on duty, little man walks in asking for the Boss. He had a little cardboard suitcase – I want that open, it was full of rocks. What d’you want? Sell you this for five thousand dollars. A fortune to him. Says it’s raw emeralds. I can’t do that. And isn’t it dangerous? I can protect myself, he says, and shows me this gun he has, old seven-sixty-five Mat, wouldn’t shoot a paper doll. Cheap, cheap, he kept saying, me with my three words of Spanish. Three men walked in at the door just like a Western movie, without a word they put three shots in him right in the hotel lobby, behind the desk there’s a clerk and a guard, local man. I’m behind the sofa smartish, they blew all three to pieces, goddam great Colt forty-five, I’ve never seen so much blood. I don’t know what Lavigne got beyond a lot of official apologies, I got a pair of emerald ear-rings, Joséphine has them.” Wonderfully Bald. I have plenty to learn, here.

“So no belief in violence, personal or professional.”

“Sounds odd from a cop, all right.”

“The girl who was raped by the anaesthetist, only her word for it, entire clinic ganged up to say impossible, her fantasy, no proof whatsoever, what would you advise her?”

“Get a little cutter, held in the palm, do him across both cheeks, it’s old-fashioned but mighty efficient.”

“But since you’re an old pirate you’d tip him the black spot first, wouldn’t you? Let him sweat.”

“You’re quite right, it solves nothing. Childish. She can call him up and breathe at him. Fear.”

“Will it hit his conscience?”

“He hasn’t any. Miserable bugger.”

“Your logic’s good. You can only get him through the colleagues but protecting him they protect themselves. Even when they know it’s true, fear for their job, reputation, money.”

“But they’ll see to get rid of him quietly, and he won’t get another job.”

“Does that help the girl who got raped?”

“Plenty girls get raped, learn to live with it.”

“Less bad.”

“She’s got to begin somewhere. Who raped me? – poor feeble type – I’ll paddle my own canoe, not worry about his.”

“Much better.”

“Place is full of crooked cops,” remarked William indifferently.

“What d’you do about them?”

“Nothing. Make up your own mind – you’re going to be straight or you’re going to be bent. Individual choice. Guard work, that’s different. Knew we depended one on all the others. Weak sister there, we threw him out. No choice.”

Ray remembers – and it’s no coincidence – his conversations with the Marquis. Exactly this same point, of the difference between a collective responsibility and the individual.

They were in the library. The old man liked to talk with, through or around books. A lovely room, on the shaded side and the light filtered, to protect these beautiful bindings.

“Fine bindings – pooh. Oh there’s good stuff here but most of mine are upstairs. Here in France we just put on a paper cover. Liked the old days myself; had to cut the pages, some effort involved, knew you’d read the book, then.”

“But these are beautiful,” said Ray amused.

“Yes indeed. And some are good. But the English – why do they bother? Good sturdy hardwearing cloth, dustjacket, lot of effort and thought gone into that. Even when it’s trash inside… The world is a very evil place” suddenly.

“So we say, in the Company.”

“Books have taught me much, that we don’t learn in the diplomatic service. Politics, bah.” He got up, walked across, opened a bookcase. “You never read
Lord
Jim
?”

“No.” Ray thinks he ‘might have heard of it’.

“A case in point,” said the Marquis, rather in the manner of a minister handling a question in the National Assembly. “Asks this same – interesting – moral question.” Turning the book in his hands as though about to guess its weight, talking to it. “Old-fashioned romanticism.” That might have been a dire disease endemic in
tropical climates. “Concerns a young officer in the Merchant Marine – a corporation with severe standards. Idealist young man.” (Black-water fever, thought Ray; decidedly not a thing to catch.) “Looks forward to a supreme test of courage in emergency. Fails it. Not altogether his fault, he’s got involved in a crooked deal. Jumps overboard from a sinking ship – only it doesn’t sink. At the subsequent inquiry, is given a severe blame, loses his ticket, with it his job. Black disgrace.” It must have been this that Ray would recollect months afterwards in the pub with William, thinking of the doctor’s fatal calamity. Struck off the register…

“Mm, it rather falls to pieces from there on. Kindly old man gives him a second chance to make good, as agent for trading company, tropical jungle, island somewhere in Dutch Insulinde. Natives think him a hell of a chap, upright you know, justice, truth. Arrives a melodrama, the details I spare you – can’t remember them myself – involves his word given, to which he must be faithful. Local chieftain convinced of treachery – shoots him. Dies knowing he has kept his word when he could have saved himself Mourned by all – greatly respected. Much good did it do him. I haven’t in the least given you a sympathetic picture” putting the book back in its place lovingly. “I used to collect for fine examples of the binder’s art, for illustrations by a good painter. Decorative, often really beautiful. Tendency to neglect or forget the text inside. A real book you keep in your pocket, not wrapped up in cotton wool. Look, I’ve three editions here of Shakespeare. Upstairs is the one I read – lower deck for the use of.” There were more moments of this kind, for books, Dr Valdez thought, were the royal road to this complicated old man. With a book he was no longer devious, would not be crooked. If only I’d got here earlier, thought Ray, sadly.

He was thinking now of that scrumptious house up on the hillside where William lived. Had he seen any books? He’d only been in the one room …

“What d’you like to read?”

“Never read any books at all.” That is one answer. Another, more to be despised, comes from people ashamed of being thought illiterate.
“Never seem to get the time for reading now.” But really it had been an idle question. That was not the road to William.

“Don’t tell me you look at the television.”

“Christ no.”

“So what d’you do? Toy trains? Model ships? Or just sharpen your knives?”

“Pretty good question. I used to – professional skills, gym, judo, box a bit. Tell the truth – faggoty it sounds – I used to do uh, modern dance group. Too tall though, too heavy. Still, liked that. Hell of a discipline, everything else leaves your mind. I’d like now… teach myself wood carving.” (Teach myself, notice, as against go-and-learn; does the choice of words point to anything?). “No – plain carpentry. Make – make – desk with drawers. That’s very difficult. Make table, to stand even on four legs, that’s already a tall order.”

“It’s just you and no one else?”

“That I agree is the weak point.” Is it possible that the thought of Janine stopped Raymond from asking further?

“Books have been my faithful friends.”

“Too damn rarefied for me. Or too goddam stupid. Who’s going to waste time asking who killed Roger Ackroyd?”

“Millions have.”

“Can’t any of them be policemen.”

“People like to be mystified. Look at the last page myself, first. There are other sorts of book,” mildly.

“I’ve seen them, too. Want to make my flesh creep,” with a massive contempt. “Psycho fellow, knife, lies in wait for little children. I’ve spent too many years with the real thing.”

“The world is very evil,” thinking of the Marquis.

“Yes it is. I’ve seen some things, Ray. Before I got tapped to rub along with the Great – a few psycho types there, I could tell you some stories – I was PJ. On the street, on the beat. Police reporter comes, get his story for the paper. Wants a bit of blood to tickle up the readership. Know what he always leaves out, what he wouldn’t thank us to give him? The smell, mate, the stink. You won’t find that, in any of the books.”

“William please do forgive me, I hate to say this, I have in fact worked the night shift on the casualty station in the Hotel Dieu – the well-named – I know what the police brings in and what the cat drags in, the thirty-six-hour-duty on the minimum legal wage and I know I don’t look it but I’ve fished the broken glass out of arseholes too, I know what it’s like, the bedside manner was an afterthought, Jesuits are also Police Judiciaire and are told off to shovel shit.”

“I’m sorry, I was being dim.”

“Everybody thinks his is the only cancer, it’s perfectly normal.”

I wonder whether I might not have a shot at turning William into a Janeite. That sounds absurd; a Frenchman of his background and position. Never mind: circumstances, situations call for eccentricities of thought as well as of physical treatment. In many ways I want to loosen him. I think of acupuncture, and of a method familiar in Germany: a system of small injections at chosen points in the body’s surface (the thermograph will give me indications) or quite small shots of an ordinary local anaesthetic, which have a well-known effect in freeing and shortcutting hidden blockages. But there has to be more. The ‘Humberstall-Effect’; brilliantly described by an English writer. (I don’t know who reads Kipling nowadays: I do.)

I introduced the Marquis to this – to this day it is “my invention”. He was delighted. Of course he loves English literature, is familiar with a great deal, though he didn’t know this. In the past, he said, he had “tried Jane”, but missed the point, was amused by the rediscovery. We came – for we value laughter, a powerful aid to any therapy – to use the slogan when we met.