The Only Problem (11 page)

‘Your
call to Toronto,’ said Anne-Marie.

Ruth
was to go to Paris and leave next morning, with Clara, for Canada. A Volvo
pulled up at the door. When he had finished his call, Harvey saw two suitcases
already packed in the hall. Those people work fast. ‘Not so fast,’ Harvey said
to Anne-Marie. ‘The child’s father might not agree to her going to Canada. We
must get his permission.

‘We
have his permission. Mr Howe will call you to-night. He has agreed with
Scotland Yard.’

‘The
press will be here any minute,’ said Harvey. ‘They’ll see Madame and the baby
driving off.’

‘No,
the police have the road cordoned off. Madame and the child will leave by a
back door, anyway.’ She went out and gave instructions to the driver of the
Volvo, who took off, round to the back of the house. Anne-Marie lifted one of
the suitcases and gestured to Harvey to take the other. He followed her,
unfamiliar with all the passages of his château, through a maze of grey
kitchens, dairies and wash-houses as yet unrestored. By a door leading to a
vast and sad old plantation which must have once been a kitchen garden, Ruth
stood, huddled in her sheepskin coat, crying, cuddling the baby.

‘Is it
to be Toronto?’ she said.

‘Oh,
yes, you’ll be met. Do you have the money with you?’ Harvey had given her
charge of a quantity of cash long before the trouble started.

‘I’ve
taken most of it.’

‘You’ll
be all right once you’re at my uncle Joe’s.’ ‘Who did you say I was?’ she said.

‘My
sister-in-law.’

‘And
Clara?’

‘Your
niece. Ernie Howe has given his permission —’Oh, I know. I spoke to him myself,’
she said.

‘Nobody
tells me anything,’ Harvey said.

‘Will I
like your Uncle Joe?’

‘I hope
so. If not, you can go to my Auntie Pet.’

‘What
is “Pet” short for?’ said Ruth.

‘I
really don’t know.’ He could see she wanted to delay the parting. ‘Ring me
to-night from Paris,’ he said. He kissed Ruth and he kissed Clara, and
practically pushed them towards Anne-Marie who had already seen the suitcases
into the car, and was waiting for Ruth, almost taking her under arrest. With a
hand under Ruth’s arm she led her along the little path towards the wider path
where the car waited. They were off, Ruth and Clara in the front seat beside
the driver. They were like an affluent married couple and child. Anne-Marie
came back to the house, closed and locked the back door. Harvey said, ‘You lead
the way back. I’ll follow you. I don’t know my way about this place.’ She
laughed.

Twenty minutes later the
press were let in. ‘Quiet!’ said Anne-Marie.

‘We
have a baby in the house. You mustn’t wake her.’

Harvey,
freshly and acutely aware of Clara’s innocent departure, was startled for an
instant, then remembered quickly that Ruth and Clara were gone in secret.

‘Madame
is resting, too,’ announced Anne-Marie, ‘please, gentle-men, ladies, no noise.

There
were eighteen men, five women; the rest were at the roadblock outside the
house arguing vainly with the police. This, Harvey learned from the reporters
themselves, who crowded into the living room. There was a predominance of
French, British and Americans among them. Harvey scrutinised them, as best he
could trying to guess which one of them was a police agent. A wiry woman of
about fifty with a red face, broken-veined, and thin grey hair fluffed out and
falling all over her face as if to make the most of it, seemed to him a
possible
flic
, if only for the reason that unlike the others she seemed
to have no-one to talk to.

‘Mr Gotham,
when did you last see —’I will answer no questions,’ Harvey said, ‘until you
stop these flash-photographs.’ He sat back in his chair with folded arms. ‘Stop,
‘he said, ‘just stop. I’ll answer questions first, if they’re reasonable. Then
you can take some photos. But not all at once. Kindly keep your voices down; as
you’ve heard, there’s a baby sleeping upstairs and a lady who needs a lot of
rest.’ One of the reporters, slouching by the door, a large fair middle-aged
man, was already taking notes. What of? The man’s face seemed familiar to
Harvey but he couldn’t place it.

The
French journalists were the most vociferous. ‘Do you know where your wife is?’
— ‘How long has she been a member — ?’ — ‘Your wife Effie’s terrorist
activities, do you ascribe them to a reaction against her wealthy matrimonial
experience, with all the luxury and boredom that capitalism produces?’ — ‘What
exactly are the creed and aims of your religious group, Mr Gotham?’

Harvey
said, ‘One at a time, please.’

‘With
all your prospects and holdings, you still believe in God, is that right?’ — ‘Are
you asking us to believe that you have come to this château to study the Bible?’
— ‘Isn’t it so that you originally lived in that little lodge at the end of the
drive?’

‘Yes,’
said Harvey, ‘I went to work down there.’

‘Where
does your wife get the money for her terrorist activities?’

‘I don’t
know that my wife is engaged in terrorist activities.’

‘But
the police have identified her. Look, Mr Gotham, those people of the FLE get
their money from someplace.’ This came from a fat young American who spoke like
a machine-gun.

‘Would
you mind speaking French so that we all know where we are?’ said Harvey. A
Frenchman swiftly came to his American colleague’s aid, and repeated the
question in French.

‘Apparently
they bomb supermarkets and rob the cash. Haven’t you read the papers?’ Harvey
said.

‘If
your wife came in here with a sub-machine-gun right now — ?’ ‘That is a
hypothetical question,’ Harvey said. The question was asked by a timid young
Asiatic type with fine features and a sad pallor, who had evidently been let in
to the conference on a quota system. He looked puzzled. ‘Your question is all
theory,’ Harvey said, to help him. The young man nodded wisely and made some
notes. What notes? — God knows.

‘Didn’t
you hear a registration in the police station of your wife’s voice on a
loudspeaker warning the people to leave the supermarket before the bombing? — Surely
you recognised your wife’s voice?’ said an American.

‘I
heard no registration. But if my wife should happen to give a warning to anyone
in danger at any time, that would be very right of her, I think,’ Harvey said.

Most of
the reporters were younger than Harvey. One, a bearded Swede, was old, paunchy.
He alone seemed to know what the
Book of Job
was. He asked Harvey, ‘Would
you say that you yourself are in the position of Job, in so far as you are a
suspicious character in the eyes of the world, yet feel yourself to be
perfectly innocent?’

Harvey
saw his chance and took it: ‘I am hardly in the position of Job. He was covered
with boils, for one thing, which I am not. And his friends, merely on the basis
of his suffering, accused him of having sinned in some way. What Job underwent
was tantamount to an interrogation by the Elders of his community. I intend no
personal analogy. But I am delighted to get down at last to the subject of this
conference: what was the answer to Job’s question? Job’s question was, why does
God cause me to suffer when I’ve done nothing to deserve it? Now, Job was in no
doubt whatsoever that his sufferings came from God and from no other source.
The very rapidity with which one calamity followed upon another, shattering Job’s
world, leaving him destitute, bereft and sick all in a short space of time,
gave dramatic evidence that the cause was not natural, but supernatural. The
supernatural, with power to act so strongly and disastrously, could only, in
Job’s mind, be God. And we know he was right in the context of the book,
because in the Prologue you read specifically that it was God who brought up
the subject of Job to Satan; it was God, in fact, who tempted Satan to torment
Job, not Satan who tempted God. I’m afraid my French version of the scriptures
isn’t to hand, it’s down in my study in the cottage, or I’d quote you the
precise passage. But—’

‘Mr Gotham,’
said a young Englishwoman dressed entirely in dark grey leather, ‘I’m sorry to
interrupt but I have to file my story at six. Is it true that Nathan Fox is
your wife’s lover?’

‘Please
stick to French if you can. Anyway, I am addressing this gentleman,’ said
Harvey, indicating the elderly Swede, ‘on a very important subject and —’

‘Oh,
no, Mr Gotham. Oh, no.’ This was a tough pressman, indeterminately British or
American, who spoke with a loud, fierce voice. ‘Oh, no, Mr Gotham. You’re here
to answer our questions.’

‘Keep
your voice down, please. The fact is that I am here because it is my home. You
are here to listen to me. The subject is the
Book of Job
to which I have
dedicated many years of my life. This gentleman,’ said Harvey, nodding to the
grave and rather flattered Swede, ‘has asked me an interesting question on the
subject. I have answered his question and I am elaborating on it. Your chance,
and that of your colleagues, to put further questions will come in due course.
As I was about to remark, Job’s problem was partly a lack of knowledge. He was
without access to any system of study which would point to the reason for his
afflictions. He said specifically, “I desire to reason with God,” and expected
God to come out like a man and state his case.

‘Mr Gotham
—’

‘Mr Gotham,
can you state if you would side with your wife in any sense if she came up for
trial? Do you yourself feel politically that the FLE have something to offer
the young generation?’ — This was from a lanky French journalist with bright
eyes and a wide smile.’ He was rather a sympathetic type, Harvey thought,
probably new to his trade.

‘I’m
really sorry to disappoint you,’ said Harvey with some charm, ‘but I’m giving
you a seminar on Job without pay.’

A
hubbub had now started to break out. Protests and questions came battering in
on Harvey from every side.

‘Quiet!’
bawled Harvey. ‘Either you listen to me in silence or you all go. Job’s
problem, as I was saying, was partly a lack of knowledge. Everybody talked but
nobody told him anything about the reason for his sufferings. Not even God when
he appeared. Our limitations of knowledge make us puzzle over the cause of suffering,
maybe it is the cause of suffering itself. Quiet, over there! The baby’s
asleep. And I said, no photographs at present. As I say, we are plonked here in
the world and nobody but our own kind can tell us anything. It isn’t enough. As
for the rest, God doesn’t tell. No, I’ve already told you that I don’t know
where my wife is. How the
Book of Job
got into the holy scriptures I
really do not know. That’s the greatest mystery of all. For it doesn’t —’

‘Mr Gotham,’
said the tough pressman, ‘the FLE have held up supermarkets, jewellers and
banks at Gérardmer, La Bresse, Rambervillers, Mirecourt and Baccarat. Your
wife is —’

‘You’ve
left out Epinal,’ said Harvey. Cameras flashed. ‘Will you allow me to continue
to answer the question put to me, or will you go?’

‘Your
wife—’… ‘Your background, Mr Gotham —’ … ‘Your wife’s sister —’

‘Conference
over,’ said Harvey.

‘Oh,
no.’ — ‘No, Mr Gotham.’ — ‘Wait a minute.’

Some
were swearing and cursing; some were laughing.

But
Harvey got up and made for the door. Most of the reporters were on their feet,
very rowdy. The wiry red-faced woman, the possible police agent, sat holding
her tape-recorder modestly on her lap. The large fair man at the door had
grabbed a belt as if from nowhere and was fastening it rapidly round his waist.
Harvey saw that it was packed neatly with cartridges and that a revolver hung
from a holster, with the man’s hand on it. He recognised him now as the
sandy-haired policeman who, in uniform, had sat at the table throughout his
interrogation at Epinal.

Harvey
said, ‘I must tell you that there is a policeman in the room.’

‘What
police?
La Brigade antigang?’

‘I have
no idea what variety. Kindly leave quietly and in order, and don’t wake the
baby.’

They
left without order or quietness.

‘Why
don’t you get out while you can? Get back to Canada,’ said a girl. — ‘We’ll be
seeing you in the courtroom,’ said another. Some joked as they left, some
overturned chairs as they went. From everywhere came the last-minute flashes of
the cameras recording the policeman, the overturned chairs, and recording
Harvey standing in the middle of it, an image to be reproduced in one of next
morning’s papers under the title, ‘Don’t Wake the Baby’. But at last they had
gone. The wiry red-faced woman said sadly to Harvey as she passed him, ‘I’m
afraid you’ll get a very bad press.’

The
policeman followed them out and chivied them down the drive from his car.
Before he shut the door Harvey noticed something new in the light cast from the
hall: a washing-line had been slung well in evidence of the front portico.
Anne-Marie had just finished taking baby clothes from it, had evidently been
photographed doing so. She came towards him.