The Only Problem (19 page)

I’ve almost rung you up on several occasions. But then I supposed
your phone was bugged, and felt it better not to get involved. Reading the
papers — of course you can’t trust them — it seems you’re standing by Effie,
denying that she’s the wanted girl, and so on. Now, comes this ghastly murder
of the policeman. I admire your stance, but do you feel it morally necessary to
protect her? I must say, I find it odd that having left her as you did, you now
refuse to see (or admit?) how she developed. To me (and Ruth agrees with me)
she has always had this criminal streak in her. I know she is a beautiful girl,
but there are plenty of lovely girls like Effie. You can’t have been so
desperately in love with her. Quite honestly, when you were together, I never
thought you were really crazy about her. I don’t like giving advice, but you
should realise that something tragic has happened to Effie. She is a fanatic —
she always had that violent, reckless streak. There is nothing, Harvey, nothing
at all that anyone can do for her. You shouldn’t try. Conclude your work on
Job,
then get away and start a new life. If your new château is as romantic and
grand as Ruth says it is, I’d love to see it. I’ll come, if you’re still there,
when the play closes. It’ll be good to see you.

Affectionately,

Edward

Harvey’s reply:

Dear Edward,

That was good of you to go to the zoo for me. You say the zoo bores
you to a degree. What degree?

I congratulate you on your success. It was always in you, so I’m not
surprised. No, I can’t leave here at present. Ruth would be here still if it
were not that the place is bristling with the police — no place for Clara whom
I miss terribly.

As to your advice, do you remember how Prometheus says, ‘It’s easy
for the one who keeps his foot on the outside of suffering to counsel and
preach to the one who’s inside’? I will just say that I’m not taking up Effie’s
defence. I hold that there’s no proof that the girl whom the police are looking
for is Effie. A few people have ‘identified’ her from a photograph.

Auntie Pet has arrived from Toronto wearing those remarkable clothes
that so curiously bely her puritanical principles. This morning she was
wearing what appeared to be the wallpaper. Incidentally, she recognised Effie
in a recent television documentary about a police-raid on a mountain commune in
California. She was with a man whose description could fit Nathan Fox.

I’ve been interrogated several times. What they can’t make out is
why I’m here in France, isolated, studying Job. The last time it went something
like this:

Interrogator
— You say you’re interested
in the problem of suffering?

Myself—
Yes.

Interrogator
— Are you interested in
violence?

Myself—
Yes, oh, yes. A fascinating
subject.

Interrogator
—
Fascinating?

Almost anything you answer is suspect. At the same time, supermarkets
have been bombed, banks robbed, people terrorised and a policeman killed. They
are naturally on edge.

There is a warrant of arrest out for my wife. The girl in the gang,
whoever she is, could be killed.

But ‘no-one pities men who cling wilfully to their sufferings.’
(Philoctetes—speech
of Neoptolemus). I’m not even sure that I suffer, I only endure distress.
But why should I analyse myself? I am analysing the God of
Job.

I hope the mystery of Effie can be cleared up and when your show’s
over you can come and see Château Gotham. Ruth will undoubtedly come.

I’m analysing the God of Job, as I say. We are back to the
Inscrutable. If the answers are valid then it is the questions that are all
cock-eyed.

Job
38, 2—3: Who is this that

darkeneth counsel by words

without knowledge?

Gird up now thy loins like

a man; for I will demand of thee,

and answer thou me.

I find that the self-styled friends and comforters in
Job
are
distinguished one from the other only by their names. Otherwise, they are
identical in their outlook. I now suspect they are the criminal-investigation
team of their time and place. They were sent in, one after the other, it now
seems to me, to interrogate Job, always on the same lines, trying to trip him
up. He could only insist on his innocence. They acted as the representatives of
the God of the Old Testament. They were the establishment of that theocratic
society.

It is therefore first God’s representatives and finally God himself
who ask the questions in Job’s book.

Now I hope you’ll tell Ruth she can come here with Clara when the
trouble’s over, and have her baby. I’m quite willing to take on your old
trousers, Edward, and you know I wish you well in your new pair, your new life.

Yours,

Harvey

PART THREE

ELEVEN

‘So the Lord blessed the
latter end of Job more than his beginning.’ It was five days since Stewart
Cowper had left for California. He had telephoned once, to say he had
difficulty in getting the feature identified which Auntie Pet had seen, but he
felt he was on the track of it now. There definitely had been a news item of
that nature.

‘Ring
me as soon as you know,’ said Harvey.

Meantime,
since he was near the end of his monograph on
Job,
he finished it. The
essay had taken him over three years to complete. He was sad to see his duty
all ended, his notes in the little room of the cottage now neatly stacked, and
his manuscript, all checked and revised, ready to be photocopied and mailed to
the typist in London (Stewart Cowper’s pretty secretary).

The
work was finished and the Lord had blessed the latter end of Job with precisely
double the number of sheep, camels, oxen and sheasses that he had started out
with. Job now had seven sons and three daughters, as before. The daughters were
the most beautiful in the land. They were called Jemima, Kezia and Kerenhappuch
which means Box of Eye-Paint. Job lived another hundred and forty years. And
Harvey wondered again if in real life Job would be satisfied with this plump
reward, and doubted it. His tragedy was that of the happy ending.

He took
his manuscript to St Dié, had it photocopied and sent one copy off to London to
be typed. He was anxious to get back to the château in case Stewart should ring
with news. He hadn’t told Auntie Pet of Stewart’s mission, but somehow she had
found out, as was her way, and had mildly lamented that her story should be
questioned.

‘You’re
just like the police,’ she said. ‘They didn’t actually say they didn’t believe
me, but I could see they didn’t.’

He got
back to the château just in time to hear the telephone. It was from the police
at Epinal.

‘You
have no doubt heard the news, M. Gotham.’

‘No.
What now?’

‘The FLE
gang were surrounded and surprised an hour ago in an apartment in Paris. They
opened fire on our men. I regret to say your wife has been killed. You will
come to Paris to identify the body.’

‘I
think my wife is in California.’

‘We
take into account your state of mind, Monsieur, but we should be obliged if—’

Anne-Marie
was standing in the doorway with her head buried in her hands.

L’Institut Médico-Légal
in Paris. Her head was bound up, turban-wise, so
that she looked more than ever like Job’s wife. Her mouth was drawn slightly to
the side.

‘You
recognise your wife, Effie Gotham?’

‘Yes,
but this isn’t my wife. Where is she? Bring me my wife’s body.’

‘M.
Gotham, you are overwrought. It displeases us all very much. You must know that
this is your wife.’

‘Yes,
it’s my wife, Effie.’

‘She
opened fire. One of our men was wounded.’

‘The
boy?’

‘Nathan
Fox. We have him. He was caught while trying to escape. Harvey felt suddenly
relieved at the thought that Nathan wasn’t in California with Effie.

The
telephone rang when, finally, he got back to the château. It was from Stewart. ‘I’ve
seen a re-play of the feature, Harvey,’ he said. ‘It looks like Effie but it
isn’t.’

‘I
know,’ said Harvey.

He said
to Auntie Pet, ‘Did you really think it was Effie in that mountain commune? How
could you have thought so?’

‘I did
think so,’ said Auntie Pet. ‘And I still think so. That’s the sort of person
Effie is.’

Anne-Marie
said, ‘I’ll be saying good-bye, now.’

TWELVE

Edward drives along the
road between Nancy and St Dié. It is the end of April. All along the way the
cherry trees are in flower. He comes to the grass track that he took last year.
But this time he passes by the cottage, bleak in its little wilderness, and
takes the wider path through a better-tended border of foliage, to the château.

Ruth is
there, already showing her pregnancy. Clara staggers around her play-pen. Auntie
Pet, wrapped in orange and mauve woollens, sits upright on the edge of the
sofa, which forms a background of bright yellow and green English fabrics for
her. Harvey is there, too.

‘You’ve
cut your hair,’ says Harvey.

‘I had
to,’ says Edward, ‘for the part.’

It is
later, when Clara has gone to bed, that Edward gives Harvey a message he has
brought from Ernie Howe.

‘He
says if you want to adopt Clara, you can. He doesn’t want the daughter of a
terrorist.’

‘How
much does he want for the deal?’

‘Nothing.
That amazed me.’

‘It
doesn’t amaze me. He’s a swine. Better he wanted money than for the reason he
gives.’

‘I
quite agree,’ says Edward. ‘What will you do now that you’ve finished
Job?’

‘Live
another hundred and forty years. I’ll have three daughters, Clara, Jemima and
Eye-Paint.’