The Scapegoat (3 page)

I followed the old woman out of church. I had a sudden desire to ask her if she was ill, or lately widowed, or had a dying son, and whether she had new hope since she had prayed; but when I passed through the door and came upon her, still muttering, outside, she mistook my anxious glance for tourist charity, and with a sidelong glance held out her hand for alms. I gave her two hundred francs, despising my own mean spirit, and fled from her, disenchanted.

It was no longer raining. Red ribbons spanned the sky and the wet streets glistened. People were going home from work on bicycles. The dark smoke from the factory chimneys of the industrial quarter looked black and sullen against the new-washed sky.

I lost any sense of direction, walking away from the shops and boulevards along streets that seemed to lead nowhere, converging upon themselves, frowned upon by factory walls and tall grey buildings, and I knew that what I was doing was without reason: I should either go and fetch the car and book a room for the night in one of the hotels in the centre of the town, or leave Le Mans altogether and drive through Mortagne to la Grande-Trappe. I was surprised to see the station ahead of me, and I remembered that the car and the cathedral were at the other end of the town. The obvious thing to do was to take a taxi back, but first of all I would have a drink at the station buffet, and come to some decision about la Grande-Trappe. I crossed the road, and a car swerved to avoid me and then stopped. The driver leant out of the window and shouted in French, ‘Hullo, Jean, when did you return?’

The fact that my own name was John confused me. I thought for a moment that he must be someone I had met somewhere, whom I ought to recognize, and I called back, also in French, ‘I’m only passing through – I go back tonight,’ wondering who the devil he was.

‘A wasted visit, I suppose,’ he said, ‘but you’ll bluff them all at home it’s been a success.’

The remark was offensive. What made him think my holiday had been wasted? And how on earth could he know about my own deep personal sense of failure?

Then I realized he was a stranger. I had never seen him before. I bowed politely, excusing myself. ‘I beg your pardon,’ I said, ‘I’m afraid we have both made a mistake.’

To my astonishment he laughed, winked broadly, and said, ‘All right, pretend I haven’t seen you. But why do here in Le
Mans what could be better done in Paris? I’ll ask you when we meet again next Sunday.’ He let in the clutch and, laughing, drove away.

I watched his car disappear, and turned into the station buffet. If he was drunk, and in a mellow mood, I saw his point. I might follow his example. The buffet was full. People were either boarding trains or leaving them. Chattering travellers elbowed me from the counter. Luggage barked my shins. Whistles blew, the deafening screech of an approaching express merged into the choking gasp of a local train, dogs on leashes yapped, a child wailed. I thought longingly of my car parked beside the cathedral, and how I would sit there in peace, and open my Michelin map, and smoke a cigarette.

Someone jolted my elbow as I drank and said, ‘Je
vous demande pardon,’
and as I moved to give him space he turned and stared at me and I at him, and I realized, with a strange sense of shock and fear and nausea all combined, that his face and voice were known to me too well.

I was looking at myself.

W
e did not speak: we went on staring at one another. I had heard of these things happening, of people who meet casually and turn out to be long-lost cousins, or twins parted at birth; and the idea is amusing, or perhaps fraught with tragedy, like the Man in the Iron Mask.

This was not funny: nor was it tragic. The resemblance made me slightly sick, reminding me of moments when, passing a shop window, I had suddenly seen my own reflection, and the man in the mirror had been a grotesque caricature of what, conceitedly, I had believed myself to be. Such incidents left me chastened, sore, with ego deflated, but they never gave me a chill down the spine, as this encounter did, nor the desire to turn and run.

He was the first to break the silence. ‘You don’t happen to be the devil, by any chance?’

‘I might ask you the same question,’ I replied.

‘Here a moment …’

He took me by the arm and pulled me closer to the counter, and although the mirror behind the bar was steamy, and partly hidden by glasses and bottles, and confusing because of the many reflections of the other heads, it showed us plainly enough to be standing together, straining, anxious, searching the mirrored surface as though our lives depended upon what it had to tell. And the answer was no chance resemblance, no superficial likeness to be confounded by the different colour of hair or eyes, by the dissimilarity of feature, expression, height, or breadth of shoulder: it was as though one man stood there.

He said – and even the intonation sounded, in my ears, like
my own – ‘I make it a rule never to be surprised by anything in life; there is no reason to make an exception now. What will you drink?’

I was too shaken to care. He asked for two
fines
, and we moved with one accord to the further end of the counter, where the mirror was less steamy and the pushing crowd less dense.

We might have been two actors studying our make-up as we glanced from the looking-glass back to one another. He smiled and I smiled too; and then he frowned and I copied him, or rather copied myself; and he arranged his tie and I arranged mine; and we both drank our brandy at one gulp to see what we looked like drinking.

‘Are you a man of fortune?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Why?’

‘We might do an act at a circus, or make a million in a cabaret. If you haven’t got to take a train immediately, I suggest we go on drinking.’ He ordered two more
fines
. Nobody seemed surprised at the resemblance. ‘They think you’re my twin brother here at the station to meet me,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you are. Where are you from?’

‘London,’ I told him.

‘Are you in business there?’

‘No, I live there. And I work there too.’

‘What I mean is, where is your home, what part of France do you come from?’

I realized then that he had taken me for a Frenchman like himself. ‘I’m English,’ I said. ‘I happen to have made a study of your language.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘My compliments,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have known you for a foreigner. What are you doing in Le Mans?’

I explained that I was in the last few days of holiday, and gave him a brief account of my tour. I told him I was a historian and gave lectures in England about his country and its past.

He looked amused. ‘Is that how you earn a living?’

‘Yes.’

‘Incredible,’ he said, and offered me a cigarette.

‘You have historians over here doing the same thing,’ I argued. ‘In fact, your country takes learning much more seriously than mine. There are thousands of professors giving lectures on history all over France.’

‘Naturally,’ he said, ‘but they are all Frenchmen talking about France. They are not Frenchmen who cross the Channel to spend their holidays, and then return here to talk about England. I don’t understand why you should be so interested in my country. Are you well paid?’

‘Not particularly.’

‘Married?’

‘No. I have no family at all. I live alone.’

‘You’re lucky.’ He spoke with emphasis, and raised his glass. ‘To your most fortunate freedom,’ he said. ‘Long may it last.’

‘What about you?’ I asked.

‘Me?’ he said. ‘Oh, I can call myself a family man. Very much so, in fact. I was caught long ago. I might even say I have never escaped. Except during the war.’

‘Are you a man of business too?’

‘I own some property. I live about thirty kilometres from here. Do you know Sarthe?’

‘I know the country better south of the Loire. I should like to explore Sarthe too, but I’m on my way north. I’ll have to leave it for another time.’

‘A pity. It might have been amusing …’ He did not finish his sentence, but stared at his glass. ‘You have a car?’

‘Yes, I left it at the cathedral. I lost my bearings, walking, that’s why I’m here at the station.’

‘Are you stopping in Le Mans overnight?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t planned. As a matter of fact …’ I paused. The brandy had given me a comfortable glow inside, and I had the impression that it would not matter what I said to this man; it would be like talking to myself. ‘As a matter of
fact, I was thinking of spending a few days in la Grande-Trappe.’

‘La Grande-Trappe?’ he said. ‘Do you mean the Cistercian monastery near Mortagne?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It can’t be much more than eighty kilometres from here.’

‘For the love of God, why do you want to go there?’

His phrase was apt. The reason why men went to la Grande-Trappe was to find the love of God. Or so I supposed.

‘I thought if I went,’ I said, ‘and stayed there before returning to England, I might find the courage to go on living.’

He looked at me thoughtfully as he drank his
fine
.

‘What’s the trouble?’ he asked. ‘A woman?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Money?’

‘No.’

‘You are in some sort of scrape?’

‘No.’

‘You have cancer?’

‘No.’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Perhaps you’re a drunkard,’ he said, ‘or a homosexual. Or enjoy discomfort for its own sake. There must be something seriously wrong if you want to go to la Grande-Trappe.’

I glanced beyond him to the mirror once again. And now, for the first time, I could see the difference between us. It was not the clothes, his dark travelling suit and my tweed jacket, which distinguished us; it was his ease of manner that made a contrast to my sober mood. He looked, and spoke, and smiled as I had never done.

‘There’s nothing wrong,’ I said. ‘It’s just that, as an individual, I’ve failed in life.’

‘So have we all,’ he said, ‘you, I, all the people here in the station buffet. We are every one of us failures. The secret of life is to recognize the fact early on, and become reconciled. Then it no longer matters.’

‘It does matter,’ I said, ‘and I am not reconciled.’

He finished his drink and glanced at the clock on the wall.

‘There is no need,’ he observed, ‘to go to la Grande-Trappe immediately. The good monks are waiting upon eternity, they can wait a few more hours for you. Let us go where we can drink in greater comfort, and perhaps dine, because, being a family man, I am in no great hurry to go home.’

It was then that I remembered the man in the car who had spoken to me outside. ‘Are you called Jean?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Jean de Gué. Why?’

‘Someone mistook me for you, then, outside the station. Some fellow in a car shouted, “Hullo, Jean,” and when I told him he was mistaken he seemed amused, and obviously thought I, or rather you, didn’t want to be recognized.’

‘That wouldn’t surprise me. What did you do?’

‘I did nothing. He drove off laughing, calling out something about seeing me on Sunday.’

‘Oh yes.
La chasse …
’

My words must have started a new train of thought, for his expression changed, and I wished I could have read his mind. The blue eyes clouded, and I wondered if I looked as he did when a problem, not easy to solve, thrust its way to the surface of my mind.

He beckoned to a porter who was waiting patiently with a couple of valises outside the swing-door of the buffet.

‘Did you say you left your car by the cathedral?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I answered.

‘Then if you don’t mind giving room to my valises, we might fetch it and drive somewhere for dinner?’

‘Certainly. Anywhere you say.’

He tipped the porter, summoned a taxi and we drove away. It was odd, and like a dream. So often, dreaming, I was the shadow, watching myself take part in the action of the dream. Now it was happening, and I had the same lack of substance, the same lack of will.

‘So he was quite deceived, then?’

‘Who?’

His voice, almost like the voice of conscience, startled me, for we had not spoken since getting into the taxi.

‘The man who hailed you outside the station,’ he said.

‘Oh yes, completely. He will probably accuse you when you meet. I remember now – he knew you had been away, because he suggested your trip had been unsuccessful. Does that convey anything?’

‘Only too well.’

I did not pursue the subject. It was none of my business. After a moment I glanced at him, half furtively, and saw that he was looking as furtively at me. Our eyes met, and instead of smiling instinctively, because of the bond of likeness, the sensation was unpleasant, like contact with danger. I turned away from him to gaze out of the window, and, as the taxi swerved and pulled up by the cathedral, the deep, solemn bells sounded for the Angelus. It was a moment that never failed to move me. The summons was always unexpected, and in a strange way touched a nerve. Tonight the bells rang like a challenge, loud and compelling, as we climbed from the taxi. Then the clanging softened to a murmur, and the murmur to a sigh, and the sigh to a reproach. Two or three people passed through the doors into the cathedral. I went and unlocked the car. My companion waited, looking at the car with interest.

‘A Ford Consul,’ he said. ‘What year is it?’

‘I’ve had it two years. Done about fifteen thousand.’

‘You are satisfied with it?’

‘Very. I don’t get much use out of it except at week-ends.’

As I stowed away his two valises in the boot he asked me all sorts of questions about the car with the interest of a schoolboy trying out a new machine. He fingered the switches, felt the seats to test the springs, fiddled with the gears and the indicators, and finally asked, with a burst of enthusiasm, whether he might drive her.

‘Certainly,’ I said. ‘You know this town better than I do. Go ahead.’

He settled himself with assurance behind the wheel and I climbed in beside him. As he turned the car away from the cathedral, and so out to the rue Voltaire, he continued to enthuse in schoolboy fashion, murmuring, ‘Magnificent, excellent!’ under his breath, obviously enjoying every moment of what soon turned out to be, from my own rather cautious standard, a hair-raising ride. When we had jumped one set of lights, and sent an old man leaping for his life, and forced a large Buick driven by an infuriated American into the side of the street, he proceeded to circle the town in order, so he explained, to try the car’s pace. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘it amuses me enormously to use other people’s possessions. It is one of life’s greatest pleasures.’ I closed my eyes as we took a corner like a bob-sleigh.