The Sixth Lamentation (21 page)

‘I’m
sure I wouldn’t, but that’s why an obligation rests on the next generation — to
expose the past for what it was. This is not just about Jacques. It’s about
history.
Getting it right. The same year Barbie was convicted, Le Pen said the gas
chambers were a minor detail of the war. There’s a kind of forgetting we have
to stop.’

His
father, exasperated, said: ‘Pascal, I’m asking you to leave it be. Leave the
past alone.’ Etienne went angrily to his study without waiting for a reply as
if parental censure was sufficient to deflect a disobedient son.

As with
most adult passions, they are born in childhood. The strength of Pascal’s
conviction had not come from his family as such but from their butler, Mr
Snyman. He’d known Jacques and had told Pascal all about The Round Table. For
Pascal he was a patriarch, the only survivor of the times. After his father
left the room, Mr Snyman slipped in.

‘Did
you hear all of that?’ asked Pascal.

‘Yes.’

‘What
would you do?’

‘It’s
not what I’d do that matters; it’s what Jacques would do. If he could.’

‘And
what’s that?’

Mr
Snyman took a step closer, his hands raised as if what he had to say was so
fragile it might break if not physically handed over. ‘He’d hunt him down.
Schwermann is one of those few people responsible for something that lies on
the other side of forgiveness. ‘

Pascal
went upstairs and knocked on the study door.

‘Papa,
I’m sorry. I have to do this.’

‘You’ll
regret ignoring my advice.’ His father stood with his back to his son. With
profound disappointment he said, ‘You care more for the dead than the living.’

Monique
stood at the door, wavering between husband and son. She was crying.

Then
Pascal said something untrue, something he did not mean and which he bitterly
regretted afterwards. But it sounded good. ‘And you care more for political
preferment than the truth.’

They
had, of course, spoken since; and Pascal had said sorry, and his father had
said it didn’t matter, and his mother had run out to the patisserie. But it was
too late. Certain things, once said, can change at a stroke the interior
workings of love, leaving the outside architecture untouched. Perhaps, thought Lucy,
that was why Agnes had taken such deep refuge in silence.

Pascal
made contact with Jewish groups and Resistance organisations in Paris who
formed a consortium: the laborious process of gathering evidence began. The
anxiety of the investigators was that Schwermann had kept a low profile as far
as the paperwork was concerned. His name rarely appeared in print even though
sources demonstrated he must have been at certain meetings and received
particular memos. And no one knew the name under which he was hiding. Then
Pascal received an anonymous letter posted from Paris. He said, ‘It contained
one line: “The name you seek is Nightingale.” I thought it was a hoax but I
passed it on.

The
problem of building a case strong enough to secure a conviction, however,
remained a concern. It was while discussing this matter with Mr Snyman that
Pascal had been urged to find Victor. Mr Snyman had said:

‘I knew
Victor. He was like a brother to Jacques. Things became difficult between them
when they fell in love with the same woman — I forget her name … the war
split them further … but now, after so many years, when Jacques is dead… I am sure he would speak out.’

Lucy
studied Pascal’s animated face with concealed horror: he seemed to know nothing
of Agnes. The narrative moved on, leaving Lucy stunned by the omission. The
allegations were formally laid with the Home Office. And, life being what it
is, no political discomfort came to trouble Pascal’s father. The lesion between
them lay open, through a fear that was never, in fact, realised.

A bell rang, urgent and
frantic, for last orders. Pascal and Lucy decided to leave. On their way out
Lucy caught the eye of The Don — as she’d named him — that warming fusion of
Gandalf and Father Christmas. As before, he bestowed a nod.

Standing
outside, Lucy said, ‘Brionne is not going to walk into a police station. It’s a
fond hope, nothing else.’

‘I
know,’ said Pascal with resignation. ‘We need a miracle.’

‘I
thought you said we couldn’t mention God?’

‘In
certain circumstances God has a habit of mentioning himself.’

2

Anselm’s confidence in
finding Victor Brionne lay not in his investigative powers, for he had none,
but in one of the more prosaic features of modern life: the proliferation of
countless documents with lists of names and addresses. The Inland Revenue, the
Department of Social Security, National Insurance, the National Health Service
Central Register, the Drivers Register, and more, beyond imagination. Three
things only were needed by an amateur in Anselm’s curious position: the name of
the person concerned; a contact in the police involved in the investigation of
a serious crime (which opened many closed doors); and a good reason why that
contact would reveal what they learned to the amateur.

Anselm
was relatively sure he possessed all three conditions. He knew the name;
instinct suggested DI Armstrong could be the contact; and her cooperation might
be forthcoming if its basis was the finding of a key witness for a major trial,
Anselm’s only request being to have the first interview The plan crystallised
almost by itself while he was still in Rome. And as it did so, Anselm’s
recognition of his own importance in the scheme of things expanded
proportionately, producing a sense of power that he tried to suppress but which
he acknowledged with a dark flush of pleasure.

3

Ordinarily Anselm had two
periods of manual work — one in the morning before Mass, the other in the
afternoon until Vespers. However, the Prior had agreed to release Anselm whenever
necessary to pursue anything to do with the task he had received from Cardinal
Vincenzi. That broad principle was stretched to encompass games of chess with
Salomon Lachaise at the guesthouse. But since his trip to Rome Anselm had found
it difficult to look his companion in the face — for he was now burdened with a
riddle: ‘Schwermann had risked his life to save life: And his task of finding
Victor Brionne now set them apart, for it was this man who would reveal the
meaning of the words.

They
sat either side of a table, black against white.

‘No
talking,’ said Anselm as they were about to start.

‘But in
the beginning was the Word,’ replied Salomon Lachaise.

‘Indeed,’
said Anselm.

Salomon
Lachaise then sprinkled the early stages of play with abstract enticements — an
unworthy attempt, thought Anselm, to distract his opponent: ‘A violation of
language is a violation of God: (‘Mmm’, said Anselm.) ‘… in hell there are no
words.’ (‘Mmm.’) ‘… and yet the silence of the Priory brings forth words of
praise.’ (‘And other things,’ murmured Anselm.) ‘… the world will be
redeemed by words.’ Anselm marked that one for future use. -

‘Is it
not strange,’ continued Salomon Lachaise on a fresh tack, ‘that God, on one
reading of Exodus, refused to disclose his name to Moses when he first revealed
himself?’

‘Yes,’
said Anselm. He eyed the tight configuration of pieces. Each move seemed to
spell trouble but there had to be a way out.

‘And is
it not stranger still that God should change the name of his servants to mark a
new beginning?’

Anselm
looked up sharply into a face of restrained curiosity. ‘What do you mean?’

‘God
made the covenant with Abram and he became Abraham. Simon the fisherman became
Peter the rock. There are lots of examples.’

‘I see,’
said Anselm, returning his attention to the battle.

‘The
change of name obliterates their past, bestowing a blessed future.’

‘That’s
a good point. I might use that one Sunday’

‘And
when the Amsterdam synagogue expelled Spinoza for his ideas, they invoked God
to blot out his name under heaven.’

‘That’s
interesting,’ said Anselm genuinely

‘So who
was it that dared to take the place of God and give that man across the lake a
new name, a new life?’

The two
men faced each other. A sensation of rapid foreshortening brought the gentle
gaze of Salomon Lachaise unbearably close to Anselm’s secret. They sat as
friends: one of them waiting patiently for judgement, the other, Anselm,
engaged in an enterprise that might absolve the need for a trial — hope and its
adversary at one table.

‘That’s
another good point.’ They were the only words Anselm could assemble that did
not require him to lie.

Salomon
Lachaise reviewed the state of play upon the board and, with a look of quiet
amusement, toppled his king. ‘Anselm of Canterbury, I resign.’

Chapter Twenty

1

It was a sensible
arrangement. At the back of the flat were two bedrooms, side by side, one of
which had French windows opening out on to the garden. That was where Agnes
slept. The other was for Wilma. They left their doors ajar at night.

Lucy
was staggered at Wilma’s cleanliness. For fifteen years she’d bustled from
Hammersmith to Shepherd’s Bush, to a drop-in centre by a church. There she
showered, took her breakfast and then came back to feed the birds in
Ravenscourt Park. She’d met Agnes while tailing a pigeon. A friendship had
grown, unknown to anyone in the family including Lucy. It was always that way
with Agnes. She had small, secret spaces in her life which were only discovered
by accident. Surprise questions were an act of trespass, so the family got used
to stumbling upon things and pretending nothing had been uncovered. And so it
was here. Wilma’s intimacy with Agnes passed without comment, even though a
first, brief association was sufficient to confirm that Wilma was pleasantly
and ever so slightly mad.

Agnes
now had a wheelchair but she would not sit mm it. She pushed it round the flat,
moving slowly and with relaxed deliberation as if negotiating an obstacle
course, smiling at little victories and wincing at scuffs upon the furniture.
The frontiers of her world were contracting and she rubbed against them. She
no longer went to the park, or along the river to watch the boats, but moved
from room to room, from chair to bed, and, whenever possible, out to the garden
among fresh green things.

Wilma was tidying her room
again when Lucy decided to mention the gun. She had been foraging in a cupboard
for something Wilma had put away when she’d touched the barrel. She’d left it
there, wrapped in a duster, with four corroded rounds of ammunition. The
incongruity of Agnes with a revolver could not pass without comment. This was a
secret space that had to be invaded, tactfully, as they sat in the back garden.

‘A
French officer gave that to Arthur,’ explained Agnes. ‘He brought it back,
along with his clock. They were his only souvenirs. I’d forgotten all about it.

‘But it’s
illegal. It should have been handed in.’

‘Take
it to the police after I’m dead,’ said Agnes.

The
word struck Lucy like a back-handed slap. But to Agnes it was just another
sound. She said, ‘I’d like to go inside now’

They
returned slowly to the flat. For a long while Agnes jiggled her wheelchair at
the French windows, trying to get it over a ridge. Lucy watched from behind,
detesting her impulse to push past and move things along, to get away from this
constant, slow pageant of illness.

‘I
expect you see rather a lot of young Fougères,’ said Agnes, leaning forward to
push.

‘Not
really’

‘I
suspect he rather likes you.’

‘Stop
it, Gran.’

As they
passed Agnes’ bureau by the door Lucy saw a sheet of cardboard. ‘What’s that?’

‘An
alphabet card:

The
letters were written very neatly in lines of four, forming six columns.

Agnes
stopped and turned, her blue eyes alarmed as by the heavy approach of a new and
threatening machine. ‘When I can’t talk any more, I’ll point.’

They
looked at each other, helpless.

Every time Lucy saw Agnes
something happened to wound her memory. A gallery of imprints hung in
perpetuity. That evening joined the rest. She would for ever be able to see her
grandmother standing by a door, thin arms on a wheelchair, her eyes resting on
the alphabet.

2

Anselm was reading
Athanasius’
Life of Anthony
when the Prior knocked on his door. Anselm
had always enjoyed all that wrestling with demons for it struck him as a
powerful metaphor for aspects of his own inner life whose battles were fought
with fiends less easily discerned.