The Sixth Lamentation (38 page)

Father
Andrew raised his hands to the flames and said, ‘Tell me about the papers that
were torn up by that poor woman.

Anselm
described what he had seen — the list setting out the knights of The Round
Table and the two deportation records, all signed by the man Anselm had urged
to give evidence. He said, ‘It seems Schwermann was a forward thinker. In the
event that Germany lost the war he kept those documents so he could blackmail
Victor Brionne.’

‘Compelling
him to do precisely what?’

‘To
testify that Schwermann saved someone when he got the chance … to give a
handle for doubt … for pity.’

The
Prior reached for a poker and jabbed the embers. With a hiss flame rushed upon
exposed wood. Shadows twisted and shivered. He said, ‘And what do you say Rome were
doing when they sent you off to find Victor Brionne?’

‘When
Schwermann came back to Larkwood it was like a signal, a threat — he could
expose Rome as he had been exposed. That would mean everything Chambray had
told them would come out into the open. It appears Rome glimpsed a solution
based upon simple cause and effect — if Schwermann was reprieved, the face of
the Church would be saved.’

‘It has
to be said,’ observed Father Andrew, raking with the poker once more, ‘Rome is
often more concerned about her complexion than her conduct.’

‘In
this case, if you’ve seen both, it’s pretty unattractive, said Anselm. Dismay
at the calculating betrayal of his trust had settled into a judgment. ‘They
seem to have thought that if Brionne gave evidence there was a good chance he
would absolve his former master, if only to protect himself. All they needed
was someone to prompt him to come forward. So they used me’ — he remembered
standing in the cold, looking into ‘Pilgrim’s Rest’ at the children with their
beakers — ‘and there’s a grim irony in all this—’

‘Which
is?’

‘I
suspect Brionne was hiding not just for his own sake but also to spare his
family There was no point in devastating them for the price of a lie. But I
pushed him and now it’s been told.’

The
fire crackled quietly, sucking in the darkness of the room. Father Andrew said
simply. ‘You
have
been thinking hard.’ The two monks sat joined in
contemplation: Anselm rehearsing the future; the Prior … what was he doing?
Anselm sensed he was listening to the past.

Anselm
said, ‘I will have to go to the police.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘And it
will all come out.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘And
Larkwood, Les Moineaux, Rome; contempt will fall upon us all like rain.’

‘Perhaps.’
Father Andrew’s chair scraped across the flags and he moved thoughtfully to the
window overlooking the cloister, the heart of the monastery, concealed by the
wet night. The firelight flickered on the glass. Father Andrew raised an arm
and wrote a name slowly upon the condensation. It read: ‘Agnes’. Hairline
streams of water faltered down the pane from each letter. He said, ‘Something
tells me you should first go back to Victor Brionne.’

‘Why?’
asked Anselm.

‘Because
I am struck by the one thing you have not mentioned tonight: he believes Agnes
to be dead, but you know she’s alive.’

Chapter Thirty-Nine

1

Lucy’s parents had
arranged to collect their daughter on Sunday morning on their way back from a
short break in Canterbury. Father, mother and daughter would then go to Chiswick
Mall for an afternoon with Agnes.

The
doorbell tore through the air twice. It was a buzzer more suited to the
requirements of the fire brigade. Lucy could not hear the electric shriek
without thinking urgency stood panting on the street. Her mother peeped her
head round the door, eyelids aflutter. She stepped inside, commenting on
Grandpa Arthur’s clock as if he were there, nodding, on the wall. Her father
followed, handing Lucy a mug with a picture of a cathedral on its surface. ‘From
the gift shop,’ he said.

‘Lovely
glass,’ said Susan, turning round, ‘makes you think.’

Lucy
snipped the door shut. When she joined them a moment later her mother was
discreetly checking for dust; her father stood before ‘Sibyl’s Cave’.

‘It’s
absorbing,’ he said. Lucy joined him; their eyes met and she understood. His
daughter had a life of her own, choosing pictures, banging nails into walls,
all the little things unknown to him.

‘Where
did you find it?’ he asked cheerily

‘A
friend gave it to me.’ The first two words almost dried her mouth. She did not
expect to describe Max Nightingale in those terms, but having done so it could
not be withdrawn. Instantaneously she thought of Pascal, the last time they’d
met, and the old monk, known to Father Anselm, who’d died saying all that
mattered were insignificant reconciliations.

‘He’s
very generous,’ said Susan, adding, as if she’d peered inside an envelope, ‘assuming
he’s a he.’

‘You’re
right, said Lucy reaching for her coat. She moved into the hall, to a safe
distance. ‘He’s a painter.’

‘An
artist,’ called Susan encouragingly. ‘How lovely’

2

In times of joy or
profound uncertainty Anselm always retreated to the small lake at the end of
the bluebell walk, roughly halfway between the Priory and the Convent. He
brought Conroy with him, who’d reached an impasse in the writing of his book.
For a moment they looked across in silence towards the middle of the lake,
where a stone statue of the Virgin Mary, smoothed by years of wind and rain,
rose from the water, her arms open in endless submission. They climbed into a
rowboat by a failing wooden landing stage and pushed off, to low groans from
the black-green timbers.

The
events of the previous year had increasingly brought to Anselm’s mind Tennyson’s
‘Morte d’Arthur’, large sections of which had been mercilessly thrust upon him
at school. The lines often came back, like snippets of song, cuttings in the,
mind. Looking at the shining levels of the lake Anselm said, ‘Sometimes I think
of Sir Bedivere charged by his dying king to throw Excalibur into the place
from whence it came.’

Conroy
took his bearings and began a steady pulling of the oars.

‘He can’t
obey Twice he lies. First, because he’s dazzled by its beauty. Next, because he
asks a cracking good question: “Were it well to obey then, if a king demand an
act unprofitable against himself?”‘

Conroy
nodded knowledgably

‘So he
lies. “What did you see or hear?” asks Arthur. “Just ripples and lapping.” But
the king knows the answer isn’t true. He’s waiting anxiously for something
outside the usual order of things.’

The
oar-blades cut the surface of the lake.

“‘I’ll
rise and kill you with my hands if you fail me this last time,” the king says,
and the well-trusted knight runs for his very life to the shore and, with eyes
shut, flings Excalibur far into the night. He’s obeyed but expects his old lie
to come true. But something undreamed-of happens, at the very last moment. ‘

They
were nearing the middle of the lake.

‘When
he looks again, an arm clothed in white samite rises from the water and catches
the hilt. Thrice it’s brandished, and drawn gently beneath the mere.’

Conroy
rested and scratched his thick arms.

‘Overwhelmed,
Bedivere runs back to tell the king what he’s seen. There the king lies, among
the stones of a chapel ruin. He’s lost everything he cared about in this life.
The Round Table is no more; its knights, man by man, having fallen under the
sword. But the dream for which he hoped and waited has happened. The hand that
gave him the sword has taken it back. His life has meaning. He does not die
bewildered.’

Conroy
pulled the oars through their locks, letting the boat gently turn and drift as
it pleased.

‘I’ve
always had a soft spot for Sir Bedivere,’ said Anselm. ‘He’s a bemused English
empiricist, ill at ease with mysticism. And, rather unfairly he gets his head
bitten off for keeping his feet on the ground:

Conroy
made a pillow from his jumper, lodged it in the prow and lay back.

Anselm
said, ‘As a boy I often used to wonder how Arthur would have died if Bedivere
had come back and said, honestly this time, “Truly I saw nothing but water
lapping on the crag. She did not come.

A
slight wind threw ripples upon the lake, chasing shadows and reflections into a
dark shiver. The boat turned in circles. Conroy was lying back, legs
outstretched and arms crossed upon his chest. Unnoticed, the oars quietly
slipped from their locks and bobbed away

‘“And
God fulfils himself in many ways”,’ cited Conroy

‘Where’s
that from?’ asked Anselm.

‘The
same poem; part of the old king’s final testament, just before he dies as I’d
like to die.’

‘How’s
that?’

Conroy
sat up, his face alight, mischievous. ‘In the arms of three beautiful weeping
women.

3

Lucy and her parents sat
at a table playing Scrabble in the small courtyard garden of Chiswick Mall.
Agnes, propped up, watched from her bed through the open French windows.

Susan
glared at the row of letters on her stand. Lucy leaned back to sneak a look: Q,
F, X, L, B … She turned away, gratified. Her mother was choking without
vowels. The game produced in Lucy a ruthless competitive urge that permitted
minor infractions of the rules. It was her father’s turn. He put the small
tablets carefully on the board:

Y-A-W

‘That’s
not a word,’ said Susan petulantly

‘Is
that a challenge?’ replied Freddie, his hand on the dictionary as if it were a
gun.

‘No.’

Lucy
studied her own predicament: Z, Q, K, 0, 5, 0, A. It was hopeless. ‘Would
anyone like some tea?’

Her
mother nodded fiercely.

Lucy
passed through the French windows and sat by her grandmother’s side. She leaned
forward and said, ‘What do you make of this lot?’ She recited her letters.
Agnes thought for a moment while Lucy retrieved the alphabet card from the side
of the bed. Agnes replied:

Z-O-O-K-S

Lucy
said, doubtfully, ‘Are you sure?’

Agnes
nodded with her eyelids.

‘Thanks.’

Lucy
went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. A noise behind startled her. It
was her father.

‘Anything
wrong?’ she asked innocently

‘Lucy,’
he said gravely ‘I saw you on the news, in the back-ground, coming out of a
court …

Lucy
thrust both hands into her hair, disarranging the carefully placed grips and
clips. Her father struggled to continue. ‘It’s to do with Gran, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’
said Lucy not curtly or reluctantly but with mercy.

‘She
knows that Nazi bastard, doesn’t she?’

‘Yes, Dad,
she does.’

‘My
God.’ He arranged his tie and rubbed an eyebrow, saying, ‘Will I ever know what
happened?’

Without
reflection but with something approaching passion, Lucy said, ‘Yes, you will, I
promise, but it can’t be now’

‘All
right.’ He spoke like a beggar on the street promised a sandwich instead of
money. The reversal of power stung. She filled the pot with steaming water.

Chapter Forty

1

Mr Penshaw began his
speech on the Monday morning with an ordered but piecemeal presentation of bare
facts, in themselves not particularly startling. But something unstated imperceptibly
emerged which, once before the mind of the court, grew minute by minute until
Mr Penshaw named it with contempt.

‘It
takes an effort of charity to concede a man could play his part within the
apparatus of mass murder and not know the dreadful end towards which his
efforts were engaged.’

Mr
Penshaw turned quizzically to the dock, bringing the eyes of the jurors on to
Schwermann.

‘Is it
conceivable that an impressionable young man could be left in any doubt as to
the fate of the children that passed through his hands? Is it credible that an
intelligent young man could grind out euphemisms without knowing the terrible
truth they concealed?’

He
paused, returning his gaze to those whose task it was to answer the questions.

‘No, he
could not. And how do we know? Because of Victor Brionne. The penitent
collaborator, the knight errant, the best friend of Jacques Fougères.’

Two
others were conjured into the courtroom. The jury would think of Agnes Aubret,
who died at Auschwitz, and her little boy who was held back from the pit. Lucy
could have wept. It was literally the other way round.