The Sixth Lamentation (45 page)

‘I’ve
had a family … a daughter … a grandson, but through all these years I
have never forgotten you … I have thought of you, wondering how you have
grown.

‘Yes, I
am sure.

‘You
were one of the reasons my life was worth anything.’

‘Yes.’

‘And
now, when all the others have gone, it is you that has come to see me … I
am overwhelmed …’

Perhaps
it was the crippling tension of the moment, perhaps it was his saturation in
culture, but in a flash Salomon Lachaise suddenly remembered a devastating
passage from Virgil’s
Aeneid,
where Aeneas towers triumphant over the
fallen Turnus, a man of great strength, having defeated him in single combat;
Aeneas raises his sword to carry out the execution, but Turnus pleads for his
life, for the sake of his father; Aeneas checks the fall of his arm and
hesitates … but then his eye catches the belt of Pallas, a trophy upon the
shoulder of Turnus … Pallas, his dearest friend, slain without mercy …

Salomon
Lachaise said, his voice cracked and low: ‘What of the others, my mother’s
family the thousands, the sons and daughters—’

‘There
was nothing I could do.’

‘You
did a great deal:

The old
man wheedled, as if for the hundredth time, ‘I had no choice.’

‘Yes,
you did. You have forgotten too much.’

‘Please,
Salomon, listen … can’t you forgive …’ The pleading became a wail.

‘I do
not have that power. And neither does God. It belongs to those you abandoned.
Now hear me.

Schwermann
became instantly still, as though his heart had ceased to beat. He simply
breathed, a functioning suddenly foreign to his waiting, expectant body Salomon
Lachaise stood up and said: ‘I raise in my hands the dust from which you were
made and I cast it to the wind. May you never be remembered, either under the
sun or at its setting.’

He
turned away from the dividing glass. And from the prisoner on the other side,
soon to be freed, came the sound of a withered, resentful moan.

Salomon Lachaise had
finished speaking. The wild chase of water beneath their feet grew loud. Anselm
repeated what he’d read in the papers:

‘The
police found capsules in two of his jackets, sewn into the same corner below
the left pocket, with a loose thread ready to be pulled when needed.’

‘So I
understand.’

‘Presumably
they were taken out and put back after every visit to the dry cleaner’s.’

‘Yes, I
expect you are right.’

Anselm
thought of the private ritual, the unpicking and the sewing up over the years,
the constant preparedness to escape a judgment imposed by anyone other than
himself. Before Anselm could pursue his reflections, Salomon Lachaise said,
with closing authority: ‘I shall never talk of him again.’

As at a
signal, they both clambered on to their knees and stood, Anselm helping his
companion gain balance. Strolling back to The Hermitage, Anselm said, ‘What
will you do now?’

‘Travel.
I want to keep moving. I have no commitments, no dependants.’

‘You’ll
remain in Geneva?’

‘Yes.
As much as I have left the University, it remains something of a home. Anyway’
— he smiled brightly — ‘I intend to arrange a small exhibition of young Max’s
paintings. Have you seen them?’

‘No.’

‘You
should. They possess alarming innocence. I shall try to use the ignominy of his
background to his advantage. Otherwise it will remain a curse.

‘That
is kind.’

‘Nothing
done for pleasure is kind.’

They
reached The Hermitage shack, and Anselm made to amble back to the Priory. Pointing
at the open door, Salomon Lachaise said, ‘Can you join me for a final glass of
port? I never go anywhere without a bottle.’

They
sat on wobbling wooden chairs, sipping in silence, until Anselm said, ‘Would
you like to meet Agnes Aubret?’

Salomon
Lachaise, with tears in his eyes, could not reply.

Chapter Forty-Seven

1

Lucy met her father in the
noble gardens of Gray’s Inn. As they entered, she pointed at the stone beasts
on the gate columns. ‘Griffins,’ said her father knowledgably. ‘Protectors of
paradise. Don’t they teach you anything about myths these days?’

His
suit was crafted to his body immaculately creased and cut. In his own world,
thought Lucy he was powerful and successful and wore the uniform of esteemed
competence. When they found a bench, he dusted off dry particles of nothing
with the back of a hand. Sitting like two lone strays at a matinee, each with
their legs crossed, Lucy began the stripping of her father.

‘Dad,
none of us are who we think we are.’

Her
father, enjoying a tease, replied, ‘And I suppose no one else is who we think
they are.

‘No,
quite right.’ She cut through the smart cloth of known appearances to the soft
epidermis. ‘It’s true of Gran’ — he looked suddenly wary — ‘and it is
especially true of you.

Lucy
explained to her father how he had been saved from Ravensbrück by Agnes, that
he was born of unknown, murdered parents, from an unknown place, that they were
buried no one knew where. And she told him Agnes was the mother of a son whom
she’d lost, a son who had been found. He listened, entranced and dismayed,
fingering the constricting knot of his tie. When Lucy had finished he sat
stunned, as though waiting for the lights to come on in a theatre, the only one
left in a curved, empty stall.

‘Do you
know,’ he said faintly ‘I think she nearly told me once.

‘When?’

‘Years
and years ago … before the rot set in … I was fifteen or sixteen and I
gave her a mouthful about her silence’ — again he reached for his restricting
collar — ‘I said she’d never cared, not even when I’d fallen as a boy and cut
my knee.’

‘What
did she say?’ asked Lucy

Her
father sat upright, the movement of feet scuffing a gleaming shoe. He wiped his
dry lips with a handkerchief and said, ‘Nothing, actually at first. But her
face crumpled … in a way that 1 have never been able to forget … and
just when I thought she was going to tell me something she was gone, into
herself …’

‘She
didn’t speak?’

He
nodded, his face flushed and shining. ‘She said, “Oh Freddie, say anything
about me but not that, not that:” He joined his hands in hopeless, abject
supplication. ‘God, I have to see her … I have to tell her I’m sorry …’

The gardens of the Inn
were due to close, their lunchtime access about to be withdrawn by edict of the
Honourable Benchers. Like a stream of obedient refugees, young and old started
threading their way towards the ornate gates. Lucy and Freddie followed suit.
They walked back the way they had come, changed from who they were when they’d
entered.

‘I had
always thought, in some obscure way she did not want me.

These
were words Lucy could hardly bear to hear. She looked down, fastening her
attention on the measured crunching of fine gravel.

‘In one
sense, I suppose that is true …

Lucy
lowered her head further, her chin discovering a necklace given to her by him
on her tenth birthday. She pressed hard against the warm gold chain as he
spoke:

‘Isn’t
life bloody awful sometimes. She could never have told me when I most wanted to
know because I would not have understood. And now that I am old enough to
understand she can’t tell me.’

Lucy
forced the tiny links into the skin of her neck. He said:

‘I’d
give anything to go back to that moment when her face fell, to tell her I didn’t
mean it … but that is part of the hell — I did mean it … I did. I just
wish I’d never said it. Unfortunately we have to live with what we’ve said, as
well as what we’ve done.’

Reaching
the gates, Lucy looked up. It seemed her father had aged, but the lines through
his skin were yielding, well drawn. He was like a man who’d been well treated
by an indulgent parole board. Yes, they would recommend his release; but so
many years of imprisonment had passed that the spout within for exhilaration
had rusted, clogged. They all watched him in a line, waiting for the bursting
forth. He could only smile, shake hands, bow … mutter thanks.

He
faced Lucy and said plainly, ‘There’s still enough time left to make a
difference, don’t you think?’

‘Yes.’

They
walked out into Field Court and the gates of paradise politely closed. Her
father kissed her goodbye. Strange, thought Lucy: it was only since she’d told
her father about the death of Pascal that intimacy of the kind they each
wanted, had been restored between them. Glancing up at a mute griffin, Lucy
could have sworn she saw the little beast breathe.

2

Anselm left Salomon
Lachaise to the solitude of Larkwood and took a train to Newcastle. From there
he took the rattling Metro to the coast where Robert Brownlow lived.

Anselm
had made the arrangement with Maggie, who opened the door before he could
knock. She led him anxiously to the foot of the stairs. Anselm told her not to
worry and went up to join Robert in the lounge.

They
stood at the window, looking out on Cullercoats Bay Down below on the beach was
little Stephen, heaping sand with his father, Francis.

‘Francis
is my eldest,’ said Robert. ‘Over there is Caroline, his wife, with the recent
addition, Ian. He’s eleven months.’ A woman, evidently not used to the rigours
of a sunny North-East afternoon, sat wrapped in an overcoat by an outcrop of
rocks. The round, covered head of an infant protruded between the raised
lapels.

‘I’ve
got four other children. Two are married, both of them have kids. Altogether we
come to thirteen. And now we re in pieces.’

They
watched two generations shivering on the sand.

‘Robert,’
said Anselm, ‘you told me when we first met that Victor had died after the war:

‘As far
as I was concerned, he had. That man was not my father. Victor Brownlow was. At
least, that is what I wanted to believe, for their sake,’ he nodded towards the
beach, ‘and for mine. But now, after watching him in court defending that man,
it’s the other way round. My father has died and I find myself the son of
Victor Brionne.’

Unseen
by his father, little Stephen had begun to undress, his face set towards the
frozen sea. Stephen’s mother, permanently alert, shooed her husband away back
to his charge.

Anselm
chose his words carefully. ‘Part of what you have said is true. Your father is
dead.’

Robert
turned, his brown eyes puzzled, not quite meshing with the bite of the words.

Anselm
continued, ‘As you say, Victor Brionne is not your father. Nor is he now. He
never was.

‘What
do you mean?’ asked Robert.

‘You
are the son of Jacques Fougères.’

Robert’s
mouth fell slightly apart; he roughly drew a hand across his short, neat hair. ‘The
man mentioned in the trial?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who
had a child by Agnes Aubret?’

‘Yes.’

‘I am
that child?’

‘Yes,
Robert, you are.

He
moved away from the light of the window, unsteadily towards a chair. Sitting
down cautiously, he said, ‘Agnes Aubret … my mother?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who
died in Auschwitz?’ His eyes began to flicker. He coughed, lightly

‘No.
Robert, she is alive. She survived. She lives in London. She is very ill and
will soon die.’

‘My God.’

‘It is
a long and involved story,’ said Anselm, moving to

Robert’s
side, ‘and Victor will tell you everything. All I want to say is this. You are
alive today because he saved you. The price he paid was horrendous and he’s
been paying ever since.’

‘Tell
me a little more, anything …

Anselm
briefly gave the outline of Victor’s chosen path, with its unforeseen penalty,
and his further choices.

Fearful,
like one trapped in the sand, the tide approaching, Robert said, ‘I’ll have to
relive my whole life, right from the beginning, find myself … seek out… my father … seek out Victor.’ He stumbled over the changing references
within simple words .

Anselm
replied quickly with gentle insistence, ‘Robert, begin that journey with your
mother; she already knows … and let Victor be your guide.’

Robert
walked to the door and called out faintly ‘Maggie, come here, please …’

She
came running up the stairs. As she entered the room Robert weakly extended his
arms. She clasped his neck, exclaiming, ‘What’s happened, Robert? Tell me, tell
me.’