The Statement (10 page)

César. She had to reach down and grip the dog’s collar to prevent him following the young man out of the door. ‘Dakar?’ she said. ‘Monsignor Lefebvre?’

He nodded. ‘Goodbye, Madame.’

9

The residence was separated from the school by a narrow alleyway. The homeless, most of them alcoholics, would drift into the alley shortly before noon at a time when the schoolboys were playing noisily in the adjoining school yard. Soup was distributed to these men at twelve-thirty. Father Blaise, the
père hospitalier
, usually unlocked the back door himself and supervised the distribution which was carried out by two of the lay brothers. That particular morning, with the noise from the school yard, the bell, ringing repeatedly, was not at first noticed by the brothers in the kitchen. But when Father Blaise came out of his office he heard it.

‘Who’s ringing the bell? Is it one of the
clochards
?’

‘There’s a young fellow who’s been hanging round for the past few days,’ Brother André said. ‘He’s off his head. I bet it’s him.’

Father Blaise took out his keys and went through the scullery to the back door. A table was set up there with soup bowls, spoons and a basket full of bread. He unlocked the door expecting to deal with some drunken derelict. But instead there was an elderly man in a green woollen cardigan, corduroy trousers, a respectable type, not the usual figure in the soup line. The
clochards
, sitting along the alley wall, began to get to their feet when they saw that the door had been opened.

‘Did you ring the bell?’ Father Blaise asked the old man.

‘Yes, Father. Good morning. Is Father Dominic here?’

‘I’m afraid Father Dominic has passed away.’

‘I am so sorry. God rest his soul. Are you the new
père hospitalier
?’

‘I am, yes.’

‘I am Pierre Pouliot. I’m a friend of the Abbot. Is he in?’

Father Blaise looked again at the old man. He felt a sense of shock. It must be him. The photograph is in my office.

‘The Abbot is over at the school at present,’ he said. ‘I’m expecting him back here shortly. If you’d like to come in and wait, I’ll see if I can find him.’

The homeless were now crowding up to the door. Two of the brothers came out of the kitchen, carrying between them a huge iron bowl filled with soup. Father Blaise pushed aside the serving table to let the old man enter. As the brothers began to serve the soup, Father Blaise led the old man through the residence and put him into the front parlour.

‘It may take a while,’ he said. ‘If you’ll please wait?’

‘No hurry, no hurry,’ the old man said, seating himself comfortably in a chair near the window. ‘Thank you very much, Father.’

Blaise went at once to his office. In a drawer where correspondence was kept he found and examined the photograph that had been given to him a week ago. Two priests from the diocesan office had come one morning when the Abbot was away. They had come, they said, with instructions from the Bishop who, in turn, had received instructions from Cardinal Delavigne, the Primate, in Lyon. They had shown him this photograph and asked if he knew this man. He did not.

‘Well, he’s a regular visitor to this house. We know that. He has been for a number of years.’

‘I’m new here. I was transferred from St  Sauveur, the month before last.’

‘Perhaps that explains it,’ the visiting priest said. ‘I’m going to give you this photograph. It was taken only seven years ago, so you should be able to recognize him. We’re distributing it everywhere he was admitted or may have been admitted in the past.’

He looked at the photograph. Two old men standing in a garden. One of them was a cleric. The other was the old man, now in the parlour.

‘The man on the right is Pierre Brossard. Are you allowed to read newspapers and watch television in this house?’

‘Not in this house, no. The Abbot does not permit television or any form of press. But when I was at St  Sauveur, it was different. So I know who he is. The
milicien
.’

‘That’s right. Do you know that the Church has come under criticism for sheltering him?’

‘Yes. We were told that, when I was at St  Sauveur.’

‘Good. The reason we’re here is because Cardinal Delavigne has given strict instructions that, from now on, Brossard is to be turned away at once from any church property where he tries to gain asylum. There are to be no exceptions. We know that in several of the places he has been sheltered his identity has been revealed only to the Abbot and the
père hospitalier
. Would that be the case here?’

‘I would think so, yes. In our Order, the
hospitalier
is the only one to know a visitor’s name. Apart, of course, from the Abbot himself.’

‘In that case, as the Abbot is not here today, we’ll leave it to you to tell him about this matter. If he has any further questions about it, please ask him to get in touch with the Cardinal directly.’

When the Abbot returned that evening, Blaise showed him the photograph.

‘That’s Maurice Le Moyne,’ the Abbot said.

‘I’m sorry. Who?’

‘The priest with him is Monsignor Le Moyne. He’s been a great champion of Pierre Brossard’s case. The whole thing is disgusting.’

‘I’m sorry, Father Abbot. I don’t think I understand.’

‘Pierre is one of us. It’s terrible to let him down now. Delavigne’s a leftist, of course, afraid of the press and the Jewish lobby. He doesn’t have the guts to stand his ground.’

‘But Brossard was a war criminal, wasn’t he? There’s no doubt about that?’

The Abbot was caught in a fit of coughing, a legacy of his malaria from the Southern African years. When the coughing had subsided, he put his hand on Blaise’s shoulder and said, in a kindly tone, ‘Father, I don’t know you very well, but I am sure your heart is in the right place. I am an old man now and I find it hard to renounce the things I have always believed in. One of the things I will always believe is that we lost the war, not in 1940, but in 1945.’

‘Did you say ’45, Father Abbot?’

‘Yes. Let me explain. In 1940, under Maréchal Pétain, France was given a chance to revoke the errors, the weakness and selfishness, of the Third Republic, that regime that caused us to lose the war to the Germans. Of course, it was a sad time. I’m not denying it. Part of the country was occupied, but you must remember there
was
a large free zone, the zone of the Vichy Government, the Maréchal’s government, which was giving us the hope of a new co-operation between our country and Germany. Under the Maréchal, we were led away from selfish materialism and those democratic parliaments that preached a false equality back to the Catholic values we were brought up in: the family, the nation, the Church. But when the Germans lost the war, all that was finished. Stalin’s communist armies overran Europe. The enemies of religion came back in force. I believe that poor Pierre Brossard wasn’t very different from me, or from many others. He was brought up to believe the things we believed in, he fought for those things, he was loyal, as most Frenchmen were, not to de Gaulle, far away in London with the English who deserted us in 1940, but to the Maréchal who did not run away but stayed to unite us. Unfortunately, Brossard eventually chose to join the
milice
, which, I agree, became brutal in the end. But I also believe in forgiveness, Father. I believe in contrition. I believe that Pierre Brossard was led into error but has since repented for his sins and, like hundreds of others who lived through those times, is being victimized for fighting and believing in values that were anathema to the communists who controlled the Resistance. And so I think it’s a disgrace that now, in his hour of greatest need, the main body of the Church shows him no mercy and sends these priests around with orders that we are to shut him out.’

‘But, Father Abbot, the beliefs of the
milice
were the beliefs of the Nazis. And the Nazis were certainly not Catholic. Besides, Brossard didn’t need orders from the Nazis. He was always a step ahead of them. From what I’ve read it’s clear that he carried out the assassination of those fourteen Jews in Dombey. He stole Jewish property, et cetera, et cetera. And, if what I was taught in the seminary is still the rule, Father, the Church, while it aids those who are persecuted, does not shelter proven criminals fleeing from justice.’

‘The Church is not bound by man’s laws, but by the law of God,’ the Abbot said. ‘Judgements handed down by the State don’t necessarily absolve us, as Christians, from helping unfortunates who seek our help.’

‘Does that mean that if Brossard arrives on our doorstep I am to admit him?’

‘He won’t show up,’ the Abbot said. ‘He visits us very infrequently. But if he does, yes, admit him. I will speak to him. And having spoken to him, I will act according to my conscience.’

And now, a week later, Brossard was sitting in the parlour. Blaise put the photograph back in the drawer and went out, crossing the avenue to the main gates of the school. The Abbot was in the school office, eating a bowl of the same soup that was being served to the
clochards
in the alley.

‘Brossard? You’re sure it’s Brossard?’

‘I can’t be sure, Father Abbot. But he looks like the man in that photograph. He said his name was Pouliot.’

‘That’s him. Where is he now?’

‘I put him in the parlour. What shall I do? Do you want me to admit him?’

The Abbot rose, stepping out from behind his desk. ‘Did he ask for a room?’

‘No, Father.’

‘Good. I have to talk to him. I’ll let you know.’

Let me know what? Is he going to turn him away after all? I doubt it. What
is
the rule of obedience? To obey one’s superior in the Order? Yes, of course. But is there a higher rule, the rule of obedience to the Cardinal Primate, the leader of the Church in France? If the Abbot shelters this Nazi turd, isn’t it my duty to report it?

10

For as long as he could remember, he had held older men in respect. It went back to his father Henri Brossard, an old army man, ever the drill sergeant barking out commands, a ruler up his back, a parade-ground walk. His father had, in turn, looked up to the greatest of old men. The Maréchal. His father had served under the Maréchal in the First World War. The Maréchal was France. Religion also spoke in the tones of age. It was ancient and all powerful. It must be obeyed. The Pope was the Holy Father. But now that he himself was old, he no longer saw older men in a respectful light. Now, he looked at them for signs of failure: the faltering step on the stairs, the voice hesitating over a forgotten surname, the look of quiet deception when dimming ears had missed what was said. Now he measured them and their frailties against his own. And judged himself the victor.

He had known Dom André Vergnes for twenty years. At first, he had been intimidated by the Abbot’s manner and voice: the voice of Paris’s great schools, the accent he thought of and feared as
snob
. But, as always with clerics, he knew, at once, when he was likely to be believed and what would appeal to his listener. He could tell a priest’s politics in something so slight as a nod or a smile. The hesitation of the Jew lover when you brought the Yids into your tale. The sudden second look when you mentioned the
milice
. He knew, at once, whether a priest or monk had read the papers and followed cases such as his. He knew when a simple
curé
would give him a night’s lodging out of Christian charity without caring who or what he was. He knew the group who could be told part of his tale, who, while they might despise his past and condemn his actions, could be won by his penitence, and trusted, through the imperative of confession, to protect him from the laws of men. He also knew the group who could be told the truth, or most of it, who, while not sure of his total innocence, were sympathetic, hostile to this leftist, godless France. And then, of course, there were what he called the true believers: a small group, now growing smaller, those who had remained faithful when the wind had changed, who saw the long years of protecting him as their duty, a proof that, in backing Vichy, they themselves had made the proper choice.

Dom André was seventy-nine, almost a decade older than he. In the ninth decade, as he well knew, men become stubborn and unyielding, unwilling to admit error now that judgement day is close. Because of this he had little fear that Dom André would be swayed by Cardinal Delavigne’s order. But you never know. And so, when Dom André came into the parlour, he rose up to greet him, but deferentially, cautiously, waiting to see how the wind blew.

‘Ah, Pierre. How are you?’

A handshake. It told him nothing.

‘I can’t complain. And yourself, Father Abbot? How have you been?’

The Abbot sat stiffly in a chair by the parlour table, resting his elbows on the table, lowering his head slightly. A sign of dizziness?

‘I am well,’ the Abbot said. ‘I hear you’ve been moving about?’

What does he mean by that?

‘Yes. The usual. Can’t be too careful, particularly now.’

‘You’ve been in Salon,’ the Abbot said. ‘I know, because I had a telephone call from my old friend Dom Vladimir, the night before last. He asked me if I’d seen or heard of you.’