The Strange Case of the Composer and His Judge (33 page)

The night was almost upon her by the time she circled Valence and turned east, towards Chambéry, Annecy. She saw the dark edge of the mountains of the Vercors, folded white rock, and the falling shadows, darkening across the farms and orchards just below the wooded edge. She increased her speed, pounding down the column of her lights through the tunnels, all her windows snapped shut against the stale air lingering around the dim green discs marking the escape zones. She emerged into white moonlight, the Alps hulked above her, a jagged dark line, free of mist, against the still deepening blue.

At the Swiss frontier, just south of Geneva, she was stopped by the douanes and the motorway police. They stood round her car, curious and bored.

‘You must buy a vignette if you are driving on the motorways.’

‘I’m only here for one day. Why is it so expensive?’

‘It’s valid for a whole year. That is, until the end of January.’

The Judge shrugged, changed two thousand French francs into Swiss francs, paid for the exorbitant vignette and drove onwards into the dark.

Once past Lausanne she slowed down and watched the lights bobbing on the black water. The great lake shimmered to her right; the traffic ebbed. It was gone eleven at night. For the first time she doubted the wisdom of this impetuous journey. Should she search for a hotel in Vevey and approach the Château in the morning? She looked at her map. The Château de Séverin was not marked, but the village was there, perched on the narrow precipice above her. By the time she had climbed all the way up the mountain it would be well after midnight. Visitors at midnight! Only the messengers of death – doctors, priests, police – came to the door after dark. And yet something almost tangible, like a fine silk thread, drew her onwards, upwards. The vines flashed autumnal in her lights, the walnut trees stretched out above her. On either side of the uncoiling road a sequence of red poles marked her way, appearing and vanishing as she looped and turned. These must mark the path for the snow ploughs, so that even in the worst weather the roads stand clear. A green municipal scoop of salted grit loomed before her, then disappeared into the ascending dark. Séverin. Here was the village, silent, unlit. No street lights, cobbles underfoot and a strong smell of crushed grapes on the roadway. Was the vendange already over? She slowed right down and crawled past tiled barns, painted gates, tidy houses, their gardens filled with golden rod and the purple flowers of Michaelmas. Far below her she saw lights moving on the surface of the lake. Suddenly the flickering dark landscape sank from view and a great stone wall appeared directly before her in the car’s headlights, blotting out all else. Follow the wall to the gates. Two hundred yards later the black gates rose up, as if conjured out of the darkness.
Private Property
.
Keep Out
. But the gates stood open. She turned on to the sandy gravel, dipped her beam and followed the trail towards a tiny square of light far ahead, suspended in space. The gatehouse. There was another, inner court. She stopped the car, cut the engine, and sat still in the cooling velvet night. Crickets, frogs, damp grass recently cut, smelling green, fresh, cool. She climbed out, stiff, exhausted, and stretched her arms high above her head. Then she set out towards the warm blotch of light, her rucksack over one shoulder.

The window proved too high in the wall above her to see what lay inside, but she tapped anyway on the warm glass and waited. No answer. She felt her way along the rough façade. Where was the door? Here, beneath my fingers, and it will be open. The Judge felt a pattern of iron bolts, a rusty decorated swirl, and then the lock. She heard the latch rise beneath her hand. Yes, this is the lock and the doors are open. She slithered on the damp cobbles in the courtyard, but the steps leading up to the main entrance were lit by two yellow globes balanced on the stone curls, which ended the staircase with a flourish. The Judge stood looking into a handsome tiled hall through clear glazed doors. Where was the bell? Should she creep away now? Or waken the sleeping house?

The bell, a real one, hung just above her, and a leather strap, glistening and slippery from the light rain, that once encircled the neck of some Alpine beast, unfurled beside the clapper. The Judge pulled gently upon the strap. To her surprise another bell sounded inside the house to the right. She waited. Then she saw an old woman wearing a headscarf and slippers coming towards her. They peered at one another through the glass. The Judge braced herself for another language, but the woman, neither unfriendly nor surprised, simply asked in French, ‘Yes? Who is it? Can I help you?’

‘My name is Dominique Carpentier.’

The door opened at once.

‘Enfin, c’est vous! Bonsoir, Madame, bonsoir. Mais vous êtes très en retard! Entrez, entrez.’

The Judge hesitated on the threshold. Once again she was expected and announced. They are waiting for me, even in the long watches of the night, they are waiting. She was disconcerted, but no longer surprised. The old woman, even smaller than she, resembled an ancient wizened root and for a moment the Judge harboured a vision of the giant Composer, lurking in his Swiss castle, transformed into an ogre surrounded by dwarves. Then she entered the Château.

High decorated ceilings and another great yellow globe descending from the moulded plaster rose – the tiled corridor clearly stretched the length of the building. The silence around her deepened. Were they all asleep? Was no one there? The old woman answered her unspoken questions.

‘They’ve gone to Geneva. Monsieur Grosz took Marie-Thérèse to the airport tonight. He will be back. But very late. Shall I show you to your room? Or do you want to wait?’

The eerie sensation of walking into a prepared future, about which she possessed no knowledge and over which she therefore had no control, assaulted the Judge. She stood absolutely still for a moment, confronting two vast carved doors leading into the reception rooms.

‘I’ll wait.’

‘Would you like a hot drink? Tea? Chocolate? Coffee?’

‘I don’t want to give you any more work.’

‘Oh, it’s no trouble. I usually wait up for Monsieur Grosz and then I lock all the doors. But now that you’re safely here I’ll go to bed. Let me get you a drink. You must be very tired after such a long journey.’

‘Tea, then. Thank you.’

One wall of the long drawing room was divided into high glass doors, overlooking the lake. Far away she saw the distant lights, skirting the rim, jewels in the dark, then the great expanse of black, and on the far side, the continuing necklace of diamond lights. The great shapes of the Alps bulged upwards, vast, distant, black. The dark sky opened up from time to time as the wind shovelled the clouds slowly across the dome, revealing a deeper darkness in the gulf. The moon had set. And so the Judge took up her position by the French windows and stared out into the rolling night. The land before her stretched away into darkness and distance. Immediately outside the windows she saw a dim terrace, and as her eyes steadied against the shadows, the outline of a Chinese summer house, glimmering white in the long tunnels of light from the glass doors. She viewed the world in monochrome, like an old film.

The drawing room extended, luxurious and opulent as a dark-red serpent, long and comfortable, all the way from a baroque marble fireplace at one end to a huge grand piano at the other. A stack of folding chairs leaned against one wall, deep sofas and armchairs still bore the dents, lumps and disarray of recent occupation. She gathered up two fallen cushions. A crumpled newspaper lay scattered on the floor, open at the detailed European weather maps. The television eye glowed red, waiting. The Judge switched it off, then stood back to assess the objects before her. What can I read from this space and these colours: reds, orange, gold? The room smelled of woodsmoke, alcohol and wealth: lamps, books, a wine glass abandoned on a small table, the wood inlaid, gleaming, with solid shafts of mother-of-pearl. Whoever lived here, and she found it hard to believe it was the Composer, lived well, in rural security, comfortable in the world, the host at the banquet, one of the masters.

The Judge unshouldered her rucksack, took off her black jacket and sank into the embrace of an opulent sofa facing the lake. She felt her eyes closing. I have been driving, almost without interruption, for nine hours.

‘Voilà! Your tea and some lemon cakes. I wasn’t sure what you would like.’

When the old woman had gone, pattering away down the long halls, the Judge inspected the tray. Eat me, drink me. The cakes tasted rich and delicious. I’m hungry as the Wolf was when he met Red Riding Hood. She brushed the crumbs from her black jeans and eased off her shoes, clutching her china bowl of tea. Don’t fall asleep. Stay awake. Lie in wait for him. But the room was warm and the dying logs in the fireplace shuddered, settled, glowed, went out. The Judge set her empty bowl down by the plate on the soft red rug and was asleep before her dark head even touched the cushions.

_{*  *  *}

She never heard him enter the long drawing room. The Composer padded like a cat towards her and stood looking down at the Judge, whose glasses, twisted sideways, had left a red mark on her cheek. He gazed at the dark rings under her exhausted eyes and then knelt beside her, lifting her into his arms.

‘Dominique?’ He carefully removed her glasses and put them in his jacket pocket. It was gone two in the morning. She shivered and raised one hand to rub her eyes.

‘Oh – you.’

The heat from his throat warmed her cheek. She tried to sit up, suddenly alarmed that she might still be driving and had fallen asleep at the wheel.

‘It’s all right. I’m here.’

‘Why are you so late?’

She dropped all pretence of anger, formality or distance. She simply closed her eyes again and snuggled into his arms. He massaged the red patch on her temple where the glasses had cut into her.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, ‘Marie-Thérèse wanted to get home. She has school on Monday. The plane was late. I wouldn’t leave her alone at the airport.’

‘Is she safe back?’

‘Oh yes. She’s already landed. She’ll ring tomorrow.’

The Judge began to surface from the borders of sleep.

‘Why aren’t you surprised to see me?’

‘You rang Marie-T on her mobile. But you didn’t leave a message. She knew it was you and she believed you would come. That’s why she waited as long as she could and then took the late plane. We both waited for you.’

‘Where are my glasses?’

He squeezed her and laughed.

‘You want to begin your investigation again? Now?’ He cleaned her glasses on his handkerchief, then opened them up and handed them back. She sat up and looked at him. The thick white hair needed a trim. The lines on either side of his mouth had lengthened and deepened. He looked older, very tired and a little sad.

‘I’ve come to do something so unprofessional that I can hardly believe it of myself.’ She reached for her rucksack. ‘I’ve brought this back. Because I believe it belongs to you.’

The Guide is the Keeper of the Book. As she put the Book of the Faith into the Composer’s hands she needed no further confirmation of the justice of her instincts and the ethics of what she had done. The joy in his face spread like an electric surge throughout his body, his habitual heat, almost becoming visible.

‘I love you, Madame le Juge, with all my heart.’

‘So you keep saying. I’m flattered, Friedrich, but now I’ve done what I came to do.’ She straightened her back. The night gaped in the windows.

‘I won’t let you go.’ He clutched the Guide to his chest as if she and the Book had become one. He was so close she could feel the heat in his breath.

‘I’m hungry,’ wailed the Judge.

_{*  *  *}

The kitchen curved over her like a huge tunnel until he turned on the lights, and then the roof lifted away into a high dark where a washing rack swayed on a pulley, the drying dishcloths white and crisp like elderly ghosts. She saw an old range flanked by a modern gas stove and dishwasher. This stood open and a mass of soiled dishes lay upended in a row, waiting to be scoured. Out of sheer investigative habit the Judge counted the plates: twelve, there were twelve of them. One clean plate stood aside on the dresser. She guessed this had been her plate, which still lay waiting, ready and expectant. As if reading her thoughts the Composer reached for the white plate and set it before her. She noted the huge cupboards and the door into the larder, which had a small yellow grille at eye-level, like a prison slot. The kitchen was stocked with provisions adequate for a visiting army.

‘Is anyone else still in the house?’

‘No. They’ve all gone. We’re all there is.’