The Sixth Lamentation Part 36

Lucy laughed. 'It can't do any harm then.'

'No,' said the monk, 'I get the feeling we're all on the other side of harm.'

'For now'

'That's good enough.'

By the front door they heard soft undulations with a gentle melody rising like a song.

'That must be Robert,' said Father Anselm, stopping. 'Do you know what he's playing?'

'Yes, it's my Gran's favourite piece of Faure,' replied Lucy deeply moved. "'Romance sans parole".'

"'A love song without words",' said the monk.

'Oh G.o.d,' exclaimed Lucy, 'every time I see you I cry.

And the reserved monk took her arm in his and held it tight.

Chapter Forty-Nine.

1.

Anselm stood awkwardly facing Conroy on the forecourt to the Priory. His sabbatical was over. He'd finished his book and found a publisher with an appet.i.te for trouble, and now the big man was heading back to Rome. After handing the ma.n.u.script over to his Order's censors, he'd catch a flight home to So Paulo and his children.

They shook hands, Anselm wincing at the grip. Conroy compressed himself into the driving seat and wound down a window 'I'll wend my way so.

'Come back.'

'Sure, I'm taking something of the place with me.'

'And you're leaving something of you and your work behind.'

'Pray for my kids.'

Anselm waved and the chariot of fire left Larkwood.

After Compline that night, when the Great Silence was under way, Father Andrew led Anselm out of the cloister and into the grounds, suggesting a walk.

They talked over all that had happened under a fading sky then idled down the bluebell path towards the Priory. The woods on either side lay deep in silence, restraining a cool, brooding presence. A solitary owl cried out somewhere near the lake.

'Almost without exception, I misunderstood everything, said Anselm, his feet scuffing bracken and loose, dry twigs. 'The list of misjudgements is too long to enumerate ... all from prejudice, loose-thinking, fancy. But I'm not altogether sure Holy Mother Church helped me on my way.

Father Andrew stepped into the woods, foraging among the undergrowth. He re-emerged with a long quirky branch that must have fallen in the winds. The Prior smiled and swung the stick at the raised heads of winsome dandelions, a boyhood pastime that had come back in older years. He said, 'She has a frail face, made up of the glorious and the twisted.'

Anselm said, 'I still don't know what Rome was really up to.

The Prior, harvesting, made a heavy, sweeping swish with his stick.

Anselm continued, 'The Vatican had two reports about what happened at Les Moineaux, one of them, d.a.m.ning, from Chambray ... the other, from Pleyon, apparently exculpatory - only it was never finished. So Rome couldn't have known what Brionne would do when I found him and pushed him into court. He might have filled out the exculpation - which happened to be true ... or he might have lied to protect himself. Either way, the face of the Church would have been saved. It's not particularly inspiring.'

'Like I said' - the Prior looked around for something else to reap - 'at times the face we love takes a turn, so much so that we might not recognise what we see. And yet, there is another explanation.'

'Which is?'

'Rome trusted the reputation of Pleyon over the words of Chambray'

Anselm frowned with concentration as the Prior continued, ... and remember, they went to Chambray first, before they spoke to you, and he told them to get lost. His mind had been made up fifty years earlier.'

The Prior and his disciple slowed to a standstill. The owl, high now in the sky cried again. An early silver moon hung over the Priory in a weakening blue sky Anselm sat on the stump of a tree, cut down by Benedict and Jerome after the last year's storms. The Prior, standing, looked at him directly and said, 'And what about you?'

It was a typical question from him. It was so wide in compa.s.s that anything could be caught in its net. The Prior always threw such things when he had something specific in mind. Anselm said, 'I lost myself, and I don't know when it happened ... I lost my hold on Larkwood.'

'It usually happens that way' said the Prior. 'There's rarely a signpost where the roads divide.' He lopped a clump of ferns. 'Have you found your way back?'

Anselm looked down the path to the monastery, barely discernible from the trees. 'No, I haven't.'

'Good,' said Father Andrew, delivering yet another whack.

The Prior, as was so often the case, seemed to see things not on view Anselm said, 'I think in an obscure way I might have arrived' - he had a sudden thought - 'helped on my way by Salomon Lachaise ... the scale of his suffering.'

The Prior rested both hands on his stick, looking quizzically at his son.

'I can't tell you the route. But I've arrived with something like ... tears in my soul.'

The Prior's gaze grew penetrating. Anselm said, 'Millions died from hatred, beneath a blue sky like the one over Larkwood this afternoon ... almost by chance, someone like Pascal is trodden underfoot like an ant, along with countless others. And yet, against that, the life of Agnes Embleton is resolved, as if there is a healing hand at work that cannot be deflected from its purpose. I just can't make sense of it, other than to cry.

The Prior said, 'You never will understand, fully; and in a way you mustn't. If you do, you'll be trotting out formulas. That will bring you very close to superst.i.tion. It can be comforting' - he struck out at the air - 'but it won't last.'

Walking over to Anselm, the Prior thought for a while, leaning his back against a tree. His silver eyebrows, thick and untrimmed, for once looked incongruous on a face so devoid of guile. He said, 'Those tears are part of what it is to be a monk. Out there, in the world, it can be very cold. It seems to be about luck, good and bad, and the distribution is absurd. We have to be candles, burning between hope and despair, faith and doubt, life and death, all the opposites. That is the disquieting place where people must always find us. And if our life means anything, if what we are goes beyond the monastery walls and does some good, it is that somehow, by being here, at peace, we help the world cope with what it cannot understand.'

Father Andrew touched Anselm's shoulder and together they headed down the last quarter mile to the Priory. It had suddenly turned cold, and the glittering lights in the distant windows carried a summons to warmth. Their feet fell softly on the path. The evening light slipped further behind the trees and the moon grew strong. Slightly to the east was the lake, like a black pool, and out of sight the Old Foundry.

Anselm said, 'Schwermann just stood there, before the world, saying he'd done something good among all the evil. He waved it in the air as if it were the winning number in the lottery, a ticket to absolution.'

Father Andrew replied, quietly 'There might just have been a trace of love in it.'

'Is that enough to redeem a man?'

'G.o.d knows.'

'It's terrifying, but do you think a man could so blot out his own life that he can't be saved?'

'No, I don't -' he flung the branch into a pool of shadow - 'but something frightens me far more. There might come a point where someone could choose h.e.l.l rather than acknowledge fault and accept the forgiveness of G.o.d.'

They reached Larkwood Priory and the two monks pushed open the great gate, leaving the breathing woods to the coming night.

2.

Lying in bed that night, waiting for Sailing By, Anselm involuntarily returned to his earlier reflections. He thought of Pascal and a brutal irony: an accidental consequence of his death was that Agnes was eventually reunited with her son. If Pascal hadn't died, Victor might never have come forward to give evidence ... if he hadn't given any evidence, Anselm would never have discovered that Victor believed Agnes was dead ... it was only when Victor realised she was alive that the whole truth came out ...

And, going back further, if Pascal hadn't died then Anselm would never have gone to France and mentioned the name of Agnes to Etienne Fougeres as the butler poured the tea, and discovered that Etienne knew about her, and Robert, and that his family had kept a secret for fifty years ... That jarred on him now, as it had jarred on him then, but suddenly Sailing By began.

Instantly Anselm was in the crow's-nest of a great dipping schooner, high above the decks, with the scurrying crew in black and white below The spars creaked and groaned and the sails strained against their ropes. Sunlight flashed upon cerulean waves and in the distance thick green foliage burst from the pale sands of a small island. It was a vision that suggested itself every time the music came on and Anselm blissfully surrendered himself to its charms, shutting down the engine of his thinking. However, with his thoughts attuned to the past, a window to his mind was left ajar. Just before he sank beneath the waves he heard a small voice, a little idea. He woke, knocking his radio on to the floor in excitement. This was one thing he had got right.

Chapter Fifty.

The old butler led Anselm across the Boulevard de Courcelles towards a side entrance to Parc Monceau. They walked along a path until they reached one corner, near a monument to Chopin. Beside it was a play area with climbing frames and a sandpit, reserved for the under-threes. Stray fallen leaves skipped with each flick of the wind.

'That is where Madame Klein used to live,' said Mr Snyman, pointing to an elegant apartment building directly overlooking the grounds. Defined in those terms, the place appeared instantly hollow, its walls damp. 'That is where Agnes learned the piano ... it is where I first met her.'

They sat down on a bench near a flouris.h.i.+ng lime tree. The grounds were deserted, as if the usual strollers had been carted off. Within the hour, at lunchtime, it would fill up again and then the noisy play would rattle over the ornate fencing and fight with the rumble of the traffic.

'She's dead?' asked Mr Snyman.

'Yes.'

'Peacefully?' There was almost a prayer in his voice.

'Very much so.

Eventually Agnes had been taken to hospital. The final stages of life could not be handled very well so an ambulance was called. Death popped by while Agnes was lying on a trolley in a corridor, her hand held rea.s.suringly by a nurse. Lucy had run to a pay phone to tell her father. When she'd got back Agnes had gone. The nurse had said she'd smiled. A few days later, Anselm had buried Agnes beneath sleet and rain in the presence of her family.

'I would dearly have liked to have been there,' said the old butler.

'I remembered you.'

'That is something.' After a subdued pause he asked, 'How did you find out about me?'

'It came as I was falling asleep,' Anselm replied. 'But there are reasons. I just didn't join them together properly. It was you who needed to escape, not your family. And yet they fled without you. There were other marks in the sand, like not coming back to Paris until no one could recognise you, and prodding Pascal to find Victor. And more. I didn't understand them until I'd already guessed what they meant: Anselm regarded the broken man with compa.s.sion. He would be a servant to the past until the day he died. It was his only home, and he was not welcome there.

The old butler stared deep into memory. 'I got back to the house after Victor had gone,' he said. 'My father showed me the record of betrayal. I sometimes think he must have slapped me across the face. But he didn't. I had condemned them all to death. But he understood. He knew I didn't mean to be so weak.' He paused. 'Please, can we walk? My limbs stiffen up unless I move. I may as well tell you what I've kept to myself since Agnes was taken away from me, with my only son.

They walked side by side as Jacques Fougeres spoke. Anselm listened, appalled.

'There were only three pa.s.ses. We had minutes to decide what to do. "Go!" shouted Snyman, "use my papers." They'd been forged by some friends of Father Rochet, making him a Fougeres, my brother. "When they come, I'll say I'm you. At least it will buy time. For G.o.d's sake, go now! I've nothing to live for but you have a son, you have Agnes."'

Jacques' voice grew strong. 'I said it wouldn't work, because our ident.i.ty cards had a photograph. He shouted again, "Go! Forget the detail ... take all my other papers ... if you have to, produce my birth certificate ... but take the chance, go, now!" I have thought of Franz ... that was his first name ... every night since ... sitting in our house, alone, waiting for them to come, knowing that he would die and I would live.'

And Anselm thought of Mr Snyman at Mauthausen, defending Father Rochet from the brutality of the guards, another honour that had devolved on to Jacques Fougeres, the Resistance hero.

'We rushed out of Paris. At one point a Gestapo official checked my father's papers, then my mother's, and when it came to me a distraction occurred and he waved us on. I didn't care about my luck, I just hoped that Agnes would be safe, that Schwermann would keep to his side of the bargain.'

Dense clouds over Anselm's mind began to lift, pushed by a quiet breeze. 'Bargain?'

'Yes. I trusted him. I had to, once he put forward his proposal.'

'What proposal?'

'It all happened on the day I was arrested for wearing the Star. I walked up and down Avenue Foch, wanting to goad Victor. If they picked me up I expected a few days' detention, nothing more. They dragged me in after fifteen minutes and threw me into a room with no windows. The walls were stained with blood that had hit the plaster and dried in thick clumps, with long streams running to the ground. There were bits of skin and hair trapped in the mess. It stank. I couldn't stop myself shaking, my arms, my legs, the lot. I started to cry. Then Schwermann came in with two others. They took down my trousers and tied me to a chair. The other two left and it was just him and me. There were screams echoing down the corridor.'

Jacques pulled air through his nose in slow heaves, as though labouring up a great slope. They turned past a kiosk selling fresh ground coffee, the aroma warm on the air. In front of them stood a delicate colonnade skirting a small lake. Its grace stung Anselm's eyes.

'Schwermann took out his pistol and forced open my mouth, resting the end of the barrel on my front teeth. I was so scared I wet myself and started blabbing nonsense about The Round Table, as if the disclosure of anything would save me. He put his gun away and listened with wide, hard eyes. I calmed, spilling everything out ... even Robert's existence. He asked lots of questions, telling me not to worry. He was elated. Then he left the room for about half an hour. When he came back he had a proposal.

'Schwermann told me he wanted to smuggle a mother and child out of France. If I helped him, he would spare Agnes and me and Robert. The others would be arrested, of course, but they'd only get hard labour. So I agreed. But I told him I could only guarantee the child, because I didn't have false papers for the mother, but that if she could get to Les Moineaux the monks would sort everything out.'

Through the corner of his eye, Anselm caught sight of a grotto, and flowerbeds, immaculately kept. He turned away to Jacques and asked, 'Did Father Rochet help?'

'I couldn't involve him because he'd ask too many questions' - he cleared his throat - 'so I thought Agnes could be the courier, using her own papers for the child.'

'Why her?'

He spoke the scalding words: 'Because she was the only one who wouldn't ask me why.'

They paused at the water's edge. The sound of children at play floated high on a light wind.

Jacques said, simply 'Looking back, he was planning how to save the mother. It was obvious and I never guessed ... and I set the run up ... just for the child.'

Their footsteps crunched on the tiny stones underfoot as they jointly meditated on the simple anatomy of betrayal. And Anselm reflected once more upon his capacity to misunderstand. Schwermann, when speaking to the cameras, had not been talking about Robert Fougeres and his blackmail of Victor. There had been someone else.

'He'd fallen for a French girl and had had a child,' said Jacques dryly. 'Only she turned out to be Jewish when the regulations were looked at more closely. He knew that in time she and her son would be finished. And then, by chance, I cropped up with an unexpected lifeline. So he saved them, leaving the remainder of her family to rot. The rest, Father, I think you know He did not keep his word.'

'What happened to the boy's mother?' asked Anselm gravely.