The Blasphemer

by Nigel Farndale

  Madame Camier rests her head in the crook of Andrew’s arm and slaps at a bluebottle on her calf. They both stare at the cloud, lost in their feelings, before sleep closes their eyes.

  It is cooler when Andrew wakes, the sun having disappeared behind scudding clouds. Feeling dryness in his mouth, he opens and closes it several times, and his gummy noises wake Madame Camier. He scratches, props himself up on his elbows and realizes that it was the sudden coolness that woke him, as someone sleeping in front of a fire might be woken by a passing body. Madame Camier steps out of her dress to reveal that she is wearing a fulllength swimming costume underneath, one that has sleeves long enough to cover her stump. She strides to the river’s edge and hesitates a moment before jumping in. Andrew strolls over, stretching and yawning. The water is a greeny-brown, its undercurrents stirring up silt. When Madame Camier resurfaces, flicking her hair back and gulping for breath, Andrew asks: ‘Cold?’

  Madame Camier can’t keep her teeth from chattering as she replies. ‘N-no. I-t is l-lovely.’

  The atmosphere is close and sultry. The river is smoking. ‘Going to rain soon,’ Andrew says in English. ‘Midges are low.’ As if in acknowledgement of this there is a distant roll of thunder.

  ‘Come in.’

  ‘Don’t have my costume.’

  ‘You don’t need one.’

  He looks around before slipping his braces and tugging off his shirt, trousers and boots, so that he is wearing only his long johns. As he removes the second boot, he hops on one foot. With his fingers pinching his nose he takes a running leap. The water is so cold that, when he comes up for air, he cannot, for a moment, breathe. Madame Camier splashes him. He splashes her back. After they have been treading water for a while, the cold begins to bite and they can feel the first pinpricks of rain. Soon large raindrops are puckering the surface of the water, and, as they fall more intensely, they bounce off it. On the bank, the dusty soil absorbs the water and begins to turn greasy.

  ‘We must get our clothes undercover,’ Madame Camier shouts above the noise of the rain. As she scrambles out, she slips over. Andrew splashes after her, catches hold of her ankle and flops down beside her. Their cold, goosefleshed calves scrape together as Madame Camier struggles free and crawls on a few yards, laughing to herself. The soil is turning to mud and, as Andrew squelches it in his fist, he has a sense memory of the trenches. He smears the mud on his arms and over his long johns, which are sagging with the weight of water. As gently as he can, he rolls her over so that she is resting on one hip. This makes her sleeve slip back. Seeing him glancing at her stump, she reaches across to cover it with her hand. Andrew lifts the hand away and kisses the meld of skin where the amputation was performed. He kisses her neck, enjoying her involuntary shiver as his whiskers tickle, then he touches her mouth with his fingertip again. When she takes the finger in her mouth, the sudden sensation of warmth and wetness makes Andrew’s heart dilate. He withdraws the finger in shock. They lie together, she with her back curled up to him, he with one arm looping under her neck, the other tucked under her knees, clinging to her, oblivious to the rain.

  Andrew’s next job is out of the town along a potholed lane corrupted by tussocky grass and lined with tall poplars. At the end of this he comes to a spinney. He recognizes it as the route he followed with Madame Camier three days earlier. The riverbank must be near. Why has she been so distant with him since that happened? Is she embarrassed that he saw her stump? Did she want him to kiss her? Why had he let the moment slip away once more?

  There is blossom on some of the trees and lime-green buds on others. A smell of garlic and elderflower pricks the air. Andrew inhales deeply, not caring that he might be lost. Another lane hidden by thickening hedgerows leads on to a blue haze of open meadow. This looks more promising. On closer inspection he can see the ground is misty with bluebells nodding in the breeze. Beyond it is the farmhouse, his destination.

  Two hours later he has sealed a leaking water tank and removed a dead pigeon that was blocking a drainpipe. On his way back to Nieppe, for the first time in months, he finds himself whistling. He stops at the Estaminet du Cerf for a glass of vin de table, a taste he has acquired. The waiter, a square-faced old man with coffee-coloured skin, is wearing a black waistcoat and carrying a white cloth over his forearm. He smiles when he sees his regular customer and pulls back a chair near the bar. As the café is empty, Andrew gestures that he would like to sit outside where he can watch people go by. The waiter returns with a gingham tablecloth, floats it open and spreads it over one of the outside tables. Without being asked, he brings a glass of red wine. Andrew likes this waiter. He is friendly and is the only brown-skinned man he has ever seen. Is he a negro? He has seen pictures of them. Perhaps he has come from one of the Empire countries, India or Australia. Except that he speaks only French. Andrew is certain that they speak English in Australia. He is halfway through his glass of wine when two British officers appear and, with the leather of their burnished boots creaking loudly, sit down at the next table but one. He studies their faces, their cap badges, the pips and crowns on their epaulettes. One is a lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery, the other a major in the Rifle Brigade. They look the same age but the lieutenant is taller and, with his deep-set, soulful eyes, more handsome.

  The major has bags under his eyes and wiry hair brushed forward. Below his right ear is a livid scar that follows the line of his jaw to his chin. Andrew has seen this officer before. He tries to recall his name. Morris. Major Morris. He had been sent to look for him in the trench at Ypres. Morris places his baton on the table and, in the same easy movement, tosses his cap beside it. A click of fingers and the waiter appears. ‘Deux cognacs s’il vous plaît,’ he says, holding up two fingers.

  With his boot, Andrew surreptitiously nudges his haversack under the table.

  Once he has brought the cognacs, the waiter disappears behind the bar and reappears with an accordion strapped to his chest. As he starts to play, he winks at Andrew and mouths the words: ‘Pour les touristes.’ Andrew has never heard him play before and soon realizes why: his talents as an accordionist are modest. He nevertheless keeps winking as he wanders back and forth, pleased with himself. Andrew waves him away. Apart from anything else, he wants to listen in to the tourists’ conversation. He finds officers intimidating. They appear inhumanely composed and cold-blooded and, contrary to the myths, are more ferocious in battle than rankers. He pictures Second Lieutenant Willets screaming in rage as he led the charge at Passchendaele, moments before he was cut down. But the sound of English voices is nevertheless welcome.

  These two are like old friends, addressing each other by their first names – Peter and what sounds like Rayf. They talk about acquaintances from their time at a place called the Royal College of Music, about concerts they heard in Paris and Vienna before the war, about composers they worked with: Ravel, Mahler, and – a name Andrew has heard before – Elgar. The one called Rayf makes jottings on a Punch magazine cover and, as he shows them to the other officer, he uses words that hold no meaning for Andrew: ‘tonality’, ‘pianissimo’, ‘counterpoint’. The obvious conclusion, that they must have been musicians in Civvy Street, is confirmed when the waiter comes close and they stare at him until, sensing their disapproval, he stops playing the accordion.

  Morris takes a sheet of paper from his wallet and smoothes it down on the table. Andrew hears the words ‘Mahler’s Ninth’ but does not know what they mean. The one called Rayf studies the paper, nodding thoughtfully, then he gestures for the waiter to hand his accordion over. As he takes it he runs his fingers over the keys for a moment, getting used to the shape of the instrument, then he plays a passage of music so soft and lyrical it makes Andrew want to sink to his knees. He has never heard a more haunting sound in his life. The officer stops abruptly, breaking the spell. Running his finger along one of his jottings, he becomes immersed once more in conversation. The unfamiliar words again. Without looking up, he holds the accordion out to
be collected. The waiter takes it away and returns with a piece of paper. He hovers over the lieutenant briefly before placing the paper on the table and saying in heavily accented English, ‘Please, monsieur, your autograph. Merci.’ As the officer signs with a flourish – he is clearly used to such requests – he looks down his shoulder directly at Andrew, but he pays no attention to him, as if looking through him. Andrew wipes his wet eyes with the heels of his hands. The waiter reads the paper and does a half-bow. ‘Monsieur Vaughan Williams. This is an honour.’

  Major Morris takes the copy of Punch now and begins scribbling something across the bottom of the cover. When he has filled the white space he moves to the inside front page and then on to the next page and the next, until half the magazine is filled with scribble. Vaughan Williams reads over his shoulder, nodding to himself and occasionally tapping the page with a finger.

  The conversation between the officers tails off as a young woman wearing a lacy shawl around her shoulders walks past and smiles at them.

  ‘Was she smiling at you or me?’ Morris asks.

  ‘Both of us.’

  ‘I thought so. How much do you suppose?’

  ‘Perhaps she will give a group discount.’

  ‘A liberator’s concession.’

  Andrew takes a copy of Le Temps out of his bag and unfolds it. He has been reading the same edition for weeks, trying to improve his French. When the officers drain their glasses, toss some coins on the table and scrape back their chairs, Morris looks across at him, noticing him for the first time. His eyes are hard and wintry; filled with suspicion. The two men regard each other for a moment then Morris gives a terse nod, picks up his baton and cap, and breaks into a jog as he catches up with Vaughan Williams, who is following the woman down the street.

  Andrew scratches his beard distractedly and orders another glass of wine. And another. When this comes he asks the waiter to leave the bottle. It is unlabelled. There is half a litre of wine left in it. As he drinks, he can feel a prickly heat across the nape of his neck. It reminds him of the tot of rum he had been given before going over the top. His confidence is evaporating. When he stands unsteadily, he reaches in his pocket for some coins, takes out a handful of holed five and ten centimes and, as the officers did, slaps them down next to the empty bottle. As he lurches past the table where the two officers had been sitting, he notices they have left behind the copy of Punch. There is cross-hatching in the white space in the letter P, but most of the doodling on its cover is, he sees, musical notation. When he picks it up he sees the sheet of paper concealed under it. More music. He slips the sheet of music inside the copy of Punch, then rolls that up and stuffs it in his haversack.

  It is dusk by the time Andrew returns to his lodgings and tries to lift the latch-tongue on the front door. As it is stuck, he uses his shoulder to force it. It opens with a clatter. The shutters are closed. Madame Camier is standing by the fire. She has changed into her Sunday clothes. Her hair is down, covering the pinned-up sleeve. They look at each other for a moment before she takes a step backwards, causing her skirt to rustle. Andrew sways before striding over. He pinions her wrist with one hand, rests his hand on her hip with the other, and kisses her. She does not protest. Emboldened by this, he tugs open her starched collar and moves his hand under her blouse. She frees herself, steps to one side and holds up a finger. ‘Un moment,’ she says. It takes her several attempts to blow out the two candles on the fireplace and several more to unbutton her blouse, one-handed, to reveal a whalebone corset. Turning her back to Andrew she says: ‘Please.’ He unlaces it with trembling fingers and wonders how she managed to lace it up in the first place. With the waxy smell of snuffed-out candle lingering in the air, she again turns to face him and shrugs her shoulders forward to help him remove the bodice. With her eyes fixed on his, she pushes her silk petticoat over her hips and lets it sigh to the floor. Stepping out of it, she clears a space at the end of the kitchen table, pushing back a pepper grinder, a colander, and a heap of garlic bulbs and courgettes that make rubbery squeaks as they rub together. She sits down. In the long, dancing shadows from the fire, she balances one of her lace-up boots on the back of a chair, unclips a stocking and rolls it down over her knee and calf, leaving it ruched on her ankles. She does the same with the other leg before holding out her hand. As Andrew steps towards her, he removes his jacket and lets his braces fall. She runs a fumbling hand under his shirt. When he tugs at her camisole she raises her arm and her stump above her head to help him, revealing an attenuated web of black hairs under her armpits. He cups her small breasts with his hands, kisses her shoulders and glances at the pursed scars on the end of the stump. When he tries to kiss them too, she recoils. Even in the amber glow of the fire her skin is as translucent as alabaster. Her nipples, when he directs his attention to them, are as hard as dried figs. She shivers as he flicks and circles them with his tongue. In a gesture of trust, she rotates so that he can kiss her raised stump. The skin feels coarse to his lips. Still sitting, Madame Camier hitches up her skirt and opens her legs. Andrew glimpses a dark triangle. He feels her legs moving around his waist. The mallowy softness of her thighs against his hips makes him shudder and close his eyes. As he works his hands underneath her, she arches her back so that he is half supporting her, feeling the heft of her body. She touches his beard tenderly with her hand and, as they kiss again, he feels a billowing sensation from his feet to his head. Her sudden enveloping warmth makes him cry out, as though a bullet has ruptured his heart.

  Afterwards, a moment later, Andrew’s body sags until he is sitting on the chair with his face buried in Madame Camier’s lap. As he feels her fingers stroke his hair, he sobs drily, quietly at first then convulsively until his sobbing turns to laughter.

  They sleep in the same bed for the first time that night and, in the morning, make love again. When it is over, Andrew feels the same post-coital tristesse he felt the night before, but it lasts only a brief time. What he feels most, as he brings the sheet up over their naked bodies, is relief, a sense of having been frozen and now melting, a glacier sliding into the sea. That morning, as she lays her head on his arm, Andrew calls his new lover Adilah for the first time. He notices that her bedroom smells of camphor and determines that, in whatever time remains to him, in whatever time he can borrow, he will make love to her here every morning and every evening, and, work permitting, every lunchtime, too. Love, he reasons, is all he has left, all he has to throw at death, his only protection against the firing squad. Only lovemaking can blot out his thoughts, cauterize his fears, quell the terrors of his sleep.

  He dresses as he walks downstairs, humming to himself and trailing his fingers along the wall. A wash of sunlight is slanting through the windows. As he waits for the pan on the stove to boil, he checks in his haversack and finds the copy of Punch the officers in the café had left behind. He freezes when he reads the date under its masthead. It is a recent edition: 10 April 1918. The war has gone on without him, and is going on still.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  London. Present day. Five weeks after the crash

  AS HE FUMBLED IN HIS JACKET FOR HIS PADLOCK KEYS, DANIEL hunched up his shoulder to try to prevent the water trickling down the collar of his cagoule. The posture suited him. Whenever it was his turn to do the school run he would play, as subtly as he was able, the reluctant martyr. It wasn’t that he objected to the 4×4s – though he did – it was that he would come away feeling unkempt and, in some hard-to-define way, fraudulent. Other fathers appeared richer and more secure. They seemed more mature, too, making both an effort to talk about house prices and to look presentable: they brushed their hair, polished their shoes and had creases in their trousers. Their Audis and BMWs looked new and clean. Daniel always felt as if he was being judged as he cycled into the playground in his tracksuit.

  This pattern of reluctance ended on the afternoon he saw Hamdi Said-Ibrahim.

  The rain eased, turning the trees on the common into a fuzzy wool that m
erged with the blur of the passing cars and joggers. By the time he cycled into the playground, the rain had stopped altogether and weak sunshine was causing steam to rise from the tarmac. He dismounted, removed his helmet and saw Martha wave at him. She kept her hand in the air as she tried to catch the attention of the teacher, who had his back to her. When she walked in front of him and pointed at Daniel, he noticed her, looked across at Daniel, smiled in acknowledgement, and shook the child’s hand. Martha ran towards him trailing her school bag and, when she reached him, he picked her up and swung her in the air.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Daniel asked, shielding his eyes against the sunlight. Martha blushed guiltily. ‘That’s Mr Hamdi Said-Ibrahim, my form master.’

  Hamdi was the man Daniel had seen at the protest. His gentle, bulging eyes were unmistakable: a hyperthyroid condition, presumably. He must have smiled at Daniel because he recognized him: from school runs and PTA evenings. Daniel shook his head. ‘I recognize him,’ he said. ‘How long has he been working here?’

  ‘Since halfway through last term.’

  ‘What did you say his name was?’

  ‘Hamdi Said-Ibrahim. He’s a Muslim.’

  ‘What does he teach?’

  ‘Everything. He’s training to be a full-time music teacher. Takes me for cello in music club. Yesterday he taught me a passage from Mahler.’

  Daniel’s euphoria changed to relief. The man he had ‘seen’ treading water in the Pacific Ocean might have been a figment of his imagination, but at least the figment was based on a real person.