The Secret Knowledge

by Andrew Crumey

  “You worry I’m a bad influence.”

  “Yes, I do. Of course any man’s entitled to his opinions and I believe in free speech as much as you. But where can a man speak freely if not in his own home? So I tell you honestly, Pierre, while I respect the strength of your convictions, even feel a degree of sympathy for them, I fear the possible consequences. Just look at what happened in Russia, and now in Germany, uprisings all over the place, bringing nothing but sorrow. Maybe you want to become a martyr like that confounded Luxemburg woman, that’s your choice, but my son didn’t survive four years of war in order to get himself shot on a barricade.”

  He stops when he sees Jessie enter. She’s fried some bacon, the smell comes with her. “Shall I bring it here?” she asks father, who shows no sign of anger in the wake of his outburst, able to retain objectivity even when contemplating tragedy. He calmly sends both of them to the kitchen so that he can read. Pierre sits down there and begins to eat, chewing thoughtfully while Jessie stands watching in silence. She heard none of the conversation but perceived its tension. Eventually she tells him, almost whispering, “I haven’t said anything about our walk.”

  Pierre looks up at her, somehow puzzled that she should mention it. “Probably best,” he agrees.

  She sits down too, lays her hand on the table, outstretched fingers not far from his resting elbow, and waits for him to say something more, though all he can do is cut crisp shreds of meat, transporting them mechanically to his mouth.

  “Do you think I should tell father?”

  “He wouldn’t approve.”

  “Then what do we do?” It’s a great problem to which she has given much thought. Pierre asks her to pour him some tea. She says with hardly suppressed anguish, “Must we stop going together?”

  “What do you prefer?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Pierre can’t see what’s so complicated; the world is about to be reborn and this girl worries over a triviality. “I think we should carry on in secret.”

  “You do?”

  “It’s not as if we’re doing anything wrong.”

  “But we… you know.” Gripped by romantic horror she feels the magnetic force of his body just beyond her fingertips, remembers his kiss.

  He smiles. “We can do it again. Nobody need know.”

  “I’m not like that.”

  From the other room her father calls; she goes to be told that if Pierre has been served she should carry on playing the piano as before, Dr Quinn finds it soothing, their guest will too. At the first chords, Pierre comes and stands in the doorway, watching with folded arms.

  “Sit and listen,” the doctor instructs him.

  It’s a music-hall song neither man recalls, but the words are in Jessie’s thoughts as she plays. I wonder who’s kissing her now, wonder who’s teaching her how. Wonder who’s looking into her eyes, breathing sighs, telling lies. A postcard that was on the sheet music when she lifted it has a soldier standing guard at the front while in the corner, like a floating angel, a beautiful woman clutches a rose to her bosom, waiting faithfully for her lover to return. Yvette must have looked like that, she thinks.

  “Do you play an instrument?” Dr Quinn asks Klauer.

  “None at all.”

  “But you like music, you told me.”

  “Only listening.”

  “Jessie has a fine touch, such an expressive legato.”

  “I’m no expert.”

  She suddenly stops and turns. “I’ve had enough.”

  “We were enjoying it,” her father says.

  “My hands are tired. I want to go for a walk. Pierre, would you like to come with me?” Both men are surprised by the proposal. “You’re starting your rounds soon, father, it would be rude to leave Pierre waiting here on his own.”

  Dr Quinn can see the logic; it’s a polite way of getting the Frenchman out of the house. “You two go for some air, then. But not far, your brother should be back soon and he’ll be needing fed.” He doesn’t see the glance that passes between the young pair as Jessie goes to fetch her coat and hat.

  Outside it’s grey and damp but she’s glad to have him by her side, her French beau, almost wants him to put his arm round her, though instead he keeps a polite distance between them, saying nothing. She can tell he’s thinking about the strike, walking more swiftly than she’d prefer, almost as if wanting to get away from her. She can’t see the point of the dispute, nor understand how the men can possibly get what they want; it’s a battle over an impossible dream. Only when Pierre spoke at the meeting did she feel persuaded by the argument.

  He pauses, turns. “There’s something I have to ask of you.” His hesitancy ominously magnifies the possibilities.

  “Anything.”

  “The union’s against us.”

  “I know that.”

  “They’ve declared there’s to be no strike pay.” His fingers play nervously together in fumbled prayer. “Already I’m behind with bills…”

  “I can help you.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it!”

  “Then what?”

  “Your father; I’m sure he must have some cash around the house that he’d never miss.”

  She’s shocked, horrified by the mere suggestion, yet brings it to its conclusion. “Yes.”

  “I’d soon repay it.”

  “I trust you.”

  “If your father found out…”

  “He won’t, he never looks.”

  “The last thing I’d want would be to get you into trouble.”

  He should take her in his arms right now, here in the street, she wouldn’t resist. He should kiss her in view of anyone who might pass. “Tell me how much you need.”

  His expression changes. “How much could you get?”

  Now they’re negotiating, they’ve crossed a boundary; Jessie, darkly thrilled by the moral calculus, considers her own wage when she was packing shells at Russell. “Would fifteen shillings do?” Pierre hesitates to answer; she says, “More?”

  “I’m in arrears, even two or three pounds wouldn’t be enough, and if the strike continues…”

  “I’ll find whatever I can.” The bargain is closed by a clasping together of their hands.

  Pierre smiles. “One day, when times are better, I’ll be able to reward you properly.”

  She repeats softly, “One day.” The future is feathered, comforting, just beyond reach; a marriage bed.

  “Shall I walk you home again?”

  “Father will have left, if we don’t go too quickly.”

  “And then?”

  Then anything: love, dreams, revolution, she wants the future right now. “I’ll give you the money.”

  Their pace is as measured and deliberate as the ticking of a clock. He’s asking her to do something bold and courageous but his own risk is surely greater. There’ll be picketing, he tells her, the police will doubtless intervene and a few heads may be split.

  “You have to be careful.” She never had a gallant soldier to pray for, not even her brother.

  “I know how to take care of myself.”

  Nearing the house, she tells him to wait while she goes ahead to check. If the place is empty she will draw a curtain as signal that he should come and knock. It’s like something from one of those French novels she’s secretly read; life transfigured by a higher honesty known only to the heart. God will forgive all this – as long as father never knows.

  Pierre Klauer stands as instructed until at a window he sees the movement that equals her surrender. To visit a woman and be paid for it: that’s new. The door opens for him without anyone visible beyond; when she closes it he immediately goes to kiss her.

  “No.”

  “But we’re alone.”

  “We have to be careful. John might be back any minute.”

  Bolt the door and leave the fool standing outside, Klauer thinks; leave him waiting until they’re finished and getting dressed again. He takes her in his arms, his immortal arm
s, and tastes the sweetness of her lips.

  She pulls away with some reluctance. “I’ll fetch that money.”

  Still in his coat he goes to the sitting room, looks at the piano and the song sheet open on it, feels a deep urge to sit and make generous music, while from the kitchen comes the rattle of china, a lid being lifted and a jar replaced. His life is like the flicking of a false coin. She comes to the kitchen doorway and stands with the gift in her hands, a bouquet of crumpled notes.

  “Four pounds,” she says.

  “He stores so much for housekeeping?”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Then what?” He goes to her, cups his hands round the warmth of hers.

  “I saved this from when I was working.”

  “You’ll have it all back soon.” He puts the crisp bundle into his pocket without looking at it, both of them ashamed by its presence. Then he holds her waist and she lets him kiss her more fully, she folds into him like a vine, he pecks at her ear and she gasps with surprise and uncertainty.

  “I love you,” he says.

  She knows what happens next in those French novels, but could she really do it, make herself into an Yvette? She wishes a great cannon were about to destroy everything, then she’d have the courage; only death can equal the magnitude of what she feels.

  “John will be back.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Father might have forgotten something.”

  “If anyone calls we ignore it or escape through the back door.”

  She laughs. “You’re a monster!”

  “I’m in love with you, that’s all. When you’re in love nothing is forbidden, everything is allowed.” There’s solemnity in his voice.

  “Everything?” she repeats.

  “The whole world. The universe.” He releases her. “Look at this.” When he reaches into his coat she expects him to take out a little box with a ring inside, a fantasy replaced just as quickly by another, a photograph of the woman Jessie has supplanted, Yvette in Parisian finery. Yet neither emerges; what he instead produces is something it takes a moment for her to recognise and comprehend, black and terrible in his hand. He holds it by its muzzle, a small pistol.

  “By the good Lord, why do you have such a thing?”

  He displays it with boastful pride. “Just in case.”

  “But it’s dangerous, unlawful. You have to be rid of it.”

  “It’s harmless, there’s no bullet.” He puts it to the side of his head and pulls the trigger, she screams as the little weapon gives a click, hears her own scream reverberate, gasps and bursts into tears.

  “Don’t cry, silly woman.”

  His arms try to encircle her again, but at the end of one of them is the gun she feels pressing on her. “Why show me that horrible thing?” she sobs. “You’re not going to take it to the picket are you? Pierre, you’re frightening me.”

  “Calm yourself.” He puts it back inside his coat and wipes her cheek with his finger. “There are no rules except whatever we make for ourselves. I love you, Jessie.” The words sound different now. “I want to know how much you love me.”

  “Can’t you tell already?” A sound startles her, someone trying the front door. “It’s John.”

  “Does he have a key?”

  “He’s always forgetting it.”

  Pierre grabs her waist again, one-handed, a gesture filled with bravado. “Let him find his key, then.”

  She goes past him to answer the door, hurriedly drying her eyes. “We’ll say you just arrived.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  Klauer hears him enter, Jessie rapidly explaining to him the situation, but as soon as John comes into the sitting room there are other matters to discuss.

  “So the strike’s definite?”

  “I expect at least a hundred of us at the picket line, John. But we need more.”

  “From the works?”

  “Anywhere, it’s a general stoppage.” Pierre claps his friend’s shoulder as if trying to rouse him from sleep. “This is what you’ve been wanting, isn’t it?”

  John’s dazed expression is not because of the strike; he’s wondering exactly how long Pierre has been here, what the two of them have been saying about him. He sits to collect his thoughts.

  “If it’s a hundred on the first day it’ll be everyone on the second,” Pierre tells him. “By the end of the week the whole country will be in the grip of the workers. This is the moment of revolution.”

  A frown crosses John’s childlike face. “This is about jobs for heroes, not revolt.”

  “Call it whatever you wish,” says Pierre. “It’s out of our hands now, you can’t stop history. You’re not scared, are you?”

  John shoots him an angry look. “Of course not.”

  Jessie goes to her brother. “If there’s any sign of trouble, John, you keep clear of it, do you hear me?”

  “Oh, there’ll be trouble,” Pierre assures her.

  “Then leave John out of this. He has nothing to do with Russell, why should he picket?”

  Both of them are talking over his head, John says nothing, until finally Pierre stares down at him. “Your father’s right, this is only a game to you.”

  “Go to hell.”

  In an instant the scene erupts; Pierre has grasped the other man round the neck, locking him where he sits, Jessie screams but her voice becomes strangled by terror, the gun has been pulled out and is held against John’s head, he pants with fear. Jessie manages to speak through the pain she feels. “It’s not loaded, John, he doesn’t mean it, for the love of God, Pierre, stop this madness.”

  Pierre’s eyes are like lead. “It’s loaded, Jessie.”

  “Have mercy!” John pleads, and at last Pierre frees him, slumped and weeping in his sister’s arms. Looking proudly at them both, Pierre raises the gun to his own head and defiantly squeezes the trigger, creating nothing but a snap of metal, a brief interruption to the others’ anguished moans. Then without a word he leaves them both.

  It is some hours later when there is a knock at the door; Jessie’s eyes are still red from crying and she takes a moment to arrange herself in front of the mirror before opening, expecting a request for the doctor who is nevertheless still out. Instead it’s a policeman and a large, grim-faced man she recognises, Mr Scobie from the Russell factory. They tell her they’ve come about Klauer.

  “A friend of the family, I understand,” the constable says, coming inside.

  “Not any more.”

  The men exchange a glance; John comes to see what’s amiss.

  “I knew from the outset he was no good,” says Scobie. “This latest only confirms it. He’s been passing himself off with forged papers.”

  “What do you mean?” Jessie asks.

  The policeman explains. “I’ve checked the records and can’t find a trace of him anywhere. The man’s an impostor, a fraud. Whoever the devil he is, you can be sure he’s not Pierre Klauer.”

  Chapter Four

  In face of the dictatorship of banality the choice becomes inescapable between conformism or resistance. Conroy is at home practising The Secret Knowledge when it occurs to him that he forgot to ask Paige what she thinks of that dickhead charlatan Paul Morrow.

  Klauer’s music encapsulates the fraught opposition between autonomy and commodification that is the essence of bourgeois art. Already while Conroy plays, the programme note is writing itself inside his head, he can almost hear the flutter of its page from a distracted audience member at the concert premiere. What the crowd comes to worship is not music, but the money spent on admission. Hard to sustain a performing career with that sort of attitude, though. Conroy takes a break.

  He tries to remember what exactly was Adorno’s phrase; not dictatorship of banality, he thinks, but banality of perfection, the demand that every musician become the flawless imitation of a recording. He’s about to go and look it up when he hears the doorbell, goes to answer and sees what appears to be a tradesman soli
citing work. Strongly-built, closely cropped reddish-brown hair, casually dressed in a zippered black leather jacket and holding up some kind of identity card. It’s only when Conroy hears the word “police” that the interruption to his day makes sense. “You came about Laura?”

  “Mind if I step inside?”

  Conroy takes the plainclothes officer to the music room and invites him to sit on the couch. The policeman – Conroy didn’t catch his name – looks admiringly at the grand piano.

  “You’re a teacher?”

  “Concert performer. I also do some college teaching.”

  Inspector something, Conroy thinks, this is what he mentally calls the tall man looking hunched and slightly crumpled on the sofa that seems rather too small for him. Conroy wonders if he should offer the inspector some tea but senses the need to go straight to the issue. “She simply vanished, took away everything that’s hers. I said it all on the phone, don’t know how much they told you…”

  The police officer makes a cordial but dismissive gesture that silences Conroy. “I’m here about something else. There was some suspicious activity in the street last night. A resident saw two youths loitering, thought they might be trying to break into a house. She phoned and a patrol car came round but they’d gone. Turns out a gentleman at the end of the street has had his car vandalised. Did you hear any disturbance last night? See anything unusual? Lady reckons it must have been around one o’clock in the morning.”

  Conroy would have been awake but remembers nothing, he’d had too much whisky by then. “I called yesterday about my partner Laura.”

  “I know.”

  “Shouldn’t we be discussing that?”

  “It’s not really a police matter.”

  “But she’s disappeared completely, took everything. Clothes, books, photos…”

  “Then it was her own choice.”

  “Her phone number’s no longer recognised. And strangest of all is the internet, not a sign of her. She’s a freelance journalist, it shouldn’t be hard to find someone like that, even if she’s closed down her online accounts.”

  The officer looks penetratingly at Conroy. “Has it occurred to you that she might have decided to take anti-stalking measures?”