The Sixth Lamentation

by William Brodrick

  Susan was still fiddling with the buttons on her blouse when she spoke. ‘I don’t want you being cared for by strangers. ‘It’s not right. You need your family I want to help, if you don’t mind, I really do. I’ll do anything you like — I can cook, clean up, I can … do anything … give me the chance, can’t you?’

  Agnes was visibly moved. Lucy had always felt Agnes valued Susan’s confused attempts to establish normal relations with her mother-in-law It cost her so much, and always without reward. Susan, like Lucy wanted things to be different, and in her own way had kept on trying.

  ‘Thank you, Susan, there’s plenty of time, yet, for both of us. Of course you can help.’

  Freddie, ashamed, ran for the line: ‘But all this isn’t enough, is it? I mean, it’s not just about bits of help at certain times of the day What about the nights? You’re going to be needing’ — Freddie hesitated, the corner flag was in view — ‘twenty-four-hour-a-day assistance,’ and then he dived, full length, ‘from people who know what they’re doing.’

  He was pale. He’d finally said it. He’d said he couldn’t and wouldn’t become a nurse, or move in, or take Agnes to his own home.

  ‘That’s right, Freddie, and I’ve sorted it all out.’

  For the second time, no one knew what to say Lucy, incredulous, guessed immediately The question fell out of Freddie’s mouth: ‘How? In what way?’

  Agnes put down her saucer, and then the cup, and then the biscuit, saying, ‘I’ve asked Wilma to move in.

  Freddie, rigid again, almost stopped breathing.

  2

  It seemed it was going to be a day of arguments. After her mother and father had left, Lucy urged Agnes to give a statement to the police.

  ‘If I get involved, replied Agnes, ‘your father will have to know everything. I don’t want that. His life with me has been hard enough.’ She spoke without a trace of self-pity. ‘It would be too much to ask of him.’

  ‘What would?’

  ‘To understand me more than he understands himself.’

  ‘But if he knew what was done to you, and how you saved him—’

  ‘Lucy you forget, I also failed him.’ She raised a hand to stop any protestation. ‘That can’t be changed, even by forgiveness. I used to blame myself, but after I met Wilma I realised things couldn’t have been otherwise. But that only makes the remorse all the more insupportable.’ Her features became still and extraordinarily beautiful, like a rapt child at a pantomime, and she said, ‘In a way I lost Freddie as well. I could not bear to lose the little I have left.’

  Agnes had a way of saying dreadful things with complete simplicity, as if she were commenting on the wallpaper. Unless one inhabited a similar inner landscape it was quite impossible to reply Even Lucy came up against these awful flashes of tranquillity, where one would expect to find anguish, when she could only look upon her grandmother from a distance with a sort of shocked reverence.

  Outside the window rain began to fall, bouncing off the pavement, gathering the litter, washing stray cuttings from tidy gardens, and Agnes, serene, reached for the newspaper by her side, saying, ‘There’s a documentary tonight on The Round Table.’ She paused. ‘One of the contributors is Pascal Fougères. I’m worried he might mention me … the family will not have forgotten …’ Her eyes reached out to Lucy. ‘You’ll have to stay ‘

  ‘All right then, if I must.’

  ‘You must.’

  Lucy regarded her grandmother and became almost cold with apprehension. Impulsively, with sudden terror, she said, ‘Does it make any difference to you?’

  Agnes looked up, mildly surprised, and said, ‘Of course it does.’

  ‘No, Gran,’ Lucy replied, squirming, prickling with intimacy, ‘I mean, does it matter that I’m not your own blood?’ She flushed hot; sweat tingled across her back and neck.

  Agnes dropped the paper. With coruscating simplicity she said, ‘It has made you utterly irreplaceable.’

  The documentary had been constructed in such a way as to follow the steps of Pascal Fougères through a tragic moment in history. To her amazement, Lucy found her sensibilities dozing, sluggish, as she watched the footage of German soldiers surveying Paris with the lazy contentment of ownership. She could not rouse the naked fear they must have represented. Anodyne war films and comedies about silly Nazis had tamed them, even in Lucy’s eyes.

  The narrator described how Fougères, a foreign correspondent for Le Monde, had inadvertently come across a cryptic memo recently declassified in the United States. The document briefly reported the capture and release of a young German officer by British Intelligence. The journalist immediately recognised the name for it was Schwermann who had been responsible for the breaking of a Resistance network and the death of its leader — Pascal’s great—uncle, Jacques. The viewer was taken back to the time of Occupation, when Jacques, with other students, formed The Round Table. On the day the Star of David had become compulsory apparel, Jacques had worn his own star, marked ‘Catholique’, outside the Gestapo offices on Avenue Foch. He had been arrested and interned in Drancy for two weeks. But that had not discouraged the young protester.

  ‘The Round Table continued with its work,’ said Pascal, his face filling the screen, dark-eyed and pensive, ‘but it was broken by Schwermann within the month. They were all deported. None survived.’

  Schwermann escaped from France after the war and made his way to England, along with a Frenchman, Victor Brionne, who had been based in the same department of the Gestapo. They did so under false identities that had never been discovered. All this, and no more, was set out in the terse memo the young journalist had been fortunate enough to find. He publicised his findings, expecting a strong reaction throughout Great Britain. It caused a brief outcry somewhere on the third or fourth pages and then became yesterday’s news. Attempts to trace Schwermann through official channels floundered. Meanwhile, back in France, a consortium of interested parties had been formed and the case against the fugitive Nazi was painstakingly constructed. The decisive breakthrough came when Pascal Fougères received a letter, anonymous and tantalisingly brief, disclosing the false name under which Schwermann was hiding: Nightingale.

  The narrator, interviewing Fougères, asked about the Frenchman whose whereabouts were still unknown. Pascal replied, ‘Victor was Jacques’ best friend and, as with so many others, the war split them apart. He fled, I think, because he’d been trapped by circumstances. He was just an ordinary policeman but ended up at Avenue Foch.’ He smiled, as if cracking a joke: ‘I doubt whether it would have been a good idea to trade arguments with the Resistance after the Germans had gone.

  As for Schwermann, said the narrator with a level voice, he had found sanctuary in a monastery.

  Lucy turned off the television. It was dark outside and the rain was still falling, lightly but interminably She said, ‘You weren’t mentioned.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I didn’t realise Jacques had been the one who set up The Round Table.’

  ‘That’s not how I remember it.

  Lucy reflected further about Pascal Fougères. ‘He’s got no idea what Victor Brionne did to you and Jacques … and the others.’

  ‘No,’ replied Agnes, distracted. She smoothed a wrinkle in the fabric on the arm of her chair. Her eyes narrowed as if trying to make out a figure in the dark, half seen, familiar but receding from view

  ‘I wonder who wrote that letter … giving the name?’

  ‘Yes, I wonder …’ Agnes stared into the shadows, still calmly smoothing the material.

  Chapter Sixteen

  1

  Finding the whereabouts of Father Louis Chambray (for he had never been laicised) was a relatively straightforward matter. While a Gilbertine monk like Anselm, he belonged to a different Province, a French strain, which had nonetheless been founded as a result of Henry VIII’s delirious policy of closure that had removed the Gilbertines from English life. Remnants of the Order had sought refuge in Burgundy — mindf
ul, perhaps, that its Dukes had once sold Joan of Arc to the English. Such courtesies promote lasting trust, a commodity the Gilbertines required if they were to survive. For whatever reason the characteristic double-houses (monks and nuns in separate buildings but joined for services on Sundays and feast days) thrived, notwithstanding the various anti-clerical movements that followed the feast of revolution two hundred years later. The French Order subsequently re-established an English presence at Larkwood Priory in the early 1 920s. After that there was little contact between the two Provinces, not least because each house was self-governing. But historic familiarity and a sort of religious entente cordiale helped Anselm’s purpose.

  The French Gilbertines’ motherhouse in Rome freely supplied Anselm with details about Father Chambray, as they had evidently done on an earlier occasion to an emissary from the Vatican. Chambray kept in contact with his Order once a year, sending a Bonne Année card to a Prior General he had never known. He’d gone, but that one slender tie remained.

  ‘Why’s he so popular all of a sudden?’ asked the plump archivist, chewing one of his fingernails.

  ‘Some ancient history, that’s all,’ replied Anselm.

  ‘History is never ancient,’ said the keeper of the books, blinking solemnly

  ‘Indeed,’ said Anselm dryly He wasn’t altogether fond of inversions. They tended to sound good and mean very little. He thanked the young sage, placed the address in his pocket and wandered back to San Giovanni’s. There was much to be done before returning to England.

  Before directing his efforts to finding Victor Brionne, Anselm decided to follow the escape trail from Paris to Notre-Dame des Moineaux. Tracing history had its own poetic attraction, but geography and pride were the decisive factors: Chambray now lived in the capital, and since Anselm had to pass that way to reach the monastery he thought he might as well track down the one living survivor from the time. All the more so, coming to the pride, because Anselm considered himself particularly adept at handling individuals described as ‘uncooperative’. It had been his hallmark at the Bar. Back at San Giovanni’s, Anselm rang Father Andrew to explain matters and get the necessary permissions .

  ‘While you’ve been away,’ said the Prior, ‘there’s been a run of stories in the Press implying that we are sympathetic to Schwermann’s predicament. Worse, there are heavy implications that the Church may have eased his passage out of France in the first place. Just wild guesses.’

  ‘I’m afraid those guesses may not be that wild, but appearances aren’t what they seem.

  A troubled pause crept over the line. ‘Tell me everything when you get home.’ The Prior’s voice changed tone. ‘Anselm, I want you to be careful. Remember, first and last you’re a monk. Protect what you’ve become because it can easily fall apart if you’re careless. In one sense you’ve left the world behind, so in all you have to do you should sense you don’t quite belong. If you begin to feel you do belong, you’re at risk. Remember what one of the desert fathers said. The house caved in not because it was struck by rain but because it was built on sand.’

  Anselm packed his bags and slipped out, praying that Conroy would not emerge from his lair. By early evening he’d landed in Paris, taken the metro to Porte de la Chapelle and walked to Saint-Denis. Upon an impulse, Anselm made a casual enquiry at the Basilica. Yes, said a young priest, they knew Chambray well but he was in considerable ill-health. He’d been coming to daily Mass for thirty years and had never been to Communion once.

  Anselm made the final two-minute walk to the flat, climbed four floors of rough concrete stairs and knocked firmly on the dull brown door. A small brass eyepiece stared back remorselessly The lights on the landing were broken and thin streaks of grey daylight lay adrift upon the walls. Anselm heard a rattle from the other side, getting louder, as of air being pulled into thick lungs. An unseen cover scraped off the eyepiece. Anselm swallowed hard in the long, heaving interval that followed. The door opened slowly and smoothly

  In the gloom Anselm saw a shortish man, his wiry head pushed forward with a thick moustache falling over his mouth. All other features were indistinct, but Anselm was not really looking. His gaze had fixed upon the long knife.

  2

  ‘Good afternoon,’ said Lucy

  Pascal Fougères nodded an acknowledgement with such a direct gaze that Lucy could have sworn he’d said something. He held out his hand with a smile. Lucy took it, suddenly self-conscious. While only twenty-eight, he seemed older. Relaxed in his body, as the French say his energy spilled over in the swiftness of small gestures.

  ‘Take a seat,’ he said, pointing to a chair.

  After watching the documentary on The Round Table, Lucy brooded upon the strange exoneration of Victor Brionne. A suspicion had grown that the Frenchman’s artless ignorance was more of a subtle contrivance … which would be warmly received by Victor Brionne had he seen the programme. With growing conviction, like one who has found a footprint, Lucy checked the various newspaper cuttings retained by her grandmother. On too many occasions to be described as coincidence she perceived a clear agenda: the emasculation of Victor Brionne’s past as a collaborator. With that understanding came the further critical insight that prompted Lucy to contact the producer of the programme. Her details were passed on to Pascal Fougères who promptly returned her call. They arranged to meet in Sibyl’s Cave, a pub by the river at Putney Bridge, after Lucy had finished a morning tutorial.

  Upon arrival Lucy instantly recognised Fougères sitting at the far end of a terrace, absorbed in a novel. He wore a striped shirt, the collar wide open without a tie, and a rather shapeless jacket that had once probably been green. One hand covered his mouth while his eyes squinted at the fluttering page.

  ‘I’ve never been here before,’ said Lucy

  ‘It’s not just a pub,’ he said, closing the book. His black hair fell forward, quite long, and extravagantly thick. Lucy suspected he cut it himself.

  ‘Through there,’ he continued, pointing towards the lounge, you can join any table you like and get involved in whatever debate is going on. No politics or religion, they’re the only rules.’

  At Pascal’s suggestion they ordered lunch and came back to their table while it was being prepared. Lucy glanced across the river towards Hammersmith, towards Chiswick Mall, towards someone slipping away on the heavy pull of a late tide.

  ‘Mine are peculiar circumstances,’ she said. ‘Unfortunately I can’t tell you about my background because I’m protecting someone. Let’s just say I have an interest in the fate of Eduard Schwermann. I know all about your great-uncle Jacques, Victor, Father Rochet, Madame Klein, The Round Table … Mr Snyman … all of it, not from the papers, not from books … but I can’t say any more, because of a promise.’

  Pascal’s whole body tensed with interest. He looked at Lucy afresh, as if trying to recognise her.

  ‘From what I have read,’ continued Lucy, ‘I suspect that through words of encouragement you are hoping Victor Brionne will come forward to be a witness at the trial.’

  A light wind tousled Pascal’s thick hair, pushing it over his eyes. ‘No one is better placed to condemn Schwermann.’

  Lucy grimaced at the admission. ‘The reason I’ve asked to see you is to give you a warning. I know that if Brionne responds, for whatever reason — to make amends for his past, to offer consolation to your family, whatever — nothing he says can be relied upon.

  Pascal’s brow contracted fleetingly, smoothed away by a deeper, contrary conviction. Lucy went further: ‘Brionne will not say a word against Schwermann.’

  ‘I know someone who thinks otherwise.’

  ‘And I know someone else.’ Calmly she watched his confidence falter. ‘That is all I can say,’ said Lucy with finality. ‘Except for this: if Victor Brionne contacts you, persuade him to meet me, if only for a few minutes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because afterwards he will tell the truth about everything that happened.’

  A wai
tress brought their lunch. Lucy picked up her knife and looked at Fougères expectantly ‘Well, will you help me, to help you, to help the rest?’

  He glanced down at the knife in her hand, eyebrows raised:

  ‘Is that a threat?’

  3

  Anselm could not take his eyes off the dull glint on the blade.

  One edge flashed as the shadow holding it stepped forward on to the landing. Chambray threw a swift, raking stare over

  Anselm’s habit.

  ‘What the hell do you want? I’m trying to eat. ‘

  There was something in the brash confrontation that persuaded Anselm this was a performance, possibly concealing hidden warmth. More confident of his ground, Anselm ventured, ‘I wondered if we might have a brief talk—’

  ‘What about?’ Chambray fired back. He did not budge. There was no invitation to come in. His chest rose and fell angrily

  Anselm faltered. He’d been very wrong. This was not the harmless banter of an old soul in need of a playful ribbing. He pressed on, ‘I understand you were once at Notre-Dame des—’

  ‘I’ve already told the other lot. I’m not saying anything, to no one.

  Anselm seized on the distinction: ‘I’m not really from the other lot, he said alluringly

  ‘Then where are you from?’ challenged Chambray, waving the blade impatiently and still not moving.

  ‘My name is Father Anselm Duffy. I’m a Gilbertine monk, like you, from Larkwood Priory. It’s a rather …’

  Before Anselm could trot out some guidebook particulars, Chambray lumbered back through the doorway and turned around. With one hand on the door he flung it shut with a single savage movement. The unseen cover scraped off the brass eyepiece. Slower breathing hovered on the other side, not receding, while the two monks looked towards each other. After a long moment, Anselm retraced his steps to the evening light.