Lucy glanced at the judge, his head still, his hand writing down every word as it fell.
Mr Bartlett picked up a sheet of paper. He seemed to hover over its contents, then spoke in the same even, encouraging voice.
‘Do you recollect anything in particular about Mr Schwermann’s appearance?’
‘He was very handsome, with blond hair standing out against his black uniform.’
‘Let me test your memory again, Madame.’ Mr Bartlett was smiling winsomely ‘Do you recall the leather riding breeches?’
‘Yes, I do. They shone.’
Mr Bartlett paused to look at the sheet of paper.
‘You would agree this form of dress was distinctive?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Idiosyncratic?’
‘Yes.’
‘Utterly memorable?’
‘Yes.’
‘Almost a caricature of a German officer, the sort of thing you’ve seen in the films?’
‘No, not in films. I don’t watch them. I can’t bear to. I have pictures of my own and they’ve never gone away I cannot forget that man and what he did. Never, never, never.
Madame Beaussart covered her mouth.
‘Would you like a glass of water, Madame?’
She nodded. And with shaking hands she tried to drink, spilling water over her fingers.
The judge put down his pen, saying, ‘Do take your time.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled, ‘I’ve waited all my life for this moment.’
‘We all understand,’ said the judge.
Mr Bartlett waited until Madame Beaussart was ready to continue and them he handed the sheet of paper to the usher, to be passed on to the witness.
‘Would you be so kind as to look at this photograph?’
The witness took off her glasses and produced another pair from a small pouch.
‘That is the man you have been describing, isn’t it?’
Without hesitation she replied, ‘Yes, that is him. Schwermann.’
‘And of that you are sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘His appearance is etched in your memory?’
‘Yes.’
‘Look again, Madame. Is there nothing that causes you to doubt your judgment? It was, after all, over fifty years ago.’
‘I will never forget the man who forced those children on to the buses.’
Inching towards the jury, Mr Bartlett said: ‘Madame Beaussart, you have been right about everything you have told the court today Except in one important detail. But let me make it plain, I do not challenge your candour. The man in the photograph did supervise deportations from Drancy. He has already been convicted by a German court, in a trial you were unable to attend because of a serious illness from which, thankfully, you have recovered.’
Madame Beaussart, bewildered, could not speak.
‘You have correctly identified someone else, not Mr Schwermann. I will supply the details to the court in due course.
He sat down, the flap of his silk gown disturbing loose papers laid out neatly on the table before him.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
1
Anselm got back to Larkwood just after Vespers, in time for a brief conference with Father Andrew before supper. They sat in the Prior’s study, looking out over the cloister garth. It was a calm evening and long shadows lay on the neat grass like canvas sheets of scenery fallen flat.
Father Andrew asked, ‘How did they respond when you said the police were powerless?’
‘With inspiring equanimity. I’d prepared myself for bewildered anger.’
‘Those close to politics often understand better than most the limits of the law’
‘There was something between them though, coming I think from the mother, something like an accusation. That is where the anger lay, the confusion. And by accident I think I trespassed upon it:
‘.Anselm,’ said the Prior dryly, ‘most of your accidents stem from intuition let loose. What did you say?’
‘We were talking about Pascal and I mentioned Agnes, that she had had a child, and I asked if she’d ever been known to the family’
‘And?’
‘The mother said absolutely nothing but the father said Jacques never knew anyone called Agnes … we weren’t talking about Jacques but he made the link.’
‘And you call that an accident?’
Anselm remonstrated, ‘Not far off. My best cross-examinations were always by mistake. I didn’t realise how clever it looked until it was done:
The Prior smiled with faint indulgence. Anselm continued, ‘Anyway I then had a most peculiar encounter with the butler. Throughout he pours the tea, sidles in, says nothing, sidles out … but when he shows me the door he tells me he knew Agnes and held her child. He then gives me a letter to deliver to Agnes from Jacques, a letter he’d guarded since the war on the off-chance she survived.’
The two monks pondered in silence. Frowning, Father Andrew said, ‘It is clear from what Max Nightingale said to you that his grandfather, somehow, knew both Jacques and Agnes. In this whole tragic business they seem to be the only ones to have reduced him to a state of panic. So they must have come across each other during the war …’ He rounded on Anselm: ‘What was that riddle you were told about Schwermann at Les Moineaux?’
‘That he had risked his life to save life.’
The Prior tilted his head as though straining to catch distant voices. His glittering eyes vanished behind long creases … but whatever he’d sensed was slipping out of reach.
The bell rang for supper. Anselm said, ‘The strange thing is, how do Etienne Fougères and his wife come to know about Agnes and her child?’
They rose and entered the corridor. The busy sound of other feet heading down to the refectory echoed from a stairwell. The Prior replied, ‘Jacques’ family must have passed it on after his death’ — he followed his insight through — ‘and in due course Etienne told his wife … but they did not tell their son, Pascal … a secret known by a paid servant, a butler … now, why’s that?’
Intuition failed them both and they went into the refectory.
2
The evening meal was the usual emetic blend of leftovers from the guesthouse. Anselm pushed something purple around his plate. There would be no knowing what it had been in its many previous lives. Afterwards, the community filed into the common room for recreation, where Anselm joined Wilf in his usual corner by the aspidistra that no one watered but yet miraculously never died. It was one of Wilf’s greatest attributes that he used events in his life as a prompt for research into things about which he knew nothing. After Schwermann’s arrival he had quietly buried himself in reading about the Occupation and its aftermath. He liked to share his findings and Anselm enjoyed his reported forays, marked as they were by the wonder of David Bellamy having found a new snail in the garden.
‘Wartime creates its own unique moral dilemmas,’ uttered Wilf with Delphic calm, inviting a request for more disclosure.
‘Why’s that?’ obliged Anselm.
‘Well,’ said Wilf, gratified and settling back, ‘there’s the strange case of Paul Touvier. A traditionalist Catholic but in the Vichy Milice. Pushed into it by his father and a priest. So he’s French, policing the French for the Germans. ‘
‘A collaborator,’ contributed Anselm obviously
‘Indeed. And his job was to combat the Resistance.’
‘Not a very devout thing to do.’
‘Bear with me, Father. For therein lies an interesting conundrum. The Resistance assassinated the Vichy minister of information in 1944. The Germans wanted reprisals. According to Touvier, they demanded the execution of a hundred Jews. He says he bargained them down to thirty, and ordered the deaths of seven, at Rillieux-la-Pape, as an appeasement to save the remaining twenty-three.’
‘Where’s the devotion in that?’
‘Well, there isn’t any of course. Only it set me thinking. Here is a man who will, in due course, be convict
ed in absentia of treason. I don’t know any more about him, and what he said was probably nonsense, but it occurred to me that it was only those who collaborated who were in a position to bargain with the Nazis if the opportunity arose. That is not, of course, a reason for collaborating. But it suggests an interesting abstract principle: in certain situations, only someone who’s lost himself can do the good deed, even though he can never make atonement for what he has done.’
A shared pause of reflection ensued. Wilf picked up a newspaper, found the crossword and said: ‘Even so, I can’t for the life of me understand why Touvier was hidden in a monastery.’
‘Pardon?’ said Anselm.
Wilf repeated his observation, frowning gravely at the first clue. ‘Fundamentalists, apparently Intégristes. Not our cup of tea.’ A touch complicated, he added, because Touvier had been pardoned by Pompidou. Ten years later he went into hiding when it transpired he could still be prosecuted. He was eventually convicted of the Rillieux murders in 1994, the first Frenchman to go down for war-related crimes against humanity.
‘Hideously embarrassing for the Church when they caught him, of course,’ pursued Wilf, laying the paper on his lap, ‘if only because it dredged up the ecclesiastical compromises of the past.’ During the war, he said, the Church had been in a very difficult position. Pétain and Vichy reintroduced support that had been previously withdrawn by a viciously anti-clerical state. An alliance grew that was far too cosy ‘It was all rather complicated.’
Slightly uneasy, Anselm left Wilf to his crossword. As he got ready to clean the refectory floor he all but heard another voice, whispering, and he saw the luminous eyes of Cardinal Vincenzi:
‘It’s all rather complicated.’
Chapter Thirty
1
The court rose for the day after Mr Bartlett had made his surprising announcement that followed the completion of Madame Beaussart’s evidence.
‘That seems a good place to stop, gentlemen,’ said Mr Justice Pollbrook.
Bile stung Lucy’s gut and she thought bitterly: You’re right. There’s no point in going on. It’s a mess; a bloody, senseless mess. Max Nightingale hurriedly brushed by, his mouth set tight. The man in the cardigan beside her stood to make way, his features relaxed as if by an expectation painfully fulfilled. Lucy left the court in a sort of panic, as though the air had swollen with a stench. She ran to St Paul’s tube station and shoved herself into the doorway of a heaving train. Elbows, staking their claim, stiffened. The carriage door slid shut, scraping across her back. I endure this, she thought, so that I can give my grandmother a summary of ‘the day’s play’. That’s what one barrister had called it.
The opening of the trial had brought focus to Lucy’s life, lost since the death of Pascal. Struggling to attend lectures, she had confided in her tutor, a man who seemed to apprehend a fear she had not even mentioned: the prospect of dropping out of the course, a second failure from which she might not recover.
He referred Lucy to a college counsellor called Myriam Anderson. Talking helped to a degree; but death, of all experiences, could only be accommodated through further suffering, and entangled with that prospect was the certain death of Agnes. These two events, one past, the other to come, lay like a frame on either side of the trial, giving it shape. Myriam had said:
‘It’s tempting to separate life’s problems into miniatures — that’s when the trouble starts. Your greatest asset is that you see the single canvas: Myriam watched Lucy closely before saying, ‘Don’t rule out another death.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Another death ― an outcome to this trial that defeats your hope.’
By the time Lucy reached Hammersmith, the long shadows of evening lay as still as paint, losing depth and shape as the light withdrew She pushed her key into Agnes’ front door lock and stepped inside, slipping on the wet tiles and crashing into the wall. Bloody Wilma.
Agnes could no longer speak or walk. A nurse came twice a week. Susan paid a visit every other day As for Freddie, the monumental unease that had once kept him apart from Agnes seemed to be crumbling, not at the edges but deep down in its foundations. Lucy saw a pallor spread across his face whenever he came to Chiswick Mall: he simply could not bear to witness the slow, tortured decline that was received by Agnes with such shattering calm.
Lucy crept down the dark corridor towards the thin band of orange light across the floor. She stood at the door, pushing it silently ajar. Agnes lay completely still. So still Lucy thought she had gone. Her heart raced. And then Agnes lifted one arm, like an ailing Caesar at the games. Lucy approached and sat by the bed.
‘The trial’s under way
A nod.
‘We heard from Madame Beaussart today the journalist you met in Auschwitz, the one who dreamed about making jam and you dreamed about eating it. You wrote about her.’
A nod.
‘She remembers almost everything.’
Lucy could go no further.
Agnes didn’t respond. Her face could not be read; only her eyes, and they were turned to one side. Had she already heard the news — about the first witness for the Crown abandoning the stand, exclaiming through her tears that she did remember Schwermann? Had she heard about Mr Bartlett’s surprise announcement to the court? These were things Lucy would not say, not to Schwermann’s most secret victim, lying here unable to reply Agnes would discover them soon enough when Wilma declaimed from The Times report next morning.
Agnes moved her head towards the bedside table and her alphabet card. She had a simple method. After pointing out the letters of a word, she paused and rested her hand. Then she spelled out the next word. It was the lightness of her wrist, moving like a conductor, and that pause, still fingers upon her breast between measures, that broke Lucy down.
P-A-S-C-A-L
A long pause followed: this introduced the subject she wanted to talk about, like a heading.
T-R-Y
Pause.
T-O
Pause.
C-A-L-M
Pause.
T-H-E
Pause.
F-I-R-E
Pause.
W-I-T-H-O-U-T
Pause.
P-U-T-T-I-N-G
Pause.
I-T
Pause.
O-U-T
Pause.
Lucy nodded gratefully, reaching out to meet the anxiety, the entreaty deep within her grandmother’s blue eyes. Sensing the question that was trapped in Agnes’ head she added, ‘The college are being enormously helpful. They’ve told me to take a few weeks off. They’re sure I can catch up.’
Agnes touched Lucy’s arm, and then continued:
I-F
Pause.
V-I-C-T-O-R
Pause.
A-P-P-E-A-R-S
Pause.
I
Pause.
M-U-S-T
Pause.
S-E-E
Pause.
H-I-M
Pause.
B-E-F-O-R-E
Pause.
I
Pause.
D-I-E
Lucy stroked her grandmother’s shaking hand. Agnes couldn’t point for long. Anguish pulled down the corners of her mouth.
‘Gran, I think he’s gone for good.’
Agnes shook her head.
H-E
Pause.
W-I-L-L
Pause.
T-U-R-N
Pause.
U-P
Lucy lifted her grandmother’s hand again and smoothed the skin, as if to ease a deep bruise, the wound that still believed an old friend might yet turn up to redeem himself. So much of their relating had now been transferred to a meeting of hands. It replaced the voluntary. silence that had once been a communion. Lucy reached over and took the alphabet card. She had something to say that had never been said:
I
Pause.
L-O-V-E
Pause.
Y-O-
U
The handle of the door turned and Wilma came in with the bowl of ice cubes, a saucer and a teaspoon.
The vestibule floor was dry and safe to walk upon when Lucy left. On the way out she walked past the front room. It was no longer used. Agnes had left it for ever. The piano, the television and the furniture stood waiting for joking removal men in white overalls.
2
The morning after his return from Paris, Anselm went to the library to write some letters, mindful of Johnson’s observation that a man should keep his friendships in constant repair. He had just sealed an envelope when Father Bernard, the cellarer, put his head round the door. There was a telephone call for Anselm that had been transferred by Sylvester to the kitchen. There was no point in trying to get him to re-direct it. They both hurried down the stairs, habits flapping like wide streamers on a kite that refused to get off the ground.
‘The call was from Detective Superintendent Milby enquiring how the visit to the Fougères family had transpired. Anselm explained, concluding with the ambiguous remark, ‘I’m very glad I went.’ Milby then transferred the line to DI Armstrong’s extension.
‘I think we’ve found Victor Brionne,’ were her first words.
‘Good God.’
‘Not exactly, others were involved. The person who came to see you was almost certainly Robert Brownlow He’s fifty-five and lives on the north—east coast in a place called Cullercoats. His father, Victor Brownlow, lives in London — Stamford Hill. The place looks shut up and has been for months according to the postman. The son, however, pays rates on a property on Holy Island, “Pilgrim’s Rest”. We’ve had local police drive around in civvies and it looks like that’s where he’s gone to ground.’
‘I’ll give you a ring as soon as I have spoken to him.’
‘You may as well tell him to contact me. He can’t go on running, not at his age.’
‘I will.’
Anselm fished out a pencil from his habit pocket and said, ‘I’ve another favour to ask.’
‘I hope you’re not going to surprise me again, Father.’
The Sixth Lamentation Page 20