by Morris West
“Even though they know the doom is coming?”
“Because they know it. Precisely because they know it! They cannot, any more than we, cope with the unbearable before it happens. That’s the whole reason for the Friends of Silence and their counterparts in secular government!” Suddenly he was laughing. “My friend, don’t look so shocked! What did you expect from Pierre Duhamel—a tranquillizer and a spoonful of soothing syrup? The Roman Catholics aren’t the only ones who are opting for conformity. All the other big cults which have membership and property in the Republic have assured the government of their loyalty in the event of national emergency.… The reason they’re all holding to the old models of experience and culture is because they have no time now to test new ones, or accustom their people to live with them.”
Jean Marie was silent for a long moment. Finally he said quietly:
“I accept what you tell me, Pierre. Now answer me one question. What preparations have you, personally, made for the day when the first missiles are launched?”
Duhamel was not smiling now. He took time to frame his answer.
“This is a day in our scenario called R Day—R for Rubicon. If any one of half a dozen actions is taken by any major powers, then the chemistry of conflict will become irreversible. War will be declared. A global conflict will follow. On R Day I shall go home. I shall bathe my wife. I shall cook her favourite meal, open the best wine in my cellar and take a long time to drink it. Then I shall carry my wife to bed, lie down beside her and administer a poison pill to us both.… We’re agreed. Our children know. They don’t like the idea. They have other plans and other reasons; but they respect our decision.… My wife has suffered enough. I would not want her to endure the horrors of the aftermath—and to face them without her would be, for me, a pointless masochism.”
He was being challenged and he knew it. It was the same challenge Carl Mendelius had made to him in the garden at Monte Cassino: “I have met good people who would prefer eternal blackness to the vision of Siva the Destroyer.” Pierre Duhamel was an even more formidable inquisitor, because he had none of Mendelius’ inhibitions. He was still waiting for his answer.
Jean Marie Barette said calmly, “I believe in free will, Pierre. I believe a man is judged by the light which has been given him. If you choose a stoic end to an intolerable situation, I may condemn the act; but upon the actor I can pass no verdict at all. I would rather trust you, as I trust myself, to the mercy of God.… However, I have one question.”
“Ask it,” said Pierre Duhamel.
“For you and for your wife, everything ends on Rubicon Day. But what about the helpless ones—your little clowns of God, for example? Oh, yes, I saw them in the garden this afternoon! I talked with their gouvernante, who told me you were one of their most important sponsors. So, in the bad times, what will you do? Leave them to die like chickens in a barn fire, or toss them out as playthings for the barbarians?”
Pierre Duhamel finished his drink and set down the glass. He fished out a handkerchief and dabbed at his lips. He said, with rueful formality:
“You are a very intelligent man, Monseigneur; but even you do not see the whole future. My little clowns are already provided for. Under a series of most secret political directives, persons who, by reason of insanity, incurable infirmity or other gross disability, will be a burden on the wartime state will, immediately on the outbreak of hostilities, be discreetly eliminated! Hitler gave us the blueprints for that one. We have updated them to include a compassionate rather than a brutal disposal.… I shock you, of course?”
“What shocks me is that you can continue to live with this secret.”
“What do I do? If I try to publicize it, I am branded a madman—like you with your vision of Armageddon and the Second Coming. You see, we are both in the same sad galley.”
“Then let us see how we get out of it, my friend.”
“First,” said Duhamel, “let’s look at your problem. You are, as I said, officially untouchable. You will find it increasingly difficult to circulate. Certain countries will hesitate to give you a visa. You will be harassed at every point. Your bags will be rifled. You will have lengthy sessions with frontier officials.… You will be surprised at how uncomfortable life can be. So, all in all, I think we have to get you a new passport in a new name.”
“Can you do that?”
“I do it all the time for people on special assignment. You are not on assignment but you are most certainly a special case. Do you have any recent photographs of yourself?”
“I have a dozen copies of the one in my present passport. I was told some countries require them for visa applications.”
“Give me three of them. I’ll have your passport delivered here tomorrow.”
“You’re a good friend, Pierre. Thank you.”
“Please!” Pierre Duhamel gave him a sudden boyish grin. “My master, the President, wants you out of the country. I am instructed to do everything possible to set you on your way.”
“Why should he care so much?”
“He understand theatre,” said Pierre Duhamel drily. “One man walking on the water is a miracle. Two is quite ridiculous.”
The image amused them both. They laughed and the tension was broken. Pierre Duhamel dropped his pose of defensive irony and began to talk more freely.
“… When you see the battle plans laid out, it is like a vision of the inferno. No horror is absent. There are neutron bombs, poison gas, spray-borne deadly diseases. In theory of course it is all based on limited action; so that the greatest horrors are held as deterrents in reserve. But, in fact, once the first shots are fired, there will be no limit to the escalation.… Once you’ve done one murder, the rest are easy, because you have only one life in jeopardy to the hangman.”
“Enough!” Jean Marie Barette stopped the conversation abruptly. “You have talked yourself and your wife into a suicide pact with a surfeit of horrors! I refuse to surrender this whole planet to evil. If we can hold one corner of it for hoping and loving then we’ll do it.… Pierre, you hate what is being plotted. You hate your impotence in the face of the vast unreason.… Why not make one last act of faith and step up to the firing line with me?”
“To do what?” asked Pierre Duhamel.
“Let’s shock the world into listening to us. Let’s tell them first about God’s little clowns and what will happen to them on Rubicon Day. You get hold of the document. I’ll get Georg Rainer to arrange the press conference—and we’ll face it together.”
“And then?”
“Dear God! We’ll rouse the conscience of the world! People always rise up against the evil done to children.”
“Do they? We’re nearly at the end of the century and there’s still child labour in Europe, not to mention the rest of the world. There’s still no effective legislation against child abuse; and women are still fighting each other and their legislators over the killing of the near-term fetus.… No, my dear Jean! Trust in God if you must, but never, never in man. If I did what you suggest, the press would black us out and the police would have us in the deepest cachot in the country inside half-an-hour.… I’m sorry. I am a servant of what is. When what is becomes unbearable, I make my exit. La comédie est finie. Give me those photographs. You’ll have a new passport and a new identity tomorrow.”
Jean Marie took the photographs out of his wallet and handed them over. As he did so he grasped Duhamel’s hand and hold it firmly.
“I won’t let you go like this! You’re doing a terrible thing. You’re closing your ears and your heart to a clear call. It may be the last one you get.”
Duhamel disengaged himself from the grip.
“You have it wrong, Monseigneur.” There was a remote wraith-like sadness in his voice. “I answered my call a long time ago. When my wife fell ill and the doctor gave me the prognosis, I walked to Notre Dame and sat all alone in front of the sanctuary. I didn’t pray. I gave the Almighty an ultimatum. I said: ‘Eh bien! Because she’s go
t to wear it, I’ll wear it, too. I’ll make her as happy as I can for as long as she’s alive. But understand, enough is enough! If you push us any more, I’ll hand back the keys to the house of life and we’ll both walk out…’ Well, He’s done it, hasn’t He? Even to you He didn’t say, Tell them to reform the world or else!’ You got the same message as I get every day in the presidential dispatches. Judgment Day is round the comer. There’s no hope! There’s no way out! So, for me, all bets are off. I’m sorry for my little clowns; but I didn’t beget them and I wasn’t around on creation day. I didn’t mix the whole bloody explosive mess of the universe.… Do you understand, Monseigneur?”
“Everything,” said Jean Marie Barette, “except one item. Why are you taking all this trouble over me?”
“God knows! Probably because I admire the courage of a man who can take life and all the filth of it without any conditions at all. My little clowns are like that; but only because they haven’t the brains to know better. At least they’ll die happy.” He scribbled a number on the pad beside the phone. “That’s my home telephone. If you need me, call. If I’m not available ask for Chariot. He’s my majordomo and very good at improvising tactical operations. However, you should be safe here for a day or two. After that, please be very careful. People don’t see them; but the dagger-men are already in the streets!”
When Duhamel had gone he fell prey to a winter fear: the prickling dread of the lone traveller who hears the wolf howls from the timberline. He could not bear the solitude of his room; so he went down to the restaurant, where the patronne found him a table in a quiet angle, from which he could survey the rest of the company. He ordered a piece of melon, a small entrecote, a half-bottle of the house wine, then settled down to enjoy the meal.
At least there was no menace here. The lighting was restful; there were fresh flowers on every table. The napery was spotless, the service discreet. The clients, at first glance, were affluent businessmen and bureaucrats with their assorted womenfolk. Even as he made the judgment, he caught sight of himself in a wall mirror, and realized that he, who had once worn the red of a Cardinal and the white of a Pope, was now just one more grey-haired fellow in the uniform of the bourgeoisie.
The very ordinariness of his own image reminded him of one of Carl Mendelius’ earliest lectures at the Gregorian. He was explaining the nature of the Gospel parables. Many of them, he said, were records of Jesus’ table talk. Their metaphors of masters and servants and meals were prompted by immediate and commonplace surroundings. Then he added a rider to the proposition: “… However, the familiar stories are like a minefield, full of traps and trip wires. They all contain contradictions, alienating elements, which bring the listener up short and make him see a new potential, for good or evil, in the most banal event.”
In his own encounter with Pierre Duhamel, he had been quite unprepared for the finality of the man’s despair. It was the more terrible because it was quite passionless. It could compass, without a tremor, the most monstrous perversities; but it would not find room for the smallest hope or the simplest joy. It was so rational a madness that one could neither cure it nor argue against it. And yet, and yet… there was more than one trip wire in the minefield! Pierre Duhamel might despair of himself; but Jean Marie Barette must never despair of him. He must still believe that so long as life lasted, Pierre Duhamel was still within the reach of Everlasting Mercy. Jean Marie must still make prayer for his soul, must still reach out warm hands to unfreeze his stubborn heart.
The steak was tender and the wine was smooth; but even as he savoured them, Jean Marie was preoccupied by the challenge that now presented itself. His credibility was at stake—not as a visionary, but as a simple bearer of God’s good news to man. He had accused Duhamel of rejecting the good news; but was it not rather Jean Marie Barette—once a Pope and servant of the servants of God—who had failed to present it with faith and love enough? Once again, he was urged imperatively to open himself to a new inpouring of strength and authority. His reverie was interrupted by the patronne, who paused at his table to ask how he was enjoying the food. He complimented her with a smile.
“I’ve been fed like a king, madame.”
“In Gascony we would say ‘fed like the Pope’s mule.’”
There was a gleam of mischief in her eyes, but Jean Marie was in no mood to embroider the joke. He asked, “Can you tell me, is it far from here to Monsieur Duhamel’s house?”
“About ten minutes by car. If you want to go there in the morning I can have one of the staff drive you. But you should telephone first. The place is guarded like a fortress by security men and dogs.”
“I am sure Monsieur Duhamel will receive me. I should like to go there immediately after dinner.”
“In that case, let me call a taxi. The driver can wait and bring you back.”
“Thank you, madame.”
“Please! It is my pleasure.” She made a show of brushing a few crumbs from the cloth and said softly, “Of course, I would much rather be feeding the Pope than his mule.”
“I’m sure he’ll be happy to visit you, madame—once I can assure him of your absolute discretion.”
“As to that,” said Madame sweetly, “all our clients trust us. We learned very quickly from Monsieur Duhamel that silence is golden!… For dessert may I recommend the raspberries. They come from our own garden.…”
He finished the meal without haste. It was almost as if he were an athlete, running with a pace-maker who would, at a given moment, hand the race over to him. His conscious attention began to shift from Duhamel to his invalid wife. It was as if she were stretching out her hand to reach him. He finished his coffee, walked to the booth and telephoned Duhamel’s private number. A male voice answered.
“Who is speaking, please?”
“This is Monsieur Grégoire. I should like to speak to Monsieur Duhamel.”
“I’m afraid that is not possible.”
“Then will you please tell him I shall be at his house in fifteen minutes.”
“That will not be convenient. Madame is very ill. The doctor is with her now; and Monsieur Duhamel is in conference with an overseas visitor.”
“What is your name, please?”
“Charlot.”
“Charlot, two hours ago Monsieur Duhamel named you to me as a man of confidence to whom I should turn in an emergency. This is an emergency, so will you please do exactly as I ask and let Monsieur Duhamel decide whether my visit is opportune or not? I shall be with you in fifteen minutes.”
The taxi arrived in the middle of a thunderstorm. The driver was a laconic fellow who announced his contract terms for this sort of job, and once they were accepted, lapsed into silence. Jean Marie Barette closed his eyes and disposed himself to what would be demanded of him in the coming encounters.
The house of Pierre Duhamel was a large country mansion in the style of the Second Empire, set in a small park, behind a tall fence of iron spikes. The front gate was closed and a police car with two men in it was parked outside. Immediate dilemma! On the telephone he had identified himself as Monsieur Grégoire. If the police demanded his papers he would be revealed as Jean Marie Barette, a most compromising visitor. He decided to bluff it out. He rolled down the window and spoke to the nearer police officer.
“I am Monsieur Grégoire. I have an appointment with Monsieur Duhamel.”
“Wait a moment!” The policeman picked up a pocket radio and called the house. “A certain Grégoire. He says he has an appointment.”
Jean Marie could not make out the answer but apparently it satisfied the policeman, who nodded and said:
“You’re expected. Identification, please!”
“I was instructed not to carry it on this occasion. You may check that with Monsieur Duhamel.”
The policeman called again. This time there was a longish interval before clearance was given. Then, the gates opened electrically, the policeman waved him through and the gates closed again. The taxi had hardly reached the po
rtal when the front door was opened by Pierre Duhamel himself. He was shaking with anger.
“For God’s sake, man! What is this? Paulette has collapsed. There’s a man from Moscow in my drawing room. What the hell do you want?”
“Where is your wife?”
“Upstairs. The doctor’s with her.”
“Take me to her!”
Pierre Duhamel stared at him as if he were a stranger, then he made a small shrugging gesture of surrender. “Very well! Follow me, please.”
He led the way upstairs and pushed open the door of the bedroom. Paulette Duhamel, a pale, shrunken figure, was lying propped about with pillows in the big four-poster bed. The doctor stood holding her limp wrist in his hand counting the pulse-beats.
Duhamel asked, “Any change?”
The doctor shook his head. “The paraplegia has extended itself. The reflexes are weaker. There is fluid in both lungs, because the muscles of the respiratory system are beginning to fail. We may do a little for her in hospital but not much.… Who is this gentleman?”
“An old friend. A priest.”
“Ah!” The doctor was obviously surprised but tactful. “Then I shall leave you with her for a while. She drifts in and out of consciousness. If there is any marked change, please call me instantly. I shall be just outside.”
He went out.
Pierre Duhamel said with cold anger, “I want no rites, no mumbo jumbo. If she could speak she would refuse them, too.”