I can tell you that on my trip downstairs I stopped off and tucked into the supplies in the steel trunk beneath my bed and consumed in pretty short order two bars of Côte d’Or Chocolate Extra Superior and a handful of Lindt Bittersweet and thus geared up I prepared to expose myself to the Angel’s sermon.
Downstairs we all assemble, my grandmother is the colour of icing sugar, hard and shining, her hand permanently to her heart. I think for a moment vaguely of plugging in my cans and spinning something like Thomas and the Apostles, you must know their really funky big one called ‘Jesus On The Cheap!’, with their heavy lead guitarist, Raymond Whatsit, who made it big in ‘I Never Went to Paris’ and who treats his instrument like a sailor who’s just been forbidden shore leave. But then of course you know what I mean. And you’ll know what I mean when I say that to complain that T. and the A.s are over the top just because T. tries to couple with his bass guitar is to believe that balls are only for bouncing … I don’t believe that. And yet do I put on the cans, despite being Bella the one-woman walkman, because I can tell that my ears have been lent on my behalf to the Angel for his speech.
‘The man that we know as Brown, Brown according to Bella, not christened, I cannot say that in the presence of the clergy, not sanctified by the Church, no, no, especially not in the light of what is to follow, but named, for convenience, Brown, is as I told you before the dictator of an African country with which France once had dealings. That country has dwindled now to the status of a distant debtor. But until recently it was still a place to which government officials were posted for obscure reasons, some associated with the country for purposes of French prestige, others were there to see to the more mundane need of this client state to pay its way. Now the man that we know as Brown was, until a few years ago, known to his subjects, whom he ruled with whip and sword, as the Redeemer. I apologise to Father Duval for this blasphemy, but it seems the title is not unknown in Africa.’
My grandmama appears to have fallen asleep at this stage and only her flickering eyelids tell me that she is listening, though at what cost, I hate to imagine. Her concentration is quite horribly rewarded when the Angel, holding up his hands to silence, and then joining them together beneath his upper lip in a prayerful gesture, says softly:
‘The charges against him are very impressive: murder, corruption, anthropophagy.’
‘I don’t understand the last,’ says Father Duval.
‘Cannibalism,’ says my uncle.
Grandmama opens her blue eyes, sits bolt upright in her chair and then shrieks and falls back again in a dead faint. There is no question of Monsieur Cherubini going on or of Grandmama being allowed to stay downstairs, but first we must revive her and make her put her head between her knees, her lips are now very white, she has a twitch in her cheek she cannot stop. Uncle Claude and I carry her to her bedroom and I put her to bed and sit with her while Uncle Claude calls the doctor. When her eyes open, she reaches out and strokes my cheek, then with the other hand she strokes her three pictures, her holy trinity, Marshal Pétain, her young husband in his military cap and Joan of Arc astride her horse, sword drawn, a look of ecstasy in her eyes. Taking my cheek between thumb and finger, she gently pulls me down to her and whispers fiercely in my ear, I feel her lips brush my earlobe:
‘If I die it will be another death that our little hotel-keeper will have on his conscience.’
‘Grandmama, what is this talk about the Hotel Terminus? What happened there, in the war?’
Her blue eyes now are full of rage. ‘It’s best not to ask, my little Bella. Best not to know. There are horrible secrets of the Hotel Terminus. Third floor, suite fifty-eight. The father of our little hotelier knew it well. He was a knower of such things, a money man. You know he moved down from Paris after the Fall and he took root in our part of the world, like a weed. It was to Lyons that he came, because that was, until November 1942, part of Free France, the zone libre. The country of opportunity for some, of death for many. André’s father came south when the Bourse closed in Paris and he found business to do in this part of the world. First as a passeur, one who arranged the flight of refugees across the Swiss border, frightened people, often loaded with gold and jewels; he took shares in their safe passage. Sometimes they didn’t make it. And nor did their gold. Escaping was as dangerous as being caught. It was an expanding industry. Then, when the Germans marched into Lyons, the zone libre was finished, but the passeurs were busier than ever. And you must realise that the factories ran, and the offices and the industries. It was all business as usual and it needed managing. André’s papa had shown himself to be a fine manager. It was not long before the new guests at the Hotel Terminus employed him.’
‘Germans?’
‘Gestapo. And when the war was over, what did he say to explain his role? He denied ever having collaborated with the Germans. Collaboration? Never! All he had done was to liaise. The reward of his profitable liaison was to die in bed with his socks on, leaving a fortune to his little son, while those who had given their lives for their country died like dogs in the early morning rain and people spat on their faces –’
And here she lets me go and sighs deeply and her eyes fix for a moment on the photograph of her young husband before filling with tears.
At last I begin to understand her anger and grief. Her husband in the Resistance, captured, and shot.
And André? I know now the riddle behind the Beast of the Bourse and his offices in Lyons. It was not in fact André but his father who was the monster, and the offices were not his, but belonged to the Gestapo, they were not for dealing in stocks and shares, but belonged to a business that ran on blood.
The doctor arrives, little Dr Valléry, our local socialist, a man of hair the colour of beer, and thick glasses. Entering our house is a trial for him: he’s going into the lion’s den; he pales visibly at the sight of Marshal Pétain in the silver frame and I know just by looking at him that his medical skills are undermined by his political shivers. He can’t wait to leave. As it is, he is one of those who has tried to rally support against the Angel and his new party. But in the village of La Frisette, everybody worth mentioning is Angel-bound to a degree that nothing will shift and the voices of the opposition are faint, they may mock and jeer, but do not carry. Valléry’s position is weakened still further by the fact that he has recently abandoned his wife and taken up with Louise, the brunette with the prodigious cleavage who works in the tabac. She’s one of those women so utterly sexual that she resembles more a running stream than a person of flesh and bone, and she presented to the doctor something like the sight of a bubbling brook on a stifling day and he no sooner set eyes on her than he flung himself into her and was carried away. Since the good doctor drowned himself in liquid Louise, his wife has taken to attending the Church of the Resurrection like a reproachful, straight-backed ghost. Poor woman! As if angry virtue would somehow recompense her or punish the philanderer, when, in fact, his utter surrender to the lubricious Louise (legend holds she partnered Clovis at one time and is known as a watery wonder in whom even that demented boy once dipped a toe, or some other appendage) is enough to rust the doctor’s political reputation, from which all other assessments in La Frisette proceed. To fall is one thing, to leap another and to drown something else entirely, and such was Dr Valléry’s immersion, so utterly comprehensive his seduction, that it played hell with his standing as a socialist. Even now as he comes into the room and takes my grandmother’s pulse, I can feel, tell, almost smell that he’s come from the warmth of Louise and his tousled irritation signals that he yearns to be back there as soon as possible. I’ll bet he floats in her the way Uncle Claude says the sea creatures do, who may be our real ancestors, the blind red tubeworms who cruise the sandy bottom of the Gulf of Mexico where the searing magma of the earth’s hot heart bleeds and congeals, veiled in steam and gas, thousands of metres under the sea. Give the giant red tubeworm a pair of thick glasses and a
cheesy wink and you’ve got Dr Valléry to the life. No wonder I go downstairs, no wonder I can’t go on looking at him, his politics undermined, his doctoring deeply suspect, and all that remains a quivering desire so palpable it’s positively embarrassing.
We wait for the medical opinion without any hope that it will be anything more than conventional. But that’s wrong. Because when the little doctor scampers downstairs he has clearly thought about his diagnosis. He’s considered his position and is determined that both should be respected.
‘Angina, arthritis, old age. You’ll appreciate I can’t do much more than alleviate any of these conditions. She’s old, sick, stubborn. She won’t listen to me. So I tell you that if she’s too excited or overly stressed it may be fatal. No, I correct myself, it will be fatal.’
Terse and even impressive as this is, it doesn’t help him much. One cannot threaten an angel with death and a physicist devoted to entropy is used to such things and Father Duval long ago dissociated himself from death as a form of political scandal. So Monsieur Cherubini’s silent nod is also a gesture of dismissal and the little doctor scurries away back to his big wide bed where Louise waits for him willing, warm and wet.
‘Well, we’ve decided, Bella,’ the Angel announces, ‘you will have to go to the man whom you call Brown and find out what he’s doing here.’
‘Why me?’
‘Because you’re the only one he’s willing to see. He’s invited you to take tea with him. We didn’t even get past the door,’ says Uncle Claude. ‘The family honour depends on it.’
‘He’s up to something, Bella. We know that,’ says Father Duval.
‘Go,’ says my uncle shortly.
‘But I thought you had objections. You don’t like me seeing him. And Monsieur Cherubini says he’s a cannibal.’
‘He was and maybe still is,’ says the Angel. ‘The world is full of strange tastes. Only time will tell. I admit my information is disturbing.’
‘Tell her about the lions,’ says Father Duval.
‘He fed his opponents to the lions,’ the Angel says. ‘And then one day he tried to feed their keeper to them. But the animals recognised their friend and refused the morsel offered.’
‘And so he fed the keeper to his crocodiles instead – what d’you say to that?’ asks Uncle Claude, with a look very like satisfaction.
‘It sounds too good to be true. Stories to frighten children.’
‘Bella, this man killed without compunction. He’s a monster. An animal. He sliced his opponents into pieces and kept some of them in the refrigerator to adorn the presidential menus. Human corpses stuffed with rice and ready to be served. Prepared meals, you might say. He killed children, and first he poked their eyes out. There was nothing he wouldn’t do!’
When Father Duval tells me this he walks about throwing his hands to left and right as if getting rid of the little bits of the Redeemer’s menu that have somehow stuck to his fingers.
‘He was a good friend of my papa’s.’
‘Bella, Bella’ – the Angel is all kindness and at his most reptilian when he softens into kindness – ‘it is precisely this connection with your father that worries me. If he involved your father in any of his attempts at bribing officials, if this news came out, here, now, it wouldn’t look good. It would kill your grandmother.’
‘You mean it wouldn’t look good for you. And for Uncle Claude, the Mayor. For your rally on Saturday. And for your new party. You talk of my family – what family? My father’s dead and my mother is missing somewhere in America. And then I make a friend of Monsieur Brown, who is kind to me, and who knew Papa, they were very dear friends, together almost to the last. But my uncle warns me about him, he tells me to keep away from him. Now you tell me he eats people and in the same breath you say I must go and find him and see what he knows. I don’t understand.’
‘I don’t want to be blamed for my brother’s errors of judgement,’ says Uncle Claude. ‘This is guilt by association and I am not guilty. But someone has made the connection. Who do you think those men at the gate of the hotel are? They come from Paris! Government people. There’s something dark and troubling about this. I don’t like it, I don’t like the way that he has some kind of official protection, a bodyguard maybe. They’re tough guys sitting in the parking lot. They’re after something. We’ve had trouble in the family, we don’t want any more.’
‘They’ve taken everything already, our apartment in Paris, my mother’s jewels, even my Bapuna mask which Papa brought for me. Gone. What more can they possibly want from us?’
‘What more do you have to give?’ the Angel asks. ‘Because if one thing is clear about this it is that someone has got something that someone wants.’
Before we can work out the interesting convolutions of this last comment the door opens and Clovis enters in fine high spirits, clapping his hands and beaming. He’s been helping the police plan the parking arrangements for Saturday’s rally and insists on telling us everything immediately.
‘The plan is proceeding wonderfully, patron. Clovis is in control! We’ve been having a full dress rehearsal tonight with the fire brigade standing by and a band, a great big band blowing brass instruments, made up of all the local hunters. We’ve worked out how many cars may be parked by the lakeside so as to keep all traffic from the centre of town. The dais on which you will speak is draped in red and blue and there are patterns on it arranged in chevrons and many flowers of different kinds are ordered. Poinsettias and lilies predominate, according to your orders. We’re now ready to check your position on the platform for security and for camera angles. Clovis is here to escort you, chief!’
And with that he does a strange thing, he balls his hands into fists, crosses his arms at the wrists and bangs himself on the chest. Once, twice, bou-boum! For a hollow-chested boy he gives off quite an echo. It’s some sort of salute, I realise, and I don’t like it. Not one bit.
‘Not now, not now,’ Uncle Claude snaps, waving him away, ‘come back later.’
‘No, no,’ says Father Duval coming forward, ‘he’s been told to escort Monsieur Cherubini to the podium and it would be very bad for his rehabilitation if he were to be encouraged to disregard orders. Can’t he perhaps just wait awhile? Can’t he go upstairs?’
I can see Uncle Claude is about to refuse when the Angel says, ‘Yes, it will be better if we briefed Miss Bella in private and the parking must wait until that’s done. She must go and she must be told what to do.’
‘Yes, she must be briefed,’ says Father Duval, ‘it’s a special mission.’
At the mention of the words ‘brief’ and ‘mission’ I can see my Uncle Claude stiffen slowly to attention. Perhaps it’s because scientists always must stand passive before the workings of the universe unable to do anything more than observe helplessly, however happily, the immutable operations of unshakable laws, that they must sometimes ache to push somebody around.
‘Very well, young man,’ Uncle Claude says to Clovis, ‘you may continue on up the stairs, go to the very top of the house and there you’ll find my den. Go quietly, mind, for Madame is ill and may not be disturbed. And nor may any of the equipment in my study. It’s all very important. Top secret. Dangerous! It can kill silly people who touch it!’ And here Uncle Claude throws up his arms and locks them, fingers rigid and hisses like a cat, his blue eyes wild and staring, then his body shudders as if he’s having a fit. It is his way of warning Clovis what will happen if he messes around with his equipment. It’s really strange that he should go into this man-in-the-electric-chair routine to suggest danger. I mean, why doesn’t he just draw a skull and cross-bones on the door of his room? And anyway what is a man who understands the significance of Feigenbaum’s Constants and the mysteries of Quantum Chromodynamics doing putting on this show as if Clovis were some brain-damaged monkey instead of a very intelligent, if somewhat flighty boy with a bad limp. Indeed my Un
cle Claude’s horror of sex and disease are such as to make me wonder whether modern scientists are not perhaps plunged so deeply into the miasma of superstition and dogma as to make the most hide-bound medieval theologian seem positively skittish by comparison.
But all this is happily lost on Clovis who, with a skip and a grin, dances, no flies up the stairs, his salmon-pink overall clashing so weirdly with his staring white face beneath the glowing pampas of hair, and his flashing perspex boot, which hits the wooden walls of the staircase as he ascends with a hard, satisfying sound, and, leaving behind him a trailing and cheerful ‘Yessir!’ he disappears aloft.
My Chocolate Redeemer Page 18