by Muriel Spark
‘Is it to be Toronto?’ she said.
‘Oh, yes, you’ll be met. Do you have the money with you?’ Harvey had given her charge of a quantity of cash long before the trouble started.
‘I’ve taken most of it.’
‘You’ll be all right once you’re at my uncle Joe’s.’ ‘Who did you say I was?’ she said.
‘My sister-in-law.’
‘And Clara?’
‘Your niece. Ernie Howe has given his permission —’Oh, I know. I spoke to him myself,’ she said.
‘Nobody tells me anything,’ Harvey said.
‘Will I like your Uncle Joe?’
‘I hope so. If not, you can go to my Auntie Pet.’
‘What is “Pet” short for?’ said Ruth.
‘I really don’t know.’ He could see she wanted to delay the parting. ‘Ring me to-night from Paris,’ he said. He kissed Ruth and he kissed Clara, and practically pushed them towards Anne-Marie who had already seen the suitcases into the car, and was waiting for Ruth, almost taking her under arrest. With a hand under Ruth’s arm she led her along the little path towards the wider path where the car waited. They were off, Ruth and Clara in the front seat beside the driver. They were like an affluent married couple and child. Anne-Marie came back to the house, closed and locked the back door. Harvey said, ‘You lead the way back. I’ll follow you. I don’t know my way about this place.’ She laughed.
Twenty minutes later the press were let in. ‘Quiet!’ said Anne-Marie.
‘We have a baby in the house. You mustn’t wake her.’
Harvey, freshly and acutely aware of Clara’s innocent departure, was startled for an instant, then remembered quickly that Ruth and Clara were gone in secret.
‘Madame is resting, too,’ announced Anne-Marie, ‘please, gentle-men, ladies, no noise.
There were eighteen men, five women; the rest were at the roadblock outside the house arguing vainly with the police. This, Harvey learned from the reporters themselves, who crowded into the living room. There was a predominance of French, British and Americans among them. Harvey scrutinised them, as best he could trying to guess which one of them was a police agent. A wiry woman of about fifty with a red face, broken-veined, and thin grey hair fluffed out and falling all over her face as if to make the most of it, seemed to him a possible flic, if only for the reason that unlike the others she seemed to have no-one to talk to.
‘Mr Gotham, when did you last see —’I will answer no questions,’ Harvey said, ‘until you stop these flash-photographs.’ He sat back in his chair with folded arms. ‘Stop, ‘he said, ‘just stop. I’ll answer questions first, if they’re reasonable. Then you can take some photos. But not all at once. Kindly keep your voices down; as you’ve heard, there’s a baby sleeping upstairs and a lady who needs a lot of rest.’ One of the reporters, slouching by the door, a large fair middle-aged man, was already taking notes. What of? The man’s face seemed familiar to Harvey but he couldn’t place it.
The French journalists were the most vociferous. ‘Do you know where your wife is?’ — ‘How long has she been a member — ?’ — ‘Your wife Effie’s terrorist activities, do you ascribe them to a reaction against her wealthy matrimonial experience, with all the luxury and boredom that capitalism produces?’ — ‘What exactly are the creed and aims of your religious group, Mr Gotham?’
Harvey said, ‘One at a time, please.’
‘With all your prospects and holdings, you still believe in God, is that right?’ — ‘Are you asking us to believe that you have come to this château to study the Bible?’ — ‘Isn’t it so that you originally lived in that little lodge at the end of the drive?’
‘Yes,’ said Harvey, ‘I went to work down there.’
‘Where does your wife get the money for her terrorist activities?’
‘I don’t know that my wife is engaged in terrorist activities.’
‘But the police have identified her. Look, Mr Gotham, those people of the FLE get their money from someplace.’ This came from a fat young American who spoke like a machine-gun.
‘Would you mind speaking French so that we all know where we are?’ said Harvey. A Frenchman swiftly came to his American colleague’s aid, and repeated the question in French.
‘Apparently they bomb supermarkets and rob the cash. Haven’t you read the papers?’ Harvey said.
‘If your wife came in here with a sub-machine-gun right now — ?’ ‘That is a hypothetical question,’ Harvey said. The question was asked by a timid young Asiatic type with fine features and a sad pallor, who had evidently been let in to the conference on a quota system. He looked puzzled. ‘Your question is all theory,’ Harvey said, to help him. The young man nodded wisely and made some notes. What notes? — God knows.
‘Didn’t you hear a registration in the police station of your wife’s voice on a loudspeaker warning the people to leave the supermarket before the bombing? — Surely you recognised your wife’s voice?’ said an American.
‘I heard no registration. But if my wife should happen to give a warning to anyone in danger at any time, that would be very right of her, I think,’ Harvey said.
Most of the reporters were younger than Harvey. One, a bearded Swede, was old, paunchy. He alone seemed to know what the Book of Job was. He asked Harvey, ‘Would you say that you yourself are in the position of Job, in so far as you are a suspicious character in the eyes of the world, yet feel yourself to be perfectly innocent?’
Harvey saw his chance and took it: ‘I am hardly in the position of Job. He was covered with boils, for one thing, which I am not. And his friends, merely on the basis of his suffering, accused him of having sinned in some way. What Job underwent was tantamount to an interrogation by the Elders of his community. I intend no personal analogy. But I am delighted to get down at last to the subject of this conference: what was the answer to Job’s question? Job’s question was, why does God cause me to suffer when I’ve done nothing to deserve it? Now, Job was in no doubt whatsoever that his sufferings came from God and from no other source. The very rapidity with which one calamity followed upon another, shattering Job’s world, leaving him destitute, bereft and sick all in a short space of time, gave dramatic evidence that the cause was not natural, but supernatural. The supernatural, with power to act so strongly and disastrously, could only, in Job’s mind, be God. And we know he was right in the context of the book, because in the Prologue you read specifically that it was God who brought up the subject of Job to Satan; it was God, in fact, who tempted Satan to torment Job, not Satan who tempted God. I’m afraid my French version of the scriptures isn’t to hand, it’s down in my study in the cottage, or I’d quote you the precise passage. But—’
‘Mr Gotham,’ said a young Englishwoman dressed entirely in dark grey leather, ‘I’m sorry to interrupt but I have to file my story at six. Is it true that Nathan Fox is your wife’s lover?’
‘Please stick to French if you can. Anyway, I am addressing this gentleman,’ said Harvey, indicating the elderly Swede, ‘on a very important subject and —’
‘Oh, no, Mr Gotham. Oh, no.’ This was a tough pressman, indeterminately British or American, who spoke with a loud, fierce voice. ‘Oh, no, Mr Gotham. You’re here to answer our questions.’
‘Keep your voice down, please. The fact is that I am here because it is my home. You are here to listen to me. The subject is the Book of Job to which I have dedicated many years of my life. This gentleman,’ said Harvey, nodding to the grave and rather flattered Swede, ‘has asked me an interesting question on the subject. I have answered his question and I am elaborating on it. Your chance, and that of your colleagues, to put further questions will come in due course. As I was about to remark, Job’s problem was partly a lack of knowledge. He was without access to any system of study which would point to the reason for his afflictions. He said specifically, “I desire to reason with God,” and expected God to come out like a man and state his case.
‘Mr Gotham —’
‘Mr Gotham, can you state if you would side with your wife in any sense if she came up for trial? Do you yourself feel politically that the FLE have something to offer the young generation?’ — This was from a lanky French journalist with bright eyes and a wide smile.’ He was rather a sympathetic type, Harvey thought, probably new to his trade.
‘I’m really sorry to disappoint you,’ said Harvey with some charm, ‘but I’m giving you a seminar on Job without pay.’
A hubbub had now started to break out. Protests and questions came battering in on Harvey from every side.
‘Quiet!’ bawled Harvey. ‘Either you listen to me in silence or you all go. Job’s problem, as I was saying, was partly a lack of knowledge. Everybody talked but nobody told him anything about the reason for his sufferings. Not even God when he appeared. Our limitations of knowledge make us puzzle over the cause of suffering, maybe it is the cause of suffering itself. Quiet, over there! The baby’s asleep. And I said, no photographs at present. As I say, we are plonked here in the world and nobody but our own kind can tell us anything. It isn’t enough. As for the rest, God doesn’t tell. No, I’ve already told you that I don’t know where my wife is. How the Book of Job got into the holy scriptures I really do not know. That’s the greatest mystery of all. For it doesn’t —’
‘Mr Gotham,’ said the tough pressman, ‘the FLE have held up supermarkets, jewellers and banks at Gérardmer, La Bresse, Rambervillers, Mirecourt and Baccarat. Your wife is —’
‘You’ve left out Epinal,’ said Harvey. Cameras flashed. ‘Will you allow me to continue to answer the question put to me, or will you go?’
‘Your wife—’… ‘Your background, Mr Gotham —’ … ‘Your wife’s sister —’
‘Conference over,’ said Harvey.
‘Oh, no.’ — ‘No, Mr Gotham.’ — ‘Wait a minute.’
Some were swearing and cursing; some were laughing.
But Harvey got up and made for the door. Most of the reporters were on their feet, very rowdy. The wiry red-faced woman, the possible police agent, sat holding her tape-recorder modestly on her lap. The large fair man at the door had grabbed a belt as if from nowhere and was fastening it rapidly round his waist. Harvey saw that it was packed neatly with cartridges and that a revolver hung from a holster, with the man’s hand on it. He recognised him now as the sandy-haired policeman who, in uniform, had sat at the table throughout his interrogation at Epinal.
Harvey said, ‘I must tell you that there is a policeman in the room.’
‘What police? La Brigade antigang?’
‘I have no idea what variety. Kindly leave quietly and in order, and don’t wake the baby.’
They left without order or quietness.
‘Why don’t you get out while you can? Get back to Canada,’ said a girl. — ‘We’ll be seeing you in the courtroom,’ said another. Some joked as they left, some overturned chairs as they went. From everywhere came the last-minute flashes of the cameras recording the policeman, the overturned chairs, and recording Harvey standing in the middle of it, an image to be reproduced in one of next morning’s papers under the title, ‘Don’t Wake the Baby’. But at last they had gone. The wiry red-faced woman said sadly to Harvey as she passed him, ‘I’m afraid you’ll get a very bad press.’
The policeman followed them out and chivied them down the drive from his car. Before he shut the door Harvey noticed something new in the light cast from the hall: a washing-line had been slung well in evidence of the front portico. Anne-Marie had just finished taking baby clothes from it, had evidently been photographed doing so. She came towards him.
‘Not very convincing,’ Harvey said. ‘Nobody hangs washing within sight of the approach to a château.’
‘Nobody used to,’ Anne-Marie said. ‘They do now. We, for example, are doing it. Nobody will find it in the least suspect.’
‘Didn’t she tell you the hotel where she was going to in Paris?’ Harvey said.
‘Not me,’ said Anne-Marie. ‘I think she’ll ring you if she said she would. In any case, the inspector is sure to know where she’s staying.’
It was nine-thirty, and Anne-Marie was leaving for the night, anxious about being extraordinarily late in returning home; she lived several miles away. A car driven by a plain-clothes policeman was waiting at the door. She hurried away, banged the car door, and was off.
Stewart Cowper had arrived about an hour before, full of travel-exasperation and police-harassment; he had been frisked and questioned at the entrance to the house; he had been travelling most of the day and he was cold. At present he was having a shower.
Harvey and Anne-Marie had together put the living room to rights. Ruth had not yet rung him from Paris as she had promised. Where was she? Harvey then noticed something new in the room, a large bowl of early spring flowers, professionally arranged, beautiful. Irises, jonquils, lilies, daffodils; all too advanced to be local products; they must have come from an expensive shop in Nancy. Anne-Marie must have put them there at some time between the clearing up of the mess and her leaving, but Harvey hadn’t noticed them. They stood on a low round table, practically covering it as the outward leaves of the arrangement bent gracefully over the edge of the bowl. Harvey hadn’t noticed them, either, while he was sitting having a drink with Stewart, trying to calm him down, nor while Anne-Marie, anxious about the time, laid out a cold supper that was still sitting on the small dining-table, waiting for Stewart to wash and change. Where did those flowers come from? Who brought them, who sent them? Anne-Marie hadn’t left the house. And why should she order flowers?
Stewart came in and went to get himself another drink. He was a man of medium height, in his mid-forties with a school-boy’s round face and round blue eyes; but this immature look was counteracted by a deep and expressive quality in his voice, so that as soon as he spoke the total effect was of a certain maturity and intelligence, cancelling that silly round-eyed look.
‘Did you bring these flowers?’ said Harvey.
‘Did I bring what?’
‘These flowers — I don’t know where they’ve come from. The maid — and by the way she’s a policewoman — must have put them there some time this evening. But why?’
Stewart brought his drink to the sofa and sat sipping it.
Harvey’s mind was working fast, and faster. ‘I think I know why they’re there. Have you ever heard of a vase of flowers being bugged?’
‘Rather an obvious way to plant a bug if the flowers weren’t there already,’ said Stewart.
But Harvey was already pulling the flower-arrangement to bits. He shook each lily, each daffodil; he tore at the petals of the irises. Stewart drank his drink and told Harvey to calm down; he watched Harvey with his big blue eyes and then took another sip. Harvey splashed the water from the bowl all over the table and the floor. ‘I don’t see anything,’ he said.
‘From what I understand the police have had every opportunity to plant bugs elsewhere in the house; they need not introduce a bunch of flowers for the purpose,’ Stewart said. ‘What a mess you’ve made of a lovely bunch of flowers.’
‘I’d take you out to dinner,’ said Harvey. He sat on the sofa with his dejected head in his hands. He looked up. ‘I’d take you out to eat but I’ve got to wait in for a call from Ruth. She’s in Paris but I don’t know where. I’ve got to let my uncle in Toronto know the time of her arrival and her flight number. Did I tell you that she’s taking the baby to my Uncle Joe’s?’
‘No,’ said Stewart.
‘Well, she is. I’ve got to arrange for her to be met, and get through to Toronto and give them reasonable notice. And I’ve got to have a call from Ernie Howe, I think. At least he said he’d ring.’
‘How many other things have you got to do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why don’t you relax? You’re in a hell of a state.’
‘I know. What are you supposed to be doing here?’
‘Giving you some advice,’ Stewart sai
d. ‘Of course, I can’t act for you here in France.’
‘I don’t need anyone. I’ve got what’s-his-name in Paris if necessary.
‘Martin Deschamps? — I’ve been in touch with him. He can’t act for you in a case like this. No-one in his firm can, either. That means they won’t. Terrorism is too unladylike for those fancy lawyers. I’m hungry.’
‘Let’s sit down, then,’ said Harvey; they sat at the table to eat the cold supper. Harvey’s hand shook as he started to pour the wine. He stopped and looked at his hand. ‘I’m shaking,’ he said. ‘I wonder why Ruth hasn’t rung?’
Stewart took the bottle from him and poured out the wine. ‘Your nerves,’ he said.
‘She must have had her dinner and put the baby to bed by now, ‘Harvey said. ‘I’ll give it another hour, then I’m going to ring the police and find out where she is. Ernie Howe should have rung, too.’
‘Maybe she didn’t stop over in Paris. Perhaps she went straight to the airport.’
‘She should have rung. She could have been taken ill. She’s pregnant.’
‘Is she?’
‘So she says.’
The telephone rang. An inspector of police, ‘M. Gotham? — I want to let you know that Mine. Ruth Jansen has arrived in London.’
‘In London? I thought she was going to stop overnight in Paris. I’ve arranged for her to go to Canada to my —’She changed her mind.’
‘Where is she in London?’
‘I can’t tell you. Good night.’
‘If she didn’t ring you as promised,’ said Stewart the next morning, ‘and Ernie Howe didn’t ring you as promised, and if, in addition, it transpires she went to London, I should have thought you would suspect that the two were together.’
‘You think she has gone to Ernie Howe? Why should she go to him? She is pregnant by me.’