The Strange Case of the Composer and His Judge

by Patricia Duncker

  ‘Bravo! You made it. Look, I’m keeping score. Schweigen and the Composer are vying with one another to catch you first. They ring alternately, at precise intervals, like a pavane.’

  ‘For God’s sake Gaëlle, alert the switchboard. Put it on automatic response and suppress the sound. Or we’ll never get any work done.’

  * * *

  They sent out for pizza at twelve-thirty. Gaëlle chattered away in buoyant good humour.

  ‘Here, have my pepperoni. They’re too hot for me. Isn’t it a bit of a dangerous game you’re playing? Schweigen’s out of his mind with worry.’

  ‘What game?’

  ‘With the Composer.’

  ‘What game?’ The Judge fixed Gaëlle with a deadly stare, but the young woman waltzed on regardless, utterly certain of her ground.

  ‘It’s clear to me, but I don’t think Schweigen’s grasped your tactics. You’re infiltrating the group, aren’t you? The Composer almost certainly thinks that he can eventually recruit you to the collective suicidal madness. And if I were you I’d go as far as you dare. Get to meet the inner circle. You’ll probably bump into Monsieur le Procureur. I’ve always thought he was ripe for the funny farm. Then you can get his job and take me with you. We’ll have a much bigger office and two secretaries.’

  Gaëlle chomped the crusts, shook the mini-bottle of vinaigrette with unnecessary violence and then tipped it over the salad.

  ‘You’d like this mixed? I mean anybody can see that the Composer is crazy about you. And that’s perfectly understandable. Bit odd, though – you could have him arrested for fraud and murder any day now. But the fact that he worships you could be useful. You’ll be able to reel him in like Ahab’s whale.’

  ‘I didn’t know you read Melville.’

  The Judge tapped salt on to her hard-boiled egg and nibbled at the thing.

  ‘The film was on telly last night. Version originale. Entire crew of the Pequod looked like members of the Faith. Or any one of our sects for that matter – obsessed, deranged!’

  ‘So you think he’ll try to recruit me?’

  ‘Not a doubt. It’s like you said. They want people with positions in society, good jobs, influence. All that stuff.’

  Gaëlle sucked a tomato; the juice overflowed down her pale chin and stained the white skin, carefully guarded against the sun; she usually looked like a vampire. There was a long thoughtful pause, a beat in the air between them.

  ‘It’s all very murky and ambiguous. I wish I was dealing with your TV scenario,’ said the Judge, her voice suddenly anxious and sad.

  ‘But it’s always murky, isn’t it? Like being a double agent. I’d ring Schweigen if I were you. He’s still cut up about that day at the Domaine and he hasn’t seen you since.’

  ‘He’s a married man, Gaëlle.’

  The Greffière raised both pierced eyebrows, which disappeared into her stiff, lacquered fringe.

  ‘Oh, is he now? Well, what a surprise! I’d never have guessed!’ She grinned at the Judge, but her voice, drenched with irony, suggested a different outlook on the facts. Gaëlle suspected that Schweigen’s wife and son mattered more to the Judge than could ever officially be admitted, in any court.

  At two o’clock the Judge had a meeting with the local médecin légiste to discuss the case of one of the Agape victims. The unfortunate woman, suffering from terminal liver cancer, had, upon falling into the arms of the sect, refused all noxious chemical cancer treatments and plumped for the holistic, organic option of raw fruit and vegetables, fresh air and deep-breathing exercises, encircled by her loving group. The collective gathered round her bedside as she died, singing and praying, radiating a tsunami of supportive love. The family promptly prosecuted the sect for manslaughter and sued the association for compensation.

  ‘The question is: for how long would she have lived if she had continued with the conventional cancer treatment? That’s very hard to say, Dominique. Here’s the report, which gives four comparative cases, all of which concern the same kind of cancer. Her disease was terminal. She had weeks to live, not months, and if you want my candid opinion, the sect was the best thing that could have happened to her. She was accompanied in her last days by loving friends, not her hysterical, demanding relations. Believe me, I know, I had to deal with the family. They couldn’t believe she was dying, and made her do the shopping and the housework, when she could barely walk. At the end she was tranquil, serene, at peace with herself. She accepted her death. Elle est partie comme une plume. She floated away. I was there.’

  The Judge flicked through his report.

  ‘But the facts, Michel? Would she have lived any longer?’

  ‘One week? Maybe two? And so dosed up on diamorphine she’d have been a virtual vegetable. She had secondaries everywhere. She was better off with those men and women who never reproached her for leaving them.’

  ‘All right.’ The Judge sighed and signed in his report. The dossier bulged over the edge of her desk.

  ‘How’s it going with the suicide sect? Any more of them surfaced? I read the report from Strasbourg. I gather they’ve released all the bodies to the families now.’

  ‘It’s gone quiet,’ said the Judge.

  ‘Quiet?’ Gaëlle blurted out, incredulous, all her earrings rattling. ‘It erupts often enough in this office. We had their guru in here not three days ago.’

  The Judge swivelled in her chair and delivered the tiger’s glare.

  ‘Sorry!’ Gaëlle clapped both hands over her mouth. The médecin légiste got up, palms raised in surrender.

  ‘OK, OK.’ He delivered a wide smile. ‘Top Secret,’ he added in English and strolled out.

  At four the Judge checked her e-mail. They had a new Outlook system, which involved a long, flickering delay between reading the list of new messages and accessing the chosen text. The most recent message, sent at 15.57, was from Schweigen. For a long moment her fingers hovered over the keys. Schweigen continued to clamour at her door, like an angry child, menaced with desertion. The mistress is usually thought to be powerless in that tacky little theatre where the predictable drama of the betrayed wife, the married man and the other woman unfolds in continuous performance. And, usually, she is powerless. But in this case the mistress held the winning cards and knew it. Were I to demand that he should abandon his wife, his child and his career for love of me, he would not hesitate. This situation therefore represents an unacceptable risk. The consequences are unforeseeable because Monsieur le Commissaire is an unpredictable, impulsive man. He is neither prudent nor discreet; he is unnerving, dangerous. I cannot command his emotions; and I am quite unable to contain his behaviour. The married man is supposed to be the spider at the centre; cold, self-seeking, manipulative, duplicitous. André explodes like a lunatic, lets his colleagues hear everything. Suddenly she smiled. I have never made love to a man who lost himself so utterly, that complete boyish abandonment of all restraint – he doesn’t care who sees what he feels, has never cared who knows. This love comes first for him, and he will not, cannot change.

  The tiny electronic arrow settled on Schweigen’s name and the screen sprang to life.

  Dominique, I can’t get through on the phone and your mobile is switched off. They tell me you have meetings all day. Gaëlle informs me that you interviewed Friedrich Grosz again three days ago and that you will need some help from the Brigade Financière. When can I expect your report? I respect your methods and I won’t interfere. But please don’t shut me out. André

  This reasonable and moderate plea surprised and moved the Judge. She touched the box marked Reply and paused before the blank, shimmering screen.

  The internal phone vibrated on her desk.

  ‘Madame Carpentier? You have a visitor in Reception. She says you are expecting her.’

  ‘Gaëlle? Do I have another meeting?’

  ‘No, I’d have told you.’

  ‘Who is it?’ the Judge snapped at Reception.

  ‘Marie-Thérèse Laval.’r />
  There was a strange pause as the Judge hesitated, repeated the name, her eyes blank, staring at her Greffière. They do not flee from me, they seek me out.

  ‘Shall I go down and get her?’ volunteered Gaëlle.

  ‘No, I’ll go.’

  And so the Judge pressed Send and closed down her e-mail. André Schweigen, wedded to his dull screen, hundreds of miles away, received his own careful words, meticulous, edited down from the torrent of rage and loss he had first written, yes, his own words thumping back towards him, an empty electronic pulse, with a white gap of silence lodged above them, where the Judge had written nothing. He accepted this peculiar gesture like a slap across the face, and strode out to the lavatory, where one of his colleagues saw him, plunging his curiously naked head into a basin of cold water.

  Then he stormed back into his office, hammered out a very different e-mail and pressed Send without even bothering to reread the screen.

  How dare you refuse to reply to me? Expect no further cooperation from my office.

  It was ten minutes past four when the Judge negotiated the last bend on the stone staircase and stepped down into the marble corridor with the great white globes suspended above her on iron rails. The shutters stood at half-mast, so that huge white blades of afternoon sun whitened the floor at intervals. Light, dark, light. She traversed the long cool space with even strides; her gaze fixed upon the figure stretched out on a leather armchair by the columned entrance. Marie-Thérèse Laval sat with her arms folded across her stomach and her head thrown back, her bare legs extended across the white slabs. She wore soft green slippers like a Bacchic dancer, and she gazed straight upwards at the frieze of mythic figures that cantered round the ceiling. Something about the uncoiled glamorous length of her, the casual possession of all available space, the unguarded manner, and the ease with which she had settled herself in a public room suggested the aristocrat, the woman used to owning bright things, whose grace and reserve derived not from timidity, but from the languor of great houses, where all the necessary work is done by servants. Every angle of her body suggested calm and wealth. The Judge stood still in shadow, concentrated upon the image before her.

  Was it the young woman’s slenderness and elegance? Was it the way she raised one long arm above her head to steady her shoulders against the curve of her chair? Was it the way her long hair fell down over her back? Or the fact of her colours, gold, ash blonde? The resemblance was now so powerful that the Judge wondered at her own obtuse stupidity – the facts of the case now rolled towards her across the cold tiles, suggestive, ambiguous, undeniable.

  Of course. She’s his daughter. This girl is the Composer’s daughter. And although her confidence in her own intuition remained absolute, she needed to draw a hard circle around her morsel of gleaned knowledge. The second thought, barbed, suspicious, mounted in a whisper to her lips.

  ‘Who else knows?’

  * * *

  ‘Madame le Juge!’

  The formality of the girl’s greeting was quite at odds with her quick bound towards Dominique Carpentier and the ardour of her embrace. She steadied herself against the Judge, excited as a greyhound that has at last reclaimed its master.

  ‘We’re having a petite fête for the orchestra on Sunday at the Domaine. It goes on all day, lunch in the courtyard and supper later with Friedrich’s colleagues and cronies. The singers have promised a little concert. Just for us. For our pleasure. You will come, won’t you? Friedrich has begged me to intercede with you. He’s put all his trust in me as his ambassador.’

  The Judge looked up at her; she was guileless, radiant, importunate. Now Dominique could see only his face, faint as a ghost, in the young woman’s smile. Her inheritance, tenuous, yet visible, glowed like a map, lightly traced across her cheekbones, present in the lines of her mouth and the fine down beneath her ears. This is how he looked as a young man.

  ‘He could not have sent a more persuasive messenger,’ smiled the Judge. ‘Thank you. Of course, I should be delighted to come.’

  Marie-T beat out a delighted little dance of pleasure with her feet. ‘Are you free now? Can you come and have a cup of coffee with me? Oh please, just ten minutes.’

  The Judge sent a message back to Gaëlle via Reception and sallied forth into the fiery summer streets, where the leaves hung limp in the airless swirl of traffic, and spillage from the fountains evaporated at once upon the burning stones. Marie-T attached herself to the Judge’s arm, bending to hear her and to look into her face. The intimacy of this unconscious gesture and its concentrated intensity recalled the Composer’s manners even more forcibly than the likeness that shimmered before her. The Judge measured out her replies, vigilant at every word. Does she know? She calls him Friedrich, but she names him as her godfather, her guardian, the children’s legal representative. But does she know him as her father? How can she not know when it must be clear to everyone who ever sees the two of them together? She must know. In the depths of her, somewhere, she must know. And yet – the Judge was used to negotiating that abyss between knowing something and being told the truth. Now she found herself listening to a torrent of merry chatter; her secret trespass into other lives could easily remain disguised.

  ‘It’s the first time that we’ve held a big fête for lots of people without Maman, and I’m in charge. At first I was really scared, but Myriam’s backing me up with the catering and we’ll serve our own wines – starting with the apéritif de châtaignes – have you tried that? No, I’m paying for your coffee; I’ve lured you away from your work – lots of people are probably being sent to jail because you’re here with me. Would you like an Amandine? I’m going to have one. So the wine is no problem, but it’s things like the flowers. Maman set out these huge vats of flowers, all from her garden, and I don’t know when she did those, they were always dripping with fresh water. And then the benches; we hire those from the salle des fêtes, but somebody’s got to go and get them. We couldn’t find the oilcloth we use to cover the tables, and then when we did it was mouldy and smelt horrible, covered in huge spots of black fungus. So Friedrich burned the lot yesterday – clouds of stinking smoke, and we had to buy it all new. Now we’ve got lovely bright colours: yellow and blue with olives and cigales, the Germans and the Swiss love those patterns. The tables will look splendid. But I’ve got to count out all the glasses, cups, cutlery, all the plates, and make sure we’ve got enough. Maman never used paper trash or picnic plastic. It’s all good porcelain belonging to her family, and something always gets smashed. Every year. Oh, and we open the great doors into the hall. Getting the things to open is a real performance and last year we disturbed nests of giant spiders and everybody began screaming. Friedrich did too. He says he didn’t and that he doesn’t mind spiders, but he was just as full of fear and trembling as Maman and all the rest of us.’

  She paused, took in the Judge’s owl-like poise, and vast, magnified dark eyes; then burst out, gleaming with golden, satisfied joy.

  ‘I’m so pleased you’re coming. Friedrich will be overjoyed. He speaks of no one but you.’

  13

  THE FÊTE

  A hot wind scorched the mountains on the day of the fête and plucked at the shining oiled tablecloths, which flapped like sails, buckled into ridges and then flew away in the dust. Someone was sent down to the village café to borrow two-dozen plastic clips and secure them to the tables. When the Judge arrived, cautious, early, intending to stake out her ground, so that she could assess the incoming opposition, she found chaos in the courtyard, the Composer desperately wedging napkins beneath plates and Myriam standing, helpless and frantic, in a whirlpool of red earth. Two of the staff were moving the tables laden with the apéritif: glasses, olives, bowls of crisps, rolls of smoked salmon on tiny slices of toast, roasted peppers in vinaigrette, back into the Great Hall, beyond the hot fingers of the ceaseless wind.

  Myriam and the Composer saw her descending from her car at the same moment and hurtled across the courtyard in a
flurry of greetings. Myriam got there first, kissed her three times, and wailed like a child.

  ‘Ma petite chérie! Help! We need you. Nous avons besoin de toi!’

  The Composer almost slithered into them both, still clutching a festive packet of decorated yellow napkins.

  ‘Madame le Juge!’ He met her steady, unsmiling gaze, caught her hand and gently kissed her fingertips. ‘You find us one hour late in the Garden of Gethsemane. The wind is a disaster.’

  Myriam jabbered on, noticing nothing, not even the suggestive stillness between the Composer and his Judge.

  ‘Where is Marie-T?’ The Judge decided to greet her hostess first.

  ‘She’s in the kitchen. C’est la Bérézina! Did you ever see such a wind? But what shall we do? It’s so strong one of the tables is sure to blow over. And there’ll be dust in the food.’

  The Judge took command.

  ‘We’ll move the tables round to the back of the house. Further under the trees. It’s blowing from the north-west. There’ll still be a bit of wind but the tables won’t be caught by the big gusts, and when the sun comes round we’ll be in the shade. Is there a hose in the barn? We can easily lay this dust with a bit of artificial rain.’

  ‘Thank God you’ve come.’ Myriam yelled in at one of the windows. ‘Marie-T! Madame Carpentier is here and she needs someone to set up the sprinklers.’

  And so the Judge and the Composer, side by side, dressed for a wedding in their smart summer clothes, hauled tables and chairs across the courtyard, rearranging them in the shade of the great plane trees, beneath the speckled white trunks and the broad leaves, already yellowing, hardening in the heavy air of August. When Marie-T and her helpers appeared in the doorway, laden with more plates and knives, they found the guest of honour, hot and a little dusty, watering the parched earth.