The Black Laurel

by Storm Jameson

  He looked at Arnold with a sharp smile.

  “He won’t be buried with a more indecent haste than Rechberg’s file will — now that Brett has been dropped overboard.”

  “Has he?”

  In the same calmly mocking voice, Renn said,

  “Yes. His own fault. He stuck out his neck when he chose to annoy a man who is not at the moment able to defend himself, but has kind high-powered friends who will. Or one friend — which is enough.”

  The young man had dropped his air of indifference. His eyebrows rose in a stubborn and frankly ashamed stare.

  “You said Kalb got a fair trial,” he muttered. “After all. . . what could Gary have done?”

  If, Renn thought ironically, he persists in believing in his dear Gary, he will be safe, prosperous, everything I’m not. Why disturb him? Am I a corruptor of youth? Why? He did not believe in the purity of his own motives.

  “He could have taken him out of the pack. The evidence was entirely circumstantial. Anywhere but in an occupied country it mightn’t have been thought good enough to behead a man. Unluckily — for little Kalb — no one was interested in saving him. I mean, no one who could save him.”

  He hesitated: his colourless face was unmoving, apart from the fold of bitterness at the corners of his eyes. Arnold waited.

  “If you have the patience to look — and don’t mind being made uncomfortable — you’ll see that in any society where some men are of no importance, the only justice these get is the cheap legal sort. You can’t separate justice and freedom. Kill one, the other dies. And now. . . when power can be concentrated, when all minds can be made to think the same terrified or greedy or anxious thoughts, with the threat of annihilation hanging over every living soul. . . freedom becomes a luxury — and so does justice.”

  He smiled and moved his tongue quickly across his lips:

  “Kalb might have been better off if Gerlach hadn’t taken his case up — and got it too widely talked about.”

  “Why did he?”

  Renn shrugged his shoulders.

  “Who knows? Some sort of showing-off, perhaps.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Arnold said shortly.

  He meant: I’m not interested — hardly even in Kalb. He began to walk about the room. Why did I come here? he asked himself. To be reassured. What nonsense!. . . Abruptly, he stood still in front of Renn, who had been watching him in silence.

  “What can we do about it all, David?”

  Renn felt a terrible lassitude and indifference. There’s nothing I want to do any longer; I’m too old, he thought. Too tired. I want to live quietly and think — or not think. He remembered Kalitin — your own miserable soul!

  Arnold had picked up the revolver lying on the table, and was pretending to examine it.

  “Do you think we’re done for, then?” he said indistinctly. “I mean us — the English?”

  “I think Europe is done for. . . It could happen, of course — since we’re free to do it — that we put a bullet, I mean an atomic bullet, through all our heads at once. We’re not condemned now to have a future. . . But I don’t believe it will happen like that. More likely, much more likely, frightened men will ask Gary to cherish them. But security isn’t life, cheap television sets aren’t joy. Patient, bored, the English will let themselves grow older and childless. They’ll be overlaid by peoples who aren’t tired. By the Russians. And after them, in a score of centuries, the Chinese. After that — perhaps something new will come out of America. Why not? The rats of culture are already leaving us to go there.”

  Arnold looked at him, for the first time, directly in the eyes.

  “Yes, yes, what are we going to do about it?”

  Smiling with bitterness, Renn said,

  “I shall go into a monastery.”

  “Is that all?”

  He did not answer. Arnold went on looking at him, with an almost friendly contempt.

  “Haven’t you any curiosity left?” he asked.

  “Good God, no.”

  After a moment, the young man said mockingly,

  “Everyone isn’t old and in despair, you know.”

  “True.”

  Laying the revolver down on the table, Arnold walked to the door. He turned.

  “I can’t think why you go on living,” he said calmly.

  He went out, closing the door so carelessly that it fell open again at once. In a fury of irritation, Renn got up and slammed it.

  He decided to go to the office. It was five o’clock. When he came into the outer room Vinden looked up, surprised: he was going to speak; he changed his mind quickly and bent his head again over his papers. Renn went into his room, to his desk, lit a cigarette, and tried to work.

  No use. He was tormented by his failure. Closing his eyes, he saw the child’s listless hand letting fall the card. . . In the same instant of despair, from a depth below it, below the dryness, a jet, a thin cold jet, sprang in him, a belief against belief, a reason against reason, that the darkness lying close ahead was not a death; not the death of men, but another of Europe’s unwearying beginnings, another creation, as flawed, as under sentence, as humble, as superb.

  And I? he thought. I, David Renn. Childless. . . His life, since it emerged from childhood, to this moment — a chain of tactless clumsy blunders, the mistakes of a man raging with ambitions he had not the ruthlessness, or the fineness, to fulfil, a rebel too subtle to make revolt the meaning of his life, an honest traitor, a man without confidence or love. Above all, he thought, futile. . . Now that he was no longer young — now that, whatever hatred he felt against the assassins of human happiness, and pity for their victims, he would do nothing actively about it — what work could he do? Was there a life he could live that had any meaning? Was there anything, any belief, he could accept? He felt a frightful dryness and sickness. . . If you had not found Me, you would not be seeking Me, he thought: and said softly, “No, it’s a lie.”

  When this war broke out, he had been on the point of giving up his secondary (but hadn’t it become his chief?) profession as a police spy — he preferred, in thinking about it, to use the crudest terms. However disguised, as necessary, as difficult, even dangerous, it was horrible. He knew, too, what instincts were at work in him through it.

  He decided to apply for his release.

  A parenthesis — sixteen years of his life — was closed. He felt himself naked. I shall be free, he thought. Free to jump over a cliff, to live as I like, to refuse all obligations; free to obey my own laws. The laws of my own being, he thought with irony. Splendid. What are my laws, what, in its dry desert, is my being?. . . A light, blinding him, filled his eyes and the space behind his eyes. His one chance of becoming other than he had made himself lay in withdrawing from the world. And why not? No one depended on him: not a soul. . . He felt an immense, an overwhelming joy.

  Vinden’s drawling voice, from the doorway, startled him. He looked up.

  “Sorry, sir, to disturb you. The German who was here before — Gerlach — has asked to see you. Shall I send him away?”

  He hesitated.

  “Yes. No, send him in.”

  He had forgotten how small and thin Rudolf Gerlach was. Or had he shrunk? His features were sharper. He walked with a stiff jaunty lightness. Although it was not cold yet, he was wearing an officer’s overcoat; Renn had the nonsensical idea that he had fastened himself into it to keep from collapsing inwards.

  “What do you want?”

  A reflection of his always charming smile crossed Gerlach’s lips — bloodless. He made an effort to speak, without being able to get out a word. Abruptly he held out his gloved artificial hand. An envelope lay crumpled in it. He had the expression of an idiot.

  Renn did not take the letter.

  “What is it?”

  Silence. Has he been drinking? Renn wondered. His rigidity and pallor, the weak smile, could be the end of a debauch.

  “Don’t stand there like a fool,” he said sharply. “If y
ou have anything to say, say it. If not, get out.”

  “I have written my confession,” Gerlach said at last, in a polite voice: “if you wouldn’t mind reading it. And I am not drunk.”

  He dropped the envelope on the table. The sheet of note-paper inside was the other half of this morning’s anonymous letter; it was the same handwriting, the same un-English English. When he came to write it, the young man’s fluent and almost too correct speech became translated into the stammerings of a foreigner.

  It began: I, Rudolf Otto Gerlach, wish to bring a statement that I helped killing my uncle, Dr Lucius Gerlach. . .

  With a corner of one eye on the stiff puppet-like figure, Renn read it through.

  He became cool, almost with a feeling of satisfaction. He did not speak at once. On reflection, he was less satisfied. This new trial would be extremely boring and unpleasant. An intense irritation seized him. . . Why didn’t the young idiot, ruined as he was, kill himself and leave the confession — so that we could have had the confession without a trial?. . .

  He said drily,

  “I shall have to arrest you.”

  Gerlach said nothing. The glimmering smile might have been nailed on his face. Renn stood up, to go into the outer room and speak to Vinden about it. His revolver was lying out on the desk; he stretched his hand for it; then, with a half-formed and deliberate impulse, left it. There is still a chance, he thought.

  He closed the door between the rooms. Vinden was not in the outer room. He waited: listened. A minute. . . The disquieting thought sprang in him that Gerlach must, of course he must, have lied when he was talking about Kalb in London. It’s no use now, but I’ll ask him, he thought urgently. He turned to go back. The noise of the shot passed through him.

  Vinden ran in: his forced air of calm changed, when he saw Renn, into relief.

  “What —?”

  “All right. It’s all right,” Renn said irritably.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Arnold waited in the library to see Gary. In London, he had decided, almost coldly, two things: for no one else in the world would he give up flying; he was willing to give it up now, because, when he became Gary’s pilot, what he had accepted was less a job than a man. It was his imagination which had decided on Gary. It decided again now. Not, he thought calmly, as with Edward or any other sensible person it would be, for the sake of a career and a brilliant life. Simply, and with an eager certainty, for him.

  At this moment everything, in his head and his heart, was in frightful confusion. Why was it only now that he realised how much, by way of excuse for his devotion, he had placed on Gary’s promise to save Kalb? Even now, he did not know why it was important. The restless dismay he felt, the absurd bitter sense of betrayal, stupefied him.

  His dismay itself vexed him. Everyone, he thought abruptly, is rotten; Edward, Gary. No doubt I am, too. Everyone — except cranks like David and honest gross mediæval egocentrics like Brett. Better be rotten than a crank or a fool. . . He revolted against this as he thought it — with an instinctive and nearly physical nausea, like a child refusing to swallow oil.

  He would not let himself think that there might be a good reason why Gary had not kept his promise. Obscurely, in an ashamed way, he hoped. What difference, either side, did it make? You are not going to change your mind again, he thought, coldly, merely because. . . because what?

  Walking over to the window, he pressed his forehead on the glass. He had been waiting in the room for more than an hour. Outside, it was almost dark; a wavering incandescence behind them turned the trees between house and lake into a bluish smoke. A girl, one of the servants, or the daughter of one of them, perhaps — he had not seen her before — came from the side of the house and stood at the edge of the terrace, looking towards the lake. She had her back to him. It was a straight very thin back; she had dark hair, and for a second she reminded him of Lise. His heart stopped beating; he gripped the edge of the window for support.

  Gary came in. Smiling, he asked,

  “Did you have a good trip?”

  He pulled himself together, mumbled two words, and handed over the papers he had brought. Gary laid them down without glancing at them.

  “Did you enjoy yourself in London?”

  “Yes, sir.” He hesitated, bitterly ashamed of his indecision, and said, “Couldn’t you do anything about Kalb?”

  Gary frowned.

  “Kalb?” he repeated in an indifferent and weary voice. “I didn’t try. One Boche more or less is hardly important, and I was busy.”

  With a deep shock, the young man realised that there was nothing forced, no pretence, in this callousness: it was the simple, perhaps involuntary, betrayal of Gary’s indifference to people, his cold limitless indifference. . . People are the things he uses; he would use me — though kindly. . . Become ridiculous, his devotion slid through his fingers, without an effort, like sand. The only effort he had to make was a familiar one — puerile enough — to speak distinctly.

  “You said: Leave Kalb to me.”

  A gleam of irritation or rage crossed Gary’s face. Arnold stiffened himself against the outburst he expected. It did not come; Gary said nothing, and his expression changed to an amused gentleness and curiosity.

  A servant came into the room and said that Baron von Rechberg was asking to see him. He hesitated, said,

  “Very well, send him up.”

  Turning to Arnold, he said gently,

  “I’ll get rid of him. Wait in your room, I shan’t keep him long.”

  Rechberg, clearly, was no longer the broken and contrite sinner needing help. With his nerves he had recovered, too, the smile which served him so well in his dealings with men who had found the elder Rechberg an offensive brute. Gary felt an impulse of dislike, and asked coldly what he wanted.

  “Only, if you allow me, to remind you of your promise,” Rechberg said, smiling. “You hoped to get me permission to go abroad, and —”

  As if he were speaking to a clerk or an importunate bore, Gary interrupted.

  “Why are you in such a hurry?”

  No change in Rechberg’s face, but — it was curious to watch — the blood rose into his enormous papery ears, as though they were fed by a separate set of veins.

  “My Swedish and American colleagues need me,” he said.

  From malice, only from malice, Gary said,

  “At the moment, it’s not possible.”

  His tone roused in the other a bitter resentment.

  “Do you,” he asked coldly, “expect me to keep my side of the bargain?”

  “What bargain? I don’t bargain.”

  Rechberg was silent.

  Now, Gary thought. Now spring it on him. The thing he had been trying during an hour to find a place for in his mind — it must find its place quickly, or be rejected — shaped itself in him like a knife. Leaning forward to use it on Rechberg, he asked,

  “Did you or didn’t you know that Lucius has been killed?”

  In a blank voice, Rechberg murmured,

  “What? What did you say?”

  “His nephew has confessed.”

  Rechberg was not able to compose his face quickly enough; the heavy movement of his eyelids, instantly checked, gave away an emotion that was not horror: it was anxiety or recognition. Controlling himself, Gary said,

  “Don’t be alarmed. You’re not involved — or if you are you were left out of the confession.”

  After a minute Rechberg said, coldly,

  “It’s a very great shock. I’m shocked, grieved. As soon as possible, I shall have a mass said for him. . . He was a good man — if you like, a saint. He was not wise, not, if I may say so, a saint his country could look to in its trouble. My cousin was one of those men, fortunately rare — far more dangerous than any criminal, than any murderer, even, if it’s not cruel to say so — who would let all our people die rather than give up one of the abstractions he clung to. He gave them superb names, of course. They were none the less fatal. .
. No doubt you came up against it yourself with him. In this world — I say simply, in this world — it’s possible to be just and honest to the point of becoming a mortal danger to other men. Don’t you agree?”

  He paused, looked at Gary, and said, with a sharp smile,

  “I see you do agree with me about him, poor Lucius.”

  Gary was silent. He reminded himself that he needed Rechberg. Later he would be able to do without him, he could eliminate him, but for the time he needed him; instead of delaying his journey to New York he ought to have pushed it forward, without being asked. . . It was useless. His thoughts slid and broke. The anguish he felt when he thought of Lucius was not grief; it was a much stronger feeling than grief, and now inseparable from the hatred flowing through him for Rechberg and Rechberg’s voice. He hated the other man personally and as Boche. The impulse to punish contracted the muscles of his hands; he clasped them behind his back.

  In an ironical voice, he said,

  “What you mean is that you don’t forgive him for being incorruptible. You. . . you see yourself as a Talleyrand playing off East against West. A Talleyrand without genius or any feeling for Europe — I say nothing about your feeling for your estate — leaves only the scoundrel. . .”

  He stopped. Everything, he realised coldly, was on the point of collapse: he must either apologise humbly to Rechberg and soothe him, or let him go out of the room as an irreconcilable enemy — at the moment a helpless one, but not indefinitely, not even, perhaps, for long. His mind became a cold vortex of rage and hate. He went on quietly,

  “. . . and the thief — though I don’t know that Talleyrand stole, did he?”

  Rechberg was already turning to go away. He looked back and said,

  “I can’t be sorry that we understand — I say simply, understand — each other at last.”

  He watched Arnold come into the room. Something in the young man’s face, an air of sullen refusal, struck him. For less than a second he felt his own youth. How our youth torments us, he thought; how we regret it, how inconceivable it is! Trapped, he did not speak.