The Sixth Lamentation fa-1

by William Brodrick

  Desperate and confused, Lucy grasped for an understanding of what had happened. How could the Prosecution case come to an end without evidence from Victor Brionne? What had he said to the police that was of so little value? As she threw the questions like flints around her mind the jury returned to their seats, the Crown closed their case and all eyes locked on to Schwermann who, at any moment, would make his way from the dock to the witness stand. Mr Bartlett made a few ponderous notes with his pencil. He sipped water. A collective apprehension rapidly spread throughout the court. The judge patiently waited and then, just as he opened his mouth to speak, Mr Bartlett suddenly rose, saying:

  ‘My Lord, notwithstanding the usual practice of calling the Defendant first, in this particular case I call Victor Brionne.’

  ‘What?’ said Lucy, aghast.

  Mr Lachaise leaned towards her and said in a low, strong voice, ‘Do not worry.’ With an affection tainted by anger she thought: it’s always the powerless who are most generous with their comfort.

  Victor Brionne walked through the great doors. The appearance of the man who had haunted so many lives mocked expectation. He was wholly ordinary — shortish, with a wide, laboured gait; owlish eyes, his skin dark and deeply lined — the sort of man you’d meet in the market. He took the oath. His eyes avoided the dock, and he turned only once towards the handsome man three or four seats away from Mr Lachaise. Then he faced the jury.

  Mr Bartlett constructed Brionne’s Evidence-in-Chief like a master stonemason. Both hands held each question and every expected answer was pressed slowly into position. He halted work frequently, allowing facts to settle.

  ‘Mr Brionne, you worked with Eduard Schwermann between 1941 and 1944?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You are French by birth?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You joined the Paris Prefecture of Police in June 1941, at the age of twenty-three?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘You were, however, not an ordinary policeman, in the sense that you were based at the offices of the Gestapo.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I shall spare the jury an argument as to your status. Your place of work made you a collaborator?’

  There was no reply Brionne’s lower jaw was gently shaking.

  ‘I asked if you were a collaborator. Please answer.

  Very quietly, Brionne replied, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Louder, please.’

  ‘Yes. I was a collaborator.’ The words seemed to burn his mouth.

  ‘Please tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury how you came to work with Mr Schwermann. ‘

  ‘I spoke good German. I was transferred to an SS department within weeks because they required a translator.’

  ‘And was that the extent of your “collaboration”?’ queried Mr Bartlett, slightly stressing the last word.

  ‘It was enough.’

  ‘Mr Brionne, I am now going to ask you some questions about an organisation known as The Round Table. We understand Mr Schwermann was credited with uncovering the smuggling operation. Did he ever tell you how he did it?’

  ‘Not exactly, no,’ Brionne wavered. ‘All he said was that a member of the group had told him everything.’

  ‘Did he say who this person was?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you enquire?’

  ‘I didn’t, no.

  Mr Bartlett’s voice was growing imperceptibly louder, imposing a sort of moral force on to his questions. ‘Having discovered, or perhaps I should say, having been presented with this information, what did Mr Schwermann do?’

  ‘He made a report to his superior officer.’

  ‘And the inevitable arrests followed?’

  ‘Yes, they did.’

  ‘Do you recollect the morning of the day the arrests took place?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Were you alone?’

  ‘No. I was with Mr Schwermann.’ ‘Please describe his demeanour.’

  ‘He was anxious, smoking cigarette after cigarette. ‘

  Mr Bartlett contrived mild surprise. ‘Let us be absolutely clear. Is this the day The Round Table was shattered?’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘A day for which he would later receive the praise of Eichmann?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘It should have been a time of excited apprehension for him, should it not?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.

  ‘Have you any idea, then, as to why he was so anxious?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Let’s see if we can find an answer. You knew Jacques Fougeres?’ The barrister was speaking quietly now.

  ‘We were the best of friends. The best…’ He’d become a mourner in a dream.

  ‘Mr Brionne, did Jacques Fougeres have a child?’ Lucy sat forward.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A boy or a girl?’ ‘A little boy.’

  ‘Did you know the mother?’

  ‘Yes. Agues Aubret.’

  ‘By reference to the racial regulations implemented by the Nazis, to which ethnic group did she belong?’

  ‘She was Jewish.’

  ‘And the boy?’

  ‘The same. He was Jewish.’

  ‘Even though the father was a French Catholic?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘As far as Mr Schwermann’s superior officers were concerned, the boy, if found, would unquestionably have been deported?’

  ‘Yes, unless she had forged papers to conceal her Jewishness.’ ‘Where is Agnes Aubret now?’ asked Mr Bartlett quietly ‘She perished. Auschwitz.’

  Brionne was unable to continue. His face shuddered repeatedly with such violence that the judge suggested he might like to sit down, but Mr Bartlett pressed on urgently:

  ‘And the boy, the boy; what happened to the boy?’

  ‘He was saved,’ mumbled Brionne, turning quickly to the dock. ‘Mr Schwermann took the child, before the arrests were carried out, and hid him with a good family.’

  Mr Bartlett followed through quickly and quietly, prompting fluid, hushed replies.

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘I saw it with my own eyes.

  ‘How often did the opportunity to act in this way arise?’

  ‘Just this once.

  ‘He seized it?’

  ‘He did.’

  Lucy could not bear it any more. She sidled hurriedly out of her row towards the court doors as Mr Bartlett sat down and picked up his highlighter.

  2

  The folder was sealed as if it were meant to survive the rough handling of a prying child. Max stared at the unmarked surface, the bands of brown masking tape crossing each other like planks in a garden fence. His fingers held the corners lightly, reluctantly, as if the whole might dirty him.

  Anselm had brought Max to the table beneath the wellingtonia tree after he’d arrived at Larkwood unannounced. A thick stubble dirtied his neck and cheeks. He said: ‘The day my grandfather came here, he gave me this.’ Max placed it on the table and drew his hands away. ‘He told me “You’re the only person I can trust, you always have been, but now it matters more than ever before. Keep this safe. Show it to no one. If Victor Brionne is found then bring it to me immediately If not, and I’m convicted, then I want you to burn it. But promise me this; do not open it.”‘

  Anselm’s mind tracked back to Genesis and the instruction of the Creator: not to eat the fruit of the tree that gave knowledge of good and evil. Schwermann had played God with the same rash confidence that obedience would be rendered. Max continued: ‘Yesterday, the Prosecution asked for an adjournment. In my guts I knew it was because Brionne had turned up. I’ve just heard a news bulletin. I was right. The Prosecution have closed their case. As we sit here, Brionne is giving evidence on my grandfather’s behalf. I’m meant to have brought this to court’ — he pointed at the folder — ‘but I can’t, not without knowing what’s inside.’ He pushed it towards Anselm. ‘I can’t open it. I’ve brought the one part of hi
m he did not bring to Larkwood.’

  Somewhere out of sight, one of the brothers was at work making one of the songs of spring: the unhurried scrape of sandpaper on outdoor timber, a preparation before the laying of paint. Anselm took the folder and carefully pulled it apart. He withdrew three documents held neatly together by a paper-clip. Laid on the table, their corners lifted lightly in the breeze.

  The dull blue ink had the slight blurring characteristic of print from an old typewriter. Anselm signalled to Max to come closer, to see for himself.

  The first was headed ‘Drancy-Auschwitz’. It carried a list of numbered names and was evidently a deportation register. Before Anselm could scan the entire page his eyes alighted upon a single entry:

  4. AUBRET, Agnes 23.3.1919 Francaise

  The lower right-hand corner had been signed by Victor Brionne — representing, presumably, either the compilation of the list or confirmation of its execution. Anselm turned it over and saw the faded smudge of ink around the indentations of lettering: the list had been typed upon a carbon sheet. This was the original. Somewhere there was a duplicate. It was an irrelevant detail that nonetheless attached itself to Anselm’s concentration.

  Anselm turned to the second document. It was another Drancy-Auschwitz convoy list, a block of names. The dates of birth caught his eye. He stared at distant trees, carrying out a spontaneous horrified calculation. They were all children. Each was marked off as though safely accounted for on a last school trip. And there, near the top of the page, Anselm saw what he half expected to see: a boy called Aubret, aged fifteen months, French, and in the margin a broad, unwavering tick. Again, the paper was signed by Victor Brionne. Instinctively he glanced at its back. Curiously, the page was clean, without the marks of carbon.

  Anselm turned quickly to the third sheet. It was an SS memorandum dated 8th June 1942 and appeared to be an interrogation record. Although Anselm could not understand German, the term ‘Judenkinder’ was nauseatingly clear. There was a sub-heading in French within quotation marks, ‘La Table Ronde’. Beneath it was a list of names, roughly a dozen, two of which he recognised: Agnes Aubret and Jacques Fougeres. The bottom of the page carried the signature of Victor Brionne. He turned it over. Once more it was clean, an original text.

  Anselm’s pulse raced in disgust. He put the documents back in the folder. The questions sprang forward: why had Schwermann kept these at all… and why had he retained original records, leaving behind a duplicate only in the case of Agnes Aubret?

  ‘Max,’ said Anselm. ‘Your grandfather has prepared for this trial, right from the start, even before he knew the outcome of the war. These show that Brionne was involved in the betrayal of The Round Table and the deportation system… with those papers you hold your grandfather’s life in your hands.’

  Max was blinking rapidly He said in a detached, failing voice, ‘He must be blackmailing Brionne. Whatever Brionne is saying to the court will be a fairy tale… agreed between them fifty years ago.

  ‘I’m afraid you’re right.’

  The soft song of spring played on: the scraping over dry, rough wood. Max bit his lip and said, ‘Before I go to the police… I’ll have to prepare my family, my mother…

  ‘Would you like me to come with you?’ asked Anselm.

  ‘Yes.’ The word was barely spoken.

  Anselm didn’t want to say what was pressing upon his mind but he had no choice:

  ‘Max, I don’t want to make things worse but there isn’t much time — you need to speak to the police as soon as possible. The Prosecution will need what you now possess.’

  3

  ‘Mr Brionne,’ said Miss Matthews stonily, ‘you have been very public-spirited, coming forward, it would seem, without any outside compulsion.’

  Lucy had slipped back through the court doors to find Mr Penshaw seated and the young woman barrister on her feet.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Miss Matthews with curiosity, ‘when did you first discover the Defendant had taken refuge in a monastery?’

  ‘On the news.

  ‘That would be April of 1995, a year ago,’ calculated the barrister. ‘And you made no effort to contact the police?’ She firmly drew out each word.

  Brionne turned to the judge, as if for help. Mr Justice Pollbrook stared back dispassionately

  ‘When did you first discover the Defendant had been formally arrested?’

  ‘I… I’m not sure, perhaps it was… er…’ ‘Let me help you. On the news?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘That was in mid-August 1995, four months later?’ ‘All right, yes.’

  ‘Yet you made no effort to contact the police. Why?’ Once again Brionne floundered, like a man with a map he could not understand.

  Miss Matthews pressed remorselessly forward. ‘When did you learn the Defendant had actually been charged with murder?’

  ‘I think it was the next month.’

  ‘You are right. Yet you made no effort to contact the police. Why?’

  ‘I can’t explain…’

  ‘Why not? It strikes me that you have closely followed this case from the day the Defendant fled his home to the day this trial commenced. Is that so?’

  ‘I have, yes.’

  ‘Yet it is only at the last hour you come riding into court to tell us what you know Why now?’

  Brionne lowered his head, unable or refusing to answer. Miss Matthews patiently leafed through some papers. She looked up and said without a trace of sympathy:

  ‘Are you frightened of someone, Mr Brionne?’

  Still there was no response.

  ‘Mr Schwermann, perhaps?’

  Brionne became totally still. He held on to the sides of the witness box, controlling his breathing. But he would not speak.

  ‘All right, Mr Brionne, if you won’t reply we’ll move on, said Miss Matthews contentedly ‘When you finally presented yourself to the police a few days ago, after the trial had begun, you related only one great incident of heroism on the part of the Defendant. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nothing about round-ups, internment centres, deportations or death camps. Correct?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Just one, brief, glittering moment when a boy’s life was spared, like Moses against the orders of Pharaoh?’

  Lucy wanted to cry out: pick up the convoy sheets in front of you. The boy’s name must be there. Please, please, look now

  ‘I’m sorry but it’s the truth,’ Brionne said purposefully.

  ‘Is it indeed?’ Miss Matthews suddenly shifted direction to the dirty underside of the rescue story. Mr Bartlett showed no trace of surprise.

  ‘You proclaim he saved a boy from certain death at Auschwitz?’

  ‘That’s what I’ve said.’

  ‘Then tell me this. Can this jury safely conclude that SS-Unterscharfuhrer Schwermann knew “deportation to the East” meant one thing, and one thing only: brutal execution?’

  Brionne started, caught off-balance by the question.

  She’s trapped him, thought Lucy as Miss Matthews said, with icy detachment:

  ‘Either the Defendant separated a boy from his mother for no reason, or he knew about the machinery of death. Which is it?’

  Without forcing a reply the interrogator drew a slow line across a page, watching him all the while. Then she sat down, leaving Brionne with his head bowed.

  Lucy smiled to herself, her heart racing. Miss Matthews had learned a neat ploy from Mr Bartlett: the strange power of a well-placed, otherwise empty gesture.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  1

  The curved timber-frames and weatherboards of the cottage would have been simply captivating but for the wide splattering of red paint. It had soaked into the wood and plaster and would not be hidden, despite attempts to scrub it away This was the home of Sylvia Nightingale, lying by the banks of a river that ran through Walsham-le-Willows, a village thirty miles or so from Larkwood. Anselm drove there on a
Friday morning, the day after his meeting with Max, the folder of documents on the seat beside him.

  Before leaving Anselm had thought of making photocopies but didn’t. The notion of duplicating the names of the dead seemed somehow irreverent, an act of trespass. Listening to the radio during the short journey, Anselm learned the court would not be sitting until the afternoon owing to Bartlett having asked for time to confer with his client. That, thought Anselm, was an answer to a prayer he had not made. Once the ordeal of the morning was over, he, or the family could call the police, and that would prompt another more significant adjournment.

  Max had already arrived when Anselm was shown into the cluttered, homely sitting room. The daubing had occurred two nights ago, explained Mrs Nightingale. It didn’t reflect the attitude of the community for it was almost certainly the act of an outsider. Probably drunk, just a one-off, the police had said, trying to bring reassurance to the terror thrown upon the victim. Their words had brought no comfort. Fear had settled into a rigid mask. She was heavily made up, a crafted brave face, displaying everything she wanted to hide. Rebuffing words of sympathy from Anselm, she was an absurd, pitiable folly of strength. Her hair, wound into a bun, had begun to slip free. The comfortable disarray of things in the lounge suggested the unexpected suspension of a busy life.

  ‘Charity work,’ she said, pointing towards a pile of leaflets, ‘until they said it was better if I didn’t help any more. I’ve become an embarrassment. ‘

  The three of them sat as a triangle, reminding Anselm of a parish visit after a death but before the funeral. He explained, as sensitively as he could, the issues faced by the court, concluding with the revelation that Max had been entrusted with a folder of crucially important documents. Mrs Nightingale looked at her son, astounded, becoming angry.

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything, to me at least?’

  Max said, ‘He made it sound as though the truth could only come out if no one knew anything about his secret.’

  ‘Listen to yourself, that’s utter nonsense.