Adam Gould

by Julia O'Faolain

  ‘The director wouldn’t like talk of suicide.’

  ‘No.’ Adam raised a hand to steady himself against a rafter. There was no barrier to stop anyone falling off.

  ‘He was out when Tassart was here. Luckily.’

  Adam asked: ‘Was this yesterday?’ He guessed it must have been because he had seen Tassart shortly after Guy’s lost ‘manuscript’ turned up. A maid, finding the dog-eared sheaf behind a cupboard in the billiard room, had recognized the foolscap on which the writer had spent his first days here scribbling, and brought it to Adam. Inky bladders, dark with afterthoughts, crammed its margins. One said: ‘I am flickering out like a lamp without oil.’ The smudged paper had been worn furry.

  Finding Tassart posted outside Guy’s door, Adam pressed the sheaf into his hands.

  The valet stared at its scribbles, read the words ‘I’m flickering out’, and said, ‘If this is a signal, he’s past meaning it. Leave him alone.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Tassart drew a strip of pasteboard the size of a bookmark from his pocket and held it up. ‘He called me “Adam” just now.’ Shrugging, ‘He mixes people up. Poor Monsieur! He knows that the doctors are doctors, but not which one is which. Ditto for the rest of us. “Don’t tell François,” he told me when asking me – whom he took for you – for some “help” which you seem to have promised. It’s not hard to guess what sort of help. “François,” he said, “stopped me last time and he’d do it again.” Well, I would. Read this.’

  It was the strip of pasteboard. Stacked on it, one word above the other, like print on a sauce-bottle label, was the statement, ‘I refuse to survive myself.’

  Tassart plucked it back from Adam’s fingers. ‘That’s two years old and was written in a black moment. He had a lot of those, poor Monsieur Guy! I sometimes thought that it was to keep his demons off as much as anything that he liked to have women around. Not that he wasn’t hot for them in between times. He cheered up after he’d written that, so when I found it I hid it. Maybe he’ll cheer up again. If he’s allowed to! But suicide tempts him.’ Tassart nodded. ‘He was fond of saying that he had “burst into literary life like a meteor and would go out like lightning”. Those were his words. Always the same ones! Working himself up! I used to worry when I’d hear him say them and had no way – or only small ways – of taking his mind off killing himself. He’s right to think I’d stop him if I could. But how can I if he won’t see me?’

  ‘Maybe he will if you give him this.’ Adam handed over the wadded-up papers.

  So Tassart took them into Guy’s room from which, Belcastel now reported, he was soon ejected. ‘It seems his master is suffering from that hallucination he gets – auto-what?’

  ‘Autoscopie?’

  ‘Yes. When he saw the valet holding the manuscript, he took him for a vision of himself and began shrieking that this self was looking at him with contempt. Tassart had to leave. He kept the papers which, he says, record your promise to his master.’ Belcastel swung his feet out of the hammock, heaved his weight onto them and stretched his limbs. ‘It strikes me that the sooner you and I leave here the better.’

  ‘Are you telling me not to help Guy die?’

  ‘Do you need to be told?’ The priest’s tone was sharp. ‘I imagine that what poor Guy hoped not to survive was his dignity, but now he has. So any promise you may have made ...’

  ‘I’m not sure I made one.’

  ‘There you are then. Anyway, how could a promise bind you now? Who would keep you to it? Not Guy! Nor God. God is against suicide. The taking and giving of life is His prerogative.’

  Adam said nothing.

  The monsignor buttoned on his oilskin coat. ‘I’m in no position to give advice. I suppose my new project could be described as helping the monarchist party to commit suicide. Sorry. Too flippant. A human being’s death is a great deal more serious. Though, barring a miracle ... Ah, I said I wouldn’t preach. We’d best get back. Father de Latour is coming for lunch. We mustn’t show long faces or he’ll think he’s picked the wrong man to run his new paper.’

  Wet surfaces glinted as the two picked their way past muddied lettuces, around the house and in by a side door.

  ‘The director was looking for you,’ Adam was told while they hung up their coats. ‘He needs you to speak English to someone.’

  The monsignor turned to look at the front garden. ‘Isn’t that Madame d’Armaillé down there? She must have come with Latour.’

  ***

  Danièle had been shown to the room which would be hers by a nurse who told her where to put her things, promised to help her settle in properly later, then excused herself and raced off. There was a crisis with which she had to help. Danièle did not grasp its nature. Meanwhile she, the awed nurse told her as she left, was to take lunch in the director’s dining room in less than half an hour.

  ‘With Monsieur le Directeur. And his guests. You’ll hear the gong.’

  Nurses, it seemed, ate somewhere else. So what was Danièle? Realizing only now that her status could give trouble, she thought of the troubles others had suffered because of theirs. Among them was the princesse de Lamballe, who had once owned this house and whose elegant head had ended on a pike. Ninety-nine years ago! A martyr, thought Danièle, and fingered a red silk thread which she was wearing around her neck. In the past, women in families like hers had worn threads like this in memory of guillotined ancestors. Her own mother sometimes had, and today Danièle was wearing hers in memory of her mother. She had come upon it while packing her things after the scene with Uncle Hubert, and, on impulse, put it on: a gesture of family piety and remorse.

  Poor, darling Uncle Hubert! She had not meant to mortify or hurt him. Indeed, no sooner had she made a stand by declaring her determination to come back to Paris to work in this maison de santé – sorry, uncle, but her mind was made up! – than she was tempted to stay with him in Brussels. She itched to throw pliant arms around him and kiss and make peace.

  She did not, though. It would have undone whatever good she had achieved by being firm. Instead, she claimed to have an irresistible vocation to be a nurse and pointed out that he, anyway, might quite soon be travelling through Africa on behalf of the Belgian king. There was serious talk of this. He might make all their fortunes – his, hers and Philibert’s, about whom he would, besides, be able to keep constantly informed! As the king’s representative, Uncle Hubert’s position would be both safer and more exalted than those of the officers in the Force Publique.

  ‘If I stayed here I’d be holding you back,’ she had argued. ‘Don’t you see that my plan is really quite practical? You’d worry if I were alone.’

  His answer was to look her gravely in the eye and say that he would joyfully give up any position, however lucrative, if she needed him. Delicately, starting at the back of her neck, he ran the tip of a slim finger around her throat, and smiled.

  For moments neither said anything.

  She went to her room.

  Alone in her slightly down-at-heel, damask-hung bedroom – in Brussels she and he stayed with Belgian cousins – she was obliged to lie down. A fit – what else could it be called? – swept through her, and her pulses leaped. She shivered all over, and her teeth chattered. She thought of the catch in fishermen’s baskets: silver scales glistening, flame-shaped bodies thrashing, just as hers was doing now. She wasn’t alarmed, although she had never heard of the like happening to anyone before. She guessed, though, that the nerves which she had controlled so sternly while Uncle Hubert made his appeal were seeking a release. It wasn’t painful. If anything, it was a relief to let her baffled body be and to feel no responsibility for its leaps and twitches. In the days when people believed in demons she might have thought herself possessed.

  Oddly, much of what Uncle Hubert had said about himself could be applied to what was happening to her. He had spoken of the brimming up of natural needs and of how such brimmings sometimes found outlets which, though unorthodox, we
re fulfilling. In among his obscure and obscurely reproachful appeals – instinctively, she kept throwing them off course – came reminders of his affection for herself and her dead mother, of his loyalty, family feeling, pride of caste, fidelity, integrity, solidarity and general good intentions. Holy, holy, holy, she thought sarcastically, then grew ashamed of her sarcasm, and began to pity Uncle Hubert whose excitable state must be due – he had hinted – to recent betrayals by former friends and allies. He had had news too, he now confided, of a lady whom he had known long ago in Rome and who had recently died. He felt, Danièle learned, that he had been unkind to the deceased and had wasted both their chances of happiness. Lack of generosity could ruin lives. One saw such things too late.

  ‘I was too rigid,’ he lamented, ‘intolerant, cruel and young!’

  Young?

  The words hung in the air.

  Did he mean them to apply to her? Don’t ask, she told herself, then saw, with a throb of secret hilarity, that what she had better be was just that: rigid, intolerant and, yes, maybe cruel! Her hilarity worried her. Might it be hysteria?

  ‘I’m going back to Paris,’ she decided. ‘I’ll travel with Father de Latour who is leaving in some days. I know you don’t like his opinions, but he’ll be a safe companion.’

  Uncle Hubert gave in. Potent loyalties kept him in Brussels where Zouave veterans, gathering like starlings, were blackening each other’s skies with chatter about the misadventures, schemes, deaths, and in one or two cases, amazing good fortune of former friends and comrades. As most of them these days were mercenaries of a sort, their life spans were apt to be short. This drew survivors close, which was why Uncle Hubert might well, thanks to their networks and connections, have landed a splendid appointment. If he had, it was a piece of sheer, unearned luck. For he had not – his niece guessed – come here to intrigue, but rather to join in the bittersweet hobnobbing which he and his fellows had not enjoyed for twenty-two years. Where and on what pretext could they have met? Papal Rome no longer existed. Republican Paris was uncongenial. Besides, the years had scattered them. Some had signed up to fight in the Americas, some in Africa. One or two had married landed widows and settled down. But working with a Catholic king to fight Arab slavers and possibly make their own fortunes in the process – there was an exhilarating goal. Like old hunting dogs sniffing a gamey breeze, they had found a new lease of life.

  Danièle needn’t worry. Uncle Hubert was in his element.

  So here she now was, almost carefree, in the wet, glittery garden of the maison de santé, fingering her commemorative neck thread and feeling contrite about having slipped too quickly from her uncle’s embrace at the Brussels railway station. She had dreaded some sort of display. But he, to his credit, had managed to appear unruffled. Both, she hoped, would in time be glad of the oblivion to which the small episode could be consigned, like an unusable trousseau to a cupboard. What Uncle Hubert wanted of her could not be right.

  His ferment, though, had affected her. If he, aged forty-two, was admitting to having once wasted his chances, what about her? Women could hardly wait to be forty-two to find their element. Arguments against Danièle’s seeking hers could be summed up by the name Philibert. But concern about him was mixed with impatience. A recent letter from her elder brother showed that he felt the same way. Gérard did not plan to marry until he was in a position to settle down. To do so would not, he explained, be fair to his fiancée. Perhaps, thought his sister, he had forgotten to whom he was writing.

  We wait too long in our family, it struck her. We think we’re wild, but we’re as thrifty as petty shopkeepers – only what we save up are our lives. Again she fingered the vivid thread on her neck. Saving up your life was like saving bread: it could grow stale before you enjoyed it.

  Bright drops hung from the wrought-iron railings by the garden steps. The gate on the other side of the house – also wrought-iron – on which Uncle Hubert had got stuck was, according to Father de Latour, an example of the purest eighteenth-century craftsmanship. Chatting on the train journey here, the priest had talked about the maison de santé where he had lately taken to visiting Monseigneur de Belcastel, about its past, its architecture and what he had been told about Maupassant’s attacks of autoscopie. Odd, wasn’t it, he marvelled, that seeing himself should cause a man so much horror? Did self-sightings materialize the act of examining one’s conscience?

  It struck Danièle that this busy chit-chat must be designed to throw her off some scent. Which one? Hadn’t Uncle Hubert mentioned rumours of trouble in the Congo? A blink of fear passed through her.

  ‘Please, Father, has there been news?’

  Latour told her that the last batch of letters had been so delayed by events that their news was quite out of date when they arrived. Word was, though, that a fresh consignment had reached the White Fathers’ mother house in Paris where they would be kept until the information in them could be pooled.

  Delayed by what events? What had happened?

  Latour promised to go straight to the mother house on reaching Paris. If there were letters there from the Upper Congo, where the Force Publique was now thought to be, he would bring them to luncheon at the maison de santé. Whoever was bound for home was entrusted with letters. But she mustn’t be too hopeful. Often, he warned, those from outlying stations had to wait so long for such a courier that when they reached their destination, the sender was dead. Communications with the Independent State of the Congo had grown harder since King Leopold started discouraging French missionaries.

  ‘He got the pope to agree that if enough Belgian priests could be found, we should hand over to them. Leopold fears French influence and may even be wary of Cardinal Lavigerie’s anti-slavery campaign. I seem to remember,’ the priest said slyly, ‘that your uncle’s family is part-Belgian?’

  Danièle was disconcerted. Uncle Hubert called Latour le Père Tartuffe.

  ***

  Her skirt brushed and broke off the rain-soaked heads of some delicately pleated red poppies. Gathering up the least damaged, she tried to recall what Uncle Hubert had said about the king’s having collaborated with Arab traders until Cardinal Lavigerie’s influence made this difficult. It was confusing. How could the king collaborate with slave-traders while promising to stop that trade? Well, it seemed he no longer could, but that changing allies had left some of his officers perilously exposed. Two who had been residing at the headquarters of one of the Arab leaders had – what? Nobody knew. It was while trying to reassure her about this that Uncle Hubert first became emotional.

  The cousin with whom they had been staying in Brussels thought the talk of bringing civilization to Africans had one aim only: to boost the sales of Congo Loan premium bonds. What was more, the Congo didn’t even belong to Belgium! It was the king’s. A private fief. Run for profit. The cousin was critical.

  ‘Some,’ he mocked, ‘see it as “a testing ground for gallantry”, et patatati et patata. Such phrases fly around. “Free from the canker of money” is another. Recruiting-officer’s patter. You may think me cynical, Hubert, but, if you will forgive my saying so, a little cynicism would do you no harm!’ The cousin had flashed a mollifying smile at Uncle Hubert, then taken a moment to fill his pipe. ‘We all admire your élan and courage,’ he said, without looking at him, and struck a match. ‘You’re one of the ornaments of our family, and we’d hate you to be disappointed by our revered monarch. It could happen! Things go in threes, don’t they say?’ The pipe was now alight and the cousin looked steadily at Uncle Hubert. ‘All your life you wanted a king to serve. First you fought for one who was too spiritual to hold on to his temporal kingdom. Next you championed an heir to the French throne who was too noble to compromise. You must sometimes have yearned for a leader with a bit of greed. Well, beware of having your wishes granted. It’s true,’ the cousin added quietly, ‘that if you do go to the Congo you’ll have a chance to prove your mettle, collect ivory and rubber, organize river transport, manage slaves ...’


  ‘Slaves!’ Danièle protested at the slander.

  The cousin turned to her innocently. ‘Don’t Philibert’s letters mention them? They’re what this little war is about. Nothing’s known for sure, but the rumour is that our lot simply take them over and use them in new ways. Commerce. Railway building. Who do you think supplies the labour? Best not to even imagine the methods used! A small force has to be ruthless, and there are no more than 120 European officers in the Force Publique. If the Arabs weren’t totally disunited ...’

  Uncle Hubert’s restraining grip on her wrist reminded Danièle that they were staying with this cousin’s family. Gently does it, Danièle! Mustn’t take umbrage! Whatever one felt about their king, Belgians were ... well, Belgian! A little too straightforward, perhaps! But well-meaning! Best, she had interpreted the grip to mean, to let their truculent relative feel he had carried the day.

  There was the gong! She climbed the curving stone perron leading towards the house, paused as a light flashed, and saw a woman who had a thin red gash across her throat as though her head had been severed, then reattached. There were scarlet flowers in her hands. As Danièle opened her mouth to cry out, the woman did too – it was her own image in the swinging pane of a French window.

  Her fright broke the ice and provoked little cries of sympathy and amusement, all of which made the luncheon party unusually animated. Adam, who arrived late, had to have it described to him, so that it became an anecdote which could be embellished with remarks about how pale Madame d’Armaillé had been, and how her shock had shocked them who were as surprised by her cry and her red neck-thread as she had been by its reflection. The incident drew them close. They had it in common, bickered, laughed, made knowing reference to the ghost of the guillotined princesse de Lamballe and were soon as much at ease with each other as people who have been travelling together or shared the excitement of a game.