Caravaggio's Angel (6 page)

There was a flurry of barks: the car’s departure had woken the dog, who sensed the presence of a stranger. The old woman shouted at it to be quiet and sit down, but although it subsided somewhat, it soon began barking again, and looked longingly in my direction. I shrank back into the screening woodland and, as noiselessly as I knew how, edged back the way I had come until, with deep relief, I found myself once again on the public path.

6

La Jaubertie, July

When I awoke next morning the weather had changed. Rain had fallen in the night: the magnolia leaves outside my window were covered with drops of moisture. I let the curtain fall and checked my watch. Half past seven. Before time began. Why on earth was I up so early?

The answer came next minute in the form of high-pitched voices raised in argument. Delphine’s children had evidently finished their breakfast and were now having an early-morning quarrel in the court. Their voices cut the still morning like scalpels. I cursed them and fell back on to the pillows.

My appointment was not until ten, and it wouldn’t take more than a few minutes to drive to La Jaubertie. On the other hand, I knew I’d never fall asleep again. I reached for my book – a biography of Emmanuel Rigaut, brought to remind myself of essential background – propped myself up on the pillows, and thought about what Delphine had told me.

Tondue.
Surely it couldn’t be true? Not just because it was horrifying – horrifying things happen. But this was incomprehensible.
Tondue
was about collaboration, and Emmanuel Rigaut had been not just a Communist, but a Resistance hero. The book’s frontispiece was a photo of him taken at that time – the same tall, thin figure as his son and grandson, no mistaking the line of paternity there. He stared expressionlessly out at the photographer from beneath a flat cap; a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. Under his code name of Bizouleur he had led a network that sabotaged railways and bridges, provided safe houses for those who needed them, and helped with the underground railroad that smuggled Jews and grounded fighter and bomber crews out of occupied France and across the border into Spain. How could such a man possibly remain married to a woman who slept with the occupiers? Although the marriage had ended in the 1950s, Antoine had been born in 1942, and Jean-Jacques in 1947: living proof that while the war was on, and for some time after that, it must have existed in more than name.

At ten precisely, I parked my car on the gravel sweep outside La Jaubertie’s front door. Today the garden was empty of both cars and people, and the great studded door was closed. This was the first time I’d seen the château as it should officially be approached, from the front. It loomed greyly over me, its vast roof (which was, I now saw, in a state of some disrepair) rising steeply between the towers like an enormous upturned ark. The original house, with its turrets, arrow-slits and high-level sentry-go, had clearly been built with military defence in mind. But now it was a country manor, a
gentilhommière
. Large stone-mullioned windows had been cut in the massive ashlar walls, four on the ground floor, four on the floor above and two in each tower, and the last remnants of military sternness had been obliterated by climbing roses and wisteria.

The door had a large circular wrought-iron handle, but no knocker; the only visible means of announcing one’s arrival was a large bell, attached to a dangling rope. I pulled it, and a violent peal echoed round the lawn, soon followed by a rapid crescendo of barking from inside the house. A dog – perhaps the alsatian I’d seen yesterday – rushed up to the other side of the door and made a frenzied attempt to claw its way through. Nothing else happened, however. I continued to wait; the dog continued to bark and scratch. I rang again, rousing the dog to fresh levels of vehemence, but still producing no human reaction.

I pulled out a copy of the confirming letter I’d sent Madame Rigaut. Ten o’clock, Wednesday, 3rd July. And now – this. Was it a deliberate snub, or mere absent-mindedness? Perhaps the letter had never arrived. What a fool I’d been not to phone the previous day to confirm the appointment.

I looked at my watch again. Ten past ten. Obviously no one was in. The question was, how long would they be out? Was this absence merely a shopping expedition, or a definitive departure? Shopping, I guessed: you don’t just abandon a dog, and the one I’d seen yesterday had been unmistakably part of the household. Perhaps I ought to go away and come back later. But how much later? Lunchtime? This afternoon?

The one certain thing was that I couldn’t stand out here indefinitely. The sky had darkened and a gusty wind was beginning to blow. A heavy drop fell on my head, then another. I ran to the car, and as I got into it the heavens opened. Sheets of water blurred the windscreen. I, too, felt as though I was about to burst into tears. So much effort – so much anticipation – so much
expense.
Neither I nor my exhibition’s minuscule budget could afford to throw money away. But the real blow was psychological, the dis-missal, the anticlimax – the insult.

The rain began to ease a little: it should be possible to drive now, though where to, I wasn’t sure. I’d checked out of Les Pruniers, and even if I hadn’t, the children would be in full cry. Bergerac? But my plane didn’t leave till late in the evening. What would I do when I got there? Sit in the shed? Besides, I couldn’t just abandon this interview. If I gave up now, what would I tell Joe?

I decided to drive to Meyrignac and find a café where I could sit and collect my thoughts. At least I’d be in the dry. But as I put my key in the ignition headlights approached down the lime avenue, and the Renault 4 I’d seen yesterday puttered round the gravel drive and crunched to a halt beside me. The driver’s door opened and an umbrella appeared, followed, as it unfurled, by an elderly woman – a rotund, solid figure, with grey hair in a bun and wearing a short-sleeved cotton print dress-cum-overall. The house-keeper I’d spoken to when I first rang? She certainly fitted the voice.

Whoever she was, she took no notice of my car, but stumped round to the other side of the Renault, extracted a number of plastic bags and a full shopping basket from the passenger seat, and made for the front door. I leapt out and ran to intercept her before she should disappear inside the fastness. ‘Madame?’

The woman started: either she had been so intent on the weather and the business of getting herself and her shop-ping to the door without drowning that she had not noticed my car, or else she had assumed that its occupant was already inside the house.

‘I had an appointment for ten o’clock with Madame Rigaut,’ I gabbled, falling over my words in an effort to get them out before my listener could abandon me. ‘But when I rang the bell no one answered.’

The woman put down her basket, opened the door by simply turning the handle – so it hadn’t even been locked! – and motioned me to enter. The alsatian bounded out and rushed towards me, barking furiously. The woman shouted, ‘
Amos, viens là! Couché!
’ and it subsided. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said. ‘It’s too wet to talk outside. Don’t worry about him, he won’t touch you.’

Hesitantly, I followed her. Inside was a room perhaps four metres high, with white limestone walls and a floor of round pebbles, some white, some different shades of pinkish and bluish grey, laid in a pattern of concentric circles. Orange and lemon trees in tubs lined the walls, in the middle stood a large white dining table made of cast iron in a chinoiserie pattern with six elegant matching chairs, and around the room were scattered a number of cushioned armchairs and sofas in white wicker. The woman dumped her shopping on the table, where the alsatian avidly sniffed it. ‘
Amos, arrète!
You were saying, madame?’

I held out my letter. ‘This was the arrangement I made.’

The woman took it and scrutinized it. ‘Did you telephone?’ It was definitely the person I’d spoken to. I recognized the voice.

‘Yes, before I sent this. I believe it was you I spoke to. And then I phoned again and spoke to Madame Rigaut. The letter was just to confirm the arrangement we’d made.’

The woman nodded. ‘I remember now. That was me, and I did tell her. But what with all that’s happened . . . But of course you weren’t to know about that.’

I didn’t contradict her. ‘Is she here?’

‘As far as I know. She was here this morning when I went out.’

‘But surely she’d have heard the doorbell?’

‘Even if she did she’s arthritic, it’s hard for her to get downstairs without someone to help her. But she probably didn’t. She’s very deaf. Doesn’t hear a thing unless she has her hearing aid. And she never puts it on unless there’s someone there she wants to listen to.’

‘Will she see me, do you think?’

‘I’ll go and tell her you’re here.’ And she clumped out of the room, followed, to my relief, by the dog Amos. A few minutes later her heavy footsteps could be heard approaching again. ‘She’ll see you now. Follow me.’

She led the way to a vestibule from which ascended a grand staircase in white stone. Only one picture adorned the walls here – bizarrely, an inscribed photo of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. We swept past it without comment, to the floor above. Here the rooms were less cavernous, and the walls, though still white, of painted plaster rather than bare stone, while the floor was parquet, laid in an elaborate pattern of hexagons. We turned left into a salon, perhaps eight metres long, furnished with a mixture of old and modern pieces, including a walnut-cased grand piano and, on either side of a great stone fireplace, the pillar-like wooden screws of two ancient wine-presses, each topped with a great bowl of cascading pale-blue plumbago. Walking briskly to a door set directly opposite the one by which we had entered, the woman opened it, said, ‘
Madame, voilà la dame qui est venue vous voir
,’ and left, shutting the door behind her.

This room, a study-cum-sitting room, was much smaller – almost cosy. The walls were covered with bookshelves and pictures, the floor with faded Persian rugs; there was a sofa and a television, and to one side of the window, a writing table. In an upright armchair on the other side of the window sat a tiny, ancient lady, frail but elegant even in mourning, a lifetime’s habit of chic surmounting all cir-cumstance. She wore a black cotton blazer over a straight black dress, and her gaze was fixed on the rain-soaked garden. Her white hair (
tondue
,
tondue
, but thick now even in extreme old age) was cut in a neck-length bob and held back with a black velvet band; her hazel eyes, bright and searching, were sunk deep above wide, high cheekbones in a lined, nut-brown face. She produced a hearing-aid from a bag at her feet, and adjusted it; when it was modulated to her satisfaction she said, ‘
Bonjour, madame
. I’m sorry if I forgot our appointment. I hope you didn’t have to wait too long. The truth is, I can’t hear the bell unless I’m wearing this, and when Babette’s out I might as well not be here as far as visitors are concerned. Why don’t you bring a chair over and we can talk?’

I found a small chair and brought it over to the window. ‘It’s kind of you to see me, madame, especially at a time like this.’

‘Oh, I like to be distracted. It passes the time. So, what did you want? I know you probably said in your letter, but . . .’

In fact I hadn’t really said anything in my letter, other than that Manu had given me the address, and I wanted to talk about Emmanuel Rigaut and Robert de Beaupré. I opened my mouth to start out on the usual explanation. But no words came out. For as I was fetching the chair I’d noticed a picture hanging on the wall opposite the window, and the sight was so astonishing that I found myself quite unable to do anything but stare.

‘Is something wrong?’

‘Not at all,’ I stuttered. ‘It’s just – that picture – I couldn’t help noticing –’

It was an oil painting containing two figures, a woman and an angel, together with a number of musical instruments. A beam of light shone down from the top left-hand corner, where the angel hovered, brilliantly illuminating the two figures and picking out the instruments in its yellow-gold glow. Unless it was a very good copy indeed, I’d not only found the missing version of Caravaggio’s
St
Cecilia and the Angel
but also the answer to another puzzle: why Beaupré (for here, surely, was proof that he had indeed been the thief) had picked out, from all the Louvre’s treasures, this particular picture.

The old lady gave me a keen look, as though this was something she had been expecting. ‘What about it?’

‘It’s a Caravaggio, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ The bright hazel eyes held mine.

‘Is it an original?’

‘I believe so. That’s what we’ve always understood.’

When he made this version of his picture, Caravaggio had evidently been back on form. Unlike the painting in the Louvre, this one rippled with life. The Angel’s wings and the saint’s velvet dress were executed with virtuosic lightness of touch and exquisite attention to detail – each wing-feather darkly iridescent, the sheen on the red fabric full of heavy softness.

‘Has it always been in your family?’

‘Always? Not exactly. My father bought it. That was before I was born, so for me it’s always been here. But in fact only since about 1912.’

‘And was it exhibited in Paris after the war?’

‘You seem to know a lot about my picture,’ Juliette Rigaut remarked. ‘I thought you said you wanted to talk about my husband?’ (So she
had
seen my letter.) ‘But per-haps I got that wrong. My memory’s so bad these days. I can remember things that happened a long time ago, but the present, no. It comes, it goes . . . Don’t get old, that’s my advice. There’s absolutely nothing to be said for it.’

I tried to calm myself. Too much, all at once, and I might lose everything. ‘Do you mind if I record our conversation?’

‘No. Why should I?’

She watched impassively as I performed the usual tape-recorder rites, checking for level, making sure it was working. This was one interview I couldn’t afford to lose.

‘Actually, the picture is what I wanted to talk about, in a way. You know there’s a version in the Louvre that was stolen?’

‘Borrowed, not stolen,’ the old woman corrected me.

‘I believe your brother was involved, wasn’t he?’

‘Unfortunately, yes. My poor Bobo.’

‘Did you know anything about it at the time?’

‘Of course. It was my idea.’

‘
Your
idea?’ Whatever I’d been expecting, it was not this.