The Avignon Quintet (104 page)

The station was almost empty except for the troops who had travelled with them, and it was not difficult to pick out the little group of civilians who had come to meet them. They stood in a dispirited circle, eyeing the train and chatting to each other; then they caught sight of the visitors and broke into smiles. There was Bohr, the Swiss consul, who was representing quite a number of belligerent nations apart from his own country – for example the interests of Britain and Holland as well as Belgium. Beside him, looking resigned and sardonic, was the doctor who acted as liaison between the medical corps and the Red Cross. He seethed with provincial gallantry when he saw that he had to do with a pretty woman – the wearisome French skirt-fever was her own diagnosis. He would obviously have to be put firmly in his place! The third member of the group was a small and extraordinarily pretty women in her thirties, with hair almost as blonde and lustrous as Constance’s own. Her style, her smile, were gallant and spontaneous, and immediately one felt in her presence that one had made a warmhearted friend. At least this is what Constance recognised at once.

The reception offered them by the little party was cordial if a trifle restrained – as though invisible witnesses somewhere out of sight might have been observing, taking notes. Bohr had already been introduced to Constance by Felix Chatto in Geneva; he was a large heavy man with an unimaginative expression and a thick dark suit. He was heavily polite but monosyllabic. The doctor was called Bechet, the girl in the fur coat Nancy Quiminal. Constance knew from her files that she was a married woman with two small children; her husband was a musician in the city orchestra who was bedridden at present with some unspecified disease. For some years Madame Quiminal had busied herself in representing the Red Cross in a southern province of which Avignon was the principal town – the
chef lieu
. Her manner was so cordial and persuasive that Constance immediately fell under her charm, as did the Prince. It was almost arm-in-arm that the two women turned to leave the station. Military guards sniffed at their papers like mastiffs but said nothing and waved them through the barrier. Superficially nothing had changed: but then yes, for all the little horse-drawn
fiacres
had disappeared to be replaced by a couple of ancient taxis and two or three buses. The palms looked sick and mildewed. “How sad,” said Constance remarking upon the change, and the doctor said sardonically that he thought the horses must have been … he made a large and comprehensive gesture … eaten to compensate for the defective meat supply. Yes, meat was in great demand and fetched astonishing prices; but recently it had been impossible to find any at all, even on ration cards. Constance was all contrition. “O please forgive my lack of tact.” But Nancy Quiminal only squeezed her arm and chuckled as she said, “We are starving slowly; you will see for yourself. Yet everyone thinks that Marshal Pétain is a god and trusts the Nazis.” There was bite in her way of expressing herself, and perhaps the doctor found it too sharply pointed as a remark for he added, “You must look on the bright side, my dear. The doctors are worried because with this shortage of food nobody will be ill any more, and they will be out of business. Starvation if it is not pushed too far has its uses for the public.”

“You have no children, doctor,” said Nancy, with a grimace. “As for Pétain and Laval …” but she did not finish her phrase. They managed to secure places in the largest taxi for the brief run along the outer circuit of the ancient walls. The river looked turbid and uneasy. The Prince rubbed his hands with anticipation – he was looking forward to a hot bath and a drink. But the old Europa looked hopelessly unkempt. Its pleasant inner patio was adrift with unswept autumn leaves. Its dim and makeshift lighting arrangements argued a power shortage. Moreover it was unheated; the main lounge was cold and damp. The manager came to greet them – he knew them of old, but it was with sadness that he advanced to take the hands of the Prince. “Excellency,” he said sadly, and made a vague gesture which somehow expressed all the unhappy circumstances with which they would have to come to terms in this new world. “O dear,” said the Prince, “all those nice wood fires!” The manager nodded and said, “All the wood has been sent away, trainloads; not only firewood, Excellency, but all kinds of woods used in carpentry.
Kaput
! And one wonders why. So many trainloads. Meanwhile we are here …” The bar was lighted with candles and looked rather like its old self. They were given drinks and sat down for a moment of briefing before surrendering their new friends. The Swiss informed them that they were expected for dinner at the Military Governor’s villa. He turned to Nancy Quiminal and the doctor and said, “Unfortunately you are not included in the invitation, I don’t know why.” Their alarmed faces at once cleared and their upthrown hands registered an immense satisfaction. “Thank God,” said the doctor, and set about taking his leave of them. It was clear that Nancy Quiminal felt a certain relief when he went; there was a sort of constraint in her manner which now vanished. It was as if she had been unwilling to talk freely in front of him. This, Constance recognised, may have had nothing to do with the situation – it was probably just a meridional convention – for in the Mediterranean countries nobody trusts his neighbour; he suspects that he is plotting against him, or talking ill of him behind his back. Quiminal was a Protestant from the rugged country around La Salle, whereas Bechet was from Aries and probably Catholic. Now the two women felt free to speak, and under the quick sympathetic questioning of Constance Nancy picked up her courage and told them just what it meant to be living under very stringent rationing of food, fuel, clothes; and under curfew also which made the nights seem interminable. In full summer they would be stifled alive in the airless habitations of the lower town. And then, of course, there was the ever present danger of being denounced to the Milice; its members would invoke the Gestapo, and anything might result from such a thing – deportation, imprisonments, or even ill-treatment at the hands of these thugs. After half an hour of these exchanges the Swiss looked at his watch and said that it would not be long before the staff car came for them – they might perhaps like to wash their hands and prepare for the ordeal. “Well, I shall be on my way,” said Madame Quiminal briskly. “You can give them all my love, I don’t think.” With a bitter little grimace she shook hands all round and walked briskly off into the dusk, saying that she had to prepare dinner for her two children. Apparently she had somehow managed to come to terms with the Germans and find ration cards which enabled her to feed them. One hardly dared to imagine how …

The staff car with an escorting adjutant was duly waiting for them in the little square with its half-stripped winter trees. The three of them entered it with rather the feeling of being diplomats about to present their credentials – which was roughly the case, despite the ambiguities of the German position. It was gratifying that as yet the Red Cross had been overlooked, had not been repudiated by the Nazis. They might still have some sort of tenuous influence over them, then – or so they imagined. This grimly social event hinted as much.

Constance’s heart beat faster as she saw that the car, after crossing the bridge, took the curving narrow country roads which led through the foothills towards the villa where once Lord Galen had held court with his absent-minded pronouncements on life and art: where the violet chauffeur Max saw to everything, protected his Lord against every encroaching reality. It had been taken over for the nonce as the General’s residence, as well as the senior officers’ mess – an arrangement which suited Von Esslin not at all, and made him feel more than ever slighted by the Party. He felt as if he were a sort of local concierge, for he alone lodged there, but he was forced to eat and drink and fraternise with a crew of senior Waffen S.S. officers, including the one who was in overall control of the Gestapo, Fischer. This dire situation in which he found himself made him gloomy, monosyllabic. To assuage his mutinous thoughts he had resurrected an ancient monocle with a golden rim which he hardly needed any more, and which he usually reserved for special occasions of military weight. He planted this object grimly in his right eye, aware that it made him seem aristocratic and forbidding. At the mess table he sat upright, as if deaf, rolling breadcrumbs; he was cold as an iceberg. It was into this somewhat frosty situation that the Command signal had fallen, ordering them to “permit and assist” the implantation of a Red Cross official who would be coming in from Geneva to make contact. It was rather vague – whose responsibility was it, the civil arm’s or the military’s? While they debated the matter there came another signal, this time from the Consulate in Geneva, telling them to stand by to receive a Prince of the Egyptian ruling house who was representing the Red Cross! Egypt! The business began to take on a vaguely political hue, for the Eighth Army was locking horns with the Africa Corps in the desert and something useful might be gleaned from such a visitor. Von Esslin decided to shoulder the responsibility, though he could not have guessed how apposite it was for them to receive their guests in Lord Galen’s old villa with all its memories.

Constance pressed the Prince’s hand and his own gave an answering pressure of sympathy, divining her excitement as the car turned into the familiar ravines clothed in
maquis
which tended towards the secluded glades where the iron fences began to mark Lord Galen’s old boundaries. “There’s the house!” she cried and the Prince took her hand once more, though this time he did not let it go until they stepped out upon the gravel which fronted the villa; indeed he went further, for he held it as they mounted the steps of the portico with its hollow Greek columns and together entered the spacious drawing-room, like actors entering on stage. Behind them lumbered the Swiss consul, a trifle out of breath, and slightly intimidated by the circle of silent officers who rose to greet them. They were for their part astonished, for nobody had told them to expect a pretty woman to dinner, and the Prince suggested an intriguing exoticism with his tarboosh. The Swiss grunted some fairly approximate explanations concerning them, and the officers approached formally, one by one, for the ritual handshake of welcome. But the stark astonishment of the General was the most marked of all; he let his monocle fall with surprise, it tinkled against the buttons of his dress uniform. He turned red, and seemed half disposed to bow rather than touch her hand. Nor was his confusion dissipated when her name was pronounced, for he saw in her the near-double of his vanished sister, Constanza – the same reserved beauty, the same tilt of mind, independent and serene. He withdrew his hand from its contact with hers with a sudden impulse, as if he had been stung by an insect. She had the impression of someone large, shapeless and somewhat guileless; he was rosy and touching – as so many of the brutes were! He mastered himself, but inside he felt quite overcome, for they had started to speak now and he heard her crisp Hanover accent with its stylish intonation. She was of good family!

The Prince spoke somewhat halting German, though it was serviceable enough for his present needs. Fischer now came forward, full of assurance, but strangely tongue-tied. Von Esslin quite understood why – the lackey had been browbeaten by the girl’s accent and her masterful social insouciance. She saw with disdain a sort of gigolo with heavily greased hair brushed back from a high forehead. He had the flash good looks of a tailor’s dummy. Somewhere no doubt he must harbour some deep social resentment against life – she tried to sketch in his disposition as women always do with men, so terrifying and so unpredictable do the creatures seem. It was the self-defensive gesture of her tribe. She felt more at ease with Mahl who was a blockhead and silent, and with short-sighted Smirgel who wore dense pebble spectacles over eyes which seemed made of bluish tweed, with no reflection in them. But he had a certain donnish distinction, and she was not surprised later to hear him referred to as a “Professor” – for that is what he proved to be. Drinks were brought on the scene to accompany the politenesses now exchanged. The officers drank heavy sweet wine or else whisky. Constance chose the latter to allay her fatigue and to stay her hunger, for the journey had made her quite ravenous – hunger could not be stayed with sandwiches and biscuits and such scraps. She hoped that they had had the sense to procure a good dinner.

While waiting upon the event she politely answered questions and blithely accepted compliments on her German – they had never heard an apparently Swiss girl talk such an aristocratic version of the language; it was hard to believe that she was not German, with her blonde colouring; it was harder to believe that she was designated to become the representative of the Red Cross in Avignon where very few people spoke the language. At dinner, which now followed and which proved to be quite eatable, Constance and the Prince flanked Von Esslin who acted as host. Fischer sat at the far end with the consul. On his left there sat a tall saturnine officer of rank called Landsdorf. He was very deaf and conscious of the fact. In the middle of the dinner the Prince let it be known that he was familiar with the house, that he had often been here to dinner during the years of peace. This roused the interest of both Professor Smirgel and Fischer, though it was the latter who said, “You mean Lord Galen?” The Prince admitted as much. “A rich Jew who was trying to locate the famous Templar treasure?” He was all attention now, tense as a cat, as he waited for the Prince’s response. “Yes, though with no luck I believe. Or so he told me, for he is in Egypt now. I saw him last month.” Smirgel put his head on one side and stared with his tweed eyes for a long moment before he put in, “But he located something – a possible place, no? Luckily for us, his clerk and his secretary stayed behind to help us in our own researches. You know the Führer is actively interested in the project in which he deeply believes. It has been prophesied more than once that he will find it.” He depressed his cheeks and bent his head down until he was staring at the white tablecloth, in order to hide the faint smile which played about his lips. It was not sardonic, the smile, but shy and uneasy. The Prince said boldly, “I personally think it is all rubbish, it is just local folklore.” They looked at him curiously but said nothing; they went on eating in silence, waiting as if to hear him continue; but he too fell silent now. Mahl coughed once, a sharp bark, and Landsdorf, believing himself to be addressed, looked up and cupped his ear to receive the message. “Nothing,” Mahl told him. “Nothing.”