The Avignon Quintet (145 page)

My whole time here has been taken up with silly discussions about this fatal letter; and I at first thought it was all a mistake. But now I am forced to conclude with the Prince that you took it upon yourself to execute a
coup de main
in my favour. Darling, it is most misguided. Please believe me when I tell you so. The Prince is also writing you, and has telephoned so many times that I feel quite ashamed. Constance …

She put down the letter thoughtfully and devoted a moment of reminiscence to that faraway period – how close it was in actual clock-time, and how far away in memory! They had lived out the attachment obsessionally – was the past tense correct? She listened, stiffened to attention, to her own heartbeats as if she interrogated them. Was Affad really
over
? In a paradoxical sort of way only he could answer such a question by the act of reappearing on the scene. They had worked not just for pleasure but for ecstasy, not for the merely adequate but for the sublime, and this is what seemed to her unique about their love. It was without sanctions, without measure, and wholly double. Nor could she envisage it being over because the experience had been so complete, had marked them both so irremediably! She swore slightly under her breath and tried to pretend that the whole thing had shown a regrettable weakness on her part, but she was being insincere and she knew it. And
now
the whole damned problem of the letter had come between them. It was with a resigned sadness that she packed up, locked the little lake house, and took the road back to the city.

Her flat seemed somewhat gloomy and forbidding, so she bustled about and dusted it and generally set things to rights. An empty frigidaire gleamed frostily at her, empty as the heart of a sun. Thence to the clinic where she found a gloomy and irate Schwarz waiting for her with a nasty gleam in his eye. “Listen,” he said, “I have a bone to pick with you, about this Mnemidis caper. He has been restored to us safe and just as unsound of mind, though of course rested and ready for any mischief. Constance, we cannot go on with him, whatever you say; we are simply not equipped, even the high-security wing, to look after him as he must be looked after. He belongs to the civil law, and should be returned to the authorities. If you go on poking away at his paranoia you know full well what the result will be. There is no point in incurring senseless danger or difficulty. He is quite certainly beyond our help and I think we must admit it.”

She sat down at her desk and said, “What about the letter?” Schwarz sighed and said, “No trace! Did you expect any? I didn’t. He could have put it down the lavatory, of course.” In a sudden burst of resolution she got up and took him by the shoulders. “I feel I must go on with him until I am sure that he did not see it; grant me a month or two more and I’ll surrender him as you see fit. But I must try out the matter and see – for Affad’s sake.”

“For Affad’s sake,” he echoed despondently. He swivelled his office chair round and pushed his spectacles back on his head. “Another thing! What do we do about visitors? Several people have asked to see him, including a doctor from Alexandria who claims to have had him both as a friend and also under his wing. Now a
prison
has its security rules and all its precautions. A prison could answer these people. But we have no code of rules. Do we let
anyone
in who wishes to see him? One is a doctor, one a business associate …” He was in a frightful temper, she could see that. But, to be truthful, the problem was a relatively new one. “Could we not establish a visiting day like the state prison?” He said, reminding her, “what do you mean by ‘close detention’? Define it.”

They sat glumly staring at each other for a long moment. She knew that in this mood he would not give in unless she wheedled. It was unfair, but … “Please help me,” she said. “I feel I am only doing my duty in making sure. It’s the least I can do. And after that I promise to be good,
absolutely
good!”

So they came to a compromise about the treatment as well as the visitors, and she won her way over the misgivings of the sighing Schwarz.

But of the letter there was no sign; yet Mnemidis’ way of talking about it, of answering questions about it, seemed somehow sly. He talked sideways, turning his face away, and said, “From who to who, and why? What a strange name, from Egypt certainly? Yes, from Egypt originally perhaps. Why should I have seen it? The Bible? It is full of untruths. And there are no
dates
so you cannot tell when it all happens!” In the middle of all this verbiage she imagined an occasional gleam, the barest hint which suggested that perhaps … But she was also aware of the desire which might lead her into a self-deception. The long sleep had done him good in a way for he was much fresher and his ideas flowed more freely. But of course what was missing was the basic connecting links between them – it was the standard paranoid configuration. And of course she was on the lookout for the first signs of persecution-delusions which pointed to danger for the therapist. Persecution was the code sign of violence, and she must be careful not to provoke this vein of feeling by too great insistence in her questions.

He had been watching the nuns from his window, for among the nurses on the wards there were a number of young nuns. He was intrigued to hear that they belonged to a silent order – he who spoke so much, in torrents, indiscriminately! “When there is nobody there I can still hear myself talking to myself, it still seems necessary – my whole intellectual formation and my expensive education all led to this state of affairs. I wish I could see some end to this situation because sometimes I am out of breath and out of voice. I get headaches even. But on goes the torture of the dialectic – the parallel straight lines which are supposed to meet at infinity, but never do. I know this because I have reached infinity, I am there, and still they haven’t met.” His eyes filled with tears, beautiful violent eyes which had only known one kind of rapture – death! The clock chimed, it was the end of the new session. She told him that arrangements had been made for him to see his friend the doctor on the morrow, and Mnemidis nodded, smiling enigmatically, joining his hands on his midriff like a mandarin. But the name stirred no particular echo. As for the letter, it appeared to have vanished for good. Was it worth being obstinate and keeping on?

It was at this juncture that Lord Galen, like some long-forgotten carnival figure, strayed on to the stage, so unexpected a presence that for a moment she could not fit his name into her memory. “My dear Constance,” he said reproachfully, “of all people to forget
me
. Of all people!” She expressed an unfeigned contrition for she loved old Lord Galen – the mention of his name made one want to smile. And here he was, vague and wide-eyed as ever, with his rolled copy of the
Financial Times
under his arm. He carried it about as others might carry about a book of poems or a novel, to be dipped into during the day. They had lunch at a fashionable place and he signed the cheque with a flourish in the name of some international agency. In answer to her query he said, “My dear, I have come here to coordinate things. After a big war there is a lot of coordination necessary. They have made me Coordinator General of the Central Office of Coordination. I oversee almost everything and in a twinkling coordinate it! It is an immense saving of time and money for us all.” She was tempted to ask him what his salary was, but refrained. He also apparently lectured, on the subject of which he obviously had a perfect command. But just what it
was
she never found out. He had learned it in America, he said. “I am very
pleased
with America!” he said, as if awarding a school prize. “After those beastly Germans it is just fine to be a Jew in America. America speaks with a Jewish voice and that goes for a lot. After all we won the war and now we will win the peace. Constance, you are smiling! Have I said something
effulgent?
I have come here to coordinate World Jewry. It may take a moment, and I may have to make sacrifices, perhaps take a cut in my
frais de représentation
. But what of it? And by the way I have managed to get Aubrey a decoration for his bravery – an O.B.E. You should have seen his face when I told him! He was pale with pride and surprise. He never expected his gallantry to be recognised but I saw to it. One word to the Prime Minister and …”

Aubrey’s own version of these events, when she mentioned all this, was characteristically different, for the whole episode bordered on the grotesque and filled him with morose-ness. “As for being pale with pride I was white to the gums with humiliation. Imagine! One day without warning the door of my room is thrown open by the obsequious Cade and a group of pin-striped notables is ushered in. It includes the consul-general and two consular clerks, Sutcliffe, Toby, Lord Galen and two other gentlemen who were described as journalists. You can imagine my alarm as they converged on me. I thought they had come to castrate me perhaps. The consul, Nevinson, held a Bible and a casket while the consular clerk held (for reasons best known to himself) a large parchment citation and a lighted candle. My hypothesis changed – they had obviously come to excommunicate me. Lord Galen then made an artless speech of fascinating inaccuracy and unconscious condescension. He praised everything except my physical beauty – my civic sense, my unflinching bravery under enemy fire, my example, my long suffering,
mon cul
– everything! I lay there between the sheets like a stale sandwich and allowed all this to pour over me. It was all the more humiliating as among them was Sutcliffe’s boss Ryder whose wife had almost been buried alive in a London bombardment; she had lost a hand and an eye, while here was I … You can imagine. Then the consul cleared his throat and read out a long and incoherent citation written in a style which suggested that it had been swiftly run up that morning by someone on the
Daily Mirror
. Then he pinned a decoration to my pyjamas and a champagne cork popped in true ceremonial fashion. I nearly cried with rage. Then to round off everything Lord Galen imparted to us all his philosophy of life which went like this: ‘The moment has come to invest in bricks and mortar. You can’t go wrong if you do.’ And Toby, who had just been to a Geneva bank to cash a cheque said, ‘Have you noticed? The peculiarly tender way that bankers take each other by the shoulders and gaze into each other’s eyes, as if they were caressing each other’s fortunes which equalled their private parts?’ Lord Galen hadn’t, and he became somewhat huffy.”

Constance cocked a professional ear to this unwonted vivacity of discourse and felt that things were very much better for Aubrey, that he was really on the mend. He could already just about stand up on his two feet and there were plans afoot for him to take a few steps during the following week. The operations had been strikingly successful. And this sudden improvement in health had encouraged him once more to think of his book, the “authorised version” of which still lingered among the disordered papers of Sutcliffe, the incorrigible and depraved shadow which hung over his life. “By the way, Affad rang up,” he said a little maliciously and watched her carefully to see what the effect on her composure was. But she replied to him coolly and gave him an account of the contretemps about the letter, and about her battle of wits with Mnemidis. He sighed and shook his head. “He will be coming back anyway,” he said, “though he didn’t say when. By the way, talking of scandal, I discovered something quite extraordinary. Lord Galen has been frequenting the
maisons de tolérance
of the city, and in one of them he ran into Cade, who has suddenly started to take an interest in the low life. It would seem that Lord Galen is having trouble with his erection and that his doctors in London despaired of securing the right stimulus for him. So after trying everything without avail they suggested the Continent as a probable place where such matters are taken more seriously. Moreover in Geneva there is a special bankers’ brothel called
le Croc
which specialises in such troubles and here Cade has found a billet also.”

“I wonder what he is up to? Have you asked him?” “Yes. He scratches his head and ponders a long time before replying in that dreadful Cockney whine, ‘It makes a nice change.’ In his pronunciation nice is naise and change chinge. My God, Constance, with all this talk about me I completely forgot to tell you how beautiful you look – the new style is unhingeing. Kiss me, please, to show you still care –
will
you?” This gallantry was also something new, though there was no lack of warmth in her embrace; he knew how much she loved him, and that he could ask anything of her. What better therapy, he asked himself, than this? “And even a new perfume to set off the graces of the new woman! Bravo!” He knew she was trying to outface the loss of Affad, to pick herself up off the ground, so to speak. But it had to be said in all friendship, lest she suspect him of “tactful” silences.

“Did Affad say when?”

“He said soon, very soon.”

“
Eh bien,
” she said, trying to sound indifferent, resigned.

But in fact the resumption of her city rhythm was a welcome thing; she had decided to visit the child less regularly and hope for a transfer of trust and affection to the real nurse, the Swiss girl. She had taken the precaution of leaving her a bottle of Lily’s perfume to help things along. But here in the middle morning she was able to meet and question Aubrey’s surgeons about his condition and inevitably Felix Chatto dropped in for a glass, together with Toby and the hangdog
patibulaire
Sutcliffe, looking as much a gallows’ bird as ever. But how happy they all seemed to see her again! And how happy she was to rejoin them once more.

That afternoon Schwarz brought the alienist from Alexandria to meet her and discuss the case of Mnemidis. He apparently wished for a brief clinical discussion before embarking on the interview with his ex-patient and one-time friend. He was a tall lean man with a rasping voice like a crow. Impeccably dressed and hatted with a dark Homburg. He carried a stick with a golden knob which gave him a slight touch of sorcerer-on-holiday. His spatulate hands ended in long filbert nails, well tended. His face was pale, long, goat-like, with sulphurous yellowish eyes, a bit bloodshot as if from alcohol. But he had a kindly if commanding presence, and he called Mnemidis “our friend” with a conspiratorial smile, and formally alluded to Constance once as “my dear colleague” which showed the quality of his manners. He had apparently brought a letter for Mnemidis, and he was hoping to spend ten minutes with him – this had already been accorded. “But I wanted first of all to tell you that I have really come to negotiate his release under guarantee. His sponsor is an ex-associate, a millionaire from Egypt who will offer you every guarantee as far as security and safety is concerned in the question of actually transporting him back to his native land. I would only like to know the actual legal matters to be adjusted: what forms must I fill in, what permissions obtain?” They talked round the subject in a desultory way at first; Constance thought that the authorities would be glad to relinquish him under caution, and be rid of him. But they would have to examine the legalities involving criminal law. “That is precisely what his associate is doing today. I expect to be word-perfect this evening and tomorrow we can start a release-plan.”