The Sixth Lamentation (30 page)

‘Father,
if we hadn’t shared the cup of plenty I’d think you were hiding from me.’

Anselm
blenched.

‘I
thought I’d give my legs a big stretch, before hitting São Paulo. And I have a
few answers from the realm of Sticky Fingers.’

2

Lucy left the court half
an hour before the end of the morning session in order to meet Father Anselm,
the monk. She had been surprised to hear his voice on the telephone the night
before. He was coming to London and had an important matter to discuss with
her. He’d told her not to worry. They met outside St Paul’s Cathedral and sat
on the steps. Apparently it was something he’d often done when he’d been at the
Bar, taking a breather from a savaging at the Old Bailey ‘That court, ‘he said,
‘was the scene of some of my more spectacular failures.

After a
moment’s reflection the monk said, ‘Lucy, I have a letter from a man who knew
Agnes Aubret. It was written during the war by Jacques Fougères, the father of
her child, and given to this man for safe-keeping, to be delivered to Agnes if
she survived the war. He has asked me to deliver it to her. I believe you know
the Agnes I seek.’

‘I do,
she’s my grandmother.’ The rapid mix of nausea and wonder acted for the moment
like a sedative. She spoke with a calculation she did not possess. ‘She has
motor neurone disease. She can’t walk or talk but she understands everything.
Her inner life is all she has left. Can I ask who gave you the letter?’

‘Mr
Snyman. I’m sorry, the name means nothing to me.

‘He was
a Jewish refugee, from country after country. He played the cello, with my
grandmother at the piano. I’ve never heard her play but you can tell, once you
know, by the look of her hands … the fingers are long and beautiful and
they’re always reaching out for something.’ Completely without warning she
started to cry, not tragic sobs, cracked cheeks and hissing valves, just
free-flowing water upon smooth ivory skin; water that would not stop, that she
did not want to stop, that she wanted to run for ever, down her face, her body,
and into the sea. ‘She was a member of The Round Table. She saved children but
lost her own. She survived Auschwitz and Ravensbrück and saved two other
children; one, my aunt, who died without being told, and the other, my father,
who still doesn’t know. Now she lies dying, unable to speak, unable to move;
she’s lost everything, everything, except her breath. Tell me, if you know,
because I don’t, why can’t
she
be given something, just this once,
before she dies?’

‘I
suspect this won’t surprise you,’ said the monk, ‘but there aren’t any
satisfactory answers to questions like that. In. a funny way all we can do is
listen. Can I give you some consolation?’

‘Please
do.’

‘The
best people I have ever met are the ones who’ve carried on listening.’

Lucy
thought of Agnes, often silent, always attentive in a way that was foreign to
all those around her.

‘And
another is this,’ said the monk. ‘If you keep listening, you still don’t get
any answers but more often than not the questions slip out of reach and cease
to be questions. The bad news is that it takes about ten years.

‘Thanks.
And what about the ones that stay?’

‘We’ve
a choice — either the whole shebang’s absurd … or it’s a mystery.’

Again
Lucy thought of Agnes, absurd to none, a mystery to anyone who knew her.
Rummaging for a handkerchief, her eyes swollen and smarting, she said, ‘I’ll
arrange a meeting for you with my grandmother, but it will have to be after the
trial. She’s entirely focused on its outcome. A letter from Jacques, now, could
overwhelm her.’

The
monk shuffled on the step. He said, ‘This weekend I hope to meet Victor
Brionne:

A
suffocating exhilaration rose and pressed against Lucy’s chest as she spoke: ‘I
must talk to him.’

‘That
would be most unwise. If it became known that someone who had been observing
the trial had spoken to a key witness, all hell would let loose … or,
indeed, if I said anything to him on your behalf. You will have to let things
run their course.

Lucy
could only laugh. The trial itself had now silenced whatever she could have
said on Agnes’ behalf. The displacement of Agnes was complete. She said, still
laughing hoarsely, ‘I had hoped to make sure Brionne told the truth about
Schwermann.’

The
monk’s face darkened. ‘Perhaps he will.’

‘Take
it from me,’ said Lucy miserably, ‘he won’t.’

Strangely
sad, and with compassion, the monk said, ‘If Victor Brionne gives evidence at
the trial, I hope he doesn’t disappoint you.’

Before
Lucy could remonstrate he changed the subject.’ You must have found the death of
Pascal an awful shock.’

‘I did.
I still do.’ Lucy watched the busy pedestrians walking criss-cross on the
pavement below They’d finish work tonight and go for a drink, unwind and
complain about the boss or their mortgage; then they’d go home. ‘One of the
reasons he met Max Nightingale was to say he had nothing against him. Frankly,
I couldn’t see the point.’

Father
Anselm mused a little and said, ‘When I first became a monk, there was an old
member of the community, a dreadful chap, always cross, murmuring a lot as we
say in our way of life. When he was dying I went to see him and he said, “Anselm,
all that matters are tiny reconciliations. Be reconciled whenever you get the
chance.” At the time it struck me as rather sad, but later I wondered if he’d
made a discovery bigger than himself.’

Lucy
thought Pascal would have agreed. Herself? Yes, but not yet, some other time.
She said, ‘Have you any consolations for the grief—stricken?’

‘No. Terrible
business. Nothing to recommend it whatsoever.’

‘We’re
agreed.’

They
stood. ‘I have to go,’ said the monk, ‘I’ve another appointment. You’re always
welcome to spend some time at Larkwood.’

‘I’m
not sure I believe anything.’

‘You
don’t have to.’

With
that he held out his hand, suddenly reserved. They shook, and then she watched
him disappear among the suits and briefcases.

3

Anselm slipped down a side
street to an Italian restaurant from which Roddy had been banned in 1975.
Salomon Lachaise was waiting for him. Anselm apologised for being late.

‘How’s
the trial progressing?’

‘This
morning we’ve had a specialist on Resistance operations in Paris telling us
about The Round Table. She’s thirty-eight, authoritative in relation to the
many documents of the period, but she wasn’t there. It is as I anticipated.
There are so few left from that time. Now is the era of the expert.’

Anselm
poured them each a glass of wine from a carafe. Salomon Lachaise said, ‘She
finished with an account of how Father Rochet and Jacques Fougères died at
Mauthausen. It wasn’t, as for so many others, through the weight of stones in
the quarry, or by hanging, or by having the dogs set upon them. A guard beat
Father Rochet with a lash. Fougères intervened. At gunpoint they were forced
onto the electric fencing. They walked arm in arm, watched by a silent,
starving crowd.’

The
delightful ritual of shared eating suddenly lost its simplicity.

‘The
Defendant brought about the end of The Round Table,’ said Salomon Lachaise, ‘although
we are not told how he learned of its work. His subsequent diligence attracted
a personal commendation from Eichmann; not, I think, an accolade I would send
home to my mother.’

‘No,’
said Anselm.

‘The
evidence is given with due ceremony,’ said Salomon Lachaise. ‘The scribes bend
over their pages, writing down what is said as though nothing should be lost.’

The
waiter came with bread and then vanished, as if his job were done.

‘But at
times I wonder if the evidence is just a palimpsest, and we’ll never find out
what’s lying beneath the words.’

A kind
of resentment burned Anselm’s stomach. He didn’t want to play a part in the
devastation of other people’s hope by being the one who forced Victor Brionne
into court. Unable to bear that thought he said, by way of distraction, ‘Have
you spoken to any of the other observers?’

‘No.’

‘There
are two young people, a man and a woman, who go every day’ Anselm described
them.

‘Yes, I
know who you mean. They sometimes sit either side of me.’

‘You
sit between two extremes. They’ve even met privately, on the day Pascal
Fougères was killed. The man is Max Nightingale, a grandson of the Defendant.’

Salomon
Lachaise stiffened and snapped his fingers. ‘I thought

I
recognised him. The lad was there in the woods, by the lake when you and I
first met …’ He seemed caught off-guard by a kind of wonder.

‘The
woman is the granddaughter of Agnes Embleton. She was a member of The Round Table.
She’s dying. Why no statement was taken from her defeats me.

‘The
names of the smuggling ring were read out this morning. That one was not among
them.’

‘At
that time she was called Aubret.’

Before
Salomon Lachaise could reply the raddled waiter reappeared, his eyes fixed on
the passing world outside the window He delivered, in something approaching a
song, what seemed like the entire contents of the menu. They listened with awe,
like a claque. When he’d finished Salomon Lachaise said, ‘Thank you very much
indeed, but I have to leave.’ Turning to Anselm he said, regretfully, ‘The
court reconvenes in ten minutes.’

‘It’s
my fault, I’m so sorry.

‘No,
no. We will do this another time.’ He bowed slightly and left, running as if
the building were on fire. Anselm surveyed the table, his appetite gone. He’d
chosen this restaurant because it had been a favoured place in his days at the
Bar when blessed by an accidental victory. He’d now brought to it a subtle type
of failure. That was not something to celebrate. With due ceremony he ate the
bread and drank the wine, and quietly slipped out.

4

Lucy sat in the public
gallery, absorbed by Father Anselm’s words. They repeated themselves in a
jumble, as though she were swiftly scanning radio stations, catching partial
trans-. missions. A letter from Jacques Fougères … Mr Snyman … Victor
Brionne … Agnes … Pascal … death … reconciliation … and
that the evidence to come might disappoint her. It was an unusual thing to say,
reminiscent of what Myriam Anderson had said about another possible grieving,
over the death of a final hope. Her reflection was disturbed by a quiet cough.

‘May I
introduce myself? We sit here every day, and we don’t even know each other’s
names. I am Salomon Lachaise.’

The
remark was addressed to both herself and Max Nightingale.

‘I
thought you might like to join me for tea one afternoon.’

Chapter Thirty-Two

It struck Anselm as a
rather peculiar request, though not unprecedented. A guest had arrived
unannounced while he had been in London. He’d asked, in broken English, if
Anselm, and only Anselm, would hear his confession. He’d said he’d say who he
was afterwards. Brother Wilfred had left a note on Anselm’s door giving the
time arranged — 8.15 p.m., forty-five minutes before Compline.

Anselm
sat in the dark of the confessional, slightly uneasy He didn’t notice when the
faint grating noise began. It was dispersed by the vast, empty nave and seemed
to come from all around, but quietly, without definition, and yet coming
closer. The sound of feet moved swiftly over the polished tiles. The door to
the confessional opened. A man swore, stumbling on to the kneeler by the
grille. A fluid heaving of breath, curiously familiar, rose and fell. The
French voice jolted Anselm out of Larkwood on to a landing without a light:

‘I
haven’t been in a confession box for nigh on fifty years.

‘We
never got rid of them.’

‘That’s
not what I meant.’

‘Sorry.
Rather silly of me.’

‘I’m
not here to confess my sins.’

‘There
aren’t any others you can confess.’

‘I’ve
come to reveal the sins of my church, and yours. And if you can still raise
your hands in absolution after I’m done, you’re a braver monk than me. I’d
rather leave it to God himself.’

‘Father
Chambray,’ exclaimed Anselm. ‘How on earth did you get here?’

‘It
took a lot of planning, at my age and in my condition. I could not leave it any
longer. I’ve been following the trial and nothing of what I know has come out.
I’ll stay for a few days and then I’ll go home. First, I’ve got a question for
you. On your life, tell me: have they told you what happened in forty-four?’

‘They?’

‘Rome.’