by Iain Pears
“A Jewess who can barely read, who serves me with food and lights me candles and brings me wood for the fire on a Sabbath?” He smiled softly.
She sucked in her breath for a moment and looked at him in the firelight, but saw no anger in his eyes and heard no criticism in his voice.
“Why do you pretend to be a Jew?” he asked, eventually.
She hung her head. “Because I am even more unfortunate than one,” she replied. “Because it is only among them that I have found safety.”
He looked at her curiously. He could think of almost nothing more unfortunate than that.
She looked at him seriously. “My parents died when I was fifteen, and I went wandering; there was no one who would take me in, not to give me safety. I traveled around France but found no help, then crossed into Provence. I came to Avignon but that frightened me; I could find no one who wouldn’t question me. Eventually I came here; the old man found me and said he needed a servant. He also wanted someone who was not Jewish to look after him on the Sabbath as well. But it is illegal for a Jew to employ a Christian. So for the outside world I pretended to be a Jew. He got his servant, I got my protection.”
“And you like this life?”
“I love him. He has been as kind and as good to me as any father. He never criticizes, never hectors me, and would die rather than betray his trust to me. What more could I want?”
“You are one of those heretics, aren’t you?”
She nodded. “If you wish.”
“I didn’t know there were any of you left.”
“More than you think. A hundred years ago, the church murdered as many as they could find, but they did not find all. We learned discretion, and learned to hide ourselves. Now, if we are discovered we are almost safe, because we do not exist anymore, and the churchmen cannot admit they left the job undone. My parents were hanged for theft, which they did not commit, not for their beliefs, which they openly admitted.”
“I heard a phrase recently. It begins ‘The water of life ...’ ” Olivier said, and looked at her expectantly.
“Yes?”
“What does it mean?”
“It means that we are all part of the divine, and that our desire is to return to the ocean from whence we came. We must purify ourselves on earth, and put aside our taste for material things, for the world is our prison, even though we don’t realize it. We are in hell now; but we can escape it.”
“And if we don’t?”
“Then we are reborn, and must live again. This interests you?”
“I read it in an old manuscript. And heard it on the road when I was traveling.”
The genealogy of ideas did not interest her, the similarities between Neoplatonic thought and her beliefs prompted her to no amazement or questioning. She nodded merely and fell silent.
“And us?” he asked after a while. “Is it evil what I feel for you? How can it be?”
“The flesh is the creation of evil. But the love is God’s touch; it is our wish to become complete. It is our memory of God, and our sense of what we might become.”
“Do you believe all this?” he asked suddenly.
“Do you believe that God took on material form and washed away the sins that his own wishes imposed on us in the first place? That our bones will come together out of the earth when a trumpet blows? That Heaven is to be locked into our bodies for all eternity?”
“I do,” replied Olivier stoutly.
She shrugged. “Then we would say you are still in the darkness, that you understand nothing of yourself or creation. That when you do good, you cannot know it, and when you do evil you cannot stop it. You are ready for nothing, and will get what you wish, which is to stay in your prison.”
“And you?”
“I know when I do evil. I think that makes me worse than you.”
“What do you mean?”
She thought carefully. “When they came for my parents I was outside, picking berries. I heard what was going on, but did nothing. I hid, and watched them being taken away. Then I ran, and kept running. I never came to them in their prison, never brought them food. I abandoned them and left them to die knowing their daughter’s faith was so feeble she would not admit who she was or what she was. And I am still hiding and pretending.”
“Being burned alive is virtuous? What would it achieve?”
“You don’t understand. I have condemned myself to spend the rest of my life in hatred, for those who did this to my mother and father. I cannot escape it. I wished to live quietly until I died, and could at least hope that death would come soon. But then you came along, and made me want to live. Do you see?”
Olivier shook his head in bewilderment. He didn’t see at all. She stood up abruptly, took one of the candles, blew out the other, and walked away from the fire out into the small room with thick stone walls where food was kept cool. The house was small; one room downstairs and another upstairs, serving all the purposes they needed as bedroom, study, with a place to eat and sit and read and pray. There had once been a great crush, when Gersonides’s wife was alive and all his children were there, but now it was almost empty. It was warm, though, and the food was wholesome and plain. Olivier ate it eagerly and in silence. Neither was able to talk.
When he had finished, she finally asked, “What news is there of the plague? People have begun to sicken here. Some have died already. How long will it last?”
“That is for your master to discover, I think,” Olivier said. “But if the stories are true, then it is only just beginning. I heard someone say yesterday that in Marseille there is scarcely a man left alive. The same stories come from other places as well. Some people think it will be the end of the world. The second coming.”
“Or perhaps the first. Is no one safe?”
“No. Everyone dies. Young and old, rich and poor.” He stared briefly into the fire. “You and me. And at any time. In half an hour we might sicken. Or next week, or next month. There is nothing we can do.”
“Except pray.”
“We are abandoned. There is a tale that in Nice a priest went to his church to pray for deliverance for the town, and many people came out of their houses to go with him. No one had yet died there, but when the priest turned his back on the congregation and raised the host, he uttered a groan and fell down, and black pus began to run from his mouth. Half an hour later he was dead, and the congregation left him there, lying in front of the altar. Within five days they were all dead as well, every single one of them. There is no help in prayer; it merely seems to make God the more angry. That is why I am here. Your master needs his papers if he is to discover anything of use.”
She smiled wanly. “In that case we must sleep. Your cloak will soon be dry, and you may sleep by the fire. If you wish you can get some more logs to keep it blazing all night.”
She stood; he stood as well and came close once more to reaching out for her, but something in her eyes told him it would not be welcome yet. Then she took the candle and went up the rickety stairs to the bedchamber, where Olivier could see the faint light and shadow playing through the gaps in the floorboards. He heard also her say her prayers, a strange sound, almost music but not quite, so alien to his ears that he almost shivered. He crossed himself and prayed as well, then wrapped himself up in his cloak—still wet despite having spent so much time in front of the fire—and lay down to watch the flames in the grate. She came down to him half an hour later; when they were finished, she cried herself to sleep in his arms. Olivier did not know the cause, but as he comforted her he grew certain it was not because of him.
CARDINAL CECCANI DIED in Italy in 1352, some rumors suggested by poison, and was buried in Naples. A hasty, careless internment befitting a man who had—no one knew why—fallen utterly from favor. He was placed in a vacant grave in the cathedral of Naples, which was then covered with a slab of marble. His name was eventually carved on it. That was all; unlike other more fortunate cardinals, he had no grand tomb with a carved representat
ion of his appearance in life. The only reminder of what he looked like came from the painting by Luca Pisano, high up on the wall by the entrance to the cathedral.
But thanks to the Italian’s skill, his face remains, and is known. No such fortune attended either Manlius Hippomanes or Sophia, or Olivier or Rebecca. Their faces exist still, but only Julien ever half suspected who they were. Many times he had thought of what they might look like, and imagined Manlius to be like his prose: stiff, formal, somewhat severe yet with a hint of his wit about him—in the eyes, or the mouth, perhaps. He dressed him in his mind in traditional Roman clothes, even though by his day no one had worn the toga with any regularity for nearly three hundred years. He was influenced, perhaps, by the fanciful imaginings of André Thevet, cosmographer to the king of France, who published a set of idealized engravings of great Frenchmen and Gauls in 1584. Certainly, he tended to imagine a face that fitted in with his supposed character.
Ceccani’s portrait was a perfect reminder of the foolishness of the mind, for what Pisano painted bore no relation whatever to what Julien knew of his character. There he stands, half obliterated by peeling paint, wearing a huge hat that makes his head seem childlike and innocent as he contemplates the Virgin and her child. The shoulders are rounded, almost with a stoop, the gorgeous robes he wears look as though they are suffocating; perhaps Pisano caught something of the way high office and great power bore down on him. Only in his eyes is there a sign of calculation, or of cunning. That, of course, might have been a trick of the light. But why should people appear like their character? Who in Julien’s knowledge did? And whose character was fixed in any case? Did Julia look as she was, for example? And if they did, then Marcel Laplace should have had an entirely different face, not the chubby, childlike, innocent one he in fact possessed.
It was Bernard who pointed this out to him. A strange thing to discuss at that moment, perhaps, but then it was a strange meeting, organized hurriedly and in shock after Julien met him one Friday morning in February 1943, two months after the Germans had invaded the south and extinguished the pretense that France still existed in anything but name and memory.
It was just outside the café where he often had lunch; he came out, nodded to the owner, crossed the rue de la République, and began to walk back to his office; and as he strolled along trying to remember the last time he had tasted meat that was truly worth eating, a man came up, slipped his arm through his, and said quietly, “Good afternoon, my friend. I trust you ate well? Keep walking. Don’t slow down, and please don’t look surprised.”
So he did as instructed; it never occurred to him to do otherwise. “I want to talk to you,” Bernard said as he guided him down a narrow, empty alleyway. “Tomorrow would be best. Where do you suggest?”
And Julien had suggested the cathedral. High above the esplanade, next to the papal palace, dominated by a gigantic gilt Virgin, it was out of the way, rarely visited these days for there were few casual voyagers anymore, and it was too isolated to attract any but the determined worshiper. It was always dark and ill lit, offering a refuge for those who wished to sit without being noticed. Bernard nodded and slipped away; Julien kept on walking. It took him under a minute longer than usual to get back to his office.
It never occurred to him either not to keep the appointment; he went there exactly on time, stood on the forecourt overlooking the huge and deserted place and across to the river, then went inside to walk around as he waited. He ended up by the entranceway, staring up in thought at Cardinal Ceccani’s face, paying homage to the one power indisputably greater than his own.
Bernard was late. Bernard was always late, one of those who could never understand the irritation such a habit could produce in others. He wandered in fifteen minutes after the appointed time, walking with a strolling gait that suggested a man without a care in the world. He peered up at Cardinal Ceccani.
“Not a man to be trusted,” he said. “Who is he?”
“The patron of Olivier de Noyen,” Julien replied impatiently. “Bernard, what are you doing here? Did you change your mind?”
“Not exactly. You like de Noyen, don’t you? Why is that?”
“Bernard . . .”
“Tell me. You made me read him once. I found him a dreadful bore. Hysterical, out of control.”
“I am finding things out about him. He is more interesting than you think.”
He grunted. “Good to see the war is making you concentrate on the important things in life, then. Anyway, to answer your question, I didn’t change my mind. I went to England, and now I’m back, to be part of the Resistance. My name is not Bernard Marchand, you understand. Shall we walk? Will you hear my confession?”
So they walked down the cathedral until they found a side chapel neglected by the faithful with no candles burning, only a small baroque altar to Saint Agatha, and a few pews. Bernard led the way in, and half-closed the iron grill to discourage any sudden outburst of devotion, and they sat down in the gloom of the dim light filtering through the dirty stained glass.
“To resist in what way?” Julien asked.
Bernard said nothing; instead he stared up at the painting of the saint and cocked his head to one side.
“Five weeks ago, I hear, in Tours, a German soldier was shot by people calling themselves resisters,” Julien commented to fill the silence. “Fifteen people were taken hostage. Six were executed. Two weeks ago, just outside Avignon, more resisters wanted to blow up a member of the Milice. They killed four other people in the blast. Is that the sort of resistance you have in mind, Bernard?”
“It’s a war, Julien.”
“Not for us, it isn’t. We are not fighting. The Geneva Convention, remember? Noncombatants sit tight. Leave the fighting to soldiers. Do that and we are safe; we have the law on our side.”
“And the Germans are great respecters of that, I know,” Bernard said quietly.
“It has limited them a little. Break it, have civilians take up arms, and there will be no restraints on them at all. Our job is to watch history take its course, and survive it. Or people will die pointlessly. Does that not bother you?”
“It makes the Germans watch their backs. It makes them realize there are French people who will fight. It builds morale among the Resistance. It is not pointless.”
“The Germans take only part of the blame, you know. Your heroic fighters are not winning so many hearts.”
He snorted. “I don’t care about people’s hearts. They’ll celebrate in the streets soon enough when the Germans are beaten. What is important is that we take a part in that defeat. Nothing more. Otherwise we will either have anarchy when the war is over, or a settlement dictated by the Allies. This is not a time when responsibility matters. Responsibility means not doing anything.”
“Like me, you mean?”
“Dear me, no. You have chosen your side. All those articles, those speeches, your job. We know all about that. What do you think you’re doing, Julien? I know you, or at least I thought I did. I knew you weren’t a raving communist, of course, but what are you doing working for Vichy? For that moron Marcel, of all people. And now for the Germans?”
“I’m not working for the Germans,” he answered stiffly. “I was asked by Marcel to write some things for the newspapers. Give talks, that is all. And then I was asked to be in charge of paper allocation. Which means I decide who gets published, which journals and magazines survive, and which close down because they have no paper to print on. Do you know how hard I have to work to keep some papers going? How often I turn a blind eye to things?”
“But how often do you not turn a blind eye? How often do you say no?”
“Sometimes. But not as often as those who would do my job with more zeal.”
Bernard remained silent, his point made. He found it all so easy.
“Look, Bernard, while the Germans are here life must go on. Not as we would want, not as it was, but it must continue. Not everybody can scuttle off to London and take a high moral t
one. And by living with them, cooperating, we can change them, humanize them. Civilize them.”
“I see.”
Bernard stood up, finding the sanctity of the chapel overpowering. He led the way out into the nave, then headed for the fresh air outside. There he stood, all disguise and caution thrown to the winds. It had always been his great weakness, that impatience, Julien thought. It will kill him one day.
“You are being unusually vain, if I may say so,” Bernard said quietly. “You, on your own, are civilizing the Germans and the reptiles they have brought to power here. Are you sure it goes only one way? What if they corrupt you, rather than you civilizing them? Are you ready to risk that possibility? Two years ago, would you have denied anybody the right to publish their magazines, print their books? Even thought of it? And now you do it every day and say you are doing it to protect civilization. And they have lost; you know it as well as I do. They lost the moment they attacked Russia and declared war on the Americans. It is only a matter of time now.”
“And when they are defeated,” Julien replied, “it won’t be because of your efforts. It will be because of the English and Russian and American armies. An act of sabotage here or there will make no difference. It will just make things worse for those who live here. And you will be caught and shot.”
He nodded. “I know. Someone was sent here before me. We think he survived six weeks before he was captured. He accomplished nothing, as you say.”
“So now you come. Why?”
He smiled. “Because I was ordered to. Because these people are in my country and they shouldn’t be, and because the government has been stolen by mediocre gangsters. Someone has to fight them; you’re not going to.”
“Very noble, but I don’t believe you. When did you ever do something because it was right? You do things because you get pleasure out of them.”
“At some stage, probably within three months, I shall be captured, possibly tortured, certainly shot. You think the prospect gives me pleasure?”
“Yes.”
Bernard paused, then laughed. “You’re right, of course. Partly, anyway. It’s the challenge of survival, of doing something. Do you know, I intend to beat the odds? I intend to be there to watch the Americans or whoever march in. And when that’s done, there will be accounts to settle, you know.”
