by Sarah Rayne
A short piece on the Memorial Service at Westminster Abbey for Jude Weissman who had died last month – ‘Peacefully in Ireland after a brief illness’.
The newsreader enjoyed good music and he felt a pang of loss. He had attended two concerts, one in London and one in Galway, where Jude Weissman’s music had been played, and he had thought the music disturbing and beautiful.
He scanned the notes handed in by the research team, making sure that nothing had been missed.
Nothing had. Some of the stuff had been culled from the ready-prepared obituary, of course, which had been used when Weissman’s death was announced last month, and which had been on file for just over ten years, ever since that extraordinary business in Eisenach Castle. The story of how the Nuremberg trial and execution had been faked, and how Weissman had been a prisoner for half a century had been on every news bulletin in the world and there had been an explosion of emotion.
The obituary had been pretty comprehensive. The announcer keyed in the appropriate commands and brought it on to his screen to refresh his memory. Yes, it was all there. The dazzling successes of the Twenties and Thirties; the war years with that remarkable plot that had cheated the Nazis. And then Weissman’s gradual return to the world after his rescue: TV interviews, one or two carefully planned public performances. Every concert hall had clamoured for him, but he had been sparing with appearances. St Martins-in-the-Fields and the Vienna State Opera House. The Barbican and Festival Hall. One or two more in Ireland. Two of the major publishing houses had brought out books on his experiences: one with Jude’s collaboration and permission, one without. The unauthorised version had outsold the authorised, of course: the announcer had only been a young brash reporter just beginning to make his way in television journalism, but he could remember the furore. And then three years ago, BBC2 had prepared and screened a documentary about Weissman and his work, which had been highly praised. He turned back to his notes.
There would be some footage of the Memorial Service, which apparently included a good clear shot of Isarel and Moira West arriving at the Abbey, with their daughter, Susannah. Nice that the old man had lived to see the birth. The luminaries of the music world had all been there as well, of course, and were mostly captured on the short film; the announcer checked names.
At the bottom of the researcher’s report, was a hasty scrawled note from the director of the OB camera crew.
‘I managed to get just about everybody who was anybody,’ she had written. ‘With the exception of one gentleman who sat apart from the rest at the very back of the Abbey and spoke to no one. I have no idea who he was, other than that he was crippled and leaning on a stick, and obviously elderly.
‘I didn’t pursue him, because I had the feeling that he might be some kind of religious recluse, or even a hermit.
‘He wore a long cloak with a monastic-looking hood completely shadowing his face.’
