The Brothers Craft

by Peter Corris

  When out on the lake, with the cliffs rising high around me, I would contemplate the grand design of my life and check whether the patterns were holding properly, whether each step was leading logically to the next and whether the progress was rapid enough or too rapid, the damage contained or threatening to overwhelm the enterprise. I invariably returned cleansed, my sexual and intellectual energy renewed, and confident that any mistakes could be set right.

  I will reserve for a subsequent volume the details of that grand design. Suffice to say that I was dealing with the essence of life, the very building blocks of human existence and, as I have said before, the chief piece of equipment in my laboratory was my own body.

  'Chilling,' Bright said. 'Did you have any trouble locating her? The nurse?'

  Marsha shook her head. 'No. I've been to Zurich before. I'm fairly familiar with the place and I had a pretty good draft on the Zollendhein bank. I cashed that at the airport agency and started spending like crazy. Everything costs the earth there.

  'The contact number I had was out of date. I was afraid that she wouldn't be there. But she was. She sounded pretty old and faded, though.'

  What language did she speak?'

  'English. I told her who I was and that I was interested in the Craft Clinic.'

  'How did she react?'

  'She was very uncertain.'

  'Afraid?'

  'Maybe. She eventually agreed when I hinted there could be some money in it. She told me to come to 20 Holthaustrasse and come alone. She also asked me to describe myself.'

  'Real cloak-and-dagger stuff.'

  Marsha nodded. 'I've got notes on all this bit. I gave her a description. I asked her why she was being so cautious, given that the clinic closed more than thirty years ago and Basil and Richard Craft were dead. Know what she said?'

  Bright shook his head.

  'She said, "Are they?" Like that—very disbelieving.'

  'Oh oh,' Bright said. 'A screw loose.'

  'No, not at all. You'll see. It turned out she could see me from her window as I crossed a bridge before getting to her street. Anyway, I went out, hired the camera and off I went. I've taped the rest.'

  'Let's see it.'

  'Not now. It takes hours and you're too tired. Have a kip. I'll get in touch with Andy and we can all see it together tonight. I'll get a printout from your disc, too, so we can all be completely up to date.'

  Bright yawned and pointed to his overnight bag. 'In the pocket. It's good stuff, is it, Marty?'

  'It's fantastic.'

  Later, Bright and Marsha joined McKinnon at his South Kensington flat. The flat was small but comfortable, filled with scripts and books and paintings. McKinnon collected pictures with enthusiasm and a total lack of discrimination. He'd bought the flat after a success, mortgaged it several times to finance other projects. The living room was heated by an electric fire with a back-lit plastic moulding designed to simulate burning logs. The TV set had a very large screen.

  Bright poured duty-free whisky while Marsha put a tape into the VCR. McKinnon had the print-out of Bright's journal on his lap.

  'Have you read all this, Marsha?' McKinnon said.

  Marsha nodded and settled in a chair, her finger on the Play button of the remote control. 'It starts with a few shots of the building she lives in, to get the mood. It's a pretty dreary place—away from the old quarter, the university and the lake. Very clean.'

  She pressed Play. On the screen appeared Holthaustrasse, a short and narrow street, little more than an alley. The dogleg at the midpoint of its length seemed to have been produced by the cramming in of more buildings than the street was designed to hold. The three-storey buildings were apartment houses, pensiones, hotels. There was a general goods shop at one end of the street and a cafe at the other.

  'Quiet neighbourhood,' Bright said.

  Marsha had filmed her finger on the bell of number 20 and the door swinging open. She entered a dark lobby with a tiled floor; a staircase led up into deeper darkness. The picture shook.

  'I was carrying a considerable amount of Swiss currency,' Marsha said. 'I had no weapon and no-one knew where I was. It was a bit scary.'

  McKinnon grunted.

  A face appeared out of the gloom.

  'This is her,' Marsha said.

  'Mlle Prentiss, come up one flight of stairs please.' An old but firm voice, speaking French-accented English.

  Marsha, filming, mounted the stairs to a landing where one of the three doors stood open. A tall, spare figure stood outlined against the light behind it.

  Marsha advanced. 'Madame Benoit?'

  'Yes. Come in please.'

  The screen blanked and Marsha hit Pause.

  'I had to switch off then. She raised hell about the camera. It took a lot of very fast talking and the production of some hard cash to get her to agree.'

  McKinnon resisted the impulse to ask how much cash. He waved for Marsha to continue.

  The picture was steady as Marsha walked into the small apartment—short hallway past a kitchen on the left leading to a space for sitting and eating. Two other doors. The furniture was minimal and functional. There were no pictures on the walls, no books. The oriental rug on the polished board floor was good quality and the room was scrupulously clean. There was an air of neglect, not of decorum, but of possibilities. The best feature of the room was the elaborate floor-to-ceiling window that opened out onto a minuscule balcony. Madom Benoit stepped across to the window and looked intently up and down the street. Marsha stood beside her and a long shot showed how plainly she could have been seen on the bridge and coming along Holthaustrasse. Madam Benoit turned away from the window and towards a table on which there was a coffee pot, cups and small jugs. The old woman had dark, hooded eyes, a thin beaky nose and a sallow complexion. She also had a seamed scar across the left cheek, running down from the corner of her eye to the corner of her mouth. Her grey hair was thick and worn in a way that allowed a heavy switch to fall across the worst of the scar.

  'How old would you say she was?' Bright murmured.

  'About seventy,' Marsha said.

  Bright nodded and sipped scotch. He did not take his eyes from the screen.

  The camera Marsha had used was a quality instrument. Despite the poor lighting in the flat the picture was sharp, showing that there was no artifice about Madame Benoit, no make-up, no adjustment of reality. She wore a dark dress that hung limply on her stick-thin body and no personal ornaments apart from a large man's wristwatch on her right wrist.

  'Take your coat off and sit down, Miss Prentiss. You will have coffee?'

  'Thank you.' Marsha hung her bag and coat on the back of a padded chair and sat. Madame Benoit poured the coffee, added milk to both cups and brought Marsha's to her, extending a sugar bowl at the same time. Her hands were rock steady. Marsha refused sugar. The old woman sat opposite her, her bony knees inside the dark cloth almost touching Marsha's. The camera was positioned so as to film both women in profile.

  'You want to talk about the Craft clinic and you mentioned more money.'

  Marsha sipped her coffee and nodded.

  'How much money?'

  'That would depend on the nature and value of the information, Madame Benoit. You knew Basil and Richard Craft?'

  'Both.'

  'Do you have any letters from them, notes, photographs?'

  Merle Benoit shook her head. 'Nothing of that sort. Only experiences which, if we can agree on a figure, I will tell you.'

  Marsha drank her coffee. As an opening gambit, the old woman's move was a strong ploy. 'That makes it difficult. I'm not sure unsupported, unattributable testimony would be of much value.'

  Madame Benoit's thin lips split into a smile. 'You are trying to intimidate me with your jargon. I don't quite understand what you mean but it does not matter. Either you agree to pay me and I tell you what I know, or you do not agree.'

  'And you are paid nothing more.'

  The old woman shrugged. 'That can
be borne by one who has borne so much.'

  It was Marsha's turn to smile in recognition of the woman's victory. 'Three thousand francs.'

  'Five thousand.'

  'That's a lot.'

  'I am guessing that you have 5,000 with you and were hoping to buy me for that outright. I am being fair with you. You can pay me three, in addition to what you already paid, after I have spoken. The rest can be sent to me. I will trust you.'

  'You must be confident that what you have to say is of interest.'

  'I am.' Madame Benoit finished her coffee and set the cup on the floor by her chair. She bent and straightened easily. 'You will never see me again after this meeting. And the money you send will not be sent here.'

  'This looks like your home,' Marsha said. 'You will leave it?'

  'I must.'

  'Everything you say smacks of fear, every word. When I said the Craft brothers were dead, you said, "Are they?" What did you mean by that?'

  Madame Benoit held up her scarcely wrinkled, ringless right hand. The heavy watch with its leather band looked oddly clumsy on her thin wrist. 'I have had a long time to think about this, Miss Prentiss. You must let me tell the story in my own way. Could you let me see the rest of the money, please.'

  Marsha took a thick envelope from her bag, opened it and revealed the edges of the stack of banknotes.

  The old woman nodded and leaned back in her chair. 'We begin,' she said. She smoothed a pleat on the front of her dark dress. Her body was thin and shapeless but something about the gesture suggested that it might not always have been so. 'Basil Craft was my lover.'

  'Ah,' Marsha said.

  'So also was his brother, Richard. You are shocked, perhaps?'

  Marsha, watching, shook her head at the same time as her image on the screen.

  'Richard Craft had a strange disability. He was impotent except with women with whom his brother had had sex.'

  'That is strange.'

  'Yes. He was a perfectly adequate lover, not like his brother who was a beast, but sufficient. He suffered dreadfully under this affliction. I had guessed at it, somehow, but he only told me after one terrible confrontation he had with his brother, who taunted him. Richard told me that he could continue to perform with a woman after his brother had ceased to love her, but only for a time.'

  'I've never heard of this condition,' Marsha said. 'Is there a name for it?'

  'Basil probably had one. A joke, no doubt. As you can imagine, this placed Richard totally in his brother's power. Richard came to hate Basil with a passion, but what could he do? To break with him, or kill him, which was something he dreamed of doing, would be to make a eunuch of himself. What man would do that? Richard was a normal man in every other way than this.'

  'Couldn't he have tried to get help—a psychiatrist?'

  Madame Benoit shrugged. 'He tried, more than one. Here in Zurich where there are many famous doctors, and elsewhere. They could not help him.'

  Marsha said, 'Our researchers so far have shown that, in one case at least, Richard Craft helped women his brother had abused. Was that true of you?'

  'Yes, indeed,' the old woman said, 'but that is to go too fast. I want to tell you about what Basil Craft was doing here at the clinic. First you have to understand that he had a great deal of money.'

  'Where did it come from? His family wasn't rich and he'd been an explorer and traveller before he came to Switzerland.'

  'I do not know. He never said. But money there was. In banks here and in Hong Kong. My feeling was that it was foreign money—American, French, I do not know.'

  Marsha said softly, 'American or French, Madame? Why do you say that?'

  'Many people came to see him. The patients, of course, but many others—English, Russian, Chinese. But the Americans and French came about money. I am sure of it. He was happy when they came. He waited for their visits as he waited for no-one else.'

  'Can you tell me any names?'

  'No. Those men had no names, or many names. I can tell you the names of some of his patients. You will know them.'

  'Yes?'

  'Merle Oberon, Charlie Chaplin, Errol Flynn, King Farouk, Picasso . . . many. Basil Craft was selling youth and beauty, virility and . . .'

  'What?'

  'He called it la vida—the life. It was a pun. Do you understand?'

  'I think so,' Marsha said. 'Spanish, the life, also prostitution.'

  Madame Benoit nodded. 'Just so Basil believed that all people other than peasants and idiots were prostitutes. That we sell ourselves to others for what we can get. He would say, "People sell their bodies, their minds, their time, their imaginations, their emotions. Everything." He said he was selling life to these rich prostitutes so that they could prostitute themselves a little longer.'

  Marsha's anger was apparent. 'What about him?'

  'Ah, no,' Madame Benoit said. 'He was not a seller. He was a buyer.'

  'Of what?'

  'We will come to that. You are still not shocked?'

  'Perhaps a little.'

  'He blackmailed all of his patients. He said he had banked their secrets and they must pay him interest. He laughed about that.'

  'I'm puzzled, Madame. You say you were his lover and yet you are talking about an evil man. A monster. You used the word beast yourself. You suggest he would make a joke of this terrible affliction his brother suffered under. I don't know what you are telling me.'

  'Believe me, my child, I have told you nothing yet. I must have some coffee. You will excuse me.'

  The camera swivelled and tracked the old woman's easy, fluid movements as she stood and collected the coffee things. Madame Benoit made an elegant ceremony of the mundane action and there was something sensual, or at least theatrical, in her movements as she went towards the kitchen. She returned with the tray and poured coffee. She took a number of quick sips at her cup before she spoke. 'I am one of ten children,' the old woman said. 'I love children very much but I have borne only one child myself. It was because of children that I stayed at the clinic. For them, I shared Basil Craft's bed.'

  'Children,' Marsha said.

  'Yes. There were four children.'

  'Whose children?' Marsha said quickly. 'How old were they? When are we talking about? I'm sorry, I'm rushing you, it's just that—'

  'I came to the clinic in 1955 and stayed for almost five years. There were two girls and two boys. Beautiful children, all in their different ways.'

  'I think I understand.'

  'Do you? They were Basil Craft's children, all by different women. The two oldest, the girls, were about the same age. I would say about fourteen years. One was very dark, the other fairer.'

  'The girls were slightly older—about sixteen. One mother was an Arab,' Marsha said. 'The other was a black African.'

  Madame Benoit nodded 'Yes, the girls could have been older. It was hard to know. I see you do know something of this. The oldest boy was Asian in appearance—very large, very strong, even at eleven or twelve years. I am told there are some very big people in China although we think otherwise.'

  'Mongolian,' Marsha said. 'And what of the other boy?'

  'Younger than his brother and sisters. A strange creature. His skin was the colour of copper and his eyes were jet black, darker even than those of the negre. He was wild, like a untamed animal, and he was encouraged to be so.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'The children were brought up in very different ways. The fair girl was taught languages and mathematics; her sister was trained as an athlete. The Asian boy was instructed in almost nothing other than as an homme d'affaires—money, business, you understand?'

  McKinnon and Bright exchanged looks. Bright was about to speak but the producer silenced him with a shake of the head.

  'The younger boy was sometimes sent out into the forest to spend the night. He was only a child but he survived many nights alone in the woods. Later he was left far around the lake with a canoe and told to make his way back. He was left in the moun
tains, too. He had to climb up and down. He always returned. Tell me, Miss Prentiss, do you know to what race his mother belonged?'

  Marsh hit the Pause button. 'I do now,' she said. 'Want to take a break, guys?'

  McKinnon was staring at the screen. 'No, go on,' he said. 'I want to see what she says next.' Marsha released the Pause button.

  Madame Benoit's clean profile changed as she closed her eyes. She seemed to be drifting in a sea of memories. 'I can guess,' she said. 'An American Indian, no?'

  25

  'Extraordinary woman,' McKinnon said, after Marsha had stopped the tape.

  'It's a great interview, Marty,' Bright said. 'You're just letting her tell it, not butting in.'

  'I'm not sure I kept to that as it got rougher,' Marsha said. 'There's a way to go yet.'

  McKinnon uncurled from his chair. 'I'm going to the lavatory, the way people never do in films. Have you noticed that?'

  Bright brewed coffee in the small kitchen and brought the pot and three mugs back into the living room.

  McKinnon inspected the whisky. 'This is terrible stuff, but it might do better in the coffee. Everyone for a spot? Right, on with the show, Marsha.'

  When the film resumed Marsha's face was almost turned to the camera but she appeared to be completely unaware of it. 'God, this is all so cruel. Why did he do it?'

  'Basil Craft said that they were unique specimens of humanity with unique abilities that must be developed. It was an experiment.'

  'He must have been mad. Could no-one stop him?'

  Madame Benoit shrugged. 'Who? The father had papers, money, influence. The children were properly fed and had the very best medical care. People think that the Swiss are a nation of conformists. It is not so. There are many eccentrics, what you call crackpots. Some areas of life here are carefully regulated and some are not regulated at all. Dr Craft, the wealthy physician with the famous patients, could do as he pleased with a collection of mongrel children.'