No Other Life

by Brian Moore

  ‘You are not going to die,’ I said. ‘A court might sentence your husband to death, although I doubt it. But not you.’

  ‘How do you know? If you say that, you don’t understand your friend Cantave. He sees himself as an instrument of vengeance. Now, he has incited the mob to take the law into its own hands.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Oh yes it is. Are you blind, Father? I am not blind. I have been two months in this place. The lawyer given me by your government assures me that I will not be sentenced to death. But I am already under sentence of death. Twice they have tried to kill me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ve seen them out there. They hate me. Look.’ She tugged at the neckline of her prison dress, baring her shoulder and the upper part of her breast. A long ugly wound, red and recent, cut deep into the flesh. ‘This happened last week when I was in the toilets. The prison people did not even bother to bandage it. They laughed at me. And then, four days ago, someone tripped me as I stood at the top of the stairwell. If I had not been caught and held by a mulâtre I would have fallen a hundred feet to my death. Afterwards the man who helped me was beaten by the other prisoners. The guards stood by, laughing. It may happen again tomorrow, it may happen next week. They are not going to wait for a trial. Do you understand, Father? They want to kill me. I have protested to the governor but he ignores me. I have written a letter to Cantave. Perhaps it never reached him. Does he want a trial, or does he want to see me killed like a dog? Ask him that.’

  She reached across the table and put her manacled hands on mine. Her touch was intimate. I cannot explain it, but it was sexual, in a way I unwittingly craved. I believed her. I had just walked past those rows of cells, past those shouting, screaming faces. I looked at her and in that moment was filled with urgent, hopeless desire.

  ‘I will help you,’ I said. ‘I’ll speak to him at once.’

  She pressed my hand tightly. Tears came into her eyes. We stared at each other for a long moment and then she withdrew her touch. She stood up. We were being watched for, as soon as she stood, I heard the door open with its eerie, ratlike squeal. The old turnkey stood in the open doorway touching his cap. ‘Finish, Mon Pe?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This way, Mon Pe.’

  We went out into the corridor. The two women warders who were waiting there moved towards Caroline and I saw that she would be led off in another direction. Caroline Lambert looked at them, hesitated, then turned to me, smiling in a parody of that social manner she must have used all her life.

  ‘Thank you for seeing me, Father. I’m sorry to have kept you so late.’

  The female warders closed in on either side of her. I watched, with ineluctable longing, until she was out of sight.

  8

  A black Mercedes, flying the presidential colours on its front bumper, waited for me in the prison courtyard. The uniformed chauffeur held open the door and touched his cap respectfully before taking his place behind the wheel. As we drove through darkened streets, the city seemed asleep. There were few vehicles about and no sign of police or soldiers. Yet, somewhere in the distance, I heard shouts and, as we moved through the central market area, the sky was reddened by bonfires, attended by chanting, drunk-seeming youths. The shouts and yelling diminished as we drove towards the dead-of-night torpor of the parliament buildings and, at last, the vast deserted square surrounding the silence of the palace.

  I was expected. Mathieu Clément, Jeannot’s press aide, waited at the main entrance and again I was led up many flights of marble stairs to the east wing and Jeannot’s private quarters. Tonight, he was not in his bedroom but in a large, book-lined library, the sort of ceremonial room where heads of state sit with important foreign guests, smiling and miming conversation as photographers record the meeting.

  Jeannot stood by the window, looking out into the night. When he turned round, I sensed that he was apprehensive.

  ‘So what is the news from Rome?’

  ‘Cardinal Innocenti has been getting reports that you’re trying to set up a dictatorship.’

  ‘Reports from who? From Taburly? From the Archbishop?’

  ‘Probably from both,’ I said. ‘But I suspect Rome’s worried because the foreign press is beginning to say dangerous things about you. You must have seen the stories in the New York Times and Le Monde. The fact that you’ve refused to negotiate with parliament, the fact that you want to appoint your own premier – it sounds to the outside world as if nothing has changed since the days of Doumergue. And now these demonstrations – whatever you call them – are being viewed as incitements to violence.’

  ‘They’re nothing of the sort. They’re merely a warning that people have power and will use it to get their way.’

  ‘Their way?’ I said. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Justice.’

  ‘Justice? What sort of justice is there in putting someone like Caroline Lambert on trial when the real criminals are sitting free in Paris? Or arresting the likes of Elie Audran, whose main crime seems to be that he’s Macandal’s brother-in-law? How many other small-fry have you locked up lately?’

  ‘You don’t understand. We’re sending our enemies a message.’

  ‘What sort of message are you sending by putting someone’s wife in jail?’

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘It’s Caroline Lambert. That’s what’s upset you, isn’t it?’

  I felt my face hot. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I might have known. She’s clever, all right. She picked the right person. Good, kind Father Michel whose big heart is well known. What did she tell you? That she’s a victim of paranoia? Did she throw herself on your mercy? What was it, Paul?’

  ‘They’re going to kill her,’ I said. ‘Any day now.’

  ‘Who’s going to kill her?’

  ‘The people you taught to hate her. Her fellow prisoners in Fort Nöl.’

  ‘Is that what she says? It’s nonsense.’

  ‘Is it?’

  He stared at me. ‘Why do you believe her?’

  ‘Why not? She’s not a criminal. She’s Lambert’s wife, that’s all she is. Don’t you realise what you’re doing? You’ve made her the scapegoat for everything that’s wrong here. You saw that crowd tonight outside the prison. But you didn’t see what I did, the crowd inside, the prisoners, screaming at her. They’ve already tried to kill her. Twice. Did you get the letter she sent you?’

  ‘What letter?’

  ‘Did you get it?’

  My voice was loud. In all of our years together, Jeannot and I had never talked in this way.

  For a moment he did not speak. Then he said, ‘Even you. I’ve been told it, but I didn’t believe it. She can twist any man around her little finger. Anyone.’

  My anger was now so great that I couldn’t answer him. Then Jeannot, with that grace he had always possessed, came to me, gripped my shoulder and said, ‘Paul, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Maybe you’re right. I’ll ask the governor to put her under special protection.’

  ‘That’s not enough.’

  ‘What would you suggest, then?’

  ‘We’ve got to get her out of there.’

  ‘Where would we put her?’

  ‘I’ve thought of a place, a safe place. Let me find out if it’s possible to send her there.’

  ‘All right. Do it.’ He turned towards the window, and looked out at the night. Moonlight bathed the great square. ‘Now let’s talk about Rome,’ he said. ‘If Rome forces me to choose between being a priest or the President, what am I going to do? I can’t make that choice because first, last, and always I see myself as a priest. Can’t you make them understand? Can you reassure Cardinal Innocenti in some way?’

  ‘I can try.’

  ‘Please, Paul? It means – well, you know what it means to me.’

  The following day I sent a facsimile report to Cardinal Innocenti. I did not send it through the nunciature because I did not want Taburly t
o contradict me. I told the Cardinal that Jeannot very much regretted the demonstrations and had promised to negotiate peacefully with his political rivals when the Senate elections came up in six weeks’ time. When I sent that report I was, as always, loyal to Jeannot and working on his behalf. But, for the first time, we were trading with each other. If I helped him, he would help me. For – there is no other word for it – I had become obsessed with Caroline Lambert. In those few days she was constantly in my mind: the image of her sitting across from me in that sinister room, tears in her eyes, her hands touching mine.

  I had a plan. I remembered a visit I had made to a convent of Carmelite nuns in a remote part of Cap Nord. I managed to get through to the Mother Superior on the telephone. When I explained my dilemma, she agreed to take Caroline Lambert in until such time as she came to trial.

  That same evening I went to the presidential palace. Jeannot received me during his dinner hour. He sat at a long table with his aides, all of them eating and arguing together. First, I told him of my report to Cardinal Innocenti. He was pleased. Then I told him about the Carmelite nuns. He looked up and down the table to see if any of his aides were listening. But the group was noisily engaged in some debate about how to get rice supplies to a starving village in Mele.

  Jeannot leaned towards me. ‘How would she get there? It would have to be done in secret. Someone would have to take her. Who could we trust?’

  ‘I’ll take her.’

  There was a silence. Then he said, ‘You know I don’t want to do this. You also know I can’t refuse you. Tell me. The convent isn’t a prison. What’s to prevent her running away?’

  ‘The convent is like a prison. It’s remote, on a mountain top, approached by a dirt track, which can be travelled only on foot or by muleback. There is no village for forty miles in any direction. I’ve spoken to the Reverend Mother and she’s promised they’ll keep a very close watch on her. If, and when, you hold a trial, she will have to return to Port Riche. I know that.’

  He looked at me. ‘And the other, more important, matter?’ he said. ‘If you are not at the college, how will I be warned?’

  ‘Remember, we’ve been told that it won’t happen until after the elections at the end of April. Tomorrow is the 15th of March. I’ll only be gone for three days, at most.’

  ‘Still . . .’

  ‘Look. If the Colonel shows up, Nöl Destouts will take the message. Nöl will be deputising for me. He’s your friend. We can trust him. I’ll ask him to telephone you.’

  ‘He’s my friend,’ Jeannot said. ‘But I don’t want you to tell him what’s going on. We’ve agreed, haven’t we? We tell no one.’

  And so, I did as Jeannot asked. I told Nöl only that the Colonel’s message, if it came, was a code for something political and that he must telephone Jeannot as soon as he received it.

  ‘But where are you off to?’ Nöl wanted to know.

  I lied. I told everyone at the college that I was going to Cap Nord because Jacques Letellier, one of my scholarship pupils, now a judge, had become seriously ill. On the day after my second meeting with Jeannot, I went to the orphanage in Laramie that was run by the Sisters of Ste Marie. There I obtained a nun’s habit and sandals which I stowed into a canvas bag. Sister Dolores, a tall, heavily built Ganaen, the owner of the habit, was intensely curious as to my reason for borrowing it. I don’t remember what lie I told her, but by now I had become glib at dissembling.

  Shortly before dawn on the following day I drove up to the grim gates of Fort Nöl. Jeannot had telephoned ahead. I was admitted at once and led to the governor’s office. There, sitting on a bench, was Caroline Lambert. The governor, roused early from his bed, was drinking coffee at his desk. I handed him the letter that Jeannot had given me. He read it suspiciously, then asked, ‘Where are you taking her?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I can’t say.’

  I opened the canvas bag and took out the nun’s habit and sandals. ‘Put these on,’ I told her.

  The governor watched as she struggled into the oversized, old-fashioned habit.

  ‘Pull the head-dress forward,’ I said. ‘Conceal your face.’

  ‘No release form, no transfer of the prisoner,’ the governor said. ‘It’s as though I’m letting her escape.’

  He rose and looked out at the main prison courtyard.

  ‘Is that your car down there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The six o’clock guard shift comes on in about ten minutes’ time. If you leave quickly, I don’t think anyone will notice her.’

  And so, as dawn came up, a priest and a nun passed through the gates of Fort Nöl and drove down to the terminal at Rue Desmoulins where decrepit public transport buses leave for the rural regions.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘To a convent, far from here.’

  ‘Not a prison?’

  ‘No. But you must stay there for a time. I’ve given my word that you won’t run away. I must trust you. And I’m asking you to trust me.’

  She turned and looked at me directly. ‘Of course I trust you.’

  When we reached the bus station, Hyppolite was waiting for me outside the entrance. He did not look at the ‘nun’ who was with me. When I handed him the car keys, he smiled and said, ‘Bon voyage, Pe Paul.’

  We watched him drive off in the car. I took her into the terminal and pointed to a bench near the ticket booths. ‘Will you wait there?’

  She nodded and sat, her head bent forward, her face concealed by the ample head-dress. I went to the booth and bought two tickets to Damienville, the last stop on the northern route. As I paid for the tickets I looked back at her. What would I do if she tried to run away?

  When I returned with the tickets and two beignets which I bought from a nearby kiosk, she took the food, thanked me and ate, still hiding her face from the other passengers who ran about, shouting at each other, asking questions, searching for the right departure platform. I had to leave her again while I, too, searched. When, at last, I found the Damienville bus, I seated us in the back row, behind a mother and three small, noisy children.

  The bus, half-filled, began to move out of the terminal, its ancient engine noisily backfiring as we rolled into the Rue Desmoulins. One of the children, a little girl not more than five years old, put her head over the back of the seat, staring at us. After a moment she put her index fingers into her ears, wiggling them in performance for our benefit. Caroline Lambert laughed. The child, delighted, disappeared from view. And then Caroline, turning to me, put her hand on mine.

  ‘Thank you for saving my life.’

  Her hand, holding mine. My hand, pressing hers, returning the secret embrace in a contact intimate as the touch of no other person in my life. I did not speak, nor did she. The ancient bus rumbled through the centre of the city, anonymous, unnoticed, a busload of poor folk – factory workers, farm labourers, artisans who had come to the city to offer their wares. I was alone with her, her body close. I trembled in strange exaltation.

  In Ganae, as in no other country, to leave the slums of the capital is to enter an alternate scene of misery, the desolation of a land denuded of its trees, its fields debilitated by ignorant plantings of crop upon crop, its peasants living in lean-to shacks which give little shelter from the unrelenting sun and drenching rains. All day long, our bus travelled dusty roads, climbing into the harsh mountains, stopping in small villages, usually on the banks of a stream, where large-eyed children, their bodies brittle from undernourishment, clustered around the embarking or descending travellers in a listless charade of begging for coins. And then in late afternoon, as we came within twenty miles of Damienville, a man climbed on to the bus, holding in his arms a young goat. He sat himself down on a seat directly ahead of us and for a frightening moment he seemed to recognise Caroline, peering at her, smiling in an excited, half-mad way. She turned to the window, avoiding him, and at that point I saw that he was a Down’s syndrome victim. I leaned towards Caroline and whispered in
French. I was sure he would speak only Creole. At that, she relaxed slightly but kept her head turned away from him. It was then that I looked at the goat, its long, sinful face like a carnival devil’s mask, its yellow, green-flecked orbs watching me, unblinking, the eyes of the evil one. I do not believe in the devil and not since boyhood have I feared hellfire. But, in some way I did not understand, it was as though the goat-eyes knew and incited my hidden desires. I heard my mother’s dying voice:

  Please, Paul. It is not too late. Leave the priesthood now.

  The goat flicked its head upwards, its eyes closing in a shame-filled blink. I looked at Caroline Lambert, hiding in her nun’s robe. She was seventeen years my junior, she was beautiful and foreign, someone from a world I could never enter. My longing for her was as unreal as that fleeting sight of the devil in the mask of a mindless goat.

  There is only one hotel in Damienville, a dismal place where we ate in a dining room that smelled of rancid oil. Later, we were shown to rooms, small and squalid as cells. I tried to pray but could not. I lay on the dirty mattress, half-dozing, knowing that she lay a few doors away, my mind filled with the bitter irony of that beautiful, sensual face, framed in the purity of a religious robe.

  Next morning I rented two mules and we set off up a twisting mountain track towards the region known as Pondicher. Here, in the high country, the air was thin and clear. Here, the land had not been endlessly divided among poor subsistence farmers, but belonged to a few rich families, people of Caroline’s sort. As we climbed upwards, we could see below us clouds like great grey airships, drifting into the tops of tall pines. This was Ganae as it must have been centuries ago, in those unknown times of the Arunda Indians, before the French conquest, before black slaves, imported from Africa, won their freedom by butchering their owners in the years of revenge and revolt.

  We were alone. No birds sang. All was silence. I was riding on muleback in a landscape magical as a painting by Poussin. I looked at her, riding ahead, her body bobbing in the saddle as the mule picked its way upwards, and again, I was suffused by a sense of loss for a path not taken, an unlived other life.