The Janeites

by Nicolas Freeling

  “But from what you tell us,” suggested Albert, “might he have made an unguarded remark? Frivolous, or just ironic. Fanatics have no sense either of humour or proportion.”

  “Lacking any shred of evidence” in very much the ‘judge’s voice’, “this is vulgar and tendentious speculation, reminds you only to keep your mind alert to different possibilities which may exist. We’re going to have supper off the kitchen table.”

  Dr Valdez hasn’t at all made up his mind what – if anything – he can do about William. Essential facts – the wife, and he’ll have to talk to Professor Rupprecht. Early days yet. But the Crab – people think of it as slow and lumbering, and so it often is. But one day out in California, where they think about these things, a friend in the Santa Cruz faculty brought him to the beach. He had seen there an extraordinary crab, of phenomenal speed and agility. Put on his mettle he had tried to catch it – the local people laughing heartily at mounting frustration and fury towards the skitter-critter. ‘Popularly known as a Sally Lightfoot.’ Seen as a lesson, salutary.

  It wasn’t any affair of Silvia’s so that he had rung the Marquis’s secretary.

  “Joséphine’s address? Sure but I have to ask permission; will you hang on?” Then a throat-clearing noise and the Marquis, sounding amused.

  “That will be very good for her. And we’ll grease the slipway. Patricia will tell her to await you in a proper frame of mind. That will be better than her thinking herself important at your coming to see her. I can’t stop for a chat dear boy, I’m rather pressed.”

  The Santa Cruz campus was in an area ‘zoologically interesting’.

  “Are there pumas?” he’d asked, impressed.

  “Certainly. Saw one the other day out of my bedroom window.”

  “What was it doing?”

  “Drinking out of the swimming-pool.” Didn’t sound Menacing.

  “Do you do anything about that?”

  “No. Keep the dogs indoors.” Somebody changed the subject, pumas being no cause for excitement hereabouts. Raymond is wondering now what you do if when out for a walk you meet a puma. You’d stay still, wait quietly for it to go away; it’s concerned with its own affairs. Supposing it decided it didn’t like you? He has no ideas.

  The Strasbourg-Paris shuttle is what you’d expect: perfunctory, boring and offensive with chemically perfumed cleansing agents, like a public shithouse. Takes less than an hour but you have to drive out to that horrible airport. Raymond mounted on his donkey in early-morning traffic is content to be unhurried and do some exercises to loosen a stiff neck: the fellow in the car behind would be thinking oh-dear-god, the things they allow out on the roads nowadays. Well then, why doesn’t he pass me? Since I’m trundling in the centre lane why does he sit so stupidly behind me? Unforgivable, thus to sink into a morass of footstep-doggers; spies; Assassins. This ghastly man stayed glued to his heels, was next door in the all-day parking lot, behind him at the check-in, herded with him into the waiting-room; destabilizing him.

  Climbing aboard the shuttle, with these sinister manifestations about him – now he can’t move at all. Dr Valdez slips into the narrative style of the Bloods.

  ‘Boogie grim-lipped passes to the Attack! Obscured by fog the mighty mass of Illtyld looms to starboard. Illtyld the only Tunnel passable by four-motored planes! This is the moment – the pilot glued to his instruments – Blackhawk chooses to launch the deadly assault… Blackhawk slim and muscled, embodiment of greeneyed evil, now known to be a WOMAN!

  ‘Has vowed an undying hatred towards Boogie for the rejection of monstrous unnamable Love! Mercifully Orfea the magical musician has foreseen the DEATHTRAP, just as she rejected the evil lesbian love of Blackhawk.’ And while regressing comes the childhood query: Why did Orpheus with his lute make trees? It seemed an odd instrument to choose.

  A little later in boyhood one tried to put some polish into the narrative. Extremely unconvinced about the sudden rescue of Marina by the Pirates (though these belong to the great-pirate-Valdez, so one has to forgive them.) And why was one reading Pericles? Purely on account of it being judged Forbidden to good Catholic schoolchildren because of the Bordel scenes …

  There isn’t even space for his simple stretching exercise. The business-men – instantly pop-crackle-snap went all their locks and lids, and they’re all staring at the little plastic screen praying it might tell them something nice. Failing to move his muscles Raymond tries to limber the mind.

  The pilot limbers his wires and his wheels. Exhilarating when he turns the power up. But when he gets the go, takes off the brakes and we run, all the brave knights close their visors and sweat inside their armour; they are Afeared and mustn’t show it. Whereas Raymond is a professional. Death is simply the hope for a moment of dignity and recollection. ‘Into Thy Hands I commend my Spirit’. In the Society we do it every day.

  Airborne, it is time to be a Doctor for a moment. He is going to meet William’s wife; a step, one hopes, in understanding suggestions. Only the Fellow can cure himself.

  Sure. Just like any doctor, he’d passed his exam, got his diploma, the Society threw him straight in to where they knock the Greeny out of you. Six months – about all you can stand, your first tour – with Médecins-sans-frontièrs: the starving-black-babies. Dehydration you learn quick. The pill, the needle, if you can find space for it between skin and bone; you know you haven’t one chance in a hundred. Your reward? – those amazing luminous eyes of the mother willing you to say You-I-Save. The pill and the needle are of no consequence: what you are is Hope.

  I am bloodbrother with William. He said, ‘You never know for sure that you will jump to meet the bullet. It’s supposed to be the automatic gesture, taking the place of thought. That was the training.’

  To be sure: in Africa he had thought of the professional voice, the Jesuit professor in the quiet classroom.

  ‘You are standing in line, in the camp. It is freezing, it is burning: that’s no odds. He walked down your line, neither fast nor slow, tapping people. Haircut! – they liked their little cliché jokes. Max Kolbe is said to have made a step to the front, politely. Take me instead – you’ve only to fill your quota. Could you do that? Think.

  ‘A further fact. Supposing he had been a real SS man. Smart and upright, a man himself dedicated, trained to face death. You could respect that man. He could increase your courage. He might have understood: he would have been capable of saluting you.

  ‘Instead, it was a slob. Didn’t look at you, pushed you coarsely by the shoulder – stand over there. Left you no dignity, no self-respect. Death was a dirty ignorant slob with bad-smelling breath.’

  Were William condemned, it would be harsh. A forged piece of steel, tough and supple, tempered to hold a fine edge. Into this marvellous raw material have been put much money and time.

  These ramblings, since you couldn’t call them trains of thought, continued in a limpingly disjointed fashion up to the gates of Paris, at which point Doctor Raymond Valdez disembarked, a bit stiff around the knees but professionally enough, remembering a joke told him by William. Allah sent the Angel of Death to finish with an unpleasant Dictator. The Angel got caught by security guards, was badly beaten up, and sent back in a shocking state. ‘My God,’ said Allah. ‘I hope you didn’t tell them who sent you.’

  I too, in my turn, am a security guard, here to try and protect William from a cunning, persistent and imaginative assassin.

  They knew how to build houses in Baron Haussmann’s day. Seeking entry Ray was aware of scrutiny, by the electronic eye. Joséphine – she is alone in the flat – looks rather carefully before letting people into the fortress. A youngish man, doesn’t look much like the doctor she has been told to expect; older perhaps than he looks. Expensive clothes, looking rather crumpled. She let him in.

  Raymond saw a tall, bony young woman with straight fair hair. Skirt, but would look well in trousers. Large hands and feet, very fine legs (blow your nose and avoid lechery). Living-room, large,
well lit, nicely proportioned, Empire furniture, stripy silk upholstery. Plenty of family money. She sat on a chaise-longue, put her legs up to be admired, sat him in a curule chair (surprisingly comfortable).

  “Marky has told me about you. Name of Valdez, you Peruvian or something?”

  “Something. I’m a famous writer. Nobel Prize, magical realism.”

  “And a Jesuit – Witchdoctor!” Deep voice, rare in French women.

  “Mutter charms. Blow the candle out but put a pinch first of the Devils Foot on the wick – make you see things.” Parisian crosschat; if you can’t make me laugh you’re a bum.

  “Come from Strasbourg – provincial puddingdom.”

  “I hear this all the time – in Paris or London – the world revolves around us; now that Is provincial.” She rearranged herself a little pettishly.

  “I’m not very clear about this. Come to give me a talking-to, about God?”

  “Hardly. God can be a bit of an old fraud now and then.”

  Laugh, rather a good one, deep in the throat.

  “Jesuitical thing to be saying.”

  “Most doctors would agree that God has a way of not being around when most needed.”

  “Heresy.”

  “Just unsentimental. The commonplace claim is that God can’t exist, or He wouldn’t allow horrible sufferings and injustices. That’s to have an over-inflated idea of our importance. Saying that God made a lousy job of it strikes me as arrogant.”

  “So we are arrogant. As Marky says – I am an entity; they are nonentities.”

  “How d’you think a doctor survives? Drowned in shit all day. I’ve no time to feel sorry about the horrors. That’s God’s business, so I’ll get on with my own.”

  “Man, you are boring me. You’ve been taking up with William as I hear; that what all this is about?”

  “You didn’t hear that William’s been seen in bad company?”

  “Your own, no doubt.”

  “Better said, the bad company’s been seen with William. Little touch of the Crab but awkwardly placed… Ah, the Marquis hadn’t told you that.” She sat upright; the eyes went twice the size.

  “Not possible! William… but he’s the toughest thing out… physically… He’s no age. And all that boxing and volleyball.”

  “Yes, the crab can be very puritanical about denying us these little pleasures.”

  “Oh God.”

  “Oh dear, there’s God again.”

  “That is what Marky meant, making jokes about the Cancer Man, he’s talking about you.”

  “What is it you call him in bed?”

  “Jesus, who’ll be next? I’m going out today to get my tits X-rayed. I’m going to have a drink and don’t tell me it’s too early,” leaping up and rushing out to the kitchen. She came back with two glasses, pushed the bottle at him. “Open it.”

  “Madame… by the way, my name is Ray,” untwisting the wire.

  “And a cervical smear. Joséphine will do. What else should I have? That snide remark – that’s bloody rude.” She took a big swig and it calmed her.

  “I am bloody rude. This the best you can do, getting in a fuss?”

  “Oh all right. Slight shock, someone you know.”

  “That sounds accurate, as far as it goes. Your turn to pour.”

  “I’ve got this nasty feeling you’ll be on about God again if I’m not careful. Well, I am careful. I care also about William.”

  “But you don’t love him, is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Not at all. I did, or thought I did. I was mistaken. A clear conscience, about that. I tried.”

  “Yes, it’s a word to be careful with. ‘In all conscience’ we say, or perhaps ‘speaking as a conscientious woman’. Tcha, if the human being were something we could pour water in at the top, and be satisfied when urine comes out at the bottom, we could treat illness with a few plants, champagne for instance. Could you say why, do you think, or don’t you know?”

  “He’s much too good.” Quite sadly and seriously. “It drove me bats. I’m not good at all. I wanted to claw him.” There would be more, plenty more … but it was a moment of lucidity.

  “Like the man said, daylight and champagne could not be clearer. Not too sure about the daylight nowadays.”

  “The champagne isn’t what it was either. One thought life would be more fun, somehow.”

  “I didn’t come here to pester you. Only to know where you stood. Then I know where I stand. I’ll take myself off.”

  “We could have lunch together. If you liked.” And that too told him something. He’d have enjoyed it too; this girl with the lovely long legs. ‘I am tempted, Scaramouche’ and the answer come pat – ‘Always yield to temptation, master.’ Sadly, life isn’t simple any more. Nice little place round the corner, let’s have coffee back at home, and you can spend the afternoon in bed with her. “Back on the shuttle?” she asked. “I see. But I rather imagine you’ll be back.”

  “Paris is not far.” And the distance is speedily lessened.

  A tormenting female. Just the sort the Marquis would like. So he thought about the old man, while banging through the lunchtime traffic saying ‘It’s time for the apéro.’ Meaning that he should stop for lunch.

  The old man was making a virtue of being old. ‘Can’t be bothered with all this computer bullshit.’ Internets and e-mails; accepts that life has gone past him, but trying hard still to enjoy girls.

  Raymond hasn’t felt frightened since being in Paris; hadn’t had time? Too much else on his mind: himself is not important enough.

  When younger he had known and greatly loved an old lady. Russian; a poet, along with much else. Long after he had lost sight of her he had learned that when coming towards the end of her life she had written memos of people she had known, and among them himself. By now Doctor Valdez is quite high on self-awareness, reckons he knows himself pretty well. In that script, a few pages of scrawly handwriting, was a passage he thought summed-up the matter.

  ‘He was a type one has known more of, afraid only of being afraid. It is good to see a young man in love with his own honour. He accused himself of physical cowardice; full of a reckless nervous courage. He said once that if he saw a man, or even a child, fallen in the Seine he would be frightened to jump in. The speed of imagination is such that he saw himself drowning while incapable of saving another, since he was a poor swimmer. Adding that he wouldn’t jump in the Seine anyhow since any doctor knows the extent of chemical and bacteriological hazard. I told him that he would have gone in to a fire. No no, he said; afraid of pain. I treated that with contempt. He would laugh at pain, and even while shouting for morphia. Proud as Satan, what he could not bear was that another should think him afeared.’ Not a bad reading, one would admit.

  He has been thinking about words – ‘Sweet of you’ he’d said to her invitation. In French gentil but the English would not say ‘gentle of you’. Miss Joséphine is not very sweet, but she has her gentle side. The Marquis would probably add that gentility had nothing to do with being a gentleman (a word the French associate with good manners); he enjoys these ‘little phrases’.

  The airport check-in girl has not her mind on her work. Her little radio was only mouthing commercials.

  “What is it?”

  “Crash on the autoroute,” managing to be distant, rude and patronizing in those few syllables. Tornado in Arkansas, mass destruction, hundreds homeless, but on the midday news it’s ‘Is that all?’ On the Western Front, nothing to report; General Haig is said to be preoccupied. Here, now, is a police mouthpiece saying (being French) that a certain-number-of-questions have been raised, calling-for-clarification. Quite. Such as, why are human beings inhuman? Ray crawls into a corner, suffering from depression.

  Before the flight was even called he has heard it all from the neighbours. Chap overtaking, another has the same idea; big truck brakes too hard and goes crossways; six more go barrelling straight into him. Before you can say Air Bag. Yes and it c
ould have been me. But not in the Café de Commerce, which is here. ‘What I always say Is…’ The poor lunk who suggests people ought to drive slower is howled down by Our Individual Liberties.

  La France Moisie; it will translate as musty, mouldy, mildewed. Never quite submerged. Much is submerged, much of the time, so that nobody ever quite knows how much there really is. But a lot. It was happy through most of the nineteenth century; perturbed by 1848 – much more by the Commune. The twentieth was less good: it is still having a dreadful time trying to hold down the memory of ’40 to ’44. Mildew-France hates everyone but particularly Jews, blacks, Brits, Germans, the neighbours, Europe, and the State. Doctor Valdez, like all his profession, can put his sense of smell in abeyance at will, more or less, but there’s a fearful stink in the afternoon shuttle.

  Quite a different atmosphere from this morning (heavy with the sense of doom, guillotines-at-dawn). This crowd got it Done-by-lunchtime, hilarious when the Presentation went well; not going back to the office, neither: boss expects you to be on call up to eleven at night, and fuck that. Raymond’s neighbour is chatty. Asked his racket Ray says ‘Endocrinologist’ but this stopper does not always work. His new-pal gets into athletics, alarmingly. ‘These Tour de France riders, stuff they have, dope no? Increase your red corpuscles, doesn’t show up in the weewee.’ Raymond to his sorrow knows about this, is led (to the greater) to speak of it. To make it work you inject a lot of iron, more than the metabolism copes with. By the end of your career you’ve a simply lovely little liver-cancer all set up and waiting for you. No, he doesn’t know what can be done about it.

  Discontent; certaintly thinking Endocrinwhatsit, all worn out from getting his golf handicap down.

  “Just settling into our landing pattern,” said the loudspeaker. Crossing the Mont Saint Odile, famous in myth and history. A shuttle once chose to crash here. Middle of the night, of the winter, of thick forest, of deep snow; inconvenient. After many-many boards of enquiry there was still nobody who knew why.