The Sixth Lamentation fa-1

by William Brodrick

  ‘He’s very generous,’ said Susan, adding, as if she’d peered inside an envelope, ‘assuming he’s a he.’

  ‘You’re right, said Lucy reaching for her coat. She moved into the hall, to a safe distance. ‘He’s a painter.’

  ‘An artist,’ called Susan encouragingly. ‘How lovely’

  2

  In times of joy or profound uncertainty Anselm always retreated to the small lake at the end of the bluebell walk, roughly halfway between the Priory and the Convent. He brought Conroy with him, who’d reached an impasse in the writing of his book. For a moment they looked across in silence towards the middle of the lake, where a stone statue of the Virgin Mary, smoothed by years of wind and rain, rose from the water, her arms open in endless submission. They climbed into a rowboat by a failing wooden landing stage and pushed off, to low groans from the black-green timbers.

  The events of the previous year had increasingly brought to Anselm’s mind Tennyson’s ‘Morte d’Arthur’, large sections of which had been mercilessly thrust upon him at school. The lines often came back, like snippets of song, cuttings in the, mind. Looking at the shining levels of the lake Anselm said, ‘Sometimes I think of Sir Bedivere charged by his dying king to throw Excalibur into the place from whence it came.’

  Conroy took his bearings and began a steady pulling of the oars.

  ‘He can’t obey Twice he lies. First, because he’s dazzled by its beauty. Next, because he asks a cracking good question: “Were it well to obey then, if a king demand an act unprofitable against himself?”‘

  Conroy nodded knowledgably

  ‘So he lies. “What did you see or hear?” asks Arthur. “Just ripples and lapping.” But the king knows the answer isn’t true. He’s waiting anxiously for something outside the usual order of things.’

  The oar-blades cut the surface of the lake.

  “‘I’ll rise and kill you with my hands if you fail me this last time,” the king says, and the well-trusted knight runs for his very life to the shore and, with eyes shut, flings Excalibur far into the night. He’s obeyed but expects his old lie to come true. But something undreamed-of happens, at the very last moment. ‘

  They were nearing the middle of the lake.

  ‘When he looks again, an arm clothed in white samite rises from the water and catches the hilt. Thrice it’s brandished, and drawn gently beneath the mere.’

  Conroy rested and scratched his thick arms.

  ‘Overwhelmed, Bedivere runs back to tell the king what he’s seen. There the king lies, among the stones of a chapel ruin. He’s lost everything he cared about in this life. The Round Table is no more; its knights, man by man, having fallen under the sword. But the dream for which he hoped and waited has happened. The hand that gave him the sword has taken it back. His life has meaning. He does not die bewildered.’

  Conroy pulled the oars through their locks, letting the boat gently turn and drift as it pleased.

  ‘I’ve always had a soft spot for Sir Bedivere,’ said Anselm. ‘He’s a bemused English empiricist, ill at ease with mysticism. And, rather unfairly he gets his head bitten off for keeping his feet on the ground:

  Conroy made a pillow from his jumper, lodged it in the prow and lay back.

  Anselm said, ‘As a boy I often used to wonder how Arthur would have died if Bedivere had come back and said, honestly this time, “Truly I saw nothing but water lapping on the crag. She did not come.

  A slight wind threw ripples upon the lake, chasing shadows and reflections into a dark shiver. The boat turned in circles. Conroy was lying back, legs outstretched and arms crossed upon his chest. Unnoticed, the oars quietly slipped from their locks and bobbed away

  ‘“And God fulfils himself in many ways”,’ cited Conroy

  ‘Where’s that from?’ asked Anselm.

  ‘The same poem; part of the old king’s final testament, just before he dies as I’d like to die.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  Conroy sat up, his face alight, mischievous. ‘In the arms of three beautiful weeping women.

  3

  Lucy and her parents sat at a table playing Scrabble in the small courtyard garden of Chiswick Mall. Agnes, propped up, watched from her bed through the open French windows.

  Susan glared at the row of letters on her stand. Lucy leaned back to sneak a look: Q, F, X, L, B… She turned away, gratified. Her mother was choking without vowels. The game produced in Lucy a ruthless competitive urge that permitted minor infractions of the rules. It was her father’s turn. He put the small tablets carefully on the board:

  Y-A-W

  ‘That’s not a word,’ said Susan petulantly

  ‘Is that a challenge?’ replied Freddie, his hand on the dictionary as if it were a gun.

  ‘No.’

  Lucy studied her own predicament: Z, Q, K, 0, 5, 0, A. It was hopeless. ‘Would anyone like some tea?’

  Her mother nodded fiercely.

  Lucy passed through the French windows and sat by her grandmother’s side. She leaned forward and said, ‘What do you make of this lot?’ She recited her letters. Agnes thought for a moment while Lucy retrieved the alphabet card from the side of the bed. Agnes replied:

  Z-O-O-K-S

  Lucy said, doubtfully, ‘Are you sure?’

  Agnes nodded with her eyelids.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Lucy went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. A noise behind startled her. It was her father.

  ‘Anything wrong?’ she asked innocently

  ‘Lucy,’ he said gravely ‘I saw you on the news, in the back-ground, coming out of a court…

  Lucy thrust both hands into her hair, disarranging the carefully placed grips and clips. Her father struggled to continue. ‘It’s to do with Gran, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lucy not curtly or reluctantly but with mercy.

  ‘She knows that Nazi bastard, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, Dad, she does.’

  ‘My God.’ He arranged his tie and rubbed an eyebrow, saying, ‘Will I ever know what happened?’

  Without reflection but with something approaching passion, Lucy said, ‘Yes, you will, I promise, but it can’t be now’

  ‘All right.’ He spoke like a beggar on the street promised a sandwich instead of money. The reversal of power stung. She filled the pot with steaming water.

  Chapter Forty

  1

  Mr Penshaw began his speech on the Monday morning with an ordered but piecemeal presentation of bare facts, in themselves not particularly startling. But something unstated imperceptibly emerged which, once before the mind of the court, grew minute by minute until Mr Penshaw named it with contempt.

  ‘It takes an effort of charity to concede a man could play his part within the apparatus of mass murder and not know the dreadful end towards which his efforts were engaged.’

  Mr Penshaw turned quizzically to the dock, bringing the eyes of the jurors on to Schwermann.

  ‘Is it conceivable that an impressionable young man could be left in any doubt as to the fate of the children that passed through his hands? Is it credible that an intelligent young man could grind out euphemisms without knowing the terrible truth they concealed?’

  He paused, returning his gaze to those whose task it was to answer the questions.

  ‘No, he could not. And how do we know? Because of Victor Brionne. The penitent collaborator, the knight errant, the best friend of Jacques Fougeres.’

  Two others were conjured into the courtroom. The jury would think of Agnes Aubret, who died at Auschwitz, and her little boy who was held back from the pit. Lucy could have wept. It was literally the other way round.

  ‘If the Defendant intervened then he did so for reasons we will never know, and to spare this child a dreadful killing which he knew was prepared for him, like so many others, at the end of a railway line.’

  Mr Penshaw had almost finished. He put his text aside and spoke with growing anger. ‘There is only one conclusion you can draw W
ith all his senses and faculties attuned, this man wilfully played his part in a scheme that was grand to the twisted dreams of its architects, unthinkable in its proportions, purpose, and consequences, and whose victims now call out for justice. Do not forget them when you retire to make your decision.

  Mr Justice Pollbrook thought that a good place to stop for twenty minutes.

  2

  Anselm tried several times to contact DI Armstrong. His calls were not returned, so he left a message — that she should phone him urgently regarding a personal matter. Immediately afterwards he left for London, driven by Conroy. It had been arranged that they would lodge at St Catherine’s, an Augustinian house near the Old Bailey As they passed through the gates of Larkwood, Anselm took a last glimpse of the monastery, its countless roofs folding in upon the other like so many russet wings, and he felt an aching as he’d only known when he used to depart for his old life at the Bar.

  The Prior of St Catherine’s provided large iron keys, fashioned, it seemed, in the Middle Ages, and the next morning Conroy set off for the library at Heythrop College. Anselm removed his habit and walked briskly to the court. The Press, burdened by large bags bulging with lenses, were already circling the entrance. The big kill would come after the verdict. For the moment they were taking pot shots at the herd with an intimidating languor. Anselm nipped past, unnoticed, and entered the ancient hall he’d known so well before he was a monk. At a reception desk enclosed in thick glass he asked for either Detective Inspector Armstrong or Detective Superintendent Milby After a long wait a smartly dressed WPC came to see him. She said:

  ‘I’m sorry, both of them are involved in another case. I don’t think they’ll be here until tomorrow Can I take a message?’

  ‘No, I really need their help now, it’s urgent…’ He’d forgotten that criminal activity was rarely adjourned during a trial.

  ‘Can I help?’

  ‘Well,’ he faltered, ‘I want the home address of Victor Brionne.’

  The WPC’s face hardened, as before a crude sham. ‘That is not our job.’ She began to walk away.

  Anselm grabbed her arm. ‘I’m not from the Press, really I’m a monk, a priest…’

  The WPC turned, casting a sceptical, tired eye over Anselm’s cords and jumper. ‘I’ll take a message, that’s all.’ For a joke she added, ‘All right, Father?’

  Once more Anselm left his number for DI Armstrong, saying it was urgent. On his way out he stopped, arrested by the motto beneath a crest on the wall: ‘Domine dirige nos’ — Lord direct us. Dirige, reflected Anselm, the Latin root of ‘dirge’, a lament… and also the first word of Matins in the Office of the Dead.

  3

  The outstanding feature of Mr Bartlett’s speech was as much its length as its content. He spoke for no more than a minute.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I think we know each other well enough by now for me to be brief. You’ve heard the evidence. You know it as well as I do. I shall say nothing about it whatsoever. But forgive me if I draw one small point to your attention. Many of you may already be troubled by its significance.’

  Mr Bartlett had an unnerving posture, a mix of the ornithologist and hunter: very still, watching for hours at a time, fascinated by what he saw, but ready to kill. He moved a few steps along the Bar towards the jury, away from his ‘hide’, his body relaxed, becoming Henry the man, not Bartlett the Silk.

  ‘You cannot convict this man of being involved in a joint enterprise of murder. The edifice constructed by the Crown will not stand. Against others, yes, but not him.’ He leaned back against the bench, sitting on his hands. ‘The cornerstone is missing, it belongs to a different building. And you possess it. It was retrieved by Victor Brionne. In August 1942, a young German officer got one chance to save one boy a Jewish boy. A boy who became a man, and who, as we sit here, probably still lives and breathes, and will never know that he does so because of Eduard Schwermann. ‘

  Lucy looked blankly at the line of files in front of Mr Bartlett. One of them should have contained the deportation records for Agnes’ son, but for some reason it wasn’t there. It was the final obliteration. He hadn’t even survived on paper.

  Mr Bartlett moved back to his usual place, back into the courtroom, into the contest.

  ‘These were dark, unimaginable times, far from the comfort of this courtroom. Ask yourselves: if he saved one Jewish child, would he have chosen to harm a hair upon the head of any other?’

  He looked at the jury with such a hard stare of enquiry that Lucy thought for an awful moment someone might answer out loud. Then he said, like a command, ‘No, he would not. Eduard Schwermann was, in his own way a member of The Round Table, only they never knew it. Ladies and gentlemen, set this man free.’

  Mr Justice Pollbrook began his Summing-Up of the evidence, his voice crisp and dry. After a few sentences Lucy heard the deep whispering of Mr Lachaise close to her ear: ‘I think we need a little drink.’

  They found a wine bar and took two stools by the window Mr Lachaise ordered half a bottle of Brouilly

  ‘I trust you are well?’ he enquired paternally.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Neither am I.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  They sipped a disconsolate communion. Lucy said:

  ‘I simply cannot understand Mr Bartlett’s last remark — about saving one child and therefore not choosing to harm another. It’s rubbish.’

  Mr Lachaise turned his glass in small, tight circles, bringing the wine up to the rim. ‘It is rhetoric, not logic. Words well used. It is also deliberately ambiguous. To save a child means opposition to the system of killing, at least in that one instance. But it also means knowledge of the system that claimed the lives of all the others — and, given his participation in what happened, that should be enough to convict him. Mr Bartlett, however, is gambling that the ambiguity will tilt in his client’s favour. ‘

  ‘But why should it? If The Round Table knew what “resettlement” meant, so did Schwermann,’ said Lucy

  ‘I know. And so does Mr Bartlett. That is why he has done what every advocate does with a strong point that can’t be refuted.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘He’s ignored it, as if it wasn’t there. In its place he’s planted a seed of pity for an unsung hero.’

  ‘But the jury can’t fall for that.’

  Mr Lachaise shook his head. ‘Sometimes, we all like to think the right answer can only be found by making the most difficult decision, the one we’re at first inclined to reject. It shows we took the matter seriously. My dear old mentor, Mr Bremer, used to say nothing more than pity serves to tip the balance.’

  ‘I hope he’s wrong.’

  ‘So do I.’

  He expressed agreement with such feeling that Lucy looked up, and she was shocked to see the awesome distress upon his face.

  4

  By early evening DI Armstrong had still not returned Anselm’s message. Idle waiting seemed an offence against the circumstances. He fidgeted anxiously in his room, rehearsing the future. What if Agnes’ being alive made no difference to Victor Brionne… and he refused to go to the police voluntarily? A yawning hole seemed to open before him, all the more frightening because Anselm had already decided to fall into it. It was not helpful to see the expanding dimensions beforehand. Without thinking, Anselm picked up the telephone and rang Salomon Lachaise.

  They met at the same restaurant as before, sat at the same table and were served by the same waiter. The repetition of the past had the mark of ceremony and under its weight Anselm disclosed to his companion everything he had concealed on the last occasion: including his own role in finding Victor Brionne.

  ‘I am deeply sorry — I presented one person to you when in fact I was another.’

  ‘That is true of all of us,’ replied Salomon Lachaise. ‘Sometimes it cannot be avoided. You do not need my forgiveness, but you have it.’ He fixed Anselm with a piercing gaze and said, ‘Are you really prepared to go to the
police and bring down your own life, the reputation of your church, your community?’

  ‘Yes.’ He was embarrassed by the simplicity of his reply.

  Salomon Lachaise removed his heavy framed spectacles, revealing the vulnerable skin kept behind thick glass. He said, ‘Anselm, go to see Victor Brionne, by all means. And deliver the message to Agnes Aubret. But promise me two things.’

  ‘Of course.

  ‘First do nothing else until after the case is over-’

  ‘But-’

  ‘Promise me.’ His voice ground out the words.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘And secondly,’ he said, ‘please put your habit back on. To me you’re a monk to the core… and appearances matter.’

  Anselm got back to St Catherine’s to find a message pinned to his door: DI Armstrong had rung and would meet him on Thursday evening at 5 p.m. on the steps of St Paul’s. She could see him no earlier because of a murder enquiry. Anselm entered his room and immediately lifted his habit off the bed and smuggled himself into its folds. He then tiptoed down to the oratory on the first floor. Sitting in the dark, he could not escape the sensation that Salomon Lachaise had already known a great deal of what he had said, but one question in particular returned again and again: why had he forbidden Anselm to act to his detriment when it was required by what he had done and what he knew? Anselm’s imagination was perhaps too easily excited, but he sensed his mysterious friend was about to cast an appalling light upon the tragedy that had engulfed him.

  Chapter Forty-One

  1

  Mr Lachaise rang Lucy and suggested they meet for lunch in Gray’s Inn Gardens at half past one. He did not propose to attend the end of the Summing-Up. Neither did Lucy at least not all of it. The slow treading-over of the evidence was an unbearable form of waiting.