by Brian Moore
BÉZIERS. Next Exit.
8
César bounded up the steep flight of stairs, pulling her after him, straining on the lead as she fumbled for her keys. When she went into the apartment, her housekeeper, Madame Deferre, came out of the kitchen and whispered, ‘Your visitor is here, Madame.’
She went into the sitting room, having first handed over César’s lead. A young man stood up at once, with a slight, shy, bow.
‘I’m Annemarie Livi. How do you do? Very good of you to come.’
They shook hands. ‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ she told him. ‘I had to deliver my son to his school in Neuilly. There was some sort of delay on the Métro.’
‘That’s all right, Madame. I’ve just arrived.’
He was younger than she had imagined him to be, tall with reddish hair and a small, rather foolish moustache. She liked him at once.
‘Professor, thank you very much for agreeing to see me. I read your dossier on Monsignor Le Moyne. I think it could be a great help to us. Would you like some coffee?’
‘No, thank you.’
They sat down, facing each other. Suddenly, she felt no further need of formalities. ‘Professor Valentin, first, let me say I know it’s irregular, my asking to meet you. Tell me. The members of your commission, are they all historians?’
‘Yes. Eight of us.’
‘All laymen?’
‘Except one. Monsignor Flandin. He’s Secretary of the Ecclesiastical Committee for Relations with Judaism. He represents the Archbishop.’
‘And when do you think you’ll finish your investigation?’
‘That’s the problem, Madame. It may take a year or more.’
‘Why so long?’
‘We’re trying to investigate forty years of delays and concealments. We’re tracking down Brossard’s contacts with all sorts of people in the Church. Even though there are eight of us, it’s a slow process. And that’s a pity. Because, in the meantime, the public is convinced that the Church is the only culprit in hiding him.’
She felt a small skip of excitement. But still, he’s part of a Church commission. If he’s working for the Cardinal, he’ll try to shift the blame.
‘So, you believe that Brossard may have other protectors?’
‘Indeed, Madame. Powerful ones.’
‘Government?’
‘I’m guessing at all of this. I have no real proof. But I would say, possibly, the police up to the level of Prefect. Even the Elysée Palace seems to have been involved, under two different presidencies.’
‘And what about your colleagues on the commission? Do they agree with you?’
‘As far as I know, yes. We’re each following different avenues of investigation, but in our first meetings we’re very much agreed that there must have been other protectors. The trouble is, our commission was set up to investigate the Church’s involvement and only that. My colleagues are not interested in pursuing these other links.’
‘But you are?’
‘I want you to pursue them, Madame. I don’t have the means or the authority to do anything about it.’
‘But may I be completely honest, Professor? Surely, it’s in the Church’s interest for your commission to exonerate these ecclesiastics who have helped Brossard over the years. And what better way than to shift part of the blame back to the civil authority?’
She saw him stiffen in his chair. Then, surprisingly, he smiled. ‘Of course. But let me tell you something, Madame. The members of our commission are historians, not Church apologists. Scholars like Professor Proulx or Dr Multon wouldn’t have accepted this assignment if it were a cover-up. Besides, Madame, I feel that Cardinal Delavigne is sincere when he says he set up the investigation because he believes a wrong that is brought out into the open is preferable to a declaration of innocence, which is suspect.’
‘I agree. The Cardinal’s actions during the Occupation and afterwards show that he was totally anti-Nazi and on the side of the Resistance. But he’s a son of the Church. And, as you know, the Vatican’s record is murky in this regard. I’m talking of its attitude to the Germans during the war and immediately afterwards.’
‘The post-war Vatican passports issued to Nazis to help them escape to South America?’
‘Yes.’
‘All true. But remember, the Church is not monolithic, particularly in France. Religious orders such as the Jesuits, the Dominicans, the Cistercians, et cetera, are a law unto themselves. Abbots and priors have a great deal of autonomy in their own monasteries. They can decide to help someone like Brossard, feeding him, lodging him and giving him money to live on, without having to ask permission, or even inform the local bishop or the hierarchy. In addition there’s the medieval tradition of a churchly authority that puts itself above the laws of men. It’s that sort of arrogance, I’m sure, that many of the priests who helped Brossard used to ease their conscience and flout the law. But in my researches, so far, I see no overall plan to hide Brossard. I mean, no plan coming down from the French hierarchy, let alone the Vatican.’
‘But there’s a plan somewhere. That’s what interests me.’
He leaned forward in his chair, his face filled with conviction.
‘Madame, that’s what you must find out. Think of it. How did Brossard manage to escape from the hands of the police in the Rue des Saussaies back in 1945 when he was arrested and charged as a war criminal? How did he manage to stay in hiding from the late forties until now? The least one can say is that the police didn’t search very diligently in order to find him. And how was it that in the sixties he managed to obtain a false identification card in the name of Pouliot, using as his address the address of the archbishopric in Lyon?’
‘Is that true?’
‘Yes. And, what’s more, when it was discovered that the false address was the address of the archbishopric, the Prefect in Savoie received instructions from Paris to let the matter drop.’
‘That could have been Church pressure.’
‘Possibly. But then we come to the astonishing presidential pardon in 1971. If Le Monde hadn’t got wind of it and broken the story, Brossard would be a free man today, a small fish, forgotten. And so, this new charge of a crime against humanity might never have come up. It’s this charge which for the first time is being levelled at Frenchmen, not Germans, that’s worrying certain people. You know who I’m talking about. Three other Frenchmen are similarly charged but have never been brought to trial. But if Brossard is caught and tried, their trials can’t be put off any longer. So, to sum up, Madame, I don’t believe that the Church alone had the power to help Brossard escape the police and the courts over a forty-year period.’
‘But the public believes it.’
‘Yes. And unless we find Brossard, they’ll continue to believe it. And that simplification of events, that falsification of the truth, will become a part of French history.’
‘And will that be so terrible, Professor? I mean, to those of us who are not historians?’
‘The study of history is not so different from the practice of the law, Madame. The primary aim of both is to discover the truth of events, isn’t it?’
‘Mine was a foolish remark,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. Of course, I agree with you. And it’s only now, in 1989, that little judges like me have come to realize that we can indict the Establishment. One thing puzzles me in all of this. If you believe that the Church isn’t Brossard’s only protector, why did you send me the Le Moyne dossier?’
‘Because the Church is still hiding him. So you’ve got to find him through that network of concealment. I sent it because I noticed something in it which may be the key to tracking Brossard down. The Chevaliers.’
‘Sorry?’
‘In some of the letters written by Monsignor Le Moyne, there’s mention of a group of right-wing Catholic activists called the Chevaliers de Ste Marie. In one letter, which I marked, Le Moyne says Brossard was made a Chevalier in this Order and that the Order is helping him financially.’
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‘I see. Do you know Colonel Roux?’
‘No.’
‘He’s conducting the investigation. I’ll contact him at once.’
‘Good.’
The telephone rang in the hall. She heard Madame Deferre go to answer it. At once, the young man stood up. ‘I must leave now, Madame.’
‘No, no, please.’ She stood up. ‘I won’t be a moment.’
He held out his hand. ‘I really must.’
‘Telephone, Madame.’
‘One moment.’ She led him to the door. César bounded out of the kitchen, tail wagging. The young man patted the dog’s head and said, ‘The Chevaliers aren’t a schismatic group. But they have links to those traditionalist priests who have recently broken with Rome. To the former Archbishop of Dakar.’
César. She had to reach down and grip the dog’s collar to prevent him following the young man out of the door. ‘Dakar?’ she said. ‘Monsignor Lefebvre?’
He nodded. ‘Goodbye, Madame.’
9
The residence was separated from the school by a narrow alleyway. The homeless, most of them alcoholics, would drift into the alley shortly before noon at a time when the schoolboys were playing noisily in the adjoining school yard. Soup was distributed to these men at twelve-thirty. Father Blaise, the père hospitalier, usually unlocked the back door himself and supervised the distribution which was carried out by two of the lay brothers. That particular morning, with the noise from the school yard, the bell, ringing repeatedly, was not at first noticed by the brothers in the kitchen. But when Father Blaise came out of his office he heard it.
‘Who’s ringing the bell? Is it one of the clochards?’
‘There’s a young fellow who’s been hanging round for the past few days,’ Brother André said. ‘He’s off his head. I bet it’s him.’
Father Blaise took out his keys and went through the scullery to the back door. A table was set up there with soup bowls, spoons and a basket full of bread. He unlocked the door expecting to deal with some drunken derelict. But instead there was an elderly man in a green woollen cardigan, corduroy trousers, a respectable type, not the usual figure in the soup line. The clochards, sitting along the alley wall, began to get to their feet when they saw that the door had been opened.
‘Did you ring the bell?’ Father Blaise asked the old man.
‘Yes, Father. Good morning. Is Father Dominic here?’
‘I’m afraid Father Dominic has passed away.’
‘I am so sorry. God rest his soul. Are you the new père hospitalier?’
‘I am, yes.’
‘I am Pierre Pouliot. I’m a friend of the Abbot. Is he in?’
Father Blaise looked again at the old man. He felt a sense of shock. It must be him. The photograph is in my office.
‘The Abbot is over at the school at present,’ he said. ‘I’m expecting him back here shortly. If you’d like to come in and wait, I’ll see if I can find him.’
The homeless were now crowding up to the door. Two of the brothers came out of the kitchen, carrying between them a huge iron bowl filled with soup. Father Blaise pushed aside the serving table to let the old man enter. As the brothers began to serve the soup, Father Blaise led the old man through the residence and put him into the front parlour.
‘It may take a while,’ he said. ‘If you’ll please wait?’
‘No hurry, no hurry,’ the old man said, seating himself comfortably in a chair near the window. ‘Thank you very much, Father.’
Blaise went at once to his office. In a drawer where correspondence was kept he found and examined the photograph that had been given to him a week ago. Two priests from the diocesan office had come one morning when the Abbot was away. They had come, they said, with instructions from the Bishop who, in turn, had received instructions from Cardinal Delavigne, the Primate, in Lyon. They had shown him this photograph and asked if he knew this man. He did not.
‘Well, he’s a regular visitor to this house. We know that. He has been for a number of years.’
‘I’m new here. I was transferred from St Sauveur, the month before last.’
‘Perhaps that explains it,’ the visiting priest said. ‘I’m going to give you this photograph. It was taken only seven years ago, so you should be able to recognize him. We’re distributing it everywhere he was admitted or may have been admitted in the past.’
He looked at the photograph. Two old men standing in a garden. One of them was a cleric. The other was the old man, now in the parlour.
‘The man on the right is Pierre Brossard. Are you allowed to read newspapers and watch television in this house?’
‘Not in this house, no. The Abbot does not permit television or any form of press. But when I was at St Sauveur, it was different. So I know who he is. The milicien.’
‘That’s right. Do you know that the Church has come under criticism for sheltering him?’
‘Yes. We were told that, when I was at St Sauveur.’
‘Good. The reason we’re here is because Cardinal Delavigne has given strict instructions that, from now on, Brossard is to be turned away at once from any church property where he tries to gain asylum. There are to be no exceptions. We know that in several of the places he has been sheltered his identity has been revealed only to the Abbot and the père hospitalier. Would that be the case here?’
‘I would think so, yes. In our Order, the hospitalier is the only one to know a visitor’s name. Apart, of course, from the Abbot himself.’
‘In that case, as the Abbot is not here today, we’ll leave it to you to tell him about this matter. If he has any further questions about it, please ask him to get in touch with the Cardinal directly.’
When the Abbot returned that evening, Blaise showed him the photograph.
‘That’s Maurice Le Moyne,’ the Abbot said.
‘I’m sorry. Who?’
‘The priest with him is Monsignor Le Moyne. He’s been a great champion of Pierre Brossard’s case. The whole thing is disgusting.’
‘I’m sorry, Father Abbot. I don’t think I understand.’
‘Pierre is one of us. It’s terrible to let him down now. Delavigne’s a leftist, of course, afraid of the press and the Jewish lobby. He doesn’t have the guts to stand his ground.’
‘But Brossard was a war criminal, wasn’t he? There’s no doubt about that?’
The Abbot was caught in a fit of coughing, a legacy of his malaria from the Southern African years. When the coughing had subsided, he put his hand on Blaise’s shoulder and said, in a kindly tone, ‘Father, I don’t know you very well, but I am sure your heart is in the right place. I am an old man now and I find it hard to renounce the things I have always believed in. One of the things I will always believe is that we lost the war, not in 1940, but in 1945.’
‘Did you say ’45, Father Abbot?’
‘Yes. Let me explain. In 1940, under Maréchal Pétain, France was given a chance to revoke the errors, the weakness and selfishness, of the Third Republic, that regime that caused us to lose the war to the Germans. Of course, it was a sad time. I’m not denying it. Part of the country was occupied, but you must remember there was a large free zone, the zone of the Vichy Government, the Maréchal’s government, which was giving us the hope of a new co-operation between our country and Germany. Under the Maréchal, we were led away from selfish materialism and those democratic parliaments that preached a false equality back to the Catholic values we were brought up in: the family, the nation, the Church. But when the Germans lost the war, all that was finished. Stalin’s communist armies overran Europe. The enemies of religion came back in force. I believe that poor Pierre Brossard wasn’t very different from me, or from many others. He was brought up to believe the things we believed in, he fought for those things, he was loyal, as most Frenchmen were, not to de Gaulle, far away in London with the English who deserted us in 1940, but to the Maréchal who did not run away but stayed to unite us. Unfortunately, Brossard eventually chose to join t
he milice, which, I agree, became brutal in the end. But I also believe in forgiveness, Father. I believe in contrition. I believe that Pierre Brossard was led into error but has since repented for his sins and, like hundreds of others who lived through those times, is being victimized for fighting and believing in values that were anathema to the communists who controlled the Resistance. And so I think it’s a disgrace that now, in his hour of greatest need, the main body of the Church shows him no mercy and sends these priests around with orders that we are to shut him out.’
‘But, Father Abbot, the beliefs of the milice were the beliefs of the Nazis. And the Nazis were certainly not Catholic. Besides, Brossard didn’t need orders from the Nazis. He was always a step ahead of them. From what I’ve read it’s clear that he carried out the assassination of those fourteen Jews in Dombey. He stole Jewish property, et cetera, et cetera. And, if what I was taught in the seminary is still the rule, Father, the Church, while it aids those who are persecuted, does not shelter proven criminals fleeing from justice.’
‘The Church is not bound by man’s laws, but by the law of God,’ the Abbot said. ‘Judgements handed down by the State don’t necessarily absolve us, as Christians, from helping unfortunates who seek our help.’
‘Does that mean that if Brossard arrives on our doorstep I am to admit him?’
‘He won’t show up,’ the Abbot said. ‘He visits us very infrequently. But if he does, yes, admit him. I will speak to him. And having spoken to him, I will act according to my conscience.’
And now, a week later, Brossard was sitting in the parlour. Blaise put the photograph back in the drawer and went out, crossing the avenue to the main gates of the school. The Abbot was in the school office, eating a bowl of the same soup that was being served to the clochards in the alley.
‘Brossard? You’re sure it’s Brossard?’
‘I can’t be sure, Father Abbot. But he looks like the man in that photograph. He said his name was Pouliot.’
