Vanishing Point, page 3
part #7 of Birdcage Series
The curé gone, Maurice walked out into the garden and down to the river in the growing dusk and sat on the seat overlooking the now darkening face of the waters. One part of him was all compassion for his mother – he could think of her in no other way. But part of him now, like an itch that suddenly rises and with scratching grows stronger, was the inevitable curiosity about this other mother, his true mother. In his heart he knew what he wished. That his mother had said nothing. How could a man dismiss such knowledge? How could a man not fail to find himself wondering about his true parents, wanting to know where and how they lived? English or not, it made no matter. Wanting to know was an itch the mind relished. It was like having a blank canvas in front of you and with nothing in your imagination to put to it. He gave an angry grunt. He had lost one mother. And now he was being asked to bury another. Surely God would not have wanted it that way? Suddenly the surface of the water was foamed grey with froth as some unseen pike harried a shoal of small fish.
For a while his mind was incapable of absorbing let alone analysing the central situation of his present state. Only one thing was clear. He was not the man he had always thought he was. Instead of the blood lines of honest, almost peasant stock, French to the backbone, he had to acknowledge that his real character and every gene in his body came from, at the moment, unknown stock. That at least solved, even if it did not soothe, some of the contradictions in his character. His talents – he knew himself to be so endowed – came not from any worthy Gallic source but from those still unknown English parents who had passed on to him a racial culture and possibly an insular stance which, now he saw, could account for many of the ways he thought and acted. Perhaps even for – he grinned briefly and wryly – that rogue element which ran parallel with his talents. Through those unknown parents God had endowed him with the hands and the eyes of an artist, and also – it seemed – with the heart of a rogue and the rashness of a buccaneer. What kind of parents were they? There was an itch to rest uneasily in his mind.
Wet nurse to an English lady with a villa in the South of France . . . His imagination could easily encompass the situation of his mother (and mother she would always be in his mind and heart) and the tragic, terrible moments of temptation. Pauvre chere Maman. He could understand it all, and there was no smallest part of anger or censure in him. The Devil knew how to tempt in moments of grief, and how to twist the forces of all forms of love to make men and women step aside to take the wrong path and, taking it, to find that after a few paces there was no turning back. He had done it himself while a student in Paris with his first little forgery of a Dufy which he had sold to an American tourist. . . and from there he had moved slowly into the more sophisticated and shadowy world of dishonest dealers . . . The world was full of wealthy ignorants who saw themselves as experts, so full of a pride in their own judgments that when they came to know they were cheated they refused to acknowledge it openly. They still bedded their false mistress, and cherished her, knowing how to be deaf, dumb and blind to save themselves the pain of truth and the ache of their own warped judgments. But not he. He knew the world he lived in, knew the rarity of virtue and truth and, like a chameleon, shaded his modes and manner of living in the complicated and enchanting exercise of survival. The one great maxim was to give little of yourself away to anyone else, even to be ambiguous where no need existed, but might in the future. And now the world had played a trick on him. Right from the first moments of walking, talking, and finding himself a person – the world had been cheating him while the gods above chuckled as they watched the growth of the cuckoo in the nest.
He could acknowledge now with a new complacency some aspects of his character which had always puzzled him. His talent, genius if others wished to call it that, though he knew better, came from a still unknown source. And so did so many other qualities of his personality. And that source lay in England; and to have owned a villa in France spoke of no journeyman carpenter like his never seen, long dead, supposed father. What kind of people were they? That was an itch in the mind which would have to be eased. He knew himself too well not to acknowledge that. Even if only to view from a distance the true mother and father who still lived had to be made fact. Just to look and see might be enough. At least it had to be done because he knew that he could not wipe from his mind his mother’s confession. He knew himself too well to think that he could go to the curé and say There is nothing to be done except to forget.
* * * *
He drove into Cragnac the next morning, taking with him flowers from the cottage garden to put on his mother’s grave. The freshly turned, red slaty soil was slicked to a darker colour by a faint drizzle which fell. He said a prayer for her and was surprised to find his cheek muscles jerk with an emotion that suddenly engulfed him as vividly, all those years now past, he saw her with a babe in her arms walking, almost running, perhaps stumbling, away from the villa. How much more vividly, he realized now, had she carried that moment in her mind, and in all his days with her there had never been any sign of the agony of the truth she harboured within herself.
Monsieur Bonivard appeared out of the church and, seeing him, came over, the skirts of his soutane taking the wetness of the grass and dragging a little at his legs. He gave him a greeting and then said, “What would you like done about the grave, my son?”
Crillon said, “Gaston will grass it and keep it tidy. And then, sometime, I will cut and inscribe a stone for her.”
“You will?”
“Yes, I will. I worked for a stonemason and monumental sculptor for a while in Switzerland. What the hands can shape on paper they can also find in stone.” He smiled. “She shall have her garden flowers and – unless you object – some of her fennel and lettuces.”
Monsieur Bonivard smiled. “Why not? And will you be staying here long now?”
“No. I have a life to live. But I shall keep the cottage. Gaston will look after it. This is my home. I shall always keep it.”
They turned away from the grave and walked down the path to the road where Crillon’s car stood. Not until he stood with his hand on the car door handle did the curé speak.
“And the other thing, my son?”
Crillon nodded. “Yes, that. I have thought about it, father.”
“And?”
“I have too curious a nature to live the rest of my life not knowing. It would always be there . . .”
“Yes. I understand. It would be too much to ask. But when you know, you may find other compulsions. When this happens I ask you, my son, to consider carefully what you do. They are both alive, your father and your mother. Through no fault of their own, life has wrought this strange circumstance for them, just as it has for you. I ask you to think hard and pray for true guidance before you commit yourself one way or the other. Only that I say. Think not alone of yourself. You know now the truth about yourself and you are young and strong enough to come to terms with it one way or another, but your parents are elderly. You must place them first in your thoughts. I say no more on that issue.”
He raised a hand, made the sign of the cross and gave Crillon a blessing. Then he reached into the deep pocket of his soutane and pulled out an envelope and handed it to him. Without another word he walked away through the light drizzle that was falling.
Maurice Crillon put the envelope in his pocket, got into his car, and drove back to the cottage. Once inside he put the envelope on the living-room table and poured himself a glass of wine. Outside the rain, thickened and driven by a rising wind, hammered against the glass panes of the garden door. He drank a little of the wine and then opened the envelope. Inside on a lined sheet torn from an old exercise book and written in black ink in his mother’s shaky handwriting was the following:
My dear Maurice,
The English lady I worked for as wet nurse at Aiguebelle is the wife of Andrew Starr, the only surviving son, so I now understand, of Sir Albert Starr who I learned some years ago is now dead, which means that your father is now Sir Andrew Starr. He is a Baronet which is something I don’t clearly understand. Their family house, which my mistress often talked about, is called Avoncourt Abbey, near Salisbury in Wiltshire, England. They also have a place in this country somewhere near Thier, I think.
My dear son, if you ever read this I shall understand and from the love I bear can only pray you will act wisely and from the heart.
God bless you my dearest one.
Enclosed were two documents, a Birth Certificate for Maurice Crillon registered at Toulon on 30th April, 1940 and a Certificate of the same registration place for the death of Maurice Crillon on Tuesday, 7th May, 1940.
He sat back in his chair, suddenly overcome with emotion, wishing that his mother had never made her confession. What was in the past and unknown was better left that way. But that was not her way and she must have suffered for it every day of the years left to her after she had fled from the Aiguebelle villa. There were some confessions that should only be made to God. Now whether he liked it or not there was a new element in his already complicated life – and it was not one he could ignore. He acknowledged that now. This was not something he could leave alone. His nature made that impossible. What he made of it lay in the future and he held back any desire to speculate.
Once, when he was eighteen, he had gone to England during the summer vacation for two months, to improve his already fair English and had enjoyed himself, lodging in Brighton and missing most of his classes but taking more of the English language from his contacts with the holiday girls and youths so that he could speak it more than adequately. Languages came easily to him. Too much, perhaps, he thought, came easily to him. Salisbury he knew was a Cathedral city and he had a feeling that he had made an excursion there at some time. So his true father was now a baronet. He was a little hazy about the word’s exact meaning. His mind could supply an imaginary background. No matter how inaccurately shaped, there were indubitable elements that had to exist. . . they were no paupers for sure. He raised his head suddenly and sniffed the air as though a familiar and exciting scent had flaired past his nostrils and he recognized from past adventures the beginning of the slow rise of anticipation in him. What he might or might not be able to make of all this was not the most important aspect of this revelation. It was the rising, lancing, excitement in him which he had known so often before. A woman coming across the Ponte Santa Trinita with the morning breeze of the Arno flattening her dress against thighs and breasts, a girl sculling a boat on a Swiss lake, sun-brown, more naked than naked in her bikini. . . a Juno who had made his hands itch to possess her, first in the flesh and then in stone or on canvas.
He got up, suddenly determined, and went to the telephone he had made his mother have and always paid for. He sent two telegrams. One to Switzerland and the other to Florence. He then went up to his bedroom and packed himself two suitcases – one for his clothes and the other for his basic working materials.
Gaston arrived in the garden as he came down. The light rain had thinned and died. He went out to him and asked him to go on looking after the place and making him take money for the service. He finished, “If anyone wants me – there is always the Swiss address which will find me.”
Gaston said, “It’s a stupid fox that only has one earth. But one day, Monsieur Maurice, you will be caught out in the open. I can speak frankly now that your mother has gone.”
Maurice laughed. “You read character from what? The eyes, the whole face?”
“No, Monsieur Maurice. I read it from what the eyes and the face never show naturally. You smile for people but the smile does not start in your heart, and you give them your face, but it is an actor’s face, something you put on each morning. But you must know all this?”
“And my true face?”
“It is a long time since you have seen it. And now you never will for it only comes back when you sleep. You agree?”
“Yes, I do.” He shrugged his shoulders. “But now I have long learned to live with the stranger who has taken me over.” Gaston smiled and said, “For your mother’s sake I will look after things.”
* * * *
Fraülein Trudi Keller stood by the stone balustrade at the top of the steps which ran down to a small half-moon of beach on the shores of Lake Thun. The top of the steps was guarded by a pair of wrought iron gates which were always kept locked during school hours to stop the young children from reaching the lakeside. Across the lake, still a little mist-hazed under the morning sun, she could see the distant town of Spiez and, high above it, clear in the cloudless air the crest of the Niesen. Three swans foraged the weed growths away to her right and far out on the lake a steamer was making its way up to Interlaken. Behind her a group of a dozen small children romped on the grass, shouting and running and playing games, enjoying their midmorning break. In the small beds on the garden side of the terrace the canna lilies were stiff, green, glossy, almost heraldic growths with a few buds already broken to release the first display of flaring red and yellow blooms.
Footsteps clattered on the pathway behind her and she turned as the kindergarten housekeeper came down to her, wearing the heavy clogs which meant that she had been mopping and cleaning the kitchen floors. She was in her fifties, as broad as she was tall, her face creased with lines, her eys bright blue like the morning waters of the lake.
“Fraülein,” she said, holding out a buff coloured envelope to Trudi, this has just come for you. I signed for it. I will now take the children in for their milk and biscuits.”
“Thank you, Frau Horst.”
As the housekeeper turned away and began to call the children, Trudi Keller opened the envelope. She knew it was from him for no one else sent her telegrams. It would be nice one day, she thought, to get a proper letter. But no – it was always a telegram or a telephone call, and these only when he wanted something. Sometimes, but so rarely, he came himself as a little while ago and they met without her parents ever knowing for since the day years ago when he had ceased working for her father they had forbidden her to mention his name. But nobody could forbid or prevent her feeling for him.
The message was simple. Please telegraph the Florence number and say – Business matters complicated. Cannot say when I shall be back. Maurice.
She put the telegram into the pocket of her dirndl skirt and shrugged her shoulders. She was so used to it now that she had long ceased to be surprised or even to question what went on in his mind. Her own common-sense had long told her that she should right from the beginning have refused to be used by him, used and always without the faintest idea why he wrapped himself in mystery and needed her as a go-between for what seemed the simplest and most innocuous of reasons . . . coming and going without warning, suddenly, as she wheeled her bicycle out of the school drive, seeing him waiting for her and then finding herselflost again, going to an hotel with him for the night. But once with him, once in bed, nothing mattered. No other man existed or ever would in the way he existed for her. Years ago he had wakened a hunger and then fed it, taken advantage of it and made her his creature, used her and abused her – but had never given her anything of his true self. The day in Zürich he had come to work for her father had been a bad day for her because, against all her attempts to free herself, she had found herself his slave, but not one entirely lost to common-sense. That there was another woman in Florence, and other women God-knew-where, made no difference for some deep instinct told her that the other women were probably tied to him exactly as she was.
In the lunch break she sent the telegram to Florence for him, not using the school telephone but walking the short distance to Gunten down the lake towards Thun.
* * * *
The following evening Carla, coming back from her work at the boutique – she had ceased working full-time some little while after she had met Maurice Crillon, but still did two or three days a week – called in at the flat and found Maurice’s telegram waiting in his post box.
She smiled at the phrase – business matters complicated. Knowing him well now she knew that could mean anything. There probably were no business matters at all, and instead of the phrase Cannot say when I shall be back she felt that the words Will not say when I shall be back would have been nearer the truth. She was used to his ways now and was more or less convinced that his obliquities had long become more a matter of habit than necessity – though there was no doubt that he and her brother were often engaged in very risky business. Her brother was astute enough, and anyway if trouble should reach him he had many friends to lie on oath for him, and others whose influence reached into high places. But she knew, too, that if it were needed he would sacrifice Maurice without a moment’s hesitation to save his own skin. She could hear him say, all redfaced and outraged indignation, “That one . . . out of the goodness of my heart I pick him starving from the gutter and give him cleaning and restoration work and all the time he makes copies of the paintings which go back to their owners and – Santa Madre – he keeps the originals to sell to his crook friends in Paris or God knows where.”
When she got back to the house Aldo was eating by himself in the dining room. His two children never ate with him except on high days and family occasions or when they all went out on some celebration to a restaurant. He was crouched, as though afraid someone might snatch it from him, over a dish of thrush pie. Before she could make any greeting he said sourly, “Whoever sold these thrushes to Luisa cheated her. I should know. Anyone who hunts should know. These are fieldfares. The world is full of liars.”
“Then you’re in good company, dear brother.”
To her surprise he looked up at her and grinned – and she saw for a moment the brother who had once badly knifed an older boy who had tried to interfere with her, a brother who had said, “Anyone touch any part of the Pandolfi family!” He had spat and flicked the edge of his right hand across his throat.
“So,” he said to her now, “– you are in a good mood. So what is it so bad that makes you so happy at the thought of telling me? You are pregnant, maybe? Then I kick you out of the house. Or you have lost your job? Then I kick your arse and go to them and arrange it. If they say No – then I buy their shop. So what is it, little sister?”
