I’ve almost rung you up on several occasions. But then I supposed your phone was bugged, and felt it better not to get involved. Reading the papers — of course you can’t trust them — it seems you’re standing by Effie, denying that she’s the wanted girl, and so on. Now, comes this ghastly murder of the policeman. I admire your stance, but do you feel it morally necessary to protect her? I must say, I find it odd that having left her as you did, you now refuse to see (or admit?) how she developed. To me (and Ruth agrees with me) she has always had this criminal streak in her. I know she is a beautiful girl, but there are plenty of lovely girls like Effie. You can’t have been so desperately in love with her. Quite honestly, when you were together, I never thought you were really crazy about her. I don’t like giving advice, but you should realise that something tragic has happened to Effie. She is a fanatic — she always had that violent, reckless streak. There is nothing, Harvey, nothing at all that anyone can do for her. You shouldn’t try. Conclude your work on Job, then get away and start a new life. If your new château is as romantic and grand as Ruth says it is, I’d love to see it. I’ll come, if you’re still there, when the play closes. It’ll be good to see you.
Affectionately,
Edward
Harvey’s reply:
Dear Edward,
That was good of you to go to the zoo for me. You say the zoo bores you to a degree. What degree?
I congratulate you on your success. It was always in you, so I’m not surprised. No, I can’t leave here at present. Ruth would be here still if it were not that the place is bristling with the police — no place for Clara whom I miss terribly.
As to your advice, do you remember how Prometheus says, ‘It’s easy for the one who keeps his foot on the outside of suffering to counsel and preach to the one who’s inside’? I will just say that I’m not taking up Effie’s defence. I hold that there’s no proof that the girl whom the police are looking for is Effie. A few people have ‘identified’ her from a photograph.
Auntie Pet has arrived from Toronto wearing those remarkable clothes that so curiously bely her puritanical principles. This morning she was wearing what appeared to be the wallpaper. Incidentally, she recognised Effie in a recent television documentary about a police-raid on a mountain commune in California. She was with a man whose description could fit Nathan Fox.
I’ve been interrogated several times. What they can’t make out is why I’m here in France, isolated, studying Job. The last time it went something like this:
Interrogator — You say you’re interested in the problem of suffering?
Myself— Yes.
Interrogator — Are you interested in violence?
Myself— Yes, oh, yes. A fascinating subject.
Interrogator — Fascinating?
Almost anything you answer is suspect. At the same time, supermarkets have been bombed, banks robbed, people terrorised and a policeman killed. They are naturally on edge.
There is a warrant of arrest out for my wife. The girl in the gang, whoever she is, could be killed.
But ‘no-one pities men who cling wilfully to their sufferings.’ (Philoctetes—speech of Neoptolemus). I’m not even sure that I suffer, I only endure distress. But why should I analyse myself? I am analysing the God of Job.
I hope the mystery of Effie can be cleared up and when your show’s over you can come and see Château Gotham. Ruth will undoubtedly come.
I’m analysing the God of Job, as I say. We are back to the Inscrutable. If the answers are valid then it is the questions that are all cock-eyed.
Job 38, 2—3: Who is this that
darkeneth counsel by words
without knowledge?
Gird up now thy loins like
a man; for I will demand of thee,
and answer thou me.
I find that the self-styled friends and comforters in Job are distinguished one from the other only by their names. Otherwise, they are identical in their outlook. I now suspect they are the criminal-investigation team of their time and place. They were sent in, one after the other, it now seems to me, to interrogate Job, always on the same lines, trying to trip him up. He could only insist on his innocence. They acted as the representatives of the God of the Old Testament. They were the establishment of that theocratic society.
It is therefore first God’s representatives and finally God himself who ask the questions in Job’s book.
Now I hope you’ll tell Ruth she can come here with Clara when the trouble’s over, and have her baby. I’m quite willing to take on your old trousers, Edward, and you know I wish you well in your new pair, your new life.
Yours,
Harvey
PART THREE
ELEVEN
‘So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning.’ It was five days since Stewart Cowper had left for California. He had telephoned once, to say he had difficulty in getting the feature identified which Auntie Pet had seen, but he felt he was on the track of it now. There definitely had been a news item of that nature.
‘Ring me as soon as you know,’ said Harvey.
Meantime, since he was near the end of his monograph on Job, he finished it. The essay had taken him over three years to complete. He was sad to see his duty all ended, his notes in the little room of the cottage now neatly stacked, and his manuscript, all checked and revised, ready to be photocopied and mailed to the typist in London (Stewart Cowper’s pretty secretary).
The work was finished and the Lord had blessed the latter end of Job with precisely double the number of sheep, camels, oxen and sheasses that he had started out with. Job now had seven sons and three daughters, as before. The daughters were the most beautiful in the land. They were called Jemima, Kezia and Kerenhappuch which means Box of Eye-Paint. Job lived another hundred and forty years. And Harvey wondered again if in real life Job would be satisfied with this plump reward, and doubted it. His tragedy was that of the happy ending.
He took his manuscript to St Dié, had it photocopied and sent one copy off to London to be typed. He was anxious to get back to the château in case Stewart should ring with news. He hadn’t told Auntie Pet of Stewart’s mission, but somehow she had found out, as was her way, and had mildly lamented that her story should be questioned.
‘You’re just like the police,’ she said. ‘They didn’t actually say they didn’t believe me, but I could see they didn’t.’
He got back to the château just in time to hear the telephone. It was from the police at Epinal.
‘You have no doubt heard the news, M. Gotham.’
‘No. What now?’
‘The FLE gang were surrounded and surprised an hour ago in an apartment in Paris. They opened fire on our men. I regret to say your wife has been killed. You will come to Paris to identify the body.’