‘Anyone reading these documents could have understood them to reflect a policy of resettlement outside France. Yes?’
‘An ignorant reader might think that fifty years after the event, but not the author. I keep stressing to you, he was a part of the machinery. There are other SS memoranda in these files which expressly state the Jews were to be ausgerottet — eradicated.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Mr Bartlett in a measured, patient voice. ‘And none of them were written by Mr Schwermann, were they?’
‘No, but—’
‘And there is not a shred of evidence that Mr Schwermann ever read them?’
‘Well, we don’t know. ‘
‘There is no suggestion that he used such language himself?’
‘Not as such, but it is an obvious inference that he—’
‘Doctor Vallon, we’ll leave the jury to do the inferring. Among this mass of documentation there is not a single sentence that demonstrates Mr Schwermann had explicit knowledge of extermination, is there?’
‘There isn’t a piece of paper that says so, no.
‘And there are lots of other pieces of paper that record very different terms to ausgerottet, terms that we know Mr Schwermann read and used.’
Doctor Vallon had guessed the next direction of attack. He said, ‘Yes, and they’re all tarnung — camouflage.’
Mr Bartlett opened a file. ‘Indeed,’ he said warmly ‘Perhaps now is the time to consider the innocence of language, whose ordinary use can so easily trap the unwary, even the likes of yourself. Please turn to File Nine, page three hundred and sixty-seven, and consider the words on the schedule.’
A clerk brought the file to Doctor Vallon, who went on to agree that the German High Command were extraordinarily concerned about the vocabulary to be used when describing the process of deportation to Auschwitz. It was variously described as Evakuierung (evacuation), Umsiedlung (resettlement) and Abwanderung (emigration), or Verschickung zur Zwangsarbeit (sending away for forced labour) . Even the architects and engineers at Auschwitz referred to the gas chambers as Badeanstalte für Sonderaktionen (bathhouses for special actions) . Their memoranda recorded the phrase in quotation marks. And, of course, the entire apparatus of genocide was named die Endlösung (the Final Solution) .
Mr Bartlett said, ‘The whole point of the exercise is to deceive the reader or listener, is it not? Someone somewhere is expected to believe the surface meaning?’
‘Yes, I accept that.’
‘There were three meetings held in Paris to plan the Vél d’Hiv round-up. Mr Schwermann attended two of them. The understanding was that those arrested would be deported “for labour service” — is that right?’
‘Yes — even though thousands of children would be taken.’
‘Phraseology that Mr Schwermann could reasonably have taken at face value?’ pressed Mr Bartlett.
‘I have already told you, he is one of the deceivers, not one of the deceived. He will have seen other documents that refer to extermination.’
‘Would he? Do you always read the notes of the meetings you miss or avoid?’
‘As a matter of fact I do.’
‘Do all your colleagues?’
‘No. No, they don’t, actually’
‘Thank you, Doctor Vallon.’
Mr Bartlett promptly sat down.
‘That is enough for today,’ said Mr Justice Pollbrook with a weariness of having seen it all before.
5
Lucy went to Chiswick Mall and listened to the news with Agnes. There was a lengthy report on the evidence of Doctor Vallon. Agnes listened impassively while Lucy broke ice cubes in a saucer, feeding the melting fragments to her on a spoon. Agnes turned them over in her mouth like boiled sweets, her eyes glazed as one hearing a dull story on a wet afternoon.
Time mocked the survivors, thought Lucy. Everyone who lasts long enough becomes an end point in history, and then they must listen to others pass judgment upon what they have not known. But even after all this time, could there be any serious doubt? Schwermann must have understood the circumlocutions of his masters, just as Pam had understood Freddie’s.
Chapter Thirty-Four
1
In the natural course of things, Father Andrew made many decisions, passed off as ‘suggestions’, that Anselm was unable to fathom. One such was the proposal that Anselm ‘might’ show Father Conroy the North Country on the way to finding Victor Brionne. To Anselm’s mind sightseeing did not blend with the task of confronting a fugitive collaborator. But the ‘suggestion’ had been made. There was some sense to the proposaclass="underline" it transpired that Con was writing another book after all (only this time he intended to ignore its likely condemnation by Rome) . Frequent travel to the library at Heythrop College, London, and hours of drafting at Larkwood had worn him out. He needed a break.
And so, on the day Lucy listened to the considered views of Doctor Pierre Vallon, the two men left Larkwood first thing after Lauds. With Conroy at the wheel they sped north, the skies getting wider and brighter, the horizon flatter and longer. Anselm’s mind opened like a plain and he saw scattered here and there, like totems, the outline of those who had recently crossed his path; and Conroy sang wonderfully mournful songs to himself about a betrayed woman and her abandoned child, a young father on a British prison ship and a ditty on violent child abuse. You had to cry; you had to laugh.
Anselm turned his mind to the conversation with Father Chambray the night before, noting bitterly how apposite it was that the truth should finally have made its way out in a confessional. Father Pleyon, a monk of Les Moineaux, had betrayed The Round Table. Unforeseen executions had followed. And by an inexplicable, almost comic quirk of circumstance, Father Pleyon had become the new Prior. Why was it, thought Anselm, that chance so often assisted the wicked? Schwermann and Brionne had been handed a lifeline just when they might have been brought to justice: their accomplice had become the Prior and had lived long enough to secure their escape.
But Father Chambray had pieced together some fragments. He had read the signs. He had told Rome and they had done nothing. And, in dismay, he had left his Priory and his church, a priest for ever in a wilderness without sacraments.
‘Con,’ said Anselm, ‘would you mind not singing for a moment?’
‘All right, so.’
‘Tell me again what Sticky Fingers told you.’ Anselm had already been told, but he wanted to place the little Conroy had found out in context now that he had spoken to Chambray
Conroy pursed his lips, thinking. ‘The Vatican Secret Archive holds two reports from Les Moineaux, and both had been withdrawn by your man Renaldi in early April 1995.’
‘Just after Schwermann was exposed.’
‘Aye. The first was written by Chambray shortly after the end of the war.
Anselm knew what it contained, and he would soon see a copy
‘The second was written a year or so afterwards by Pleyon, just before the Lord called him to Himself. It was sent on to Rome by the new Prior with a note saying the old skin didn’t get a chance to finish whatever he wanted to say
Anselm, like Father Chambray, could now read the signs that had fallen into his hands. He placed himself before an earnest, sincere Monsignor quietly watched by an attentive Cardinal, each knowing the whole narrative set out by Chambray But they had only disclosed the incomplete report of Pleyon, knowing it was the beginnings of a self-preserving fiction. ‘I’m trying to protect the future from the past,’ the Cardinal had said.
Conroy returned to his singing and Anselm slept. They lunched and then pressed on, saying little. As late afternoon cloud gathered over the rolling Cheviot Hills, Conroy pointed to the signpost directing them to Victor Brionne’s hideaway After a few miles of empty, windswept road they reached a display board, informing the unwary that Lindisfarne was a tidal island. They were just in time to cross the narrow causeway before the cold, slate-blue sea crept over the sands and cut them off from the mainland. By the time they had found their bed and breakfast, booked by Wilf the night before, no one could reach or leave the island.