Arcadia (20 page)

I began to relax. I had been more or less living the life of a hermit; I had only casual acquaintances, no one who might (for
example) refer to me in a diary or letter that stood a chance of surviving, just in case. I avoided important or notable people and steered clear of officialdom as much as possible. I was stuck, however, with my name. The psychiatrists got it out of me in my delirium, and it was too late to change.

Two years in, though, and I felt much safer and began to explore the mysteries of friendship. The world had many attractions, and I was missing most of them. I was also becoming a little complacent and rash. What possible danger could I face in Europe in 1939?

One day that spring, while driving into Collioure, I stopped to get some petrol and water for the radiator at a small village. I loved that part of the world, not least because the first time I had seen it the whole area had been a barren, scorched wasteland. To see it in its glory – the pine trees, the vegetation, the olives, the vines, the sea still blue and alive – was glorious beyond words. I settled there, mainly because the place had lodged in my mind as being important.

This time, rather than watching with interest as the man slowly filled the tank and the radiator and washed the windscreen, I crossed over to the bar for a drink for myself. It was just over the road from the railway station.

I ordered a cold glass of local white wine with some bread and, when it was delivered, took a sip and looked around me.

There, at the only other table in this dusty little bar, was Lucien Grange, reading a newspaper.

My cry of shock must have been quite loud; if not, then the way I suddenly stood up, knocked over the chair and table and sent the bowl of rather tasty sausage spinning across the floor may have been what attracted attention. Either way, I was noticed. He saw my distress and himself got up.

‘Is anything the matter, madam?’ he asked in perfect French.

‘No, thank you so much,’ I said, still trembling. I examined him carefully, then began to relax. It was close. The same nose, the same eyes, the same mouth. But it wasn’t him. The moment
I could collect myself enough and be calm I knew it wasn’t him. The voice was different, the shape similar, but not similar enough …

‘Forgive me,’ I said, as the waiter came over, grumbled and began repairing the damage I had caused. ‘You so greatly resembled someone I knew.’

‘I’m afraid it cannot be,’ he replied. ‘I could never have forgotten meeting you.’

Charmed? Of course I was; it was delivered handsomely, and I was unused to such rhetorical devices.

‘You must have thought me terribly clumsy.’

‘On the contrary. It brightened up a tedious time waiting for my train. May I offer you a replacement for your drink?’

Of course he might. He did.

‘May I introduce myself?’ he said once it was delivered. ‘My name is Henry Lytten.’

*

I suppose it was Henry who took the full force of my desire to explore the nature of human interactions, and the fact that (I suspected) he was the ancestor of someone I knew made me cling to him in a way I had never experienced before. I didn’t exactly kidnap him, but very nearly: I took him back to my little house in the hills, and he stayed with me for three weeks. By the end we were firm friends. He was a kind, gentle fellow, and put up with me: not easy considering the huge outpouring of entirely raw and uncontrolled emotions that erupted from me in those days. When I was angry I was murderous; when affectionate, then such love had never been felt before by any human being. My hunger was insatiable, my thirst unquenchable and I once laughed so hard I had to go into hospital for three days because of the torn muscles. I learned to avoid Walt Disney cartoons, as the despair at watching the cruelty inflicted on Snow White by that horrid Witch was so great it took me weeks to recover. As for
Romeo and Juliet
…
Henry took me to see it in Stratford in 1941, with Margaretta Scott as Juliet; I nearly expired from sheer anguish. I was quite sophisticated by that stage, but was hard pressed not to leap onto the stage, grab the knife and kill myself in order to spare her. Only the thought of Henry’s embarrassment made me stop myself.

What I mean is that it took a lot of practice to get these emotions under control, and Henry, dear man, taught me more than anyone, with patience and kindness. Do you know, I even thought of marrying him? But how could I have possibly done such a thing? I still planned to go home one day and we were ageing at different rates. I had habits (drink, drugs and work, mainly) which he could not understand. Great friends make bad spouses. I cannot easily say how much I regretted it. I almost abandoned everything, just for the sake of happiness. It was the first time in my life I had ever loved anybody. The realisation that I could, and the extraordinary impact on me in comparison to the chemically induced emotions I was used to, made me think deeply. Did I really want to go back to a place where such things were illegal, where people conducted themselves only in a narrow range of efficient civility?

I fear I hurt poor Henry, but I think that even he realised that I would have been a difficult partner; he had certainly seen enough to know that I would be, at best, an uncertain companion who would not easily fit into the quiet contemplative life he had in mind. On the other hand, he never found anyone to take my place. I regret that too; had I not come into his life then perhaps he would not have become the slightly reclusive figure of later years, although considering the polite and distant way most of his contemporaries dealt with their marital relationships I am not sure he was missing so very much.

We spent a great deal of time in each other’s company until the war started, and afterwards, when I went back to France, he would come and visit almost every vacation. We drove around France and Italy, staying in little hotels, eating in restaurants, enjoying ourselves as the world recovered from its trauma. He
taught me about Christmas and birthdays, how to give gifts and pay compliments. I still smile when I think of that period.

He was a great talker as well. We would sit until late at night and I would question him remorselessly about everything – life, family, work, education. About his country, the books he liked, those he didn’t. About music, theatre, poetry and the cinema. About the French and the Germans, the Italians, Americans and the Spanish. About politics and religion. About manners, customs, habits. I absorbed it all and came back for more. He taught me the art of conversation, of being in company for no purpose. The pleasure of wasting time.

It was not that I didn’t know the facts. I knew many of them better than he did. I just didn’t know what they meant, how they fitted together. Henry didn’t provide all the answers, but he was a good start, and his generosity and kindness was the greatest lesson of all. He changed me irrevocably, and certainly for the better. I fear that I was not able to do the same for him. But from that moment, I began to question many things I had previously taken for granted.

*

It was because of Henry that I came to England and again because of him that I spent much of the next five years doing my bit for British Intelligence, although in a very much more lowly capacity than his. He came to rescue me in France in early 1940, which was terribly chivalrous of him, and whisked me off to safety. I had already decided this was the best option, but Henry’s assistance and then recommendation was useful in getting me employment to pass the time. If this sounds both grand and unlikely, then it was not. The country was desperate for expertise of all sorts and my quite phenomenal ability at languages was useful. My somewhat greater skill at mathematics remained unknown, however; properly tanked up, I could have done all of Bletchley Park’s work for it over a cup of tea, but that would have been hard to
explain. Besides, I didn’t really want to do it; I rather thought it would have been pleasant to be a land girl, ploughing the fields and growing vegetables for the war effort. Dawn, fresh air, the nobility of physical labour, all that stuff. The camaraderie of a common purpose, getting drunk in pubs on days off. Lots of sex. I had a particularly romantic notion of working in a factory, joining a union, complaining about the oppression of the capitalist classes.

But no: because of Henry, I worked for intelligence, ploughing through Polish, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Bulgarian, Serbian, Greek and Russian texts with a speed which was considered by my superiors to be extraordinarily impressive. Boring work, for the most part. I wouldn’t have minded being parachuted into France and shooting people as Henry got to do, as it sounded quite fun, except that I was extraneous to history and so there was no guarantee I would survive. The moral considerations were complex, as well; I would hardly be murdering people, as from my point of view they were long dead anyway, but I would be shortening their lives, and I would have had to calculate the potential consequences for each target. Too much work. I still think I would have been quite good at it, though. I did think of offering myself as a sort of Mata Hari, seducing German officers, combining business with pleasure, but Henry’s superior, the saintly Portmore, was rather prudish and thought it a bit unladylike and un-English. Pointing out that I was neither a lady nor English did not persuade him. Later in the war, though, such scruples were abandoned.

It had its moments, although in my case the drama was a little spoiled by knowing the outcome. I didn’t share the frisson of fear at the thought of defeat, nor the remarkable uplift at the realisation of likely survival. I only let my guard slip once, in 1941, with Henry’s friend Sam Wind, a man I never liked much. I had just about figured out relationships between the sexes; male friendship was quite beyond me, at least the very peculiar English variety of it. I was being cheerful – don’t worry, I’m sure it will all be
fine – and Wind had snapped back that I didn’t know what I was talking about. Once Germany had defeated the Soviet Union and could turn back to us …

‘No,’ I said with a cheery wave of the hand. We were in a pub and I had been sampling the whisky. ‘After Pearl Harbor and Stalingrad …’

Then, of course, I remembered it was only October. Some time to go before either of those. And the Germans were doing jolly well at that moment.

Sam, who was supercilious and superior at the best of times, gave me one of his finest sniffs of disdain, but as the news of the Japanese surprise attack began to come through in December, I remember him looking at me in a funny sort of way. All I can say is that it was the only time I ever made a mistake like that.

19

The file of papers Wind had given Lytten lay unopened in a drawer until Monday evening. Lytten had, in the past, been both flexible and adaptable, but he had never considered either to be a virtue and now he lived quite strictly to an orderly regime. That included not doing any work on a Sunday. He went to church in the morning at ten thirty, not because he was religious but because he found it a calming experience, and, what was more, the thing one should do on a Sunday morning. He liked the music, the architecture and the rhythm of ceremony. Then he walked home and had lunch. Cold meat, cold boiled potatoes, some bread and cheese. Occasionally he would accept an invitation for dinner. Otherwise, in the afternoon he would read or sometimes write, although never anything to do with his academic duties, and never at the behest of Samuel Wind.

He had known Wind for much of his life; like many male English friendships it was based on faint disdain mixed with longevity. That is, he had disliked the man for such a long time that he no longer minded the way he tended to talk primarily about himself, the way he dismissed any concerns but his own, the drawling contempt that he affected for almost everyone and everything. Life had conspired to throw them together far too often; they had, briefly, attended the same school, then the same university. When Portmore brought Lytten into Intelligence, Wind somehow found a way of joining him. He was able, he was ambitious but … what? Lytten never bothered to figure it out. He was too pleased with himself, and was always there.

Eventually he submitted; he made a sandwich, stacked the fire
and drew the curtains, then picked up, at last, the little folder of papers.

It didn’t take long to read it. There were a few East German briefing papers of only mild interest. The rest were gibberish, padding, random bits of paper swept off someone’s desk with no meaning. Only one sheet mattered, and on that there was only one sentence, suitably meaningless.

‘I will see the Storyteller in Paradise.’

Underneath was a date and a time. Here we go, he thought.

*

He was distracted for the rest of the evening, trying to make notes for his tale but more often staring emptily, a faint smile only occasionally playing over his face as he thought about the Storyteller. The idea had been woven through his life so much it was now embedded in his imagination as well. Was that why it had come to him when he searched for the centrepiece that would hold Anterwold together? He did not want to write about priests or kings, let alone talking lions or wizards, but all societies need authority figures. So he had come up with the Storytellers, on the grounds that they had a chance of being more peaceful than generals and more benevolent than politicians. They had popped into his mind quite on their own, so he had thought, but now he realised they had been there all along, waiting for him.

He had been the Storyteller, of course; it was a nickname given to him in 1946. When he followed the invading armies as they crossed first France, then the Rhine and into Germany, his job had not been to fight, but to interrogate captured Germans left behind as their armies retreated without them. Then he spent a year and a half living in the ruins of Berlin, surrounded by a depressed and frightened population. He was nominally a liaison officer, a messenger boy talking to the French in French, the Germans in German. He knew many of his opposite numbers well, and there he became known as the Storyteller. It might have been
because, one night, at an impromptu dinner in one of the few buildings not ruined, the group of half a dozen had begun to tell each other stories. It had been his idea; he had mentioned the
Canterbury Tales
, how Chaucer’s pilgrims entertained each other on their long road with anecdotes, and how Boccaccio’s characters whiled away the time when hiding from the plague. They should do the same, he suggested. Tell us your stories. Truth or fiction; each man could choose.