Perfect Freedom (66 page)

Stuart stared at the boy. He had accepted Carl for Helene's sake, but since that reason was no longer valid wasn't he free to act as he chose? “People aren't allowed to violate the Armistice for personal reasons, no matter how important they are,” he said. “You mean he's here on some secret mission?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, he is.” Since the Paris visit, Robbie felt confident of being able to handle his father. Seeing him now, heavy and unkempt in old slacks and sandals, he felt more sure of himself than ever. Something remained, a sort of atavistic filial response that he combatted by saying more than good sense suggested.

“And after he's finished, he's going to pick up your mother and take her back to Paris?” Stuart asked, still attempting to stave off the moment when his anger would pass beyond control.

“Well, no,” Robbie said, rubbing his index finger against the palm of his other hand. “You see, well—time passes. Things change. Carl hasn't played a big part in Mother's life for some time. It's only natural that Carl—”

“You mean he's had enough of her?” Stuart broke out. His hands made a convulsive movement on the arms of the chair but he warned himself that he mustn't give way. “What's she going to do?”

“We've taken a house for her outside Toulon.”

“We?” he asked distantly.

Robbie colored and his mouth worked before he answered. “Mother and me. Of course, you wouldn't understand. Mother's known all along that she wasn't the only person in Carl's life. He's not the sort to go in for domesticity and all that. He's too alive. Even with me—” Robbie's flush deepened and he leaned back and brushed his hair back several times.

Stuart looked at the floor and then lifted his eyes and let them travel slowly around the room, seeing nothing. There was too much to comprehend all at once. Helene had been freed. Carl was here to carry out a mission on behalf of the enemy. He was no longer interested in Helene. Helene had known all along.
Even with me
—Robbie's liaison with Carl was still active. “I think you must be insane,” he said at last. “It's the best I can think of you.”

“Now, just a minute—”

“No, it's all right,” he said quietly. “I have nothing to say. This is your home. You're not twenty-one but you're getting there. You're your own master. All understood. But will you simply tell me this? How does Carl dare to come here? The situation
is
unusual. I think even you'll admit that. I'll overlook whatever you're suggesting as far as you and he are concerned. But he did go off with my wife. And he has good reason to know that I have no sympathy for the government he represents. Why does he come here?”

“Because I told him to,” Robbie said. He felt embarrassed and guilty, but not for his father's sake. His father was a cipher. One had only to look at him to see that he was half gone on drink. He was bloated and unwieldy. His fumbling attempts at fair-mindedness would prevent him from taking a strong stand. He was spent and ineffectual. “I knew I could trust you when you told me this was home. This is just the sort of place Carl needs as a base. I told him you'd make no objection if I wanted him to use it.”

“In brief, if I understand you correctly, you're working for the enemy.” Stuart folded his arms and looked up at the ceiling.

“What do you mean?” Robbie protested defensively. “Whose enemy? The Germans have won the war. They're perfectly willing for the French to run their own country so long as they cooperate.”

“I see. Well, how long is our friend to honor us with his presence?”

“Three or four days this time. We have to be back in Paris within a week.”

“And your mother?”

“I tell you, she has a house outside Toulon.” Robbie's voice began to break. “She's aged. She needs rest and special care. I'll be coming down again from time to time.”

“Splendid. Now let's see.” Stuart withdrew his eyes from the ceiling and looked at Robbie vacantly. “Where'll we put you? I'm afraid the house isn't running quite as you remember it.”

“I thought we'd take my house,” Robbie said.

“It's all under wraps. Almost everything's been put away.” Stuart looked at him thoughtfully and Robbie pushed at his hair. “Your hair looks better that way,” Stuart said, nodding at him. Robbie smiled in acknowledgment. “Yes, your house,” Stuart agreed. “That's the best idea. You can camp out somehow.”

“What about meals? Shall we have lunch here?”

“I think not. You can get whatever you want from the kitchen and take it over there. You haven't forgotten how to cook?”

“No, indeed,” Robbie said with another smile. He wondered if his father had already had a lot to drink this morning. There was something definitely odd about his eyes. Robbie stood up. “Well, I'll go along and help Carl with the things. Will you be around?”

“I'll be around. Come for a drink before dinner if you like. But not Carl, if you don't mind. And don't feel you have to.”

“I'll see. It's wonderful to be here again.” He hurried out, eager to escape the accusation he felt in his father's manner. It was only a pale reflection of what he knew Maurice would make him feel.

Carl had burst into his life once more when he was alone and frightened by the cataclysm that had been taking place around him. Raoul had been ordered to follow the government in its flight from Paris. He didn't know where Maurice was. As far as he could learn, he had crossed over to England with remnants of the French army after Dunkerque. Carl offered familiar protection in his hour of need. Maurice would have understood that. Maurice knew all about Carl. Fidelity ranked high on Maurice's scale of values but he had made it clear before he went away that he didn't expect his young mate to live a monkish life. Dignity and self-control were his watchwords. So long as Robbie didn't debase himself, he would be forgiven. He wasn't sure whether consorting with the enemy, as Maurice too would consider Carl, counted as debasing himself. Carl had made him feel safe again in the ominously moribund occupied city. He seemed to know everybody of importance who was left and all the important new arrivals.

Maurice would be glad to know that somebody was looking after him but Robbie knew there was more to it than that. In Carl's company, he underwent a personality change that would have shocked Maurice; he became a stereotype homosexual because that was what Carl thought he had become. Carl didn't understand him any better than his father. He felt as trapped in falsity by one as by the other. Only Maurice could restore him to himself. He assumed that Carl's duties would take him away quickly, as happened with everybody, and was startled by his suggestion that they take a trip into Unoccupied France together. He wanted to refuse but something from the past made it impossible. He prayed that Maurice would never find out about it. If everything went smoothly there was no reason why he should.

Stuart sat for what seemed like a long time after Robbie had left, presumably thinking, but when he came to with a start from some sort of reverie, he found that his mind was blank. He knew that he had to turn Carl over to the military authorities but that wasn't thought. It was a simple duty. Why? Had he always done his duty as the world saw it? That was something to think about but he wondered if it mattered. Nothing he did to Carl would restore Helene or Robbie to him. There was a war on. He knew which side he was on. Carl was the enemy. Thought wasn't required. It was an automatic reflex: Destroy the enemy.

He wasn't sure that Robbie was the enemy—yet. Could he report Carl without implicating Robbie? He could turn friendly, try to lure the German into town alone for a drink and set a trap for him. How deeply was Robbie involved in their mission? Was the nature of their work such that it would be known immediately that Carl had an accomplice? He could of course kill the man with his bare hands if there were no other way.

He found himself pacing the big room and stopped in front of the glass doors that were open to the warm September morning. He looked out. These stones, these trees, this glimpse of sea and sky were all that was left that he could call his. That and whatever beliefs remained within him that made him a man. What do I believe? he wondered. I believe, he said to himself and stopped. It was as complete an answer as most men could give to the question but he wasn't satisfied. He wished he had been born with blind instincts so that when he was wronged he could strike back. He wished he had an instinct to kill.

What would it be like? He tried to imagine it. Did you steal up on your victim while he slept and stick a knife into him? The moment between selecting the vital point and performing the act would be one he would find impossible to bridge. If you had a gun—he had a gun, he remembered, and it was a reproach to him. Damn Boldoni for insisting he take the thing. Well, could you take a gun and walk up to a man and pull the trigger?

He heard voices calling down the glade and he retreated into the room, his mind at last operating as he tried to settle on the best method of dealing with Carl. The authorities were undependable these days. Robbie might be involved. He hadn't much choice.…

Robbie and Carl threw open windows and pulled covers off furniture. A look at the bedroom revealed that the mattress had been removed so that the sofa in the living room offered the only sleeping accommodations.

“You think he doesn't mind too much my being here?” Carl asked as Robbie started to unpack his bag.

“Oh, he minds, but he'll work it all out in his head. He always does. It probably has something to do with the wrong he's done me.” Robbie spoke flippantly and ended with a caricature of outraged innocence. Carl laughed and approached him.

“Wicked boy,” he said, patting Robbie's cheek. “You deserve a reward, eh?” He dropped his hand to the boy's buttocks and gave them a squeeze.

“Thank you, kind sir,” Robbie said, and laughed, too. “What do you want for lunch? I'm allowed to take anything I can find in the kitchen.” Carl smiled into his eyes as the boy leaned against him with his hand on his shoulder.

“You're beginning to like Paris again, now that my countrymen have taken over, eh? I hope it won't go to your head.”

“To my head, indeed.” Robbie despised the person he turned into with Carl. They both roared with laughter.…

Stuart spent a strange afternoon during which time seemed to slow to an eternity and an invisible curtain seemed to have dropped between him and the world around him. When he handled objects he couldn't feel them. He noticed it when he went to get the gun. It seemed without substance as he checked its mechanism to make sure it was ready for use. He hid it behind some books on his night table and then went out to his car and drove into town and drew out a large sum of money from the bank, all the while feeling that the car, the bank, the bundle of bills that were delivered to him were not there.

Something else wasn't there. His freedom was gone. He felt as if he had been delivered of a great burden. He doubted if he would ever be free again. Whatever happened, whether real bars closed around him or he was confined by the figurative bars of the mind, he would be a prisoner of his act.

When he returned to the house, the little black car was gone and he made a slow tour of the whole place, aware that it was a tour of farewell but feeling nothing. He made careful note of all the things there were to do, figs to be picked, zinnias cleared out, orange trees pruned. He returned to the house and wrote letters. He wrote to his business manager in New York explaining that he was going to try to get to England to offer his services and that until further notice all income was to be paid to Helene. He left a blank for her address and made a mental note to get it from Robbie. He wrote a similar letter to Paris. He wrote a note to Agnes telling her that he was leaving, instructing her to arrange for the disposal of the pigeons and outlining a general program for the maintenance of the house.

Then he just sat, staring at his desk top. As the afternoon wore away, he was suddenly seized by an attack of nerves and he sprang into activity to quiet himself. He packed a bag, he went out to the kitchen and made himself a sandwich, he took a shower, perhaps his last for some time. Nothing helped. He remained taut with apprehension. Would he be able to manage it? Would his nerve fail him at the last moment? Would Robbie give him trouble?

He returned to the living room and made himself a stiff drink. And then, because he knew that alcohol couldn't alter his resolve, he had another and another until he was slightly drunk. He became sleepy and went unsteadily to the bed-room and got the gun and carried it back and stuck it under the pillows on the sofa. Then he stretched out with his head over it and went to sleep.

Robbie came in not long afterward and saw the bottle beside his father's sleeping form. He shrugged his shoulders and went on to his house to report to Carl that Stuart had passed out.

Stuart awoke slowly in the dark. Before he was half awake the consciousness of what he had to do was upon him. His head ached and his stomach felt hollow. He groped for the bottle and took a drink out of it and then he pulled the gun out from under the pillows and rose fumblingly and started toward the door. He stumbled against some furniture and steadied himself and completed the perilous journey across the marble-paved floor.

At the door, he steadied himself once more and looked out at the terrace and the moonlight and the cypresses. The fountain tinkled silver in the pool. At the head of the steps, as if returning from a midnight plunge, the white limbs of Apollo glowed. He was indifferent to the spell of the moonlight and the night's fragrance and the murmur of the sea. Beyond the olive trees he had seen a light shining from Robbie's house.

He moved in a company of ghosts, ghosts of things, ghosts of people. There was an act to be accomplished. Would it give meaning to everything, or would there never be a meaning, never an end in sight? He carried the gun at his side as he moved heavily toward the house beyond the olive trees.