The Clowns of God (31 page)

“And where will you go, Uncle Jean?”

“Tomorrow to Paris to see my family and arrange my financial affairs. After that… Who knows? I wait on the calir Johann was still uneasy and irritable. He objected: “So we’re back to private revelation and prophecy and all that?”

“Well?”

“I don’t believe in it. That’s all!”

“But you believed in a man who tried to kill your father.

You didn’t believe the truths his wife told you in bed. You don’t know how to smell evil from good. Does that tell you nothing about yourself, Johann?”

“You really strike for the throat, don’t you?”

“Grow up, boy!” Jean Marie Barette was implacable.

“We’re talking about life, death and the hereafter. No one gets an absolution from reality!”

That night Jean Marie Barette had a dream. He was walking in the Marktplatz of Tubingen. He paused by a fruit stall selling beautiful black grapes. He tasted one; it was sweet and satisfying. He asked the stall-holder to weigh him out a kilo. She gaped at him, horror-struck, raised her hands in front of her face and backed away. All the people in the market place did the same until he stood, isolated in a circle of hostile humans, holding a bunch of grapes in his hand. He spoke peaceably, asking what was the matter. No one answered. He took a few steps towards the nearest person.

His way was barred by a big fellow with a butcher’s knife. He stopped in his tracks and cried out:

“What’s the matter? Why are you afraid of me?”

The big fellow answered: “Because you’re a Pesttrager - a plague-carrier! Get out before we kill you!”

Then the crowd began to close in, forcing him inexorably towards the mouth of the alley down which, he knew, he must turn and run for his life…

In the morning, red-eyed and un rested he had an early breakfast with Lotte and then went with her to the hospital to say his farewells to Carl Mendelius. There, in a final quiet moment, he told them both:

“We will meet again. I’m sure of it; but where and how, God knows! Lotte, my dear, don’t cling to anything here.

When Carl is ready, just pack and go! Promise me!”

“I promise, Jean! It won’t be hard to leave.”

“Good! When the call comes, Carl, you will be ready for it. For the present, resign yourself to a long convalescence.

Help Lotte to help you. Tell her you’ll do that.”

Carl Mendelius raised his good hand and stroked her cheek. She drew the hand to her lips and kissed the palm. Jean Marie stood up. He traced the sign of the cross with his thumb on Mendelius’ forehead and then on Lotte’s. His voice was unsteady.

“I hate farewells. I love you both. Pray for me.”

Mendelius clutched at his wrist to stay him. He struggled to speak. This time, painfully but clearly, he managed to articulate the words:

“The fig-tree, Jean. I know now. The fig-tree!”

Lotte pleaded with him.

“Please, dearest, don’t try to talk.”

Jean Marie said soothingly: “Dear Carl, remember what we agreed! No words, no arguments. Let God make the trees grow in his own good time.”

Mendelius relaxed slowly. Lotte held his hand. Jean Marie kissed her and, without another word, walked out of the room.

He was halfway to Paris, flying blind through storm clouds, when Mendelius’ words made sense to him. They were an echo of the text from the gospel of Matthew that had fallen open in his hands on the day of the vision:

“And from the fig-tree learn a parable. When the branch Js tender and the leaves come forth you know that summer is near. So, when you see all these happenings you will know that the end things are very near, yes, even at the gates!”

He felt a strange surge of relief, almost of elation. If Carl Mendelius believed at last in the vision, then Jean Marie Barette was not left utterly alone.

In Paris the dream of the plague-carrier came true. His brother, Alain Hubert Barette, silver of hair, silver of tongue, a pillar of the banking establishment on the Boulevard Haussmann, was shocked to the soles of his handmade shoes.

He cherished Jean Marie. He would somehow make adequate financial provisions; but to open up a forty-year-old trust, and dismantle the most complicated international arrangements pas possihlel Jean had come at a most inconvenient time. It would be most difficult to lodge him with the family.

They had the decorators in. Odette was in a constant state of near hysteria. And the servants my God! However, the bank would be most happy to let him use its suite at the Lancaster until he was able to make other arrangements.

How was Odette apart from the hysteria? Well enough, but shocked devastated indeed by the abdication! And, of course, when Cardinal Sancerre, Archbishop of Paris, came back from the consistory and began spreading all those odd stories that was truly an intimate distress for the whole family.

Political contacts? Diplomatic encounters? Normally Alain Hubert Barette would have been happy to act as host to such meetings; but in this precise moment eh! one counselled a great discretion. One did not want to risk a snub, by too direct an approach to the President or even to the high gentlemen at the Quai d’Orsay. Why not come tomorrow night for dinner with Odette and the girls and then discuss the whole question?

Meantime, the money problem. The bank would grant Jean Marie a substantial credit line, guaranteed by the trust, until such time as it was possible to reconstitute the arrangements.

“Now, let’s get some documents signed so that you can have funds immediately. I suggest strictly between loving brothers! that a good tailor is a first requisite and a decent shirt maker After all, you are still a Monseigneur and even the garments of a layman should indicate the hidden dignity.”

It was one idiocy too many. It put Jean Marie in a cold, Gallic rage.

“Alain, you are a fool! You are also a snob and a tasteless, greedy little money-changer! I will not come to your house. I do not wish to have the apartment at the Lancaster. You will provide me immediately with the money I need. You will call a meeting of the trustees for ten in the morning and we will discuss in detail their past administration and their future activities. I have little time and much travel to do. I will not be inhibited by the bureaucratic nonsense of your bank. Do I make myself clear?”

“Jean, you misunderstand me. I did not intend to …”

“Be quiet, Alain! The less said the better. What documents do I have to sign for the immediate funds I need?”

Fifteen minutes later it was done. A very subdued Alain made the last call to summon the last trustee to the next morning’s meeting. He mopped his hands with a silk handkerchief and delivered himself of a carefully modified apology.

“Please! We are brothers. We should not quarrel. You have to understand: we are all under a strain now. The money markets are going mad. We have to defend ourselves as if it were against bandits. We know there will be a war. So how do we protect the bank’s assets and our own? How do we arrange our personal lives? You have been away so long, protected so long …”

In spite of his anger Jean Marie laughed a gusty chuckle of genuine amusement.

“Eh-eh-eh, little brother! I bleed for you! For my part, I should not know what to do with all those trunks and strongrooms full of paper and coinage and bullion. But you’re right.

It’s too late in the day to quarrel and it’s also too late for all that silly snobbery! Why don’t you see if you can get Vauvenargues on the phone for me …”

“Vauvenargues? The Foreign Minister?”

“The same.”

“As you wish.” Alain shrugged resignedly and consulted his leather-bound desk directory. He switched to a private line and tapped out a number. Jean Marie listened with cool amusement to the one-sided dialogue.

“Hullo! This is Alain Hubert Barette, Director of Halevy Freres et Barette, Banquiers. Please connect me with the Minister… Apropos of the fact that an old friend of his has arrived in Paris and would like to speak with him. The friend is Monseigneur Jean Marie Barette, formerly His Holiness Pope Gregory XVII. Oh, I see! Then perhaps you will be kind enough to pass the message and have the Minister call back to this number. Thank you.”

He put down the receiver and made a grimace of distaste.

“The Minister is in conference. The message will be passed.

You’ve been there, Jean! You know the routines. Once you have to explain yourself and your current identity, you’re diplomatically dead. Oh, I’m sure the Minister will return the call; but what do you want with a limp handshake and some words about the weather?”

“I’ll make the next call myself.” Jean Marie consulted his pocket-book and spelt out the private number of the most senior presidential counsellor, a man with whom, during his pontificate, he had maintained a constant and friendly relationship. The response came immediately:

“ThisisDuhamel.”

“Pierre, this is Jean Marie Barette. I am in Paris for a few days on private business. I’d like to see you and your master!”

“And I you. But it has to be in private. As to the master my regrets, but no! The official word is out. You are untouchable.”

“Where does the word come from?”

“From your principal to our principal. And the Friends of Silence have been busy at all the lower levels. Where are you staying?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Outside the city is better. Take a taxi and drive out to L’Hostellerie des Chevaliers. It’s about three kilometres this side of Versailles. I’ll telephone ahead and book the accommodation for you. Sign yourself as Monsieur Gregoire. They won’t ask for documents. I’ll call there on my way home about eight. I must go now. A bien tot

Jean Marie put down the refeiver. It was his turn to apologise.

“You’re right, little brother. Diplomatically, I am dead and buried. Well, I should be going. Give my love to Odette and the girls. We’ll try to arrange a meal together before I leave.”

“You don’t want to change your mind about the Lancaster?”

“Thank you, no. If I’m a plague-carrier I’d rather not spread the infection to my family. Tomorrow at ten, eh?”

The Hostellerie des Chevaliers was a pleasant surprise, a cluster of ancient farm buildings converted into an agreeable and discreet hotel. There were manicured lawns and quiet rose-arbours, and a millstream that meandered under a drapery of willows.

The patron was a handsome woman in her mid-fifties who waived all the formalities of registration and led him immediately to a pleasant suite with a view on to a private enclave with its own green-sward and a lily-pond. She pointed out that he might make his telephone calls with full security, that the refrigerator was stocked with liquor and that, as a friend of M. Duhamel, he had only to raise a finger to command the total service of the Hostellerie.

As he unpacked his one suitcase he was amused and a whit surprised to see how lightly he was travelling: one suit, a raincoat, a sports-jacket and trousers, a pullover, two pairs of pyjamas and half a dozen changes of shirts, underwear and socks constituted his whole wardrobe. His toiletries, his mass kit, a breviary, a missal and a pocket-book made up the rest of his impedimenta. For sustenance he had a day’s supply of cash, a folder of travellers’ cheques and a circular letter of credit from Halevy Freres et Barette. For these he was a debtor to the bank until the trustees released some of the funds from his patrimony. At least he was free to move quickly once the call came, as it had come centuries before to John, the son of Zachary, in the desert.

What troubled him now was a growing sense of isolation and of his precarious dependence on the good-will of friends.

No matter that at the centre of himself was a great pool of calm, a place, an estate, where all opposites were reconciled;

he was still a man, subject to all the chemistries of the flesh, all the unstable physics of the mind.

The weapon of estrangement had been used against him in the dark and bitter days before his abdication. Now it was being used again, to render him impotent in the political arena. Pierre Duhamel, long-time counsellor to the President of the Republic, was not prone to exaggeration. If he said you were dying, it was indeed time to call the priest; if he said you were dead, the stone masons were already carving your epitaph.

That Pierre Duhamel had been so prompt to suggest a rendezvous was itself an indication of crisis. In all the years of their acquaintance, Duhamel had observed a singular and Spartan code: “I have one wife: the woman I married. I have one mistress: the Republic. Never tell me anything you do not want reported. Never try to frighten me. Never offer me a bribe. I give patronage to none and my advice only to those whom I am paid to counsel. I respect all faiths. I demand to be private about my own. If you trust me I shall never lie to you. If you lie to me, I shall understand, but never trust you again.”

In the days of his pontificate, Jean Marie Barette had had many exchanges with this strangely attractive man, who looked like a prize fighter, reasoned as eloquently as Montaigne and went home to cherish a wife who had once been the toast of Paris and was now a ravaged victim of multiple sclerosis.

They had a son at Saint Cyr and a daughter somewhat older, who had earned a good reputation as a producer of programmes for television. For the rest, Jean Marie made no enquiry. Pierre Duhamel was what his President claimed him to be a good man for the long road.

Jean Marie picked up his breviary and stepped out into the garden to read the vespers of the day. It was a habit he cherished: the prayer of a man walking, at day’s end, hand in hand with God in a garden. The day’s psalmody began with the canticle he had always loved: “Quam dilecta’ - “How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts. My soul longeth and fain teth for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God. For the sparrow hath found herself a house and the dove a nest for herself where she may lay her young ones…”

It was the perfect prayer for a late summer evening, with the shadows long, the air still and languorous with the perfume of roses. As he turned do-mi a gravel led pathway towards another stretch of lawn, he heard children’s voices, and a moment later saw a group of little girls, all dressed alike in gingham dresses and pinafores, playing a simple catching game with a pair of young teachers. On a bench nearby an older woman divided her attention between the group and a piece of embroidery.