The Kabbalist (13 page)

C
airo,

Messidor 10
^th
,
Year VII of the French Republic,

(J
une 28
^th
,
1799)

To the honorable Monsieur
Roland de Charney,

Sir,

By the time you are
reading this letter, you must have already received the dire tidings of the
fall of your son, Pascal, in the battle of Acre, a few weeks ago.

My name is Gaston de
Chateau-Renault, Captain of Grenadiers in the division of General Jeanne
Baptiste Kléber, in the army of General Napoleon Bonaparte in Egypt. It is
a great honor for me to introduce myself to you as a close friend of your late
son, Pascal.

Pascal was like a
brother to me. He was a true friend and an outstanding officer. He had in him
the gift of the born commander, and his soldiers were prepared to ride with him
to hell and back. He was a natural leader, something he must have inherited
from you. He had extraordinary courage. He was destined for greatness and had
we been spared this tragedy, I am sure he would have become a great man. I know
for a fact, that even General Bonaparte was very much impressed by him.

But, my good sir, war
is a terrible business. For a shot at glory, we are prepared to pay a frightful
price and must live with the pain, grief, horror and nightmares, which may well
stay with us to our last day.

And nobody knows this
better than I!

I am now lying in bed,
in a field hospital in Cairo, suffering excruciating pain after having lost my
leg. I lie between sweet oblivion, made possible by a blessed dose of opium,
and agonizing wakefulness. I am trying to get used to the fact that I am
destined to limp for the rest of my life on one leg and bless my good luck for
having survived. Two cousins of mine, both beloved friends and capable
officers, were killed in Acre. One died while storming across the enemy walls
at the head of his grenadiers. The other, an emissary for the General,
delivered a message to that damned Mamluk butcher and was executed by him. The
savages shoved his body into a crate and cast it into the sea, which brought it
to us. It fell to me, of all people, to open the crate with its ghastly cargo.

But I must not
complain. I survived. I saw many good friends of mine fall in battle or badly
hit, much worse than myself. I must confess to you that of all these tragedies,
the fall of Pascal, my best friend and soul mate, is the deepest cut of all.

My honorable Monsieur
de Charney,

I want to tell you how
this brave son of yours met his death. It was the death of a soldier, an
honorable death. Pascal was a cavalry officer, and the penetration battle of
Floreal 21
^st
(May 10
^th
, 1799)
was a battle of foot
soldiers headed by my grenadiers. Pascal started that day performing some
peripheral defense assignments with his cavalry, but this was not enough for
him.

Our casualties that day
were staggering. Many were killed, including quite a few officers, senior
commanders and even two generals. This carnage caused a shortage in combatants,
and General Bonaparte asked other units to send more soldiers to reinforce the
attack. Pascal volunteered immediately and joined the battle at the head of a
company of his men as foot soldiers.

Looking back, I am
afraid this must have been a hopeless, desperate attack. My opinion is (and the
people around me are not happy when I express it) that we fell into a trap set
for us by that foxy old butcher of Acre. We breached the outer walls almost
effortlessly. In hindsight, it was too easy and should have made us suspect a deception.
Once we were in, we encountered two diagonal lines of fortifications we had not
known about, and became trapped in the funnel-like path they formed. Hellfire
was directed at us from both sides, many times reinforced by the guns of the
British flotilla from the port. Almost every Frenchman who broke through was
hit. Pascal charged unwaveringly through the breach at the head of his men and
entered this valley of death. He was hit almost immediately. It was a direct
hit of a cannon ball. He died instantly and painlessly.

How are the mighty fallen!

Now, there is something
else I must tell you. It is about a message your son communicated to me on the eve
of the day he died, and which I was to deliver to you in the event of his death.
I will now deliver it accurately, the way Pascal expressed it, and hope you can
make sense of it.

On Floreal 20
^th
(May
9
^th
, 1799)
,
the eve of Pascal’s last battle, the two
of us were talking about what was going to happen on the next day. We were both
confident in our victory and assured that we were going to take Acre. Then
Pascal turned to me. “Gaston, My friend,” he said. “I have something important
to ask of you. We are both front line officers and while we believe we will win
tomorrow, we know that the fighting will not be easy, and that we may not make
it through. Now, if all goes well for us, and I survive the battle, I will be
most obliged if you forget everything I am about to tell you and pretend it has
never been said at all. If, on the other hand, I do not return, and you
survive, there is something I must ask you to do for me.”

Needless to say that
upon hearing this, my curiosity was aroused.

“Listen to me Gaston,” said
my good friend. “I have a package which must find its way into my father’s
hands, whatever the circumstances. Of course, I hope to present it to him
myself upon my safe return to our beloved France. But, meanwhile, I have
entrusted it in the hands of our friend at headquarters, Bernard Moreau. I
asked him to deliver it to my father if the worst happened to me.”

Bernard is a good
friend of Pascal’s and mine. We became a trio of inseparable companions during
those innocent and happy days, which seem so distant today, when we were all
cadets at the Paris Military Academy. We were united again in Toulon last year,
when we arrived to serve in General Bonaparte's expeditionary force. Together,
we spent merry times in the Toulon bars before boarding our ships en route to
Egypt. While Pascal and I were assigned command of battle units, Bernard was
appointed aide to the General’s chief of staff. As such, we estimated his
chances of survival to be the highest among the three of us.

“Well, then,” I said, “it
seems that you have taken good care of your business. How can
I
help?”

“This is very simple,” replied
Pascal and his face grew solemn. “This package is very important to my father,
and I must make sure it reaches him. So, my good friend, I have three requests
to ask of you, in case I fall in battle. First, write to my father and inform
him of the circumstances of my death. Second, just tell him what I have told
you. It is important to me that he knows his request has been met and that the
package is on its way to him. And third, if something should happen to Bernard,
please make every effort to trace the package and see that it gets to my
father.”

Monsieur de Charney, I
must tell you how much I was always touched by the way Pascal’s eyes shone
whenever he mentioned you. He loved and adored you. You must have been a
wonderful father to him.

“And if the worst
happens to me?” I asked. “As an officer of grenadiers, my chances of being hit
are greater than yours and Bernard’s.”

“I cannot control every
circumstance,” answered Pascal. “Remember what we have learned in the Academy,
Gaston. I cannot guarantee success but I must stick to a well-thought-out
operation plan, attack and protect my flanks. All I am asking you, Gaston, is
to protect my flank.” It was so much like Pascal to talk this way.

Of course, I gave him
my word, and we embraced. It was an emotional moment, and we both had tears in
our eyes. After that, silence fell and a solemn mood was threatening to
overpower us. Pascal was first to recover. He slapped my shoulder vigorously
and laughed. “My good Gaston, do not look so gloomy. We will win tomorrow and
live, and then, when we celebrate victory, all these words, that are presently
hanging between us and worry you so much, will have faded away as though they have
never existed. Now, let us talk about happier things. Tell me about the last
letter you have received from your Marie.”

On the next day things
turned out the way they did.

During the past three weeks,
my medical condition was critical and the doctors struggled to save my life.
Immediately when I came to, I asked about Pascal. In the first few days, nobody
would tell me anything, but eventually I was told the bitter truth. The first
thing I did after that, was to look for Pascal’s subordinates and superior
officers, who could tell me about the chain of events that had taken place
during that battle. I sent them word to visit me in the hospital. From these conversations,
I learned how your brave son had died.

My dear Monsieur de
Charney,

Your heart would have
been filled with great pride, had you heard the reverence with which all these fine
men spoke of your son, and had you seen the tears in their eyes when they
mentioned him. I know this does little to diminish the enormity of your loss,
but it may give you some solace to know how loved and admired he was.

I then, true to my
promise to Pascal, tried to locate Captain Bernard Moreau. This turned out to
be a most difficult task. Since Bernard never came to visit me, I knew almost
for certain that something bad had happened to him, and having made some
inquiries, I found out what indeed happened. Captain Bernard Moreau was hit by
a random bullet on the same day Pascal died and I was wounded. His wound was
severe, almost fatal, and he was evacuated from the battlefield. Nobody could
tell me where he ended up, where he was treated and whether he survived the
hazardous journey back to Egypt. After further inquiries, I found out more. It
seems Bernard has been evacuated from Egypt on a navy ship and will be arriving
at the shores of the Republic soon. In this case, it is probable that by the
time you read this letter, he has already arrived. In case you need to locate
him, I hereby write down his address as I know it:

Château de la Gardanne,

Autrac,

Haute-Loire.

This is the little I can
do in my current situation to keep the promise I gave your son during our last
conversation. I am sorry that at this stage, my physical condition prevents me
from doing more. I hope that I have been of some help to you.

My honored Sir,

My heart cries with
you, mourning the enormous loss of Pascal, your son and my beloved friend. I
will cherish his memory forever. May time ease your pain, if only by a little.
If I am fortunate enough to recover and return to our beloved homeland, I promise
to visit you and tell you more about your gallant son.

Respectfully yours,

Gaston de Chateau-Renault

Cairo Field Hospital,

Cairo,

Egypt.

T
he man in the armchair
carefully placed the stack of handwritten pages on the table at his side and
leaned back. The grief he had been experiencing in the past few weeks clearly
showed on Roland de Charney. Having received the General’s letter carrying the
terrible tidings, Roland locked himself in his room with bottles of wine and
brandy. When he stepped out of the room, he was a different person. He aged all
at once; his gray hair turned white and new wrinkles lined his face. The gray-blue
eyes turned dull and even little Arlette could not make him smile. He was a devastated
old man.

It was not only the
sheer magnitude of his personal loss and the damage to the mission he trusted
Pascal to facilitate. Now that Pascal was gone, he was seized with a terrible
sense of guilt and regret. It suddenly dawned on him that he had spent so much
time preaching faith and duty to his beloved son, that he may have forgotten to
let him know how much he loved and adored him. He doubted whether he had been a
good father to his lost child, and this doubt was gnawing at his heart.

And now this letter
from Gaston, the friend of his dead son.

For the first time in weeks,
Roland was feeling a little better. He found solace in the warm words Gaston
had written about his son. They meant a lot to him, even more than those
written by the great Bonaparte. Here was someone who really knew his son and
could describe what he was like in his final hours… and what words… his boy
died a hero at the head of his men, a true leader. This was an honorable death
he would have wished for himself. True, the General had said the same in his
formal letter, but Gaston’s words touched him more intimately.

But even more important
were some other words written by Gaston.

“…I must tell you
how much I was always touched by the way Pascal’s eyes shone whenever he
mentioned you. He loved and adored you. You must have been a wonderful father
to him.”

These words were like
balm on his wounds.

He also recalled a
paragraph from one of Pascal‘s last letters:
“I am a different person now,
much changed from the boy who sat opposite you that day. After what I have been
through this year, I am starting to understand your words about the
significance of family and the importance of faith… we will probably talk a lot
about this when, God willing, I am back home safe and sound.

For some reason, God
did not will his son to return home safe and sound. Roland did not presume to
understand God’s ways, yet found consolation in the knowledge that at the end
of his short life, his son not just proved to be a brave leader of men, but
also started his way back to faith.

And, of course, there
was the other matter. Pascal never forgot his mission even when he was facing
death. The task ahead was not only the fulfillment of the unwritten will of
Geoffroi de Charney, the Templar martyr. It has now become also the completion
of his dead son’s last mission.

And now it was
his
mission.

He shot up to his feet
and left the room.

“Papa, Papa…” Little
Arlette was running towards him. He bent down, took her in his arms, and hugged
her closely. It was something he had not done for too long. The little girl was
surprised, but was herself again in no time.

“Papa,” she said. “I
dreamed about Pascal last night. He came to see me. He was dressed in his
cavalry officer uniform, and he was beautiful, exactly as he was the last time
he visited us.”

Tears came to the old
man’s eyes. The girl noticed it and kissed his eyes, trying to dry the tears
off. “Don’t cry, Papa,” she said. “He told me that everything is fine with him
where he is now. He promised to watch over us. He wanted me to tell you that,
and also that he loves us all.”

Roland de Charney
wrapped his arms around the little body of his daughter and held her tightly.
Tears were at last running freely down his wrinkled cheeks. He was crying for
the first time since the tragedy hit him, and found it an enormous relief. “I
love you, Pascal,” he whispered in a low, broken voice.

Arlette heard that and
hugged him with her little arms. “I, too, love you, Pascal,” she whispered and
then started weeping softly, her tears mingling with her father’s.

Roland was a man of
faith. Now he knew that his brave son was resting in peace. Pascal did his part
to the best of his ability, and it was left to him, Roland, to complete the
task.

And he will do it! He
will do it even if it was the last thing he did in his life! He has a destiny
now! He has purpose!

And he still had two
wonderful children to take care of, especially this little, marvelous girl. For
a moment, he felt ashamed. What happened to him? What kind of father has he
become?
He
was the one who should have given courage and strength to his
little girl, but somehow
she
was the one giving
him
power and
hope. What a wonderful child! The vacuum in his heart vanished. The despair
which had taken hold of him, making him a bitter old man, was fading away now, to
be replaced by hope.

Roland de Charney
smiled through his tears. “I love you Arlette,” he said chokingly and covered
her cheeks with kisses.

“I love you too, Papa.”

*    *    *

Roland climbed down from
the coach and looked around him. Château de la Gardanne must have once been a
splendid estate, but only a faded memory remained from its supposed glory. The
garden was in desperate need of care, and the general impression was of a
family with a past of wealth and affluence, which had stumbled upon hard times.

The man who came to
welcome him had a worn and faded look about him as well. His face was thin, and
his eyes were sunk deep in their sockets. He struggled to project an elegant
appearance, but the fine clothes, too large for his size, hung loosely and
sloppily on his skinny frame, creating a pathetic spectacle.

“Monsieur de Charney,
this is truly a pleasure,” the emaciated man extended his hand. “I am Henry
Moreau.”

Roland outstretched his
hand and the man shook it limply. “Let me offer my condolences, Monsieur de
Charney. Your son was special. Our Bernard loved him like a brother. You know,
Pascal once stayed here as our guest. Bernard brought him on one of their short
leaves, and I was very impressed. What a loss!”

De Charney nodded.

“It is very kind of you
to come and visit our Bernard. I am sure he will be very happy to see you. We
have not had too many visitors around here lately…”

“I am happy to be
here,” declared Roland de Charney ceremoniously. “Every friend of my son is
like a son to me. Pascal used to mention Bernard in his letters, and I know
that he would have wanted me to visit his good friend. Is Bernard well today?”

An anguished look
appeared on Henry Moreau‘s face. “He is still recovering from his wounds… but
come along, sir. We brought Bernard down from his bed for you today. I am very
curious to see his reaction when he meets you. I told him you were coming, and
he was positively excited. I know it would give him great joy, and God knows he
needs something to cheer him up… my poor Bernard.”

The two men climbed the
stairs and entered a big, shabby living room. A young man was sitting there all
alone in an armchair in the middle of the room, with his back to the entrance.

“Bernard dear, your
guest has arrived,” called Henry Moreau cheerfully.

Nothing; the man in the
armchair did not respond. Perhaps he did not hear.

The two went around and
stood in front of the young man. He just sat there limply, with his head
lowered. “Bernard dear, your guest is here,” said Henry in an endearing tone,
like he was talking to a child. “This is Roland de Charney, the father of your
good friend Pascal. Say hello to Monsieur de Charney.”

The young man raised
his head and stared at them, bewildered. “Hello, Monsieur,” he mumbled in a
barely audible voice.

Roland de Charney could
now see the face of Bernard Moreau. He knew he should say something but could
not find words. He stumbled backward dizzily, bumping into a sofa that was
located behind him and dropped into it in total shock. The despair, that he
thought he had beaten, was now creeping back. Everything around him became
foggy.

“Lord,” he muttered, “why
have you chosen me for your toy to play with?”

He now realized that
the short awakening he had experienced was just an illusion, and that he was,
after all, a tired old man with no hope. Somewhere, through the fog, he saw
Henry Moreau rushing towards him in alarm.

“Monsieur de Charney…
Monsieur de Charney…”

“I am sorry,” said
Roland de Charney eventually in a
feeble voice. “I did not know…”