The Strange Case of the Composer and His Judge (5 page)

Dominique Carpentier took up the case. She eventually discovered, while meticulously dissecting his accounts, that the fiery preacher’s eyes owed their commanding authority to tinted-blue contact lenses; even in court, however, she never gave away that little secret. The guru claimed that he was in fact an extraterrestrial, and therefore exempt from French income tax laws. Dominique Carpentier never suggested that he had not actually seen the inside of a spaceship. Instead she attacked on three fronts: corrupting the morals of minors, fiscal irregularities of immense proportions and publicité mensongère – fraudulent advertising. If he conducted his business on earth he was subject to local laws controlling that particular corner of the planet.

When Gaëlle came to read this dossier, years later, as she set about acquainting herself with the Judge’s methods of working and the nature of her chosen enemy, she emerged from the dusty paperwork astounded by the dozens of dépositions, official statements from loyal members of Le Corps Harmonieux, all persuaded to a woman and man that an evil injustice had been perpetrated upon their noble saviour and upon themselves. They were certain that he was inspired by voices from another world and that he had been sent to warn them of this evil society that offered only alienation, repression and death. His words brought them direction and comfort. He pointed out the Way. He would lead them onwards into a libertarian utopia of freedom, beauty and light. The dissenters who turned against their master could be counted on one hand.

‘How could they believe all this shit?’ she demanded, waving one of the little brochures which the Judge had proved to be a raft of undeliverable claims. The presence of the soul, its precise nature and the practicalities of its transference from one human body into another, could not be verified. The soul, in any case, has no legal existence. The laboratories did not exist and human cloning, although manifestly possible, was still illegal and of uncertain efficacy. The Judge studied her assistant’s spiked hair, held in place by a gel whose consistency resembled transparent cement, and then made one of her speeches. Gaëlle always treasured these moments when the Judge addressed her as if she were Madame la Présidente, with the whole court in closed session before her.

‘We shouldn’t judge them too hastily, Gaëlle. We must understand these people, their motives and their faiths. They are not all deluded fools, frauds and charlatans. Their leaders often sincerely believe that they are preaching a precious truth or imparting a crucial revelation. But we must stop them exploiting the fears of the more vulnerable members of society – whether they do so unwittingly or otherwise. We have created a world where many men and women live alone; they no longer feel that they belong to a tribe or a community. They see this world as a desolate place. They long to live supported and secure within a discipline or creed, anything that offers the illusion of certainty, a way to comprehend this world and hope for the future. Their faith is often unconditional. We need to understand rather than condemn their beliefs. We must grasp the urgency of this spiritual need. For into that empty space, left without form and void when the great religions roll back, the sects sweep in. Read on, Gaëlle. You’ll see how they resemble and differ from each other. My only weapon is the law. And I will use the law to defend our citizens.’

Gaëlle rose to her feet and clapped. The Judge grinned.

‘Don’t be too cheeky, ma belle. Look at the dates on those dossiers. Le Corps Harmonieux is a classic
1970
s sect, because it relies on extra-terrestrials and flying saucers. The logical finale is Spielberg’s
E.T.
There are some far more sinister ones in the cabinet on the right, with militaristic Fascist connections. One group was responsible for desecrating a Jewish cemetery. You won’t jeer at them so easily.’

‘But what happened to the guru and Le Corps Harmonieux?’

‘He paid the massive fine, got three years’ suspended sentence and went back to Florida. Most of the faithful went with him. They’re all there still, on a sort of ashram in beach huts. The laboratory now exists and their cloning claims are on the rise. They get a lot of media attention in the States. They make a lot of money. I keep in touch.’

Gaëlle imagined the Judge’s eyes, travelling like searchlights, picking out the sects across the globe, and surveying their very thoughts from her office in Montpellier. But the Judge was not omniscient; and until that day in May
1995
, when she kept her first appointment with André Schweigen, sent to her by a frustrated Procureur de la République, who had got as little joy out of Switzerland as the bilingual Commissaire, she had never encountered the Faith.

_{*  *  *}

Almost a year after the massacre in Switzerland Schweigen’s initial meeting with the Judge took the form of a continuous monologue. He thundered unchecked over lunch, which happened outside in a shady inner courtyard. He blossomed like a desperate client confronting his psychoanalyst for the very first time. The Judge changed her glasses to an identical pair with blacked-out lenses, which, given their dimensions, were clearly adjusted to her sight. The courtyard around them smelt damp with watered pots, wet green leaves and hot stone. The paving was flooded every morning in summer and pockets of water remained, shimmering in the natural dips and crevices worn into the flagstones.

Schweigen presented her with folders of papers, then took them all back to check they were the right ones. He radiated heat and discomfort. Yet he babbled courageously on; the Judge took notes. There had been no one left to interview and no living witnesses. The members of the Faith had hired a remote mountain hostel, just for themselves, and brought in all they needed: food, sheets, bedding, towels, soap.

‘The place looked like a stage. Very theatrical, all the props arranged. And what were they doing during their last days? What do you think? Walking, swimming, yoga and meditation. Pony rides for the children. A long weekend of bracing exercise, specially organised for people committed to the outdoor life.’

They had been seen marching through the sunlit fields in groups, their arms around one another, singing. They left no suicide notes, and no explanations.

‘But the odd thing is,’ Schweigen argued away at an imaginary audience, ‘they weren’t the sort of people who go in for mad cures and diets. They weren’t lacking anything. They were all rich, educated professionals. Two were in medical research, an endocrinologist and a skin-cancer specialist. They had positions, money, prospects. They were people who’d made it. They had everything to live for.’

The Judge laid down her pen and looked straight at Schweigen. He had taken off his jacket and there were damp sweat patches under his arms. He began waving his hands in an attempt to present his views in a manner that was more rhetorically persuasive.

‘They weren’t dropouts or hysterics. I don’t know – but the sects you deal with – don’t they just gather up the dross and the lost? People with no money and no future? Who want to be told what to believe?’

The Judge nodded slightly. ‘But what makes you think these people were not among the lost?’

‘They had all the things of this world. Worldly goods, I suppose you’d say. Yet they wanted something more. Somewhere else.’ He glanced down at the fixed rictus of joy clamped across the dead faces spread out upon the tablecloth. His voice rose, incredulous, baffled. ‘And they believed they were going there.’

‘Apocalypse sects, or suicide sects if you like, always have a powerful vision of paradise,’ said the Judge. She scanned the list of names, counting entire families. ‘Or their ideal place, Utopia, Eden, the Golden Kingdom, whatever. The Faith probably conforms to this pattern. I assume you interviewed any surviving relatives? Employers? Friends?’

‘We did. Everyone we could dredge up.’ Schweigen sat fidgeting in the heat; he wiped his razored head, now damp with sweat; the black hair on his forearm stuck to his watch. The Judge observed him carefully.

‘Shall we go inside? They have air conditioning.’

‘No, no, it’s fine. It’s just that – I’m not really dressed for holiday weather.’

The Judge lowered her glasses and looked at him over the top so that he could see her eyes. The pupils were huge and dark, the deep brown rings surrounding them appeared to widen. He shrank away, taken aback by the sudden intimacy of the gesture.

‘Monsieur Schweigen,’ she leaned towards him and lowered her voice, ‘why don’t you nip inside and take off your woollen vest? Here, put it in this.’

She handed him a blue plastic carrier bag and shunted him off to the Gents as if he were a little boy. The lavatory turned out to be unisex and tiny, smelling of face powder with an undertow of bleach, and as he stood there, wrestling with his unsuitable layers, he shuddered with embarrassment, as if he were undressing in front of the Judge. She had a reputation for being disconcerting and direct, but he had not quite imagined the mixture of arctic formality and the almost physical familiarity of her manners. How did she know that the thing was made of wool? He suffered from the uncomfortable sensation that an unwritten line had been crossed. She was surveying his body, assessing his garments, giving him the once-over. He turned on the cold tap and splashed his naked chest, face and neck with cold water. Then he took off his watch and placed his wrists under the chilled stream, as his mother had taught him to do. He cooled down at once and peered into the mirror. He still looked disconcertingly pale and hot. He noticed the odd grey hair among the black at the centre of his chest and pulled on one of them. They proved to be much longer than the black ones and sprang back into a damp coil. Schweigen shook out his slightly crumpled shirt, then put it back on, turning up the sleeves and smoothing down his ruffled sense of dignity.

When he got back to their table he found that the Judge had ordered a pitcher of iced water for him and was sticking Post-its on all the documents she needed immediately.

‘Vous allez mieux?’ She pulled back his chair and made him welcome at the table. Now, for the first time, he looked hard at the Judge, discounting her reputation and her intransigent opinions; he studied the woman herself. She had been observing him like a laboratory specimen, sweating under the lights, now he returned the compliment. The quality that struck him most forcefully was her stillness. She was reading fast, absorbing both the details and the larger shapes revealed in the documents before her; she gutted his careful paperwork, as if peeling the flesh off a fish. He could not see her eyes and wasn’t sure that he wanted to see them so nakedly again. She was lizard-smooth, her bare arms hairless, olive-skinned, no rings at all, just two gold studs gleaming in her ears, and a thin gold chain with a tiny disc and a small wrought charm barely visible beneath the folded collar of her blouse. What did the charm represent? Unless he buried his face in the small dip below her collarbone, he would never know. As the thought crossed his mind he shivered slightly and at that moment the Judge looked up. There was a strange pause. He still could not make out the expression in her eyes; Schweigen stared at her, transfixed. Slowly, slowly, as if her entire body was unfolding from its coils, the Judge began to smile. She handed him a broad, generous smile, like a luminous gift.

In all the years to come, when André Schweigen tried to recall every moment he had spent with Dominique Carpentier, every reverie eventually condensed into that extraordinary slow smile.

‘You look much better already. Here, drink this.’ Cold drops ran down the perspiring glass. As he began to drink the virgin glass of pure, cold water she lowered her dark glasses, as if to encourage him, and meeting her gaze, he drank the lot, an unflinching Tristan to her Isolde.

‘Santé,’ said Schweigen, setting down the empty glass. And the languid, erotic smile metamorphosed into a merry, childish grin.

‘Santé, Monsieur le Commissaire,’ she laughed, raising her glass to him. Had he already fallen in love with her? Or was this just the moment when he noticed that he had? That smile, full of humour and affection, doomed to be Schweigen’s undoing, ensured that from then onwards his every third thought was dedicated to the black-haired, dark-eyed Judge, whose ruthless efficiency, terrifying discipline and legendary self-control drove her colleagues to drink.

‘You mustn’t get so worked up, Monsieur Schweigen. I know it’s frustrating. But it wasn’t your investigation. You would have done things differently. But consider – what we have here are the threads. If we follow them carefully we’ll soon have the whole tapestry before us. Be patient. Listen. Wait.’

But that was her method, not his. Schweigen needed to calculate the advantage and the risk, then to act.

‘Tell me all you know about the founders of the Faith,’ she said, and the invitation was as gentle and reassuring as if she had proposed an afternoon in bed.

_{*  *  *}

What did they actually know? Not much, in fact. A central figure, which they had identified from the sparse existing literature, was known simply as the Professor and another as the Guide. The Faith appeared to conform to a classic pattern common to many religions: a complex mysticism of eternal transcendence whose followers nevertheless believe that it is meet and right to intervene in the kingdom of this world. The reactions of the surviving relatives, and the statements given by colleagues and employees to Schweigen and the Swiss police, made it clear that no one who knew the dead had any idea whatsoever that their friends were involved in a religion at all, let alone a suicide sect. The same phrases came up again and again: she never talked about this – we had no hints, no indications – but he appeared to be quite normal, happy, full of plans – they were doing well, he had just been promoted to a better post – but they loved their home and family – she was devoted to her children, I can’t believe she would have let them come to harm – it’s simply not possible, we would have known, she would have told me, this cannot have happened to us. So they were looking at a secret sect, a hidden fellowship. There were no public lectures, no proselytising, no published gospels. But what became clear immediately was the fact that these members of the Faith were hand-picked: they were the chosen.