‘The file ought to contain everything compiled by this unit to catch Roza,’ said John, fidgeting with a button on the cuff of his jacket. ‘And that would include the name of the informer.’
‘Whom Roza has, in effect, protected from Otto Brack,’ mumbled the Prior, recapitulating.
‘Yes,’ said John.
‘Because if she accuses Brack he, in turn, will accuse his own informer.’
‘Exactly’
‘Who would then be exposed for what they were and are.’
‘Which Roza, until now, has refused to contemplate.’
‘For fear they’d take desperate measures to avoid the shame.’
This was Roza’s dilemma, neatly summarised. For a long while, the two monks and their guest meditated on Otto Brack’s scheme to avoid justice, their heavy silence almost certainly shared by Sylvester who, ear to the door, was straining to catch the Prior’s considered response. Finally, Larkwood’s reluctant superior made a kind of speech. If Anselm hadn’t sought the conference that morning he’d have thought the Prior had prepared his words the night before. He spoke deliberately with measured phrasing:
‘Such is the ingenious plan of Otto Brack. But Roza’s is all the braver, all the more daring and all the more laden with risk. Her aim is nothing less than to turn Brack’s world-view upside down. She’s placing all her hopes in the hands of the one person who has everything to lose. Brack, it seems, has no faith in the human condition, in humanity. He has never contemplated that his informer might be prepared, if asked, to face their past. Roza, on the other hand, holds firm to a belief that I sometimes fear is waning… that a longing for truth lingers in every man. This, I suspect, is why she dares — at last — to seek their co-operation. She thinks they’ll agree to a manner of dying. For their own sake if not for hers.’ The Prior adjusted his glasses and a trace of Glasgow pragmatism entered his voice. ‘As with any great endeavour the risk of failure far exceeds the chances of success. Someone has to reach out and tip the balance. Someone with the right kind of experience.’
‘My sentiments precisely’ endorsed John.
‘Anything else?’
‘No:
‘We’re all agreed then.’
Anselm frowned, not quite following the drift of accord that had left him behind. Puzzled, he watched the Prior worm a hand into his chest habit pocket and take out a diary and the chewed stub of a pencil. Flicking the pages, he said, ‘Anselm, I take it you’ve persuaded more than one criminal to enter a guilty plea?’
‘Indeed I have.’
It was an art. They had to come out of the discussion believing abject surrender was a smart move. He coughed modestly.
‘Well, you better go to Warsaw and read that file. The sooner you find this informer and get to work the better. It seems Roza needs your kind of help.’
Anselm’s mouth dropped open. What had happened to ‘monastery walls’? It was the Prior’s phrase, used to emphasise the importance of the enclosure, and not just when restless monks fancied a jaunt up the road for some ostensibly worthwhile purpose. The remark enshrined the withdrawn nature of Larkwood’s communal life, its witness of recollection and stability to people forever on the move. And yet here he was, trading dates and times with John, resolving incidental details.
‘I’ll meet all the expenses,’ insisted John. ‘There’s a reasonable hotel right by the IPN:
‘We’ll contribute.’
‘No, really’
‘Three days?’
‘A week, he might as well visit the place.’
‘Call it ten. We’ll pay the difference.’
‘I think not.’
At the close of the meeting, the two negotiators shook hands and, with a curiously solemn nod to Anselm, the Prior disappeared through the arched door that led to the cloister. It was as though his companions had just finished one of their old walks, when John had been overrun by despair and Anselm had kept watch from a distance. His presence had finally been acknowledged.
Quite apart from the ‘monastic walls’ aspect, the Prior’s decision had been unprecedentedly swift. Ordinarily he didn’t sleep on a proposal; he hibernated with it, emerging after some private winter of reflection. But now, without the slightest equivocation, he’d agreed to Anselm acting on John’s behalf. Leaving his old friend in the parlour, Anselm hurried over to Sylvester who was back behind his desk, eyeing the telephone as if it were a child that might talk back.
‘Were you listening?’ whispered Anselm, leaning down.
‘How dare you.’ Sylvester lurched for his walking stick as if it were a Lee Enfield with fixed bayonet.
‘Why did he let me go without a fight?’ pursued Anselm, fearlessly ‘Can’t you guess? Or are you just plain stupid?’
‘There are two schools of thought on that one. But seriously why?’
‘Exodus Twenty-two.’
‘Yer wot?’
‘Defend the widow and the orphan:
Anselm gave a knowing sigh, but before he could pull away Sylvester gestured him closer, nodding towards John. ‘I’ve seen him before.’
‘You have.’
‘Thought so.
‘Countless times.’
‘Really? Well, I forgot to ask… was he ever in the scouts?’
‘No.’
‘Ah, that’s a pity’ The Watchman tried to fathom a boyhood without a knife, a ball of string and nights under canvas. ‘It would have made all the difference.’
‘Steady on, he was still the outdoor type,’ objected Anselm defensively ‘Took his trombone into the bush, damn it. Marched through nettles.’
‘Good heavens.’ The old man frowned, reluctantly won over. ‘All right, you can tell him.’
‘Tell him what?’
‘That as a lad I met Baden Powell. At Olympia. Shook his hand, I did. Do you know, it was during the Second Matabele War that he first…’
After lunch Anselm drove John to Cambridge. They waited on the platform, John tapping an erratic rhythm on his toecaps. Anselm wanted to snatch the half-white stick and break it over his knee. A sort of chasm had been growing between them since they’d left the parlour. It had been filled by practical chat and Baden Powell and, finally, that tat-tat-tatting. But both of them knew that something of importance had been left unsaid. As the train approached, Anselm took a deep breath and stepped back nearly three decades.
‘Do you remember I asked for a character witness? Someone who could speak to your professional integrity?’
‘Yes:
In the car, Anselm had suffered a sudden and terrible premonition that John still loved her; that part of his desire to fulfil Roza’s appeal was a crazy attempt to somehow win her back. He didn’t dare say it, and he couldn’t say it now. But he sensed he was close to the reason for their separation.
‘Did you ask Celina?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘She refused.’
‘Do you know why?’
John’s stick made a sort of full stop and the carriages crashed along the rails. ‘I never asked. She’d gone before I could pop the question.’