‘Wot?’
‘You do nothing. Just guide the weight of the axe and let it fall.’ Anselm wasn’t entirely grateful for the technical advice. He considered himself something of a woodsman.
‘We all want to understand,’ said the Prior, impatiently drying his brow with a clean, white handkerchief ‘But sometimes we can’t, and when that happens we just have to get on with our life.’ He paused, folding up the cloth neatly ‘There are other, special situations when it’s not our job to understand. When our task is a kind of obedience to the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Roza came to John. John came to you. No one demands that you understand anything. For the moment, you simply have to put one foot in front of the other. You have to do as you were asked. It’s their job to understand and explain. Now, speaking of the circumstances in which we find ourselves, do some work. It solves all manner of problems.’
Anselm capitulated, though not in deference to that last, doubtful maxim. He’d simply worn himself out thinking. Jaw thrust forward, he squared up to the wood and began to swing the axe, thinking of Charles Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie — something far from the unpleasantness of the grown up world. Suddenly he slowed and stopped.
‘What happens now?’ he asked. ‘What do I do?’
‘I’ve just told you.’
‘Sorry I must have missed that one.
‘Let the head do the work. Just guide the weight and let it fall.’
‘Forgive me. South of Hadrian’s Wall we stick to the matter in hand, it’s why we won at Culloden-’
‘John needs to explain how he came to be CONRAD,’ groaned the Prior, ‘and Roza needs to explain why CONRAD is so important.’
‘And I do nothing?’
‘Bring them together, Anselm,’ rasped the Prior. ‘Bring them far away from all that is secure and familiar. Bring them here. And build them a fire.’
Anselm planned two phone calls but ended up making three. Sitting in the calefactory he started with John. After a few pleasantries, he told him the full cost of his trip to Warsaw — leaving out hefty disbursements paid by the IPN.
‘Wow,’ he said. ‘It’s to be expected, I suppose. Can’t say I’d carried out the full calculation.’
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Calculations, John.’ Anselm felt himself slipping away drawing back behind his words, into the gloom of his mind. From far inside, he said, ‘I was going to explain about champagne and oysters, and a room in another hotel that I didn’t use, but let’s put first things first. I think you need to explain to Roza everything that happened to CONRAD
… you know, Klara’s boy.’
There was a long blistering pause on the line.
‘John?’
‘Yes, I heard.’
‘I’m sorry to mention her name. I know, now, something of her life. I’ve learned a little of what she did. I’ve an idea of how that might have affected you.’
In the corridor outside, Father Jerome hollered after Brother Benedict. It sounded like the opening shots of an argument about the work rota. Intellect and feeling were about to lose their footing.
‘And that was in a file?’ asked John, coldly his voice far off as if he’d turned from the mouthpiece.
‘No. There is no file on Klara. It’s been destroyed. In a way that’s also true of the Polana file. Nothing between the covers points unequivocally to you, the Dentist made sure of that.’ Anselm waited, listening hard. He raised a hand to the air, reaching out. ‘John, I’m not saying you betrayed Roza. You’ve nothing to fear from me, or anyone else. In the world of ducking and diving, you’re safe. You’re home and dry. This is what I have to say: the huge issue here is not your relationship with Otto Brack and how to keep it secret. It’s Otto Brack’s with Roza Mojeska and how to make it public. The big question is not whether you’ll ride out your days without being named, it’s whether Roza will end hers with the justice she’s been denied. She’s put the power to decide in your hands. You can choose yes, or no. She came to see you, John, not to accuse you, but because she feared that you were going to be exposed anyway sooner or later. But she was wrong. The file is empty. All she has left is your willingness to speak for yourself… because she won’t name you. I don’t know why’
‘Me neither.’
Anselm only just caught the reply because John seemed further off.
‘Come to Larkwood. It’s a good place to get things off your chest. Roza already knows what you’re hiding. She just wants you to tell her yourself. It’s what friends do.’
The scorching silence was back. Outside, snowflakes fell like shreds of wet paper. They were banking high on the window sills. Anselm pressed the phone hard against his ear, trying to catch some indication of John’s presence. It came hard and suddenly the words squeezed through the tiny holes of the mouthpiece.
‘Fine. I’ll explain. You might as well call Celina. She’ll need to listen, too. You’ll get her number from the BBC. There’s no point in me calling. She wouldn’t pick up the phone.’
Then he was gone. No goodbye. Just a light click.
Anselm’s heart was beating erratically It thumped hard against his chest. The open blisters on his hands began to burn from the sweat. On a kind of elan of misery, he rang the BBC and two extensions later he spoke to Celina Hetman who was about to do a live broadcast for the World Service. He’d pushed, saying it was personal and urgent and that he was a monk — that last being a key to many a closed door. The conversation was brief because the engineer was raising his voice. The light had gone green. Maybe that’s why she caved in.
Then, drained of emotion, he rang Sebastian to suggest that he might like to catch a flight and give Roza Mojeska a pleasant surprise. The end was near. Praise came down the line, but Anselm just held the receiver away from his ear. He felt desperately sad. The cost of his trip to Warsaw had been immense.
‘I don’t know how Roza will react,’ he said, cutting short the tribute, ‘but afterwards you’ll be free to prosecute Otto Brack.’
Chapter Forty-One
The Old Mill had stood by the Lark for four hundred years. The original grinding mechanism, fragile and jammed, remained visible in the large room where Anselm had made the fire. The floor was flagged and uneven, worn down by the feet of peasant farmers who’d brought their threshed wheat to be ground into flour. In the centre stood a waxed round table, brought in by Anselm as a learned allusion to the groundbreaking Round Table talks of 1989 between Solidarity, the Communists and the Church; the negotiations that had launched a new order in social relations. There were four mock Chippendale chairs — a nod towards English fair play — occupied by the delegates invited by Anselm. A standing crowd of Suffolk ghosts seemed to watch expectantly cloth caps in hand.
‘This isn’t going to be easy’ said John, nudging his dark glasses. ‘I don’t want to make a speech. I can’t see you… it would help if you’d ask questions, reply anything, only don’t leave me floating in the darkness.’
Roza had come by train with Sebastian who was now in the guesthouse eating his nails. She sat upright, her back away from the chair. A face of shadows, thought Anselm. Shadows that were deep with the movements of dusk. She wore a silver brooch clipped to her white blouse. Her eyes seemed to speak a forgiving but frightened tenderness.
‘Why don’t you start with Klara?’ suggested Anselm, his voice dry and spare. ‘The road to this table begins with her, doesn’t it?’
Beside Roza sat Celina Hetman. She’d been held up by the snow drifts. Anselm had thought she might not come after all. He’d remembered a vibrant intellect and a kitsch, plastic belt. They’d only met two or three times. He’d once tried to imagine her in the Royal Courts of Justice speaking on John’s behalf, the judge intrigued, if not distracted, by the decorated headband. He needn’t have worried. She’d fled from John’s life. When the car had finally pulled up at Larkwood, Anselm hadn’t recognised her. On the understanding that the outlandish don’t always wear that well, he’d expected a middle-aged multicoloured prune but he’d met a timeless woman whose refinement made him stammer. She was dressed in black — cashmere wools and matt leather shoes — in contrast to the coral pink of her lips. On her little finger was a large ring: a daisy; a spot of yellow enamel with long white petals. Her hair was jet black and very short, like a distressed belle’s in a Chaplin film: boyish curls by the ears and incredibly feminine. Skilled with her courtesy, she’d been delighted to meet Roza and pleased to see John once more, but Anselm — a man familiar with troubled voices — sensed anxiety and old wounds. She looked at John as he ran a finger behind his roll neck collar, but then Roza suddenly spoke, a voice soft and musical, small and knowing: ‘Perhaps you should start with Otto Brack.’