Her husband had died about ten years earlier. He’d been a gifted violinist, and his death had come without any warning while performing on stage. From what she said it was rather like Tommy Cooper. He made an amusing aside, and then dropped down. Everyone laughed, including Madame Klein. They’d never had children, and extended family were out of reach and touch. So she found herself alone. She told me the first few years were the worst, and getting worse. And then she had an accident.
Madame Klein was an atrocious driver, always banging into things. On this day, for once, it was not her fault. A van collided into the side of her car, breaking her right wrist. She never played the piano professionally again. However, the van had been driven by a young woman who worked for a Jewish children’s welfare organisation, ‘Oeuvre de Secours Aux Enfants’ (OSE) . Its headquarters had moved from Berlin to Paris in the early thirties, after the Nazis came to power. It became Madame Klein’s life, just when she thought she had nothing to live for.
You have to understand what it was like then. Thousands of refugees had flooded into France, with children separated from their parents. You’ve seen something similar on the news. It still goes on. Then, as now, people did what they could. So Madame Klein was out each day, doing I don’t know what. It was not something she talked about. But she often took her husband’s violin.
On some evenings there were meetings with friends she’d made through OSE. I was never present. But the same men and women came. To my child’s eye they were always dressed in black and arrived in a long shuffling line after dark. They gathered in the salon, with its low lights and drawn curtains. I thought it was terribly exciting. And I was desperate to know what they talked about. So I started listening at the door.
You’ll find, Lucy, as you get older you start seeing yourself from the outside. Particularly your childhood. You’ll see a child enacting her part innocently while you watch, knowing what is going to happen, unable to intervene. As for me, the need to intervene, if I could have done, comes later. For now I can see myself in my nightie, with bare feet, bent over by a great white door with beautiful shining brass handles. I’m trying to breathe as quietly as I can, looking through the keyhole at those gesticulating arms and solemn faces.
They never seemed to converse. It was always an argument, even when they agreed. What was going to happen next? That is what they fought over. Were they on the verge of the greatest pogrom they had ever known? And what was to be done? The killings had been under way since 1930. Within months of Hitler becoming Chancellor, there were camps. I remember one voice from the far side of the room say fearfully ‘If they’ve killed us in the street, they’ll kill us in the camps.’ And then a deep voice by the door spoke, so close to me I almost jumped back. It was Father Rochet. ‘You are not safe in France. You’re not safe anywhere.’ There was the most dreadful silence after that. Through the keyhole I could just make out an old man with a stick propped between his legs. He still had his dark hat and coat on. I can’t recall his name, but I’ve thought for years about his face, caught in the yellow lamplight. He had a look of recognition: this was an old, familiar warning.
When I heard a chair scrape, I ran upstairs. Sitting on the landing with my arms around my knees I would hear them all troop out, as if in rancour, and from the window see them disperse into the night, in twos and threes, often arm in arm.
In time, these meetings occurred more frequently Events in Germany and France were followed closely Some talked about emigration. There was no need, said others. The Germans have got us out of their hair, we’re safe. Not yet, said Father Rochet.
He always stayed behind, Father Rochet, to confer in private with Madame Klein. I never found out what they talked about. Back by the keyhole, I only saw them huddled round a table, like mother and son, whispering. God knows why No one was listening.
Chapter Eight
Vespers was not for another half hour so Anselm had gone for a secret roll-up. He strolled along the bluebell path and took a narrow track through the woods leading to a stretch of sand by the water’s edge. Then he saw him through the laden branches and paused. Anselm guessed he was in his late fifties. He was a very small man with the smallest feet Anselm had ever seen. Whoever the stranger was, he kept perfectly still, like a sculptured memorial, silently looking over the lake.
‘I suspect you and I are asking ourselves a similar question,’ said the stranger without averting his gaze. His voice was disturbingly deep, like wet churning gravel; at once musical and melancholy
Anselm stepped out of the shade. The stranger continued:
‘You wonder why I am here. Just as I wonder why he is over there.’
Across the lake, just visible through the surrounding trees, shone the red tiling of the Old Foundry roof, where Schwermann had been accommodated.
‘May I ask who you are, and what you are doing here?’ said Anselm hesitantly, walking slowly to the stranger’s side.
The man peered solemnly at Anselm through heavily framed glasses, his eyes enlarged and penetrating, and said, ‘I’ve come to look upon the father of my grief.’
Anselm followed his gaze, confusion giving way to the first flutterings of fear.
‘Don’t worry,’ said the stranger dispassionately, ‘I’m not mad. But I do have a penchant for’ the telling phrase.’ He smiled paternally ‘My name is Salomon Lachaise.’
Anselm took in the loose cardigan and galoshes, the profound relaxation in circumstances that should have produced embarrassment — he was, after all, a trespasser within the enclosure. Salomon Lachaise was like a man in his own drawing room, receiving a guest on a matter of grave importance. Speaking as much to himself as to Anselm, he said, ‘Have you any idea how painful it is for me to stand here’ — he gestured uncertainly across the water — ‘knowing who sleeps over there?’
Anselm felt the slow flush of humiliation. Salomon Lachaise smiled sadly, drawing pipe and tobacco from his cardigan pocket. He began the endless ritual of packing with his thumb, drawing air and trailing match after match over the bowl. ‘I’m sorry. It’s an old rabbinic trick,’ he said through a swirl of smoke. ‘Posing the question to a man who cannot answer without discovering his own shame. Jesus did it quite a lot.’
Anselm was dumbstruck. Not expecting an answer, his interlocutor said, ‘It’s time for me to go. What’s your name?’
‘Father Anselm, but—’
‘Saint Anselm of Canterbury? Now there’s an interesting fellow A man in search of God. But not that fond of …’
At that moment they heard twigs cracking underfoot and three figures emerged through the trees, one in front, two behind. Anselm took in the calm, concentrated glance of the police officer in his Marks & Spencer casuals, one hand inches away from a concealed weapon, but Salomon Lachaise stared beyond, through the branches, to a shape moving through the shadows. A voice spoke lightly to a young man with his hands sunk deep in his pockets. Max, the grandson. He’d come every week since his grandfather had taken up residence in the Old Foundry.
Anselm shivered in the sun, alarmed by a sudden, dark prescience. A meeting of ways lay ahead: one of those rare instances where the past coagulates into the present.
Schwermann pushed aside some brambles with a stick and stepped into the open, looking up as if in a dream. His eyes rested lightly on Salomon Lachaise and then moved on to Anselm with a courteous nod. He smiled briefly, as if to a friend, saying, ‘I haven’t thanked you for your advice, Father.’
Anselm sickened.
‘Sanctuary is not what I expected and more than I could have hoped for.’