The Dave Bliss Quintet (25 page)

“Who would be able to say for sure?” he wants to know.

“My university
professeur
. He knows everything,” she says with a sly wink.

The comforting warmth of the perfectly clear afternoon sun and the soothing breeze of the
vent de midi
fail to lift Bliss's spirits as he heads to L' Escale for a late lunch. The growing certainty that some monumental terror has occurred within spitting distance of the sparkling beach casts a pall over his mind. The château, hiding shame-facedly in the trees, is beyond his view, but visions of living scarecrows crucified in shackles in its dungeons continue to torment him.

Unaware of the role Bliss played in the potter's rescue, Angeline is bursting with news and miscalculates the speed of a taxi as she rushes the river of traffic, calling excitedly, “It is on zhe television and zhe radio, zhey say zhe poor man had a terrible accident.”

“And there's another one,” Bliss mumbles, as the diverted taxi topples a parked Harley, though doesn't stop. “So that's the official line, is it?” he muses as he orders a sandwich and beer. I wondered what story the Grimeses would dream up for the doctors and the police.

He has a few hours to kill before an after-class meeting with the
professeur d' histoire
at Nice University arranged by the helpful curator. Sitting on the promenade, waiting for the brouhaha that will follow when the owner of the mangled motorbike shows up, he tries to piece together scrappy snatches of schoolboy history. What could have happened here during the 1920s? he wonders, surveying the tall terraces of tightly packed houses that clearly predate the era. The upheaval of the revolution was long past. The manacles and shackles, redolent of the Bastille, had been reused by Napoleon and his mob — twice. The Victorians had bored themselves to extinction. The First World War and the great flu epidemic had wiped out a sizeable portion of Europe's population, though the ones left had made up for it in the jazzed-up era of the Roaring Twenties.

Would it have been a lot different back then? he ponders, scanning the seafront stores and hotels. Most had certainly been around a hundred years. Some even boasted their longevity with early sepia photos in their brochures and window displays. And what about the yachts? he wonders, looking out beyond the harbour to the procession of small private liners steaming in and out of the bay of Cannes. Memories of silent black-and-white media clips from the 1920s, with superstars like Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks sunning themselves on yachts in the Med, convince him that whatever dreadful things were going on in the château at that time, they were not in accord with life in general.

The curator's
professeur
at Nice University greets him studiously, his critical stare clearly asking, “And what kind of eccentric Englishman do we have here?”

“
Entrez,
Monsieur Burbeck,” he bids, waving Bliss into his study. “Sit please. I have ' eard much about you.”

I doubt it, thinks Bliss, placing the old shirt on the corner of the professor's desk. “Thank you for seeing me so quickly.”

“It is always zhe pleasure to meet an author,” he replies, though has difficulty getting the appropriate expression on his face. Then he removes his wire-framed spectacles and places them, with thoughtful precision, on the table facing Bliss. “So,” he demands, eyes down, addressing his glasses, seemingly using them as a prism into Bliss's mind, “why do you want to know about zhis shirt, Monsieur Burbeck?”

The old third degree, thinks Bliss, finding himself drawn to the glasses as he starts to reply, “I'm writing a book … ” Then he looks up and finds the other man fiercely focusing on the pair of bifocals as if they are a form of lie detector.

That's an interesting technique, considers Bliss, as the
professeur
continues, eyes down, bouncing questions off his spectacles, wanting to know precisely where, when, and under what circumstances the old shirt was found. Bliss parries the questions with a vague allusion to an old building he'd stumbled into the previous day. But when he declares his research revolves around the case of the man in the iron mask, the old
professeur
sits back in amusement.

“So that is your eccentricity, Monsieur Englishman,” he says with smug satisfaction as he picks up the shirt. “Sorry to disappoint you,” he laughs, putting on his
glasses and poring over the cloth through a large magnifier, “but zhis shirt is not Louis-Quatorze. It is from zhe nineteen-twenties or thirties, I would say from zhe pattern and material. And take a good look at zhe buttons. I zhink zhey are Bakelite, although I am surprised zhey have survived so well. Bakelite usually becomes brittle after a while.”

“In daylight?” queries Bliss.

“Yes, especially in daylight, as far as I remember from my school chemistry days. Sorry, I can't help,” he says sarcastically, chuckling as he rises, “but
bonne chance —
good luck. I zhink your book will be very funny.”

“You just wait,” mouths Bliss, smiling his thanks.

Still baffled over the identity of the château's prisoners, Bliss returns to L' Escale in time to see the skin-headed Harley-Davidson owner sitting on the curb crying. He's only a kid — probably lives in a crummy basement and washes cars for a living, thinks Bliss, wondering whether or not to get involved, when Daisy bounds up, her earlier crustiness forgotten.

“Hello,
Daavid
,” she sings, kissing him on both cheeks. “Would you like to see more fireworks?”

“I — ” is as far as he gets.

“
Formidable
,” she cries and kisses him again as Angeline shrugs past the motorcyclist with a “
bof
,” and smiles in delight.

“Ah, Monsieur. Now you ' ave zhe friend.”

“What fireworks?” he wants to know as Angeline sidesteps the crestfallen rider to return to the bar for their drinks.

“It is in two weeks, August twenty-four, but we must book early,” she enthuses. “Everyone will be at La Scala. It will be super,
fantastique
. You will like very much.”

“You haven't told me what it's for.”

“It is zhe Liberation Day, of course. Many, many big fireworks.”

“I thought June sixth was Liberation Day,” he queries.

“
Non. Non,
zhat was D-Day in Normandie in zhe
nord
of France. It was another two months before zhe allies came ashore here,” she says, and carries on prattling about the fabulous firework display and the wonderful food at La Scala, unaware that Bliss has paled, and his face numbed, as nightmarish memories of the château's cellars invade his mind.

“The Germans were here?” his disembodied voice asks, but he already knows the answer.

“Of course,” replies Daisy, feeling herself being dragged down by his darkened mood.

The speed the entire picture falls into place in his mind leaves him staring blankly ahead.

“What is zhe matter,
Daavid
?” Daisy queries softly, but he doesn't answer. He is walking back though the château's underground chambers, checking out his dreadful discoveries. The old metal stacking chairs in the kitchen were typical utilitarian government issue — almost any government. The shackles and chains in the dungeons weren't medieval torture implements. They were certainly rusty — but not the deeply pitted flaky wrought iron of pre-industrialized Europe. They'd been sharp and bright just sixty years earlier. They were steel — wartime German steel. And the bloodstained clothing … ?

Shaking himself clear of the nightmare, he turns on Daisy and gives her a broadside. “Enough of the games,
Daisy. This is serious. I don't want to hear any more nonsense about the château being a basket of crabs. I know it is. One of them clawed off Grimes's hand. Now I want some straight answers.”

She doesn't have the answers, she claims.

“Let me tell you what I think, then — ” he starts angrily, but she stops him.

“
Daavid
. Please don't shout. You are right. Zhe château does have a terrible secret. But I cannot tell.”

“I'm going to find out,” he warns, but holds himself back at the sight of an interloper.

“Hah!” says Jacques, pulling up a chair. “
Oh là là!
look at your faces. I zhink zhere is a very cold wind,
n' est-ce pas?
”

“
Ferme-la
!” Daisy spits, grabs Bliss's hand, and drags him away.

“That sounded rude,” says Bliss, as she hurries him along the promenade.

“
Bof!
” She shrugs furiously. “I tell him … shut up. Zhat man is
un cochon —
a pig.”

“So … where are we going?” he asks, as she pulls him into a cramped back alley where flights of narrow stone steps lead to neat apartments above the old Main Street stores.

“I show you,” she says, turning up one of the whitewashed staircases and ushering him through a tight doorway.

“Maman,”
she calls, waving Bliss to a small wooden settle just inside the door as she pushes on through a heavy curtain.

The virtual darkness between curtain and door keeps him in limbo as his nose tells him he's about to walk into the past. The dusty smell of the thick woollen
curtain mixes with the aromas of age: the mustiness of old furniture, old carpets, old clothes, and old people. He hears only one voice, besides Daisy's, but the gentle mews of a familiar sibling's greetings are soon swamped by harsher tones, which quickly rise in intensity to a full-scale shouting match. Disconcerted at being the cause of such a heated family row, he is seriously considering creeping out and slamming the door behind him when the curtain is flung aside by Daisy.

“Please come in,
Daavid
,” she says, as if nothing has happened. “You will have to excuse my mother. Sometimes she can have
une tête de mule —
how you say?”

“Mule-headed,” he suggests.

“
Oui
, zhat is right. But now she is happy to tell you of zhe château.”

You call that happy? thinks Bliss, shrinking under the weight of the elderly woman's dark glare, as she braces herself into her well-worn armchair as if waiting for lift-off.

Trying to unfreeze the frightened old woman with a smile, he offers her a cheery “hello,” but Daisy touches his arm.

“She doesn't speak Engleesh. I will translate. But first she asks zhat you promise to keep zhe secret.”

“Of course I will,” Bliss replies, and, conscious of the enormous impact his presence has in the small room, he shrivels into a corner while Daisy's mother equivocates over what to reveal.

“It was a long time ago,” explains Daisy finally as her mother weeps in memory, but the images she conjures are neither misted by time nor tears. It could have happened yesterday; in Daisy's mother's mind, it had.

Through thin wan lips the old lady paints a Monet portrait of herself as a happy young schoolgirl who, with her brothers and friends, had danced on the lawns, splashed in the fountains and lily ponds, and swung from trees in the grounds of the beautiful old château.

“Sometimes zhe children who lived at zhe château would take zhem down into zhe dungeons,” interprets Daisy as her mother talks. “Zhey would play ghosts and
fantômes
until zhe cook chase zhem out — zhen she give zhem warm biscuits from zhe oven, or sometimes special zhings like chocolate cake and ice cream.”

Daisy's mother's eyes light with bygone excitement as she recounts the fun of running through a tunnel under the château, and how she and the other children stamped and shouted as they tried to out-echo each other until they emerged breathless on the soft sand beach of a little private cove to swim and play in the clear, warm water.

“Zhen, one day, my mother's mother has fire in her eyes and she say to zhem, ‘ You must not go to zhe château again. It is very
dangereux
,' ” continues Daisy.

“But we were only children,” Daisy's mother explains through her daughter. “We did not listen. And when we went to zhe château we found soldiers in a wooden sentry house.”

Bliss smiles in irony at the old lady's memory — nothing changes, he thinks. But everything has changed for Daisy's mother. Her childhood friends and their family and servants in the château simply vanished. In their place were the Nazis.

“That makes sense,” Bliss suggests, as he listens to the account and sees the light dying in the old woman's eyes. “The château overlooks the straits and would obviously make a good observation post.”

“It wasn't a lookout,” Daisy's mother continues through her daughter. The château had been transformed into a ghastly portal to purgatory, where everyone suspected of being involved in
la Ré sistance
, or in helping allies escape through the underground, had disappeared without trace.

“But it was not just zhe freedom fighters who disappeared zhrough zhe château's gates,” Daisy carries on, straining to keep her voice level as she explains that many old scores were settled, that disagreeable neigh-bours would be whisked off in a dawn raid, and that inconvenient business partnerships, even marriages, dissolved with a whisper in the right place. A
lettre de cachet —
the notorious anonymous correspondence from a venomous pen — or even a malicious rumour was all it took to buy an adversary an entry pass. And there were no exit passes. Risk of
la dé nonciation
pitted neighbour against neighbour, even friend against friend. Divide and conquer was the invader's mantra, and everyone cowered in the dark shadow of the château.

Now the shackles and the shirt make sense to Bliss, as he listens to the old woman's emotional tales of men, young and old, being dragged from their beds or off the streets; of terrified wives, mothers, and children, tearfully clinging to their menfolk until they were roughly butted away with rifle stocks — if they were lucky; and of the portico of the Château Roger becoming the gates of St. Peter.