The Day of the Lie (34 page)

‘Brack’s world. It’s a
dangerous place. I wish I’d never been there. I wish I’d never tried to
understand these people, the Bracks and Frenzels. You can’t get close without
losing something essential to yourself. They’re leeches on your soul, they suck
and suck and then excrete your best intentions in some dark corner.

He was sitting on an old
piano stool. The Prior faced him, the sleeves of his habit rolled up, the
scapular tucked into his belt. But for the accent, distilled from the Clyde and
the Lark, he’d have stepped straight out of a Turgenev short story. In his
hands was a large axe.

‘You were right,’
repeated Anselm. His tone had changed from lament to accusation. ‘I grubbed
around buying information from a man who chewed up people’s lives over a bottle
of Bollinger. Why did you let me go?’

‘I thought you wanted to
help John,’ replied the Prior, reasonably ‘Perhaps John more than Róża.’

‘I did. I went to Warsaw
for him.
He
asked
me
for
help.’

‘With good reason, it
seems.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’ The Prior seemed
to test the weight of the axe, letting it swing like a pendulum. ‘I get the
impression you wanted to give one kind of help and you’re discomfited to find
you’ve been asked for another. But that’s what happens when you grasp someone’s
outstretched hand: you don’t know what will happen once you start to pull.’

Relatively speaking, the
Prior had been unmoved by the revelation of John’s betrayal. There’d been a
lifting of an eyebrow; a slight tilt of the head as if to acknowledge that a
Lebanon cedar had just crashed through the main Dorter window. But he wasn’t
overly troubled by the glass on the floor and the fault in the exposed grain.
These were his woods, he seemed to say He knew all about trees and why they
fell. And how to cut them down, too. He tapped the axe on the ground.

‘When someone asks for
assistance, Anselm, you count the dangers, you eye up the risks, and you take
precautions. And then you help. You don’t count and appraise so as to take the
preventative measure of leaving. You stay. You reach out, perhaps with fear in
your heart, knowing that you, too, might fall.’

‘Why did he ask me to
go?’ mumbled Anselm, not quite hearing the Prior’s rebuke. ‘He knew I’d find
out about his mother. He knew I’d find out that he’d worked with Brack. He even
gave me Brack’s old number as if he wanted me to give him a call to talk over
the life and times of agent CONRAD. Why not tell me himself, outright?’

‘Because there’s more to
John’s story than a betrayal. His life is more than a list of facts. Perhaps
there is too much to tell, too much to reveal, too much to explain; because he’s
lost to simple declarations. In those circumstances, the lost man doesn’t want
to talk, he wants to be found. He wants his friend to find him. He wants him to
learn everything along the way so that when they finally meet a discussion can
take place, one that is deep and honest and true.’

I want you to coax them
out of the dark,
John had said.
Failing that, bring them kicking and
screaming into the light. Rough or smooth, give them a helping hand.

Anselm studied the Prior’s
contracted features, the squared shoulders, the rolled up sleeves.

‘Just how much do you
know?’ he asked, quietly knowing the Prior wouldn’t answer, seeing him once
more at his friend’s side, long ago, listening intently to mumbled confidences.

‘Enough to be sure that
John needs a helping hand. As, in fact, do I.’

He nodded towards a pile
of mature, dry wood stacked high against one wall. It reached the split central
beams which ran to the other side of the shed where they met another pile of
timber — the green stuff, fresh cut and still heavy with sap. Anselm gingerly
pulled free a log and stood it upright on the block, mindful that this partnership
between the old and new almost certainly held up the roof. Large flakes of snow
drifted through the open door. There was a faint, freezing breeze.

‘It was immense,’ said
Anselm, standing back, hands in his habit pockets.

‘What was?’ To aim, the
Prior tapped the centre of the log three times with the blade of the axe.

‘His deception. Look at
his public life, his entire social existence. He wrote a dissertation
applauding political values he doesn’t hold, ideas that he doesn’t accept. He
teaches
them now He basks in the reflected glory of every thinker whose mind he
managed to pick. He’s held in awe in the senior common room because he tramped
over the intellectual killing fields and came back with his mind intact.’

The Prior brought the
axe down and the wood huffed and gave way.

I defended your
reputation in the High Court,
thought Anselm, looking at the two halves.
Did
you think me a fool? I stood by you and fought your corner, despite the
destruction of a journal, the reluctance of a witness and a total absence of
coherent instructions.

‘I’m sorry, I think you’re
wrong,’ Anselm said, dragging aside the split wood and pulling free another
log. He held it between his arms, leaning back against the pile, challenging
the Prior’s belief in John’s willingness to be exposed; his need to be helped
along the way ‘He didn’t want to be found by his friend. He hoped I’d go to
Warsaw and find nothing. And, in fact, there was nothing to be found; the file
was empty. I could easily have given up and come back empty-handed. And he’d
have been reassured that there was nothing over there waiting to blow up in his
face. That’s what he really wanted to know Remember, Róża had told him
about the files. She’d said it was only a matter of time before the informer
was flushed out by some lawyer or journalist interested in the Shoemaker. He
needed to know what was inside the
Polana
file to see if he was safe.’

The Prior was listening
but he didn’t reply Gilbertines were like that. He had nothing else to say so
he said nothing. Anyway he was keen to get on, nodding strained gratitude when
Anselm finally placed the wood on the block.

‘And I wasn’t the only
one he used,’ murmured Anselm. ‘There were others.’

The Prior tapped the log
three times.

That reluctant witness:
John had urged her to come to London. Why? Because he loved her? Or because he
knew that sooner or later the press might look a little closer at the
circumstances of his expulsion from Warsaw; that he might be accused; that he
might have need of a respectable dissident to preserve his standing. She
refused when he tried to use her. And the day he was vindicated, she walked out
of his life.

The axe fell and the
wood splintered.

‘He gave me hints for
years,’ continued Anselm. Without his former caution he yanked out the next
victim for the block. ‘He smoked Russian cigarettes. He wore East German
trainers.’

The Prior humphed and
the log cracked and fell, divided.

‘Worst of all, he played
games with Róża.’ Anselm was talking to the pile of dry wood. He spent a
long time choosing the next branch. He paused while pulling it free. ‘She was
begging him to make a confession, to come on side, and help her bring Brack to
court. To vindicate himself by himself. What did he do? He called up the naive
lawyer who’d done the magic last time around. Someone with his head in the
clouds. Someone who wouldn’t know the meaning of a Zeha trainer if it vanished
up his backside. I just don’t understand. I can’t—’

‘Here.’

‘What?’

‘Take this.’

Anselm seemed to wake.
The Prior was holding out the axe. His round glasses, repaired at both ends
with a paperclip, caught the wintry afternoon light. Snow was creeping timidly
into the shed. The Prior’s breath fogged in the cold air.

‘Let the head do all the
work.’

‘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. Róża
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 Róża 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 Róża 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 Róża. 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 Róża
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 Róża 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. Róża 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 élan 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
Róża 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.