Authors: Brian Moore
Monsignor Le Moyne stared at the road ahead.
It was after five when they arrived in Caunes. Bouchard kindly dropped him at the door of the retreat house. It had begun to rain and as he rang the bell, he huddled under the porch, trying to keep dry. He felt very tired. He would go straight to bed after supper.
‘Monsignor, welcome. How was your journey?’
‘Pleasant, Sister. Very pleasant.’
‘We’re glad you’re back. Your friend Monsieur Pierre has been waiting for you for two days now. We didn’t have your address in Carcassonne. Poor man, he’s very anxious to see you. He’s staying at the Pension Medicis. And, oh! Someone else telephoned earlier today. A Colonel Roux. We told him we were expecting you this evening. He asked us to let him know as soon as you returned.’
‘A colonel?’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘And how are you supposed to get in touch with him? Did he leave a telephone number?’
‘Yes, Father. Just a moment. I’ll get it for you.’
He watched her go into the little office off the hall. What colonel? And what was Pierre Brossard doing in Caunes?
‘Here you are, Father.’
He looked at the slip of paper. A local number.
‘May I use the phone, Sister?’
Alone in the little office, he dialled.
‘Gendarmerie.’
At once, he put down the phone. A week ago Dom Adlebert had telephoned him from Montélimar with two disturbing pieces of information. ‘Maurice, have you heard from the archbishopric recently?’
‘No. Why?’
‘I’ve been told that Cardinal Delavigne is sending two of his staff on a warning trip, with photographs of our friend. They are visiting convents, presbyteries, monasteries, anywhere they believe he was given lodging in the past. They show his photograph and ask that he be turned away.’
‘That’s disgraceful.’
‘Well, things have changed. Delavigne has to fend off awkward enquiries. The media are on the hunt, as you probably know.’
‘But still,’ he had said. ‘We haven’t lost all support, have we?’
‘I hope not. But the direction of the inquiry has changed. I hear, on good authority, that a new
juge d’instruction
, a woman, by the way, has transferred the investigation from the police to the gendarmerie. The gendarmerie were always hostile to the Maréchal.’
‘Exactly so.’
‘So you may be receiving a visit from either source, the archbishopric or the army. I thought I’d better warn you.’
And now this; only a week since I received that call and here he is, some colonel lusting for promotion, already at my doorstep. And Pierre is here, in the same village at the same time.
And
staying at a
pension
. That’s odd. Why didn’t he stay with Abbé Fessard at Peyriac, just up the road? Did Fessard turn him away?
He felt his hand tremble as he searched the telephone book for the number of the Pension Medicis.
‘This is Monsignor Le Moyne speaking. Do you have a Monsieur Pouliot there?’
‘Yes, Monsignor. I’ll get him at once.’
He waited. The gendarmerie could be keeping a watch on this house to see if I have returned.
‘Monsignor? Pierre here. I’m so happy you’re back. I know it’s late, but may I come round? Perhaps we could have supper together? There’s something I have to tell you.’
‘Pierre, listen to me. I’ll meet you down at the church. Kneel at the back, near Our Lady’s Altar. I’ll sit in the bench behind yours. Don’t look at me, please. We may be watched.’
The thing about Pierre, as Monsignor Le Moyne well knew, was that he never, ever, lost his sense of caution. ‘Yes, Monsignor,’ he said. ‘I’ll go there straightaway.’
Caunes was not much visited by tourists, even now in the height of the summer season. As Monsignor Le Moyne walked through the narrow streets he saw only Madame Malet closing up, taking in the baskets of vegetables and fruit from the stall outside her shop, and old Pellerat, a pensioner, sitting on his usual bench near the fountain. He was reasonably sure that he was not being followed. As he approached the church his footsteps sounded ominously loud on the cobblestones. Now that, suddenly, he felt the breath of the gendarmerie on his neck, he could at last imagine the life Pierre led all these years, always looking and listening to see if he is being followed. Just imagine those former times when, he tells me, he only ventured out at night. Imagine a life lived on false papers, a life in which one must constantly move from place to place, a life spent alone, dependent on the support of convents and monasteries, never knowing whether the next priest or Mother Superior you ask for asylum will welcome you in a spirit of Christian charity or turn you away in disgust.
And now he’s in greater danger than ever before. To have gone, from a case unknown to the public in the years before the pardon, to today’s
cause célèbre
, forever in the papers. I remember he wrote to me recently, saying that he has counted up the number of times his name has been mentioned in
Le Monde
. Over four thousand times, he says. And it will never end. Never, until he dies. God has pardoned him his sins. Of that I am sure. But his enemies will not.
As he approached the church he saw Durand, the sexton, hosing down the path behind the graveyard.
‘Good evening, Father. Warm, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, indeed. Is Father Cadras taking confessions this evening?’
‘Yes, Father.’
That would mean the church would not close early.
‘Thank you, Durand.’
There were five people in the church. Two women kneeling at the side altar where candles were lit for good intentions. At Father Cadras’s confessional, a solitary man knelt, waiting his turn. Pierre sat, partly hidden by a pillar, facing Our Lady’s Altar in the side aisle.
Monsignor Le Moyne went up, genuflected and sat in the bench behind him. He said, in a whisper, ‘Pierre?’
‘Father. We are being watched?’
‘I’m not sure. I’ll tell you about it later. Why have you come here? I thought we decided we shouldn’t see each other for a while.’
‘I had to come. It’s strange that I should be kneeling here in a church because I have to make my confession. It’s urgent. And I must make it to you.’
‘That’s not so. Any priest can hear your confession. It’s foolish for you to have come.’
‘I’ve just killed a man. You’re the only one I can tell.’
‘Who did you kill?’
‘A Jew. A Jew who was sent to kill me. It was self-defence, but still . . .’
He has killed a Jew. And a colonel of the gendarmerie is here in Caunes, asking to see
me
.
‘What happened?’
The familiar voice began to whisper. When it had finished, he asked, ‘But what were you doing in Salon? How did these people know you were there?’
‘I have no idea, Father. I was staying at the Abbaye de St Cros, outside the town. I often stay there. It’s a very safe place. The day before this happened, I sensed I was being followed. But I wasn’t sure. As you know, it’s easy to become nervous about such things. Especially now.’
So he carries a gun. He was prepared to defend himself, even to kill. That’s not in keeping with his promise never to take life again. Is it possible that he lies to me, as he is forced to lie to others? If what he says is true and the Jew was about to shoot him, he committed no crime in defending himself. But sending the car and the body over the ravine?
‘Pierre, we have talked about this many times. I know how you feel about giving yourself up. I’ve always respected your wishes, but now – listen to me – the passport and this paper you mention, you kept them, of course? Don’t you realize that, if you give yourself up and show these documents to the police, most people will see that you are being persecuted? That the Jews want to kill you and that they are behaving like common murderers. It may be the perfect moment for you to come forward, at last.’
As he said this, he watched Pierre sitting in the seat ahead of him, silent, staring at a statue of the madonna which was lit by a halo of electric light bulbs. Pierre was an old man now, his hair white, his neck and face scored with deep lines, his clothes shabby, a darned green wool cardigan, worn corduroys, heavy workboots. In his hands, as always when in church, he holds a rosary. I know he is devout, I know he is truly repentant, I know he has lived a blameless life for the past forty years. How could I have helped him if I had not believed in his repentance? And yet, yesterday, he killed someone. And now asks God’s forgiveness.
‘Well, Pierre? Answer me.’
‘Father, if I do as you say, they will try me and condemn me. I will spend the rest of my life, like Klaus Barbie, in a cell.’
‘Have the police found this man’s body?’
‘I don’t know. I’m not worried about that. I didn’t come for help. I came to confess to you and to ask for absolution. They will try to kill me again. If I die now, I want to die in the state of grace. You tell me that my sufferings over the years have earned me God’s pardon. That’s all that matters to me. I didn’t want to kill again. I was forced to do it. Did I sin in taking that Jew’s life?’
‘I can’t answer that, Pierre. In any case, God will forgive you. I will give you absolution.’
He said the words of absolution.
‘God bless you, Father. And don’t worry. I’ll leave tonight.’
‘Pierre, I have other bad news. There is a colonel of gendarmerie here in Caunes. He arrived this morning and wants to see me. You know, don’t you, that the gendarmerie have taken over your case?’
At that moment, he heard the noise of a confessional door being closed on the other side of the main aisle. Father Cadras, the local
curé
, came out of the box, his tour of confessionals completed. He looked directly across the aisle, waved, and came over.
Father Cadras did not know Pierre, but might recognize him from the newspaper photographs. Quickly, Monsignor Le Moyne rose from his seat and crossed the aisle to shake hands with the
curé
.
‘You were in Carcassonne, Monsignor?’
‘Yes, indeed. Very pleasant.’
‘Were you there for the demonstration against Maastricht?’
‘Yes, but I missed it.’
As he spoke to the
curé
he saw Pierre rise, genuflect to the main altar and walk quickly down the side aisle, going to the side door. The
curé
paid him no attention.
‘There is a lot of feeling here,’ the
curé
said. ‘You can’t blame the local farmers.’
‘People are afraid of these changes. Understandable.’
‘These European treaties,’ the
curé
said. ‘Do you know what I think? They’re schemes to put the Germans back in the saddle.’
‘You could be right,’ Monsignor Le Moyne said. He heard the side door slap shut. When, if ever, would he see Pierre again?
The roulette wheel had stopped and the steel ball of his luck had dropped into a losing slot. Everything was going against him. When he arrived here he went, as usual, to Abbé Fessard at Peyriac, four kilometres up the road. But the Abbé made some excuse about having a guest in his spare room. Was he, like others, distancing himself? And then to find out that Monsignor Le Moyne was in Carcassonne and wouldn’t be back for two days. And now, a colonel of the gendarmerie. Here. Wanting to meet with the Monsignor. Here. In this little place where, if I turn the corner of this street, I could walk right into him. If they saw me with Monsignor in the church, they could be following me now.
But the streets of Caunes were empty. People were eating supper. There were no cars parked in the little square that led to the Pension Medicis. He nodded to an old man who sat on a stone bench outside the town hall. As he did, he saw one of the local gendarmes come out of the town hall and exchange a greeting with a man in blue overalls who was performing the usual evening routine of taking down the tricolour.
The gendarme was now walking up the narrow street a few paces behind him. He forced himself to walk slowly. The gendarme caught up with him and passed him, turning off into a street on the right. Now, the Pension Medicis was only two streets away. His Peugeot was parked in the yard at the rear of the
pension
. It would take only a few minutes to pick up his bag, pay the bill and be on his way. There was no reason for this colonel to suspect that he was anywhere near Caunes. No reason whatsoever.
As always, when he felt the dagger of fear, he worried about his heart. As always, when that happened, he tried to think of something else. He thought now of absolution.
Ego te absolvo
: those words, the most joyous in religion. He remembered, long ago, when he was a boy in Sanary, coming out after confession, and feeling a sense of triumph. Confession was the greatest sacrament of the Church, a passport out of the flames of hell. Sometimes he thought that he might not be so religious a Catholic, so devout in his duties, if he did not have the relief of knowing that his sins would be forgiven. That was why he had come to Caunes. It was worth the risk, colonel or no colonel.
Ego te absolvo
.