The Statement (2 page)

He turned and walked back to the Peugeot. Very few vehicles used this road, but still. He stripped off the yellow rubber gloves and pulled them inside out before putting them back in the glove compartment. He started up the car and drove on.

Yesterday, when I came out of the Montana and saw him across the street, I walked very slowly and waited. He came all the way down to the
parking
. And today when I came out of the patisserie, there he was. And there he was again, waiting for me, waving his briefcase.

He drove slowly on to a point where, at a turn, he could stop the car and look back down the winding ribbon of road. There were no cars coming up. He reached into his side pocket and took out the foreign passport and the typewritten sheet of paper.

STATEMENT

COMMITTEE FOR JUSTICE FOR THE

JEWISH VICTIMS OF DOMBEY

This man is Pierre Brossard, former Chief of the Second Section of the Marseille region of the
milice
, condemned to death
in absentia
by French courts, in 1944 and again in 1946, and further charged with a crime against humanity in the murder of fourteen Jews at Dombey, Alpes-Maritimes, June 15, 1944. After forty-four years of delays, legal prevarications, and the complicity of the Catholic Church in hiding Brossard from justice, the dead are now avenged. This case is closed
.

Monsieur Pierre looked at the passport. He opened it, and looked at the face. Then the name. David Tanenbaum. Age forty-two. He was filled with a sense of reliving his life, of going back to that former time, when he was the master of documents, when the passport or identity card, handed to him across his desk, meant that he could decide its owner’s fate.

The assassin’s wallet contained 6,000 francs and a Canadian driver’s licence made out to David Tanenbaum. There were no credit cards, no other documents. Monsieur Pierre transferred the 6,000 francs to his own wallet then put the dead man’s wallet, the passport and the typewritten sheet of paper into the glove compartment of the Peugeot, together with the bloodstained rubber gloves and his revolver. On the Peugeot’s instrument panel he had affixed a Saint Christopher medal, purchased in Marseille in 1943, the day after he requisitioned Lehman’s car for his personal use. It was a beautiful little medal, sterling silver, showing the bearded saint fording a dangerous stream with the Christ child on his shoulders. Saint Christopher: the patron saint of travellers. In that era, many of those medals could be seen on car instrument panels as a protection against accidents. Monsieur Pierre had bought the medal and had it blessed. Somehow, it had helped to take away the feeling of sitting on a Jew’s seat. Since then the medal had been transferred to the instrument panel of each car he had owned. Today was once again a proof of Saint Christopher’s protection.

The road narrowed, becoming little wider than the cart track it had been for centuries. Ahead, as the little car wound around hillsides covered with row on row of vines, there came into view, shimmering in the afternoon heat, the high, ancient walls and great stone roof of the Abbaye de St Cros. As the little car approached the heavy wooden gate of the main entrance, it sounded its horn twice. Slowly, the gate was drawn open revealing a long inner courtyard, its ancient paving uneven and sown with wild flowers. The little car bumped unsteadily across this yard and entered the stables where two tractors, a little Deux-Chevaux van, and an old Panhard four-seater were parked beneath a loft filled with hay.

These were the vehicles of the monastery. No visitors. Good. He looked back and saw the gate being closed, the great iron bar lifted into its socket. The abbey was a fortress, built in the fourteenth century and, like the Benedictine abbey at Metz, one of the founding sites of Gregorian chant. He knew about such things. He had been a guest in so many abbeys, retreat houses, presbyteries, over the years, had listened to so many accounts of the triumphs and trials of religion, of saints and miracles and holy deeds. He was at ease in religious houses, be it in a
curé
’s parlour or the magnificence of an archbishop’s palace. But it was in monasteries that he felt most at home. There, hospitality to strangers was the rule, passed down through centuries of the Faith, a reminder of a time when the Church was a power, independent of any authority, free to grant asylum to any fugitive it chose to aid. Behind the monastery walls, the world did not exist. The monks did not watch television or read newspapers. That was the most important thing. Especially now.

He locked his car. He went through the main cloister and down the shaded walk which led to the
père hospitalier
’s little office. There he found Father Jérôme, a bent little man of his own age, peering into the blue screen of a computer.

‘Ah, Monsieur Pierre,’ Father Jérôme said, not looking up. ‘You wish to see me?’

He did not sound pleased at the interruption.

‘Yes, Father. I’m moving on. Some family business.’

In the Abbaye de St  Cros, he felt especially secure. The Abbot, an old friend, had long ago instructed the
père hospitalier
to make accommodation available to him at any time, day or night. Even now, after years of visits, Father Jérôme knew him only as Monsieur Pierre. He did not enquire about the nature of this family business. He was not interested.

‘Safe journey, then,’ Father Jérôme said. ‘Will you be leaving in the morning?’

‘Alas, I must leave this evening.’

Father Jérôme nodded and typed something into his computer. The interview was over.

He went out and walked past the chapel, bowing his head in reverence as he did. He went across the main courtyard, at one end of which was a large workshop where the monks made pottery which was shipped out to distributors in Dijon and Paris. He went through the empty refectory and climbed a flight of stone steps to the round turret where visitors were lodged. His room was at the top, right under the roof, low-ceilinged, with thick stone walls, a single bed, a prie-dieu, and a rough wooden armchair. There was a basin for washing and the usual crucifix on the wall, near a narrow slit of window which gave a partial view of the monastery’s bell tower. He always travelled with three suitcases containing his clothes, documents and mementoes and, as there was nowhere to hang clothes in these monkish cells, he also carried a plastic wardrobe which, as a rule, he positioned just inside the door. Monastery doors did not have locks. The wardrobe made it difficult for anyone to enter without warning. On the prie-dieu he had placed a reproduction of a seventeenth-century painting of the Virgin Mary and beside it his missal, bulging with mass cards and devotional pictures.

He sat on the narrow bed and took his pulse. He felt light-headed and out of breath. This was not like other times, other dangers. It was no longer just a question of hiding from the police and the courts. His deadly enemies had come close, closer than ever before. They had known he would be in the Bar Montana, waiting for the letter. How could they have known that? Who were they, which group, a French group or the Americans? He looked again at the passport. Canadian. It could be false. I must lie down for a moment. Be calm. Be calm.

Again he saw the stranger coming towards him lifting the briefcase, taking out the revolver. If I had let my guard down after all these years, if I had lost that sense of being followed? But God be thanked, He protected me today, as He has always protected me in the past. I must give thanks tonight at Devotions. But no, I can’t stay for Devotions. Some vineyard worker passing above that ravine will see the car. And the police will come here, for this road leads only to the abbey. Get up. Pack.

But when he had disassembled the plastic wardrobe and repacked his clothes, again he felt light-headed and unwell. He went down the winding steps of the turret and into the refectory. Some of the lay brothers were peeling potatoes. He asked for help and a Brother Rafael, a strong-looking fellow, came up with him and helped him with the suitcases. The third suitcase contained his collections and, as the lock was old, he thought it prudent to carry that one down himself. If it were to fall open there were the flags and other German regalia including some valuable items, all of it very saleable memorabilia. He did a small trade in such things.

It was after five o’clock when the little Peugeot was finally loaded and ready to depart. Devotions were at six and, as he knew, the Abbot would come down into the main cloister between five-thirty and six to walk and say his office. So at five-twenty he went up to the Abbot’s study and knocked on the door. A voice called out, ‘Yes?’

‘It’s Pierre, Father Abbot. Could I have a word. Just for a moment?’

‘Come in. Come in.’

The Abbot’s study was a large bare room, dominated by a rough wooden desk on which sat two teak trays, overflowing with correspondence. Behind the desk, in a high-backed chair like a church pew, Dom Vladimir Gorchakov, tall, bearded, austere, a heavy iron crucifix stuck like a dagger in his belt. ‘Well, Pierre, what is it?’

‘I just came to thank you, Father Abbot. Once again I’ve presumed on your hospitality. However, I’m leaving this evening. I think it’s time to move on.’

‘This evening?’ The Abbot registered surprise by a theatrical raising of his eyebrows. ‘That’s rather sudden, isn’t it? Any special reason?’

It was best to say nothing. Invent an excuse.

‘I’ve just been advised that a new
juge d’instruction
has been given my dossier and is complaining that the police have not been sufficiently diligent in their search. I feel that from now on it would be wise to move every week or two.’

‘There have been other
juges d’instruction
,’ the Abbot said. ‘I’m sure you will survive this one. Although, what you tell me does clear up a point. It’s something I didn’t want to worry you with. But, the fact is, I’ve been informed that, because of this new and intense media interest in your case, the Cardinal Primate in Lyon is starting his own investigation. He’s set up a commission of laymen – historians – to find out why so many of us have supported your cause over the years. So I may shortly be receiving enquiries about your visits.’

‘Then it’s better that I leave now?’

‘Perhaps. But don’t forget you’re always welcome here.’

‘Thank you, Father Abbot. The Cardinal Primate – Cardinal Delavigne – he’s not one of us, is he?’

‘Indeed.’ The Abbot rose, as if to terminate the conversation. ‘Safe journey, then. And God speed.’

‘Thank you, Father Abbot. Thank you for everything.’

He wanted to be well on the road before dark. His night vision was not good and spectacles no longer seemed to help. As a young man he had been too vain to put them on, especially when in uniform. Now, he believed he was paying the price for that youthful vanity. Of course, in those days he had a role to keep up. He was a young standard bearer in the New Order the Maréchal spoke of, one of those who, in a France destroyed by its own weakness, saw the mountain to be climbed, the slopes to be conquered. And it was normal for him to feel vain: women found him handsome. Nicole had told him his eyes were ‘piercing blue’. His hair was blond, his skin white and smooth. In the years he worked in liaison with Gestapo Commander Knab, Knab said his looks were ‘pure Aryan’, the ultimate compliment in Knab’s view. And, always, he had seemed younger than his years. ‘A good-looking altar boy’, was how that Belgian bitch described him to the Paris Sûreté. That was in ’53, when he was thirty-four years old.

He remembered, though, that spectacles came in useful in the Paris years. He and Jacquot wore tinted glasses each time they went out on a job. Jacquot said they were a sort of mask, he said people remembered only the tinted glasses when they tried to describe you afterwards. And it was true. He still kept a pair of tinted glasses in his car and now, as the monastery gates were pulled wide and the evening sun shone straight into his windscreen, he drove out, then reached into the glove compartment to find them. They were lying under the bloodstained rubber gloves. The gloves must be washed: the passport and the sheet of paper he would show to the Commissaire. The Commissaire was an expert on these groups.

It was fifty odd kilometres to Avignon, an easy drive. The road leading down from the monastery was empty of traffic. When he came to the turn in the road and the ravine, he drove very slowly but did not stop. There could be police or an ambulance down there. Because he did not stop, he was unable to see if the wreck had been discovered.

When he reached the main road he turned in the direction of Avignon. At the first garage he pulled in and asked if there was a pay telephone. He was in luck. While they filled the Peugeot’s tank he went into the phone booth and dialled the Avignon number.

A woman’s voice. Madame Vionnet? ‘Who shall I say is calling?’

‘Just say Monsieur Pierre. Thank you, Madame.’

He was not expected. It had been laid down long ago that he would make contact only in a case of emergency.

After a long delay he heard footsteps on an uncarpeted floor.

‘Hello, yes?’

‘It’s Monsieur Pierre, sir. I’m in the area. I was wondering if I could drop in this evening and show you a Belgian Congo issue, 1875, Congo Free State. The portrait is of King Leopold II. They’re beautiful stamps, sir. Would you be interested?’