My Chocolate Redeemer (26 page)

‘Dear Monsieur Cherubini,
patron
, dear Angel. Let me present you with something worth more than life to me: my wedding ring. It has not left my hand since the day I married my dearest husband. He died, as you know, for France, the name of Christ on his lips. Take it! Not because it is worth much, but because it is all I have.'

Monsieur Cherubini is overcome, he raises wet eyes to heaven and then he crosses to her and raises her hand to his lips, then he lifts the ring to the sun. The crowd erupt again. Men and women begin removing their wedding rings and depositing them on the collection plates now passing swiftly along the rows. Grandmama sinks back onto her pillow, exhausted, and there is on her face such a look of happy triumph that I can feel nothing for her but admiration. To have so forced through her view of the world, to have blasted through the brute facts of the matter which suggested that everything she stood for, loved and believed in, was false, foul, fraudulent, and then to come out on the other side of the horrible comedy of her life, smiling and happy, is a great and terrible achievement.

‘Dear Madame Dresseur, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, not only for the generosity of your gift, but for its sacred appropriateness. This gold ring is a symbol for all we desire and hold dear. This shining band signifies the marriage of true minds, the reverence for the family which is the fruit of marriage, your family and mine, the little family of the PNP and beyond that the family of France! The funds raised here today, of which this ring is a precious example, go to fight for the preservation of that sacred family and the freedom it cherishes. The Chaplain of the Holy Church of the Immaculate Conception, my good friend Father Duval, has mentioned the great patriot Pierre Taittinger. Well, the example is well chosen because I can recall something else that Taittinger said, and which is apposite to our struggle for freedom. “France,” he declared, “requires a leader who can make himself obeyed, who can exert his will, a leader with French character, with, yes, a degree of stubbornness and even roughness, and above all the will to say no!” '

Then he lifts into the air the fist that France demands. The people in the square make similar fists and wave them enthusiastically. But this isn't all. Far from it. For out of his chunky fist, growing like a strange flower, there appears a single finger glinting with gold.

‘And to remind myself yet again of my sacred mission, here renewed today, I will wear this ring throughout the meeting, a bond between myself and a good strong woman who has given herself for her country.'

By turning my head slightly to the right I can see behind me the shutters of my bedroom. In the shadows, my Redeemer stands looking down on the square.

‘Let me, ladies and gentlemen, dispose of this idea that Monsieur Cherubini, of popular report, of vilification in the newspapers, is a xenophobe, a racist, an anti-semite. Ask yourself: how a man with a name like mine could be against foreigners?'

Again the obedient laughter.

‘Why do our opponents always concentrate on the negative? Why don't they believe us when we say that the PNP is open to all people of all colours and creeds, with one proviso: that they are first and foremost French. We are not against others, we are for our own!'

Now this is where my plan begins to go badly wrong. Remember, I most clearly told Monsieur Brown that the moment he saw the people in the square intoxicated by the Angel's oratory he was to slip quietly from my room, find the Angel's car and disappear. He has the keys, he has my instructions. But this is not what happens, for the window behind us now discloses shadowily, obscurely, but visibly, a man who has taken up his position very carefully so that the square of my window surrounds him like a frame, and he does not move.

‘It is said by some that we are the Party of fascists. Nothing could be further from the truth. Modesty and reason are our twin virtues. Fairness and negotiation characterise our dealings. We wish to attune ourselves to the future, we wish to be ready for what is to come as surely as night follows day. As to our business in the village of La Frisette, our aims once again are modest, even domestic. We wish merely to set up a home here. A headquarters. We have been negotiating for some time for a suitable property by the lakeside. This property is one which suits us perfectly. It dates back to the seventeenth century and we would preserve it in all its beauty. This, too, is the aim of the present owner. Unfortunately, he is unable either to restore the building completely or to maintain it in a style to which this daughter of the Church is accustomed. I am speaking of course of our own very beautiful Priory by the lake, the former house of the Carthusians, the hotel of Monsieur André.'

The sunlight plays on the window frame. I estimate he has only to take one step forward and everyone will see him.

‘I am sorry to have to tell you that an infection, a bacillus, a deadly germ has entered the house of the Carthusians. It is an illness which our Party is resolved to prevent. Just as the human body has an immune system for repelling disease, so it could be argued that the State must have its own built-in immune system lest contagion take it over. Sadly, this beautiful daughter of the Church is threatened today. A virusical presence inhabits her. A bacillus –'

‘A lot of bumboys, you mean!'

That interjection comes from the butcher Brest at the back of the tenth row and draws an appreciative round of applause and some laughter.

The Angel holds up his hands for silence. Grandmama's ring gleams on his finger. His mood is sombre. The sunshine makes his hair silvery. My grandmother's eyes are closed. I fear she may have died. But I can't move. She would never forgive me if I interrupted the Angel with news of her death.

‘Consider the nature of the problem,' the Angel shows his fine large teeth. ‘It's one of hygiene. Of taking preventative measures against a disease for which, as yet, no cure has been found. Imagine an infection which does not attack any particular part of the organism. Instead it destroys the very defences which are necessary to preserve life within the body. A hidden invasion vehicle. It attacks the immune system and thereby renders it helpless. We all know of just such a disease. I do not have to tell you where it comes from –'

‘Africa! Africa!' people shout from the crowd.

‘It's time to ask whether any good ever came out of Africa. It's too much to expect the government to protect its own. Instead it permits the pollution of our towns and cities by foreign entities. Among the more recent of its guests is a certain gentleman, one of that tribe of dictators in which Africa is so fruitful, to whom our government extended hospitality some years ago and who went to earth in a comfortable hole in the South of France. Few of you will have heard of him. He is known as the Beast of Zanj. Others called him the “Cannibal King”. Among his victims he was called by a title as blasphemous as it is sad: “the Redeemer”! Never mind the names. They're all disgusting! I say that this disease shall have no free passage in our country. No political asylum for monsters. A virus has no civil rights. You will no doubt have heard of strange goings-on at the Priory Hotel –'

‘– You mean it's a bordello for boys!' This comes from Old Laveur, not to be outdone by the outburst from the butcher Brest.

The Angel looks cross, he doesn't like being interrupted. ‘To the already prevalent malaise which afflicts the Priory Hotel, that is its owner and its guests – add another! We have become aware lately of the very peculiar conditions under which certain people have been living there. Of the heavy guard on the gate. Of the refusal by the authorities to allow anyone to enter. What is going on? I'll tell you, a monster is in quarantine. Has the owner infected the guest – or the guest the owner? Do we want in our village a creature who, it is said, poked out the eyes of schoolchildren? Murdered his opponents and then drank their blood and ate their flesh? Or do we send a message to the powers in Paris? Do we tell them that this is our place and we reserve the right to defend it, protect it and sanitise it!'

The crowd shriek with happiness.

It is too late to stop him. My face is burning, my hands icy, ‘Go back! go back!' I can hear myself – perhaps the others can too. The sun strikes the top of the window and there Monsieur Brown stands, illuminated. The speakers on the platform cannot see him because they have their backs to the house but the crowd are beginning to notice him. Pesché has spotted him and is moving swiftly down the aisle towards us and I distinctly hear Granny Gramus, at the back, by the table with the flags and the watches and the Party paraphernalia, give a low and not unmusical scream. Who can blame her? There he stands, in the window, perfectly framed and, can you believe it? – in full uniform. That's what he will have been carrying in his bag: white tunic, great gold belt, a cap and medals, stars and stripes and epaulettes. Now I recognise it – it's the uniform in the photograph. He holds the squat baton, midnight blue and adorned with silver stars, the sunshine reflects on his thick glasses and he appears – and this is the enormity of it – he appears as if he were at home, looking down on his subjects – the Redeemer rules again!

I am trying to understand why he is doing this. He risks his life, it's as if he is challenging the crowd to kill him. He is offering himself as a sacrifice. The only way I can explain it is in terms of science. Please forgive me! But I suddenly imagine the pursuit of a particle known as the neutral pion in a cloud or bubble chamber. The object of the experiment is to get particles, which are normally invisible to the observer, to disclose themselves. The trouble with the neutral pion, sometimes known as the pi-zero, is that it is so impossibly shortlived that you can never tell what it is since it never stays around for long enough. In less time than we can measure, it decays into two photons, energetic gamma rays which, like it, are invisible. Uncle Claude and the Angel take the places of the invisible particles. They are never here long enough for me to get a positive identification of them. Nor are they visible to the naked eye for what they are. Maybe this is Monsieur Brown's way of forcing them into the open, of getting them to leave tracks. In the real experiment a physicist would make use of a sheet of lead placed in the path of the invisible photons. When the photons strike the lead they turn, individually, into an electron and a positron and their paths are clearly visible in the bubble chamber as two tracks curving away from each other in a beautiful V-shape. By tracing back their flight paths we can infer the routes of the missing, invisible particles. None of this research is my own, of course. I owe all this to Uncle Claude, who is still worried about the way my skirt keeps riding up my legs:

‘Bella, for heaven's sake, make yourself decent!'

Ignore him. I do.

The crowd are on their feet now, many of them are gesticulating, some of them are laughing and the Angel is losing them, he can feel himself losing them and as the Chief of Police begins running towards the platform he turns, and Father Duval turns, and my uncle turns, and they all see what I see.

Something will have to be done. The yells and whistles from the crowd are deafening. ‘The monster!' they cry, and ‘Look,
patron
, the King of the Cannibal Islands is there!' But it is not done to turn and stare. Well, not too quickly, too obviously. Now Police Chief Pesché reaches us, and dashes past without a word, leading a patrol of his men. On they rush, through the door into our house.

In the window of my bedroom he lingers for one last moment and then he vanishes.

Something is to be done. The Angel can't continue with his speech, he's lost the attention of the crowd. Ah, but we have resources, we have reserves. Father Duval steps to the microphone:

‘My friends – listen to me! Straight from Paris, that extraordinary artist – Domitian!'

Domitian sings: ‘
They say that Africa's the mother of man/So I say this to the Africa lover/We're gonna pack your bags real soon/And boot you home to mother.
'

And for that he gets a platinum disc!

I'm reconciled to the worst, to the door of the house opening to show Chief Pesché and his prisoner, perhaps in chains, like the bear on my chocolate cup. When this happens, I have already decided, I will not know Monsieur Brown. If he did not do as I told him, if, after all my efforts to rescue him from the hotel, he chooses to get himself arrested then he needn't come running to me!

It seems forever before the door opens. Pesché comes out followed by his men. He looks hot, sheepish, puzzled.

‘Well?' My uncle's voice is high and hard.

‘Report, man!' says the Angel. ‘Where is he? You got him?'

Pesché shakes his head. ‘There's nobody in the house.'

‘In a few minutes he flies away? What do you think he is – some sort of genie?' Again my uncle's voice is shrill and threatens to break.

‘We were up the stairs in maybe ninety seconds. We've searched the house from top to bottom. It's empty, I tell you.'

‘Well then, where is he?' the Angel demands.

‘This is the mystery. You remember that there are certain people also watching the Priory Hotel? I thought they ought to know what was going on. So I sent a man down to tell them their bird was loose.' The Chief shakes his head again. ‘This is very strange. I don't understand this. And yet I saw him, you saw him – we all saw him!'

‘For God's sake man, tell us!' My uncle now grabs him by the coat and shakes him.

‘Well, the watchers at the gate of the Priory Hotel, they tell me that he's still there! Inside! He's never left. They think I'm crazy, they think we're all crazy. They asked me if we'd been seeing visions. Father Duval, you're a religious man – tell me if we've been seeing visions. You, me, the Mayor, everyone here? Like Bernadette at Lourdes when the Virgin appeared in the rock!'