William Brodrick - The Sixth Lamentation

‘Who by?’ asked Anselm quietly.

Brionne raised a hand, beseeching patience. ‘The strange thing was that Schwermann changed after The Round Table was broken. He abandoned his pamphlets. To this day I don’t know why, but I believe it had something to do with the arrest of Jacques in June 1942.’

Anselm’s memory spun back to that lunch with Roddy when the old sot had pointed out how odd it was that Jacques had been arrested in the June but the smuggling ring hadn’t been broken until the July. He asked, ‘What happened?’

‘He’d been demonstrating after the Jews had been forced to wear a star — outside the building where I worked. He was picked up and Schwermann was told to give him a scare, so a French speaker wasn’t needed. Anyway Jacques spoke reasonable German, thank God. If Schwermann had needed me my cover would have been blown — which nearly happened when Rochet rolled in, demanding to see Jacques. He was hauled off, slapped about a bit and thrown out. Ten minutes later Agnes turned up, asking for me… I couldn’t believe it, I thought the game was up. So there we are in the corridor — will I help, she asks, for old times’ sake? Then Schwermann appears out of nowhere. He’s staring at me, and her, and I can’t think why… he doesn’t speak French… he’s meant to be giving Jacques the once-over. So I try to say to her, with my eyes, “Not here, not now, I’ll do what I can.”‘ He gulped more wine. ‘She didn’t understand.’

Brionne reached down beside his chair and pulled up the bottle, resting it upon the arm of his chair. The cigarette, unsmoked, had grown to a long finger of ash.

‘Schwermann went back to work, but afterwards he wanted to know about her. Who was she? Did she know Fougeres? No, just an old tart, I said. But I was worried. I found her a few days later and told her to keep away from Rochet and Jacques, for which she gave me a smack across the face.’ He filled the mug, spilling wine on to his wrist; the ash broke and fell.

‘Then, one morning, a month later, Schwermann told me he was going to lift a Frenchwoman in the eleventh arrondissement that afternoon and he wanted me to be there. On his desk was a file. After he’d gone, I looked. There was a report to Eichmann and an interrogation record — a handwritten draft and a typed copy — with all the names of the ring set down, spilled within minutes of being slapped about. He’d told them everything.’

‘Who had?’ blurted out Anselm. Brionne stared ahead, smoke pricking his nostrils and eyes, the desperation of the moment fresh upon him.

‘I took the handwritten draft, gambling it wouldn’t be missed. I didn’t have much time. I only had three travel passes, forged by Rochet’s contacts. I dated them and set off. Rochet himself was out. So I went to Anton Fougeres. He wouldn’t see me because I was a collabo. So I handed the paperwork to Snyman, who’d answered the door, along with the passes so they could use the trains. There was nothing else I could do. By nightfall The Round Table was shattered.’

Brionne closed his eyes as a heavy silence cramped the room. ‘I didn’t know we were going to arrest Agnes until we got there, because I thought she was still at Parc Monceau. The flat door was broken open from when they’d come for Madame Klein. We sat there and waited. I can’t describe the rest.’ He smoked, repeatedly drawing in thick draughts. ‘We took her child and she screamed at me, a scream that pierces time. Then Schwermann knew I was involved in The Round Table. I never saw Agnes again. That is my last memory of her. A nurse took the boy to an orphanage.’

Brionne became eerily still, as though he’d quietly died. He said, ‘Three days later, he called me in. He placed the typed interrogation record on the left side of his desk, disclosing all the names of The Round Table. Then he produced two convoy deportation lists for Auschwitz, each with a string of names… including Agnes and her child. At the bottom was a space to be signed by the supervising officer, the one who ticks them on to the cattle truck. He put those on the right-hand side. “Sit down,” he said. “You have a choice.”

‘I sat down. “If you sign these documents,” he said, “you may keep the child. If you refuse he will see Auschwitz, and you will be shot.”‘ Victor stared at the bottle on the floor, now almost empty. ‘I signed everything.’ A thin laugh expelled a gust of smoke. ‘The irony of it struck me at the time: by writing my name I became the one who had betrayed The Round Table, just after I’d removed the proof that it was someone else-remember? I’d just given the draft to Jacques ‘father, Anton Fougeres.’ He drained his mug in long gulps. ‘One thing happened next that I have never forgotten — I heard him being sick in the toilet. I collected the boy from an orphanage that afternoon and took him home to my mother. He was one of nine. The other eight were deported the next day. I cannot tell you what it was like to walk away with one of them.’

‘Robert?’

‘Yes.’

‘Robert is Agnes’ son?’

‘Yes.’ Brionne placed a shaking hand over his face. ‘Schwermann supervised the departure of the convoy that took Agnes away. Afterwards, he kept the original list signed by me and placed an unsigned duplicate on file. As for Robert, he did the same thing, covering the deportation himself so that no questions were asked as to the child’s whereabouts. The only difference was that no duplicate list was made. To tie the knot, he got a friend at Auschwitz to mess about with their records to make them consistent.’

‘Why?’

‘He told me that if the Germans lost the war, the public records would confirm that he’d saved a child when he’d got the chance.’

‘So what?’

‘I said that… and he replied that if ever he had to fight for his life, it could be the one thing that might save him from the gallows.’

Brionne left the room. Anselm heard him swill his face in a rush of water. He spoke from the kitchen, coming back to his worn chair. ‘He read a lot of Goethe. “Du musst herrschen und gewinnen, oder dienen und verlieren,” he told me later. “You must either conquer and rule or lose and serve.” A very German apology. For the rest of the time I knew him he sweated profusely.’

The enormity of Anselm’s wilful credulity towered over him. He’d guessed Schwermann was blackmailing Brionne because of the documents given to Max, but that didn’t mean Brionne had done anything to induce the blackmail. It was simple logic.

‘From then on, he often used to say “Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust.” I was part of him and he was part of me, two souls dwelling within one breast. I was the one who would have to tell the tale of his heroism. I was the one who could procure his escape, using The Round Table structure to his advantage. And, in due course, I did. When it became clear the war was over, I took him to Les Moineaux.’

‘But neither of you were known to the community,’ said Anselm.

‘Father, just because they did not know me does not mean I did not know them. I told Father Pleyon, the Prior, that I was “Bedivere” and I was welcomed. And then I had to put that saintly man in the same position Schwermann had put me, which was ghastly because he had been the monk responsible for running the operation at the Priory.’

‘Father Pleyon?’

‘Yes.’

Anselm remembered Chambray referring to the doubts raised by Father Pleyon when the smuggling operation was first put to the community, and he saw at once the wise stewardship of Prior Morel — he had given the main job to a man with his eyes on the risks, rather than the enthusiast. And then Anselm glimpsed something he had never considered… he remembered Father Pleyon’s report to Rome… it was Pleyon who had ensured that Rochet met the Fougeres family…