Iain Pears - The Dream of Scipio

The pope rose; he liked nothing more than to demonstrate his generosity and his mercy. “The pope must know how to behave like a prince” was his belief. He liked no man to leave his presence unsatisified.

“You may take them,” he said with a wave of his hand. “I give them to you. One condition though. And that is that you tell me why any Christian should place himself at risk to save Jews, either a brace of them or the entire people.”

Olivier thought, and then accepted his failure. He had spent much of his time in the last few months trying to wrestle with the thorny questions Manlius Hippomanes had thrown at him, and he now understood for the first time the difference between clever patterns of words and the answers of the soul. “I do not know, sir,” he said. “I can discover no reason or justification for it, and do not wish to. I am neither a theologian nor a philosopher, a lawyer nor a politician. I cannot find reasons; my skill is to sing about the impulsions of the heart, and that is enough.”

Clement grunted. “Very well. If you want to play the fool, then so be it. Go away. Give me a convincing demonstration of your case by this evening, and I will reconsider. But if you don’t . . .”

He paused and thought.

“But if I don’t . . . ?” Olivier prompted.

The pope did not smile. “Then I will kill every Jew in Christendom, including your teacher and his servant.”

JULIEN STOOD ON the platform of the railway station for nearly half an hour, not knowing what to do. His mind had closed down. Only one train came through as he stood there, full of German soliders heading south, rattling and squealing, filling the atmosphere with thick coal smoke. The days of triumph had gone; they were traveling to be defeated; everyone knew it.

Eventually he shook himself, walked away, and found himself going back to the Préfecture. There was nothing else he could do. Only Marcel now could help in any way; so he went to beg.

He was, as usual, sitting neatly at his desk, going through papers, oblivious of the heat and the little trickle of sweat running down his temple into the frayed collar of his shirt. He looked up at Julien, with the defiant glance of a guilty man.

“What have you done?” Julien said quietly.

He shook his head. “It wasn’t me, Julien. Believe me, I didn’t do this. She was taken to the detention center, then the people from Jewish Affairs came. They didn’t know she was not to be moved. They wanted all the Jews. She had admitted she was one, so they took her. I only heard about it five minutes ago.”

“A mistake?” he said incredulously.

Marcel nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Get her back, Marcel. Phone ahead, say there’s been an error. Say she’s wanted for interrogation. Say something. Say anything. You can do it. You’re the préfet, for God’s sake.”

“It can’t be done, Julien. These convoys are run by the Gestapo. They don’t stop them because of requests from French officials. If she hadn’t signed a statement saying she was a Jew, I could have done something, perhaps. Why did she do that?”

Julien shook his head, dismissing the question. “What happens to her now?”

Marcel paused. “Do you want the official, reassuring answer? Or the one we both know?”

He didn’t reply, so Marcel continued. “Officially she will go to a labor camp. Conditions will be harsh but fair. She will be kept there until the war is over and then, no doubt, released.”

He hesitated, got up, and stood facing Julien, his hands in his pockets, his face looking down at the floor for a few moments.

“But you know as well as I do that is a lie, and that she will die there,” he said. “They are killing them, Julien. They said that’s what they were going to do, and they’re doing it. I’m sorry. I truly am. This is not what I intended. I wanted only to save the lives of twenty-six innocent hostages.”

Julien stood there, quite immobile, until Marcel came and touched him on the arm. “Come with me,” he said. “Let’s get out of here for a while.”

He allowed himself to be led, along the corridor with the worn linoleum, down the stone stairs, and out into the oppressive heat of the afternoon. They walked, quietly and companionably and for a long while silently; good friends, almost. The sort of walk that Marcel had always valued, and which Bernard so disdained. Together they crisscrossed the city, seeking out the dark and shadowy streets where the sun could not penetrate; past the steps where Olivier had first seen Rebecca, past the place where he had been attacked and where Isabelle had been murdered.

And Marcel stayed with him, saying nothing, hoping only to give some comfort with his presence, the assurance of his friendship. Eventually, Julien began to talk.

“When I was at Verdun,” he said quietly, “I saw things which were more appalling than you can imagine. I saw civilization coming apart at the seams. As it weakened, people felt free to act as they pleased, and did so, which weakened it still more. And I decided then it was the most important thing, that it had to survive and be protected. Without that tissue of beliefs and habits we are worse than beasts. Animals are constrained by their limitations and their lack of imagination. We are not.

“So that is what I have tried to do, all my life in a small and insignificant way. Anything would be better than another collapse like that, because I was certain that another would be final. No coming back. And I told myself that no matter what politicians or generals did, they were merely the barbarians, and everyone else had to defend what was truly important from them; keep the flickering flame going. People like Bernard and you were what I detested most of all. Neither of you was even honest enough to admit you wanted power.

“I was wrong, and I only realized it when you told me Julia had been denounced by the wife of our local blacksmith. Odd, don’t you think? I have seen war, and invasions and riots. I have heard of massacres and brutalities beyond imagining, and I have kept my faith in the power of civilization to bring men back from the brink. And yet one woman writes a letter, and my whole world falls to pieces.

“You see, she is an ordinary woman. A good one, even. That’s the point. You are not a good man. Bernard is not a good man. Nothing either of you do can surprise or shock me, or worry me. But she denounced Julia and sent her to her death because she resented her, and because Julia is a Jew.

“I thought in this simple contrast between the civilized and the barbaric, but I was wrong. It is the civilized who are the truly barbaric, and the Germans are merely the supreme expression of it. They are our greatest achievement. They are building a monument which will never be dismantled, even when they are swept away. They are teaching us a lesson which will echo for hundreds of years. Manlius Hippomanes buried his ideas in the church, and those ideas survived the end of his world. The Nazis are doing the same. They are holding up a mirror and saying, ‘Look at what we have all achieved.’ And they are the same ideas, Marcel. That was my mistake.”

“The Germans are trying to win a war, Julien,” Marcel said. “And they’re losing. They’re desperate, and that makes them even more brutal than they are usually.”

“You know that’s not true. They knew the moment the Americans entered the war they’d lost. Before then, even. They may be mad, but they’re not fools. What they’re doing goes far beyond the war. Something unparalleled in human history. The ultimate achievement of civilization. Just think about it. How do you annihilate so many people? You need contributions from so many quarters. Scientists to prove Jews are inferior; theologians to provide the moral tone. Industrialists to build the trains and the camps. Technicians to design the guns. Administrators to solve the vast problems of identifying and moving so many people. Writers and artists to make sure nobody notices or cares. Hundreds of years spent honing skills and developing techniques have been necessary before such a thing can even be imagined, let alone put into effect. And now is the moment. Now is the time for all the skills of civilization to be put to use.