3
Ordinarily Anselm had two periods of manual work — one in the morning before Mass, the other in the afternoon until Vespers. However, the Prior had agreed to release Anselm whenever necessary to pursue anything to do with the task he had received from Cardinal Vincenzi. That broad principle was stretched to encompass games of chess with Salomon Lachaise at the guesthouse. But since his trip to Rome Anselm had found it difficult to look his companion in the face — for he was now burdened with a riddle: ‘Schwermann had risked his life to save life: And his task of finding Victor Brionne now set them apart, for it was this man who would reveal the meaning of the words.
They sat either side of a table, black against white.
‘No talking,’ said Anselm as they were about to start.
‘But in the beginning was the Word,’ replied Salomon Lachaise.
‘Indeed,’ said Anselm.
Salomon Lachaise then sprinkled the early stages of play with abstract enticements — an unworthy attempt, thought Anselm, to distract his opponent: ‘A violation of language is a violation of God: (‘Mmm’, said Anselm.) ‘… in hell there are no words.’ (‘Mmm.’) ‘… and yet the silence of the Priory brings forth words of praise.’ (‘And other things,’ murmured Anselm.) ‘… the world will be redeemed by words.’ Anselm marked that one for future use. -
‘Is it not strange,’ continued Salomon Lachaise on a fresh tack, ‘that God, on one reading of Exodus, refused to disclose his name to Moses when he first revealed himself?’
‘Yes,’ said Anselm. He eyed the tight configuration of pieces. Each move seemed to spell trouble but there had to be a way out.
‘And is it not stranger still that God should change the name of his servants to mark a new beginning?’
Anselm looked up sharply into a face of restrained curiosity. ‘What do you mean?’
‘God made the covenant with Abram and he became Abraham. Simon the fisherman became Peter the rock. There are lots of examples.’
‘I see,’ said Anselm, returning his attention to the battle.
‘The change of name obliterates their past, bestowing a blessed future.’
‘That’s a good point. I might use that one Sunday’
‘And when the Amsterdam synagogue expelled Spinoza for his ideas, they invoked God to blot out his name under heaven.’
‘That’s interesting,’ said Anselm genuinely
‘So who was it that dared to take the place of God and give that man across the lake a new name, a new life?’
The two men faced each other. A sensation of rapid foreshortening brought the gentle gaze of Salomon Lachaise unbearably close to Anselm’s secret. They sat as friends: one of them waiting patiently for judgement, the other, Anselm, engaged in an enterprise that might absolve the need for a trial — hope and its adversary at one table.
‘That’s another good point.’ They were the only words Anselm could assemble that did not require him to lie.
Salomon Lachaise reviewed the state of play upon the board and, with a look of quiet amusement, toppled his king. ‘Anselm of Canterbury, I resign.’
Chapter Twenty
1
It was a sensible arrangement. At the back of the flat were two bedrooms, side by side, one of which had French windows opening out on to the garden. That was where Agnes slept. The other was for Wilma. They left their doors ajar at night.
Lucy was staggered at Wilma’s cleanliness. For fifteen years she’d bustled from Hammersmith to Shepherd’s Bush, to a drop-in centre by a church. There she showered, took her breakfast and then came back to feed the birds in Ravenscourt Park. She’d met Agnes while tailing a pigeon. A friendship had grown, unknown to anyone in the family including Lucy. It was always that way with Agnes. She had small, secret spaces in her life which were only discovered by accident. Surprise questions were an act of trespass, so the family got used to stumbling upon things and pretending nothing had been uncovered. And so it was here. Wilma’s intimacy with Agnes passed without comment, even though a first, brief association was sufficient to confirm that Wilma was pleasantly and ever so slightly mad.
Agnes now had a wheelchair but she would not sit mm it. She pushed it round the flat, moving slowly and with relaxed deliberation as if negotiating an obstacle course, smiling at little victories and wincing at scuffs upon the furniture. The frontiers of her world were contracting and she rubbed against them. She no longer went to the park, or along the river to watch the boats, but moved from room to room, from chair to bed, and, whenever possible, out to the garden among fresh green things.
Wilma was tidying her room again when Lucy decided to mention the gun. She had been foraging in a cupboard for something Wilma had put away when she’d touched the barrel. She’d left it there, wrapped in a duster, with four corroded rounds of ammunition. The incongruity of Agnes with a revolver could not pass without comment. This was a secret space that had to be invaded, tactfully, as they sat in the back garden.
‘A French officer gave that to Arthur,’ explained Agnes. ‘He brought it back, along with his clock. They were his only souvenirs. I’d forgotten all about it.
‘But it’s illegal. It should have been handed in.’
‘Take it to the police after I’m dead,’ said Agnes.
The word struck Lucy like a back-handed slap. But to Agnes it was just another sound. She said, ‘I’d like to go inside now’
They returned slowly to the flat. For a long while Agnes jiggled her wheelchair at the French windows, trying to get it over a ridge. Lucy watched from behind, detesting her impulse to push past and move things along, to get away from this constant, slow pageant of illness.
‘I expect you see rather a lot of young Fougeres,’ said Agnes, leaning forward to push.
‘Not really’
‘I suspect he rather likes you.’
‘Stop it, Gran.’
As they passed Agnes’ bureau by the door Lucy saw a sheet of cardboard. ‘What’s that?’
‘An alphabet card:
The letters were written very neatly in lines of four, forming six columns.
Agnes stopped and turned, her blue eyes alarmed as by the heavy approach of a new and threatening machine. ‘When I can’t talk any more, I’ll point.’
They looked at each other, helpless.
Every time Lucy saw Agnes something happened to wound her memory. A gallery of imprints hung in perpetuity. That evening joined the rest. She would for ever be able to see her grandmother standing by a door, thin arms on a wheelchair, her eyes resting on the alphabet.
2
Anselm was reading Athanasius’ Life of Anthony when the Prior knocked on his door. Anselm had always enjoyed all that wrestling with demons for it struck him as a powerful metaphor for aspects of his own inner life
