In France? A monastery called Tourette.
Hunched forward, Simon typed.
The screen returned his answer at once.
The monastery of La Tourette.
Built between 1953–1960, at the instigation of Reverend Father Couturier of the Dominican Order of Lyon. Architect Charles Edouard Jeanneret-Gris (known as Le Corbusier).
Simon paused.
The Dominican Order?
He remembered what Professor Winyard had told him. The Dominicans. The Dogs of God. The burners of witches. The hammer of witches. The Malleus Malleficarum.
Now his pulse quickened, dramatically. This monastery was apparently near Lyon. Near Lyon?
David Martinez had told Simon about the map that had been owned by David's father and handed on by David's grandfather. On that map, as Simon recalled, was one curious outlier, one hand-drawn blue star that was way beyond the Basque region, way outside the purlieus of the Cagots. Wasn't that near Lyon? Or was it Marseilles? It was Lyon, wasn't it?
The mystery coiled and hissed.
He read on.
Le Corbusier, the websites told him, was the greatest architect of the last century. He was also renowned for his purity, his cleanliness of vision: utilizing the precept form follows function. Everything he did was deliberate. He was also known as an atheist, 'therefore the commission to design this post-war monastery of La Tourette came as a surprise'.
But many things about this monastery were, it seemed, a surprise. Where the money came from — in impoverished post-war France. Why the Dominicans suddenly decided to construct a large priory when so many old and war-damaged buildings were in need of repair. Most of all, why the building had such a strange design.
As one book phrased it: Le Corb's idea was that living in this building, 'La Tourette', should be, in itself, a penance. The daunting nature of the structure, the difficulty of living within it, should be part of the austerities of the monastic life.
These austerities, it seemed, were more than theoretical. The building was 'largely finished' in 1953. By 1955 'half the initial community of monks had mental disorders'. These included nervous breakdowns and major depressions, and they occurred precisely 'because the building was so oppressive'. The jarring spaces and the brutalism of the design apparently tipped the denizens over the edge.
Another factor, one critic claimed, in the 'outright unpleasantness' of the building, was the acoustics. At night 'every single sound in the building was amplified'. Every breath, every whisper, every snore. This was apparently 'a function of the concrete fabric and the inherently echoic spaces': in other words, the hostile nature of the building was a deliberate feature, designed to disorientate.
There was one more website. It was an architecture blog. A simple, humble blog, written by an architecture student from Brisbane. Who had apparently stayed at La Tourette a few summers back, after years of research on Le Corbusier.
The essay began with a short autobiographical note. And then launched into a blistering attack on the architect.
The basic allegation of the student was that Le Corbusier was a Nazi. During the war years, it seemed, Le Corbusier was very close to Petain, the leader of the puppet French fascist regime of Vichy. Le Corbusier was also, the author alleged, a big fan of Hitler. The essay quoted one 'notorious' remark, when the architect said the Fuhrer was 'marvellous'.
The blog attempted a counterbalancing argument. Admitting that Le Corbusier was not alone, that many architects had fascist or Marxist sympathies: because architects are utopians. Architects want to change society. It doesn't necessarily make them Nazis or communists or killers…
The blogpost drew to a close with another barb. It made the claim that Le Corbusier's famous building in Marseilles, the Unite d'Habitation, was the most popular place to commit suicide in the South of France. And yet, the essay said, the monastery of La Tourette was even more oppressive — the only reason it didn't see so many suicides was because visitors tended to flee after a few days. The monks had to stay, and suffered terribly, and yet their religious vocations prevented self murder.
And then the essayist asked the obvious question: Why? Why did the Dominicans mysteriously commission a man like Le Corbusier to build a mysterious structure like this?
Simon shut down the computer to listen to the silence in his study, and the major chord of logic in his mind.
The essay blog might have finished on a query. But the answer was obvious, to Simon. Form follows function: that was Le Corbusier's lifelong belief. The function of this building was maybe to shelter facts, maybe appalling facts. The building was a subtly authentic statement of that sinister function. Herein lies evil. Do not come near. Like the vivid and offputting colouration of a poisonous insect.
He recalled Professor Winyard's exact words about those vital documents: the materials relating to the blood tests of the Cagots and the burning of the Basque witches. The documents suppressed and hidden by the Papacy.
'They were kept at the Angelicum, the Dominican University in Rome. For centuries they were safe. But then after the war, after the Nazis, they were felt to be less safe, too provocative. There are rumours that they were spirited away, to somewhere more secure. But no one knows where.'
No one knows where? Really? How about a strange Dominican monastery, built after the war, and associated with Vichy and the Nazis?
The mystery was now a nightflower, slowly opening beneath the moon. Scenting the midnight garden.
But he needed one more confirmation. He had to reach David Martinez and confirm the star on the map. Had to reach him now.
Simon tried to calm himself. He stood up, walked to the kitchen, and made himself a cup of camomile tea, as he had once heard that camomile tea was calming.
Fuck camomile tea. He hurled the tea in the sink, ran back to his study and pointlessly called Martinez's phone number. The tone was dead. He tried again three seconds later, as if that would change something. The tone was dead. As he well knew, David had junked his phone: very sensibly.
So what now? Surely David Martinez would ring again at some point, from Biarritz, unless he was unable?
Simon paced his study, from one wall to the other. Fretting about David and Amy, trying not to remember the attack of Tomasky.
Walking from wall to wall took him three and a half seconds. Their house was so damnably tiny. It was way too small. Maybe if Simon cracked this remarkable story he could write that great book and buy a bigger house and…
Enough. Simon sat down at the computer and sent David Martinez an email. Then he exited his study, and joined his son on the sofa in the living room, and they watched, for the seventeenth time, Monsters, Inc.
Then they watched it again.
It was seven p.m. and Conor was in bed when his mobile rang — with a French number on the screen. Trying to convince himself that his heart wasn't beating like a Burundi drum, Simon took the call.
'Yes…hello?'
'Simon?'
'David? Thank God you called. Are you OK? Are you and Amy OK?'
'Yes — we're OK — we're still in Biarritz, but we're flying out. But what about y-'
'Nothing. I'm fine, I mean, ah, there's something I need to know.' Simon felt guilty for cutting so brutally to the chase, but his anxiety allowed him no option. 'David, tell me — do you have the map on you?'
'Yeah, of course. Everyone wants to look at this map…'
'Please. This is important. Get it out. You said there was a star, marked near Lyon…'
'That's right. Near Lyon…We never managed to work out what it meant.' 'Please take another look.'
Simon could hear the obedient unfolding of paper, and traffic in the background. David was obviously using a land-line. An anonymous payphone in a little Basque city.
