The Marks of Cain Page 23

  The final section on Fischer’s life was tantalizing, yet even more mystifying.

  ‘Many people were scandalized when, following the Allied defeat of the Third Reich, Eugen Fischer escaped serious punishment for his connections to, and research for, the Nazis. Indeed, he later became Professor Emeritus at Freiburg University, and in 1952 he was appointed as honorary president of the newly-founded German Anthropological Society.

  ‘This extraordinary indulgence of a scientist seen as a founder and mentor of Nazi racial politics was by no means unique. Many of Fischer’s colleagues at Gurs and elsewhere also escaped punishment, or endured at most a few weeks of “deNazification” in prison. For example, Professor Doctor Fritz Lenz, the head of eugenics at Berlin Dahlem, and a coauthor of key works on Nazi racial theory, returned to work immediately after the war, and was offered the chair in human heredity at the University of Gottingen.’

  These last assertions were so bizarre Simon read the whole passage twice. Then he read it again. Then he checked it on another website, which repeated the statement word for word.

  Word for word? Simon began to wonder if the remarkable claim was simply a lie, perpetuated by the lazy scholastic standards of the internet.

  He got up, opened the door, and walked into the living room. Conor was playing on the carpet with his toys, transfixed by the adventures of Derek the Diesel Engine.

  There – the bookshelves. High up on the highest shelf, gathering dust these ten years, was his father’s old Encyclopedia Britannica. Simon pulled down the volume, paged quickly to Lenz, Fritz.

  It was true. This beast, this horrible man, this expounder of eugenics, this friend of Mengele, this thinker behind Nazism, had calmly returned to work in 1946. He hadn’t even gone to jail. The Allies didn’t even put him in jail.

  Why were all these doctors just…let off?

  He tousled his son’s blond hair, then returned to his study and shut the door. Again. He was excited. The mystery was coming alive, but it was coiled upon itself, like a snake, a cobra, hissing. Concealing what lay within.

  His afternoon was nearly done. He went over the facts by writing down the words in an email to himself – one of his favourite ways of resolving a puzzle. Like an artist turning his own drawing upside down, to see it afresh, to spot the flaws, assess the quality.

  Simon sat back from the computer, and sighed. His thoughts were incoherent, they were drivel, they were utter nonsense. Money, Nazis, Cagots, possible collaboration, so what? He had no overarching explanation for the murders: which now seemed almost random.

  He felt his momentary excitement subside. He was almost back to where he started. He needed to speak to David and Amy. He needed to speak to David. Where were they? What was happening down there in southern France?

  He remembered Tomasky’s sister. What she had said. A monastery in France.

  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 Pétain, 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 Führer 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.

  David came back on.

  ‘Here’s the star. What do you want to know?’

  The moment of tension dilated.

  ‘Tell me,’ Simon said. ‘Where exactly it is. What, ah, village, what town…’

  The journalist could almost hear David peering closely at the map.

  David came back on.

  ‘It’s quite distinct. It’s next to a tiny village called Eveux.’

  ‘Eveux?’

  A pause.

  ‘Yes, Eveux…that’s near L’Arbresle…northwest of Lyon.’ David’s voice was now sharpened. ‘Why do you want to know this?’

  Simon didn’t answer, because he was stooping to look at his computer screen, at the entry on La Tourette. The website gave the monastery its full and sonorous French title.

  Le Priore de Sainte Marie de La Tourette.

  De Eveux-sur-L’Arbresle.

  30

  The hire car was slotted in row 3B of the airport car park at Lyon Saint Exupéry. Bags stowed, Simon pulled out into the midday traffic, and made for the autoroute that took him away from Lyon.

  North along the Rhone valley.

  He considered his moody impulsiveness. Was this all a mistake? He had asked Suzie what she thought of this journey, this sombre adventure; and she’d told him, with a certain languish in her eyes, that she’d agree to him going because she loved him. And because they were safe with the policeman anyway. And because he was going mad in the house doing nothing, he might end up drinking again, and she was worried about that.

  Simon stared at the cars ahead. The autoroute was busy.

  He knew almost everything Suzie had said had been a lie. She didn’t want him to go. She thought it was irresponsible of him to go. The only reason she agreed to his going was indeed because she loved him. He was lucky to have her.

  And he was an idiot.

  But he was here now. And, whatever his motives, the excitement of the chase was stimulating, energizing. What would this place be like? The monastery that sent people mad? Would he find the infamous archives? Simon glanced at the autoroute signs as he slowed the car: Ecully, Dardilly, Charbonnieres-les-Bains.

  There. He slowed to check a road sign: this was it. The N7 to L’Arbresle.

  Simon spun the wheel and headed left. He was motoring through the verdant depths of the Beaujolais. His thoughts wandered as he reached for the big road atlas of France, to check his route. A few hundred miles southwest from here, in Biarritz, David and Amy were hiding, hoping, waiting, flying out to Namibia.

  What could he do to help them? Maybe nothing, maybe something, maybe what he was doing right now. His mind was a turmoil of confusion – and curiosity.

  The last of the route took him past more vineyards, and yellowing copses of oak. Then the lane gave out, onto a wide sweeping meadow. And in the middle was the monastery of La Tourette.

  Alone in the car, he said:

  ‘Wow.’

  He’d done a few hours’ research on this modernist building, quizzed his architect father about the designer, Le Corbusier, but the reality was still pretty startling.

  In the middle of the greenery was this…thing. It looked like the offspring of a multi-storey car park mated with a sour medieval castle. The building was almost uniformly grey. The only colour came from the various big windows, adorned with bright red and orange curtains.

  Slowly he rolled the car towards the priory complex. More unusual aspects came into view. A surreal concrete pyramid jutted primly from the centre. Several grey corridors seemed to be angled, haphazardly. The whole edifice was supported on one side by a bank of grass, and on the other by spindly, irregular concrete legs.

  Simon parked, and sought the entrance: it was a kind of concrete gantry that led to the core of the building.

  The exterior may have been shocking, but his induction into Sainte Marie de La Tourette was simple, almost flippant. The monastery and the monks were obviously used to visitors and pilgrims, especially people interested in architecture. Simon was greeted by a monk in blue jeans and grey T-shirt, in a concrete side room.

  As Simon confirmed his bogus, telephone-booked identity – Edgar Harrison, a visiting British architect – he twitched with apprehension, and searched the monk’s face for a hint of curiosity, or scepticism, or suspicion.

  But the monk just nodded.

  ‘Monsieur Harrison. Un moment.’

  The monk jotted down the name and details, on a computer. Simon scanned this side room as he waited to be processed. The space was humdrum, an average office, with files and paperwork, cordless phones and a fax machine, and a big glass case with keys for various rooms, hanging from hooks with neat little labels. Le Refectoire, Le Libraire, La Cuisine.

  Le Libraire? At least there was a library. But if its contents were so secret why was it just casually mentioned here? Le Libraire?

  The monk had done his work; he stood and took a key from another case, then escorted Simon to the concrete upper floors to show him his allotted room, the monastic cell where he would spend his three days on ‘retreat’. The stairs were steep. They didn’t speak. They reached their upper-level corridor.

  The doors were lined up and down the concrete corridors li
ke tall soldiers on parade. It really was like a prison.

  The monk handed over the key, then left the pilgrim to his own devices. Simon entered the room, chucked his bag on his narrow bed, and gazed around – in dismay. The cell was homicidally oppressive: little wider than a coffin, with a low, damp concrete ceiling. The room terminated in a glass door and window with rusted surrounds. And there were sullen noises everywhere. Rattles of water in the pipes. A cough.

  Then a phone call: on his new mobile. When Simon pressed Accept, the worry in his chest was like an incipient heart attack. Only his wife had this new number. What had happened?

  But it was David.

  ‘Simon…Where are you? Suzie gave me the new number.’

  The journalist looked around. At the grey concrete walls. Patched with ugly dampness. He stepped outside into the corridor, to get a better signal.

  ‘I’m in that monastery.’

  ‘With the archives?’

  ‘Well I hope so, David. I hope so.’

  A monk came striding down the corridor. A wooden cross hung around his neck, contrasting with the surfing T-shirt underneath. He smiled, vacantly, at Simon. Who smiled keenly in return.

  David was whispering into the phone. ‘We’re going to Namibia. Now.’

  ‘Eloise is already there? Correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK. Well…’ The journalist sighed. ‘Please be careful. It’s, ah, clearly ludicrous. You’re being pursued by a bloody madman. But…Be careful!’

  A silence. Then David said: ‘Same for you, Simon. I know I never met you, but…y’know…take care of yourself?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The journalist closed the call. And began his exploration of the building. Le Priore de Sainte Marie de La Tourette.

  Two hours of wandering told him that the rest of La Tourette was as bizarre, and intimidating, as the cells. Odd doors opened into misshapen rooms. Occasional skylights showed the grey clouds from startling angles. Concrete joists thrust into empty space: they seemed to have no purpose other than to knock an unwary pilgrim on the head.