[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Page 47
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
the future. The truth, at the end of the day, remains forever silent. We are
only left with history.
"There you are, Brook!" Cumbernald looms from the ceiling decorations and lays
his hand on my shoulder. "Can't just drift off like this, you know. There's a
phone call for you.
A Miss Flood."
My knees pop and crack like tiny fireworks as he helps me up. His right arm
supports me as he leads down the corridor. "You can take it in here in my
study," he says, pushing open the door, watching for a few moments as I settle
down on a new leather chair to make sure that I know how to operate this
fancy-looking phone of his.
"Geoffrey, there you are!" Miss Flood sounds excited. "I got your number here
from that creepy chap who works for you at the college."
"Christlow?"
"Whatever. I've marvelous news, Geoffrey..."
I wait as Miss Flood burbles on, studying the ample bookshelves that cover
these study walls (mostly do-it-yourselves and whodunnits, a few biographies
and thin histories; a small space where my own forthcoming work will fit in
easily), doing my best to banish the sense of gloomy premonition that still
comes over me when people announce they have news.
"...so Arkwright's own Private Secretary asked if it wasn't too much of a
presumption. I
mean, as if we'd really mind. Of course, we'll have to re-do the dustjacket to
give his name due prominence...."
"You mean Arkwright is-"
"-Yes, going to write an Introduction to your book! I know, I know. I still
haven't got over it either. I haven't even started to think what this'll do to
the print runs! Of course, it means that you, Geoffrey, can relax. You won't
have to write a thing more..."
Part of me drops away as I gaze down at the receiver. There are two ways, I
decide, to gain a person's silence and compliance. You either take away their
lives and scrub out their identity. Or you give them everything.
"So that's it, then?"
"Marvelous! And Happy New Year. Oh, Geoffrey... not that it matters now as far
as the book's concerned, but I do have a contact for that research you were
talking about.
Someone in the Government who's co-ordinating the Jewish relief effort."
I cradle the phone between my shoulder and chin, searching the leather-and-ash
expanse of Eric Cumbernald's desktop for something resembling a pen or a
pencil. I begin to write out the number and the name that Miss Flood dictates
in my left-handed scrawl, then stop half way and put down the phone without
wishing her goodbye.
"Everything okay in there?" Cumbernald asks. His eyes travel down to my bit of
paper.
"If you want to make another call..."
"I don't think I'll bother."
"In that case..." He slides back a cabinet front to reveal a television screen
surrounded by nests of equipment, "there's something I'd very much like to
show you..."
I crumple the note as the comforting smell of warming valves slowly fills the
room. The name Miss Flood's given me of the Home Office official who's
overseeing the operation to provide food, medical treatment, and shelter to
the Jews is Reeve-Ellis. The television screen snows. Then there are ghostly
figures that make me think of my acquaintance and his family, huddled in their
crude huts or blanketed in the hurricane wilderness. Of course, the Government
has come to their rescue now. The terrible situation has been proclaimed by
Ministry of Information Press Release, and the newspapers have lapped it up
unquestioningly. Soon, it will be dealt with, and-a little sadder, a little
Page 48
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
wiser, a little less trustful-we Britons will watch the results on the BBC
News. This Jewish Scandal has come at just the right time. It shows Arkwright
as a man of honesty who is prepared to deal with the aberrations that so
blackened Modernism's reputation in the rest of the world. It may even get us
back into the League of Nations. In a few months-or years, perhaps, depending
upon political contingencies-a similarly narrow spotlight will fall upon the
treatment camps
in the Isle of Man. But, even if my acquaintance and his family have survived,
angel of death that I am, I realize that I must never try to contact them.
Cumbernald places a large silver disk on a spinning turntable. "I had the
cine-recording transcribed to video," he explains as I watch the jumpy white
outlines of Eileen, Christine, Barbara, and myself sitting outside the summer
lodge in Penrhos Park on the television screen. Behind it all is a crackle and
a rumble. Eggs and bacon, Eggs and bacon. Apple and custard...
"Been thinking, by the way," he says, leaning against a bookshelf as he
admires his camerawork. "About who should replace me as principal at college. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]