The ‘park’ of the Contades –really a public garden or square – is the centre of bourgeois Strasbourg. It is not particularly pretty, and indeed rather dull, though it has some fine trees and a nice little iron-work bandstand in Second Empire style. It is much favoured by the Jewish population because of the synagogue handily on the corner, and is generally full of solid matrons with little dogs and shrill energetic children, their skullcaps held on by hairgrips. Most of the architecture is Hohenzollern, but one side, by the pretty little river Aar, is a fine example of Insurance-company-Investment Domestic, thoroughly deserving the hideous name of condominium. The building was madly overheated, which would have caused Arlette even acuter discomfort had not Doctor Frederic Ulrich not been so very very cold.
Not so much his manner, which was undoubtedly freezing, but not designed to freeze her out: it always was freezing. Physically: his was the coldest hand she had ever encountered. He was a specialist in the Digestive Apparatus. Thanks be to God, she thought, there’s nothing wrong with my liver. That icy clutch exploring my tummy would be the obsidian knife offering me to the Plumed Serpent.
Not that Freddy looked in the least like a plumed serpent: he had the austerest of crewcuts and a beautiful midnight-blue suit in gabardine. His surroundings showed a devotion to Brancusi-like sculpture and the paintings of Sophie TauberArp. His voice was low and soft, his manners impeccable. Courtly is the wrong word, sounding like Sir Leicester Dedlock. But yes – very like Sir Leicester faced with a Radical Rabble-Rouser. Life imitates art; she had learned it from her father – Proust’s kitchenmaid who looked like Giotto’s Charity. He used to read Dickens aloud to his children, which she hated. She had seen since how many French politicians adopted Mr Chadband’s style of oratory, or how pop singers resembled Mr Guppy at the theatre, and now she was reminded in this hushed atmosphere that Sir Leicester thought of himself as ‘a considerable landed proprietor in heaven’.
‘I am glad to have this opportunity. You are both right and wrong. That Marie-Line misses, indubitably, the stabilizing influence a mother should provide, I should not seek to question. That you should set yourself up to arbitrate in family matters of which you know nothing is, to say the least, open to criticism. Your motives’ were generous. I believe I do you no injustice in saying that you were over-hasty, and imprudent.
‘Since you have penetrated, unwittingly, into an old grief never properly healed, I may say this. My sister conducted herself lamentably: my brother-in-law’s behaviour compelled the respect in which I hold him.
‘Marie-Line,’ seeing that she made no reply, ‘resembles her mother in much. Her father’s anxiety concerning her should be the more understandable. That anxiety expresses itself in what I will allow to be an aggressive defensiveness. I would not, placed as I am, permit myself to criticize his attitude, originating in a painful emotional wound. I can however express my apologies, while seeking your understanding, for an over-hasty riposte to your abrupt challenge to his authority. I regret that assault, since such it was: an impugnment of your character. I wish you to realize that it arose from your over-readiness to take Marie-Line’s – divagations – too literally.’
‘Well, you hit me fairly there,’ she said. ‘I must apologize in turn, and will. I’ll ask in turn, too, for you to understand that I never would encourage her to be hostile to her family. I wanted her to go back home; I still do.’
‘I should hope so, indeed.’
‘Please don’t misunderstand me,’ cross with herself at appearing to grovel. ‘The first thing I did was to go and see Monsieur Siegel, to try and help Marie-Line to heal any rift that had come about and get her to see where she was at fault. I got a very – mistrustful – reception.’
‘I accept that.’
‘I got rather heated, and I was wrong, and I’m sorry for that. I do think – I feel bound to say – that surely he should – her father should realize that his anxiety, which is natural, exasperates her behaviour. Forgive me, I don’t want to make a personal remark, Doctor Ulrich, but are the women in the family, even your own sister – is it fair to say that the women weren’t very important, and treated as inferiors?’
His face did not alter.
‘I will reply to you, as far as I reply at all, that my father belonged to an older generation and women in professions were then a relative rarity. Further I will not go. My sister did not have the type of capacity that lends itself readily to a professional formation. I am myself sufficiently old-fashioned not to accept the upbringing my father gave us as a fit subject of conversation with strangers.’
‘Sorry again,’ feeling the weight of the snub, ‘it’s relevant as concerns this girl. Bluntly, she doesn’t feel she gets treated on her merits. I sympathize with her father’s problems: shouldn’t we think of hers too? She’s quite old enough to be lashing out: it’s not just an adolescent tantrum.’
Freddy said nothing for a long moment. Behind the eyes, a highly disciplined mind swirled and came to a stop.
‘Tell me,’ he asked mildly, ‘have you been much in her company?’
‘I’ve noticed that she drinks rather too much. She doesn’t look as healthy as she might.’
‘Yes … It used to be thought that the use of one type of artificial stimulant tended to inhibit an attraction – we will not speak of addiction – towards others. The clinical picture is not altogether clear, and I would question the causality, but experience seems to show that the young adapt with disconcerting facility to one stimulant from another.’
‘She’s been taking drugs?’
‘We’re in a realm of conjecture. The opium derivatives, at least, are not accumulative. Even clinical tests might find it hard to show whether, and to what extent … She has refused to submit to any medical examination.’
‘But is there any evidence?’
‘Of taking stimulants, or possessing such – no. To wonder what a girl of this age gets up to is to frighten oneself with false fire. The fact is that both from her father and myself she has stolen prescription forms. You’re aware that they come like cheque books, with counterfoils and carbons? These have been abstracted, falsified. Oh, in no great number. There is of course a traffic in such forged papers. We have taken precautions. We have said nothing. The circumstances did not warrant a complaint to the authorities. There is no evidence that she stole them for use or for profit. I should be obliged if you treat what I tell you in the greatest confidence. Can I count upon you?’
‘You can.’ I’ve got you there, thought Arlette; to conceal the theft of prescription forms is an offence. ‘You think it more likely that she was doing a favour for a friend?’
‘I think nothing at all. I should like to correct a view you may have formed, of her father’s character, conceivably my own. I do not approve of forcing young persons into a clinic for the purpose of tests, against their will. I think it likely that as much harm as good might result. I believe that in her hostility towards her father, anything construable as a repressive action might be grave. But she’s a worry, Madame, I don’t attempt to hide it from you.’
‘She didn’t object to a suggestion that Doctor Rauschenberg take a look at her. Understandably, he disliked the idea without parental authorization.’
‘Joachim Rauschenberg is an old friend and I see nothing amiss with that. It is not quite what I was turning over in my mind. I believe that nothing is to be gained by behaving as though you had not the interests of this girl – my niece – at heart. You have, I think, to some extent her confidence?’
‘I showed her some commonplace kindness, gave her a sympathetic hearing but beyond that …’
‘Your reticence does you credit,’ with the first sketch of a smile. ‘I am not proposing that you weasel confidences from her. Or spy upon her. I would suggest that you try to familiarize yourself with her friends, her haunts. On a confidential basis. Briefly, Madame, I seek to trust you. And trust me in your turn. I do not seek anything prejudicial to my sister’s child, the more so that I have for many years lost sight of my sister.’
‘That is fair.’
Freddy had not moved from behind his desk, exactly as though he were in his consulting room. He felt in his pocket, and unlocked a desk drawer.
‘This should be putupon a professional basis. The best for all concerned. You should have some tangible evidence of this delicate trust. An authority, we may put it. Furthermore your time to consider, your expenses…’ He opened a cheque book, wrote quickly, blotted it, tore it out: a cheque for a thousand francs. ‘A basis for trust, Mrs Davidson.’ One can’t curtsy while sitting down.
‘I’m afraid your patients will be waiting for you, Doctor Ulrich; I’d better set you free. You’ve set me free – and I’m grateful.’
‘I have a good eye, clinically speaking,’ said Freddy. ‘If I may say so you have a healthy eye. I congratulate you upon it. Keep it.’ He escorted her with formal courtesy. ‘This, you must forgive my insistence, remains between us. I think it best if you make no approach to my brother-in-law.’
‘I agree,’ said Arlette with a small grin. ‘Can I send her home, with no reproaches made? I’d like to see her back in a pattern as near possible normal.’
‘That is sensible. You may rely on that.’