Mrs Mackenzie nodded in agreement. That sounds like him. He lived an odd life. Very little amusement or pleasure in it. A sort of flat existence, really. He had few friends, few interests. Thats why he didnt mind travelling and being posted from one country to the next year after year. He never had much to leave behind him.
So, Flavia resumed, this picture. He said, apparently, that it belonged to his father. We can find no trace of this. Who was his your father?
She smiled. Thats two separate questions. My father was Doctor John Muller, who died eight years ago. Arthur was adopted. His father was a Frenchman called Jules Hartung.
Flavia noted this down. When did he die?
In 1945. He hanged himself. Shortly before he was due to go on trial as a war criminal.
She looked up and paused for thought. Really? I see. Perhaps youd better tell me in greater detail. A potted history, so to speak. I dont know that itll be relevant
It may well be, the Canadian woman interrupted, if this picture was a factor in Arthurs death. Hed been trying to find out about his father for the last couple of years. Ever since my mother died.
Why since then?
Because that was when he got his parents letters. Shed never passed them on. She and Dad didnt want to rake up the past. They felt that Arthur had enough to deal with
Flavia held up her hand. From the beginning...? she suggested.
Very well. Arthur came to Canada in 1944, after a long voyage via Argentina. Hed been evacuated from France when his parents felt it was too dangerous for him to stay. How they got him out Im not sure. He was only four when he arrived, and didnt remember much. All he could recall was being told by his mother to be good, and everything would be all right. And being cold, hidden in the backs of lorries and carts as he crossed the Pyrenees into Spain, then a long boat ride to Buenos Aires, then moving from person to person until he was shipped off to Canada and my parents. He was frightened all the time. My parents agreed to take him in. Family and business connections. I think the idea was to look after him until peace came, then hed go home. But peace did come, and both his parents were dead.
What happened to his mother?
She held up her hand to stop her. Ill come to that. She paused to gather her thoughts, then restarted. He had no family of any real sort who wanted him, and so my parents adopted him legally. Gave him their name, and tried to erase everything that had happened. Pretend it never had happened.
Psychologists now say its the worst thing you can do. That was not what they thought then. My parents were good people; they consulted everybody about what to do for the best. But children should know who they are and where they come from. They can deal better with unpleasant truths they know than with phantasms. In Arthurs case he constructed an entire fantasy world to fill out the gaps in his knowledge. His father was a great man. A hero, killed in battle defending France. He had maps showing where his father had fought, where hed fallen surrounded by mourning comrades. Where hed died in the arms of his devoted and loving wife. He discovered the truth when he was ten. An impressionable age. Perhaps the worst possible moment.
And that truth was...?
That truth was that his father was a traitor, a Nazi sympathizer and a murderer, who had spied on and betrayed members of the Resistance to the occupation forces in 1943. His wife, Arthurs own mother, was one of the people whom he betrayed. She was arrested and apparently executed without his doing a thing to save her. When he was exposed he fled the country, then came back after the Liberation. But he was recognized and arrested, and hanged himself as the case against him was being prepared. He didnt even have the courage to face his trial.
How Arthur discovered this I dont know. And I cant even begin to guess how some of his fellow pupils at the local school found out. But they did, as kids do, and tormented him. Children are often cruel, and this was 1950, when the memory of the war was still strong. Arthurs life was sheer hell and there was not much we could do. It was uncertain whom he hated more: his father for what he did, his fellow pupils for persecuting him, or us for concealing it. But from about then all he wanted to do was leave. Get out of the small town where we lived, get out of Canada, and go away.
He managed it when he was eighteen. He went to university, then got a job in America. He never lived in Canada again, and never really had much contact with any of us afterwards, except for the occasional letter and phone call. As he grew older I think he accepted more that my parents had done their best; but family life, of any sort, he could never take. He never married; never even had any serious relationship with anyone, as far as I know. He wasnt strong enough or confident enough. Instead he got on with living and making a success of himself. In work at least, he succeeded.
And then your mother died?
She nodded. Thats right. Two years ago, and we had to clear out her house. A sad job; all those years of papers and documents and photographs, all to be got rid of. And there was the will, of course. There wasnt much; my parents had never been rich, but they still treated Arthur as though he was their son, as they always had, even though hed gone his own way. I think he was grateful for that; he appreciated the effort, even though he couldnt respond. He came back for the funeral, then stayed to help me clear out the house. Wed always got on well. I think that I was as close to him as anyone ever was.
So what happened? Flavia was uncertain whether this detail was necessary; but by now she was caught up in the story. She had no idea what it must have been like to have been Arthur Muller. But she felt for the pain and the sheer loneliness he must have experienced. He was one of the hidden casualties of the war; never appearing on any balance sheet, but still suffering the consequences half a century after the last shot was fired.
We found some letters, as I say, she said simply. One from his mother, and one from his father. Hed never been allowed to see them. He thought that was the greatest betrayal. I tried to say that they thought it best, but he wouldnt accept it. Maybe he was right; they had kept them, after all, rather than throwing them away. Anyway, he left the same afternoon. From then on, the few times I phoned him all he would talk about was his hunt to find out about his father.
We found some letters, as I say, she said simply. One from his mother, and one from his father. Hed never been allowed to see them. He thought that was the greatest betrayal. I tried to say that they thought it best, but he wouldnt accept it. Maybe he was right; they had kept them, after all, rather than throwing them away. Anyway, he left the same afternoon. From then on, the few times I phoned him all he would talk about was his hunt to find out about his father.
And the letters?
His mothers letter hed brought with him; apparently when he arrived at our house for the first time, he was clutching it in his hand; hed refused to let it go right the way across Europe and across the Atlantic.
What did it say?
Not a great deal, really. It was a letter of introduction, in effect; written to the friends in Argentina he was sent to first. Thanking them for looking after her son, and saying she would send for him when the world became safer. It said he was a good child, if a little wilful, and took very much after his father, who was a strong, courageous and heroic man. She hoped that he would grow up to be as upright and as honest as he was.
She paused and smiled faintly. I imagine that was why he got the idea that Hartung was a hero. And why my parents hid it away eventually. It was too bitter, the way she was deluded as well.
Flavia nodded. And the second letter?
That was from his father. It was written in French as well. I can still remember sitting on the floor-boards in the attic, with him kneeling down, concentrating on the paper, getting more and more excited and angry as he read.
And?
It was written in late 1945, just before he hanged himself. I didnt find it enormously illuminating, as an outsider. But Arthur was predisposed to interpret anything in a positive light. He twisted the narrative until it meant what he wanted it to mean.
I found it a cold, horrible letter. Hartung just referred to Arthur as the boy. Said he didnt feel any responsibility for him, but would look after him when this little problem was resolved. This he was confident of doing, if he could get his hands on certain resources hed hidden away before hed left France. I suppose he thought he could buy his way out of trouble. It was a whining letter, describing the person whod identified him back in France as having betrayed him. Considering what hed done that was a bit much, I thought. And he said that, if nothing else, the last judgement would exonerate him. I must say, the optimism didnt carry conviction.
You remember it well.
Every word is engraved on my memory. It was an awful moment. I thought Arthur was going to flip entirely. Then it got worse, as he read and reread.
Why?
I said hed lived in a fantasy world as a kid. He still did, in a way, only when he grew up hed learned to subordinate it and keep it under control. Its not surprising, as I say. Hartung was Jewish. Can you imagine what it must be like to deal with the fact and Im afraid it is a fact that he betrayed friends to the Nazis, of all people? Arthur would do anything not to believe it, to construct an alternative truth. For years he coped by blocking it all out. Then these letters provided him with the opportunity to go back to fantasy.
The first thing he latched on to was the reference to judgement. Jews dont believe in that sort of thing, he said not that I knew that so why the reference? Hartung may have got religon in his last days, but not that sort of religion. Therefore the reference must mean something else. Then he switched to this hidden treasure Hartung thought would buy him out of trouble. He never got hold of it; it was hidden where no one would find it. Obviously, QED, the reference to treasure and the reference to judgement were linked. Madness, isnt it?
Maybe. I dont know.
Then Arthur left again, and all I got was the occasional progress report from around the world. All his spare moments he devoted to hunting down his father. He wrote to archives and ministries in France to ask for records. He contacted historians and people who might have known his father, to ask them. And he tried to crack the puzzle of his fathers treasure. He got more and more obsessed with that. He said he was building up an enormous file of