The Clowns of God by Morris West

Author:Morris West [West, Morris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Historical, Religious
ISBN: 9781902881843
Google: bROUPwAACAAJ
Amazon: 1902881842
Publisher: Toby Press
Published: 1981-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

“It’s a gentle thought.”

“You know Monsieur Duhamel perhaps? He’s a very important man, the President’s right hand, they say.”

“By repute,” said Jean Marie carefully.

The child slipped from his knee and began tugging his hand to make him walk with her. He asked: “May I take her down to the pond to see the fish?”

“Of course. I’ll come with you.”

As he moved away his breviary fell from his pocket on to the bench. The woman picked it up, glanced at the title-page, then laid aside her embroidery and followed him, book in hand.

“You left your breviary, father.”

“Oh! Thank you.”

He shoved it back in his pocket. The woman took the child’s other hand and fell into step with Jean Marie. She said:

“I have the strange feeling I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

“I’m sure we haven’t met. I’ve been away from France a long time.”

“A missionary, perhaps?”

“In a way, yes.”

“Where did you serve?”

“Oh, several countries, but mostly in Rome. I’m retired now. I came home for a vacation.”

“I thought priests never retired.”

“Let’s say I’m on retreat for a while. Come on, little one!

Let’s go see the goldfish.”

He swung the child up on his shoulder and began singing a song from his own childhood as he marched her down to the pond. The woman dropped back and stood watching them from a distance. He seemed a most pleasant man, obviously a lover of children but when a priest, still vigorous, was retired so early, there had to be a reason.

Punctually at eight, Pierre Duhamel was knocking on the door of the suite. He must be gone by eight forty-five, since he never failed to have dinner at home with his wife.

Meantime he would drink a Campari and soda with Jean Marie, whom he seemed to regard with bleak amusement as a highly memorable survivor, rather like the hairy mammoth.

“My God! They really pegged you out and ran the steamroller over you! Frankly, I’m astonished to see you looking so healthy. What have you done now that makes them lean so hard on you? Of course, that big splash in the press didn’t make you any more popular with the French hierarchy. The Friends of Silence are very strong here. Then I heard that your friend, Mendelius, had been the victim of a terrorist bomb attack.”

“A bomb attack, yes. A terrorist action, no. The thing was planned and executed by an agent of the C.I.A.” Alvin Dolman.”

“Why the C.I.A.?”

“Why not? Dolman was their agent-in-place. I think it was a neat piece of work by the Americans for the Bundesrepublik. It was designed to rid them of an influential academic who was bound to cause trouble once the call-up for military service was implemented.”

“Any proof?”

“Enough for me. Not enough to raise a public outcry.”

“Very soon,” Pierre Duhamel stirred the drink with his finger, “very soon you’ll be able to boil your mother in oil on the Pont Royal and nobody will blink an eye. What is being done to you is only a pale shadow of what is being planned for the repression of persons and the suppression of debate.

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