Dark Summer in Bordeaux (16 page)

At least the young man didn’t click his heels as he stood up to shake hands. That was Lannes’ first thought. He seemed nice. This made it worse. When he saw how Clothilde looked at him, and, so often a chatter-box, was lost for words, apprehension gripped him. However things turned out she was going to be hurt. As for himself, all he could manage was to ask polite conventional questions about the lieutenant’s home and family, all of which he answered in a manner which suggested a proper depth of affection and respect. If the young man had been a visitor from abroad before the war, Lannes would have asked him how he found Bordeaux and would have talked about the city himself. He couldn’t bring himself to do so; he couldn’t forget what had brought him here. Fortunately Dominique took charge of the conversation. He spoke about literature and films with a naturalness which impressed Lannes. Manu responded. They found a common enthusiasm for Thomas Mann and for Joseph Roth’s novel, ‘The Radetzky March.’

‘Of course Roth’s books are banned in Germany now,’ Manu said, ‘but that doesn’t prevent this one from being one of the great German novels of the century, and my father, who is a professor of literature in a Hochschule, says these things will pass, but Art remains. I would like to believe it is so.’

He smiled.

‘I am happy to be able to say such things to you. There are places where I would not have the courage to speak like this.’

‘These are bad times,’ Dominique said, ‘but your father is right, they will pass. That’s what my faith tells me. Men – and women, Clothilde – of goodwill must come together in peace and fellowship. I am sure of that. These quarrels between our two countries can’t continue. We must learn to work together so that we may live in peace. Think of it: Louis Quatorze, Napoleon, Bismarck, the Kaiser, 1870, 1914 and where we are now. It’s too much.’

‘Yes,’ Manu said, ‘we are the two great nations of Europe and we must stand together against atheistic Bolshevism and the power of international capitalism and the forces of the money power.’

Lannes said, ‘I’ll make coffee.’

In the kitchen he gave himself a glass of marc and drank it quickly. Clothilde joined him there.

‘He is nice, Papa, isn’t he? You do like him? You could come to like him, couldn’t you? You see how well he and Dominqiue get on, how they think the same way.’

‘Yes,’ Lannes said, ‘I see that, and, yes, he seems a nice boy. But don’t throw your heart at him, darling. If there was no war it might be different, but the war . . . well, we don’t know how it is going to end.’

He thought of the young tart Yvette and her Wolfie, the warning he had given her, and how she lay back on her bed displaying her legs to him.

After lunch Dominique suggested they go for a walk. Lannes was pleased to see them off. Marguerite said, ‘Well, he is a nice boy, well mannered and gentle. But you don’t need to worry, Jean, as I see you are ready to do. It’s not serious. It won’t last. It’s calf-love, nothing more.’

‘I hope you’re right.’

He wished he could be sure she was.

XXIV

Léon passed a miserable Sunday. He had slept badly, disturbed by dreams and waking early. He was reluctant to leave his bed, lying on his side, his knees drawn up against his chest, the sheet pulled over his head against the sunlight which seeped through curtains that did not meet in the middle. He heard his mother moving in the kitchen, and this deepened his shame. There had been a moment before Félix opened the door and said ‘Act One: Curtain’ that he had felt himself responding to Schussman’s eagerness. He told himself he had done only what was required of him – ‘Are you a patriot, Léon?’ – but it was shameful nevertheless. What more would Félix require of him? I am doubly punished, he thought, for being what I am. Might Schussmann have believed him when he said, ‘I had no choice.’ Said? Whimpered.

There was no one he could tell. Not Alain. Not Alain’s father. Jérôme – Aramis – would understand, but . . .

‘Aren’t you going to get up?’

He didn’t move, pretended to be asleep.

‘I’ve brought you coffee.’

He heard her place the bowl on the little table by the bed, and the door close behind her. There had been anxiety in her voice.

She knew something but not what it was.

He remembered how when he had first met Alain’s father in the Buffet de la Gare, months ago, after Gaston’s murder, when he had realised he had information to offer, he had been self-assured, cocky, even defiant, and now . . .

When at last he got up, drank the milky coffee on which a skin had formed, flapped cold water on his face, brushed his teeth without succeeding in ridding himself of the nasty taste in his mouth, dressed, and dragged a comb through his hair, his mother greeted him with an attempt at naturalness.

‘Lazybones.’

Then without looking at him, she said, ‘I wish you wouldn’t . . . ’ ‘Wouldn’t what?’

‘Take risks with the curfew. I was frightened listening for you. I won’t ask what you were up to because I would rather not know, but you might have some consideration . . . ’ ‘I’m sorry, Maman.’

‘Easy to say “sorry”. What am I going to do with you?’

What would she reply if he said, ‘What was I up to? Saving you from an internment camp’?

But of course he couldn’t.

‘You look peaky,’ she said.

‘I’m all right. Don’t fuss.’

‘You don’t make it easy for me,’ she said. ‘Eat something.’

‘I’m not hungry.’

He had to get out, but once in the streets had nowhere to go. The sun shone, but Bordeaux was a desert. He walked aimlessly for a long time. Once in the Cours du Marne, near a restaurant where he had eaten with Gaston, a middle-aged man wearing a white linen suit and a broad-brimmed straw hat looked at him searchingly, hopefully, till he turned away and resumed his walk. Outside the station a motherly woman beckoned to him. He hesitated. He had never gone with a woman; it might be a solution. But he had no money and in any case he shrank from it. He wanted what he couldn’t have, and didn’t want what was available. He looked across the road to the Hotel Artemis. The key was still in his pocket. Again the clerk did not trouble to raise his head as Léon passed him and entered the lift. The room hadn’t been cleaned. The glasses Félix had produced were still on the table and there was a little brandy in the bottle. Léon rinsed a glass from the water jug and poured himself a drink. He lay down on the bed holding the glass in both hands. It was ridiculous to think that the brandy tasted of corruption and betrayal, but it did. He stretched out and wondered if Schussmann was as miserable and afraid as he was. In a little he fell asleep.

The letter was waiting for him in the bookshop on Monday morning. There was no stamp; it had been delivered by hand and bore no address, only his name, Léon, underlined twice.

He made coffee before opening it.

My dear Léon – I think too well, too fondly – no, let me be honest – too lovingly of you to believe you betrayed me willingly.

So, when you say that you had no choice, I understand that though this was not literally true, for there is always a choice, only it may be so framed that in reality there is none, or none that is tolerable, I know’ – underlined twice – ‘that the alternative presented to you was even worse than what you felt compelled to do. And now that I know you are Jewish, which – believe me – is no matter to me – I can guess what that alternative was.

For my part I yielded to the tender feeling I have developed for you. I do not regret the feeling or apologise for it – we are what we are, you and I – and what we are does not make for happiness. I regret only that I yielded and that the consequences of my indiscreet behaviour should be unhappy for both of us.

As for me, I am faced with a choice of three courses of action, none of them agreeable. Fortunately only one of them is dishonourable. You will understand which that is.

This war destroys so much.

I have been foolish, not in falling in love with you, but in seeking to give expression to that love, to that form of love which the world and those I serve regard with disgust and contempt. To me of course it is neither of these things, as it should not be to you, my dear Léon.

We shall not meet again, but I truly hope you can find happiness and remember me with affection.

E. S.

The letter, intended to acquit him of blame and free him of guilt, caused Léon to dissolve in tears.

XXV

It was a beautiful morning. An old woman had set up a little flower-stall by the newspaper kiosk in the Place Gambetta.

‘A rose for your button-hole, superintendent,’ she called out when Lannes paused to admire the display. He recognised her, the widow of a burglar, the old professional sort who never carried a weapon or resorted to violence. Lannes had arrested him more than once. He had liked him, a man who made light of his interrogation, and recognised that Lannes had his metier as he had his. He had died in prison.

‘So people still buy flowers, Jeanne, even in these hard times?’

‘If there’s no food to put on the table, or little enough of it, a bowl of flowers cheers the room up. Here,’ she said, holding out a yellow rose, ‘for your button-hole. We’ve known each other long enough. Frédéric always spoke well of you, said you played fair with him. So compliments of the house.’

‘I’ll pay for it all the same,’ Lannes said, taking the rose and the pin she offered, and handing her a couple of coins.

‘Makes you look quite handsome,’ she said.

In truth he felt uncommonly cheerful, partly because of the sunshine, but also because yesterday had passed off without too much embarrassment, and because Alain had returned home well before the hour of the curfew and, without prompting, had apologised to Clothilde for upsetting her the previous evening. They had settled to play bridge, Lannes and Clothilde in partnership against the boys. There had been no quarrelling and Clothilde had brought off a little slam thanks to an audacious finesse, while Marguerite sat darning Alain’s socks and they played Charles Trenet records on the gramophone. It had been like an evening before the war and they had felt like a family at peace.

Even the rue Xantrailles in Mériadeck had an air of gaiety. Lines of washing were strung across the street and women, having completed their housework, had brought chairs out to the pavement so that they could sit and gossip with their neighbours. Even those whom he recognised as Jews looked at ease.

It’s the right thing, he thought, to take advantage of the day and find such happiness as may be.

He stopped off at the bar below the Pension Bernadotte for a glass of beer. The proprietor greeted him by name.

‘He was a gentleman, that professor,’ he said. ‘Of course he was here only for a few weeks and he wasn’t what I would call a regular. But he liked his glass and there was no side to him. An intellectual, which is something I respect, and politically sound. That’s my opinion and I don’t care who knows it. Hope you catch the swine that did for him. I suppose you’re going up to question old Mangeot again. Don’t believe a word he says, superintendent, until you’ve checked it, if you don’t mind a bit of advice from the likes of me. We get to be good judges of people in my line of business, just as you do in yours, and that one would sell his own grandmother for a shekel.’

Mangeot was at his desk, at work with a toothpick which he removed when Lannes offered him good morning.

‘Which I hope you haven’t come to spoil,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing more I can tell you, superintendent, except that I wish I had turned Doktor Braun away when he came asking for a room. If I’d known he was going to cause me so much trouble, I’d have sent him off with a flea in the ear. I don’t like it when my customers attract your lot’s attention. My nerves are bad enough as it is.’

‘Don’t disturb yourself, Mangeot. It’s Yvette I’ve come to see. Is she in?’

‘Well, she wouldn’t be up and out at this hour, the slut. I’ve a good mind to send her packing too. You know the way to her room. I think she’s alone, unless she slipped someone in last night when my back was turned. No doubt she’ll make you welcome.’

He closed his eyes and returned the toothpick to his mouth.