Dark Summer in Bordeaux (6 page)

‘There’s no Johnnie,’ he said. ‘There’ll be no more Johnnie till the English come to liberate us. Or the Americans when they enter the war.’

‘You think they will?’

‘At the eleventh hour, as before. I’m drinking white wine instead.’

He poured Lannes a glass.

‘Graves,’ he said. ‘It reminds me of Gaston. You remember that English joke he was fond of repeating: only sextons drink Graves .

. . Byron. It doesn’t of course make sense in French, but what does, these days? You look tired, Jean.’

Lannes took the glass and sat down.

‘Not tired,’ he said, ‘not so much tired as empty.’

‘You too?’ Henri said. ‘Do you know, I scarcely ever go out at all now, except to take Toto for his constitutional.’ He leaned down to pat the little French bulldog which was sleeping at his feet. ‘And some days I ask Léon to do that. Seeing Germans in the streets, it’s too distressing, even though they’re polite and well behaved. Actually that makes it worse, it’s as if they despised us so deeply that they don’t even feel the need to act as conquerors. Which sadly they are. But at least you have Dominique home. That must make Marguerite happy.’

‘Yes,’ Lannes said, and thought of the tension that was developing between Dominique and Alain, Pétainist and Gaullist, and of how Marguerite hated to hear Alain express his opinions because they frightened her.

‘He speaks of becoming a priest – Dominique, I mean – after the war, he says.’

‘And that displeases you?’

‘It pleases Marguerite.’

‘But not you?’

‘It’s not what I would have chosen for him, but . . . ’ ‘But it’s his life?’ Henri said. ‘I’ve often been glad Pilar and I had no children, though, do you know, I’ve come to think of Léon as a substitute son?’

Lannes wondered if Henri knew of Schussman’s attentions, and whether he should speak of them and of the spook who called himself Félix. Instead he said: ‘Did you know Aristide Labiche . . . ?’

‘You use the past tense. Does that mean?’

‘I’m afraid it does.’

‘So you’re here as a policeman, Jean?’

‘I’m always here as a friend, but . . . yes, that too. He’s been killed, murdered. I’m being urged to write it off as an unsolved crime, robbery with violence gone wrong. I’m reluctant to do so . . . ’ He remembered how when he brought Henri news of Gaston’s murder he had said murder shouldn’t go unavenged, and how he had failed there, and felt ashamed again.

‘Poor Aristide,’ Henri said. ‘Pilar thought highly of him. Their opinions were not exactly the same, for, as you know, she was an Anarchist while he was an orthodox Communist party member, but she trusted him. I thought he might be dead in Spain, like her, poor girl.’

‘According to his daughter, he was in one of Franco’s prisons for a year, but he had been back in Bordeaux for some weeks.’

‘I wish he had come to see me,’ Henri said. ‘It would have been a link.’

Had there, Lannes wondered, been political reasons why he hadn’t?

X

Alain was sitting at the table writing. His black cat, which Clothilde had nicknamed ‘No Neck’, lay beside him purring. When Lannes entered, Alain closed his notebook and looked up.

‘Don’t let me interrupt your work,’ Lannes said.

‘It’s nothing, Papa, just notes for an essay.’

‘Where are the others?’

‘Dominique’s at one of his meetings, the
Légion of the Youth of Aquitaine
, or some such nonsense. Clothilde went with him. I wish she wouldn’t. And Maman’s in church, praying I suppose.’

‘So it’s just you and me.’

‘Yes.’

Lannes had always been able to talk more easily with Alain than with Dominique, but now there was some constraint between them. Curiously it was because they took the same view of the Occupation and of Vichy, and this made Lannes afraid. Anything he said on the subject might encourage Alain to do something rash. No doubt the time might come when acts of resistance were not futile as well as dangerous, but, even if this was so, he knew that he would still hope that Alain did nothing. Love makes cowards of us, he thought. How much better if the boy was to content himself with his rugby, his books and his cat. It wasn’t the hour for d’Artagnan and heroics.

‘Do you still see Léon?’ he said.

‘Yes of course, he’s my best friend now. Why do you ask?’

Why couldn’t he reply? Because I suspect he’s in love with you, and that’s dangerous. Because people want to use him and I’m afraid for him and afraid too that somehow you may get caught up in the complications of his life, and this thought makes me ashamed too. Because you are both being robbed of your youth by the stupidity of politicians and the viciousness of the men of power.

He couldn’t say any of this.

‘I’m glad you’re friends,’ he said, ‘I’m sure he needs you and your support. Perhaps you need him too. But be careful. Don’t get involved in anything rash.’

‘You sound mysterious, Papa. But we’re not fools, you know. We both realise there’s nothing much to be done now. If you want my opinion, it’s Dominique we should be worried about. Vichy can’t last, I’m convinced of that, and when it’s over there will be a reckoning with those who took its side and engaged in collaboration. So I think you ought to speak to him. And if he’s involving Clothilde . . . ’

‘Yes,’ Lannes said, and would have continued but at that moment Marguerite returned.

‘I found eggs in the market,’ she said. ‘Alain, I want you to take three round to your grandmother. She likes an egg and I know she hasn’t had any for days.’

‘She’d prefer Dominique to do it,’ Alain said.

‘Yes, but he’s not here, he’s at his meeting. If you hurry you can do it and be back before the curfew. Besides, she was saying the other day that she never sees you now. So hurry along.’

‘All right, all right,’ he said, putting his notebook in his pocket and making a face at his father.

When he had gone, she said, ‘It’s good for him to do something for other people. I don’t understand him these days. He used to be so eager and lively and now he seems to spend all day moping. Do you think he’s jealous of Dominique? It’s as if he resents his return.’

‘Not jealous, no,’ Lannes said. ‘It’s just that they have different ideas.’

Actually Alain was pleased to have an excuse to be out of the house. He calculated that if he delivered the eggs quickly and cut short his grandmother’s usual litany of complaint by telling her he was only stopping off on his way to an urgent appointment, he would have time to call on Léon in the bookshop and hand over the notebook in which he had been writing what he intended to be the editorial for the first edition of their underground paper; he thought of the editorial as their manifesto. He hadn’t quite lied to his father; ‘nothing much to be done now’ wasn’t exactly the same as ‘nothing to be done’. The old woman tried to detain him, but he managed to get away.

Léon read what he had written while this time it was Alain who made coffee.

‘So?’ he said, ‘What do you think?’

‘It’s terrific . . . ’ ‘Terrific, but . . . I hear a “but” coming . . . ’ ‘Two “buts”, actually. Everything you say is true, that’s to say, I agree with it entirely. But, first, I think we should tone down your criticism of the Marshal.’

‘All I say is that he’s a vain old fool.’

‘And that he has betrayed France.’

‘So he has. You can’t deny it.’

‘I don’t. Only if we are to have an effect, then we have to remember that lots of people who loathe the Occupation and don’t like Vichy, nevertheless have a high regard for the Marshal and don’t think of him as a traitor. So it’ll get their backs up. There are some who think of him as our shield and of de Gaulle as the sword. So let’s say that, while the Marshal’s patriotism can’t be questioned, his policy is misguided and in Vichy he is subject to evil counsels. Something like that?’

Alain pushed the lock of hair away from his eye and lit a cigarette which he passed to Léon before lighting another for himself.

‘Pity,’ he said, ‘I enjoyed writing that, but maybe you’re right. You’ve a better political brain than I have, Léon. What’s your other “but”?’

‘What you say about the anti-Jewish laws . . . ’

‘I thought you’d approve of that.’

‘Of course I do. How couldn’t I? But, again, some of those we want to stir up don’t much like the Jews. It may even be the one bit of Vichy they approve of. So again, let me tone it down, just a bit.’

‘Well,’ Alain said, ‘you’re the Jew. So your word on the subject’s law. How soon can you get it typed and run off on your duplicator?’

‘Tomorrow, I hope. Then we’ve the problem of distribution . . . ’

‘For this first one, let’s just scatter it about,’ Alain said, ‘and see if we get a response.’

‘It’s good to be doing something. At last.’

‘Good and necessary. Now I must fly to beat the curfew. It’s exciting, isn’t it?’

‘Don’t forget it’s also dangerous. We must be careful . . . ’

They both got to their feet. Alain gave his friend a hug. Léon brushed his cheek with his lips.

‘I love you,’ he said aloud as the door closed behind him. ‘If only I had the courage to tell you.’

A couple of times Léon had spent the night on a couch in the backroom of the bookshop. Henri wouldn’t mind, even if he knew. He was tempted to do so this evening, to type and duplicate Alain’s article, but then he thought of how on the other occasions his mother had been alarmed when he hadn’t returned, afraid that something had happened to him – an accident, even an arrest; there were all sorts of things to frighten her now, especially since her nerves were weak and she never spoke as she used to of what they might do next month or next year. So he had better go home, and get there before the curfew too. He put Alain’s notebook where it wouldn’t be found, surely, on a shelf behind volumes of eighteenth-century sermons which nobody was ever likely to be interested in. As he locked the bookshop door, he heard singing. A lorry full of German soldiers lurched down the street. He pressed himself into the shadows and waited there till the singing died away. He was shivering, though it wasn’t a cold night for the time of the year. It would have been so easy for them to scoop him up; and then what? He lit a cigarette to calm himself, and found that his hands were shaking. It was absurd.

A figure stepped out of a doorway across the street and approached him. Léon’s fear sharpened but the man only asked him for a light.

‘I’m late,’ he said. ‘But glad to have caught you.’

‘What do you mean? Who are you?’

‘I think we go back into the shop. Unlock the door, will you?’

Léon hesitated. The man gripped his arm hard, just above the elbow, pressing on a nerve.

‘Just do as I say. That’s better. Switch on a light, only one. Let’s make it look as if you are working late.’

‘I have to get home,’ Léon said, ‘the curfew . . . ’ The man slapped his cheek hard, open-palmed.

‘Sit down,’ he said.

Léon obeyed and the man took the seat occupied so recently by Alain. Léon’s cheek smarted and he felt tears filling his eyes.

‘Who are you?’ he said again.

‘You don’t need to know who I am. You can call me Félix, which isn’t naturally my name. I don’t like your sort, Léon. You’re a Jewboy and a pervert who goes with older men, a little tart, aren’t you, and I daresay you think of yourself as an intellectual – all this, these books – and I don’t like intellectuals either. I’d quite enjoy beating you up which is what you’re afraid of, so afraid that you’re near pissing your pants, aren’t you? But you’re lucky. I need you and I need you for all the reasons that make me despise you. What do you say to that? Lost your tongue, have you?’

He leaned across the table, took hold of Léon’s hair and tugged his head down so that his nose was being pushed against the wood.

‘If I’d followed my instincts I’d have slammed your face down hard, but we don’t want to spoil your pretty pussy-boy looks, do we now? They’re your only asset, remember that. And remember this too: I could have you sent to an internment camp, Jewboy, as easily as I could bang your face down hard. Do you follow me? Answer.’

Léon said, ‘I follow.’

The man who called himself Félix relaxed his grip on Léon’s hair and Léon .lifted his head.