God Speed the Night (6 page)

“No, maman, for shame.”

“For shame,” she mimicked.

One of his men on duty there came to the car window and saluted.

“What’s going on in there?”

“
Vin ordinaire
, but a lot of it,
Monsieur le Préfet
.
Bonsoir
, madame.”

“You are not to drink with them,” Moissac warned his man.

“There are women?” Maman asked, for they were singing one of those wild Gascon songs where the high soprano takes off somewhat like a flute obbligato.

“Yes, madame.”

Moissac felt the creep of the flesh at the back of his neck.

“She is a wild one, monsieur,” the policeman said and rolled his eyes.

Moissac could feel the song in his very loins. “Keep them off the streets,” Moissac said, and started the car motor again.

Maman gave a little groan of disappointment.

He parked the Peugeot at the head of Rue de Michelet, and they descended the narrow street on foot. The clock in the
Hôtel de ville
struck nine. There was but one street lamp burning, and as well, Maman remarked, for it made her sad to see how badly the street had run down. The harnessmaker’s shop was boarded up, Monsieur Garreau having died of pneumonia that spring and his son disappeared, Moissac thought, to the
Maquis
. There was a light in the back of the baker’s shop. The baker was rolling his dough, his undershirt as grey as the walls of his shop.

“Let us stop, Théophile.”

“No, maman. He will think we expect something without coupons.”

“I do expect it. We are old friends. I remember the time you warned him of the complaints on his measure.”

“He will not remember it now,” Moissac said, and propelled her on.

Further down the street people sat in doorways, people Maman kept peering at, trying to remember, and the light as dim as her memory. “
Bonsoir, Monsieur le Préfet
, madame.” There was no warmth in their greetings, but no particular hostility either. They believed of him on Michelet what they wanted to believe, and for the most part he did not want to hear it. Even the baker whom he had saved from arrest had told it around that Théophile Moissac had stolen sweets as a child: it was his conscience, not his heart, weighing the measure of compassion. That it was true only fed his melancholy.

Somewhere in one of the flats that protruded over the shops a child was crying. It was a rheumic cry, interrupted at intervals by a cough.

Maman stopped and put her hand to his arm. “That’s the Lebel child.”

“Maman, the youngest Lebel must now be sixteen or seventeen.”

“I tell you I could recognize that crying anywhere. You wait and see, Théophile. It is Pierre and we’ll find his mother drinking
anis
in Gaucher’s.”

“She will not be drinking
anis
,” he said ridiculously as though nothing had changed except in that
anis
had become scarce. Then, he thought, how did Maman know we are going to Gaucher’s? He had not told her, and it would have been many years since she had last stepped across the threshold of the bistro.

Maman stepped across it, however, as though not a page had turned in history nor she herself lost an inch of stature, and there, by the living God, at the end of the bar sat Madame Lebel, changed, but queerly, Moissac thought. She was not as old as he had remembered her.

Gaucher called out from behind the bar, “
Monsieur le Préfet
, we are honored!” It sounded more like a warning than a welcome.

Maman marched straight up to Madame Lebel. “You should be ashamed, madame. Little Pierre has the croup and he’s crying again.”

Madame Lebel looked at her, and Moissac at Madame Lebel more closely. She was a very young woman, ravished-looking, but young nonetheless. She said, “Madame, if you mean my brother Pierre, he is a thousand miles from here and if he is crying, it is of a
Boche
bullet, not the croup.”

Maman drew back, her fingers plucking at her lip. Finally she said, “You are Marie Lebel’s daughter?” I am.

“But there is a child crying,” Maman said, indicating with a vague wave of her hand the direction from which presumably she had heard it.

“Most children do,” the young woman said. “He will waken his father soon enough.”

Maman looked around for her son. “Théophile, take me home. I have aged twenty years in five minutes.”

“Sit down, maman.” He pulled a chair out from the nearest table, then turned to Gaucher. “Do you have Armagnac, monsieur?”

“For
Monsieur le Préfet
we have Armagnac.”

Men whose names Moissac had forgotten were playing cards at the side of the room. They did not look up. Maman sat staring at the doorway, badly shaken. She was old enough to die, Moissac thought. Then what would he do? Advertise? For a wife or for a mother? He looked around at the woman still sitting at the end of the bar.

“Madame, what are you drinking, may I ask?” She looked at her empty glass. “Air,” she said, “and anything you can put in it.”

Gaucher, a dark man with a straggling mustache, communicated with Moissac by no more than an exchange of glances, the patois of any bar in the world. When he had uncorked the Armagnac, he poured the first of it into the glass of Madame Lebel’s daughter and then brought the bottle and two glasses to Moissac’s table.

Maman said peevishly, “You promised me a
glace
.”

Gaucher said, “I am sorry, madame, but there is no more
glace
in St. Hilaire. The milk is only for the children and the very old.”

Maman gave a cackle of laughter. “I am not old enough, monsieur?”

Gaucher, with a
savoir faire
Moissac would have sold his soul to possess, brushed the back of his hand against Madame Moissac’s cheek, winked at her, and said, “Madame will never be that old.”

Moissac said, “Bring a glass for yourself, Gaucher.”

“No,
Monsieur le Préfet
, but I shall have a beer.” Maman sipped the Armagnac and made a wry face that changed suddenly to pleasure. Moissac turned in his chair. She had caught sight of an old friend. Standing in the doorway and spreading his arms to her as though they had not that morning bargained over a piece of a pig was René Labrière. He was only a few years older than Moissac but his hair was as white as fleece.

A small, wiry man, he pranced across the room to Maman and kissed her on both cheeks. “You have come home, Maman Moissac. It is a celebration.”

“I have come home,” she said, and then with a toss of her head: “But you are right—it is not to die! To die one lives among the rich and looks forward to an elegant funeral.”

The old hypocrite, Moissac thought. Was it a game between them, this camaraderie? Maman’s eyes were like live coals. The whole room had come to life, the card players abandoning their game and moving to the bar. Madame Lebel’s daughter was fiddling with the radio.

To Moissac, René gave a curt but not unpleasant “Bonsoir, Théo.”

Maman twisted around in her chair and demanded, “Gaucher, bring another glass.”

“No, no, no,” Rene protested without conviction. He greeted the other men while he pulled up a chair near Maman. His eyes caressed the bottle of Armagnac. “I had forgotten what she looked like.” With a sigh and a wink at Moissac: “She is like a beautiful woman. The only difference is you know what she can do for you before you touch her, eh, Théo?”

Moissac did not want to hate him, he had never wanted to hate him.

Three more men drifted in. Gaucher drew beer for them. They had come off work from the power plant at the head of the dam. Madame Lebel’s daughter settled for a program of flamenco music.

René said to one of the newcomers, “What happened up there tonight, Duroc? My whole studio became a darkroom.”

Duroc shrugged. “They took another life today. The lights have a way of going out when that happens.”

“I knew her,” René said, looking mournfully into his glass. “Once in a temper she cracked the skull of her own son. That did not make her a patriot.” He sipped the brandy.

“The mayor himself came to the plant. He must think we are all Maquis.” Duroc did not so much as glance at Moissac. “He was anxious to spread the word: the
Boche
who killed her is to be court martialed.”

His companions made noises of derision.

Moissac felt uncomfortable in it, but to improve his own position in this company he said, “I was there, messieurs. The mayor exaggerates. The man is to be tried by court martial, which is a little different. Still, it is something that they even want to pacify us.”

“They want the harvest,” René said.

“And one way or another, my friend, they will have it.”

The others murmured, “
Les bâtards
,” but they agreed with Moissac.

Maman said, “The harvesters have come again. Remember how it used to be when they came? Like a carnival, and we would take them in, up and down the street, for a few
sous
a night. Now they are quarantined at Madame Fontaine’s.”

The old mischief maker. “They are not quarantined, maman. I suspect they are drunk.” To no one in particular he said, “She wanted me to bring them home with me.”

He should not have baited her. She gave an arrogant little shrug of her shoulders. “It is a pity, but you have made us far too respectable for that.”

Everyone laughed and Rene touched his glass to Maman’s. She threw down the Armagnac in one swallow like medicine. While Moissac grew more and more morose, Maman grew garrulous and sentimental. She ridiculed her neighbors on the hill who would not scratch themselves in daylight. What, she wanted to know, had happened to Madame Lebel? Surely she would have known if she had died.

Madame Lebel was living on the farm now with her oldest son. Madame’s daughter was married to Divenet, the plumber.

“That old man?” Maman blurted out, and then realizing the gaucheness of it herself, amended, “Ah well, they will not send
him
to a labor camp, eh?”

Moissac wished to God he had left her home.

The door opened and a young man entered, a stranger to all of them. He moved toward the bar like a man about to question Gaucher’s license. He was tall, and while the grey-blue eyes rested on no one, Moissac had the feeling he had measured everyone in the room the moment he stepped into the bistro. Gestapo? It was Moissac’s first thought, and he did not like being discovered by them in
Au Bon Coin
, pacification program or not. The whole atmosphere now reinforced his suspicion that Gaucher’s was a meeting place for the Resistance. The man nodded to Maman, passing, and murmured, “
Bonsoir
, madame.”

Maman twisted around in her chair and stared at the man’s back, her mouth open, her tongue playing over the cracked lips as it sometimes did when she was about to speak but not quite sure of the words.

May she never find them, Moissac thought. “Come, maman,” he said and got to his feet. “It is past our bedtime. Come.”

She looked at him in sudden fury.

“We are going now!” he commanded, and she submitted.

“You will come and visit me in my studio,” René said soothingly and held her chair. “I will take your picture.”

Moissac called out, “I will take care of this, Gaucher.”

“It is my pleasure,
Monsieur le Préfet
.”

Rene went as far as the door with them. The stranger did not look round, his back as stiff as armor.

Marc was badly shaken when he realized that he had walked into the prefect of police. It had been ordeal enough for him to confront again so many faces turned his way, and with the chance always that among them was the recognizing stranger.

“Yes, monsieur?” the barman said.

“Is it possible to have coffee, monsieur?”

“What passes for coffee in this country is possible, yes.”

He could scarcely have gotten a more hostile answer. Then the little man who had gone to the door with the policeman and his mother came up and said, “The real question, monsieur, is: can you drink what passes for coffee in this country?”

Marc tried to smile, but he felt the effort. The white-haired man said, “Come, monsieur, have an Armagnac on the prefect of police.”

The barman said, “When Moissac pays, then you can drink, René.”

But Marc went to the table and sat down. “I will pay, monsieur.”

René poured for Marc and himself, using the glasses that were already on the table. He watched Marc’s hand as he reached for the glass. Marc willed himself to hold it steady. The little man’s eyes followed the glass to his lips, and his expression saddened. He lifted his own glass. “Your health, monsieur,” he said, but with a great weariness in his voice.

The barman brought a white mug with a brew as black as tar in it.

Marc thanked him and said, “I am looking for Monsieur Lapin.”

Marc had the feeling that there was no one in the room who did not already know that, but the barman said, “I never heard of such a person.” He went to the windows and closed the blinds. He fixed the night lock on the door. “It is closing time, messieurs, madame.” He shook the crumbs from a couple of tablecloths while he waited, and put the cloths back on the tables.

Marc sipped the bitter brew. It had the taste of almonds in it.

“Why didn’t you ask the prefect of police about this Monsieur Lapin?” René asked.

“I did not think he would know him,” Marc said.

The men filed out one by one, some murmuring, “
Bonsoir,
Gaucher.” Gaucher returned to the bar. The woman there did not move. Gaucher said, “Go home to your husband, madame. Not every woman in St. Hilaire has one to go home to.”

“Go to hell, Gaucher,” she said, and getting off the stool she pulled her skirts from between her buttocks.

Gaucher came round and got the bottle of Armagnac. He went to the door after the woman and when she was gone rechecked the lock and threw the inside bolt. He turned off the lights, leaving only one small lamp burning behind the bar. He waited. Marc went to the bar and paid him. The barman said, “Have you eaten, René?”

“Not enough.”

“Who has? Come in when you are through.” Gaucher disappeared into the kitchen, the door swinging closed behind him.