LACKING VIRTUES (5 page)

He got out of his Citroën and stretched. A single dim bulb burned above the farmhouse door, illuminating a patch of faded stucco wall with chinks blown away by gunfire half a century old. Prussia, the Third Reich, East Germany, the Federal Republic. It didn’t matter what you called the place, thought Delors, it never changed.

He took his travel bag from the trunk. When he glanced up, Claussen was standing on the porch in his bathrobe, smoking a cigarette.

Delors raised his hand in greeting, and Claussen responded with an almost imperceptible nod. “Good morning, Paul. You’d best come in before my fellows have their revenge on the French.” He laughed, softly and without malice.

Delors had been vaguely aware of a living presence in the darkness beyond his car, but had not wanted to appear jumpy. Now he looked around. A gaggle of large, silent geese loomed behind him, closing ranks as if they were about to attack. He quickly climbed the steps and went inside.

Claussen had prepared for his visit. In the kitchen, the table was laid out for breakfast. A coffee pot gurgled on the counter and water for the eggs boiled on a black hooded stove. Claussen put in the eggs and set out bread, butter, cheeses and wurst. He took a bottle of clear schnapps from the refrigerator.

“Please have a seat, Paul. I know you’re not accustomed to this level of modesty but I prefer to keep things simple.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Walter. I quite enjoy life in the country.” 

When everything was ready, Claussen sat. Delors watched him decapitate a soft boiled egg with a precise whack of his knife. He had steady hands that would have suited a surgeon, with long, delicate fingers. Though almost 60 years old, he looked to be in very good physical condition and was even more handsome than Delors remembered him being when they had last seen each other. Perhaps his face had a few more wrinkles now and his keen blue eyes a few more crow’s feet at the corners. But his light brown hair had not thinned or gone gray, his teeth were still good and his strong chin had not been eroded by the wattles common to men his age. Claussen still had what it took.

***

After breakfast Delors offered him a Gauloise cigarette, as he had done when they met for the first time more than a decade ago. Claussen again accepted the cigarette. The two men smoked in silence, drank a shot of schnapps and watched the sun come up.

Delors finally spoke. “Walter, there are serious matters you and I need to discuss.” 

Claussen got up, opened the window and threw his geese some table scraps. “Cannibalistic buggers. They go first for the rye spread with
Gänseschmalz
.” He stared out at the courtyard and the pines beyond. “We’ll discuss your serious matters after you have rested. Your room is at the top of the stairs on the left. I’ll be in the library.” 

***

When Delors awoke, birds were singing and sunlight filtered through the fir trees outside his window. He grabbed his watch from the night stand, fearing he had overslept. Ten thirty, it could have been worse. He dressed and wandered through the cool, sparsely furnished house in search of the library.

The only decor on the white walls was an occasional watercolor, a nature scene without people or animals. The pieces were unsigned, but Delors had little doubt who the artist was. They were born of the same lonely, understated elegance as the man he had come to visit.

He found Claussen writing at a roll top desk. When he tapped on the open door, Claussen stood, limber as a young man. “Hello, Paul. I must say, you look better. Up for a swim?”

“Always.”

They came to the Augraben River after a pleasant hike through pine groves and meadows swarming with butterflies. The two men undressed and left their clothes draped over a carved marble bench, a relic, Claussen said, of the Junker estate that had been here before the communists collectivized agriculture.

Delors, into his trunks first, dived into the gentle green current, feeling strong and rested. He was an excellent swimmer and worked out in the indoor pool across from the “Piscine,” the SDECE headquarters in Paris, several times a week.

He crossed to the other bank with a strong crawl, returning to meet Claussen in the center of the stream. “Which way?”

Claussen did not speak but swam with the current, his backstroke relaxed and effortless. Delors swam beside him, keeping the pace easily. They rounded a bend and the river flowed into a large lake with an island near the center.

“I usually swim to the island and back,” Claussen said. “If I tire, I rest on the island for a while. It’s about a kilometer and a half, round trip. Are you up to it?”

“Yes.”

Claussen rolled over and breaststroked. He said, “Bismarck came to this old estate in the fall of 1869 to plan his attack on France. The place inspires good ideas, Paul.”

“Let’s swim,” Delors said.

Claussen spit out a stream of water and picked up the pace. Delors stayed with him, but it wasn’t easy. When they reached the island, Claussen lifted himself effortlessly onto the sagging boat dock. Delors was tired and accepted the German’s hand.

Claussen stretched out on the dry wood, his lean, suntanned body even younger in appearance than his face.

Delors sat on the edge of the dock and waited for his breathing to slow down. He casually surveyed the island. It looked abandoned. He felt confident he could talk freely here without risk of being recorded or photographed. This would be as good a place as any. Though he basically trusted Claussen, he wasn’t a fool.

Chapter Five

Deaf as stones Michelet had assured him. Perhaps. But the words Paul Delors was going to speak tonight had the power to give stones ears.

He had waited through five courses of heavy Breton cooking to make his pitch, and now he would wait some more. He would wait until these two decrepit old servants at Michelet’s country manor cleaned up the kitchen; wait until he could no longer hear sounds of running water and ringing china; wait until he was certain that Henri and Isabelle had left the house for the night.

His hour struck a short time later. He and Michelet had moved to the library, where they sat sipping cognac and discussing recent political events beneath the gaze of somber family portraits.

It thundered. Delors glanced outside at the chiaroscuro of rain clouds skirting past the moon. In that moment he saw lights in the servants’ cottage across the way. Isabelle appeared in the window, a stooped silhouette tugging at the wind-blown shutters. Henri reached around her to help. The coast was clear; he could speak at last.

“Georges,” he said, abruptly changing the subject, “I took the liberty of bugging Gaullist headquarters. I was shocked by what our conservative allies are saying about you. If you’re not aware of it, you should be.”

Michelet, a large, heavy-set man in his fifties with black hair and bushy eyebrows, put his snifter down hard. “I hope this isn’t what you came here to discuss, Paul. Whether my so-called allies like me or not is irrelevant. My mandate comes from the people.”

“But they do like you, Georges. They love you. They adore you. They can’t believe their good fortune. They are convinced you made a fatal error in accepting the Ministry of Industry. The way they see it, they offered you a piece of tainted meat. They didn’t expect you to bite.”

Michelet took a thick Cuban cigar from the humidor and turned it over in his fingers. Delors expected him to launch into one of his venomous tirades, but he smiled instead.

“They still aren’t listening to the people, are they, Paul? They don’t understand how deep the hatred of foreign workers goes. They can’t believe anyone would sacrifice economically in order to stand up to the Americans. But they’re dead wrong, Paul. This is why I accepted the post. This is why I’m not worried about losing support.”

He stood and walked to the window. The moon had disappeared, rain battered the glass. He looked out for a while, lit his cigar and strolled over to the dormant stone hearth. He bore a striking resemblance to the man in the portrait above him – his father, if Delors wasn’t mistaken. They had the same prominent jowls, fierce eyes and imperious presence.

Michelet said, “We French want France back. Isn’t that what this is all about, Paul? We don’t want foreign workers taking our jobs and our women, and leaving their garbage in our streets. We  don’t want the goddamn Americans telling us what we can and can’t do. My message is sweeping the country because it expresses what the people already feel. If the economy continues to worsen while I’m at Industry, the movement will not suffer. The supporters of
Nouvelle France
realize there can be no heroism without sacrifice.”

“I don’t think you can assume that, Georges. When one is at the center of something this intense, it’s hard to know how loyal the marginal supporters are. But if the economy were to rebound under your leadership, you wouldn’t have to make assumptions. You could count on an exponential increase in popularity.”

“That’s not going to happen any time soon, Paul. There’s no point fantasizing about the impossible.”

“But, Georges, what if circumstances unknown to you caused a brisk recovery? What would happen to your political opposition? What would happen to those voices saying Michelet can agitate but can’t govern? It’s clear, isn’t it?
Nouvelle France
would cease being a single-issue movement on the fringe and become the largest political party of the right. As leader of that party, you would be a candidate for president of the republic, with a good chance of winning the next election.

“We have been blessed, Georges. Fate is smiling on us again at last. This is what I have come here to talk to you about. An instrument of destiny has been offered to us that will shock our economy out of its slump, a weapon that will change the course of French history by placing you at the helm.”

Michelet left his post beneath his oil-and-canvass likeness and returned to his chair. “Your snooping on my behalf, Paul, has obviously not taken you into the realm of economic statistics. The recession is worse than anyone realizes, you included. You paint a very appealing scenario, but it depends on imaginary events which have no chance of occurring. Your metaphorical weapon, I’m sorry to say, does not exist.”

Delors resisted the desire to preach the emotions stirring in his gut. One fanatic in a small smoky room – two if you counted the father – was enough. He needed to make his proposal in cool, rational terms and let Michelet come to his own conclusions about its inherent magic.

“Georges, will you grant me a half hour? Will you allow me to go back and document the origins of this potential windfall for our cause?”

Michelet remained silent. He looked irritable. Delors cursed himself for having waited to broach the subject until the servants left the house. Michelet was departing on an extended foreign trip in the morning. Claussen’s deadline was approaching. If he didn’t plant the seed tonight, the opportunity of a lifetime would be lost forever.

“Georges,” he went on, “the weapon you say does not exist is real. It comes from the same source that saved our Ariane missile program, the same source that solved our intractable problems with the Mirage Five’s ground-hugging radar. You must listen.”

“Don’t get excited, Paul. I’m having a bout of indigestion. After what you’ve done for the movement and your country, I’m not going to cut you off. Continue, please.”

Delors nodded, marveling at Michelet’s ability to turn on you and then relent, making you feel grateful though he had given you nothing. He was a born leader, the sort of man whose energy and single-mindedness transformed adversity into triumph. He was the only Frenchman alive today who could take charge of the country in the spirit of Charles de Gaulle. He alone could give France back her dignity, belief in herself and her vitality. With Michelet as president, the leadership of Europe would fall to France, the only Western country that still had the guts to fight American cultural and economic imperialism. This was the real Holy War, and it could not be waged without Michelet. There was a lot riding on tonight’s presentation.