The Foundling's War (23 page)

She never invited anyone, not out of stinginess but out of politeness, feeling that people were always happier at home than with others and that invitations embarrassed their recipients, who did not know how to refuse them without giving offence. It was Théo’s job to maintain external relations. He brought back, on his own, all the excitement
and noise she needed. She would say to him, ‘Théo, when the war’s over, let me know at once, so that I can get the rooms ready and do a bit of cleaning. I’ll ask the Swiss boy to come back and run the reception again. Poor boy, in his snowy mountains he must be very cold and lonely.’

Théo shook his head and feigned despair.

‘There’s millions of men dying, a worldwide cataclysm, towns burning; we could die of hunger—’

‘Don’t exaggerate!’

‘Well, maybe not, thanks to me, because I take care of things, but what about the others? The poor, the unemployed, the pensioners, the invalids? … You don’t know, do you? They can all cop it, and all you think of is reopening your hotel.’

‘When they’re dead, we’ll have to make peace.’

‘You’ve got no heart.’

‘Yes, I have. Just not for everybody.’

Marie-Dévote reduced the world, the war, the future, the peace to simple problems. She represented vitality and harmony and the selfishness without which, in the midst of tumult and strife, nothing would survive. Jean, being Antoine’s grandson, belonged to this selfish family circle. With Claude it was possible to see Marie-Dévote being more circumspect – ‘Who is this stranger who’s not from around here?’ – but she acknowledged her qualities as an attentive mother, a good cook, serious, and inspiring Toinette’s admiration. Cyrille’s presence incited no such reservations. Cured of his cough, he was turning brown under the Midi sun, and his gaiety and laughter enlivened an atmosphere that might otherwise have been too staid.

In mid-July Claude received a postcard from her mother, asking her to return. Was it a summons, or merely a request? It was hard
to say, with the dryness of the printed card which left room for only single words in response to pre-prepared questions, expressing little. At the same time Jean had a telephone call from Saint-Raphaël.

‘Hello! It’s Marceline …’

For a moment the name meant nothing to him, nor the husky accent.

‘… I’d like to see you. I have a message from the baron for you.’

The baron? He remembered the title Palfy had adopted almost by accident and now used shamelessly. Madame Michette! He should have recognised her from her mysterious tone.

‘Can you hear me?’ she asked anxiously.

‘Yes, yes, I can hear you.’

‘We need to meet.’

‘Well, come to Saint-Tropez.’

‘It’s not easy.’

He remembered that she had not been averse to travelling on top of a truckful of Jerusalem artichokes. Théo, who was going to Grasse that afternoon, could pick her up on the way back. They agreed a meeting place. She would be outside the station, carrying a copy of
Paris-Soir
, in a grey suit.

‘A suit? In this heat?’

‘I’ve come straight from Paris.’

At four o’clock that afternoon they saw her walking up and down, her eyes hidden behind dark glasses, brandishing her newspaper.

Théo had been briefed by Jean.

‘So, Madame Michette, you’re one of those who hug the walls and dress in grey …’

Put out by this newcomer broadcasting her secret, she stared quickly around her. No one was watching.

‘Don’t talk so loudly, please! Enemy eyes are listening.’

‘Ah well, that’s all right then. Jump in!’

She sat between Jean and Théo and they headed for Sainte-Maxime. She stared hungrily out of the window.

‘It’s pretty here!’

‘Haven’t you been before?’ Théo said.

‘I always spend holidays with my family. And my family’s from the Auvergne.’

The new life Palfy had conjured out of the air for Madame Michette had not changed her. Jean reflected that if she went back to her former profession, she would still lead her girls to the Bastille Day celebrations or to confession with the same authority. She accepted her humble clandestine missions from a sense of duty. ‘I’m doing my bit,’ she said. Her arrival was impatiently awaited at the hotel, as if everyone wanted to be part of Palfy’s huge practical joke. Marie-Dévote offered her ‘herbal tea’ which she tasted cautiously, her little finger crooked, after dissolving a saccharine tablet in her cup.

‘It’s better for your mood than sugar,’ she said. ‘Sugar gives you
choler sterol
.’

Eventually she asked Jean to step onto the terrace, where she gave him a sealed letter.

Jean went inside to write his reply. Palfy was right; he had to go back. When he returned he found Madame Michette talking to Antoine.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘Monsieur sold his house to someone I know. Monsieur Longuet. It’s such a coincidence. Madame Longuet is an absolute saint.’

‘So our priest says.’

‘What a small world.’

Antoine agreed without protest. Madame Michette drank a large glass of grappa, which reddened her cheeks without distracting her for a moment from her mission.

‘I must go!’ she announced.

‘How?’

‘By train.’

‘You ought to rest,’ Marie-Dévote said, unsettled by this obsession with travelling.

‘Later! I’ll rest later.’

‘“Later” never comes. Life’s for living now.’

Madame Michette disagreed. Our lives did not belong to us. Superior forces allowed us a few years, provided that we returned them one day, in good condition and with the interest due. The tone of the discussion rose. Madame Michette believed in destiny. Marie-Dévote did not know what it was.

Théo drove her back to Saint-Raphaël where she caught the evening train. Jean felt sorry for her and found himself thinking: why did Palfy play his pranks? So that the august figure of Madame Michette, who
had lived behind closed shutters for so long, discovered a meaning to life? But Palfy was right: he had to get back to Paris. He’d had more than one reminder that his too-happy existence rested on fragile foundations. That night he found his grandfather in the Bugatti. They had run out of grappa, so they drank champagne.

‘Not marvellous!’ Antoine said at the first mouthful. ‘I’ve never quite managed to educate Marie-Dévote on the subject of champagne. She used to order hers from passing salesmen who’d palm her off with the vintages they couldn’t sell to anyone else. They’re back now, but they’re not selling any more; they want to buy up our reserve instead. I soon put a stop to that!’

‘I’m not as fussy as you. Anyway, being here’s what counts.’

They had left the door of the shed open, and through the windscreen they could make out the sea and its swell silvered by the moonlight.

‘Let’s give ourselves a treat,’ Antoine said. ‘I’ll turn the headlights on, and we’ll hope the gendarmes don’t jump out of the bushes and nab us.’

He started the engine and switched on the headlights, which lit up the bushes, the beach and the mother-of-pearl surface of the water. After a moment he switched the engine off again.

‘So you’re off?’

‘Yes. I think it’s the right thing to do.’

‘No change?’

‘No.’

‘It’s the first time I’ve ever met a woman I didn’t understand. Until now their intentions have seemed so obvious to me that I had a tendency to simplify them, to reduce them to their appearances. Is it really possible there are complicated ones too? I’ll have to revise all my theories! But I’m too old to backtrack now. I’d rather go fishing.’

They finished their two bottles of champagne and went their separate ways before daybreak. The decision was made. In any case, Jean’s money was running out. Every week he gave Marie-Dévote a small amount to cover their board and lodging. But the biggest
reason was that he could not go on. He had become obsessed by his desire. Whether Claude covered herself up or walked around their bedroom naked, she had everything he wanted – except openness. He could only look, and see the grace in her movements, her voice and her words. He had begun to slip into bad moods with her. She had accepted them resignedly. The person we love must sometimes suffer, for obscure reasons that are also the mark of a passion grown too intense. Wounded by her distance, Jean could not forgive himself for causing her pain.

One afternoon, when Toinette had taken Cyrille for a walk, he found himself alone with Claude as she undressed in their bedroom. As she took off her shirt, he felt a hunger so violent he thought he was going mad. Did she see the look in his eyes? She stood rooted to the spot with fear, naked to the waist, exposing her lovely breasts, almost untouched by motherhood, pale, soft, trembling fruits that made him want to throw himself to his knees each time she uncovered them.

He grabbed her by the shoulders, ready to hit her, stun her in order to satisfy his desire for a body that would at last be defenceless. She stiffened.

‘I’ll never forgive you.’

‘I’m sorry.’

He let go of her naked shoulders, which a moment before he had wanted to bite until they bled. His fingers had left white imprints on her tanned skin. Tears were rolling down her cheeks.

‘You’re the only one I love!’ she said.

‘I’m truly sorry.’

‘We’ll never part, and I’ll never forget these two months.’

‘I want to know.’

‘It’s impossible.’

‘Is it always going to be impossible?’

‘No.’

‘When, then? When?’

She threw herself into his arms, pushing her head into his chest,
and he smelt the fragrance of her hair and caressed her bare neck.

‘I promised Georges that I’d wait till he came back before I decided.’

‘Where did you promise that?’

‘I can’t tell you that.’

He could not persuade her to say any more. She had gone as far as she could. So Antoine’s conclusion had been correct. Jean would ask no more questions. Claude slid to her knees, still holding him. She pressed her cheek against his legs with such unselfconsciousness that he felt hope, for a moment, that one day they would throw aside their clothes and come together. He let himself slide down beside her onto the tiled floor, and they became like two children, kissing each other’s lips and face with as much wonderment as fear.

On the wall of Palfy’s office a map of Europe bristled with red and black flags.

‘You’ll get the idea straight away,’ he said.

He picked up a ruler and drew a line in the air between the black flags in the west and the red in the east.

‘The war has entered its final phase. Leaving the fools aside, who thankfully are legion, for the rest of us the outcome is clear. The Wehrmacht is on the brink of taking Odessa, Kiev and Smolensk, and is approaching Leningrad. Its advance is irresistible. The Baltic is already under Axis control. By the end of October we can look forward to a German Ukraine and Moscow encircled. There are three million Soviet prisoners that no one knows what to do with, dying of starvation and wretchedness. The USSR is losing its bread basket. Its lines of communication are cut, its high command in chaos, Stalin no longer trusts anyone. So what does he do? He purges, purges and purges again to forget his own blindness. You have no idea of the panic in the Kremlin. Neutral representatives are sending back reports that leave no room for doubt. They have understood Hitler’s plan: to establish a line from Arkhangelsk to Astrakhan beyond which, from his armchair, he will use his air force to annihilate the Siberian industrial complexes, leaving Chiang Kai-shek a free hand in Mongolia and eastern Siberia. It’s as clear as day, as elementary as two and two make four.’

‘What about England?’

‘She’ll win the last battle, as she always does. It’s the one thing we can really be certain about.’

Palfy’s assurance beguiled and deceived. Jean felt baffled.

‘So who will win?’

‘Stalin, of course.’

‘You seem to be saying the opposite.’

‘You’re not listening to me.’

‘You said the outcome was clear.’

Palfy shrugged his shoulders. His office windows overlooked the Champs-Élysées, where the Sunday crowds were queuing outside the cinemas. Jean could see the enormous letters on an advertisement for one of the cinemas on the far side of the avenue: ‘
Nelly Tristan in
The Girl and the She-wolf’. Palfy followed his friend’s gaze.

‘Remember her?’

‘Yes, at dinner at Madeleine’s. Absolutely legless.’

‘Highly successful at the moment. We’ll be having dinner with her shortly. Your handsome Midi tan is bound to please her.’

‘We’re changing the subject … You were saying that the Germans have won the war …’

Palfy raised his arms heavenwards.

‘You haven’t been listening. I said, “clear outcome”.’

‘Excuse me, I haven’t read Clausewitz or Liddell Hart.’

‘Stop trying to be clever. I’m not talking about Clausewitz or Hart, I’m talking about Napoleon. I hope that name means something to you!’

‘A bit.’

‘Well then, like the soldiers of the Grande Armée, the Germans are advancing everywhere. They would already be at Moscow now, at the end of July, if Hitler hadn’t coveted the Ukraine like a greedy little boy. Guderian warned him not to, but Hitler doesn’t listen to anyone. He’s already finished.’

‘You wouldn’t think so to look at him,’ Jean said.

‘If you’ll allow me, I shall enlighten you … Have a seat …’

In his room with its large bay windows overlooking the middle of the Champs-Élysées Palfy had assembled an elegant desk and some Louis XVI armchairs, an admirable Lancret, and in a bookcase a
complete collection of the reports of the Fermiers Généraux.
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The company name displayed on the door, ‘La Franco-Germanique d’Import–Export (FGIE)’, had little outward connection with the interior’s Louis XVI style. Is it necessary to spell out what was taking place here? That, without going into details, the so-called FGIE was a cover for the substantial commercial dealings to which Julius Kapermeister and Rudolf von Rocroy were key?

Jean sat.

‘Hitler,’ Palfy said, ‘is a genius. His pan-Germanic socialism is a psychological weapon as effective as the idea of liberty that preceded Napoleon’s armies. Everywhere he is greeted as a “liberator”, like the soldiers of year II.
17
The sad thing is that this shy impulsive man does not think he is loved, or perhaps he cannot accept that he is loved. So he crushes, exterminates, imprisons. In the Ukraine they were expecting a saviour and they got Attila the Hun, bombing the triumphal arches prepared for his victorious arrival. Not a very effective way to make yourself loved …’

Palfy raised his index finger.

‘He could have half the population of the USSR with him if he wanted: the Byelorussians, the Don Cossacks, the Muslims in the Caucasus, the Balts … Alas, this oversensitive, sexually inhibited vegetarian teetotaller prefers to be alone, like a god. In addition to which he possesses an unfortunate array of physiological defects which cannot help but eventually have a deleterious effect on the situation. Of course you’re aware that he is pathologically flatulent. Not one of those ordinary farters we all remember from our classrooms at school, but a truly high-powered professional – despite not, so far as I know, amusing himself by blowing out candles, like the famous Pétomane at the Alhambra. The awful thing for him is that he simply can’t control it. Imagine – you who are such a sensitive boy – the anxiety of the Führer at Nuremberg, stepping forward to address tens of thousands of men, to exalt the Third Reich – and suddenly, in the middle of a superb flight of oratory, the microphone amplifies a triumphant
fart, echoing through the loudspeakers to every corner of the rally! No dictator could live down the gales of laughter, the ridicule. He has always had a problem with gas, ever since he inhaled ours on the Western Front, but in the last few years it has deeply wounded his self-esteem and dignity. He has found only one remedy that works: strychnine pills. Pitifully ignorant as you are, you nevertheless know that strychnine taken in regular doses is a poison that causes burning in the stomach wall. So there is our Führer, caught between two ills: ill-timed effusions of gas and intolerable cramps. But just at that moment, nothing less than a miracle occurs! A certain Doktor Morell arrives, a magician whose services are in great demand in Berlin society. He tampers with pharmaceutical products and cures incurable patients with cocktails of his own invention. He has been charged several times with quackery, but powerful figures have had the charges dismissed. Emma Göring is one of his protectors. What does Morell suggest to Hitler? A modest white pill and a daily injection. The cramps subside and the gas is tamed. Hitler is reborn and full of good cheer again. He can speak to the crowds without fear of public ridicule. Doktor Morell becomes his personal physician. He accompanies the Führer everywhere. Naturally the prescription has to be gradually increased: two, then three and four pills a day. At this stage we are up to five pills and two injections to stop him falling asleep. Morell is with him constantly, syringe in one hand, pills in the other. Three times a day he takes his baby’s blood pressure. The leader of the eternal Reich is so perforated he’s turning into a sieve! Needless to say there are those around him who try to put a stop to this madness. Nothing doing. The Führer no longer farts. That’s all that matters to him. Unfortunately the active ingredient of the heaven-sent pills is methamphetamine, a euphoric and stimulant whose chronic use is known to cause Parkinson’s disease-like symptoms and episodes of psychosis resembling schizophrenia. Which is why, despite appearances, despite the admirable achievements of von Brauchitsch, von Rundstedt, Rommel, Guderian and a few others, all of them
true military geniuses, the divine Hitler will not survive an extended campaign. And all because of his farts! Human nature is truly a petty thing! There’s nothing to laugh about. Germany deserved a leader with better health. Amen. Having said that, in the light of this ultra-secret information, we need to row our boat intelligently while the German rearguard – including those souls on the somewhat tipsy Paris gravy train – continue modestly to celebrate their victory. I know a number who are already looking forward to ordering their caviar and getting their boots polished for the big review on Red Square. Let us not rain on their parade. When a man feels the euphoria of victory, he is open to interesting offers. He can be a gentleman, so long as it doesn’t cost him too much …’

‘I still have a question to ask you.’

‘I know what it is. How do I know all this? Well, my dear boy, there are one or two realistic soldiers left. It happens. I suppose you also want to know how I heard about Doktor Morell? From the same sources. Some believe that this shady character with a dubious past is actually an agent of British military intelligence or the American OSS. What a wonderful thought! There would never have been a war if those two organisations of espionage and counterespionage had possessed the slightest intelligence. A plan like that would have been brilliant. Just as if the German Sicherheitsdienst had managed to supply Churchill with his daily bottle of whisky …’

The summer night was falling. The avenue with its blue lamps was fading into shadow, pierced by the occasional headlights of a car. A Light 11 – Palfy apologised: there was really nothing but Citroëns to buy at the moment – was waiting at the entrance. The chauffeur got out, took off his cap and held the door open. The day before, he had been waiting for Cyrille, Claude and Jean at Gare de Lyon, where he had piled their luggage into the boot: a mute figure with a pear-shaped
head and a bovine expression, happy to drive a privileged individual while the unhappy populace crowded into the Métro.

Dinner was in a bistro that had a notice on the door: ‘Closed on Sundays’. They made their way down an unlit side passage and Palfy knocked twice, and twice again. A door half opened and a bald man with a plump red face appeared in the gap.

‘Ah, Baron, please come in! You’re the last to arrive. And late! Fortunately the
petit salé
can wait …’

‘Louis, this is Monsieur Jean Arnaud.’

‘Monsieur Arnaud, our friends’ friends are our friends.’

He moved aside to let them pass through into what must have been the back room of the restaurant, a small room that opened into the kitchen, wallpapered in a design the colour of mud. The ceiling light, which had a tasselled lampshade, lit a round table around which, already seated, were Madeleine, Marceline Michette, Nelly Tristan and as always, her producer, Émile Duzan, and Rudolf von Rocroy. Madeleine kissed Jean.

‘You’re a deserter. We never see you. But your complexion reassures me: the sun suits you. Julius will be sorry to miss you. He left for Berlin yesterday. He’ll be back tomorrow …’

Rudolf had sufficient good manners to recognise the young salesman from the Montmartre gallery whom Blanche had told him about: ‘He’s a very honest and intelligent boy. He’ll do well.’ We shall spare the reader the details of the menu. They will have already guessed that in this den of initiates the cuisine was considerably above the usual Paris standard for the time. Louis, a former café owner, and his wife, a skinny, raw-looking woman from the Auvergne, cooked for a select clientele:
foie gras
from the Landes,
petit salé
with lentils, cheese and
nègres en chemise
.
18
A proper wartime menu, with champagne to go with the
foie gras
, a 1929 Bonnes-Mares for the
petit salé
, and a modest
Anjou with the dessert. Seated between Marceline Michette and Nelly Tristan, Jean would have had a boring evening if it had not been for Nelly deciding, several glasses into the
petit salé
, to pick a fight with Rudolf von Rocroy. Émile Duzan cringed in shame and fear. Rudolf thought she was teasing him and laughed heartily at her insults, not understanding them. Palfy scribbled a note and had it passed to Jean. ‘She says everything I think about him. Isn’t she divine?’

Divine? Jean found it hard to see her in that light. The summer had brought no change to Nelly’s almost sickly pallor, her black, glistening eyes and mouth of an exquisite natural pink that opened to reveal perfect teeth. Innocence was the only possible word to characterise her features, framed in her medallion-like face. But then the face spoke and became animated, and her lips, designed to eat cherries or nibble shyly at a shoulder, poured out a string of obscenities. It was a gripping performance, and one could understand why Émile Duzan waited anxiously each time to see what she would come up with. Despite her producer’s mute pleadings, she laid down her knife and fork, clasped her pretty hands under her chin, and said to Rudolf with an angelic smile, ‘Let’s play the truth game. Do you know it?’

‘Yes! Viss great pleasure.’

‘All right. I would like to know whether all of you Teutonic warriors, Prussian squires, Baltic barons and Austrian bastards aren’t really, I mean deep down, secretly poofs.’

The German would rather have been cut into little pieces than admit that he did not understand a word in French. What should he make of ‘poof’? Should he not be reassured by Nelly’s smile that it could only be a very positive epithet?

‘Ach, let us not exacherate. There are some who are, more or less.’

‘I think, dear Rudolf,’ Nelly said, leaning her head on Jean’s shoulder despite the furious stare of Émile Duzan, ‘I think, dear, handsome Rudolf, that it’s all a question of stoicism. The first time one is sodomised, it is really very painful.’

‘Fery painful,’ he agreed.

‘Afterwards it becomes quite pleasant.’

‘Fery pleasant!’

Madeleine interrupted.

‘Nelly darling, I’m not sure this is a terribly nice conversation. I much prefer it when you recite something. You’re so different … so … how shall I put it … possessed by what you’re saying, you make me shiver.’

‘What do you want? Some Valéry?’

‘I don’t know. Everything you do is so lovely.’

Nelly put her hands up to her face and, in a transformed voice that was hardly audible, recited ‘The Steps’.