“You follow me, Marc,” Felix Openfeld told him.
He climbed into the convertible. My mother and Openfeld Senior squeezed into the front seat next to him. The back was taken up with several suitcases and a steamer trunk.
The studio hands wished them a safe trip. Felix Openfeld drove fast. The van kept up with them.
“We’ll try to make the film in America,” Openfeld Senior repeated.
My mother didn’t answer. All these events were making her head spin.
At Place de Brouckère, Felix Openfeld braked in front of the Hotel Métropole. The van stopped behind him.
“Wait here . . . I’ll be right back.”
He ran into the hotel. A few minutes later, he returned, carrying two bottles of mineral water and a large bag.
“I bought us some sandwiches for the road.”
He was about to start up when my mother suddenly got out of the car.
“I . . . have to stay . . .” she said.
They both looked at her with a vague smile. They didn’t say a word to change her mind. No doubt they both figured she was in no danger. All things considered, she had no reason to leave. Her parents were waiting for her in Antwerp. The van left first. The two Openfelds waved good-bye. My mother waved back. Felix Openfeld peeled off, or perhaps there was a sudden gust of wind. Openfeld Senior lost his fedora, which rolled down the sidewalk. Too bad for the fedora. There wasn’t a moment to lose.
My mother picked up the hat and started walking at random.
In front of the savings bank was an endless line of men and women trying to withdraw their funds. She followed Avenue du Nord to the station. There she found the same bustle, the same dazed crowd as at Antwerp station. A porter told her a train would be leaving for Antwerp at around three in the afternoon, but it might not arrive until very late at night.
At the station buffet, she sat in a corner. People came, went, left; some men were already in uniform. She heard voices around her say that general mobilization had been declared at nine o’clock. A radio in the back of the room broadcast news bulletins. The port of Antwerp had been bombed again. French troops had just crossed the border. The Germans were already in Rotterdam. Squatting near her, a woman was tying a small boy’s shoelaces. Travelers bickered over a cup of coffee; others pushed and shoved; still others dragged heavy suitcases, huffing and puffing.
She had to wait until three o’clock for the train. She felt a headache coming on. She suddenly realized she’d lost her overnight bag, which contained the Elizabeth Arden cosmetics and the film script. Maybe she had left it at Sonor Studios, or in the car. What she still held in her hand, without noticing it until then, was Openfeld Senior’s black fedora.
V
I was fifteen years old that winter, and my father and I caught the 7:15 p.m. train from the Gare de Lyon. We had spent the afternoon shopping: a raincoat and rubber overshoes for him, breeches and a riding helmet for me.
There were no other passengers in our compartment, and when the train jerked into motion, I felt a weight on my chest. Through the window, I gazed at the landscape of tracks, control towers, and idle train wagons. The cargo terminal, the customs station with its tower, and the sad little buildings of Rue Coriolis, where two silhouettes stood out in the light of a window like shadow puppets. And then we were outside of Paris.
My father, having put on his bifocals, was absorbed in a magazine. I couldn’t remove my forehead from the window. The train thundered past the small suburban stations. After Maisons-Alfort, I could no longer read their names on the lit signs. The countryside began. Night had fallen, but that didn’t seem to trouble my father as he continued reading his magazine, sucking on small, round green lozenges.
Rain, so slight that I hadn’t noticed it at first, scratched at the black window. The light bulb in the compartment occasionally went out, but immediately came on again. The current lowered and the light enveloping us was a dusty yellow.
We should have been talking, but we didn’t have much to say to each other. Now and then, my father opened his mouth and caught on the fly a lozenge that he had flicked in the air with his index finger. He stood up, pulled down his old black briefcase, and took out a folder of papers that he leafed through slowly. He underlined certain portions in pencil.
“Too bad we couldn’t find a pair of boots in your size,” my father said pensively, raising his eyes from the folder.
“. . .”
“But Reynolde will lend you some.”
“. . .”
“And the breeches? You think they’ll fit all right?”
“Yes, Dad.”
He was never without that old black briefcase, which now lay flat on his knees, and he had no doubt brought along the folder to show Reynolde. What exactly were his relations with Reynolde? I had been present at several of their appointments, in the lobby of the Claridge. They exchanged folders or showed each other photocopied documents that they initialed, at the end of lengthy discussions. Apparently, Reynolde was devious and my father didn’t trust him. Sometimes my father would go to Reynolde’s home, a small private hotel on Rue Christophe-Colomb, near the Champs-Elysées. I would wait for him, walking up and down Avenue Marceau. He usually came back in a bad mood. The last time, he had clapped me on the shoulder and said mysteriously:
“Pretty soon now, Reynolde is going to find himself up the creek without a paddle. I’ll see to it he makes good on his word.”
Right there on the street, he had opened a folder, counted the pages one by one, verified the signatures.
My father stood up and put his black briefcase back in the luggage netting. Several minutes’ stopover in Orléans. A porter walked by with a cart of sandwiches and drinks. We chose two Oranginas. The train started up again. Rain hit the window in gusts and I was afraid the glass would break. Fear settled over me little by little. The train was rushing full throttle. For how long? I forced myself to remain calm. We were sitting opposite each other, each drinking from our bottle of Orangina through a straw. Like on the beach in summer.
And I kept thinking that at that same hour, we could instead have been strolling along the boulevards and sitting at the terrace of Café Viel . . . We would have watched people go by or gone into a movie theater, instead of plunging into unknown territory in the rain. It was all my fault. Reynolde often wore what the English call a riding coat. One afternoon, I asked him whether he in fact rode. He immediately proved tireless and passionate on the subject, and I had to tell him I had some minor ability in that area, having frequented a riding academy at age eleven. Reynolde had turned to my father and proposed we spend a weekend at his estate in Sologne. They did a lot of riding there. A huge amount of riding. A good opportunity for me to get back in the saddle.
“Thank you, Monsieur Reynolde.”
And my father, when we were back home, had said that Reynolde absolutely had to invite us to Sologne. There, Reynolde might agree to sign certain “important things.” It was up to me to bring the conversation back around to equestrian sports as soon as possible, to convince Reynolde that I thought about nothing but horses.
It was almost nine o’clock and we had just left Ozoir-le-Vicomte. According to Reynolde’s instructions, we were to get off at the next stop. My father seemed slightly nervous. He inspected his face in the mirror, combed his hair, straightened his tie, and made several arm movements to loosen his new tweed jacket: its color was of dead leaves and its shoulders overly padded. He asked me to help him on with his new raincoat. He could barely get his arms in the sleeves, so constrained was he by the tweed. With the raincoat on, he had the size and heft of a gladiator. The additional wool lining of the Burberry completely straightjacketed him, and he could scarcely lift his arm toward his black briefcase.
We waited in the corridor. The train came to a grinding halt and my father winced. We stepped down onto the platform. The rain had stopped. A single lamp, about twenty yards ahead of us, and a lit doorway at the end served as our reference points. Papa walked stiffly
and awkwardly, as if encased in armor. He held his black briefcase. And I carried our two valises.
The tiny station of Breteuil-l’Etang seemed deserted. In the middle of the lobby, under the white neon light, Reynolde was waiting for us, accompanied by a young man in jodhpurs. My father shook Reynolde’s hand and the latter introduced the young man. He had a name with a nobiliary particle that was linked to the building of the Suez Canal, and his first name was Jean-Gérard. I shook their hands in turn and felt a kind of queasiness in Reynolde’s presence. His gray fedora, his mustache, his warm voice, and the smell of his cologne had always made me feel deeply despondent.
My father and I took our seats in the back of the Renault, while the young man sat behind the wheel and Reynolde next to him.
“Trip not too tiring?” Reynolde asked my father, in his handsome deep voice.
“No, not at all, Henri.”
I was amazed that my father called him by his first name. “Jean-Gérard” started up with a jerk and my father fell back against me. I had to push him to help him back into his initial position. No two ways about it, that raincoat paralyzed him like a lead cast.
We had reached a fairly wide road and the Renault’s headlights revealed trees on either side.
“We’re going through Sézonnes forest,” Reynolde told us with a knowing air. “Jean-Gérard” drove faster and faster.
“I’m not used to these old jalopies anymore,” he said. “Real pieces of crap.”
“Jean-Gé, did you tell Montaignac and Chevert about last night?” asked Reynolde.
“Not yet.”
And the two of them burst out laughing. They didn’t let us in on the reason for their hilarity, but rather seemed to take—or at least Reynolde did—a certain pleasure in leaving us out of their conversation.
“I can just imagine the look on Chevert’s face! The stuff he believes about Monique!”
“His naïveté is touching, don’t you think?”
“He’s just a hick from Mauritius.”
And they kept on talking about people we didn’t know, with throaty guffaws. Jean-Gé sped up some more. He let go of the wheel and took a cigarette from his pocket. He lit it calmly. I shut my eyes. My father squeezed my arm. I felt like asking Reynolde if he could bring us back to the station. Right away. We’d take the first train for Paris. We had no business here. I kept silent so as not to embarrass my father or put a crimp in his plans.
“And what about your aunt?” asked Reynolde. “Is she coming Sunday?”
“You can never tell what my dear aunt will do,” Jean-Gé answered.
“I adore her,” Reynolde said in an affected voice. “Daisy is an admirable woman.”
The Renault veered onto a small local highway.
“We’re almost there,” said Reynolde, turning toward my father. “This is the first time they’ve been to La Ménandière.”
“We’ll have to drink to that,” said Jean-Gé, indifferently.
He braked sharply and my father, lurching forward, banged his forehead on Reynolde’s neck.
“I’m so sorry, Henri,” he said in a blank voice. “Please forgive me.”
“You’re forgiven. Did your son bring his riding outfit?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“You can call me Henri.”
“Yes, Henri Reynolde, sir.”
I pulled my father out of the car. We found ourselves by a gate. Reynolde pushed it open with his shoulder. We crossed a paved courtyard framed by a house with several wings; in the middle of it I noticed a well. Light came from the front stairway.
Jean-Gé honked a dozen times, taking mischievous pleasure in blaring his horn. The door opened onto a blonde in an evening gown.
“My wife,” Reynolde said to me.
“Good evening, Maggy,” my father said, and I was surprised by the familiarity.
“Good evening, madam,” I said, bowing.
Jean-Gé kissed her hand, bringing his lips very close but not touching the skin.
Coats were stacked haphazardly on a large sofa. She motioned for us to put down our things. I helped my father and had a hard time extracting him from his Burberry. I wondered whether we’d have to slit the sleeves open with a penknife. We entered a large room, at the back of which they had installed a table with about a dozen place settings. Several people were seated around the fireplace, among them two young women whose shoulders Jean-Gé squeezed familiarly, to their apparent delight.
Over dinner I was able to observe the guests and the surrounding décor at leisure. Reynolde had placed my father and me at the foot of the table, as if we clashed with the gathering. Jean-Gé sat between the two young ladies, one of whom spoke with an English accent. Apparently they could refuse him nothing, and he groped each of them a bit, by turns. He spoke English to the brunette, and Reynolde whispered that she was the daughter of the Duke of Northumberland. The blonde, despite her slutty demeanor, no doubt also came from an excellent family.
Maggy Reynolde presided. On either side of her was a couple that had surprised me, because both the man and the woman were wearing black velvet: sporty-cut trousers and jacket for her, very close-fitting suit for him. They looked alike, even though they were husband and wife. Same brown hair, same tan. I could tell by their rolling gait and their way of holding hands that they each took great care of themselves. They had identical, synchronized gestures, and on both of their faces floated an expression of fatuous sensuality. I learned that the man, a certain Michel Landry, was the publisher of a “sports and leisure” magazine.
Finally, next to Madame Landry was an individual of about sixty with a swarthy complexion, an emaciated face, a pencil mustache, and eyes of a very piercing blue. He wore a signet ring with a coat of arms engraved on the stone. This was the count Angèle de Chevert, and from what I gathered, he belonged to a venerable family on Mauritius, hence his skin color.
The conversation soon turned to hunting, and they talked about firearms of various origins, of which Landry detailed the respective advantages. Chevert nodded with Creole seriousness, but Jean-Gé contradicted Landry nonstop. They mentioned a duke who had a chateau nearby. Jean-Gé called him “Uncle Michel,” and Reynolde simply “Michel.” According to them, this duke was the top marksman of France, and this honorific, “top marksman of France,” which they pronounced in tones of deep respect, made me want to retch.
My uneasiness worsened when I heard Landry ask Chevert and Reynolde:
“And how’re the hounds?”
“We’ll see the day after tomorrow,” Chevert answered drily.
“It’s going to be a superb hunt,” the young blonde said in a gluttonous voice.
“You two will be the angels of the hunting party,” said Jean-Gé, giving both the Englishwoman and the blonde a kiss on the neck.
“Them, too, Gé,” said Reynolde, pointing to Maggy Reynolde and Landry’s wife.
“Of course, of course they’ll be angels.”
And reaching across the table, Jean-Gé squeezed both their hands. They gave out a laugh.
Reynolde turned to me:
“Will this be your first hunt?”
“Yes, Monsieur Reynolde.”
He slapped my father on the shoulder.
“Aren’t you pleased, Aldo, that your boy is joining in a hunt?”
“Oh, yes, Henri, very pleased.”
The others, who had ignored us until then, looked us over with curiosity.
“I’m delighted, Henri.”
Papa remained impenetrable and massive behind his bifocals.
As for me, I feared I was going to pass out, which in a young man of fifteen would not have shown much fortitude.
“You couldn’t have come at a better time,” Landry said to me. “The best pack in France. And the greatest master of the hunt in all of Europe . . .”
“You’re being too kind to Uncle Michel,” said Jean-Gé, smugly.
“No, Jean-Gérard, he is not being kind,” Chevert said gravely. “Ther
e have been only three great huntsmen in the past hundred years: Anne d’Uzès, Philippe de Vibraye, and your uncle . . .”
That pronouncement was followed by a moment of silence. Everyone was moved, Reynolde first and foremost. Chevert sat very stiffly, chin raised, as if he had just proffered a statement for the ages. My father tried to suppress a small nervous cough. It was Jean-Gérard who broke the spell.
“You really know quite a lot out there on Mauritius!” he said, addressing Chevert.
“Please don’t mention it,” said Chevert, curtly. Then he added: “Yes, we do know quite a lot on Mauritius.”
They brought in an imposing platter. A woman with her hair in a bun set it on the table, and Landry’s wife, the young Englishwoman, and the blonde clapped their hands.
“Marvelous,” Landry exclaimed.
“An authentic Chaumont peacock,” said Reynolde.
And he jerked his thumb in a brutal gesture that clashed with the distinguished conversation I’d just been hearing.
“They say it’s an aphrodisiac,” said Landry’s wife. “Did you know that, Maggy?”
The woman offered the platter to my father and me so that we could serve ourselves.
“Let me explain,” Reynolde said to us, articulating his words as if he were speaking to the deaf. “A Chaumont peacock is fed on cedar buds and stuffed with truffles and nuts.”
I held myself perfectly still to keep from gagging.
“Try it! You’ll tell me what you think!”
After a while, he noticed that I hadn’t touched my dinner.
“Go on, try it! It would be criminal to leave that in your plate, my boy!”
At that instant, a kind of metamorphosis occurred in me. They were all—except for Papa—giving me cold, dismayed looks.
“Go on, boy! Have a taste!” Reynolde repeated.
My pathological timidity and docility had vanished and I suddenly understood how superficial they all were. I felt as if I had shed a dead skin. I retorted in an implacable voice:
“No, sir, I will not eat one bite of this.”
My father turned to me, mouth agape. The others, too, whose dinners I had surely ruined. All at once, it occurred to me that I could do them much more harm than they could ever do me, and immediately a wave of compassion and remorse washed over me.
Family Record Page 4
