Colonfay

by O'Grady, Myles;

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Not to be born at all is best, as the man said.”

  They crossed the Pont Edouard Daladier at Avignon.

  He remarked, “Ah, Daladier, ‘The bull of Vaucluse.’”

  “Yes, they had a bakery in Carpentras.”

  “As some prescient gent said at the time of Munich, he had horns more like a snail than a bull. Described him as a dirty little man smelling of absinthe with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.”

  “We don’t like our politicians to be distinguished. Except Giscard. Look at how they lionized Daladier when he came back from Munich. At Le Bourget he said, The fools are cheering me!”

  “They did the same in England when the umbrella man came back waving his bit of paper and said, Peace in our time!”

  “Who knows? Maybe they were right, the appeasers.”

  “Pity they didn’t ask the Jews in the camps. My uncle and aunt in Vienna. My cousins in Hamburg and Frankfurt.”

  “Yes, but if the Germans had won, if the English hadn’t had that extra year to build Spitfires, there wouldn’t be a Jew left in Europe.”

  “That’s why they’re all in the U.S.”

  29. Laure Says Goodbye

  Waiting on the quai at the station of Avignon, she realized that she knew André’s history and she knew the topography of his lean body. That she had been using him as a confessor. That he had been a sympathetic listener. And that he had encouraged her to talk about the Montriveau. That he painted. That he was painting her in a rather surreal compromising pose. Who would see it? Who cares? She knew that he had a surreal appendage. The hot sun warmed up the memory of his body. She was mesmerized by it. There was no embarrassment, no play-acting, no hangups. It was pure. He released her from all her inhibitions. All her shyness had gone. All her warped sense of sin disappeared. She had become a sexual animal, a female woman. His penis was playful, tantalizing, forceful. It was a magic wand that completely banished the oppressive pictures of Ventoux, of violence, of death.

  She thought, They’re right. There is a connection between violence and the orgasm. La petite mort. She wanted it to penetrate her in every way every day. She couldn’t imagine being deprived of it. That was the beginning of fear. The idea of losing her liberated sexuality was worse than the fear of losing André. Much worse. He had switched her on. Now she needed a deeper relationship which included sex. Funnily enough, she thought of Dermot.

  When the train for Paris pulled in and she stepped up to board it, André lifted her hand and kissed it.

  He said, “Thank you, Laure.”

  She said, “Think nothing of it. It was a pleasure.”

  And they both laughed.

  30. Armand & Dermot

  The Lawyer, Alain de Malherbe, picked Dermot up at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. They drove north. The lawyer briefed him. Dermot was not in a receptive mood. Both wife and mistress galloping off into the distance.

  He said, “Maître, I don’t believe it. Last year, he was in a Land Rover that rolled in Turkey, breaking four vertebrae. He was supposed to die that time. Then he went off to Sarawak. You can’t kill him.”

  Alain said, “Oui, oui. Bien sûr.”

  Lawyers everywhere have a genius for saying something without saying anything. Dermot was a little frayed at the edges.

  He said, “Listen. This marriage is all washed up. It’s up to Laure. I have no interest in the family. Leave me out of it.”

  “But you’re a joint heir.”

  “I renounce all claims.”

  “You can’t. We went through all that rearranging of the marriage agreement. To avoid taxes if one spouse died? You can’t undo that before the old man passes on. You say you don’t want it. Neither does Laure. Besides, there’s something he wants you to have, outside the normal inheritance.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know. He’ll tell you. If he’s still conscious.”

  “And if he’s not?”

  “I have a letter for you. And I can fill in the gaps.”

  The relationship with Alain was a nervous one. He was an old friend of Dermot’s father-in-law. Brother in the dangerous hunt for the elusive butterfly. Fellow tracker in the night in the jungles of Africa, defiant in the face of crocodiles and tigers in Sumatra and head-hunters in the Admiralty Islands. You did not get much change out of him. They started up the autoroute towards Péronne, St. Quentin and Guise. The lawyer was of an age when most people are driving wheelchairs in rest homes but he was French. They know two speeds. Flat out and stop. Dermot was too spaced out to care. But he looked at the man and thought: This chap was defending French people against the Germans during the war. He’s no chicken.

  They lapsed into silence and he could feel the mind beginning to slip, first into neutral and then the images of the past started to blur and come clear as they overtook the huge trucks with ‘80’ on the back doing 160 kph going to Düsseldorf. Dutch cars each with a trailer. The odd DK plate, off to Frederickshavn, no doubt. Belgians. It was late afternoon and the sun cast long shadows over everything. It hid behind a cloud. Everything went suddenly dark.

  Over the top and the best of luck.

  The image slipped completely. Another double exposure. It faded out the calm fields of wheat and faded in the churned-up fields of battle. Death stalked the haunted country, Picardy, Flanders, the Somme. Péronne, St. Quentin. Guise. The ghosts rose up out of the mist and came towards him through the yellow mustard gas. Péronne: the battle. Péronne, where there was an Irish monastery and the patron saint is an Irish monk, Fursey, who died in 650. St. Quentin—‘Champs de bataille de la Somme’—blood and guts, with the old man dragging himself wounded through the mud. The ‘Aisne’. It’s bloody country. The images persisted. Von Kluck’s gun carriages. Guderian’s panzers. War cemeteries. His father spluttering with the gas. Wounded first not far from Colonfay, at Le Cateau in August 1914. Derek, his cousin, three classes above him, a captain in the Norfolks, killed by an impersonal mortar bomb in Normandy in 1944. The neutral Irish. Wasted by that Scotch whisky murderer Haig. The whisky distilled from dead soldiers. Shove in another four hundred thousand. And General ‘Butcher’ Gough from Tipperary with his shells dropping on the advance troops and not cutting the wire at all. Slipping in and out of the memories were reminders of his wife and her family. His father-in-law and he had enjoyed a remote but friendly relationship. Dermot hardly knew him. Probably only the butterflies knew him.

  After Péronne the long road to St. Quentin rose and fell like an ocean swell. A roller-coaster with hidden troughs. Endless trees flickering past the windscreen, with blinding light when they turned to the west into the low sun, and synchronized shadows. Sound bouncing off the trees as the car passed, swish, swish, Maître Alain guiding it with fingers resting lazily on the bottom of the steering wheel. The road running parallel to the River Sambre, the British army’s extreme right in Nivelle’s lunatic plan of advance in the hopeless battle of the Aisne. April 1917. Had his father perhaps fought here, precisely here? Was it here he got the bullet wound in the leg? Before the gas at Passchendaele.

  Guise. All red-black brick and gloom. Sad cafés. Deserted squares. An impression that nothing has happened here since Démoulins, the native son, lost his head during the French Revolution. Désmoulins, married like Dermot in Saint-Sulpice, with Robespierre as a witness. Both guillotined. One factory, Godin stoves, an old ruined castle, decrepitude all round. The bridge piled high with German dead. So they said, but it was a morale booster. The melancholy of The Last Post. Hear the lone bugle.

  Memories. Driving rain, leaden clouds, winter days when he went alone up to the château. Into Guise, and the bridge over the weedy stream. Imagined sounds under: galloping horses, gun carriages, Uhlans, spiked helmets. The empty road to the house, up the hill and turn left to Audigny. Nothing in sight but the house at the turnoff. Rolling fields. Sparse trees. Lonely. Wait.

  Before the turnoff, the French wa
r cemetery, La Désolation. A walled barracks for dead soldiers. All lined up in good order. A square with four battalions and a center saluting base.

  And, yes, ‘Dulce et decorum est pro Patria mori.’

  Each sweetly dead planted in line with the others. Forgotten. A short battle, Guise, August 29, 1914. Talk about lunacy.

  The Château at Colonfay. The old man dying in the middle of the killing fields. Oh, yes. Dermot has a morbid interest in war. Why wouldn’t he? His grandfather, his cousin. His father, finished. Nothing left but to drink and argue the toss and take the piss out of the Irish heroes. And a bullet in the back of the head for it in 1938.

  Everything is connected.

  They went over the bridge at St. Quentin. Another bridge. More symbolism.

  Alain said, “You know he was a cavalry officer, your father-in-law?”

  He said, “Yes. There’s a picture of him mounted at the school at Saumur. He told me he never saw action and withdrew to Tours where he was demobilized in 1940. I often wondered what he did after that.”

  “He may tell you now. Remember, nothing was clear in 1940.”

  “I know.”

  “We are none of us pure, Dermot. What did your own father do?”

  “He was a professional drinker. A rider when he was young. Point-to-point. Cavalryman, too. Fisherman. Layabout. But he was here for three years. Near enough. Mons. The Somme. Passchendaele. Murdered in Ireland in 1938.”

  “Did he talk about the war?”

  “Never. Except to make macabre jokes.”

  “Tell me about him. We have all wondered about your background.”

  “Later. Maybe.”

  But he knew he would never tell. The French didn’t really want to know. They added up their own casualties and sneered at the smaller British figures. They blamed perfidious Albion for all the defeats. The war fought on French soil from beginning to end. Two million dead or totally disabled. More than twice as many as the British. A third more than the Germans. Sixty times more than the Americans. 800,000 buildings and 40,000 miles of roads destroyed. How could he say he had more ties to this particular piece of France than had the lawyer himself? The names come back. The Somme. La Bassée Canal. Béthune. Poperinge. The Ypres Salient. Mons. Menin. Auchy-au-bois. Colonfay.

  Dermot murmured, “Father, grandfather, cousin, all left their blood to fertilize Belgian and French soil.”

  The lawyer said, “Ah, yes. Your grandfather. That’s how you met Armand, I believe?”

  “Right. I’m drawn back to it. Remember Sassoon? No, you wouldn’t.”

  You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye

  Who cheer when soldier lads march by

  Sneak home and pray you’ll never know

  The hell where youth and laughter go.

  He looked out the window.

  He said, “The rolling fields. ‘The poor sheep, driven innocent to death.’”

  He said, “There was this man Pilditch. He wrote about Auchy-au-bois. He was looking through his binoculars from the O.P. That’s an Observation Post. All he could see was a high chalk parapet with a green strip of No Man’s Land sloping up towards it. He made out what seemed to be a flock of sheep grazing all over it. He got a powerful telescope and made out clearly what they were. They were hundreds of khaki bodies lying where they had fallen in the September attack on the Hohenzollern Redoubt, and now beyond reach of friend and foe alike. They would lie there between the trenches until one side or the other advanced.”

  The lawyer said, “I don’t understand how they could have gone on. That war was effroyable.”

  Dermot said, “Yes. The last one was a picnic. 60,000 British casualties the first day of the Somme. 3,000 Americans on D-Day, 1944. A piece of cake. Unless you were one of the 3,000.”

  “Were you there?”

  “No. I was in a wood in Hampshire standing by as a reserve but not needed. I was ticketed for Burma with a one-day excursion to Greece. Then off to the Pacific in the Forgotten Fleet. Ishigaki and Miyako and Formosa. Then Japan. Great fun. Not as exciting as writing copy about cigarettes but still. You can’t enjoy yourself all the time.”

  It was dusk, entre chien et loup, the French say, meaning you can’t tell the difference between a dog and a wolf, when Dermot and Alain came to the deserted village. A crossroads around the war memorial, a small shop which combined the functions of Poste, bar, bakery, maison de la presse, and the road up past the small church to the high wall of the château. The huge iron gates open, rusting, askew. The sweep of drive up through the dense shrubs and the trees and the classical house, long and narrow, with the main door complete with coat of arms above it. Suddenly Dermot noticed that it was run-down. Paint peeling, shutters rotting. Weeds growing through the gravel. It was not the way he remembered it. Then all had been well-kept. Reminded him of the house in Ireland.

  They pulled up at the kitchen door. He went in with heavy heart. It was not going to be a barrel of laughs. He was not much of a hand at deathbed scenes, especially when he’s close to the subject. He reacts with nervous hilarity. Well, at least he wouldn’t have his skull shattered by a bullet, like Dermot’s own father when he found him. Still, he had an idea he was in for some final confidences.

  They now had him on a bed in the library, tied down so he couldn’t move. His doctor from Paris was there, and a local nurse. The doctor came out when he saw them at the door, and gave the lawyer the picture.

  “We don’t know how much damage there is. The two broken vertebrae at the neck were repaired and may be broken again. Then there are the two at the base of the spine. They can’t be repaired and have almost certainly been added to by other fractures. I guess his back is broken beyond repair. He hasn’t broken any ribs that I can see, and his ankle is sprained but not, I think, broken. Hip broken. I have strapped everything I can. Legs OK, left arm fractured. Until he can be taken to the hospital for X-rays, we won’t know for sure the extent of the damage. He refuses absolutely to be moved from here. His heart’s as good as can be expected. Breathing hard. Perhaps a lung punctured. Weak. I’d say he might last a few days. A week at the most. He’s taken too much punishment. The last accident nearly finished him. He doesn’t seem to care very much one way or another. But there’s something worrying him. He wants to talk to his son-in-law. That’s you?”

  He turned to Dermot.

  Dermot said, “Yes.”

  “Don’t tire him out. I’ll give him a shot when you’ve finished. He needs sleep. See if you can get him to agree to be hospitalized. I don’t think there’s much point in it, but he could be looked after better there.”

  Dermot went in and sat by his father-in-law’s bed. In profile, he looked like an old knight on an English tomb, lying immobile, looking up at the ceiling. He took his hand. He squeezed it. He could see him without turning his head. A faint smile flickered. His eyes were glassy. He turned them towards the nurse. He motioned her away. He went into his act.

  Dermot said, “You never learn, do you? Up a tree in a corset. At your age. Undignified. You’re like your daughter. She’s always up a tree, too. On a shaky ladder. What a family! And I suppose it only hurts when you laugh.”

  Armand tried to laugh but it didn’t work. His voice was rasping but Dermot could understand it. His English was better than Dermot’s French and as a courtesy he insisted on using it but lapsed into French from time to time. He had an urgency about him as if he knew he had to talk in shorthand to be sure Dermot got it fast.

  “In the grenier, a box. For you. The key in my desk. Laure. She must understand. Je voudrais la voir une fois.”

  His eyes filled. He was distressed.

  Dermot worried. He stood and put his face next to the old man’s. He held his hand and went into his sincere routine. Which he meant.

  “I’ll get her. I promise. Hold on. We both need you.”

  The old man smiled. He wanted to say something more. The nurse was standing next to him, trying to drag him away.

  Arm
and said, “You must look after Laure. She should be happy. Make her understand.”

  It was a heavy legacy. A lifetime of ballast.

  Dermot said, “Yes. Now you must agree to be taken to hospital.”

  “Yes.”

  What else could you say? He kissed his father-in-law on the forehead and left.

  Later the doctor came out and said he’d take Armand to his own clinic in Paris where he’d already been operated on for the broken vertabrae. He would accompany him to ensure that the journey was comfortable.

  The lawyer went to the kitchen. Martha, the woman from the village who had looked after Armand since his wife, Oriane, died, had prepared dinner. She was weeping. It was all very emotional. She couldn’t understand why Laure or Patrick weren’t there.

  But where are they? Why?

  Alain said he was waiting for them to call. She said it had better be quick. To shut her up, he asked her to bring the keys from the desk, find a lamp and open up the grenier. She pointed out that the Germans had installed electricity up there. They used it as an observation post or something. Then he remembered. It had big iron T-bars across the house under the roof to reinforce the structure. The house had been an OP, observation post for artillery.

  The doors to the rooms up to the grenier still had pencilled on them the names of various occupants: ‘Ober-Leutnant Specht,’ ‘Feldwebel Theis’, and so on.

  A corner of the long grenier—it stretched the full length of the house—was partitioned off. It was locked, and padlocked. He found the two keys.

  Inside there was a desk and chair. In the middle of the desk, an old leather suitcase. On one side, a folding frame with two facing photographs. Oriane as a bride, and Laure as a child, holding her father’s butterfly net. She in turn was holding the hand of an older boy. Not Patrick because he was much older.

  Another sibling? There was a picture of his mother-in-law and a man about her own age. Laure’s uncle? Didier? They had never talked of him. On the wall above the desk, a photograph of a man standing with a high brick wall behind him. The same man, but older. It looked like the wall to the kitchen garden of the house, with the cedar of Lebanon in the park towering above. It was a serious picture. The young man looked hangdog. He had reason to be. He was about to be executed.