End Games in Bordeaux

by Allan Massie

  St-Hilaire stood up. He offered Lannes his hand.

  ‘What you say distresses me. I’ve formed a high regard for you, superintendent, and ask only if I may be of any help.’

  ‘Thank you, but I already know where I’m going. Perhaps after the Liberation, things will be different. Meanwhile the fewer people who know my whereabouts the better.’

  It was only when he was out of the house, and walking away that he wondered if his last sentence hadn’t been ungracious, might even have been interpreted as an expression of distrust. He hadn’t intended it that way. But it was a time when distrust was everywhere.

  XVI

  Clothilde was happy. She hugged and kissed Lannes as soon as he entered the apartment. She had had a card from Michel, from where she didn’t know, nor when it had been written, for he had omitted to date it. But he was alive – or had been, Lannes thought – and he sent her love and a thousand kisses. So one day the war would be over, he would return and they would be married. There was nothing to say to this, no possible response except to be happy that she was for the moment happy. Moreover she chattered merrily throughout the meal – a cassoulet of beans with some stringy pork – chattered as if unaware of the constraint between her parents. It was something to be thankful for.

  Nevertheless the silence had to be broken, Marguerite retired first as had become her habit. Clothilde followed. Lannes sat and smoked and pretended to read until he was sure their daughter would be asleep. Then he went to join his wife.

  His delay had been cowardly. He knew that. It was as if he had spun a coin. Heads or tails? Asleep or awake? Talk now or in the morning? Better of course to get it over with in what had been for so long the intimacy of the bedroom, the intimacy of the night when it is so often easier to say what has to be said in a conversation that nevertheless you still hope can be postponed, even when you know it has become unavoidable.

  Her breathing told him she was awake. He sat on the edge of the bed, sought her hand in the dark and pressed it. She said nothing but didn’t pull it away. It was, he knew, a conversation she had shrunk from also but which it might be she too recognised as necessary. If they couldn’t speak now, he thought, they might never do so again. And if she didn’t believe him …

  ‘You were right to leave the letter for me,’ he said. ‘Now we’ve both had time to think about it. It’s malicious of course. You’ll realise that, I’m sure. We’ve been snowed under with such letters ever since the Occupation began, people taking revenge for whatever reason on their neighbours … ’

  He paused. There was no answering pressure from the hand he held.

  ‘That’s irrelevant , of course,’ he said. ‘I realise that. You want to know if there’s any truth in what it implies.’

  Truth, he thought, what a slippery word. He hesitated. The silence enfolded them.

  ‘We once promised,’ he said, ‘we would never lie to each other. A difficult promise for anyone to keep. The truth can be so hurtful.’

  Tenderness can so easily provoke deception. Why – how even – should you tell someone you love what will only distress them? It had always been his habit to keep bad news to himself. It wasn’t an admirable habit; he knew that.

  ‘The girl’s called Yvette,’ he said. ‘She’s not my mistress. But, yes, she’s attractive, and she’s young, not much older than Clothilde, the same age perhaps as Dominique. She was a witness in a murder case, that’s how I met her, and then she was assaulted by one of the suspects and came to my office, in distress and afraid.’

  ‘And she’s a prostitute?’ Marguerite said.

  ‘Yes, she’s a prostitute.’

  He pressed her hand again.

  ‘That disgusts me. You know it disgusts me.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know that. It disgusts most women, I think.’

  ‘But not men?’

  ‘Some men, yes. Others, no.’

  Dominique, he thought, would be in the first category, Alain, he suspected, in the second, Henri in one, Fernand in the other. He held his wife’s hand and pictured Yvette inviting him to her bed, and waited for Marguerite to speak.

  ‘You like her,’ she said. ‘I can hear it in your voice. Is she pretty?’

  ‘Yes, she’s pretty, she’s attractive, and I like her, despite what she does, but that’s all. She’s not my mistress. She’s never been that and … ’

  He was about to say, and she never will be, but found he couldn’t.

  ‘Is it because of me, because I’ve not been what I used to be for so long, that you go to her?’

  ‘I don’t go to her, not in the sense you mean. I’ve visited the Pension where she lives, several times, as your anonymous letterwriter whoever he or she is might tell you because chance made me in some way feel responsible for her, as I feel responsible for many people whom I find in trouble or difficulties. But I’ve never been unfaithful to you, never.’

  Except in my imagination, he didn’t add.

  ‘I can’t prove anything. You can’t prove a negative. I can only ask you to believe me.’

  ‘Why should I? When you never say anything to me beyond what is necessary?’

  ‘Because I love you.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘You know I do.’

  She withdrew her hand.

  ‘I know nothing,’ she said. ‘I’ve never been able to trust you, Jean, since you encouraged Alain to go away and leave me without a word from either of you. You broke my trust then. You made me miserable and unhappy and I don’t believe that broken trust can be repaired.’

  ‘Please,’ he said, ‘please try. There’s something else I must tell you. It means I am going to have to disappear, go into hiding, perhaps for only a few days, perhaps for longer, perhaps even till the Liberation.’

  He told her why, and found she was in tears.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ he said, ‘I’m sure it will be all right.’

  ‘But if it isn’t?’

  He leaned over and kissed her on the lips.

  ‘If it isn’t, it isn’t,’ he said. ‘But I’m sure it will be.’

  He took her in his arms and kissed her again. This time she responded. Later they made love, for the first time in three years.

  ‘I’ll leave first thing in the morning,’ he said. ‘It’s better you don’t know where I am.’

  ‘You’re not going to her? Your Yvette?’

  ‘No, I’m not. Young René Martin is working with me. He’ll keep in touch with you. I won’t telephone. It’s not safe. It will almost certainly be tapped.’

  XVII

  It was the softest of summer nights. There was still a touch of gold over the peaks of the mountains to the East, but a milky haze covered the stars. Dominique and Maurice lay stretched out on the rough upland grass. Most of the boys in the troop they had led into the hills were already asleep; they had marched some thirty-five or nearer forty kilometres that day.

  ‘We won’t be doing this much longer,’ Maurice said. ‘In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if this was the last expedition. Apart from anything else, it’s clear that a lot of boys now evade the call-up. I can’t blame them. They know Vichy’s finished. Do you think we’ve wasted our time?’

  ‘I don’t know. Some of the boys have benefited. Surely. But you’re right, it’s all but over.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s hard to imagine a post-war world. What it’ll be like, I mean.’

  Neither wanted to say what was in both their minds: that Dominique, having joined François’ network of ex-prisoners-of-war, and having therefore participated to some degree in the Resistance, would be accepted as one of the victors, despite his work for Vichy, whereas Maurice …

  He had turned down the chance offered him, and not only because he hadn’t himself served in the army in 1940, and wasn’t therefore a veteran of the prison camp, but also because he felt that to accept would be some sort of betrayal of his father – that father who for the first time in his
life approved of him. He might have added that in any case he neither liked nor trusted François. It was a measure of the strength of the bond between them that neither had allowed the divergent paths they had taken to disturb their friendship. So, when Maurice now asked ‘what exactly does François ask of you?’ Dominique didn’t suppose that he was fishing for information that might compromise him, or which Maurice might use to his own advantage.

  ‘I’m only a messenger boy, really,’ he said. ‘A go-between, carrying false papers, identity cards even passports, which François’ friend in the ministry supplies to the network. And the remarkable thing is that this friend is quite high up in the ministry and does this simply because he admires François, even though he is loyal to Vichy himself. It’s really odd. You should hear how he speaks about François, he really thinks he’s wonderful. You might say he dotes on him.’

  Maurice said, ‘Perhaps he’s a queer, in love with him.’

  ‘Well, he’s not likely to get much satisfaction,’ Dominique said. ‘François chases any skirt in sight. The last time I made a handover, he couldn’t wait to be rid of me, not because of security but because he said he had a date with a brunette, and added that in these dangerous times you should never let the chance of a good lay slip by. I was really quite embarrassed.’

  Maurice turned over to lie on his back.

  ‘It’s beginning to look like rain. Do you think his network achieves anything of value?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Dominique said. ‘I’m the messenger boy, as I said. Sometimes I think the point for François is simply to be known to have formed it and been in the Resistance. He’s very intelligent, you know and has political ambitions. He once said to me, “The only problem is deciding which party to join after the Liberation.” His own family are all on the Right, I think, which is partly why he was made so welcome in Vichy, but he suspects the future may be Socialist. And there’s another thing I’m sure of which is that he neither likes nor trusts de Gaulle. He met him in Algeria and it’s evident they didn’t get on. Or so I gathered.’

  ‘Do you like him?’

  ‘I’m impressed by him. I like listening to him. But like him? Not really. He’s a cold fish, I think. Not that it matters.’

  ‘As you say, it’s so hard to imagine what sort of France will emerge. Or what will become of us?’

  ‘As to that,’ Dominique said, ‘if all goes right, you’ll marry my sister and be my brother-in-law.’

  ‘She’s in love with that boy, Michel. That was only too evident the last time we were in Bordeaux.’

  ‘He’s no good,’ Dominique said. ‘It’s a terrible thing to say, but it would be better if he never returns from Russia or wherever they’re fighting.’

  ***

  Léon sat on a chair by the bedside of the blonde woman he had met at that dinner in Maxim’s. She had invited him to call.

  ‘I’m living in a nursing home,’ she said, ‘for reasons too boring to explain.’

  The room was full of flowers, brought by admirers, he supposed. She asked him to open a bottle of champagne which was sitting in a metal bucket full of water that might have been ice when it was placed there.

  ‘We have to grab such pleasures as we can,’ she said, ‘don’t you think so? Mignonne, allons voir si la rose and all that.’

  Her accent puzzled him. Her French was fluent, grammatically correct, and she had told him her estranged husband was a Norman aristocrat, either a vicomte or a baron, he couldn’t remember which. Perhaps she was Belgian or Dutch. He picked up a photograph of a young man seated in a racing-car; he wore goggles and a silk muffler round his neck.

  ‘Is this your husband?’

  ‘Certainly not. Poor Robert doesn’t even drive, he’s too nervous. It’s just a friend. If you must know, the one who supplied the champagne we’re drinking. Tell me about yourself.’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell, really.’

  ‘I know what that means these days. It means there’s too much to tell. I didn’t greatly care for your friend by the way, and I had the impression you don’t like him much yourself. That puzzled me since he so obviously behaved as if he owned you.’

  ‘Was that why you asked me to call on you?’

  ‘Not really. I was just curious. But don’t worry. We all have things to hide these days, things not to be spoken about. I have myself.’

  He had the impression she was laughing at him. She lay back on her pillows, her hair falling over her shoulders, and smiled. For a moment he wondered if she was part of the organisation and had been sent to find him, charged to discover why he had lost contact with London six months ago now, and even perhaps to arrange for him to be reactivated. The idea excited him. It would clear him of the guilt he felt. Her accent might after all be English?

  ‘Or perhaps I just took a fancy to you,’ she said. ‘That wouldn’t be unreasonable, would it? You’re a pretty boy.’

  ‘Even though you decided I was so obviously Chardy’s?’

  ‘Oh that,’ she said, as if it was of no account.

  This excited him too. He had never made love to a woman, scarcely felt the desire, never met one who wanted him, as Gaston and Schussmann had and Chardy now did, and as he wanted Alain. Why not be frank? Why not say, I’ve been in love for four years now with a boy who only likes girls? So you see my position’s hopeless, and if you want me …

  ‘What are you doing in Paris?’ she said. ‘I can tell you’re not Parisian.’

  ‘Trying to survive.’

  ‘Like the rest of us,’ she said, and held her hand out to him.

  ***

  ‘They despise us,’ Michel said. ‘That’s why we’ve been landed with this filthy job, guarding these stinking Jews. I don’t blame them. These SS men are real soldiers, war heroes.’

  ‘So they’d have us believe,’ his corporal, the Baron, said. ‘Some of them may even be telling the truth, though I wouldn’t count on it.’

  ‘I’m stinking and itching all over from these filthy lice. The filthy Jews pass them on. What do they do with the Jews anyway?’

  ‘You don’t want to know, laddie.’

  ‘Don’t I? And the gypsies, the stinking gypsies. Did you ever fuck a gypsy, corp?’

  ‘Certainly. She was a singer at Le Chat Noir. Perfectly clean, I assure you.’

  ‘When are we going to see action?’

  ‘Pazienza, dear boy. There are worse things than being alive, you know. Even today, even here, especially here.’

  ***

  The men from the Resistance group were late. Alain had twice gone to the door of the barn and stood there listening for the noise of a motor, as if by stepping outside he could will it to arrive. But there was only the silence of the summer night, not even the cry of an owl. He had never been so aware of silence; he hadn’t thought of it as an almost palpable presence.

  ‘They should have been here two hours ago,’ Fabrice said. ‘How long do we give them?’

  Nobody answered. Everyone, Alain thought, shared the same fear, born of the awareness, or at least the apprehension, that something had gone wrong.

  ‘The local boys, the village team, don’t trust us much anyway,’ Olivier said.

  ‘You can’t blame them. Trust is in short supply everywhere.’

  Olivier was new. He had been parachuted in only three weeks ago, to take over after the Gestapo had picked up Raoul. It was the first time Alain had worked with him.

  ‘They’ll come,’ Olivier said. ‘They need the money and the guns.’

  What worried Alain was that, by his own admission, Olivier didn’t know the country, didn’t indeed know France. He was an Algerian colon whose military service had all been in Africa and the Levant. No doubt he was tough, tough as the leathery yellow skin of his face. But he was too confident, too sure of himself, so much as that he was breaking the first rule of the trade: if your contact doesn’t keep the rendezvous, you bugger off. You don’t sit round waiting. Alain knew. He’d been in France eightee
n months now, had been wounded twice and each time been lucky to escape arrest; and it always happened when you let your guard slip and played it by ear rather than obeying instructions and following the rules. He wanted to say this; he should speak out. But from the first meeting with his new chief, Olivier had treated him as if he was a recruit wet behind the ears. He had looked at him with the condescension of a forty-year-old captain who had been decorated in the war against the Rif. If Alain told him they should get out, now, while they could, Olivier would give him that superior smile and ask him if he was windy. Well, he was windy; he was windy because he knew how things were.

  ‘They’re not professionals,’ Olivier said. ‘Amateurs are never good time-keepers. We’ll give them another hour. It won’t be dawn for two hours at least. We’ll have lots of time to make ourselves scarce if they don’t turn up. But they will. I’m sure they will.’

  He opened his silver cigarette-case, took one for himself, and passed the case round.

  ‘Don’t say I’m not generous, boys. I’ll say one thing for the English. They make the best cigarettes in the world. These are Player’s, none better. General de Gaulle himself has taken to smoking them, you know. That says something, because he’s not fond of the Anglo-Saxons. Nor am I, come to that.’

  In the distance, from the valley below, they heard the sound of a motor.

  ‘Told you so,’ Olivier said.

  ‘There’s something wrong,’ Alain said. ‘I think there’s more than one car coming.’

  ***

  Sir Edwin Pringle, MP, slipped his hand under the tablecloth, and squeezed Jérôme’s thigh. Jérôme let it lie there. He didn’t think Sir Pringle would go further, not in the Ritz Grill, not much further anyway. It was a hot night. One of the windows was open and the scent of cut grass and blossom wafted in from Green Park.