The Fires of Autumn

by Irene Nemirovsky

  He stopped speaking and gestured towards the crowded restaurant where they were having lunch.

  ‘People … Look around you. Two million men have been killed, and that’s just in France. And now everyone is swarming back, we’re suffocating again. There are a hundred people for every job. And everyone is intelligent. Everyone can, wants to and must succeed. It’s terrifying. And everyone is in a hurry, of course. There’s no question of waiting, of becoming wealthy by saving over a long period of time or working terribly hard: everyone wants to be rich and right away. That’s what you want as well, isn’t it? Well, everyone wants what you want. Just look around you.’

  ‘What we need is another war,’ muttered Bernard.

  ‘Please,’ said Détang, placing his hand affectionately on Bernard’s arm, ‘please don’t be bitter. Do as I do. I have always managed to retain my faith in man’s basic goodness, or rather in his infinite perfectibility, even during the most difficult times. I am convinced that the day will come (and, listen, here is an idea I developed in Toulouse last month), the day will come when this world will be like a banquet where everyone will have a place and there will be enough to eat and drink for all. That is our ideal, and that is what we are working towards. But in the meantime, what a dreadful free-for-all! It’s because the world is still poor. We aren’t producing enough. That’s something the Americans have understood. What a people they are!’

  He firmly squeezed a quarter of a lemon over the golden sole he had been served; once he had extracted all the juice, he threw it down.

  ‘So, what can I offer you? Some of my good friends are important bankers. You could have a job at eight hundred francs a month to start with. You’re making a face? Good Lord! It’s always the same. There are too many people, my friend, too many men, and every influential person is surrounded, like a Roman senator, by a host of protégés looking for patronage, and you have to throw a bone to every one of them. So the carcass has been gnawed bare. You see?’

  He gave him a friendly smile.

  ‘Say you want to be the secretary of a politician? You have to know the underbelly of the profession. And it’s a filthy one, by the way. So, we’re driven back to the old, traditional careers: doctor, engineer, lawyer. You were a hard worker, a slogger in the old days. Go back to your studies. I’m sure that idea doesn’t frighten you. Only, it’s hard to stand on the sidelines, taking shelter, when it’s raining gold, isn’t it? Because you’re right to say that the downpour will end, that there is a time for everything and to be twenty-two years old just after the Armistice and not take advantage would be truly unfortunate.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Bernard, ‘that if you really wanted to help me …’

  He hesitated.

  ‘If I am taking the liberty of imposing upon you (“well, well, I’m addressing him more respectfully again,” he thought: “the war is over, I’m demobilised, I’m wearing a jacket and an unstarched collar, and I’m experiencing that sense of distance and deference befitting a rich, influential man again”), if I have taken the liberty of requesting a meeting with you, it is because I believed that you had taken an interest in me; Madame Détang, to whom I spoke about this, very kindly reassured me that I was not mistaken, that you had spoken sympathetically of me to her.’

  ‘My wife thinks you’re very nice. And as for me, well, I’ve known you since you were a child. I must tell you that in the situation I find myself, and given the incredible hodge-podge that society in Paris has become, we tend to stick close to the people we know.’

  Their conversation was interrupted by waiters coming and going, telephones ringing and all the passers-by who stopped to say hello to him; he was acquainted with everyone on earth. He kissed the women’s hands then affectionately patted the gloved fingers he had just brought to his lips as if, of all of them, she were the dearest, most intimate friend. And yet, he did not even know most of their names. In spite of all these interruptions, he never once lost his train of thought or his flow of words. He was in his element in a crowd; he could only breathe easily in the midst of a heavy throng, just as a pike is only happy in the waters of a shallow lake.

  ‘I had considered taking you on to work for me, not on the political side of things. I already have someone for that. No. Here’s the thing. I am simultaneously pursuing two goals. I must tell you that during my first trip to America, a trip that has since been followed by many others, as well as meetings with everyone who is anyone over there, I found myself in a position where I could have struck brilliant business deals. I have ties with an American industrial magnate, a man like Ford, who more or less proposed that I be his representative in France, to sell certain products he manufactures; they make everything to do with motors, cars, planes, etc. By accepting this offer, I would have rendered an invaluable service to France. But you can see how things don’t always work out as planned: don’t think the American is asking for my help because of my pretty face! – no, but because as a politician, I have influence in high places here. I might even be called at any time to serve in the government. But if I wish to remain the man I am and stay clear of scandal, then I must protect myself at all costs, and avoid letting it be known, officially at least, that I have financial dealings with a foreign country. I have enemies. Who doesn’t? I hope I will have many more. A man’s importance can be measured by the number of enemies he has. And so, my enemies would shout it from the rooftops that I’d been bought, that I was in the pay of American finance. The fact that as a businessman, my value as a politician would be increased (for a quick grasp of reality, a sharp, clear vision, all these things come naturally to a good businessman), the fact that I might actually be benefitting my country by sharing the lead that American industry has over us – all that means nothing to them. They would only see me as a moneyman, loyal only to international finance, me, a man with an ideal, a man who only desires the influence, the greatness and the prosperity of France! So I thought I must find someone who could be my front man, for a basic salary to be agreed and a good percentage in commission. For instance, say I have to import ammunition belts or a specific type of plough or automobile parts to France … I’m giving random examples here. I know who to approach for such things, how to deal with them, what bribes have to be made, but I don’t make a move, I’m never seen. My name is never mentioned. I sign nothing. I remain hidden in the background. And you mustn’t think that such transactions would damage the industry of my own country because French products could be sold in the United States in the same way. Can you imagine the enormous potential sphere of influence that is open to us? Can you see the valuable exchanges, the multiple business links that we could forge between the two countries? Shall I tell you what I really think? You know that I am a fervent supporter of the League of Nations. Just between us, I contributed more than a little to planting the seed of this admirable idea, this great hope, in the minds of various countries. But, it is not that alone, you see, that will allow peace to reign among men. Peace itself is in the hands of commerce and industry. I dream of a statue that will rise one day in a square in Paris to symbolise what I mean: Commerce and Industry, allegorical figures dressed in Grecian robes, standing tall, their hands entwined, and a dove, with an olive branch in its beak, flying up from their joined hands and settling on a globe of the world. Is that not beautiful? That truly is beautiful! At your age, you have to be passionate. Listen, think about what I’ve said. I can’t offer you a great deal now, not yet …’

  4

  ‘Bernard has a really good position,’ Madame Jacquelain said to Thérèse. ‘He makes up to five thousand francs a month. He’s working for an entire group of American financiers. I’m just a woman, you know, I don’t understand anything about such things, but I think he has a good future. His father was wrong to worry about him. I knew very well that my little boy was someone. “Mama, I’m doing my apprenticeship,” he told me, “I’m learning how to handle important business deals. I’m only an underling now, but little by little
…” Little by little, he’ll stand on his own two feet, Thérèse. You’ll see, he’ll get his own car. Even now …’

  She stifled a little laugh:

  ‘If you could see his clothes … He ordered pyjamas from Sulka with his initials embroidered on them. He wears a tuxedo to go out to dinner in town. His father would have been scandalised. Don’t you think he’s becoming very handsome?’

  She didn’t wait for Thérèse to reply. They were at the Bruns’ apartment, one Sunday, in the warm little dining room, a few days after the funeral of Adolphe Brun, who had died of an embolism. He had just finished reading the paper; he was about to drink his cup of steaming hot black coffee, brought to him by Thérèse, the coffee he didn’t allow the women to buy for he claimed that their sense of smell was not as sensitive as a man’s and that they were incapable of judging the bouquet of a wine, the smell of fruit, the aroma of Mocha. For example, when Monsieur Brun chose a melon, he would carefully hold it in both hands and smell it, with an expression on his face that was almost loving. Monsieur Brun was a sybarite. He breathed in the aroma of the coffee and smiled. He was rather pale: he hadn’t felt well for a few days now. He turned his kindly face towards Thérèse, suddenly gasped for air, once, then again, convulsively, like a fish out of water, waved his hand about weakly to protest, as if he were saying: ‘But, sir, I don’t owe you anything.’ He let out a sigh and the end of his long moustache fell down on to his chest. He was dead.

  Thérèse was sorting out her father’s clothes, kneeling in front of a large trunk with metal bands round it. In the lower compartments were souvenirs of her mother, who had died so young: old-fashioned blouses, silk brocade dresses, some simple but pretty undergarments. All of it had been saved for her, ‘when Thérèse grows up, she’ll wear some of it,’ her grandmother used to say, but she had never dared. She locked the trunk; it would be taken up to the loft where Martial’s suitcase was already stored, with the books he had won as prizes, his medical textbooks, the photographs of his mother and father. ‘Three lives,’ thought Thérèse, ‘three poor lives that have left no trace on earth apart from yellowing books and old clothes. My God, I am so alone,’ she continued thinking, and she looked over at Madame Jacquelain in despair. ‘She’s a widow, but she has a son, she’s happy … Bernard … he came to the funeral, but ever since … He’s part of such a dazzling milieu, so different from in the past. He has mistresses. Renée Détang, without a doubt, and others … Well, what difference is that to me?’

  A little while later, Madame Pain opened the door to Bernard, and in the dimly lit hallway, the old woman didn’t recognise him at first.

  ‘Can I help you, Monsieur?’

  Then she brought her hand to her head:

  ‘How silly of me … It’s our little Bernard. Come in, my child,’ she said to him, as she used to in the past when he would come up to see them after dinner, with his school books and notebooks under his arm.

  ‘Hello, Madame Pain,’ he would say. ‘Can I do my homework here?’

  ‘Thérèse,’ she would call out, ‘it’s little Bernard Jacquelain.’

  Then she would open the dining room door, show him in and close it gently behind him, leaving the two youngsters alone between the black cretonne sofa decorated with bouquets of roses and the photograph of Martial on the wall. These darlings … She shook her head with a particularly mischievous expression on her face, then quickly and emphatically rolled up her sleeves and went back into the kitchen from where she could hear the children talking quietly. Thérèse was in love with that little boy. Whenever he came near her, she had a certain look in her eyes … Madame Pain smiled and sighed: ‘My poor Thérèse … She has a lovely life; yes … But that’s not enough when you’re young … You need tears, passion, love, romantic adventures … Later on, you resign yourself to your quiet little life. Then all you ask of God is one thing: to carry on! To carry on peeling the vegetables for the soup, day after day, going down to the dairy to buy milk, reading the serial in the Petit Parisien, eating mints to have sweet-smelling breath … Nothing more, my God, and for as long as possible. Then comes the time when God sends you an angel from heaven who takes you and leads you, whether you wish it or not, to the ultimate adventure, full of darkness and mystery … Terribly inconvenient,’ she thought. ‘All right now, let’s see, do I have enough capers? I wonder if Thérèse will ask the boy to stay for dinner. She’s in for trouble,’ she continued thinking. ‘She’s in for a great deal of trouble.’ It was just that men had always been difficult to hold on to. To get a man, well, that was easy, all you had to do was have everything in the right place … You could always get a man, but to keep him!…‘He’s not going to make her do something foolish, is he?’

  She was no more prudish than the next woman, but when it came to that …‘She’s no longer a young girl, she’s a woman. And, dearie me, you miss it once you’ve had it. But she must not do that. She’s setting herself up for every possible kind of unhappiness. If you are sensitive, you suffer passionately, violently, and if you’re not, if you take a second lover, then a third, you end up like Madame Humbert. Now there’s a woman who has had a few lovers. An old woman who wears too much make-up, and with cold eyes. But we’ve never had any bad women in our family,’ Madame Pain said to herself, thinking aloud: ‘No need to worry about her dying from a chest infection: there’s never been any tuberculosis in our family …’ No, no need to worry. But Thérèse would suffer. Young Bernard had launched himself into society … She thought about her dead husband: ‘Singers and champagne at twenty francs a bottle, I know what that’s like …’

  She was a decent woman with a vivid imagination that conjured up an amazing abundance of detail of the orgies in which the deceased Monsieur Pain, of the company Pain and Sons, Ribbons and Veil Merchants, had squandered all his money; she could see in her mind’s eye the image of young women with perfumed bodices standing around a baccarat table, sitting in a private box in the stalls of some little theatre. ‘Men have always loved money and life’s pleasures. As for women, it’s feelings that keep us faithful. We save because we think about our children; we deprive ourselves in order to make sure our little ones can have pleasures that their mothers will never live to see. But men … they ruin, they destroy things. So many generations of women who patiently, day after day, sweep up ashes from the carpets, mend torn pockets and holes in socks, keep everything in good order, light the fire when it’s about to go out …’ Thérèse would behave just like all the others; she would gather together precious crumbs of love; she would try to rekindle the sad, flickering light of love. She would save all the money that her man would happily spend the minute he earned it. It was the natural order of things; it was the fate of all women.

  Madame Pain hummed to herself as she tidied up the kitchen, then fell silent, saddened: she remembered poor Adolphe who, only a week ago tomorrow … But what was the point of crying? There was nothing she could do. ‘When it’s my turn to go, I really want to leave this world knowing that Thérèse is happy … with a handsome husband. He has beautiful eyes, this Bernard … when he was twelve years old, he already had eyes to be damned for … She couldn’t hear them in the dining room any more. ‘What are they doing? Rosalie, you’re being silly,’ she told herself, speaking to the little mirror that hung opposite the stove; it reflected the face of an old woman, a very red face with dishevelled hair (she was always red in the face these days): ‘they aren’t really children any more … Now if my granddaughter is clever, she’ll ask him to stay for supper; she’s in love with him. I have a very nice piece of hake … I’ll make them a mousseline sauce to go with it. But I am definitely out of capers. I’ll go out and buy some.’

  She slipped out of the apartment. She was old and heavy but she had a light step; Thérèse didn’t hear her leave or come back. Thérèse was alone when her grandmother returned with the capers.

  ‘But where’s Bernard?’ the elderly woman asked, sounding disappointed.

  Thérès
e was sitting at the table decorating her little black hat with some crepe. Her head and shoulders were very still and very straight: as a child, she often held herself in this way, rigid and silent, when she needed to cry but was holding back her tears; her hands seemed to move independently, with a life of their own; they were agile and graceful, fluttering swiftly between the needles and the spools of thread; her hands unrolled the long crepe ribbon; they pushed the pins in deeper. Madame Pain saw that Thérèse’s lips were completely white; they formed a pale white line across her face.

  ‘You should have made him stay for supper,’ said Madame Pain, trying to sound indifferent.

  Thérèse replied in the same way:

  ‘I thought about it, but he had plans …’

  ‘Really! There’s always time to have supper. Such a lovely bit of hake!’

  ‘He looked for you to say goodbye, Grandma.’

  ‘I went out to get some capers.’

  ‘He was very sorry. He’s leaving tomorrow,’ she added. ‘He’s going to America. His mother still doesn’t know.’

  ‘What is he going to do in America?’ asked Madame Pain.

  She sat down and fanned herself with the Petit Parisien newspaper she had folded in half; she suddenly felt tired and out of breath: she had gone up and down the stairs for nothing. She had wanted to make such a nice supper for these children … Thérèse had let the man she was in love with go … The women of today only got what they deserved. They were too proud: ‘At Thérèse’s age, I would have thrown my arms around his neck, yes, I would,’ thought Madame Pain; ‘I would have made him wait a good long time for the rest, of course … But a nice kiss … He would have stayed. What am I going to do now with all these capers?’