by Romain Gary
“I’m throwing a 1900s garden party. I think that little shit Grüber is starting to suspect me, and when that happens you really have to pull out all the stops. I don’t know what they’re cooking up — the orders say it’s a Kriegspiel — but all the Wehrmacht bigwigs from miles around have turned up here. They arrived at the Stag yesterday. I went big — I invited them all. Von Kluge is here, Rommel, too. Von Kluge was a military attaché in Budapest; he and my husband were quite close …”
“So what …”
“So what? Either we weren’t married yet, or it was a different Esterhazy, it was his first cousin — that’s what. It just depends on how the conversation goes. You think he’ll have read up on it? He sent me flowers. The garden party is in his honor. Ah, Budapest in the twenties, the good old days, Admiral Horthy … I was assistant madam in one of the best whorehouses in Buda in ’29. I know all the names.”
She dropped her cigarette and crushed it out with her heel. “It was a close call with Grüber, but Francis warned me in time. Your Odette and her transceiver, if they’d found her … Ssstt!” She slid her thumb across her throat like a knife.
“Where did you hide them?”
“I kept Odette, she’s my chambermaid. She has all the right paperwork, but the transceiver …”
“You didn’t dump it, did you?”
“It’s at Lavigne’s — you know, the deputy mayor.”
“Lavigne? Are you out of your ever-loving mind? He’s a known collaborator!”
“Exactly. And now he can prove he was an authentic member of the Resistance.”
She smiled ever so slightly at me, with pity. “You don’t know the world yet, Ludo. You’ll never know it, actually. Which is a good thing. We need people like you. If there weren’t any men like your Uncle Ambrose and his kites, or you …”
“You know, for someone with the firing squad look in his eyes, like you were always saying to me … It’s 1944. I’ve done all right so far.”
My voice broke a little. I was thinking about the man who didn’t know how to despair.
“He’s in Buchenwald, I heard,” Madame Julie said softly.
I was silent.
“Don’t worry. He’ll come back.”
“What, you think your friend von Kluge will get him out of there?”
“He’ll be back. I can feel it. I want him to come back.”
“Look, I know you’re a little witchy around the edges, Madame Julie, but a fairy godmother …”
“He’ll be back. I have a sense for these things. You’ll see.”
“I’m not sure you and I will still be around to see it.”
“We’ll be here. Like I was telling you, Grüber didn’t find anything. He even apologized. It’s just for all of the big fish at the Stag, apparently. Exceptional caution is required. And it’s true … one good bomb in there and … See what I’m saying?”
“I see. Well, we’ll let London know, but there’s nothing we can do for the moment. The Stag is too well guarded. It’s impossible. Is that why you called me out here? We’re not set up for that.”
“You’re right to lie low for a little while. I’ll admit even I have been thinking about making a break for it. I arranged for a fallback position in the Loiret. But I’ve decided to stay. I’ll hang in there. For now, the only thing shitting me …” She must have been really anxious, for her original vocabulary to resurface like that.
“The one and only thing shitting me right now is that guy.”
She jerked her head toward the liveried coachman perched on the seat of the carriage, reins and whip in hand, blinking his eyes and looking completely bewildered.
“He doesn’t speak a word of French, the bastard.”
“An Englishman?”
“Not even. A Canadian, but the son of a bitch isn’t a Francophile …”
“A Francophone.”
“Your little friends dumped him with me yesterday, in a German uniform. I told them one night and no more. They’ve been passing him around for three weeks, now … I got him out easily enough with the phaeton and the livery for the garden party, but I don’t know where to stash him. She gazed meditatively at the Canadian. “A shame — it’s a little early. No one can say whether it’s due to arrive this summer or in September. If we did know, I’d auction him off. Soon enough there’ll be plenty of people — and you know who — who’d line up and pay good money for an Allied aviator to hide.”
“What the hell do you want me to do with him in that getup?”
“You figure it out.”
“Listen, Madame Julie …”
“Goddammit, I’ve told you a hundred times, there is no Madame Julie,” she roared like a trooper. “It’s Your Ladyship!”
She was so upset that her faint mustache was quivering. It really is a curious thing, I thought, the way hormones can lose their heads and go to ours. And right at that moment, for no apparent reason — maybe because Madame Julie only lost her temper when she was upset or worried — I understood. There was another reason for this meeting, and that reason must be Lila.
“Why did you send for me, Madame Julie? What do you have to tell me?”
She lit a Gauloise, the flame in the hollow of her hands, careful not to look at me.
“I have good news for you, kid. Your Polish girl is … well, she’s safe and sound.”
I stiffened, waiting for the blow. I knew her. She didn’t want it to hurt too much.
“They arrested her after von Tiele’s suicide. They really put her through the mill. I think it even affected her mind a little. They wanted to know whether she knew about the conspiracy. People thought she was von Tiele’s mistress. People say stupid things.”
“It’s all right, Madame Julie. It’s all right.”
“They let her go, in the end.”
“And then?”
“Well, after that I don’t know what she did. Not the foggiest clue. There was her mother, her asshole father — that one, I tell you! — and they had nothing to live on. Well, anyway, to make a long story short …”
She seemed truly uneasy; she was still avoiding my gaze. She really did like me, Madame Julie.
“Our girl ended up with a friend of mine, Fabienne.”
“Rue de Miromesnil,” I said.
“Yeah, well, so what, rue de Miromesnil? Fabienne found her wandering the streets.”
“Walking the streets.”
Do you understand, Ludo? Do you understand? Above all I had to survive, save my own …
“Not at all, what are you trying to say? It’s just that, rather than leaving her in the street, Fabienne took her in.”
“Well, obviously a luxury bordello is better than the street.”
“Listen, my little Ludo, the Nazis are making soap with Jews’ bones, so worrying about cleanliness right now … You know Martini, the cabaret singer? In front of a house full of Nazis, he walked out on stage and raised his arm, as if he were doing the Nazi salute. The Germans applauded. And then he raised his arm even higher, and said, ‘All the way up to here, in shit!’ What I’m saying is, there’s no point in using inches to measure where the level is right now. And if Fabienne called me, it’s because the girl doesn’t fit in there. It takes skill to be a hooker — I’d even say it’s a calling. It’s not something you make up as you go along. Fabienne wanted to know what to do with her. So you go get her and bring her back to your house. Here, I brought you some cash. Go get her, bring her back home, be nice to her. It will fade. There’s been enough black and white. Gray is the only thing that’s human. Well, I’m off to my garden party. I brought in all the best whores. I’m going to try and save my skin. And get rid of this jerk for me. The Canadians had better learn French for the next war, otherwise I won’t lift a finger for them.”
She motioned the guy off his seat, lifted her skirts, and climb
ed up in his place. Then she grabbed the reins and the whip, and the phaeton moved off at a trot, carrying the old, undefeatable Madame Julie Espinoza to the countess Esterhazy’s garden party. I left the pilot in the rubble of what had once been the manor’s small sitting room, got word to Soubabère to have him seen to, and began gathering the necessary paperwork to get to Paris as quickly as possible.
45
I was spared the trip to Madame Fabienne’s féeria in the rue de Miromesnil. I regretted it a little, as the idea of testing my “insignificance” in this way made me feel rather proud. On May 14, I was in the workshop with the few children who still came to work with me, making provisions for the future, for the day when, the Nazis defeated, we would once again be permitted to take to the skies with our kites. The door opened, and I saw Lila. I got up and went to greet her, my arms open.
“Well, this is a surprise!”
Lightless, lifeless, her hair faded — only her beret, which she seemed to have carefully kept with her through all the vicissitudes, was like a smile from a bygone era. Her eyes, with their widened stare, the high cheekbones pushing up from under the muddy cast of her hollowed cheeks — all of it cried out for help, but it wasn’t that distress that shook me. It was Lila’s anxious, questioning gaze. She was scared. She must have been wondering whether I would throw her out. She tried to speak, her lips quivered, and that was all. When I held her to me, she remained tense, not daring to move, as if she didn’t believe it. I sent the children away and made a fire; she remained seated on a bench, her hands clasped, staring at her feet. I didn’t speak to her, either. I let the heat take its effect. All that we could say to each other said itself; the silence bustled about, doing its best, a true and faithful friend. At one point, the door opened, and Johnny Cailleux came in, most likely with some kind of urgent message or mission for me. Looking startled, he left without a word.
The first words Lila said were: “My books. We have to go get them.”
“What books? Where?”
“In my suitcase. It was too heavy. I left it at the station, just sitting there. There’s no checkroom.”
“I’ll go tomorrow, don’t worry.”
“Please, Ludo. I want them right now. It’s very important to me.”
I ran outside and caught up with Johnny. “Stay with her. Don’t move.”
I leapt onto my bike. It took me an hour to pedal all the way to the Cléry station, where I found the big suitcase in a corner. When I lifted it, the lock broke, and I stood there looking at the glory days of German painting, the Munich Art Gallery, the legacy of Greece, the Renaissance, Venetian artwork, the impressionists, and all the oils of Goya, Giotto, and El Greco, all tumbled out over the floor. I put everything back as best I could. I had to walk the whole way back, balancing the suitcase on my bicycle.
I found Lila sitting on the bench just as I had left her, with her fur-lined coat and her beret; Johnny was holding her hand. He squeezed my arm affectionately and left us. I set the suitcase down in front of the bench and opened it up.
“There you go,” I said. “You see? Nothing’s missing. Everything is there. Look for yourself, but I don’t think anything is lost.”
“I need it for my exam. I’m going to start at the Sorbonne in September. I’m studying art history, you know.”
“I know.”
She leaned over, picked up Velázquez. “It’s very difficult, but I’ll make it.”
“I’m sure you will.”
She set Velázquez down on El Greco and smiled with pleasure.
“They’re all there,” she said. “Except for the expressionists. The Nazis burned them.”
“Yes, they’ve committed some atrocities.”
She remained silent for a moment, then asked, in a tiny voice: “Ludo, how did all of this happen to me?”
“Well, first of all, they should have built the Maginot Line all the way to the sea, instead of leaving our left flank exposed. Then, we should have taken action as soon as they occupied the Rhineland. And then, our generals were all knuckleheads, de Gaulle was discovered too late …”
A ghost of a smile appeared on her lips and I felt like a good Fleury.
“I’m not talking about that … To me … How could I …”
“But that’s exactly what it is. When things explode, there’s always fallout. They even say that’s how the universe was made: an explosion, and then fallout. Galaxies, the solar system, the earth, you, me, the chicken soup with vegetables that must be ready right about now. Come on. Let’s eat.”
She kept her fur-lined coat on at the table. She needed a shell.
“I have a magnificent rhubarb tart. Straight from the Clos Joli.”
Her face brightened a little. “The Clos Joli …” she murmured. “How is Marcellin?”
“Admirable,” I told her. “The other day, he said something magnificent. Legendre, the pastry chef, was complaining that all was lost — whinging about how the country will never fully recover, even if the Americans do win. Marcellin blew his top. He yelled, ‘There will be no despairing over France in my kitchen!’”
Her gaze remained haunted. She held herself very straight, her hands clasped on her lap. In the fireplace, the fire kept to itself.
“We need a cat here,” I said. “Grimaud died of old age. We’ll get another one.”
“I can really stay?”
“You were never gone, lady. You stayed here the whole time. You never left my side.”
“Don’t be angry with me. I didn’t know what I was doing anymore.”
“We won’t talk about it. Actually, it’s just the same for France. After the war, they’ll say, she was with those guys, she was with these guys. She did this, no, she did that. It’s all talk. You weren’t with them, Lila. You were with me.”
“I’m beginning to believe you.”
“I haven’t asked you about your family.”
“My father is doing a bit better.”
“Ah, he deigned to regain consciousness?”
“When Georg died and we ended up penniless, he found work in a bookshop.”
“Always was a bibliophile.”
“Obviously, it wasn’t enough to live on.” She lowered her head. “I don’t know how I ended up doing that, Ludo.”
“I already explained it to you, my darling. General von Rundstedt’s tank corps. The Blitzkrieg. You have nothing to do with it. It wasn’t you, it was Gamelin and the Third Republic. If they’d asked you, you would have declared war on Hitler as soon as he occupied the Rhineland — I know that. Right at the moment Albert Sarraut was proclaiming to the National Assembly, ‘We will never abandon the Cathedral at Strasbourg to the threat of German cannons.’”
“You make fun of everything, Ludo. But I’ve never seen a more serious heart.”
“You hold up better, pretending to laugh.”
She waited, then murmured, “And … Hans?”
I tugged my shirt collar open a little way and she saw the locket. Outside, we could hear birds singing, with their strong idyllic tendencies. Sometimes a little irony goes a long way.
“And now I’m going to make you some real coffee, Lila. You only live once, so they say.”
She suffered from insomnia, and spent her nights curled up in a corner with her art books, studiously taking notes. During the day, she did her best to “make herself useful,” as she called it. She helped me with the housework, looked after the children, who came not only every Thursday but also after school on most days; the kites piled up everywhere, waiting for the day they could rise again. Comically enough, the Cléry school director qualified these courses as “applied learning,” and we even began receiving funds from the town council — provisions for the future. Word on the street was that it was due to arrive in August or September.
She slept in my arms, but following a few timid attempts I no
longer dared to touch her — she accepted my caresses, but holding still, with no reaction of any kind. It wasn’t just her sensuality that seemed to have been snuffed out. It was something deeper, something in her very senses. I understood how deeply her guilt tortured her on the day I noticed there were burns covering her hands.
“What on earth is that?”
“I scalded myself.”
It wasn’t believable: the burns were each distinct from one another, separated and regularly spaced. The following night, I woke up, sensing that her side of the bed was empty. Lila wasn’t in the room. I went to the door and leaned over the stairs.
There was Lila, standing with a candle in her right hand, deliberately burning the left one with the flame.
“No!”
She dropped the candle and lifted her eyes.
“I hate myself, Ludo. I hate myself!”
Never before, I think, had I experienced such a shock. I remained frozen in the stairwell, unable to think, to act. This horrible and childish attempt at punishing herself, an atonement — it seemed so unjust to me, so revolting, when so many of our comrades were fighting and dying to restore her honor. My legs gave out from under me and I fainted. When I opened my eyes, Lila was leaning over me, her face in tears.
“Forgive me, Ludo, I won’t do it again … I wanted to punish myself …”
“Why, Lila? For what? Punish yourself for what? You’re not guilty. You’re not responsible. None of that will remain. I’m not even asking you to forget. Not at all. I’m just asking you to think about it sometimes and shrug. My God … My God, how could a person lack so much … insignificance? How could you be so inhuman — so intolerant toward yourself?”
