by Michel Déon
The Foundling Boy
Michel Déon
translated from the French by Julian Evans
It is 1919. On a summer’s night in Normandy, a new-born baby is left in a basket outside the home of Albert and Jeanne Arnaud. The childless couple take the foundling in, name him Jean, and decide to raise him as their own, though his parentage remains a mystery.
Though Jean’s life is never dull, he grows up knowing little of what lies beyond his local area. Until the day he sets off on his bicycle to discover the world, and encounters a Europe on the threshold of interesting times…
ISBN: 978–1–908313–56–0
e-ISBN: 978–1–908313–59–1
The Foundling’s War
Michel Déon
translated from the French by Julian Evans
In the aftermath of French defeat in July 1940, twenty-year-old Jean Arnaud and his ally, the charming conman Palfy, are hiding out at a brothel in Clermont-Ferrand, having narrowly escaped a firing squad. At a military parade, Jean falls for a beautiful stranger, Claude, who will help him forget his adolescent heartbreak but bring far more serious troubles of her own.
Having safely reached occupied Paris, the friends mingle with art smugglers and forgers, social climbers, showbiz starlets, bluffers, swindlers and profiteers, French and German, as Jean learns to make his way in a world of murky allegiances. But beyond the social whirl, the war cannot stay away forever…
ISBN: 978–1–908313–71–3
e-ISBN: 978–1–908313–83–6
The Great and the Good
Michel Déon
translated from the French by Julian Evans
Arthur Morgan is aboard the Queen Mary bound for the United States, where a scholarship at an Ivy League university awaits him, along with the promise of a glittering future.
But the few days spent on the ship will have a defining effect on the young Frenchman, when he encounters the love of his life.
ISBN: 978–1–910477–28–1
e-ISBN: 978–1–910477–40–3
Watch interviews between Michel Déon and his
translator Julian Evans at gallicbooks.com
The Foundling’s War
by Michel Déon
translated from the French
by Julian Evans
Gallic Books
London
This book is supported by the Institut français du Royaume-Uni as part of the Burgess programme.
www.frenchbooknews.com
A Gallic Book
First published in France as Les Vingt Ans du Jeune Homme Vert
by Éditions Gallimard, 1977
Copyright © Éditions Gallimard, Paris, 1977
English translation copyright © Julian Evans, 2014
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Gallic Books, 59 Ebury Street, London, SW1W 0NZ
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention
No reproduction without permission
All rights reserved
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978–1–908313–71–3
Typeset in Fournier MT by Gallic Books
Printed in the UK by CPI (CR0 4TD)
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Jean’s view of the band as it turned into the avenue leading to Place de Jaude, was obstructed by Palfy’s nose. It had always been of noble dimensions, with nicely arched nostrils that quivered particularly sensitively at the smell of grilling meat or a ripe Camembert but never, never before had it aspired to block an entire avenue. From the front, Palfy’s nose suited his bony face, and its bump, emphasised above its bulbous tip by a white scar, actually seemed somehow cheerful and promising. But then suddenly, seen from the side, it underwent a curious mutation: protruding, it transformed Palfy’s expression utterly, turning him into a sort of predator, a gourmand (or sensualist, if you like) of an extreme and quite possibly sadistic kind. Abruptly his eyelashes seemed too exquisitely brushed, his eyes to retreat into their orbits, exaggerating the pink, living caruncle into a pustule at the corner of the eye, and his arched nostril revealed the cartilage inside, as smooth as the wall of a cavern.
Jean told himself he must never really have seen his friend’s face in profile before, which was both a pretty peculiar and pretty improbable state of affairs, given that they had known each other for three years and been through nine months of fighting together, eating from the same mess tins, sleeping on the same straw, throwing themselves down in the same mud. He had had to sit at a café terrace in Clermont-Ferrand on a July morning in 1940 to discover Palfy’s nose for the first time. How long would it take to get to know the rest of his face? Jean closed his eyes and tried to imagine Palfy’s hands. His attempt to conjure up a precise picture of them was unsuccessful and when he opened his eyes again the band, having filed past Palfy’s nose, had arrived at the café. Children dashed along the pavements. Women in sleeveless dresses waved. One of them stopped in front of the café terrace, and through the thin blue lawn of her dress the sunlight outlined soft thighs, delicious hips, and a slim back. For a second or two she stood without moving, offered to their gaze, an unknown, fragile-looking young woman with ash-blond hair falling over her cool neck. She turned to walk away and her face appeared with its childlike nose, pale lips and sun-lightened eyebrows.
‘Did you see?’ Jean said.
‘Yes. We are visited by grace herself.’
‘Fleetingly!’
‘However fleeting, she must always be acknowledged. And we shall see her again.’
‘She might be really stupid.’
‘I guarantee she won’t be!’ Palfy declared, in a tone that brooked no contradiction.
Sergeant Titch was passing them now, chest out, marching stiffly, tossing his beribboned baton high above his head. The band followed, drummers first, ahead of the buglers, whose instruments festooned with blue pennants embroidered with a red design – a devil and his lance – glinted in the sunlight. These gaitered, white-gloved cherubs, cheeks bulging under their greased and gleaming helmets, were being menaced from behind by Pegasone, the strawberry roan mare of Colonel Vavin, a fine figure of an infantryman on horseback. Mounted uneasily in his saddle, the colonel, knowing the mare hated the cacophony of brass and drums, feared she would throw him at any moment. And behind Pegasone lay further danger in the shape of the baby-faced subaltern who, flanked by heavily decorated NCOs, was carrying the regimental standard at far too acute an angle, threatening Pegasone’s hindquarters with its metal spike. One false move and she would be off.
‘Come on!’ Palfy said.
Jean looked for a waiter to pay for their beers.
‘What are you doing?’ Palfy asked.
‘I can’t see the waiter.’
‘Don’t you know that we won the war? Have you ever seen the winning side pay for its drinks? Let’s get out of here.’
They dived into the crowd, which grew thicker as they approached Place de Jaude.
‘I think you’re overstating it,’ Jean grumbled. ‘We didn’t win the war. In fact I don’t think we can ever have lost a war as shamefully as we did this one.’
Palfy shrugged.
‘We must have won. At the last minute it all worked out for us. The miracle of the Marne. La furia francese. Otherwise they’d never dare parade like this.’
The regiment flowed into the square, its companies marking time as they waited to take up their positions in front of an empty stage backed with red curtains that looked like an open mouth. Squeezed into khaki jackets buttoned to the throat, trussed up in cartridge belts stuffed with bread, chocolate and tobacco, and weighed down by new cleated boots that threw sparks as they hit the ground, the soldiers looked as though they were on the verge of apoplexy. Company sergeant-majors, lieutenants and captains scuttled back and forth, issuing orders to their companies that were raggedly obeyed. Rifles were stacked, and at a signal from section NCOs each man pulled a rag out of his cartridge belt t
o polish his boots. An admiring ‘ah!’ of astonishment ran through the crowd massed on the pavements, held back with some difficulty by a police cordon. A new era was dawning. Groomed and gleaming, newly issued with MAS-36 rifles (prudently kept back during the fighting to make sure the old rifles from 1914–18 were used first), the regiment with its distinctive red epaulettes and dashing, self-important officers seemed to have survived its recent battles without so much as a scratch or losing a single one of the buttons Gamelin had promised to the government.
When the boots were polished, the rifles were unstacked and companies lined up once more. An official in a black-edged jacket, stiff collar, striped trousers and bowler hat appeared on the platform. He scrutinised the two rows of chairs, looking for the one with his name on. He looked like a clown or a tiny Jonah, about to be swallowed by the curtains’ open mouth. Having found his seat, he settled himself, mopped his brow, and suddenly saw that more than a thousand spectators had him in their sights. Swiftly replacing his bowler, he disappeared as if swallowed by a trapdoor, followed by a wave of laughter.
Moments later, the prefect made his entrance. Instructions rang around the square and battalion commanders ordered their men to shoulder arms.
Jean and Palfy found themselves in the front row, among the ex-servicemen, who wore their berets tugged down over their ears and carried children on their shoulders. Jean could have named nearly every officer and NCO now standing to attention in the square, but the veterans of the regiment – the men who had still been fighting three weeks earlier – had been redistributed among the re-formed companies, which had then been joined by the last contingent to arrive. He and Palfy recognised Hoffberger, fat as ever, and the huge Ascary, little Vibert, still furious-looking, the seminarian Picallon, their friend the boxer Léonard, and Negger, the pacifist primary-school teacher – all of them easily distinguishable from the young recruits drummed up after the armistice by their visibly casual way of standing to attention.
‘I can hear Ascary swearing, “God oh God oh God in heaven”,’ Palfy said.
‘And Hoffberger going “hmmph”.’
‘Good to see they’re both still with us.’
‘To tell you the truth,’ Jean said, ‘I’d prefer to see that nice blonde, the one we saw just now with the sun behind her.’
‘Is that all you can think about?’
A general was inspecting the regiment. When the inspection was finished, it was time to award the decorations. Colonel Vavin added a bar to his Croix de Guerre, which already reached his belt. Three captains and four lieutenants received the official embrace. Next it was the NCOs’ turn. A dozen sergeants fell out.
‘You see, we won the war. No question about it,’ Palfy said.
Next to them, an ex-serviceman curiously sporting a faithful copy of a Hitler moustache hissed at them, ‘Shut up, you bloody layabouts!’
‘Forgive me, Monsieur,’ Palfy said contritely, ‘I was only joking.’
‘This is no time for jokes.’
Jean’s elbow connected with Palfy’s ribs. One of the sergeants, good-looking in a thuggish way, was taking his three paces forward to receive a Croix de Guerre.
‘It’s Tuberge! They’re giving Tuberge the Croix de Guerre! They’re out of their minds!’
‘Not that bastard who trousered my watch!’
There was movement and a murmuring around them. The ex-serviceman put up his fists.
‘Now you’re insulting our heroes!’
‘I make a hero like that every morning,’ Palfy said.
‘Shut up!’
‘Oh, belt up, you old fart.’
The ex-serviceman attempted to grab Palfy’s shirtfront. Shoving him back, Palfy broke free and, cupping his hands around his mouth, yelled, ‘Sergeant Tuberge! You’re a fairy! Coward! Bastard! Looter! Murderer! Shit! Thug!’
The general, about to pin on Tuberge’s medal, stopped dead, although he did not deign to turn towards the heckler. Nor did the colonel, who beckoned to an aide-de-camp. In the reverential silence that reigned across the square, Palfy’s shouts had been heard by everyone. Tuberge himself, fists clenched, appeared to be about to dive into the crowd towards his tormentor, who was now brandishing his fist, having just shoved the infuriated ex-serviceman to the ground.
The ex-serviceman was shouting, ‘Arrest them! Arrest them! They’re agitators.’
The aide-de-camp ran over to a police sergeant. In the ranks of his old battalion Jean could see Ascary doubled up with laughter,
The Foundling Boy
by Michel Déon
translated from the French
by Julian Evans
Gallic Books
London
This book has been selected to receive financial assistance from English PEN’s ‘PEN Translates!’ programme, supported by Arts Council England. English PEN exists to promote literature and our understanding of it, to uphold writers’ freedoms around the world, to campaign against the persecution and imprisonment of writers for stating their views, and to promote the friendly co-operation of writers and the free exchange of ideas.
A Gallic Book
First published in France as Le jeune homme vert by Éditions Gallimard, 1975
Copyright © Éditions Gallimard, Paris, 1975
English translation copyright © Julian Evans, 2013
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Gallic Books, 59 Ebury Street, London, SW1W 0NZ
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention
No reproduction without permission
All rights reserved
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978–1–908313–56–0
Typeset in Fournier MT by Gallic Books Printed in the UK by CPI (CR0 4TD)
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Jeanne could not find a way through the hawthorn hedge. The stiff branches slashed at her face and arms. She ran along the path in the hope of finding an opening, but the hostile, aggressive hedge was impenetrable. Clasping her large barren bosom with both hands to stop it bouncing, she felt her heart’s panic-stricken thumping as a sharp pain under her left palm. But she could not give up. Behind the hedge, in the young birch forest, a child was wailing, and its fitful cries, carried on the evening air, were calling for her help. She badly wanted to rescue the baby lost in the wood, but her heavy legs felt glued to the earth and her lungs were failing her. She gasped for breath. If she did not hurry up, the child would die and Albert would never forgive her. What made her panic most was that, although she must have run the best part of a kilometre to try to find a way through, the cries were as close as ever, as if the baby was following her behind the hawthorns. Then she realised that the path must go in a circle around the wood, whose dappled foliage was rustling in the fading light. The wailing broke off, and Jeanne stopped, paralysed by fear, with such a lump in her throat that when she tried to call out, only a croak passed her lips.
‘What’s the matter?’ Albert said.
A strong hand, with its calloused palm, squeezed her arm, and Jeanne’s anxiety vanished. She opened her eyes onto the darkness of the bedroom, made out its shape and the position of the window, saw the curtains stir in the breeze. Albert’s thumb stroked her forearm with a reassuring gentleness.
‘There’s a baby crying,’ she said.
‘No there isn’t, it’s nothing … go back to sleep.’
‘There is, there is, I promise you. Listen.’
They stopped talking and heard nothing, and then there was a wail from somewhere close by, weaker than in Jeanne’s dream, a last exhausted whimper.
‘Oh,’ Albert said. ‘You’re right! It sounds like an injured hare.’
‘I’m sure it’s a baby.’
‘At this hour … outside our window?’
He had a literal mind that had no room for anything unexpected. Jeanne sat up in bed, listening intently. There was another plaintive, desperate wail.
‘Maybe it’s Old So
uillet’s crow. It imitates anything that moves.’
‘I’m going to see,’ Jeanne said, stretching out her hand to grope for the sulphur matches on the bedside table.
The Pigeon lamp gave out a gloomy, yellowish glow that shed almost no light. Jeanne adjusted the wick, put a dressing gown on over her nightdress, and went down the wooden staircase. The house had two entrances, one opening into the park, the other onto the road. Without hesitation, Jeanne went to the door to the road and opened it. A wicker basket sat in the middle of the steps, festooned with ribbons. Her hand made contact with a wool blanket. Bringing the Pigeon lamp closer, she saw a minuscule face screwed up against its glimmer. The baby gave a weak cry and its mouth twisted up.
‘Jesus! Mary! It is a child! Come down quick, Albert.’
She forgot that Albert could not come down quickly. He had only one good leg and needed time to strap on the other wooden one, pull on a pair of trousers and grip the banister, step by step.
‘Are you sure?’ she heard him shout from upstairs.
‘Am I sure? Listen to you!’
‘Bring it up then, and we’ll see. Is it just one?’
Only then did she think to look up and down the road, but the dark night only revealed what she knew already: a bend to the right, another to the left, the hawthorn hedge opposite. A light, almost warm breeze caressed the shapes of the shadows. A few stars twinkled in the sky. The moon was not yet up. On windy nights you could hear distinctly the waves buffeting the cliffs, but tonight the sea was calm and far away, as if blotted out by the summer night. Jeanne cautiously picked up the basket and carried it to the bedroom. Albert was waiting in his nightshirt, sitting on the edge of the bed with one leg dangling, holding a paraffin lamp.
