Newman lifted me onto his shoulders and I sat straddling the wall. I tugged Marc toward me with all my might. With an acrobatic pull-up, he vaulted fluidly over the wall. The momentum nearly made me topple over and break my neck.
Returning from Oberkampf’s tomb, we were like two deep-sea divers, dazed to find ourselves back on the surface.
On summer nights, from our room in the Green Pavilion, we crept into the Swiss Yard, which we had to skirt as quickly as possible. We risked bumping into Pedro as he made his rounds, or Kovnovitsyn walking his dog Shoura. And we would have been grounded for going outside after curfew.
Once past the great lawn, we were safe. We plunged into the darkness of the park near the fitness trail and tennis courts. A path led up to the woods, and there we scaled the school’s surrounding wall. We crossed through a clearing, at the end of which shone a vague dawn light, and finally reached the edge of the airfield that Newman had spotted one day, as he was walking near there.
Was this connected to the Villacoublay aerodrome? Newman claimed it wasn’t. He had managed to get hold of a geological survey map, and we pored over it in minute detail: the airfield was nowhere to be found. We had marked its location with a cross, right in the middle of the woods.
We lay down on the grass, near the barbed-wire fence. Beyond it, shadowy figures entered the hangar, and when they came back out they were pushing carts or carrying suitcases. A car or truck stood waiting at the other end of the field, into which they loaded all these items. Soon, the sound of the engine faded away. There was a light outside the hangar, and at its entrance a few individuals in mechanics’ overalls were playing cards around a table, or just eating. The murmur of their conversations in the night. Music. A woman’s laughter. And often, they placed signals along the runway, as if to guide the landing of an airplane that never came.
“We’ll have to find out what they’re up to by day,” Newman had said.
But by day, everything was empty and abandoned. Weeds had taken over the runway. In the back of the hangar, whose loose sheet metal rattled in the wind, slept the carcass of an old Farman biplane.
XIII.
Well, as it happens, I saw Newman again. A light green rubber ball had bounced off my shoulder. I turned around. A blonde little girl of about ten was looking at me shyly, hesitating to come retrieve her ball. Finally, she made up her mind. The ball had rolled on the sand a few yards away from me and, as if afraid I’d take it away, she grabbed it up quickly, crushed it against her chest, and ran.
That early afternoon, there were still very few of us on the beach. The little girl sat down, out of breath, next to a man in a navy blue swimsuit who was sunbathing, lying on his stomach, chin resting on his two fists. Given his close-cropped hair and very tanned—almost black—skin, it took me a moment to recognize my old schoolmate from Valvert, Marc Newman.
He smiled at me. Then he stood up. At fifteen, Newman, along with McFowles, had been one of the school’s best field hockey players. He stopped in front of me, looking bashful.
The little girl, ball against her chest, had taken his hand and was eyeing me suspiciously.
“Edmond . . . Is that you?”
“Newman!”
He burst out laughing and gave me a hug.
“How about that! What are you doing here?”
“And you?”
“Me? I’m looking after the little one here . . .”
She now seemed completely reassured and gave me a smile.
“Corinne, this is an old friend of mine . . . Edmond Claude.”
I held my hand out to her, and she, a bit hesitantly, held hers out to me.
“That’s a very nice ball you’ve got,” I said.
She tilted her head gently, and I was struck by how graceful she was.
“Are you on vacation?” Newman asked.
“No . . . I’m performing at the theater this evening. I’m on tour . . .”
“You became an actor?”
“Sort of,” I said, feeling awkward.
“Are you sticking around for a while?”
“Unfortunately, no. I have to leave the day after tomorrow, with the tour.”
“Oh, too bad.”
He looked disappointed. He rested his hand on the little girl’s shoulder.
“What about you—are you staying here long?” I asked.
“Oh, sure . . . Maybe for good,” said Newman.
“For good?”
He seemed reluctant to talk in front of the child.
“Corinne, go put on your dress,” said Newman.
Once the girl was out of earshot, Newman moved closer to me.
“Here’s the thing,” he said under his breath, “my name isn’t Newman but Valvert . . . Valvert, like the school. I’m engaged to the girl’s mother . . . We live in a villa, me, my fiancée, the little girl, my fiancée’s mother, and this old guy who’s my fiancée’s mother’s father-in-law. It might sound a bit complicated . . .”
He spoke breathlessly.
“A very respectable Nantes family. For me, you understand, it represents stability. No need to tell you that before this, I’d been pretty much adrift . . .”
The little girl walked toward us wearing a red dress with flounces. She had put her ball in a fishnet bag. With every step, she shook her foot, and sand poured from her sandals.
“I’ve knocked around all over the place,” Newman whispered to me, with increasing urgency. “I even spent three years in the Foreign Legion . . . I’ll tell you about it if we have time . . . But don’t forget—Valvert . . . Don’t mess up.”
He pulled on a pair of sky-blue cotton trousers and a white cashmere sweater with the same suppleness as at school. I still recalled our wonder, and Kovnovitsyn’s, at watching Newman turn cartwheels or climb a rope in mere seconds, legs thrust perpendicularly from his torso.
“You haven’t changed,” I said.
“Neither have you.”
He grabbed the girl with both hands and, with an elegant bend of his arms, sat her astride his shoulders. She laughed and rested the ball on Newman’s skull.
“No galloping this time, Corinne. We’re going back at a trot.”
We headed toward the casino terrace.
“Let’s go get something to drink,” said Newman.
A tea room occupied the left wing of the casino, along with several shops. We sat at one of the outdoor tables, the space lined with tubs of red flowers. Newman ordered an espresso, as did I. The girl wanted ice cream.
“That’s not very sensible, Corinne . . .”
She hung her head, disappointed.
“All right, fine, you can have ice cream . . . But you have to promise no more sweets this afternoon.”
“I promise.”
“You swear?”
She raised her arm to swear, and the ball she was holding against her chest fell to the ground. I picked it up and placed it gently on her knees.
The little girl ate her ice cream in silence.
Newman had opened the umbrella set in the middle of the table to give us some shade.
“So, you became an actor, just like that . . . ?”
“Afraid so, old man.”
“You were in something at school . . . I remember it . . . What was that play again?”
“Noah by André Obey. I played Noah’s daughter-in-law.”
Newman and I both burst out laughing. The little girl raised her head and started laughing as well, not knowing why. Yes, I had enjoyed a certain success in that role, thanks to my bodice and peasant skirt.
“I would have loved to see you onstage tonight,” said Newman. “But we’re staying in at the villa. It’s the old guy’s birthday . . .”
“No matter. I’ve only got a bit part, you know.”
In front of us, at the edge of the casino terrace, a poster for our play was affixed to a white pole that stood out against the blue sky like a ship’s mast.
“Is that your show?” asked Newman.
“Y
es.”
The red letters of the title, Mademoiselle Moi, looked gay and summery, in harmony with the sky, the beach, and the rows of tents in the sunlight. From our seats, we could read the name of our lead actor and, with a bit more effort, that of my old friend Sylvestre-Bel, in letters half as large. But my name at the bottom of the poster wasn’t visible. Short of using binoculars.
“So what about you, are you planning on settling here?” I asked Newman.
“Yes. I’m going to get married and try to start a business somewhere in the area.”
“What kind of business?”
“A real estate agency.”
The little girl finished her ice cream and Newman distractedly stroked her blond hair.
“My wife-to-be wants to stay here. Partly because of Corinne. It’s better for a child to grow up near the ocean than in Paris . . . You should see her school. It’s a few miles from here, in a chateau with a park. And guess who used to own the chateau? Winegrain, one of the kids from Valvert.”
I hadn’t really known Winegrain, but his name at school was legendary, along with a few others: Yotlande, Bourdon . . .
“Our villa is behind the casino. On the main road. I would have invited you over for a drink this evening, but the old coot is always in such a crappy mood . . .”
He had stretched his legs out on a chair and folded his arms, with the same air of an athlete at rest as he used to have during recess.
“So why did you change your name?” I asked in a low voice, after the girl had left the table.
“Because I’m starting over from scratch.”
“Still, if you want to get married, you’ll have to give your real name.”
“Not true. I’ll have new ID papers . . . Nothing to it, old man.”
He shook each foot and his white espadrilles fell off one after the other.
“What about the kid? Does she have a father?”
She was looking in the window of a hairdresser’s shop a bit farther on, very stiff and serious, the ball between her stomach and crossed hands.
“No, no . . . Her father bailed. No one knows where he is . . . Besides, so much the better . . . I’m her father now.”
I didn’t dare ask any more questions. Already in school, Newman shrouded himself in mystery, and whenever we tried to find out more about him—his address, his exact age, his nationality—he smiled without answering, or changed the subject. And whenever a teacher called on him in class, he would immediately stiffen and keep his lips sealed. We had ended up writing off his attitude as pathological shyness, and the teachers stopped calling on him, which absolved him from having to study.
I plucked up my courage.
“What have you been doing up to now?”
“Everything,” Newman answered with a sigh. “I spent three years in Dakar working in an import-export firm. Two years in California, where I opened a French restaurant . . . Before either of those, I did my military service in Tahiti . . . I stayed there quite a while . . . I ran into one of our classmates on Moorea . . . Portier . . . You know—Christian Portier . . .”
He spoke quickly, feverishly, as if he hadn’t opened up to anyone in a long time and was afraid some intruder would interrupt him before he had a chance to finish.
“Meanwhile, I enlisted in the Legion. I was there for three years. Then I deserted . . .”
“You deserted?”
“Well, not really . . . I managed to get hold of some medical certificates. I was wounded over there, and I could even claim an invalid’s pension . . . After that, I worked for a while as Mme Fath’s chauffeur.”
Despite his candid, athletic demeanor, a kind of fog enveloped the young man. Everything about him, apart from his sporting abilities, was vague and indistinct. Back then, in school, an old gentleman used to come collect him on our Saturdays out, or visit him during the week. He had skin like porcelain, a cane, shallow-set eyes, and he leaned his delicate frame on Newman’s arm. Marc had introduced him to me as his father.
He wore a flannel suit with a silk pocket square. He had an unplaceable accent. And Newman indeed called him Dad. But one afternoon, our teacher had announced to Newman that “Mr. Condriatseff was waiting for him on the patio.” It was the old man. Newman would write to him, and the name on the envelope intrigued me: Condriatseff. I had asked about it, but he merely smiled . . .
“It would be great if you could be best man at my wedding,” said Newman.
“When is it?”
“End of the year. To give us time to find an apartment in the area. We can’t keep living at the villa with the old guy and my wife-to-be’s mother. Personally, I’d love to have a place in there.”
With a nonchalant wave, he indicated the large, modern apartment buildings at the end of the bay.
“What about your wife-to-be, where did you meet her?”
“In Paris . . . When I got out of the Foreign Legion. Needless to say, I wasn’t in great shape. She really helped me out . . . You’ll see, she’s a great girl . . . At the time, I couldn’t even cross the street by myself . . .”
He seemed to be taking his new paternal responsibilities seriously and didn’t let the little girl out of his sight. She was still absorbed in contemplating the storefront windows of the casino.
He leaned his head toward me and jerked his chin toward the street that ran alongside the casino and down to the beach.
“Look,” he said under his breath. “It’s my fiancée and her mother . . .”
Two dark-haired women of the same height. The younger of the two had long hair and was wearing a terrycloth robe that reached halfway down her thighs. The other had on a sarong in rust and pastel-blue tones. They glided by a few feet away, but didn’t see us behind the tubs of flowers and bushes.
“It’s funny,” Newman said. “From a distance, they both look the same age . . . They’re pretty, don’t you think?”
I admired their lissome gait, their posture, their long, tanned legs. They stopped at the empty embankment, took off their high heels, and slowly descended the steps to the beach, as if offering themselves to everyone’s gaze as long as possible.
“I sometimes get the two of them confused,” Newman said dreamily.
They had left something mysterious in their wake. Airwaves. Under their spell, I scanned the beach, hoping to spot them again.
“Later on, I’ll introduce you . . . You’ll see. The mother’s just as attractive as the daughter. They have these great cheekbones and violet eyes. My problem is that I love them both the same.”
The little girl returned to our table at a run.
“Where have you been?” said Newman.
“I went to look at all the Applekins books in the bookstore.”
She was out of breath. Newman took the ball from her hands.
“Soon it’ll be time to go back to the beach,” he said.
“Not right away,” the little girl said.
And, moving closer to Newman:
“Gérard, will you buy me an Applekins?”
Gérard?
She lowered her head shyly, blushing at having dared ask for the book.
“Okay . . . All right . . . Just as long as you don’t eat any sweets this afternoon . . . Actually, why don’t you get three of them . . . You never know, we should stock up for later.”
He dug in his pocket, pulled out a crumpled banknote, and handed it to her.
“And pick me up the latest issue of Pleasures of France.”
“Three Applekins?” the girl asked, wide-eyed.
“Yes, three . . .”
“Oh, thank you, Gérard!”
She threw herself into his arms and kissed him on both cheeks. Then she ran off across the casino terrace.
“You’re calling yourself Gérard these days?” I asked.
“Sure. If you’re changing your name, might as well go for broke.”
On the avenue, to our right, a man appeared, with a ruddy complexion and a gray crewcut. He walked with quick, reg
ular steps, wearing a brown smoking jacket, blue pants, and carpet slippers.
“Hey, there’s the geezer,” said Newman. “He’s spying on us. Every afternoon, he makes sure we’re really at the beach. He’s a tough old bird for seventy-three, take my word for it . . .”
The man was tall and held himself very erect. His bearing suggested something military. He sat down on a bench on the embankment, facing the shore.
“He’s keeping an eye on Françoise and her mother,” Newman said. “You have no idea what it’s like to turn around and find his prison guard face staring at you . . .”
Apparently it gave him the shivers. A short distance away, the old man stood up now and again, leaned his elbows on the embankment railing for a while, then went back to his bench.
“He’s a real son of a bitch. Françoise’s mother has to put up with him because he’s supporting them—her, Françoise, and the kid. Bitter old coot. On top of which, he added a ‘de’ to his name, so now he calls himself ‘Grout de l’Ain,’ but he used to be in real estate. You can’t imagine how tightfisted the guy is. Françoise’s mother has to keep accounts and jot down every paper clip she buys . . . He’s completely ostracized me—he pretends I’m not even there. He won’t let me sleep in the same room as Françoise. Right off the bat, he’s been suspicious of me because of this . . . Look . . .”
He yanked up the left sleeve of his sweater, uncovering a compass rose tattooed on his forearm.
“You see . . . And yet it’s hardly anything bad.”
“You should get married as soon as you can and go live somewhere else,” I said.
Over there, on his bench, the old man had meticulously unfolded a newspaper.
“Edmond . . . Can I tell you something in confidence?”
“Of course.”
“Listen . . . They want me to do away with Grout de l’Ain.”
“Who does?”
“Françoise and her mother. They want me to get rid of the old coot.”
His features were tense and a large horizontal wrinkle cut across his forehead.
“The problem is how to do it cleanly, so as not to rouse any suspicion . . .”
The blue sky, the beach, the orange-and-white-striped tents, the tubs of flowers in front of the casino, and that old man, over there on his bench, reading his newspaper in the sun . . .
Such Fine Boys Page 13
