“Maman, the youngest Lebel must now be sixteen or seventeen.”
“I tell you I could recognize that crying anywhere. You wait and see, Théophile. It is Pierre and we’ll find his mother drinking anis in Gaucher’s.”
“She will not be drinking anis,” he said ridiculously as though nothing had changed except in that anis had become scarce. Then, he thought, how did Maman know we are going to Gaucher’s? He had not told her, and it would have been many years since she had last stepped across the threshold of the bistro.
Maman stepped across it, however, as though not a page had turned in history nor she herself lost an inch of stature, and there, by the living God, at the end of the bar sat Madame Lebel, changed, but queerly, Moissac thought. She was not as old as he had remembered her.
Gaucher called out from behind the bar, “Monsieur le Préfet, we are honored!” It sounded more like a warning than a welcome.
Maman marched straight up to Madame Lebel. “You should be ashamed, madame. Little Pierre has the croup and he’s crying again.”
Madame Lebel looked at her, and Moissac at Madame Lebel more closely. She was a very young woman, ravished-looking, but young nonetheless. She said, “Madame, if you mean my brother Pierre, he is a thousand miles from here and if he is crying, it is of a Boche bullet, not the croup.”
Maman drew back, her fingers plucking at her lip. Finally she said, “You are Marie Lebel’s daughter?” I am.
“But there is a child crying,” Maman said, indicating with a vague wave of her hand the direction from which presumably she had heard it.
“Most children do,” the young woman said. “He will waken his father soon enough.”
Maman looked around for her son. “Théophile, take me home. I have aged twenty years in five minutes.”
“Sit down, maman.” He pulled a chair out from the nearest table, then turned to Gaucher. “Do you have Armagnac, monsieur?”
“For Monsieur le Préfet we have Armagnac.”
Men whose names Moissac had forgotten were playing cards at the side of the room. They did not look up. Maman sat staring at the doorway, badly shaken. She was old enough to die, Moissac thought. Then what would he do? Advertise? For a wife or for a mother? He looked around at the woman still sitting at the end of the bar.
“Madame, what are you drinking, may I ask?” She looked at her empty glass. “Air,” she said, “and anything you can put in it.”
Gaucher, a dark man with a straggling mustache, communicated with Moissac by no more than an exchange of glances, the patois of any bar in the world. When he had uncorked the Armagnac, he poured the first of it into the glass of Madame Lebel’s daughter and then brought the bottle and two glasses to Moissac’s table.
Maman said peevishly, “You promised me a glace.”
Gaucher said, “I am sorry, madame, but there is no more glace in St. Hilaire. The milk is only for the children and the very old.”
Maman gave a cackle of laughter. “I am not old enough, monsieur?”
Gaucher, with a savoir faire Moissac would have sold his soul to possess, brushed the back of his hand against Madame Moissac’s cheek, winked at her, and said, “Madame will never be that old.”
Moissac said, “Bring a glass for yourself, Gaucher.”
“No, Monsieur le Préfet, but I shall have a beer.” Maman sipped the Armagnac and made a wry face that changed suddenly to pleasure. Moissac turned in his chair. She had caught sight of an old friend. Standing in the doorway and spreading his arms to her as though they had not that morning bargained over a piece of a pig was René Labrière. He was only a few years older than Moissac but his hair was as white as fleece.
A small, wiry man, he pranced across the room to Maman and kissed her on both cheeks. “You have come home, Maman Moissac. It is a celebration.”
“I have come home,” she said, and then with a toss of her head: “But you are right—it is not to die! To die one lives among the rich and looks forward to an elegant funeral.”
The old hypocrite, Moissac thought. Was it a game between them, this camaraderie? Maman’s eyes were like live coals. The whole room had come to life, the card players abandoning their game and moving to the bar. Madame Lebel’s daughter was fiddling with the radio.
To Moissac, René gave a curt but not unpleasant “Bonsoir, Théo.”
Maman twisted around in her chair and demanded, “Gaucher, bring another glass.”
“No, no, no,” Rene protested without conviction. He greeted the other men while he pulled up a chair near Maman. His eyes caressed the bottle of Armagnac. “I had forgotten what she looked like.” With a sigh and a wink at Moissac: “She is like a beautiful woman. The only difference is you know what she can do for you before you touch her, eh, Théo?”
Moissac did not want to hate him, he had never wanted to hate him.
Three more men drifted in. Gaucher drew beer for them. They had come off work from the power plant at the head of the dam. Madame Lebel’s daughter settled for a program of flamenco music.
René said to one of the newcomers, “What happened up there tonight, Duroc? My whole studio became a darkroom.”
Duroc shrugged. “They took another life today. The lights have a way of going out when that happens.”
“I knew her,” René said, looking mournfully into his glass. “Once in a temper she cracked the skull of her own son. That did not make her a patriot.” He sipped the brandy.
“The mayor himself came to the plant. He must think we are all Maquis.” Duroc did not so much as glance at Moissac. “He was anxious to spread the word: the Boche who killed her is to be court martialed.”
His companions made noises of derision.
Moissac felt uncomfortable in it, but to improve his own position in this company he said, “I was there, messieurs. The mayor exaggerates. The man is to be tried by court martial, which is a little different. Still, it is something that they even want to pacify us.”
“They want the harvest,” René said.
“And one way or another, my friend, they will have it.”
The others murmured, “Les bâtards,” but they agreed with Moissac.
Maman said, “The harvesters have come again. Remember how it used to be when they came? Like a carnival, and we would take them in, up and down the street, for a few sous a night. Now they are quarantined at Madame Fontaine’s.”
The old mischief maker. “They are not quarantined, maman. I suspect they are drunk.” To no one in particular he said, “She wanted me to bring them home with me.”
He should not have baited her. She gave an arrogant little shrug of her shoulders. “It is a pity, but you have made us far too respectable for that.”
Everyone laughed and Rene touched his glass to Maman’s. She threw down the Armagnac in one swallow like medicine. While Moissac grew more and more morose, Maman grew garrulous and sentimental. She ridiculed her neighbors on the hill who would not scratch themselves in daylight. What, she wanted to know, had happened to Madame Lebel? Surely she would have known if she had died.
Madame Lebel was living on the farm now with her oldest son. Madame’s daughter was married to Divenet, the plumber.
“That old man?” Maman blurted out, and then realizing the gaucheness of it herself, amended, “Ah well, they will not send him to a labor camp, eh?”
Moissac wished to God he had left her home.
The door opened and a young man entered, a stranger to all of them. He moved toward the bar like a man about to question Gaucher’s license. He was tall, and while the grey-blue eyes rested on no one, Moissac had the feeling he had measured everyone in the room the moment he stepped into the bistro. Gestapo? It was Moissac’s first thought, and he did not like being discovered by them in Au Bon Coin, pacification program or not. The whole atmosphere now reinforced his suspicion that Gaucher’s was a meeting place for the Resistance. The man nodded to Maman, passing, and murmured, “Bonsoir, madame.”
Maman twisted around in
her chair and stared at the man’s back, her mouth open, her tongue playing over the cracked lips as it sometimes did when she was about to speak but not quite sure of the words.
May she never find them, Moissac thought. “Come, maman,” he said and got to his feet. “It is past our bedtime. Come.”
She looked at him in sudden fury.
“We are going now!” he commanded, and she submitted.
“You will come and visit me in my studio,” René said soothingly and held her chair. “I will take your picture.”
Moissac called out, “I will take care of this, Gaucher.”
“It is my pleasure, Monsieur le Préfet.”
Rene went as far as the door with them. The stranger did not look round, his back as stiff as armor.
Marc was badly shaken when he realized that he had walked into the prefect of police. It had been ordeal enough for him to confront again so many faces turned his way, and with the chance always that among them was the recognizing stranger.
“Yes, monsieur?” the barman said.
“Is it possible to have coffee, monsieur?”
“What passes for coffee in this country is possible, yes.”
He could scarcely have gotten a more hostile answer. Then the little man who had gone to the door with the policeman and his mother came up and said, “The real question, monsieur, is: can you drink what passes for coffee in this country?”
Marc tried to smile, but he felt the effort. The white-haired man said, “Come, monsieur, have an Armagnac on the prefect of police.”
The barman said, “When Moissac pays, then you can drink, René.”
But Marc went to the table and sat down. “I will pay, monsieur.”
René poured for Marc and himself, using the glasses that were already on the table. He watched Marc’s hand as he reached for the glass. Marc willed himself to hold it steady. The little man’s eyes followed the glass to his lips, and his expression saddened. He lifted his own glass. “Your health, monsieur,” he said, but with a great weariness in his voice.
The barman brought a white mug with a brew as black as tar in it.
Marc thanked him and said, “I am looking for Monsieur Lapin.”
Marc had the feeling that there was no one in the room who did not already know that, but the barman said, “I never heard of such a person.” He went to the windows and closed the blinds. He fixed the night lock on the door. “It is closing time, messieurs, madame.” He shook the crumbs from a couple of tablecloths while he waited, and put the cloths back on the tables.
Marc sipped the bitter brew. It had the taste of almonds in it.
“Why didn’t you ask the prefect of police about this Monsieur Lapin?” René asked.
“I did not think he would know him,” Marc said.
The men filed out one by one, some murmuring, “Bonsoir, Gaucher.” Gaucher returned to the bar. The woman there did not move. Gaucher said, “Go home to your husband, madame. Not every woman in St. Hilaire has one to go home to.”
“Go to hell, Gaucher,” she said, and getting off the stool she pulled her skirts from between her buttocks.
Gaucher came round and got the bottle of Armagnac. He went to the door after the woman and when she was gone rechecked the lock and threw the inside bolt. He turned off the lights, leaving only one small lamp burning behind the bar. He waited. Marc went to the bar and paid him. The barman said, “Have you eaten, René?”
“Not enough.”
“Who has? Come in when you are through.” Gaucher disappeared into the kitchen, the door swinging closed behind him.
Marc went back to the table. “You are Monsieur Lapin?”
“I may know his brother,” René said, and Marc knew he had made his contact.
Marc said, “I did not know he had a brother,” the prescribed answer.
Rene shook his hand with an attempted cordiality. Marc understood. There would have been many others before him and the Resistance man was having to operate under the nose of the prefect of police. René” said, “My name is René Labrière. I am a photographer. You may have seen my sign in the window.”
“Marc Daridan. I am an architect—or was about to become one when the axe fell on Paris.”
“Who sent you to Monsieur Lapin?”
“‘Richelieu.’”
“Reseau Soleil?”
Marc nodded.
“A dirty business,” René said. “Only tonight I heard ‘Richelieu’ himself is on the run.”
“I botched a job for them,” Marc said.
René shrugged. “It happens.”
Marc felt he had to tell the story to someone. He wanted to justify himself; then it occurred to him that every man who came to Labrière would do the same thing. He waited.
René said, “If it is all over, tell me about it. Otherwise, I do not want to know.”
“It is all over for everyone except me,” Marc said. “Two months ago ‘Richelieu’ discovered that his reseau was being infiltrated by what is now known as the Milice.”
Even as the trainman had, René said, “Fascist bastards.”
“’Richelieu’ decided that I was the ideal person to join their corps, to recommend myself to their intelligence and find out who the infiltrator was…”
René stopped him. “You were not a member of Reseau Soleil? No, no, of course not. Otherwise you could not have infiltrated the infiltrators.”
“I was not even a member of the Resistance. I knew ‘Richelieu’ in…a different capacity.” To the purpose of telling his story clearly Marc refrained from telling René then that his work up until the Milice accepted him had been with the Jewish refugee committee. Or was it to that purpose? He questioned himself even as he passed over the information.
“Go on,” René said.
“The Milice needed a man like me. For one thing, I am fluent in German. I lived with them, ate with them, drank with them. I became an interpreter in their school for spies. I memorized thirty faces, finding a particular characteristic in each one—a scar—there were many scars, I can tell you—the shape of the head—the ears. It was the terror of my life that when the time came I might identify the wrong man.”
“And did you?” René said. Then, “Forgive me. Tell it in your own way.”
“There is no point in being melodramatic,” Marc said. “When I was ready I contacted ‘Richelieu.’ The entire Reseau Soleil met in the basement of a burnt-out church. There was even a grave ready for the traitor. Almost the moment I walked in I was able to identify one of them as a member of the corps. But you see, there were two, and the second one got away before I saw his face.”
“The reseau would have had to break up in any case,” René said after a moment. “But you are a marked man, a particular bête noir to the Milice.”
“A very particular bête noir, Monsieur Labrière. I am a Jew.”
The little man did not conceal his surprise. Then he laughed aloud. “Excuse me, monsieur, but I will explain what I think is very funny. It occurred to me while you were talking why the prefect of police went out of here like a frightened rat when you came in. He would have thought you were Gestapo—it crossed my mind also—and for him to explain to his German colleagues why he was in such a place—very awkward. But here is the funny part: in St. Hilaire, we have always called Moissac the Jew. You know—his nose?” René described the nose with his forefinger, the historic caricature.
Marc managed a faint smile. “Why was he here, monsieur?”
“That is something Gaucher and I will have to ask ourselves, but it would have been better if he had not seen you. You want to reach the Spanish border, is that it?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“What kind of papers do you have?”
Marc showed him his I.D. card and Rachel’s. “There are two of us, monsieur.”
René took them to the light and studied them. He returned to the table. “Surely you have not traveled on these?”
“We traveled on the identity an
d permit of a man and wife named Belloir who are native to Fauré.”
“And the Belloirs? What has become of them?”
“They will come soon. The permit is to travel for the harvest. Their papers are on the way back to them in Paris.”
“A railway employee?”
“Yes.”
“You are an honorable man to have returned the papers,” René said.
Marc said nothing, but the phrase ran through his mind: So are we all honorable men.
“And your wife, monsieur? Where is she?”
Marc told him of the mill and how they had come to hide there.
“It was a chance to take, asking the nun. We also have a senior prelate in this town who thinks Vichy is the gateway to heaven.”
“To have recommended such a place,” Marc said, “she would have understood.”
“We must hope so. Since you are there, go back and stay there. The prefect of police must not see your face again, not with these papers behind it.” He gave them back to Marc. “I will come to you. Perhaps we can use the mill again if you are safe there.”
Marc, with more than a little reluctance, asked, “Is there a doctor who would come? My wife has pain. I don’t know what it is.” He watched the lines in René’s face harden. He expected it. He knew how he had felt himself under such circumstances.
“Is she pregnant?”
“We’ve only been married a week,” Marc said.
“Congratulations. First there is the matter of identity papers. Doctors are cautious men…and we need them.”
8
RUE LOUIS PASTEUR WAS deserted. Not a light in the shops, not even a stray cat to stalk its shadow in the moonlight. And with the darkness, an awful stillness prevailed. Marc could hear the rattle of the aspirin in the box in his pocket: it was the best he had been able to obtain for Rachel. The apothecary recommended that he consult a doctor. First the papers, then the doctor, Monsieur Lapin had said, and Marc had more deeply sympathized with him than with Rachel. He closed his hand around the aspirin: it would relieve the fever. That had been a shock to him. He had felt the sudden heat in her and thought it the flush of love at first, and was himself renewed until at last she had cried out. Anger should not follow love, but that was what he had been left with, anger with himself, with Rachel, with man’s fate and its humiliations, the ingredients of being human and yet not human enough: to know, yet not to feel, which to him was worse by far then to feel and not to know.
God Speed the Night Page 5
