“Could I see the picture, René?” Moissac got up from the chair.
“I have not printed it yet. If you wish to see that it exists…”
“Why should I doubt that it exists? But why did she come to you, I wonder. You are not the only photographer in St. Hilaire.”
“I am the only photographer with a sign in the window of Au Bon Coin. Perhaps the husband saw it. I do not know. Madame came in this morning and said she wished to have a portrait done for her twenty-first birthday, to send to her parents in Marseille.”
“Did she pay you?”
“A deposit.” There was not a centime in the till. “Do you need money, Théo?”
“No, I do not need money. What will you do with the photograph when it is ready?”
“She will pick it up on her return from the harvesting.”
Moissac made a noise in his throat: it was meant to convey his skepticism. He looked at his watch. If the train was late he would go directly to Madame Fontaine’s. He picked up the telephone on the counter. It was dead.
“I am sorry, Théo, but I have been ruled a non-essential business. They will be taking out the instrument to give to an essential German.”
It was unwise of them, Moissac thought as he drove to the station. A telephone was a device which could be listened in on. But of course, René also would know that.
More and more he realized, seeing the troops in the railway yard, it was becoming a garrison. Which left the prefect of police with very little to do there: illegal travelers would be advised against the terminal. There was no train yet so he went on to Madame Fontaine’s. He knew that he would not hold up the processing of the harvesters: the Agricultural Department had cleared their working papers. As for the Belloirs, he wanted to pursue them at his own pace, his own discretion, and he wanted to derive what pleasure was to be gained from the association.
He began the checking out of the harvesters while they were all together at the luncheon table. During the routine processing of the Belloirs he brought up the matter of the photograph, commenting on the miserable likeness of her I.D. shot. “Even René could do better than that.”
Madame made no response. Under the pretense of scratching his nose with the back of his hand, he sniffed at the card. The smell of perfume or face powder was pungent. Nonetheless a little smell of what?—something chemical clung to it. Also, Madame wore no makeup.
Belloir was looking annoyed, as though it was improper for Moissac to examine his wife’s papers. Moissac shifted the cards, Monsieur Belloir’s now on top. “Now, monsieur takes an excellent photo.”
“I am vain. I make the photographer work.” Marc held out his hand for the papers.
Moissac ignored the hand, and for the moment, the impertinence. He addressed himself entirely to the wife: “I hope my friend, Monsieur Labrière, has done better for you. Is it a long time since your parents have seen you?”
Marc answered: “Since she came to me in Paris, well over a year ago.”
“That is a long time,” Moissac said as though madame had answered for herself.
She smiled, the white teeth gleaming briefly. It was a smile that went through him to the bone. He stamped the work papers, and scratched his initials beneath the stamp. He gave the papers to Marc and spoke to her at the same time: “Where do they live, madame?”
“In Marseille,” she said after a brief hesitation her husband did not try to bridge.
“And the address?”
Now without hesitation: “Fourteen, Rue Paradis.”
“And your father’s name?”
“Cassin.”
“Thank you, madame, monsieur.” He moved on.
Gabrielle had done splendidly, Marc thought. The address he assumed to be that of her sister, but Madame Belloir’s parents were named Cassin. It would take time to sort out the discrepancy if the prefect checked it at all.
Moissac moved through the rest quickly. Not until he reached the dwarf did he hesitate. “What makes you so valuable to this enterprise?”
“They hired me, monsieur.” Artur looked around for acclaim of his wit. There was none.
Moissac folded his arms and addressed them all: “Now. Who will speak for you? To whom do I give your pass for the checkpoints?”
“To Monsieur Belloir,” Jacques said instantly. No one questioned his choice.
Moissac gave into Marc’s hands the general Ausweis provided for the group by Colonel von Weber. He cleared his throat and made a little speech: “No more inspections unless you get into trouble. Bon voyage and a safe harvest. I hope you won’t need the services of the apprentice doctor.” He began to feel expansive, having the attention of them all. “Come back to St. Hilaire and sing for us before you break up.” He looked from one of the women to the other. “Which of you is the songbird?”
“Philomène,” they all responded.
Philomène shook her head. Her cheeks were the color of ripe apples.
“You sing like a lark, mam’selle.”
Philomène gave a throaty laugh. There was a lot to her, Moissac thought, and she had been in many beds and maybe a few wagons. It would be an interesting caravan to follow, the threshers going out from St. Hilaire within the hour. He almost wished himself a natural partner to their labors. A natural partner: he contemplated the words sardonically as he went out. Then he set his mind to the quickest way by which he could get to Fauré and back.
Having persuaded Von Weber’s aid to provide him with a tankful of gasoline that he might travel on a security mission, he drove the Peugeot to Fauré.
He reached the village as the markets were closing. He got no welcome, driving a gasoline-propelled car, but the citizens would give no stranger welcome there. Fauré had been the scene two weeks past of three reprisal killings in the square: citizens chosen at random to atone the death of a German soldier sniped at in a convoy. Three crosses of freshly stripped oak had been erected there. Moissac removed his hat, passing. If it impressed anyone, he saw no sign of it in the women covering their stalls. Moissac went along to the post office on foot and asked for the address of Jean Belloir.
The postmaster removed his glasses. “It is in Paris, monsieur. Shall I look it up for you?”
“Please do.”
The man went mumbling to himself and presently returned with a piece of paper on which he had written a Fifth-Arondissement address.
Moissac thanked him. “I understand they have come home on a holiday.”
“If you say so, monsieur. They would not come to see me.”
“But you would have heard. It is only a village,” Moissac persisted. He did not identify himself.
“A moment, monsieur. I shall inquire.” The postmaster went to the table in the back of the room where the clerk was franking letters. Their exchange of words was inaudible to Moissac. The postmaster returned. “They will perhaps have come. There were letters.”
The clerk meanwhile abruptly left his work unfinished, and went out the back door.
“Their address in Fauré, please.” Moissac showed his identification.
The postmaster put away his glasses and came from behind the partition, all at a pace Moissac felt was designed to delay him. The man took him by the arm to the door, and on the street directed him the way to the Belloir farm by the shortest route. It was the longest route, Moissac was sure, but he thanked him and walked back across the square to his car, half-expecting his tires to have been deflated.
When he reached the crossroads outside the village, he wondered if he had not been entirely misdirected. He began counting off the farms. Within the kilometer he slowed down, about to overtake a cyclist. He remembered the postal clerk. The rider waved him on. Moissac passed him. He could not be sure, the man in cap and goggles. Moissac resumed his counting of the farms, keeping the cyclist in mirror view. On the far side of a hill he lost him. He stopped and waited. When the rider did not come he turned around and drove back. Not another vehicle was in sight, but a golden dust hovered over
the courtyard of the nearest farm.
A flock of geese set up a great noise when he drove into the yard. They retreated before the Peugeot and returned to attack when he parked. The gander nipped at his legs as soon as he closed the car door behind him.
The half-door to the cottage was open, revealing the kitchen-sitting room, neat and comfortable-looking with a cabinet of books on one side and a cupboard of dishes on the other. A letter lay on the plate at the head of the table which was set for the evening meal. He could smell the soup where it simmered far back on the stove. From where he stood, too, he could see what he took to be a wedding picture among others on the mantle.
No one came when he called out. The gander stabbed at his ankles, drawing blood, he was sure. He lifted the door-latch and went in, calling out again to announce what he was doing. The letter was addressed to M. Jacques Jean Belloir, and it was postmarked Paris. The date of postmark was not clear. Nor could he read anything within the envelope even though he held it to the sun. He put it back on the plate and went to the mantle where he studied the picture of the bridal couple. If they were Jean and Marie Belloir the couple in St. Hilaire were not. He looked for the photographer’s imprint, thinking of René. The picture had been taken in Paris. Who then was the couple with the harvesting corps?
He took the broom from the side of the hearth and went outdoors, wielding it as a shield between himself and the gander who ran alongside him as he approached the barn, thrusting again and again its long neck obscenely. To take an axe to that neck would have been a pleasure. Passing through the barn arcade between the grain bins and the washup room, he closed a gate between himself and the angry fowl, and left the broom in the barn. The broom fell and when he bent down to pick it up he saw the bicycle, the back wheel just showing inside the grain room.
He followed the lane with its fresh wagon tracks until he came to the field where two men and three women were working. One of the men stood with the horses while the other repaired an ancient binder. The women were cocking the grain, one gathering it and tying it into sheaves where the binder had failed to tie it. It was a very old man that held the horses, the one at the machine was roughly his own age. He worked on until Moissac came up to him.
“Monsieur Belloir?”
The man straightened up. “I am.”
Moissac identified himself. “I wish to inquire as to the whereabouts of your son, Jean, and his wife.”
“Why, monsieur? What have they done?”
Moissac watched the others come up, three generations of family he thought. “I have reason to believe there is a couple traveling under their identity in St. Hilaire.”
“But, Monsieur le Préfet, my son and daughter-in-law are in St. Hilaire. They went up by foot last night.”
Moissac looked from one stolid face to the other. Nothing. “It is so, monsieur?”
“Unless something happened to them on the way and that is what you have come to tell us.”
Moissac, remembering the cyclist, was on the verge of anger he could not afford. “Then, may I ask, who are the handsome bridal pair on your mantle?”
Belloir straightened his back again. His shoulders tended to hunch. “It is very like the Germans, monsieur, to enter a house without cause or permit. I did not think it of a Frenchman.”
“God Almighty, Belloir. Your bloody goose drove me in. He has my trousers in ribbons.”
For the first time Belloir showed that he could smile. “He is supposed to keep people out, not to drive them in, but my apologies, monsieur. The couple you ask about: they are my brother’s son and his wife. He went down to Paris with Jean, but now he is in a work camp.”
Moissac was helpless to contradict him. Yet the very ease with which Belloir told it made him suspect. “When did your son return from Paris?”
“Three days ago, is it? We are proud of him, monsieur. It is not every family in the canton who will have a doctor of their own.”
“It seems to me remarkable,” Moissac said, “that in so rich a farming area your son would volunteer to harvest the crops of strangers.”
“I do not question my son’s intentions, monsieur, any more than I would question his honor. We did not need him. As you see, we did not plant more this year than we could reap ourselves. Jean’s permit to travel was to take part in the harvest. That is what he is doing.”
Moissac knew he was bested for the moment. He thought of the letter lying on the plate in the house. He also thought of a fat goose to take home to Maman. Reluctantly he put the goose out of mind. “Thank you, monsieur. I will not keep you from your work any longer.”
“I will walk up with you,” Belloir said. “The binder is fixed. Papa can run it.”
“It is not necessary.”
“You will need protection from Hercule.”
Since he was to have the man’s conduct whether or not he wanted it, Moissac said, “My mother is fond of goose. I would like to buy one if it is possible.”
“I will sell you one cheaply if you will take a message to my son.”
“A pleasure, monsieur,” Moissac said.
The gate he had closed was open and the bicycle was gone. Belloir picked up a long pole with a hook on its end. He asked: “Is there a particular one in the flock you fancy, monsieur?”
“As long as it is not Hercule.”
Again Belloir allowed his craggy face to break with a smile. “Please wait in the house, monsieur. You must dress the bird yourself, but I will bind the neck and wrap it.”
Moissac reached the house just ahead of the gander. The gander then took after Belloir as the man moved into the screaming flock with his leg hook. Moissac had never heard such noise. He turned from it, trying to stop the sound in his ears. He went to the table intending to examine the letter more closely. It had been removed.
21
ALL MARC’S FEARS OF wielding the pitchfork, and he had come to understand why it was represented as the devil’s weapon, proved without foundation. By sundown he was swinging along from one grain cock to the next and pitching the sheaves onto the wagon rack with a rhythm some farmers never achieved: of this Gabrielle assured him. He hoisted the stone jug to his shoulder and drank deeply of the cool well water. He poured some into Gabrielle’s hands and she drank it from them. But turning them up for the water she revealed blisters that matched his own. Most of the harvesters had them, having come back to the fields after a long absence. He passed the jug on and stood gazing down the broad, clean field which lay like a golden sheet under the pearly sky. He could feel where the afternoon sun had stung his forehead and cheeks, and his lips were salt with the sweat of the day. At long, long last he had rid his nostrils of the reek of Paris cellars.
“So much sky,” he said, arching his neck to see more, ever more of it, and feeling with the arch the promise of a stiffness in his back and shoulders.
So much sky: Gabrielle had thought that very thing the day she drove Poirot out through the convent gates to meet the train in St. Hilaire. She turned from the sunset to the opposite horizon where the pearl was deepening into blue. A funnel of smoke going up from the threshing machine, so far off they could hardly hear its sound, shimmered in the last of the sun’s rays: it was spangled with bits of chaff like a shower of sparks.
“Look. It is so beautiful.”
Marc looked to where she pointed. “Like a comet in the daytime. I saw a comet once. My father took me to the observatory, but I can’t remember which comet it was.”
“Where is he? Your father, I mean.”
“He’s in America. But my mother—I do not know. My father left in time and my mother was to join him, but the Germans came too soon. It was the same with Rachel’s family; all except her were taken. She was in school at the time. Afterwards her teacher found a hiding place for her.”
“Some of you will be together again—in the Holy Land.”
“That would be fine,” Marc said with something less than conviction.
“Do you not love your parents?�
�
“I love them.” Again the tentativeness. He did not want to lie, but neither was he likely to be able to explain that what he felt was duty, and even that did not seem to relate to family or to have any emotional components to it. It was simply that he had chosen to live and the family relationship was part of what survived in the choice. Someday perhaps he would feel some deeper attachment to people; it might come with a deeper sense of self—if that came ever.
“Perhaps I will be a pioneer,” he said, wanting to give Gabrielle the satisfaction she deserved.
She smiled. “You will be a farmer because you are a farmer today.”
“Thank you.”
“I do not tease you,” she said. “When you are working in the earth you will know what it is to love it, to love animals, to love God.”
“I will know what it is to love, isn’t that it?”
Suddenly she was shy of him again. “Yes, monsieur.”
“Jean,” he said and wagged a finger at her. He pointed to where the horse-drawn rack was coming for them, picking up Jacques and Philomène, Thérèse and Philippe first. The latter two, Marc had learned, had closed their grocery shop to return to the land for this little while. There was among all the older members of the group the sadness of having, by necessity or folly, given up their birthright to the land. “You make earth sound so beautiful,” Marc said, “I could almost forget how terrible it has become in the custody of man.”
Again she had to sort his meaning from his words. She almost always liked the words.
Jacques offered a hand to each of them down from the rack.
“We’re full of blisters,” Marc said, and to Gabrielle: “Turn around, your back to the wagon.” She obeyed. He put his hands to her waist and lifted her up. She went stiff, but she did not reject him.
“Wouldn’t it be grand to go swimming?” Jacques said, “or to lie down in a trough of water. Preferably with a woman.” He nudged Philomène, whose long legs were swinging from the rack. “Have you ever made love under water?”
“Do you take me for a guppy, dear?”
“A mermaid, a beautiful mermaid who I’d like to meet at sea during my next voyage.”
God Speed the Night Page 15
