The Foundling's War

by Michel Déon

  ‘You’re not asleep,’ she murmurs in a reproachful voice.

  ‘Nor are you.’

  He stretches his hand out towards what he guesses to be her bare arm, grasps it, and presses his thumb against the vein beating in the crook of her elbow. Her skin is warm and smooth. Claude, usually sensitive to all physical contact, does not pull her arm away.

  ‘That motorcyclist woke us both,’ she says.

  ‘I wasn’t asleep, I was on the balcony.’

  ‘In this weather?’

  ‘In this weather.’

  He goes on stroking the crook of her elbow and the skin whose taste he so longs to know.

  ‘Why aren’t you afraid?’

  ‘Of you? Never.’

  ‘I’m an idiot.’

  ‘Don’t say that! I can’t bear it. And I wouldn’t love an idiot anyway.’

  It is the first time she has said it. An icy shiver runs down his spine that he finds it hard to make sense of.

  ‘You said you love me.’

  ‘Of course. Could you have doubted it? Would I be here if I didn’t love you?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So we wait … Go to sleep. Cyrille will wake up.’

  At daybreak he leaves for Rue Lepic, to wash and shave. The elation he feels makes the human beings pressing into the entrances to the Métro look sadder and greyer than usual. He notices how much thinner they are already. The well-fed crowds of 1939 have given way to men and women whose clothes flap around them. Poor diet makes them more sensitive to the cold. Jean usually walks back, varying his route. It’s his only way of maintaining his physical fitness, under threat from the sedentary existence he leads. He longs to have his bicycle with him but it is out in the country, in Normandy, assuming no one stole it during the exodus. He decides to write to Antoinette.

  Jesús is already up. Winter and summer, he rises at five, lights his stove with wood from a friendly joiner in Rue de l’Abreuvoir, boils the water for his coffee or something with the colour of coffee if not the taste.

  ‘I wouldn’ min’ meetin’ this girl!’ he says.

  ‘She isn’t a girl!’

  ‘So she’s what?’

  ‘A … woman … Thanks very much … So you can suggest she poses naked for you straight away, I suppose.’

  They laugh at this. Before going to his easel Jesús does ten minutes of weight training in his underwear. In the mornings he works for himself, but no collages now, no borrowed technique. He had plenty of excuses; anyone coming from Jaén has a good excuse. Everything’s fascinating and new when you haven’t seen anything yet, but two or three visits to museums quickly reveal Surrealism showing its age, and now Jesús has decided not to listen to or admire anyone but himself. The result is landscapes. And for him these mean a return to Andalusia every time: scorched earth, melancholy vegetation, an oily sea, skies crushed by light. As he remembers the landscapes of his childhood, he feels such thirst for austerity and absolutism that he simplifies his colours to their extreme. From a short way away the spectator could be looking at abstract canvases and must examine them close up to grasp the pictures’ tormented life.

  ‘You understand, my friend. I am ’appy, ’appy … I do wha’ I wan’. And I tell you, fuck La Garenne … Fuck ’im, fuck ’im …’

  In truth, Jesús is a long way from being able to send La Garenne packing, and at ten o’clock when his model arrives he bundles his canvas into a wardrobe and whips out a sketchbook. Jean leaves for the gallery. Blanche has the keys and is already there as he arrives. Through the window the sight of her scrawny figure fills him with pity, even though, despite the endless stream of insults and obscene remarks La Garenne subjects her to, she has somehow always managed to cling to something like dignity. She has a distinguished voice, which verges on affectedness in her pronunciation of certain words, as though she intended to remind whoever might get the wrong impression from her physical appearance that she remains a Rocroy. She has only just turned forty, yet it is impossible to guess how old she is. Bad luck ages people: they go grey, bags appear under their eyes, their shoulders droop, their legs become so thin they look like broomsticks. Handling Jesús’s series of drawings for La Garenne’s specialist clientele, she smiles unembarrassedly, observing how ‘saucy’ they are, which is the very least that might be said of them.

  In front of the building in Rue Lepic a German car was parked. Sitting on the bonnet, a blond soldier with soft features and cap at a rakish angle lit a cigarette and smiled at a girl who hurried on her way. Jean went up. Madeleine was sitting in the studio’s only armchair. Her elegance jarred with its tattered upholstery and missing foot, replaced by three books. She looked like Lady Bountiful, come to console a poor artist. Behind her back Jesús made a frustrated gesture of apology for Jean’s benefit. Since coming to Paris Jean had avoided Madeleine, who had called at Rue Lepic several times to try and find him. He hardly recognised her. She had taken full advantage of Palfy’s lessons and now knew how to sit in an armchair and smoke a cigarette with poise. There was no longer any trace of what had once been so garish about her: the handbag that was too big, the over-thick make-up, the jarringly jaded tone. She kissed Jean and he noticed she was wearing good perfume. There was an air about her, an attitude that suggested a deeper transformation. Perhaps it was the result of security, of a feeling that she had a strong, powerful man to rely on, who asked her only to be the woman she wanted to be. In a few sentences of conversation it became clear that, after years of unhappiness in a milieu in which she had felt fear more than any other emotion, she was suddenly blossoming at an age when Blanche de Rocroy was withering. She must have kept up her elocution lessons: her diction was smoother and her level voice had lost its vulgar cadences. Jean had been fond of her for her naturalness and generosity. The naturalness had gone but her generosity remained, and now with evident resources at her disposal she had not forgotten her friends.

  ‘I was beginning to think you were avoiding me,’ she said.

  He lied, assuring her she was wrong. She wanted news of Palfy. He briefly told her the story of their war, not omitting their encounter in the village square with Obersturmführer Karl Schmidt.

  ‘Ah, the SS!’ she said knowingly. ‘That doesn’t surprise me. Julius hates them …’

  ‘Who is Julius?’

  ‘Oh, you’ll meet him. You’ll like him instantly. He’s a big manufacturer from Dortmund. The Kommandantur has put him in charge of getting the French textile industry going again.’

  ‘We could do with that,’ Jean said, having managed with great difficulty to buy himself a suit.

  ‘Don’t be silly. If there’s anything you need, all you have to do is tell me. In any case tonight you must come for dinner – we’re going to Maxim’s.’

  ‘Dressed like this? They’ll turn me away at the door.’

  ‘With Julius? You must be joking. But if you feel uncomfortable, we can go to a bistro at Les Halles.’

  ‘Listen, Madeleine, I’m going to say no, for a simple reason that Jesús is already aware of. Very simple and stupid: there’s a woman in my life—’

  ‘Well then, bring her, you goose!’

  ‘She can’t go out. She has a little boy and there’s no one to look after him in the evening.’

  ‘You are disappointing. Isn’t he, Jesús?’

  Jesús raised his arms to the sky.

  ‘’E’s in love, Mad’leine, ’e’s in love!’

  ‘What about you? You could do with getting a move on in that direction.’

  ‘Never! I love the art. Is the only zing!’

  This made Madeleine laugh. She wrote her address and telephone number on a piece of paper.

  ‘Whenever you feel like seeing me, ring me. And now give me Palfy’s address. I’m going to get him an Ausweis.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘An Ausweis, my little bunny … A travel permit. Do try to keep up a bit. Come down off your cloud. You’re still a good-looking boy. I’m very fond of you, you kno
w.’

  Jean wrote down the Michettes’ name, but suddenly could not remember either the name of the street, or the number.

  ‘It’s at the Sirène, Clermont-Ferrand.’

  ‘The Sirène? A hotel?’

  ‘No. A bordello.’

  ‘Are you saying that he lives in a bordello?’

  ‘The patronne is a fascinating woman.’

  Madeleine looked baffled. She found it difficult to imagine ‘Baron’ Palfy in love with the patronne of a bordello. It was undeniable that in the new world born from defeat, old values had been turned upside down. She, for now, was at the top of the ladder. She supposed that since places were limited, it was natural that some were obliged to take a step or two down.

  Jean and Jesús stood at the window, watching Madeleine leave. The soldier opened the car door for her and, standing behind her, made an obscene gesture in the direction of her backside before she turned to sit down.

  ‘Respect is dead,’ Jean said.

  ‘You can say that again! And there are even some pricks who says no to dinner at Maxim’s.’

  ‘With Julius? You must be joking. I know exactly what that would be like.’

  ‘Madeleine ez an angel.’

  ‘Steady on. Let’s say she’s all right.’

  Thoughtfully Jean watched the car turn round and drive down towards Clichy. He thought how far Madeleine had come. Two years earlier she had been living in that same building and hanging out on the stairs in her dressing gown, with tired skin and breath soured by alcohol. She had led a wretched life until she met Palfy, who had offered her a lifeline before the ship went down. What would have become of her if she hadn’t met him? A new woman had been born out of those chance events. She still had much to learn, of course, and even if her destiny looked rosy she still ran the risk of committing some serious faux pas that would not escape a trained ear. What more reliable audience could she have chosen for her performance than an industrialist from Dortmund? Madeleine’s reappearance and her ascent in society, despite Jean’s efforts to ignore her, were a sign. At the age of twenty-one it is no easy matter to leave the past behind.

  He wrote to Antoinette. She answered him in a long letter which we shall quote in full.

  Jean darling, what a relief to have your letter. We have all been thinking of you. I ran up- and downstairs, shouting everywhere, ‘Jean’s alive, Jean’s in Paris!’ The only person to greet the news with no emotion was your father – well, I mean Albert, because I don’t know how you think of him any more in your heart. The fact that he isn’t your father isn’t really important in the end, is it? Our parents are the ones who bring us up. To tell you how he is, first of all: still working with the same fortitude and self-sacrifice, despite the arthritis in his hip that hurts him dreadfully. The abbé Le Couec says simply that he’s a saint. A cranky saint because we made him plant cabbages, potatoes and carrots in his borders. Yes, it’s not very pretty, but we have to make do as we can and we suddenly have a lot of new ‘friends’ who happen to drop in on Sundays, always around lunchtime, from Dieppe and Rouen. Maman bought some hens and rabbits and Michel came down from Olympus for long enough to build us a henhouse and some hutches out of wood and chicken wire. Oh yes – Michel’s back. He came back at the end of June, dressed as a farmhand … You know what he’s like: he took one look at our expressions and insisted that he was a gardener, not a farmhand, and quoted St John’s Gospel: ‘And they did not know he was Jesus … thinking he was a gardener.’ We’re no less complicated than before, as you can see. We had some difficulty getting him proper papers. The gendarmes at Grangeville claimed he needed to get himself demobilised at the Kommandantur. In other words, our poor darling looked very much as if he might end up in a stalag. Finally Maman’s brother, Uncle René, who’s something important in Paris in some new political movement, got involved. Now Michel has papers and even a permit to go to Paris when he needs to. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t drop in on you one day soon. He was very interested in your work in the gallery and would like to know if you only sell well-known painters.

  Maman is the same as ever. So active she exhausts us all. She cycles down to Dieppe in the afternoon to volunteer as an auxiliary for the Secours National:9 blankets, powdered milk and medicines for those in need. She’s in her element and her only complaint is that there aren’t enough who need her services.

  The abbé Le Couec suffered terrible depression after the defeat. We were worried he would have a complete breakdown, right up until two mysterious friends of his came to visit him. I met them one day and they told me a quite fantastic story, that you would have been shot by the Germans if they hadn’t intervened. You can imagine my panic! The abbé assured me that the Blessed Virgin was protecting you, and perhaps there’s some truth in what he said because no one could possibly believe that it was chance that put the abbé’s two friends in exactly the same place as you at exactly the moment when the Germans were about to shoot you.

  The Marquis de Malemort was taken prisoner and is in an oflag somewhere in Silesia. After two terribly worrying months, his family finally got a letter. They’re sending him weekly parcels. He dreams of saucisson, cider and turkey, apparently. It’s all he can think about. Do you want to hear about Chantal or not? If you don’t, cut off this part of my letter and throw it away now.

  Chantal has taken over from her father. She found a couple of Percherons from somewhere to replace the tractor and she drives the plough now as if she’s been doing it all her life. You’d never have suspected the energy that lurks inside that frail-looking creature. Living the way she does, in the open air, has given her a … Norman complexion, to put it politely. No more beautifully manicured hands, no more life’s little luxuries. She’s out in her overalls all day long. Gontran Longuet went to see her in a car he’d had fitted with a wood-gas generator. She set the dogs on him. Oh yes, apropos the Longuets: they came back in July. They’ve two German officers living with them, ‘visiting’ the region, taking photos and writing things down. Apparently one of them was asked, ‘Are you here to stop the British from landing?’ and he burst out laughing rather rudely and said, ‘It’s more the other way round.’

  End of paragraph about Chantal and the Longuets. I’ve still got lots of news to tell you, but if I write too much you won’t read my letter. Let me know if there’s any way of getting word to my father. He’s never mentioned here. I’m the only one who misses him. Terribly. Don’t laugh. Your affectionate aunt,

  Antoinette

  His affectionate aunt? Yes, it was true, even though they were so close in age, she twenty-four and he twenty-one, a difference of no significance now, but one that had been so great in his childhood that he had repeatedly been tripped up by it. Had it really been his ‘affectionate aunt’ who had celebrated her nephew’s thirteenth birthday by taking him down a gully to the bottom of the cliffs at Grangeville to show him her bottom, two delicious globes that dimpled where they met the small of her back? Had it been his affectionate aunt who had led him into the hay barn for altogether more serious games? To a bare mattress in the new house her mother was having built? And to a night of melancholy goodbyes in a hotel at Dieppe before he left for England? When he had found out he was Geneviève’s son, it had opened up a gulf between Antoinette and him. But perhaps it was better that way. It was to her he owed his transition to manhood, still more because of her that he had felt jealousy for the first time and suffered his first and greatest disillusionment, although these negative experiences had in the long run been of little use to him, nature in her generosity having endowed him with the ability to forget and to hope. So that the part of her letter that talked of Chantal de Malemort, though it still made his heart ache, no longer deeply affected him. Claude had wiped out all his bad memories. Thanks to her, the world was now a spectacle he could observe with a detached, almost untroubled gaze, a vantage point that let him take things as they were, without disapproval or indignation.

  Which was useful, f
or he needed a healthy dose of indifference to deal with Louis-Edmond de La Garenne’s salacious mischief-making. We have not much discussed this character, except to describe his physical appearance, unflatteringly some will think. It is, admittedly, not kind to point the finger at a man in a wig who imagines he’s the cat’s whiskers, nor to make fun of excessively wide trousers or pointedly hold your nose when a person with bad breath speaks to you. Nature is cruel enough without us adding caricature to the blemishes with which she already makes so free. And since two wrongs don’t make a right, it ill becomes us to invoke Louis-Edmond’s lack of scruples and then display the same fault when speaking of him. But how are we supposed to stifle our laughter when we’re faced with his schemes, and our brickbats when they fail, and how can we feel pity for a wretch so bent on humiliating Blanche de Rocroy? Jean was dismayed and moved by Blanche. She would for ever be downtrodden and ridiculed, or treated with sadistic delight as a pariah by her employer. If he were to sack her, she would starve; at least that was what he let her think. But Jesús – who also felt sorry for her – reassured Jean. He was convinced she liked to be whipped, and that if Louis-Edmond abandoned her she would simply go looking for another tyrant capable of humiliating her to the point of complete degradation.

  However, an unexpected meeting that took place in October 1940 was to alter Louis-Edmond’s attitude.

  Shivering in a Spanish shawl her grandmother had brought back with her from a pilgrimage to Compostela in 1865, Blanche watched gloomily through the gallery window as the procession of uniformed tourists wended their way around Place du Tertre. These young Teutons did not feel the nip of autumn, with their pink cheeks and blue eyes, their polished boots and black leather belts with buckles stamped Gott mit uns. They lingered in front of the open-air exhibitions, buying their miniature Eiffel Towers and Sacré-Cœurs and postcards of Le Lapin Agile, admiringly contemplating the painters seated on their stools, bearded, their berets tilted down over one ear, pulling on their black pipes and begging tobacco from their audience of nouveaux riches, those soldiers who should have been taken captive with a pot of French jam or a quarter-kilo of butter but who now represented prosperity, strength, the new order.