The Foundling's War

by Michel Déon

  ‘There has to be a reason for it, all the same,’ he said.

  ‘You know it as well as I do.’

  ‘Her husband?’

  Anna Petrovna shrugged her shoulders contemptuously.

  ‘Yes, Georges. Even if they were going to divorce, he’s still her husband.’

  Claude had never mentioned divorce. Jean lowered his head, gripped by a wild hope and a vast joy that lasted as long as a lightning flash before becoming no more than an intolerable anguish.

  ‘I suppose he’s in France.’

  ‘They were too late for him last night. They won’t catch him. They’ll never catch him.’

  ‘It’s not the first time he’s been to France?’

  Anna Petrovna’s features closed up. She did not deign to reply.

  ‘All right,’ Jean said. ‘The situation’s becoming clearer. Wait here for me.’

  She jumped to her feet.

  ‘You could have me arrested too!’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘I shan’t let you!’

  ‘You can’t let me do anything or stop me doing anything. Sit down.’

  He found Palfy with Duzan and took him into the corridor to tell him what had happened.

  ‘Hell!’ Palfy said. ‘We have to act quickly. I’ll go straight to Rocroy.’

  ‘Why not Kapermeister? He seems more powerful.’

  ‘You don’t know how it works. Julius is Abwehr, the army. Gloves, honour, gentleman spies. Rocroy is from the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, the Reich’s central security agency, the SS, the Gestapo. We need to get to her before she falls into their hands. You look after the mother. Send her back home. Above all tell her not to move. If she starts shouting from the rooftops that they’ve arrested her daughter, she’ll never see her again. The most important thing is that the machine isn’t set in motion. I’ll ring you as soon as I can.’

  He turned to walk away. Jean caught hold of his arm.

  ‘If you do this, I’ll never forget it.’

  ‘I’ll be glad if you do, because I’m sticking my neck out here, and for them that means there’ll be a big favour to be returned …’

  ‘Why are you doing it?’

  ‘You stupid boy … I’m thirty-four years old and it’s the first time in my idiotic – though by no means boring – life I’ve had a friend.’

  He was gone, leaving Jean alone in the corridor lined with photos of Nelly Tristan – full-length, head and shoulders, diving into a pool in her swimming costume, on horseback, in a headband and driving a racing car, being presented with flowers as she stepped off a plane, dressed in crinoline or as Jeanne Hachette,21 her long and beautiful legs shown off in tights.

  Anna Petrovna was sitting on the edge of an armchair, as though despite her tiredness she was determined to show that she was there merely for a few minutes and was now ready to leave. Her anxious features, however, betrayed a naive optimism that asked for only a word of reassurance to turn hope into reality.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I have a friend who knows an important German. He has gone to see him immediately.’

  ‘The man with whom you arrived?’

  ‘That’s none of your business. Now there’s just one thing you have to do: go home and say nothing.’

  ‘You’re telling me that? When I have only one desire: to scream that my daughter has been arrested!’

  ‘In that case, make sure you restrain yourself!’

  She burst into tears, embarrassing Jean to the point that he did not know what to do. He knew her loathing for him was reflexive, an almost natural reaction for a mother who judges by appearances the man her daughter has told her she loves.

  ‘Go home!’ he said. ‘And stay with Cyrille.’

  On a piece of paper he wrote in large letters, so that the boy could read easily,

  Cyrille, I send you a big hug. I’m looking after your maman. Keep calm. We’re going to be happy. Your friend, Jean

  ‘Give him this from me.’

  Anna Petrovna took the piece of paper, read it and dried her tears.

  ‘You also need to know,’ Jean added, ‘something else: that I love Claude and that, despite appearances, I am not her lover in the strict sense of the word. Having said that, I want you to be certain that I have only one desire: to become her lover one day, when she’ll have me.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘It’s not me you have to believe, it’s your daughter.’

  She folded his sheet of paper and put it in a crocodile handbag so ancient that the leather was split and the clasp gaped. Her worn-out sealskin coat was a further reminder of happier times, already many years in the past. Despite such details giving her away, there was no doubt that she had once been an elegant, even fashionable, woman. He put her at around fifty, and well preserved, but felt she was likely to age very fast from now on.

  He was walking her back down the corridor as Nelly appeared, her face pink from the cold and wearing an astrakhan hat like a stage Cossack.

  ‘Hello, scrumptious boy!’ she said.

  And lightly as she passed she planted a kiss at the corner of his lips, before sweeping into Duzan’s office.

  Anna Petrovna, her mouth tense with disgust, said, ‘Even if you save Claude I shall do everything in my power to make sure she never has a relationship with a man like you.’

  Jean felt so deeply wounded that he could not think of a reply, and then Anna Petrovna was gone down the stairs, clinging to the banisters with one hand, still quivering with hatred and humiliation, and perhaps crushed by anxiety too. But he did not hate her and he admired the pride she had shown, despite her distress. Why had she not sent her son instead?

  Could he work in such circumstances? There was no question of it. He cancelled all his meetings. His office window looked out onto Rue François 1er. Across the street a nightclub employee was taking in the dustbins. Next door, the Café des Artistes, where the quartier’s producers gathered, was just opening. Bit-part actors always loitered there, with the stand-ins and impoverished old actors looking for a picture. The patron was a former Tour de France rider. Five Tours! Highest place: twelfth. He had always given his wheel, broken his rhythm, abandoned a sprint to support the champion. Jean remembered his name from a breakaway and a stage win at Rouen. When they met they spoke in monosyllables, swapping names and dates like secret agents. Cycling would come back after the war, but it wouldn’t be the same. The young ones didn’t have the same determination. And no sense of putting others first. They’d all want to win. It would be a fine mess. Toto Passepoil nodded his bald head. Running a bar had thickened his waistline. His waiters called him Tubby Peloton. He came out of the café and studied the dirty pavement and gutter with disgust. With an imperious wave – this was the man who had always been the leader’s domestique – he summoned a waiter, who came and swept lethargically. Looking up, he saw Jean at his window and made a friendly gesture, a clenched fist with his thumb raised. It signified everything: come and have a drink, the Germans are done for, the Yanks are out of the race, the Japs eat only rice – or better still, I’ve got some real coffee and the Beaujolais Nouveau has arrived. Jean waved back. Toto was the one person he could imagine talking to. But to leave the office would mean leaving the telephone. He stepped away from the window. Nelly came in.

  ‘Jules-who!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What a long face!’

  ‘I’ve got problems.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Claude’s been arrested.’

  ‘Claude?’

  ‘The love of my life.’

  ‘So it’s not me. What a letdown!’

  ‘Don’t laugh.’

  She took off her astrakhan hat. The hairdresser had shingled her hair like a boy’s. She was making a film set in 1925, to avoid meddling by the censors. It had given her natural grace an ambiguous quality. All she needed was the long cigarette-holder, the cigarette with the gold band, the sequined dress, bare knees, and
shoes with ankle straps.

  ‘I’m not laughing. I like you a lot. And everything you love belongs to me too.’

  She had never said so much, and with such gentle honesty, before.

  ‘The Boches?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t like the term. But they’re not involved yet. Palfy’s doing his best to step in before she’s handed over to them.’

  She sat on the corner of his desk and looked thoughtful.

  ‘You’re unhappy.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The ghastly Dudu’s on first-name terms with them.’

  ‘Don’t get mixed up in this.’

  ‘Anyway he wouldn’t lift a finger, not even to help his mother. He’s such a creep. Listen, Jules-who …’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you like me to sleep with Julius or Rudolf?’

  ‘I don’t think so. There’s enough of us in your bed already.’

  ‘Don’t be mean.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘There’s you. And sometimes there’s Dudu. That’s all. It helps me wait.’

  ‘Wait for what?’

  ‘Until I stop. Feeling bored.’

  Her lovely dark eyes glistened and her lip quivered. He hugged her, pressing her to his chest. How could he explain that he loved her too, and that in the impasse of a life so pointless for a man of his age she represented a different kind of friendship? Jesús, Palfy, Nelly: he reminded himself of his extraordinary good fortune.

  Duzan entered, blushing furiously. He put up with what the eye did not see, but physical evidence was too much.

  ‘In my offices!’

  Nelly disentangled herself.

  ‘Listen to me carefully, Dudu. One wrong word and you’ll be free of me for the rest of your life, which incidentally is going to be short, because you eat and drink much too much.’

  ‘Drinking too much is rich coming from you! Only yesterday—’

  ‘Your unbelievably ghastly aristocratic friends were driving me mad. I drink when I’m with creeps. Ask Jean. I never drink when I’m with him.’

  ‘In other words I’m a …?’

  The word would not come. Relenting, Nelly came to his aid.

  ‘Yes, you are.’

  ‘Without me, darling, you’d just be some minor thespian doing nothing but rep.’

  ‘Yes, and it would be Corneille, Racine, Marivaux, Cocteau, Anouilh, Claudel and Giraudoux instead of your shitty screenplay writers. My poor Dudu—’

  ‘Don’t call me Dudu!’

  ‘My poor Dudu, it’s not even smoke and mirrors, what you do. There. I refuse to sign another—’

  The producer prevailed over the outraged lover.

  ‘You have a contract!’

  ‘I’m throwing it away.’

  ‘Find a very good lawyer then.’

  He went out, slamming the door.

  Nelly stroked Jean’s cheek.

  ‘Well! That’s much better for both of us.’

  ‘Yes, much better.’

  She replaced her astrakhan hat and re-applied her lipstick in front of the mirror. A secretary knocked and entered. She brought an envelope and a typewritten letter.

  ‘Monsieur Duzan asked me to give you this cheque. He’d like you to sign your letter of resignation.’

  ‘What about me?’ Nelly said.

  ‘He didn’t give me anything for you.’

  ‘Shame.’

  Jean read the letter of resignation and signed it.

  ‘Shall I throw his cheque back in his face?’ he asked Nelly.

  ‘No. Keep it. His money’s as good as anyone’s.’

  Jean put the cheque in his pocket and asked the secretary, if anyone telephoned him, to redirect the call to Rue de Presbourg.

  ‘No,’ Nelly said. ‘To me. Today I’m keeping you with me. I’m inviting you home for lunch. My Uncle Eugène, who has the incredible good fortune to live in the Vire, has sent me an andouillette you’ll still be talking about when you’re sixty.’

  If she had offered him a herring bone, he would have followed her wherever she told him to go. She was there, she existed, she understood everything. He desired her while Claude, under arrest somewhere in Paris, in isolation, was asking herself whether those who loved her had abandoned her. Unless she was not sitting alone on a hard wooden bench but being questioned, slapped, beaten and humiliated into admitting she had met Georges Chaminadze.

  They reached Place Saint-Sulpice by Métro. Passengers recognised Nelly. A little girl with a lisp held out an autograph book. Nelly took Jean’s arm to cross the square. A man with a red nose who looked numb with cold and had a haversack on his back was attracting pigeons with breadcrumbs. A bird pecked at his palm. He grabbed it by a claw, wrung its neck and stuffed it into his haversack. The other pigeons flew away, then came back. He waited calmly for them, not moving, his arm extended, showing neither pleasure nor boredom. The brim of his homburg hat was pulled down over his eyes. All that was visible was his really very red nose and the stubble on his badly shaven chin.

  ‘I should like to find a poet who talks about Saint-Sulpice and pigeons and people going hungry,’ Nelly said. ‘But … it’s difficult. Of course there’s Ponchon: “I hate the towers of Saint-Sulpice – whenever I see them I piss on them …” I can’t promise that’s it exactly, but Ponchon’s a real poet.22 He wrote about black stockings and virtuous maidens. Do you like black stockings?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Notice that I didn’t ask you what you thought about virtuous maidens.’

  ‘I haven’t known one. They’re a rare breed.’

  ‘That’s a shame. If you had, you could have recited Ponchon’s excellent speech to her. “Now we know on what a fat purse, Mademoiselle, you mount your horse …”’

  He laughed. Nelly dispensed gaiety. These days gaiety meant hope and courage. She was making the waiting and uncertainty disappear with a discretion he would not forget.

  The studio was icy. Jean lit a fire of logs while Nelly changed her dress for a pair of trousers and a roll-neck sweater. But for her slight bust, she would have looked like a beautiful young man. Even her voice could have been a boy’s. She chattered incessantly to Jean, to herself, even briefly to a cat slinking across the balcony on the other side of the street. Opening the window she called out, ‘Marc-Adolphe Papillon, you shouldn’t be out in weather like this. You’ll catch cold and your papa’ll get worried.’

  She closed the window. The cat did not move, staring at her, its back arched.

  ‘Funny name for a cat!’ Jean said.

  ‘It’s not any old cat, it’s Maurice Fombeure’s cat. In the morning when Marc-Adolphe comes home, Fombeure tells him:

  ‘My cat coming back from his rambles

  He smells of the earth and sun’s heat

  He smells of Calabria and Puglia

  He smells of opossums and feet,

  He smells of bollocks and palavers

  With hefty and bewhiskered toms

  And of the bitter bark of the trees

  He smells of Bantus and drums

  ‘So you can see he’s not any old cat.’

  ‘Do you know any other poems of Fombeure’s?’

  ‘Plenty. But let’s go gently. You shouldn’t stuff yourself with poets. Very indigestible. I’ll teach you to cherry-pick …’

  He recounted to her how, as a boy of thirteen, he had met two Breton separatists on the run and how one of them, Yann, had recited Victor Hugo to him in a voice he had not forgotten and how a few hours later the second separatist, Monsieur Carnac, had ridiculed the poet’s flight of fancy by quoting the lines that were missing from the stanza: ‘Love each other! ’tis the month when the strawberries are sweet.’ What had become of Yann and Monsieur Carnac? The Germans, having envisaged backing the Breton Liberation Front, had given up the idea under pressure from Vichy. Were Yann and Monsieur Carnac continuing the struggle, pursued now by the police on both sides? But someone else had offered him a poet too. He spoke of his
fabulous meeting with the prince and his chauffeur, the enigmatic Salah who had slipped a copy of Toulet’s Counter-rhymes into his haversack. The copy had been left behind at his last billet. Jean remembered how, during his long marches, staggering under the weight of his kit, full cartridge belts and the machine gun biting into his shoulder, he had recited to himself, without moving his lips, the thrilling lines that conjured up a naked woman and the fragrance of the Indian Ocean.

  ‘I wouldn’t say them well. I’d like to hear you read them.’

  On a shelf Nelly had a copy of Counter-rhymes. Together they searched, like a pair of schoolboys, for the poem Jean had liked so much for its contrast and the escape it had offered from the stubborn stupidity of army life. Nelly recited:

  ‘You whom winter’s hearth inflamed

  To a naked carmine

  Where the scent of your skin

  Your nakedness already framed;

  Neither you, of whom a remembered sight

  Still captivates my heart

  Vague island, flowers’ shadowy art,

  Oceanic night;

  Nor your perfume, violet-filled,

  Beneath the cooling hand

  Are worth the rose that grows from burning land

  And the midday heat compels to yield’

  The telephone rang. Nelly sprang to answer it.

  ‘Oh, it’s you … No, leave me alone. Listen, Dudu, I’m expecting a very important call. You have to leave my line clear … Yes … of course … I’ll see you on one condition … that you hang up. And do it now. Jean? Of course he’s here. I’m in the middle of photographing him quite naked on a tiger skin. You cannot imagine how delicious he looks. Hang up and I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  She replaced the receiver and smiled.

  ‘He’s not as bad as he seems. You have to treat him a bit meanly. I can’t always do it. I’m too weak …’