The Foundling's War

by Michel Déon

  She made lunch on the table covered with oilcloth in the kitchen, where there was barely room to move.

  ‘I’m turning into my mother. She has a dining room, but it’s only for family occasions. Otherwise it’s in the kitchen. Near the pans. She claims you eat better with an oven behind you. Papa wipes his knife, fork and glass before he starts. He’s never been able to lose the habit. It annoys Maman. He doesn’t care. Oh blast, I haven’t got any red wine.’

  ‘We’ll do without.’

  ‘No, I’ve got champagne. Julius and Madeleine sent me some Dom Pérignon 1929. A case. Do you think it’ll be enough?’

  ‘I think it’ll be enough.’

  ‘Sit down then. And tell me the stories about the prince again. I’m like a little girl. I love princes and fairy tales. You said he was the lover of your real mother?’

  ‘Whether he is or was, I’ve no idea. When I last saw him in August 1939, before he left for Lebanon, he was dying slowly … I’ve had no news since then.’

  ‘And of her?’

  ‘None of her either. Why would she send me any? She doesn’t know I’m her son.’

  ‘Will you tell her?’

  ‘Palfy says I shouldn’t. He feels it wouldn’t be good manners.’

  ‘Your friend’s awfully funny. I’ve never met anyone as cynical as him. Don’t you like it?’

  ‘Palfy? Of course—’

  ‘No. I mean the andouillette.’

  ‘At least as much.’

  ‘Have some more then.’

  After lunch they lay stretched out on the rug in front of the log fire, another bottle between them.

  ‘You’re not too sad?’ she asked.

  ‘Sad? No, that’s not the word. I’m waiting. I can’t do anything. I’m waiting. It’s easier with you.’

  She held his hand and shifted closer to him. He wanted to undress her. She stopped him.

  ‘No. Let’s keep our clothes on. When you’re naked, pleasure goes everywhere. I want you just to be inside me. Everything should happen there. You’ll see, it’s much more intense.’

  She took him out and loosened her clothes just enough. He felt so good when he was inside her that he stopped moving and closed his eyes. Their pleasure intensified, gently, without their saying a word. They stayed like that for a long time, before they finally came together.

  *

  Later the window let in only a vague greyness. The flames from the logs cast flickering orange shapes onto the ceiling. Books, photos and drawings trembled in the fire’s dying light. The building and street were slowly submerged in the darkness. They distantly heard the noisy iron shutter of a shop selling religious objects coming down. The telephone, within reach of their hands on the rug, did not ring. Nelly lifted the receiver to her ear to check the line had not been cut. No. There was a dialling tone. She replaced it quickly. They opened another bottle. The third, or fourth? They weren’t counting any longer, and it hardly mattered. Everything flowed over them. They shut themselves away in a patience that could no longer be distracted by desire. Nelly got up to put another log on the sputtering fire. Burning pine added its sweet smell to the room.

  ‘Tell me something else,’ she said.

  He told her about Chantal de Malemort, the little girl who had taken his hand when they hid in a dark room, the girl who had exercised her horse in the Arques forest, the one who one day in Paris had run away with someone else. Antoinette had written that the hard life at the Malemorts’ since the marquis had become a prisoner of war had transformed the delicate girl into a sturdy countrywoman, her cheeks ruddy from labouring in the fields. Like her father. Like three generations of Malemorts who had defended their property without imagination, with a gruff stubbornness. She refused to see Gontran Longuet. She had turned her back on her past, speaking ruefully and scornfully of her former girlish pretensions to happiness. Malemorts looked down on love. Love was for servants. And as servants became harder to find, so did love. One still saw her occasionally galloping flat out through the forest, followed by a couple of hunting dogs, and never acknowledging a friendly wave. For two years she had spoken to her mother only twice a day: once to say good morning, and in the evening to say good night. The Marquise de Malemort suffered in silence.

  ‘You’ll see her again,’ Nelly said.

  ‘I hardly ever think about her. She’s buried under all sorts of old things now, and under new experiences and other women.’

  ‘Yes, but it was love. True love. There are only two sorts: the love you feel in childhood, and love at first sight. The rest is just mucking about, and then you add a bit of literature to make it feel like a dream. Claude is love at first sight. If you lost her, you’d never find anything like her ever again. I hope Palfy can save her. If not, little Jules-who, you’re going to turn into – and you’ll have every right to – a dreadful cynic just like your friend.’

  ‘I’m already—’

  Nelly kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘No. Not with me. You’re not cheating on her with me. We’re friends. We share everything, even pleasure. And we’ve no secrets from each other.’

  ‘I’ve never met anyone like you.’

  ‘Thank you. Now that’s a very nice thing to say. Usually men aren’t as nice as that and prefer to tell me that it turns out I’m just like all the others, a bitch who’ll sleep with anyone.’

  ‘It’s stupid we didn’t get to know each other sooner.’

  ‘Sooner? Before Claude? Before my first lover? Poor Jules-who, with me you’d have been unhappy straight away. I’m too inquisitive. I always want to know more. I’ll never stop. When I’m old and ugly and ruined like Mercedes del Loreto, I’ll pay for lovers. I will, I’ll have money and I’ll pay for lovers. Beautiful boys, novices, half-boys, half-girls. But hung like stallions—’

  The telephone rang. She grabbed the receiver.

  ‘Constantin? Yes, he’s here … What’s happening? Oh, that’s wonderful! I’ll pass him to you …’

  Jean grabbed the phone. He was shaking.

  ‘It wasn’t easy,’ Palfy said. ‘I’ll explain. It’s better if she doesn’t go home this evening … We could bring her to Rue de Presbourg but that’s not ideal either. Nor Madeleine’s … Any ideas?’

  ‘No. Not really. Wait …’

  He turned to Nelly.

  ‘It’s better if Claude doesn’t go back to her apartment this evening.’

  ‘Tell her to come here.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Why not?’

  It seemed perfectly natural when Nelly said it. There was a silence, then he heard Claude’s voice.

  ‘Anywhere, Jean. Anywhere. I just need to sleep. I can’t go on. They questioned me all night and all day. But I’d like Cyrille with me …’

  Everything was settled. The chauffeur would drive Claude to Nelly’s. Madame Michette would accompany her. Then the car would take Jean to fetch Cyrille. Things happened so quickly that there was no opportunity to reflect or find Nelly’s hospitality unusual. She wanted Cyrille to stay too.

  Claude appeared, supported by Marceline Michette and the chauffeur. She could hardly place one foot in front of the other and her face was waxy and she was shivering in her wet dress, her fine ash-blond hair hanging in rat’s tails. Nelly hugged her. Madame Michette took matters in hand: a bath, warm towel, rub down with eau de Cologne, and electric hairdryer.

  ‘I’ve brought some woollens. Now go and get Cyrille!’

  She pushed Jean and the chauffeur out of the door. Anna Petrovna lived in Passy, where the White Russians had gathered in exile, in a detached house down a private path overgrown with ivy. She opened the door and started when she saw Jean.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘She’s been released.’

  ‘Why hasn’t she come?’

  ‘She’s exhausted.’

  ‘I’ll go to her.’

  ‘No. You won’t find her at her apartment.’

  She did not invite him in and despite the cold she l
eft the door open. Behind her Jean could see a hall wallpapered in a hideous design.

  ‘I’ve come for Cyrille,’ he said.

  ‘He’s with my son.’

  She pointed to the side of the building where there was a single room, probably an old garage, with a light in the window.

  ‘But you’ll only have him if Claude asks me herself.’

  He gave her Nelly’s number.

  ‘Come in!’ she said finally.

  Jean placed his hand on the receiver as Anna Petrovna seized it.

  ‘Wait!’

  He lifted the receiver and listened for the telltale click of a listening device. There was no sound.

  ‘You can dial the number.’

  Claude was very brief. Anna Petrovna burst into tears. There was no one at the other end when Jean took back the receiver.

  ‘You’ve taken my daughter from me!’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘When will I see her?’

  ‘Soon.’

  She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and stepped across the little garden to knock on the door of the garage.

  ‘Vladi! It’s me!’

  The door was unlocked and opened onto a magnificent disorder in the middle of which Cyrille, sitting on the floor, was busy tossing a ball onto a roulette wheel. As soon as he saw Jean he scrambled to his feet and threw himself into his arms.

  ‘Jean, Jean, you came. Where’s Maman?’

  ‘She’s waiting for you.’

  Vladimir looked like Claude, but he had in his expressions something so inconclusive and soft that the second time one looked at him one discovered an entirely different person, a thin and spineless-looking giant, whose hair was too long and whose hands trembled. As for the chaos he lived in, we would need pages and pages to describe it, with the risk of the reader dying of boredom before the end. Let us simply say that Vladimir, who had never managed to pass his baccalauréat, considered himself to be a great inventor, specifically of a rotary engine that could fit in the palm of a person’s hand and produce the power of a 200-horsepower diesel engine. The one-time garage had become his workshop and bedroom. Not his bathroom, as he rarely washed, except on the days when he went out to win a little money at a bridge club. In fact it had been a long time since he himself had actually believed in his invention but he continued to maintain its fiction because it concealed his laziness and inaction. The money he and his mother lived on he owed to his card-playing skills, particularly bridge, at which he was first-rate. The war had interrupted a career that had reaped rich rewards on cruise ships, where for the price of a ticket to the Caribbean he had learnt how to clean out all the wide-eyed amateurs in the space of a fortnight. Despite a few unpleasant aftermaths – two shipping lines had blacklisted him – he had been planning to leave for Japan, changing ships several times en route. Now, forced to stay in Paris, he made do with fleecing the amateur clubs of the 16th arrondissement and waited for better days. Jean understood in a flash what Claude had wanted to keep hidden from him and would be angry with him for having discovered.

  In his arms, Cyrille hugged him tight.

  ‘Take me to see Maman now, Jean. Good night, Uncle Vladi. Good night, Grandmother.’

  Nelly had given Claude her bed and she was resting with two pillows under her head. In the narrow kitchen Madame Michette was fussing and complaining at the lack of room. Organised as always, she had brought food borrowed from Palfy’s refrigerator.

  ‘A boiled egg, some York ham, a slice of Gruyère and some stewed apples, that’s all a tired tummy needs. And where’s the egg cup?’

  No, Nelly never ate boiled eggs. All she needed was coffee. Ingeniously Madame Michette decided to serve the egg mashed with bread soldiers. She had everything under control and reigned, maternal and full of authority, treating Cyrille to a tap on his fingers when she caught him picking his nose. Claude lay back with an expression of profound sadness on her face, as if the world from which she had returned by an accident of extraordinary good luck had opened up an abyss underneath her, to which a kind of vertigo kept trying to drag her down, despite her efforts to resist. She smiled at her son, ate because Madame Michette insisted, and wrapped herself back up in her torpor. Nelly kissed her on her forehead and eased a pillow from under her head. Cyrille, already naked, slipped under the covers and pressed himself up against his mother.

  ‘Off you go, the pair of you,’ Marceline said to Jean and Nelly. ‘I’ll stay and keep an eye on them, keep the fire going so they don’t catch cold. I’ve brought my coffee. Count on me, I won’t drop off. And there’s lots to read anyway …’

  She had put on her glasses and was scanning the bookshelves.

  ‘Michaux? Is that it? He didn’t go overboard, did he? Just little pieces. I knew a Monsieur Michaux. He was a council worker. Can’t be him. Max Jacob? Wouldn’t be Jewish, would he? Mind you, I’ve got nothing against Jews. On the contrary. Now they’re persecuting them, I think that’s disgusting. Anyhow, not all Jacobs are Jews. I knew one of them too, a Protestant, a real one. He’d never come to the Sirène on a Sunday. Very devout. Oh, but this Max Jacob only writes little pieces too. You do like your writers to leave half the page empty, don’t you, Madame Nelly? Oh, look, Corneille! The Complete Works. Le Cid must be in there somewhere. Dialogue’s so much more fun. Don’t you worry about me. I’ve got lots to read. The night will go very quickly. That little lady will be much better after a good sleep. And if she wakes up, I’ll give her another pill. Go on, leave us alone. Go and have some fun, now that the worst’s over.’

  Nelly offered her some champagne. After studying the label Madame Michette shook her head.

  ‘It’s brut. I only like semi-sweet. Don’t worry. I’ve brought my little bottle of burgundy. A glass now and then and the night will be over in a flash. Go on, my dears, off you go, off you go …’

  Cyrille sang to her, ‘There was a lady called Madame Michette, and Madame Michette, she lost her pet …’ She wagged her finger at him, pretending to frown but in reality delighted and enchanted by this little boy who ran, whooping like a Sioux, along the paths of the Luxembourg Gardens where the piled-up dead and frozen leaves crunched underfoot. The stone urns on their pedestals looked whiter than usual, as if turned to ice by the cold, and the statues shivered in the frosty air. Like mummies in their sarcophagi the German sentries guarding the Senate in their concrete pillboxes observed the children clustered around the big pond through their aiming slits. The layer of ice on the pond, broken up by stones, allowed the model boats to sail among the yellowish icebergs, shadowed by goldfish in search of bread. The rigid lines of barbed wire did not cut Paris off from a victorious Germany, but cut Germany off from a childish, joyful world immersed in imaginary battles with pocket submarines and sailing boats. The uncertainty of combat remained a mystery for these men who had also once played with model boats or whose children, far away, were doing the same thing in a public garden. Marceline was carrying Cyrille’s boat – a Breton fishing boat with red sails, a gift from Jean – while Cyrille collected chestnuts in a paper bag. He already had a bagful in the studio, and in the afternoon she prised the chestnuts from their spiky sheaths and helped him use them to make fantastic characters: beggars, kings, fairies, bulls and ants. Their big project was to make a Nativity scene for Christmas. There was no hessian, paints or gold paper in the apartment, but Marceline had managed to find some at a hardware shop on Rue des Canettes. In one of Nelly’s drawers she had found a tube of glue. Clumsily she had sculpted the ox and the ass out of peeled chestnuts, and she was anxious now that her efforts at the baby Jesus and Virgin Mary would be even clumsier.

  Cyrille came back to her, his cheeks on fire, cheerfully blowing out a cloud of condensation.

  ‘Look, Marceline, I’m smoking.’

  He inhaled from an imaginary cigarette and pretended to hide it behind his back when she scolded him.

  ‘It’s very bad to be smoking at your age. Monsieur Michette, who’s ten years older than
you, has never smoked in his life. That’s why he’s so well …’

  ‘Is Monsieur Michette the bogeyman?’

  ‘You know, I’m really going to get cross with you.’

  ‘Oh no, I don’t think you will. You’re too good.’

  Marceline’s heart turned over: a child was telling her she was good. She had reached the age of fifty without knowing it. Cyrille grabbed her hand.

  ‘Let’s go home. Maman will be getting worried.’

  They crossed Place Saint-Sulpice. As soon as Cyrille glimpsed the pigeon catcher he started shouting and clapping his hands, running away from Marceline and making the birds scatter. The man said nothing, waiting patiently for calm to return and again holding out the breadcrumbs on his palm. His nose was getting redder and redder. Its luminosity was the only thing people noticed in his obtuse face. They called him Red-nose and told him he was a nasty piece of work.

  Claude was regaining consciousness, but hazily and so confusedly that for most of the day she seemed absent from her own life. Getting up late, she had mainly sat slumped in an armchair. Her hand dangled and Cyrille, on all fours, pushed against her apparently lifeless fingers with his head. The fingers caught a curl of blond hair and wound it around them, and Cyrille purred.

  ‘I’m your pussycat.’

  ‘Yes, you’re my pussycat.’

  Afraid that Claude would let herself be taken away, Palfy and Jean had forbidden Anna Petrovna from visiting her daughter. She had telephoned from a public call box. Claude had affected a lighthearted voice to reassure her. Anna Petrovna allowed herself to be convinced because she was reluctant to leave darling Vladimir, who was in bed with influenza. As soon as she put the phone down Claude relapsed into apathy, from which she only emerged when Jean arrived. As soon as he appeared her face lit up and her voice regained its eagerness, so much so that Marceline, who had begun to develop a literary turn of phrase since spending time among Nelly’s bookshelves, exclaimed, ‘You’re Tristan and Iseult! What are you waiting for? King Mark has gone.’