Death in Bordeaux

by Allan Massie

  In the afternoon, towards six o’clock, Moncerre telephoned to ask if the chief was well enough to receive a visitor. Marguerite would have liked to say no. Though she probably didn’t admit it to herself, Lannes knew that it pleased her to have him convalescent and dependent. She liked the role of nurse. Even in ordinary times, it satisfied her to have him at home for a few days with flu or a stinking cold. Needing her care, away from his job which she accepted as necessity, the way of life she had joined herself to, but which in her heart she feared and found distasteful. It was absurd, he thought – as if he wasn’t in reality always dependent on her! Without Marguerite, and the children too, he would surely have succumbed to the depression, the sense of hopelessness, the fear that all he did was ultimately pointless, which recurrently assailed him. But he had never found words to tell her this, and in truth the admission would have embarrassed them both.

  And of course these weren’t ordinary times; far from it. At least while he was confined to their apartment, she didn’t have to bear her anxiety about Dominique in solitude. Even so, they hadn’t dared to speak of their fears for him since the real war broke out. Only when he laid his hand on hers and pressed it as she put the bowl of soup on the tray across his knees did they come close to expressing their dread and their need for each other.

  Now, perhaps because she saw a spark of light in his eye when he realised it was Moncerre on the telephone, she said, ‘Well, it’s the first day he has felt like smoking, so I think he would like a visit from you.’

  Which was generous, even a sacrifice, on her part.

  Moncerre himself was ill-at-ease, seeing his chief in this role, as a family man. No doubt it brought home to him how barren his own domestic life had become. But in any case he was a creature of cafés, bars and restaurants, most himself in public places where the only obligation was to pay your way.

  ‘We’ve missed you, chief. To your speedy return,’ he said, lifting the glass of pastis Marguerite had brought to him. ‘I can see you’re on the mend. Old Joseph sends his regards. So, naturally, does young René.’

  René, like Moncerre, had visited him in hospital and seemed evidently distressed.

  ‘Not that I’ve any good news for you. Schnyder has kept your case in his own hands. He seems keen, but I can tell he hasn’t got anywhere. He intended to go to Paris to interview that Edmond de Grimaud, but it seems that’s off, now that the balloon has gone up, and ordinary crime, even the shooting of a policeman, has to take a back seat. There were no useful fingerprints in the car, I can tell you that, and inquiries at the station have got us nowhere. It seems that the Paris train was packed and, if they left by it, well, who’s to say who they were. We’ve no description. One witness says she saw the gunman leaning out of the car window, but his hat was pulled down over his eyes and he had a scarf tied over the lower part of his face. Perhaps. If you ask me, she may well have been watching too many gangster movies. Still, she’s the only witness we have, even if, in my opinion, her evidence isn’t worth a Jew’s fart.’

  Realizing what he had said, Moncerre looked embarrassed, in case Marguerite was within hearing, then quickly added, ‘There’s one thing though. We found half-a-dozen fag-ends in the car, and its owner doesn’t smoke. What’s more, they were Virginian tobacco, English we think, but we can’t tell the brand because they were smoked from the other end. That speaks of a professional.’

  ‘Not so professional to leave the stubs as evidence,’ Lannes said.

  ‘Careless, yes. Maybe they panicked.’

  ‘Maybe. At least you’ve given me something to think about.’

  Which was a relief, or a distraction from his more pressing anxiety.

  ‘As to other matters,’ Moncerre said, ‘there’s no progress. Since it’s certain that Cortazar died of a heart attack, we’re supposed to shrug our shoulders and forget it. In any case what does the death of one Spanish Red matter. Schnyder says he’s not pleased, but I don’t know. I can’t work him out. He seems keen and was certainly cut up and angry when he learned of the attempt on your life. But you know me, chief, I don’t take anything at face value. And of course your Grimaud case is judged to be no case at all. Actually I took it on myself to annul your order to have the telephone in the rue d’Aviau tapped, since it had produced nothing of interest. I can tell you however that the countess hasn’t returned there. She’s moved out for good. I called on her yesterday. Some woman, I have to say! She asked after you, shocked to hear of the shooting, hoped it wasn’t connected with what you had talked to her about.’

  ‘Which it must be,’ Lannes said.

  ‘To sum up, chief, we’re stuck, in the dark, properly fucked.’

  Lannes looked beyond him out of the window at the sky which was still deep-blue, not yet flecked with gold. Swifts and swallows flashed across it, then came the drone of an aeroplane. What sort of planes were flying over Dominique? In his last letter, which Lannes had read in hospital, the boy had spoken of lying in a field and listening to the larks high above him. ‘It’s strange how birdsong makes me happy, yet I’m filled with foreboding at the same time. It’s the fear that I will be proved lacking in courage.’

  Tell him,’ Lannes had said to Marguerite, ‘that every soldier shares that fear. I certainly did.’

  He turned his attention back to Moncerre.

  ‘In the dark, sure. But properly fucked? I don’t know. That someone chose to take a pot at me is surely an encouraging sign.’

  That same evening Alain and Maurice were in the Café des Arts, cours Victor Hugo, drinking lemonade. The elderly waiter with the flat feet that are evidence of long years in that employment, said, ‘So it’s started. No more phoney war. It won’t be long before they come for you lads. No, it won’t.’

  ‘He likes that idea,’ Alain said. ‘You’ve no need to be embarrassed, it’s not your fault you have asthma.’

  ‘Sometimes I think it is. A moral weakness. Psychosomatic, developed to keep me out of the war.’

  ‘That’s bosh.’

  ‘Is it? It makes awfully good sense to me. How’s your father?’

  ‘Recovering. He says he’s had worse wounds, and more painful ones. I think that’s showing-off, gasconading. He looks ten years older.’

  ‘It was terrible,’ Maurice said, ‘and he was with my father, which seems strange to me, and then my father hurried off to Paris without even waiting to see if yours would survive.’

  ‘Oh there was no question of him dying. It takes more than a single shot from a toy gun to kill a Gascon. Do you know, Maurice, I was against this war, called myself a pacifist, said I certainly wasn’t going to die for Danzig. But now I don’t know. Everything’s different. What does your father think? He must hear things in Paris. Since we met I’ve read two back-numbers of his review in the library, and he’s clearly well-informed.’

  ‘Oh he never speaks to me about public affairs. He still regards me as a child. I think he despises me.’

  ‘But that’s ridiculous. In any case it’s our fathers’ generation has let us in for this war. So he has no right to despise you.’

  ‘So you say, but, if he doesn’t despise me, he dislikes me. I think he sees my mother in me.’

  Alain didn’t immediately know what to reply. Maurice was the first person he had known whose parents were divorced. Then he said, ‘Is that so bad?’

  ‘Terrible, from his point of view.’

  At which they both laughed. Maurice laid his hand on Alain’s.

  ‘I’m so glad we’ve met. I feel we can talk about anything, that I can say whatever I think, and you’ll understand.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Alain freed his hand, lit a Gauloise and pushed the packet over to Maurice. It was true. They could speak about anything and everything: philosophy, poetry, novels, films, politics, even their own feelings. They were at that stage in life when the perfect friend seems as necessary as desirable. They laughed at the same things, the sillier the better, and now, when Maurice frowned
and said, ‘No, really, it’s because of my resemblance to my mother that he dislikes me,’ both were seized with a fit of the giggles.

  Then Maurice stopped, abruptly, bit his lip so hard that the blood seemed to flee from it.

  ‘But how can we laugh like this, after today’s news, and when you must all be so worried about Dominique.’

  ‘Of course we are, but the news doesn’t forbid us from laughing. In any case it’s only the first phase of a battle, and surely we shall counter-attack.’

  XX

  May 20, 1940

  Paulhan had passed him fit for duty, reluctantly. ‘You really should take at least another week off,’ he said, ‘but I can see you’re fretting.’ Marguerite realized this too, therefore, self-denying, acquiesced. Lannes kissed her good-bye, wondering if he should tell her about the dream he had struggled to recapture when he woke. The setting was unclear, a field somewhere, under a fine blue sky. Dominique appeared, walking out of a beech wood. He said, ‘You’ve got the wound that was intended for me.’ He sat beside him a long time in silence. It had been strangely comforting, and Lannes woke feeling good. But Marguerite might interpret it differently. So he said nothing.

  Mounds of paperwork awaited him. He buried himself in it. The administration must be carried on, sacred tenet of the Republic. So he sat and smoked and read, annotated and initialed: futile activity like that of the bluebottle buzzing infuriatingly round the lampshade. It could not occupy his whole mind, distract him from the war news which was terrible and alarming. The Germans had turned away from Paris, marching along the line of the Somme to encircle the French and their British allies to the north; these were now trapped between the Wehrmacht and the sea. There were reports of refugees streaming south. It’s a debacle, he thought, it has the makings of a debacle. It’s not 1914, but 1870. Still, the hardest fighting seemed well to the west of Alsace where Dominique was stationed.

  There was a knock at the door. Young René Martin entered.

  ‘It’s good to see you back, chief. But are you sure you’re sufficiently recovered?’

  René, like Moncerre, had visited him at home, in his case simply out of courtesy or concern, with nothing to report. When he left, Marguerite said, ‘That’s a very nice boy,’ and Lannes saw Clothilde flush.

  ‘Commissaire Schnyder told me to inform you he has gone to Paris, by the overnight train. He has managed to make an appointment to see Edmond de Grimaud, though he added, “that’s if he keeps it”. It must be strange to be in Paris now, but they say we’re about to counter-attack. That’s what everyone says and the word is that it’s to launch the counter-attack that General Weygand has taken over.’

  Weygand, disciple of Marshal Foch, organizer of victory in 1918 and apostle of attack, had been recalled from commanding the French army in the Levant, and appointed yesterday as commander-in-chief in place of General Gamelin who was so fat he had to be helped in and out of his staff-car.

  Lannes got up from his desk, and, opening the door, asked Joseph to have them send up two coffees from the bar below.

  ‘There’s nothing we can do about the war, we can only wait,’ he said.

  ‘It’s difficult to get on with our normal work all the same,’ René said. ‘However I’ve had a word with Cortin – that’s the name of the chap who owns the grey Renault, you remember. He’s a little man, fiftyish, bald as a coot, and jumpy in manner, with very bright eyes. He was certainly on edge and indignant too. He kept saying, “It’s not my fault if my car is stolen. If the police were doing their job properly that wouldn’t happen.” I pointed out that preventing that sort of crime wasn’t the responsibility of the PJ, which made him even more indignant, so much so that I almost laughed. He insists he hadn’t left his keys in the car, would never do a thing like that. Which is of course beside the point – it’s not difficult to start a car without keys if you know how. But the thing is, the more I questioned him, the more I began to suspect that he knows more than he will admit, that indeed his car may not have been stolen at all. I think you should have a word with him yourself, chief, if you’re up to it.’

  The waiter from the Bar des Mousquetaires brought in the coffees. Lannes took a bottle of Armagnac from his desk drawer and added a shot to each cup.

  ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘I trust your judgment in such matters.’

  René might be inexperienced, but he was sensitive and alert to what might lie behind the responses of those he was questioning.

  ‘You’ve done well, Lannes said. ‘Arrange for him to be brought here. Not today. Call him now and make the appointment for tomorrow morning, Make it sound a formality, but leave him in just a little doubt if you can. Let him sweat on it overnight. 9 o’clock tomorrow and make it clear, if he demurs, that’s while it’s only a request, I’m very eager to speak to him and suppose he would prefer that I don’t call on him at the City Hall.’

  ‘Sure, chief, I’ve got it. Softly, softly, but . . . ’

  Late in the afternoon he left the office and made for the rue des Remparts. Henri had visited him in hospital, and also at home; but on the first occasion Lannes had not been up to conversation, and then in the rue des Cordeliers with Marguerite present they had spoken first of Dominique and then of the past.

  Crossing the Place Rohan he encountered his brother-in-law. Albert was agitated. ‘The news is awful, we’re done for, betrayed. It’s the fault of the Jews and the Communists, no one can doubt it . . . Still at least the Marshal has now been brought into the Government . . . to stabilise things, to secure an honourable peace, it’s our last hope. I’ve heard the Mayor say so. It’s a disaster but he believes we can recover.’

  Was there a note of unholy satisfaction behind the excited, disjointed speech? Lannes had no reply to offer. Others, he knew, were muttering ‘remember the Marne’, recalling how in 1914 the Germans had been driven back by General Joffre when almost within sight of Paris, troops ferried to the Front in the city’s taxis. A miracle, they had said then, a veritable miracle. But one to be repeated? We’re not the people we were then, he thought. That war exhausted us for generations. He said something about an appointment, and left Albert. It was a long time since he had stopped pretending that his brother-in-law didn’t disgust him.

  It was a golden afternoon. A soft breeze from the river scarcely ruffled the leaves. The café terraces were thronged. Little children rolled hoops in the square. Jackdaws chattered and squabbled around the cathedral.

  Henri was busy with a customer. Lannes browsed the shelves till he had completed his transaction and left.

  ‘So people are buying books even now?’

  ‘We have to pretend that life remains normal, and after all the war is hundreds of miles away to the north. Come upstairs and have a drink.

  Henri left his assistant, a retired schoolmaster called Bloch to mind the shop.

  ‘Close when it suits you.’

  He poured whiskies, added a splash of soda to each, handed Lannes a glass.

  ‘Bloch speaks of making plans to leave. I can’t blame him. He has a cousin, other relatives too, I think, in Oran. I suppose it may be safer there for Jews if . . . if it comes to the worst. How are you, Jean? You still look pale and a bit fragile.’

  ‘I’m all right, as right as anyone is these days.’

  ‘Indeed yes. War disturbs the natural course of life. Revolution destroys it.’

  ‘Revolution?’

  ‘There must be one surely. Of the Left or of the Right. Who can tell which? The Communards or Napoleon? Not that I see a possible Napoleon.’

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘Some of the time. But, in reality, like everyone else, I don’t know what to think.’

  Lannes stretched out in his chair. He had, over the years, spent many hours at this time of day here in companionship with Henri, almost his oldest friend, and he had come this afternoon in the hope of lightening the load of apprehension that weighed him down. But it was no good and his brief conversation with
Albert had depressed him further. He repeated it in answer to Henri’s speculations, adding, ‘He’s a fool of course, with no mind of his own. So I suppose he’s only repeating what those about Marquet are saying.’

  ‘Pétain? He’s eighty-four, must be that. Who ever heard of an octogenarian saviour? I speak of a Napoleon and you offer me Pétain. It’s ridiculous.’

  ‘I served under him at Verdun. He did well there, pulled us through.’

  Henri picked up the bottle, as if to wish away memories of his generation’s war in which he had not served.

  ‘Have a drop more Johnnie for comfort’s sake. You remember what Napoleon said? “After thirty-five a man is no good for war.” Any news of Dominique?’

  ‘Nothing for days. I suppose all mail deliveries from the Front have been suspended.’

  ‘I feel for you both, I really do. If prayers were any good.’

  ‘Marguerite prays. I can’t.’

  For a little they sat in silence, smoking and sipping their drinks as if it was an ordinary evening of an ordinary early summer.

  Henri said, ‘I had a visit from your new boss, the Alsatian. It came as a surprise. He said he wanted to assure me that no matter what orders came from above, Gaston wouldn’t be forgotten. “There’s no time-limit on murder,” he said. I know of course, Jean, that you look at it like that, partly out of friendship, but this chap. What do you make of him? Or shouldn’t I ask?’