by Allan Massie
‘So my marriage did not last because I am not made for marriage,’ Schussmann said. ‘On the other hand we are not divorced because Greta thinks it is better we maintain the appearance of marriage. Mine is not a good country now for men of my inclination. You understand, Léon, what I am saying. But when the war ends, things will be different, and it is only the stupid obstinacy of England which prevents that. Yes, after the war, we can all relax and be ourselves again and I hope you will visit me in Tübingen which is very beautiful. But for now, Léon, there are only a few moments such as this evening when I can be what I truly am.’
Léon felt sorry for him, but also that he was a bore, as Gaston had never been. Gaston had been full of jokes as well as poetry and intelligence. He had set himself to educate Léon and the education had been fun. He had opened his eyes to so much and he had been full of mischief. He had loved to tell scandalous stories about the distinguished and eminent. He had laughed at himself, even if, quoting an English poet, he had said, ‘and if I laugh at anything, ’tis that I may not weep.’ His favourite Byron, Léon thought, Byron who had, Gaston told him, loved boys as well as women, his last infatuation being a Greek boy called Loukas. ‘I like to think you resemble him,’ Gaston said, ‘though, alas, I know I am no Byron.’
I can’t go through with it, Léon thought. Gaston would despise me as much as Alain. No, he wouldn’t, he would despise the action, what I’ve been ordered to do, but not me, he wouldn’t despise me. Maman and Aunt Miriam in an internment camp – he would understand how . . .
‘You are distracted,’ Schussmann said, ‘perhaps I have been boring you . . . ’ ‘Not at all, but when you spoke of your dead friend, it set me thinking of one of mine who is also dead.’
The waiters were piling chairs on the tables.
Schussmann leaned forward, ‘Léon, I would so much wish . . . Have you, I wonder, a room we could go to . . . ’ Léon felt his hand begin to tremble. He thrust it between his legs.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we could do that.’
The clerk in the mean hotel – Hotel Artemis – across the road from the Gare Saint-Jean did not look up from his newspaper when Léon and Schussmann passed him. In the lift, mounting slowly and unsteadily to the second floor, Schussmann stroked the boy’s cheek.
‘I have so much wanted this.’
Léon took the key from his pocket and unlocked the door. The little room was bare, the only furniture the bed, a chair and a table on which stood a jug and basin, and a couple of tumblers.
‘So this is not where you live?’
Léon, tense, made no reply.
‘And you have used this room before, for this purpose.’
Léon couldn’t bring himself to look Schussmann in the face. He was on edge, ashamed and afraid. He slipped his jacket off and began to unbutton his shirt.
‘No, please, allow me the pleasure of undressing you.’
He let his hands fall to his sides. Schussmann kissed him on the mouth.
‘Oh Léon . . . Sit on the bed, please.’
He knelt down and removed Léon’s shoes and socks. Then he unbuckled his belt and pulled down his trousers. Léon shifted aside to help him. Then he lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. Schussmann, still on his knees beside the bed, ran his hands up and down Léon’s thighs and brought his head forward. Léon felt his tongue go to work and heard him moan with the anticipation of pleasure. The door opened.
‘Act One: curtain,’ Félix said.
He stood there smiling, and closed the door behind him. He put a paper bag on the table, and said, ‘We have matters to discuss, Lieutenant. Léon, pick up your clothes and get out. You’ve done your work, Jewboy. Oh yes, lieutenant, it’s even worse than you feared. Not only are you caught in flagrante delicto but your catamite is a Jew. You didn’t know? Doesn’t matter. What would Himmler say? I can guess, can’t you? Dachau or some other holiday camp? That would be your fate, wouldn’t it?’
He took a bottle of brandy from the paper bag and poured two glasses. He handed one to Schussmann.
‘You’ve gone white as a sheet,’ he said. ‘Drink this. It need not come to that. It’s not in my interest that you are sent to Dachau.
Léon, take your clothes and get out. You can dress in the lobby. Your work here’s done.’
Léon obeyed. With his hand on the door handle, he turned and said, ‘I’m sorry. I had no choice.’
It felt feeble. It was feeble.
He opened the door and hesitated a moment in case Schussmann should reply. He wanted him to say, ‘I understand, I don’t blame you,’ but instead heard Félix say, ‘Really, you’ve nothing to worry about. Why, when we’ve come to an agreement, there is no reason why you shouldn’t have the opportunity to finish what I interrupted. They say pleasure delayed is pleasure enhanced, don’t they? That’s of course if it’s what you still want. I don’t care how perverted your pleasures are, and I’ll admit this. The Jewboy’s right. I gave him no choice.’
XXIII
Marguerite had gone to the early Mass so that she would have more time to prepare lunch. Not that there was actually much to do. She had managed to obtain an old fowl and it would simmer for hours in the pot with the vegetables.
‘Just what Henri Quatre wanted every Frenchwoman to have for Sundays,’ Dominique said on their way back from the cathedral. He linked his arm in his mother’s.
‘It’s going to be all right,’ he said, ‘don’t worry, Maman.’
There had been a scene, a fierce argument anyway, the night before. Alain had said it was all wrong, they shouldn’t have a German in the apartment. Admittedly he had spoken to him on the stairs and found him pleasant enough. But it was a matter of principle. It was wrong to collaborate with the enemy. He had nothing against him as an individual, but he was nevertheless the enemy. At this point Clothilde burst into tears and accused her twin of always trying to spoil anything. Why did he always think he was right and everybody else wrong?
‘He’s not the enemy,’ she screamed. ‘He’s Manu and I’m in love with him,’ and fled to her bedroom, banging the door behind her.
‘It’s all right, Maman,’ Dominque now said, giving her arm a squeeze, ‘she’s not really in love with him, you know. She just likes him and she was in a temper. As for Alain, if that’s his attitude, well, we’ll all be more comfortable if he’s not with us at the table. Besides, Manu really is a nice chap. You’ll like him, I’m sure. And Papa doesn’t object.’
Actually Lannes did object. His sympathies were with Alain. That’s to say, he agreed with him and shared his distaste. He was compelled as a police officer to collaborate with the Occupier, but collaboration shouldn’t get past the door of the family home. On the other hand, he not only adored Clothilde and hated to see her disappointed or unhappy, but he knew that she was every bit as obstinate as Alain – or indeed as he himself was; and so he suspected that opposition might actually convert her idea of being in love into a reality. Yes, she’s ‘thrawn’, he said to himself, happy to employ the dialect word which had been a favourite of his peasant grandmother in the Landes: she had applied it time and again to her husband. Yes, she’s thrawn, it’s a family trait, and at the right moment I’ll remind her that she and Alain quarrel so bitterly because they are two of a kind. Marguerite often recalled how they had, as she put it, kicked each other in her womb. As for the lunch, if the young German was indeed as well mannered as Dominique said, it would no doubt pass off quite smoothly, and perhaps seeing him at the family table Clothilde might think him quite ordinary, with nothing special, certainly no glamour, about him.
He would tell Alain later: ‘If you really want your sister to be set on him, then present him as forbidden fruit.’
‘Alain should be ashamed of himself, upsetting Clothilde like that,’ Marguerite had said when they were in bed together. ‘He’s so selfish and wild. You will speak to him firmly, won’t you, Jean? He really needs to learn to have some consideration for others. Mother was very hurt that
day when I told him to take her some eggs and he just dumped them on her kitchen table and was off with barely a word to her.’
‘I’ll speak to him,’ Lannes had said, making a mental reservation as to what he would say.
Alain sat on the parapet above the Garonne listening to the cry of gulls. There was little traffic on the Sunday river. He watched it flow, towards the sea, towards a world beyond imprisoned France, towards, with a tilt of the map, England, de Gaulle and the Free French. He should go. The resistance in which he and the musketeers had engaged – was it anything more than play-acting? There were copies of Léon’s version of the Cross of Lorraine in his pocket – he had already scattered a few, almost careless, in his ill-temper, if he was observed. But what did such action amount to: a mere statement of childish defiance? And how could he stay when his family home had become a nest of collaborators and his sister was in love with a German? Who would care if he went? Not Maman certainly. She was content with Dominique, always her favourite. Papa? Papa might even admire him for doing what he didn’t dare to do himself. Poor Papa, chained to duty. He lit a cigarette, only one left in the packet. In London he would be made welcome. Why have you come here, young man?, the General would say. To fight for France, sir. Magnificent.
Two German officers passed, laughing. Laugh on, he thought, one day we’ll laugh in Berlin. He would have liked to hand each of them a Cross of Lorraine – as a promise, a warning?
I’m eighteen, he thought. It could be like this for years. Stepping aside on the pavement to make way for the Boche, condemned to hurry home to beat the curfew imposed by the Boche, watching the Boche with French girls on their arms – why, if it lasted long enough Clothilde might even marry her Manu – ridiculous name! And listening to that senile dotard on the wireless telling us we are paying for our laxity – what had he ever denied himself? – that was good – and telling us that we must endure suffering in expiation – him and his precious Maginot Line. The truth was that all these bastards at Vichy, from the Marshal and Admiral Darlan down, wallowed in humiliation like pigs in muck. Maréchal, nous voilà – not me – not bloody likely.
He felt alive again and was hungry. No money in his pocket. Miriam would feed him – and give him cigarettes. She might deny him her bed, and it no longer mattered, now that he had decided he would be off as soon as the opportunity presented itself. With Léon and Jérôme and Philippe whom he had called Porthos? Why not? Dumas’ musketeers had gone to England, more than once, d’Artagnan several times. He had put the English General Monk in a box and carried him across the Channel. What a jest to take Admiral Darlan on the reverse journey! But that was day-dreaming. He must be practical and find a way. His mind was made up.
Clothilde was nervous. She had made a fool of herself last night. It was Alain’s fault. He always knew how to provoke her into saying more than she meant. She should have insisted that Manu was merely a friend, a nice boy in a foreign land. Instead she had burst out with that cry ‘I’m in love with him,’ and seen sadness creep over her father’s face. Sadness like river mist, she thought now. And it wasn’t even true. Or she didn’t know if it was. Manu was sweet, with his pale face and mouth that never seemed sure of itself. And his gentleness, the sudden burst of enthusiasm when he spoke of music, the church choir he used to sing in, or the beauty of his home in the Black Forest, and said how much he missed his mother and little sister and their two shepherd-dogs. But they had never even kissed, he had never held her in his arms, and she didn’t know what he wanted – he was always so polite and restrained. So she had never spoken to him of her feelings and anyway she wasn’t sure what they were. She would never have met him if it wasn’t for this beastly war, which might any day take him away, so that they never saw each other again.
She laid the table with hands that trembled a little, with excitement and uncertainty, and buried her nose in the sweet scent of the bowl of red roses which she placed as a centre piece. She was aware of Maman and Dominique in the kitchen. They at least were on her side. Dominique was anyway; she was never sure of what her mother really thought about anything. Still, she had agreed readily to invite Manu, adding only ‘if it makes you happy, Clothilde.’
The doorbell rang. She let Dominique answer it, heard him greet Manu as if there was nothing remarkable in his presence. She pushed a lock of hair away from her eye. As she did so, she thought, that’s one of Alain’s gestures.
He was carrying a bunch of freesias.
‘For your mother,’ he said.
She stretched out to take the flowers from him and for an instant their fingers touched. He had left his officer’s cap in the hallway. His light brown hair was close cropped. Once, at the café where they had eaten ice-cream and talked, he had shown her a family photograph in which he wore his hair curling over his ears and his face had seemed even softer. But, even with his brutal military cut, he looked so gentle.
‘It is so kind of you to invite me,’ he said.
For a moment she found nothing to say. It was a relief when Maman came through to be introduced.
It being Sunday, the iron shutter of the tabac was drawn down, but Alain rang the bell for the apartment.
‘It’s all right,’ he said when Miriam opened the door. ‘I’ve accepted your decision.’
‘It really is for the best,’ she said. ‘How are you?’
‘Hungry actually.’
He explained why he hadn’t been able to endure the thought of a family lunch with Clothilde’s friend.
‘He’s a decent enough chap, but I won’t eat with a German officer.’
‘Then you’d better eat with me, not that I’ve much to offer you, only bread and cheese and some dried figs from last year’s crop.’
‘And I’m out of cigarettes,’ he said.
‘Well, that’s something else I can supply.’
She looks older and sadder, he thought. Even in the weeks since we were lovers, she has aged. She’ll soon be an old woman. It’s very strange.
‘I can’t stand it here any longer,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘The humiliation. It’s intolerable. I have to do something.’
‘Is this because of Clothilde, or me?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything for sure except that I hate our position and have to do something, get out.’
‘Eat something first. Drink some wine. Then we’ll talk. You look exhausted. I suspect you didn’t sleep much last night.’
At least the young man didn’t click his heels as he stood up to shake hands. That was Lannes’ first thought. He seemed nice. This made it worse. When he saw how Clothilde looked at him, and, so often a chatter-box, was lost for words, apprehension gripped him. However things turned out she was going to be hurt. As for himself, all he could manage was to ask polite conventional questions about the lieutenant’s home and family, all of which he answered in a manner which suggested a proper depth of affection and respect. If the young man had been a visitor from abroad before the war, Lannes would have asked him how he found Bordeaux and would have talked about the city himself. He couldn’t bring himself to do so; he couldn’t forget what had brought him here. Fortunately Dominique took charge of the conversation. He spoke about literature and films with a naturalness which impressed Lannes. Manu responded. They found a common enthusiasm for Thomas Mann and for Joseph Roth’s novel, ‘The Radetzky March.’
‘Of course Roth’s books are banned in Germany now,’ Manu said, ‘but that doesn’t prevent this one from being one of the great German novels of the century, and my father, who is a professor of literature in a Hochschule, says these things will pass, but Art remains. I would like to believe it is so.’
He smiled.
‘I am happy to be able to say such things to you. There are places where I would not have the courage to speak like this.’
‘These are bad times,’ Dominique said, ‘but your father is right, they will pass. That’s what my faith tells me. Men – and
women, Clothilde – of goodwill must come together in peace and fellowship. I am sure of that. These quarrels between our two countries can’t continue. We must learn to work together so that we may live in peace. Think of it: Louis Quatorze, Napoleon, Bismarck, the Kaiser, 1870, 1914 and where we are now. It’s too much.’
‘Yes,’ Manu said, ‘we are the two great nations of Europe and we must stand together against atheistic Bolshevism and the power of international capitalism and the forces of the money power.’
Lannes said, ‘I’ll make coffee.’
In the kitchen he gave himself a glass of marc and drank it quickly. Clothilde joined him there.
‘He is nice, Papa, isn’t he? You do like him? You could come to like him, couldn’t you? You see how well he and Dominqiue get on, how they think the same way.’
‘Yes,’ Lannes said, ‘I see that, and, yes, he seems a nice boy. But don’t throw your heart at him, darling. If there was no war it might be different, but the war . . . well, we don’t know how it is going to end.’
He thought of the young tart Yvette and her Wolfie, the warning he had given her, and how she lay back on her bed displaying her legs to him.
After lunch Dominique suggested they go for a walk. Lannes was pleased to see them off. Marguerite said, ‘Well, he is a nice boy, well mannered and gentle. But you don’t need to worry, Jean, as I see you are ready to do. It’s not serious. It won’t last. It’s calf-love, nothing more.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
He wished he could be sure she was.
XXIV
Léon passed a miserable Sunday. He had slept badly, disturbed by dreams and waking early. He was reluctant to leave his bed, lying on his side, his knees drawn up against his chest, the sheet pulled over his head against the sunlight which seeped through curtains that did not meet in the middle. He heard his mother moving in the kitchen, and this deepened his shame. There had been a moment before Félix opened the door and said ‘Act One: Curtain’ that he had felt himself responding to Schussman’s eagerness. He told himself he had done only what was required of him – ‘Are you a patriot, Léon?’ – but it was shameful nevertheless. What more would Félix require of him? I am doubly punished, he thought, for being what I am. Might Schussmann have believed him when he said, ‘I had no choice.’ Said? Whimpered.
