Dark Summer in Bordeaux

by Allan Massie

  ‘Perhaps. Some time. I don’t know. Anyway I never kiss boys the first time I meet them.’

  I’ve never kissed a boy, she thought, not really kissed, the way they did on the screen. I don’t know what’s happening.

  ‘Then we must meet a second time,’ he said. ‘You really are gorgeous. Do you know that?’

  ‘Stop it,’ she said, as she felt his hand press against her bottom.

  ‘People will see us. What will they think?’

  ‘Don’t care,’ he said, still fondling her.

  ‘Well, I do. I’m a well-brought-up girl.’

  ‘That’s part of what makes you irresistible.’

  ‘I’m not one of your tarts. Do you have tarts?’

  ‘That would be telling.’

  He put his mouth close to her ear and whispered, ‘Let’s slip away.’

  When she didn’t immediately reply, she felt his tongue licking her cheek.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘I want to be alone with you. Really. I really do.’

  ‘All right then.’

  They climbed out. He held her hand as they returned to the others.

  ‘We’re going to leave you two love-birds to each other,’ he said.

  ‘That was quick, even for you, Michel,’ Philippe said.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Michel said, and led Clothilde to the changing-rooms.

  ‘See you outside, five minutes.’

  Her hands trembled as she buttoned her blouse. Is this it?, she thought, how could I have supposed I fancied Manu? She took more than the five minutes he had given her to look as she wanted to look.

  Michel was waiting for her. He was leaning against a wall, with one leg drawn up behind him, his foot resting on the stone. He wore white linen trousers and a blue shirt. He had combed his hair which was rather long, touching his shirt collar. He didn’t move as she approached and then took the cigarette from his mouth and placed it between her lips.

  ‘It’s awfully erotic sharing a cigarette with a lovely girl,’ he said.

  He took hold of her hand again.

  ‘Tell me all about yourself.’

  ‘Nothing to tell. Not really. Tell me about you.’

  ‘Nothing to tell. Actually I have seen you before, at a Legion meeting. You were with your brother. I don’t mind saying I fancied you at first sight.’

  ‘I thought you hadn’t even noticed me,’ she said. ‘What did Philippe mean when he said that was quick even for you?’

  ‘He’s an idiot. Don’t pay any attention to what he says. Not ever.’

  ‘Does that mean he knows you too well?’

  ‘I like to think nobody knows me.’

  ‘He meant you have lots of girls, didn’t he?’

  The sun shone. They walked close together, hip against hip. It was even more like a movie. An old woman dressed in black and wearing a wide-brimmed black straw hat, rounded like a priest’s, shook her head.

  ‘She disapproves,’ Clothilde giggled. ‘She thinks I’m fast.’

  ‘She’s jealous.’

  ‘She’s forgotten what it is to be young, poor woman.’

  They came to a garden. Clothilde who had lived all her life in Bordeaux, couldn’t have said where they were. In a litle clearing fringed by azaleas and oleander bushes they lay down on the grass. Michel drew her head to him and kissed her on the lips. He lay on top of her and put his hands either side of her head and kissed her again. His tongue sought out hers. She responded, but when she felt his hand stray under her skirt, said ‘No’ softly, and, to her relief and disappointment, he obeyed. For a long time they lay there, no need or desire for words.

  Later he took her by the hand and raised her to her feet. They kissed again. I’ll never forget this, she thought. They walked back toward the centre of the town. He asked if he might see her home. Not yet, she said, not today, I need to think. Another time? Oh I hope so.

  Finding themselves in the Place de l’Ancienne Comédie, by her favourite café, she said, ‘Let’s have an ice-cream.’

  They found a table. There were three German officers at the next one. For a moment she thought one of them was Manu. But of course it wasn’t, though she had sat at this same table with him.

  ‘Tell me about yourself,’ she said again, ‘I want to know.’

  ‘My parents are dead. I live with my grandfather. He used to be a professor. And you?’

  Two boys passed.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘there’s Jérôme, he’s one of my brother’s friends.’

  ‘I know him myself. We’re both members of the Légion des Jeunes d’Aquitaine. Actually I don’t like him much. That’s to say he gets on my nerves. He’s a pansy and always hanging around me.’

  ‘Poor Jérôme,’ she said.

  Lucky me, she thought.

  ‘When can I see you again?’

  ‘Soon,’ she said, ‘soon.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow, yes.’

  ‘We might go to a movie.’

  XXXVI

  ‘So it’s you again.’

  Jules laid aside the glass he was polishing and the towel, and stretched across the zinc counter to shake Lannes’ hand.

  ‘Did you ever find out who killed that poor bugger, Monsieur Chambolley?’

  ‘I found them, yes.’

  ‘So are they behind bars?’

  Lannes shook his head.

  ‘Oh it’s like that, is it?’

  ‘It’s like that.’

  Jules drew him a beer. ‘On the house,’ he said. ‘So what brings you here today? No trouble, I hope. They’ll have told you in Vice that I keep a respectable establishment.’

  ‘Not exactly how they put it, but they’ve no complaints. Get many Germans in, do you?’

  Jules tugged at his moustache. Then he took a bottle of Armagnac from the shelf behind the bar and picked up two glasses which he held upside down by the stem, called on the waiter to take over, stepped round the counter, and without a word, led Lannes to the back of the bar and through a door marked ‘Private’.

  He settled himself at the table, gestured to the other chair, and began to fill his pipe. Only when he had got it lit and taken two puffs, after which he pressed the tobacco down again with a small metal stubber, did he say, ‘I’m not sure I like your question.’

  ‘It’s simple enough,’ Lannes said.

  ‘Simple questions can have awkward answers.’

  He poured out two glasses and pushed one across the table to Lannes.

  ‘I respect my customers,’ he said. ‘It’s a long time ago that I learned when to ask questions of them and when to keep silent.’

  ‘I see you’ve changed the name of the bar,’ Lannes said.

  ‘I’m a careful man. Got to be. “The Wet Flag” now – not very clever to have an English name these days, is it?’

  ‘Not very clever, no. Why was it English in the first place? I’ve often wondered.’

  ‘Sailors,’ Jules said. ‘My uncle had the place before me. It was his notion.’

  He drew on his pipe, and sat back, stout, bald-headed, obdurate.

  ‘Vice have no problem with me. They’ll have told you that. I keep my nose clean.’

  ‘Fairly clean.’

  Lannes smiled.

  ‘It’s no concern of mine what sort of house this is,’ he said. ‘I told you that before when I came inquiring about the Chambolley case, and I’m happy to tell you now that there was no connection between his murder and your bar. I know what sort of place it is, but I accept that you are careful, and long as Vice is happy, then as I say it’s none of my business. On the other hand I do you the credit of supposing that you have the sense to realise it’s in your interest to be – what shall we say? – obliging, and answer my questions. So again, do you get many Germans in here?’

  Jules stroked his moustache again and then pulled at the wart on his right cheek.

  ‘What do you expect me to do? Tell them they’re barred? Superintendent, in my experien
ce, the Boches are like other people, like anyone else. They have their inclinations and tastes just as we have. So, if they find their way here, well, to my mind, their money’s as good as a Frenchman’s.’

  ‘Quite so,’ Lannes said. ‘I’m not disputing that, though the day may come when you find others who will.’

  ‘May come is right. If you want my opinion that day doesn’t look like arriving soon. And in the meanwhile, what do you expect me to do? Tell any Boche who puts his head round the door to fuck off? That would be bright, wouldn’t it? So I just take their money and keep my thoughts to myself.’

  ‘I don’t expect anything of you.’

  Lannes produced the photograph of Schussmann which he had had the Alsatian obtain for him and pushed it across the table.

  ‘What about this chap?’

  Jules glanced at it, briefly, then, for the first time, looked away.

  ‘I need to know a bit more,’ he said. ‘I’ve got my principles.’

  ‘You have? Can you afford them in your line? Anyway, you’ve answered my question.’

  ‘I’ve said nothing.’

  ‘You’ve said enough. So he came here. Good. Regularly?’

  ‘Not regularly, no.’

  ‘To pick up a boy?’

  ‘Couldn’t rightly say.’

  ‘Come off it,’ Lannes said. ‘Don’t ask me to believe that. I’ve too much respect for you, Jules. For your intelligence anyway. A Boche officer comes here and you expect me to believe you don’t keep your eye on him, that you aren’t made a bit anxious by his presence. It would be a relief, wouldn’t it, if all he did was make a pick-up? Business as usual, you might say. Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Look,’ Jules said, ‘I make it my business to keep out of the shit.’

  ‘Very wise.’

  Lannes fingered his glass.

  ‘The thing is, the chap’s dead. Shot.’

  Jules knocked back his brandy and poured himself another glass. He drew on his pipe again and this time looked Lannes in the eye.

  ‘One Boche fewer,’ he said. ‘Do you expect me to go into mourning? Or you think I should help you pin it on one of the boys? No chance. I’m a good Frenchman, whatever else I may be, and if I knew who did for him, I’d shake him by the hand, even if he seemed a decent enough sort of chap for a Boche. Quiet too, spoke decent enough French.’

  ‘I need to speak with the boy. Don’t pretend there isn’t one.’

  ‘No chance,’ Jules said again.

  ‘Which means you know who he is. But there’s one thing you don’t know. There’s no hand for you to shake. Schussmann’ – he tapped the photograph which lay on the table between them – ‘wasn’t murdered. He shot himself. Trouble is, the Gestapo are interested. If I can’t come up with the right story, you’ll have them here. Does that change your mind?’

  Jules fiddled with the wart again, twisting it between thumb and forefinger.

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘That’s what we’ll all be in if I can’t head them off. So I must speak to the boy.’

  ‘Why should I trust you, superintendent?’

  ‘Because you have no choice and because if I wasn’t trustworthy, I’d have already suggested to them they should look here. They want the boy who compromised the honour of the Germany army – don’t laugh – that’s how they put it. I want to make sure they don’t get hold of him. But I assure you that if I can’t satisfy them, they’ll find their way here sooner or later. There aren’t so many places like yours in Bordeaux, are there? So, if he’s one of those I saw in the bar, just fetch him now, and, if he isn’t, tell me where I can find him.’

  Jules closed his eyes and didn’t move for a long time. Then he sighed and heaved himself upright. His trousers sagged behind and his feet were flat. He left the door a few inches open. Lannes lit a cigarette. He wondered if it might have been wiser simply to have confirmed that Schussmann had frequented the bar and to tell Jules to order the boy to make himself scarce. But – he didn’t know why – he had to see him for himself.

  ‘I’ve done nothing.’

  He had been abstracted, hadn’t noticed the boy come in. Jules stood behind him, feeling that wart again. Lannes flicked his head to indicate that he should leave them alone. The big man hesitated, looking at Lannes as if appealing to him to be gentle with the boy, then took a couple of steps backward and closed the door behind him.

  The boy shifted from one foot to another. Lannes told him to sit down. He was a slim boy with olive skin, deep brown eyes, long lashes and black curls tight to his head. He wore a white singlet and black trousers wide at the ankles. His fingers were long and thin and when he sat down they flew to his mouth as if his lips might betray him. Different hair, Lannes thought, nevertheless he looked a little like Léon. His hands left off fluttering like a moth and he made as if to speak, then didn’t. Lannes pushed Schussmann’s photograph towards him.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Karim.’

  ‘Karim?’

  ‘My father’s an Arab but my mother’s French. I’m a French citizen. My papers are in order. Do you want to see them?’

  Lannes picked up the photograph and turned it towards the boy.

  Then he laid it on the table just in front of him.

  ‘Where did you take him?’

  ‘Who says I took him anywhere?’

  ‘Where did you take him?’

  ‘All right then. I took him home.’

  ‘Home? Your home?’

  ‘Yeah, where else?’

  ‘And your parents?’

  ‘Dad’s in prison. Mum, sure, she calls me names – dirty little boy, filthy Arab queer – but she takes the money I bring in. We’ve got to live, haven’t we? And I need money to spend on my girl. I’m out of a job, so there’s nothing left but renting. What’s all this about then? Jules says you’re not Vice.’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Schussmann.’

  ‘That his name? It’s nothing to do with me, honest.’

  ‘I know it’s not. He shot himself. Suicide.’

  ‘Stupid sod. What’d he do that for?’

  ‘It’s a complicated story.’

  Lannes told it from the beginning, omitting only Léon’s name.

  ‘If it wasn’t me,’ he said, ‘it would be the Gestapo here.’

  The boy’s upper lip quivered. His eyes filled with tears and he turned his head towards the door as if calculating the odds on making a run for it.

  ‘You going to hand me over to them? But I’d nothing to do with it.’

  Lannes went through to the bar, asked for a glass, brought it back and poured Karim a drink from the bottle Jules had left on the table. He gave himself one too.

  ‘Drink this,’ he said, handing it to the boy. ‘You’re not listening. I said, “If it wasn’t me, it would be the Gestapo.” And if they start asking questions here . . . So you mustn’t be here. Understand?

  You mustn’t be in Bordeaux. You don’t understand? I’ll spell it out. I’ve got to come up with a story to satisfy the Boches. They discovered Schussmann was a queer. That’s why he killed himself. They want the boys who corrupted the honour of the German army – that’s how they put it. So I’ve got to give them an answer, names and description. They won’t be satisfied otherwise. Meanwhile I’ll get you away. Understand now?’

  ‘What about the other boy, the one that was used to set him up?’

  ‘I’ll see to him too. Meanwhile go home. Don’t come back here. Meet me tomorrow afternoon, 4 o’clock. The Buffet in the Gare St-Jean. All right?’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ Karim said. ‘Are you . . . ?’

  ‘No,’ Lannes said, ‘let’s just say, I don’t like the Gestapo. Or the Boches.’

  On the way out, he gestured to Jules to follow him onto the street.

  ‘We’ve a couple of days before I have to come up with my story. The Boches will want to check up on it, I’m afraid. So you can expec
t a visit. Probably not the Gestapo, a mildly less noxious bunch. Tell them Schussmann came here more than once, sat in the corner drinking and eying up the boys. One evening he left with a boy. Not one you know, never been here before. Give them a description, a bit like Karim – in case someone else saw them – but not exact. Then tell them that one night, but you can’t remember precisely, there was another German officer in here. When Schussmann saw him he left in a hurry. Meanwhile I’ll have got Karim out of Bordeaux. And don’t say I’ve landed you in the shit. You were there already.’

  As he left the bar he thought, it’s my first act of resistance. And then: Yvette and Karim, how many kids were there like that in Bordeaux?

  XXXVII

  Léon now spent little time in the bookshop. He hadn’t been able to think of it as a refuge since the evening Félix walked in, not that he had had the word ‘refuge’ in his mind before then. But that’s what it had been, and now it wasn’t. Henri didn’t mind if he closed the shop; he was vaguer than ever and even more often tipsy. Léon was sorry for him, grateful too of course, and felt that by his absences he was in a sense deserting him; it was another burden of guilt. Yet every time the door opened he felt a stab of fear. It was no better at home. Ever since that night he returned late from the Hotel Artemis, he was oppressed by his mother’s anxiety on his behalf. She knew there was something very wrong, and didn’t dare to ask what it was. So they existed in uneasy and nervous silence. Often it seemed she couldn’t bear to be in the same room as him, then, would find herself saying, ‘What’s going to become of you, Léon?’ There was no possible answer. It would be like that in Jewish homes all over Bordeaux, all over France. You could never wake happy in the morning. It was no better when he called on his Aunt Miriam. The way she looked at him was full of painful knowledge. Once, she said, ‘Alain’s father . . . ’ and then broke off. It was enough, it was more than enough. So he spent hours walking the streets, or he would go to the railway station and gaze longingly on departing trains. Only visiting the old Jew, his great-uncle Léopold, was of any comfort, precisely because he offered none. Léon responded to his bleak refusal of hope.

  He hadn’t seen Alain for days, not since that last magical moment when, hand-in-hand with him and Jérôme, they had danced by the river. But yesterday there had been a note from Jérôme, pushed under the bookshop door, and so today he had put on the suit he used to wear in the bank.