by Allan Massie
‘I still don’t get it,’ he said. ‘When you looked at me as you came out of the station, I thought, maybe he really does want to have me and just has a taste for elaborate games,’
‘Don’t be impertinent,’ Lannes said.
Moncerre would have given him a blow on the chops and knocked him off his chair. He would say, ‘It’s the only language types like that understand.’
Lannes said, ‘You’ve got your nerve back, haven’t you? Which isn’t very bright. Or is it all an act? At least you kept our appointment.’
‘Didn’t have much choice, did I?’ The tone was sullen now. ‘I’ve heard what the cops do to boys like me.’
‘Some cops,’ Lannes said. ‘Let me spell it out. Again. If I don’t satisfy the Boche, Jules’ bar and the two or three others like it in Bordeaux are going to be flooded with the Gestapo. Jules and the boys and any customers will be taken in for questioning. Questioning’s a polite way of putting it. How long do you think you would last in the Gestapo’s hands? An hour? More like five minutes, I would say, and you’d be squealing like a pig having its throat cut. Only you wouldn’t enjoy the luxury of a quick death like the pig.’
All at once Karim looked the way he had when Jules ushered him into his back room, perplexed and frightened.
‘I’m spelling it out, Karim,’ Lannes said. ‘So you understand your position, understand it fully. You took Schussmann home with you, let him do whatever the poor sod wanted, and took his money. I don’t care what he paid or whether it was in francs or Reichs-marks.’ ‘Francs,’ Karim said in a voice that was now scarcely more than a whisper.
‘You’ve got yourself in trouble, deep trouble. Nobody else is responsible, but I’ve made arrangements to get you out of it. With luck, that is. This is what you do.’
He gave him directions to Fernand’s brasserie.
‘Go there straight away. Tell nobody. Not even your mother. Understand? But give me her address and when you’ve been got out of Bordeaux, I’ll see her myself.’
‘She won’t care what happens to me – except that I won’t be bringing any money in.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true.’
‘You don’t know her.’
When he had got the address and sent Karim off to Fernand’s, with instructions that he was to present himself as the new kitchen assistant, Lannes’ thoughts turned to Léon. Perhaps Miriam knew where he was. Or Alain?
XXXIX
Alain woke early before the sun had broken through morning mist. He got out of bed, careful not to wake Dominique. He picked up his clothes and, dressed only in his underpants, went through to the bathroom. He flapped cold water on his face, brushed his teeth, and, dropping to the floor, did twenty-five press-ups. Then, from a wide stance, he touched his right toes with his left hand, his left ones with his right, repeating each exercise twenty times. He ran his hands over his body and was happy to find that he hadn’t raised a sweat. He dressed in a white singlet and blue cotton trousers and went barefoot through to the kitchen where his father was already up, sitting over his coffee, with half a dozen cigarette stubs in the ashtray. He poured himself coffee from the pot and sat down facing Lannes. For a moment they sat in silence, companionable silence. Alain thought, ‘I’ve got to tell him,’ but still hesitated.
Lannes said, ‘Have you seen Léon recently?’
‘Why, yes, of course, we’re good friends as you know and . . . why do you ask? Is he in trouble of some sort?’
‘Henri’s worried about him. He has taken to being out of the shop.’
‘I expect he gets bored. There aren’t many customers now, he says.’
‘Do you know where his mother lives?’
‘No idea. Miriam would know of course.’
‘Yes of course.’
Each had something to tell the other. Neither could find the words to speak. Across the courtyard a baby began to cry. Alain pushed away the lock of hair that fell over his left eye. Lannes lit another cigarette and smiled at the boy.
‘I like these early mornings,’ he said. ‘You’re well muscled now.’
‘I have to be for rugby, but . . . ’
‘But?’
‘Nothing. Who’s the Comte de St-Hilaire?’
‘What a strange question. Why do you want to know?’
Alain twisted his finger in his hair.
‘My friend Jérôme took me to see him. He’s his godfather, and some sort of cousin. Léon came with us. He asked me to say he would be pleased if you were to pay him a visit. I don’t know why.’
‘Go on. There’s something else, isn’t there?’
Alain hesitated, got up, crossed to the window, and leaned there with his arms on the sill. His legs were long and straight. He’s almost grown up, Lannes thought.
‘You have to go on,’ he said.
Alain turned, very slowly and lifting his chin looked his father in the face.
‘That’s just it,’ he said, ‘going on. We – the three of us – it’s intolerable here, the Occupation. For years perhaps. And Vichy. And I don’t know what. So . . . ’
It all spilled out in a rush of words: de Gaulle, Free France, London, North Africa, what the Comte de St-Hilaire had arranged, and finally, ‘You must see, Papa, it’s what we want to do and what we have to do, need to do, really. You can’t disapprove, you think as I do, about things, don’t you?’
Lannes said, ‘It’s what I was afraid of.’
‘Afraid?’
‘Yes, Alain, afraid. All fathers are afraid for their children, and the more spirited the children are, the sharper the fear . . . ’ He thought, Alain’s the brightest, I’ve always known that, and it makes him vulnerable because he sees himself as a winner always, but he also has the biggest dark side of any in the family, which he keeps so well concealed most of the time that people can know him, think they know him well, and never be aware of it. But I’ve always known it was there. I’ve seen it on the rugby field where he has moments of meanness, and he’s the only one of us who might kill or die for an idea. Which is why Marguerite doesn’t understand him, why she is impatient with him as she isn’t with the others and calls him selfish. I’ve always known he could go off the rails, and though what he is proposing to do isn’t that, I don’t know where it will lead him. I admire him and am afraid for him and I’m envious of him because I wish I had the courage to break away myself instead of which I’m bound to this wheel of duty and responsibility . . . And then in his whirl of confusion he thought, but, despite the danger he is running into, and will be in whatever use they put him to, he may yet be safer than if he stayed here fretting in Bordeaux, where he might get involved in something that was stupid as well as dangerous. Which is how eventually I shall put it to his mother.
Alain said, ‘I didn’t know if I could tell you. I thought of just leaving a note. And then I knew I had to speak. It would have been cowardly not to. But you won’t tell Maman, will you, not till I’ve gone.’
‘No, I won’t,’ Lannes said, knowing this was treachery. But speaking would be treachery too.
He embraced Alain, hugging him close and then kissing him on both cheeks.
‘I’m afraid for you, that can’t be avoided, but I admire you too.
We must always try to do what seems right and feels necessary. Now I must go to work.’
‘Thank you, Papa. I promise I’ll . . . ’
‘Don’t promise anything. It’s better that way.’
As he descended the stairs he thought, it’s a solution for Léon too, but what of Miriam and his mother? And what can the Comte de St-Hilaire want of me?
It was a beautiful June morning. The sun shone, leaves on the trees sparkled after night rain. There was a song in his heart that he couldn’t account for. He must tell Fernand that there would be only one boy to get out of Bordeaux. Then he understood why he was happy: he had never felt so close to Alain. It’s crazy, he thought, I’m a beat-up policeman with a lousy job, in hock to the Nazis in our beautiful occu
pied city in our lovely humiliated France, and my boy has just confided that he’s embarking on a ship that may sink at any moment for a voyage that may lead him to destruction, and I’m happy. It makes no sense, except that it makes a lot of sense. I’m so proud of him and so afraid for him.
The Alsatian was wearing what looked like a new suit: double-breasted, dove-grey with a thin pale pinstripe. His shirt was cream-coloured, his tie maroon, and there was a white carnation in his button-hole. His black shoes were highly polished.
‘I’m bidden to lunch with our new Prefect,’ he said. ‘We are, apparently, to discuss ways in which we may advance the national revolution. Our first preoccupation, I’m informed, must be the means of preparing for the New European Order.’
‘Good luck to you,’ Lannes said.
‘Oh, I don’t take it seriously, as you may imagine. But it’s necessary to go through the motions. Talking of which, Kord-linger has been badgering me. He wants to be kept informed about the course of your investigations.’
‘And you told him that was a matter for the French police?’
‘Not precisely. There’s no point antagonising the man. And unfortunately he is by no means a fool, not your bull-necked Prussian with a block of wood for a head.’
He perched on the corner of Lannes’ desk, and swung his foot.
‘So have you anything for him? We really don’t want to stir him up.’
‘Enquiries are proceeding. You can dress it up in bureaucratic guff if you like, but the only conclusion I’ve come to so far is that Schussmann was even more of a bloody fool than I had supposed. I don’t suppose you want to tell him that, however.’
‘Don’t think it would serve.’
He clipped the end of a cigar and lit it with a match.
‘We’re going to have to give him something,’ he said. ‘Someone actually.’
And it doesn’t matter to you what happens to whichever boy we select as victim, Lannes thought.
‘It’s not so easy,’ he said. ‘Still, you can tell him I’m devoting my time to it and hope to have something for him in a couple of days. Meanwhile you might ask him if I could be given a copy of Schussmann’s suicide note. I’m assuming there was one. And a diary, if he kept one’
‘He’ll never agree to that.’
‘Tell him co-operation’s a two-way street.’
Schnyder smiled.
‘I’m glad to see you still keep your sense of humour, Jean.’
‘What else is left to us?’ Lannes said.
German proverb, he thought: when the Devil is hungry, he eats flies.
He left the office, with no purpose in mind. It was simply that he found the place oppressive, and in any case there was nothing for him there but paperwork, none of it of any importance. It was better in the streets where the Bordelais went about their business with an appearance of unconcern, so thoroughly had most of them now accustomed themselves to the Occupation. What else was there for them to do? It wasn’t even as if real life was in suspension. On the contrary, real life is whatever it is here and now. Lannes knew well how easily men could reconcile themselves to life behind bars. Those who rebelled against prison were the exceptions. Even first-time offenders, let alone old lags, made a routine for themselves in a matter of weeks, sometimes even days. Life goes on wherever you find yourself. He thought of Yvette, stretched out invitingly on her bed; how else should she be expected to behave? He went into the Rugby Bar to telephone the Comte de St-Hilaire’s residence and made an appointment for that afternoon. Then he called Fernand to check that Karim had presented himself and to say that other arrangements had been made for the other boy. He drank a glass of beer and thought about Alain and why he had made no effort to dissuade him, as he had put the case against going to Vichy to Dominique. Was it because he believed that, against all appearances, Hitler would yet lose the war that Dominique’s course seemed more dangerous? And yet it was Alain who risked being killed.
When the Comte de St-Hilaire joined him in the salon where the butler had asked him to wait, Lannes, like Léon there before him, was conscious of the shabbiness of his suit, also of the exhaustion which was the result of the empty wandering hours since he had left the office. St-Hilaire extended his hand, asked him to sit down, and then waited without speaking while the butler brought in wine and poured each a glass.
‘My son said you wanted to see me. He also told me what you are doing for him and his friends.’
‘And does that displease you?’
‘Say rather that it alarms me.’
‘Yes, of course it must. You will understand it was my godson who approached me and told me that he and his friends were determined to find a way to join the Free French. I have to say that I didn’t try to dissuade him, and not only because I approved his determination. I took it on myself to make arrangements because I was in a position to ensure that the first steps at least should be safe, or as safe as anything can be now, and because I feared that any action they might take themselves would be as dangerous as it was rash. How does one deal with the impetuosity of youth and the ignorance of innocents? Have you come to reprove me?’
Despite the question, there was a flinty arrogance in his tone.
‘I can’t do that,’ Lannes said, ‘because I approve the intention.’
He sipped his wine. ‘Nevertheless I have to say that I am afraid for them.’
‘Naturally.’
‘On the other hand . . . ’
‘Yes?’
‘On the other hand, I have been afraid ever since the débâcle that Alain would engage in some act of resistance here in Bordeaux, and that this would probably end badly. And I should add that while I scarcely know your godson, there are reasons why it is desirable that the other boy Léon should be out of Bordeaux. Finally, since it seems that all three are determined to join de Gaulle, I can only be grateful to you for having made arrangements which, it seems, involve as little risk as may be possible. But it wasn’t, I think, about this matter that you wished to speak to me.’
St-Hilaire did not reply immediately. He took his monocle from his eye and polished it.
‘I do this,’ he said, ‘when I need to think. It wasn’t on a whim that I asked your son to ask you to come to see me, but now that you’re here . . . ’
He paused again, and Lannes was surprised to find this aristocrat who seemed so sure of himself – as why not in these surroundings? – apparently at a loss, what had seemed to him just a moment ago to be flinty arrogance now splintered.
‘I understand that you have been charged with the investigation into the killing of Professor Labiche.’
‘I was, but I should tell you that the case has been closed, marked unsolved. That is, you will understand, my superiors’ decision.’
‘But you yourself..?’
‘To my mind no murder should be dismissed in this manner.’
It would be impertinent to say, ‘you have some information?’
The thought irritated Lannes. It offended his sense of equality to suppose that a rich man like St-Hilaire should be treated differently from any other who came forward with information, and yet that was how it was.
‘Aristide was an old friend of mine,’ St-Hilaire said. ‘You may be aware that I am also a friend of his daughter, the actress Adrienne Jauzion.’
He replaced his monocle and met Lannes’ eyes.
‘I hadn’t thought to find this embarrassing,’ he said. ‘I am not accustomed to embarrassment. Our relationship is not what you may suppose. We have never been lovers. I regard her as a daughter. She has never had lovers except on the stage. You have spoken to her, and it may be that you have understood this. How shall I put it? She is in need – always – of admiration, but the bedroom door is closed.’
There was pain in his voice. Lannes thought, we’re two men who no longer understand why the world is as it is, and we don’t like it being what we don’t understand.
‘Aristide, however . . . ’ the count said.
He rose and drew a curtain against the afternoon sun.
‘He was an idealist, an unworldly man. He called on me when he returned to Bordeaux, and I urged Adrienne to make peace with him. Since you have talked with her, you will know that she declined to do so. She may have spoken of his politics. That was not the cause of their estrangement. She cares nothing for politics. It was his failure as a father which oppressed her. You will know his brother, the advocate, I suppose. Yes? Well then, I don’t doubt that you have heard stories about him and his tastes? You have? That was how Aristide failed his daughter. When she was eleven. She tells me that she is sure you judged her harshly, because she could not speak to you of these things.When he saw her on his return he spoke of his intention to make amends. But what amends were possible? It was ridiculous. She found it even offensive when he spoke of exposing his brother. But what could that serve? It would make her an object of pity and of course scandal, even if she was herself as innocent as the victim of an outrageous act must be innocent. She pleaded with him to do nothing. And then he was dead. Now you tell me the case is closed. Perhaps that is for the best.’
Lannes was amazed by St-Hilaire’s audacity. If he hadn’t told him the case had been filed away, would he have spoken as he did? But if that had not been his intention, why summon him here?
‘The death was of course accidental,’ St-Hilaire said, ‘the result of a moment of anger and panic, long stored-up anger, outrage and sudden panic. He had acquiesced in the silence, and now, when it could mean nothing, was determined, for his own satisfaction, his own idea of justice, to bring it into the open. You understand? I am sure you do. I may add that it is by her request that I speak to you in this way. So now, in my turn, I ask you if you will think it necessary to speak to her again.’
Lannes placed his glass on the table beside his chair.
‘As I have already said, my superiors have decreed that the case is closed. I have no evidence that would cause me to ask them to reconsider this decision.’
