The Girl at the Lion D'Or

by Sebastian Faulks

  ‘Or: “I desist”, like Montaigne.’

  ‘Yes. I thought it was a coward’s response, but now I can see that it’s the only reasonable way to react – to admit that your life will be, in some senses, incomplete.’

  Antoine beckoned to the waiter for more drinks. ‘And what will you do about the minister?’

  ‘What I said. I can certainly delay the story with various legal tactics, but if they’ve really got the facts it’ll only be a matter of time.’

  ‘And so goodbye to another government.’

  Hartmann nodded. ‘What is the matter with this country?’ Why can’t we produce a single man to run efficiently what should be one of the most civilised nations in the world?’

  ‘Because we’re only drawing on half the proper capacity,’ said Antoine. ‘The men who should be leading this country are dead and buried on the battlefields of the Western Front.’

  ‘So ensuring that history will briefly repeat itself.’

  Antoine lifted his glass and looked at Hartmann over the steaming brim. ‘A truce for twenty years, that’s what Foch called it.’

  Hartmann said goodbye to Antoine and walked down the boulevard Raspail to the Sèvres-Babylone intersection, near where his apartment had been. Resisting a temptation to call in and see who lived there now, he pressed on through the early evening down to the junction with the rue de Rennes, at the end of which was the Gare Montparnasse. He thought of Anne picking up a newspaper left by a traveller just arrived from a distant and no doubt attractive-sounding part of the country. Anything must have seemed preferable to the life she had lived till then, he thought, as he found himself walking on towards the station. It was the wrong way for his hotel, but he was in no hurry to return.

  It was a cold, autumn evening with a thin drizzle beginning again as he plunged into the small streets behind the station, wondering which one she might have lived in with her friend, Delphine. He tried to picture them dancing to her gramophone in the evening. He tried to imagine the resilience of her spirit that had made her dance, but he could not.

  He continued walking towards Vaugirard, where she had first gone to live with Louvet. The rain was dripping from the brim of his hat, and such people as were on the street ran between the doorways. He walked down the rue de Dantzig where pavilions purchased after the Paris Exposition had been reassembled on the waste land to make studios. They had been ruined during the war by refugees who had broken the windows to make outlets for stoves on which they’d burned wood from the surrounding trees. Now the wind droned through the shattered glass and echoed in the thin fabric of the temporary buildings.

  He cut across the rue des Morillons and looked around him where the rain was dropping from the eaves of the slaughterhouses. Was this where Anne had lived? In this house, here, with the broken shutters dangling from their hinges? Or in that apartment, above a boarded-up shop? Was this where her friendless life of sheer determination had brought her? Had her life really been shaped by a single act in which a man, pushed by circumstance, beyond what he could suffer, had killed another? Or was the key moment her mother’s loss of courage? Was there a single instant at which a greater effort could have stopped the chain of events; a second at which some restraint, some passionate reserve of will, could have been called on? His pity ran far more for Anne, who had survived, than for either of her parents. He could see how they had been the victims of circumstances they could not control; yet when he tried to think clearly of the act of murder he didn’t see it as part of an inevitable sequence of events. He saw the big soldier’s hand close on the service revolver in the half-light, could feel the weight of the gun and ribbed texture of the handle in the soft palm, heard the explosion in the confined space of the dug-out behind the lines. He could only see the act then as existing on its own – a single, self-willed deed without reference to anything else.

  Hartmann could feel himself sweating beneath his coat in the rain. He thought of Anne’s mother and her poor hands holding the cumbersome shot-gun. Was anyone of sufficient moral stature to call her action selfish? He thought of the minister and of what could be seen as his failure of will but which seemed in some ways to Hartmann more like an assertion of belief.

  What is happening to me? he thought, as his mind swung suddenly back, for no reason he could see, to the conversation he had had with Antoine in the café about the piece of music that awakened feelings it was dangerous even to try to comprehend, because they aroused too much longing.

  Then, like a series of extinct lights which are linked and illuminated by an electric current, the disjoined thoughts seemed suddenly to be connected by a terrible sadness which made him lean against the wall of the street and hold his face in his hands.

  3

  ANNE, LIKE MOST people, cared little about politics. She was aware that the Germans were once more a threat, but had read in the newspaper that they would find it impossible to breach the line of fortifications erected by M. Maginot. She was grateful that the new government had introduced the idea of paid holidays, but otherwise could see little to distinguish it from the other governments which had succeeded one another with such bewildering rapidity throughout her life. What did it matter who was in power when the same people seemed to be in each government anyway? She had a certain admiration for Marshal Pétain, the hero of Verdun, because he had been so warmly spoken of when she was a child, but had now done her best to forget about this since Hartmann had spoken so dismissively of him.

  There were other, far more important things to be considered. The first of these was the visit Hartmann had proposed by telegram for that evening. As she swept the corridor between the kitchen and the back stairs of the hotel she wondered what he would have planned. She would not be free to go till ten o’clock, at which time Pierre had said that he would either shut the bar or take over the service himself. She had arranged to meet Hartmann in the rue des Ecoles at ten-fifteen rather than walk all the way back to her rooms. She wondered if she would have time to change before meeting him. He had once expressed a liking for her waitress’s skirt, but she couldn’t be sure if he was sincere or merely being polite.

  Since she had told him the story of her childhood Anne had felt an increasing sense of relief. She had, at first, been frightened that he wouldn’t want to know her any more; but as every day passed and he showed none of the cruelty or revulsion she had found in others, her trust in him grew. To the people who had written anonymous letters to her mother and thrown stones at her, she had seemed tarnished; but his attitude seemed unchanged, except for the increase in concern he showed when he reassured her of his feelings.

  As her trust in him grew firmer, the frustration of being separated from him became correspondingly more acute. She wanted him to hold her and put his arms around her in a way that would take the world away from her, and would deliver her into his orbit of strength and security where the loneliness and pain and deceit which had made up so much of her life could no longer touch her. In the meantime, she could only wait.

  Hartmann was glad to be back at the Manor after what he had heard and felt in Paris. After greeting Christine, he went for a walk by the lake, breathing in the salty air that blew from the headland. It was Saturday afternoon, and the pleasure of being home again was increased by the prospect of seeing Anne in the evening. He thought of her slight figure with its hint of undisclosed fullness, the light-filled eyes and gentle girlish trust. This picture alone was not enough to obliterate the memory of the anxious forebodings he had felt in Paris, though it seemed, temporarily at least, to soothe them.

  On his return to the house he went to find Christine and discovered her in the morning-room, looking over some household accounts.

  ‘How’s the building going?’ he asked.

  ‘Going? I’d say it’s gone. The man Roussel hasn’t been here for three days, and you know how much the others do.’

  ‘It looks as though we made a bad choice. Still, it hasn’t been too expensive. And they’ve done mos
t of it now.’

  ‘Most of it!’ Christine stood up and two specks of colour came into her cheeks. ‘They’ve done about half the work and you’ve paid them the entire amount of money. It’s no wonder that stupid little man hasn’t been back.’

  ‘I haven’t paid all of it, my dear. There’s still the completion payment to be made.’

  ‘Yes, but you’ve paid them for all four stages of the work and they’ve only completed two!’ Christine was angrier than Hartmann had expected. He couldn’t see that it mattered so much if he had been hasty with the schedule of payments to the builder; the amount of money involved, if not negligible, was not large. He didn’t see that Christine had other reasons for her anger.

  ‘I’m sorry, my love. But these things are always happening. Roussel isn’t a rich man. He has no capital, he was desperate for work, he –’

  ‘He’s an employer, he’s a businessman. He should know better.’

  ‘No, he isn’t. He’s a workman. These days it makes no difference if you have two other workmen with you on a day rate.’

  ‘Then we shouldn’t have employed him.’

  ‘Obviously. But you said Marie-Thérèse recommended him and –’

  ‘That reminds me,’ said Christine, who knew when an argument was slipping away from her, ‘Marie-Thérèse tells me your friend Mattlin has invited her and Albert to dinner. Rather strange, don’t you think?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Does he give a great deal of dinner parties, your bachelor friend?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue. But why shouldn’t he?’

  ‘I just think it’s odd, that’s all,’ said Christine.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Hartmann. He was still too taken aback by the heat of Christine’s response to the trifling matter of Roussel’s payments to be bothered by speculation into Mattlin’s continuous plotting.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ gasped Anne, as she opened the door of Hartmann’s car, ‘I couldn’t get away. Mme Bouin insisted I polish all the tables in the dining-room before I left. And then I had to sweep the floor.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Hartmann put the engine into gear and moved off up the rue des Ecoles.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  Hartmann knew of a café which stayed open late where they wouldn’t be seen. Anne chattered on in her excitement, and it was not until they were nearly there that she realised she hadn’t stopped talking since getting into the car.

  She fell silent abruptly, ashamed of her girlishness. She said, ‘I missed you.’

  ‘I missed you too,’ said Hartmann. ‘But you wouldn’t have liked it in Paris. It looked awful. Grey and dismal.’

  ‘Even the Seine?’

  ‘Especially the Seine.’ He was thinking of Vaugirard.

  The café had high-sided wooden stalls, so the people in each table were invisible to the others. A wireless was playing at the bar.

  A waitress brought a candle and some drinks. They raised their glasses. Hartmann couldn’t remember when Anne had looked as beautiful as this before, her eyes shining with excitement in the half-lit darkness.

  ‘You’re so pretty,’ he said almost in disbelief.

  Anne laughed. ‘And what did you do? Did you see old friends? I wish I could have come.’

  ‘I saw Antoine, who was the same as ever, acting the cynic but thoroughly enjoying the exercise of power. And I saw the editor of the paper I used to advise.’

  ‘Was that fun?’

  ‘It was difficult. I was trying to stop him from printing something, but I didn’t know how much he knew. I had to find out without giving away how much we in our turn knew.’

  ‘And did you succeed?’

  ‘For the time being.’

  ‘So you’ll be all right? They won’t print the story?’

  ‘We may be all right. It’s better than I thought in that respect. But then again they may find the people involved or they may simply invent them. They may even bribe people to testify. That’s what Gringoire is doing with the Salengro case. Claiming to have witnesses to something that never happened.’

  ‘How awful! And will this editor do that?’

  Hartmann stroked his chin as he weighed the possibility. Anne glanced at his hands. ‘On balance, I think perhaps not. But I wouldn’t bet a sou on it.’

  ‘And then did you go out with your friend in the evening?’

  ‘No. Antoine had to go to a dinner at the Treasury. I went for a long walk and ended up going to the pictures.’

  ‘What did you see?’

  ‘It was about some people who win a lottery and –’

  ‘I know. Mathilde and I have seen that.’

  ‘Did you like it?’

  ‘I didn’t like it at the end. I didn’t see why it had to be so sad.’

  ‘But there were lovely things in it, weren’t there?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Anne paused for a moment. ‘And then what did you do?’

  ‘I went back to the hotel and went to bed. I was tired.’

  Anne wanted to find out if he had seen another woman but didn’t dare ask him directly. She looked down at the table.

  ‘And what have you been doing?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, the usual things. I went to the pictures one evening with Mathilde. I’ve listened to my gramophone. I’ve read some more books.’

  Hartmann liked listening to Anne talk, and kept asking her questions just for the pleasure of hearing her voice, indignant or excited, as she told him about her day.

  Eventually he called for the bill and drove her back to her rooms. He didn’t try to pretend that he should not come in with her. Once in the sitting-room, neither of them could finish the unwanted coffee Anne felt she should offer for decency’s sake. They put down the cups and fell on each other, she moaning endearments to him which saved her from the embarrassment of her physical passion.

  Afterwards, Hartmann looked down at Anne, who lay with her head on his chest. He hated it now when he had to leave her; he hated it in fact even if Anne left the room for some reason, feeling agitated until her return. Yet he was not satisfied with what he felt. When he stroked her hair he tried once more to force his imagination to help his failed understanding of her life. Because the effort always came to nothing, it left him with a sense of anguish that had no proper outlet. It blended with the tenderness he felt for her, but it was not the same feeling.

  Anne turned her head so that she was looking up at him.

  ‘Don’t frown so much,’ she said, running her forefinger down the furrowed skin between his eyes.

  When Hartmannn left her rooms that night Anne discovered the cat sitting in the courtyard. After she had heard the street door close, she took the animal upstairs in her arms and lay down on the bed. ‘What am I going to do, Zozo?’ she said. ‘What am I going to do?’

  4

  THE ONSET OF autumn brought even fewer visitors than usual to the Lion d’Or. Mme Bouin marched along the corridors with her bunch of keys to check that the bolsters were neatly in place on the beds, that the old linen sheets were clean and newly starched, and that the shutters were properly secured against the westerly winds that rattled them. Thus the rooms hibernated in a state of unused readiness through the winter months, while draughts began to sigh in the passageways.

  Anne was briefly entrusted with Mme Bouin’s key and despatched to the linen store to fetch further blankets for the half dozen rooms that were being used. There was a pungent smell of mice and mothballs in the warm wooden darkness of the cupboard. She pulled out a handful of bed-covers and found that the slats on which they were rested were loose; two or three of them fell to the ground. One of them, she noticed as she put it back, was cracked. She held up the blankets in the light of the corridor to see which were the most suitable for use. Most were threadbare and dull, but still usable. One, however, bore the imprint of what appeared to be a large boot. Anne replaced it in the linen store, wondering what visitor had been standing on his bed in his shoes. She went to the bathroom next door
to wash off some of the old dust and dirt that had stuck to her as she groped in the darkness of the cupboard. She hadn’t used the bath with its brown encrusted stain for months now, she thought, as she remembered her first night in the hotel when she had risked Mme Bouin’s anger by doing so.

  She carried the blankets back along the corridor, humming a tune to herself. She left them at the top of the stairs and went down to return the key to Mme Bouin.

  The old woman looked up from the ledger in which she was writing and took the key. ‘How is Mlle Calmette?’ she said.

  ‘Very well, thank you, madame. I don’t see her very often, but sometimes I go and have a cup of chocolate with her.’

  ‘And do you like your lodgings?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, madame.’

  ‘Better than your room here, I dare say.’

  ‘I liked my room here, too, madame. It was cosy, being up there on my own. I know most people would have had to share.’

  Mme Bouin set down her steel-nibbed pen on the glass rest. ‘I’m not sure you’d be quite so pleased with yourself if you knew what people were saying about you.’

  Anne felt herself blushing. ‘What? What things?’

  Behind the thick lenses of the spectacles the old woman’s eyes came as close as Anne had ever seen to smiling. ‘I’m sure you don’t need to have it spelled out.’

  ‘But madame, I don’t know what you mean. I’ve done nothing wrong.’

  ‘I warned you when you took the rooms in the first place, didn’t I? I told you it wouldn’t look good. Now naturally I did everything I could to keep the good name of the hotel. But people will talk.’