Elisabeth looked at him with anguish. He might die. Pierre, my brother. I’m not going to let him leave without telling him … What can I tell him? … This ironical man sitting opposite her had no need of her affection.
‘I’ll send you lovely parcels,’ she said.
‘That’s true, I’ll be getting parcels,’ said Pierre. ‘That’s really delightful.’
He smiled with an affectionate look in which she could read no ulterior meaning. He had often looked like that during this past week. Why was she so mistrustful? Why had she for ever lost all the joys of friendship? What had she been seeking? What was the use of all these struggles and these hatreds? Pierre was going away.
‘You know,’ said Françoise, ‘we ought to be going.’
‘Let’s go,’ said Pierre.
They rose. Elisabeth followed them, with a lump in her throat. ‘I don’t want him to be killed,’ she thought in despair. She was walking beside him without even daring to take his arm. Why had she made all sincere words and gestures impossible? Now the spontaneous feelings in her heart seemed out of place, and yet she would have given her life for him.
‘What a mob!’ said Françoise.
There was a crowd around the gaudy little bus. The conductor was standing on the roof surrounded by suitcases, trunks and boxes; a man perched on a ladder at the back of the bus was handing him up a bicycle. Françoise pressed her nose against the window.
‘We’ve got our seats,’ she said with satisfaction.
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to stand in the corridor when you’re in the train,’ said Elisabeth.
‘We’ve got some sleep in hand,’ said Pierre.
They started to walk round the little bus. Only a few minutes left. No more than a word, a gesture. Let him know … I don’t dare. Elisabeth looked at Pierre with despair. Could everything not have been different? Could she not have lived close to them all these years, in confidence and joy, instead of being on the defensive against an imaginary danger?
‘All aboard,’ shouted the driver.
‘It’s too late,’ thought Elisabeth in a frenzy. She would have had to annihilate her whole past, her whole personality, to be able to rush to Pierre and fall into his arms. Too late. She was no longer mistress of the present moment. Even her face did not obey her.
‘See you soon,’ said Françoise.
She kissed Elisabeth and went back to her seat.
‘Goodbye,’ said Pierre.
He hastily shook his sister’s hand and smiled at her. She felt the tears rising to her eyes. She seized him by the shoulders and put her lips to his cheek.
‘You’ll be very careful,’ she said.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Pierre.
He gave her a quick kiss and climbed into the bus. For a moment more his face was framed in the open window. The bus started off. He waved his hand. Elisabeth waved her handkerchief, and when the bus disappeared behind the wall she turned on her heels.
‘For nothing,’ she murmured. ‘All that for nothing.’
She pressed her handkerchief to her lips and ran back to the hotel.
With eyes wide open, Françoise was staring at the ceiling. Beside her, Pierre was sleeping, half-dressed. Françoise had dozed a little, but down in the street a loud scream had pierced the night and she had woken up: she was so afraid of nightmares that she did not close her eyes again. The curtains were not drawn and moonlight streamed into the room: she was not suffering; she was not thinking about anything: she was only astonished at the ease with which the cataclysm was entering into the natural course of their lives. She leaned towards Pierre.
Pierre groaned and stretched. She turned on the lights. Open suitcases, half-filled haversacks, tins of food, socks, were strewn in confusion all over the floor. Françoise stared at the fullblown red chrysanthemums on the wallpaper and anguish came upon her – tomorrow, they would still be in exactly the same place with the same inert obstinacy. The scene in which she would live during Pierre’s absence was already set. Until now the expected separation had remained an empty threat, but this room was the future materialized. It was here, fully present, in its unalterable desolation.
‘Are you sure you have everything you’ll need?’ she said.
‘I think so,’ said Pierre. He had put on his oldest suit and stuffed his wallet, his fountain pen, and his tobacco pouch into his pockets.
‘When you think of it, it was stupid of me not to have bought you any walking shoes. I know what I’ll do. I’ll give you my ski-shoes. You were very comfortable in them.’
‘I don’t want to take your shoes,’ said Pierre.
‘You can buy me a new pair when we can go to winter sports again,’ she said sadly.
She took them from the back of a cupboard and handed them to him. Then she packed the underwear and food in a haversack.
‘Aren’t you taking your meerschaum pipe?’
‘No, I’m saving that for my leaves,’ said Pierre. ‘Take good care of it.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Françoise.
The fine primrose-coloured unsmoked pipe was lying in its case as if in a midget coffin. Françoise snapped down the lid and put it in a drawer. She turned to Pierre. He had put on her shoes. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, biting one of his nails. His eyes were bleary and his face had the idiotic expression that he used to assume in some of his games with Xavière. Françoise was standing in front of him without knowing what to do with herself. They had talked all day long, but now there was nothing more to say. He was nibbling at his nail and she was watching him, tense, resigned and empty.
‘Shall we be going?’ she said at last.
‘Let’s go,’ said Pierre.
He slung his two haversacks over his shoulder and walked out of the room. Françoise closed the door behind them, the door that he was not to pass through for months, and her legs felt like giving way under her as she went down the stairs.
‘We have time for a drink at the Dôme,’ said Pierre. ‘But we’ll have to be careful, because it won’t be easy to find a taxi.’
They walked out of the hotel and for the last time set out on the way they had so often followed. The moon was down and it was dark. For several nights now the sky over Paris had been dimmer: in the streets, there were only a few weak yellow lights whose gleam hugged the ground, and the pink glow which used to announce the carrefour Montparnasse from afar had vanished. Nevertheless, the café terraces still glimmered weakly.
‘After tomorrow, everything closes at eleven o’clock,’ said Françoise. ‘This is the last pre-war night.’
They sat down on the terrace. The café was filled with people, noise and smoke. One group of youths was singing: a host of uniformed officers had sprung up overnight and they could be seen scattered in groups around the tables. Women were harassing them with echoless laughter. The last night, the last hours. The nervous snatches of conversation contrasted strangely with the apathetic faces.
‘Life will be strange here,’ said Pierre.
‘Yes,’ said Françoise. ‘I’ll write and tell you all about everything.’
‘I hope Xavière isn’t going to be too much of a burden on you. Perhaps we shouldn’t have made her come back so soon.’
‘No, it’s better for you to see her again,’ said Françoise. ‘It really wouldn’t have been worth the effort to write all those long letters and then destroy their effect with one blow. And besides, she must be near Gerbert these last days. She couldn’t stay in Rouen.’
Xavière. This name was hardly more than a memory, an address on an envelope, an insignificant fragment of the future. She could hardly believe that in a few hours she would see her in the flesh.
‘As long as Gerbert is at Versailles, you’re bound to get a glimpse of him from time to time,’ said Pierre.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ said Françoise. ‘I’ll always manage.’
She laid her hand on his. He was about to leave. Nothing else counted. They sat there for some time
without saying a word, watching peace die.
‘I wonder if there’ll be a crowd there,’ said Françoise, rising.
‘I don’t think so. Three-quarters of the men have already been called up,’ said Pierre.
They strolled a short distance along the boulevard, till Pierre hailed a taxi.
‘Gare de la Villette,’ he said to the driver.
They crossed Paris in silence. The last stars were growing pale. Pierre had a faint smile on his lips. He was not tense, rather he had the intent look of a child. Françoise felt a feverish calm within her.
‘Axe we there?’ she said in surprise.
The taxi stopped at a small, round, deserted open space. Two gendarmes wearing silver-braided képis were leaning against an upright in the middle of the central parking place. Pierre paid the taxi and walked up to them.
‘Is this the mobilization depot?’ he said, handing them his military pay-book.
One of the gendarmes pointed to a small piece of paper tacked to the pole.
‘You must go to the Gare de l’Est,’ he said.
Pierre seemed taken aback. Then he turned to the gendarme with one of his simple expressions, of which the unpredictable ingenuousness always moved Françoise.
‘Have I time to walk it?’
The gendarme laughed.
‘They’re certainly not going to put on a special train for you. Don’t be in such a hurry.’
Pierre walked back to Françoise. He looked very small and ridiculous in this deserted place with his two haversacks and her ski-shoes on his feet. Françoise felt that these ten years had not been enough to let him know how much she loved him.
‘We still have a little time,’ he said, and she saw by his smile that he knew everything there was to know.
They set off along the narrow streets as dawn was breaking. It was mild; the clouds were already roseate. It was just such a walk as they had so often taken after a night’s hard work. They stopped at the top of the steps leading down into the station: the shining rails, submissively hedged in between asphalt platforms at their starting point, suddenly escaped, became interlaced in their courses, and fled on out towards infinity. For a moment they looked at the long flat roofs of the trains lined up along the platforms, where ten black dials with white hands each indicated five-thirty.
‘This is where there’s going to be a crowd,’ said Françoise a little apprehensively. She pictured gendarmes, officers, and all the civilian mob she’d seen in the newspapers. But the station entrance-hall was almost empty: there wasn’t a uniform in sight. There were a few families seated amongst piles of bundles, and single figures carrying haversacks over their shoulders.
Pierre walked up to the ticket-office, and then came back to Françoise.
‘The first train leaves at six-nineteen. I’ll get on at six o’clock to be sure of getting a seat.’ He took her arm. ‘We can still take a little walk,’ he said.
‘This is a funny departure,’ said Françoise. ‘I didn’t think that it would be like this. Everything seems so free and easy.’
‘Yes,’ said Pierre, there seems to be no signs of regimentation anywhere; I didn’t even receive a mobilization order. No one came to fetch me; I ask what time my train leaves, just like a civilian; I almost feel I’m leaving on my own initiative.’
‘And yet we know you can’t stay behind; it seems almost as if an inner fate were compelling you,’ said Françoise.
They went a few steps outside the station. The sky was cloudless and soft above the deserted avenues.
‘There isn’t a taxi to be seen,’ said Pierre, ‘and the métro isn’t running. How are you going to get home?’
‘I’ll walk,’ said Françoise. ‘I’ll go and see Xavière and then I’ll tidy up your office.’ Her voice died away. ‘You’ll be sure to write to me at once?’
‘From the train,’ said Pierre. ‘But letters certainly won’t reach you for some time. You’ll be patient?’
‘Oh! I think I have patience enough and to spare,’ she said.
They went a little way along the boulevard. In the early morning, the calm of the streets seemed completely normal: there were no indications of war, only those posters, with one huge beribboned tricolor, stuck on the walls – an appeal to the French people and one small, modest poster with black and white flags on a white background – the order for general mobilization.
‘I’ll go now,’ said Pierre.
They went back into the station. Above the barrier was a placard stating that travellers alone were admitted to the platforms. Near the barrier a few couples were clasped in each other’s arms, and suddenly, when she looked at them, tears rose to Francoise’s eyes. Once generalized, the experience she was now living became comprehensible. On these strangers’ faces, in their trembling smiles, all the tragedy of separation was apparent. She turned to Pierre; she did not want to break down; she found herself once more plunged into a blurred moment whose bitter and fleeting taste was not even painful.
‘Goodbye,’ said Pierre. He pressed her gently to him, looked at her for one last time and turned away.
He walked past the barrier. She watched him disappear with a rapid and too determined step which bespoke the tenseness in his face. She, too, turned away. Two women turned away at the same time; of a sudden, their faces fell and one of them began to cry. Françoise straightened her back and walked towards the exit. Sob as she might for hours on end, she would still have as many tears to shed. She walked off with a long, even-paced stride-her travelling stride – across the unwonted calm of Paris. Calamity was as yet nowhere in evidence, neither in the warmth of the air, nor in the gilded foliage of the trees, nor in the fresh smell of vegetables emanating from les Halles. So long as she kept walking, calamity would not become tangible; but she felt that, were she ever to stop, this insidious presence which she sensed all round her would surge back into her heart and break it.
She crossed the place du Châtelet and retraced her steps up the boulevard Saint Michel. The Luxembourg fountain had been drained; its now-visible bed was corroded by a slimy leprosy. In the rue Vavin, Françoise bought a newspaper. She would have to wait some time before she could knock at Xavière’s door, and she decided to go and sit down in the Dôme. She hardly gave Xavière a thought, but she was glad to have something definite to do with her morning.
She entered the café and suddenly the blood rushed to her cheeks. At a table near the window, she caught sight of a fair head and a dark head. She hesitated, but it was too late to retreat: Gerbert and Xavière had already seen her. She was so limp and exhausted that a nervous shiver ran through her as she drew near their table.
‘How are you?’ she said to Xavière, holding her hand.
‘I’m well enough,’ said Xavière in an intimate tone. She surveyed Françoise. ‘But you look tired.’
‘I’ve just taken Labrousse to the train,’ said Françoise. ‘I’ve had very little sleep.’
Her heart was pounding. For weeks Xavière had been no more than a vague image drawn from within herself. And here she was, suddenly resurrected, in an unknown blue print dress with tiny flowers on it, her hair far fairer than any memory; her lips, with their forgotten line, opened in a completely new smile: she had not changed into a docile phantom. It was her presence in the flesh that had again to be faced.
‘I was out walking all night,’ said Xavière. ‘Those black streets were really beautiful. It was like the end of the world.’
She had spent all these hours with Gerbert. For him, too, she had again become a tangible presence: how had he welcomed her in his heart? His face gave no clue.
‘It will be still worse when the cafés are closed,’ said Françoise.
‘Yes, that’s dismal,’ said Xavière. Her eyes lit up. ‘Do you think we’ll really be bombed?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Françoise.
‘It must be terrific to hear the sirens at night and see people come running from all sides like rats.’
Françoise s
miled stiffly. Xavière’s deliberate childishness aggravated her.
‘You’ll have to go down into the cellar,’ she said.
‘Oh! I won’t go down,’ said Xavière.
There was a brief silence.
‘I’ll see you later,’ said Françoise. ‘You can meet me here. I’m going to sit down at the back.’
‘See you later,’ said Xavière.
Françoise sat down at a table and took out a cigarette. Her hand was trembling, she was astonished to find how violently upset she was. It was undoubtedly the tension of these last hours that, when it snapped, left her so defenceless. She felt herself thrown forward towards the unknown; uprooted, buffeted, with no recourse to her inner self. She had calmly accepted the idea of a denuded and uneasy life. But Xavière’s existence had always threatened her, even beyond the very limits of her life, and it was this old anguish that she recognized with terror.
Chapter Ten
‘What a pity, I’ve no more oil,’ said Xavière.
She looked with dismay at the window, with the panes of its lower half covered with a coat of blue paint.
‘You’ve made a very nice job of it,’ said Françoise.
‘Well, I’m sure Inès will never be able to see through her windows again.’
Inès had fled from Paris the day after the first false alert, and Françoise had sub-leased her flat. In her room at the Hotel Bayard the memory of Pierre was too present, and during these tragic nights when Paris offered neither light nor escape, she felt the need for a home of her own.
‘I must have some oil,’ said Xavière.
‘There’s none to be had anywhere,’ said Françoise.
She was in the middle of addressing, in capital letters, a parcel of books and tobacco that she was sending to Pierre.
‘You can’t get anything nowadays,’ said Xavière savagely. She threw herself into an arm-chair. ‘Really, I might just as well have done nothing,’ she said in a sullen voice.
She was wrapped in a long, frieze dressing-gown, tied round her waist by a twisted cord; she buried her hands in the wide sleeves; with her hair neatly cut and falling perfectly straight round her face, she looked like a little monk.
She Came to Stay Page 47
