Simone Beauvoir - The Mandarins

‘May I see Monsieur Tournelle for a moment? My name is Henri Perron. I have a message for him.’

The secretary handed Henri a printed form. ‘Please write your name and address and the reason for your visit,’ she said.

He took out his fountain pen. What possible reason could he give? Interest in a wild dream? He knew how futile the whole business was. He wrote: ‘Confidential’.

‘There you are,’ he said.

With an indulgent air, the secretary took the form and walked towards the door. Her smile and her dignified walk made it very clear that the administrative assistant to a cabinet minister was a person much too important to barge in on without an appointment. Henri looked pityingly at the thick white envelope he was holding in his hand. He had played out the comedy, and now it was no longer possible to escape reality. Poor das Viernas would soon find himself the victim of a cruel reply, or of silence.

The secretary reappeared. ‘Monsieur Tournelle will be happy to see you as soon as he has a moment. In the meantime you can leave your message with me and I’ll see that he gets it at once!’

‘Thank you,’ Henri said, handing her the envelope. Never had it seemed more absurd to him than in the hands of that competent young woman. All right, that was it. He had done what he had been asked to do; whatever happened after that no longer concerned him. He decided to stop off at the Bar Rouge. It was a few minutes past noon and Lachaume would surely be there; Henri wanted to thank him for his review. Opening the door, he caught sight of Nadine seated with Lachaume and Vincent.

‘Where have you been hiding?’ she said in a sulky voice.

‘I’ve been working.’ He sat down beside her and ordered a drink.

‘We were just talking about you,’ Lachaume said cheerfully. ‘About your interview in Lendemain . You did right in bringing things out in the open. I mean about allied policy in Spain.’

‘Why don’t you do it?’ Vincent asked.

‘We can’t. At least not just now. But it’s good someone did it.’

‘That’s really funny!’ Vincent said.

‘You just don’t want to understand anything,’ Lachaume said.

‘I understand only too damned well.’

‘No, you don’t, not at all.’

Henri sipped his drink and listened idly. Lachaume never let an opportunity slip by to explain the present, the past, and the future as reviewed and revised by the Party. But this couldn’t be held against him. At twenty, in the Maquis, he had discovered adventure, comradeship, and Communism. And that was excuse enough for his fanaticism. ‘I like him because I did him a favour,’ Henri thought ironically. He had hidden him in Paula’s studio for three months, had obtained false papers for him, and in parting had made him a present of his only overcoat.

‘By the way,’ Henri said abruptly, ‘I’d like to thank you for your review. It was really wonderful.’

‘I said exactly what I thought,’ Lachaume replied. ‘Besides, everyone agrees with me – it’s one hell of a book.’

‘Yes, it’s funny,’ Nadine said. ‘For once all the critics agree. It’s as if they were burying someone or awarding a prize for virtue.’

‘You might have something there!’ Henri said. ‘The little viper,’ he thought with amused bitterness, ‘she found just the words I didn’t want to say, not even to myself.’ He smiled at Lachaume. ‘You’re dead wrong on one point, though. My man will never become a Communist.’

‘What else do you expect him to become?’

Henri laughed. ‘Just what I’ve become!’ he said.

Lachaume laughed in turn. ‘Precisely!’ He looked Henri in the eyes. ‘In less than six months, the SRL will no longer exist and you’ll have realized that individualism doesn’t pay. You’ll join the Communist Party.’

Henri shook his head. ‘But I do more for you as I am. You’re delighted I brought the Spanish thing out in the open instead of your having to do it. And what good would it do if L’Espoir rehashed the same stuff L’Humanité prints? I’m doing much more useful work trying to make people think, asking questions that you don’t ask, telling certain truths that you don’t tell.’

‘But you ought to be doing that work as a Communist,’ Lachaume said.

‘They wouldn’t let me!’

‘Of course they would. It’s true there’s too much factionalism in the Party just now, but that’s because of circumstances. It won’t last forever.’ Lachaume paused a moment and then said, ‘Don’t repeat this, but some of my friends and I are hoping to start a magazine of our own pretty soon, a magazine with a little scope, in which everything will be discussed with complete freedom.’

‘First of all, a magazine isn’t a daily,’ Henri said. ‘And as for being free, I’d have to see it to believe it.’ He gave Lachaume a friendly look. ‘Anyhow, it would be a good thing if you could have a magazine of your own. Do you think it’ll go through?’

‘There’s a good chance of it.’

Vincent leaned forward and looked at Henri defiantly. ‘If you get your sheet I hope you’ll make sure that you’ll explain to the comrades what a lousy stinking thing it is to open your arms wide to all those so-called “repentant” sons-of-bitches.’

‘We? Accepting collaborators with open arms? Tell that to the readers of Figaro . It’ll cheer them up a little.’

‘Don’t tell me you’re not quietly clearing a lot of those lousy bastards.’

‘Don’t confuse the issue,’ Lachaume said. ‘When we decide to clear one of them, it means we think he can be regenerated.’

‘Well, if that’s the way you look at it, how do you know the guys we shot down couldn’t be regenerated?’

‘At the time it was out of the question; they had to be shot.’

‘At the time! But I’ve killed them all my life!’ Vincent smiled maliciously. ‘Let me tell you something. They’re all nothing but shits – all of them, without any exception. And what we ought to do now is get rid of all those we missed.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ Nadine asked.

‘I mean we ought to organize,’ Vincent replied, his eyes trying to catch Henri’s attention.

‘Organize what? Punitive expeditions?’ Henri said, laughing.

‘Do you know that in Marseilles they’re throwing everyone who belonged to the Maquis in jail, just as if they were a bunch of common criminals?’ Vincent said. ‘Are we going to let them get away with it?’

‘Terrorism is no solution,’ Lachaume said.

‘No,’ Henri said. He looked at Vincent. ‘I’ve heard talk about gangs who enjoyed playing at being judges. Now if it’s a question of settling a personal account, I can understand. But guys who think they’re saving France by killing a few collaborators here and there are either sick men or stupid bastards.’

‘Yes, I know. The sound thing is to join the Communist Party or the SRL!’ Vincent said. He shook his head. ‘You won’t get me.’

‘I guess we’ll just have to do without you!’ Henri replied amiably.

He got up; Nadine followed his example. ‘I’ll go with you,’ she said.

She seemed to enjoy trying to look like a woman; she had even made an attempt to use make-up. But her eyelashes looked like a sea urchin’s spiny bristles and there were black smudges under her eyes. As soon as they got outside she asked, ‘Are you having lunch with me?’

‘No, I have some work to do at the paper.’

‘At this time of day?’

‘At all times of the day.’

‘Well, let’s have dinner together then.’

‘No again. I plan to work very late. And afterwards, I’m going to see your father.’

‘Oh! That paper! Can’t you ever talk about anything else? After all, you know, it’s not the centre of the world!’