Irène Némirovsky - Suite Française

He stopped speaking suddenly, pressed his face against the window and jerked his head back, annoyed.

"What is it now?" mumbled Florence, raising her eyes to heaven.

"Those people…" He pointed to the car that had just overtaken them. Florence looked at the people inside. It was the group they had spent the night parked next to in the town square in Orléans. She recognised them right away-the dented car, the man in the cap, the woman with the child on her lap and the one with the birdcage whose head was wrapped in bandages.

"Oh, stop looking at them!" said Florence wearily.

Corte had been leaning on a small travel case decorated in gold and ivory. Now he struck it forcefully with his hand several times. "If events as painful as defeat and mass exodus cannot be dignified with some sort of nobility, some grandeur, then they shouldn't happen at all! I will not accept that these shopkeepers, these caretakers, these filthy people with their whining, their malicious gossip, their vulgarity, should be allowed to debase this atmosphere of tragedy. Just look at them! Look at them! There they are again. They're honking at me, for goodness sake!… Henri, drive faster, won't you!" he shouted to the driver. "Can't you shake off this riffraff?"

Henri didn't even reply. The car moved forward three metres, then stopped, caught up in the unimaginable confusion of vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians. Once again Gabriel saw the woman with the bandaged head only a short distance away. She had thick, dark eyebrows, long, white, closely set teeth and hairs dotted about her upper lip. Her bandages were bloodstained, her black hair matted on the cotton wool and cloth. Gabriel shuddered in disgust and turned away, but the woman was actually smiling at him and trying to make conversation.

"Hey! It's not moving very fast, is it?" she said politely through the lowered window. "But it's still a good thing we came this way. You should see the damage the bombing's done on the other side! They've destroyed all the châteaux of the Loire, Monsieur…"

She finally noticed Gabriel's icy stare and went silent.

"You see," he muttered to Florence, "I can't get away from them!"

"Stop looking at them."

"As if it's that easy! What a nightmare! Oh, the ugliness, the vulgarity, the horrible crudeness of these people!"

They were getting close to Tours. Gabriel had been yawning for some time: he was hungry. He'd hardly eaten anything since Orléans. Just like Byron, Corte used to say, he was a man of frugal habits, content with vegetables, fruit and mineral water; but once or twice a week he needed a large, filling meal. He felt that need now. He remained motionless, silent, eyes closed, his handsome pale face ravaged by an expression of suffering like at those moments when he conceived the first neat, pure sentences of his books (he liked them as light and rustling as cicadas at first, then passionate and sonorous; he talked about his "violins"-"Let's make my violins sing," he would say). But other worries took hold of him tonight. He pictured with extraordinary intensity the sandwiches Florence had offered him in Orléans: they had seemed rather unappetising then, a bit soggy because of the heat. There had been some small sweet rolls with foie gras, black bread garnished with cucumber and lettuce, which would be deliciously cool and refreshing. He yawned again. Opening the case, he found a dirty napkin and a jar of gherkins.

"What are you looking for?" asked Florence.

"A sandwich."

"There aren't any left."

"What do you mean? There were three of them in here a while ago."

"The mayonnaise was runny, they were ruined, I threw them away. We can have dinner in Tours… I hope," she added.

They could see the outskirts of Tours in the distance but the cars weren't moving; a barricade had been set up at one of the crossroads. Everyone had to wait their turn. A whole hour went by like this. Gabriel was growing paler. It wasn't sandwiches he was dreaming of now, but light, warming soup, or the buttery pâtés he'd once had in Tours. (He had been coming back from Biarritz with a woman.) It was odd, he couldn't remember her name any more, or her face; the only thing that stuck in his memory were the smooth, rich little pâtés, each with a slice of truffle tucked away inside. Then he started thinking about meat: a great red slab of rare beef, with a curl of butter melting slowly over its tender flesh. What a delight… Yes, that was what he needed… roast beef… sirloin… fillet… a pork cutlet or mutton chop at a pinch. He sighed deeply.

It was a light, golden evening, with no trace of wind or heat-the end of a divine day. A soft shadow spread over the fields and pathways, like the shadow cast by the wing of a bird. From the nearby woods the faint perfume of strawberries wafted up now and then through the petrol fumes and smoke. The cars inched towards a bridge. Women were calmly washing their clothes in the river. The horror and strangeness of recent events were softened by these images of peace. Far away, a watermill turned its wheel.

"There must be fish here," Gabriel mused. Two years before, in Austria, he had eaten fresh trout near a small river as clear and rapid as this one. Their flesh, beneath the bluish, pearly skin, had been as pink as a small child's. And those steamed potatoes… so simple, traditional, with a bit of fresh butter and chopped parsley… He looked hopefully at the walls of the town. Finally, finally, they were there. But as soon as he put his head out of the window he saw the long line of refugees waiting in the street. A soup kitchen was giving out food to the hungry, they were told, but there was nothing to eat anywhere else.

A well-dressed woman, holding a child by the hand, turned towards Gabriel and Florence. "We've been here for four hours," she said. "My child won't stop screaming. It's awful…"

"Awful," Florence repeated.

Behind them the woman with the bandaged head appeared. "There's no point in waiting. They're closing. There's nothing left." She made a small dismissive gesture with her hand. "Nothing, nothing. Not even a crust of bread. My friend who's with me, who just gave birth three weeks ago, hasn't had anything to eat since yesterday and she's breast-feeding her kid. And they tell you to have children, dammit. Children, sure! Don't make me laugh!"

A murmur of despair ran through the long queue.

"Nothing, they have nothing left, nothing. They're saying 'Come back tomorrow.' They're saying the Germans are getting closer, that the regiment is leaving tonight."

"Did you go into the town to see if there's anything there?"

"You must be joking! Everyone's leaving, it's like a ghost town. Some people are already hoarding, I'm sure."

"Awful," Florence groaned again.

In her distress she was talking to the occupants of the battered car. The woman with the child on her lap was as pale as death.

The other one shook her head gloomily. "That's nothing. They're all rich, they are, it's the workers that suffer the most."

"What are we going to do?" said Florence, turning towards Gabriel with a gesture of despair. He motioned to her to move away from the crowd and began striding along. The town was full of closed shutters and locked doors; there wasn't a single lamp shining or a soul to be seen at the windows. But, the moon had just risen and by its light it was easy to find one's way.

"You understand," he whispered, "it's farcical, all this… It is impossible not to find something to eat if we pay. Believe me, there's this panic-stricken herd and then there are the sly devils who have hidden food away in a safe place. We've just got to find them." He stopped. "We're in Paray-le-Monial, aren't we? See, here's what I've been looking for. I had dinner in this restaurant two years ago. The owner will remember me, you'll see." He banged on the padlocked door and called out in a commanding voice, "Open up, open up, my good man! It's a friend!"