Irène Némirovsky - Suite Française

Up on the first floor a woman sat at a window putting on make-up. Her lipstick clattered to the ground at Hubert's feet and he quickly picked it up. Leaning out to look for it, the woman saw him and smiled. "How can I get it back?" she asked. And she dangled her bare arm, her white hand, out of the window.

Hubert was dazzled by the sunlight glinting off her polished nails. Her milky-white skin, her red hair were almost painful to him, like a blinding light. "I… I could bring it to you, Madame," he stammered, lowering his eyes.

"Oh, yes please, if you wouldn't mind," she said and smiled again.

He went back into the building, through the breakfast room and up a small, dark staircase. Through an open door he saw a pink room. In fact, the pink was the effect of sunlight filtering through cheap red curtains and filling the room with a warm, vibrant light the colour of rose bushes.

The woman, who was polishing her nails, showed him in and took the lipstick. "Oh, he's going to faint!" she said, looking at him. Hubert felt her take his hand and help him walk a few steps to a chair; she slipped a pillow under his head. His heart was pounding, but he hadn't lost consciousness. Everything was whirling around as if he were seasick, and great waves of hot and cold ran through him, one after the other.

He felt intimidated but rather proud of himself. When she asked him, "Are you tired? Hungry? What's wrong, my poor darling?" he exaggerated the trembling in his voice: "It's nothing," he replied, "it's just… I walked here from Moulins where we were defending the bridge."

She looked at him, surprised. "But how old are you?"

"Eighteen," he lied.

"Are you a soldier?"

"No, I was travelling with my family. I left them. I joined the troops."

"That's wonderful!" she said.

Even though she'd spoken with the tone of admiration he'd hoped for, he blushed when she looked at him; he didn't know why. Close up, she didn't seem young. You could see tiny wrinkles on her lightly powdered face. She was very slim, very elegant, with magnificent legs.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Hubert Péricand."

"Isn't there a Péricand who's the curator at the Beaux-Arts?"

"He's my father, Madame."

While they were talking, she had stood up and poured him some coffee. She had just finished breakfast and the tray with the half-full coffee pot, cream jug and toast was still on the table.

"It's not very hot," she said, "but you should have some anyway; it will do you good."

He obeyed.

"It's such madness downstairs with all those refugees; I could ring for service all day long and still no one would come! You come from Paris, of course?"

"Yes, and you as well, Madame?"

"Yes. I got caught in the bombing at Tours. Now I'm thinking about going to Bordeaux. Though I imagine the Opéra in Bordeaux has been evacuated."

"Are you an actress, Madame?" Hubert asked respectfully.

"A dancer. Ariette Corail."

Hubert had only ever seen dancers on stage at the Châtelet Theatre. Instinctively he glanced with curiosity and longing at her long ankles and muscular calves, sheathed in silk stockings. He was extremely flustered. A lock of his blond hair fell into his eyes.

The woman gently pushed it back with her hand. "And where will you be going now?"

"I don't know," Hubert admitted. "My family was staying in a small village about thirty kilometres from here. I'd go back and find them, but the Germans must be there by now."

"We expect them here too, any time now."

"Here?"

He started and leapt up as if to run away.

She held him back, laughing. "Now what do you think they would do with you? A young boy like you…"

"All the same, I did fight," he protested, his feelings hurt.

"Yes, of course you did, but no one's going to tell them that, are they? " She was thinking, frowning slightly. "Listen. This is what you're going to do. I'll go downstairs and ask for a room for you. They know me here. It's a very small hotel but marvellous food and I've spent a few weekends here. They can give you their son's room-he's away at the front. Rest for a day or two and then contact your parents."

"I don't know how to thank you," he murmured.

She went out. When she came back a few moments later he was asleep. She wanted to lift his head, put her arms round his broad shoulders, feel his chest gently rising and falling. She watched him closely, smoothed back the lock of wild golden hair that had fallen on to his forehead, then looked at him again with a dreamy, hungry look, like a cat staring at a little bird. "He's not at all bad, this boy…" she sighed.

The entire village was waiting for the Germans. Faced with the idea of seeing their conquerors for the first time, some people felt desperate shame, others anguish, but many felt only apprehensive curiosity, as when some astonishing new theatrical event is announced. The civil servants, police, postmen had all been ordered to leave the day before. The mayor was staying. He was a placid old farmer with gout; nothing flustered him. With or without a leader, things in the village went on much the same. At noon, in the noisy dining room where Ariette Corail was finishing lunch, some travellers brought news of the armistice. The women burst into tears. It seemed that the situation was rather confused. In certain places the army was still resisting and civilians had joined them. However, everyone agreed that the army had failed and there was nothing more to be done; they had no choice but to give up. The room was filled with chatter. It was stiflingly hot.

Arlette pushed away her plate and went out into the hotel's small garden. She had some cigarettes, a deckchair, a book. She'd left Paris a week earlier so panic-stricken she'd felt close to madness; now, despite having met with real danger, she was herself again: perfectly calm and collected. What's more, she was convinced that, from now on, she could survive any situation, that she was gifted with a real genius for obtaining maximum pleasure and comfort regardless of the circumstances. Her flexibility, lucidity, detachment were qualities that had been of enormous use to her in her career and relationships, but until now she hadn't realised they would be just as useful in a crisis.

When she thought of how she had begged Corbin's help she smiled scornfully. They had arrived in Tours just in time to be bombed; Corbin's suitcase with his personal effects and the bank's documents had been buried in the rubble, while she had emerged from the disaster without having lost a single handkerchief, a single box of make-up, a single pair of shoes. She had seen Corbin's face distorted with terror and thought how much pleasure she would get from reminding him of it, often. Then she remembered his drooping, corpse-like jaw; she'd wanted to give him a chin strap to hold it closed. Pathetic! Leaving him in Tours amid the terrible confusion and chaos, she'd taken the car, managed to find some petrol and left. She'd spent two days in this village, where she'd had good food and lodgings, while a pathetic crowd of people camped in barns and in the village square. She had even allowed herself the luxury of being charitable by leaving her room for that lovely boy, that young Péricand… Péricand? They were an upper-middle-class family, dull, respectable, very rich, with excellent connections in the government, among diplomats and wealthy industrialists, thanks to their relatives from Lyon… the Maltêtes… She sighed with annoyance, realising she would now have to rethink everything. How irritating, too, that she'd recently gone to so much trouble to seduce Gérard Salomon-Worms, the Count de Furières's brother-in-law. A quite useless conquest that had cost her a great deal of time and effort.