Irwin Shaw - The Young Lions

"I am so glad to see you," Francoise said.

She was even prettier than Christian remembered, a tall woman, with chestnut hair and a long, fine nose over a controlled mouth. She turned to Christian, smiling and extending her hand.

"Welcome, Sergeant Diestl," Francoise said. She pressed his hand warmly.

"Oh," said Christian carefully, "you remember me."

"Of course," said Francoise, staring directly at him. "I have thought of you again and again."

Greenish, hidden eyes, Christian thought, what is she smiling at, what does she mean by saying she thought of me again and again?

"Francoise came to live with me last month, cheri" Simone said to Brandt. "Her apartment was requisitioned. Your Army." She made a charming little face at Brandt, who laughed and kissed her. Her hands lingered for a moment on his shoulders before she pulled away. Christian noticed that she looked much older. She was still small and trim, and there were anxious wrinkles around her eyes and her skin looked dry and lifeless.

"Do you expect to stay long?" Francoise asked.

There was a moment of hesitation. Then Christian said, stolidly, "Our plans are not definite at the moment, we…"

He heard Brandt laughing and stopped. The laughter was high, near hysteria, a combination of relief and amusement.

"Christian," Brandt said, "stop being so damned correct. We plan to stay until the end of the war."

Then Simone broke down. She sat on the edge of the couch and Brandt had to comfort her. Christian caught Francoise's eye for a flicker and observed what he thought was cool amusement there, before Francoise politely turned away and strolled back to her window.

"Go," Simone was saying. "This is ridiculous. I don't know why I'm crying. Ridiculous. I am getting like my mother, cry because she's happy, cry because she's sad, cry because it's sunny, cry because it's beginning to rain. Go. Go in and tidy up, and when you come back, I shall be as sensible as you can imagine, and I'll have a beautiful supper all ready for you. Go. Don't look at me with my eyes like this. Go ahead."

Brandt was grinning, a foolish, homecoming, childish grin, incongruous on his thin, lined, intelligent face, now grimed with the dust of the long trip from Normandy.

"Come on, Christian," said Brandt, "let's get the dirt off our faces."

Together they went into the bathroom. Francoise, Christian noticed, did not look at them as they left the room.

In the bathroom, with the water running (all cold because of the lack of fuel), Brandt talked, while Christian arranged his dark hair, wet with water, with someone's comb. "There is something about that woman," Brandt was saying, "something I have never found in anyone else. I… I accept everything about her. It's funny, with other women, I was too critical. They were too thin, they were too vain, they were a little silly…

Two, three weeks, and I couldn't stand them any more. But with Simone… I know she is a little sentimental, I know she's getting older, there are wrinkles… I love it. She is not smart. I love it. She has a tendency to weep. I love it." Then he spoke very seriously. "It is the one good thing I have got out of the war." Then, as though ashamed at having talked so frankly, he turned the water on full and vigorously rinsed the soap off his face and neck. He was stripped to the waist, and Christian noticed with amused pity how his friend's bones stuck out, like a small boy's, how frail his arms were. What a lover, Christian thought, what a soldier, how had he ever managed to survive four years of war?

Brandt stood up and towelled his face. "Christian," he said seriously, through the muffling cloth, "you're going to stay with me, aren't you?"

"First," Christian began, keeping his voice low, "what about that other one?"

"Francoise?" Brandt waved his hand. "Don't worry about her. There's plenty of room. You can sleep on the couch. Or…" He grinned. "Come to an understanding with her. Then you wouldn't have to sleep on the couch."

"I'm not worried about the overcrowding," Christian said.

Brandt reached over to turn the water off. "Leave it on," Christian said sharply, holding Brandt's hand.

"What's the matter with you?" Brandt asked, puzzled.

"She doesn't like Germans, that one," Christian said. "She can make a lot of trouble."

"Nonsense." With a quick movement, Brandt snapped the water off. "I know her. She'll grow very fond of you. Now promise you'll stay…"

"All right," Christian said slowly. "I'll stay." He could see Brandt's eyes glistening. Brandt's hand, as it patted Christian's bare shoulder, was trembling a little.

"We're safe, Christian," Brandt whispered. "At last we're safe…"

He turned awkwardly and put on his shirt and went into the other room. Christian put his shirt on slowly, buttoning it carefully, looking at himself in the mirror, studying the haggard eyes, the ridged lines on his cheeks, the topography of fear and grief and exhaustion that was obscurely and invincibly marked there. He leaned close to the mirror and stared at his hair. There was a sanding of grey, heavy at the temples, glistening in little pale tips on top. God, he thought, I never saw that before. I'm getting old, old… He braced himself, hating the wave of self-pity that for a moment he had allowed to flood through him, and walked stiffly out into the living-room.

The living-room was cosy, with the one shaded lamp diffusing a dull rosy glow over the room and over the long, reclining figure of Francoise on the soft couch.

Brandt and Simone had gone to bed, holding hands domestically as they had gone down the hallway. After eating, after telling a jumbled, inaccurate account of the last few days, Brandt had almost fallen asleep in his chair and Simone had fondly pulled him up by his hands and led him away, smiling in an almost motherly way at Christian and Francoise left together in the shadowy room.

"The war is over," Brandt had mumbled in farewell, "the war is over, boys, and now I am going to sleep. Farewell, Lieutenant Brandt, of the Army of the Third Reich," he had said with sleepy oratory, "farewell, soldier. Tomorrow once more the decadent painter of non-objective pictures awakens in his civilian bed, next to his wife." He had pointed in a limp, gentle way at Francoise. "Be good to my friend. Love him well. He is the best of the best. Strong, delicate, tested in the fire, the hope of the new Europe, if there will be a new Europe and if there is any hope for it. Love him well."

Shaking her head fondly, saying, "The drink has gone to the man's tongue," Simone had pushed him gently towards the bedroom.

"Good night," they had heard Brandt's mumbled valedictory in the hallway, "good night, my dear friends…"

Then the door had closed and there had been silence in the small, feminine room, with its pale wood and its dark, nighttime mirrors, its soft-coloured cushions, and its silver-framed photograph of Brandt taken in beret and Basque shirt before the war.

"A tired soldier," Francoise murmured from the depths of the couch, "a very tired soldier, our Lieutenant Brandt."

"Yes," said Christian, watching her carefully.

"He's had a hard time, hasn't he?" Francoise moved her toes.

"It hasn't been pleasant, the last few weeks, has it?"

"No, not very."

"The Americans," said Francoise, in a flat, innocent voice, "they're very strong, very fresh, aren't they?"

"You might say that."

"The papers here," Francoise shifted her weight gently and the long lines rearranged themselves in silvery shadows under the robe, "keep saying it is all going according to plan. The enemy are being cleverly contained, there will be a surprising counter-attack." The tone of lazy amusement in Francoise's voice was very clear. "The papers are very reassuring. Mr Brandt ought to read them more often." She laughed softly. The quiet laugh would have seemed sensual and inviting, Christian realized, if they had been talking on a different subject. "Mr Brandt," Francoise said gently, "is not of the opinion that the enemy will be contained. And a counter-attack would be really surprising to him, wouldn't it?"