Michel Déon - The Foundling's War

Their siesta, deepened by Madame Michette’s red wine and Bénédictine, was succeeded by a conversation which we can summarise briefly. Palfy felt quite at home at the Sirène — he would happily have spent several days there — and urged Jean to hand over the secret letter to the patronne , a woman of intelligence, well organised and enterprising. She was capable of getting them out of trouble at a time when contacts, ideas and courage would not bear fruit so easily. What could Clermont-Ferrand offer them by way of resources in these difficult days? With the frontiers closed, there was no leaving France now, and even more inconveniently, to get across the demarcation line from the northern zone to the southern was impossible without a special pass. Despair would obviously have been absurd. The cage in which they found themselves was still a large one, and the freedom of movement it offered was not so very different from before the war. The newsstands were still covered with names of newspapers that reminded them of Paris: Le Figaro, Le Journal, Paris-Soir, Le Temps, Action Française , now proudly launching into the subject of the ‘national revolution’. In short, one had to be there in order to see what would happen. Jean, however, wanted to keep the prince and Salah’s letter, which was intended to be used only in extreme necessity. What, in any case, could it contain? Probably a recommendation to some powerful person who controlled the destinies of thirty such welcoming establishments scattered here and there around France. As such, that person was likely to have close relations with police and politicians, and Jean, more by instinct than serious consideration, recoiled from using such a recommendation, to the point where he was willing to leave Clermont if he could not find work there …

‘We’ve got nothing to eat this evening!’ Palfy objected.

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Very well … let’s wait till tomorrow.’

This was stating the obvious. The truth was that Palfy was becoming bourgeois. He was less fond of the risks that for so long had been a prime feature of his character. Jean, on the other hand, felt that the situation was tailor-made for them: a few francs in their pockets and nowhere to stay.

‘I know,’ Jean said, ‘let’s play a little game while we’re at it. To unearth, in this town where we know neither streets nor habits, a pearl beyond price lost in the crowd …’

‘Yes, she’s very pretty. But you’re not going to make me wear out my shoe leather. In all sincerity I prefer Zizi. Firstly because she’s a good cook—’

‘Palfy, you think of nothing but eating these days.’

‘Yes, and it’s my impression that that is going to become more and more difficult. We’re not even allowed to go to Switzerland, where they’ve hollowed out mountains to fill them with chocolate and butter. So we might as well get a head start here. The establishment is very welcoming—’

‘Nothing says that old woman Michette is going to be happy keeping you for a single night.’

‘You’re out of your mind! She’s quivering with anticipation at the idea of harbouring secret agents.’

Palfy was right. Madame Michette offered them a room without any prompting.

‘After midnight we’re closed. Nénette and Zizi will sleep together. You can use Zizi’s room. We’ll give you clean sheets. Tomorrow perhaps we’ll have some news of Monsieur Michette. An officer told me that his regiment has reached Perpignan at last, after defending heroically. He’ll be here soon; he knows his duty now that the war is over.’

Palfy explained that they had another problem: to find their contact, a pretty young woman who answered to the name of Claude, green eyes, ash-blond hair, a blue lawn dress (but well dressed enough not to wear it two days running), whom they had just missed this morning because of the crowds gathering for the parade.

‘Naturally,’ he pointed out, lowering his voice, ‘we are still talking about a secret mission, and as I’m sure you’re aware, when a meeting between agents fails, they stand a strong chance of not making contact a second time. Safeguarding security is of the utmost importance in our work.’

Madame Michette threw herself into her two guests’ predicament with an eagerness that astonished them. The truth was that she had recently become a devoted fan of a serial in L’Avenir, the Clermont-Ferrand newspaper, about the adventures of a secret agent whose name, Soleil, had particularly captivated her. Ever since her breathless daily dose of Soleil’s adventures, which had had her hurrying to the newsstand before she drank her morning coffee, she had dreamt of offering her services to her country. She had begun raiding the bookshops for spy novels. Accepting that her appearance was unlikely to allow her to seduce an enemy agent and extract his secret from him, she had been waiting for an opportunity that would reveal her deeper qualities of courage, intuition and decisiveness. In this bourgeois woman brought up to respect the virtues on which an honest and hard-working society was based, there seethed ambitions that her position as madam of a brothel did not allow her to satisfy. She suffered from not being ‘accepted’ in society. The great and the good of Clermont were as friendly to her as good taste allowed, but in public either barely greeted her or failed to acknowledge her entirely if they were with their wives. Their disregard made her miserable and she had complained bitterly about it to Monsieur Michette, who himself had no such sensibilities and contented himself with scrupulously keeping the establishment’s accounts for the benefit of its powerful patrons. Palfy and Jean could not have guessed upon what marvellously fertile soil they had fallen, or what an ally they were making for themselves by asking this honest woman for her help. In a flash Madame Michette had glimpsed an incredible opportunity in the challenge they had set her. If she came out of it well she would be eligible for other missions, and one day, like her husband, be entitled to wear the Croix de Guerre, and earn the respect of all.

She nevertheless made it clear to Jean and Palfy that what they were asking was tantamount to finding a needle in a haystack. Thousands of refugees were flooding into Clermont-Ferrand. The hotels were full. There was not a bed to be had in any private house. And the inhabitants of Clermont, secretive at the best of times, recoiled from showy behaviour. Families lived discreetly, rarely showing themselves. Perhaps there were, all the same, two or three streets and Place de Jaude where one might position oneself in the hope of meeting the desired person. But their description of Claude was vague. Madame Michette promised to give the matter some thought.

The next morning the street’s residents were highly surprised to see the young women from the Sirène emerge as a group from their lodgings. This was not part of their routine. Speculation ran riot: the girls were on their way to the railway station to greet Monsieur Michette, who was returning with another palm to add to his Croix de Guerre; they were going to present a petition at the prefecture calling for their status as workers in a reserved occupation to be recognised, which would entitle them to extra food rations: 350 grams of bread instead of 250, a bar of chocolate a month and an extra 100 grams of butter; they wanted to complain en masse to the regional military commander about his rumoured decision to send the glorious 152nd infantry regiment to Montluçon — the 15–2 — first regiment of France, recently re-formed at the Desaix barracks. The spectators watched them go, their bottoms swaying briskly down the street, led by Madame Michette dressed soberly in grey, the appropriate colour for a secret agent. The girls were not laughing and walked with their eyes lowered, their faces unmade-up, swinging their patent handbags. In short, only Monsieur Michette was missing for them to start walking in step with each other.