Michel Déon - The Foundling's War

He started the engine and switched on the headlights, which lit up the bushes, the beach and the mother-of-pearl surface of the water. After a moment he switched the engine off again.

‘So you’re off?’

‘Yes. I think it’s the right thing to do.’

‘No change?’

‘No.’

‘It’s the first time I’ve ever met a woman I didn’t understand. Until now their intentions have seemed so obvious to me that I had a tendency to simplify them, to reduce them to their appearances. Is it really possible there are complicated ones too? I’ll have to revise all my theories! But I’m too old to backtrack now. I’d rather go fishing.’

They finished their two bottles of champagne and went their separate ways before daybreak. The decision was made. In any case, Jean’s money was running out. Every week he gave Marie-Dévote a small amount to cover their board and lodging. But the biggest reason was that he could not go on. He had become obsessed by his desire. Whether Claude covered herself up or walked around their bedroom naked, she had everything he wanted — except openness. He could only look, and see the grace in her movements, her voice and her words. He had begun to slip into bad moods with her. She had accepted them resignedly. The person we love must sometimes suffer, for obscure reasons that are also the mark of a passion grown too intense. Wounded by her distance, Jean could not forgive himself for causing her pain.

One afternoon, when Toinette had taken Cyrille for a walk, he found himself alone with Claude as she undressed in their bedroom. As she took off her shirt, he felt a hunger so violent he thought he was going mad. Did she see the look in his eyes? She stood rooted to the spot with fear, naked to the waist, exposing her lovely breasts, almost untouched by motherhood, pale, soft, trembling fruits that made him want to throw himself to his knees each time she uncovered them.

He grabbed her by the shoulders, ready to hit her, stun her in order to satisfy his desire for a body that would at last be defenceless. She stiffened.

‘I’ll never forgive you.’

‘I’m sorry.’

He let go of her naked shoulders, which a moment before he had wanted to bite until they bled. His fingers had left white imprints on her tanned skin. Tears were rolling down her cheeks.

‘You’re the only one I love!’ she said.

‘I’m truly sorry.’

‘We’ll never part, and I’ll never forget these two months.’

‘I want to know.’

‘It’s impossible.’

‘Is it always going to be impossible?’

‘No.’

‘When, then? When?’

She threw herself into his arms, pushing her head into his chest, and he smelt the fragrance of her hair and caressed her bare neck.

‘I promised Georges that I’d wait till he came back before I decided.’

‘Where did you promise that?’

‘I can’t tell you that.’

He could not persuade her to say any more. She had gone as far as she could. So Antoine’s conclusion had been correct. Jean would ask no more questions. Claude slid to her knees, still holding him. She pressed her cheek against his legs with such unselfconsciousness that he felt hope, for a moment, that one day they would throw aside their clothes and come together. He let himself slide down beside her onto the tiled floor, and they became like two children, kissing each other’s lips and face with as much wonderment as fear.

On the wall of Palfy’s office a map of Europe bristled with red and black flags.

‘You’ll get the idea straight away,’ he said.

He picked up a ruler and drew a line in the air between the black flags in the west and the red in the east.

‘The war has entered its final phase. Leaving the fools aside, who thankfully are legion, for the rest of us the outcome is clear. The Wehrmacht is on the brink of taking Odessa, Kiev and Smolensk, and is approaching Leningrad. Its advance is irresistible. The Baltic is already under Axis control. By the end of October we can look forward to a German Ukraine and Moscow encircled. There are three million Soviet prisoners that no one knows what to do with, dying of starvation and wretchedness. The USSR is losing its bread basket. Its lines of communication are cut, its high command in chaos, Stalin no longer trusts anyone. So what does he do? He purges, purges and purges again to forget his own blindness. You have no idea of the panic in the Kremlin. Neutral representatives are sending back reports that leave no room for doubt. They have understood Hitler’s plan: to establish a line from Arkhangelsk to Astrakhan beyond which, from his armchair, he will use his air force to annihilate the Siberian industrial complexes, leaving Chiang Kai-shek a free hand in Mongolia and eastern Siberia. It’s as clear as day, as elementary as two and two make four.’

‘What about England?’

‘She’ll win the last battle, as she always does. It’s the one thing we can really be certain about.’

Palfy’s assurance beguiled and deceived. Jean felt baffled.

‘So who will win?’

‘Stalin, of course.’

‘You seem to be saying the opposite.’

‘You’re not listening to me.’

‘You said the outcome was clear.’

Palfy shrugged his shoulders. His office windows overlooked the Champs-Élysées, where the Sunday crowds were queuing outside the cinemas. Jean could see the enormous letters on an advertisement for one of the cinemas on the far side of the avenue: ‘ Nelly Tristan in The Girl and the She-wolf’. Palfy followed his friend’s gaze.

‘Remember her?’

‘Yes, at dinner at Madeleine’s. Absolutely legless.’

‘Highly successful at the moment. We’ll be having dinner with her shortly. Your handsome Midi tan is bound to please her.’

‘We’re changing the subject … You were saying that the Germans have won the war …’

Palfy raised his arms heavenwards.

‘You haven’t been listening. I said, “clear outcome”.’

‘Excuse me, I haven’t read Clausewitz or Liddell Hart.’

‘Stop trying to be clever. I’m not talking about Clausewitz or Hart, I’m talking about Napoleon. I hope that name means something to you!’

‘A bit.’

‘Well then, like the soldiers of the Grande Armée, the Germans are advancing everywhere. They would already be at Moscow now, at the end of July, if Hitler hadn’t coveted the Ukraine like a greedy little boy. Guderian warned him not to, but Hitler doesn’t listen to anyone. He’s already finished.’

‘You wouldn’t think so to look at him,’ Jean said.

‘If you’ll allow me, I shall enlighten you … Have a seat …’

In his room with its large bay windows overlooking the middle of the Champs-Élysées Palfy had assembled an elegant desk and some Louis XVI armchairs, an admirable Lancret, and in a bookcase a complete collection of the reports of the Fermiers Généraux.16 The company name displayed on the door, ‘La Franco-Germanique d’Import — Export (FGIE)’, had little outward connection with the interior’s Louis XVI style. Is it necessary to spell out what was taking place here? That, without going into details, the so-called FGIE was a cover for the substantial commercial dealings to which Julius Kapermeister and Rudolf von Rocroy were key?

Jean sat.

‘Hitler,’ Palfy said, ‘is a genius. His pan-Germanic socialism is a psychological weapon as effective as the idea of liberty that preceded Napoleon’s armies. Everywhere he is greeted as a “liberator”, like the soldiers of year II.17 The sad thing is that this shy impulsive man does not think he is loved, or perhaps he cannot accept that he is loved. So he crushes, exterminates, imprisons. In the Ukraine they were expecting a saviour and they got Attila the Hun, bombing the triumphal arches prepared for his victorious arrival. Not a very effective way to make yourself loved …’