Michel Déon - The Foundling's War

‘There has to be a reason for it, all the same,’ he said.

‘You know it as well as I do.’

‘Her husband?’

Anna Petrovna shrugged her shoulders contemptuously.

‘Yes, Georges. Even if they were going to divorce, he’s still her husband.’

Claude had never mentioned divorce. Jean lowered his head, gripped by a wild hope and a vast joy that lasted as long as a lightning flash before becoming no more than an intolerable anguish.

‘I suppose he’s in France.’

‘They were too late for him last night. They won’t catch him. They’ll never catch him.’

‘It’s not the first time he’s been to France?’

Anna Petrovna’s features closed up. She did not deign to reply.

‘All right,’ Jean said. ‘The situation’s becoming clearer. Wait here for me.’

She jumped to her feet.

‘You could have me arrested too!’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘I shan’t let you!’

‘You can’t let me do anything or stop me doing anything. Sit down.’

He found Palfy with Duzan and took him into the corridor to tell him what had happened.

‘Hell!’ Palfy said. ‘We have to act quickly. I’ll go straight to Rocroy.’

‘Why not Kapermeister? He seems more powerful.’

‘You don’t know how it works. Julius is Abwehr, the army. Gloves, honour, gentleman spies. Rocroy is from the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, the Reich’s central security agency, the SS, the Gestapo. We need to get to her before she falls into their hands. You look after the mother. Send her back home. Above all tell her not to move. If she starts shouting from the rooftops that they’ve arrested her daughter, she’ll never see her again. The most important thing is that the machine isn’t set in motion. I’ll ring you as soon as I can.’

He turned to walk away. Jean caught hold of his arm.

‘If you do this, I’ll never forget it.’

‘I’ll be glad if you do, because I’m sticking my neck out here, and for them that means there’ll be a big favour to be returned …’

‘Why are you doing it?’

‘You stupid boy … I’m thirty-four years old and it’s the first time in my idiotic — though by no means boring — life I’ve had a friend.’

He was gone, leaving Jean alone in the corridor lined with photos of Nelly Tristan — full-length, head and shoulders, diving into a pool in her swimming costume, on horseback, in a headband and driving a racing car, being presented with flowers as she stepped off a plane, dressed in crinoline or as Jeanne Hachette,21 her long and beautiful legs shown off in tights.

Anna Petrovna was sitting on the edge of an armchair, as though despite her tiredness she was determined to show that she was there merely for a few minutes and was now ready to leave. Her anxious features, however, betrayed a naive optimism that asked for only a word of reassurance to turn hope into reality.

‘Well?’

‘I have a friend who knows an important German. He has gone to see him immediately.’

‘The man with whom you arrived?’

‘That’s none of your business. Now there’s just one thing you have to do: go home and say nothing.’

‘You’re telling me that? When I have only one desire: to scream that my daughter has been arrested!’

‘In that case, make sure you restrain yourself!’

She burst into tears, embarrassing Jean to the point that he did not know what to do. He knew her loathing for him was reflexive, an almost natural reaction for a mother who judges by appearances the man her daughter has told her she loves.

‘Go home!’ he said. ‘And stay with Cyrille.’

On a piece of paper he wrote in large letters, so that the boy could read easily,

Cyrille, I send you a big hug. I’m looking after your maman. Keep calm. We’re going to be happy. Your friend, Jean

‘Give him this from me.’

Anna Petrovna took the piece of paper, read it and dried her tears.

‘You also need to know,’ Jean added, ‘something else: that I love Claude and that, despite appearances, I am not her lover in the strict sense of the word. Having said that, I want you to be certain that I have only one desire: to become her lover one day, when she’ll have me.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘It’s not me you have to believe, it’s your daughter.’

She folded his sheet of paper and put it in a crocodile handbag so ancient that the leather was split and the clasp gaped. Her worn-out sealskin coat was a further reminder of happier times, already many years in the past. Despite such details giving her away, there was no doubt that she had once been an elegant, even fashionable, woman. He put her at around fifty, and well preserved, but felt she was likely to age very fast from now on.

He was walking her back down the corridor as Nelly appeared, her face pink from the cold and wearing an astrakhan hat like a stage Cossack.

‘Hello, scrumptious boy!’ she said.

And lightly as she passed she planted a kiss at the corner of his lips, before sweeping into Duzan’s office.

Anna Petrovna, her mouth tense with disgust, said, ‘Even if you save Claude I shall do everything in my power to make sure she never has a relationship with a man like you.’

Jean felt so deeply wounded that he could not think of a reply, and then Anna Petrovna was gone down the stairs, clinging to the banisters with one hand, still quivering with hatred and humiliation, and perhaps crushed by anxiety too. But he did not hate her and he admired the pride she had shown, despite her distress. Why had she not sent her son instead?

Could he work in such circumstances? There was no question of it. He cancelled all his meetings. His office window looked out onto Rue François 1 er. Across the street a nightclub employee was taking in the dustbins. Next door, the Café des Artistes, where the quartier ’s producers gathered, was just opening. Bit-part actors always loitered there, with the stand-ins and impoverished old actors looking for a picture. The patron was a former Tour de France rider. Five Tours! Highest place: twelfth. He had always given his wheel, broken his rhythm, abandoned a sprint to support the champion. Jean remembered his name from a breakaway and a stage win at Rouen. When they met they spoke in monosyllables, swapping names and dates like secret agents. Cycling would come back after the war, but it wouldn’t be the same. The young ones didn’t have the same determination. And no sense of putting others first. They’d all want to win. It would be a fine mess. Toto Passepoil nodded his bald head. Running a bar had thickened his waistline. His waiters called him Tubby Peloton. He came out of the café and studied the dirty pavement and gutter with disgust. With an imperious wave — this was the man who had always been the leader’s domestique — he summoned a waiter, who came and swept lethargically. Looking up, he saw Jean at his window and made a friendly gesture, a clenched fist with his thumb raised. It signified everything: come and have a drink, the Germans are done for, the Yanks are out of the race, the Japs eat only rice — or better still, I’ve got some real coffee and the Beaujolais Nouveau has arrived. Jean waved back. Toto was the one person he could imagine talking to. But to leave the office would mean leaving the telephone. He stepped away from the window. Nelly came in.

‘Jules-who!’

‘Yes.’

‘What a long face!’

‘I’ve got problems.’

‘What?’

‘Claude’s been arrested.’

‘Claude?’

‘The love of my life.’

‘So it’s not me. What a letdown!’

‘Don’t laugh.’

She took off her astrakhan hat. The hairdresser had shingled her hair like a boy’s. She was making a film set in 1925, to avoid meddling by the censors. It had given her natural grace an ambiguous quality. All she needed was the long cigarette-holder, the cigarette with the gold band, the sequined dress, bare knees, and shoes with ankle straps.