Michel Déon - The Foundling's War

‘For an intellectual,’ she had said, ‘it’s not bad to have written a play like that.’

In Rue des Canettes he bought their bread ration and two slices of pâté without coupons, and at the wine merchant’s a bottle of vintage Bordeaux over the counter that cost four times the price of vin ordinaire and was not worth it. Nelly’s mother sent confit d’oie, pâté de foie and truffles from the south-west by means of a network of railway workers that ended at Gare d’Austerlitz, where Jean collected the parcels. Her daughter was exasperated rather than grateful.

‘What’s she thinking of? I could get that from any of my admirers if I asked for it. What I need is steak and chips. There’s no steak, no potatoes, no fried food. What are we going to eat her truffles with? Swede?’

Unusually Nelly was waiting for Jean at her studio, when she should have been at the Français.27 Wrapped up in woollies, she was drinking a hot toddy.

‘Jules-who, you are making yourself desirable. When you’re not here it doesn’t suit me at all. I get impatient. When you’re here too, unfortunately. I have to conclude that sometimes, only sometimes, I love you. A bit. Where were you? I nearly died. You wouldn’t even have been here to hold my hand.’

‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘I might be getting flu.’

‘And you call that “dying”?’

‘What about my voice?’

He had not thought of that. She kissed him on the cheek.

‘Oh lovely, you’ve brought bread and wine. And pâté!’

She tasted it.

‘Utterly disgusting. Let’s dunk our bread in the wine instead.’

‘I prefer it in soup.’

‘Oh yes, I forgot, a peasant boy at heart. Like me. No soup without bread.’

She opened her pretty red mouth wide. Her uvula quivered delicately. She said, ‘Ah, ah … I’ve got a throat infection, haven’t I?’

‘Yes, give it to me.’

He shut her mouth with a kiss.

‘That’s all you think about!’ she said happily.

‘No, but I’d like to—’

‘Here? This minute?’

‘No, I mean, I’d like to think only of that.’ Nelly swallowed her toddy in one.

‘I drink to forget that you’re unfaithful to me. I get drunk with work for the same reason.’

‘Then you’re not so ill.’

‘Listen, settle yourself peacefully in a corner and be quiet. Dear old Michette’s coming to go over my lines with me.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Yes, the dear thing’s become passionate about Corneille. She’ll play Stratonice. With her Auvergnat accent she’ll be wonderful. Corneille must have written the part with an Auvergnat girlfriend in mind.’

They were dunking their bread in the wine when Marceline Michette rang the bell. The cold had given her ruddy cheeks, making her look more like a lady of good works than the patronne of a brothel. She, like Palfy, was at a turning point in her life, on the brink of a less profound but equally lasting transformation. She had become enthralled by the theatre since meeting Nelly and spending a fortnight in the studio looking after Claude and Cyrille. And she had embarked on another adventure too, a real one and a secret one, outlandish and yet plausible at this time. Yes, Marceline Michette really had become a secret agent. Don’t laugh! There were few more devoted to the task than she was. How had it happened? It is difficult to be sure. Probably thanks to her often mysterious demeanour, someone had noticed her, sounded her out, tested her. And gradually, smoothly, she had begun to work as a messenger for what people were already referring to as the Resistance. She was a good choice: was the patronne of a brothel not a person above suspicion, accustomed to remain as silent as the grave? In churches and Métro stations, booking halls and cinemas, Marceline received and handed on documents the meaning of which she knew nothing. She operated with relaxed courage. In this regard the reader will allow us to admire Palfy, who had only sought to amuse himself with her, who had played his cards randomly and purely on the basis of his fondness for mystification. With Marceline he had turned over an ace. Through her he began to prepare his exit plans. It seemed to be a stroke of genius, though in fact it was unpremeditated and the result of sheer chance. His luck had started to turn at last. The Croix de Guerre Marceline will receive soon after the Liberation will help Palfy to get himself off the hook and return to France after a prudent period of exile. Meanwhile, she was giving Nelly her line:

‘For you Polyeucte feels no end of love … ’

Jean fought back his giggles. But in Marceline’s wake came Nelly’s golden voice.

‘An honourable woman can admit without shame

Those surprises of the senses that duty does tame;

It’s only at such assaults that virtue emerges

And one doubts of a heart untested by its urges.’

He heard his own heart beating. He had been put off Corneille in his French class at school but, like Marceline, shivered for Pauline embodied with such grace and fervour by Nelly.

‘I loved him, Stratonice; and he full deserved it.

But what befalls merit when no fortune preserves it?’

When Marceline had left for one of those meetings that now punctuated her days, Jean found himself alone again with Nelly.

‘I wonder if I’m not going to fall in love with you. Hearing you speak those lines is wonderful. You’re someone else.’

‘Oh Jules-who, you are talking codswallop. I’ve warned you before. I can love you, but you mustn’t love me. You’re nowhere near solid enough for someone like me. One day you will be, and then you’ll see that being an actress’s lover isn’t a good idea, not a good idea at all. If you let yourself go with me, I guarantee I’ll break your little romantic, and somewhat divided, heart. Stop it now, darling, and telephone your Claude. I’m unhappy about what’s happened to her too. She’s the love of your life. The only one.’

They made love, and afterwards Jean called the clinic. Madame Chaminadze was sleeping. The supervisor told him she was slightly better. He hung up.

‘You see,’ Nelly said, ‘I’m useful for something. You couldn’t be on your own. It would be unbearable.’

It seemed to Jean that Julius was welcoming him more warmly than usual, which made his earlier reticence all the more expressive. Thanks to his elocution lessons, Julius now speaks practically without an accent. He has Frenchified himself far more by taste than necessity for the milieu in which he moves. Madeleine, meanwhile, continues to benefit from Blanche de Rocroy’s social skills. She can no longer be confused by those little details that tripped her up a year ago. She is in a period of transition nonetheless, and, conscious of what she still lacks, has lost her early assurance and not yet acquired the self-confidence she will be recognised for later. To put it another way, she is going through a timid phase, wholly understandable given the task she faces: to consign to oblivion the weary, pessimistic prostitute who would have foundered without the encounter with Julius. Julius adores her. Does he know where she comes from? Palfy thinks not. As foreigners do, Julius has accepted what he is offered at face value. He brims with that German generosity that finds everything good. When a German sets about being good, it’s enough to make a cat cry. Julius, in the grip of love, has transfigured Madeleine. He never noticed her suburban accent, and her newly refined speech has only just struck his ear. He marvels at her distinction and finds nothing too good for her. He has put in Madeleine’s name the property he bought recently at Montfort-l’Amaury, a ravishing little village which is not yet fashionable but whose fame Madeleine will contribute greatly to after the war. In reality, Julius is a man of simple tastes: all he wants is to live in France, in the country, in a reasonable house within striking distance of Paris so that they can come up to the theatre in the evening or to meet friends. In his eyes the outcome of the war has little to do with these plans. Should Germany win, its union with France will become closer, leading on to a golden age. Should it lose, France will find itself as it was before, immersed once again in easy living. Julius has done enough favours for those around him to hope that after a brief period in purgatory he will be welcomed back with open arms. He loves Paris, its theatres and concerts, French fashion, the outrageous, superficial and amusing conversation at grand dinner parties. And how can one live without going to Maxim’s two or three times a week? The mirrors, the rococo decor, the service from Albert, a head waiter one might think had come straight out of a play by Édouard Bourdet,28 those tables where everyone knows everyone else, exchanging kisses and secret phrases, have little by little become a second home to this man overflowing with human warmth. So it’s here that he deals with his increasingly important personal affairs. What else would such a perennial optimist be doing but preparing for life after the war?