Michel Déon - The Foundling's War

That evening, after the funeral, a procession of neighbours dropped in at the hotel. Marie-Dévote had prepared for their visits. She set out glasses, wine and pastis on the table on the terrace. They talked in low voices, as though the dead man still lay in his open coffin in the middle of the living room and could hear them. The Midi accent lightened the tone of their condolences, and with the help of the pastis a note of cheerfulness permeated the conversations. Toinette disappeared and Jean led Théo out to the garage. He wanted to see the Bugatti again, still sleeping there, its headlights turned towards the sea. Antoine had left this place only the morning before: his large pipe lay on the workbench, a net was waiting to be repaired, and the car had just been wiped with a chamois leather, its chromework rubbed with oil.

‘He really loved it,’ Théo said. ‘Like a woman! One day I came here barefoot; he didn’t hear me: he was talking to it, he was saying to it, “My beauty. I’ll keep you turning over as long as there’s a drop of petrol left.” Hey … wait a moment. I’ll do it today. He’ll enjoy the music in paradise.’

Jean wanted to stop him. Théo had decided too quickly that he was master of all at last. But the Bugatti, which for three years had started at a tug of its ignition switch, refused his orders. The starter spun unresponsively. The motor shuddered and stopped.

‘It’s flooded!’ Théo said and moved around to open the bonnet.

‘Leave her. Perhaps she’s sad today.’

‘I tell you: you’re a sentimental one.’

Toinette appeared at the doors of the garage. Her face was tense, her eyes sharp and bright.

‘What are you doing here?’ she said to Théo.

‘We were looking at the Bugatti.’

‘You don’t touch it, ever, do you hear me? Ever!’

She turned on her heel, certain that she would be obeyed. Jean went after her. She had taken off her black stockings and was walking barefoot over the sand, still warm from the day. The singsong voices of visitors reached them from the terrace.

‘What do you want?’ she said to Jean.

He felt guilty.

‘I didn’t want to start the Bugatti.’

‘I know. Théo’s such a baby.’

She called him Théo, never Papa, and treated him harshly. They were walking towards the far end of the beach, where Antoine had gone so often to sit and smoke his pipe, watching the sea from the grey rock where he sat. Jean stopped to take his shoes and socks off and walked like her, feeling an inexpressible pleasure in treading over the warm sand.

‘How’s Claude?’ Toinette asked.

He told her what had happened, the arrest, the interrogation, her return in a terrible state, the madness that had taken hold of her. Toinette listened without comment, staring ahead as if she could see at the end of the beach the bulky figure of Antoine on his rock, lapped by the wavelets of the gulf. She was not interested in Claude.

‘Cyrille must be awfully sad. I hope you take him out for walks.’

‘His grandmother has custody of him. She doesn’t let me near him.’

‘What awful stories!’ she said suddenly, as though the little boy’s loneliness was the only aspect of the story that seemed sad to her.

Jean wondered if she knew everything.

‘It’s our second day without Antoine. I feel so unhappy.’

Her musical Midi accent gave the banal phrase a lightness that took away its sense.

‘Did he talk to you about me?’ he asked.

‘Yes. Often. He loved you … Oh, come on. I mean, I know … You’re his grandson and I’m his daughter.’

‘At this precise moment, that seems really stupid to me.’

She turned to him with tears in her eyes.

‘Stupid?’ she said. ‘You think it’s stupid? I think it’s … unfair.’

They had come to Antoine’s rock, and she stopped, putting her hand on the rough stone.

‘I can see him. As if he was here! Yes, it’s unfair. It’s all unfair.’

‘I regret it. And he regretted it too. He would happily have put your hand in mine.’

She smiled. Two tears trickled down her golden cheeks. Jean was silent in the face of her strikingly natural beauty. At her side, he told himself, he would have forgotten everything.

‘I’ll never meet anyone like you,’ he said.

‘No. Never. And don’t try. I’ll never forgive you.’

He put his arms around her and kissed her. He tasted orange blossom on her lips. She pushed him gently away.

‘No more than that. It’s lovely like that. When are you leaving?’

He recounted his flight from Paris, where he would soon be called back. Saint-Tropez was a refuge. Caution dictated that he should not move from there until he received word.

‘Say nothing to Théo,’ she advised him. ‘He’s on the Germans’ side, because they’re winning. When they lose, he’ll be on the British side.’

She smiled, sure of herself, and added more quietly, ‘So it’ll be me who leaves. I’ll go to the mountains and stay with my cousins.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s better. Let’s not tempt fate.’

She thought everything through, with a disconcerting thoroughness. In this family the women were the thinkers, while the men spent their time in pursuit of pleasure.

‘We’ll go back,’ she said. ‘I need to stay with Maman. She’s so sad. You know, Antoine was her real partner. Théo’s her baby. She lets him have everything.’

They walked back to the hotel. Marie-Dévote, a black and watchful silhouette, observed them as they came. Jean wondered if she had seen them kiss, though it was unlikely. But Marie-Dévote did not need proof. She guessed and, like Toinette, thought it was better to separate two beings who were so strongly attracted to each other and could not come together without offending against the natural order of things.

Next morning it was left to Théo to explain.

‘Toinette, she was choking with sorrow. I’ve taken her to the mountains, to her cousins’. The air’s thinner up there. She’ll breathe better. You wouldn’t think so, but she’s delicate, that one, delicate like the orange blossom.’

Jean remembered the taste of her lips. He spent the rest of the day so sadly quiet that Marie-Dévote took him aside.

‘Antoine, he didn’t want to hurt anyone, ever. If we’re too unhappy, he’ll start worrying himself sick up there. Don’t stay here. Go with Théo. He gets around with his truck, sees some countryside. When you’re passing, you can drop by our cousins and kiss Toinette. She’ll be glad you haven’t forgotten her.’

He and Théo crisscrossed the back country, as they had done the previous year. Théo was building up his business. Everywhere he was greeted, bottles were uncorked, goat’s and sheep’s cheese, home-made bread, black olives in vinegar, dried figs in salt water, tomatoes and cucumbers were brought out from cool larders for him. He lingered, argued endlessly, passed on the evening news from the wireless: Rommel was at El Alamein, the Wehrmacht was besieging Sebastopol, the Japanese had landed at Guadalcanal. Never before had Théo pored over the atlas so closely. Toinette was exaggerating: he was not ‘on the Germans’ side’, but gleefully, and at a safe distance, followed the victories on both sides. The deployment, on Independence Day, of the first American bombers, B-17s, over Germany gave rise to intense excitement. To hear him, the war was like a world championship: he sought not the victory of good over evil or evil over good, but only wished the match to carry on until all the adversaries were exhausted.

‘You’ll see,’ he said in a sudden flight of prophecy, ‘they’ll finish up on level pegging, a draw. No one will have deserved to win and no one deserves to lose. Remember, it was Théo told you so.’