Michel Déon - The Foundling's War

‘When I’m not working I need a man beside me. You’re perfect, but you’re never there …’

‘It’s because I’m never there that I’m perfect.’

‘Stop being silly … and understand that I don’t like sleeping on my own. It’s physical.’

‘Get a dog.’

‘I thought of that … and I’d already have done it if it wasn’t for the pee in the morning. Can you see me, eyes swollen, cream all over my face, naked under my coat, bare feet in my pumps, walking my pooch round Place Saint-Sulpice at eight in the morning?’

‘You wouldn’t be the only one. There are plenty of grannies out at that time of morning.’

‘Jules-who, you’re mocking me.’

They skirmished gently and rolled onto the couch. He saw her in Suréna as a Eurydice so passionate he felt she was talking to him, the only spectator in a full house. In the dress circle, between acts, he glimpsed Marceline Michette craning forward, an ecstatic smile on her lips. Having given Nelly her cues for so long, she was starting to think she was part of the company.

In March 1943 Jean passed through Lyon and met his instructor.

‘You’ve been very useful,’ that precise man told him. ‘We can use you a little more effectively now that your probationary period is over. Do you speak German?’

‘No.’

‘But you know a number of Germans.’

‘They all spoke French.’

‘I suppose you haven’t seen any of them for some time.’

‘Since you ask, no. I’m rather keen on staying alive.’

‘Do they all feel the same about you?’

‘All of them.’

‘You couldn’t regain the trust of any of them?’

‘Definitely not, but … wait … I do know a German woman, the girlfriend of a friend of mine.’

‘What does she do?’

‘She works in an important organisation in Paris. I don’t know what exactly, but I should think she’s more than a secretary. She has a good deal of freedom and she even has a car …’

A week later he was at Gif with Jesús, who was repairing the roof after a tree had fallen on it.

‘Jean, you is Providence itself. ’Old my ladder.’

They talked for an hour, Jesús on the roof, Jean holding the ladder. Laura no longer returned every night. Petrol was running short. She stayed only from Saturday morning to Sunday evening. Jesús invited Jean to stay until she came. She would be very happy to see him; well, ‘happy’ was a figure of speech, for she showed her feelings as little as ever. Jesús felt that she lived with the constant memory of her brother’s death in Russia.

‘She’s comin’ tomorrow. ’Ave a walk. Go and see your Claude.’

Claude was no longer at the clinic. He saw Dr Bertrand.

‘Madame Chaminadze was getting much better recently. She was well enough to leave with her mother and her uncle. I think they went to the country. You wouldn’t have recognised her. Her expression had relaxed — she was still prone to having that distant look in her eyes, but that’s understandable; she has some way to go. The affection of her mother and uncle had boosted her confidence.’

‘You can’t tell me where they are?’

‘No. I’m sorry. You understand that because of her husband …’

‘Yes, I know. And what do you make of the uncle?’

‘A character … Anyway, I see enough of them to say that this one looked benign to me. He has a great fondness for his niece.’

‘So I see.’

Jean was not unhappy. Claude belonged to the past. He was resolved to forget her, to forget Cyrille’s small hand in his. The following day Laura enlightened him.

‘She left three months ago. You wouldn’t have recognised the bearded man from the forest. Love transformed him. Washed, shaved, very presentable. Not afraid any more. He’s still careful though: they’ve moved into a house he bought for her.’

‘Where?’

‘I know where. But don’t you think it’s preferable for you not to know?’

She was right. Even so, he was so close to the truth, it hurt him not to know it in its entirety. Common sense dictated that he should avoid causing himself pain. Otherwise one day he would be overwhelmed by sadness, gripped by a desire to see Claude, and he would be unable to resist.

He had another conversation with Laura in which he took the risk of admitting to her what he was looking for.

‘I’ve been waiting for this opportunity for a long time,’ she said, looking him in the eye.

‘You can have me arrested.’

‘No.’

‘Is it because of your brother that you’re willing to help me?’

‘Yes. You can count on me.’

‘Betrayal doesn’t scare you? You’re betraying Germany.’

‘No. Not the real Germany.’

‘The risks—’

‘I’ll take them. Like you. My only condition is that Jesús mustn’t know anything.’

The short man in glasses was so pleased that he left his Lyon refuge to meet Jean at Fontainebleau. They walked along a bridle path in the forest that the instructor knew every inch of. Occasionally he bent down to move a stone aside or pick up a bramble or a piece of paper that could frighten a horse. Jean concluded that his companion had been a cavalry officer, but found it difficult to imagine him riding at a hard gallop or jumping obstacles: he seemed too cautious, not athletic enough. Then he remembered someone once saying in his hearing, ‘The officers of the Cadre Noir,33 when not in uniform, all look like worried notaries, and the NCOs look like their clerks.’

So the short man in glasses had been a cavalry officer. He retained the ramrod-straight posture.

‘Jules, I don’t know when we shall see each other again. Perhaps never. A possibility we must never lose sight of. But with God’s help …’

He crossed himself.

‘… with God’s help I shall watch over your future when the victory is won. We shall have to change our rhythm and make a difficult adaptation to peace, normal existence, and our real names. I’ve almost forgotten mine, which was too complicated in any case, and which I shall simplify if I get the chance …’

He must have had a double-barrelled name, a source of family pride and the butt of jokes he could no longer bear.

‘… I don’t know yours either. Jules … it’s unusual. One hardly ever hears it these days. Who gave you the idea?’

‘An actress who liked to make fun of me.’

‘Yes, Jules makes people smile because of “pinching Jules’s ear”34 and a popular song that turned “Jules” into a synonym for “bloke” …’

‘Bloke’ was a word he did not use very often, pronouncing it with an affectedly proletarian accent.

‘We only notice those superficial details — name, rank, decorations, address, social standing. They all belie real friendships. I’m beginning to feel a genuine fondness for you, Jules, almost as if you were my son, which you could be, as I’m now fifty years old. After the war we shall lead very different lives from those we knew before the hostilities. I believe — I hope — that men will be more brotherly. Many of us feel that clandestine activity will lead to a political, moral and spiritual revolution. The word “revolution” frightens me a little. The truth is, I’m a traditionalist and a monarchist. I say “monarchist” because it’s a bit more general than “royalist”. My mentor, Charles Maurras, instilled anti-Germanism in me from my adolescence onwards. I’ve followed his teaching to the letter, although today I tend to think that Maurrassian anti-Germanism could have been more understanding and less virulent after the armistice in 1918, and by contrast ought to be more hardline now, during this occupation. I occasionally glimpse my old mentor in Lyon. He doesn’t know me, so I stop to watch him hesitantly, deafly crossing Rue de la République in that big cream-coloured coat of his, its pockets stuffed with books and newspapers. He’s still indomitable. I don’t think he’d criticise what I’m doing now, whatever he writes about it. Perhaps he doesn’t quite grasp the devastation of the men of my generation. But even if we can’t follow him in everything, he’s still, with Bainville, the only political thinker who saw the resurgence of Germany and the Nazis’ alliance with the Communists. His warnings were useless. Now we must triumph or die …’