Michel Déon - The Foundling's War

The first visitor Jean was allowed was the little man in glasses, whose real name he learnt at last: Jehan de la Ferté-Mondragon. He arrived in the uniform of a cavalry major. The warder, impressed by his decorations, left them alone.

‘You see me as an officer for the first time. I’m leaving for Alsace tomorrow to rejoin my regiment. I thought I might be of some use in Paris, but life here is impossible. They don’t want me. They’re right. Officers are made to command soldiers, not to play at being a policeman during a purge. I had a lot of difficulty getting to see you, but I had a good excuse: to bring you the medal of the Resistance and tell you I’ve also proposed you for the Military Medal. Here’s your Resistance medal. Don’t chuck it down the toilet until I’ve gone. It would hurt me. Obviously I shall look after your interests as best I can. I may as well tell you it’s very difficult. You have, it seems, engaged in proscribed activities. I’m not asking you to tell me all your secrets. All I require is for you to assure me you have not worked against your country’s interests …’

‘Absolutely not.’

Jehan de la Ferté-Mondragon misunderstood him.

‘What? You can’t assure me?’

‘Yes. I can assure that I have not worked against my country’s interests.’

The major looked relieved. He turned his blue képi in his short, chubby fingers. Sweat beaded on his forehead and he wiped it away with the back of his hand.

‘It’s hot in your prison.’

‘Only in the visiting room. Lawyers catch cold easily. In the cells you have to break the ice to wash yourself in the morning.’

‘We didn’t fight for this. Full prisons, people condemned to death … torture … extra-judicial executions … I feel ashamed. I’m going back to the army.’

‘I hope you won’t feel ashamed of the army too.’

Jehan de la Ferté-Mondragon raised his arms.

‘I hope so too … If I do, I shall resign and take holy orders. I’ve been tempted to for years. You know, the thing that pains me the most is that by doing this they’ll turn you into a rebel.’

‘Oh no … To rebel you have to have an idea. I don’t have one, and I shan’t do them the honour of acquiring one.’

‘I should very much like you not to be bitter.’

‘Don’t ask for too much. But all men should go through the test of prison. When I get out I’ll truly be free.’

‘Perhaps you’re right. I regret not having gone through that particular test.’

‘A man like you doesn’t need it.’

The warder entered, his back straighter in an officer’s presence.

‘Major, the prisoner’s lawyer is here.’

‘Then I shall go.’

‘In any case I shan’t see him,’ Jean said.

‘What?’ The warder was astonished a prisoner should refuse even the minimal distraction of a lawyer’s visit.

‘I said I refuse to see him.’

The major got to his feet, his képi in his hand.

‘Jules, you’re digging yourself in deeper. You have to fight.’

‘Lawyers are part of a system I disdain.’

‘Defend yourself! That’s an order.’

Jean was touched by his severity and not brave enough to explain to him why he felt there was no point in playing the game.

‘In that case, stay, please, Major.’

The lawyer came in. We have said that he was a busy young man, intelligent, brilliant even, but overworked. The officer’s presence threw him into confusion and prevented him adopting the patronising tone he had prepared.

‘My respects, Major …’

Jehan de la Ferté-Mondragon nodded without replying.

‘My friend, I have good news for you. The examining magistrate has advised me that you are to be transferred to London to be interviewed there. Of course I shall go with you. It’s a simple matter, there and back.’

‘I thought you were very busy.’

Jean was not stupid. Maître Deschauzé had gauged from the unusual turn of events the level of interest his client was arousing. It was no longer a case of yet another small-time thug working for the Gestapo, the kind of case he had coming out of his ears, but a defendant whose alleged actions had had repercussions as far away as London.

‘It’s an international matter,’ the lawyer said to the major. ‘A tangled web indeed. If Jean Arnaud were willing to help me, I could do something for him.’

He saw, on the table, the medal the major had brought with him.

‘What’s that?’

‘The Resistance medal.’

‘And you didn’t think fit to tell me?’

‘Let’s not get things confused,’ Jean said. ‘I’m accused of distributing counterfeit notes, which has nothing to do with my activities for Major de la Ferté-Mondragon.’

‘Major, are you prepared to be a witness for my client?’

‘Certainly.’

Jean felt distinctly bad-tempered.

‘Maître, I didn’t choose you. You were appointed by the court. I did not want a lawyer, and I warn you that if you make another such crude error, I will dismiss you in open court.’

Maître Deschauzé should have left. We know, however, that despite his self-satisfied exterior and certain mannerisms with his cuffs and his mop of hair, he was no fool. He had underestimated Jean, keen to be done with a complicated case and a difficult character. Quite suddenly, he had discovered his client. Instead of storming out and slamming the door, he stayed.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said in a more measured tone.

‘Jules,’ the major said, ‘you’re doing the opposite of what you should. Let me embrace you before I go. If I’d married, I should have liked to have had a son like you.’

He hugged Jean and left unhurriedly, saluted by the warder.

‘When do we leave?’ Jean asked.

‘Tomorrow morning. An inspector will accompany us.’

The lawyer began to walk up and down the visiting room, furnished with two chairs and a pine table.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Very sorry … Don’t judge a book by its cover. I’m also a human being. You’re not angry with me?’

‘Not in the least!’

‘I’d like to get you out of here.’

‘It’ll be complicated.’

‘Help me.’

‘If you put it like that, all right.’

They shook hands. The warder took Jean back to his cell. Jean put the medal on the table, opened his notebook and wrote:

15 November 1944: I must write before my fingers freeze again. It’s getting dark. Three lights have just come on in the ‘recreation’ yard. I long to hear the sound of children playing down there: it’s so sinister. I’m lucky if I can make out the sound of police vans and the slamming of doors as they’re locked. I’ve never been forced to reflect so much. Not self-reflection, reflection on others. And so, just as I decide definitively and for ever that the human race is rotten, the major comes on the scene with a little cross in his hand. Balzac’s young lions will do anything to win their cross, and I’m no young lion. There’s no relation between that cross and what I did. Yet the major’s attitude, his embarrassed words, his shy but genuine warmth give meaning to these two years. And then to cap it all, and show me how simplistic my generalisations are, the lawyer takes off his mask and I discover a young man like me, who makes a mistake and recognises it. So every day I have something to understand, something to learn. In the opposite sense, there was the day I went to see Cyrille (oh yes, that boy I loved so much and who two years later didn’t recognise me and as I held out my arms to him asked, ‘Who’s he?’, a little voice showing how much was lost, already forgotten) and Anna Petrovna kept me there with her honeyed phrases while her son went to fetch the police, far outstripping the lowness of which I thought that woman capable. In short, because I might have solicited the intervention of CP and R von R in Claude’s ordeal, I was myself a traitor in the pay of Germany. Since her mother informed on me, my love for Claude has become horrible, impossible. But in any case, what could I do to save her from Anna Petrovna’s machinations and Blaise Pascal’s lust? The real answer, yet again, lies in that far too general idea that women slip through our fingers and that the great art is not to try to stop them and not to suffer from that fact. Talking of fingers, mine are freezing now and I’m going to stop.