Michel Déon - The Foundling Boy

He stood up and gestured to Jean. The draughtboard was waiting for them at a neighbouring table.

‘Shall I sign your cheque?’

‘If you’ll be so kind.’

He pocketed it without a glance and moved a draught forward.

‘Goodnight to you,’ Maître Prioré said.

‘Goodnight.’

Jean won the game. They were at 6–4, and decided to stop rather than desperately chase a draw. Antoine had a cognac, Jean a lemonade. A few couples lingered, an elderly English pair and a girl of twenty with a man in his fifties with whom she appeared to be in love. Antoine thought about Marie-Dévote. Another twenty-four hours and he would be with her. He would stroke her still glorious though over-ample breasts. Lying next to her, he would know the meaning of peace. The shells would stop bursting and Marie-Thérèse would stop shouting.

‘I’ll drive you home,’ he said to Jean.

‘But where will you sleep, Monsieur?’

‘At La Sauveté.’

‘There’s nothing left there.’

‘I don’t need anything.’

There was no light, except in the lodge. Antoine drove through the park and stopped in front of his door. It was not locked. What was there left to be stolen? They went in and walked through empty rooms that still smelt strongly of the removers. Through the windows, their shutters open, the full moon spilt long yellow splashes on the carpets and rugs. Antoine reached his bedroom where, after pulling a flat silver flask from his hip pocket, he sat on the floor with his back to the window and took a long swallow.

‘You still don’t drink?’

‘No. I think I’ll like to drink one day, but later. I’m rowing on Sunday.’

‘Just look how pretty my Atalante is in the moonlight.’

The Bugatti cast its long bluish shadow across the gravel. The chrome of its radiator grille glittered in the moon’s unworldly silver light. It sat there silently, placidly, sure of its strength. Jean thought it was as beautiful as a scull.

‘Do you remember this room?’ Antoine asked. ‘You were a small boy.’

‘The burst hosepipe. I’ve never forgotten it.’

‘I liked you very much that day. It seems to me that we’ve got on well since then … apart from one small mishap …’

‘Yes, the Antoinette thing … I swear it wasn’t me.’

‘We don’t swear to each other. We only tell the truth. Who was it?’

‘Gontran Longuet.’

‘That littlesquirt! Poor darling Antoinette, how lonely she must have felt to descend all the way down to his level. I shall have to talk to her, tell her how very much her papa loves her … But why did Michel say it was you?’

‘He must have thought it was me.’

‘He hates you.’

‘Hate’s a strong word.’

‘No, I think he must do.’

Antoine drank from his hip flask again.

‘We’re really all right here, aren’t we? Without furniture, a house becomes itself again. I was born here. Geneviève, Antoinette and Michel were born here. And you were born next door.’

‘I don’t believe it any more,’ Jean said.

‘Hey now, come on, what’s going on in that head of yours?’

‘Michel came out with it last year, he taunted me and told me I was a foundling.’

Antoine stood up and paced to and fro several times, moving out of the shadows into the rectangles of light where his own shadow suddenly lengthened, deforming into an imposing and grotesque shape.

‘We decided we would never lie to each other.’

‘Yes, Monsieur.’

‘In that case I’ll tell you the truth. It’s correct to say that you’re a foundling. You were left in a basket on Albert and Jeanne’s doorstep. They adopted you. They are therefore your parents.’

‘I love them and respect them and I couldn’t hope for better parents, but I feel … different from them. Papa doesn’t understand me. He’s always getting on his high horse when I try to talk to him.’

‘He’s a first-class man. Everything that isn’t absolutely first-class irritates him.’

‘At the moment he’s really irritated.’

‘He always has been. You didn’t notice it so much when you were a child. My father was always irritated too. I was afraid of him. The outcome was not perfect, as you can see for yourself. Everything he left me has gone up in smoke. It’s nothing to be proud of. I’ve loved this house, you know …’

Jean heard a catch in his voice, which fell to a murmur. Antoine opened the door onto the landing. There was no Marie-Thérèse there listening, her ear glued to the keyhole.

‘Follow me,’ he said. ‘When there are two of us, the shadows are afraid.’

They walked on through the silent, wasted house. Parquet creaked, hinges squeaked. Everywhere the light of the moon lit up the shape of windows on the darkened walls. Antoine opened and closed the curtains and tried a tap, only to turn it off immediately. In the kitchen, at the back of a cupboard, they found some bottles without labels.

‘They must have got forgotten. Let’s have a look … oh yes, it’s calva. I’ll take them. They belong to me. Farewell, Normandy. I’m going to live in the sun. Do you know what the women of the Midi are like?’

‘No,’ Jean said. ‘Apart from the trip to London you treated me to four years ago, I haven’t budged from here.’

‘Why budge, if you already understand everything?’

‘I’d give anything to really know a big city, or to see the Mediterranean or the Pacific, the Sunda islands, or Tierra del Fuego.’

‘How boring! On this planet of ours, only women are a big enough mystery to be interesting.’

‘In Grangeville they aren’t going to come running to me, are they? I have to go to them.’

Antoine swigged from the bottle and walked into the butler’s pantry, where two stools had escaped being auctioned. He handed one to Jean and picked up the other one.

‘Let’s break them!’

The stools crashed against the wall. The leg of one flew at the window and the glass shattered. A dark head appeared, framed in the hole, and the abbé’s voice boomed into the kitchen.

‘What on earth has got into you?’

‘We’re breaking what even the rats had no use for.’

‘And have the rats drunk everything?’

‘No,’ Antoine said. ‘Come in, Father. We can’t let such an occasion go uncelebrated.’

The head withdrew. Another shattering was heard. Monsieur Le Couec, parish priest of Grangeville, was using his back to push out the last of the glass, after which he clambered into the kitchen.

‘You’re not hurt, Father?’

‘No, Jean. I too am perfectly transparent.’

He straightened up for a moment on the tiled floor, a shadow so enormous it woke up the whole house.

‘I wondered where you were.’

‘We were talking. We were bidding it all adieu.’

‘Adieu is a word I like, when it is pronounced correctly, à Dieu.’

‘Come now, Father, come now, no proselytising in an empty house. We’re all men here. I’ve no glasses. Drink from the bottle.’

Monsieur Le Couec took a swig.

‘Revolting! I suppose it was kept in the kitchen to flambé the game.’

‘Never mind the bottle —’

‘Oh ho! I’ll stop you there, if you don’t mind, Antoine du Courseau. Calvados was not invented for idiots …’

Jean giggled.

‘No, Father, it was invented for you.’

‘My dear boy, belt up. Sport is a very fine thing, but don’t go round trying to convert everybody.’

‘Jean doesn’t drink,’ Antoine said. ‘He’s getting ready for the future, for that uncertain planet on which I have no desire whatsoever to land. I’ve never led you into temptation, have I, Jean?’

‘Yes, you have, Monsieur, but without knowing you were.’