Michel Déon - The Foundling Boy

‘From today, you’re to call me Antoine. It will annoy my wife intensely. I ought to have thought of it earlier.’

‘Thank you, Antoine.’

‘Can I point out,’ the abbé said, ‘that we’ve nothing left to sit on? My feet are aching. This whole place looks like a rout.’

They sat on the floor, on tiles strewn with sawdust by the removers. The abbé was on form.

‘Well, this is a moment to take stock. A unique occasion. Not a terribly solemn location. Thanks to the moon we can see a little of each other. Not too much. Besides, we all know each other’s faces: my ugly mug, Antoine’s, which has collected a certain ruddiness of its own, with age and training, Jean’s handsome countenance. Let me take this opportunity, dear boy, to point out to you that in this life a handsome face is a handicap to be overcome. You are going to arouse some serious resentment. By way of compensation, girls will fall into your arms like manna upon the poor and needy. Mind how you go. That is what an elderly priest advises. Now, where were we? Who has bought this house?’

‘The Longuets,’ Antoine said.

The abbé tipped up the bottle and swallowed another mouthful. He did not like embarrassing situations. This one deeply offended his sense of tradition, and he hesitated over the standpoint he should take. Madame Longuet was perhaps not such a saintly woman as he liked to tell himself, but, at least towards him, she behaved with uncommon generosity. He even believed that deep down she was sincere in her faith, trying to leave her past behind and working with all her being towards redemption, of her soul and others’. Of course Monsieur Longuet did not inspire much confidence, and as for young Gontran, he had the makings of an out-and-out miscreant, despite his mother’s good example.

‘Well, Father, what do you think?’ Jean asked, delighted to see the priest on the defensive.

‘Nothing, my child. I think absolutely nothing. People do what they wish with their money. The Longuets have money. It is no more a crime to have money than not have any. I believe they will respect La Sauveté.’

‘What about my parents?’

‘Your father has had words with both Monsieur Longuet and the son. He should have shown more patience—’

‘I wonder if they’ve emptied the cellar,’ said Antoine, who could not care less about the Longuets. ‘Actually there wasn’t much left. A cellar is the work of a lifetime. I drank my father’s and I’m not leaving one for my son. I was right about that, at least. He only drinks water.’

‘Antoinette would definitely have appreciated it!’ Jean ventured to say.

‘Antoinette? Do you think so?’

‘Let’s go and see,’ said the abbé, rather interested in the idea.

When dawn broke they were to be found outside, on a bench, with two empty bottles at their feet. Jean slept. Grangeville’s parish priest was a little pale, but his speech was clear. Antoine felt tiredness overwhelming him and calculated that caution dictated a departure later in the day. A silhouette roused them from their lethargy. Albert was watering the flowerbeds. Antoine called to him.

‘Who are you watering for?’

‘For the honour of it, Captain.’

‘There’s no honour left.’

‘You’ll never make me believe that. And Jean would be better off in his bed. I hope he hasn’t been drinking.’

‘Don’t worry. He’s a man now, and a responsible one.’

Jean opened his eyes onto a new world. La Sauveté, emptied of its furniture, no longer symbolised anything for him, and despite his persistence he had been unable to extract any information about his birth from either the abbé or Monsieur du Courseau. He felt weary and stiff, the opposite of how he wanted to feel for Sunday’s challenges.

‘Well, dear boy, we slept!’ the abbé said, retying his bootlaces before he set out for the rectory.

‘Nowhere near enough. I don’t feel at all well.’

‘You sporty types! What weeds you are! Now at your age—’

‘At my age, Father, you definitely weren’t rowing.’

‘Not rowing! What’s punting, then?’

‘We’re not talking about the same thing.’

Jean was feeling increasingly resentful towards the abbé. He was an excellent man, but he knew … Was he still supposed to feel bound by the seal of the confessional in a case like this?

‘Go to bed!’ Albert said in a tone that he intended to sound peremptory.

A day of the purest pink was breaking behind the trees. Antoine kissed Jean.

‘We shall meet again. I shan’t forget you.’

‘How will I know where you are?’

‘You and I don’t need an address. You’ll find me.’

The abbé, standing, stretched out his arms. He looked like a scarecrow. A strong smell came from his threadbare cassock.

‘I have a mass at seven o’clock.’

‘See you later, Father,’ Jean said.

‘See you later, my boy.’

Jean walked past Albert, who pretended not to see him. Antoine stroked the Bugatti’s bonnet, damp with dew.

‘We shall see the priest home, and then set out for the south!’ he whispered to his car.

‘I shall walk, if you don’t mind,’ the abbé said. ‘Some gentle jogging , that’s the way to stay healthy.’

‘I didn’t know you spoke English.’

‘Neither did I!’

‘Farewell, Albert. Don’t hold all this against me.’

‘I don’t hold it against you, Captain. Jeanne was the one who cried all night.’

‘My family didn’t cry at all.’

‘It’s not the same thing.’

Antoine decided not to pursue the subject. He opened the driver’s door and climbed into his coupé. The Atalante’s starter turned once and was replaced by the engine’s soft rumble. He smiled. He waved joyfully to the gardener and the priest who were watching him, their heads bare, and he did not even glance at the house he was leaving behind him. It meant nothing any longer. He was already thinking about Marie-Dévote’s breasts and Toinette’s cool little arms around his neck. As he drove out of the gates he told himself that he would never see this house again nor, very probably, his children. Life had gone by very quickly, and all that stood out from its colourlessness were the sparkling pictures of the bay of Saint-Tropez as it appeared on the way down the scent-drenched slopes from Grimaud, and of Marie-Dévote as a girl, her skirt hitched up above her long olive-skinned legs, washing the gutted fish in the wavelets that lapped and spread on the flat sand. He was tempted to try to make it to the Midi without stopping, but after making a small misjudgement on a bend he realised how tired he was and decided to sleep just outside Rouen. After dinner, fed and rested, he set out for Lyon as night fell. The 3.3 litres of the 57S accelerated effortlessly to 150 kilometres an hour, and on the straights the speedometer needle ran out at 200.

Let us leave Antoine du Courseau for now. Relieved of all that weighed upon him only the day before, he is driving away to the only life he loves, carrying a cheque in his pocket that represents his last assets. But despite what he says, he is not a man to fear the future. When he is near Marie-Dévote, the future does not exist. Nothing counts apart from her. We are, as you will have guessed, in 1936. Léon Blum has been prime minister since June. Sylvère Maes, a Belgian, has won the Tour de France, and at the Olympic Games Germany, with forty-nine gold medals, has become the leading nation of the sporting world. We French have had to make do with Despeaux and Michelot’s golds in boxing, Charpentier’s in cycling, Fourcade and Tapié’s bronzes in the coxed pair, and Chauvigné, Cosmat and the Vandernotte brothers’ in the coxed four. But cycling has lost its fascination for Jean. Even Antonin Magne’s victory at the World Championship has failed to keep his interest alive. He has abandoned racing handlebars and competition rims for a touring bike with low-pressure tyres. Rowing has taken over as his passion, from the day he saw young Englishmen rowing on the Thames at Hampton Court. With Geneviève’s money and another postal order from the prince, he has bought himself a scull and trains regularly, every Saturday and Sunday. He has taken part in several competitions, so far without success, but he has been noticed and at Dieppe Rowing Club the coaches are keen to team him with another rower in a coxless pair. He is not sure, he prefers to row solo, find his own ideal rhythm, because he has a slow start but always finishes faster than his opponents, despite so far failing to make up all of the lost time. Rowing entirely satisfies his idea of what sport should be. It demands total energy, consummate skill and a permanently alert tactical intelligence. It’s also the most complete sort of athleticism, developing shoulders, biceps, stomach muscles and legs. At seventeen, Jean is a superb young man of almost six foot, broad-shouldered and with long, strong legs; he is not particularly talkative, as if he is afraid of wasting his strength or disapproves of the futile verbal excitement of the world he lives in. When a competition finishes he is not to be seen mixing with other club members, but in the changing room, where he showers at length as part of his rigorous routine of hygiene in both physical and dietary spheres. Lastly, in June he took his baccalauréat in philosophy and passed with distinction. Jeanne was all the prouder because she has no idea what philosophy is, and feels, with her habitual modesty, that it is too late for her to ask Monsieur the abbé to explain it to her. Albert, apparently better informed, grumbled something along the lines of ‘philosophy doesn’t put food on a man’s table’. Albert is ageing, and recent events have given his pacifism a battering. He votes socialist more out of loyalty than credulity, and no longer believes in the slogan ‘Socialism for peace’. Germany is back, united and terrifying. Not yet armed, as a nation it nevertheless represents an enormous physical mass at which no one wants to take the first shot. Its youth and enthusiasm are humiliating in a lamentably weak and divided Europe. Albert no longer knows what to think. There are times when he would prefer to die, so as not to have to see what is going to happen. To be proud of Jean he would have to forget that this handsome, healthy, intelligent boy isn’t his son. He cannot. Jean is so utterly different. And as the months go by, the gulf between them widens, though the boy has never expressed the slightest suspicion or made the least wounding remark about his adoptive parents. Does he know? Albert wonders. Too many people around the family do. Somehow the truth must have come out.