Michel Déon - The Foundling Boy

‘The prince?’

‘Yes. And Madame Geneviève. They’re here. I’m waiting to take them to dinner in Parioli, they should be here any moment now. Are you on your own in Rome?’

‘No, I’m here with a friend, Ernst, he’s German.’

Jean turned around to look for Ernst, but he was no longer standing on the far pavement.

‘Isn’t he with you?’

‘He was, but it looks as if he’s run away. He’s shy.’

‘Unless he doesn’t like people with black skin,’ Salah said, lighting a cigarette.

‘I don’t think that’s the reason. He’s really just very unsociable.’

Jean admired himself for lying so well, but Ernst’s disappearance disconcerted him.

‘He must be waiting for me at the bottom of the steps. A strange boy: he can stand there for hours watching a fountain. Oh, Salah, I’m so glad to see you again.’

‘Me too, me too. How many years has it been?’

‘Four.’

‘No time at all. Are you still on your bicycle?’

‘Yes, but no more training, no more races. I’ve got an old man’s bike. I’m rowing now, at Dieppe Rowing Club.’

‘Ah, now I understand why you look so fit.’

‘How’s your father?’

‘He died. In my absence my half-brothers and sisters took everything he possessed. One less thing for me to worry about … Ah, here comes the prince.’

The doorman from the Adler, cap in hand, walked ahead of a tall, thin man in a coat with a velvet collar who, despite the warmth of the evening, seemed about to faint from cold.

‘Monseigneur,’ Salah said in French, ‘this is Jean Arnaud.’

‘Little Jean from Grangeville?’

‘Yes, Monseigneur, it’s me.’

‘I don’t recognise you, but I’m sure it is you. What are you doing in Rome?’

‘I’m visiting with a German friend. I must thank you. It’s thanks to you—’

‘I hate people saying thank you. If you want to thank me one day, you must warn me in advance.’

The doorman was holding the door of the limousine open. Jean did not know what to say. Salah, witnessing his embarrassment, came to his aid.

‘Are we waiting for Madame, Monseigneur?’

‘Madame is tired, she won’t be coming.’

As if he had realised the terseness of his last remark, he added in a softer and more controlled voice, ‘Come with me, Jean. Salah will bring you back here when he has delivered me.’

Inside the Hispano-Suiza it was almost pitch dark. The car could have been driving through the London suburbs, and its passengers would have been none the wiser. It was apparent that the prince was doing his best not to show his ill humour. Was Geneviève really tired, or had they quarrelled?

‘It’s a very good thing to travel,’ the prince said after a silence. ‘Boys like you must see the world. There are so many things to learn. I hope you have everything you need.’

‘Everything, Monseigneur.’

‘Have you taken your baccalauréat yet?’

‘Yes, with distinction.’

‘Your parents must be very pleased.’

‘I think they are. They haven’t told me so.’

‘La Sauveté has been sold, apparently.’

‘Yes.’

‘To whom?’

‘Some neighbours. The Longuets.’

‘Longuet? That name rings a bell.’

‘To you, Monseigneur?’

Jean saw him smile in the dark.

‘Perhaps it’s a namesake. I vaguely remember meeting a Longuet once. His wife was from Alsace.’

‘That’s them!’ Jean said, surprised.

‘Extremely vulgar people. The sort of vulgarity that reaches the heights of comedy.’

‘That’s definitely them.’

‘So I see.’

They both fell quiet. Through the coupé’s glass panel Jean gazed at the back and white cap of Salah, who was driving like a silent automaton.

‘What are you going to study now?’ the prince asked.

‘My father would like me to go to a technical school: radio, or mechanics.’

‘And you?’

‘I’d like to work. To earn my living. Be independent.’

‘And what will you do with your independence?’

‘Row. I row for Dieppe Rowing Club. I’ve got four years to be selected for the 1940 Olympic Games.’

‘I admire your confidence in the future. Nineteen forty? What could happen between now and then? Never mind … I am a pessimist. I shall see if I can find something for you. My secretary will write to you at La Sauveté.’

The Hispano-Suiza slowed and stopped outside a ravishing, brilliantly lit palace. Two valets in white gloves and high-cut frock coats stood at the gate.

‘Goodbye, Jean,’ the prince said. ‘Salah, take our friend back to his hotel. I shall see you here at eleven.’

‘Yes, Monseigneur.’

Jean watched the frail figure climb the steps of the little Renaissance palace.

‘Let’s go and have a drink,’ Salah said, taking off his cap and white jacket.

Jean got in the front, and the car silently descended the slopes of Parioli into the centre of Rome. Salah stopped near Piazza del Popolo and led Jean into a brasserie that had nothing Roman about it. Everyone was drinking draught beer, and men were smoking strong cigars whose pungent aroma filled the room.

‘Why here?’ Jean asked.

‘Someone is meeting me here. What will you drink?’

‘The same as everyone else, I suppose.’

Salah ordered beer and a lemonade for himself.

‘You still don’t drink!’

‘No,’ Salah said. ‘It’s a rule of dietary hygiene. So tell me. What has happened in the last four years?’

Jean told him in a few words the story of La Sauveté, its sale, Antoine’s departure for an unknown destination somewhere in the south of France, and Madame du Courseau building a house for Antoinette and Michel on the cliffs. A page had been turned. Did Geneviève know?

‘Ah. It’s hard to know what she knows.’

‘I had an impression that the prince was cross with her this evening.’

Salah laughed, his dark face lightened by his fine teeth.

‘She can be capricious, I must admit, but everyone loves her that way. If she were to change, no one would pay any attention to her any more.’

‘I would really like to meet her.’

‘Tomorrow, maybe. She is somebody … how can I put it … she’s volatile. Her charm is extraordinary, and she exploits it.’

‘It’s amazing how well you speak French, Salah. Do you still have lessons with Madame Germaine?’

‘Madame Germaine? … Oh yes. Poor thing.’

‘Why poor thing?’

‘She died … murdered, I think. Perhaps by a student she treated too harshly. No, I don’t have lessons any more, but I read a lot. A chauffeur’s life is marvellously lazy. You wait. That’s all. I make the most of it by devouring books. At the moment I’m reading my way through the whole French nineteenth century. When you found me, I was deep in Sentimental Education. Have you read Flaubert?’

‘A bit,’ Jean said cautiously.

In fact he had read only a single extract from Salammbô at school, and remembered a dictation in which an old servant appeared with her hands bleached from doing the laundry. He decided to steer the conversation to Stendhal.

‘Yes, he is more exciting,’ Salah said, ‘but so terribly French that I can’t always understand him. Compared to him, Flaubert is perfect. You think you’re hearing—’

He broke off. The glass street door had just opened, and a woman in a bright red dress and hat entered. She saw Salah and came to their table.

‘Hello,’ she said in English, ‘am I late?’

‘No, sit down … Maria, Jean.’

Jean felt that he knew her face, and her dark and slightly too powdered complexion. She took off her hat, freeing a mass of frizzy blond hair that was obviously dyed. On Via Veneto she might have been glimpsed walking with her bust thrust out aggressively, but she wasn’t on Via Veneto, she was Salah’s girlfriend, speaking English more easily than French or Italian.