Michel Déon - The Foundling Boy

‘You’re not much of a pen pal, are you? Nor me, I must admit, though I have an excuse: I’m working like a slave …’

‘When’s your exhibition?’

‘My exhibition?’

‘Of drawings.’

Joseph roared with laughter: he had given up all that nonsense months ago. He had encountered an impregnable wall of rejection. Every gallery, without exception. Jean had no idea how resistant dealers were towards new ideas, and artists themselves guarded the territory like wolves. You had to be utterly naïve to expect to make a breakthrough in times like these. Conditions were turning out to be the worst they had ever been: the big money was investing in Impressionists, the safe money in tinned food, for when war broke out. Joseph had destroyed his whole winter’s work with a light heart.

‘So what are you doing?’

‘My dear chap, you know the words of Monsieur Homais: “One must move with the times.” The idiocy of Flaubert’s character is summed up in those words. We shouldn’t be trailing behind the times or moving with them. We need to anticipate them. For what lies ahead of us? Nothing could be clearer. Hitler will soon annex the Sudetenland. France and Great Britain will declare war on him. Germany, whose military strength is nothing but a bluff, will be overrun by us within three weeks. Nothing very extraordinary there, except that we shall find ourselves face to face with the Soviet Union in a Europe dominated by Paris and London. Stalin will attack us. There will be a short and nasty war, and three months later Tartars and Kalmucks will be parading through Paris. That is the moment Chiang Kai-shek will choose to attack Siberia for supplying the Communist rebels. Eight hundred million Chinese will rush at the Soviet paradise. Why should they stop politely at the West’s borders? They’ll keep going until they reach Paris, Madrid, Lisbon and Rome. The future is Chinese, because the USA won’t intervene. The two Americas will shut themselves up inside their Monroe doctrine. Can you imagine what our life will be like at that moment? Two hundred and fifty million Europeans wrestling with a Chinese army of occupation? Who will translate when General Chi Ho-li wants to order his café au lait each morning? There aren’t twenty Frenchmen who speak and write Chinese. I intend to be the twentieth. For two months I have been learning Chinese.’

‘In Dieppe?’

‘Yes. Obviously I should be in Paris at the School of Oriental Languages, but our education system is completely fossilised. I’d be taught literary Chinese. Can you see me, armed with my literary Chinese, translating a peace treaty for Chiang Kai-shek or discussing his generals’ requisition requirements line by line? They’d laugh in my face. But I’ve found an extraordinary chap here, Li Pou, who used to be a cook on a cargo ship, well read, a veteran of the civil war. He has taken me in hand. I work with him for two hours every day. Progress is slow for brains like ours, which have been trained by logic and generalisations. But I give you less than a year, no more than two, before you come and say to me, “Joseph, you were right.” So why don’t you make a start too? Just a second …’

He drew back from Jean, startling him.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘You’re looking very swish. Have you made your fortune?’

‘I only own what I’m wearing.’

‘Good. You had me worried for a moment. Think hard about what I said, and come and see me this week. I’ll introduce you to Li Pou. You’re made to get on with one another.’

Jean thanked him. He would think about it. In the meantime he needed to find Monsieur de Malemort, who, having sold his two calves, had probably gone to ground in one of the cafés around the market and been doing himself no good. That was the gist of the mission with which the marquise had discreetly entrusted him that morning. Joseph smiled condescendingly: the aristos were jumping the gun a little. They would be better off drowning their sorrows when the Chinese came. He personally was very happy: he knew he was backing the right horse.

Jean left him sadly. He no longer saw Joseph the way he once had, as a big older brother whose life was a lesson in energy and adventure, but increasingly as a loser who laid every failure at the door of a general hostility to his talents. Jean felt that the world he had once lived in had not matured in the way he had. What had happened to turn the marquis into little more than a narrow-minded farmer, Chantal perhaps into a tart, to make Antoinette a has-been, Michel an ambiguous figure, and Albert — so decent and honest — an old quibbler? What had changed: them, or his own outlook on life? How he would love to have been left with his illusions intact. It was impossibly sad. He found Monsieur de Malemort at a café and managed to get him home, not without difficulty. Having put on an old pair of trousers and a wool shirt, he was about to go out into the fields with him on his tractor when the rain started, drowning the château and and its farm. Jean recognised the smell of Normandy: green and melancholy. The marquis pulled off his boots with an effort, changed into a sports jacket and grey trousers, and fell asleep in an armchair reading a farming paper. Chantal sat in silence next to her mother, who was knitting. From time to time Madame de Malemort glanced at the streaming window. Night was falling, buffeted by gusts of wind.

When Chantal came to Jean’s bedroom after dinner, she was no longer the same defeated young woman.

‘Do you understand now?’ she said aggressively.

‘Yes, I think I do.’

They appreciated each other better after this exchange, and their enjoyment was great. Too great for Jean to leave her behind.

‘Living here is like dying,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to die. When are we going to run away?’

‘As soon as I’ve seen the abbé.’

‘The abbé won’t tell you anything.’

‘I’m afraid you’re right, but he’s my last chance.’

Chantal’s expression hardened.

‘I won’t wait another day.’

‘Who will you go with if I don’t take you tomorrow?’

‘What’ll it matter to you?’

‘It will be unbearable.’

She threw herself into his arms. He undressed her slowly and let her misery overflow as he held her until dawn. The longest night of his life was ending in a defeat that he needed to turn into a victory, as Julien Sorel had done.

Chantal woke up. ‘So?’

‘We’re catching the train to Paris this afternoon.’

Antoinette lent him the money, knowing what he intended it for. Timidly Albert reminded his son that war was looming and that no boy of twenty, sound in heart and mind, should take part in the madness to come.

‘Desert!’ he said in a choked voice. ‘I’ll help you.’

Monsieur Cliquet gave him the address of a former railway worker, a friend of his, retired for fifteen years but living on the top floor of a building that flanked the Gare de l’Est, from where he followed the movements of the trains. Jean could trust him: he was a man of great resource. Captain Duclou knew no one at the ministry but one of his cousins, a former navy carpenter, lived at Bezons, north-west of Paris. His advice was always good, and he had many connections in his locality.

Jean left first, quietly, carrying his suitcases. The butcher’s car dropped him off at Grangeville, where he waited for the bus at the stop outside the grocer’s. He was nearly knocked down as he stood there by a red Delahaye that swept out of La Sauveté like a whirlwind, driven by a young man in a white bandana. By the time he reached Dieppe station Chantal was already settled in a compartment in one of the front carriages. He found a seat in an adjacent compartment until the train pulled out.