Michel Déon - The Foundling Boy

Palfy did not turn up at the restaurant, and when Jean called Madeleine the telephone rang vainly in an empty apartment. He left a message at the Carlton, went to bed, read, and slept. The next day Palfy remained untraceable, but when he called Madeleine again she answered immediately.

‘Yesterday night? I must have gone out for five minutes to get cigarettes. I don’t leave the apartment for anything else, as you know. It must have been you I heard — around nine? — as I had my key in the door. I ran, but I was too late. I was afraid it might be Palfy. He would have been furious.’

‘Why?’

‘He likes me to be at home then.’

‘Oh. Okay … Listen, I need to see him, the sooner the better. Tell him, will you?’

‘Mm. Jean … do you think he’s really a baron?’

‘He’s as much a baron as I am.’

‘You’re a baron too! I thought so.’

He did not have the heart to disillusion her. That evening, before dinner, he went for a walk by the port. A new liner was waiting out to sea, and launches were leaving, loaded with passengers. The exodus was under way, still hardly perceptible but clear enough for it to be unmistakable nevertheless. Jean mingled with the other onlookers and friends of travellers gathering on the quay. The yellow Hispano-Suiza appeared, driven by a white chauffeur with Salah seated beside him. It stopped in front of the customs building. A nurse came forwards, pushing a wheelchair. Salah and the chauffeur sat the prince carefully in it. Geneviève followed, wearing a light-coloured dress and a beret, with a travelling coat over one arm and a jewellery bag in her other hand. Jean had time to register her lightly made-up face and see its sadness and disarray. How would she survive so far from London and her friends? The group moved towards the police and customs building. They emerged again on the other side of the barrier, and two porters lifted the chair into a launch at whose bow there stood a black sailor in a white turban and uniform. Geneviève turned round to look at the crowd gathered on the quay. If she had known he was there, she would have been able to make him out among the other anxious and curious faces. The launch cast off and pushed back, helped by the sailor at the bow with his gaff. Salah stood next to the prince, one hand resting on the back of the wheelchair, contemplating the diminishing quay, the town switching on its first lights, France and Europe in their last days of peace.

‘The rats are leaving the sinking ship,’ someone said behind Jean.

Other cars were arriving, bringing their passengers: a Cadillac, a Rolls-Royce, a Mercedes, a Bentley. The yellow Hispano-Suiza started up. The chauffeur had taken off his jacket and was smoking a cigarette.

Jean called Madeleine. She sounded anxious. No, the ‘baron’ was not in Cannes. In the society column of the Éclaireur du Soir she had seen a photo of him in a dinner jacket at a reception at the Casino de la Méditerranée at Nice. Perhaps he had stayed on to spend the day there. She also needed to see him urgently. Jean walked the streets of Cannes for a while, alone and lost. He was reluctant to return to his hotel room, for he knew that reading would not banish the two images that had suddenly forced their way back to disturb the peace of mind he thought he had found: Geneviève going away from him towards the Middle East, and Chantal, her long hair tumbling across the pillow, framing her sleeping face. Running away had made no difference. Everything was still there within him, and the one person he would have liked to confide in lived cooped up in Grangeville. Writing to her might alleviate the obscure, nameless pain that he felt.

Dear Antoinette,

Midnight. I have no one to talk to. I wish you were here. I want mussels, cider and apples. I dream of a green field. I saw your sister just now, boarding a ship for Lebanon. It hurt to see her go, as if I had lost someone dear to me. It seems impossible to deny that I’m as attached to the du Courseaus (not all of them!) as I am to my own family. A question I hardly dare ask: where is Chantal? Do you know? With love, Jean

In his notebook he wrote:

m) Writing is a wonderful exorcism. A letter to Antoinette and I feel better. And often — not often enough — this notebook has served to show me things more clearly in the muddle of every day. Everything’s so complicated! And no one warned me. All I was told were platitudes. Geneviève could have talked to me. It didn’t happen, and doubtless Palfy was right to put me on my guard. Now there she is, disappearing. I shan’t forget the real heartbreak there was for me in her last fleeting appearance. Where did I read, ‘The heart must either break or turn to lead’? Mine will have to turn to lead, or I’ll be no good for anything.

n) We know nothing about other people. Or rather, others know everything about me and I know nothing of them. On my list of questions that I need to resolve, one of the most important is about the prince and Salah. After the message Salah gave me to pass on, I no longer see him in the same light. Palfy has to clear up this mystery, as he also needs to tell me what he is up to with Madeleine.

o) I have placed the prince’s envelope on the table in front of me. It is the apple of the tree of knowledge. Am I Adam or am I Eve?

Next morning the Toinette docked at the marina and Jean had to give Théo some bad news. The group of English tourists booked for that day had just cancelled. The agency was sinking under the weight of telegrams from holidaymakers announcing that they would rather not come just now. Théo took it badly.

‘What are they worried about, these Angliches ? That we’ll make corned beef out of their suckling-pig hides? The war? But there isn’t going to be any war in Cannes. Two weeks, two weeks I tell you, my fine friend, is all it will take General Gamelin to drive those Germans straight back to Berlin with a marching band to lead the way. I tell you … the Saint-Tropez brass band is ready to go. Right out in front!’

Jean stayed on board for lunch. He enjoyed Théo’s posturing and unflagging swagger, and for once Toinette was not unreachable. She had no one to serve and she stayed sitting at her father’s side, leafing distractedly through a fashion magazine. She was listening, without appearing to, and refilling their glasses. Jean watched her lovely fifteen-year-old face, her beautiful light eyes, from her mother almost certainly, her long chestnut-coloured hair and her bare arm as she poured, with its still-childlike hand. Who would be the first to capture this sweet being, so lovely in her simplicity and natural beauty? The first Gontran Longuet who appeared on a motorbike or at the wheel of a red Delahaye, most likely, if all women were the same.

There was a moment when he mentioned he was from Normandy. Toinette looked up and stared at him. Théo noticed.

‘That always sets her off. Her uncle’s Norman. He talks to her about Normandy sometimes, how it rains there and the light, when there is any, it’s very pretty.’

‘Does he often come to see you?’ Jean asked.

‘Does … He lives with us! He only likes the Midi now. He’s a funny bloke, I can tell you. He owns a Bugatti.’

Jean no longer had any doubts. Antoine du Courseau was alive and well at Saint-Tropez, unbeknown to his family, and this shy, graceful child was not his niece but his daughter. If you looked carefully you could see straight away some of Geneviève’s features, and that look Antoinette had had at the same age, as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. And her name! Toinette. The boat. The hotel and its sign: Chez Antoine. Everything was becoming clear.

‘What are you thinking about?’ Théo asked.