William Maxwell - The Chateau

“Plenty,” Harold said, nodding.

“Good.”

The image of a true friend was dimmer; was fading like a rainbow or any other transitory natural phenomenon, but it was still visible. When Eugène left, Harold woke Barbara, and as he was hurriedly getting into his clothes he began to whistle. It was their turn to do something for Eugène. And if they cared to, they could be both preoccupied and moody as they went about it.

When Barbara wheeled the teacart into Mme Cestre’s drawing room, the four heads were raised. The four men rose, and the Germans clicked their heels politely as Eugène presented them to her and then to Harold, who had come in after her. All three were pale, thin, and nervous. One had pink-tinted rimless glasses, and one had ears that stuck straight out from his head, and one was tall and blond (the pure Nordic abstraction, the race that never was) with wide, bony shoulders, concave chest, hollow stomach, and the trousers of a much heavier man hanging from his hip bones.

“Do sit down,” Barbara said.

Herr von Rothenberg, the Nordic type, spoke French and English fluently, and the two others told him what they wanted to say and he translated for them. They had traveled as far as the French border by plane, and from there by train. They had arrived in Paris at daybreak.

“We were very surprised,” Herr von Rothenberg said to the Americans. “We did not expect to find Paris intact. We had understood that it was largely ruins, like London and Berlin.”

He was not entirely happy that Paris had been spared. It offended his sense of what is fair. But he did not say this; it only came out in his voice, his troubled expression.

The Germans politely took the cups that Eugène handed them, but allowed their coffee to grow cold. Barbara had to urge it on them, and point again and again to the bread and butter on their plates, before they could bring themselves to eat. Their extreme delicacy in the presence of food seemed to say: It was most kind of M. de Boisgaillard to offer us these cigarettes, and surely something is to be gained from a discussion of the kind we are having, between the people who have lost a war and those who, for reasons history will eventually make clear, have won it. But as for eating — we do not care to impose on anyone, we are accustomed to being faint with hunger, we have much more often than not, the last few years, gone without breakfast. We would prefer to continue with what M. de Boisgaillard was saying about the establishment of a central bureau that would have control over credit and …

In the end, though, the bread was eaten, the coffee was drunk, and on two of the plates there was a pile of orange peelings. The third orange remained untouched. Barbara looked inquiringly from it to the young man whose ears stuck out, and whose orange it was. He smiled at her timidly and then looked at Eugène, who was telephoning and ignored his appeal. Pointing to the orange, the young man whose ears stuck out said, in halting English: “The first in twelve years.” He hesitated and then, since Eugène was still talking into the telephone and Barbara was still waiting and the orange had not been snatched from him, said: “I have a wife. And ten days ago a baby is born.… Could I take this orange with me, to give to her?”

Barbara explained that there were more oranges, and that he could eat this one. He put it in his pocket, instead.

Eugène was trying to find a place for the Germans to stay. They listened to the one-sided telephone conversations with a sympathetic interest, as if it were the welfare of three other young men he was devoting himself to with such persistence.

Finally, as the morning dragged on, the Americans excused themselves and left the drawing room, taking the teacart with them.

“Terrible,” Harold said.

“Terrible,” she agreed.

“I didn’t know there were Germans like that.”

“Did you hear what he said about the orange?”

“Yes, I heard. We must remember to send some back with them.”

“But what will become of them?”

“God knows.”

“Do you think they were Nazis? ”

“No, of course not. How could they have been? Probably they never even heard of Hitler.”

At noon, Barbara wheeled the teacart out of the kitchen again, and down the hall to Mme Cestre’s drawing room, which was now murky with cigarette smoke. The men sprang to their feet and waited for her to sit down, but she shook her head and left them. She and Harold ate in the kitchen, sitting on stools. They had just finished cleaning up when Eugène appeared in the doorway.

“I am much obligated to you, Barbara,” he said. “It is a very great kindness that you do for me.”

“It was nothing,” she said. “Did you find a place for them to stay?”

He shook his head. “I have told them that they can stay here. But you will not have to do this any more. I have made other arrangements. The person who comes in by the day when we are all here will cook for them. Her name is Françoise. She is a very nice woman. If you want anything, just tell her and she will do it for you. I did not like to ask her because her son was in a concentration camp and she does not like Germans.”

“But what are they doing in Paris?” Harold asked.

“They are trying to get to Rome,” Eugène said. “They want to attend an international conference there. Arrangements had been made for them to go by way of Switzerland, but they decided to go by way of Paris, instead. They used up their money on train fare. And unfortunately in all of Paris no one knows of a fund that provides for an emergency of this kind or a place that will take them in. Herr von Rothenberg I met at an official reception in Berlin, last year. He is of a very good family. The other two I did not know before.… You have Sabine’s address? She is expecting you at eight.”

THE ADDRESS that Eugène gave them turned out to be a modern apartment building on a little square that was named after a poet whose works Harold had read in college but could no longer remember; they had joined with the works of three other romantic poets, as drops of water on a window pane join and become one larger drop. A sign by the elevator shaft said that the elevator was out of order. They rang Sabine’s bell and started climbing. Craning his neck, he saw that she was waiting for them, six floors up. She called down over the banister: “I’m sorry you have such a long climb,” and he called up: “Are you as happy to see us as we are to see you?”

She had on a little starched white apron, over her blouse and skirt. She shook hands with them, took the flowers that Barbara held out to her, and, looking into the paper cone, exclaimed: “Marguerites! They are my favorite. And a book?”

“ A Passage to India, ” Harold said. “We saw it in the window of a bookstore.”

“I will be most interested to read it,” she said. “This is my uncle’s apartment—did Eugène tell you? The family is away now. I am here alone. My uncle collects paintings and objets d’art. There is a Sargent in the next room.… I must put these beautiful flowers in water. You will not mind if I am a little distracted? I am not used to cooking.”

She and Barbara went off to the kitchen together, and Harold stood at the window and peered down at the little square. Then he started around the room, looking at Chinese carvings and porcelains and at the paintings on the walls. When the two girls came back with a bottle of Cinzano and glasses, he was standing in front of a small Renoir.

“It’s charming, isn’t it?” Sabine said.

“Very,” he said.

“In my aunt’s apartment there is a bookcase with art books in it— Have you found it yet?”