Suite Française

by Irene Nemirovsky

  Within a few minutes she was in the village. She had some difficulty waking Maître Charboeuf, who was a sound sleeper, and even more trouble persuading him he had to come to the nursing home right away. Maître Charboeuf, whom the local girls called “Big Baby” because of his chubby pink cheeks and full lips, had an easygoing nature and a wife who terrified him. He got dressed, sighing, and headed for the nursing home. He found Monsieur Péricand wide awake, very red and burning with fever.

  “Here’s the notary,” the nun said.

  “Sit down, sit down,” said the old man. “There’s no time to lose.”

  The notary asked the nursing home’s gardener and three sons to act as witnesses. Seeing that Monsieur Péricand was in a hurry, he took some paper out of his pocket and prepared to start writing.

  “I’m ready, Monsieur. If you would, please first tell me your surname, Christian names and title.”

  “You’re not Nogaret?”

  Péricand came back to his senses. He glanced at the nursing home’s walls, at the plaster statue of St. Joseph opposite his bed, at the two amazing roses Sister Marie of the Chérubins had picked from the window box and put into a slim blue vase. He tried to work out where he was and why he was alone, but gave up. He was dying, there it was, and he wished to have a proper death. This final act, this death, this Will, how many times had he imagined them, the final brilliant performance of a Péricand-Maltête on this earth. For ten years he had been nothing more than a pitiful old man who needed someone else to dress him and wipe his nose, and now suddenly he could reclaim his rightful place! To punish, reward, disappoint, delight, distribute his worldly goods according to his own wishes. To control everyone. To influence everyone. To come first. (Afterwards, there would be a ceremony in which he would indeed come first, in a black coffin, on a raised platform, with flowers, but he would be there only symbolically or as a winged spirit, while here, once more, he was alive . . .)

  “What is your name?” he asked quietly.

  “Maître Charboeuf,” the notary said unassumingly.

  “All right, it doesn’t matter. Let’s get on with it.”

  He began dictating slowly, with difficulty, as if he were reading sentences written for himself and visible only to him.

  “Before Maître Charboeuf . . . notary at . . . and in the presence of . . .” mumbled the notary, “Monsieur Péricand in person . . .”

  Monsieur Péricand made a feeble attempt at saying his name louder, to emphasise its importance, but had to pause for breath, making it impossible for him to enunciate the prestigious syllables individually. His purple hands fluttered for a moment over the sheets, like puppets: he thought he was writing thick black marks on white paper, as he had in the past, when he signed cards, bonds, sales documents, contracts: Péricand . . . Pé—ri—cand, Louis-Auguste.

  “Residing at?”

  “18 Boulevard Delessert, Paris.”

  “In ill health, but sound of mind, he comes before the notary and witnesses,” said Charboeuf, glancing up at the sick man and looking doubtful.

  He was overwhelmed by this dying man. He was fairly experienced; his clients were mainly local farmers, but all rich men make their wills the same way. This was a rich man, there was no doubt about it. Even though he was wearing one of the nursing home’s coarse nightshirts, it was clear he was someone important. To be of service like this to him on his deathbed—Maître Charboeuf felt honoured. “Do you wish, Monsieur, to name your son as sole beneficiary?”

  “Yes, I bequeath all my worldly goods and possessions to Adrien Péricand, with instructions for him to deposit immediately and without delay five million to the charitable institution I founded, known as the Penitent Children of the 16th Arrondissement. This institution is instructed to commission an excellent artist to paint a life-size portrait of me on my deathbed, or to sculpt a bust that is a good likeness of me, and to place it in the entrance hall of the aforementioned establishment. To my dearly beloved sister Adèle-Emilienne-Louise, to compensate her for the feud caused by the inheritance left me by our venerable mother, Henriette Maltête, I do bequeath as hers and hers alone the property I own in Dunkerque bought in 1912 with all its existing buildings and that portion of the docks which also belongs to me. I entrust my son with the responsibility of carrying out this wish. I desire that my château in Bléoville, in the Vorhange region in Calvados, be turned into a home for former soldiers severely wounded in the war, preferably for those who have been paralysed or have suffered mental breakdowns. I desire that a simple plaque be displayed on the wall inscribed with the words ‘Péricand-Maltête Charitable Institution, in memory of his two sons killed in Champagne.’ When the war is over . . .”

  “I think . . . I think it is over,” Maître Charboeuf shyly interjected.

  But he didn’t realise that Monsieur Péricand was thinking about the last war, the one that had taken two sons from him and tripled his fortune. He was back in September 1918, just after their victory, when he had nearly died of a bout of pneumonia and when, in the presence of his family gathered at his bedside (all the relatives from the north and south had rushed to be there when they heard the news), he had performed what turned out to be a rehearsal of his death: he had dictated his last wishes then and they had remained intact within him until now, when he could give them life.

  “When the war is over, I wish a monument to be built to honour the dead for which I bequeath the sum of three thousand francs to be taken from my estate and to be erected on the town square in Bléoville. At the top, in large gold letters, the names of my two oldest sons, then a space, then . . .” he closed his eyes, exhausted, “. . . then all the other names in small letters . . .”

  He was silent for such a long time that the notary looked anxiously at the Sisters. Was he . . . ? Was it all over already? But Sister Marie of the Chérubins calmly shook her head. He wasn’t dead yet. He was thinking. In his motionless body, his memory was travelling through immense spans of time and space: “Almost all of my fortune is tied up in American stocks and bonds, which I was advised would be a good investment. I don’t believe it any more.” He shook his beard mournfully. “I don’t believe it any more. I wish my son to convert them immediately into French francs. There is also some gold, but it’s not worth keeping. It should be sold. A copy of my portrait should also be placed in the château in Bléoville in the downstairs ballroom. I bequeath to my faithful valet an annual income of one thousand francs for the rest of his life. As for my future great-grandchildren, I wish their parents to name the boys Louis-Auguste and the girls Louise-Augustine after me.”

  “Is that everything?” Maître Charboeuf asked.

  He bowed his long beard, indicating yes, that was everything. For a few moments that seemed brief to the notary, the witnesses and the Sisters, but to him were as long as a century, as long as delirium, as long as a dream, Monsieur Péricand-Maltête moved back in time to recall the life he had been given on this earth: the family dinners, the Boulevard Delessert, naps in the drawing room, Albert the cat on his lap; the last time he saw his older brother when they had parted vowing never to have anything more to do with each other (and he had secretly bought back the shares in that deal). Jeanne, his wife in Bléoville, hunched up with rheumatism, lying on a cane chaise longue in the garden, holding a paper fan (she died a week later), and Jeanne, in Bléoville, thirty-five years earlier, just after their wedding, when some bees had come in through the open window and were gathering pollen from the lilies in her bridal bouquet and the garland of orange blossom thrown at the foot of the bed. Jeanne had rushed into his arms, laughing, so he could protect her . . .

  Then he was certain he could feel death approaching. He made a startled little gesture (as if he was trying to get through a door that was too narrow for him, saying, “No, please, after you”) and a look of surprise appeared on his face. “Is this what it is?” he seemed to say. “So this is death, then?” The surprise on his face faded and he looked stern, solemn.


  Maître Charboeuf wrote very quickly, “. . . When the Testator was handed the pen to affix his signature to this Last Will and Testament, he tried to lift his head, but could not, and immediately breathed his last, in the presence of the notary and the witnesses, who nevertheless, after reading the document, signed their names to render the document legal.”

  24

  Jean-Marie, meanwhile, was starting to come round. He had drifted in and out of sleep for four days, semi-conscious and feverish. It was only today he felt a bit stronger. A doctor had been able to come the night before to change the dressing; his temperature had dropped. From where he was lying on the bed, he could see a large, dark kitchen, the white hat on an old woman who was sitting in the corner, beautifully shiny pots on the wall and a calendar depicting a chubby-cheeked French soldier hugging two young women from Alsace, a souvenir of the previous war. It was strange to see how the memories of the last war were still so alive in this house. Four pictures of men in uniform had pride of place: a small tricolour ribbon and a crêpe rosetta were pinned up in a corner; and next to him, to keep him from getting bored during the long hours of his convalescence, was a collection of the 1914–18 editions of L’Illustration bound in green and black.

  He kept overhearing the same phrases in the conversations around him: “Verdun, Charleroi, the Marne . . . ,” “During the other war . . . ,” “When I was part of the occupying forces in Mulhouse . . .” They hardly spoke about the present war, their defeat. It was something they couldn’t quite believe yet. Something that would only become a living, horrible reality a few months later, perhaps a few years later, perhaps not until these little boys with dirty faces that Jean-Marie could see peering over the wooden gate in front of the door grew into men. Wearing torn straw hats, their cheeks rosy or dark-skinned, holding long green sticks, frightened, curious, they stood on tip-toes to make themselves tall enough to see the wounded soldier inside, and when Jean-Marie moved they disappeared, like frogs jumping into the water. Sometimes the open gate let in a chicken, a ferocious old dog, an enormous turkey. Jean-Marie only saw his hosts at mealtimes. During the day, the old woman in the white hat tended to him. In the evening, two young women would sit with him. One was called Cécile, the other Madeleine. For a long time he thought they were sisters. But no. Cécile was the farmer’s daughter and Madeleine was a foster-child. Both of them were attractive, not beautiful but fresh-faced. Cécile had a round red face and lively brown eyes; Madeleine was more delicate, a blonde with bright cheeks, smooth as satin and pink as apple blossom.

  From the young women he learned what had happened that week. As they spoke about it, in their slightly harsh accent, all those terribly serious events lost their tragic element. “It’s really sad,” they would say and, “It’s not very nice to see things like that” . . . “Oh, Monsieur! It’s really upsetting!” He wondered if all the people here spoke like them, or whether it was something much deeper, rooted in the very souls of these girls, in their youth, some instinct that told them that wars end and invaders leave, that even when distorted, even when mutilated, life goes on. His own mother, knitting while the soup was cooking, would sigh and say, “Nineteen-fourteen? That’s the year your father and I got married. We were miserable by the end of it, but very happy at the beginning.” Even that bleak year was sweetened, bathed in the reflection of their love.

  In the same way, he thought, the summer of 1940 would remain in the memories of these young women as the summer they were twenty, in spite of everything. He didn’t want to think; thinking was worse than physical pain, but everything flooded back, everything went round and round in his head endlessly: being called back from leave on 15 May, those four days in Angers, no trains running any more, soldiers lying on wooden boards, being bitten by insects, then the air raids, the bombings, the battle of Rethel, the retreat, the battle of the Somme, another retreat, days when they had fled from city to city, without officers, without orders, without weapons, and finally the train compartment in flames. He tossed and turned, groaning. He didn’t know if the fighting was real, or if it was all a confusing dream born of his thirst and high fever. Come on, it wasn’t possible . . . There are some things that just aren’t possible . . . Hadn’t someone said something about Sédan? That was in 1870. He could picture it still: it was at the top of the page, in the history book with the reddish cloth cover. It was . . . He quietly pronounced the words: “Sédan, the defeat at Sédan . . . the disastrous battle of Sédan decided the outcome of the war . . .” On the wall above him the image on the calender, the smiling rosy-cheeked soldier with the two women from Alsace who were showing off their white stockings . . . Yes, all that was a dream, the past and he . . . he started trembling and said, “Thank you, it’s nothing, thank you, please don’t trouble yourself . . .” while they slipped a hot-water bottle under his heavy, stiff legs.

  “You seem better tonight.”

  “I feel better,” he replied.

  He asked for a mirror and smiled when he saw the black beard on his chin.

  “I’ll have to shave tomorrow . . .”

  “If you’re strong enough. Who do you want to look handsome for?”

  “For you.”

  They laughed and moved closer. They were curious to know where he came from, where he’d been wounded. Now and again, feeling guilty, they would stop talking. “Oh, but you mustn’t let us chatter on . . . you’ll get tired . . . then we’ll start arguing, we will . . . It’s Michaud, your name? . . . Jean-Marie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you from Paris? What do you do? Are you a worker? Of course not! I can tell by your hands. You work in business or maybe in the government?”

  “Just a student.”

  “Oh! You study? Why?”

  “My goodness,” he said after thinking a moment, “I wonder why myself sometimes!”

  It was funny . . . he and his friends had worked, sat and passed exams, earned diplomas, all the time knowing it was pointless, it wouldn’t do them any good because there would be a war . . . Their future had been mapped out in advance, their careers were made in heaven, just like they used to say that “marriages were made in heaven.” He had been conceived while his father was home on leave in 1915. He was born out of the war and (he had always known it) war would be his fate. There was nothing morbid in this idea; he shared it with many boys his age; it was simply logical and reasonable. But, he said to himself, the worst is over now, and that changes everything. Once again there is a future. The war is over—terrible, shameful, but over. And . . . there is hope . . .

  “I wanted to write books,” he said shyly, expressing to these country girls, these strangers, a wish buried deep in his heart that had barely taken shape in his mind.

  Then he wanted to know the name of the place, the farm where he was.

  “It’s far from everywhere,” said Cécile, “the middle of nowhere. Oh, it’s not usually much fun, I can tell you. The more we look after the animals, the more like them we become, right, Madeleine?”

  “Have you been here a long time, Mademoiselle Madeleine?”

  “I was three weeks old. Cécile’s mother brought the two of us up together. We’re sisters, ’cause we nursed from the same mother.”

  “I can see you get along well together.”

  “We don’t always think alike,” said Cécile. “She’d like to become a nun!”

  “Sometimes . . .” said Madeleine, smiling.

  She had a pretty smile, unhurried and a little shy.

  I wonder where she came from, Jean-Marie thought. Her hands were red but they were graceful, like her ankles and legs. A foster-child . . . He felt a little curious and a bit sorry for her. He was grateful to her for the hazy daydreams she inspired in him. They were a diversion, they prevented him from thinking about himself, about the war. It was just a shame he felt so weak. It was difficult to laugh, to joke with them . . . and that must be what they were hoping for. In the countryside, it was commonplace for young girls and boys to tease
one another . . . It was their custom, it was what they did. They would be disappointed and upset if he didn’t laugh with them.

  He made an effort to smile.

  “A boy will come along who will make you change your mind, Mademoiselle Madeleine. Then you won’t want to be a nun any more!”

  “It’s true, it comes over me sometimes, it does . . .”

  “When?”

  “Oh, I don’t know . . . on sad days . . .”

  “As for boys, well, there aren’t many around here,” said Cécile. “I told you we’re in the middle of nowhere. The few there are get taken by the war. So then what? Oh, it’s really bad luck being a girl!”

  “Everyone,” said Madeleine, “has some bad luck.” She had sat down next to the wounded young man, but suddenly she got up. “Cécile, did you forget! The floor’s not been washed.”

  “It’s your turn.”

  “Oh, really! You’ve got some nerve! It’s your turn!”

  They argued for a few minutes, then did the job together. They were amazingly skilful and lively. Soon the cool water made the red flagstones shine. The smell of grass, milk and wild mint drifted in from the doorway. Jean-Marie rested his cheek on his hand. It was strange, the contrast between this absolute serenity and the turmoil within him, for the unbearable din of the last six days had remained in his ears and it only took a moment of silence for it all to rise up again: the sound of twisting metal, the dull, slow beating of an iron hammer on an enormous anvil . . . He winced and started sweating all over . . . train compartments being machine-gunned, the crash of collapsing beams drowning out people’s screams.