On Leave

by Daniel Anselme

  “Two million what?” Lachaume screamed in anger.

  “You don’t understand anything,” Lena said. “They’re dollars. You just made me lose two million dollars.”

  She nodded at him with her eyes so blue, made even paler by tears, and furrowed her brow with endless affection. You silly boy, she seemed to be saying, what a fine mess you’ve got us into.

  Lachaume waved his hand in resignation.

  “That was stupid,” Lasteyrie went on. “Two million dollars would be enough to get medical exemptions for the whole regiment.”

  When they left the bar, they found that dusk had fallen already. From Place des Ternes, which is at a lower altitude, you could see the top of the Arc de Triomphe gleaming in floodlights (like an aging beauty, Paris overdoes the lighting), whereas Avenue de Wagram was still in the half-light. The car lights moving slowly along the roadway and the dark silhouettes of pedestrians standing out against the illuminated shop windows made this crepuscular moment an entrancing prologue to the night, as if Paris were a theater with its houselights down, just before the curtain rises.

  They went along Boulevard de Courcelles in silence, making for Rue de Constantinople, where Lachaume was going to have dinner with his Aunt Évelyne. To their right was Parc Monceau, all dark and dank, where keepers were joking with each other as they slowly shut the gates for the night. Their practiced routine and the clanking of the chains made the men’s hearts sink. “What time do the parks open in the morning? Six, seven o’clock … Tomorrow, the same one-armed keeper with a fag end stuck in his mouth will come to undo the rusty chains, quite casually. But we won’t be here tomorrow morning!” Each of them felt the unfairness of it in his own way … Even the indifference of the keepers shutting the gates had become unbearable.

  “When Duchess Sanseverina left Parma…” Lachaume began, leaning on Lasteyrie’s shoulder, “when she left the city where everyone had been so unkind to her…”

  Lachaume was unsteady on his feet and made Lasteyrie sway back and forth with him. It was despair as much as booze that was going to his head.

  “When Sanseverina left Parma,” he repeated, raising his finger, “she gave an order that a reservoir in her garden be emptied … So next morning the citizens of Parma, who had been so unkind to her, woke up with wet bottoms…”

  Nobody inquired who Sanseverina was.

  “With wet bottoms!” Valette repeated. “Congratulations!”

  “So what are we going to do?” Lachaume asked, coming to a sudden halt. “What about us?”

  He looked all around and hit the park railing with his fist.

  “Something big, something that makes a bang! Something … enormous. So that they just have to look … Something that upsets them all…”

  He stared at passersby as if he resented them for having two legs and using them: he felt like tripping them.

  “Now come on, Lasteyrie,” he said, with emphasis. “We can’t just slip away quietly! They have to realize…”

  “We’re not duchesses,” Lasteyrie said.

  “But there are three of us, and that’s something. Actually, four…”

  “I’m just a poor foreigner,” Lena said. “Not even a ‘privileged resident’…”

  They’d begun to move on.

  “And I thought you were pals!” Lachaume said. “You have to admit, it’s really tough when pals drop you at the last minute. But never mind! I’ll do it all by myself … I will!”

  They reached the Villiers crossroads, where Boulevard de Courcelles turns into Boulevard des Batignolles, the source of much Parisian slang. That’s the cutoff point between two quite different areas. The neon lights of Clichy can be seen flickering at the end of Boulevard des Batignolles just as the glow of the Arc de Triomphe disappears in the other direction; the prostitutes charge less here, and so do the bars, and there are more and more shops on the ground floor of blocks of flats whose windows light up as tenants come home from work—whereas on the other side of the dividing line, the lights go out in the windows as work ends in company offices hiding behind plain frontages.

  Aunt Évelyne lived on the border between these two worlds, in one of the first buildings in Rue de Constantinople, the property of Northern Bee Insurance Company according to the marble plaque by the front door. Her flat was the whole first floor. From the pavement on the other side of the street, and through the lace curtains, Lachaume recognized the salon with its double window and the dining room next to it. Something out of the ordinary must have happened to explain why Mariette the maid hadn’t closed the shutters at dusk. A shadow passing frequently in front of the lamp in the salon suggested moreover that someone was pacing up and down—and excitement of that order at Aunt Évelyne’s was surprising. Lachaume took it all in at one glance.

  Somebody came up to a window.

  “That’s her,” he said in an undertone, as if she could hear him despite the curtain and the window and the constant noise of traffic.

  Lasteyrie, Valette, and Lena could make out what looked like a small, hunched, and squat lady staring at them and nodding (unless it was the lace curtain moving). Instinctively, Lachaume raised his arm to hide his face, and he moved away quickly to take shelter in the shadow of the wall.

  The others stood under the lamppost peering at Aunt Évelyne at her window. Lachaume swore at them from a distance.

  “She’s not going to eat us!” Lasteyrie said.

  “You don’t know her! Come over here!” he kept saying, with inexplicable agitation.

  He would not have shown himself to Aunt Évelyne at that moment for anything in the world. Apparently he’d been overwhelmed by an attack of shyness.

  “It’s too early,” he said. “I’ll come back later.”

  “We could leave our cases with the concierge,” Lasteyrie said.

  “Absolutely not!”

  It was an unthinking reaction. The concierge had known him since he was little. She was from Arras. Aunt Évelyne had brought her with her when she moved to Paris and made use of her as an extra hand, on the payroll of the Northern Bee. But Lasteyrie insisted. An end to this childish nonsense! Anyway, the poor woman was probably dead by now, he thought as he crossed the street. His last visit to Aunt Évelyne’s seemed lost in the mists of time, though it was only a year ago.

  He remembered Madame Coquel’s name as soon as he saw her, as if it was written on her kindly face—and she was very well, thank you very much. She’d rolled up the sleeves of her apron and her forearms were white with flour.

  “Mr. Georges! How nice of you to come and see old Maman Coqué—do you remember, that’s what you called me when you were little, Maman Coqué … Oh, that was a long time ago … My poor husband and your dear father were still with us then. And in one way it’s a good thing they’ve gone, without having to see all this … And your poor mother, she does worry so much! Your aunt has told her to go and have a rest, like it was an order. The poor lady was fussing around in the kitchen and getting in the way, no offense meant … Mariette was getting hot and bothered, you know what she’s like … And they’d just put the bird in the oven. Ah! The bird your poor mother brought all the way from Arras, I’ve never seen one so big and plump. Luckily M. Paul phoned just now to say he was coming to dinner…”

  “Paul Thévenin?”

  “And who else would it be? Your cousin Paul isn’t here, as you well know … But M. Jacques will be coming, with his lady wife, she’s very lovely, you haven’t met her yet, and Madame Le Noble as well. They all want to see you. The party’s for you…”

  The concierge noticed Lasteyrie still standing in the hallway with the suitcases and kit bags.

  “Ah! You’ve got an … assistant with you,” she said in an undertone, “a kind of orderly, that’s what they’re called … My my, you’ve been promoted … that can’t be bad. Your poor mother must have forgotten to tell us. Your aunt will be really pleased!”

  They put their cases and kit bags in the concierge’s office and f
led along Boulevard des Batignolles, with Lena and Valette following behind.

  Clichy drew them in with its offering of lights, noise, and bustle. They needed the tinselly indifference produced by mixing a high dose of shoddy, sour, and scalding spirits with garish neon. They needed the show of prostitutes, the sad pale faces of musicians in silk blouses, and the sneers of the waiters from the provinces with their own way of doing things. In short, they needed a particular image of low and desperate life to help them overcome their own distaste for life. Lasteyrie strode ahead, almost at a trot, signaling to the others to “watch their backs.” But halfway there, Valette came to a halt.

  He was thinking of his family, who were expecting him for his last dinner.

  “I have to go home,” he said. “Walk me to Saint-Lazare.”

  “Okay,” Lasteyrie said.

  He’d turned back on his steps, with his head held low, swaying as he walked, in a way that was not agreeable to see. Lachaume protested both at Valette’s request and at Lasteyrie’s passive acceptance of it. He couldn’t bear seeing him give way, just as you can’t accept the speechlessness of a wounded comrade at your side. He started shaking him with excessive energy, to provoke him into an outburst of anger or swearing.

  “What’s up with you?” Lasteyrie said. “He has to go home.”

  “And what about my gear?” Valette added. “There’s all my stuff to get back.”

  “So you see?” Lasteyrie said.

  They went down Rue de Rome to get to Saint-Lazare, over the railway tracks that come into Paris at that point through a wide, dark cutting. The route passes through Place de l’Europe, where seven streets meet more or less suspended over the void. One hundred and fifty feet below, trains were coming and going, and if you put your face right up to the railing at the side of the square, you could see their movements flashing up on the control panel in the signal box that’s been built into the side of the cutting. Gusts of wind brought up the smell of the tracks—a mixture of coal, rust, and engine oil. All around, Paris sparkled and hummed, without a thought for the trains going off into the night, leaving in their wake only a blue or green tracer light that the controllers could wipe out just by turning a dial.

  “It’s well run,” Lasteyrie said. “French railways are the best in the world. Always on time.”

  “We won’t miss the boat,” Valette said.

  “You can trust them.”

  At the bottom of Rue de Rome, multicolored advertisements rotated on the neon billboards on the sides of the buildings in Place du Havre, like pieces of some giant jigsaw puzzle. There were storks drinking beer from Alsace, rabbits in top hats, spring chickens eating chocolate, and a vacuum cleaner as strong as an elephant and as silent as a carp.

  They wandered slowly, looking up.

  “Have you ever worn a top hat?” Lasteyrie asked Lachaume, who shook his head.

  “Nor have I,” Lasteyrie went on, almost regretfully. “Must feel quite funny.”

  He sounded like a child all of a sudden; he was dragging his feet.

  “But one day you will,” he said in a too-solemn tone. “Yes, yes, I can see it all. When you become a professor at the Sorbonne…”

  “I’ll never be a professor at the Sorbonne,” Lachaume retorted. “Anyway, nobody at the Sorbonne wears a top hat.”

  “Yes, you will,” Lasteyrie said. “And you will wear a top hat. It will suit you. I would be too short.”

  “He’s off his rocker,” Lachaume said, with a shake of his head.

  Now Lasteyrie was thirsty and he dragged his comrades into a bar opposite the station.

  “I want an Alsace beer,” he said. “Like the storks drink.”

  The bar lady gave him a look.

  “And a piece of chocolate with a chicken on the wrapper. You got any? I never had any, you see…”

  “Oh! We’re real buddies,” he went on, leaning back on the counter and putting his arms around Valette and Lena. “Oh, buddies is what we are…”

  It was nearly seven-thirty by the station’s illuminated clock.

  “But I really have to go,” Lachaume said.

  “Sure you do,” Lasteyrie said. “And when’s your train, old pal?” he asked Valette, squeezing his shoulder.

  “Round about now,” Valette said in a flat voice. “They’re every ten minutes.”

  “In that case,” Lachaume said, “you can all come back with me to the apartment. Then bring Valette back here for him to catch his train. That way…”

  “That way, what?” Lasteyrie cut in with an odd look in his eye.

  “That way I’ll be seeing you a little while longer,” Valette said.

  So they trooped back to Rue de Constantinople, without a word. In the meantime, Aunt Évelyne’s shutters had been closed. Thévenin’s sleek Jowett could be seen parked a little way off.

  “What if we all went up?” Lachaume said.

  “Ach! Laaachaume! That’s not possible,” Lena said, after being silent and docile for so long. “You should not bring strangers into a family gathering.”

  “It’s not just family.”

  “No, no,” she repeated vehemently. “You should not! Those people want to make a fuss over you by themselves.”

  “She’s right,” Lasteyrie said. “Just give me my kit.”

  Lachaume went and got the two kit bags. He left the suitcase behind. Lasteyrie had asked him not to bring it.

  “Leave it there?” Lachaume exclaimed. “You’ll never get your stuff back. You don’t know Aunt Évelyne!”

  “I do not have the honor,” Lasteyrie said. “But she may donate all my things to the poor.”

  “The only poor man who’ll get to wear them will be my cousin Paul. I can see him ten years from now still shod in your moccasins made of the skin of who knows what.”

  “Made of sealskin,” Lasteyrie said, with a wag of his finger. “It’s very fashionable … When you see him wearing them, think of me … So long! Have a nice evening!”

  They peeled off on their way to Saint-Lazare, while Lachaume fumbled for the doorbell with eyes still on their backs. Lasteyrie walked in the middle, wobbling from Lena to Valette and back again, with the kit bag on his back; all of a sudden he puts his arms out as if to steady himself, then puts his hands on their shoulders and dips his head. Lachaume runs after them when they’ve not gone more than a few paces.

  “Pull yourself together, man!” he shouts.

  “Yes, Sergeant,” Lasteyrie says with a wink, leaving his hands on his friends’ shoulders nonetheless.

  At the station where Valette had to catch his local train and Lachaume should have parted from Lasteyrie and Lena, they still couldn’t split up. So they allowed themselves a last glass.

  “Where do you want to go?” they asked Lasteyrie, who stood there, slightly hunched, worriedly watching the pair of them with his darting eyes.

  “To the … Grands Boulevards?” he said eventually, with hesitation, as if he risked losing all by asking for too much.

  But Lachaume and Valette agreed straightaway. Lena was the only one to object.

  “What about the turkey they’ve cooked for you?” she said to Lachaume. “It’ll have gone all dry…” She wagged her finger at him.

  They went along Chaussée d’Antin, where the high-class tarts, seeing they were soldiers, didn’t say a word, and from there to Boulevard des Italiens.

  What’s wonderful about the Grands Boulevards is that so much artificial lighting can still be so gentle on the eyes. Fairground stalls set up cheek by jowl halved the width of the pavement, and the crowds squeezed slowly in between the bright cinema entrances, shop windows, and bars on one side, and, on the other, strings of fairy lights swaying in the wind over pot-shot booths with fancy-colored feather targets, shiny Paris souvenir stalls, and sweet stands displaying secret recipes for all to see.

  The lights wrapped themselves around the trio and bore them forward through the smell of warm praline.

  It was early evening. Coupl
es, alone or in groups, were going into the cinemas. You could see most of them hadn’t yet eaten and were going to dinner after the film, so as to have a topic for conversation. Lachaume used to adore suppers of that kind, enlivened by the show they’d just seen on empty stomachs. They would debate Hitchcock and Beckett with unending passion. Memories that brought back the taste of ice-cold oysters and grated onion …

  Other couples, on the other hand, were going out to dine. Perhaps they would go to see a film afterward, at the ten o’clock showing, or to a club on the Left Bank or on the Right? Anyway, other people were determined to go home earlier. Tears welled up when he saw the real closeness between a man and a woman who were walking in front of him. People coming toward them constantly forced them to move apart, then they came back together to touch each other’s hand before they were separated by another wave of pedestrians. You could not stop yourself thinking of when the two of them would finally have their arms around each other, at closing time, when the last metro went—at a time when Lachaume and the others would have their foreheads against the window to watch the last lights of the city outskirts fade away into the distance as the express train bore them south. Everything he could see beginning at this early hour of the evening reminded him with ever-increasing force that he would no longer be there when it ended.

  They drank no less than three stirrup cups at The Interval, a bistro–cum–snack bar on Boulevard Montmartre, next door to a theater. It was a full-dress gala night. Students from Polytechnique stood outside the theater waiting for the start of the show, and with their two-pointed black hats and their swords at the hilt, they became a focus of attraction themselves.

  Lena sat near the window of the bar, lost in thought, watching the comings and goings of the gala audience, while Lasteyrie stayed at the counter, where his glass was never empty, as if to put off any sudden move to leave. His head was sunk between his shoulders, his brow was furrowed, and he seemed to be on the lookout for something.

  Without moving away from the counter, he insisted in a loud voice that Lena should buy another round of shots of rum. Lachaume objected, since he thought he should pay; Lena in turn raised an objection.