Léon and Louise

by Alex Capus

  From that, in conformity with the law of conservation of mass, Léon inferred that the soul could not have created itself out of nothing. And this, in turn, meant either that it must have existed as an entity before birth – and thus probably before conception as well – or that it took shape from previously inanimate particles or sources of energy in the course of incarnation.

  Léon determined by process of elimination that only the first of those alternatives was feasible. This was because the second possibility – that the soul of each of the millions of human beings born every day was spontaneously formed every time out of previously inanimate particles or sources of energy – was just as unacceptable according to the laws of probability as if the miracle of the genesis of life out of lifeless mud had not occurred just once at the beginning of all time many millions of years ago, but was forever recurring a million times over in every puddle and rivulet throughout the world.

  Still in his armchair when dawn broke, Léon sat up with a start. He went to the baker’s and bought some bread, then put some water on for coffee. Shortly before seven he woke the children and laid out clean clothes for them. Then he climbed the stairs to the attic to wake Michel, who never heard his alarm clock ring. Back in the kitchen again, he poured the coffee water through the filter, put some milk on and buttered some slices of bread.

  Then the morning hush outside was broken by the squeak of bicycle brakes. Muffled voices could be heard, followed by the sound of a woman’s heels on the pavement. Léon opened the living-room window and looked down. Outside the front door was a bicycle taxi, and standing beside it Yvonne. Less than four hours had elapsed since Léon had left her at the Maternité in the care of a nurse. He ran downstairs and hurried to meet her in the entrance hall, relieved her of her bag and thrust aside a fold of blanket so as to be able to see the little face of the baby she was carrying bundled up in her arms.

  ‘All in order?’

  ‘Absolutely. Two kilos eight hundred. Flat occiput.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A little Philippe.’

  ‘Philippe like the Marshal?’

  ‘No, no, just Philippe.’

  ‘What about you? All well?’

  ‘Oh yes, it was an easy birth.’

  ‘Still, you should have had three or four days bedrest at the Maternité.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘We could have managed.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to die on you.’

  ‘What would I do without you?’

  ‘Or I without you?’

  ‘Yvonne?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘I know. I love you too, Léon.’

  ‘Let’s go up, the milk will be boiling over.’

  This exchange took them both by surprise, it was so many years since they’d uttered the words. Perhaps that was why they still sounded so fresh and pristine that morning, and why there was nothing false or contrived or affected about them. With Léon’s arm around her waist, Yvonne climbed the stairs carrying the peacefully sleeping trial of patience who would be their guest for the next few years.

  The next day Léon went back to the laboratory, where he would soon have been engaged in copying index cards for a year and was taking good care not to let the job drive him insane. Lying on his desk at half-past eight every morning would be a pile of a hundred smudged, curly, dog-eared index cards whose inscriptions he had to decipher and transcribe on to new, snow-white cards. At some stage after office hours, when most of the offices and laboratories in the Quai des Orfèvres were deserted, Hauptsturmführer Knochen’s orderly went the rounds and collected up both copies and originals.

  Léon sometimes managed only seventy or eighty copies in a day because he’d had to test an almond tart for arsenic or a bottle of Campari for rat poison. When that happened he left the twenty or thirty unprocessed cards on his desk and the orderly would add another seventy or eighty overnight, so that he again found a hundred waiting for him next morning.

  Out of consideration for his family, Léon now refrained from making too many mistakes. For a while he had tried staging an unofficial go-slow by poring over each card for as long as possible, drafting the text in pencil, and inscribing the final, ink version in schoolboy calligraphy. Although he succeeded in reducing his output to twenty cards a day, the calligraphy gave him writer’s cramp and the go-slow became boring in the long run. After a few days’ strenuous inactivity he gave his temperament free rein and reverted to working at his normal speed.

  But he never drank the mocha which Hauptsturmführer Knochen, with malicious regularity, made sure was delivered to him week after week. He put the unopened red, white and black packets, each of which contained a quarter of a kilogram, in the cupboard where he had also kept the Italian mocha jug. Furthermore, he banished the new desk lamp to the window sill beside his desk, and, when the captain hadn’t shown his face for several months, exchanged it for an old lamp he’d found in the attic.

  But one sunny morning in late summer, after a shower of rain during the night, everything changed again. On his way to work Léon had kicked chestnuts across the glistening wet cobblestones and looked up at maidservants wielding their feather dusters in the open windows; on the Pont Saint-Michel he picked up the last of the chestnuts and flung it zestfully into the Seine, and when he turned into the Quai des Orfèvres he ran a few steps from sheer exhilaration.

  When he entered the laboratory, however, his old lamp had disappeared and the Siemens lamp was back on his desk. He searched high and low, went out into the passage and peered in both directions, scratched his head and frowned. Then he returned to his desk, picked up the index card on top of the pile, and began his day’s work.

  It wasn’t until late afternoon that his fears materialized. On returning from a visit to the lavatory he found Knochen sitting in his chair. The German had propped his elbows on the desk and was massaging his face with both hands. He was looking thoroughly world-weary.

  ‘What are you standing around for? Come in, Le Gall, and shut the door behind you.’

  ‘Good afternoon, Hauptsturmführer. Long time no see.’

  ‘Let’s not fool around, I’m sick of playing games. We’re both grown men.’

  ‘Whatever you say, Hauptsturmführer.’

  ‘Sturmbannführer. I’ve been promoted.’

  ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘I’m here to caution you, Le Gall. You’ve been indulging in sabotage again, and I can’t let it pass. Take care, I warn you.’

  ‘But Sturmbannführer, I’m doing my best.’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense. You’re too much of a coward for genuine sabotage, of course, you merely play the résistant so no one gets hurt. You want to assuage your conscience, so you deliberately make schoolboy howlers. In your place I’d be ashamed.’

  ‘May I be quite frank, Sturmbannführer?’

  ‘By all means.’

  ‘In your place I would also be ashamed.’

  ‘Really? Why?’

  ‘You come here and throw your weight about, knowing you’ve got all those tanks and guns behind you.’

  ‘At least I do have them behind me.’

  ‘If you were in my place and I in yours – ’

  ‘Who knows, Le Gall? The fact is that last autumn, when you still had the wind up about your little daughter, your errors averaged eight per cent. Now that a few months have gone by and she’s probably peeing the bed only every other night, you get cocky again and allow yourself fourteen per cent.’

  ‘I didn’t realize – ’

  ‘Shut up, don’t talk nonsense. You aren’t back to seventy-three per cent of errors, not yet, but they’re on the increase. While we’re on the subject, what was the matter with this desk lamp? What harm did it do you?’

  ‘It’s just a lamp.’

  ‘Does it bother you that it’s a Siemens?’

  ‘I’ve got sensitive eyes, it’s so bright it dazzles me. The old lamp –
’

  ‘Shut up, the lamp stays where it is. Take this as a final warning.’ Knochen sighed and planted his boots on the desk.

  ‘May I ask you a question, Sturmbannführer?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘What do you mean, why me?’

  ‘I’m the only person in the building you’ve treated to coffee and a new desk lamp.’

  ‘You’ve asked around?’

  ‘Why me, Sturmbannführer?’

  ‘Because you’re the only one that makes difficulties.’

  ‘The only one in the Quai des Orfèvres?’

  ‘You’re the only one out of a staff of five hundred who plays the hero. And now make me some coffee, I’m tired. Nice and strong, please.’

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Yes, right away.’

  ‘Filter or mocha?’

  ‘Mocha. None of that wartime pigswill of yours. And use the mocha jug, not that funny filter thing.’

  ‘It’s just that – ’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The mocha you send me isn’t ground.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I don’t have a coffee mill.’

  ‘Then use a mortar, man! This is a laboratory, after all, you must have something of the kind. And stop playing these girlish games.’

  Knochen watched Léon open the cupboard. Neatly arrayed on the top shelf were two or three dozen quarter-kilo packets of coffee printed red, white and black. The German sighed and shook his head, then clasped his hands behind his head and stared out of the window over his boots.

  Léon ground up a handful of coffee beans in the mortar, filled the reservoir and emptied the coffee into the funnel, screwed the top on, put the jug on the burner, and turned on the gas, which ignited with a faint plop. While the water was heating up he laid out saucers and cups and coffee spoons and put the sugar basin on the desk. When everything was ready and there was nothing left to do, he went to the window furthest from the desk and looked down at the Seine flowing imperturbably past the Île de la Cité as it had done a hundred or a hundred thousand years ago. He occasionally sensed that Knochen was looking at him, and he sometimes glanced at the SS major out of the corner of his eye. It seemed to take an age for the coffee to come bubbling up through the tube.

  While Léon was pouring, Knochen took his boots off the desk, cupped his chin in his right hand and gazed at him. Then he said, ‘Le Gall, I ought to feel sorry for you. It’s always the best who are disobedient, that’s apparent from even a cursory look back at history. It’s disobedience that marks out the special from the ordinary, don’t you agree? Unfortunately, though, we aren’t living between the pages of a history book, we’re living in the here and now, and present indications are that most of what will prove to be of historic importance is pretty banal. We aren’t here to make history, we’re here to get these goddamned index cards copied. That’s why you’re now going to obey me and make no more mistakes, and that goddamned lamp is going to remain on your desk, nowhere else. You won’t move it so much as ten centimetres without asking my permission in advance, understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s a Siemens lamp, Le Gall, get used to it. It’s staying exactly where it is and you’ll use it. You’ll turn it on every day when you arrive for work, and you’ll turn it off before you go home. Understood?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. And now sit down and drink a mocha with me.’

  ‘If you wish.’

  ‘Yes, I do wish it. I also wish you to drink mocha every day from now on. What on earth have you got against the stuff? Don’t you like it?’

  ‘It’s excellent, I’m sure.’

  ‘You’re going to drink a lot more mocha in the immediate future, Le Gall, you’ve got some catching up to do. It isn’t worth kicking against the pricks any more, by the way. The copies will soon be completed.’

  The two men drank their mochas in silence. Then Knochen rose, nodded a curt farewell, and went out. Léon carried the cups over to the sink. On second thoughts, he threw the SS major’s into the waste bin.

  For three days Léon wondered how to get rid of the mocha without having to drink it. He left the Italian mocha jug and his cup unwashed beside the Bunsen burner, so as to be able to prove that he’d already drunk his daily mocha. In reality, he continued to drink his woody-tasting wartime brew.

  On the following Monday, when his weekly quarter-kilo of mocha arrived on his desk, he put it in his briefcase and took it home that evening.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Yvonne.

  ‘German mocha. I told you about it.’

  ‘Get rid of it.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to – ’

  ‘Get rid of it, I said. I don’t want it in the house.’

  ‘What should I do with the stuff?’

  ‘Go to the Rue du Jour behind Les Halles. Ask at the Auberge du Beau Noir for Monsieur Renaud. He’ll take you to a hatter in Avenue Voltaire who’ll give you a good price for it.’

  ‘What shall I do with the money?’

  ‘We don’t need it.’

  ‘I’ll take it to the lab.’

  ‘Do something clever with it.’

  ‘I’ll think of something.’

  ‘Don’t tell me. Don’t mention it to a soul. It’s better nobody knows.’

  In exchange for his quarter-kilo of mocha Léon received a wad of banknotes almost equivalent to half his monthly salary. Because he went to the Avenue Voltaire every Monday from then on, and sometimes, in order to reduce the surplus in his cupboard, took along a couple of extra packets as well, it wasn’t long before the lockable drawer in his desk contained a large sum of money.

  Léon never counted the money. He never toyed with it or divided it up into batches, never kept accounts or checked that it was all there – he never even looked at it. He opened the drawer only once a week on his return from the Rue Saint-Denis. Having tossed the new banknotes in, he locked the drawer again and put the key in the bakelite tray containing his pencils and rubber, where, just because it was in plain view, he could be sure no one would notice it.

  For a long time Léon had no idea what to do with the wealth Sturmbannführer Knochen was thrusting on him at gunpoint, so to speak. He only knew he wanted to spare himself the humiliation of profiting from it personally. He also realized that he must look for some way of sharing the money out, and that in this second year of the war there wasn’t a single police officer in the Quai des Orfèvres who couldn’t use a little windfall to buy some steak, a pair of children’s shoes or a bottle of red wine on the black market.

  The question was, how to distribute the money. If he openly went round the offices and handed it to his colleagues in person, Knochen would get wind of it and have him arrested for insubordination and attempted sabotage. And if he distributed it secretly by depositing it in his colleagues’ overcoat pockets, in-trays and desk drawers, the more dutiful of them would take the money to their superiors and call for an investigation into attempted bribery by some person or persons unknown.

  So Léon decided against scattering the cash around and envisaged adopting a more specific approach. Working downstairs in the investigating magistrate’s office was a clerk named Heintzer whose Alsatian law degree had been rendered worthless by the outcome of the First World War. He lived in a damp three-room flat behind the Bastille with his six children, his tubercular wife and his alcoholic sister Irmgard, who spoke no French and had turned up on his doorstep, unannounced, some years before. He also had to send money to his old father, who still resided with five sheep and three hens in the dilapidated little farmhouse between Osenbach and Wasserbourg that had been the family home for two centuries.

  Heintzer walked with a stoop, his hair hung over his ears like dishevelled feathers, and his mouth odour could be detected at a range of several paces. To make matters worse, everyone in the Quai des Orfèvres called him ‘the Boche’ because he was tall and fair-haired and had never quite manage
d to lose his Alsatian accent. He had a spiteful boss named Lamouche who liked to tweak his off-white shirt collars and poke pencils through his threadbare sleeves in front of the assembled staff. Because the Boche endured all these things in dignified silence and never complained about his ulcer, carious teeth and slipped disc, the softer-hearted of the secretaries gave him sympathetic glances – not that they cared to venture too close to someone who seemed to possess a magnetic attraction for misfortune, poverty and disease.

  One misty autumn evening, Léon followed the luckless Heintzer home in order to discover where he lived. Next morning he got out the typewriter and screwed a sheet of paper into it. His first step was to type an impressive letterheading larded with words like ‘Ministry’, ‘Republic’, ‘Security’, ‘President’, ‘National’, and ‘France’. Then he wrote ‘Lump-sum back payment of outstanding family allowance, February 1932-October 1941’, inserted an astronomically large figure, and added the corresponding number of banknotes. He adorned the document with an illegibly baroque signature and wrote a non-existent sender’s address on the back of the envelope to ensure that the Boche’s inevitable letter of acknowledgement would not turn up in some genuine government office and give rise to puzzled frowns.

  Léon allowed several days to elapse after making a special trip to the 16th Arrondissement to post the letter and forbade himself to indulge in any unjustified visits to the magistrate’s secretariat. After a couple of weeks, however, when no rumours of a suspicious windfall had come to his ears, he went down to the second floor to see how Heintzer was faring. He sat on a bench in the passage, leafing through a file for camouflage, and when the man actually appeared he gave him a casual nod which Heintzer returned just as casually.