by Michel D
‘We can be fairly satisfied,’ he said. ‘The day has gone better than I expected.’
‘What will you have?’ Antoine asked.
‘Scotch for me!’
‘Scotch? I don’t know if they have any here.’
Antoine’s slur on the Café des Tribunaux was unfounded. There was indeed Scotch for the locals, as the British never ordered it, addicted as they were to white wine from the moment they disembarked.
‘Will you do me the pleasure of dining with us?’ Maître Prioré asked, intrigued by Antoine’s Olympian indifference. ‘I mean, with my bookkeeper and myself. And Monsieur as well, of course.’
Jean was not often addressed as ‘Monsieur’, and he looked up at the person who had just disturbed his game.
‘I’ll take you back after dinner,’ Antoine said.
Jean accepted. The auctioneer asked to see a menu and the head waiter. He wanted sole. He had come to Dieppe to eat sole. But before deciding whether he would have them au gratin or meunière, he needed to see them. A lavish choice was presented to him, because they were all very different sizes.
‘Do you have a preference?’ the auctioneer asked for form’s sake, believing that Antoine did not give a damn, as he did not about everything else.
‘Yes. Small. Two hundred and fifty grams at the most, because I like them meunière.’
‘Well all right, meunière you shall have if you like, but have this big fat one instead. It’s truly only here that they have such enormous ones.’
‘No, they’re like that at Oléron too,’ Antoine said, ‘but so fat that they only taste good au gratin, with the skin on. Small ones you skin, they have a more delicate taste. Medium size, you stuff them, which I’m not wild about. I don’t like shallots or peeled shrimps. The stuffing kills the flavour of the fish. Naturally I exclude anything prepared with tomatoes or mushrooms, which is for people who are tired of life, and that’s not the way I feel at all, nor you, I sincerely hope.’
‘No, obviously not. Well then, let’s follow your advice.’
The bookkeeper protested mildly. He wanted a salad with some ham. No one listened to him. On the choice of wine Antoine was equally categorical: there would be no wine. The patron kept a few bottles of a personal reserve of sparkling cider, which survived the summer thanks to a cool and remarkably well-insulated cellar.
‘I’m completely in your hands!’ Maître Prioré said. ‘You’re a true epicure.’
‘Sometimes, though more and more rarely. When I travel, I’m happy with saucisson and red wine.’
‘You travel a good deal for your business, I imagine.’
‘I get around. It’s not exactly business, which I understand nothing about and wish to understand nothing about. Besides, you wouldn’t be here this evening if I had known how to look after myself.’
‘You haven’t even asked me how much the sale this afternoon amounted to.’
‘No, I haven’t, and yet the cheque you’ll hand over represents all that I have left …’
Abandoning his sole, which he had been clumsily picking at, the bookkeeper made a grab for his black ledger, on the bench beside him.
‘We have plenty of time,’ Antoine said.
The auctioneer gestured irritably at his bookkeeper. Antoine du Courseau surprised him, and he was extremely curious to know who this man really was, so untroubled at his separation from his fortune. He tried politics.
‘The Front Populaire has ruined France in the space of three months.’
‘Do you think so?’ Antoine asked, pouring himself some cider. ‘I don’t. Money’s being redistributed, that’s all, and I generally think that’s a good thing.’
‘People tell me that the strikes in the armaments industry have driven any number of small companies to the wall.’
‘We’re anachronisms. Others will come and take our place.’
‘Even so, you won’t deny that if things continue as they are, we’ll soon start losing the will to work, even for our children’s sake. Thanks to my father’s hard work I’ve been able to acquire my position, and if I’m not mistaken your own company was founded by your father.’
‘I didn’t manage to hang on to what he left me. He took a lot of trouble for nothing.’
‘A great shame for your own son! Isn’t that right, young man?’
‘I’m not Monsieur du Courseau’s son,’ Jean said.
Maître Prioré began to feel uncomfortable. Plain speaking and platitudes generally worked much better than this. He had aimed too low, thinking he was dealing with an unsophisticated Norman ruined by his own stupidity, and discovered that beneath his provincial appearance Antoine concealed a profound well of contempt. The auctioneer was annoyed, and could not see how to backtrack easily and show that he was the kind of man he felt himself to be (and in reality was, with a slight self-over-estimation that was normal in his smooth-tongued profession): a connoisseur of dependable taste, possibly the best expert he knew in English furniture, and a great collector of enamels. It is always difficult to switch from one tone to another when one has made a mistake. Flight is usually the only way out. There is nothing like it for leaving your mistakes behind. They decay, forgotten and alone.
‘Shall we meet tomorrow?’ he asked.
‘Is that really necessary? I’d intended to make an early start. I’d like to be at Saint-Tropez in time for dinner.’
‘In which case you’ve no time to lose: it’s 1100 kilometres.’
‘Oh, I can do that in ten hours.’
‘In an Alfa Romeo, I’m guessing?’
‘Absolutely not. A 57S.’
‘A Bugatti?’
‘Who ever told you a 57S was anything other than a Bugatti?’
‘Yes, you’re right of course, forgive me. Which model?’
‘The Atalante.’
The intelligent, cultured auctioneer, at ease with everyone and in every situation, crumbled. He could be criticised for his taste, his collections or his reading matter, but not for his car. He would rather have been cheated on, arrested for a breach of trust, or molested by a meharist in the middle of the desert than bested in his choice of wheels.
‘You’re still loyal to Bugatti!’ he said, with a twisted grin. ‘He’s been finished for four or five years.’
‘Is that so? I wasn’t aware of that. Let’s see, we’re 1936 now: that would mean that Bugatti hasn’t won anything since 1932.’
‘Very minor races, Monsieur.’
‘Achille Varzi made Tazio Nuvolari look pretty foolish in the 1933 Monaco Grand Prix.’
‘An unfortunate mechanical problem!’
‘Oh yes … at the gasometer bend he took the lead from under his nose like no other driver could have done with any other car.’
‘Then Nuvolari overtook him on the hill up to the Casino—’
‘And over-revved his car and sent it up in flames. He had to finish the last lap pushing it. And name me another constructor who has won the Targa Florio five times in a row. Last year the first continental car to win the Brooklands 500 was Earl Howe’s Bugatti. Apart from that, and this year’s ACF Grand Prix, Bugatti is definitely washed-up as a constructor.’
‘That isn’t at all what I was trying to say, my dear Monsieur, but Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Mercedes and Auto-Union are winning everything else.’
‘All of Italy, all of Germany are behind those makes. Bugatti races alone. He’s nothing short of a genius, and in France geniuses are condemned to isolation. But tomorrow I’ll be happy to take you on. Dieppe to Saint-Tropez. Eight o’clock start. The first to arrive wins the bet, as much as you like.’
‘Sadly tomorrow’s impossible. What about Sunday?’
‘I’m not going to sit languishing here from now till Sunday. A thousand regrets! But speak to me no more of Alfa Romeos. It annoys me. Good evening to you, Maître.’
There was nothing superior in his tone, he was just weary. The auctioneer became bad-tempered.
‘You think you know everything
!’
‘I don’t know anything,’ Antoine said. ‘Nobody knows anything. I’m simply saying that you don’t compare a Rolls-Royce to a bicycle.’
He stood up and gestured to Jean. The draughtboard was waiting for them at a neighbouring table.
‘Shall I sign your cheque?’
‘If you’ll be so kind.’
He pocketed it without a glance and moved a draught forward.
‘Goodnight to you,’ Maître Prioré said.
‘Goodnight.’
Jean won the game. They were at 6–4, and decided to stop rather than desperately chase a draw. Antoine had a cognac, Jean a lemonade. A few couples lingered, an elderly English pair and a girl of twenty with a man in his fifties with whom she appeared to be in love. Antoine thought about Marie-Dévote. Another twenty-four hours and he would be with her. He would stroke her still glorious though over-ample breasts. Lying next to her, he would know the meaning of peace. The shells would stop bursting and Marie-Thérèse would stop shouting.
‘I’ll drive you home,’ he said to Jean.
‘But where will you sleep, Monsieur?’
‘At La Sauveté.’
‘There’s nothing left there.’
‘I don’t need anything.’
There was no light, except in the lodge. Antoine drove through the park and stopped in front of his door. It was not locked. What was there left to be stolen? They went in and walked through empty rooms that still smelt strongly of the removers. Through the windows, their shutters open, the full moon spilt long yellow splashes on the carpets and rugs. Antoine reached his bedroom where, after pulling a flat silver flask from his hip pocket, he sat on the floor with his back to the window and took a long swallow.
‘You still don’t drink?’
‘No. I think I’ll like to drink one day, but later. I’m rowing on Sunday.’
‘Just look how pretty my Atalante is in the moonlight.’
The Bugatti cast its long bluish shadow across the gravel. The chrome of its radiator grille glittered in the moon’s unworldly silver light. It sat there silently, placidly, sure of its strength. Jean thought it was as beautiful as a scull.
‘Do you remember this room?’ Antoine asked. ‘You were a small boy.’
‘The burst hosepipe. I’ve never forgotten it.’
‘I liked you very much that day. It seems to me that we’ve got on well since then … apart from one small mishap …’
‘Yes, the Antoinette thing … I swear it wasn’t me.’
‘We don’t swear to each other. We only tell the truth. Who was it?’
‘Gontran Longuet.’
‘That littlesquirt! Poor darling Antoinette, how lonely she must have felt to descend all the way down to his level. I shall have to talk to her, tell her how very much her papa loves her … But why did Michel say it was you?’
‘He must have thought it was me.’
‘He hates you.’
‘Hate’s a strong word.’
‘No, I think he must do.’
Antoine drank from his hip flask again.
‘We’re really all right here, aren’t we? Without furniture, a house becomes itself again. I was born here. Geneviève, Antoinette and Michel were born here. And you were born next door.’
‘I don’t believe it any more,’ Jean said.
‘Hey now, come on, what’s going on in that head of yours?’
‘Michel came out with it last year, he taunted me and told me I was a foundling.’
Antoine stood up and paced to and fro several times, moving out of the shadows into the rectangles of light where his own shadow suddenly lengthened, deforming into an imposing and grotesque shape.
‘We decided we would never lie to each other.’
‘Yes, Monsieur.’
‘In that case I’ll tell you the truth. It’s correct to say that you’re a foundling. You were left in a basket on Albert and Jeanne’s doorstep. They adopted you. They are therefore your parents.’
‘I love them and respect them and I couldn’t hope for better parents, but I feel … different from them. Papa doesn’t understand me. He’s always getting on his high horse when I try to talk to him.’
‘He’s a first-class man. Everything that isn’t absolutely first-class irritates him.’
‘At the moment he’s really irritated.’
‘He always has been. You didn’t notice it so much when you were a child. My father was always irritated too. I was afraid of him. The outcome was not perfect, as you can see for yourself. Everything he left me has gone up in smoke. It’s nothing to be proud of. I’ve loved this house, you know …’
Jean heard a catch in his voice, which fell to a murmur. Antoine opened the door onto the landing. There was no Marie-Thérèse there listening, her ear glued to the keyhole.
‘Follow me,’ he said. ‘When there are two of us, the shadows are afraid.’
They walked on through the silent, wasted house. Parquet creaked, hinges squeaked. Everywhere the light of the moon lit up the shape of windows on the darkened walls. Antoine opened and closed the curtains and tried a tap, only to turn it off immediately. In the kitchen, at the back of a cupboard, they found some bottles without labels.
‘They must have got forgotten. Let’s have a look … oh yes, it’s calva. I’ll take them. They belong to me. Farewell, Normandy. I’m going to live in the sun. Do you know what the women of the Midi are like?’
‘No,’ Jean said. ‘Apart from the trip to London you treated me to four years ago, I haven’t budged from here.’
‘Why budge, if you already understand everything?’
‘I’d give anything to really know a big city, or to see the Mediterranean or the Pacific, the Sunda islands, or Tierra del Fuego.’
‘How boring! On this planet of ours, only women are a big enough mystery to be interesting.’
‘In Grangeville they aren’t going to come running to me, are they? I have to go to them.’
Antoine swigged from the bottle and walked into the butler’s pantry, where two stools had escaped being auctioned. He handed one to Jean and picked up the other one.
‘Let’s break them!’
The stools crashed against the wall. The leg of one flew at the window and the glass shattered. A dark head appeared, framed in the hole, and the abbé’s voice boomed into the kitchen.
‘What on earth has got into you?’
‘We’re breaking what even the rats had no use for.’
‘And have the rats drunk everything?’
‘No,’ Antoine said. ‘Come in, Father. We can’t let such an occasion go uncelebrated.’
The head withdrew. Another shattering was heard. Monsieur Le Couec, parish priest of Grangeville, was using his back to push out the last of the glass, after which he clambered into the kitchen.
‘You’re not hurt, Father?’
‘No, Jean. I too am perfectly transparent.’
He straightened up for a moment on the tiled floor, a shadow so enormous it woke up the whole house.
‘I wondered where you were.’
‘We were talking. We were bidding it all adieu.’
‘Adieu is a word I like, when it is pronounced correctly, à Dieu.’
‘Come now, Father, come now, no proselytising in an empty house. We’re all men here. I’ve no glasses. Drink from the bottle.’
Monsieur Le Couec took a swig.
‘Revolting! I suppose it was kept in the kitchen to flambé the game.’
‘Never mind the bottle –’
‘Oh ho! I’ll stop you there, if you don’t mind, Antoine du Courseau. Calvados was not invented for idiots …’
Jean giggled.
‘No, Father, it was invented for you.’
‘My dear boy, belt up. Sport is a very fine thing, but don’t go round trying to convert everybody.’
‘Jean doesn’t drink,’ Antoine said. ‘He’s getting ready for the future, for that uncertain planet on which I have no desire whatsoever t
o land. I’ve never led you into temptation, have I, Jean?’
‘Yes, you have, Monsieur, but without knowing you were.’
‘From today, you’re to call me Antoine. It will annoy my wife intensely. I ought to have thought of it earlier.’
‘Thank you, Antoine.’
‘Can I point out,’ the abbé said, ‘that we’ve nothing left to sit on? My feet are aching. This whole place looks like a rout.’
They sat on the floor, on tiles strewn with sawdust by the removers. The abbé was on form.
‘Well, this is a moment to take stock. A unique occasion. Not a terribly solemn location. Thanks to the moon we can see a little of each other. Not too much. Besides, we all know each other’s faces: my ugly mug, Antoine’s, which has collected a certain ruddiness of its own, with age and training, Jean’s handsome countenance. Let me take this opportunity, dear boy, to point out to you that in this life a handsome face is a handicap to be overcome. You are going to arouse some serious resentment. By way of compensation, girls will fall into your arms like manna upon the poor and needy. Mind how you go. That is what an elderly priest advises. Now, where were we? Who has bought this house?’
‘The Longuets,’ Antoine said.
The abbé tipped up the bottle and swallowed another mouthful. He did not like embarrassing situations. This one deeply offended his sense of tradition, and he hesitated over the standpoint he should take. Madame Longuet was perhaps not such a saintly woman as he liked to tell himself, but, at least towards him, she behaved with uncommon generosity. He even believed that deep down she was sincere in her faith, trying to leave her past behind and working with all her being towards redemption, of her soul and others’. Of course Monsieur Longuet did not inspire much confidence, and as for young Gontran, he had the makings of an out-and-out miscreant, despite his mother’s good example.
‘Well, Father, what do you think?’ Jean asked, delighted to see the priest on the defensive.
‘Nothing, my child. I think absolutely nothing. People do what they wish with their money. The Longuets have money. It is no more a crime to have money than not have any. I believe they will respect La Sauveté.’