by Ruth Brandon
‘That’s where I hoped you might help,’ I said pointedly. You had to admire his interview technique. So far, I’d learned almost nothing, while he now knew almost as much about the Caravaggio affair as I did. ‘I want to find out about the Rigaut family. See if I can find some clue to what’s going on.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘For instance?’
He was doing it again! But this time, he might be able to supply some information. ‘For instance, I gather Juliette had a romance with an uncle of yours.’
‘My great-uncle Arnaud,’ he agreed. ‘But her family weren’t having it. Not rich enough. I remember her mother – a dried-up stick of a thing, always hanging round the curé. A collabo, naturally. They all were, that family.’
‘But Emmanuel Rigaut was a Resistance hero. He was a Communist. They all were, the Surrealists. That was part of being one.’
‘So? People don’t necessarily agree, even if they’re married. It was a civil war. Brother against brother . . .’
And it hadn’t necessarily ended, I reflected. Hadn’t Joe been talking about just that – a low-level civil war?
‘Even if they agreed to start with, people change. Marriages end,’ Olivier said, and looked suddenly sad and absent, as though his thoughts had decamped to some other place.
‘But that one didn’t end. Not then. Jean-Jacques was born after that.’
‘Yes, it’s true, Rigaut stayed with her. After the war she went back to live in Paris with him. People were scandalized.’
‘Scandalized?’
‘That he took her back, I suppose – who knows what they thought? People weren’t entirely rational then.’
‘Perhaps it wasn’t true, what everyone thought,’ I suggested. ‘Perhaps it was just gossip.’
Olivier didn’t reply at once, busying himself with his plate – he had ordered a skewer of grilled giant prawns, and they were proving conveniently hard to excavate. Without looking up he said, ‘Perhaps.’
‘And?’ I said after a bit.
‘I’m trying to think where to begin . . . A place like St Front,’ he said again. ‘You’ve got to realize. The Revolution isn’t so distant, down there. When the war broke out my great-grandfather was mayor. He was a Communist, doctrinally secular. And his political opponent since forever was Etienne de Beaupré, Juliette’s father, who of course was an aristocrat and a Catholic.’
‘I’m amazed such a tiny place has a mayor.’
‘In France everywhere has a mayor. It’s how you get into politics. Look at Rigaut.’
‘He’s the mayor of St Front?’
Olivier laughed at the disbelief in my voice. ‘Not any more. But he was, for years. That’s how he got into the regional assembly. And onwards and upwards . . . And before that it was my grandfather. And before that, Etienne de Beaupré. Turn and turn about. Look, I’ll tell you what I’ll do,’ he said, as if coming to a decision. ‘I’ll help you find out what you want to know. If there really is anything. But if there turns out to be a story it’s mine, and I’m free to publish it. D’accord?’
‘D’accord.’ I thought about Joe, and felt relieved I’d decided to pay for this trip myself. Though it wasn’t as if Olivier wrote for the English papers . . . ‘Is there anyone in your family who might have met Emmanuel Rigaut, or knew Juliette at that time?’
He nodded. ‘My grandmother’s still alive. Arnaud’s sis-ter. I’ll ask her.’ He checked his watch and signalled for the bill. ‘I’d better go.’
Outside, the sun reflected hotly off the pavement. But the stream of cars that had choked the quai when I arrived had vanished, replaced now by a placard-waving procession. The placards seemed to emanate from some central distribution point: they had slogans like LA FRANCE POUR LES FRANÇAIS and FRONTIERES OUVERTES= CHOMEURS FRANÇAIS.
Olivier swore under his breath. ‘It’s the Front National,’ he said. ‘I’d forgotten, they’re having an anti-immigration rally in an hour. Le Pen’s due to speak.’
I had imagined Le Pen’s FN followers, on the rare occasions I thought of them, as thugs and hoodlums. But few of these marchers fell into that category. There were some, of course – muscular louts with shaved heads and shades, grim-faced men in black T-shirts – but many, most even, seemed to be just ordinary people, the kind you might meet anywhere, at work, in a café, in a bar; many of them distinctly well dressed. They swung along in grim silence, unrelieved by chants and songs, separated from the few spectators by thick hedges of police.
Quite suddenly, a kind of roar broke out fifty metres further along, where the quai met the rue du Bac. Here a rival march, or mob, seemed to be advancing, with the evident intention of having a fight. Soon, despite the police, a full-blown mêlée was in progress between the marchers and the protesters, who were largely North African but also included a fair proportion of young whites, students by the look of them.
‘Look at the police,’ Olivier yelled in my ear. ‘See who they’re hitting?’
Indeed, there seemed to be no question of police impartiality. The people who were being dragged away to the vans that (I now saw) lined every side street were the pro-testers, not the FN. Almost as he spoke a pair of burly police brushed past us, dragging a protester by the feet, his head bumping against the cobbles. They elbowed us out of the way: I almost lost my balance, but Olivier caught me and pulled me back against a wall. My bag, though, had fallen from my shoulder to the ground, where it burst open, spilling its contents – purse, notebook, passport, and my tiny digital camera. One of the cops, in passing, and clearly not accidentally, trod on the camera, hard enough to break it apart.
For a moment I was so shocked that I just stood there. Then I began to shout in fury. He turned, advanced towards us, and with great deliberation trod on my note-book too, grinding it into the dust, before, without a word, continuing on his way to the police van, into which the protester was now being tossed. Olivier, who had retrieved the other objects and stuffed them back into the bag, pulled me away.
‘Leave it. You can’t do anything. He’ll pull you in, too. Come on, let’s go.’ And he began to walk briskly away from the fighting, pulling me by the hand.
‘But that camera cost me over two hundred pounds.’
‘So claim it on your insurance. Say it was stolen.’
‘But he did it on purpose!’
‘Naturally. He didn’t want some do-gooding woman taking photographs.’
He was walking fast, and I had to run to keep up. I felt hot and furious, and my ankle hurt where I’d twisted it falling.
‘Now you can see the kind of people who support Jean-Jacques Rigaut.’
‘You’re not saying he’s FN?’
‘Of course not, he’s not interested in the margins. Though they like him fine. But I meant the police. These are CRS, the riot police. His special boys.’
‘The FN’s armed wing, from what I saw.’
‘Not exactly. But you saw what they’re like. And believe me, the Minister does not disapprove. So be careful.’
By now we had reached the Gare d’Orsay metro station. Olivier said, ‘I must get back to the office. Will you be OK?’
I said I’d probably go straight to the Gare du Nord.
He kissed me on both cheeks, his hands on my shoulders, then disappeared into the metro. It was nothing, the standard greeting between acquaintances. But as I dived underground, I still felt his warm hands on my shoulders. I tried to put the memory out of my mind. But as in so much else, I failed.
9
St Front, August
The following Monday, he phoned me at the Gallery. ‘Régine? I spoke to my grandmother. She’d be happy to see you.’
We agreed that I’d return to St Front the following week. The summer season was in full swing, and Les Pruniers had been fully booked, but someone had cancelled at short notice, leaving a room free for me.
I stepped from the air-conditioned train into air like damp flannel. The mere act of breathing made the sweat start. In July the verge
s with their tapestry of small flowers had been a Pre-Raphaelite vision, almost unnaturally green, but now fields and sky were a uniform non-colour, bleached by heat and drought. The small rental car (‘Saxo,’ quipped the girl in the rental office, ‘like the phone’) was oven-like: only after five minutes with all windows and doors wide open was it possible to get inside and start driving.
I reached St Front just after six. Save for the inevitable chorus of dogs it seemed, as on my earlier visit, quite deserted. This time the bar was open, but its only sign of life was an alsatian lying across the threshold – not exactly an invitation to custom. That being mayor of such a place could start anyone on a career in national politics seemed unbelievable.
Five minutes later I arrived at Les Pruniers. The people carrier had now been joined by a grey Peugeot saloon. I slid the Saxo in beside them and knocked on the door. No one answered, but if two cars were here, then someone must be home. I tried the door, which was unlocked, and walked through the kitchen to the orchard. And there they were, clustered at the far end around a freestanding circular blue pool that was being filled from a hosepipe attached to an outside tap. The children, already inside, were hap-pily drenching each other while Delphine, in a swimsuit, and Olivier, in shorts, tried, not very hard, to dodge the drops. They looked like one of those ideal families you see on cereal packets and bags of barbecue charcoal: attractive young mother and father and two beautiful children, one of each sex. Delphine, who was doing something complicated with a towel, waved.
‘Come and see our new toy. When the heat gets unbearable we can all sit in it.’
‘Even the guests? Where are they all?’
‘They come and go. We don’t do table d’hôte here, they have to find somewhere else to eat.’
I said to Olivier, ‘Still OK for tomorrow?’
‘Absolutely. She’s looking forward to it.’
That evening I ate in Meyrignac. When I got back an electric storm was flickering on the horizon, spasmodically lighting the far-off hills like a faulty million-watt bulb. But no rain fell, and next morning was as hot and airless as ever.
At breakfast, which took place in the garden room off the kitchen, I met the other guests. There was an English couple whose two children glared suspiciously across at Fabien and Magali, a pair of middle-aged Dutch walkers I’d noticed last night in the restaurant where I’d dined, and who were now tucking into large quantities of cheese, and a couple from the Pas de Calais who had not yet shed their northern pallor. The woman from Calais eyed my dress, a sleeveless blue muslin number from the Liberty summer sale. Eventually she plucked up courage and said, ‘Where did you get that, if you don’t mind, madame? It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for everywhere, but I can’t seem to find it.’ I told her; she looked depressed, and conversation flagged.
At a quarter to ten Olivier appeared, spruce in shorts and a blue T-shirt. ‘Ready?’
‘Is it far?’
‘Far enough,’ he said, leading the way to the Peugeot. ‘The other side of the bourg. It’s too hot to walk, and it’ll be even hotter by the time we come back.’
Delphine leaned out of a window. ‘Will you be back for lunch?’
He shook his head. ‘No idea. I’ll call you.’
We set out on the Meyrignac road, but after about three kilometres Olivier slowed down, and turned into a narrow gravelled track. At the end of it a cluster of houses formed a small hamlet in the woodland. The one we drew up at was rendered in cream-painted plaster, with a kitchen-garden to one side and a spacious covered porch on which stood a table covered with the usual oilcloth. Olivier explained that it belonged to his uncle Francis, a builder, married to his father’s sister Anny. ‘Doesn’t trust wood. He likes to boast that he built his house entirely without wood.’
I noticed that the porch had iron railings; the gate was also iron. ‘Not anywhere?’
‘Perhaps just a bit in the roof-beams.’
He ran up the steps on to the terrace, where a wiry, grizzled man in his late fifties had emerged to meet us. Olivier introduced us. ‘My friend Régine – my uncle, Francis Laronze. It turns out Francis is doing some work at La Jaubertie.’
Monsieur Laronze had a wide, humorous mouth, small black eyes, and a local accent so strong that I had to listen hard to make out what he was saying. ‘I couldn’t quite understand, from what Olivier told me. Is it La Jaubertie you’re interested in, or the Rigauts?’
‘It’s really to do with a picture they have there. But the family, too. Everything, really.’
‘If you were interested in the house, I could show you some bits you wouldn’t see otherwise. I’m just off there now.’
This suggestion caught me off-guard. Of course I intended to try and visit La Jaubertie while I was in St Front – I’d brought Rigaut’s letter with me, to show Juliette. But the last thing I wanted to do was make her think I was sniffing around behind her back – and what else could she imagine if she or Babette ran into me being given a guided tour by the builder?
‘That’s most kind,’ I said politely. ‘But I’m afraid it would be rather awkward, if we suddenly ran into Madame Rigaut.’
‘Don’t worry, she won’t mind,’ he assured me. ‘I’ve often done it. It’s a historic place, people are interested. And we wouldn’t go into the living quarters – just the attics and the cellars. But in any case, no one’s there today. I believe Madame’s visiting her son. But Mamie’s waiting. She’s found some things she thought might interest you.’
Francis led us into his wood-free house. It had tiled floors, formica worktops in the kitchen, metal window frames. The result was somewhat echoing, though doubt-less an excellent fire risk. The salon was furnished with a leatherette three-piece suite, a coffee table upon which sat a large, somewhat worn-looking manila envelope, and a flat-screen television. A stout woman with a peasant’s muscular arms and legs was seated on the sofa. She must have been well into her seventies, perhaps even eighty, but her thinning hair was still frizzed and coloured: age had not drowned out vanity. Olivier gave her the regulation four kisses, two to each cheek, and introduced us: ‘My grandmother – my friend Régine.’
We shook hands. The old woman patted the seat beside her. ‘Sit down . . . Francis, why don’t you make us all some coffee?’
‘Not for me, thanks,’ I said. I wanted to concentrate on whatever might emerge without the distraction of juggling a cup.
‘Nor me,’ said Olivier.
‘A glass of wine, then.’
‘No thanks, it’s too early . . . So what’s this you’ve found, Mamie?’
She nodded towards the envelope. ‘Your grandfather’s war memories. I found it when he died, and it’s been at the back of that armoire ever since. When you said your friend was interested in those days I thought there might be something there.’
I said, ‘Can I look?’
She nodded.
I picked up the envelope and gently tipped its contents on to the table. Dust flew up, making my nose run. There was a ration card; a photo of two young men in army uniform, clearly brothers, standing on a street corner some-where; a few newspaper cuttings recording trains blown up or derailed; a paper dated 5th January 1941 instructing PEYTOUREAU Didier to present himself for war-work in Germany; and, last of all, a photograph of one of the young men who had appeared in the previous pictures, now out of uniform, standing in a garden beside another man, grey-haired and assured-looking, wearing a sweater and plus-fours.
Olivier, looking over my shoulder, said, ‘I’ve never seen any of these.’ He picked up the snapshot of the two young men. ‘Is that Grand-père?’
Mamie took it and held it away from her, squinting. ‘Pass my glasses, Francis – that’s better. Yes, that’s him on the left and that’s Arnaud, his elder brother.’
‘May I?’ I took the photo and studied it. Arnaud was taller than his brother, dark-haired, well set up, his face not unlike Olivier’s. A dashing fellow. He and Juliette would have made a fine couple.
‘Where were you?’
‘Milking the goats. We made cheese, it was excellent, you don’t get anything like that these days . . . Maman came rushing in – she could hardly speak, all she could say was Come, come, you won’t believe it. And when we got to the kitchen there was Didier.’ She leaned over and picked up the summons to forced labour. ‘He’d been back a few months when this arrived. Of course none of them that went came back. Didier didn’t go, though. He said he hadn’t got away from them once just to give himself up now. He went underground instead. That was the choice, Germany or the maquis.’ She nodded at the cuttings. ‘Those must have been his work – I can’t think why else he cut them out. But mostly he was helping people across the demarcation line. It went just by us – just behind La Jaubertie. The line was the stream in the valley there, the Garaude. We were occupied, and over the other side it was free. That’s when Didier’s father stopped being mayor. The mayor was the official liaison between the village and the authorities, and how could he do that when his own son was breaking the law? He quarrelled with his wife about it. She said he should carry on, but he said that would mean denouncing his own son. So he went to La Jaubertie and told Monsieur de Beaupré that he couldn’t be mayor any more, his health wasn’t good enough, and he was handing over. Beaupré was astonished – they’d been political opponents all their lives. But he did it happily enough. I expect he felt it was his turn.’