‘Like women?’
‘Oh, women … there are far too many women. No, business opportunities. Ah, if only I had some investment capital …’
He was lost in a dream for a moment and his hands – he had very beautiful hands, well cared for, expressive, with quivering fingers that curled up slightly at the tips, spiritual, worrying hands that clashed with the easy-going directness he affected – his hands trembled and stretched out as if reaching for some prey.
‘You’ll find some money, I’m sure of it,’ whispered Bernard.
The two of them spoke very quietly amid the noise while Thérèse remained pensive and the others watched the crowd in open-mouthed astonishment.
‘But I’m not interested in money,’ said Raymond, recovering his mocking manner of good little boy. ‘I am a true son of France, I am, sensitive, generous, a dreamer, always ready to sacrifice my own most legitimate interests to some greater ideal. So in America, where it’s raining gold at present, not a single cent will end up in my pocket. My mind is completely focused on enormously important deals that affect all of humanity … I literally have no time to think about myself, and that’s a shame, a real shame, because, as I’ve already said, there are opportunities and no one should sneer at making money. It’s a powerful lever, a tool that can do a great deal of harm but also a great deal of good,’ he declared in a beautiful, throaty voice that could easily be heard above the noise of the conversations and the clatter of dishes and glasses. ‘When are you going back, Bernard?’ he suddenly asked.
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Tell me, you speak English, don’t you? Aren’t you a real fount of knowledge? When you were a child, you won all the school prizes. I remember that, just as I remember everything. I have a remarkable memory.’
‘Yes, I do speak English.’
‘Yes, but careful now, is it a good, modern English, good commercial English, no what-do-you-call-its, nothing as old-fashioned as Shakespeare? If so, could you come to the United States with me, as my secretary?’
‘You’re mad! I just told you that I’m leaving tomorrow.’
‘My dear boy, everything can be arranged. You must start from the principle that nothing in this world is impossible. Mind you, I’m not promising you anything, but I have contacts and a certain amount of influence …’
He gave a self-satisfied little laugh.
‘A certain amount of influence,’ he said again. ‘You could say that you are extraordinarily lucky. I am actually looking for a clever lad who could help me over there, for I am a true son of France, and I have never been able to get a single word of those damned foreign languages to stick in my thick skull. It’s annoying and I’d like to work with someone honest, kind, someone like you, really, and I’d like to help you too. Your mother’s heart is being squeezed dry knowing you’re in danger. To enlist voluntarily at the age of eighteen, wounded twice, fighting throughout the entire campaign, you deserve a bit of a break, and so does she …’
‘It’s quite funny,’ thought Bernard, ‘to think that all I have to do is agree, say yes … I know what he really wants. He must be looking for some little trustworthy fool to help him with his shady munitions deals or to win a contract to manufacture shoes for the army. Ah, those bastards … The United States, the good life, money, women, while we …’
At the same time, he felt as if someone had slapped him across the face. No, worse than that! As if a lump of wet mud had hit him in the face.
‘Thank you, but that isn’t possible,’ he said curtly.
The big man seemed truly surprised:
‘Really, that doesn’t appeal to you? Well, I understand and admire you, to tell the truth! I wasn’t offering to get you out of your responsibilities, you know that very well, but to continue serving your country. The country doesn’t only need our blood, it also needs our intelligence, all our superior qualities. But no matter, I do admire you, my boy, it’s noble, gallant, so very French! It warms my patriotic heart to see a soldier like you. You’re a little hero.’
He turned towards Madame Jacquelain:
‘Madame, you should be very proud of your son.’
‘I should, shouldn’t I?’ said Madame Jacquelain, her eyes welling up with tears, while Bernard, furious, protested:
‘No! That’s enough! You’re making a bloody fool of me!’
‘Me?’ exclaimed Détang, and tears dimmed his booming voice. ‘You’re not being fair to me, my boy. Do you really think it doesn’t lift our hearts to watch the youth of France accomplishing such marvellous things? You are only doing your duty, of course. And we are doing ours. For me, it’s by crossing the dangerous ocean to bring America the respect of her sister Republic. For you, it’s rushing back to the trenches. The beauty of what is happening now in France is even more pronounced against the background of the corruption and dishonesty that I spoke of a little while ago. You are right, my boy, totally and utterly right! Be a soldier, a simple soldier, see only the task ahead. Leave to us what will perhaps be the even more arduous task of preparing the future peace, and allow me to drink to your good health,’ he concluded with a sweet, paternal smile.
He ordered some champagne and they all drank it, after much protest. Madame Jacquelain was sobbing into her glass, out of love, pride and anguish.
9
‘How this child has changed,’ said Madame Jacquelain, sighing.
They had gone back home through the dark streets. There had not been any air raids for a week, but everything stood ready in case they had to hide in the basement – a shawl for Monsieur Jacquelain, his belladonna drops, a few small pieces of jewellery, some family mementos, all packed into a little case on the mantelpiece where everyone could see it.
In the next room, Bernard spent his last but one night under his family’s roof. These final hours of his leave were so painful to his mother that she sometimes thought: ‘I’d really prefer it if he never came home. It would be better for me if he weren’t brought to me only to be taken away again so soon.’ And this time, in addition to her usual suffering there was something else: another source of gnawing, surprising pain. Her boy had indeed become a stranger. She didn’t know who he was any more. She began to wonder if really and truly the end of the war (even if her son came through it alive), if the end of the war would really put a stop to all her worries.
‘He used to be such an easy child,’ sighed Madame Jacquelain.
She combed her thinning grey hair before going to bed. She settled their old cat Moumoute for the night in the basket they carefully carried down to the basement when the air raid sirens sounded. She washed and lay down next to her husband. He was still awake. She could hear him sighing in the darkness, the muted, painful groans he made when his stomach cramps gave him trouble. She got up to make him some herbal tea with his drops. He drank it slowly; his long, yellowish moustache hung down into the cup; he sucked one end of it, looking pensive.
‘It’s the hot chocolate that’s made you feel ill,’ said Madame Jacquelain.
He gestured that it wasn’t, thought for a moment, then suddenly cried out:
‘It is really unbelievable that this child is extorting five thousand francs from me for a gambling debt, that he tells me in the most insolent manner that he’s made up his mind and won’t be continuing his studies after the war, that he speaks to me without any affection, with no respect …’
‘Papa!’
‘With no respect, I’m telling you! The moment I open my mouth to express my opinion on the course of events – opinions that, my God, are just as valid as his and that I find, moreover, in a slightly different form in my newspaper, written by the best journalists – this … this little brat contradicts me and only just stops himself from ordering me to keep quiet! It really is unbelievable to have to put up with that from my own son and to have to stop myself from slapping him …’
‘Papa, I’m begging you, you’re getting yourself all upset!’
‘… Slapping him; just because he’
s twenty-two and is fighting in the war. In everything he says, in everything he does, he implies: “What? If it weren’t for me …? You’d be in a terrible state if it weren’t for me!” Yes, of course he’s doing a fantastic job, it’s war, I forgive him everything, but if he comes back with that sense of insubordination, of self-pride, what will become of us?’
‘It will pass.’
‘No, no, it won’t pass.’
He gloomily shook his head. He seemed to be contemplating some terrifying vision, as if he were watching monstrous, shadowy shapes from the future rising before him; he could only make out a few sketchy features; he described them in his naïve way; the rest remained hidden from him, or only appeared for a split second. He was feeling his way, trying to understand, shrinking back:
‘He’s holding a grudge against us, that’s what it is, he’s holding a grudge against us. He told me that …’
‘What? What did he tell you?’
‘Oh, silly things, jokes, but things that revealed a terrifying state of mind. He dared to say that the soldiers didn’t give a damn about Alsace-Lorraine or getting our land back!’
Madame Jacquelain let out a wounded cry:
‘Papa! He didn’t really say that!’
‘Yes, he did. And that we, the civilians, had gradually got used to the idea of war, that we pretended to be suffering but that we weren’t really, that only they, they knew what true suffering was, and that now, all they ever thought about was one thing – to end the war and to have themselves a good time to make up for what they had lost.’
He fell silent, picturing Bernard’s hardened face as he said over and over again:
‘They don’t give a damn about anything, nothing at all. Having a good time. That’s all they care about. He told me that because I was talking to him about his studies and he absolutely refuses to continue with them.’
‘But why, why? I don’t understand.’
‘Because he’s become lazy, I dare say! He told me that we were all just dupes, that very soon all you would need is a bit of luck and some influence in order to earn millions, and that a life like ours already disgusted him. It’s the mentality of war transposed into peacetime. It’s terrifying. I told him: “My boy, audacity, System D and thinking on your feet, being hard-hearted, all that is fine in wartime because patriotism makes it acceptable, but in peacetime, it will create a generation of crooks.” “No! A generation of shrewd people,” he replied. I do believe, Mama, that he’s just showing off, exaggerating, but, in spite of everything, something is going on inside him that terrifies me. And it’s got to the point where … if I talked to him about certain things, like honour, integrity, the inviolable duty to work hard, I think he’d laugh in my face. Our son has been corrupted.’
‘But who has done this to him? Perhaps he has friends who are a bad influence?’ asked Madame Jacquelain who still thought that a soldier’s life, in 1918, was simply the continuation of a student’s life.
‘Perhaps …’
‘But Papa, be fair, he has extraordinary patriotism and decent feelings. Think about what Raymond Détang offered him: to get away from the war, out of harm’s way, to escape from the stress of war to go on a wonderful trip to the United States, and he refused. It broke my heart to see him refuse such an unheard of thing, but at the same time, I was proud of him. No! He’s a good boy, a good Frenchman!’
‘The war still has a hold on them,’ murmured the elderly Monsieur Jacquelain. He fell silent, confusedly picturing in his mind the war as an enormous steel frame that cut straight through and supported these weary men, forcing them into a proud, rigid stance. But when the war was over, they would collapse.
‘No, they’ll forget,’ said Madame Jacquelain. Being a woman, she assumed that the two sexes had the same short memory.
‘War is never forgotten,’ said Monsieur Jacquelain. ‘I’ve never been to war, but still I will never forget it.’
They sat in silence, trying to unravel the enigma of their son together, thinking about it, looking at it from every angle, understanding nothing. A form of revolt? No. Revolt is tinged by fanaticism, and there wasn’t a hint of fanaticism in Bernard, just a kind of bitter, soul-destroying cynicism.
‘But how does he expect to earn his living if he doesn’t go back to his studies? You can’t have a career without qualifications … Have you asked him about that, Papa?’
‘Yes. He sniggered. “Do you really not see what’s going on around you?” he asked me.’
Madame Jacquelain began to cry:
‘And here I thought I would make him so happy by taking him to the circus … So, you mean, he’s no longer my child, no longer my little boy?’
‘Well, that’s another matter. You’re being silly …’
‘No, no, it is the same thing,’ his stubborn mother said again. ‘It’s all the same thing. My child, my good little boy, so generous, so open, so affectionate, he’s gone. That’s all there is to it, he’s gone.’
They finally stopped talking and soon Monsieur Jacquelain’s snoring could be heard, mingling with the purring of the old cat in her basket. But Madame Jacquelain could not manage to fall asleep. She finally got out of bed; wearing her grey flannel bathrobe, with her thinning locks of hair falling down over her sunken cheeks, she silently crossed her bedroom and went into her son’s room. He was asleep, his face was pale and smooth. My God, would he come back? My God, if he did come back, would he be happy? What still lay in store for him? He was only twenty-two. To think that it wasn’t enough that she had to worry about the present, but, in spite of herself, the future frightened her as well. What if Bernard began leading a life of debauchery? Blessed Virgin Mary! This horrifying, awful, incomprehensible war. She vaguely sensed that the ‘fire’, as men called it, did not only burn the hearts and bodies of poor children, it also lit up strange, shadowy, confused ideas that once lay dormant, buried deep within them.
‘No, he’s a good lad. He has a good heart,’ she said once more.
She wanted to kiss him but didn’t dare. In the end, she simply pressed her lips softly against Bernard’s hand, just as she used to when he was asleep in his cradle. She went back to bed, thinking:
‘It will pass. ‘We’ll create such a good little life for him. He’ll want to go back to school again and he’ll love being at home. He’ll work hard. He’ll make up for lost time. He’ll get his degrees. He’ll be a good boy …’
10
A station, somewhere in France, one night in June. Bernard was going back to the front. Soldiers were swarming on to the platforms. Some were sleeping in the waiting rooms. Some walked by speaking loudly, laughing, and against the backdrop of the starry sky or the shadowy light of the station café, their silhouettes stood out: strong, thickset, heroic, already popularised a thousand and one times in films and photographs, the image of a soldier in the Great War, with his heavy shoes, his haversack on his back, a pipe in the corner of his mouth, his hard face, his laugh, his piercing eyes. It wasn’t a crowd, it was an army. The war held them together; war crucified man but held him upright as well. Did any of the leaders, more aware than the others, ever imagine the moment when peace would come, when the army would become a mass of people once more? That was the moment they should have been anticipating, preparing for in the midst of war, but it was difficult. Peace was being improvised just as war had been. That had been a success. So everything would be a success. The pride of the soldiers in themselves was immense. Bernard shared this sense of pride, just as he shared all the feelings of the other soldiers when he was with them. His own, unique soul, complex and contradictory, had been replaced by a collective soul, one that was simple and strong. Like the others, he believed himself to be invincible; he thought he was amazing, and, like the others, he knew that he would hold his own until the very last day of the war, he wouldn’t give an inch, but afterwards … oh, afterwards!
He stretched out his legs, sighed, threw his head back and looked up at the distant sky, daydreaming vague
ly of various things. What a long way he had come in the past four years! First, the enthusiasm, the joy of self-sacrifice, the desire to die for your country, for future generations, for future peace … Prepared to die, as long as death was heroic and had purpose, but soon the idea of death terrified him – oh, how he had hated death, how he had feared it, just as he had doubted God and blasphemed as he looked at the little blackish heaps lying between two trenches, dead bodies as numerous and insignificant as dead flies in the first cold snap of winter … And yet, even that moment held a rather tragic beauty. But that time too passed. He got used to the idea of death. He no longer feared it, he thought of such things coldly and with terrifying realism. He was nothing. He no longer believed in God, the immortal soul, the goodness of mankind. He needed to get as much pleasure as he could out of his short time on this earth, that was all there was to it …‘If someone like Raymond Détang comes looking for me again after I’ve done my duty …’ He thought about one of his friends who had enlisted at the age of eighteen like him, an amiable boy who had been killed two months before, a good, pious lad who used to say: ‘You never stop doing your duty.’ What a joke … He wouldn’t harm anyone, he thought, but they’d better stay the hell off my back. All around him, men walked with heavy steps, chatting cheerfully. They reeked of tobacco, cheap wine, filth and sweat.
What would he find when he got back to his sector, Bernard wondered. They were expecting serious offensives. But the civilians thought and talked about that more than the soldiers. ‘Supremely confident,’ said the newspapers. ‘No, we’re simply numb with exhaustion,’ murmured Bernard. But still, perhaps the worst was over? Perhaps he would live to see them marching into the towns, the parade through the Arc de Triomphe? ‘Just think, the ones marching in that parade will be the shirkers like Détang, while I, I’ll be food for the rats. Hell, I don’t give a damn!’ he said once more, and as he waited for his train, he made himself as comfortable as possible on the sacks of oats that had just been unloaded, then fell peacefully asleep.
The Fires of Autumn Page 8