• • •
With his hands in the pockets of his raincoat, a cigarette drooping from his lip, his face very pale and thin, Philippe Esclavier stood outside the front door.
His sister Jacqueline opened it and heaved a deep sigh.
“It’s you, Philippe. We thought you were dead.”
“Thought or hoped?”
She was shivering, for she felt she was looking at a ghost—the ghost of her father, grimly accoutred. The resemblance was overwhelming.
“Please, Philippe. I’m so pleased you’ve come back.”
She tried to kiss him. He let her do so, keeping his hands in his pockets and his cigarette in his mouth, then pushed past her through the door.
The muffled sound of a number of voices came from the drawing-room.
“You’ve got company, I gather. Is Weihl holding forth as usual?”
“Philippe, don’t let’s have a row. Our opinions may differ . . .”
“It’s not just our opinions . . .”
“Everyone will be delighted to see you, including Michel . . . After all, you were both deported together . . .”
“Not for the same reasons . . .”
“Please, Philippe. I’ve got out your civilian clothes. Would you like me to go and fetch them. Go and have a wash to freshen yourself up. Then change and . . . come and join us.”
“Why change?”
“That uniform you’re wearing . . .”
“I might have known it. When I came back from Mathausen, you wanted me to keep on my deportee’s uniform. Now that I’m back from Indo-China as an officer . . .”
“A paratroop officer . . . Philippe . . .”
“You want me to disguise myself as a civilian, to slink home in the dark, to kowtow to a dirty little crook and his friends who are mucking up my carpets, to ask forgiveness for failing to get myself killed twenty times over, for miraculously coming out alive after being dumped in a Vietminh hospital. There must be something wrong with you, Jacqueline.”
Jacqueline burst into tears.
“You’re an utter savage, and you’ve been drinking, you reek of drink. Our father never used to drink.”
Philippe stepped into the drawing-room with his beret still on his head, but he had taken off his raincoat, revealing his parachute badge and decorations.
Michel Weihl-Esclavier was speaking with the scornful detachment, the rather precious insistence on the choice of expression, which enabled him to pose as a sensitive soul and writer of wide culture. He was leaning against the mantelpiece under the big portrait of Étienne Esclavier, and one of his hands, which were his best feature, drooped in an attitude of studied negligence.
Ensconced in an arm-chair, Villèle seemed to be hanging on his lips, but he wasn’t listening to him and his thoughts were elsewhere. Villèle hated Weihl and his success; he congratulated him on his books, which he signed Michel W. Esclavier, but said behind his back that they were junk, and never read them. He himself would have liked to live in this apartment where generations of professors, men of law, famous doctors and politicians had amassed their tasteful treasures.
The Fantin-Latour hanging on the opposite wall was a fortune in itself.
Since Weihl was not looking at him, he turned his head slightly and saw the charming profile of Guitte, Goldschmidt’s daughter. The old professor was asleep in his chair, his mouth wide open. She was lively and attractive, the little minx. What would she be like in bed? Prudish? Bold? A mixture of the two? It was something worth considering . . .
Nothing else of interest in this group: a few activists with thick ankles and short hair; two or three society women as silly as that Françoise Percenier-Moreau who was said to be Weihl’s mistress; some badly dressed, shiny-faced female students . . . barely fit for a roll in the hay in an interval between two self-examination periods.
The men were not much better: university people with an exaggerated idea of themselves; a painter who turned up at every meeting because he had been given to think that he might meet Picasso there. But what no one knew was that the painter carried in his pocket a syringe filled with black paint with which he intended to spray the “mystery-monger who had ruined painting.”
He, Villèle, did know and was biding his time . . . One evening he had written a paper, a very good paper, in which he sided with Picasso, of course, but with reservations, extremely subtle reservations. The paper could not appear yet; and perhaps if the incident did occur, the outcome might be entirely different. There was also a stage-manager who was noted for his unnatural tastes. And lastly, a Dominican. There is always a Dominican in the offing.
Not one of the thirty people assembled there found favour in Villèle’s eyes, not even the little philosophy mistress from a provincial lycée who was blushing with admiration for the master and delightedly dipping the tip of her tongue into a glass of tepid orangeade. How sordid it all was, Weihl and his orangeade!
He caught sight of Philippe Esclavier who had just come in, and recognized him at once. He was the tall captain who at Vietri had given the released prisoners the order to throw away their fibre helmets and canvas boots. Villèle had a photographic memory for faces. He assumed a puzzled expression as a wave of jubilation swept over him. The show-down promised to be a good one.
“Our action in favour of peace,” Weihl was saying, “has met with magnificent results. We raised public opinion against the war in Indo-China, and the outcome was the armistice and the victory of our friends of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam. Soon they’ll be masters of the South, where the puppet set up by the Americans won’t be able to hold out for more than a few days.”
“Still talking away?”
Philippe’s voice chipped in, dry as the crackle of a forest tree on a frosty day. He was leaning against the door-post as though to block the exit through which his prey might try to escape.
“I wonder what our country has done to you for you to think of nothing but destroying it, or my family for you to have come and infected them.”
Michel Weihl felt the blood draining from his face, chest and limbs and taking refuge in some mysterious part of his body, a sort of basin into which it always settled as soon as things began to go wrong. He had been expecting this encounter and had prepared for it, but was nevertheless taken by surprise.
The Dominican rose to his feet and tried to make for the doorway. Philippe’s voice brought him to a standstill like a butterfly on a pin.
“Back to your seat, Vicar, and stay there!”
Jacqueline tried to come through the door from the other side. She drummed on him with her bare fists but soon gave up.
“She has gone to her room to have a good cry,” Weihl thought to himself. “That’s all she’s good for—crying like her mother. The Dominican has also sat down again. And that little sod Villèle is secretly laughing his head off! Goldschmidt has woken up at last; he’s rubbing his eyes. He’s beaming all over his face; he has recognized his little Philippe . . . This is all very interesting. At the moment I am outside the drama, like a spectator, but I am also at the centre of it. This theme would be worth developing, but later, later. I must recover my position on stage, in the centre of the stage. Françoise is trying to look shocked. That won’t do any good, my little Françoise; this time it’s serious, and Philippe hasn’t even noticed your facial contortions. I’m his ‘sacrificial beast.’” Michel suddenly recalled this Persian expression to which he had attached a deep significance: “May I be your sacrificial beast.”
He noticed that a complete silence had fallen and that most of the audience had got up and were waiting for something to happen. He composed his voice.
“I’m glad to see you again, Philippe.”
“I’m not. I’ll repeat my question: what has my country done to you for you to think of nothing but destroying it?”
“It’s my country as we
ll.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Because I’m a Jew?”
“No. Goldschmidt’s also Jewish, but it’s still his country.”
“Because I’m a Progressivist?”
“Goldschmidt also claims to be a Progressivist, and it’s still his country.”
“Then why?”
“Because you’re a dirty little shit. You’ve got an unhealthy liking for misfortune, putrefaction and defeat. You’re a born lackey, servile and fawning . . .”
“I saved your life at Mathausen.”
“Not you, your masters . . . the Communists. It was Fournier who had my name taken off the list. Fournier and I don’t see eye to eye, but at least we respect each other.”
“Why are you trying to make a row?”
“I was lucky enough to find you surrounded by a particularly choice bunch of asses, bitches and snobs. I couldn’t resist such a pleasure. Tomorrow we’ll disinfect the place . . . with D.D.T.”
“This is outrageous,” the philosophy mistress cried out in a shrill voice.
“This happens to be my house, madame. It’s a funny thing, but among all these friends of the people I can’t see a single working-class person, and among these Fighters for Peace not a single person capable of handling a rifle. Not a single Commie either. The Communists aren’t like us. They’re much more intolerant. They guard against contagion, they keep themselves clean and tip their refuse out on to the heads of others. They’ve filled my drawing-room with it.”
“It’s not as bad as all that,” Weihl said to himself, “as long as he sticks to generalizations. Perhaps he won’t talk about Mathausen and the reason why I was deported . . . perhaps . . . because Fournier must certainly have told him all about it. He’s a sensitive man, old Philippe. Even though he’s a bit of a brute he’s frightened of hurting his sister or dishonouring the family name. Deported for black market activities. After all, one had to live, or rather survive. Philippe can’t understand that. The Esclaviers have been steeped in honour and fine sentiments for centuries. Now that I have established myself I’m ready to have as many fine sentiments, and even finer, as anyone else!”
“Are you drunk, Philippe?”
He could not resist provoking his brother-in-law. Perhaps Philippe would now strike him, lay him out as he had done in the camp when he caught him stealing someone else’s rations. At the time he had experienced a disturbing sensation of well-being; very odd, that sensation.
Philippe’s voice sounded distant and remote.
“I’m not yet drunk enough. Weihl, go and fetch some alcohol, for we drink alcohol in my house and not milksop concoctions. We’ll both get blind drunk together. No, everyone will get blind drunk with us, even the vicar. Jump to it, Michel my lad, I’m thirsty. Go on, you know what drinks to choose, don’t try and pretend . . .”
This time the illusion was pointed. Weihl had sold the Germans a store of contraband alcohol, that was why he had been sent to Mathausen . . . Philippe was drunk. Villèle was sweating with curiosity. He felt some really juicy secret was about to be revealed.
“Get a move on, Michel.”
Weihl slowly unhooked himself from the mantelpiece.
The captain opened the door for him and shoved him outside. Guitte, too, had sprung to her feet, as though the spell which held them all rooted to the spot had been broken. She rubbed her head against Philippe’s chest, nibbled him, kissed him, scratched him, laughed, sobbed and stroked his face.
“You’ve come back at last, Philippe. I’m touching you, kissing you. You’re as unshaven as ever this evening.”
Panting and puffing, old Goldschmidt had grasped the captain’s hand and was holding it against his fat paunch; he was snivelling, which made him look even uglier than usual.
“Why didn’t you let us know? We should have come and met you at the station, or at Marseilles . . .”
Villèle lit a cigarette and thought:
“This isn’t at all funny, everyone’s in tears. It’s too trite and yet just now we were very near the moment of truth. Interesting, this captain, very interesting. He’s the great love of little Guitte, you can see.”
Weihl’s guests trooped past, one after another, without daring to look at Philippe who was still standing by the door. On his way the Dominican delivered himself in an unctuous tone:
“May God forgive you, my son.”
“I’d like to see you again, Captain,” said Villèle. “You remember, I was at Vietri at the time of your release . . . That magnificent gesture, yes, throwing your fibre helmets into the river . . . I’ll ring you up . . . in the very near future.”
In his surprise Esclavier allowed him to shake the hand which Goldschmidt was not holding.
He suddenly felt tired out, bereft, devoid of anger. Ashamed of himself and of his outburst.
Weihl came back with a bottle of brandy, put it down on the table and disappeared. He had suddenly assumed the smooth manner of a head waiter.
• • •
“You went too far, Philippe,” Goldschmidt gently observed, forcing the captain to sit down beside him. “It was you alone who allowed Weihl to become the heir to your father and to his thought. Do you know he’s got the makings of a great writer? He’s an exhibitionist who hates to reveal himself in public though at the same time he can’t resist the temptation to do so . . .”
“A mental strip-tease, but he takes good care not to give the reason for his deportation!”
“He will one day . . . because he won’t be able to stop himself. Exhibitionists are queer people, and we Jews are all exhibitionists.”
“Even the Jews of Israel?” Guitte inquired.
“No, they seem to have escaped the curse. But at the same time they’re going to lose their genius, which is a compound of subtlety, restlessness and also fear. In every Jew’s subconscious there’s a deeply rooted terror of the pogrom. The Israeli doesn’t have this. He tills a land which belongs to him and has a rifle slung on his shoulder. For centuries the uprooted Jew has inevitably hated all forms of nationalism. Nations are shadowy families from which he feels himself excluded. So he invented Communism, where the notion of class replaced that of nation. But this latest invention to have sprouted from his genius has not solved the problem, at least not for him, for the Jew is essentially outside all social classes just as he happens to be outside every nation. So he lingers on the fringe of Communism and becomes what is known as a Progressivist. The Israelis took the opposite course, but they immediately suffered from nationalist delirium.
“You see, I’m as garrulous as ever, Philippe. All this is just to tell you that I’m a Jew and not an Israeli and that Weihl is like me. That’s one of the reasons I’m so attached to him.”
“I’m an Israeli,” said Guitte. “I’m a nationalist and I’m not under the curse. Won’t you marry me, Philippe! We’ll organize pogroms together and chase Weihl and old Goldschmidt with long knives down every passage in the house!”
“All right,” said Philippe, “I’ve learnt my lesson. I’m extremely fond of you both, but just leave me in peace with my bottle of brandy.”
“When are you coming to dine with us?” Guitte asked. “I’ll cook you a nationalist dish, steak and French fried potatoes. I’ve learnt how to cook in order to seduce you all the more easily.”
“You know what your father used to say,” Goldschmidt went on. “‘History will drive us ineluctably towards Communism. Instead of fighting it, we ought to humanize it so as to make it tolerable for the West.’”
“I know what Communism is like and I can tell you now that it isn’t tolerable and can never be humanized.”
Goldschmidt had some difficulty in getting up from his chair. He had asthma and panted at every step he took. One day his heart would give out and that would be the last of the garrulous, inquisitive, indulgent old man. He had always lived in t
he shadow of others, he had forgotten himself, and here was death suddenly reminding him that he existed.
Leaning on his daughter’s arm, he shuffled slowly along the railings of the Luxembourg Gardens. He stopped to recover his breath.
“What an extraordinary fate for that Esclavier family!” he suddenly said to Guitte. “Étienne dies on his return from the U.S.S.R. where he has been received in triumph. Paul follows him into the grave a few days later after having had his brother voted out of the Socialist Party, with the result that the Communists and Socialists each bury their great man under their own Red Flag and insult each other at both funerals! Meanwhile Philippe was at death’s door in a hospital at Hanoi with a wound in the stomach he had received while attacking a Vietminh village over which the same Red Flag was unfurled.
“The two dying men asked for Philippe. One of them only had Weihl on whom to bestow his ‘political testament.’ Paul’s bedside companion was a former president who had been involved in some shady business. But there was no one with Philippe’s mother when she died a month after her great man, no one but old Goldschmidt. She wanted a rosary. The woman in the religious articles shop asked me: “Is it for someone taking their first communion?’ Yes, a really astonishing family! Philippe has inherited his father’s good looks, eyes as grey as the sea off Brittany. But war and suffering have left their stamp on his face. The raw clay has been fired in the oven. I must ask Philippe one day why he stayed on in the army.”
“I know why, because I’m an Israeli.”
“You’re a bit in love with Philippe, aren’t you?”
“You can’t walk any farther; I’m going to call a taxi.”
“I warn you, the Esclaviers only admit submissive and retiring women into their lives.”
• • •
Alone in the drawing-room, with a glass in his hand, Philippe Esclavier paced up and down the shelves of books: old books bound in leather or parchment, paper-covered books whose spines had been bleached and whose titles had faded in the light.
The Centurions Page 29