“Are you sure that’s what this is really about?”
“What does that mean?” Papa retorted.
“I mean, are you sure you aren’t more concerned about losing face with Victor?”
“Don’t be ridiculous! You think I care what that puffed-up buffoon thinks?”
“Yes,” Bertrand replied. “I think you do. I think it’s your own puffed-up ego that can’t take it, not his.”
For a moment there was silence. On the other side of the door, I imagined my father’s face flushing hot with fury. But when he finally spoke, his voice was calm.
“If you must know, this place is suffocating me.”
“Because it reminds you of your own home back in Italy?” Bertrand suggested.
“Yes,” my father admitted. I knew he’d always hated the village where he grew up.
“You know what impressed me the most when I first met you?” Bertrand asked after a moment. “That you didn’t care what anyone else thought. You threw caution to the wind—invented fantastical cars the world had never seen—”
“And look where that got us!” my father snarled. “I won’t make a fool of myself like that again. Not for anyone.”
“So instead you live your life in fear?” Bertrand snorted. “Fear of failure. Fear of losing everything you had…of disappointing Julietta…”
I froze on the spot. Just as my father was no doubt doing at that very second.
“Angelo helped you create a masterpiece at the Paris Motor Show,” Bertrand continued. “It may not have been successful, but that was because it was ahead of its time.”
I was still holding my breath, barely daring to imagine what he was going to say next.
“Why not let him help you again?”
“You’re actually serious about this car?” my father asked, incredulous.
“For Pete’s sake, man, here at last is the chance to create something truly new. Something no one has done before—”
“To build a lawn mower for a farmer to sit on?” my father mocked.
“Yes!” Bertrand exclaimed, and I heard him thump the table. “Don’t you see, Luca? The boy really is on to something. And if we don’t do this now, the Germans will beat us to it. It’s no secret that they’re already developing a ‘people’s car’ of their own.”
“But who would buy it?” my father scoffed. “People like Benoît? Marguerite?”
“Yes!” Bertrand cried. “If it was cheap enough. Angelo is right,” he went on. “France is living in the Dark Ages. But you could change all that, if you weren’t too doggone proud to see it!” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard him so passionate. “If you won’t do it for me, at least do it for Angelo.”
“For Angelo?” I heard my father utter in amazement.
“Are you really so blind?” Bertrand asked. “The boy’s doing this for you.”
I don’t know what my father said after that, because I quickly brushed the tears from my cheeks and headed upstairs to bed.
The following morning broke with an eerie stillness. It hadn’t snowed for several days, and what was left on the ground was now slushy and brown.
By the time I stepped out into the half-light of dawn, my father was already warming up the motorbike in the yard. Bertrand was standing nearby, waiting for me. He forced a smile when he saw me approaching, but I wasn’t fooled. I could tell he was as disappointed as I was that we were leaving—possibly more.
“Can I come back again soon?” I asked dismally, peering out from the collar of my large woolen overcoat.
“Just as soon as you want.” He beamed, then pulled me into an embrace that almost crushed my ribs. “Keep working on that prototype,” he whispered. “One day you will create a legend; of that I’m sure.”
I tried to return his smile, but any idea of designing my revolutionary car seemed like a childish fantasy now.
As I clambered into the sidecar, Bertrand stretched out a hand stiffly to my father.
“Drive carefully,” he told him.
Papa nodded solemnly, then pulled his goggles down and mounted the bike. He revved the engine several times and it spluttered, shocked by the cold, damp air. Finally we juddered out the gate and I watched the figure of Bertrand, tall and willowy as a reed, disappear from view.
As we plunged down the stony track and crested the hill on the other side, all was still. I was sure this was why my father had insisted on leaving so early—so he didn’t have to suffer the indignity of passing Victor.
We entered the square, passing the closed shutters of the bar before beginning our descent out of the village. Immediately to our left was the little workshop where Camille’s father had his forge. The door was open, but though I peered hard into the gloom, I couldn’t make out any life inside.
I turned and faced forward, my heart sinking as I watched the village slip away behind me. An image suddenly popped into my head of Philippe smirking as he discovered how I’d skulked out of the village so early. The thought of him gloating left a taste like ash in my mouth.
Soon it was joined by something else: mud. Great mouthfuls of it were being thrown up as we bounced over every rut and pothole along the way.
I turned away to avoid the worst of it, and as I did so, I suddenly spotted a figure standing way behind us, propped against the doorway to the forge. Even at this distance I recognized her immediately.
Camille.
Was it just chance, or had she come to see us off?
A few seconds later we turned the last corner on our way out of the village, and she was gone. But that fleeting glimpse of her had been enough to put the ghost of a smile back on my face.
Up ahead was a crossroads. To the left, a battered sign was tilted over, optimistically pointing toward Paris. My father waited as a horse and cart rattled past with several coffins loaded haphazardly on the back. I was wondering if they were occupied, when I suddenly realized that we weren’t moving, even though the horse and cart had long since passed. I turned to look at Papa, and he pulled down his goggles and ran a large handkerchief over his face to wipe off the worst of the mud.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He looked at me for what seemed an eternity before sighing heavily. “You realize that if we don’t go back to Paris, your mother will never speak to me again?”
I held his look without blinking. “She doesn’t speak to you anyway.”
My father narrowed his eyes, then tugged off his gloves and threw them to me.
“What are these for?” I asked, hardly daring to hope.
“I assume you’re driving,” he announced with a gleam of mischief in his eye.
Was I hearing this right? My father was letting me drive his treasured motorbike back into the village? I must have sat gaping at him, because after a moment he began to tug his gloves back on.
“Of course, if you don’t want to go back…”
I didn’t need asking twice. I sprang out of the sidecar and clambered onto the bike in front of my father. As I kicked the gear up to first and eased out the clutch, I revved a little too hard, and for a moment the sidecar lifted clean off the ground.
“Careful!” my father yelled over the racket from the engine. “You’re going to kill us!”
But I had already turned the bike round and was accelerating back toward the village, leaving the lopsided sign still pointing to Paris.
“What do you mean you’re not coming back to Paris!”
I could hear Maman’s shocked voice from the other side of the hallway. Within minutes of arriving back at the house, my father had gulped down a shot of brandy, then rung my mother to break the news. I was perched on the stairs to listen, and judging by what I was hearing, she wasn’t taking it well.
“Angelo has come up with an idea for a new car,” my father reasoned. “Bertrand thinks it’s worth exploring.” My mother’s response was so furious, he had to hold the receiver at arm’s length. Some of what she said was too crackly, but the gist was easy eno
ugh to follow: over her dead body.
“Julietta, just listen to me,” my father protested. “We’re only talking another week. Two at the most. We’ll be back by Christmas—”
Suddenly he fell silent. My mother’s voice had dropped so low I could no longer hear it. But I could see the impact of her words written across Papa’s face.
“You don’t think you’re overreacting?” he muttered. I never heard the answer, and nor did he, because he suddenly glanced at the mouthpiece, then returned the phone to its cradle. She’d hung up.
By now I had been joined by Bertrand.
“I take it that didn’t go as well as you hoped?” he asked with his usual flair for understatement.
“She says she’s going to visit her father in Italy for a week. If Angelo’s not home by the time she comes back,” Papa said, eyeing me ominously, “she’s coming to get you herself.”
“Perfect!” Bertrand announced, clapping his hand against my back heartily. “Seven days should be more than enough.”
I wanted to share his enthusiasm, but the gray look on my father’s face worried me.
“Is that all she said?” I asked him cautiously.
He forced a smile. “She says you’re to call her later. I think she needs some time to get used to the idea.”
I could tell that he was holding something back, but I didn’t know what. Whatever it was, I’d have to wait to find out, because Bertrand had already tugged on his trilby and thrown me my coat.
“Where are we going?” I asked, confused.
Ten minutes later we were standing in the middle of the test track again.
“Here?” my father asked, looking around in dismay.
“Where better to test-drive it?” Bertrand cried.
It was true. If we were going to design a car that could withstand any of the bumps and potholes rural France could throw at it, this was the spot.
My father groaned, clearly wondering how his once glorious career had been reduced to this, but Bertrand patted him on the back to console him.
“Don’t worry. You’re about to create a masterpiece. And to make sure of it, I’ve asked Pascal to give you whatever you need. He’ll coordinate the entire project.”
Pascal was in charge of all the company’s most experimental projects back in Paris.
“I’ll be back at the end of the week to see how you’re getting on.”
“Back?” I asked, thrown. “You mean you’re not staying?”
“Me?” Bertrand chuckled wryly. “My dear boy, you think I can fritter away my time inventing crazy prototypes that may never see the light of day?” My father almost choked, but Bertrand was undeterred. “Besides, Antoine Pinay, the minister of munitions, has asked to speak to me. That’s why you haven’t a moment to lose.”
My expression darkened. “Why?” I asked.
“Because if there is a war,” my father replied, “the government will need the factory to make tanks and trucks for the front line.”
“Exactly,” Bertrand confirmed. “Your little car is far too important to be mothballed. A war with Germany might drag on for years. By then the Germans could have beaten us to your design. If they do that, the war’s as good as lost anyway.” He put one of his long hands on my shoulder. “Anyway, if you’re not finished soon, we’ll have your mother to answer to.”
The blood drained from my face at the thought of her sweeping into the village and taking me back to that dreaded school.
Bertrand had obviously read my mind. “Design the car, create a legend and make France proud,” he urged me. “And wipe that smile off Victor’s ferrety face.”
—
By the time we arrived back at the house, we had a visitor. Christian was lounging in an armchair, smoking one of his exotic cigarettes and sipping a glass of champagne.
“I got Bertrand’s telegram about some car that’s going to make our careers and hopped on the first train down.” He beamed. “I decided it called for a celebration.”
Before my father could object, Christian had shoved a glass into my hand and was making a toast. “To history—and to peasants!”
“Even if we can get it to work, won’t it be too heavy?” I asked tentatively.
It was the following morning, and we were standing gazing at the engine of the old ambulance.
Christian allowed the bonnet to slam shut and a panel snapped off where its hinges had rusted away.
“Tell me,” he inquired, choking in the plume of dust that filled the air. “Is there any part of this project that isn’t going to be difficult?”
I grinned unhelpfully. “That’s why it’s never been done before.”
“Fine,” he said. “Then perhaps you can tell us how to find an engine small enough to drive ten kilometers on one liter.” This was the all-but-impossible test Bertrand had insisted on before he left. Only when this was achieved, he claimed, could the likes of Benoît and Marguerite afford to run the car.
I looked around as I racked my brain for possibilities. Suddenly my eyes alighted on something.
“Of course,” I said brightly.
“Of course what?” my father snapped.
“Your motorbike.”
He nearly choked. “Don’t be absurd.”
He looked from me to Christian and then back to me again.
“No. Absolutely not,” he reiterated. “It’s completely out of the question.”
Less than an hour later, the motorbike lay in pieces across the gravel, looking more like the disemboweled carcass of an animal than a BMW Boxer. My father stood nearby, seething.
“I want every piece of this put back exactly as it was.”
“Half of it was in the wrong place to start with,” I said, looking up from where I was dismantling a section of exhaust.
Papa narrowed his eyes scornfully before stalking away. I could tell he was already regretting turning round at the crossroads.
As the days passed in a blur of activity, my father and Christian threw themselves passionately into designing the car. A couple of technicians from the Paris factory had been sent down to help build a corrugated-iron workshop in the field next to the test track. It was in here that the second prototype for the new car was starting to take shape, safely hidden from any prying eyes in the village. Several large padlocks secured the doors at night, just to be on the safe side.
Secrecy, Bertrand had insisted, was of the utmost importance. Rival companies were always trying to steal each other’s designs to get one step ahead. One idle lapse in security, one blueprint carelessly left lying around, could spell the end of a project that had been years in the making.
There could be no slipups, Bertrand decreed. No one outside our immediate circle could know about our experimental new design. After all, who knew where our German rivals might have their spies? If our new design was going to be truly groundbreaking, we couldn’t afford Porsche’s people getting their hands on it. It wasn’t just a matter of Bertrand’s pride; somehow it was France’s pride that was at stake now.
During this time I would sit for hours watching my father and Christian work and rework their sketches for the new prototype. It wasn’t easy: the weather had turned bitterly cold again, and the little tin workshop felt like an icebox, especially when gusts of wind blew flurries of snow through the gaps in the walls. But I didn’t care that my lips were turning blue and chapped, or that my fingers felt like they would snap off. All that mattered was that I was watching my father come alive again, totally absorbed in his work as he grappled with the all-but-impossible task.
At regular intervals, as the prototype slowly took shape, I would be called upon to cycle down the hill and up the other side to the forge to collect supplies. Félix had an old lock-up at the back of his workshop where he stored bits of machinery he’d rescued from every tractor or motorbike that had been abandoned in the village. There were even parts of an early German fighter plane that had been shot down during the Great War, including a small section of fuselage w
here the bullet holes could still be seen.
I kept hoping I would run into Camille when I called by the forge, just to see how her ankle was healing and to say sorry properly. But somehow she was always out on an errand or at school. Félix tried to assure me that it wasn’t personal; that she was running errands for Marguerite, buying provisions for Christmas, which was now rapidly approaching. But I knew she was still angry with me.
Every evening I would wait patiently in the freezing hallway of the manor house for Maman to call from my grandparents’ house in Italy. If the line worked, she would ring just before dinner, eager to talk to me—but never, I noticed, to my father. She would listen hungrily as I prattled on about how the prototype was coming along. I knew that, secretly, she thought we were wasting our time on yet another pipe dream, yet she always managed to sound excited for me.
I could tell she hated us being apart. I missed her too, much more than I’d expected. But deep down, I was also dreading her return. Going back to Paris and to Crespin’s hateful dungeon felt like a fate worse than death.
So it was with mixed feelings that I waited for the following Sunday to come round. This was when my mother was due to return from Italy and I was to be put on a train to Paris.
The day before, Bertrand was due back from Paris to see the inaugural test-drive of the new prototype. When he arrived at the track, my heart was thumping clean out of my chest. My father and Christian looked even more nervous.
They had every reason to be—they’d barely managed to bolt the prototype together, let alone test it.
Also present were the obligatory two chickens, which had been entrusted to my father’s care. His face showed exactly how he felt about this honor, but it turned a deep puce when one of the birds, by now beside itself with nerves, produced a runny stream that dribbled down his jacket.
The stage was now set for the car’s maiden voyage, but someone was still missing: Camille. She and her father were the only two villagers trusted enough to be invited to the test run—especially after we’d plundered Félix’s secret treasure trove of engine parts. But where were they? Surely Camille couldn’t still be furious with me?
The Tin Snail Page 8