The Foundling's War
Page 5
Palfy yawned in a way too forced to be real and said to Jean, almost without moving his lips, ‘Now’s the time to produce your famous letter from the prince.’
‘It’s in my tunic pocket.’
‘And your tunic?’
‘In the tankette.’
Soldiers were searching the tankettes and had already removed several pots of jam, chocolate biscuits, and three sub-machine guns. Jacques Graindorge was shaking so much that he was on his knees. A soldier forced him to his feet with a rifle barrel to the ribs. The Obersturmführer studied the square in search of a wall against which he could line up his four captives. The firing squad could not do its job with the sun in their eyes. But behind him his grenadiers were doubled up with laughter and, wanting to understand what had caused his men’s hilarity, he scrutinised his prisoners until he noticed Picallon’s ill-adjusted uniform. A roar of laughter blew across the square and the Obersturmführer summoned Walter Schoengel who walked over to Picallon and, with the barrel of his revolver, flipped the flaccid member back into his trousers.
‘Pig!’ the officer repeated, putting into the one insult of which he was confident all the scorn that seethed inside him.
Picallon was sobering up slowly. He was regaining his lucidity and faith at the same time, already glimpsing his final moments, for which he was better prepared than his two friends. He began, under his breath, an act of contrition: ‘My God …’ Palfy told him to shut up and then Jean told Palfy to shut up. Karl Schmidt was enjoying the unprecedented moment. In Poland, where his section had advanced into a zone already cleared by the Wehrmacht, he had never been favoured with a moment as dramatic as this. The French campaign was at last offering him an opportunity worthy of him. He dispatched a grenadier to fetch his camera. When it arrived he took several pictures of his prisoners. The surveyor, his throat constricted, attempted to explain the appalling error that had been made, but not one articulate sound emerged from his mouth, which was distorted by a rictus that the Obersturmführer interpreted as insolence. Handing his camera back to the grenadier, Karl Schmidt walked up to Graindorge and slapped him twice, hard. Blood flowed from the corner of the surveyor’s mouth and he fell to his knees again.
‘Pig too!’ the officer said. ‘Get up!’
Palfy helped the foolish man to his feet.
‘I thought—’ Graindorge said.
‘We fooled you, you stupid twerp,’ Palfy said. ‘All three of us are French. Now you’re paying for your stupidity.’
‘Quiet!’ the Obersturmführer said.
‘No!’ Jean retorted. ‘We’re not irregulars. And you don’t shoot prisoners. Now, if you like—’
‘May God forgive you!’ Picallon finished his sentence, then lowered his arms and put his hands together in prayer.
The SS lieutenant pointed to the façade of the Café des Amis, and the grenadiers shoved the four men towards the wooden shutters. The sun was going down. A pink light bathed the square and fell gently on the church porch. Graindorge’s cat jumped from the bonnet of the tankette and followed its master, its back arched, its tail bristling. Walter Schoengel selected the twelve men of the firing squad.
‘It’ll all be over very quickly,’ Palfy said gloomily.
‘Yes,’ Jean answered.
‘The raspberry liqueur was really good.’
‘It’s a consolation. There’s none left for them.’
‘They’ll be pardoned!’ Picallon said.
‘Not by me!’ Palfy said.
Karl Schmidt made a sign to a grenadier to bring him the cat, which let itself be picked up and settled in the Obersturmführer’s arms.
‘Schön!’ the officer said tenderly. ‘How he called cat?’
Graindorge started with indignation.
‘It’s not a male, it’s a female. She’s called Sarah.’
‘Sarah! A Jew name!’
The Obersturmführer threw the cat down, tried to kick her but missed, unholstered a revolver and emptied its magazine at Sarah, missing her again as she dashed to hide under an armoured car. A ricochet hit the Obergrenadier who had taken down the French flag, injuring him in the calf. The lieutenant paled, pressed his lips together and swore at the man, who stood to attention with blood flowing down his boot. Jean, Palfy, Picallon and Graindorge lined up in front of the wooden shutters of the Café des Amis. Karl Schmidt issued a brief order and a grenadier ran to his car, from which he returned carrying a violin case. The firing squad took up position under the orders of the Unterscharführer, who then inspected them. Karl Schmidt took out his violin and bow with an ecstatic smile, pressed the instrument against his cheek and tuned it before walking over to the Frenchmen.
‘Do you like Brahms?’ he asked, a delicate smile lightening his porcine features.
‘No!’ Jacques Graindorge shouted, seized by convulsive trembling and convinced this was another trap. He would never like anybody again.
‘Don’t listen to him, Lieutenant,’ Palfy said. ‘He’s a fool who knows nothing about music. I can assure you, and I speak for my comrades too, that we all like Brahms very much, and that if you were to do us the honour of playing his Sonata No. 1, Opus 78, we could die happy.’
‘You know?’ Karl Schmidt said, astonished not to be dealing with brutes.
‘Obviously the piano will be lacking, but I feel sure that playing solo will allow your musical temperament to be given full expression. We are your humble audience.’
The grenadiers stood to attention. The officer advanced between them and the prisoners, legs apart, eyes lowered to concentrate before his first bow stroke. Karl Schmidt was a fine violinist. Before joining the Waffen SS he had been second violin in the Stuttgart city orchestra. His father was a virtuoso and his two sons played the flute and viola respectively in a Hitler Youth orchestra. Since being commissioned he had missed playing in public. Not any old public. One that was thoughtful, contemplative, ready to feel the music’s emotion. Who could be a more attentive audience than four condemned men? Four was not many, but the future promised bigger audiences, much bigger, and one day Karl Schmidt would have the great public his talent deserved. Music transfigured him. Under podgy skin that shone with heat and effort the fine features of a blond child could be discerned, a little German boy who could have been generous, trusting, enthusiastic. The little German disappeared with the last bars of the sonata.
‘Clap!’ Palfy whispered to the others.
They lowered their arms and clapped with a fervour that surprised Karl Schmidt so much he straightened and bowed his head as if he were on stage in a concert hall. The sight of Graindorge’s pasty face brought him back to earth. The surveyor was not applauding. He was dribbling. He no longer existed, he was already dead, his back slumped against the shutters of the Café des Amis, a village amenity he had always scorned.
‘You, not happy?’ Schmidt yelled.
Graindorge heard nothing. His brain was no longer functioning. Palfy came to his aid.
‘I think he is a little overcome by the situation we find ourselves in.’
‘Overcome? What is overcome?’
‘The idea of dying.’
Karl Schmidt roared with laughter and turned to the firing squad to explain in German that the Frenchman on the left was afraid of dying, then turned back to Palfy, whom he had identified as the leader of these outlaws.
‘My soldiers, they not fear to die! Heil Hitler!’
The squad responded with a unanimous ‘Heil Hitler’.
‘Would you play us another piece?’ Palfy asked politely.
‘Shut up!’ Jean muttered.
‘Another? Nein!’ the Obersturmführer said contemptuously. Where did these bandits think they were?
‘Play for time,’ Palfy hissed at Jean.
Picallon seemed lost in thought. He was praying. Jean envied him his ability to escape so far from the world, to see nothing of the scene that was unfolding: these soldiers in black uniforms that bore the silver lightning flashes of the SS, the leng
thening shadow of the church, the swallows darting over their heads. It looked like a film set into which actors destined for other roles had strayed. Where had the real actors gone? The mayor with his tricolour scarf, the priest in his round hat, the teacher in his black jacket, the drummer in his blue shirt, the children in the choir, and the few scattered old men and women to occupy the benches that lined the avenue in the shade of the ash trees. Instead, an absurd misunderstanding, had placed, like a screen across the deserted square, still warm from the setting sun, a row of black statues masked by shadows, their lips tight and jaws tensed, stretching their chinstraps. The shadows of these men had in turn lengthened beyond the lead actor, violin in hand, almost to touch the condemned men. The real actors meanwhile wandered the roads, lost, crushed by fatigue more than sorrow, their feet bleeding, their mouths dry, their stomachs empty, driven by a fear whose incommensurable futility they were just beginning to understand.
‘Our comrade would like to take our confessions!’ Palfy said.
‘Confession?’ Karl Schmidt repeated, unfamiliar with the word.
‘Yes, before he gives us absolution. He’s a priest.’
‘A priest?’
The SS officer looked Picallon up and down, staring incredulously at this emaciated beanpole who a few moments before had stood in front of him with his flies undone, offering a sight of his sleepy organ to all and sundry.
‘The pig is priest?’ he repeated.
Picallon made a gesture as if to deny the description: he was neither a pig nor a priest, just a seminarian. Jean’s expression beseeched him to shut up as he knelt down first.
‘Listen to me, young priest,’ he said in a low voice, ‘first make the confession last as long as you can, then you’re to ask God to forgive me for two things: I caused pain to my father by joining up instead of deserting, and I caused pain to my dear guardian, the abbé Le Couec, by showing myself to be a very poor Christian.’
‘You’re already forgiven,’ Picallon said.
‘No, that’s too quick—’
‘Schnell!’ Karl Schmidt yelled.
Palfy knelt down in turn and murmured, ‘You’re going too fast, you numbskull. We have to play for time …’
‘The ways of God are impenetrable.’
‘Shut up, for God’s sake, get down on your knees and let’s all pretend to pray together. That means you too, Graindorge …’
‘I’m … a … freemason!’ the surveyor stuttered.
‘That’s all we need!’
The Obersturmführer was growing impatient. He summoned a grenadier, handed him his violin, and marched up and down in front of the firing squad, repeating, ‘Schandlichbande! Schandlichbande!’ Picallon got to his feet and smiled at him. He was ready.
‘It really upsets all my plans, having to die!’ Palfy said.
‘I’m starting to panic!’ Jean admitted.
They lined up again in front of the Café des Amis. A gust of wind swept the square, raising a dry cloud of dust which got into Karl Schmidt’s eye. He called an orderly, who cleaned his eye with gauze. Rubbing it, the officer barked a rapid order at the Unterscharführer and walked back to his car with a disgusted expression. The grenadiers stood to attention …
The French are very patriotic deep down. A few bars of a military march and their dormant fighting instinct is aroused. Clermont-Ferrand was throwing itself into the parade. Men unfit for military service wandered in the neighbouring streets, brooding on their shame, and were joined by a few stone-deaf pensioners. Palfy was walking briskly, Jean struggling to keep up behind him, his thoughts still on Place de Jaude where the woman in the lawn dress had vanished into the crowd. He was cross with his delicious apparition for letting herself be taken in by such a dubious spectacle. Did she have a taste for heroes? If she did, Palfy’s noisy interruption must have surprised her. Her amused smile when she had glimpsed Jean with the gardes mobiles in hot pursuit planted a hope that she had a critical turn of mind. If I’d had to, Jean mused, I’d have accepted a Croix de Guerre from her; her cool kiss on his cheeks was infinitely more tempting than the rough embrace of some colonel or general. But what chance did he stand of chatting her up on a big day like this, dressed in a ghastly pair of old corduroys two sizes too big and a rough wool shirt? Something about her reminded him of Chantal de Malemort: the outline of her figure, a neatness about her, her smile when she answered an unexpected question. But Chantal, gone to earth in Grangeville, was bringing in the harvest and Jean would never forgive her for having betrayed him.
Palfy stopped. They had taken the wrong street. They retraced their steps, looking for a crossroads in the old town that led to where they had decided to go. A short, elderly man in an alpaca suit and a boater with a black ribbon, walking with the aid of two sticks, offered to show them the way.
‘Follow me – it’s a long time since I’ve been there, but I know the way. When I had my legs, I used to go there on Saturday nights. Around 1925 there was a Negress there, Victoire Sanpeur was her name; everyone in Clermont remembers her—’
‘Victoire Sanpeur?’ Jean asked.
‘Now, now!’ the old man chuckled. ‘Just listen to the youngster! My dear young fellow, in 1925 you were still suckling at your mama’s breast. Yes, Victoire Sanpeur, that’s who I said; everyone in Clermont remembers her. An unforgettable head of hair! She was here a year, before she was kidnapped by a député … I can’t walk very fast. It’s because of my arthritis …’
Palfy winked at Jean and asked in a deliberately innocent voice, ‘Not because of an old dose of the clap, perhaps?’
The old dodderer raised his stick.
‘You blooming rascal, you deserve a good hiding!’
His anger was short-lived. The allusion to his past exploits helped him forget what a wreck he had become.
‘No, Monsieur, throughout my life I have only ever frequented establishments that maintained the highest standards of cleanliness.’
‘Never an honest woman?’ Palfy enquired politely.
‘Never! Honest women, as you call them, that’s where the trouble lies. No sense of cleanliness.’
He stopped, gathered his sticks in one hand, mopped his brow, and blew his nose noisily before breathing again. Jean gave up being astonished. How did Palfy know Clermont-Ferrand? He was a vagrant who was at home everywhere: in London, Cannes, Deauville, Paris, and now in the Auvergne. In fashionable society or the demimonde he fell on his feet with staggering ease: penniless one day and dressed up as a priest to rob the poor boxes in church; elegance itself the next, driving his Rolls-Royce around London, served by a butler who was straight out of an English novel; one day a swindler, the next a successful wheeler-dealer. Beside him Jean measured his own clumsiness and naivety, discovering that life is made up of such differences: one child is born into a glittering, false milieu that gives him a passport for the rest of his existence; another, born in a caretaker’s lodge at Grangeville in Normandy, will always feel the weight on his shoulders of his humble origins as the child of a washerwoman and a gardener, and have to discover everything by himself. The fact that Jean had known his real mother’s name since Antoinette’s revelation at Yssingeaux – Geneviève du Courseau – changed nothing. Only Albert and Jeanne counted. The couple had brought him up with strict principles, boring virtues and flat homilies that had proved useless in the present circumstances. As for Geneviève, she had offered him only the most ambiguous feelings. He was once again hanging on to Palfy’s coat-tails, as he kept the man with two sticks company.
‘My sister keeps house for me,’ the arthritic old man said, each step producing a grimace of pain. ‘She leaves me a few francs for my tobacco. I’ve been rolling my own since 1914, shag, nothing but shag. And enough to order an Amer Picon before lunch. What do you drink?’
‘Champagne or vodka,’ Palfy answered.
‘I’ve drunk vodka … in the past. No taste. Champagne is for marriages, christenings and the sick … Here we are … This is it.’
‘There won’t be anybody home,’ the old man said. ‘They’ll all be at the parade. You’d be better off coming back – and making yourselves more presentable. They won’t let you in like that. It’s a place with a good reputation. It belongs to the diocese.’
In the distance the band struck up the first bars of ‘Le Téméraire’. The companies were marching past the general.
‘It’s over,’ Jean said. ‘They’re returning to barracks.’
Palfy lifted the knocker. The little old man stamped his foot and banged the pavement with his stick.
‘They’re not there! And they won’t let you in anyway.’
Having led them there, he was regretting his kindness. Good heavens! Two workers did not seriously think they were going to slake their appetites in a house that had seen Clermont’s political and municipal elite pass through its doors, not to mention distinguished men of the cloth and numerous respectable husbands and fathers.
‘They won’t let you in, I tell you!’
A creaking warned them that someone was sliding the grille aside to observe them. The door opened a fraction. A birdlike head, thin and with a long curved nose and jutting chin, crowned by a meagre but severe bun, appeared.
‘Now look, Monsieur Petitlouis, you know perfectly well that your sister does not want to see you coming here any more. Be reasonable. You’re past it now!’
Monsieur Petitlouis, choked with fury, banged his walking stick again.
‘My sister? Bugger my sister. And you too, you blooming madam.’
Palfy inserted a foot between the door and frame. The woman saw it and tried to force it back.
‘The establishment is closed.’
‘Not to me,’ he said.
‘The staff are watching the parade.’
‘We’ll both wait for them together then.’