by Michel Déon
‘What will you have?’ Julius asked.
Jean chose a glass of champagne and Julius served him. A white-gloved servant passed around trays of sandwiches and petits fours that had survived the guests’ first famished rush. Jean refused.
‘Ah, I see, you’re the sporting type!’ Julius exclaimed, clasping his biceps with a firm hand. ‘Which sport?’
‘I sell pictures!’
The German laughed loudly.
‘I know, I know! A very good profession at the present time. The Germans have brought metaphysics, history and music. The French are teaching us taste, good taste, art! And cuisine. Cuisine, Monsieur Arnaud, is the gift of the gods. Have you read Is God French? by our great Friedrich Sieburg?’
‘No,’ Jean said. ‘And I’d be fairly likely to answer the question in the negative.’
‘You mean you think God is not French?’
‘If God exists He must have slipped away for a bit, and it seems to me He doesn’t have a lot of time for us French.’
‘Come, come, come,’ Julius said, wrinkling his pink brow. ‘Do you mean the French lost a war they started because God wasn’t on their side but riding on our tanks instead? I suppose it’s possible. We must talk about it again. It looks to me as if our friend Jesús is looking for you. Such an extraordinary young man and so profoundly original, yet he’s lost the moment he sets foot outside his den. A very shy lion. I say, who is that impressive person following Constantin Palfy? I don’t know her.’
‘Madame Michette, Marceline Michette. Her husband’s a prisoner of war. A former infantry sergeant-major, who re-enlisted in 1939.’
‘I see, I see … We must look into that. And what did Monsieur Michette do in civilian life?’
Jean looked squarely at Julius, to see whether he would raise an eyebrow.
‘The Michettes run a well-known brothel at Clermont-Ferrand. Perhaps the best in the Auvergne. If the Michelin Guide was fair, it would give them three stars. Excellent appearance and morals, perfect service …’
‘What a remarkably interesting person! I suppose she has many political friends …’
‘Not many, I don’t think… local officials perhaps …’
‘You may be forgetting that the capital of France has moved. It’s no longer Paris but Vichy, and from Vichy to Clermont is a mere stone’s throw. And what is she doing in Paris?’
‘You’ll need to ask Constantin.’
Julius moved towards the singular couple, whom Madeleine had already greeted, and Jean found himself on his own next to a servant who was passing round caviar on squares of toast. He took one and the servant asked, ‘Monsieur is only taking one?’
‘Is it rude?’
‘Oh no, Monsieur, but it’s not what people usually do here.’
A young woman with very white skin and very dark eyes walked over to him. He knew the face and tried and failed to put a name to it. The woman smiled at him and picked up a bottle of whisky, half filling her glass. It was not him she had wanted to meet; she had just been on her way to the sideboard. She did not look embarrassed to be seen filling her glass, and as Jean made a vague gesture she stopped.
‘Have we met somewhere?’
‘I have a feeling we have,’ he said.
‘I don’t.’
‘I must be wrong, then.’
‘I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it,’ she said, almost rudely. ‘You don’t know me but you’ve seen me. Somewhere. In a film.’
‘It’s a long time since I’ve been to the cinema.’
She shrugged and turned away. He was alone for a moment and stood watching the guests. Apart from Jesús, Palfy and Madame Michette he knew no one. At a similar occasion in London he would have been able to put names to at least two or three of the faces. Stendhal would have considered it a desperate situation for one of his heroes, greedy to experience the world. What would Julien Sorel have done in his position? He would have had an advantage over Jean, dressed in the black of a future cleric, attracting people’s attention by his combination of good looks, outward reserve, and aggressive conversation. But aggression did not come naturally to Jean. The only way he might be provoked into it, he reflected, was if he started thinking about Claude, the evening he was missing with her, and what she would perhaps have started to confess to him if he had not given in to Jesús’s entreaties. Not that Jesús craved the high life. He wanted to please Madeleine but had refused to go so far as conforming to the conventions of a formal dinner, arriving in his usual suit of heavy corduroy, tieless, shirt open, revealing his thick, curly chest hair and contempt for social niceties, a contempt that might easily have turned him into the hostesses’ darling, had he had any leanings towards a social life beyond Rue Lepic.
Madame Michette, abandoned by Palfy, seemed at a loss. Everything was new here: the apartment’s luxury, its objets d’art, pictures and furniture (she had just run a finger over the marble top of a console table to see whether it had been dusted recently), the servants whose like she had not seen outside the pages of the sagas she read, and the host, a man so powerful that all Paris was queuing up for his invitations. She had had to admire the fact that within a day of her arrival Palfy, apparently waving a magic wand, had led her to this holy of holies at which – supreme revelation – she had simultaneously discovered Madeleine introducing their mutual friend with the title of baron. Why had he not told her? She felt guilty at having sometimes been sharp with him, at having doubted his social standing. Might Jean not be an aristocrat too in that case, despite being less well-dressed and looking profoundly bored? Madame Michette pounced on him.
‘I didn’t recognise you straight away,’ she exclaimed. ‘Although Monsieur Michette is always telling me I’m a physiognomist. You need that with customers, otherwise you can find people trying it on. Machosists for example. I’ve spotted one or two of those in my time.’
Jean protested that he was not a masochist. Madame Michette exclaimed that he was being very perverse; she hadn’t suspected him of it for a minute. It was just a comparison. She picked up a vol-au-vent and popped it between her plump lips, lightly shadowed by a moustache.
‘It’s just like before the war!’ she winked.
He waited for her to add, ‘and that’s something of ours the Boches will never have’, but she was distracted by having to wipe her thumb and index finger, which she had dipped in the sauce.
‘I hear that Monsieur Michette—’
She winked again and jerked her chin in the direction of Julius Kapermeister, talking to the film actress, who by now was looking extremely tipsy.
‘Yes. Let’s hope he succeeds,’ Jean added.
‘He can do anything. He got us our Ausvesses.’
What fantastic, mad scheme was brewing in Palfy’s mind? What use was he intending to make of this person, straight from a Maupassant story and more real and larger than life than any caricature? It was quite unlike his usual modus operandi not to school her beforehand for some role in his Parisian ambitions; instead, within hours of arriving, he had thrown her into a milieu that, though not quite possessing the refinement she imagined it to have, was far above the world ruled by a provincial madam, whatever her superiority in her field. The reason was – as Jean quickly realised – that whilst Madeleine had been malleable, Madame Michette would always remain exactly what she was. Her turn of phrase, her colourful mispronunciations, the way she dressed, even her moral sense, not to mention her avowed profession, would fast make a Parisian character of her. When Jean finally managed to speak to Palfy his friend’s face lit up.
‘Is she not sublime? And you don’t know the half of her! She’s got ideas about everything. And devoted! You’ll have to see it. To get rid of her yesterday, I sent her on a secret mission. She got on the 6 a.m. train to Vernon and from there took a wood-gas bus to Les Andelys, making sure she wasn’t being followed. From Les Andelys she carried on in the pouring rain, on foot, as far as Château-Gaillard. What a landscape! Do you know it?’
&nb
sp; ‘No. Then what?’
‘Inside the outer wall, having made sure she was alone, she collected three flat stones, placed them one on top of the other, and slipped a note I’d written in code between stones one and two. Child’s play, obviously. Afterwards she had to get to Rouen. She stopped a truck full of Jerusalem artichokes, and as there were already five people in the driver’s cab she climbed up and sat on the artichokes. At Rouen she went to the main post office where she delivered a sealed letter to a PO box number I’d given her, 109. She was back in Paris that evening, happier than you can possibly imagine. She longs to serve! She shall be served.’
‘Is it indiscreet to ask whose PO box it was and what was in the letter?’
‘Not a bit, dear boy. I haven’t the faintest idea who the PO box belongs to, and in the envelope I put a piece of paper on which I simply wrote, “I’m a silly cow.”’
Jean spluttered with laughter just as the butler announced, ‘Madame is served.’
‘You see,’ Palfy murmured, ‘everyone is served.’
Cards with the guests’ names had been laid at each place. On his right Julius had a bloodless-looking woman with a stare like a fish in aspic, on his left Madame Michette. Madeleine placed Palfy on her right. Was he not a baron, the evening’s only aristocrat? On her left sat a Frenchman, the husband of the woman with the fish-eyed stare, who, furious at seeing Palfy chosen over him, swallowed his first glass of Graves in a single gulp to get over his humiliation. Jean found himself at the end of the table between the film actress, whose name he finally discovered – Nelly Tristan – and a frail-looking young woman who spoke French with a strong German accent and whose place card read ‘Fräulein Laura Bruckett’. He tried to avoid looking at Madame Michette who, quite at her ease, cut herself a thick slice of foie gras and kept the silver knife instead of putting it back in the ewer of hot water. At a sign from the host a servant brought another knife and went round the table. Madame Michette had already finished her foie gras before the men were served. Julius, with a nod, had the plate brought back to her, and she cut herself another slice.
‘What an appetite that woman’s got!’ Nelly Tristan said to Jean.
‘It’s not very surprising. Yesterday she had a long trip on a pile of Jerusalem artichokes.’
‘Why? Does she sell them?’
‘No, she loves travelling.’
Nelly tasted the foie gras.
‘Not too horrid.’
Julius declared that even if the entire German army were not celebrating New Year with foie gras in a few days’ time, there would nevertheless be cause for festivities along the new frontiers. Only England was now plunged into the throes of war, at the insistence of that lunatic, Churchill. But Germany’s hand was still extended. No one could conceive of a new Europe without the participation of Great Britain, once she had got rid of the bloodthirsty puppets who dominated her politics … A small man, with a black moustache that detracted slightly from his resemblance to a baby-faced intellectual, agreed with unexpected vehemence. The red and yellow ribbons of the Légion d’Honneur and the Médaille Militaire, a little too obvious in his buttonhole, attested to his past. It did not stop him finding Julius Kapermeister more than a little timid. What were the Germans waiting for? The minute the English saw the first German land on their soil, they’d be on their knees. For six centuries England had been playing the European nations off against each other like pawns and compromising all efforts at peace. Was it not England that had declared war on Germany on 3 September? Yes, there she was, the first! Dragging France in six hours later. England really was the mangy dog of Europe …
Madeleine spoke.
‘It’s Julius’s fault. He started it. We promised we wouldn’t talk politics. We’ve got a thousand more interesting things to say to each other.’
‘Madeleine’s very strict,’ Julius said. ‘She’s interested in everything bar politics. She’d like us all to be like her. It’s not easy, you have to admit.’
The small man with the moustache, whose name was Oscar Dulonjé, conceded that politics was not women’s business.
‘What a prick!’ Nelly Tristan murmured in Jean’s ear. ‘Who is he?’
Had Monsieur Dulonjé heard her? He appeared disconcerted and hesitant. He decided to ignore the interruption and Madeleine, keen to salvage the situation, turned to Nelly.
‘My dear Nelly, when are you starting filming?’
‘Tomorrow morning. But if I carry on the way I’m going, there’s a very good chance I may be a teeny bit late at the studio.’
She emptied her whisky glass and then her white wine, and shot the table a charming and innocent smile. Jesús put his fork down noisily.
‘I em never goin’ to get used to foie gras. All this French food is killin’ me. Before the war I live’ on peanuts. Is much more ’ealthy.’
‘Peanuts?’ Julius said. ‘We must be able to find those. Laura, will you make a note?’
Fräulein Bruckett said timidly, ‘I’m afraid it may be impossible.’
Julius came to her rescue.
‘If Laura says it is impossible, she knows better than anyone. She’s a secretary at the Department of Supply. A pity, my dear Jesús, you will have to wait for the war to be over before you can stop being forced to eat foie gras.’
‘I haven’ anysing agains’ the foie gras. Is quite pretty on a plate with this little black truffle and the nice white border.’
‘You have to be an artist to notice that sort of thing,’ Madeleine said.
The husband of the woman with the fish-eyed stare decided it was time to speak.
‘Monsieur is a painter? I didn’t catch your name.’
‘Rhesús! Rhesús Infante!’
‘He means Jesús, of course,’ Palfy added, his eyes sparkling with pleasure at so much stupidity spread out before him.
‘No one is allowed to call himself Jesús!’ Madame Michette said indignantly. ‘It is … blasphemous.’
‘No’ allowed! No’ allowed!’ Jesús shouted, choking.
Jean saw Madeleine looking desperate. Her dinner was going downhill. He rushed to her rescue.
‘Madame Michette means that in the Auvergne it’s not customary. No one would call their son Jesús. Not even a bishop. But in Spain, and especially in Andalusia, Jesús is a familiar … presence, someone people talk to every day, to praise him, to curse him or pray to him. Is that right, Jesús?’
‘Is true.’
Nelly Tristan leant towards Jean a second time and whispered, ‘Don’t you find a woman who’s drunk disgusting?’
A servant was circulating constantly, a bottle in his hand, each time filling up her glass, which, as soon as it was full, she emptied. She was looking paler and paler. Her gaze shimmered with a general, directionless tenderness.
‘No,’ Jean said quietly.
‘I’m not talking about going to bed, I mean in a general way.’
These private exchanges were arousing the disquiet of a fat, fortyish man in a loud tie seated at the far end of the table. He was unable to hear Nelly’s words but appeared anxious to avoid the scene he felt was on the point of erupting. It came as a visible relief to him when Nelly stood up, pushed back her chair and, addressing Madeleine in an affected voice, said, ‘Where’s the little girls’ room, darling?’
The fortyish man stood up too and asked Madeleine to excuse him.
‘I’ll show her.’
‘As you like.’
He took Nelly’s arm and they left the dining room.
‘You know she’s amazingly talented!’ Madeleine said.
‘She is,’ Julius said, ‘and also very lucky to have a producer like Émile Duzan. He’s like a father to all his stars.’
‘All the same,’ Palfy said, ‘I rather think there’s an age when daddies stop taking their little girls to the toilet, and she’s past it.’
‘Very unhealthy curiosity, I call it!’ Madame Michette said. ‘Now my girls …’
She stopped and loo
ked at Palfy, who smiled back with perfect sweetness, inviting her to go on.
‘You have many girls?’ Julius asked.
‘Quite a few!’ Madame Michette said, embarrassed.
‘I’m sure they’re ravishing!’ Oscar Dulonjé said unpleasantly.
‘That’s not for me to say!’ Madame Michette simpered. ‘All I can tell you is that they’re well brought up …’
The servants changed the plates and the butler carved a joint of roast beef whose arrival monopolised the guests’ attention for some time. A young man with a ferret-like profile who had been silent before grasped the opportunity to say a few words.
‘Did you know that the Schillertheater is coming to Paris next month? The French will finally have a chance to get to know Schiller.’
‘Indeed,’ Julius said, ‘that’s no bad thing. Schiller’s a European writer whose reputation has suffered – though no longer – from the disharmony between France and Germany. Alas, I hear they’re putting on Kabale und Liebe,12 which is far from being one of his best plays. Franco-German relations deserve a little more care.’
Madame Michette helped herself shamelessly to three slices of roast beef, a liberty she would never have allowed herself at Zizi’s table, but in all this warmth and luxury and feeling of being with the right people she was losing her sense of proportion.
‘In return,’ the young man said, ‘you should do Claudel. Apparently he’s very good in German …’
‘I’ve never read Claudel,’ Julius said, ‘but I hear a lot of talk about him. He was a director of Gnome and Rhône,13 which is working for our new Europe now, and a distinguished ambassador. The Comédie Française has a project it wants my help with. A very large number of costumes. In these times of restriction it’s not easy to lay one’s hands on the necessary fabric, but we’ll do our best. I think the play’s called The Satin Slipper …’
Nelly Tristan had just come back into the room with her producer, smiling happily, and pounced on the play’s name.