Poum and Alexandre

by Catherine de Saint Phalle

He looks up at the vaulted ceilings.

  ‘Don’t you think it smells of cannon powder here?’

  I sniff the air.

  ‘Yes, it does!’

  We sit down near a particularly fat column, underneath a particularly bedraggled, blackened flag. I look at his eyes: they’re still as pale, as blue as ever. Nothing is changed, nothing. He’s just considering me in a different way, as if he saw me, instead of staring through me.

  ‘Do you know, Catherine, I keep thinking of that field between the two armies, the German and the American. I keep seeing the sun on that man pushing his plough so peacefully, so doggedly, as if part of me was left there.’

  I hold on to his arm. I want no part of him missing, not a hair. He smiles as if my thought had been spoken aloud.

  ‘Leaving the German soldier to retrace his footsteps carefully between the mines with his plan, I continued driving …’

  I realise he’s going to finish the story he told us in Mont Saint-Michel about General Bradley. I always pick up the thread; there’s no need for transitions between us.

  ‘… I drove and drove until we reached the American checkpoint. It was so strange to be with Americans again. They asked us what we were doing there. I explained the situation and begged to see General Bradley as soon as possible. We were with Bradley himself within minutes. There’s no fuss with Americans. They know how to get to the point. Bradley was stunned. They were holding back, worried about the population of the city, when in fact what was needed was for them to hurry in before Paris was burnt to the ground. In a way it was all over bar the shouting. He asked me to come with them. He even proposed to give me a uniform and make me an officer in the American army, but I refused, saying I wanted to inform the Général de Gaulle. Finally Bradley gave me a car and a driver and I went off to find the Général in Rambouillet.’

  I notice he has a funny way of pronouncing Général de Gaulle. Suddenly, he sighs.

  ‘Do you think I’m old, little one?’

  ‘Old?’ I’m flabbergasted. ‘You’re not old! Of course not! Not at all.’

  I squeeze his hand.

  ‘No, no! Absolutely not.’

  What else could he be but a Carthaginian, a Roman, a Trojan, an American general all wrapped into one? What else could he be but himself, a force, a river, a smile, who crosses avenues with his eyes closed, who pulls me into cupboards so we can hide from my mother’s friends, who has so many children and yet knows what to do and has time to be my very own father and to hold my hand in churches full of gunpowder, battle smoke and stampeding horses? He could lie down for a hundred years like Sleeping Beauty in a white room with bandaged eyes and would not change, no, not one bit.

  Taking a deep breath, he dives back into his story.

  ‘Then I got to de Gaulle’s headquarters. It took longer to see him. Finally after waiting, though not so long as with the Germans, I was ushered by a soldier into his presence. He was writing at his desk. I stood by the door. He lifted his head and shot at me: “What are you to Mother Marie de Saint Phalle at the Sacré-Coeur?” “Well, she’s my aunt, Général,” I answered. “She brought me up,” he barked. I then delivered my information and he dismissed me. That was the end of it. I went back to Paris. Very soon afterwards, the Liberation was in full swing. Last-minute Resistants sprouted up everywhere. Their big business was to punish women who had slept with Germans.’

  He smiles slowly, nearly painfully, and kisses my hand.

  ‘I flashed my Resistance card, slapped these guys around a bit and scattered them like rats. There’s nothing uglier than victory, Catherine. During that period I saved four women from having their heads shaved. Those poor women … Some had sincerely fallen in love; others were just surviving. There were so many stories. I wish I could have helped more.’

  He sighs.

  ‘That was when I became a minister in de Gaulle’s government because of my role in the Resistance.’

  ‘Was it fun?’

  ‘Well, it didn’t last very long. I was only a minister for two weeks. You see, von Choltitz contacted me again through Nordling. He wanted safe passage for himself and his family in exchange for the liberation of all the inmates of two prison camps. These camps were full of Resistants, Jewish and non-Jewish. I passed on the message to the Général but there was no response. I thought there was some mistake. I sent a barrage of messages, trying every possible avenue. I sat in waiting rooms for hours expecting him to come out. No answer. “The Général is in a meeting.” “The Général is busy.” “The Général is out of town.” Finally, a soldier came to my doorstep with a verbal answer from de Gaulle. “Could the Count de Saint Phalle please go for an amble along the lanes of his estate?” I looked at him and told him that if the Germans hadn’t managed to make me leave Paris during the Occupation, I wasn’t going to go now.’

  ‘But why didn’t he free those prisoners?’

  ‘Because, Catherine, he preferred letting those men and women, who were all heroes, possibly die in that camp, just so he could march down the Champs Élysées with von Choltitz behind him as a prisoner of France.’

  ‘But it takes half an hour to walk down the Champs Élysées and those people were going to die.’

  ‘Yes, little one.’

  ‘De Gaulle sounds like a dreadful person altogether.’

  ‘He thought he was France.’

  It feels like Julian the Apostate all over again. Except the Général wasn’t the one to be saved … The Général wasn’t the one urinating into a copper bowl … It was the other way round – it was his people who were dying.

  ‘Was there really nothing you could do to help them?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘What about telling the Americans?’

  ‘The Americans knew how touchy he was. He kicked up a terrible fuss to be the first to enter Paris after liberating it from the Germans. He hated Anglos – and they had won the war for him.’

  ‘Couldn’t the English do something?’

  ‘The English had had him in London like a bee in a bottle during the Occupation. They knew all about him. He was a difficult man to cross. They didn’t want to cause a diplomatic rift with France right after the war.’

  We sit there without saying anything. My father is right. Napoleon’s tomb is helpful. There is something about the bedraggled grandeur of it, the useless miles of marble, the Pyrrhic victory of ambition that leaves you feeling fresh and ready for anything.

  ‘Would Napoleon have saved them?’

  ‘Of course! Without a doubt.’

  ‘But what about all the soldiers that got killed during his wars?’

  He frowns.

  ‘You see, Catherine, in those times war was a fact of life. Death was in the air they breathed. But you looked after your own, you honoured your duties to those who depended on you with your own life if necessary.’

  He looks at me.

  ‘Napoleon was an extraordinary quirk of history. He appeared out of nowhere, created a world and disappeared. He was the link between the feudal spirit and the modern world of today. Do you know that he slept a few hours a night and could sleep anywhere for a few minutes and awake completely refreshed?’

  ‘Like you!’

  Alexandre smiles modestly.

  ‘Yes, like me!’

  Then he takes a deep breath.

  He pats my shoulder, back in full gear, he marches us to the car. He has the habit of walking with a hand under my elbow as if he were steering me, gently pushing me beyond my own courage, beyond my own fear, out there, as far as he could dream. But I know there is still Saint Helena ahead, there is still Elba island – and I know that salt will be poured on the ruins of Carthage.

  30

  THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS

  We’re in England and Poum is putting Easter eggs in the garden for some children they have met. Of course, everyone is interested, not only the two bewildered children. But a few hours later, when the hunt starts, as usual, all the eggs have gone
. My father asks her where they are, but she looks vague.

  ‘Poum, you must remember!’

  Her mouth is so full of chocolate she can hardly speak.

  ‘Poum!’

  She smiles that rare, unusual smile of the dispossessed, the robbed, the abandoned – the Remi Boncoeur smile in On the Road. If only there were enough chocolate in the world!

  It’s a time when my father invites strange guests with sons of marriageable age, even though I would nearly be a child bride. One evening, in winter, he takes them by the pool he’s just built at the end of the last period of plenty – a swan song of luxury.

  My father suddenly turns towards me: ‘Dive, Catherine!’

  It does not occur to me not to jump in with my clothes on.

  ‘Look, she swims like a fish!’ he tells them proudly. He doesn’t have time to tell them that I can ride, run very fast and am in excellent health. He can’t add tennis because the tennis teacher gave him back his money at the end of the first lesson. He can’t add golf or bridge for the same reason. His listing of my attributes does not seem to convince them, for they depart rather quickly, taking their sons with them. Alexandre must soon leave for Paris. He’s in a bad patch. ‘The dogs are barking too hard,’ he whispers to himself, ‘the army will never get through.’ Just before his departure, he wakes me up at five o’clock in the morning, as he often does when we are together in England. We creep down the stairs; luckily there’s a thick carpet. We open the door and pass by the old yew tree.

  ‘The English always planted a yew tree near their house because they used yew wood to make arrows. If they needed weapons, they had some at hand. Wasn’t that clever of them? Take off your slippers!’

  We step out of them and I turn around to look at the tracks of our four bare feet on the white, dew-soaked grass.

  ‘You know, walking in dew, especially at dawn, is the best thing for your health!’

  Without warning, he clenches his fists.

  ‘Catherine! I am in a bit of a pickle. This is the time to remember the Battle of Salamis!’

  Soon, the garden vanishes. We’re in Greece, 480 BC. He explains it to me in detail, as if everything hinged on it.

  ‘That night, according to Themistocles’s plan, the Athenians hid their women and children on another island and set fire to Athens, their beloved city. Hidden in a small inlet, Themistocles and his men watched their homes burn. One of the young soldiers couldn’t bear it anymore. He sprang to his feet in the boat and lifted his arm as if to strike Themistocles: “What are we waiting for? What does it matter if they are twice as many as we are? How much longer are you going to make us hide here like rats?” The old general looked at him without blinking and answered his famous phrase: “Strike me, but listen.” He was waiting for the Persian fleet to rush after them into the Salamis Strait. Then, when the Persians were stuck in the strait, he attacked. He beat them to a pulp. The Persian, Xerxes, who stayed at the top of a mountain to see the Greek triremes sink, had to leave with half his fleet.’

  ‘But wasn’t Athens burnt?’

  ‘Yes, but it didn’t matter. Athens was burnt, but Athens rose from its ashes to become the strongest city of the Peloponnese.’

  It becomes obvious to me that in some situations you’re Themistocles, in others you’re the women and children hiding on an island, and in others you have to look at Athens burning without doing anything.

  ‘But the greatest general of them all was Alexander!’

  We’re soon in the midst of one of Alexander the Great’s campaigns. The Sussex dawn is crowded and busy with war cries. The mysterious white garden and the clatter of battle sink into my sleepy mind. Barefoot in the Sussex winter dew, I’m not cold for a minute.

  ‘Alexander’s army was dying of thirst. They hadn’t had a drop of water for more than a week. Suddenly, behind a dune, a soldier found a tiny trickle of water between two rocks.’

  My father squats next to me.

  ‘So he filled his helmet to the brim and, instead of drinking it …’

  He looks at me and pauses as I nod encouragingly.

  ‘… Instead of drinking it, do you know what he did? He ran to give it to Alexander.’

  ‘That was nice of him.’

  My father gets up and pulls me to my feet.

  ‘The whole army was thirsty, the living god just like the others. And do you know what Alexander did? He thanked the soldier, cupped the helmet between his hands and lifting it up to the sky for all the army to see, he then slowly poured it into the sand as an offering to Apollo. No wonder his men followed him to the ends of the earth!’

  He drops his arms again and lapses into silence. His stories often finish abruptly, like nightfall in Africa or Inuit fairytales. Suddenly we’re back in the dew, when a few seconds earlier we were dying of thirst at the other end of the world.

  ‘Did they all die in the desert?’

  ‘Of course not! Alexander never lost a battle in his whole life. He was probably the world’s greatest military genius. One day, he was celebrating a victory in a conquered palace. He had handed over the town to his soldiers. Wine ran freely. The entire army was drunk. They broke into homes, caught the women and killed those who tried to stop them. They raided shops and storehouses, and rolled precious materials underneath their breastplates, getting their hands on anything of value.’

  ‘Did Alexander behave like that too?’

  ‘Oh, he was more drunk than anybody else.’

  ‘Julian the Apostate wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘No, Catherine. Anyway, Alexander was so drunk, he set fire to the curtains and the whole palace burnt down, then he carried on drinking in the flames and they had to drag him out bodily to another palace. You see, he thought he was a living god and nothing could harm him. He was so drunk, his friend Cleitus cried out: “Ha! Look at the god now!”’

  My father raises his arm.

  ‘Alexander jerked up and, in a blind fury, threw a javelin at him. Cleitus, his best friend, who had fought at his side in all his battles, crumpled to the ground. Alexander had such herculean strength, he felt he had thrown a matchstick at him.’

  ‘Was Cleitus all right?’

  Maybe there’s still a chance.

  ‘Oh, no, he died on the spot. The javelin went right through his heart. Brutally sobered up, Alexander shook his dead friend, crying out his name. Then he threw himself onto the body and carried it into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. You know, they didn’t always have women on their campaigns. For the Greeks, it was perfectly natural anyway.’

  Sometimes my father is a little obscure.

  ‘Locking himself up with him, he sobbed for three days, clasping Cleitus in his arms, refusing to open the door. You know, a dead body gives out a terrible stench if you don’t bury it straightaway, especially in hot countries. When the smell became terrible, they finally managed to persuade him to open it.’

  ‘Was he too unhappy without Cleitus? Did he stop his conquests?’

  ‘Oh, no, Alexander was an extraordinary case. He never encountered defeat. One day, he was on the frontier of India next to a stone landmark. You know, at that time India was uncharted territory. They had conquered so many countries, so many people, so many palaces already. An old counsellor called Parmenion put his hand on Alexander’s shoulder and said: “If I were called Alexander, I’d stop here.” Do you know what Alexander answered?’

  I shake my head, as my father puts Alexander’s hand on my shoulder.

  ‘I would too, if I were called Parmenion.’

  ‘So they went on?’

  ‘Of course! The old lion had lost a battle, but he hadn’t lost the war, had he, Catherine?’

  I know he’s not talking about the Greek Alexander anymore. He doesn’t wait for my answer; our walk suddenly ends in large strides and when I turn my head, he’s gone.

  A while later we return to Paris. The apartment has become invaded by clocks. They must have one or two clocks in each room, as i
f time were running thin, as if they wanted to hear it slip through their fingers. The clocks peal every hour, half or quarter of an hour, each one with a different chime. Some strike out loud and sure, others twinkle with a tiny melody or ring hesitantly with metallic or watery echoes. You never know when they’re going to go off and only the new cook can wind them up. With a practised gesture, she picks them up as a vet would handle wounded animals without getting bitten. My parents creep behind her, holding their breath.

  Alexandre is still in a bad patch. Even the furniture appears to be on its tiptoes. He often speaks about Themistocles, who no one would listen to even though he was right. I try and remind him of the Carthaginians or Julian the Apostate, but it doesn’t work. The gods have changed. They’re not the same anymore.

  One afternoon he picks me up at school in Neuilly – a thing that never happens. Seeing him waiting for me there, one hand on the wheel, the other waving behind the windscreen, feels like winning Waterloo if you’re English. It’s a Friday. For two whole days I won’t be going back to the dreaded place. He’s come straight from his office. Escaping from Neuilly, from school, we are driving away to I know not where. I fling my textbooks on the floor and hop in beside him. Even when I was tiny, he never put me in the back, scoffing at the idea. ‘These people, obsessed with security, they’ll all die anyway, I can tell you that,’ he’d comment. It’s summer. Paris is drunk with light. The leaves are bright green. Everyone is out on the pavement, sitting on the rickety café chairs.

  ‘Catherine! I have very good news. You’re going on a trip.’

  ‘A trip?’

  ‘Yes, I am going to take you to see this man in his office in the Champs Élysées and you are going off to Switzerland with him!’

  ‘Can’t you come too?’

  ‘No, that’s the whole point.’

  He frowns a short while and explains.

  ‘You see, my little one, in the Resistance, I got used to carrying cash from one cell to the other on my bike. The important thing was to get the money safe for the next action. The important thing was not to get caught. In times of peace, things are a little different. The French are so bureaucratic and nitpicking. The administrative fixation has killed their spirit of adventure. I didn’t quite realise this when I came back from America to fight in the war …’