by Allan Massie
They both got to their feet. Alain gave his friend a hug. Léon brushed his cheek with his lips.
‘I love you,’ he said aloud as the door closed behind him. ‘If only I had the courage to tell you.’
A couple of times Léon had spent the night on a couch in the backroom of the bookshop. Henri wouldn’t mind, even if he knew. He was tempted to do so this evening, to type and duplicate Alain’s article, but then he thought of how on the other occasions his mother had been alarmed when he hadn’t returned, afraid that something had happened to him – an accident, even an arrest; there were all sorts of things to frighten her now, especially since her nerves were weak and she never spoke as she used to of what they might do next month or next year. So he had better go home, and get there before the curfew too. He put Alain’s notebook where it wouldn’t be found, surely, on a shelf behind volumes of eighteenth-century sermons which nobody was ever likely to be interested in. As he locked the bookshop door, he heard singing. A lorry full of German soldiers lurched down the street. He pressed himself into the shadows and waited there till the singing died away. He was shivering, though it wasn’t a cold night for the time of the year. It would have been so easy for them to scoop him up; and then what? He lit a cigarette to calm himself, and found that his hands were shaking. It was absurd.
A figure stepped out of a doorway across the street and approached him. Léon’s fear sharpened but the man only asked him for a light.
‘I’m late,’ he said. ‘But glad to have caught you.’
‘What do you mean? Who are you?’
‘I think we go back into the shop. Unlock the door, will you?’
Léon hesitated. The man gripped his arm hard, just above the elbow, pressing on a nerve.
‘Just do as I say. That’s better. Switch on a light, only one. Let’s make it look as if you are working late.’
‘I have to get home,’ Léon said, ‘the curfew . . . ’ The man slapped his cheek hard, open-palmed.
‘Sit down,’ he said.
Léon obeyed and the man took the seat occupied so recently by Alain. Léon’s cheek smarted and he felt tears filling his eyes.
‘Who are you?’ he said again.
‘You don’t need to know who I am. You can call me Félix, which isn’t naturally my name. I don’t like your sort, Léon. You’re a Jewboy and a pervert who goes with older men, a little tart, aren’t you, and I daresay you think of yourself as an intellectual – all this, these books – and I don’t like intellectuals either. I’d quite enjoy beating you up which is what you’re afraid of, so afraid that you’re near pissing your pants, aren’t you? But you’re lucky. I need you and I need you for all the reasons that make me despise you. What do you say to that? Lost your tongue, have you?’
He leaned across the table, took hold of Léon’s hair and tugged his head down so that his nose was being pushed against the wood.
‘If I’d followed my instincts I’d have slammed your face down hard, but we don’t want to spoil your pretty pussy-boy looks, do we now? They’re your only asset, remember that. And remember this too: I could have you sent to an internment camp, Jewboy, as easily as I could bang your face down hard. Do you follow me? Answer.’
Léon said, ‘I follow.’
The man who called himself Félix relaxed his grip on Léon’s hair and Léon .lifted his head.
‘Are you a patriot, Léon? Would you call yourself that?’
Léon nodded.
‘So you are ready to serve France . . . like an obedient little Jewboy? Lieutenant Schussmann now, he fancies you, doesn’t he, not knowing of course that you’re a Jewboy. He doesn’t know that, does he, but we both know what he does want, don’t we? And you’re going to oblige him, that’s what you’re going to do. He’s no beauty, I grant you, but you’ll go with him – for France, you understand. And I daresay that being the little pervert you are, you’ll enjoy it.’
‘I . . . I can’t . . . ’
‘Oh yes, you can, and you will. Close your eyes and think of the internment camp, for yourself, and your mother and your Aunt Miriam. You see. There’s no real choice, Léon, is there? Get up now.’
Léon obeyed. Félix came up close to him, looked him in the eyes, kissed him hard on the mouth and spat in his face.
‘You’re mine,’ he said. ‘Mine. Don’t forget that. So you’ll do as I say.’
He seized Léon by the hair again, swung him round and threw him over the table. He took off his scarf and tied it round Léon’s face, forcing it to his mouth and gagging him.
‘We don’t want the old drunk upstairs to hear us, do we now?’
Holding Léon’s head with one hand, he tore his trousers and pants down, gave him two stinging blows on the buttocks, and raped him.
He was only panting a little when adjusting his own trousers he said, ‘That’s what you wanted, isn’t it, and now you’ll do just whatever Lieutenant Schussmann wants too, won’t you, and you’ll say nothing of this to your policeman friend. Oh yes, I know all about him too. I think that’s everything. I’ll give you a fortnight to be in Schussmann’s bed. Worse things would happen to you in that camp. And to your mother and your aunt. Just remember, Léon, I’m the only real friend you have now.’
XI
‘So,’ Bracal said, ‘there’s really no progress? It sounds to me as if the case is a dead one.’
Was there a note of satisfaction in his voice?
Lannes said, ‘I’m never willing to write a case off.’
‘But you know nothing of what the victim was doing back in Bordeaux, where he was living or who he was associating with. Really, superintendent, from your own account you have learned nothing, or nothing of any significance since we last talked about the matter. Isn’t that so?’
He sounded not only superior but bored. Lannes remembered that the judge had described himself as ‘a good Republican’, which he had taken as a hint that he might not be whole-heartedly committed to Vichy. He wished he knew something of his background. The silence prolonged itself. Bracal seemed content to wait. Was he inviting Lannes to fall in with his opinion or to raise an objection? The judge’s first and second fingers beat an almost silent little tattoo on the desk. His signet ring glinted in the shaft of sunlight that had appeared to light up the room. Behind him the Marshal’s portrait seemed like a summons to a duty that could not be fulfilled. Lannes lit a cigarette.
‘That’s not exactly so,’ he said.
Bracal raised his left eyebrow. No doubt it was a well-practised display of scepticism.
Not exactly so, it seemed to say, pray enlighten me.
‘There’s an interesting mystery,’ Lannes said. ‘The dead man, Professor Labiche, had evidently been in Bordeaux for some weeks. We know this from my conversation with his daughter who is, however, the only person we have come upon who admits to having seen him, and this for only one afternoon. He wasn’t registered in any hotel, and, since he didn’t call either on his old mistress – and I don’t think she is lying about that – why should she be? – it is reasonable to assume that he was here incognito, certainly that he didn’t wish to make his presence known. He visited his daughter only because he needed money. So it seems likely that he had provided himself with false papers or had been provided with them. If so they have disappeared. They certainly weren’t found on his body. So we may assume his killer removed them. Then we know that he had been in Spain, and, again according to his daughter, had spent time – a year, she said – in one of Franco’s prisons.’
‘He may have been lying to her,’ Bracal said, ‘in an attempt to win her sympathy.’
‘That’s possible, certainly. But in any case, you see, we have learned quite a lot about him, even if all we have learned makes it clear how little we know. And that – by which I mean, this sort of ignorance – is always interesting.’
‘It doesn’t alter the fact that a robbery with violence which went wrong or too far remains the most likely solution.’
�
��A likely solution? Undoubtedly. But the most likely? That’s open to question. Given that he seems to have gone to some trouble to keep his presence here secret – not calling on old friends or associates, for example – and given what we know of his history, it is equally reasonable to suppose that there may be a political aspect to the case. Meanwhile I have my young inspector, Martin, taking his photograph round hotels, pensions and lodging-houses in the hope that someone may identify him.’
Bracal’s fingers resumed their drumming, more firmly.
‘I can’t quarrel with that, though for various reasons I hope you are wrong. Still I admit that you are right in thinking we shouldn’t yet file the case away. On another matter, has our friend from the Travaux Rurales been in touch with you again.’
‘No,’ Lannes aid, ‘I rather hope my lack of enthusiasm has choked him off.’
‘I doubt that. I very much doubt that. These fellows are persistent, you’ll know. You’ll keep me informed – about both matters.’
XII
Léon had spent the night in the shop. For a long time after the man who called himself Félix had left, he couldn’t stop shaking. He felt filthy, dishonoured, wretched and afraid, very afraid. He washed himself thoroughly, all over, at the sink in the back room. The water was cold and he was still trembling. Nausea seized him and he vomited, retching till his mouth tasted of bile. He drank a glass of water and almost at once spewed that up too. Then he lay down on the couch. The springs were broken and there was no comfort there. He began to cry, sobbing as he hadn’t since he was a small boy. There was nothing he could do. He had been found out, found guilty, and sentenced: guilty of being what he was and could not be other than.
He had been living in . . . what? A make-believe dream? Ridiculous, being who and what he was. But the shop had been a refuge, sanctuary, and Alain . . . Alain’s face and the way his hair fell on the back of his neck . . . his voice, light, mocking, strong, indignant . . . now his tears flowed unstoppably. How could he face Alain after this?
It was a few weeks since he had learned of the Institut des Questions Juives being established here in Bordeaux and had read in the newspaper what was described as its purpose: ‘Our goal is to rid France, as far as possible, of the criminal influence of the Jews, and our desire is to pursue a closer collaboration between France and Germany.’ He had tossed the paper aside with a casual ‘bastards’. But the collaboration Félix demanded of him was of a different sort.
He lay very still, trying slowly to collect himself. Outside the city was silent. Day was far off, it was the hour of suicide. There had been blood on the towel when he wiped himself. But the physical pain would pass. It was less searing than the other pain, the contempt and hatred in everything said and done to him and this fear which had not left him, would never leave him, would be part of him for ever. And the self-disgust which had the refrain ‘Why am I like this?’ throbbing in his mind. He had never been ashamed of what he knew himself to be and now shame had been forced on him. He had known horror before: when he had been told of Gaston’s murder, when he had learned of the mutilation inflicted on him, when he imagined, as he only too vividly had imagined, Gaston’s terror as he realised that this was it, death in the form which he had perhaps always dreaded now being inflicted on him. But this was worse. He would never walk the street confidently again, would never again feel desire without the contamination of terror. This was what he had been reduced to.
There was no sleep for him, but gradually he composed himself. It was still possible to think. Of running away, going into hiding, finding his way across the border into Spain and then to England to join de Gaulle or to North Africa where there were no Germans. With Alain? Why not? They had talked of it, it had been on their minds, not as a solution but as a duty. But if he did so, if they did so . . . there was the threat which would certainly be carried out, of an internment camp for his mother and aunt . . .
Was what was demanded of him so dreadful?
He got up from the couch. His legs were still shaky and he stumbled, preventing himself from falling over by reaching out his hand to the table to steady himself. He heard footsteps above, Henri getting up for a pee.
Schussmann was a decent enough chap and fond of him perhaps, besides the other thing he wanted. So . . . so? But he was being asked to betray him, to go with him to compromise him . . . Well, he was a German, a member of the Occupying army. He and Alain had agreed that when it came to it, when the day arrived, they would not hesitate to shoot a German soldier. But Schussmann with his crinkled apple face and his enthusiasm for French literature and the gentleness with which he told Léon he had beautiful eyes, that was a different matter surely. He rather liked him after all, could imagine that if they had met in peacetime, well, who knew?; and when he spoke so tenderly of his home and summer evenings on a terrace overlooking the Neckar and of how perhaps one day he and Léon might enjoy such evenings together . . .
‘Are you a patriot, Léon . . . ? Would you call yourself that?’
And he had nodded agreement and not only because he was terrified. He was a patriot. He was French. He was a French patriot.
Yes, indeed, but . . . but indeed: France was rejecting him and his tribe.
Normality was returning, if normality could ever be restored to him.
He made himself a cup of coffee and drank it and did not vomit.
Alain’s father, the policeman, who was kind and had taken care of him after Gaston’s murder, who knew what he was and did not condemn him, had said to tell him if he was approached and asked – told? – to do what he had now been ordered to do. He would try to protect him. But he had also said there might not be much that he could do for him.
And there was nothing. Léon was sure of that. There was nothing. There would never be anything again. Why was he what he was? He had known one part of it early, but the other, his Jewishness, had been forced on him. And there was no way out. There would never be a way of escape.
But . . . suppose he was to speak to the superintendent? And if he was to warn Schussmann off? What then? Or if he told Schussmann himself what had been demanded of him? Félix would be back. He still felt the press of his lips, the first kiss he had ever received which was an expression of contempt and hatred.
XIII
Miriam said to Alain, ‘I think this must be the last time.’
‘What do you mean? Have you tired of me?’
‘No,’ she said, stroking his cheek and running her fingers along the line of his lips. ‘No, it’s not that . . . You’re lovely and desirable, you’ll be that to me for ever and I’m grateful for what you’ve given to me.’
‘So? I don’t understand. I love you, Miriam, you know that.’
‘Oh you think you do, and you’re grateful yourself for the experience I’ve given you, but . . . get dressed and I’ll explain. It’s too distracting lying here with your young body.’
She had determined on this before he came and on finding some adequate reason for him, but when they had both dressed and she had made coffee and they were in the room behind the tabac which had been her father’s living-room, the speech she had prepared in her mind refused to form itself into words she could speak. The boy looked miserable, white-faced, like a child who is being punished for some offence that he doesn’t recognise as such, and all she could say was, ‘Believe me, my dear, it’s for the best, for both of us.’
‘I don’t see how it can be,’ he said. ‘I don’t see that at all.’
‘It’s the times,’ she said. ‘They’re difficult enough as it is without . . . ’ Her voice tailed away.
‘All the more reason to take such pleasure as we can,‘ he said, and smiled for the first time, as if he sensed that she was weakening . ‘I love you,’ he said again.
‘You love the idea of me,’ she said, ‘and making love to me, certainly, but oh, it’s too complicated.’
What she couldn’t say: certainly that first time I found you intoxicating and I was so happy
that a beautiful boy like you wanted to make love to the middle-aged woman that I am. And I enjoyed it, of course I did, not only because nobody had made love to me for so long, and you restored something in me that was dying, it was wonderful, you were so young and ardent and indeed it’s still wonderful, but less so each time because when you kiss me I think of your father whom I can’t have, because he would feel guilty.
Well, of course she couldn’t say any of that. It was all she could do to think it.
So she said, ‘I’m Jewish, remember, it will make trouble for you.’
‘That’s nonsense,’ he said. ‘How could it? Nobody knows about us, and even if they did, I wouldn’t care.’
‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘you’re brave as well as sweet, but it’s impossible to keep secrets in this town. And besides, it involves us both in deceit.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Well, perhaps it’s better that way. And in any case an affair like ours, it’s better to end it while it’s still fresh, before it withers and turns sour, as it would, believe me, my dear. We’re not characters in a novel or a romantic drama, Alain.’
‘You’re tired of me. That’s what it is,’ he said.
‘I’d end it more easily and less painfully if that was true,’ she said. ‘But consider. Your father’s a friend of mine, he’s done me more than one good turn. But now when I see him I’m embarrassed, because of us. And that’s not right. Then there’s Léon . . . ’ ‘Léon?’
‘What would he say if he knew about us?’
Again: there was what she couldn’t say, couldn’t possibly say: that Léon was in love with Alain. He hadn’t of course told her this, but all she had to do was to see how his face lit up when he looked at Alain, even if Alain didn’t recognise it himself.
‘You’re the only friend he has now, the only real friend,’ she said, ‘and I’m his aunt. What would he think if he knew? He needs you, my dear.’