21
On the eve of 1 January 1938, Pierre Hardelot and his wife were alone in Paris, in their little apartment on the Boulevard de Courcelles. Colette, who had passed her exams in October and was now studying Law at the university, had been invited to a party; she had gone out an hour earlier, very happy, in a new dress. The previous night Guy had said that he would stay in, that he’d go to bed early, but ageing parents who are still in love create an atmosphere of ghost-filled, contented melancholy that is intolerable to the young. So, having drunk a glass of champagne with them, Guy had ended up going out for the rest of the evening. He had found a position as an engineer in a factory; he led an ordered, gloomy life, as if, two years ago, he had spent all the passion, all the pain, all the love of which he was capable. With his parents he was more affectionate than before, but even more distant. What he read, his friends, his thoughts were unknown to Pierre.
So the husband and wife were alone. Pierre opened another bottle of champagne. The year 1938 began cold; light snow was falling. They lit the fire in the dining room. The radio was on low in the darkness. Pierre was assessing the year that had just passed.
‘What will this year bring?’ he asked. ‘We looked forward to the past two years with such confidence (like this one too, alas, like this one too), but they had nothing much to offer: that business with Guy …’
‘Oh, please don’t talk about it,’ murmured Agnès.
‘Poor Roland’s death, our problems, the money we lost, the factory taken over by someone else. I wonder what this year will bring?’ he said again.
‘Well, you’ve already had your first gift …’ said Agnès, touching her husband’s hand, ‘… a bad cold. Please, go to bed and don’t drink any more cold champagne.’
‘It does me good,’ said Pierre, coughing.
The next day he had a fever. Half of Paris was ill that winter; he had flu, complicated by a chest infection, which kept him in bed for two weeks. Meanwhile the last of the Hardelot-Arques ladies died, making Pierre her heir. But all she had was a few pieces of silverware and some furniture she’d bought in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine during the Great Exhibition of 1900. It had been badly damaged by having sat in the basement for four years during the war, so it was immediately obvious that this inheritance would bring nothing but problems with the taxman. Neither Pierre nor Agnès could travel to Saint-Elme to attend the elderly lady’s funeral and deal with her affairs, so Guy had to go. He received permission to be away from work for three weeks (which would be deducted from his annual holiday). He would stay with his maternal grandmother, Madame Florent, who had never left Saint-Elme, despite her hatred for the sleepy, cold little town. How she had dreamed of getting away from it. But when it had been possible, when Agnès had offered her a room in their Parisian apartment, it was too late. She had reached the age where you recoil at the idea of any kind of change, as if it were an omen of the greatest change of all: death. Like all the good middle-class ladies of Saint-Elme, she barely left her house; she fell asleep reading the papers; she got a new maid every six months. This was her only entertainment now. It excited her, annoyed her, added a little spice to her life. She had no money left whatsoever: her husband’s legacy had been spent on Agnès’s Russian bonds. Her children sent her money every month. She was very happy to see her grandson; she gave him the bedroom next door to hers and, at every meal, made him all the dishes he had liked as a child but which now, sadly, were the ones he most disliked as an adult.
The elderly Mademoiselle Hardelot-Arques was buried. All of Saint-Elme was present in the new little church. The black curtains at the entrance fluttered in the soft wind that blew in from the sea on rainy days. During Mass, the clouds in the sky vanished; a silvery ray of sunlight lit up the white flagstones, the blue statue of the Virgin Mary and the one of Joan of Arc, whose tunic was painted blue and gold. The candles around the bier were reduced to transparent flickering flames and from the coffin rose columns of luminous dust that floated upwards towards the stained-glass windows. Guy recognised the faces all around him, people he’d known since childhood: Father Gaufre’s massive red face, Billault the bell ringer’s black moustache. In the congregation he saw his aunts, his cousins, every remaining Hardelot from the region that ran from the English Channel to Arras on one side and the Belgian border to Paris on the other. And here, too, were the younger generation, who lived in Lille or Calais: the women wore make-up, elegant suits, beautiful fur coats over their Flemish bodies, heavy breasts and wide hips. The older men were also present, with their beards, pince-nez, black frock coats and a slight family resemblance in their features; they were rivals in business, brought long, drawn-out court cases against each other, argued over legacies eaten up by the taxman; they were malicious, suspicious of each other, but in spite of everything they were united in circumstances such as these, even when the departed had nothing much to leave.
Colette had gone with her brother to pay her respects to the dead woman; she was to stay for two days. ‘She’s the spitting image of Marthe Hardelot,’ everyone said. She looked sweet and young, not very clever, with pink cheeks, brown eyes and a warm, shy expression.
Both Guy and Colette felt nervous at being back in Saint-Elme.
‘This hideous hole,’ thought Guy. ‘I hope I never see the place again.’
Opposite him he could see Simone Burgères and Rose; the young woman was tall and beautiful, he thought vaguely. There was seven years’ difference in age between him and Rose; it was the first time he had actually seen her. But he looked at her with hostility: she was part of a different clan, the enemy, the daughter of Simone, who had ruined him, and of … Ah, he didn’t like recalling that time, that man. He had never seen his mistress again. He wasn’t in love with her any more; he had forgotten her. But that man, no, he still hadn’t forgiven him. The memory of the first betrayal wounds the pride more than the heart and fades more slowly.
Once the ceremony was over, everyone went back home, back to the warm fire and set table with that feeling of comfort and joy you have after a long walk in the rain, or when you’ve buried someone whose life and death are equally meaningless to you. Everyone in Saint-Elme was talking about Colette and Guy Hardelot. They had waited with great curiosity for the moment when the Burgères and the Hardelots would come face to face as they all filed by to offer their condolences. And, at the Hardelot-Demestres’ house, it was announced that the next day Guy would be invited to visit the Burgères.
‘How do you know that, Grandfather?’
Hardelot-Demestre always knew everything. He was an old man with slim shoulders and a white beard. He walked slowly through the dining room, round the cleared table, rubbing his dry hands together and smiling, with a gleam in his eye, making everyone beg him to tell them what he knew. He had seen Madame Burgères’s maid hand a note to Madame Florent’s maid and, also, the Burgères’s car had been seen going to the next town to buy food, which was only ever done the day before they were having dinner guests. ‘Ah, the Burgères don’t throw their money out of the window,’ people said with respect. In these old families of Saint-Elme, people admired thriftiness as much as they did wealth: both were prime virtues, the cornerstones on which a family’s prosperity was built. While they were talking, the radio was broadcasting the world news. Everything was unstable, falling apart; it seemed as if the clatter of swords, the tramping of boots, the distant rumble of marching armies could be heard even in this peaceful Saint-Elme sitting room. At the home of the Hardelot-Demestres they discussed the dowry of Rose Burgères. The young woman would be twenty-one in 1941.
‘Her mother will marry her off while she’s young; they don’t get along,’ people said.
The next day Guy and Colette were indeed invited to the Burgères house. It was a small dinner party, because of the mourning period, but Saint-Elme was meant to know that the former and new proprietors of the factory were on good terms. All the bad feeling between them was masked by these subtle details of behaviour: j
ust as the sludge at the bottom of a lake is hidden by clear, sparkling water.
Colette was very happy to be invited to dinner; she put on lipstick, though the girls in Saint-Elme never wore make-up. Two of Rose’s female cousins were also invited; they wore dark-brown taffeta dresses with high collars; their necks and cheeks were shiny, and they looked at Colette with envy, consoling themselves with the thought of their dowries, for they all knew that this little Hardelot girl … After dinner Madame Burgères sat down in an armchair, her knitting on her lap and some official papers on a table in front of her. She looked them over and knitted at the same time; she was using thin, rough wool to make clothes for the workers’ children. Sometimes she would stop, put down her knitting needles and pick up a red pencil to make notes in the margins of the letters.
The young people sat on stiff chairs, talking quietly. Rose was saying she’d be coming to Paris in the spring.
‘You must come and see us,’ said Guy, sounding so eager that his sister was surprised. ‘Will you be staying long?’
‘Oh, as long as possible,’ she replied.
‘Poor girl,’ thought Guy. ‘Her life can’t be much fun.’
She was dressed rather badly, in a fabric that was too sumptuous and too dark, and made her look old; her full mouth and thick eyebrows gave her an almost harsh look, but there was something about her that Guy liked. He couldn’t say exactly what … the way she moved her lips when she spoke or laughed, a glimmer of intelligence and daring in her eyes. He looked over at the young Renaudin girls, who secretly glanced at him tenderly, languorously. Their voices had risen slightly: when a young man is with an innocent young girl, she shows her emotions this way, in spite of herself, just as a pussycat miaows more shrilly than usual when she spots a tomcat. Rose didn’t say very much; she lowered her eyes but Guy could sense that she was watching him and it pleased him.
The clock struck eleven. Madame Burgères folded away her knitting. Colette and Guy said goodbye. Madame Burgères offered to drive them home, but no, they wanted to walk. They knew very well that people from good families never set foot outside after dark in Saint-Elme and they got illicit pleasure from breaking these sacrosanct rules.
Guy shook Rose’s hand.
She looked up at him. ‘Will I see you again?’ she asked.
She had spoken quickly and quietly. Nothing was more attractive to Guy than a courageous young woman, and he understood how brave she must be to ask him that with her mother listening. ‘They must keep a close eye on her,’ he thought to himself, ‘she’s the heiress.’
He liked her more and more. He smiled. ‘Come and see Colette tomorrow,’ he said. ‘We can talk about it some more then. Will you come?’
‘Yes.’
‘You have to go to Saint-Omer with me tomorrow, Rose,’ Madame Burgères said suddenly from her chair.
‘Tomorrow? But you said Saturday.’
‘It’s tomorrow.’
‘Come in the morning,’ Colette whispered in her friend’s ear.
The young people left. Soft, light snow was falling from the dark skies. Saint-Elme was asleep. All the shutters were closed, the doors locked. In Jault’s Inn, the workers drank beer, and music rose from a player piano. Colette and Guy walked past their old house; it still had a ‘For Sale’ sign on the balcony.
‘Nothing in the world would make me come back here,’ said Colette. ‘What about you?’
Guy didn’t reply.
22
Everyone waited for the war to start the way people wait for death: knowing it is inevitable, asking only for a little more time. ‘I’m aware you can’t be avoided, Death, but wait a bit, wait until I’ve finished building my house, planting this tree, seen my son married, wait until I no longer want to live.’ It was the same with the war: they asked for no more than time. A few more months of peace, another year, one more sweet, carefree summer … Nothing more. They wanted tomorrow to be just like today, with soup on the table, the family all together, amusements, work, love, just a bit more time, just a few more moments. Then … It was like in old paintings where Death walks beside a labourer pushing his plough, Death drinks from a rich man’s cup, sleeps on a poor man’s thin mattress, sings with musicians at feasts, holds court at church, in humble cottages, in palaces: so, in 1938, people sensed the constant presence of war, invisible yet all around them. Death took them by the hand and led them where it pleased; it made their food horribly bitter, poisoned their pleasures; Death stood at their side as they leaned over the cradles of newborn children.
And still people carried on living as they always had. They hosted grand dinners where black-suited Jeremiahs carved the pheasant, sliced the truffled foie gras and imagined future wars as if they were right in the middle of them. ‘A sudden invasion, one day, at dawn, the airfields bombed … civilians machine-gunned down along the roads …’ The women shook their heads and murmured, ‘Awful, just awful …’ while thinking, ‘I should have worn my pink dress. How annoying … I’m underdressed.’ They were predicting the Cabinet would collapse on Monday. The maids served the ice cream on crystal dishes with little gold-plated spoons. Someone announced that a trustworthy source had told him that Hitler would be sending his troops to the Ukraine in the spring. There was fighting in Spain. People got married, died, brought children into the world. In the Hardelot and Burgères households great confusion reigned, for Guy wanted to marry Rose.
The Hardelots thought it was a godsend, yet, in spite of that, they were not happy about it; they didn’t like the idea that their son might want Rose’s dowry. Madame Burgères declared she would never consent to the marriage. Rose had spent nearly three months in Paris and had seen Guy every day. She had returned to Saint-Elme and announced she was engaged. It was a harsh blow to Simone. Those Hardelots again! Now Agnès’s son would one day be the owner of the factory. Rose was only eighteen, fortunately. Her mother still controlled her. But it was no longer a time when a girl was locked up, forced to get married. Yes, Simone controlled the fortune, of course, but she also feared a scandal more than almost anything else. Her good reputation in Saint-Elme meant a lot to her. She did not wish to be accused of depriving her daughter of her money, or of being a bad mother. And all the old gossip she thought had been forgotten resurfaced. People were talking about her broken engagement, so long ago. They said she had never forgiven Pierre and Agnès their happiness, their love, that she had got her revenge by ruining them, that she hated Rose. There were even whispers that she had encouraged Burgères to seduce Guy’s mistress, to make the young man desperate. So it was that Saint-Elme invented the darkest of plots, its inhabitants trying to guess what was going on in the Burgères household. Its comings and goings were even discussed in the workers’ cottages, having first been recounted to the female cousins of the Renaudins, who then passed the information on to old Monsieur Hardelot-Demestre. The elderly Madame Florent felt young again, going from one house to another with her black umbrella (it was the rainy season) and her large bulging handbag containing two pairs of glasses, her keys and a handkerchief with a black border (she wore mourning for all those who had died in the Hardelot family, just as in England the shopkeepers dress in black whenever a member of the royal family dies). She insinuated that Simone Burgères was keeping her daughter shut away. She spread the rumour, vague and imprecise, that there would be a scandal, and whenever she came across Rose on the streets of Saint-Elme she would go up to her, look at her, tears in her eyes and whisper, ‘You poor thing, you poor girl …’ Then she would kiss her on both cheeks and walk away, pretending to wipe her tears. Despite Simone expressly forbidding it, Rose often went to see the elderly Madame Florent, who told her (in her own way) about Pierre’s and Agnès’s marriage.
‘In those days,’ she said, ‘young women weren’t free, the way they are now. Marriages were arranged by the parents in good families (and the Florents are an excellent family) and the young people simply had to accept it. Agnès was engaged to a very rich, handsome and
distinguished gentleman. But she was in love with Pierre Hardelot. Fortunately, she adored me, so she hid nothing from me. “Darling Mama,” she said to me one day, “you are so intelligent, you understand everything … You are my very best friend. Give me your advice. What should I do? Should I ignore my heart and marry the man you have chosen for me?” — “No,” I told her, “no, my darling child, I have lived for you alone and I want you to be happy. A marriage where the heart is silenced is a caricature of conjugal love. Money, the frivolous things in life are meaningless without deep, reciprocal love. If you love Pierre Hardelot, you must marry him.” And so she asked to meet him in the Coudre Woods. “Listen,” she told him, “I have both my mother and my conscience on my side. I have broken my engagement. I will follow you to the ends of the earth.” The young couple were determined to run away together, just like in The Beautiful Love Affair, a charming play, my dear Rose; haven’t you heard of it? When I learned what they intended to do, my heart missed a beat. I wasted not a moment. I went to see Pierre Hardelot’s parents (his mother was an excellent creature, not terribly intelligent, but a homemaker, with a good heart). “So, we’re going to sort this out, aren’t we?” I said. “Let his grandfather scream and shout; he’ll come round to it once their first child is born! Let us make these children happy.” I spoke with great authority, which won these good people over and, upon my word, Pierre and Agnès were married two months later. But it takes a strong will, determination, you can’t let yourself be led along like a child, damn it. Sometimes you must risk everything in life. You have to fight for your happiness,’ she said and pushed her tapestry needle into her embroidery with a look of triumph.
All Our Wordly Goods Page 13