The Girl at the Lion D'Or

by Sebastian Faulks

  It was occasionally reassuring for Anne, when she stood in a deserted dining-room, to know that there were other people alive in the building. At times it seemed so lonely, leaning against the sideboard, swinging her foot backwards and forwards, waiting for a customer, that any noise was welcome. But then, when people came, the sense of isolation didn’t necessarily diminish. So much of what she did and said was repetition. There were always salt cellars to be filled, and bottles of oil and vinegar to be replenished from the slippery containers in the kitchen. There were always the same questions to ask: Have you decided yet? What wine would you like? What would you like for dessert? Worse than the repetition were the long spells of idleness, with only the thoughts in her mind to keep her company. While she stood by the sideboard, describing circles with her foot in the dusty parquet, her head was full of sound, and in her imagination she was dancing. When the visitors addressed her it was not necessarily to make contact with her, but merely to obtain information or give orders through a series of set phrases, so that her actual personality had not been engaged at all.

  When company did arrive it was frequently in the almost indiscernible form of the head waiter Pierre, whose soundless step carried him unheralded through the hotel. He had learned to give a little warning cough when he entered a room, having often startled people who were unaware of his presence if he began speaking at once. When he organised the plates and glasses on the sideboard or in the bar, his movements always seemed to leave a thin layer of air between his hands and the objects he was touching, so that they appeared to have changed position spontaneously. Anne liked this delicacy in him, and she liked him also because he asked after her and she sensed that he was no happier in this hotel than she was. Beneath the softness of his manner there was a toughness she admired, even if it showed itself only in the end as resignation. Sometimes on an afternoon off he took her to the cinema. It was always packed with people and they often had to queue, but both were entranced by what they saw.

  Anne also made friends with a girl called Mathilde, a great-niece of Mlle Calmette, with whom she went for walks in the public gardens when they could not afford the pictures. Both were devoted to Jean Gabin, and Mathilde had a yearning for Maurice Chevalier. Anne told Mathilde certain things about her life. Her childhood she glossed over, as she had done with everyone she had ever met, except Hartmann; but she told her something of her present situation, without revealing names. Mathilde, who had a young man to whom she was engaged, listened patiently, and they exchanged their views of men.

  When work was finished, she would go back to the rooms that Hartmann had rented for her and play with Zozo the cat, if he was anywhere to be found, listen to her gramophone, or read one of the books she had been lent by Mathilde. She was usually tired after a day beginning at six, especially if she had been on duty in the bar, which sometimes didn’t close till one. The compensation for working so late was that she had the chance to talk to people there, and after the initial order of the drink most of them treated her like an ordinary person.

  She passed her day, when she examined it honestly, in the hope of a communication from Hartmann. She resented the way her life was so dependent on the whim of another person, but not so bitterly that she was unaware of what she had to do, which was merely to wait and to be patient, and not so bitterly, either, that it changed her affection for him. As far as the strange terms of their relationship permitted, he was punctilious. He showed consideration for her position and he did his best to see her when he could, but the unforgivable thing was that he was not hers, and he was not there when she wanted him to be. She wondered if he had any idea at all of the eagerness with which she waited once he had made an assignation to see her; of the obliterating importance of these meetings in her day. In her more doubtful moments, she was sure he had not, and that there was only a painful and rather ridiculous inequality of feeling between them. Then, when she was on the point of despair, she received a telegram from Paris: ‘Delayed here. Returning Friday. Meet Saturday evening?’

  She placed it on the table in her sitting-room next to the small vase of flowers and felt that the waiting had been worthwhile.

  At the same time that Anne was reading his telegram, Hartmann sat down in Antoine’s office overlooking the Seine in the Quai Voltaire.

  ‘Have you seen the latest Gringoire?’ said Antoine.

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Hartmann. ‘I’m surprised they let you read such dangerous nonsense.’

  ‘You should look at this.’ Antoine threw a copy of the paper across the room. ‘They’re going to nail Salengro by whatever means they can. They want blood, and the sort of blood they’d like best is the blood of a leftist minister. That would be the first step to bringing down Blum’s government.’

  ‘But nobody believes this story about Salengro having deserted in the war. Who’d believe the word of these fascists against that of a minister?’

  ‘Gringoire says they’ve got fourteen witnesses to his desertion. Blum’s going to announce an inquiry.’

  ‘But why? He can’t believe in stuff like this.’

  ‘Of course he doesn’t, but he can’t afford to have a government in which one of his major ministers is suspected of having deserted under enemy fire – not when everyone is in a state of hysteria about the Germans invading again. So he’ll have to clear his name.’

  ‘I don’t think Blum should give people like this the respectability of a reply,’ said Hartmann, waving the paper in the air.

  ‘Have you ever met Salengro?’

  ‘No. What difference does it make?’

  ‘None at all. You’re right, in any case. He’s charming – perhaps too sensitive to be a politician – but utterly honest, and patriotic.’

  Antoine rose from his desk and looked over the river. He was an imposing, grey-haired man who liked to present his worldliness as cynicism. He was ashamed of enjoying his work so much, so pretended he was only a minor functionary in a system no longer under control.

  ‘Our problem, Charles, is worse than that of Gringoire and Roger Salengro. I haven’t asked you here for your advice about a small right-wing periodical. The newspaper I am concerned about is more serious. The story they have is no more scandalous and no less, but if they print it they will be believed, because unlike Gringoire they are widely circulated and respected.’

  ‘I know. Though in their way no less venal.’

  Antoine looked quizzical.

  ‘Be sensible, Antoine. You’re as aware as I am how much the papers are in the pocket of the bankers and the politicians – those of the right colour. Even the sainted Poincaré used to bribe them, as well you know.’

  ‘Poincaré was a fine man.’

  ‘Perhaps. All I said was that he bribed the press. Once he’d retired to Lorraine people forgot that in their rush to beatify him as the saviour of the franc.’

  ‘Be that as it may, we are dealing with a proper daily newspaper with a huge circulation and, in the peasant’s eyes, the authority of an oracle. The minister in question is the head of my department.’

  Antoine named a man who was one of the youngest in the Cabinet, and who was said, even by opponents, to be one of the ablest. The man’s detractors had been unable to find examples of poor judgement in his career and so tended to say he was too ambitious, or too clever for his own good.

  ‘And what has he done, or not done?’ said Hartmann.

  ‘It’s a question of sex,’ said Antoine, sitting down again, and settling his glasses on his nose.

  ‘A woman? What’s the problem? Good heavens, look at Reynaud and that monstrous mistress of his.’

  ‘Not exactly women. Girls. Young girls.’

  ‘How young?’

  ‘Too young for the press to find tolerable, when it’s thirsty for blood. Too young for the government to be able to withstand.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I think so, Charles. I fear so. Even if they don’t fall on this one it will destabilise them further.
’

  ‘How far has the paper got with the story?’

  ‘They say they’ve got all they need to run it, but I’m not sure.’

  ‘And is it true?’

  ‘You’re going to have a chance to find out. We’re meeting him this afternoon and he can tell us all about it.’

  Hartmann lowered his head. ‘My God,’ he said. ‘Can you imagine how hard that man’s worked to get where he is? How he must have fought, what dedication . . . And he’s an outsider, too, isn’t he? To break into that coalition of old pals, to realise an ambition he must have been consumed by all his life . . . And then to risk it all – for this?’

  Antoine nodded. ‘Exactly.’

  Christine was sitting in the morning-room with her embroidery. From somewhere underground she could hear the intermittent thump of a workman’s pick-axe; through the window she could see where a thin wind was agitating the trees on the other side of the lake. It was two months since Hartmann had last made love to her. She remembered the occasion because it was in itself unusual, having followed an earlier gap of five weeks. When, so many months ago now, she had become pregnant she had feared that Hartmann’s reaction would be hostile and that he would abandon her; but Hartmann, whom she had loved but not trusted, had shown his worth by accepting fully the responsibility of his actions, and for the brief period of their engagement and subsequent marriage all had seemed well. Even the difficulty of the miscarriage had been overcome with equanimity, and the later discovery that she would never again conceive had seemed if anything to bind them more firmly together. Although she had misgivings about making love with no possibility of procreation, she took his continued desire as proof of his true feeling towards her.

  Now that it seemed to have waned, she found all her old fears returning. She knew she was not beautiful, and she knew that, whatever Hartmann might have said to the contrary, he was disappointed that she was now sterile. She felt guilty towards him for this failure, but had hoped that she alone would be enough to satisfy and keep him; and so, since their marriage two years previously, it had seemed she was.

  Christine stood up and walked over to the window. She gazed across the water, thinking of the trial that lay ahead of her and hoping she would have the strength for it. She had no idea whether Hartmannn had lost interest because he was making love to other women, because he no longer loved her, or whether all men went through periods of uninterest. Her instinct suggested that other changes were taking place simultaneously in her husband which might in some way be connected, though at the exact nature of those changes she could only guess.

  She walked across the black and white marble hall and up the broad stairs, feeling the risen banister against her palm. A handle turned loosely in her fingers and she peered into the gloomy corridor ahead. In one of the bedrooms she paused and looked around her at the hectic confusion that spilled from the cupboards.

  Above the mantelpiece she saw a long jagged crack in the plaster that ran up to the picture rail and reappeared above it in splintery tracks that crawled up through the cornice and out on to the ceiling above. She put her finger over the crack above the mantelpiece and ran it downwards, watching the thick grey dust tumble out.

  ‘Bring me some rum in a glass of warm milk, will you?’ said Antoine to the waiter.

  ‘Still the same problem?’ said Hartmann.

  ‘I’ve seen every liver specialist in Paris and I don’t think they have the slightest idea what to do. They wanted me to go to some awful spa and take the waters. My God!’

  ‘You drank too much when you were young, Antoine.’

  ‘Of course I did. So did you, Charles, and you seem to be all right.’

  ‘I wasn’t in the army long enough to learn the bad habits you had.’

  ‘What was it, six months?’

  ‘Two years. You know very well. And I tried to join up before, as you also know, but I was only –’

  ‘All right, all right. You’ll be showing me your medals in a minute. What are you going to eat?’

  They had taken a taxi to a restaurant in the rue du Faubourg St Honoré. Every sound seemed to be muffled by the thickness of the velvet drapes and the plush upholstery of the chairs and benches. The talk around them was in murmurs, and the loudest noise was that of corks being slid from wine bottles by the assiduous waiters. Hartmann turned the conversation to the minister he was due to meet.

  ‘Have any other newspapers got this story?’ he said.

  ‘No, and you can be sure they won’t be getting it if your friend the editor has his way. Only he and the reporter know about it.’

  ‘And the minister.’

  ‘Yes.’ Antoine sipped the milky liquid in his glass.

  ‘And does he seriously expect that I can dissuade the editor on the grounds that I’ve worked for the paper in the past?’ said Hartmann. ‘Does he think I can stop them printing something which is not only a good scandal in itself but which would also serve their political ends?’

  ‘But the editor is a friend of yours, isn’t he?’

  ‘Not a close friend. And this is like giving a dog a juicy bone then saying, “Please don’t eat it”.’

  ‘Or a man with a young girl,’ said Antoine, ‘and saying, “Please don’t touch her”.’

  Hartmann looked up from his fish and saw Antoine gazing at him in the half-mocking, half-bullying way that had frightened him when he had first encountered him as a senior officer. What did Antoine know? Was the reference to him, or to the minister?

  ‘Exactly,’ he said.

  ‘In that case, Charles, if your personal magnetism is not enough, you’ll have to find some very good legal reasons.’

  Hartmann went over the possibilities in his mind. ‘That may not be easy.’

  ‘But that’s what you’re paid for. I’ve told the minister you’re the foremost expert in Paris on newspaper law.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Hartmann unenthusiastically.

  ‘And naturally you want the Popular Front government to continue in power?’

  ‘I do or I don’t – what does it matter? I take the brief to do the job as best I can, that’s all.’ Hartmann paused. ‘And because it was you who asked me.’

  Antoine inclined his head in acknowledgement. He went on, ‘But you do want Blum’s government to continue, don’t you?’

  ‘I think Blum is an honest man, I’ve said that, and I think France needs someone who can hold it together against the Fascists in Germany and those within who want to destroy the country – the people who tried to bring the Republic to its knees a stone’s throw from where we’re sitting just two years ago.’

  ‘The riots, yes indeed the riots . . . But what a ragbag of a government, don’t you think? And a pact with the Communists?’

  ‘If the support of the Communist party is the price you have to pay to keep the Republic intact, then we have to pay it. Though I think they’ll stab Blum in the back whenever it suits them.’

  Antoine ordered some more rum in milk. ‘Did you vote for them?’ he said.

  Hartmann smiled. ‘I wouldn’t tell you, Antoine. I think the only imperative in voting today is to vote for any government that does not contain Pierre Laval.’

  ‘Pétain says Laval is the man of the future.’

  ‘What the hell does Pétain know?’

  The waiters plied them with further food and drink. Hartmann was surprised by the way Antoine seemed to accept what appeared to him to be a political disintegration, but supposed that when one’s masters had changed as often as Antoine’s had in the last ten years one became resigned to turbulence.

  ‘I take it,’ he said, ‘you don’t like Blum’s government.’

  ‘I’m a public servant. It’s not for me to have opinions. Just like you, Charles, I accept my brief and –’

  ‘Come on, don’t be pompous.’

  Antoine laughed. ‘Well, do you honestly think from what you know of me that I would like a government led by a socialist and supported by Communists?
A government whose accession to power brought the largest strikes this country has ever seen? And which threatens the possessions and livelihood of the fat bourgeois like me?’

  Hartmann smiled. ‘You’re not a fat bourgeois, Antoine. A trifle corpulent, some might say, perhaps, but –’

  ‘I know what you really think of me, Charles.’

  ‘Do you? Do you really?’

  ‘A time-serving middle-aged bourgeois with a house in the country, who –’

  ‘You can go on as long as you like, but you won’t dissuade me from my good opinion.’

  ‘Fine words from a lawyer. To tell the truth, I don’t think it makes much difference. If Blum doesn’t fall this time, there’ll be others.’ Antoine wiped his mouth on a huge linen napkin. ‘I’d give M. Blum one year at the outside.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Daladier, I should think.’

  ‘Daladier! Good God, not him again. Not even he can be thick-skinned enough to come back after that humiliation. Riots and deaths and –’

  ‘You don’t believe all that Daladier the Killer nonsense, do you?’

  ‘Of course not. It wasn’t his fault, but the fact remains that he was in charge when the mobs ran riot and he lost his nerve. A show of force the following day was all that was needed.’

  ‘He was an infantryman. He was appalled at the sight of blood on the streets of Paris.’

  ‘We were all infantrymen, Antoine, and none of us liked seeing blood.’

  ‘But he’s durable, Daladier. Don’t underestimate him.’

  ‘There have been worse,’ said Hartmann. ‘I think he’s honest, all right, but hardly the man for the hour. You might as well say we’ll have the ludicrous Chautemps back next year.’

  Antoine called for the bill. ‘I wouldn’t put that beyond the bounds of possibility, either. Come on, Charles, try to look a bit more cheerful. We’re going to try to save a minister. The least we can do is cheer him up.’