It would open, perhaps, in 1946. The mayor of Lavaurette would come, and there would be a party from Paris as well, the senior men in the parent company and their wives. On the first evening there would be speeches; the builders would be thanked and there would be a toast to the former abbot, driven up for the day from the old people’s home. Julien would be in his dinner jacket, moving among the guests, modestly declining their congratulations; he would now be living back in Paris, with Weil, his old boss, reinstated at the head of the company. Weil’s French citizenship, which had been revoked by Vichy, would naturally have been restored by the righteous and democratic government that followed.
Julien gazed at the floor plan of the bedrooms. Drawing was the part he liked best. The finished building was not worse, necessarily, than the plan, but it was always different; between the idea and the achieved reality the process of construction made a contribution of its own, so that what emerged invariably lacked the magnificent, beguiling, complex purity of the idea.
Poor Weil, Julien thought: how he had loved his work and his life in the city. He could picture him vividly, with his fair hair, and his quick eyes lighting up a fraction before his companion’s at some irony, some gossip he had picked up at lunch in one of the restaurants he patronised on the Boulevard de Montparnasse. How proud he was – though silently: he would have thought it trite to say so – of being French; how much he valued strolling through the sumptuous capital and its self-advertising landmarks of enlightenment – the Place de la Concorde, the Boulevard de la République. Now he was stripped of his job and his assets, forced to report daily to some surly prefect in the sixth arrondissement, and to wear on the lapel of his prized camel overcoat a cloth yellow star decorated with the word ‘Jew’.
Julien was sure it would eventually be all right for men such as Weil. How could it not be? They must be patient; they must wait for the English and the Americans and for people such as himself who would clear a path for the friendly invaders.
There was a knock at the door, and Pauline Bobotte came in with the small white china cup of coffee.
She lingered by the desk. Julien looked up at her powdery pink face, framed by the chestnut-coloured hair she wore clipped close to her head in shiny waves. She ran a finger along the edge of Julien’s desk.
‘So, Monsieur Levade. The enemy is at the gate.’
‘He’s in the house, Mademoiselle Bobotte. He’s been there for a long time, if only you had eyes to see.’
‘Oh, I have eyes all right. I have eyes in the back of my head, my mother used to say.’ She gave a small laugh. ‘Nothing passes me by, I promise you.’
‘I’m sure it doesn’t, Mademoiselle Bobotte. You’re a marvel. They say you can speak to three people at once on your telephone exchange.’
‘People exaggerate.’ Pauline Bobotte looked pleased. ‘But they do tell me you’ve found a new lady love. Your father’s servant-girl – if that’s the right word.’
‘Oh, do they? I wonder why they say that.’ Julien had expected some comment and wanted to find out the current state of gossip.
‘Apparently she kissed you, right out in front of a crowd, the day the Germans came.’
‘The emotion of the moment, I imagine, Mademoiselle. We were all a little distraught. I expect she wanted reassurance.’
‘Reassurance! That’s a funny word for it. They said you looked as pleased as anything.’
‘Politeness, mere politeness, I assure you. One does one’s best in these circumstances.’
‘Anyway, I thought you had a fiancée in Paris, Monsieur Levade.’
‘Oh, did you? I thought it was Lyon. You should really ask Pauline Benoit. She seems to know more about my personal life than I do.’
Pauline Bobotte pouted at the mention of the other Pauline. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘you’d better be careful if you’re going to carry on with a maid like that. People will talk.’
‘“People”?’ said Julien. ‘Well, you’d better go and stop these “people”, Mademoiselle Bobotte. Unless by doing so you think you might become one of them. Madame Guilbert is a married woman whose brave husband was taken prisoner in May 1940 and is being held by the enemy. She’s utterly devoted to him. It would be not only immoral but quite unpatriotic of me to harbour any sort of amorous intention towards her. I see my role as protective.’
Pauline Bobotte grunted. ‘She’s pretty, though.’
‘Is she? I suppose in a way she’s elegant. For a servant-girl. I hadn’t really noticed.’
‘So why were you kissing her?’
‘I didn’t kiss her. She kissed me. I told you. She was overwrought.’
‘But why should she—’
‘Enough, Bobotte! Back to your switchboard, please. I have important work to do.’ Julien handed her his empty cup, and Pauline Bobotte made her way unhappily to the door, where she paused as though to speak again but was forestalled by the sound of the telephone downstairs.
‘Oh, Dominique,’ said Julien out loud when she had gone. ‘What am I going to do about you?’
He put his feet up on the desk and started to indulge a fantasy in which he contrived to invite Dominique to spend a night at the hotel with him before it opened. They would go to the largest room at the end of the western elevation, the one with the view down towards the river. The bed was unslept in, the sheets were of linen and new from their brown paper packing; the bath had never been filled. The bathroom itself was fragrant with the scent of gardenia, and the fixtures and taps were boldly modern, all chrome with porcelain insets. He would have ordered new clothes for her from Paris – a skirt, a suit perhaps, which he would help her on with. In the long intimacy of the night he would go beneath the layers of her acquired identities to find the English girl, and discover what it was that moved her, what it was that filled her eyes with that earnest and entrancing light.
At lunchtime Julien went to see the Duguay boys. Mlle Cariteau ushered him into the kitchen and poured him a glass of wine; her manner was as brisk and assured as usual, but her eyes were worried.
‘I don’t like to let the boys downstairs at all now,’ she said. ‘It’s very hard on them being shut up on the second floor, but I just can’t take the chance. I’ve asked Maman to spend more time with them while I’m at work so they don’t get lonely.’
Julien found André and Jacob in a small bedroom at the back of the house. ‘I’ve brought something for you,’ he said. ‘I got them in a second-hand shop in a town I went to the other day. I hope you like them.’
From his pocket he produced six lead soldiers whose bright Napoleonic uniforms were starting to flake away. The boys grasped them eagerly. Julien fought a prim urge to tell them that they should say thank you. Then he saw the excitement in their eyes and remembered that they had probably not seen a toy since leaving their parents’ house. Jacob had difficulty in making one of his soldiers stand up; it was a useless figure locked into some ceremonial salute and the base was warped. Jacob nevertheless chuckled with pleasure. André’s response was more equivocal; he was annoyed that the sword had broken from one of his men and said he could not make much of an army with only three soldiers.
Julien remembered André’s old lightness, the way he had skipped everywhere, and saw that he had lost it. He had become a sullen little boy; his clothes were getting too small for him and his hair hung down into his eyes. He seemed dissatisfied and to be looking for reasons to complain. Then, when Julien was at the door, on his way out, André suddenly began to leap up and down by his side, grabbing his arm, saying, ‘Thank you, thank you,’ and barking like a dog.
Back in the kitchen, Julien found Sylvie Cariteau preparing to return to the post office.
‘They seem all right, don’t they?’ he said.
‘As well as they can be.’
‘Listen, Sylvie, you do understand, don’t you, how things have changed? When André and Jacob first came here, you could have given any number of excuses to the gendarmerie, who’d probably have conni
ved with you anyway. Now it’s different. They’re taking Jews from everywhere, foreign, French, it doesn’t matter. The Government is trying to bargain with the quotas, but they’re co-operating. Now you’re running a real risk. If they find André and Jacob they’ll punish you too.’
‘I know,’ said Sylvie. ‘But I can’t turn them out now. It’s Maman I worry about more. She doesn’t really understand.’
‘But is she safe? She won’t tell?’
‘No, I don’t think so. I’ve tried to make it clear to her. And she’s become fond of the boys. One thing I don’t understand, Julien. Where do they take these people?’
‘They go to Paris first, where they’re put on trains.’
‘Trains?’
‘Yes. To Poland, I’ve been told.’
‘And what happens there?’
‘In theory they work. They put them in work camps.’
‘In theory?’
‘In fact . . . If they wanted them to work they would send them to Germany, not Poland. I don’t know. There are rumours. These people are not like us.’
On his way back to his office, Julien came across Claude Benech on the Avenue Gambetta. He hesitated for a moment, then remembered the promise of duplicity he had made to Charlotte and held out his hand in greeting. Benech took it briefly and hurried on.
Benech would have rather not met Julien Levade at this moment; he was on his way to an assignation, and although it was perfectly proper, he didn’t want to be questioned about his movements.
A couple of days earlier he had received a cyclostyled letter beginning ‘Dear Patriot’ beneath the double-headed axe of Vichy and the triple motto of Work, Family and Fatherland. It invited him to present himself at an address in a back street of Lavaurette where he could learn of an opportunity to serve his country. A minute or so before two o’clock Benech knocked at a thin blue door in a dark street optimistically called the rue des Rosiers. No rose bush had forced its way up here for many years, Benech thought as he waited for an answer; it was an area of the village, between the garage and the factory, that he barely knew.
The door opened on to a gloomy hallway with a circular table at the foot of the stairs on which a black telephone was ringing. Whoever had opened the door was standing behind it in order to let Benech pass, and it was not until he was standing inside that he turned and saw a large man wearing a shiny, padded leather jacket with a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. The man led the way up the stairs, ignoring the raucous telephone. The room at the front of the house was bare except for a large deal table, spotted with white paint, and three hard chairs. The shutters were closed and the room was lit by an electric bulb that hung from the ceiling. In its light Benech could see the other man more clearly: he was in his middle thirties, with black curly hair, sideburns and thick eyebrows. He was solidly made but was starting to run to fat; his belly turned the buckle of his belt half-way down towards the floor: he looked like someone who had been a footballer or boxer, and then let go.
‘You can call me Clovis.’ His tongue whistled on the final consonant; his accent was from the south-east. ‘You’re Monsieur Benech?’
Benech nodded. He felt a little unsure of this man. He had expected something more formal – flags, a uniform – and he was not certain that the Director of his school would approve of his being there. The telephone rang on doggedly downstairs.
Clovis lit another cigarette and pushed the packet across the table to Benech, who shook his head.
‘I’m touring round the area to recruit for an organisation,’ Clovis began. ‘It’s due to be launched officially in January, so there’s no time to lose. This is a political party, but I’m not concerned with politics. I’m looking for volunteers for the security force that will go with it. The aim of the force is to maintain order while political reform goes through.’
Benech licked his lips. ‘I’m not sure. I don’t want to belong to anything that’s not part of the Marshal’s vision of France.’
Clovis laughed, the deep, companionable sound Benech had often heard and envied among the men in the Café du Centre. ‘There’s no need to worry, Monsieur, this is a particular project of Monsieur Laval himself. He’s to be the president of the organisation.’
Benech sat forward in his chair. ‘Really?’
‘Absolutely. The party will aim to unify all the different patriotic groups in the country. The security organisation will be open to all volunteers. It will have a youth section for boys and girls. But what I’m talking about are permanent staff, people we can rely on.’
Clovis was cleverer than he looked, Benech thought. Perhaps he could forgive the informality of his reception if this scheme had emanated from Vichy, from the brain of Monsieur Laval, and with the blessing therefore of the Marshal himself.
‘. . . just a couple of questions about your beliefs. They’re bound to ask you,’ Clovis was saying. ‘Who is the most serious enemy of the true France?’
‘The Communists,’ said Benech ‘. . . and the English,’ he added quickly, fearing that his first answer might not have been correct.
Clovis nodded and smiled. He pushed a piece of paper across the table. ‘Read this. It’s the oath of allegiance you’ll be required to take.’
Benech read: ‘I swear to fight against democracy, against Gaullist insurrection and against Jewish leprosy . . .’ It was phrased a little more strongly than he would have liked, but it was in essence the oath he had waited for all his life.
‘It’s fine.’
As Clovis raised his hand to his face to pull the cigarette from his lips, Benech noticed the numerous nicks and scars on his huge, thick fingers; there was something both soothing and stimulating about this man, he felt.
Clovis put his hand into a drawer above his thighs. Such was the size of his grasp that Benech did not see what he had taken out and laid on the table until he removed his hand with a flourish.
‘Have you ever used one of these?’
Having been excused by reason of his asthma from military service, Benech had neither used, nor even previously seen from close quarters, a handgun. The packed, stubby handle and the long, gleaming barrel sent a frisson through him; he felt something starting to be explained, some long-held injustice beginning at last to be put right.
‘If you prove your worth, if you do what you’re told, you’ll get one of these,’ said Clovis. ‘You’re lucky. Most of the volunteers are being told to stuff their holsters with paper. You’ll get a uniform as well – khaki shirt, black tie and beret. You provide dark blue trousers and jacket. Do you want to hear more?’
The telephone in the hallway stopped ringing and it was suddenly quiet in the room. Benech felt Clovis’s powerful, mocking eyes on him and knew that such an opportunity might never come to him again.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘yes, I do.’
All round the Domaine the darkness was cold and thick; through the night the wind had rushed and relented, softened and hurried on, hurling the rain against the bolted shutters. Levade shivered as he took a piece of paper from the desk in his studio and pulled the lit candle nearer to him. For someone concerned with making pictures he had ugly handwriting, distorted by the urgency with which he wrote.
21 November 1942. 04.45h. Man is alone in the world. A woman expects a baby, but that baby in particular, that character? No. She does not even know what sex it will be, would not recognise a photograph of it when grown. And in death there is eternal isolation. That will be my Hell. I am afraid of dying, but I know my fear is a sin.
By language men have made a show of congregation or society, because the individual is not born with language but learns to navigate with its means, which have been developed and bequeathed by dead men. This sense of being part of something greater is in fact an illusion. A man and woman may live together all their lives and still know little of the essence of the other. They rarely surprise each other, because what is essential to each is never communicated.
Like language, art struggl
es with what is common, to disturb the individual habit of perception and, by disturbing it, to enable men to see what has been lived and seen by others. By upsetting, therefore, it tries to soothe, because it hopes to free each person from the tyranny of solitude.
No child born knows the world he is entering, and at the moment of his birth he is a stranger to his parents. When he dies, many years later, there may be regrets among those left behind that they never knew him better, but he is forgotten almost as soon as he dies because there is no time for others to puzzle out his life. After a few years he will be referred to once or twice by a grandchild, then by no one at all. Unknown at the moment of birth, unknown after death. This weight of solitude! A being unknown.
And yet, if I believe in God, I am known. On the tombs of the English soldiers, the ones too fragmented to have a name, I remember that they wrote ‘Known unto God’. By this they meant that here was a man, who did once have arms and legs and a father and a mother, but they could not find all the parts of him – least of all his name.
God will know me, even as I cannot know myself. If He created me, then He has lived with me. He knows the nature of my temptations and the manner of my failing. So I am not alone. I have for my companion the creator of the world.
At the hour of my death I would wish to be ‘known unto God’.
Charlotte had pushed the jagged grey pyramid of oyster shells to one side and was cutting into a plump Bresse chicken. She had ordered a whole one and was undaunted by its size, or by the steaming pot of fresh parsley sauce. From the mound of mashed potatoes on her plate a narrow trickle of butter ran into the margins of the oily vinaigrette that dressed the mountainous green salad. She tore off half a baguette, slit it lengthwise, plastered it with the ripe camembert the waiter had slipped on to her side plate, and made a bulging sandwich. As she sucked the fat meniscus from a balloon of burgundy, a remote jangling forced itself closer until the sound filled her head – and the dinner vanished.
Charlotte Gray Page 29