Léon and Louise (20 page)

After a busy but uneventful day in the laboratory, Léon set off for home. There were fewer cars than usual in the streets, almost as if it were a Sunday, not a working day, the streams of home-goers on the pavements were sparser than usual, and the buses were half empty. The second-hand booksellers had locked up their stalls and the pavement cafés had cleared away their chairs and tables. Strollers, proprietors, waiters, customers – all had disappeared, but there were no roadblocks, tanks or machine guns to be seen. Paris appeared to be resuming its traditional, thoroughly Gallic way of life – with one minor difference: the park benches and
bateaux mouches
were occupied by German soldiers.

The wooden, iron-bound door of the Musée Cluny was also shut. Seated in front of it as usual was Léon's personal tramp, into whose hat he had dropped the customary coin that morning. Léon raised his hand in greeting and was about to walk on when the tramp called, ‘Monsieur Le Gall! If you please, Monsieur Le Gall!'

Léon was surprised. It was anomalous and contrary to the rules of the game for the man to know his name. That he had addressed and called after him was positively improper. Reluctantly, he turned back and went up to him. The tramp scrambled to his feet and removed his cap.

‘Please forgive me for troubling you, Monsieur Le Gall. It'll only take a moment.'

‘What is it?'

‘It's cheek of me to ask, but needs must...'

‘I gave you something this morning, remember?'

‘That's just it, monsieur. That's why I'm begging your indulgence and taking the liberty of politely enquiring – '

‘What do you want? Speak up, let's not waste time.'

‘You're right, monsieur, time is of the essence. To put it in a nutshell, I wanted to ask you this: Will you be giving me another fifty centimes tomorrow morning?'

‘What a question!'

‘And the day after that?'

‘You've got a nerve! Are you drunk?'

‘And next week, monsieur? Will I be getting fifty centimes from you every day next week and in a month's time?'

‘That's enough! Who do you think you are?' Feeling that the man had taken advantage of his good nature, Léon turned to go.

‘Just another moment, please, Monsieur Le Gall. I realize how impertinent this must seem, but I can't help it.'

‘What is it, man? Tell me.'

‘Well, the Nazis are here.'

‘So I've seen.'

‘Then I'm sure you must have heard what they've been doing to my kind in Germany.'

Léon nodded.

‘You see, Monsieur Le Gall? That's why I've got to get out. I can't stay.'

‘Where do you propose to go?'

‘To Jaurès bus station. Buses leave from there for Marseille and Bordeaux.'

‘Well?'

‘If you'd advance me the money you were going to give me in the immediate future...'

‘Well, really! How long will you be gone?'

‘Who knows? I'm afraid the war will be a long one. Three years, maybe four.'

‘And you want your daily fifty centimes for all of that time?'

The tramp smiled and gave an apologetic shrug.

‘Two hundred working days a year for four years would make eight hundred times fifty centimes.'

‘Quite right, Monsieur Le Gall. Of course, a considerably smaller sum would also get me off the hook.'

Léon rubbed his neck, pursed his lips and stared at his toecaps for quite a while. Then he spoke as if to himself. ‘Now I come to think of it, I can't see any good reason not to give you the money.'

‘Monsieur...'

While waiting, the tramp had been staring at the ground and humbly kneading his cap in both hands. Léon also removed his hat and looked in both directions as if waiting for someone to advise him on the matter. At length he put his hat on again and said, ‘Make sure you're here just before noon tomorrow. I'll bring you the money.'

‘Thank you, Monsieur Le Gall. What about you? What are you going to do?'

‘We'll see. Anyway, mind you take that bus. My name is Léon, incidentally. That's what my friends call me – or did when I still had some. And yours?'

‘My name is Martin.'

‘Pleased to meet you, Martin.'

The two men shook hands.

‘See you tomorrow, then. Take care.'

‘You too, Léon. See you tomorrow.'

And then – neither of them could have said how it happened after the event – they stepped forwards and exchanged a hug.

On getting home, Léon was amazed how noticeable Madame Rossetos' absence already was. The pavement outside the front door was strewn with cigarette ends, pigeon feathers and dog turds, a stinking dustbin was standing in the hallway, and the route to the stairs was obstructed by five gas cylinders. Because no one had sorted and left it outside the various flats, most of the tenants having fled to the south, the day's mail was lying on the big radiator beside the door leading to the inner courtyard.

In Lorient harbour

on board the auxiliary cruiser

‘Victor Schoelcher'

14 June 1940

My dearest Léon,

It's me, your Louise, writing to you. Are you surprised? I am. I was very surprised how badly I wanted to write to you as soon as I knew for certain I was leaving Paris and would be very far away for a long time. For the last week I've spent every spare moment jotting down a whole mishmash of stuff for you. This is the fair copy – reasonably coherent, I hope – which I plan to post tomorrow.

I can't pretend I've thought of you constantly these past twelve years. You can't remain in that state for longer than a few months; sooner or later you come up against the limits of your capacity for single-mindedness. Then, quite unexpectedly, for instance during the digestive process in your lunch break, you draw a deep breath and give the subject a rest, and from then on you just go on living and enjoy your little pleasures. You go to the cinema on Saturdays and drive out into the country on Sundays and treat yourself to lunch in some country inn or other.

What sort of life have I been living in the interim? For a while I had a tomcat named Stalin, but he slipped off the icy window sill and impaled himself on some railings four floors below. At the Musée de l'Homme there's a very young man with a face like a dyspeptic monkey who suffers from verbal diarrhoea, thinks I'm a lady, and courts me with hot tea on cold winter days. He occasionally writes me love letters, very polite and never too long, and if I'm assailed by sneaking doubts about the meaning of life, my feminine charms or humanity in general, he takes me for walks and feeds me chocolates.

I have a pretty good life. I don't miss you, you know. You're just one of the many gaps in my existence. After all, I've never become a racing driver or a ballerina, I can't draw or sing as well as I'd have liked to, and I'll never read Chekov in the original. It's been a long time since I thought it was too bad of one's dreams not to come true in real life; that could soon become a bit too much.

You get used to your gaps and learn to live with them. They're a part of you, and you wouldn't want to be without them. If I had to describe myself to someone, the first thing that would occur to me is, I can't speak Russian and I can't perform a pirouette. So your gaps gradually become characteristic traits and fill themselves with themselves, so to speak. I'm still completely full of you and my longing for you – or just my knowledge of you.

Why? No idea. It's something you get used to, that's all.

I was all the more surprised, while sitting in the taxi on my way to Montparnasse Station, to feel such an urgent desire to write to you, like a teenager before her first date. I was even more surprised when I said your name aloud on the back seat of that cab while preparing to leave you far behind. I scolded myself for being a silly fool, but I got out some notepaper and my fountain pen, and later on, during the endless train journey to Lorient in an overcrowded, underheated compartment, I tried to put down what I thought of to tell you.

I'm now sitting on the edge of the bunk in my sweltering cabin, notepad on lap, having carefully locked the door, and I still don't know what to say. Yes, I do: everything and nothing, neither more nor less. The one thing I know for sure is, I won't send this off until the last moment, when the postman is going ashore and the engines have steam up and the ropes are being cast off and I can be certain there's no possibility of my being ordered ashore and sent back to Paris.

As you read these words you're probably standing on the mat outside your front door and scratching the nice, flat back of your head. I picture the concierge handing you the letter with a conspiratorial frown, and you staring incredulously at the sender's name on the back of the envelope as you climb the stairs and slit it open with your forefinger. In a moment Yvonne will appear in the doorway and ask if you're coming in. She's bound to be worried, seeing you standing there with an envelope in your hand. Perhaps she's afraid it's a death notice, or your marching orders, or a termination of tenancy, or a notice of dismissal. So you hand the letter to her without a word, I imagine, then follow her in and shut the door behind you.

(Hello, Yvonne, it's me, little Louise. No need to worry, I'm writing this far away and addressing it to the Rue des Écoles on purpose, to rule out any secrecy.)

You know, Léon, I admire your wife for her diplomatic skill, but also for the courageous way she puts up with your good behaviour. I'd have sent you packing ages ago, doubtless very much to my own detriment, because I couldn't have put up with your impeccable conduct any longer.

Because you really have behaved well these past twelve years, that I grant you. You've never stalked me or tried to waylay me, never phoned the Banque de France or sent me billets doux addressed to the office. Yet you've suffered just as I have, I'm sure.

It would of course have been childish of us to act out all the lovers' little rituals in secret. Apart from being pointless, it would have been distressing for all three of us, and I'd have taken it amiss if you'd failed to keep yourself to yourself. On the other hand, there were many times when I wondered if I oughtn't to be rather annoyed with you for complying so fully and completely with the communication ban I imposed on you. I haven't been as well-behaved as you, by the way. One can get a good view of your living room from the rising ground in the little park near the École Polytechnique, did you know? Fourteen times in the past twelve years I've taken the liberty of standing there and peering through your lighted window as if I were looking into the interior of a doll's house. The first time was the night after our excursion together, the second the Sunday after that, and then at irregular intervals roughly once a year. It was always in winter, because I needed to do it under cover of darkness – I know the dates by heart. The last eight times I took a pair of binoculars with me.

I felt rather silly, playing the detective hidden behind a tree trunk, but thanks to the binoculars I was able to see everything: your three boys playing soldiers in the living room, your little daughter's gap-toothed smile – once, even, your wife's nice breasts; the new bookcase, too, and the fact that you now wear glasses when you tinker with your funny bits and pieces. You and your funny bits and pieces, Léon! I think it was partly them that made me fall in love with you in the old days. A rusty pitchfork, a worm-eaten window frame and a half-empty can of paraffin... You're one of a kind!

I never skulked behind my tree for longer than fifteen or twenty minutes, by the way – I couldn't have even if I'd wanted to. Somehow, the news that a woman was all on her own in the dark spread like wildfire – every lonely lecher in the Latin Quarter got wind of it. Once I had to explain to a gendarme what I and my binoculars were up to in the park so late at night. I talked my way out of it by claiming to be an ornithologist – spun him a yarn about sparrows roosting close together for warmth on winter nights and taking it in turns to stand guard.