Léon and Louise (33 page)

O
n 26 September 1944, when Léon Le Gall and his family returned to the Rue des Écoles, the rainy season on the Senegal River ended as if someone had turned off a tap. News of the liberation of Paris having spread like wildfire to the furthest corners of French Sudan, the main institutions of the colonial world awoke to new life as if by magic. Trains turned up once more by land and steamers by way of the Senegal River, the telephone worked again and newspapers arrived by post.

But the special train that was supposed to collect Louise Janvier and the gold did not come.

Because there are no more letters from Louise among my grandfather's papers, we cannot tell how she fared at this period. We may assume that she waited impatiently for the train, or at least for a summons from the Banque de France, probably while sitting on her ready-packed suitcase. It is quite possible that she had already given away her umbrella, revolver and spare mosquito net in expectation of leaving soon. It is also quite possible that she refrained for once from cutting her own hair and paid a visit to the hairdresser in Kayes one Sunday. It is further conceivable that, when the mud had dried up and the roads were passable once more, she cycled out to the power station at Félou to say goodbye to the Bonvin brothers. She may perhaps have gone for a last walk with them to the basin below the rapids where the hippos reared their young. It is also quite possible that, on the way back, she gave away her bicycle to a young schoolboy named Abdullay, the only one of the seven- to twelve-year-olds in his village to have achieved a hundred per cent attendance record.

I further imagine that every night she spent in Giuliano Galiani's bed must have felt as if it were the last.

But the special train still didn't come.

Now that the radio and telephone were back in commission, Galiani strutted around the streets at all times of the day and night, proclaiming the latest news. He announced the capture of Aachen by the US VII and IX Corps, the failure of the Germans' Ardennes offensive, the bombing of Hamburg's fuel dumps and the surrender of Hungary, and the longer his personal exile lasted, the bluer became the half Italian, half French oaths he levelled at that sonofabitch Maresciallo de Gaulle and those
cretini
at the Banque de France, who were taking their fucking time about extricating him and that fucking gold from the arsehole of the world. Galiani might have moderated his oaths a little, had he known that General de Gaulle and the Banque de France were leaving him to moulder in the bush only because German U-boats well supplied with fuel and torpedoes were still awaiting an opportunity to send him and the gold to the bottom of the sea.

In March 1945 the dry season ended and the heat and humidity returned. Galiani got out his umbrella and stomped, cursing, through the mud. He reported the liberation of Auschwitz and the destruction of Dresden, raised his arms to heaven in reproach and asked the vultures in the trees why in God's name they didn't let him go home at last. Louise sat on her suitcase and waited. Galiani reported the Yalta Conference and the storming of Hitler's bunker, the trial of Marshal Pétain and, finally, the bombing of Nagasaki.

But still the special train didn't come.

Then another year was over and the rain abruptly ceased once more. Louise had long ago resumed cutting her own hair, which grew appreciably faster in Africa than at home. The mud dried up, went hard and became threaded with a network of dark cracks. Galiani stowed his umbrella under his bed in the absolute certainty that not a drop of rain would fall in the next six months. On her day off Louise took the train to Kayes, where she bought a new mosquito net and a replacement for her old bicycle at the market.

And then the special train turned up at last.

Perhaps it arrived during the day, perhaps during the night. In the latter case, Louise would have seen the locomotive puffing smoke in front of the buffers a stone's throw from her window when she got up in the morning. We don't know how many goods wagons were hitched to it, or whether it took more than one trip to transport the gold back to Dakar. All one gathers from the records of the Banque de France is that 346.535 tonnes of bullion were loaded aboard the
Île de Cléron
and that the ship put to sea on 30 September 1945. If all went well and the autumn storms in the Atlantic weren't too violent, the
Île de Cléron
must have entered Toulon harbour around 12 October.

I picture Louise going down the gangway to the quayside and setting foot on French soil after five years' absence, suntanned and slim as a girl, though her hair was now grey. She would have kissed her companions of the last five years farewell, possibly devoting a little more time to Radio Operator Galiani, whose wife was waiting for him beyond the customs post, than she did to the others. And because she was only carrying hand baggage and the rest had to wait for their cabin trunks, she walked off quickly in the knowledge that she would never see any of them again.

It may have been late afternoon when she walked up the Avenue Henri Pastoureau to Toulon station, carrying her suitcase, perhaps stopping at a pâtisserie en route to buy her first chocolate éclair for a long time. She could then have caught the eight-thirty night train to Paris from Marseille Saint-Charles and arrived in the capital shortly before eight the following morning.

I don't believe Louise was standing impatiently at the open carriage door with her head out when the train pulled into the Gare de Lyon. I don't believe she crossed the concourse at the double, and I can't believe that she actually, as she had forecast in her last letter, jumped into a taxi and drove straight to the Rue des Écoles.

It think it far more probable that she sat quietly in her third-class compartment until all her fellow passengers had alighted, and that she then, slowly and carefully – almost hesitantly – got down on the platform, made her way across the concourse in the brightness of that fine autumn day, and walked out on to the cobblestones of the Boulevard Diderot, which already, as if there had never been a war, resounded to the roar of the buses, cars and lorries streaming past.

I picture her crossing the boulevard and walking straight on down the Rue de Lyon, amazed to see the buildings on either side so incomprehensibly unscathed. At the Bastille she sat down in a pavement café, ordered a
café au lait
and a croissant, picked up a newspaper, and cast a casual glance at the houseboats peacefully rocking in the breeze in the Arsenal harbour.

Then she strolled on through the cool morning air, carrying her little suitcase like a tourist. She went straight on down the Rue Saint-Antoine and the Rue de Rivoli, and after a while, as if by chance, she came to the headquarters of the Banque de France. She climbed the broad flight of steps to the entrance. The porter, a walrus-moustachioed man named Darnier, had either returned to the bank or had never been away. Louise gave him an airy wave and disappeared down the long, gloomy passage she had trodden a thousand times before, ready to report back for duty.

I picture her going to the Rue des Écoles a few days later, not before. I believe she began by moving into a hotel room provided by the bank as temporary accommodation, and that she first bought herself a new wardrobe, had a manicure, and got a dentist to fix the left upper molar that had been paining her for quite a while. Then she went to the hairdresser and had her hair cut. She didn't have it dyed, though, I'm sure of that.

I picture Louise timing her visit to the Rue des Écoles for late in the morning. She would have come by taxi, not yet having a car of her own. I picture Madame Rossetos pricking up her ears at the sound of a car door, then glancing at the mirror that gave her a periscopic view of the front door via two other mirrors. The concierge would then have heaved herself out of the armchair beside the stove and gone to do her duty as a watchdog.

‘Who were you wanting?'

‘The Le Galls, please.'

‘What's it about?'

‘The Le Galls do live here, don't they?'

‘What's it about, please?'

‘It's a personal visit.'

‘Are they expecting you?'

‘I'm afraid not.'

‘Who shall I say it is?'

‘Look – '

‘Residents' rules state that strangers aren't to be admitted except by appointment.'

‘Are the Le Galls still here?'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘I've just got back from Africa.'

‘I can't make any exceptions for reasons of security, you must underst... From Africa, you say?'

‘French Sudan.'

‘Then you're...'

‘Which floor, please?'

The door to the flat was ajar. Louise rang the bell.

‘Who's there?

‘Louise.'

‘Who?'

‘Louise.'

‘WHO?'

‘LOUISE JANVIER!'

‘LITTLE LOUISE?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well I never!'

‘Yes, it's me.'

‘Come in. Straight down the passage. I'm in the living room.'

Louise pushed the door open and pulled it to behind her. A few more steps and she was in the living room she had so often seen through her binoculars. Yvonne was sitting in Léon's armchair by the window. Louise wouldn't have recognized her, but it couldn't be anyone else. She was wearing checked carpet slippers. Her thighs were bloated, her neck was encircled by a thick roll of fat, and her straggly hair was shoulder-length.

‘Léon isn't here.'

‘You're alone?'

‘The children are at school.'

‘All the better,' said Louise. ‘It's you I came to see.'

‘Sit down, then, So that's what you look like. Quite like the photo you sent from Africa.'

‘I've gone grey.'

‘Time flies. One always looks younger in photos than in real life.'

‘It can't be helped.'

‘You don't wear make-up.'

‘Nor do you.'

‘I haven't for a long time,' said Yvonne. ‘I suppose I've put on a bit of weight lately, too.'

‘How are you?'

‘Oh, you know, what I like best is just sitting here beside the window, sunning myself like a pussycat. When I'm tired I go to sleep and when I'm hungry I eat. The truth is, I'm always tired and always hungry. Except when I'm asleep.'

‘You never go out?'

‘Not if I can avoid it. I've bustled around so much all these years, all I want to do now is sit in the sun. Nothing else matters. How are you doing?'

‘I've sat in the sun so much these last few years...'

‘And I enjoy eating. I starved myself for so long, I like to have a good tuck-in. I've got some raspberry gâteau and whipped cream here. Would you like some?'