Night Rounds (8 page)

The following week the Khedive instructs me to get information for our "agency" on the activities of a certain Lieutenant Dominique. We received a memorandum on him giving his address, his photo, and the comment: "To be kept under surveillance." I have to find some way of approaching this man. I go to his house at
5
rue Boisrobert, in the
15
th District. A modest little building. The Lieutenant himself comes to the door. I ask for Mr. Henri Normand. He tells me there's some mistake. Then I stammer out my whole story: I'm an escaped prisoner of war. One of my buddies told me to get in touch with Mr. Normand,
5
rue Boisrobert, if I ever managed to escape. He would hide me. My buddy probably got the address wrong. I don't know a soul in Paris. I've run out of money. I don't know where to turn. He eyes me carefully. I squeeze out a couple of tears to convince him. The next thing I know I'm in his office. In a deep, vibrant voice he tells me that boys my age mustn't be demoralized by the disaster that has struck our country. He's still trying to size me up. And suddenly, this question: "Do you want to work with us?" He's in charge of a group of "terrific" guys. Most of them are escaped prisoners like myself. Boys from Saint-Cyr. Career army officers. A few civilians too. Tough as they come. The elite of the ranks. We're waging a hidden struggle against the powers of darkness that are presently in command. A difficult task, but when there's courage, nothing's impossible. Goodness, Freedom, and Morality will rule again before too long. He, Lieutenant Dominique, swears by it. I don't share his optimism. I think of the report I'll have to turn in to the
Khedive this evening at Cimarosa Square. The Lieutenant supplies me with some other facts: he calls his group the Ring of the Knights of the Shadows, R.K.S. No chance of fighting in the open, obviously. It's an underground war. We'll live like hunted men. Each member of the group has taken an alias, the name of a métro station. He'll introduce them to me shortly: Saint-Georges. Obligado. Corvisart. Pernety. Still others. As for me, I'll be known as "Princess de Lamballe." Why "Princess de Lamballe"? Just a whim of the Lieutenant's." Are you prepared to join our network? Honor demands it. You shouldn't hesitate. Well?" I reply: "Yes," in a faint voice. "Don't ever waver, lad. I know, times are pretty sad. The gangsters are running the show. There's a whiff of rot in the air. It won't last. Have a little will power, Lamballe." He wants me to stay on at the Rue Boisrobert, but I quickly invent an old uncle in the suburbs who'll put me up. We make a date for tomorrow afternoon at the Place des Pyramides in front of Joan of Arc's statue. "Goodbye, Lamballe." He gives me a piercing look, his eyes narrow, and I can't bear the glint of them. He repeats: "Goodbye,
LAM-BALLE
, stressing each syllable in a funny way:
LAMBALLE
. He shuts the door. It was getting dark. I wandered aimlessly through this unfamiliar section of town. They must be waiting for me at Cimarosa Square. What shall I tell them? To put it baldly, Lieutenant Dominique was a hero. And so was every member of his group ... But I still had to make a detailed report to the Khedive and
Mr. Philibert. The existence of the R.K.S. surprised them. They weren't expecting that extensive an operation. "You're going to infiltrate them. Try to get the names and addresses. Looks like a fine haul." For the first time in my life, I had what you call a twinge of conscience. A momentary one, anyway. They advanced me a hundred thousand francs on the information I was to obtain.

Place des Pyramides. You'd like to forget the past, but your steps inevitably take you back to painful encounters. The Lieutenant was pacing up and down in front of the statue of Joan of Arc. He introduced me to a tall fellow with short-cropped blond hair and periwinkle eyes: Saint-Georges, a Saint-Cyr man. We entered the Tuileries gardens and sat down at the refreshment stand near the carousel. I was back in the familiar setting of my childhood. We ordered three bottles of fruit juice. The waiter brought them and told us these were the last of their pre-war supply. Soon there'd be no more fruit juice. "We'll manage without it," said Saint-Georges with a wry smile. He seemed very determined. "You're an escaped prisoner?" he questioned me. "Which regiment?" "Fifth Infantry," I replied in an empty voice, "but I'd rather not think about it." Making a great effort, I added: "I have only one wish: to continue the struggle to the end." My profession of faith seemed to convince him. He rewarded me with a handshake. "I've rounded up a few members of the network to introduce to you," the Lieutenant told me. They're waiting for us at the Rue Boisrobert." Corvisart, Obligado, Pernety, and Jasmin are there. The Lieutenant speaks warmly of me: my distress over our defeat. My will to take up the struggle anew. The honor and the consolation of becoming their comrade in the R.K.S. "All right, Lamballe, we have a mission for you." He goes on to explain that a number of corrupt individuals were riding with the tide of events and indulging their worst instincts. Just what you'd expect in these times of uneasiness and confusion. These gangsters are assured of complete impunity: they've been given police cards and gun permits. Their loathsome purpose is to strike at the patriots and the honest folk; they commit all sorts of crimes. They took over a private house at
3
bis
Cimarosa Square,
16
th
arrondissement
. Their office is publicly listed as the "Paris-Berlin-Monte Carlo Intercommercial Company." These are all the facts I have. Our duty: to neutralize them as quickly as possible. "I'm counting on you, Lamballe. You're going to penetrate that group. Keep us informed about their activities. It's up to you, Lamballe." Pernety hands me a cognac. Jasmin, Obligado, Saint-Georges, and Corvisart smile at me. Later on, we're returning along the Boulevard Pasteur. The Lieutenant had wanted to go with me as far as the Sèvres-Lecourbe métro station. As we say goodbye, he looks me straight in the eye: "Ticklish mission, Lamballe. A kind of double-cross. Keep in touch with me. Good luck, Lamballe." What if I told him the truth? Too late. I thought of Mama. She, at least, was safe. I had bought the villa
in Lausanne for her with the commissions I was making at Avenue Niel. I could have gone to Switzerland with her, but I stayed here out of apathy or indifference. I've already said that I didn't trouble myself much over humanity's fate. Nor did my own future excite me particularly. Just float with the current. A straw in the wind. That evening I report to the Khedive my contact with Corvisart, Obligado, Jasmin, Pernety, and Saint-Georges. I don't know their addresses yet, but it shouldn't take long to get them. I promise to deliver the information on these men as fast as possible. And on others to whom the Lieutenant will surely introduce me. The way things are going, we'll pull off "a fine haul." He repeats this, rubbing his hands. "I was sure you'd win their confidence straight off with your little choirboy's face." Suddenly my head begins to reel. I tell him that the ringleader is not, as I had thought, the Lieutenant. "Who is it, then?" I'm on the edge of a precipice; a few steps are probably all it would take to save me. "
WHO
?" But I haven't the strength. "
WHO
?" "Someone called
LAM-BALLE
.
LAMBALLE
." We'll get hold of him, all right. Try to identify him." Things were getting complicated. Was I to blame? Each of them had set me up as a double agent. I didn't want to let anyone down. The Khedive and Philibert any more than the Lieutenant and his Saint-Cyr boys. You'll have to choose, I told myself. "Knight of the Shadows" or hired agent for a den of thieves on Cimarosa Square? Hero or stool pigeon? Neither. Some books gave me a
few ideas about my problem:
Anthology of Traitors from Alcibiades to Captain Dreyfus
;
The Real Joanovici
;
The Mysterious Knight of Eon
;
Fregoli
,
the Man from Nowhere
. I felt a bond with all those people. Yet I'm no jokester. I, too, have experienced what's known as a deep emotion. Profound. Compelling. The only one I have .firsthand knowledge of, powerful enough to make me move mountains:
FEAR
. Paris was settling deeper into silence and the blackout. When I speak of those days I have the feeling I'm talking to deaf people or that my voice isn't loud enough.
I WAS PET-RI-FIED.
The métro slowed down as it approached the Pont de Passy. Sèvres-Lecourbe / Cambronne / La Motte-Picquet / Dupleix / Grenelle / Passy. Mornings I'd go the opposite way, from Passy to Sèvres-Lecourbe. From Cimarosa Square in the
16
th District to rue Boisrobert,
15
th District. From the Lieutenant to the Khedive. From the Khedive to the Lieutenant. The pendulum path of a double agent. Exhausting. Breath coming short. "Try to get the names and addresses. Looks like a fine haul. I'm counting on you, Lamballe. You'll get us information on those gangsters." I would have liked to take sides, but I had no more interest in the "Ring of the Knights of the Shadows" than in the "Paris-Berlin-Monte Carlo Intercommercial Company." A handful of cranks were out to corner me and would hound me until I dropped in my tracks. I was undoubtedly the scapegoat for all these madmen. I was the weakest of the lot. I didn't stand
a chance of surviving. The times we lived in demanded extraordinary feats of heroism or crime. And there I was, a total miscast. Weathercock. Puppet. I close my eyes to recall the scents and songs of those days. Yes, there was a whiff of rot in the air. Especially at dusk. I must say the twilight was never more beautiful. Summer lingered on and would not die. Vacant avenues. Paris without people. A clock tolling. And that omnipresent odor clinging to the façades of buildings and the leaves of the chestnuts. As for the songs, they were: "Swing Troubadour," "Star of Rio," "I Don't Know How It Will End," "Reginella." … Remember. The lights in the métro cars were tinted lavender, so it was hard to distinguish the other passengers. On my right, so close at hand, the searchlight atop the Eiffel Tower. I was returning from the Rue Boisrobert. The métro came to a halt on the Pont de Passy. I was hoping it would never start up again and that no one would come to snatch me from this nether world between two shores. Nothing stirred. Not a sound. Peace at last. Dissolve myself in the dusk. I forgot the sharp flare of their voices, the way they thumped me on the back, their relentless tugging and twisting that tied me in knots. My fear gave way to a kind of numbness. I followed the searchlight's path. Round and round it circled like a watchman on his night beat. Wearily. Its beam would gradually fade, until just a feeble shaft of light remained. I, too, after countless rounds, endless trips and returns, would finally vanish
into the shadows. Without ever knowing what it was all about. Sèvres-Lecourbe to Passy. Passy to Sèvres-Lecourbe. About ten o'clock each morning I'd appear at headquarters on the Rue Boisrobert. Warm welcoming handshakes. Smiles and confident glances from those gallant fellows. "What's new, Lamballe?" the Lieutenant would ask me. I was giving him increasingly detailed information on the "Paris-Berlin-Monte Carlo Intercommercial Company." Yes, it was in fact a police unit assigned to do some extremely "dirty work." The two owners, Henri Normand and Georges Philibert, hired their people from the underworld. Burglars, panders, criminals up for deportation. Two or three under the death sentence. They all had police cards and gun permits. A private world of crime operated out of the vice den on Cimarosa Square. Sharpers, drug addicts, charlatans, demimondaines, thriving and multiplying as they do in "troubled times." These people were protected by the higher-ups and carried on the foulest types of extortion. It even appeared that their chief, Henri Normand, had his way with the local police authorities as well as the central bureau on the Seine,
if
those organs still existed. As I went on with my story, I watched the dismay and disgust spread over their faces. Only the Lieutenant remained impassive. "Good work, Lamballe! Keep at it. And get up a complete list, please, of the members of the Cimarosa Square office."

Then one morning they seemed to be in an unusually somber mood. The Lieutenant cleared his throat: "Lamballe, you're going to have to commit murder." I accepted the statement calmly as if I'd been expecting it for some time. "We're counting on you, Lamballe, to get rid of Normand and Philibert. Choose the perfect moment." There was a pause during which Saint-Georges, Pernety, Jasmin, and all the rest of them stared at me with troubled eyes. The Lieutenant sat motionless at his desk. Corvisart handed me a cognac. The condemned man's last, I thought. I saw the distinct outline of a scaffold in the center of the room. The Lieutenant took the role of executioner. His staff members would watch the execution, smiling mournfully at me. "Well, Lamballe? What do you think?" "Sounds fine to me," I replied. I wanted to burst into tears and disclose my tenuous position as double agent. But there are things you have to keep to yourself. I've always been sparing of words. Not the expansive sort. But the others were always eager to pour out their feelings to me. I recall spending long afternoons with the boys of the R.K.S. We used to wander all around the neighborhood of the Rue Boisrobert, in the Vaugirard district. I'd listen to their rambling talk. Pernety dreamed of a just world. His cheeks would turn bright red. He'd take pictures from his wallet of Robespierre and André Breton. I pretended to admire these two men. Pernety kept talking about "Revolution," "Moral awakening," "Our role as intellectuals" in a brittle voice that I found extremely unpleasant. He had a pipe and black leather shoes – details which move me. Corvisart agonized over his bourgeois background. He wanted so much to forget Parc Manceau, the tennis courts at Aix-les-Bains and the sugarplums from Plouvier's he'd sample at his cousins' weekly tea. He asked me whether it was possible to be both a Socialist and a Christian. As for Jasmin, he wanted to see France more tightly knit. He had the highest esteem for Henri de Bournazel and could name every star in the sky. Obligado put out a "political journal." "We must express ourselves," he explained to me. "It's an obligation. I can't keep silent." But silence is very simple to learn: a couple of boots in the jaw will do the trick. Picpus showed me his fiancee's letters. Have just a little more patience: according to him, the nightmare wouldn't last. Soon we'd be living in a contented world. We'd tell our children about the ordeals we suffered. Saint-Georges, Marbeuf, and Pelleport came out of SaintCyr with a lust for soldiering and the firm resolve to meet death with a battle cry on their lips. As for myself, I thought of Cimarosa Square, where I'd have to turn in my daily report. How lucky these boys were to be able to daydream. The Vaugirard district encouraged it. Tranquil, inviolate, like some remote hamlet. The very name "Vaugirard" evoked greenery, ivy, a moss-bound brook. In such a refuge they could well afford to launch their most heroic visions. They had nothing to lose. I was the one they sent out to tussle with reality, and I was struggling against the current. The sublime, evidently, was not for me. In the late afternoon, before boarding the métro, I'd sit down on a bench in the Place Adolphe Chérioux and bask for a few last moments in the peace of this village. A cottage and a garden. Monastery or home for the aged? I could hear the trees murmuring. A cat wandered by in front of the church. From nowhere, a tender voice reached me: Fred Gouin singing "Sending Flowers." And I forgot that I had no future. My life would take a new course. With a little patience, as Picpus used to say, I'd come out of the nightmare alive. I'd get a job as bartender in some inn outside Paris.
BARTENDER
. Exactly what seemed to suit my inclinations and my ability. You stay behind the
BAR
. It protects you from the others. At least they're not hostile to you and simply want to order drinks. You mix and serve them rapidly. The most aggressive ones thank you.
BARTENDING
was a far nobler occupation than was generally allowed, the only one on a par with detective work or medicine. What did it involve? Mixing cocktails. Daydreams, in a sense. An antidote for pain. At the bar they beg you for it. Curaçao? Marie Brizard? Ether? Whatever they want. After two or three drinks they get sentimental, they stagger, roll their eyes, embark on all-night accounts of their sufferings and their crimes, beseech you to console them. Hitler, between hiccups, implores your forgiveness. "What are you thinking about, Lamballe?" "Flies and spies, Lieutenant." Once in a while he'd keep me in his office for a little "heart-to-heart chat." "I know you'll commit this murder. I trust you, Lamballe." His voice was commanding, his deep-blue eyes were piercing. Tell him the truth? And which truth, anyway? Double agent? or triple? By this time I didn't know who I was. Lieutenant,
I DO NOT EXIST
. I've never had an identity card. He would dismiss this as utter nonsense at a time when one was expected to steel oneself and display great strength of character. One evening I was alone with him. My weariness, like a rat, gnawed at everything around me. The walls suddenly seemed robed in somber velvet, clouds of mist enveloped the room, blurring the outlines of the furniture: the desk, the chairs, the Norman cupboard. He asked: "What's new, Lamballe?" in a faraway voice that was startling. The Lieutenant stared at me in his customary way, but his eyes had lost their metallic glint. He sat at the desk, his head bent to the right, his cheek almost nestling on his shoulder, the pensive and forlorn image of certain Florentine angels I had seen. He repeated: "What's new, Lamballe?" the same way he might have said: "It really doesn't matter," and his eyes rested wearily on me. A look so benign, so full of sadness that I felt Lieutenant Dominique had understood everything and forgave me: for being a double (or triple) agent, for my bewilderment at feeling like a straw in the wind and for the wrong I was doing whether through cowardice or inadvertence. For the first time, someone was taking an interest in me. This concern was totally confusing. I tried vainly to voice some expression of gratitude. The Lieutenant's eyes grew more and more compassionate, his harsh features had
softened. His chest sagged. Soon the only vestige of this brimming arrogance and vitality was a kindly and feeble old granny. The tumult of the outside world broke against the velvet-hung walls. We were gliding through downy darkness to depths where our sleep would be undisturbed. Paris, too, was engulfed. From the cabin I could see the Eiffel Tower's beam: a lighthouse marking our approach to shore. We would never reach it. It didn't matter. "Time for sleep, son," the Lieutenant murmured.
"
SLEEP
.
"
His eyes shot a parting gleam into the shadows
. SLEEP
.
"What are you thinking about, Lamballe?" He shakes my shoulders. In a ringing voice: "Prepare yourself for this murder. The network's fate lies in your hands. Don't fail us." He paces the room nervously. The familiar harshness of things had returned. "Guts, Lamballe. I'm counting on you." The métro gets under way. Cambronne-La Motte-Picquet-Dupleix-Grenelle-Passy. Nine in the evening. Back on the corner of the Rues Franklin and Vineuse I found the white Bentley the Khedive had lent me in return for my services. It would have made a bad impression on the boys of the R.K.S. Riding around in an expensive car these days implied dubious activities. Only black marketeers and well-paid informers could afford such a luxury. What's the difference? Weariness dispelled the last of my scruples. I drove slowly across the Place du Trocadéro. A quiet motor. Soft leather seats. I was very fond of this Bentley. The Khedive had found it in a garage in Neuilly. I opened the glove compartment: the
owner's registration papers were still there. In short, a stolen car. One day or another we'd have to account for this. What would I plead in court when they read off a list of so many crimes committed by the "Paris-Berlin-Monte Carlo Intercommercial Company"? A gang of criminals, the judge would say. Exploiters of universal suffering and confusion. "Monsters," Madeleine Jacob would write. I turned on the radio.