Suite Francaise (22 page)

28

The Michauds never made it to Tours. A bomb destroyed the railway line, the train stopped and the refugees found themselves once more on the road, mingling with the German troops. They were ordered to go back the way they had come.

The Michauds found Paris half empty. They had been away for two weeks and expected to find it different, as one does after a long trip. Instead, they walked home through the untouched streets and couldn’t believe their eyes: everything was in its place. The blazing sun shone down on the houses, all with their shutters closed, exactly as on the day they had left; a sudden heatwave had shrivelled all the leaves on the plane trees, but no one had swept them up and the refugees waded through them with weary legs. There didn’t seem to be a food shop open. Now and again, this barren landscape threw up a surprise: it looked like a city wiped out by the plague, but just as you were about to scream, “Everybody’s either dead or gone,” you’d find yourself face to face with a nicely dressed lady wearing make-up or, in the Michauds’ case, a woman getting a perm at a hairdresser’s nestled between a boarded-up butcher’s shop and bakery. It was Madame Michaud’s hairdresser. She called to him. He, his assistant, his wife and the client all ran to the door and exclaimed, “Were you on the roads?”

Madame Michaud pointed to her bare legs, her torn dress, her face covered with sweat and dust. “As you can see! What’s happened to our apartment?”

“Well, everything is fine. I was walking past your windows just today,” said the hairdresser’s wife. “Nothing’s been touched.”

“What about my son? Jean-Marie? Has anyone seen him?”

“How could you expect anyone to have seen him, my poor darling?” said Maurice who had joined her. “You’re not being logical.”

“And what about you, always so calm? You’ll be the death of me,” she replied angrily. “Maybe the concierge . . .” and she turned to go.

“Don’t get upset, Madame Michaud. There’s nothing for you. I asked as I was passing. There’s no post any more.”

Jeanne tried to hide her cruel disappointment with a smile. “All right, all we can do is wait,” she said, but her lips were trembling. She sat down without thinking and murmured, “What should we do now?”

“If I were you,” said the hairdresser, a fat little man with a round, sweet face, “I’d start by having your hair washed; it will clear your mind; we could also freshen Monsieur Michaud up a bit, and while I’m doing that my wife can make you something to eat.”

So it was agreed. He was massaging Jeanne’s head with lavender oil when his son ran in to announce that the armistice had been signed. She was too exhausted and downcast to take in the importance of the news—just as a person who has shed so many tears at the bedside of someone who is dying has none left for the actual moment of death. But Maurice, remembering 1914, the battles, his wounds, his suffering, felt a wave of bitterness wash over his heart. But there was nothing more to say, so he remained silent.

They were in Madame Josse’s salon for more than an hour, then left to go home. People were saying that there were relatively few casualties among French soldiers, but that the prisoners numbered nearly two million. Could Jean-Marie perhaps be a prisoner? They daren’t hope for anything more. They reached their house. Despite all Madame Josse’s assurances, they couldn’t really believe that it was still standing and not reduced to ashes like the burning buildings they had walked past last week in the Place du Martroi, in Orléans. But they could see the door, the concierge’s lodge, the letter box (empty!), the key waiting for them and the concierge herself. The risen Lazarus must have experienced the same feeling of astonishment and quiet pride on seeing his sisters and the soup cooking on the fire: “In spite of everything, we’ve come back, we’re home,” they thought.

“But what’s the point if my son . . .” was Jeanne’s second thought.

She looked at Maurice who smiled weakly at her, then said out loud to the concierge, “Hello, Madame Nonnain.”

The concierge was elderly and half deaf. The Michauds cut short their stories of the exodus as much as possible. Madame Nonnain had gone as far as the Porte d’Italie with her daughter, who was a laundress. She had then had an argument with her son-in-law and come back home. “They have no idea what’s happened to me; they probably think I’m dead,” she said with some satisfaction. “They probably think they’re going to get hold of my savings now. Not that she’s a bad sort,” she added, referring to her daughter, “she’s just a bit too clever for her own good.”

The Michauds said they were tired and went up to their apartment. The lift was broken. “Well, that’s the last straw,” Jeanne moaned, laughing in spite of herself.

While her husband slowly climbed the stairs, she rushed on ahead, recovering the speed and stamina she’d had as a young girl. My God, to think she had sometimes cursed this dark staircase, their basic apartment with no cupboards, no bathroom (they’d had to get a bathtub put in the kitchen) and radiators that regularly broke down in dead of winter! The cosy world in which she had lived for fifteen years and whose walls contained such sweet, such warm memories, had been returned to her. Peering over the banister, she saw Maurice much further down. She was alone. She leaned forward to kiss the door, then got out her key and opened it. It was her apartment, her refuge. Here were Jean-Marie’s room, the kitchen, the sitting room and the sofa on which, after getting home from the bank in the evening, she would stretch out her tired legs.

Remembering the bank suddenly made her shudder. She hadn’t thought about it in a week. When Maurice came in, he saw she was worried and that her joy at being home had vanished. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Is it Jean-Marie?”

“No, the bank.”

“My God, we did everything humanly possible and more to get to Tours. They couldn’t possibly hold it against us.”

“They won’t hold it against us,” she said, “if they want to keep us. But I’ve only worked there on an interim basis since the war, and as for you, my poor darling, you’ve never been able to get along with them, so if they want to get rid of us, now’s the time.”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

As always, when he agreed wholeheartedly and didn’t argue with her, she suddenly changed her mind. “Nevertheless, they’d have to be the worst bastards . . .”

“They
are
the worst bastards,” Maurice said gently, “you know that, don’t you? We’ve had our share of worries. We’re together, we’re at home. Let’s not think about anything else . . .”

They didn’t mention Jean-Marie. They couldn’t even say his name without crying, and they didn’t want to cry. They had always had a burning desire to be happy. Perhaps because they loved each other so much, they had learned to live one day at a time, deliberately not thinking about tomorrow.

They weren’t hungry. They opened a jar of jam, a box of biscuits and, with infinite care, Jeanne made them some coffee: there was only a quarter of a pound left of the pure mocha coffee they usually saved for special occasions.

“But what more special occasion could there be?” said Maurice.

“None like this, I hope,” his wife replied. “Still, we can’t pretend we’ll be able to replace it easily if the war drags on.”

“You make it seem almost sinful,” said Maurice, breathing in the wonderful aroma wafting up from the coffee pot.

After their light meal, they sat down by the open window. They both had a book open on their laps but they weren’t reading. They finally fell asleep, side by side, holding hands.

They spent several days rather peacefully. Since there was no post, they knew they couldn’t get any news, good or bad. All they could do was wait.

At the beginning of July, Monsieur de Furières returned to Paris. It was said, after the armistice of 1919, that the Count de Furières had had a “good war”: he had faced danger heroically for a few months, then married a very rich young woman while on leave. After that he cared a little less for the idea of getting himself killed, which was understandable. Nevertheless, he refused to take advantage of his wife’s excellent connections. If he no longer sought out danger, he didn’t run away from it either. He finished the war without once being wounded, pleased with himself for his commendable behaviour in battle, his inner confidence and his military decoration. In 1939 he held an excellent place in society: his wife was a Salomon-Worms, his sister had married the Marquis de Maigle; he was a member of the Jockey Club; his receptions and hunting parties were famous; he had two charming daughters, the elder of whom had recently become engaged. He had considerably less money than in 1920 but was now better equipped than before to do without it or to get hold of some when necessary. He had accepted the position of Director of the Corbin Bank.

Corbin was quite simply an uncouth individual who had begun his career in a lowly and almost vile manner. (It was said he had been a bellboy in an establishment offering loans on the Rue Trudaine.) But Corbin was also extremely adept when it came to banking and, in the end, he and the Count got along rather well. They were both very intelligent and understood how useful they were to each other; understanding this created a sort of friendship based on cordial contempt, just like certain liqueurs, which are sharp and bitter on their own but have a pleasant taste when mixed together. “He’s a degenerate, like all aristocrats,” Corbin would mutter. “The poor man eats with his fingers,” Furières would say with a sigh. By dangling the prospect of the Jockey Club in front of Corbin’s eyes, the Count got whatever he wanted from him.

All in all, Furières had organised his life most comfortably. When the second great war of the century broke out, he felt almost like a child who has worked hard at school, done nothing wrong and is thoroughly enjoying himself when someone tells him he must once again be dragged away from his pleasures. “Once, all right, but twice, that’s just too much!” he was tempted to cry out. “Pick on someone else, dammit!” How could this be happening? He had already done his duty. He had given five years of his youth and now they wanted to steal his precious middle years—those beautiful years when a man finally understands what he is about to lose and is eager to make the most of it. “No, it’s going too far,” he remarked despondently to Corbin when he said goodbye to him the day everyone was mobilised. “I’m doomed. I’ll never get out alive again.”

He was an officer in the Reserves; he had to go. He could have fixed it . . . but his desire for continued self-respect held him back—a very strong inner desire that allowed him a severe, ironic attitude towards the rest of the world. He left. His chauffeur, who was in the same situation as him, said, “If you have to go, you go. But if they think it’ll be like ’14, they’ve got it all wrong.” (The word “they” in his mind meant some mythical council whose purpose and passion was to send other people to their deaths.) “If they think we’ll do
that
again” (flicking his nail on his tooth), “
that
on top of what is strictly necessary, well, I’m telling you, they’ve got another thing coming.”

The Count de Furières would certainly not have expressed his own thoughts in this way, but they were nevertheless very similar to his chauffeur’s and simply reflected the state of mind of many former soldiers. A large number of men went off to war this way, feeling muted bitterness or hopeless rebellion against fate, which twice in their lifetimes had played this horrible trick on them.

During the June debacle almost the entire regiment of de Furières fell into enemy hands. He himself had the chance to escape and he took it. In ’14 he would have preferred to be killed rather than survive the disaster. In ’40 he preferred to live. He returned to his wife, who was already mourning his death, to his charming daughters, the eldest of whom had just got married (to a young inspector of Public Finances), and to the de Furières château. The chauffeur wasn’t as lucky: he was taken to Stalag VII A and became prisoner number 55,481.

Upon his return, the Count got in touch with Corbin, who had remained in the Free Zone, and they both set about trying to bring the bank’s scattered sections back together. The Accounting Department was in Cahors, the executives in Bayonne, the secretaries had headed for Toulouse but had got lost somewhere between Nice and Perpignan. No one seemed to know where the bank’s papers had ended up.

“It’s chaos, a mess, unspeakable mayhem,” Corbin said to de Furières the morning of their first meeting.

He had crossed the demarcation line during the night and welcomed de Furières into an apartment empty of servants. They had all fled during the exodus, and he suspected them of having taken some brand-new suitcases and his morning coat, which aroused within him even more patriotic fury.

“You know me, don’t you? I’m not usually emotional, but I nearly cried, my dear man, nearly cried like a baby when I saw the first German at the border. Very correct he was, none of this casual French demeanour, you know, as if to say ‘we’re pals.’ No, really very correct, a brief salute, confident stance, but without being stiff, very correct . . . Well, what do you think? Aren’t our officers just the worst!”

“Excuse me,” said Furières curtly, “but I don’t see how you can reproach our officers. What do you expect them to do with no weapons and a load of hopeless troops who only want you to p*** off and leave them in peace. First give us some real men.”

“Oh, but
they
say ‘there was no one in charge,’ ” said Corbin, delighted to offend Furières, “and just between us, old boy, I saw some pathetic sights . . .”

“Without the civilians, without everyone panicking, that wave of refugees blocking up the roads, we would have had a chance.”

“Well, you’re right there! The panic was terrible. People are extraordinary. For years we’ve heard nothing but ‘it’s all-out war, all-out war’—you would have thought they’d have expected it. But no! Immediately there’s panic, chaos, exodus, and why? I’m asking you, why? It’s insane!
I
only left because the banks were ordered to go. Otherwise, you know . . .”

“Was it terrible in Tours?”

“Absolutely terrible . . . but again for the same reason: the flood of refugees. I couldn’t find a room outside Tours so I had to sleep in the city and, naturally, we were bombed, forced out by the fires,” said Corbin, thinking indignantly of the little château in the countryside where they had turned him away because some Belgian refugees were staying there.
They
hadn’t been hit, not them, while he, Corbin, had nearly been buried under the rubble in Tours. “And the chaos,” he repeated, “everyone thinking only of himself! Such egotism . . . It makes you wonder about mankind . . . As for your staff, they were the worst of all. Not one of them was able to meet me in Tours. They all lost contact with each other. I’d told all our departments to stay together. Do you think they cared? Some are in the Midi, some are up north. You can’t count on anyone. These are the circumstances in which you can judge a man, his drive, his energy, his guts. A bunch of drips, I’m telling you, a bunch of drips! Only interested in saving their own skin, without a thought for the bank or me. Well, some of them are going to get the sack, I can assure you of that. Besides, I don’t imagine we’re going to have much business.”