“I suppose we’ll carry on like this, on foot, until we reach Tours,” Marc Beaumont said.
Monsieur Rose protested sharply, “On foot! We’re not traveling on foot! That’s ridiculous! You mustn’t give in to the deplorable habit of overdramatizing the situation, my boy. Later you’ll be able to tell your children, ‘During the great exodus of 1940 I walked from Normandy to Tours.’ In fact, you will have walked for part of the way, but for some of it you will have traveled in a truck or a car, or even on a bicycle, and so on and so forth. You should realize that there’s no such thing as pure tragedy; there are always varying degrees of it.” As he spoke, Monsieur Rose fell and then got up again, for his swollen knees were making it increasingly difficult for him to walk.
In fact, toward evening they were picked up by a passing truck. Some women who had been evacuated from a Parisian factory were sheltering under its wet tarpaulin. It was raining; the hastily erected cover let in water, which trickled down the women’s necks. They had brought folding stools with them, on which they sat motionless, hunching their backs against the rain, guarding parcels at their feet and children on their laps. Monsieur Rose and Marc Beaumont were allocated a stool between them, and an umbrella that fell open and swung about at every jolt in the road. After a few hours they had to give up their places to some children who were picked up from the edge of a field. Fortunately it had stopped raining. They carried on walking, slept again, found some eggs in an abandoned farm, which they swallowed raw, and dragged themselves on. In a village some soldiers gave them food and told them to leave at once, as there was going to be fighting. They would not allow Marc to join them. “It’s not men we need, sonny, it’s equipment.” Monsieur Rose and Marc set off again.
Marc, at least, was able to sleep. As soon as he lay down on the ground, he was dead to the world. But Monsieur Rose found only brief moments of rest and oblivion between nightmares. He looked at his companion closely. The child had something of poor Lucie Maillard about him. He had even asked Marc about his mother’s name, somehow imagining that there might be a family link between them. But there was nothing. Nothing linked the living teenager and the dead girl, other than the feeling their youth aroused in Monsieur Rose. Marc provoked an irritable and affectionate pity in him, just as Lucie once had. He was forever ready to carry a child, pick up a parcel, or give away his meager share of food whenever he found any. On the fifth day he lost his watch. Monsieur Rose jeered at him, “Well, of course, if you will run into the woods looking for some woman’s bag … If at least she had been pretty … but that old hag … That’s how you let your bicycle be stolen. You’re always going to be robbed in life.”
“Oh, monsieur!” said Marc. “I won’t be the only one.”
He laughed. He could laugh still: he was even thinner, he was pale and hungry, yet he laughed.
“What does it matter, monsieur?”
“A bicycle might have saved your life.”
“Oh, I’ll get out of this somehow!”
“Of course you will, of course … I hope I will, too. Although I can’t imagine what state I’ll be in!”
THINGS BECAME MORE and more nightmarish. None of the restaurants, hotels, or private houses had a single spare room left, not even a bed or a square meter of space on the floor, and none could offer even a crust of bread. When they reached Chartres, the refugees were given soup at the gate of a barracks, and Monsieur Rose wept for joy when he was given his helping.
They continued south, toward the Loire. It seemed as if they would never get there. One night there was a shout of “run for your life!” and several bombs fell. Marc and Monsieur Rose were lying on the ground, in the shelter of a little wall; Monsieur Rose was scrabbling at the earth with his nails, as if he wanted to hide underneath it. Then he felt Marc’s hand on his shoulder, a firm, gentle, but still childlike hand, which patted him shyly and affectionately: it was as if he were a new boy in the playground being reassured.
The plane went away. No one had been hurt, but a house could be seen burning in the distance. In a low voice, Monsieur Rose said, “This is too much. It’s too much for me. I can’t face it.”
“We’ll be fine, though, you’ll see,” said Marc, trying to laugh.
“But you’re seventeen! You’re not afraid of death. You don’t love life at seventeen! I want to save my life, don’t you see? I may be poor, old, and weak, the world may be in ruins, but I still want to live.”
They set off again. Monsieur Rose didn’t talk anymore. They were getting nearer the Loire. They didn’t know how long they had been walking. There was a second air raid. They were in a little group of refugees, huddled together: the instinct that makes a herd of animals gather together in a storm drew them close to one another. Marc sheltered Monsieur Rose with his body. He was injured but Monsieur Rose was unharmed. He bandaged his young companion as best he could and they went on walking. At last the bridges of the Loire were in sight.
Suddenly, Monsieur Rose collapsed.
“I can’t walk any further. It’s impossible. I’d rather die here.”
“I can’t carry on either,” said Marc.
His wound was bleeding and he stumbled at every step. Both of them, the old man and the boy, stayed where they were, in a heap by the side of the road, watching the Loire glinting in the sunshine and the flood of refugees going past. Monsieur Rose felt calm, indifferent, detached from everything, from his possessions, from his life. Then, suddenly galvanized, he stood up. Someone was shouting. Someone was calling his name: “Monsieur Rose! Is that you, Monsieur Rose?”
He saw a face he knew at a car window. He could not put a name to it; it seemed to belong to another world. Whether it was a friend or a distant relation, a colleague or an enemy, what did it matter? It was a man with a car. Overloaded, of course, full of parcels, women, and children like all the others, but at least it was a car.
“Do you have room for me?” he called out. “My car was stolen. I’ve been walking since Rouen. I can’t go another step. For pity’s sake, take me!”
Inside the car they consulted one another. A woman cried out, “Impossible!”
Another woman said, “They’re going to blow up the bridges over the Loire. They won’t be able to get across.”
She leaned toward Monsieur Rose, saying, “Get in. I’ve no idea how, but just get in.”
Monsieur Rose moved toward the car and was about to climb in when he remembered Marc. “Make room for this young man, too …”
“Out of the question, my poor friend.”
“I won’t leave him,” said Monsieur Rose.
He was so tired that his voice sounded faint and distant to his own ears, as if it were someone else’s.
“Is he a relation of yours?”
“No. Never mind. He’s injured. I can’t abandon him.”
“We don’t have room.”
At that moment someone shouted, “The bridges! The bridges are going to go up!”
The car accelerated away. Monsieur Rose closed his eyes. It was over; he had lost his life. Why? For this child who meant nothing to him? He heard the voice of a woman beside him shouting, “There are people on it! People! There are cars!”
In the frightful chaos and confusion the bridge had been blown up too soon; so, too, had the refugees’ cars, including the one that Monsieur Rose had refused to get into.
Pale and trembling, he fell down next to Marc, barely realizing that his life had just been restored to him.
La confidente
[ THE CONFIDANTE ]
IT WAS HERE THAT SHE HAD ENJOYED THE SWEET sleep of the living for the last time. He remembered that she had always slept like a child, folding her bare arms over her heart. He stood by the bed in which she had spent the night before the accident and touched the cold pillow and the white sheets. He forgot that he was in a strange house and that a woman was there with him. He went ahead of her into each room, opening windows and cupboards. He asked, “Where did she sit at mealtimes?” Or, “D
id she keep her dresses in this wardrobe?”
He listened to the quiet, tactful replies. “She sat here … Her dresses were in the blue room, her underwear in the big chest of drawers in the alcove …”
He looked at the stranger who stood next to him; she had looked after Florence as she died, held her beautiful hands in hers, dressed her for burial. She was a pale, self-effacing person, dressed in plain black, with her hair up in a thick, tight bun; to Roger Dange she appeared frail and ugly, hardly like a woman at all. Why had his delicate, brilliant Florence remained so attached to this dismal creature, this poor provincial schoolmistress who had been her childhood friend? It was incomprehensible. And why had he gone so far away? Why had he agreed to a concert tour in Mexico, thought the widower. Florence had decided to go with him initially; then, a week before their departure, she had changed her mind and said that she would go and live with her friend until March. He was pleased about that: he had been anxious about Florence’s health on such a long journey—she had barely recovered from a miscarriage. They had been married for two years; he was much older than his wife, he was in love, and he was jealous. He was happier knowing that she was in this remote village with Mademoiselle Cousin. (This was the old spinster’s name. Strange that he should think of her as old … He knew that she was only eighteen months older than Florence, and Florence would be, would have been, thirty this year …) Yes. He had been happier knowing that she was here rather than surrounded by other men.
He thought he caught a sudden glimpse of her in this darkened room, holding a mirror up in the charming way she had when she was powdering her cleavage and her neck. He put a hand up to rub his forehead and when he lowered it, found that it was damp with sweat, although the house was freezing. After a long silence, he at last heard Mademoiselle Cousin’s worried voice through the ringing in his ears.
“You are ill, Monsieur Dange!”
He had to take her arm to return to the dining room. The little stove was lit and he felt better. “I’ll leave you now,” he murmured. “I do apologize, I think I caught a chill on my way here.”
She moved an armchair closer to the fire.
“You can’t go now. It’s so cold and you’re white as a sheet, Monsieur Dange.”
“But I must be in your way …”
“No,” she replied quietly. She put a few more logs on the fire and left the room. A young maid came in to close the shutters. Mademoiselle Cousin returned with a steaming hot cup of tea.
It was a February evening and the countryside was gloomy and wet. A great gale was blowing. The two pine trees outside the front door creaked and moaned, and a half-broken branch knocked rhythmically against the wall, as if someone in the dark outside were demanding shelter. Dange flinched at every thud.
“I must have them felled,” said Mademoiselle Cousin. “In any case, they shut out the light.”
“Mademoiselle, I would like to hear from you again the story of that last day and all the details of the accident.”
“But I wrote and told you. Florence had said the day before that she planned to go to Paris in the morning and stay for three or four days. She got up early—well, early for her—it was nine o’clock. School had just started. I didn’t see her go. But I heard the noise the car made as it turned over on the road. It had been raining. The car skidded on the main square, in front of the war memorial. It swerved horribly, hitting the little wall in front of the Simons’ house. Oh, I cannot describe the noise; it was like a clap of thunder, and then the smashing of glass as the windows broke. The village is small and peaceful, as you will have seen, Monsieur Dange, and the sound of the crash brought everyone out onto the square. You could see everything from the school windows. I ran out at once to go to her. The car was destroyed. They pulled the poor woman out of the wreckage.”
“Was her face disfigured?” asked Dange.
His musician’s hands were expressive, delicate and strong. As he stretched them out to the warmth of the stove, the tips of his long fingers quivered. Mademoiselle Cousin hastily replied, “No, no, her face was untouched.”
“But her body?”
“Her body?” She hesitated, picturing those legs, which had been literally crushed. “Her injuries were not obvious,” she said finally.
“Was she still alive?”
“She was still breathing. She was brought here—someone managed to get a stretcher. They carried her very gently. She didn’t appear to be suffering.”
“You must give me the names of the good people who helped her. I’d like to give them something.”
“Oh, there’s no need for that!”
“Yes, there is … And tell me again … you called the doctor at once, didn’t you? And there was nothing to be done? Ah, if only I had been here! Why did I go away? It’s odd, I felt deeply worried when I left her … I hated everything about the journey I was about to make. Twice I put off my departure. But we had spent a lot of money and these concerts were extremely well paid. At my request the agent had demanded exorbitant fees. I think I hoped they would turn them down, or at least negotiate, which would have given me a good excuse to pull out. But no, they agreed to everything. I left and then, a fortnight later, your telegram arrived telling me of Florence’s death. I feel ashamed that I’ve only come now to thank you for what you did for her. I didn’t think I would have the courage to enter this house, to see the room where Florence died, or to see you, mademoiselle.”
“I do understand. Drink your tea, Monsieur Dange. Look, I’ve put a teaspoon of rum in it.”
He pushed away the cup she offered him.
“This journey … Did she say why she was going?”
“No, she said nothing.”
“She was killed on the fourth of December, wasn’t she?”
“Yes, it was exactly two months ago on Monday.”
He looked at her as if he wanted to say something else and opened his mouth to speak, but then his thin face was convulsed in a silent grimace of pain; he did not speak.
Mademoiselle Cousin lowered her head. The only noticeable thing about her appearance was a thick streak of silvery white in her black hair. She stroked it continually and unconsciously; she was wearing an old-fashioned jet mourning ring. Roger Dange noticed it and his innate good manners made him ask distractedly, “You have lost someone?”
“A cousin, a young man of twenty-five.”
“Ah, was that a long time ago?”
“It was …” She broke off. “It was a few months ago,” she said finally. “Monsieur, I followed your instructions precisely. They arrived too late, alas, for her burial, but by a strange coincidence I had dressed Florence in the dress you asked for. Her body was taken to Paris on the sixth of December and then everything else was carried out according to your wishes.”
“You knew her well, didn’t you?”
“Yes, we were childhood friends. We were born in the same little village in the Jura, as you know.”
“I do know … but now that I think about it, I know very little about her. We were married for two years. I had met her at the opera house where she wanted to make her debut. What a lovely voice she had! Perhaps not quite powerful enough for a career on the stage, but the purest soprano I had ever heard. We fell in love almost immediately. These last two years have gone by so quickly, and my concerts, my career, my performances on the radio, all of that took from us, robbed us of time together. What’s left? As young newlyweds do, we had tacitly agreed to save our secrets and memories like a nest egg for old age, in order not to miss a moment of love.”
She shifted in her chair and he thought he might have shocked the old maid. He fell silent. The word “love,” and especially the hoarse, passionate way he had uttered it, seemed to hang between them, reverberating and then fading away like the sound of a cello. The room was very dark; a desk lamp with an angled green shade lit up a pile of exercise books open on a table.
“I am behaving unforgivably. I arrive here, tear you away from your work, and
ask you absurd, sentimental questions. And all simply to hear one more time what you have already described in your letters and which neither you nor I can change … You must think I’m very strange, even a little mad.”
“Not at all. I well understand it, Monsieur Dange. After such a terrible blow …”
He gestured impatiently. “Listen … I must tell you … Something happened that particularly disturbs me. Oh, it’s undoubtedly a misunderstanding, but … so, can you confirm that Florence talked to you the day before about the journey to Paris, the journey during which she was killed?”
“But … yes.”
“Without giving any reason for her absence?”
“But it was only for a few days. And in any case she didn’t have to give me reasons. She may have talked about going to her dressmaker or to the dentist, I forget. I don’t see why it’s so important …”
“My mail didn’t reach me in Mexico—it was held up at the post office and was only recently sent on to me. I got it four days ago. There were two letters from Florence.”
“Yes?”
“The first was dated the fourth of December, the day of her death, and the second was dated the fifth, the next day.”
“There must have been a mistake,” said Mademoiselle Cousin, dropping the log she had been about to throw on the fire. “Did you check the postmarks?”
“The first one was sent on the fourth of December and the second on the fifth.”
“That’s … incomprehensible.”
“Yes, isn’t it? I can think of only one explanation: that my wife was so looking forward to those busy, happy few days in Paris that she had already dealt with my request that she write me a daily letter. She must have asked someone to post them while she was away so that they would all come from the same place. She could have posted the first one herself, she might have stopped at the post office just before the accident, but she must have given the second one to somebody else, possibly some child in the village, who didn’t know she was dead or who wasn’t bright enough to realize that now she was dead the letter shouldn’t be sent. Yes, that’s what must have happened.”