The Fires of Autumn

‘Poor guy!’

  They realised that Jacquelain was crying; a tear ran down through his locked fingers. The men tactfully turned away and pretended to be telling jokes, laughing among themselves to give their lieutenant time to pull himself together.

  After a few moments, Bernard seemed calmer; he lit his pipe and fell into a deep, bitter trance. An endless wave of cars streamed past along the road. He could see pale, exhausted faces covered in dust. Children were asleep, curled up in a ball on top of suitcases. A horse-drawn wagon passed by in which some old people (evacuees from an old folks’ home) were dozing on the benches, their heads resting on bundles of sheets. Then there was an ambulance, going at the same speed as the other vehicles. A small Citroën went by, full of crying children: the lad driving looked about fifteen; there was no adult with them. Then it was time to set off again. The Germans were getting closer. They were marching towards Paris and the French Army was fleeing ahead of them. The little group formed by Bernard and his ten men also took the road to Paris. Some people were saying there would be a battle at the Seine.

  ‘What battle?’ thought Bernard. ‘The battle has already been fought and lost. And it didn’t happen yesterday, nor, as everyone believed, on the day the Germans entered Belgium. The Battle of France was lost twenty years ago.’

  They kept on walking. Night was falling. The air was an unbreathable mixture of dust and the stench of petrol. Bernard walked on:

  ‘Lost … lost …’ he said over and over again, quietly. ‘We’ve lost …’

  The earth was growing darker, but the June sky above was lit by a dim glow, and in the tender dusk, enemy planes flew overhead, soaring unchallenged, masters of the heavens.

  7

  At ten o’clock, after receiving an order – no one knew where from – the long column of refugees was forced to leave the main road that led directly to Paris. One group turned back the way they had come, another was sent on a detour towards Melun. Bernard thought he would rejoin the French troops in the forest of Fontainebleau, but he very quickly realised he was wrong: the forest was full of refugees and the main body of the army was retreating south. The forest looked like an enormous gypsy encampment. People were sleeping, eating, dying on the mossy grass (the forest had been bombed).

  Apart from the melon and stale bread they had eaten at midday, Bernard and his soldiers had been unable to find any more food. Bernard did not feel hungry; he was no longer in pain. He had only one desire: to sleep. But behind him, the soldiers were whispering:

  ‘My God! Some soup! A glass of wine!’

  One of them, the farmer, shouted:

  ‘This forest is so big!’

  Bernard sighed. He had crossed this forest of Fontainebleau in his car so quickly and so often, in the past. It had been a forest full of lilies of the valley, couples in love, people taking leisurely strolls, but now it had become a place to take shelter (and how precarious it was!) for so many desperate people. The night was full of voices calling out, vain cries:

  ‘Mama, I’m scared!’ ‘Jacques, Jacques! Has anyone seen my little boy Jacques? I lost him when the bombs started to fall.’ ‘Can anyone give me a litre of petrol?’ ‘Can you spare a bottle of milk for a child?’ ‘Can you lend me a blanket for my sick father?’ ‘Monsieur, Monsieur, my husband was wounded in the bombing. He can’t hear me; he isn’t replying. Where can we get help? He’s going to die.’

  Bernard walked quickly away, taking such great strides that his exhausted men could no longer keep up with him.

  ‘Will we ever get out of this damned forest?’ they asked.

  ‘I think we’re going around in circles, Lieutenant,’ said one of the soldiers.

  ‘No. Follow me. I know a house where we can spend the night. It isn’t far from here.’

  They found themselves in the middle of a clearing shaped like a star. He hesitated, got his bearings, then took the path to the left.

  ‘Follow me! Be brave!’

  They were headed towards the Détangs’ house. It was close by, down the road, an opulent house full of soft beds, wide divans, cupboards stuffed full of food, wine cellars with champagne. Where were the owners? They had fled, no doubt, as soon as they caught a whiff of disaster. They must have crossed the Loire without any problem. Behind them, the bridges had blown up, throwing fiery stones, twisted metal and, sometimes, human remains upwards, into the sky. But the Détangs would be safe. No doubt they were crossing the border at this very moment, with their money, their jewellery, their trunks, leaving everyone else to manage as best they could, the others who lacked their cunning, who had not known how to invest their fortune so it was safely abroad while there was still time, the people who had not understood, not taken precautions, who had kept faith.

  Perhaps Bernard was wrong? Détang could very well waver over what he should do: flee, since his political position was compromised, in danger, or take the attitude that he was someone who ‘does his duty right to the end’, counting on a future of profitable changes in alliances? Bernard could just hear him:

  ‘First of all, do not be a fool! Coldly weigh up the pros and cons. Think of me. My situation … My way of life. My power. My house. My wife.’

  But most importantly, there was Renée’s money, money she had placed abroad a long time ago. Nothing could prevail over that. Influence, contacts, reputation, all took second place to money. Had Bernard forgotten that? He should have remembered.

  He took a few more steps.

  ‘We’re here,’ he said to his men.

  It was a very beautiful house, all white, surrounded by a large estate. Bernard pushed open the gate. It was not locked. The front door wouldn’t open.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Bernard. ‘There’s a shutter that doesn’t close properly on the ground floor. Here it is. Let’s go in. The sitting room is this way.’

  ‘Is this your house, Lieutenant?’ asked one of the men.

  ‘My house? No. It belongs to one of my friends. There should be plenty of food. You can eat all of it, if the refugees haven’t got here before us.’

  They walked into the sitting room, in single file, their heavy army boots creaking on the beautiful parquet floor. The windows were carefully blacked out by long, dark velvet curtains that were drawn across the casements. They could safely put the lights on. The chandeliers shone softly, lighting up the enormous rooms that were in the most terrible disorder. The Détangs had certainly gone away. Everything shouted it out. Bits of string, wrapping paper thrown on the floor. Raymond’s desk empty, its drawers wide open. How many letters and compromising documents had been pulled out of this desk and hastily thrown into a suitcase, or torn up and burned. Bernard raised the shutter on the fireplace, saw the remains of a recent fire and smiled.

  Here was Renée’s little sitting room, and her jewellery box, too heavy to carry, which had been emptied; open boxes were strewn all over the floor. Bernard imagined the jewellery sewn up in a soft leather bag and hidden between Renée’s breasts, her soft, cold breasts. Oh, God, to detest her, despise her, and still love her! She had been his downfall.

  ‘Thérèse …’ he whispered, as if to exorcise Renée’s memory.

  He continued leading the men towards the dining room. All the silver was gone, the dressers empty. The Détangs had forgotten nothing. Their car must have been full to bursting. If a lot of people had run away with so many belongings, it was hardly surprising that the journey was very slow and difficult …

  ‘Well,’ thought Bernard, ‘they spread the evil ways that, in the past, were the exclusive privilege of a small, select circle, who by that very fact could not do too much harm. They democratised vice and standardised corruption. Everyone has become a schemer, a gambler, a profiteer. And hence … a traffic jam in which the guilty had to suffer along with everyone else. There is a kind of ironic, bitter justice in all these events. Ironic and terrible,’ he thought.

  The soldiers, dumbstruck at first, had also begun to feel the instinct to pillage rise up in the
m.

  ‘I’m telling you, it’s contagious,’ murmured Bernard.

  They had found the kitchen and broken open the cupboards; they came back into the dining room carrying tins of foie gras, preserves, sugar, coffee, chocolate; two of them went down to find the wine cellar.

  ‘It’s further down, to the left,’ shouted Bernard. ‘Push the door hard!’

  And when they returned, carrying a lot of bottles, he quietly said:

  ‘Eat. Drink, my poor lads. All this is for you.’

  Suddenly, even he was hungry. He cut a slice of pâté, drank a glass of champagne and, leaving his men at the table, left the room and walked through the empty house for a long time.

  He went into Renée’s bedroom; he walked over to the large bed. Everywhere there was chaos, visible signs of panic. The sheets had been dragged on to the floor; he could picture her semi-naked body leaping out from under the covers when Détang had come to wake her up. She must have run, still undressed, to where she hid her jewellery, taken it out of the box, hidden it between her breasts. She had not been concerned about a single living soul; she had felt sorry for no one. Not a child, not a dog, not an old servant … All she loved was her jewellery, as cold and dazzling as she was.

  ‘Did I really love her?’ Bernard wondered out loud.

  He seemed to be waking from a dream. Her body … yes. Her shoulders, her hips, yes … But then there was her mother with the eyes of a Madam in a brothel, her bastard of a husband … He pictured her lying in his arms and remembered the way she made love, had love made to her; there was something brutal about it, something cynical, greedy and harsh within her …

  He walked through the next room; it contained the wardrobes where she kept her dresses. A few of them had been thrown to the floor; he kicked them away, thought she must have taken the most beautiful ones with her. Tomorrow, or next month, in some nightclub in Lisbon, or Rio, or New York, she would be dancing, graceful, indifferent; men would court her; she would talk about the awful times she had been through during the fall of France; she would make everyone feel sorry for her: ‘We left everything behind, lost it all … We feared for our lives …’ Their lives, their precious lives … Why had he ever met this woman? Why had he listened to her? And yet, he still had feelings for her. She had penetrated his being like poisonous venom.

  ‘I’m having an attack of moral virtue because I’m tired and miserable,’ he thought sadly. ‘But if things had worked out … The war will end. Everything will settle down. People like Raymond Détang will always find a way to swim to safety.

  ‘And I …’ No! There was the death of his son. Directly or indirectly, he was responsible.

  When he went back into the dining room, his men were asleep. Some were stretched out on the floor, others had not even left the table and were snoring, their heads resting on their hands. None of them had even had the strength to look for a bed. He did the same; he threw some cushions down on the rug near the window and lay down, his face hidden in the crook of his arm. But he couldn’t sleep. He kept thinking about his son. How much time he had lost, how many years when he could have loved him … He had always been too busy with his love affairs and dreams of wealth. His child had been growing up at his side; he had barely noticed him. He had sometimes looked down at him and thought vaguely: ‘When he’s fifteen, I’ll take an interest in him …’ Then: ‘When he’s eighteen, I’ll teach him about life. I’ll make a man of him.’

  He fell asleep and dreamt of his son. The boy looked at him but did not recognise him; he let Bernard walk over to him, then leapt back and ran away into the distance. He ran so fast when he was twelve … his black hair falling down over his eyes. He also dreamt of Martial Brun. He often thought about him now, ever since he learned that a small photograph of Martial had been found on his son’s body. Why? What did Martial symbolise to Yves? In his dream, he found himself murmuring: ‘You know, he wasn’t so great. There were thousands like him. He fought well in the war, but I …’ He chased after Yves’ shadow, Yves’ ghost, but Yves could not hear him. In one leap, he jumped over a metal gate that jangled softly. As he fell to the ground on the other side, he landed on the gravel that crunched loudly beneath his feet, crunched …

  Bernard suddenly woke up, rubbed his eyes and heard the sound of boots on the sand in the garden. In the clear June night, he could see two, three, five, ten men coming towards the house. Soldiers? He leaned forward. There was something odd about their uniforms, something he did not recognise at first but which, suddenly, stopped him from shouting out. Green uniforms, long boots … it was the Germans, the Germans, so soon.

  He bent down, shook the man next to him by the shoulder, putting his hand over his mouth at the same time to stifle his cry of surprise. The man woke up, took a moment to understand, then whispered:

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Wake the others,’ said Bernard very quietly.

  The Germans were already in the entrance hall. The Frenchmen waited, helpless and anxious.

  ‘Let them take us and get it over with,’ one of them finally said. ‘The war is over.’

  But his comrades did not want to surrender:

  ‘I have a wife and kids!’

  ‘Who’s going to take care of my old parents?’

  They surrounded Bernard, expecting him to save them. They were trapped like rats. He was the one who knew the house. Was there another way out?

  Yes, the servants’ entrance.

  ‘Follow me.’

  But when they got to the kitchen door, they could hear someone speaking German. They went back up into the dining room. Bernard thought for a moment, then said:

  ‘We’ll barricade ourselves in here with the furniture, then I’ll open fire. When I start, you can get out through the window. Wait for the right moment and get away as fast as you can. I’ll keep on firing. They won’t all chase after you because they’ll think there are several men defending the house. You might get caught, but that’s the way it is! There’s nothing else we can do.’

  ‘You’ll be killed, Lieutenant.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Bernard. He walked over to the window, counted quietly: ‘One, two, three.’ At the same time, he fired towards the enemy and his ten men jumped out of the house on to the lawn. The Germans returned fire. One of the men was hit and fell to the ground. The others made it to the woods. Bernard continued firing. As he had predicted, the main body of the troop remained where they were. Two or three soldiers rushed off after the men who had escaped. A hail of bullets broke through the glass panes but, miraculously, Bernard was not hit. He continued firing. His mind was a blank. He finally felt a sense of peace.

  The battle lasted for quite some time. When it stopped, when the Germans had broken down the doors, they found Bernard, leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, his useless weapon thrown to the floor at his feet. He was not wounded. He surrendered with no further resistance. That same night, he was sent to join a group of prisoners of war in the forest of Fontainebleau and left for Germany.

  8

  Unhappy? No. He was not unhappy. His fellow prisoners, like himself, were still not used to thinking of their lives as real. They were living a nightmare that would end, suddenly, in a flash, just as it had begun. Someone would unlock the doors; the barbed wire fences would be taken down. They would be told: ‘You are free.’ Every evening, they thought: ‘That’s one day less …’ Another day that had ended; a day that brought them closer to freedom. The most difficult moment was when they woke up. In their dreams, they were reunited with their families, on a French beach at the seaside; they could see their wives smiling, hear their children’s voices. Then they would open their eyes and see their sleeping quarters with the rough, wooden walls. Every morning at dawn, they would hear the murmurings of the priests who were prisoners as they said Mass in front of a small portable altar at the foot of their beds. It was like being back in the monastery, or the barracks, or the worst years of boarding school … At for
ty years old …‘It’s hard at our age,’ said the man next to Bernard, a man with white hair and a weary, worn face. There was talk of freeing the soldiers who had already fought in 1914, but there was talk of so many things. The atmosphere in the camp made it easy to believe in dreams, in illusions, in lies; they whispered the strangest stories to each other: ‘You’re going home, you’re lucky,’ the young men told Bernard, the ones who had left school and knew nothing of life but the hell of Dunkirk or the vain rush to escape along the roads of France and who now celebrated their twentieth birthday in these fields of snow. Going home? Home to what? How would they, these beaten soldiers, be greeted back in France? They had no idea; they could not imagine it. Each envisaged his return according to his own desires and his own anger. Neither love nor hate had died down within them. Quite the opposite, those feelings grew more and more heated, poisoning them with violent intensity. Sometimes, in the silence of the night, they could hear a prisoner sigh, sob, curse some unknown person, or call out the name of an invisible woman in despair.

  The camp was located in a snowfield. It was the first winter the prisoners spent in Germany. It felt as if winter and the war would never end. Sometimes flakes of snow would fall softly and swiftly; sometimes it blew through their shelter as hard and round as grains of sand; but there was always snow, with its silence and a melancholy, blinding whiteness that stretched to the horizon; they had not seen the earth underneath since September. There were no forests, no towns, no mountains in sight. Barely a few undulations, shallow hollows, folds in the white shroud that in summer must surely be meadows, fields, plains? The prisoners did not know; they had arrived at the camp last autumn. Far in the distance, a sparkling path looked like a railway track or a stream covered in ice. They studied it for a long time. It was a road, a way out towards the world of the living. They were not alive. Not entirely. They automatically carried out their daily tasks. They worked, read, went for walks, ate, organised games and performances, but only a part of them was really involved; the other part slept, but it was a troubled sleep from which they would only awaken on that blessed day (when would it come? when?), the day they would be told: ‘Well, it’s all over. You can go home.’