“Do you have time for a drink?” I asked Georges.
“Always.”
We stopped at a small, dark bar, and each of us ordered a cognac. We sat near the door, watching over the car and its load.
“What’s your business here?” asked Georges.
“Oh, I’m supposed to see some people about a vine graft. In fact, with all this mess about Marcel, I’m afraid I don’t feel like doing any kind of business. I was wondering if I could help you in your deliveries. Tania has told me a lot about the factory, or asenal, here. Whatever it is. Her friend Maurice Ponty is the director, and I’d like to see it. Keep my mind from . . . from other things.”
“Delighted, Jules! I could use the company. Maybe Ponty could show us around. Normally I only deliver to the gates.”
“Oh, you’ve never been inside?” Somehow I was both relieved and disappointed.
“No. Tight security and all that. Normally Henri and I come down together and leave everything with the attendants.”
“Hmm . . .” I said, rather pointlessly.
We finished our drinks and returned to the car. After a few more minutes of driving, we reached our destination.
The St. Etienne Arsenal and Munitions Factory was indeed a large and modern affair. It covered several hundred square meters of land on the eastern edge of the city, bounded by what must have been a tributary of the Rhone that carried away much of the waste. When the day was clear, and the wind from the right direction, you could see the smoke from the stacks as far away as Valence; a thick, sulfurous cloud usually hung over the structure. Brick chimneys to a height of nearly thirty meters had been built to lift the smoke so that it wouldn’t settle on the nearby houses. The entire structure was surrounded by a fence of barbed wire and guarded every twenty-five meters or so by troops. The building itself was made of a kind of adobe, which was originally white, but even in the short time since its opening had turned a sickly, dirty yellow.
We went first to the delivery area, where Georges presented his papers and unloaded his supplies. Then we drove to the main gate, parked, and approached the sentry box.
“Yes, what do you want?” said the guard.
“We’d like to visit, if we may,” Georges replied.
The guard laughed heartily. “Impossible.”
Georges and I looked helplessly at one another, and he began again. “But I’ve been delivering here since you’ve opened. We’d just like to look around inside.”
The guard stopped laughing and blew on his whistle. Within seconds, four other guards had run up, weapons at the ready. I decided to speak.
“I’d like to see Monsieur Ponty.”
At the mention of the director’s name, the guards looked at one another indecisively. Finally one of them went into the building. After about ten minutes, which seemed much longer because of the heat and the circumstances, the guard returned with a short, round, cheerful-looking man.
“You asked for me? I am Monsieur Ponty.”
“Yes. I am a friend of Tania Chessal. She’s spoken so much to me about your operation here. I’d hoped to be privileged with a look for myself. Jules Giraud is my name.”
There was a hint of recognition in his eyes, and he nodded to the guards, who started back to their posts.
“And this man?” he asked, indicating Georges.
“Georges Lavoie, monsieur. He has been delivering your medical supplies for some time, and is a personal friend.”
He stared for another moment. “Come with me.”
We crossed the wide yard of gravel, and I couldn’t help noticing the scrutiny with which we were observed from every direction. There were sentries posted at the gates, along the fence, at selected bunkers in the yard, and on the roof. Ponty seemed to notice my interest, and smiled.
He led us through the large glass doors and down a long corridor to his office, the second room on the right. I was surprised to find it so well furnished. There was a bright rug covering the floor, and several prints on the walls, including Van Gogh’s
The Field at Arles
which I thought a very strange choice for the director of an arsenal. To the right, behind his desk, were filing cabinets of a light, drab wood; and, to the left, an elegant bar. His desk itself was a flat and large slab of oak which rested on unfinished timbers, although the joints were perfectly matched. It was an efficient office, though not without personality.
We were seated.
“So, you are Jules Giraud. Tania speaks of you often.”
I inclined my head slightly. “She’s quite impressed with you and this place, you know? Have you known her long?”
“Oh, quite some time. I knew her husband before they were married. A fine man. You knew Jean?”
“Yes, he was my neighbor.”
“Ah, yes, yes. Of course.”
I didn’t wish to speak of Jean Chessal, especially to a friend of his. My conscience was not completely clear regarding him.
“And how is Tania?” he asked.
“Quite well,” I said, not entirely truthfully. “She sends her best.”
He smiled. “Do ask her to come by soon. She is a welcome guest anytime. She doesn’t visit nearly enough.”
“I will ask her, though I somehow didn’t think you solicited visitors here. The guards . . .”
We all laughed. Then, in a brusque but friendly way, he clapped his hands together and sat up straight.
“Now, what can I do for you?”
“Well, frankly, we decided to come to see you mostly out of curiosity. Monsieur Lavoie, here, had some deliveries to make, and I had other business in town, which I chose to put off. Tania had told me so much about this building, and about yourself, that I thought I’d come by to meet you and to see some of your innovations.”
“You did, did you?” There was more than a bit of flint in the mildly humorous gaze.
I raised a hand. “Please stop me if I’m out of line.”
“Be assured that I would, monsieur. It is no small matter that you have been allowed to come this far. You’re aware of that, of course.” It wasn’t a question, and he continued. “But then we’ve carried on this farce long enough. It isn’t every day that one meets such a serious rival face-to-face, is it?”
“I’m afraid I don’t completely understand,” I said.
“Come, come, Monsieur Giraud. Surely you don’t think just anyone can enter this compound. And I do think I’m justified in calling it precisely that. Probably there isn’t another man, or men”—here he motioned to Georges—“in France that I would have allowed within these walls without an official reason. ‘Just wanted to look over your innovations! ’ Indeed!” He chuckled at my ludicrous suggestion. “I admit that bringing a visitor along with you, and one with actual business here, is a charming touch that shows real imagination, and I begin to see what Tania is talking about. But let’s admit the facts, that you came by here for the same reason that I let you in—plain curiosity, all right—and not about our innovations.”
Georges picked up the tenuous threads. “He’s found you out, Jules, No doubt of it.”
“All right,” I said, forcing a grin. I had no choice but to press on, hoping that Ponty would drop some further clue as to what he was talking about. “I’ll admit it—I simply had to discover what it was all about.”
The director looked suitably downcast. “It’s about love.”
“Yes,” I answered, “it is about love.”
“She told you, then, about my proposal?”
“Of course,” I said, my stomach sinking since in fact she’d told me no such thing. “Just the other day.”
“Yes, I expected she would have. I must admit I never entertained much hope, but I had to try.”
Again Georges came to my rescue. “She is a remarkable woman,” he said. “Who could blame you?”
Ponty sighed deeply. Then, again clapping his hands softly in what I took to be a characteristic gesture, he regained his businesslike composure. “Well, I am glad to meet you after all. If I have to lose her, it is some comfort to meet the man and realize that he is a gentleman.”
I accepted the compliment with a nod, nearly overcome with relief that Tania had turned him down, then distressed anew by the secrets she kept from me. But this was no time to reflect on that. “I’m sorry if my curiosity seems callous,” I said. “I had no intention—”
“Please,” he said, waving me off, “put the thought from your mind. What could be more natural? But to satisfy your curiosity about me completely, I suppose I should show you our operations here after all, eh? How does the saying go—‘judge a man by his creation’? The St. Etienne arsenal is my ‘creation,’ Monsieur Giraud. It is the thing of which I am most proud.”
At that moment a guard passed in the hall and looked in, prompting Georges to speak up. “Frankly, I’m very impressed with your security.”
“Yes,” Ponty replied. “I doubt rather strongly that anything save a massive assault could cause us much inconvenience. I might add, we don’t envision an assault of that kind around here. Still, considering the kind of work we’re doing, we can’t be too careful. Come.”
We rose and went back out to the corridor. He turned to Georges.
“What is it that you deliver?”
“Medical supplies. Gauze, bandages, no real medicine.”
“Ah, yes. Fortunately, we haven’t had many accidents. I hope we can keep your deliveries small. Now, then”—he stopped in front of the first door we’d passed coming in—“as you know, we make most kinds of arms and munitions supplies here, so really our security amounts to national security. Open that door, Monsieur Giraud.”
I stepped up to the heavy door and found it locked.
Ponty squatted down and slid a card under the door, then knocked four times. The door swung open from within onto a small, closetlike enclosure. On either side of the space sat an armed guard. The room was devoid of decoration and contained only a door against the opposite wall. Ponty walked across the tiny area to that door and tried it, but it too was locked. Then he turned and walked back to us, closing the first door behind him.
“The explosives room,” he explained. “We change the guards every three hours because the anteroom is so . . . you saw it. With every shift, we change the card-and-knock sequence. I don’t mind telling you this because the guards are under orders to shoot to kill anyone who gets them to open the doors by deception. Only myself, my immediate assistant, or the guards’ replacements may be admitted into that room. Anyone else will be shot.”
I said soberly, “But you had me try the door.”
Ponty laughed. “A perfect way to eliminate my archrival, yes? But you see, you were in no danger. Only if you had had my card, knocked four times, and been admitted would you have been shot. I’m sorry if I scared you.”
I held up a hand, laughing hollowly. “I don’t scare that easily.”
He waited for a moment at the door to the explosives room. A janitor pushing a wide broom shuffled his way past us, not so much as lifting his head to acknowledge us. Ponty seemed to be observing him carefully. Clearly the presence of visitors would not be viewed as an excuse to slack off on duties.
“Friendly chap,” I ventured.
Ponty shrugged. “Nervous, I guess. Some of ’em are, here.” He sighed. “I guess it isn’t the easiest thing in the world, working inside what amounts to the biggest bomb in France.”
Georges cleared his throat, and Ponty took that as a signal to continue our tour. The next door down the hallway opened into an enormous cacophonous inferno, but Ponty had no hesitancy about gesturing us in. Four huge boilers hissed and steamed against one wall to our right, while two shovel-wielding stevedores fed coal to the burners under them. The room’s temperature was staggering.
Like a proud homeowner, Ponty walked us around. The boilers were of heavily reinforced steel, loaded with gauges that screamed under their internal pressures. Lining the back wall of the room was a small mountain of coal being slowly chipped away by the workers. Dozens of arteries—insulated piping—emanated from the heart of the arsenal’s power plant.
“What goes on here?” Georges yelled over the din.
Ponty motioned us back outside into the relative cool of the hall. He was beaming. “Impressive, isn’t it?”
“Is every room here frightening?” Georges asked.
“That frightened you?”
“It’s a vision of hell.”
Ponty chuckled. “Well, put like that, I suppose one might say it is, after all.”
“It did seem awesomely powerful.”
He nodded. “It has to be. We’ve got power needs here that I can’t discuss, but they rival those of many small towns. In effect, we’ve got our own generator. We’ve got to be able to control our power, keep it regular, allow no surges. Am I getting too technical?”
“Not at all,” Georges said.
“It’s rather fascinating,” I agreed.
We turned a corner and entered another long and narrow hall. Ponty’s words echoed off the bare walls, mingling with the memory of the other room’s straining engines. I was beginning to feel the building more as a living thing, and could understand Ponty’s nearly paternal pride in its structure as well as his fear for its safety.