The Foundling's War (39 page)

The banker confirmed the sterling purchase at the advertised Lisbon rate. A numbered account was opened. Jean had another opened for
himself and deposited his commission. He would leave it there until the war was over.

‘You’re very sensible,’ the banker told him. ‘The escudo is a healthy currency that will weather the storms of this devastated world well. I had rather expected a young man of your age to stuff his pockets and spend it all on parties.’

‘I don’t feel like that.’

‘In a way I know what you mean.’

They shook hands. Jean went back to his hotel and did some sums: he had never had so much money at his disposal. He was surprised not to feel any pleasure, any heady feeling. The telephone operator had a call for him from Urbano.

‘Good morning, Monsieur Arnaud. I have an idea that you’re about to leave us.’

‘Yes, this evening.’

‘I hope you liked Portugal. You forgot to visit the Jerónimos.
29
You must come back.’

Jean could no longer doubt that his every step had been followed since he arrived.

The hunting lodge was deserted. In its current dilapidated state it was beyond habitation. Wind, rain and hail had torn down the waxed paper that had covered the broken panes. A yawning hole in the roof exposed blackened beams. In its neglect, postponed no longer by a clumsy handyman, the lodge had acquired a kind of smashed grace more in keeping with its past of hunting meets in the forest, and the halt of tired horsemen after their pursuit of the stag. Jean glanced inside, putting to flight some rats nesting on a mattress. He circled the building. Foxes had scattered the rubbish left by the kitchen door. He was surprised to see empty bottles of spirits, mouldy bread covered in fungus, empty tins. Before he left, Blaise Pascal, nature lover and vegetarian, had regained his appetite for intoxicants and processed foods.

On the way back, from the path that led out of the birch forest, he caught sight of the tall, well-muscled figure of Jesús still sawing wood in the courtyard. With his torso bare in the sunshine, the Andalusian woodcutter exiled to the Île-de-France cut a fine figure, his brow glistening with sweat, his hairy upper body gleaming in the light.

‘I am workin’ for the winter,’ he said. ‘The famous General Winter who wins all the battles, who will eat Hitler up. ’Ave you been for a walk?’

‘Just to Blaise Pascal’s lodge. The man in the woods isn’t there any more. Have you heard anything of him?’

‘No’ much. I think ’e ’as returned to normal life.’

Jesús picked up an axe and started attacking a trunk. Chips flew around him.

‘Did you see him again?’

‘Yes, a few times. ’E started washin’. ’E didn’t smell so bad.’

Laura stood in the doorway in an apron.

‘Lunch is ready.’

She had returned to her place at Jesús’s side, driving from Paris each evening and staying on Sunday when Jean spent the day with them before going to the clinic to see Claude. Since her return from Germany she had not talked about her brother or her parents, but Jean had a feeling that she had also made a resolution she was keeping to herself, one that profoundly affected her internal life. Everything seemed to be a secret to this introverted woman with her closed features, wholly absorbed, it appeared, in her love for the bristly devil whose extravagance and bohemian character she had domesticated, and whose artistic life she had succeeded in ordering without smothering it. It was possible that she liked Jean, but he was unsure, or perhaps she tolerated him in a diplomatic way, because after having isolated Jesús so that he could work, it made her anxious to see him so alone during the week, dwelling perhaps on regrets of his life of joy and pleasure that he had left behind at the studio in Rue Lepic. In fact she was wrong: Jesús did not regret anything and gave himself so totally to his painting that he aspired to nothing more, apart from a little friendship with Jean and his nights spent with her, nights that he talked about with his customary fierce lyricism. For with a disarming naivety and amnesia for his expedient philosophy of the past, Jesús had turned himself into an apostle of monogamy, expatiating solemnly on the months and months needed for a man and a woman to perfect their pleasure in each other. He was so sincere in his naivety, and so ardent in his proselytising, that Jean kept to himself the sarcastic quips he might otherwise have directed at his friend. And wasn’t Jesús ultimately right? His lyrical way of expressing himself might have masked a bald truth, but bald truths also have a hidden meaning
we cannot ignore. Jean’s own memory of lovemaking with Claude was awkward and remorseful. He remembered only an exasperated pleasure too quickly taken, too sudden, the kind a young man feels at his first experience of sex. Had he satisfied her? No, he couldn’t have, in the unbalanced state she was in. Then it was a failure, ridiculous, yet another mistake after such a long wait, a shattered mirror in which, looking at each other, they would only see their disfigured images. Yet if he compared Claude to Nelly, he felt he had honest excuses. Nelly approached pleasure with a romantic tenderness he had hardly expected from her cheeky, inconstant character. They knew each other well now and were connected by a delightful bond that was impossible to classify. In each other’s arms they rediscovered both the solemnity and the sudden giggles of childhood. Jealousy, lies and hypocrisy were unknown to them. They were open with each other and never talked about tomorrow, not from reluctance but simply because they didn’t imagine there would be one or, rather because they were both too young to commit themselves when life was so rich in splendid uncertainties.

‘I didn’t know,’ Jean said to Laura, ‘that Blaise Pascal had come back again. Actually I’d almost forgotten him, our troglodyte of the forest. He amused me.’

‘I don’t like him,’ she said.

‘You don’ like anyone, excep’ Jean and me.’

‘So what?’

‘You’re right.’

Laura seemed to want to say more about Blaise Pascal, but she waited until Jesús was busy uncorking the bottle of champagne Jean had brought.

‘I know what was wrong with that man,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘He was afraid. He hid in the woods because he was afraid of the war, the bombs, the bullets. He’s a coward. And to lie to himself he invented a philosophy of the nature lover who hides in the woods,
which is a lot nobler than fear. I won’t deny that after a while he probably ended up believing in his philosophy, but in the beginning it was all about fear.’

She spoke tersely, with a rancour surprising in someone so shy. Jean was sure she knew more than she was saying and was refraining from saying it because of Jesús.

‘You’re exaggeratin’, Laura. He knows abou’ paintin’ …’

‘He’s a sycophant.’

Jesús turned to Jean, opening his arms to show his impotence.

‘She is stubborn.’

‘I nearly forgave him because I thought he was Jewish,’ Laura said, ‘but he isn’t.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I made some enquiries about him. He’s moved to a country hotel near here under his real name. He’s shaved off his beard, cut his hair, and plays backgammon and belote with the people in the village.’

Jesús exclaimed, ‘She knows everythin’. Absolutely everythin’!’

He admired her with such sincere enthusiasm that it was touching. Jean told himself that reciprocal admiration was also a form of love, and not the least nor the most foolish. These two beings carried each other. Realising it, he envied them and loved them more. In truth he had only them and Nelly, forsaking all other friendships, so much did the world he lived in inspire instinctive distrust in him. He nevertheless suspected Laura of creating a void around Jesús while Jesús himself, at his best, loved the whole world. Did he have to pay such a price? He doubted it.

‘I ask myself,’ Jesús said with his mouth full, ‘why you aren’t livin’ at Rue Lepic. My studio is empty …’

‘I will, I will, but not now. When Nelly chucks me out.’

Jesús scolded him for defeatism. You don’t let yourself be chucked out. You leave first.

‘It isn’t that,’ Jean said with a frankness that surprised him. ‘It isn’t that … The truth is, I’m very bad at being on my own. It’s a sort of
panic. When I was a boy I borrowed three books from the library at the lycée by Camille Flammarion, the astronomer:
Where Do We Come From?, Where Are We? and Where Are We Going?
I’ve worked out where I came from. I still need to find the answers to the two other questions, even if I half know the answer to the third, since death is obviously where we’re going …’

‘Listen … you know nothin’ about thir’ question neither. When the anarchists of the POUM launched an attack durin’ the civil war, they shouted, “Viva la muerte!” ’E’s not so stupid. Death is the other life, the beautiful one, and I believe in my death and in all those people who will think me an ’andsome genius when I am dead.’

‘You, yes. Not me. I won’t leave any paintings or sculptures behind, not a page, not a child. I’ve only got one life, and at this moment I feel I’m using it up. And Claude’s still mad.’

Laura got to her feet to cut more bread and said, ‘She can still get better.’

Jean no longer believed it. In the afternoon he walked over to the nursing home. Each week he both looked forward to and recoiled from the visit, which upset him even though he could not do without it.

‘She’s better today,’ the supervisor told him, taking out her pass key to unlock Claude’s room.

‘In that case why is she locked up?’

‘It’s Sunday. I look after the whole floor. We have to take precautions.’

‘There are patients walking unaccompanied in the garden.’

‘During the week she goes out, but, as you know, her little boy comes to see her on Sunday. She’s unpredictable after he leaves …’

The door opened. Claude was sitting on a chair next to the barred
window, looking at the kitchen garden and the road. She turned to Jean, her face serene.

‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ she said, offering her cheek.

‘Shall we go for a walk in the garden?’

The supervisor protested. Jean took no notice and led Claude downstairs. They walked along the path that bordered the lawn. Residents were strolling on the grass or reading under the trees. A number, in perfect mental health, were paying dearly to remove themselves discreetly to a place of safety from the new racial censuses. An arbour in the shade of a copse of young copper beeches had benches where two men were reading newspapers. A young woman, her face ravaged by nervous tics, was rummaging in an overnight bag, pulling out rags, folding them and replacing them in a jumble to start again.

‘She’s crazy,’ Claude said. ‘Pay no attention.’

They sat on two chairs, facing the sprinkler watering the lawn. The flowerbeds were full of lettuces.

‘Did you see Cyrille?’ he asked.

‘Yes, this morning with Maman. Poor darling, he gets bored here, goes round and round in circles. Maman scolds him all the time. I asked if I couldn’t have him with me. They could put a small bed in my bedroom …’

‘And the doctor said no?’

‘He says no to everything.’

A man in his sixties, in white trousers and a shantung jacket and wearing a panama, raised his hat politely as he passed them. Claude gripped Jean’s arm and murmured, ‘All that man thinks about is raping me. He’s tried to several times.’

‘I’m sure he doesn’t. He’s harmless, I promise you. I’ve talked to him. He lived in the Far East for a long time … He’s not a pervert.’

‘But you don’t know him. When you’re not here, he shows me his—’

He interrupted her.

‘No, Claude, no. Think about something else.’

‘If I can’t tell you, who can I tell?’

‘Nobody. When you say those things you start to believe them. So don’t say them.’

Her eyes filled up with tears.

‘You don’t love me the way you used to.’

‘I love you more than ever.’

She turned her mouth to him and he kissed her lightly.

‘Everything’s better when you’re here,’ she said. ‘
They
don’t dare come.’

‘There’s nothing for you to be afraid of any more.’

‘Maman says they can find me here.’

Anna Petrovna’s stupidity exasperated Jean and he began to despair. What he had hoped was an ordinary depression, in his relative ignorance of mental illness, was turning out to be a deep, painful wound that was probably incurable. Claude’s illness, or possibly an overuse of sedatives by her doctors so that she left them and the nurses in peace, was altering her looks. Her face had become expressionless and her blank stare reflected her constant indecision. She seemed at the mercy of the last person to speak to her. How could he fight it?

‘You haven’t told me what you’re doing,’ she said.

‘I’m running a gallery.’

‘Are you enjoying it?’

‘Not really, but it’s a living and it means I can help you.’

‘Do you mean you’re paying for me here?’

‘Yes, you know I am.’

She looked thoughtful for a long time.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ she said. ‘If I leave the clinic, you won’t need to work any more. We’ll take Cyrille to Saint-Tropez, to your grandfather’s. I’m sure Marie-Dévote will have us. You can go fishing with Théo and help him with his delivery business. Cyrille’s very pale. He needs sunshine.’

He was amazed how at certain moments she could reason with such logic and imagine practical solutions to the situation they found themselves in. There was no doubt that Marie-Dévote and Antoine du Courseau would welcome them with open arms. He had thought of it himself. But Claude’s mental fragility made it too great a risk.

‘We’ll go swimming,’ she said. ‘The sea’s always blue and warm. Cyrille can play on that lovely sandy beach. Your grandfather can start up his Bugatti, and at night we’ll make love, lots. I’m dying to make love to you, Jean. Here I dream you’re inside me, everywhere inside me, and then I wake up crying because I’m empty …’

She squeezed his hand with the force of desperation. The man in the shantung jacket stopped in front of them and raised his panama.

‘What a glorious June we’re having, don’t you think?’

‘Glorious,’ Jean said.

‘Not too hot, not too cool. The Île-de-France is paradise. Our kings should have left it at that. Why make it bigger? Ambition is the mother of all misfortune. Napoleon should have stopped at Austerlitz. He’d beaten the two emperors of Russia and Germany, taken forty thousand prisoners, including twenty Russian generals, captured forty flags and a hundred cannon. Why go on? He was master of all Europe … I bid you a very good day.’

He went on his way, panama raised.

‘You see …’ Claude said. ‘Now you understand.’

‘I didn’t hear him say anything rude.’

‘Because you’re here …’

A maid appeared at the doors of the home pushing a trolley laden with a tea urn and cups. There was no need to summon the residents. They had seen her. Leaving their benches and interrupting their strolls, they converged on the trolley, producing momentary confusion around it.

‘Don’t push, don’t push,’ the woman huffed, as if she were talking
to spoilt children. ‘There’s enough for everyone.’