Part 4 (1/2)

”Because I thought England was more under threat than us. I had faith in my country, in my country's army. Surely you're not going to reproach me for that? Besides, what are you so worried about? You know I'm famous everywhere-thank G.o.d!”

He stopped speaking suddenly, pressed his face against the window and jerked his head back, annoyed.

”What is it now?” mumbled Florence, raising her eyes to heaven.

”Those people . . .” He pointed to the car that had just overtaken them. Florence looked at the people inside. It was the group they had spent the night parked next to in the town square in Orleans. She recognised them right away-the dented car, the man in the cap, the woman with the child on her lap and the one with the birdcage whose head was wrapped in bandages.

”Oh, stop looking at them!” said Florence wearily.

Corte had been leaning on a small travel case decorated in gold and ivory. Now he struck it forcefully with his hand several times. ”If events as painful as defeat and ma.s.s exodus cannot be dignified with some sort of n.o.bility, some grandeur, then they shouldn't happen at all! I will not accept that these shopkeepers, these caretakers, these filthy people with their whining, their malicious gossip, their vulgarity, should be allowed to debase this atmosphere of tragedy. Just look at them! Look at them! There they are again. They're honking at me, for goodness sake! . . . Henri, drive faster, won't you!” he shouted to the driver. ”Can't you shake off this riff-raff?”

Henri didn't even reply. The car moved forward three metres, then stopped, caught up in the unimaginable confusion of vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians. Once again Gabriel saw the woman with the bandaged head only a short distance away. She had thick, dark eyebrows, long, white, closely set teeth and hairs dotted about her upper lip. Her bandages were bloodstained, her black hair matted on the cotton wool and cloth. Gabriel shuddered in disgust and turned away, but the woman was actually smiling at him and trying to make conversation.

”Hey! It's not moving very fast, is it?” she said politely through the lowered window. ”But it's still a good thing we came this way. You should see the damage the bombing's done on the other side! They've destroyed all the chateaux of the Loire, Monsieur . . .”

She finally noticed Gabriel's icy stare and went silent.

”You see,” he muttered to Florence, ”I can't get away from them!”

”Stop looking at them.”

”As if it's that easy! What a nightmare! Oh, the ugliness, the vulgarity, the horrible crudeness of these people!”

They were getting close to Tours. Gabriel had been yawning for some time: he was hungry. He'd hardly eaten anything since Orleans. Just like Byron, Corte used to say, he was a man of frugal habits, content with vegetables, fruit and mineral water; but once or twice a week he needed a large, filling meal. He felt that need now. He remained motionless, silent, eyes closed, his handsome pale face ravaged by an expression of suffering like at those moments when he conceived the first neat, pure sentences of his books (he liked them as light and rustling as cicadas at first, then pa.s.sionate and sonorous; he talked about his ”violins”-”Let's make my violins sing,” he would say). But other worries took hold of him tonight. He pictured with extraordinary intensity the sandwiches Florence had offered him in Orleans: they had seemed rather unappetising then, a bit soggy because of the heat. There had been some small sweet rolls with foie gras, black bread garnished with cuc.u.mber and lettuce, which would be deliciously cool and refres.h.i.+ng. He yawned again. Opening the case, he found a dirty napkin and a jar of gherkins.

”What are you looking for?” asked Florence.

”A sandwich.”

”There aren't any left.”

”What do you mean? There were three of them in here a while ago.”

”The mayonnaise was runny, they were ruined, I threw them away. We can have dinner in Tours . . . I hope,” she added.

They could see the outskirts of Tours in the distance but the cars weren't moving; a barricade had been set up at one of the crossroads. Everyone had to wait their turn. A whole hour went by like this. Gabriel was growing paler. It wasn't sandwiches he was dreaming of now, but light, warming soup, or the b.u.t.tery pates he'd once had in Tours. (He had been coming back from Biarritz with a woman.) It was odd, he couldn't remember her name any more, or her face; the only thing that stuck in his memory were the smooth, rich little pates, each with a slice of truffle tucked away inside. Then he started thinking about meat: a great red slab of rare beef, with a curl of b.u.t.ter melting slowly over its tender flesh. What a delight . . . Yes, that was what he needed . . . roast beef . . . sirloin . . . fillet . . . a pork cutlet or mutton chop at a pinch. He sighed deeply.

It was a light, golden evening, with no trace of wind or heat-the end of a divine day. A soft shadow spread over the fields and pathways, like the shadow cast by the wing of a bird. From the nearby woods the faint perfume of strawberries wafted up now and then through the petrol fumes and smoke. The cars inched towards a bridge. Women were calmly was.h.i.+ng their clothes in the river. The horror and strangeness of recent events were softened by these images of peace. Far away, a watermill turned its wheel.

”There must be fish here,” Gabriel mused. Two years before, in Austria, he had eaten fresh trout near a small river as clear and rapid as this one. Their flesh, beneath the bluish, pearly skin, had been as pink as a small child's. And those steamed potatoes . . . so simple, traditional, with a bit of fresh b.u.t.ter and chopped parsley . . . He looked hopefully at the walls of the town. Finally, finally, they were there. But as soon as he put his head out of the window he saw the long line of refugees waiting in the street. A soup kitchen was giving out food to the hungry, they were told, but there was nothing to eat anywhere else.

A well-dressed woman, holding a child by the hand, turned towards Gabriel and Florence. ”We've been here for four hours,” she said. ”My child won't stop screaming. It's awful . . .”

”Awful,” Florence repeated.

Behind them the woman with the bandaged head appeared. ”There's no point in waiting. They're closing. There's nothing left.” She made a small dismissive gesture with her hand. ”Nothing, nothing. Not even a crust of bread. My friend who's with me, who just gave birth three weeks ago, hasn't had anything to eat since yesterday and she's breast-feeding her kid. And they tell you to have children, dammit. Children, sure! Don't make me laugh!”

A murmur of despair ran through the long queue.

”Nothing, they have nothing left, nothing. They're saying 'Come back tomorrow.' They're saying the Germans are getting closer, that the regiment is leaving tonight.”

”Did you go into the town to see if there's anything there?”

”You must be joking! Everyone's leaving, it's like a ghost town. Some people are already h.o.a.rding, I'm sure.”

”Awful,” Florence groaned again.

In her distress she was talking to the occupants of the battered car. The woman with the child on her lap was as pale as death.

The other one shook her head gloomily. ”That's nothing. They're all rich, they are, it's the workers that suffer the most.”

”What are we going to do?” said Florence, turning towards Gabriel with a gesture of despair. He motioned to her to move away from the crowd and began striding along. The town was full of closed shutters and locked doors; there wasn't a single lamp s.h.i.+ning or a soul to be seen at the windows. But, the moon had just risen and by its light it was easy to find one's way.

”You understand,” he whispered, ”it's farcical, all this . . . It is impossible not to find something to eat if we pay. Believe me, there's this panic-stricken herd and then there are the sly devils who have hidden food away in a safe place. We've just got to find them.” He stopped. ”We're in Paray-le-Monial, aren't we? See, here's what I've been looking for. I had dinner in this restaurant two years ago. The owner will remember me, you'll see.” He banged on the padlocked door and called out in a commanding voice, ”Open up, open up, my good man! It's a friend!”

And the miracle happened. They heard footsteps; a key turned in the lock, an anxious face appeared.

”Look here, you know who I am, don't you? I'm Corte, Gabriel Corte. I'm famished, my friend . . . Yes, yes, I know there's nothing, but for me . . . if you look carefully . . . Don't you have anything left? Ah! Yes! You remember me now!”

”I'm sorry, Sir, I can't let you in,” whispered the owner. ”I'd be mobbed! Go down to the corner and wait for me. I'll meet you there. I'd really like to help you, Monsieur Corte, but we're so low on provisions, so desperate. But maybe if I look carefully . . .”

”Yes, that's it, look carefully . . .”

”But you wouldn't tell anyone, would you? You can't imagine what's been going on here today. It's been madness, my wife is sick about it. They devour everything and leave without paying!”

”I'm counting on you, my friend,” said Gabriel, slipping some money into his hand.

Five minutes later he and Florence went back to the car, carrying a mysterious basket wrapped in a linen napkin.

”I have no idea what's inside,” muttered Gabriel in the same detached, dreamy tone he used when speaking to women, to women he desired but still hadn't conquered. ”No, no idea at all . . . but I think I can smell foie gras.”

Just at that moment a shadowy figure pa.s.sed between Gabriel and Florence and grabbed the basket they were holding, separating them with a blow. Florence, panic-stricken, grasped her neck with both hands, shouting, ”My necklace, my necklace!” But her necklace was still there, as well as the jewellery box they were carrying. The thieves had only taken their food. She made her way back safe and sound to Gabriel, who was dabbing at his painful jaw and nose, and muttering over and over again, ”It's a jungle, we're trapped in a jungle . . .”

15.

”You shouldn't have done it,” the woman holding the newborn baby in her arms sighed.

A bit of colour gradually returned to her cheeks. The old battered Citroen had managed quite well to manoeuvre its way out of the crowd and its occupants were resting on the mossy ground in a little wood. The moon, round and flawless, was gleaming, but even without the moon the vast fire burning in the distance would have lit up the landscape: groups of people were lying here and there, scattered beneath the pine trees; cars stood motionless; next to the young woman and the man in the cap lay the open basket of food, half empty, and the gold foil from an uncorked bottle of champagne.

”You shouldn't have, Jules. I don't like it, it's upsetting to have to do a thing like that.”

The man was small and scrawny, with a big forehead and enormous eyes, a weak mouth and a little weasely chin. ”What do you want?” he protested. You want us to starve to death?”

”Leave him alone, Aline, he's right, for goodness sake!” said the woman with the bandaged head. ”What do you want us to do? Those two, they don't deserve to live, they don't, I'm telling you!”

They stopped talking. She had been a servant until she'd married a worker from the Renault car factory. They'd managed to keep him in Paris during the first few months of the war, but he'd gone in February and now he was fighting G.o.d knows where. He'd already fought in the other war and he was the oldest of four children, but none of that had made any difference. Privileges, exemptions, connections, all that was for the middle cla.s.ses. Deep in her heart were layer upon layer of hatred, overlapping yet distinct: the countrywoman's hatred, who instinctively detests city people, the servant's hatred, weary and bitter at having lived in other people's houses, the worker's hatred. For the past few months she had replaced her husband at the factory. She couldn't get used to doing a man's work; it had strengthened her arms but hardened her soul.