Suite Francaise Part 14

The Angellier ladies were leaving their house to go to Vespers when the German officer who was to lodge with them arrived. They met at the door. He clicked his heels, saluted. The elder Madame Angellier grew even paler and with great effort managed a silent nod of the head. Lucile raised her eyes and, for a brief moment, she and the officer looked at each other. In a split second a flurry of thoughts flashed through Lucile's mind. "Maybe he's the one," she thought, "who took Gaston prisoner? My G.o.d, how many Frenchmen has he killed? How many tears have been shed because of him? It's true that if the war had ended the other way, Gaston might today be entering a German house. That's how war is; it isn't this boy's fault."

He was young, slim, with beautiful hands and wide eyes. She noticed how beautiful his hands were because he was holding the door of the house open for her. He was wearing an engraved ring with a dark, opaque stone; a ray of sunshine appeared between two clouds, causing a purple flash of light to spring off the ring; it lit up his complexion, rosy from the fresh air and as downy as a lovely piece of fruit growing on a trellis. His cheekbones were high, strong but delicate, his mouth chiselled and proud. Lucile, in spite of herself, walked more slowly; she couldn't stop looking at his large, delicate hand, his long fingers (she imagined him holding a heavy black revolver, or a machine-gun or a grenade, any weapon that metes out death indifferently), she studied the green uniform (how many Frenchmen, on watch all night, hiding in the darkness of the undergrowth had looked out for that same uniform?) and his sparkling-clean boots.

She remembered the defeated soldiers of the French army who a year before had fled through the town, dirty, exhausted, dragging their combat boots in the dust. Oh, my G.o.d, so this is war . . . An enemy soldier never seemed to be alone-one human being like any other-but followed, crushed from all directions by innumerable ghosts, the missing and the dead. Speaking to him wasn't like speaking to a solitary man but to an invisible mult.i.tude; nothing that was said was either spoken or heard with simplicity: there was always that strange sensation of being no more than lips that spoke for so many others, others who had been silenced.

"And what about him?" the young woman wondered. "What must he be feeling coming into a French home where the head of the house is gone, taken prisoner by him or his comrades? Does he feel sorry for us? Does he hate us? Or does he just consider our home a hotel, thinking only about the bed, wondering if it's comfortable, and the maid, if she's young?" The door had closed on the officer a long time ago; Lucile had followed her mother-in-law; entered the church and knelt at her pew; but she couldn't stop thinking about the enemy. He was alone in the house now. He had taken over Gaston's office, which had its own entrance; he would have his meals out; she wouldn't see him; but she would hear his footsteps, his voice, his laughter. He was able to laugh . . . He had the right. She looked at her mother-in-law who sat motionless, her face in her hands, and for the first time, felt pity and a vague tenderness for this woman she disliked. Leaning towards her, she said softly, "Let's say our rosary for Gaston, Mother."

The old woman nodded in agreement. Lucile started to pray with sincere fervour, but soon her mind began to wander. She thought of the past that was both near and distant at the same time, undoubtedly because of the grim intrusion of the war. She pictured her husband, a heavy, bored man, interested only in money, land and local politics. She had never loved him; she had married him because her father wished it. Born and brought up in the countryside, she had little experience of the outside world, with the exception of a few brief trips to Paris to visit an elderly relative. Life in the provinces of central France is affluent and primitive; everyone keeps to himself, rules over his own domain, reaps his own wheat and counts his own money. Leisure time is filled with great feasts and hunting parties. This village, where the forbidding houses were protected by large, prison-like doors and had drawing rooms crammed full of furniture that were always shut up and freezing cold to save lighting the fire, had seemed the very picture of civilisation to Lucile. When she left her father's house deep in the woods, she had felt joyous excitement at the idea of living in the village, having a car, sometimes going out to lunch in Vichy . . . Her upbringing had been strict and puritanical, but she had not been unhappy: the garden, the housework, a library-an enormous, damp room where the books grew mouldy and where she would secretly rummage around-were all enough to amuse her. She had got married; she had been a cold, docile wife. Gaston Angellier was only twenty-five when they married, but he had had that kind of precocious maturity brought about by a sedentary provincial lifestyle, excellent rich food eaten in abundance, too much wine, and the complete absence of any strong emotions. Only a truly deceptive man can affect the habits and thoughts of an adult while the warm, rich blood of youth still runs in his veins.

During one of his business trips to Dijon, where he had been a student, Gaston Angellier ran into a former mistress-a hatmaker with whom he'd broken off; he fell in love with her again and more pa.s.sionately than before; she had his child; he rented a small house for her in the suburbs and arranged his life so he could spend half his time in Dijon. Lucile knew everything but said nothing, out of shyness, scorn or indifference. Then the war . . .

And now, for a year already, Gaston had been a prisoner. Poor boy . . . He's suffering, Lucile thought, as the rosary beads slipped mechanically through her fingers. What was he missing most? His comfortable bed, his fine dinners, his mistress? She would like to give him back everything he'd lost, everything that had been taken from him. Yes, everything, even that woman . . . Realising this, realising the spontaneity and sincerity of this feeling, she also realised how very empty was her heart; it had always been empty-empty of love, empty of jealous hatred. Sometimes her husband treated her harshly. She forgave him his infidelities, but he had never forgotten his father-in-law's bad investments. She could hear the words ringing in her ears, which more than once had made her feel he'd slapped her face: "Imagine if I'd known there wasn't any money!"

She lowered her head. But no-there was no resentment left in her. What her husband had undoubtedly been through since the defeat-the recent battles, flight, capture by the Germans, forced marches, cold, hunger, death all around him, and now being thrown into a prisoner-of-war camp-all that wiped out everything else. "Please just let him come home to everything he loved: his bedroom, his fur-lined slippers, strolling in the garden at dawn, fresh peaches picked from the trellis, his favourite dishes, great roaring fires, all his pleasures, even the ones I don't know about but can imagine, please give them back to him. I don't ask anything for myself. I just want to see him happy. As for me . . ."

Lost in thought, she let the rosary slip from her fingers and fall to the ground; she realised everyone was standing up, Vespers was over.

Outside, the Germans were standing around in the square. The sunlight glinting off the silver stripes on their uniforms, their light-coloured eyes, their blond hair and their metal belt buckles gave a feeling of cheerfulness, energy and new life to the dusty spot in front of the church which was enclosed within high walls (the remains of ancient ramparts). The Germans were exercising their horses. They had set up a dining area outside: planks of wood the local carpenter had meant to use to make coffins formed a table and benches. The men ate and looked at the townspeople with amused curiosity. You could tell that eleven months of occupation hadn't yet made them blase. They regarded the French with the same cheerful surprise as in the early days: they found them odd, strange; they couldn't get used to how fast they spoke; they tried to work out whether this defeated people hated them, tolerated them or liked them . . . They smiled from afar at the young girls and the young girls walked by, proud and scornful-just like on the first day! So the Germans looked down at the crowd of kids around their knees: all the village children were there, fascinated by the uniforms, the horses, the high boots. However loudly their mothers called them, they wouldn't listen. They furtively touched the heavy material of the soldiers' jackets with their dirty fingers. The Germans beckoned to them and filled their hands with sweets and coins.

It felt like a normal, peaceful Sunday. The Germans added a strange note to the scene, but the essential remained unchanged, thought Lucile. There had been some upsetting moments; some of the women (the mothers of prisoners like Madame Angellier or widows from the other war) had hurried home, closed their windows and drawn their curtains so they wouldn't have to see the Germans. In small, dark bedrooms, they cried as they reread old letters; they kissed yellowing photographs draped with black crepe and decorated with red, white and blue ribbons . . . But just like every Sunday, the young women gathered in the village square to chat. They weren't going to miss out on an afternoon when they didn't have to work, a holiday, just because of the Germans; they had on their new hats: it was Easter Sunday. Furtively and with inscrutable faces, the men studied the Germans; it was impossible to tell what they were thinking. One German went up to a group of them and asked for a light; they gave him one; they responded to his salute warily; he went away; the men continued talking about the price of cattle. As on every Sunday, the notary went over to the Hotel des Voyageurs to play cards. Some families were returning from their weekly visit to the cemetery-an almost pleasurable outing in a village where there was nothing much to do: they went in a group; they picked bunches of flowers between the graves. The teaching nuns brought the children out of the church; they made their way through the soldiers; they were impa.s.sive beneath their wimples.

"Will they be here long?" murmured the tax inspector to the court clerk, pointing to the Germans.

"Three months, I've heard," he whispered back.

The tax inspector sighed. "That'll force prices up." And, with a mechanical gesture, he rubbed the hand that had been lacerated by a sh.e.l.l explosion in 1915.

Then they changed the subject. The bells that had been ringing since the end of Vespers grew fainter; the final low chimes faded in the evening air.

To get home, the Angellier ladies took a winding lane; Lucile knew its every stone. They walked in silence, responding to greetings with a nod of the head. Madame Angellier was not liked by the villagers, but they felt sorry for Lucile-because she was young, because her husband was a prisoner of war and because she wasn't stuck-up. They sometimes went to ask her opinion about educating their children, about a new blouse, or about how to send a package to Germany. They knew there was an enemy officer lodging at their home-they had the most beautiful house in the village-and they expressed sympathy that they too had to be subjected to the law like everyone else.

"Well, you've certainly got a good one," whispered the dressmaker as she pa.s.sed them.

"Let's hope they'll be on their way soon," said the chemist.

And a little old lady who was trotting along behind a goat with a soft white coat stood on tiptoe to whisper to Lucile, "I've heard they're all bad and evil, and that they're causing misery to all us poor people."

The goat gave a jump and b.u.t.ted a German officer's long grey cape. He stopped, laughed and wanted to stroke it. But the goat ran off; the frightened little old lady disappeared, and the Angellier ladies closed the door of their house behind them.

4.

The house was the most beautiful for miles. A hundred years old, it was long, low and made of porous yellow stone that in sunlight took on the colour of golden bread. The windows that gave on to the street (those of the most elegant rooms) were carefully sealed, their shutters closed and protected against burglars by iron bars; the small window of the pantry (where they hid prohibited food in an array of different jars) lay behind thick railings whose high spikes in the shape of a fleur-de-lis impaled any cat who wandered by. The front door, painted blue, had the kind of lock you find on prisons and an enormous key that creaked dolefully in the silence. Downstairs, the rooms had a musty smell-that cold smell of an empty house-despite the constant presence of the owners. To prevent the draperies from fading and to protect the furniture, no air or light was allowed in. Through the panes of gla.s.s in the hall-the colour of broken bottles-the day seemed murky and overcast; the sideboard, the antlers on the walls, the small antique engravings discoloured by damp were drowned in the gloom.

In the dining room (the only place the stove was lit) and in Lucile's room, where she sometimes took the liberty of lighting a small fire in the evening, you could smell the smoky perfume of sweet wood, chestnut bark. The dining-room doors opened out on to the garden. It looked its saddest at this time of the year: the pear trees stretched out their arms, crucified on wires; the apple trees had been cut back, and their branches were rough, twisted and bristling with spiky twigs; there was nothing left on the vine but some bare shoots. But with just a few more days of sunshine, the early little peach tree in front of the church would not be the only one covered with flowers: every tree would blossom. While brushing her hair before going to bed, Lucile looked out of her window at the garden bathed in moonlight. On the low wall some cats were howling. Beyond was the countryside, its secret, fertile valleys thick with deep woods, and pearl-grey under the moonlight.

Lucile always felt anxious at night in her enormous empty room. Before, Gaston would sleep there; he would get undressed, grunt, b.u.mp into the furniture; he was a companion, another human being. For nearly a year, now, there had been no one. Not a single sound. Outside, everything was asleep. Without meaning to, she stopped and listened, trying to hear a sign of life in the room next door where the German officer slept. But she heard nothing. Perhaps he hadn't come back yet? Or maybe he was sitting still and silent like her? A few seconds later she heard a rustling sound, a sigh, then a low whistling, and she thought he was probably standing at the window looking out at the garden. What could he be thinking about? She tried to imagine but couldn't; in spite of herself, she couldn't credit him with having the thoughts, the desires of an ordinary human being. She couldn't believe he was simply looking out at the garden in complete innocence, admiring the shimmering fish pond where silent slippery shapes slid past: carp for tomorrow's dinner. "He's elated," she said to herself. "He's recalling his battles, reliving past dangers. In a moment he'll be writing home, to his wife, in Germany-no, he can't be married, he's too young-to his mother then, or fiancee, or mistress. He'll say. 'I'm living in a French house, Amalia'-she must be called Amalia, or Cunegonde or Gertrude" (she deliberately chose grotesque, harsh-sounding names). " 'Our suffering hasn't been in vain, for we are the victors.' "

She couldn't hear anything at all now; he wasn't moving; he was holding his breath. A toad croaked in the darkness. It was a soft, low musical note, a bubble of water bursting with a silvery sound. "Croak, croak . . ." Lucile half closed her eyes. How peaceful it was, sad and overwhelming . . . Every so often something came to life inside her, rebelled, demanded noise, movement, people. Life, my G.o.d, life! How long would this war go on? How many years would they have to live like this, in this dismal lethargy, bowed, docile, crushed like cattle in a storm? She missed the familiar crackling of the radio: when the Germans arrived it had been hidden in the cellar because people said they confiscated or destroyed them. She smiled. "They must find French houses rather spa.r.s.ely furnished," she thought, recalling everything Madame Angellier had crammed into wardrobes and locked away out of sight of the enemy.

At dinner time the officer's orderly had come into the dining room with a short note:

Lieutenant Bruno von Falk presents his compliments to Mesdames Angellier and requests they kindly give the bearer of this letter the keys to the piano and the library. The Lieutenant gives his word of honour that he will not remove the instrument or damage the books.

Madame Angellier did not appreciate this courtesy. She raised her eyes to heaven, moved her lips as if she were praying and acquiescing to G.o.d's will. "Might over right, isn't it?" she asked the soldier, who didn't understand French and so simply replied "Jawohl" "Jawohl" with a wide grin, while nodding his head several times. with a wide grin, while nodding his head several times.

"Tell Lieutenant von . . . von . . ." she mumbled scornfully, "that he is in charge here."

She took the two keys he wanted from her chain and threw them on to the table. Then she whispered to her daughter-in-law in a tragic tone of voice, "He'll be playing 'Wacht am Rhein' . . ."

"I think they have a different national anthem now, Mother."

But the Lieutenant didn't play anything at all. The deepest silence still prevailed. When the ladies heard the great courtyard doors slamming like a gong in the peaceful evening, they knew the officer had gone out and sighed with relief.

Now, thought Lucile, he's walked away from the window. He's pacing up and down. His boots . . . The sound of his boots . . . It would pa.s.s. The occupation would end. There would be peace, blessed peace. The war and the tragedy of 1940 would be no more than a memory, a page in history, the names of battles and treaties children would recite in school, but as for me, for as long as I live, I will never forget the low, regular sound of those boots pacing across the floorboards. Why doesn't he go to bed? Why doesn't he put slippers on in the evening, like a civilised person, like a Frenchman? He's having a drink. (She could hear the squirting of seltzer water and the faint jzz, jzz jzz, jzz of a lemon being squeezed. "So of a lemon being squeezed. "So that that's why we're short of lemons," her mother-in-law would have said. "They're taking everything from us!") Now he's turning the pages of a book. Oh, it's horrible, thinking this way . . . She shuddered. He'd opened the piano; she recognised the dull sound of the cover thrown backwards and the creaking of the piano stool as it swivelled. Oh, no! Really, he's not going to start playing in the middle of the night! True, it was only nine o'clock. Perhaps in the rest of the universe people didn't go to bed so early . . . Yes, he was playing. She listened, her head lowered, nervously biting her lips. It wasn't quite an arpeggio; it was more like a sigh rising up from the keyboard, a flurry of notes; he touched them lightly, caressed them, finished with a rapid, light trill that sounded like a bird singing. Then everything went silent.

For a long time Lucile sat very still, brush in hand, her hair loose over her shoulders. Then she sighed, thinking vaguely, It's such a shame! (A shame that the silence was so complete? A shame that the boy had stopped playing? A shame that he was here, he, the invader, the enemy, he and not someone else?) She made an annoyed little gesture with her hand, as if she were trying to push away great ma.s.ses of heavy air, so heavy she couldn't breathe. A shame . . . She climbed into the large, empty bed.

5.

Madeleine Sabarie was alone in the house; she was sitting in the room where Jean-Marie had lived for several weeks. Every day, she made the bed where he had slept. This irritated Cecile. "Why bother! No one ever sleeps here, so you don't need to put clean sheets on every day, as if you were expecting someone. Are you expecting someone?"

Madeleine didn't reply and continued, every morning, to shake out the big feather mattress.

She was happy to be alone with her little boy; he was feeding, his head against her bare breast. When she changed sides, a part of his face was as moist, red and shiny as a cherry, and the shape of her nipple was imprinted on his cheek. She kissed him gently. She thought now as she had before, "I'm glad it's a boy, men don't have it so bad." She dozed while watching the fire: she never got enough sleep. There was so much work to do; they hardly got to bed before ten, eleven o'clock, and sometimes they got up in the middle of the night to listen to English radio. In the morning they had to be up by five o'clock to tend the animals. It was nice, today, to be able to take a little nap. The meal was already cooking, the table was set, everything around her was in order. The faint light of a rainy spring day lit up the shoots in the vegetable plot and the grey sky. In the courtyard the ducks quacked in the rain, while the chickens and turkeys-a little mound of ruffled feathers-sheltered sadly under the shed. Madeleine heard the dog bark.

"Are they home already?" she wondered. Benoit had taken the family to the village.

Someone crossed the courtyard, someone who was not wearing the same kind of shoes as Benoit. And every time she heard footsteps that weren't her husband's or someone else's from the farm, every time she saw a strange shape in the distance, she would immediately panic and think: "It's not Jean-Marie, it can't be him, I'm mad to think it might be. First of all, he's not coming back, and then, even if he did, what would change? I'm married to Benoit. I'm not expecting anyone, quite the opposite, I pray to G.o.d that Jean-Marie never comes back because, little by little, I'll get used to my husband and then I'll be happy. But I don't know what I'm going on about, honest to G.o.d. What am I thinking? I am am happy." At the very moment she had these thoughts, her heart, which was less rational, would start beating so violently that it drowned out every other sound, so violently that she wouldn't hear Benoit's voice, the baby crying, the wind beneath the door; the uproar in her heart was deafening, as if a wave had washed over her. For a few seconds she would be about to faint; she would only come round when she saw the postman bringing the new seed catalogue (he'd been wearing new shoes that day) or the Viscount de Montmort, the landowner. happy." At the very moment she had these thoughts, her heart, which was less rational, would start beating so violently that it drowned out every other sound, so violently that she wouldn't hear Benoit's voice, the baby crying, the wind beneath the door; the uproar in her heart was deafening, as if a wave had washed over her. For a few seconds she would be about to faint; she would only come round when she saw the postman bringing the new seed catalogue (he'd been wearing new shoes that day) or the Viscount de Montmort, the landowner.

"Well, Madeleine, aren't you going to say h.e.l.lo?" Mother Sabarie would say, surprised.

"I think I woke you up," the visitor would say, as she feebly apologised and mumbled, "Yes, you frightened me . . ."

Woke her up? From what dream?

Now she felt that emotion within her once more, that secret panic caused by the stranger who had entered (or was coming back into) her life. She half sat up in the chair, stared at the door. Was it a man? It was a man's footsteps, that light cough, the aroma of fine cigarettes . . . A man's hand, pale, well-manicured, was on the latch, then a German uniform came into sight. As always, when it wasn't Jean-Marie, her disappointment was so intense that she sat dazed for a moment; she didn't even think of b.u.t.toning up her blouse. The German was an officer-a young man who couldn't be more than twenty, with an almost colourless face and equally fair and dazzling eyebrows, hair and small moustache. He looked at her bare bosom, smiled and saluted with an exaggerated, almost insolent politeness. Certain Germans knew how to place in their salute to the French a mere show of politeness (or perhaps it just seemed like that to the defeated French in all their bitterness, humiliation and anger). It was not the courtesy accorded to an equal, but that shown to the dead, like the Presentation of Arms after an execution.

"Can I help you, Monsieur?" Madeleine said, finally b.u.t.toning up her blouse.

"Madame, I have been billeted on the farm," replied the young man, who spoke extremely good French. "I apologise for the inconvenience. Would you be so kind as to show me my room?"

"We were told we'd have ordinary soldiers," Madeleine said shyly.

"I am the Lieutenant who serves as interpreter to the Commandant."

"You'll be far away from the village and I'm afraid the room won't be good enough for an officer. It's just a farm, here, and you won't have any running water or electricity, or anything a gentleman needs."

The young man glanced around. He looked closely at the faded red tiles on the floor, worn pink in places, the big stove standing in the middle of the room, the bed in the corner, the spinning wheel (they had brought it down from the attic where it had been since the other war: all the young women in the area were learning to spin; it was impossible to find wool in the shops any more). The German then looked carefully at the framed photographs on the walls, the certificates for agricultural prizes, the empty little niche that used to hold a statue of a saint, surrounded by a delicate frieze now half worn away; finally, his eyes fell once more upon the young farm girl holding the baby in her arms. He smiled. "You needn't worry about me. This will do nicely."

His voice was strangely harsh and resonant, like metal being crushed. His steel-grey eyes, sharply etched face and the unusual shade of his pale-blond hair, which was as smooth and bright as a helmet, made this young man's appearance striking to Madeleine; there was something about his physique that was so perfect, so precise, so dazzling, she thought to herself, that he reminded her more of a machine than a human being. In spite of herself, she was fascinated by his boots and belt buckle: the leather and steel seemed to sparkle.

"I hope you have an orderly," she said. "No one here could make your boots shine like that."

He laughed and said again, "You needn't worry about me."

Madeleine had put her son in his crib. She could see the German's reflection in the mirror above the bed. She saw the way he looked at her and smiled. She was afraid and thought, "What will Benoit say if he starts chasing after me?" She didn't like this young man, he frightened her a bit, yet despite herself she was attracted by a certain resemblance to Jean-Marie-not to Jean-Marie as a man, but as a member of a higher social cla.s.s, a gentleman. Both were carefully shaven, well brought-up, with pale hands and delicate skin. She realised the presence of this German in the house would be doubly painful for Benoit: because he was the enemy but also because he wasn't a peasant like him-because he hated whatever aroused Madeleine's interest in and curiosity about the upper cla.s.ses to such an extent that for a while now, he had been s.n.a.t.c.hing fashion magazines from her hands; and if she asked him to shave or change his shirt, he'd say, "Better get used to it. You married a farmer, a country b.u.mpkin, I got no fancy manners" with such resentment, such deep-seated jealousy that she knew who had given him these ideas, that Cecile must have been talking. Cecile wasn't the same with her as before, either . . . She sighed. So many things had changed since the beginning of this d.a.m.ned war.

"I'll show you your room," she said finally.

But he said no; he took a chair and sat down near the stove.

"In a minute, if that's all right with you. Let's get to know each other. What's your name?"

"Madeleine Sabarie."

"I'm Kurt Bonnet" (he p.r.o.nounced it Bonnett). "It's a French name, as you can see. My ancestors must have been your countrymen, chased out of France under Louis XIV. There is French blood in Germany, and French words in our language."

"Oh?" she said indifferently.

She wanted to say, "There's German blood in France too, but in the earth and since 1914." But she didn't dare: it was better to say nothing. It was strange: she didn't hate the Germans-she didn't hate anyone-but the sight of that uniform seemed to change her from a free and proud person into a sort of slave, full of cunning, caution and fear, skilful at cajoling the conquerors while hissing "I hope they drop dead!" behind closed doors, as her mother-in-law did; she she at least didn't pretend, or act nice to the conquerors, Madeleine thought. She was ashamed of herself; she frowned, put on an icy expression and moved her chair away so the German would understand she didn't want to talk to him any more and she didn't like him being there. at least didn't pretend, or act nice to the conquerors, Madeleine thought. She was ashamed of herself; she frowned, put on an icy expression and moved her chair away so the German would understand she didn't want to talk to him any more and she didn't like him being there.

He, however, looked at her with pleasure. Like many young men subjected to strict discipline from childhood, he had acquired the habit of bolstering his ego with outward arrogance and stiffness. He believed that any man worthy of the name should be made of steel. And he had behaved accordingly during the war, in Poland and France, and during the occupation. But far more than any principles, he obeyed the impulsiveness of youth. (When she first saw him, Madeleine thought he was twenty. He was even younger: he had turned nineteen during the French campaign.) He behaved kindly or cruelly depending on how people and things struck him. If he took a dislike to someone, he made sure he hurt them as much as possible. During the retreat of the French army, when he was in charge of taking the pathetic herd of prisoners back to Germany, during those terrible days when he was under orders to kill anyone who was flagging, anyone who wasn't walking fast enough, he shot the ones he didn't like the look of without remorse, with pleasure even. On the other hand he would behave with infinite kindness and sympathy towards certain prisoners who seemed likeable to him, some of whom owed him their lives. He was cruel, but it was the cruelty of adolescence, cruelty that results from a lively and subtle imagination, focused entirely inward, towards his own soul. He didn't pity the suffering of others, he simply didn't see them: he saw only himself.

Mixed in with this cruelty was a slight affectation that was a product of his youth as well as a certain leaning towards sadism. For example, although he was harsh towards people, he displayed the greatest solicitude towards animals. It was at his instigation that the Headquarters at Calais had issued an order several months earlier. Bonnet had noticed that, on market days, the farmers carried their chickens feet tied and head down. "As a gesture of humanity" it was forthwith forbidden to continue this practice. The farmers paid no attention, which only increased Bonnet's loathing of the "barbaric and thoughtless" French, while the French were outraged to read such a decree beneath another announcing that eight men had been executed as a reprisal for an act of sabotage. In the northern city where he'd been billeted, Bonnet had only been friendly with the woman whose house he lived in because one day, when he'd been suffering from flu, she'd taken the trouble to bring him breakfast in bed. Bonnet had immediately thought of his mother, his childhood years and, tears in his eyes, thanked Lili-a former Madam in a house of prost.i.tution. From that moment on he did everything he could for her, granting her pa.s.ses of all kinds, coupons for petrol, etc.; he spent the evenings with the old hag because, he would say, she was old and alone and bored; though he wasn't a rich man, he brought her expensive trinkets every time he returned from missions to Paris.

These acts of kindness were sometimes the result of musical, literary or, as on this spring morning when he walked into the Sabaries' farmhouse, artistic impressions: Bonnet was a cultured man, gifted at all the arts. The Sabaries' farm, with its slightly damp, sombre atmosphere created by the rainy day, its faded pink floor tiles, its empty little niche from which he imagined a statue of the Virgin Mary had been removed during the last revolution, its little palm branch above the cradle and the sparkling copper warming pan half in shadow, had something about it, thought Bonnet, that reminded him of a "domestic scene" of the Flemish School. This young woman sitting on a low chair, her child in her arms, her delightful breast l.u.s.trous in the shadow, her ravishing face with its rosy complexion, her pure white chin and forehead, was herself worthy of a portrait. As he admired her, he was almost transported to a museum in Munich or Dresden, alone in front of one of those paintings that aroused within him that intellectual and sensual intoxication he preferred above all else. This woman could treat him coldly, even with hostility, it wouldn't matter; he wouldn't even notice. He would only ask of her, as he asked of everyone around him, to provide him with purely artistic acts of kindness: to retain the lighting of a masterpiece, with luminous flesh set against a background of velvety shadows.

At that very moment a large clock struck midday. Bonnet laughed, almost with pleasure. It was just such a deep, low, slightly cracked sound he had imagined coming from the antique clock with the painted casing in some Dutch Old Master, along with the smell of fresh herring prepared by the housewife and the sounds from the street beyond the window with its tarnished panes of gla.s.s; in such paintings there was always a clock like this one hanging on the wall.

He wanted to make Madeleine speak; he wanted to hear her voice again, her young, slightly lilting voice.

"Do you live here alone? Your husband must be a prisoner?"

"Oh, no," she said quickly.

At the thought of Benoit, a German prisoner who had escaped, she was afraid again; it struck her that the German would guess and arrest him. "I'm so stupid," she thought, and instinctively softened: she had to be nice to the conqueror.

"Will you be here long?" she asked in a frank, humble voice. "Everyone's saying three months."

"We don't know ourselves," Bonnet explained. "That's military life for you: in war, it all depends on orders, a general's whim or chance. We were on our way to Yugoslavia, but it's all finished over there."

"Oh? Is it?"

"It will be in a few days. In any case, it would be all over by the time we got there. And I think they'll keep us here all summer, unless they send us to Africa or England."

"And . . . do you like it?" said Madeleine, intentionally feigning innocence, but with a little shudder of disgust she couldn't hide, as if she were asking a cannibal. "Is it true you eat human flesh?"

"Man is made to be a warrior, just as woman is made to please the warrior," Bonnet replied, and he smiled because he found it comical to quote Nietzsche to this pretty French farm girl. "Your husband must think the same way, if he's young."

Madeleine didn't reply. Actually, she had very little idea what Benoit thought, even though they'd been brought up together. Benoit was taciturn and cloaked in a triple armour of decency: masculine, provincial and French. She didn't know what he hated or what he liked, just that he was capable of both love and hatred.

"My G.o.d," she said to herself, "I hope he doesn't take against this German."

She continued to listen but said little, straining all the while to hear any sounds on the road. Carts pa.s.sed by, the church bells chimed for evening prayers. You could hear the bells ring out one after the other across the countryside; first the light silvery note of the little chapel on the Montmort estate, then the deep sound from the village, then the hurried little peal from Sainte-Marie that you could only hear in bad weather, when the wind blew in from the tops of the hills.

"The family will be home soon," murmured Madeleine.

She placed a creamy earthenware jug of forget-me-nots on the table.

"You won't be eating here, will you?" she suddenly asked.

He rea.s.sured her. "No, no, I've paid to have my meals in town. I'll only have some coffee in the morning."

"Well, that's easy enough, Monsieur."

It was an expression they used a lot around Bussy. She said it in an affectionate sort of way, with a smile. It didn't mean a thing, though; it was a mere politeness and didn't actually mean you would get anything. A mere politeness and, if the promise wasn't kept, there was another expression ready and waiting, this time spoken with a tinge of regret and apology: "Ah, well, you can't always do what you want."

But the German was delighted. "How kind everyone is here," he said naively.

"You think you so, Monsieur?"

"And I hope you'll bring me my coffee in bed?"

"We only do that for sick people," said Madeleine ironically.