Suite Francaise Part 19

12.

Lucile was surprised to see the postman coming from her house: she didn't receive many letters. On the hall table lay a card addressed to her.

12 rue de la Source, Paris (XVI) Madame, Madame, Do you remember the old couple you took in last June? We have thought of you often since then, Madame, and your kind welcome when we stopped at your home during that terrible journey. We would be so pleased to hear your news. Did your husband come home from the war safe and sound? As for us, we had the great joy of being reunited with our son. Do you remember the old couple you took in last June? We have thought of you often since then, Madame, and your kind welcome when we stopped at your home during that terrible journey. We would be so pleased to hear your news. Did your husband come home from the war safe and sound? As for us, we had the great joy of being reunited with our son. We send you our best wishes, We send you our best wishes, Jeanne and Maurice Michaud Jeanne and Maurice Michaud

Lucile was glad for them. Such nice people . . . They were happier than she was . . . They loved each other. They had faced such danger together, and come through it together . . .

She hid the card in her desk and went into the dining room. It was a nice day, in spite of the persistent rain. There was only one place set at the table and she felt happy again that Madame Angellier wasn't home: she could read while eating. She ate lunch very quickly, then went over to the window and watched the rain falling. It was the back end of the storm, as the cook put it. The weather had changed over the last forty-eight hours, transforming a radiant spring into a cruel, vague sort of season, where the last snow merged with the first flowers. The apple trees had lost all their blossom overnight; the rose bushes were dark and frozen; the wind had smashed flowerpots full of geraniums and sweet peas.

"Everything will be ruined! There'll be no fruit," Marthe groaned as she cleared the table. "I'll make a fire in here," she added. "It's so cold it's unbearable. The German asked me to make a fire in his room, but the chimney hasn't been swept and he'll just be breathing in smoke. Too bad for him. I told him, but he didn't want to listen. He thinks it's because I don't want to do it. As if we wouldn't give them a couple of logs after everything else they've taken from us . . . Listen, he's coughing! Good Lord! What a pain to have to wait on these Boches. All right, I'm coming, I'm coming!" she said in annoyance.

Lucile heard her open the door and reply to the irritated German, "Well, I tried to tell you! With this wind blowing, a chimney that hasn't been swept just pushes the smoke back inside."

"Well why hasn't it been swept, mein Gott mein Gott?" shouted the frustrated German.

"Why? Why? I don't know anything about it. I'm not the owner. You think with your war going on we can do what we like?"

"My good woman, if you really think I'm going to let myself be smoked out like a rabbit, you're very mistaken! Where are the ladies? If they can't provide a habitable bedroom, then they can let me move into the sitting room. Make a fire in there."

"I'm sorry, Monsieur. That's not possible," said Lucile, walking towards him. "In our provincial houses the sitting room is a formal room where no one sleeps. The fireplace isn't real, as you can see."

"What? That white marble monument with the carved cupids warming their hands?"

"Has never had a fire in it," Lucile continued, smiling. "But do come into the dining room, if you'd like; the stove is lit. It's true that your room is in a sad state," she added, looking at the waves of smoke pouring out of it.

"Oh, Madame, I nearly choked to death . . . Being a military man is clearly fraught with danger! But I wouldn't want to impose on you for anything in the world. There are some dusty cafes in the village where they play billiards amid clouds of chalk . . . And your mother-in-law . . ."

"She's away for the day."

"Ah! Very well then, thank you, Madame. I won't disturb you. I have important work to finish," he said, holding up some maps.

He sat down at the table and Lucile sat in an armchair by the fire; she stretched her hands out towards the warmth, occasionally rubbing them together absent-mindedly. "I have the mannerisms of an old woman," she thought sadly, "the mannerisms and the life of an old woman."

She let her hands settle back on to her lap. When she looked up, she saw that the officer had abandoned his maps and pushed back the curtain to look at the grey sky and the crucified pear trees.

"What a sad place," he murmured.

"Why should that matter to you?" Lucile replied. "You're leaving tomorrow."

"No," he said, "I'm not leaving."

"Oh! But I thought . . ."

"All leave has been cancelled."

"Really? But why?"

He shrugged his shoulders slightly. "No one knows. Cancelled, that's all. That's life in the army."

She felt sorry for him: he'd been looking forward to his leave so much.

"That's very annoying," she said compa.s.sionately, "but it's just been postponed . . ."

"For three months, six months, for ever . . . I'm most upset for my mother. She's elderly and frail. A little old lady with white hair and a straw hat; a gust of wind could knock her over . . . She's expecting me tomorrow night and all she'll get is a telegram."

"Are you an only child?"

"I had three brothers. One was killed in Poland, another died when we invaded France a year ago. The third one is in Africa."

"That's very sad, for your wife as well . . ."

"Oh, my wife . . . My wife will soon get over it. We got married very young; we were practically children. What's your opinion of people getting married after a two-week acquaintance on a trip round the lakes?"

"I have no idea! That doesn't happen in France."

"But it isn't exactly like it used to be any more, is it? When you were received twice by friends of the family and the next minute you were married, as your Balzac describes?"

"Not exactly, but it's not all that different, at least in the provinces . . ."

"My mother told me not to marry Edith. But I was in love. Ach, Liebe Ach, Liebe . . . You must be able to grow up together, grow old together . . . But when you're separated, when there's war, when there's suffering, and you find yourself tied to a child who is still eighteen, while you"-he raised his arms, let them drop again-"sometimes feel twelve and sometimes a hundred . . ." . . . You must be able to grow up together, grow old together . . . But when you're separated, when there's war, when there's suffering, and you find yourself tied to a child who is still eighteen, while you"-he raised his arms, let them drop again-"sometimes feel twelve and sometimes a hundred . . ."

"Surely you're exaggerating . . ."

"But I'm not. A soldier remains a child in certain ways and in other ways he's so old . . . He has no age. He is as old as the most ancient events on earth: Cain murdering Abel, cannibal rituals, the Stone Age . . . Let's not talk about it any more. Here I am, locked up in this tomb-like place . . . no . . . A tomb in a country cemetery, rich with flowers, birds and lovely shade, but a tomb nevertheless . . . How can you bear to live here all year long?"

"Before the war, we used to go out sometimes . . ."

"But I bet you never travelled, did you? You've never been to Italy or central Europe . . . only rarely to Paris . . . Think of everything we're missing . . . museums, theatres, concerts . . . Oh! It's really the concerts I miss most. And all I have here is a miserable instrument I dare not play because I'm afraid of offending your justifiable feelings as French people," he said resentfully.

"But you can play as much as you like, Monsieur. Look, you're feeling sad and I'm not very happy either. Sit down at the piano and play something. We'll forget about the bad weather, separations, all our problems . . ."

"Really, you'd really like that? But I have work to do," he said, looking at his maps. "Oh, well . . . You bring some embroidery or a book and sit next to me. You must listen to me play. I only play well if I have an audience. I'm truly . . . how do you say it in French? A 'show-off,' that's it!"

"Yes. A show-off. I compliment you on your knowledge of French."

He sat down at the piano. The stove purred softly, its heat filling the room with the sweet smell of smoke and roasted chestnuts. Great drops of rain streamed down the windows, like tears; the house was empty and silent; the cook was at Vespers.

She watched his slim white hands run across the keyboard. The wedding ring with the dark-red stone he wore made it difficult for him to play; he took it off and absent-mindedly handed it to Lucile. She held it for a moment; it was still warm from his hand. She turned it so it caught the pale-grey light filtering through the window. She could make out two Gothic letters and a date. She thought it was a love token. But no . . . the date was 1775 or 1795, she couldn't tell which. It was obviously a family heirloom. Gently she put it down on the table. He must play the piano like this every evening, she thought, with his wife at his side . . . What was her name? Edith? How well he played! She recognised certain pieces.

"Isn't that Bach? Mozart?" she asked shyly.

"Do you know music?"

"No, no! I don't know anything really. I used to play a little before I got married, but I've forgotten everything. I do love music. You're very talented, Monsieur."

He looked at her and said seriously, "Yes, I think I am am talented," with a sadness that surprised her. talented," with a sadness that surprised her.

Then he played a series of light-hearted, humorous arpeggios.

"Listen to this now," he said.

He started playing and speaking softly: "This is the sound of peace, this is the laughter of young women, the joyful sound of spring, the first swallows coming back from the south . . . This is a German village, in March, when the snow first starts to melt. Here's the sound of the stream the snow makes as it flows through the ancient streets. And now there is no more peace . . . Drums, trucks, soldiers marching . . . can you hear them? Can you? Their slow, faint, relentless footsteps . . . An entire population on the move . . . The soldiers are lost among them . . . Now there should be a choir, a kind of religious chant, unfinished. Now, listen! It's the battle . . ." The music was solemn, intense, terrifying.

"Oh! It's beautiful," Lucile said softly. "It's so beautiful!"

"The soldier is dying, and at that very moment he hears the choir again, but now it's a divine chorus of soldiers . . . Like this, listen . . . it has to be both sweet and deafening at once. Can you hear the heavenly trumpets? Can you hear the bra.s.s instruments resonating, bringing down the walls? But now everything is fading away, softening, it stops, disappears . . . The soldier is dead."

"Did you compose that piece? Did you write it yourself?"

"Yes. I intended to be a musician. But that's all over now."

"But why? The war . . ."

"Music is a demanding mistress. You can't abandon her for four years. When you return to her, you find she's gone." He saw Lucile staring at him. "What are you thinking?" he asked.

"I'm thinking that people shouldn't be sacrificed like this. I mean none of us. Everything has been taken away. Love, family . . . It's just too much!"

"Ah! Madame, this is the princ.i.p.al problem of our times: what is more important, the individual or society? War is the collaborative act par excellence, par excellence, is it not? We Germans believe in the communal spirit-the spirit one finds among bees, the spirit of the hive. It comes before everything: nectar, fragrance, love . . . But these are very serious thoughts. Listen! I'll play you a Scarlatti sonata. Do you know this one?" is it not? We Germans believe in the communal spirit-the spirit one finds among bees, the spirit of the hive. It comes before everything: nectar, fragrance, love . . . But these are very serious thoughts. Listen! I'll play you a Scarlatti sonata. Do you know this one?"

"No, I don't think so, no . . ."

The individual or society? she thought. Well, Good Lord! Nothing new there, they hardly invented that idea. Our two million dead in the last war were also sacrificed to the "spirit of the hive." They died . . . and twenty-five years later . . . What trickery! What vanity! There are laws that regulate the fate of beehives and of people, that's all there is to it. The spirit of the people is undoubtedly also ruled by laws that elude us, or by whims we know nothing about. How sad the world is, so beautiful yet so absurd . . . But what is certain is that in five, ten or twenty years, this problem unique to our time, according to him, will no longer exist, it will be replaced by others . . . Yet this music, the sound of this rain on the windows, the great mournful creaking of the cedar tree in the garden outside, this moment, so tender, so strange in the middle of war, this will never change, not this. This is for ever . . .

He suddenly stopped playing and looked at her. "Are you crying?"

She quickly wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Please forgive me," he said. "Music brings out the emotions. Perhaps my music reminded you of someone . . . someone you miss?"

In spite of herself she murmured, "No. No one . . . That's just it . . . no one . . ."

They fell silent. He closed the piano.

"After the war, Madame, I'll come back. Please say you'll let me come back. All the conflict between France and Germany will be finished . . . forgotten . . . for at least fifteen years. One evening I'll ring the doorbell. You'll open it and you won't recognise me in my civilian clothes. Then I'll say: but it's me . . . the German officer . . . do you remember? There's peace now, freedom, happiness. I'm taking you away from here. Come, let's go away together. I'll show you many different countries. I'll be a famous composer, of course, and you'll be as beautiful as you are at this very moment . . ."

"And your wife, and my husband, what will we do about them?" she said, forcing herself to laugh.

He whistled softly.

"Who knows where they'll be? Or us? But, Madame, I'm very serious. I'll be back."

"Play something else," Lucile said after a brief silence.

"No, enough. Too much music ist gefahrlich ist gefahrlich . . . dangerous. Now, you must play the society lady. Invite me to have some tea." . . . dangerous. Now, you must play the society lady. Invite me to have some tea."

"There's no more tea in all of France, mein Herr mein Herr. I can offer you some wine from Frontignan and some cakes. Would you like that?"

"Oh, yes! But please, don't call the servant. Let me help you set the table. Tell me where the tablecloths are. In this drawer? Allow me to choose one: you know we Germans are very bold. I'd like the pink one . . . no . . . the white one embroidered with little flowers. Did you embroider it?"

"But of course."

"The rest I leave to you."

"That's good," she said, laughing. "Where's your dog? I haven't seen him lately."

"He's away on leave: he belongs to the whole regiment, to all the soldiers; one of them took him with them, Bonnet, the interpreter, the one your country friend was complaining about. They left for three days in Munich but the new orders mean they'll have to come back."

"Speaking of Bonnet, did you talk to him?"

"Madame, my friend Bonnet is not a simple fellow. Until now, he's been having some innocent fun, but if the husband starts getting frustrated, he's capable of getting really involved. Schadenfreude, Schadenfreude, do you understand? He could even fall in love for real, and if the young woman isn't faithful . . ." do you understand? He could even fall in love for real, and if the young woman isn't faithful . . ."

"There's no question of that," said Lucile.

"She really loves that country b.u.mpkin?"

"Without a doubt. And don't think that all the women around here are the same just because certain young girls let themselves get involved with your soldiers. Madeleine Sabarie is a good wife and a good Frenchwoman."

"I understand," said the officer, nodding his head.

He helped Lucile move the card table over to the window. She put out some antique crystal gla.s.ses cut with large facets, the wine carafe with the gilt silver stopper and some small painted dessert plates. They dated back to the First Empire and were decorated with military scenes: Napoleon inspecting the troops, Hussars in gold brocade setting up camp in a clearing, a parade along the Champ-de-Mars.

The German admired the strong, bright colours. "What beautiful uniforms! How I'd love to own a jacket embroidered in gold like that Hussar!"

"Have some cakes, mein Herr mein Herr. They're home-made."

He looked at her and smiled.

"Madame, have you ever heard of those cyclones which rage in the South Seas? If I've understood what I've read, they form a sort of circle whose edges are made of wind and rain but whose centre is so still that a bird or even a b.u.t.terfly caught in the eye of the storm wouldn't be harmed; their wings would remain unruffled, while all around them the most horrible damage was being unleashed. Look at this house! Look at us about to have our wine from Frontignan and our cakes, and think of what's going on in the rest of the world."

"I prefer not to think about it," Lucile replied sadly.

Nevertheless, in her soul she felt a kind of warmth she'd never felt before. Even her gestures were more delicate, more adept than usual, and she listened to her own voice as if it were a stranger's. It was lower than normal, this voice, deeper and more vibrant; she didn't recognise it. Most exquisite of all was this sense of being on an island in the middle of the hostile house, and this strange feeling of safety: no one would come in; there would be no letters, no visits, no telephone calls. Even the old clock she had forgotten to wind that morning (what would would Madame Angellier say-"Of course nothing gets done when I'm away"), even the old clock whose grave, melancholy tones frightened her, was silent. Once again, the storm had damaged the power station; no lights or radios were on for miles. The radio silent . . . how peaceful . . . It was impossible to give in to temptation, impossible to look for Paris, London, Berlin, Boston on the dark dial, impossible to hear those mournful, invisible, cursed voices telling of ships being sunk, planes crashing, cities destroyed, reading out the number of dead, predicting future ma.s.sacres . . . Just blessed forgetfulness, nothing else . . . until nightfall, time pa.s.sing slowly, someone beside her, a gla.s.s of light, fragrant wine, music, long silences. Happiness . . . Madame Angellier say-"Of course nothing gets done when I'm away"), even the old clock whose grave, melancholy tones frightened her, was silent. Once again, the storm had damaged the power station; no lights or radios were on for miles. The radio silent . . . how peaceful . . . It was impossible to give in to temptation, impossible to look for Paris, London, Berlin, Boston on the dark dial, impossible to hear those mournful, invisible, cursed voices telling of ships being sunk, planes crashing, cities destroyed, reading out the number of dead, predicting future ma.s.sacres . . . Just blessed forgetfulness, nothing else . . . until nightfall, time pa.s.sing slowly, someone beside her, a gla.s.s of light, fragrant wine, music, long silences. Happiness . . .

13.