Cold Winter in Bordeaux (23 page)

‘You know it is. We both know it is. As for Father, poor man, he’s chained to a duty he no longer believes in. At least that’s how it seems to me. There’s our train coming in.’

They hadn’t spoken of Clothilde, though she was on the minds of both.

* * *

They were shooting pheasants. Jérôme was surprised. It seemed strange to be doing this in wartime. Sir Edwin had apologised.

‘It’s not a real shoot, you know. Just a rough one, walking up on the birds. You can’t get beaters now, you see.’

Jérôme had refused the offer of a gun, saying he wouldn’t know how, and been surprised to see that Max had one.

‘I love playing the English gentleman, ducky,’ Max said. ‘And actually I’m not bad with a gun. I once shot a coyote in Mexico.’

So Jérôme walked beside him, smelling the wet leaves and thinking how remote the war was. There was no wind and a mist rose from the river and hung over the edges of the stubble fields they crossed. There were very few birds.

‘Damned poachers,’ Sir Edwin said.

Jérôme wrote letters in his head. Darling Maman, you would be delighted if you knew where I am, safe in England and spending a few days in the sort of house that features in the novels you like to read. My host is a Member of Parliament. Henry James used to stay here sometimes and Turgenev once paid a visit. In the salon there’s a lovely Corot of cattle standing in a stream under willow trees. The war seems very far away … Léon darling, how I wish I knew where you are and how I wish you were with me now. I have been in no danger from Sir Pringle, as you call him – it should really be Sir Edwin, you know – because the American boy Max is here. It’s silly to speak to you of such matters when you are in danger every day. But of course you’ll never get this letter, it won’t even be written. It’s terrible to be here in comfort and even more terrible that I am so relieved that my courage hasn’t been tested and I’ve not been proved a coward. Unless it’s cowardly to be happy that I am not in danger, not even in much danger, I suppose, even if the Germans start bombing London again, which Sir Edwin says they’re no longer capable of doing in any force … Dear Alain, but here he could find no words. He was inferior to Alain and Alain knew it. Of course he was inferior to Léon too, even more inferior perhaps, because Léon being a Jew was in even greater danger than Alain, but Léon never made him feel inferior because he had chosen him to confide in and he knew all the worst that Léon had undergone … Dear Michel, I know you have no time for me, but I can’t stop thinking about you. There was a moment once when our bare arms brushed against each other, and another on the beach when you asked me to oil your back and even as I did so I knew that the pleasure we both derived was different, yet for both of us perverse. Of course I know I’ll never do more than that and most probably never touch you again, perhaps never see you, except in my dreams or the minutes before I go to sleep.

There was a shot.

‘That’s my baby,’ Max said, and a large white spaniel lumbered off to retrieve the bird.

* * *

Alain rolled over in bed, stretched his hand out and felt no one there.

He sat up, wary, listening. The morning light was grey-yellow, fog hanging heavy over Lyon. There was silence in the apartment. The girl might have gone out. To do what? Silence was frightening. You imagine things in the silence – the boots on the staircase, the breaking open of the door, the gun in your face. He reached out for his trousers, and began to dress. Of course the girl wouldn’t have gone out – he hadn’t paid her anything last night, had he? – and she wouldn’t leave him alone in the apartment in case he scarpered, unless of course she had set off to betray him. But what reason might she have to think there was anything to betray? Where was his wallet? He searched his pockets, no sign of it, remembered he had put it under the pillow. Yes, still there, thank God, and no, he couldn’t have paid her. Had they agreed on a figure?

She came back. She was wearing only a slip which revealed most of her fat thighs, and was carrying a tray with two bowls of milky coffee.

‘That’s quick,’ she said, seeing him already half-dressed in shirt and trousers, though his feet were still bare. ‘You were sound asleep when I got up.’

She put her arm round him and kissed him on the cheek.

‘I’ve got an appointment,’ he said. ‘What’s the time?’

‘No idea. I never know the time. Drink your coffee, such as it is. It’s still early, must be, look at the light.’

‘It was dark all day yesterday, never light at all.’

‘So it was. Where are you from? You’re not Lyonnais, I can tell.’

‘Toulouse,’ he said. ‘The rose-pink city. I’m Toulousain.’

‘Are you now?’

The coffee was very weak.

‘Sorry I’m out of sugar,’ she said.

She lay down on the bed, her head propped against the pillows.

‘You were all right, last night. For a novice.’

‘What makes you think I’m that?’

‘A girl can tell. It was your first time, wasn’t it?’

He felt himself blushing, remembering Miriam and how she had spoken these same words to him.

‘Certainly not.’

‘Liar. Not that I care.’

He straightened his tie.

‘How much do I owe you?’

‘Nothing. You don’t owe me nothing. I’m not a tart, though I could tell from the first you thought I was. I picked you up because I liked the look of you. I sometimes do that, with boys. You here long?’

‘Just passing through,’ he said.

‘After your appointment?’

‘Yes, after it.’

‘Then back to Toulouse?’

‘Yes. Back to Toulouse.’

‘Pity, we could have had some fun. That’s how it goes. Give me a kiss.’

When he leant over the bed she held him tight and pressed her lips hard against his.

‘I don’t know your name,’ she said.

‘I don’t know yours.’

‘That’s how it goes,’ she said again. ‘Watch out for the Boches. They’re everywhere now. It’s not like it was when this was still the Free Zone. Take care, beautiful. You’re up to something, I can tell. I don’t know what it is and I don’t want to know, but take care. If you run into trouble, remember this address. It’s quite safe since we don’t have concierges here in Lyon, in case you haven’t noticed. My name’s Anne, by the way. What’s yours?’

‘You can call me Richard,’ Alain said.

‘Richard? Nice name. Why not?’

* * *

The girl was late. Léon’s instructions were clear: wait for no more than fifteen minutes after the appointed time, then leave and walk to the second meeting place, which was a brasserie on the corner of the rue St-André-des-Arts and the rue Dauphine. Get there exactly an hour later than the time fixed for the first meeting. He looked at his watch. The fifteen minutes were up, but he would give her another five. He lit a cigarette, folded his newspaper and thrust it into his coat pocket. He would have liked to dispose of it in a bin. He felt contaminated – there was an article denouncing ‘the Jewish plague’ which was altogether vile.

He was shivering and told himself it was only the cold. But he felt a tremor of fear. Of course there were innocent explanations. Anything might have detained her. The metro might have broken down for example. That sometimes happened these days on account of a power failure. But he feared for the worst. You always feared for the worst. He would finish his cigarette and then leave. Two policemen were approaching. He forced himself to sit still and not look at them. If the girl had been arrested and had talked, then it wouldn’t be just two cops – surely. But you couldn’t tell. That was the frightening thing, you never could tell. A middle-aged man on a bench on the other side of the statue pulled the brim of his Trilby hat down as the policemen passed. Then he got up and turned his back on them.

Léon dropped the stub of his cigarette and put his foot on it. He made himself walk slowly, as if he hadn’t a care in the world, and out of the gardens to cross the road and turn into the rue de Tournon. He had more than forty minutes to kill before he should be at the brasserie. Of course he might go there early and order something to eat. But instructions were instructions and anyway the idea of food made him feel sick. He turned into a bookshop. The woman at the desk paid no attention to him. He took a book from the shelves, but the print was a blur, and his hands were shaking.

‘I couldn’t help noticing you in the gardens.’

It was the man in the Trilby hat.

‘You looked anxious,’ he said, ‘when these policemen passed. Are you in trouble?’

‘Trouble?’ Léon said. ‘No trouble. Not that kind anyway.’

‘What kind then? I can’t believe somebody stood you up. Not a boy like you. If that’s the case, you must allow me to buy you a drink.’

Léon relaxed. Nothing to worry about, just an attempt at a pickup.

The man took the book from him.

‘Gide,’ he said. ‘You have good taste. I used to know him well when I was young. He’s got away, you know. I believe he’s in North Africa, Tunis, they say. What about that drink? What do you say?’

Léon smiled, ‘I can’t I’m afraid. I have an appointment.’

‘Shame. Some other time perhaps. Here’s my card. Do please give me a ring. I find you quite charming. What do you say to lunch tomorrow?’

Léon looked at the card. Joachim Chardy. He recognised the name, had read one of his novels. About delinquent schoolboys. He’d enjoyed it when he was – what? Fifteen? So why not?

‘I’d like that,’ he said.

‘I’m delighted. Shall we say Lipp at 12.30, best to be early these days. You know Lipp, I take it.’

‘I’ve never eaten there.’

‘Then it will give me great pleasure to introduce it to you.’

He stretched out his hand and touched Léon lightly on the cheek.

‘Charming,’ he said again, ‘I look forward to it. Now I mustn’t keep you from your appointment. But first, allow me to buy you this book.’

‘I’ve already read it actually.’

‘No matter. Let me inscribe it for you. But I don’t know your name?’

Léon glanced at the book Chardy was holding.

‘Olivier,’ he said.

It’s all right, nothing to be afraid of, he thought as he left the shop and descended the hill, just an old queen, normal life, and why not? Lipp, something to look forward to. But what if the girl didn’t come to the brasserie? If he was cut off? The ridiculous idea came to him that he could drop out, and, thinking this, he was ashamed. Then he remembered how Chardy had pulled the brim of his hat down over his eyes and got up and turned away as the policemen passed. What did he have to hide? Not, surely, just his interest in him? After all, he no longer looked like a minor, he was sure of that.

XXXIV

‘There is never,’ Lannes said, ‘well, only rarely, a single reason for a crime, not for murder anyway. Something like theft, that’s different, easily explicable. But murder, it’s the culmination of a series of other acts, of a variety of emotions, hopes, fears. Of course there may at the end appear to be a single motive, but the crime itself, the act of killing, is the product of a whole series of different and often conflicting motives which swirl around like a gusty wind and eventually impel the man or woman who is not yet a murderer to become that. This crime of which we spoke at our last meeting is a tangle of different motives. The dead woman, the victim, some would say she was asking for it – that’s been made clear to me. She did things which were not only illegal but wrong – you’ll admit there is a difference – the law’s one thing, morality another, I’m sure you understand that.’

He broke off, uncertain where his words were leading him, and traced a circle in the dusty earth with the point of his stick. It was extraordinary to be speaking like this to a German, but Schuerle made no immediate reply, merely smiled, encouragingly perhaps.

They were sitting again in the public garden, on the same bench actually, in sight of the fountain, and it was a beautiful clear winter morning, dew still sparkling, the sky cloudless, blue as the French rugby jersey which, in moments that now seemed fantasy, he had dreamt of seeing Alain wear. He lit a cigarette and drew the smoke, comfortingly, into his lungs.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘something of what the dead woman, Gabrielle, was engaged in, procuring girls, some of them minors, little girls, for the perverted pleasure of those whom she would have called her clients, a number of them, I’ve no doubt, men of position, perhaps in the general view utterly respectable, some of them anyway. There’s the possibility – I put it no more strongly than that – that some may have been members, officers even, of your army. That’s what you were afraid of, isn’t it?’

‘What my superiors were afraid of,’ Schuerle said.

‘Quite so, but which are the more guilty? The woman or her clients? And what brought her to it? Greed, resentment, innate viciousness? I don’t know. She didn’t like men herself, I’m sure of that. Was she abused herself as a child? It’s possible, even probable, I think. And the men themselves, her clients. What brings a man to seek that sort of pleasure? I know a couple of them, one her client some time back. A miserable feeble fellow, a drunkard too, terrified of his domineering father. Repulsive certainly – the sort who might inspire a man who thinks of himself as normal and decent with the desire to kick him, punch him in the face, beat him up. But pitiful too, pitiable even. Am I making sense?’

‘I was on the eastern front,’ Schuerle said, ‘from the first day of Barbarossa. I’ve seen Jews rounded up and shot and thrown into a pit. You may have heard of the Einsatzgruppen responsible for what, between ourselves, I don’t hesitate to call atrocities. Some of them were, as you say, normal and decent, not themselves monsters, good husbands and loving fathers. You don’t need to tell me that the nature of man is intricate, baffling. Do you know why I sought you out, superintendent, why I suggested we should meet and talk again? It’s because I felt a sympathy between us, and hoped that we might talk, as we are indeed talking, of these matters that I cannot keep to myself, and dare not speak of to my comrades. So I put myself in your power.’

‘As I am in yours,’ Lannes said. ‘Your predecessor, Kordlinger, nearly broke me, you know. If I hadn’t been supplied with information that would have damaged him … ’