Paris: The Novel (99 page)

“Which he delivered?”

“No. He said that the French had captured them too.”

“So who got the supplies in the end?”

“The French. But they had to pay for them. He sold the same goods four times.”

“At least we got them in the end.”

“But it’s criminal.”

“By Gérard’s standards, one might say it was patriotic. The Germans paid twice and got nothing.”

“God knows what else he did that I don’t know about. The question is, what do I do? I’d like to do something for the French.”

“The first thing is that you must not say a word about shipments. Not a word. It will never be discovered now, and does nothing but bring his memory and our name into disrepute. Think of his widow and his children. You should burn the records straightaway. Give them to me and I’ll burn them. Then forget about it. By all means find any way you can to contribute to our war effort. You will be thanked, and that is good. After all, you had no part in the business, and I know that you would never have done such a thing.”

“I’m just shocked.”

“You said there were two items of bad news. What is the other?”

“Joséphine. The store. It’s losing money. In fact, it has been since the war began. Gérard always told me that we were breaking even. But he was lying. I was running it, but I left the financial side to him. I feel a fool.”

“I’m not surprised in the least. A war isn’t the best time to sell fashion goods. Money’s tight.”

“We still made sales. Dropped our prices, changed the merchandise, operated only part of the store. But it seems we lost money. Why didn’t he tell me?”

“It was the price he thought he needed to pay to keep you in the business. Thank God he did. We need you there now.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Yes you do. Sell it or close it.”

“But that’s terrible. Think of Father. It would break his heart.”

“He’s a businessman. He’ll understand. All he wants to do now is enjoy his old age in Fontainebleau.”

“But I can’t run a wholesale business.”

“You must. Gérard has two daughters and a son, who will be conscripted any minute. You must do it for them. It’s your duty.”

“But my talents …”

“Will have to wait. I love you, Marc, but you must continue to be unselfish. Your family has given you all the good fortune you have. You said you wanted to pay your country back for Gérard’s theft. Good. And you must pay the family back for your good fortune.”

“I don’t particularly like Gérard’s children.”

“I couldn’t care less. Marc, when I depart, I have always intended that you should be my heir. Who else would I leave all these paintings to? But if you won’t do what you should, then you are no better than your brother, and I shall leave everything to a museum.”

“I thought you were more spiritual.”

“I am very spiritual. Others are dying at the front. Be grateful that your duty is, by comparison, so easy.”

Marc sighed.

“I was afraid you’d say something like that,” he said.

Le Sourd had no doubt about his fate. He was going to be shot. He’d written two letters to his son. One which the censors might see. The second, of which he made three copies, was given to three men in the regiment that he trusted.

The letter explained what he believed in and why he had acted as he did, but it did not enjoin his son to follow in his footsteps. It told him to make up his own mind what course to follow when he became a man, and to think only of his mother and her welfare until then.

He’d never made any secret of the fact that he was a socialist. There had been no need. There were plenty of good trade union men in the army, and most of them had socialist leanings, at the least.

“We need to fight the German Empire,” he would tell his comrades, “but it was the capitalist class that got us into this mess, and when the workers sweep them away, the need for wars will end.”

Since he was older than the other men, they began to call him Papa. Even the sergeants called him that sometimes. His job in the printer’s and his reading had left him more literate than most. If a young fellow was struggling with a letter home, he’d often come to Le Sourd to help him straighten it out grammatically, or provide the words he was searching for. Sometimes, he would do more. When young Pierre Gascon was killed at Verdun, along with his lieutenant and captain, it was Le Sourd who wrote a letter to his parents about the young man’s valor and his other good qualities.

But he never lost sight of his ultimate goal, and he watched for opportunities. Indeed, the war itself, with its massive casualties, was an opportunity. If this senseless carnage and destruction were the result of the present world order, didn’t that show that it was time for a change? Wasn’t
the capitalist world demonstrating that it was a heartless consumer of lives, whose inherent contradictions would lead it to destroy itself? He had brought quite a number of the men around to his point of view.

He suspected that he’d even got through to an officer once. “Well, Papa Le Sourd,” the captain had remarked to him in a friendly way, “you think the workers of the world could organize this war better?”

“The question,
mon capitaine
,” he’d replied, “is whether they could do worse.”

The officer had laughed, and said nothing more. But Le Sourd suspected that, in secret, the captain didn’t disagree.

By 1916 he’d been promoted to corporal. His captain had once asked him if he’d like to be a sergeant, but he’d said no. That would be yielding to the system too much.

Meanwhile, he’d been receiving literature regularly from Paris. Some were permitted newspapers, others were more private communications.

And then, in 1917, had come the electrifying news from Russia. The army had mutinied. It was a revolution.

The socialists were astonished. The revolution was supposed to begin in the industrialized countries, where there was an urban proletariat, not in backward Russia. Evidently the war had been the catalyst. And if in Russia, why not elsewhere? A stream of literature began to reach Le Sourd from Paris. All along the Western Front, other men like himself were being alerted. For the committed men of the Left, a new excitement was in the air.

And then, at the end of May, after the disaster of the Nivelle Offensive, the news had come. The authorities might be able to keep it hidden from the outside world, but they couldn’t stop the rumors spreading along the front. They spread like wildfire.

“There’s a mutiny. Whole regiments are leaving the front.” Ten, twenty, thirty thousand men had marched to the rear and refused to go back to their posts. The conditions were terrible. The direction of the war was completely incompetent. The slaughter was senseless. All along the line, troops that had been in the towns behind the line were refusing to obey orders. Just after the start of June, an entire regiment had taken charge of itself and marched back to occupy the little town Missy-aux-Bois which it was holding for itself.

An infantry brigade had looted a supply column and was returning to Paris. A motor convoy had been taken over as well.

They had been here at the front when the mutiny had come to their regiment. It had started with a small incident. The enemy trenches had a number of outworks at that point in the line, and a sniper had taken possession of one of them. During the last few days he had managed to wound one fellow and kill another. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to take him out, if possible. So one of the lieutenants had gone to the section of trench just beyond Le Sourd’s, and told a corporal and a few of his men that he’d lead them on a reconnoiter that night, to see what could be done about the sniper.

And whether he’d been planning to, or whether it just came to him at that moment, the corporal had said no.

“Don’t refuse an order,” the lieutenant had said to him quite kindly. But it hadn’t done any good.

“I refuse. I’ve had enough,” the corporal replied, and the private beside him had ceremoniously laid down his rifle and said, “Me too. No more orders. It’s finished.” There had been a murmur of assent from all the men around.

And that was it. A mutiny.

Le Sourd had wasted no time. Within minutes, he was distributing leaflets down the line. In his own section of the trench, he had the men singing “The Internationale.” One young man improvised a red flag and hoisted it over the trench.

“The mutiny is just a start,” he told the men. “It will be nothing unless it leads to something with real meaning. France led the world with its Revolution. That was the beginning. But now we have the chance to take the next great step forward. This war has shown the absurdity of the capitalist world. Now is the time to join your fellow workers in Russia and all over the world. We want revolution and nothing less.”

For a few days, he thought it might work. Other units across the front also raised the red flag. If the mutiny had been complete, if the troops had turned and converged upon Paris, then who knew what might have happened?

But the French troops still loved their country. And the government for once acted wisely. Nivelle lost his command. And in his place they put a very brave and clever man.

Pétain.

General Pétain acted swiftly. Word went out at once to all the troops. Their grievances would be heard. Their tours of duty at the front were to be shortened, and there was to be more leave, forthwith. Last but not least: “The Americans will be with us soon. There shall be no new offensive until we have the support of American arms and men.”

With this promise, the mutiny of the French army was calmed, and everyone sat down to talk.

But the mutiny could not be ignored. Discipline must be restored. The chief culprits must face a court-martial. And each regiment where there had been a mutiny was told: “Choose the ringleaders only, and they’ll have a fair trial.”

Commissions were sent out to give guidance to each regiment, and to escort the culprits to trial.

Le Sourd was quite clear that he would be chosen. He was guilty of more than inciting mutiny. He’d encouraged the troops to overthrow the government itself.

And if he’d had even the faintest doubt on the outcome of the business, it vanished immediately as soon as he saw the leader of the commission ride up to the line.

It was Roland de Cygne.

Roland didn’t catch sight of Le Sourd. His mind was on the business at hand. When he’d been given his mission, his general had been extremely clear with him.

“My dear de Cygne, this must seem a wretched mission I am giving you, more suitable to a hangman or a jailer.”

“That is true,
mon général
.”

“Yet in fact, it is a mission of the utmost delicacy and importance. So first I am going to tell you a little secret. Pétain has been to see Haig, the general commanding the British forces. He has informed Haig that there have been some small mutinies, quickly contained, and that they only touched two divisions of the French army. Do you know how many divisions have in fact been affected?”

“No,
mon général
.”

“More than fifty.”

“Fifty?” Roland was thunderstruck. “That’s half the entire army.”