Suite Francaise (11 page)

They could smell smoke, very faintly, carried by the soft June wind.

After a while he began to wonder where their car was. Florence thought they’d left it near the railway station. Gabriel remembered seeing a bridge they could look for; the moon, magnificent and peaceful, lit their way, but all the streets in this small old town looked the same. Everywhere there were gables, ancient stone walls, lopsided balconies, dark cul-de-sacs.

“Like a bad opera set,” Corte groaned.

It even smelled of backstage: sad and dusty, with the faint lingering odour of urine. Sweat was running down his face in the heat. He could hear Florence calling from behind, “Wait for me! Will you stop a minute, you coward, you bastard! Where are you, Gabriel? Where are you? Gabriel, I can’t see you. You pig!” Her cries of rage rebounded off the old walls and their echo struck him like bullets: “Pig, you old bastard, coward!”

She finally caught up with him near the railway station. She leapt at him, hitting, scratching, spitting in his face while he shrieked and tried to fight her off. No one could ever have imagined that the low, weary voice of Gabriel Corte concealed such resonant, shrill sounds, so feminine and wild. They were both being driven mad by hunger, fear and exhaustion.

As soon as they saw that the Avenue de la Gare was deserted, they realised the order had been given to evacuate the town. Everyone else was far away, on the moonlit bridge. Only a few exhausted soldiers remained, sitting on the pavement in small groups. One of them, a very young pale boy with thick glasses, hauled himself up to separate Florence and Corte.

“Come on, Monsieur . . . Now, now, Madame, you should be ashamed of yourselves!”

“But where are the cars?” Corte shouted.

“Gone. They were ordered to leave.”

“But, but . . . by whom? Why? What about our luggage? My manuscripts! I am Gabriel Corte!”

“Good God, you’ll find your manuscripts. And I can tell you that other people have lost a lot more.”

“Philistine!”

“Of course, Monsieur, but . . .”

“Who gave this stupid order?”

“Well, Monsieur . . . there have been a lot of orders which were just as stupid, I’ll admit. Don’t worry, you’ll find your car and your papers. But in the meantime, you can’t stay here. The Germans will be here any minute. We’ve been ordered to blow up the station.”

“Where will we go?” Florence groaned.

“Go back to the town.”

“But where can we stay?”

“There are plenty of rooms. Everyone’s run off,” said one of the soldiers who had come up to them and was standing a few steps away from Corte.

The moon gave off a soft blue light. The man had a harsh, heavy face; two vertical lines cut down his thick cheeks. He put his hand on Gabriel’s shoulder and effortlessly spun him round. “Off you go. We’ve had enough of you, got it?”

For a second Gabriel thought he might jump at the soldier, but the pressure of that hard hand on his shoulder made him flinch and take two steps backwards. “We’ve been on the road since Monday . . . and we’re hungry . . .”

“We’re hungry,” Florence echoed, sighing.

“Wait until morning. If we’re still here we’ll give you some soup.”

The soldier with the thick glasses said again in his soft, weary voice, “You can’t stay here, Monsieur . . . Go on, off you go.” He took Corte by the hand and gave him a little push, just as you would send the children out of the drawing room when it was time for bed.

They went back across the town square, side by side now and dragging their weary legs; their anger had subsided and with it the nervous energy that had kept them going. They were so demoralised that they didn’t have the strength to start looking for another restaurant. They knocked at doors that never opened and eventually collapsed on a bench near a church. Florence, wincing with pain, took off her shoes.

Night passed. Nothing happened. The railway station was still standing. Now and again, they could hear soldiers walking in the streets nearby. Some men passed by the bench once or twice without even glancing at Florence and Corte, huddled together in the silent shadows, leaning their heavy heads together. They could smell the stench of meat: a bomb had hit the abattoir on the outskirts of the town and it was on fire. They dozed off. When they woke up, they saw soldiers going by with tin dishes. Florence cried out in hunger and the soldiers gave her a bowl of soup and a bit of bread. Daylight returned and with it Gabriel recovered some dignity: he wouldn’t dream of fighting with his mistress over some soup and a crust of bread!

Florence drank slowly. Then she stopped and walked towards Gabriel. “You have the rest,” she said to her lover.

“No, no, there’s barely enough for you,” he protested. She handed him the tin bowl of warm liquid that smelled of cabbage. Trembling, he gripped it with both hands and, placing his mouth at the edge of the bowl, wolfed it down in big gulps, barely stopping to catch his breath. When he had finished, he gave a happy sigh.

“Better?” a soldier asked.

They recognised the man who’d chased them away from the railway station the night before, but the dawn light softened his fierce centurion’s face. Gabriel remembered he had some cigarettes in his pocket and offered them to him. The two men smoked for a while without speaking, while Florence tried in vain to get her shoes back on.

“If I were you,” the soldier finally said, “I’d hurry up and get out of here ’cause the Germans are definitely going to show up. It’s a miracle they aren’t here yet. Still, they don’t have to hurry,” he added bitterly, “they’ve got it sewn up from here to Bayonne . . .”

“Do you think we have any chance?” Florence asked shyly.

The soldier didn’t answer and suddenly left. They left too, hobbling along, heading straight for the outskirts. Gradually, refugees began to emerge from the seemingly deserted town, weighed down with baggage. In the same way that animals separated in a storm find their herd when the storm has passed, they came together in small groups and walked towards the bridge; it was guarded by soldiers who let them pass. Gabriel and Florence followed. Above, the sky shimmered a pure azure blue: no clouds, no planes. Below, a beautiful glistening river flowed by. In front of them, they could see the road leading south and some very young trees with new green leaves. Suddenly the trees seemed to be moving towards them. German trucks and guns, covered with camouflage, were heading straight at them. Corte saw people ahead raising their arms and running back. At that moment the French soldiers opened fire. When the German machine-guns fired back, the refugees were caught in the crossfire. They ran in all directions. Some simply whirled round on the spot as if they’d gone mad; one woman climbed over the parapet and threw herself into the river.

Florence dug her nails into Corte’s arm and screamed, “Turn back, hurry!”

“But they’ll blow up the bridge,” Corte shouted.

Taking her hand, he propelled her forward and suddenly a thought shot through him, as strange, burning and sharp as lightning: they were running towards death. He pulled her close and, pushing her head down, covered it with his coat as you cover the eyes of a condemned man. Then, stumbling, panting, half carrying her, he ran the short distance to the other side of the river. Even though his heart was pounding in his chest, he wasn’t actually afraid. He had a passionate, urgent desire to save Florence. He had faith in something invisible, in a guiding hand reaching out to him, to
him,
weak, miserable, insignificant, so insignificant that destiny would spare him, as a wisp of straw sometimes survives a storm. They made it across the bridge, narrowly missing the advancing Germans with their machine-guns and green uniforms. The road was clear, death was behind them and suddenly they saw it—yes, they were right, they recognised it—right there, at the edge of a little country lane, their car and their loyal servants waiting for them. Florence could only groan, “Julie, thank God. Julie!”

To Corte, the voices of the driver and maid sounded like the low, strange noises you hear through a fog just before you faint. Florence was crying. Slowly, incredulously, painfully, Corte realised that he had his car back, his manuscripts back, his life back. He would no longer be an ordinary man, suffering, starving, both courageous and cowardly at the same time, but instead a privileged creature, protected from all evil. He would be—Gabriel Corte!

18

At last Hubert arrived at the Allier river with the men he’d met on the road. It was noon on Monday, 17 June. Volunteers had joined the soldiers along the way. There were policemen, members of the home guard, a few Senegalese, and soldiers whose defeated companies were trying in vain to regroup and who clung on to any little island of resistance with hopeless courage. There were also young boys like Hubert Péricand who’d become separated from their fleeing families or run away in the night “to join the troops.” These magical words had spread from village to village, from one farm to the next. “We’re going to join the troops, dodge the Germans, regroup by the Loire,” said hordes of sixteen-year-olds. These children carried sacks over their shoulders (the remainder of yesterday’s afternoon tea hastily wrapped up in a shirt and jumper by a tearful mother); their faces were round and rosy, their fingers stained with ink, their voices breaking. Three of them were accompanied by their fathers, veterans of ’14, whose age, former injuries and family situation had prevented them from joining up in September.

At the bottom of the steps that led down from a stone bridge sat the Commander in Chief of the battalion. Hubert counted nearly 200 men on the road and river bank. In his naïvety he believed that this powerful army would now confront the enemy. He saw explosives stacked up on the stone bridge; what he didn’t know was that there was no fuse to light them. Silently the soldiers went about their business or slept on the ground. They hadn’t eaten anything since the day before. Towards evening, bottles of beer were handed out. Hubert wasn’t hungry but the frothy, bitter beer made him feel happy. It helped him to keep up his courage. No one actually seemed to need him. He went from one person to the other, shyly offering to help; no one answered him, no one even looked at him. He saw two soldiers dragging some straw and bundles of firewood to the bridge; another was pushing a barrel of tar. Hubert grabbed an enormous bundle of wood but so clumsily that splinters ripped his hands and he let out a little cry of pain. Throwing it on to the bridge, he heaved a sigh of relief that no one appeared to have noticed, only to hear one of the men call out, “What the hell are you doing here? Can’t you see you’re just in the way?”

Wounded to the core, Hubert moved aside. He stood motionless on the road to Saint-Pourçain, facing the river, and watched the incomprehensible actions of the soldiers: the straw and the wood had been doused in tar and placed on the bridge next to a fifty-litre drum of petrol; by using a seventy-five-millimetre gun to detonate the explosives, they were counting on this barricade to hold back the enemy troops.

And so the rest of the day went by, then the night and the entire next morning. The hours of boredom felt strange and incoherent, like a fever. Still nothing to eat, nothing to drink. Even the young boys from the countryside lost their fresh complexions. Pale with hunger, blackened by dust, hair dishevelled, eyes burning, a sad and stubborn expression on their faces, they seemed suddenly older.

It was two o’clock when the first Germans came into sight on the other side of the river. Their motor convoy had come through Paray-le-Monial that very morning. Dumbfounded, Hubert watched them head towards the bridge at incredible speed, like a wild, warlike streak of lightning searing through the peaceful countryside. It only lasted a second: a gunshot set off the barrels of explosive forming the barricade. Debris from the bridge, the vehicles and their drivers all fell into the river. Hubert saw soldiers running ahead.

“This is it! We’re attacking,” he thought. He got goose bumps and his throat went dry, like when he was a child and heard the first strains of military music in the street. He hurled himself towards the straw and wood barricade just as it was being set on fire. The black smoke from the tar filled his nose and mouth. Behind this protective wall, machine-guns were holding back the German tanks. Choking, coughing, sneezing, Hubert crawled a few steps backwards. He was in despair. He had no weapon. All he could do was stand there. They were fighting and he just stood there, arms folded, inert, useless. He felt a little better when he saw that all around him they were taking the enemy’s attack without fighting back. He considered this a complex tactical manoeuvre until he realised that the men had almost no ammunition. “Nevertheless,” he thought, “if we’ve been left here it’s because we’re needed, we’re useful, we’re defending the bulk of the French army, for all we know.” At every moment he expected to see more troops appearing on the road to Saint-Pourçain. “We’re here, lads,” they’d shout, “don’t worry! We’ll beat them!”—or some other warlike cry. But no one came.

Nearby he saw a man, his head covered in blood, stumble like a drunkard into a thicket; he sat there between the branches in a bizarre and uncomfortable position, his knees folded under him, his chin resting on his chest. He heard an officer shouting angrily, “No doctors, no nurses, no ambulances! What are we supposed to do?”

“There’s a beat-up ambulance in the garden of the toll-house,” someone replied.

“What am I supposed to do with that, for God’s sake?” the officer repeated. “Forget it.”

The shells had set fire to a part of the town. In the splendid June light, the flames took on a transparent pink colour; a plume of smoke drifted up to the sky, flecked with gold by the sunlight, tinged with sulphur and ash.

“Well, they’re off,” a soldier said to Hubert, pointing to the machine-gunners who were abandoning their post on the bridge.

“But why?” Hubert shouted, dismayed. “Aren’t they going to keep fighting?”

“With what?”

This is a disaster, thought Hubert with a sigh. This is defeat! I am here, watching an enormous defeat, worse than Waterloo. We are all lost. I’ll never see Mother or any of my family again. I’m going to die. He felt doomed, numb to everything around him, in a terrible state of exhaustion and despair. He didn’t hear the order to retreat. He saw men running through the machine-gun fire. Rushing forward, he climbed over a wall into a garden where a baby’s pram still stood in the shade. The battle wasn’t over. Without tanks, without weapons, without ammunition, they were still trying to defend a few square metres of ground, a bridgehead, while from all directions the German conquerors were sweeping through France.