The Foundling's War (30 page)

‘Thanks. After my La Garenne experience …’

‘La Garenne’s a no-hoper, small fry. I don’t want to hear another word about him. He hasn’t managed to reopen his gallery and works as a broker now, running from one Paris dealer to the next. To half of them he swears he isn’t Jewish, to the other half he swears he is and that the racial laws have ruined him. No, truly, La Garenne no longer exists. I’m suggesting something much more serious, on Avenue Matignon: the Galerie Européenne, a front, an outlet for dealers who can’t work openly any more.’

‘I don’t know anything about painting.’

Palfy, as was his wont, appealed to the heavens.

‘I’ve never come across such an idiot! What about the dealers, the critics, the experts? At least you’ve got an excuse, being brought up by a gardener and a housekeeper while they were living in houses stuffed with pictures. I don’t know a thing about it either, but I pretend. Remember London and how I impressed Geneviève … On the
subject of Geneviève, I’ve got some news for you. She’s been seen in Switzerland, at Gstaad, where she’s pampering herself. The prince is dead. Apparently Salah has taken over the reins. Why are you making that face?’

However much he had anticipated the news, Jean was still shocked. He remembered his last meeting with the prince, who had shrunk from the light, ruling over a kingdom of a few files in a luxury hotel suite. The prince had shown him kindness without reason and a generosity that might have given a child a false idea of life. As for his mother, Geneviève, he found it hard to imagine what she would do without that protective shadow.

‘Would you like to see your mother again?’ Palfy asked anxiously.

‘Now that I know she’s my real mother, I’d say no. A woman brought me up. Her name was Jeanne Arnaud. She was good and not very intelligent. She got over her sorrows with an apple tart or a piece of bread and gooseberry jam. It may sound too simple, but there’s nothing better …’

Nelly appeared, beaming.

‘Jules-who, kiss me passionately and respectfully. I am joining the Comédie Française. Yes, it’s almost a nunnery. I’m giving myself to the great writers for three sous and five centimes. When I want a mink I’ll have it off with a sugar daddy – a proper one, a banker, not an ass like Dudu, who lives by swindling people. Kiss me – you’ll be my true love …’

True love? It was certainly a more agreeable prospect than being a sugar daddy to someone like Nelly. Palfy assured her that she had done the right thing and that Marceline would be proud of her and buy a season ticket for the classical matinées. They telephoned Madeleine, who was just as thrilled and invited them to drop in at Avenue Foch, where she was expecting a few people that evening.

‘I’m not entirely sure who,’ she said. ‘Blanche has got the list. She promises me it’ll be perfect …’

Blanche had always been a shadow: her parents’ shadow, La Garenne’s shadow, she was now Madeleine’s shadow with the intoxicating bonus that Madeleine listened to her and understood her. With some success she taught her to speak in a sort of sibilant accent, a refined voice in a world without an Oxford or Cambridge to set you apart from the crowd. Madeleine was making noticeable progress. She learnt the names in
Who’s Who
with childish application and memorised their relations to each other. It would not be long before she was word perfect on titles. She was reading Proust, without always understanding him (‘His story’s a bit muddled,’ she said, ‘but there are some lovely bits’), comparing herself to Madame Verdurin (whose common vanity had so far escaped her) and unsurprised to see her end up as the Princesse de Guermantes, an ascent she found perfectly natural for a woman who has encouraged poets and artists. On the matter of whether certain people were genuinely talented or not, Blanche could scarcely offer guidance. At most, all she could do was assert that such and such an Academician was well brought up, such and such a poet kept his nails clean, and such and such an actor had had the manners of a duke ever since he had played Victor Hugo.

A large part of Blanche’s time was spent in regulating who secured admittance at Avenue Foch and who did not. She had already eliminated Émile Duzan. She did not care for Oscar Dulonjé and only tolerated him because Julius Kapermeister saw in the former socialist a man potentially capable of leading a French political party of the force and importance of Nazism. Of Nelly she said, ‘She’s a
titi
.
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We need some. Kings had their fools who were allowed to mock them to make them forget all their flatterers and hangers-on.’ Her remarks about Jean were full of gentle innuendo: ‘Illegitimate? Not as illegitimate as
all that! There’s a little prince hiding in there.’ Palfy inspired mixed feelings. He might well be a Balkan baron, no one could tell. He had a certain class, that was not in doubt, but his cynicism was disconcerting: worldly people may be obnoxious or scornful, but rarely cynical.

‘Cynicism,’ Blanche said categorically, ‘is the sign of a vulgar soul. It should be left to starlets.’

Madeleine docilely took it all in. The luxury and wealth that surrounded her but did not turn her head was gradually erasing the distrust she had acquired over years of serving men’s more base needs. Blanche was also teaching her to be old-fashioned.

‘Only tarts follow fashion too closely,’ her companion declared. ‘Look at Madame du Chaloir. She’s forty-five. She’s been wearing the same turban for six years, and she’s an elegant woman, one of the most elegant in Paris.’

Madeleine changed her hairdresser and discovered that grey hair suited her, found a new dressmaker, a jeweller and a shoemaker who made thirty pairs of shoes of the same design Madame Chanel had been wearing for the last twenty years. She told Blanche that she wanted to add this new entourage to the guest list at Avenue Foch. Blanche dissuaded her.

‘If you like, make a day for them on their own, but don’t mix them with your bishops, generals and politicians, and definitely not with the writers, who are most of them as snobbish as concierges. On the other hand, there’s nothing to stop you asking Madame Michette. Her mistakes in pronunciation are some of the best moments of a dinner.’

It was true. One evening Marceline was distinctly heard rebuking the Duchesse de Pont-à-Mousson, who was injecting morphine at the table, through her dress to save time.

‘Madame, you’ll give yourself an abscess. And not just an abscess, but
delirium tray men’s
, and not just men’s but women’s too!’

The duchess, her gaze swimming in morphine, had stared in astonishment at this mysterious person whose voice appeared to be coming out of a thick fog.

‘You are a darling!’

Marceline, who was unaware of being a darling, nevertheless realised that her sudden sally had delighted the other diners. Very quickly Paris learnt that there was fun to be had at Madeleine’s. Some were envious, others jealous, but their spiteful remarks only enhanced the reputation of the soirées at the apartment of those who by now were known as ‘the Kapermeisters’. Julius found life splendid. His private business affairs that, like Rudolf von Rocroy, he took care not to neglect had put him in a very comfortable position, whatever the war’s outcome. He had always liked the French. Now he loved them.

‘Their frivolous side,’ he told Palfy, ‘is metaphysical, purely metaphysical, and that’s why the Germans like it so much, not having at all the same approach to life themselves. We’re here to make sure they don’t go too absurdly far on 14 July or the night of 4 August.
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But one’s forced to admit that if the French were not here to distract us, National Socialism would bore us all to death.’

‘The French frivolous? My dear Julius, you must be joking. They’re simply looking after number one. And to that extent they deserve better than to be treated as clowns by a German army which is in the process of getting a good hiding.’

The table went quiet. Guests studied their plates or took a long swallow of vodka or cognac. Julius gave a forced smile. In private he accepted such judgements with humility, though his deference was sometimes feigned. In public he was less flexible, despite wanting to be seen as liberal, fearing that, if he agreed, his words might be repeated in higher quarters.

‘Dear Constantin, you go too far and too fast. The Wehrmacht is organising itself with the thoroughness and care for which it is well known, to resume the fighting after the spring thaw. We have taken Ukraine. Without Ukraine Stalin is powerless. I don’t need to remind you that the Ukrainians have come over to our side. They are enlisting en masse in special German units, working in our factories and on our farms.’

Magnanimously, in order not to embarrass him further, Palfy concurred.

‘Very well! Let us say that the war’s outcome remains unpredictable.’

‘For you!’

In truth Julius was convinced that Germany was falling into an abyss, which was an excellent excuse for exploiting the position in which the Wehrmacht authorities had placed him. His wealth was already safely stashed away in Switzerland, Spain and Portugal.

‘For my children!’ he assured Palfy, to whom he entrusted these missions. ‘They find life boring in our dear old Germany. Their futures will be international, and as for me, I love only Paris and Frenchwomen.’

His wife, from whom he had lived apart for many years, had just died. Although neither man spoke of it, it was expected that he would marry Madeleine as soon as circumstances permitted. Hadn’t he bought a delightful country house for her at Montfort-l’Amaury?

This agreeable, cheerful, careless reality, so perfectly self-interested, masked another, less light-hearted, for the French who were not invited to the feast. The winter of 1941–2 was hard not just for the Wehrmacht. In France people’s reserves were running out, their clothes were wearing thin, and they were dying of cold. Their days, by the German clock, seemed shorter, as if life had shrunk, stifled by darkness. Uncertainty reigned. Posters announced the execution of hostages. People learnt that there were Frenchmen and -women who were disobeying the orders of the occupying power, and that that power was beginning to strike back. The question of where to shelter Claude became pressing. She had suddenly improved, almost inexplicably, and was getting up, dressing, looking after her son again, and wanting to leave Nelly’s studio. Nelly assured her that there was no hurry. It seemed out of the question to go back to Quai
Saint-Michel
, where it was more than likely that the trap was still waiting for her. The Gestapo’s French branch must have realised that Rudolf had taken them for a ride and were continuing to try to track her down.
The concierge, warmly congratulated by the police, was revelling in her importance. One morning, as soon as he had seen her leave for the market, Jean ran up to Claude’s apartment. Helped by Palfy’s chauffeur, he emptied the wardrobes and drawers. He felt wretched, as if he were violating her privacy, sweeping up the knick-knacks she treasured, a photograph album, her underwear, Cyrille’s favourite games. It was all stuffed into suitcases and taken down to the car. The question of where Claude could safely stay remained. Jean thought of Saint-Tropez, but she refused point-blank.

‘Without you? It’s out of the question. I’ve got Cyrille and you. I can’t live so far away.’

Jean travelled to Gif-sur-Yvette one afternoon, when he was certain not to bump into Laura. In shirtsleeves in his icy studio Jesús was painting a hill and a tree where they met the sky.

‘Jean, you are kind. You don’ forget me. We mus’ celebra’ that.’

His mood became less cheerful when he heard what had happened. Of course he was willing to look after Claude and Cyrille, but there was the question of Laura. Jesús admitted that he did not know Fräulein Bruckett’s feelings. They did not have long conversations and in bed they talked about other subjects besides politics. Nonetheless, he did not think that Laura was, in reality, quite such a simple person as she seemed. An ordinary secretary in the Department of Supply? It was too straightforward. She enjoyed unusual privileges in an administration that was used to calculating very finely. She owned a car, dined at the Kapermeisters’ and slept at Gif while her colleagues were billeted in a hotel on Rue de Rivoli. Jesús also confessed that he did not know what she was thinking, apart from the days when she arrived joyfully waving a letter from her brother at the front. None of this bothered him personally because he was Spanish, neutral, and bored stiff by politics. Even so, it was not certain that she could be
confided in blindly, as it seemed probable that her modest job was combined with a more important function. Half the Germans were watching the other half, who were watching them too. Everyone was playing hide-and-seek.

‘Listen,’ Jesús said, ‘we’ll try. Come tomorrow. It’s Christmas. No need fo’ explanations. Laura will find that natural. Then, well, we see …’

Nelly was leaving for the south-west to spend the holidays with her parents.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘my dear papa’s so happy I’m back at the Comédie Française, he begged me to come. My rehearsals start on the second of January. I shall submerge myself in nature. Maman has made a
confit d’oie
and pudding. We’re going to drink some of Papa’s reserves of Corbières with a cassoulet. Until you’ve tasted Maman’s cassoulet, you haven’t lived. One day, if you’re a very good boy, I’ll take you with me. This year you have to spend your Christmas with the love of your life, but don’t forget your girlfriend. And don’t worry about me: Maman warms my bed every night before I go to sleep. No need for a chap at all. No fucking under my parents’ roof is my motto!’

Palfy was leaving for Switzerland. Julius and Madeleine were going to Spain and Rudolf was returning to his wife in Berlin. Christmas was separating them all, as it did in peacetime. They were travelling in private carriages, sleeping cars. Madame Michette was the only one travelling third-class. They were preparing a surprise for her homecoming at the Sirène. After so much emotion and so many journeys she longed for a family atmosphere. As for the gallery whose management Jean was finally to take on, it would not open until the beginning of January. He was free.