Gorgeous East (20 page)

“Age?” Sergent-chef Pinard said.

“Thirty-two,” Smith said.

Pinard’s pencil broke as he tried to write this down and he swore—“
Tabarnak ostie!
”—as he took up another one, and Smith knew the man was a French Canadian. This curious curse—the altar, the host!—a relic of sixteenth-century French, was an archaic blasphemy against the Catholic Church that survived only in Quebec, a fact Smith remembered from an old Quebecois roommate who swore like that often and frequently. Anyway, genuine Frenchmen were not allowed to serve in the Legion.

“You’re from Quebec?” Smith said.

“The Legion is my country.” Pinard scowled. “That’s the first thing you’ll learn.”

“Sorry.”

The sergent-chef leaned back and studied him frankly. “Honestly, you are quite old,” he said. “Not too old, officially, but physical requirements are difficult.”

“I’m fit,” Smith said. “I run, I lift weights.”

“
On verra,
” the sergent-chef said. “We will see, Johnny.”

“How did you know my name?” Smith said, surprised. Johnny was what Jessica had always called him.

“
Les Americains
are all Johnny to us,” the sergent-chef said. “Because this is so often your name, John Smith, John Smith, everyone is John Smith.”

“But that
is
my name!” Smith insisted. “John Smith!”

“You see?” Sergent-chef Pinard grinned. Then, serious: “Now you must answer me carefully. What are you reasons to join Legion?”

Smith shrugged. “Nothing better to do,” he said.

“
Un femme?
” the sergent-chef suggested. “You join because of a woman?”

“More or less.”

“
Pardon?
”

“Yes, if you like.”

“I write here a woman.” Sergent-chef Pinard scribbled on the form. “It is an excuse, mostly bullshit, that my commanding officer will understand. But,” he added ominously, “the Deuxième Bureau will have words with you soon. And to them, I suggest to tell whole truth, because they will find out anyway.”

“What’s the Deuxième Bureau?” Smith said.

But Pinard didn’t respond. “
Passeport
,” he said, holding out his hand.

“I lost it,” Smith said.

“You must have a passport.” The sergent-chef tapped his pencil impatiently. “No passport, no Legion. You must go to American embassy, get a new passport, then you come back.”

“It could take weeks to get a new passport—” Smith began, horrified. “Here . . .” He scrambled for his wallet, which contained a variety of defunct credit cards, and pulled out his expired New York State driver’s license and his Stage Actor’s Guild card and pushed them across the table.

The sergent-chef rejected these items with a weary gesture

“I’ve got something else,” Smith persisted desperately, and he went rummaging through his duffel and found a creased professional CV. Stapled to this, a four-by-six glossy postcard bearing a headshot from shampoo commercial days that showed his hair at its shiny best, and a theatrical still from his LORT A gig at the Guthrie. He’d packed a few of these when he left New York; never knew when you might meet, say, Barbette Schroeder on the train from Düsseldorf to Hamburg. He laid CV and postcard out on the table.

“I’m pretty famous in the States,” Smith said. “Triple threat. I sing, I act, I dance. But mostly I sing.”

“You sing?”

“That’s right.”

Sergent-chef Pinard appeared interested suddenly. He looked at the glossy and looked at Smith, then picked up the CV and read it slowly, his lips silently forming the English words.

“You sing good?” He looked up.

“Very good.”

“What type of singing?”

“Musical comedy,” Smith said. “Broadway. Show tunes.”

“
Non, non
.” Sergent-chef Pinard waved impatiently. “Your voice.”

Smith thought about this for a moment, puzzled. “Tenor,” he said.

8.

A
series of dusty vestibules and cold waiting rooms led to a walled enclosure like a prison yard littered with large piles of old cobblestones. Across this vacant space and up a flight of worn marble steps rose the upper regions of the fort. Here spacious corridors intersected with more spacious corridors. Rows of white doors on either side were stenciled neatly with the names and ranks of the French officers now sleeping within. More military prints hung on the walls, these illustrating Napoléon’s famous victories: Austerlitz and the charge of the Cuirassiers; the stand of the Old Guard at Eylau; the Armée de l’Egypte drawn up in fearless, immobile ranks before the pyramids to meet the onslaught of ten thousand fanatical scimitar-wielding Mamelukes.

Smith and Sergent-chef Pinard came at last to a highly polished mahogany door. A gleaming silver nameplate read: COLONEL PHILLIPE DE NOYER—1ER RÉGIMENT DE MARCHE, LÉGION ÉTRANGÈRE. Hanging limply to one side, the regimental standard—a gold-fringed tricolor, its blue, white, and red bands overlaid with gold lettering spelling out the names of a hundred battles. Victory or defeat was all the same to the Legion; it only mattered that they had fought to the last possible drop of blood.

“Do you think this is a good idea?” Smith whispered. “Won’t the colonel be sleeping?”

But Sergent-chef Pinard shook his head. “
Colonel de Noyer ne dort jamais
,” he said. “He’s never asleep. Listen.”

Sure enough, from beyond the double doors now came the faint, melancholy tinkling of a piano. Smith recognized the piece; one of Satie’s quirky
Gymnopédies
, which to him had always sounded like a small, sad animal daintily picking its way across the keys.

The sergent-chef pressed an ivory buzzer. The piano went silent. They waited. Smith stood there, hands at his side.

“Me, I’m about to make officer,” Pinard said suddenly. “My commission arrived last week. Three months’ study at Saint-Cyr, then to Africa with the NU.”

“Well, congratulations,” Smith said, surprised at this confidence.

“But you’ll never make officer.” Pinard scowled, his voice getting harder. “You’ll fuck up first. Too old, too soft. And you’re”—a look of disdain came across his face—“an American. Americans are too soft for the Legion. You’re wasting your time here.”

This, coming from a
Canadian
, Smith thought. But he kept his mouth shut.

“You’re my last recruit forever,” Pinard continued. “Tonight’s the last night I have to take in all you shit-drunk idiots. So now I’m going to give you a piece of very good advice: Go home.”

“I can’t.” Smith shook his head stubbornly.

“It’s so bad, whatever you did?”

Smith didn’t get the chance to respond. At that moment, the colonel’s door opened and Sergent-chef Pinard snapped to attention.

“
À vos ordres, mon colonel!
” he announced to the pale man on the other side.

Colonel Phillipe de Noyer arched an eyebrow. “
Mets-toi au repos, Sergent-chef
.”

“
Je me mets au repos à vos ordres, mon colonel
,” the sergent-chef replied, standing at ease.

The colonel was a wiry, bleached-looking man, probably in his midfifties, but his hair had gone completely white. He wore a Hugh Hefner–ish smoking jacket over silk pajamas; his black velvet slippers, monogrammed in glittery gold thread, looked like a present from a wife or mistress. His white hair and fair skin made a sharp contrast with the dark circles under eyes that were almost colorless, as clear as clear blue water in sunlight.

“
Un vrai ténor, mon colonel
,” Sergent-chef Pinard said, and he handed over Smith’s rumpled CV and glossy. “
Enfin
.”

Colonel de Noyer glanced through this material quickly, then Smith felt the man’s colorless eyes upon him:

“
Oui, évidemment
,” the colonel murmured. “You do indeed look like an actor, Mr. Smith. But can you sing?” His precise Oxbridge-accented English suggested hours spent punting on the Cam, bank holiday weekends at country houses in Scotland. Just as there were Francophile Brits, there were Britophile Francs. The colonel was perhaps one of them.

“I’m what they call a triple threat,” Smith interjected brightly. “But I would classify myself as a singer who can act and dance rather than an actor who can dance and sing. There’s a distinction.”

A stunning blow to the solar plexus suddenly brought him to his knees. He looked up, gasping in pain, to see Sergent-chef Pinard looming over him, gone vicious in a split second.

“
On dit, ‘À vos ordres, mon colonel’! Mongol américain!
” the sergent-chef spit through clenched teeth. “
Et tenu au garde-à-vous!
At attention, idiot!”

But Colonel de Noyer intervened. “
Tu peux disposer!
” he commanded sharply.

Sergent-chef Pinard drew back instantly, saluted, and marched off. Smith, watching him go, hoped he would never see the man again. The colonel helped Smith to his feet.

“My adjutant is a highly disciplined Legionnaire,” he said. “And as such can’t tolerate anything less than crisp military behavior in his subordinates. I’m sure he forgot that you have yet to join our ranks officially. Allow me to apologize on his behalf for this unwarranted assault.”

“No, no, it’s O.K.,” Smith said, rubbing his gut.

“Should you persist in volunteering, you will most certainly receive harsher treatment, some would say sadistic treatment, at the hands of other NCOs much less humane than Pinard. Compared to most of them, he’s an absolute saint. I warn you, relentless and unfair punishments are usually handed out for the smallest infractions. But this is our way, the Legion way. In the Legion, brutality for the sake of discipline, for the sake of esprit du corps, is part of an honorable military tradition dating back one hundred and seventy-five years. Do you understand?”

Smith said he did, though he didn’t really, and followed the colonel into his apartment.

9.

B
ookcases lined the vaulted chamber, otherwise upholstered in dark green buttoned leather. Classical busts peered out sternly from niches amid the books. Family portraits, their varnish cracked and yellow, hung from braided ropes. A baby grand piano occupied most of the opposite end, by the windows. The glossy lid of this formidable instrument was strewn with sheet music, most of it—Smith saw with a glance—by the enigmatic Erik Satie. A silver-framed photograph showed a beautiful woman, very French-looking, posed in front of what looked like an ivy-covered château. Marbled notebooks thick with writing lay stacked on a small table. This was the room of a rich and polymathic dilettante, like something out of Proust or
Phantom of the Opera
. Smith gaped openly. He had never seen such a cultured space; an entire civilization contained between four walls. Only a stumpy-looking modern assault rifle leaning in the corner indicated the military vocation of the occupant.

“The FAMAS 5.56 caliber,” the colonel said, following Smith’s gaze. “Called by journalists
le clairon
—the trumpet—for its size, and bulldog by soldiers for its vicious bite. Standard light arm of the Armée de Terre, including the Legion. Do you know this excellent rifle?”

Smith shook his head.

“Legionnaires learn to dismantle, clean, and reassamble it in less than two minutes, blindfolded, just by touch. They love it more than they love their own pricks. There is an expression with us—‘
Ton femme c’est ton FAMAS
.’ A pun that means ‘Your wife is your rifle. . . .’ ”

The colonel nodded grimly to himself at this and sat down at the piano and drew his fingers lightly across the keyboard. Out beyond the ramparts, Nogent slept in the last hours before dawn. A damp wind washed the clouds from the sky. The moon hung low and fading just above the sinuous curves of a distant river, probably the Marne.

“Americans make rotten Legionnaires, it’s true,” the colonel continued after a while. “They are far too attached to the idea of personal freedom. But the purely personal is dead in the Legion. Harsh discipline has killed it. Americans always demand to know the reasons behind their orders, as if every soldier must be justified in his heart whenever he shoots someone. How ridiculous! They demand to know why they are being sent to die on futile campaigns halfway around the world in the service of a people who hate them. And believe me, all good French people hate the Legion, Mr. Smith. My wife, for example, hates the Legion. The French hate the Legion as they hate the police and their butcher and any other petty fascist who does their bloody work for them.” He glanced up from the keys, an odd detachment in his pale eyes. “The American Legionnaire is the most likely of all to chuck months of expensive and rigorous training and simply”—he made a fluid gesture that meant desert, take it on the lam. Then: “You are a tenor?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you heard of la Musique Principale?”

“No, sir.”

“It is our corps of musicians, one of the most famous in the world. It is divided into two equal parts—the regimental marching band and the Chorale du Légion, the men’s chorus. Like the Russian army, we maintain a tradition of choral music, of men singing together. Last year, we won the silver medal at the International Choral Society’s competition in Moscow—this is our sixth silver medal, but it is not enough and my superiors grow restless. I happen to be the officer in charge of the chorale and next year, I would like to win the gold medal. The key to this victory is a really good top tenor. I am always searching for such a voice. Are you a good tenor,
mon enfant
?”

“I am, sir,” Smith said.

“
Bon. Chantez quelque chose pour moi
.”

“Choral music isn’t exactly my specialty . . . ,” Smith equivocated. “Musical comedies. Broadway shows, that sort of thing.”

“Sing,” Colonel de Noyer commanded. “Anything.”

Smith racked his brain for something sufficiently martial and at last recalled a number from
Cabaret,
which he’d done with Mask and Bauble in the Legacy Theater at Cornell College. Smith cleared his throat, closed his eyes for a moment, and tried to insert himself in the scene again from the distance of fifteen years.