Ring Roads (12 page)

Surrounded by all these people, Annie Murraille’s good-humour returned. She kissed Marcheret and said she was sorry and he slipped her wedding ring on her finger with a ceremonial air. Applause. The champagne glasses clinked. People called to each other and formed little groups. Lestandi, Delvale and Gerbère congratulated the bridegroom. In a corner, Murraille gossiped with Monique Joyce. Lucien Remy was a big hit with the women, if Sylviane Quimphe’s reactions were anything to go by. But he reserved his smile for Annie Murraille, who pressed against him assiduously. It was obvious they were very close. As the hosts, Maud Gallas and Wildmer brought round the drinks and the
petits fours
. I’ve got all the photographs of the
ceremony
here, in a little wallet, and I’ve looked at them a million times, until my eyes glaze over with tiredness, or tears.

We had been forgotten. We lay low, standing a little way off, and no one paid us any attention. I felt as if we’d stumbled into this strange garden-party by mistake. You seemed as much at a loss as I was. We should have left as soon as possible and I still don’t understand what came over me. I left you standing there and mechanically walked towards them.

Someone prodded me in the back. It was Murraille. He dragged me off and I found myself with Gerbère and Lestandi. Murraille introduced me as ‘a talented young journalist he had just commissioned’. At which Lestandi, half-patronising, half-ironic, favoured me with an ‘
enchanté
, my dear colleague’.

‘And what splendid things are you writing?’ Gerbère asked me.

‘Short stories.’

‘Short stories are a fine idea,’ put in Lestandi. ‘One doesn’t have to commit oneself. Neutral ground. What do you think, François?’

Murraille had slipped away. I would have liked to do the same.

‘Between ourselves,’ Gerbère said, ‘do you think
we’re
living at a time when one can still write short stories? I personally have no imagination.’

‘But a caustic wit!’ cried Lestandi.

‘Because I’m not afraid of stating the obvious. I give it to them good and hard, that’s all.’

‘And it’s terrific, François. Tell me, what are you cooking up for your next editorial?’

Gerbère took off his heavy horn-rimmed spectacles. He wiped the lenses, very slowly, with a handkerchief. Confident of the effect he was making.

‘A delightful little piece. It’s called: “Anyone for Jewish tennis?” I explain the rules of the game in three columns.’

‘And what exactly is “Jewish tennis”?’ asked Lestandi, grinning.

Gerbère gave the details. From what I gathered, it was a game for two players and could be played while strolling, or sitting outside a cafe. The first to spot a Jew, called out. Fifteen love. If his opponent should spot one, the score was fifteen-all. And so on. The winner was the one who notched up the most Jews. Points were calculated as they were in tennis. Nothing like it, according to Gerbère, for sharpening the reflexes of the French.

‘Believe it or not,’ he added dreamily, ‘I don’t even need to see THEIR faces. I can recognize THEM from behind! I swear!’

Other
points were discussed. One thing nauseated him, Lestandi said: that those ‘bastards’ could still live it up on Côte d’Azur, sipping
apéritifs
in the Cintras of Cannes, Nice or Marseilles. He was preparing a series of ‘Rumour & Innuendo’ stories on the subject. He would name names. It was a civic duty to alert the relevant authorities. I turned round. You hadn’t moved. I wanted to give you a friendly wave. But they might notice and ask me who the fat man was, over there, at the bottom of the garden.

‘I’ve just come back from Nice,’ Lestandi said. ‘Not a single human face. Nothing but Blochs and Hirschfelds. It makes you sick . . .’

‘Actually . . .’ Gerbère suggested, ‘You’d only have to give their room numbers to the Ruhl Hotel . . . It would make the work of the police easier . . .’

They grew animated. Heated. I listened politely. I have to say I found them tedious. Two utterly ordinary men, of middling height, like millions of others in the streets. Lestandi wore braces. Someone else would probably have told them to shut up. But I’m a coward.

We drank several glasses of champagne. Lestandi was now entertaining us with an account of a certain Schlossblau, a cinema producer, ‘a frightful red-haired, purple-faced Jew’, he had recognized on the Promenade des Anglais.
There
was one, he promised, that he would definitely get to. The light was failing. The celebrations drifted from the garden into the bar. You followed the rest and came and sat next to me . . . Then, as though hit with a jolt of electricity, the party came to life. A nervous jollity. At Marcheret’s request, Delvale gave us his impersonation of Aristide Bruant. But Montmartre was not his only source of inspiration. He had played farce and light comedy and had us in stitches with his puns and witticisms. I can see his spaniel eyes, his thin moustache. The way he waited eagerly for the audience to laugh which nauseated me. When he scored a hit he would shrug as though he did not care.

Lucien Remy sang us a sweet little song, very popular that year: ‘Je n’en connais pas la fin’. Annie Murraille and Sylviane Quimphe were eying him hungrily. And I was studying him carefully. The lower half of his face particularly frightened me. There was something strangely spineless about it. I sensed he was even more dangerous than the others. Never trust the Brylcreemed types who tend to appear in ‘troubled times’. We were graced with a song from Lestandi, a cabaret song of the kind known back then as ‘chansonnier’. Lestandi took great pride in showing us that he knew all the songs in
La Lune Rousse
and
Deux Anes
by heart. We all have our little weaknesses, our little hobbies.

Dédé
Wildmer stood on a chair and toasted the health of the bride and groom. Annie Murraille pressed her cheek against Lucien Remy’s shoulder and Marcheret didn’t seem to mind. Sylviane Quimphe, however, was using all her wiles to attract the attention of the ‘crooner’, as was Maud Gallas. By the bar, Delvale was talking to Monique Joyce. He was getting more and more eager and was calling her his ‘poppet’. She greeted his advances with throaty laughter, tossing her hair as if she were rehearsing a role in front of an invisible camera. Murraille, Gerbère and Lestandi were carrying on a conversation fuelled by alcohol. It was a case of organizing a meeting, in the Salle Wagram, at which the contributors to
C’est la vie
would speak. Murraille proposed his favourite theme: ‘We’re not pusillanimous’; but Lestandi wittily corrected him: ‘We’re not
Jew
sillanimous’.

It was a stormy afternoon and thunder rolled ominously in the distance. Today all these people have disappeared or have been shot. I suppose they’re no longer of any interest to anyone. Is it my fault that I am still a prisoner of my memories?

But when Marcheret came towards us and flung the contents of a champagne glass in your face, I thought I’d lose control. You flinched. He said crisply:

‘
That’ll freshen up your ideas, won’t it, Chalva?’

He stood in front of us, his arms crossed. ‘It’s better than water,’ stuttered Wildmer. ‘It’s sparkling!’ You fumbled for a handkerchief to dry yourself with. Delvale and Lucien Remy made some cutting remarks about you which reduced the women to hysterics. Lestandi and Gerbère studied you curiously and suddenly realized they didn’t like the look of your face.

‘A sudden shower, eh, Chalva?’ said Marcheret, patting the back of your head as though you were a dog. You gave a feeble smile. ‘Yes, a nice shower . . .’ you muttered.

The saddest thing was that you seemed to be apologizing. They went on with their conversations. Went on drinking. Laughing. How did it happen that, over the general hubbub, I overheard Lestandi say: ‘Excuse me, I’m going for a short stroll’? Before he had left the bar, I was on the steps in front of the
auberge
. And there we ran into each other. When he mentioned that he was going to stretch his legs a little, I asked, as casually as possible, whether I could go with him.

We followed the bridle path. And then we moved into the undergrowth. A grove of beech trees, where the early evening sunlight spread a nostalgic glow as in the paintings of Claude Lorrain. He said it was sensible of us
to
be out in the open air. He was very fond of the Forest of Fontainebleau. We talked about this and that. About the deep hush, about the magnificent trees.

‘Mature trees . . . They must be about 120 years old.’ He laughed. ‘I bet you I won’t reach that age . . .’

‘You never know . . .’

He pointed to a squirrel scampering across the path twenty yards ahead. My palms were sweaty. I told him I enjoyed reading his weekly ‘gossip column’ in
C’est la vie
, that, in my opinion, what he was doing was a public work. Oh, he could hardly take any credit, he replied, he simply hated Jews, and Murraille’s magazine offered him the chance to express his views on the matter frankly. So different from the degenerate pre-war press. True, Murraille had a penchant for racketeering and easy money, and he was probably ‘half-Jewish’ but very soon Muraille would be ‘eliminated’ in favour of a ‘pure’ editorial team. People like Alin-Laubreaux, Zeitschel, Sayzille, Darquier, himself. And particularly Gerbère, the most talented of them. Comrades in arms.

‘What about you, are you interested in politics?’

I told him I was, and that I felt we needed a new broom.

‘A new cosh would serve just as well!’

And, as an example, he told me again about Schlossblau
de
filing the Promenade des Anglais. Apparently Schlossblau was now back to Paris and holed up in an apartment, and, he, Lestandi, knew the address. A little mention was all it would take for some armed thugs to come knocking. He was congratulating himself in advance on his good work.

It was getting dark. I decided to get on with it. I took a last look at Lestandi. He was chubby. A gourmet, certainly. I imagined him tucking into a plate of
brandade de morue
. And I thought of Gerbère too, with his schoolboy lisp and quivering buttocks. No, neither of them were firebrands and I mustn’t let them scare me.

We were walking through dense thickets.

‘Why bother going after Schlossblau?’ I said. ‘There are Jews all round you . . .’

He didn’t understand and gave me a questioning look.

‘That man who had a glass of champagne thrown in his face just now . . . you remember?’

He burst out laughing.

‘Of course . . . We, Gerbère and I, thought he looked like a swindler.’

‘A Jew! I’m surprised you didn’t guess!’

‘Then what the hell’s he doing here with us?’

‘That’s what I’d like to know . . .’

‘We’ll ask the bastard to show us his papers!’

‘No need.’

‘
You mean you know him?’

I took a deep breath.

‘HE’S MY FATHER.’

I grabbed his throat until my thumbs hurt. I thought of you to give me strength. He stopped struggling.

It was silly, really, to have killed the fat slob.

I found them still at the bar at the auberge. As I went in, I bumped into Gerbère.

‘Have you seen Lestandi?’

‘No,’ I answered absent-mindedly.

‘Where can he have got to?’

He looked at me sharply and blocked my way.

‘He’ll be back,’ I said in a falsetto voice, quickly clearing my throat to cover my nervousness. ‘He probably went for a walk in the forest.’

‘You think so?’

The others were gathered round the bar while you sat in an armchair by the fireplace. I couldn’t see you very well in the dim light. There was only one light on, on the other side of the room.

‘What do you think of Lestandi?’

‘Great,’ I said.

He remained glued to my side. I couldn’t get away from his slimy presence.

‘
I’m very fond of Lestandi. He has the mind, the soul of a “young Turk”, as we used to say at the École Normale.’

I nodded.

‘He lacks subtlety, but I don’t give a damn about that! We need brawlers right now!’

His words came in a torrent.

‘There’s been too much focus on niceties and hair-splitting! What we need, now, are young thugs to trample the flowerbeds!’

He was quivering from head to foot.

‘The day of the assassins has come! And I say, welcome!’

He said this in a furiously aggressive voice.

His eyes bored into me. I sense he wanted to say something but didn’t dare. At last:

‘It’s extraordinary how much you look like Albert Préjean . . .’ He seemed to be overcome with languor. ‘Has no-one ever told you how like Albert Prejean you are?’

His voice cracked to become a poignant, almost inaudible whisper.

‘You remind me of my best friend at ENA, a marvellous boy. He died in ’36, fighting for Franco.’

I scarcely recognized him. He was getting more and
more
spineless. His head was about to drop on my shoulder.

‘I’d liked to see you again in Paris. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it?’

He shrouded me in a misty gaze.

‘I must go and write my column. You know . . . “Jewish tennis” . . . Tell Lestandi I couldn’t wait any longer . . .’

I walked with him to his car. He clung to my arm, muttering unintelligibly. I was still mesmerized by the change which, in a few brief seconds, had seen him transformed into an old lady.

I helped him into the driving seat. He rolled down the window.

‘You’ll come and have dinner with me on the Rue Rataud . . .?’ His puffy face was imploring.

‘Don’t forget, will you,
mon petit
. . . I’m so lonely . . .’

And he shot off at top speed.

You were still in the same place. A black mass slumped against the back of the chair. In the dim light one might easily wonder whether it was a person or a pile of overcoats? Everyone was ignoring you. Afraid of drawing attention to you, I kept my distance and joined the others.

Maud
Gallas was telling how she had had to put Wildmer to bed dead drunk. It happened at least three times a week. The man was ruining his health, Lucien Remy had known him back when he was winning all the big races. Once, at Auteuil, a crowd of regulars at the racetrack had carried him off in triumph. He was called ‘The Centaur’. Back then, he only drank water.