Dark Summer in Bordeaux (24 page)

‘Why was that? Did you start a fight? I hope that was why,’ Marie-Louise said. ‘I like to think of you fighting.’

‘Nothing so dramatic. Alain had brought along Jérôme and another friend who turned out to be a Jew. So we were all asked to leave, and there was almost a scene till I got them to see sense and go quietly. But it was embarrassing.’

‘It’s not a good idea to have Jewish friends,’ Marie-Louise said. ‘Alain should have more sense. You should speak to him, Clothilde.’

‘Oh, Alain goes his own way,’ Clothilde said. ‘He’s as obstinate as a pig.’

‘Actually, I thought the Jew boy was a bit of a twerp,’ Philippe said. ‘But then I don’t care for Jews. You never know where you are with them and I can’t think of them as French. Not proper French.’

A blond boy swam to the edge of the pool. He put his hands on the edge and sprang out, shaking the water from his hair. He stood up, the sun sparkling on his wet bronzed skin. He wore only a black slip which emphasised, rather than concealed, his sex. For a moment he remained still, commanding admiration. Then he ran his hands over the upper part of his body and strolled towards them.

‘This is Michel,’ Philippe said, and introduced the girls.

‘Which one’s yours?’ Michel said.

‘This one,’ Philippe said, laying his hand on Marie-Louise’s shoulder.

‘Ripping,’ Michel said, and settled himself beside Clothilde. He gave her a brlliant smile and looked on the point of making a pronouncement, but all he said was, ‘It’s lovely in. You’re a fool to stay out, Philippe.’

‘Only like swimming in the sea.’

‘What about you?’ Michel said to Clothilde.

‘Oh I love it.’

‘Come on then,’ he said bounding to his feet and holding out his hand.

They swam two lengths, then came to rest at the far end of the pool. He put his arm round Clothilde.

‘You’re jolly good. Not many girls swim as well as you.’

He pressed her close to him.

‘Why haven’t I met you before? Where have you been all my life?’

It was a line from a movie. She was sure of that, though she couldn’t remember which film she had heard it in. But the right reply came straight to her lips.

‘I don’t know, do I?’ she said.

‘You’re gorgeous.’

He flicked his tongue from side to side.

‘I’d really like to kiss you.’

‘Well, you can’t,’ she said. ‘Not here.’

‘Somewhere else then.’

‘Perhaps. Some time. I don’t know. Anyway I never kiss boys the first time I meet them.’

I’ve never kissed a boy, she thought, not really kissed, the way they did on the screen. I don’t know what’s happening.

‘Then we must meet a second time,’ he said. ‘You really are gorgeous. Do you know that?’

‘Stop it,’ she said, as she felt his hand press against her bottom.

‘People will see us. What will they think?’

‘Don’t care,’ he said, still fondling her.

‘Well, I do. I’m a well-brought-up girl.’

‘That’s part of what makes you irresistible.’

‘I’m not one of your tarts. Do you have tarts?’

‘That would be telling.’

He put his mouth close to her ear and whispered, ‘Let’s slip away.’

When she didn’t immediately reply, she felt his tongue licking her cheek.

‘Please,’ he said. ‘I want to be alone with you. Really. I really do.’

‘All right then.’

They climbed out. He held her hand as they returned to the others.

‘We’re going to leave you two love-birds to each other,’ he said.

‘That was quick, even for you, Michel,’ Philippe said.

‘Don’t be silly,’ Michel said, and led Clothilde to the changing-rooms.

‘See you outside, five minutes.’

Her hands trembled as she buttoned her blouse. Is this it?, she thought, how could I have supposed I fancied Manu? She took more than the five minutes he had given her to look as she wanted to look.

Michel was waiting for her. He was leaning against a wall, with one leg drawn up behind him, his foot resting on the stone. He wore white linen trousers and a blue shirt. He had combed his hair which was rather long, touching his shirt collar. He didn’t move as she approached and then took the cigarette from his mouth and placed it between her lips.

‘It’s awfully erotic sharing a cigarette with a lovely girl,’ he said.

He took hold of her hand again.

‘Tell me all about yourself.’

‘Nothing to tell. Not really. Tell me about you.’

‘Nothing to tell. Actually I have seen you before, at a Legion meeting. You were with your brother. I don’t mind saying I fancied you at first sight.’

‘I thought you hadn’t even noticed me,’ she said. ‘What did Philippe mean when he said that was quick even for you?’

‘He’s an idiot. Don’t pay any attention to what he says. Not ever.’

‘Does that mean he knows you too well?’

‘I like to think nobody knows me.’

‘He meant you have lots of girls, didn’t he?’

The sun shone. They walked close together, hip against hip. It was even more like a movie. An old woman dressed in black and wearing a wide-brimmed black straw hat, rounded like a priest’s, shook her head.

‘She disapproves,’ Clothilde giggled. ‘She thinks I’m fast.’

‘She’s jealous.’

‘She’s forgotten what it is to be young, poor woman.’

They came to a garden. Clothilde who had lived all her life in Bordeaux, couldn’t have said where they were. In a litle clearing fringed by azaleas and oleander bushes they lay down on the grass. Michel drew her head to him and kissed her on the lips. He lay on top of her and put his hands either side of her head and kissed her again. His tongue sought out hers. She responded, but when she felt his hand stray under her skirt, said ‘No’ softly, and, to her relief and disappointment, he obeyed. For a long time they lay there, no need or desire for words.

Later he took her by the hand and raised her to her feet. They kissed again. I’ll never forget this, she thought. They walked back toward the centre of the town. He asked if he might see her home. Not yet, she said, not today, I need to think. Another time? Oh I hope so.

Finding themselves in the Place de l’Ancienne Comédie, by her favourite café, she said, ‘Let’s have an ice-cream.’

They found a table. There were three German officers at the next one. For a moment she thought one of them was Manu. But of course it wasn’t, though she had sat at this same table with him.

‘Tell me about yourself,’ she said again, ‘I want to know.’

‘My parents are dead. I live with my grandfather. He used to be a professor. And you?’

Two boys passed.

‘Look,’ she said, ‘there’s Jérôme, he’s one of my brother’s friends.’

‘I know him myself. We’re both members of the Légion des Jeunes d’Aquitaine. Actually I don’t like him much. That’s to say he gets on my nerves. He’s a pansy and always hanging around me.’

‘Poor Jérôme,’ she said.

Lucky me, she thought.

‘When can I see you again?’

‘Soon,’ she said, ‘soon.’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow, yes.’

‘We might go to a movie.’

XXXVI

‘So it’s you again.’

Jules laid aside the glass he was polishing and the towel, and stretched across the zinc counter to shake Lannes’ hand.

‘Did you ever find out who killed that poor bugger, Monsieur Chambolley?’

‘I found them, yes.’

‘So are they behind bars?’

Lannes shook his head.

‘Oh it’s like that, is it?’

‘It’s like that.’

Jules drew him a beer. ‘On the house,’ he said. ‘So what brings you here today? No trouble, I hope. They’ll have told you in Vice that I keep a respectable establishment.’

‘Not exactly how they put it, but they’ve no complaints. Get many Germans in, do you?’

Jules tugged at his moustache. Then he took a bottle of Armagnac from the shelf behind the bar and picked up two glasses which he held upside down by the stem, called on the waiter to take over, stepped round the counter, and without a word, led Lannes to the back of the bar and through a door marked ‘Private’.

He settled himself at the table, gestured to the other chair, and began to fill his pipe. Only when he had got it lit and taken two puffs, after which he pressed the tobacco down again with a small metal stubber, did he say, ‘I’m not sure I like your question.’

‘It’s simple enough,’ Lannes said.

‘Simple questions can have awkward answers.’

He poured out two glasses and pushed one across the table to Lannes.

‘I respect my customers,’ he said. ‘It’s a long time ago that I learned when to ask questions of them and when to keep silent.’

‘I see you’ve changed the name of the bar,’ Lannes said.

‘I’m a careful man. Got to be. “The Wet Flag” now – not very clever to have an English name these days, is it?’

‘Not very clever, no. Why was it English in the first place? I’ve often wondered.’

‘Sailors,’ Jules said. ‘My uncle had the place before me. It was his notion.’

He drew on his pipe, and sat back, stout, bald-headed, obdurate.

‘Vice have no problem with me. They’ll have told you that. I keep my nose clean.’

‘Fairly clean.’

Lannes smiled.

‘It’s no concern of mine what sort of house this is,’ he said. ‘I told you that before when I came inquiring about the Chambolley case, and I’m happy to tell you now that there was no connection between his murder and your bar. I know what sort of place it is, but I accept that you are careful, and long as Vice is happy, then as I say it’s none of my business. On the other hand I do you the credit of supposing that you have the sense to realise it’s in your interest to be – what shall we say? – obliging, and answer my questions. So again, do you get many Germans in here?’

Jules stroked his moustache again and then pulled at the wart on his right cheek.

‘What do you expect me to do? Tell them they’re barred? Superintendent, in my experience, the Boches are like other people, like anyone else. They have their inclinations and tastes just as we have. So, if they find their way here, well, to my mind, their money’s as good as a Frenchman’s.’

‘Quite so,’ Lannes said. ‘I’m not disputing that, though the day may come when you find others who will.’

‘May come is right. If you want my opinion that day doesn’t look like arriving soon. And in the meanwhile, what do you expect me to do? Tell any Boche who puts his head round the door to fuck off? That would be bright, wouldn’t it? So I just take their money and keep my thoughts to myself.’

‘I don’t expect anything of you.’

Lannes produced the photograph of Schussmann which he had had the Alsatian obtain for him and pushed it across the table.

‘What about this chap?’

Jules glanced at it, briefly, then, for the first time, looked away.

‘I need to know a bit more,’ he said. ‘I’ve got my principles.’

‘You have? Can you afford them in your line? Anyway, you’ve answered my question.’

‘I’ve said nothing.’

‘You’ve said enough. So he came here. Good. Regularly?’

‘Not regularly, no.’

‘To pick up a boy?’

‘Couldn’t rightly say.’

‘Come off it,’ Lannes said. ‘Don’t ask me to believe that. I’ve too much respect for you, Jules. For your intelligence anyway. A Boche officer comes here and you expect me to believe you don’t keep your eye on him, that you aren’t made a bit anxious by his presence. It would be a relief, wouldn’t it, if all he did was make a pick-up? Business as usual, you might say. Nothing to worry about.’

‘Look,’ Jules said, ‘I make it my business to keep out of the shit.’

‘Very wise.’

Lannes fingered his glass.

‘The thing is, the chap’s dead. Shot.’

Jules knocked back his brandy and poured himself another glass. He drew on his pipe again and this time looked Lannes in the eye.

‘One Boche fewer,’ he said. ‘Do you expect me to go into mourning? Or you think I should help you pin it on one of the boys? No chance. I’m a good Frenchman, whatever else I may be, and if I knew who did for him, I’d shake him by the hand, even if he seemed a decent enough sort of chap for a Boche. Quiet too, spoke decent enough French.’

‘I need to speak with the boy. Don’t pretend there isn’t one.’

‘No chance,’ Jules said again.

‘Which means you know who he is. But there’s one thing you don’t know. There’s no hand for you to shake. Schussmann’ – he tapped the photograph which lay on the table between them – ‘wasn’t murdered. He shot himself. Trouble is, the Gestapo are interested. If I can’t come up with the right story, you’ll have them here. Does that change your mind?’

Jules fiddled with the wart again, twisting it between thumb and forefinger.

‘Shit.’

‘That’s what we’ll all be in if I can’t head them off. So I must speak to the boy.’

‘Why should I trust you, superintendent?’

‘Because you have no choice and because if I wasn’t trustworthy, I’d have already suggested to them they should look here. They want the boy who compromised the honour of the Germany army – don’t laugh – that’s how they put it. I want to make sure they don’t get hold of him. But I assure you that if I can’t satisfy them, they’ll find their way here sooner or later. There aren’t so many places like yours in Bordeaux, are there? So, if he’s one of those I saw in the bar, just fetch him now, and, if he isn’t, tell me where I can find him.’

Jules closed his eyes and didn’t move for a long time. Then he sighed and heaved himself upright. His trousers sagged behind and his feet were flat. He left the door a few inches open. Lannes lit a cigarette. He wondered if it might have been wiser simply to have confirmed that Schussmann had frequented the bar and to tell Jules to order the boy to make himself scarce. But – he didn’t know why – he had to see him for himself.

‘I’ve done nothing.’

He had been abstracted, hadn’t noticed the boy come in. Jules stood behind him, feeling that wart again. Lannes flicked his head to indicate that he should leave them alone. The big man hesitated, looking at Lannes as if appealing to him to be gentle with the boy, then took a couple of steps backward and closed the door behind him.