The Dream of Scipio (22 page)

“All around you, my friends, on this table, you see the best of what two thousand years of civilization has to offer. We have the finest damask cloth, its origins in the Middle East, amongst the Semitic nations but actually, I believe, made in Lyon. This rests on a table cut from a mahogany tree, hewn in the Americas, transported on a ship manned by a crew such as those who have been carrying the goods of the world for millennia. The table rests on an Aubusson carpet, worn and dirty perhaps, but in a design which dates back to the reign of Louis the Fourteenth and which has been produced by craftsmen in the same factory ever since.

“And all this to support, to bring close to us, the food, which we eat with our knives and forks in a fashion we learned from the Ottomans, served, course by course, in a style we used to call the Russian manner.

“Here we approach the foothills of civilization; I chose everything carefully for this reason. We began, did we not, with foie gras from the Dordogne, perfectly produced in some farmer’s basse-cour, fatted on cream and corn, taken to the railway station, and transported on a train line paid for by the British. I pay tribute to them. Whatever one may think of our allies, no one can deny that they make fine railways.

“Then a fish, a fine fish, a glorious fish, a Dover sole. Caught in the Atlantic by sailors who can in a day sweep in enough to feed the five thousand. You see that, despite my own origins, I am not averse to using Christian imagery to make a point. It is brought to us, lightly sautéed and served in a delicate sauce that was first tasted by the great Cardinal Mazarin himself.

“Then we had a tour of France, the very heart of France. Lamb raised on the salt flats of the Vendée, with potatoes in the manner of the Dauphiné, and a great platter of beans grown in a kitchen garden near Paris and cooked, Provençal style, in olive oil from the Lubéron. A simple meal, with little enough finery, for we must say goodbye to the extravagances of our past.

“We have then the cheese, brought to us from all the corners of the country, perfected over the decades to remind us what the greatest civilizations can do when they turn their minds, wholeheartedly, to the arts of peace. Think of those shepherds, herding their goats and sheep and cows; the farmers milking them day after day. Think of their wives and sons and daughters, carrying the pails and separating and curdling and setting. Think of the good women of Normandy preparing this fine Camembert; pay tribute to those people whose cheese went moldy in a cave near Roquefort but had the sense to realize that the delicate blue stains which resulted were a miracle, not a disaster. Then consider the ribbon-like trails of the carters, their routes like veins across the entire country, coming to collect the result on behalf of the merchant, who has already used his elaborate network of contacts, his financial tentacles, to find a price and a buyer. All so that we can eat it, here, as the armies march upon us.

“And all along, gentlemen, we have had the wine. The Gewürztraminer, which we drink here as our own for the last time. I hope the vintners who produced it will forgive me if I say it will not taste as good tomorrow, when we must drink it—or not—as a German wine. The champagne, a product unique in civilized history, dependent on mixing the very best techniques of fermentation with the creation of the glass bottle and cork, and mixing these with a dash of divine inspiration. The Burgundy, that hearty, earthy, refined wine which has a trace of our soul in each bottle, so that when we drink it we become, all unknowing, more French than before.

“And now, as we begin our cigars—brought from Havana, docked at Le Havre, and stocked in a shop which prosperity has allowed to become so specialized it sells nothing but cigars—now, gentlemen, we begin on our cognac.

“Here words fail me. Nothing in the annals of literature can capture the essence of cognac, drunk amongst like-minded friends, after a fine meal. You know this, all of you; I am telling you nothing you do not know. Did Racine ever succeed? Did Hugo capture its essence? Did Voltaire or Diderot pin it down? They did not. They were too aware of their limitations even to try, and who am I, businessman that I am, to presume where men of genius have failed?

“I will merely point out to you that all of this—food, wine, and even cognac—are nothing in comparison to what they permit, which is the easy and unrestrained exercise of friendship manifested through conversation. We have been sitting here now for near three hours in perfect amity, as we have known each other for many years—many decades in a few cases. We have managed, I am glad to say, not to talk of the war, as this last supper—my imagery again, I apologize—is to celebrate civilization, not to mourn its passing. We have talked here of literature, I believe. Some of you I heard discussing the performance of
Tosca
canceled last week, taking consolation in having seen Furtwängler conduct it in Milan three years ago. One person I heard complaining about the way Cézanne is now considered to be a good painter. My friend Julien, who owns a Cézanne, was polite and restrained; it is as well my daughter is not here, as she would have been more forceful in her reply.

“Such refinement, gentlemen! Such delicacy of address, such sophistication of tastes. But not, for me, the essence of civilization. No; instead I heard the goddess brush her soft lips over my ear when I heard my friend over there lean across the table and ask whether it was true that a mutual acquaintance had separated from his wife.

“Gossip? you say. Idle chitchat? Yes, gentlemen. Men in trenches, men starving, men in chains, do not have the leisure to gossip. Gossip is the product of spare time, of surplus and of comfort. Gossip is the creation of civilization, and the product of friendship. For when my friend here made his inquiry he passed on the information necessary to keep the delicate fabric of friendship together. A question about a friend known for decades but hardly seen, an acquaintanceship which would fall into the past unless its shade was sustained by the occasional offering of gossip. And think again: My friend, an Alsatian businessman, was asking a question of a half-Italian writer about the marriage of a Norman lawyer and a Parisian lady of faintly aristocratic origin. All this at a dinner given by myself, born a Jew. What better distillation of civilization is there than that? Gossip binds three people—the gossipers and the subject of their gossip—together. Repeated often enough it binds society together.

“I fear, my friends, we will not have much time to gossip in the future, and we will be too far apart to have anyone to gossip about. So, with this meal, I must declare civilization closed. It was the finest product of the mind of man, too fine, perhaps, to survive long. We must mourn its passing, and turn ourselves into beasts to survive what awaits us. Gentlemen, I bid you rise. The toast is: ‘Civilization.’ ”

Three hours later, Claude Bronsen got into his car—well stocked with petrol, cans on the backseat, for he had prepared as well as possible for emergencies—and struggled south down roads already choked with refugees. He had arranged in advance to meet Julia in Marseille, had told her to go there if something dreadful should happen. It never occurred to him that she could be safe without him, nor did it ever occur to him that he could be content without her nearby. Six weeks later, in Marseille, he was detained by the French police as an alien Jew and sent to the internment camp at Les Milles. Three months after that, in the middle of a cold winter, he died of pneumonia brought on by malnutrition. He was buried the next morning, in an unmarked grave.

JULIEN WAS TOUCHED and rather surprised by the valedictory; he had not expected a man like Bronsen to be capable of such a speech; the times, it seemed, wrought the strangest effects. He was invited to the meal because he had been summoned to Paris to examine a thesis, and had taken the opportunity to see if Julia was at her apartment. When he got no answer there, he visited Claude Bronsen’s house in Neuilly-sur-Seine and found him packing furiously and, for the first time, uncertain about what to do. Julien counseled him to leave for England while he could; he would find Julia and ensure she followed.

“If she is in the south, then she is not in immediate danger. Your position is more perilous, I think. If you stay she will worry about you and not look after herself properly. So go. Head for Normandy and you might get to a port that is still open.”

But he would not. He would not have Julia beholden to anyone but himself. It was his greatest weakness, a trait that came close to erasing all the good he had done as her father. Even in such circumstances he would not let go, would not allow anyone else to protect her; he did not want her depending on Julien, of all people.

“No. It is better that we’re together. I’ll find her, and we’ll go to Marseille. I’ve told her this already. I have a hotel booked, have contacts at a shipping company. All we need is a few visas. She’s probably waiting for me there already.” Julien renewed the offer, then gave way and accepted the invitation to lunch instead.

The very mundaneness of the task that had brought him north, the fact that it could go on at such a time, in itself testified to the confidence that was felt in the French military up until the last moment. He arrived two days before the German assault to listen to a defense of a work on the late antique city—a revision of Fustel’s work, with little originality but showing promise—as the tanks began to enter the Ardennes forest, thought impassable and left virtually undefended. By the time the candidate had been congratulated, the outflanking of the French forces, defending their country from an army that was not there, was all but complete. In an afternoon, between the time Julien donned his robes to the time he shook the candidate’s hand, the war was effectively lost—although full realization of this would take a few more weeks. Even the German commanders were worried, unable to believe that some trap was not waiting for them, certain that the foolhardy valor that had stopped them in their tracks the last time would sooner or later inspire resistance.

When the full enormity of the debacle began to hit home, Julien did not submit to blind panic as so many others were doing, but did earnestly desire to get back to the south as quickly as possible. This was a common reaction that summer; many people fled the oncoming armies but very soon the overwhelming desire was to go home. Julien thought initially he could simply take a train, then realized this was a foolish idea; trains belonged to civilization, and that had, at least temporarily, stopped. He did not have a car, and even if he had, there was no petrol. Ultimately he escaped and managed to flee south because of Bernard. Nothing worked anymore except family and connections; it was an indicator of what was to come. Julien went to see him at the newspaper he was then working for, partly to get the latest news, but mainly because friendship at that time became so much more important. They embraced with a warmth neither had felt for the other since they played in the main square of Vaison as children. Both were relieved to feel something fixed and secure. Old friendship substituted for nationality, place, and position; it was all there was left.

Bernard, as usual, was well informed, a man who seemed as though he could understand the inexplicable. A train was being put together in a marshaling yard in the south of Paris to take junior members of the government and civil servants to Tours, he said. There was talk of a new defensive line on the Loire. And also talk of an armistice.

“Why are they going?”

It was strange; the building seemed nearly deserted. In the middle of the greatest crisis that the country had ever faced, the newspaper had all but closed down; once before, Julien had visited him here, shortly before the war broke out, and the scurry of activity, the noise of work, was intense and exhilarating. Now there was silence as though events were too stupendous for a mere newspaper to report and explain.

“If they stay they’ll be captured in days. It’s all over here. The only choice is to retreat and start again. The Germans are not prepared for a massive advance; it wasn’t part of their plans. Their lines of communication will be too stretched. They’ll have to pause to regroup, and then we can counterattack.”

He stopped, then looked at Julien, a curious half-smile on his face.

“But we won’t,” Bernard said softly. “The generals and the politicians have already given in. They had before it even began. They’re going to a place where they can surrender. They will call it an armistice. More peace with honor. How much honor do these people have? It seems they have an inexhaustible supply.”

“And what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I thought of going to Brittany. Rumor has it that the English may try to hold it, although I can’t imagine they will do so for long. On the other hand, the government is going south. Perhaps I should go, too.” He laughed. “Extraordinary, isn’t it? Four days ago, we were convinced we could withstand anything the Germans threw at us. All the talk was of attack, the offensive. Now look. We don’t even know who is in charge of the government or what it plans to do. So we must follow our instincts, and we must do something, even if it is only with a gesture,” he continued, thinking aloud and quite oblivious to Julien’s presence. “I will go to Brittany, I think. I must be on the Germans’ list of undesirables, so I can’t stay here.” As ever, vanity had its place in determining his understanding of the world.

He turned to Julien. “Come with me?” he said. “You’ll get no thanks from anyone for it, not from the government or from the English, I suspect. But it will be a lark. You and me together against the world, just like when we broke the window of the church.”

“What good would a forty-year-old classicist be to anyone?” Julien asked.

“What good will a thirty-eight-year-old windbag journalist be?” came the reply. Bernard was, in fact, the same age as Julien, and both knew it.

Julien shook his head. “You like gestures too much,” he said. “Besides, I’ve fought my war. I can’t do it again. It accomplished nothing last time, and won’t this time either.”