The Praetorians (4 page)

Hitler's voice had fallen silent and thousands, hundreds of thousands, of other voices started chanting “Die Fahne Hoch,” the barbaric hymn to a murdered pimp.

Uncle Paul nodded.

“Yes, we shall need all the courage we've got!”

Uncle Paul was one of the first to show his. He had tried to join up, but he had been rejected. When Pétain came to power Paul Esclavier had refused to take the oath and was dismissed from the University.

In London, just before setting off on his third mission, in the course of which he was taken prisoner, Second Lieutenant Philippe Esclavier discovered that Uncle Paul was in charge of all the resistance movements in the south-east. He was known by a
nom de guerre
taken from Roman history, that of Manlius, the defender of the Capitol.

This first evening that he spent in Uncle Paul's “Thebaid,” Philippe Esclavier went to bed very early, but he could not sleep.

Down in the valley the rumbling sound of the Siagne rose and fell. The moon had risen, and through the open window of his bedroom the officer could see, pale and unreal, the ridge of hills opposite him. An owl hooted.

A furtive rush, a cry: he jumped out of bed. Under his window a dog had just broken a cat's back-bone.

Silence fell once more and Philippe Esclavier went back to bed, but the white mountain ridge, the Roman ruin, this furtive killing, awakened in him memories that he wanted to forget. Until daybreak he struggled against them, in this unknown room and this over-soft bed.

On the following day Esclavier was out and about early in the morning. He had put on his canvas jungle-boots with their thick rubber soles; they reminded him of Indo-China and Algeria. In the shade of an old sheepfold which had half capsized he lay down in the cool grass which had not yet gone yellow in the summer heat and, with his head on a stone, fell into a deep sleep.

When he woke, the sun was at its height. Philippe set out again, straight in front of him, struggling through the under-growth, clambering over stones, until the sweat fell salty on his lips.

He wanted to forget that in Algeria other men, who were likewise marching, along the dried-up river-beds, over the scorching rocks or in the mud of the Djurdjura, were talking about his desertion.

As he made his way back to his house along a winding path, he instinctively studied the terrain as though he still had to send out patrols or avoid an ambush. And he said to himself: “I must buy some large-scale maps of the district.”

This reaction he had just had made him conscious of the extent to which warfare had become his profession, the army his reason for living.

He prepared his meal himself: a slice of bread, three raw tomatoes and a glass of milk satisfied his hunger. Esclavier
was frugal by nature, which did not prevent him from being equally able to drink until he passed out.

The officer had never known solitude, having always lived in military communities, camps or prisons. For fifteen years he had got up at first light, had poured himself out a cup of coffee and had then gone to attend the reveille of his men, who groaned, swore and stretched as they emerged from their barrack-rooms or dug-outs. Sleep had softened them and decomposed their features; their limbs were stiff and their gestures clumsy. They would then see him freshly shaven, faultlessly turned out even in the rice-fields or the mountains, clean-cut, ironical and slightly contemptuous. How they hated him at that moment! But they smartened themselves up, shaved and tried to emulate him.

From now on Esclavier no longer had an act to put on for anyone.

To while away the time he started arranging Uncle Paul's books: historical and political works, travel books and a quantity of detective novels.

The iron knocker on the front door banged three times. Philippe ran to see who it was.

A huge man was standing on the threshold. At first all that Philippe noticed were the bulbous eyes, the drooping moustache, the coarse shirt streched over an immense stomach and the quivering jowls.

But, even though enveloped in fat, the figure had a certain majesty and the voice was deep and melodious, the voice of an orator or of an actor of a certain standing.

“Major Philippe Esclavier?” the visitor enquired.

“In person. Do come in.”

“I say, you've started unpacking the books. Funny, isn't it, Paul's taste for detective novels? I'm Urbain Donadieu, your uncle's executor and mayor of the village. Did you know it was I who urged Paul to buy this house?”

Urbain Donadieu had sat down quietly on a package of books and, wheezing slightly like an asthmatic, started rummaging in a stack that had just fallen over.

“Would you lend me one of these? I read a lot, in fact that's
all I do, and I'm somewhat short of printed matter. Do you like it here, Major?”

“I've only just arrived.”

“You'll get bored. At first I got bored myself, then you get used to anything, to living alone, to growing fat, to growing old, then to dying. I came to invite you to dinner. I like this format. I've just re-read the memoirs of Saint-Simon.”

He ran a greedy tongue over his lips:

“We shall have trout and thrushes, the last of the season. I live in the first house at the entrance to Saint-Gilles. Let's say eight o'clock, but you may as well come at half past seven; I've got nothing to do. You're intriguing the inhabitants of our little village, therefore you're frightening them. At first I used to play this rôle of bogey-man. Then they elected me mayor, as one exorcizes a magician. Since then they've no longer been frightened. Would you like to be president of the entertainment committee? Don't worry, your only job would be to buy fireworks for the feast of Saint-Gilles, who's our patron saint. This feast is in September, but we have put it forward to July on account of the summer visitors. There are only ten of them, and they're all connected with the district.”

Urbain Donadieu got up, carrying off three books. Philippe noticed that his feet were bare in their ancient slippers. He accompanied him to the front door and watched him waddling away through the olive-trees.

When Donadieu had walked three hundred yards he sat down on a low stone wall to recover his breath. A lizard scuttling away between the cracks in the stones caught his attention for a few moments.

On the horizon, in a faint blue-and-grey mist, the succession of ridges of the Esterel looked like a mysterious, flat Chinese painting.

For years Donadieu had gazed at this countryside and each time he found it different, either through man's having imposed some unexpected modification, such as fires or forest clearance, or through a jet aircraft's leaving its wake in the sky like a boat at sea of which one can see nothing but the stern.

He drew out his handkerchief, which made a letter fall from
his pocket: his eyes wrinkled with pleasure as he unfolded the sheet of paper.

The major's arrival had reminded his daughter Irène that outside Paris, outside her little group of self-satisfied, tuft-hunting snobs, there still existed an isolated bit of countryside, and right at the end of it, a village, Saint-Gilles-de-Valreyne, where her father lived, and that this father of hers might still be of use to her.

He re-read the letter, which was typewritten on paper with the heading of the weekly periodical
Influences.

“Papa Urbain,

“You're like a great big tom-cat snoozing inertly in the sun but watching everything that goes on around him. Between Forcalquier and Grasse there isn't a single case of adultery, not a single squabble over a will or local election secret, that you don't know about. And you keep yourself informed of French political life. Did you not meet most of the men of the old and new régimes when you were working with Paul Esclavier? I want you to do me a favour. Up to now you've been good enough to send me fifty thousand francs from time to time, to keep me out of the red or to pay off my arrears of rent. I've now got my foot in the stirrup: Villèle, somewhat reluctantly, has entrusted me with the enquiry into Major Esclavier. I had to tell him I was his cousin, that we were brought up together and God knows what else. . . . After all, I am Paul Esclavier's god-daughter, and I might easily have met Philippe at his uncle's. I never did, of course, and I don't even know what this new young god looks like. I am therefore coming to Saint-Gilles for a week or two's holiday. No point in warning our paratrooper of this. For him I shall be what I still was six months ago: the editorial secretary of
Arts et Jardins.

“Here is the explanation given by the Ministry of the Armed Forces to account for this astounding resignation:

“‘Esclavier, seriously wounded in the Sahara and no longer able to take part in active operations, has applied for two years' unpaid leave.'

“The papers have made a great splash of this official version, but no one, at least among the initiates, believes it for a moment.

“The major, once more according to Villèle, has used these means to show his disagreement with the policy adopted by the Government in Algeria (which would be our policy if our boss was in power, but which we are bound to oppose since it wasn't dictated by us) or, better still, to voice his solidarity with certain conceptions and methods which are current in Algeria. The name of Esclavier would add even more to the sensationalism of such a ‘disclosure.'

“So I must hear what he has to say and perhaps get his agreement to publish a confession.

“If necessary, I can do without his agreement.

“You see, this is my big chance.

“One small point will amuse you: a fortnight ago Michel Esclavier, the major's brother-in-law, joined our board of directors.

“‘Watch your step, my girl,' said Villèle (who is no longer like the old Villèle), ‘this Esclavier's real name is Weihl, but he considers himself obliged to defend a name which he has as good as usurped.'

“I'm enjoying Paris, Papa Urbain, because nothing here is true, neither politics nor love, and because the great unwritten law is not so much to make money, as those simpletons of Communists believe, as to be seen in public, to be talked about, pulled to pieces and adored.

“It's Plato's underworld, with the shades flitting through it. Perhaps, behind the shades, there exists something real, a real France behind an insubstantial France, love that lasts, men who dream of making history instead of practising politics, but no one sees it or appears to see it. I'm twenty-six, I love shop-windows and sliding down the banisters, I enjoy doing harm and being kind occasionally. So long live the shades!

“Good-bye, you greedy, clever old tom-cat. Much love from your daughter,

Irène.”

Donadieu put the letter away and made a trumpeting sound with his mouth. He was not displeased with his daughter. With a great deal of effort he struggled to his feet, dreaming of a life in which he would no longer have to move: the news and tittle-tattle would be dished up to him at home, in his old leather armchair, together with hare
pâté
, trout cooked with almonds
and the lot washed down with this Muy wine of which he had just received three demijohns.

But had not reality, like a wave, already landed him with a major who had helped to overthrow the Republic, and a Rastignac in skirts on the eve of her career?

As he drew level with the town hall, Donadieu thought for a moment of going up to his office, but the effort appeared out of proportion to the interest he might derive from the few bits of gossip that his secretary would give him.

He sank into a metal armchair outside Léonce's little café, by the fountain on the square.

During the heat of the day Urbain Donadieu loved the cool sound of water, which was never the same, imperceptibly changing in tone according to the way in which the wind was blowing: the warm salty sea-breeze or the dry luminous mistral. It was now mistral weather. He clapped his hands.

“A pastis, Léonce, a big one and well iced, with just enough water to turn it cloudy. Send your boy to the town hall to say that I'm here and, if I'm needed, to come and fetch me.”

The upper part of Léonce's body was that of a sparsely built man with anxious, abnormally deep-set eyes. But below his chest bulged a vast pear-shaped belly.

His trousers hung very low on this bulge, so that the crotch was almost level with his knees.

“Come and sit down, Léonce. I'll stand you a swig of white. . . .”

“Delighted, Monsieur le Maire.”

“What do they think of this fellow Esclavier in the village?”

“That depends. The men or the women? The Whites or the Reds? The young or the old?”

“What do you think of him yourself?”

“It might bring in a little business, since he's featured in the papers; it's rather like film-stars. The girls think he looks like the Duke of Edinburgh; the mothers say it might be a good match, but that a man like him would never choose a country girl, or at least only to amuse himself.

“The schoolmaster, who has served in Algeria, would like to organize a party for him. The priest, since he goes almost every evening to Marcel Audran's who's a Communist——”

Léonce broke off, as though he had just made a great discovery:

“But actually, this priest, why is he such a Red? It's not his place.”

Urbain pursed his lips:

“It's the latest fashion this year in the sacristies.”

“So the priest goes around saying that the paratrooper has come here to organize a plot, that he'll disturb the peace of the village, people's consciences and the young girls' hearts, that he must be a freemason like his uncle, that he'll set a bad example by not going to church. It seems he did things in Algeria that you could hang a man for, this fellow Esclavier.”

“Including having put the gang which now governs us in power!”

“But, Monsieur le Maire, what have you got against General de Gaulle? He's going to make peace in Algeria.”

“After strangling the Republic to death.”

“Once there's peace, that's all that matters.”

“Peace on any terms—even we could have brought that about, with our nasty little schemes and rackets. But de Gaulle is infatuated with greatness, which always implies sacrifices. That suits the young. France is old, sceptical, pleasure-loving and garrulous. She only dreams of being like Switzerland, and they keep talking to her about crusades. When it comes down to brass tacks what does he offer us, your general? Austro-Hungary at the time of Francis Joseph, but without the waltzes, and a little atomic cracker which even the Chinese or Negroes will soon be able to make.”

“Even so, Monsieur le Maire, if de Gaulle makes peace in Algeria I'll vote for him even if it means voting against you. A thousand million a day it's costing us, this war. Without Algeria we'd be able to improve our water supply.”

“How often do you drink water, Léonce?”

 * * * * 

Marguerite, Donadieu's old housekeeper, had surpassed herself. The trout swam in a black sauce faintly scented with thyme and lemon. The thrushes on toast might have done with a little more juniper, but they melted in the mouth and the clove gave them an exotic taste.

The major ploughed through this succulent food without noticing it, much to Donadieu's distress. He did not even praise the wine; he added water to it.