He looked down at the ground and picked up his beer. “It’s guarded, of course.”
“It’s impregnable.”
“Well, there you are.”
“No. What bothers me is its seeming invulnerability. There are enough troops guarding the place, all right, but in a sense that is really not the point. It can’t be directly assaulted, which is of course why they’d have to send a man here-to break it, to find a way in.”
“How is security?”
“I tell you, Marcel, that’s what puzzles me so much about it. Everything is as it should be. It is completely impossible. It can’t be entered by anyone who hasn’t been thoroughly checked out. Everyone who works inside has been cleared and cleared again. There are troops all over St. Etienne with 75s ready to shoot down any aeroplanes…”
“Aeroplanes?”
“Probably not, I agree, but one can’t be too careful.”
“Well, then, it seems as if it’s all covered.”
“It is, and that’s what bothers me. The level of security may have created a degree of complacency. I’m growing more and more certain that we should direct our attentions there. It would also explain why our man has stayed around so long without acting. He couldn’t very well break their security in too short a time.”
“If at all.”
I looked across at my friend. Years of service still hadn’t forced him to develop an imagination. He was steady and loyal, always ready for action, and totally without fear, but he could never foresee an event before its occurrence. The times I had worked with him before, he’d been invaluable, but as an active force, rather more like another weapon. And so I’d developed a protective attitude toward him. Not that he needed protection from any known danger-once it was identified, he was in his element. Too often, however, he suspected nothing and would have walked into traps totally unprepared. I don’t know how he was with other agents. Perhaps we had been friends for so long that he didn’t feel with me that he had to be so much the professional, that our personal relations overlapped. I didn’t share his feeling, but he was my closest friend. Now, as I discussed possibilities with him, I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that perhaps it was approaching the time for him to get out of espionage. He would perhaps be more valuable as a strategist, directing troops from a defensible position against a visible enemy.
“Time will tell,” I answered him.
“Yes.”
We got up and started to cross over to the house. A breeze was blowing steadily now, and it felt as if rain was in the air. I put my arm around my friend’s shoulder.
“Let’s find something,” I said. “I’m getting very bored.”
He laughed. “Better to be bored than dead. There’s a lot of that going around these days.”
“Yes,” I said, keeping my thoughts to myself. Overhead, the sky had begun to darken.
3
It had rained before the first of the guests arrived, and now the clouds hung low over the land, spent and yet threatening. Occasionally there was a low roar of thunder-the first thunderstorm of the season-but the clouds obscured the lightning.
Georges Lavoie and Henri Pulis arrived first, a little after eight o’clock, and we sat by the front window looking out over the field that lay between my home and the road, some seventy-five meters away. Through some fluke the oaks that surrounded the house did not mar the view out of this window, though with the wind and the swirling branches the scene was neatly translated from the pastoral to the Gothic. From time to time one of the lower branches would sweep across the window like a hand. Twice the wind was strong enough to throw a hail of acorns into the glass, sounding for all the world like the tapping knuckles of that passing hand.
It was, I suppose, a rather strange collection of guests that came every week to my house and shared my beer. We were not confreres by occupation or age; indeed, we had almost nothing in common except a love of beer and companionship. I was by far the eldest, except for Marcel, and the only one of us with any wealth. Usually, we would drink and talk, often playing cards, until midnight. Sometimes Paul Anser would read something he’d just written, horribly translated. He was a great joker and kept the nights far from being dull. Now, with the war, we never ran out of news to discuss, though some nights we still would just sit and read, as in an English men’s club, with of course the notable exception of Tania.
Henri Pulis looked like what he was-one of the hard-working bourgeoisie. Though he was some fifteen years younger than I, his hair was nevertheless starting to streak with gray, and his face was set in creases punctuated by a large, drooping black mustache. He always sat slumped over, and this made him look even shorter than he was. Now he sat, nervously yet methodically wiping the foam from his mustache with his left hand, holding the beer in his right.
He’d come to Valence as a young man, perhaps ten years ago, after working for a time as a ship’s mate. It was even rumored that he’d deserted from the Greek navy when his ship had docked at Marseilles, and he had moved north, lying low for some months until he decided it was safe to appear. After two or three years, he’d saved enough to open his own shop. We had met because he sold the supplies I needed for the beer, and though he was not as witty as the others, he was no less popular. He often seemed uncomfortable until he’d had a few beers; then he would relax and entertain us with crude jokes that we were all secretly ashamed of enjoying. He had originally come when I’d asked him, he said, to get away from his wife and six children, and though by now we were all friends, I was still not completely convinced that he so much treasured our company as that he considered it a respite from his family’s.
Georges Lavoie normally came with Henri. They were friends who often dined together during the weeks when both were free. Georges was thirty-five or thereabouts, a traveling salesman who was often on the road but who made a point of returning by Wednesday, when we all gathered. He was kept from the service by a severe limp-his right leg was shorter than his left. But this didn’t hamper him from somehow seeming the most urbane member of our fellowship. His father had been a banker in Brussels, in Lille, even in Coblentz, before he finally settled in Metz, and undoubtedly the company of bankers had instilled in him a certain conservatism of dress and deference in mannerism. Nevertheless, he had a ready tongue and a stock of stories which were the more amusing for their incongruity. He, along with Tania and myself, never drank to excess, while the other three often left the house a bit affected. When the war broke out, he had left his native Alsace-Lorraine and fled south. He worked now out of Valence, selling and delivering his wares to factories, hospitals, and arsenals in the towns along the Rhone. He was the latest of our number, except for Lupa.
Henri shuddered, crossing one leg over the other and reaching for his bottle. “Good night to get drunk,” he said.
“It’s a good night for something,” Georges agreed philosophically.
I raised my glass. “To something,” I said, and we drank the toast.
Fritz brought in three more beers and left the room, shaking his head sadly. He did not like beer at all.
By now it had gotten dark. The lamps were lit, and the fire stoked, and we had moved to more comfortable seats. We always remained in the big sitting room for these evenings. With its large front window reflecting the lights back in on us, the warm rug, and the variety of furniture, it was ideal for a small gathering of friends. Last spring, before I was sent north, we’d met in the arbor several times, but somehow, after dark, this room was much more comfortable.
Georges and Henri sat on either side of the large fireplace, which commanded one corner of the room, next to the entrance to the dining area and, behind that, the kitchen. I sat on the divan under the window, looking out for the others’ arrival. In the far corner, away from me, were two other stuffed chairs, with a coffee table in front, then the door leading in from the foyer. Just to my left was a china closet and, to my right, bookshelves that lined the wall from the corner to the fireplace. Two other tables held our beer and some magazines, one directly in front of me, the other between Henri and Georges.