“But look at the list!”
“Marx, Engels, Lenin, Bakunin. . . . A predictable choice, surely?”
“Keep going.”
Marcel shrugged, so Julien read for him.
“Zola. Gide. Walter Scott. Walter Scott? What in God’s name is degenerate about Walter Scott? Boring, I agree. But hardly a danger to national morale.”
“That’s committees for you,” Marcel said wearily. “If you must know, I find it completely stupid as well, though don’t quote me. But they will keep on going until it’s done, and the list will get longer and longer. So go and do it. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
Julien was dismissed and went marching down the corridor in a rage. He could not, would not do this. This was an outrage. He remembered how he had felt, the scorn and disgust when he heard of book burnings in Germany. Such a thing could never happen in France, he had consoled himself. And now that was exactly what was happening. By direct orders of a French government.
Again, he thought of resigning, registering his protest, but then, once more, he thought of the cold, cruel man who was likely to take over his job; it was Marcel’s subtle form of blackmail to keep him in place. For he had told him several times how only his protection stopped a rabid zealot, a crusader for moral and racial purity, from occupying his position. If that was what he wanted, then go ahead and resign. Look and see what would happen. . . .
Julien again sat on the memorandum, pretended it wasn’t there, but no matter what he did he could find little comfort. A few weeks later he had to hold a meeting with the editor of a newspaper in Carpentras. It was a difficult meeting, and tried his patience. The editor was a venerable old man who had owned and run his paper for nearly forty years. Of the reporters who worked for him, two were known communists and one was a Jew. Of late, the paper had published a series of articles that were implicitly critical of the government, and that reported on the shortages of food and clothing. Julien, under strict instruction, had sent a letter warning of this, but he had paid no attention. Now he was under instruction to close the paper down.
“We cannot have this,” Marcel had said to him. “Don’t these people realize? Don’t they see that whipping up resentment and criticism does nothing at all? If the marshal cannot talk to the Germans as the leader of a unified France, he can achieve nothing.”
“Everything the paper said was true,” Julien pointed out. It was a cold day; there was no heating in Marcel’s office except for a small iron brazier that smoked badly. Julien felt asphyxiated by the fumes, and chilly in his ever more worn clothes. Even Marcel, he noted, was now badly shaved through lack of a good razor.
“It doesn’t matter if it was true or not,” Marcel snapped. “These people are making trouble unnecessarily. Sort it out.”
And Julien had summoned the editor.
“You are going to close the paper?” the man said in astonishment. “Because we pointed out what everybody knows?”
Julien looked sad. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You were warned.”
“I do not accept it. There must be something we can do. I will give an undertaking—”
“You already have. Much good did it do.”
The man thought. “The newspaper must stay in print,” he said. “Fifty people work for it, and they won’t find another job at the moment. There are the reporters, the printers, their families. . . .”
He looked down at the floor, staring at ruin and disaster. “Tell me,” he said reluctantly, speaking slowly as if hating every word that came out of his mouth. “If I got rid of the reporter who wrote the article . . .”
“Who is he?”
“Malkowitz.”
“I will inquire.”
Julien went back to Marcel and made the proposition.
“This Malkowitz character. Is he the Jew?”
“I believe so.”
“Excellent,” he said. “A fine piece of work. The paper continues, we exert our authority, and we get rid of a Jew who should have lost his job six months ago if you had been doing yours. Come to think of it, take a look at all the papers. See how many Jews there are. Suggest to the editors that their supplies of paper would be more sure if they thought more carefully about the makeup of their reporting staff. Then maybe the Bureau of Jewish Affairs will leave me alone for a bit.”
“Why? I really don’t think—”
“Just do it, Julien.”
“But, Marcel, apart from anything else it is quite unfair.”
And Marcel exploded. The first time Julien had ever seen his friend display such a lack of control. “Julien, do not question me and do not waste my time with your quibbles. I have a département to keep running. I am faced with having to tell the good people of Avignon that two thousand young men are going to be rounded up and sent to work in German factories. I have acts of petty criminality and sabotage to deal with. I have Vichy and the Germans breathing down my neck all the time. I have Marshal Pétain coming to visit in three weeks’ time. And if getting rid of a few Jews who probably shouldn’t be in the country in the first place will get me a bit of peace and quiet, then the sooner they are dealt with the better. Now, see to it. Or I’ll get someone else to do it. Understood?”
Julien retreated, taken aback by the outburst. He took the point. It was a question of priorities, and he could hardly criticize Marcel’s reasoning. What, after all, were a few jobs in comparison to the utter collapse of an entire country? Nonetheless, he found the task distasteful and delayed doing anything about it for several days until Marcel prodded him again. And again. And eventually he talked to a few editors. Four Jews were fired. Three papers dismissed another five without even being asked. More would have done so had he insisted.
In return he went back to Marcel over the matter of the books. And won a compromise; Walter Scott would be put into storage, to be consulted only with special permission. Ten people had paid for his successful defense of learning. There was no connection; they were separate matters; it was a price worth paying. Eventually, it stopped going through his mind, trying to think of some other way he might have treated the problem.
AND THREE WEEK SLATER, in October 1942, Marshal Pétain came to Avignon and was greeted on the steps of the Préfecture by his loyal servant, Marcel Laplace. Throughout that short intervening period, Julien’s disquiet grew as Marcel worked himself into a frenzy of worry. The police seemed to be in every café, every restaurant; soldiers were brought in to patrol the streets, suspected dissidents rounded up. Orders went out forbidding housewives to hang out their washing on the day of the great event. All flowerpots were to be taken off window ledges. Even so, leaflets mocking the marshal were distributed on the streets, and Marcel went wild with anxiety.
But, in Marcel’s view at least, it was all worth it. The marshal arrived and expressed himself satisfied. A grand reception followed, and Julien was invited; he shook the marshal’s hand, had those steady, deep eyes on him, and heard the speech that followed. He praised his préfet and hoped all would obey his orders; he criticized the legion, the bane of Marcel’s existence, for having admitted undesirables, for being more concerned with power than ensuring good government. And gave a warning that their behavior would be watched in the future.
And when he left, Marcel was exultant. “Julien my friend, you see? Did you hear that? We’ve won. They’ve been beaten back. It’s all been worth it. Now I can look after this place without being second-guessed and criticized all the time. Thank you, my dear friend. Thank you.”
He drank glass after glass of a champagne carefully hoarded for a special moment; for Marcel had only one enemy in those days, the people who sought to weaken his authority. And his victory seemed complete; he had strengthened his position immeasurably, was finally master in his own house. He had won his war.