The abbé was at this point in his sour reflections when Jean knocked and walked straight in, having glimpsed through the window Monsieur Le Couec with his feet in a bowl.
‘My little Jean! The prodigal son returns! And I know two others, apart from me, who will be happy to see you. Come and let me kiss you.’
Jean kissed the abbé and introduced Palfy.
‘This generous friend drove me here. We’ve just been to La Sauveté. The door was slammed in my face. Where are Papa and Maman?’
The priest’s face darkened.
‘Your mother isn’t well, my boy. The sale, her eviction — I mean what I say, eviction — have deeply affected her. She’s in hospital at Dieppe, where they’re trying to coax her and treat her and bring her back to us. In a month she’ll be bursting with health again, I’m sure. As for your father, he’s living at Monsieur Cliquet’s while he waits for Madame du Courseau to find him a position. He’s bitter, I can tell you. To work all your life and find yourself on the street from one day to the next, without work, without a roof over your head and only the maximum invalid’s pension to live on, it makes you think … Anyway, everything will work out now that you’re here. And you, Monsieur, who are you?’
‘A good-for-nothing, Father.’
Monsieur Le Couec looked disconcerted, more by the tone of the answer than by the evident accuracy of Palfy’s self-judgment. Palfy smiled humbly and looked around him. In a glance he had gauged both the priest’s state of penury and his character.
‘There are no good-for-nothings,’ said the abbé. ‘First of all, you have brought my dear Jean back. Then again, you also exist and one day you will understand why.’
‘I very much hope so. In the meantime there is no proof so far, and I sometimes get tired of waiting for it.’
‘That is because it will take a form you don’t yet know, that you cannot even envisage in the state in which you find yourself. In your place I should be very optimistic, even reassured.’
Jean was astonished to see the priest’s words make an impression on Palfy. He would have thought his friend completely invulnerable to such reflections, much too ironical or cynical to listen to them without mockery. The priest dried his feet with an old towel and eased his socks and heavy boots back on.
‘Let’s go and see your father,’ he said to Jean. ‘He’ll be having his supper with Uncle Cliquet.’
‘What about Maman?’
‘Visiting hours at the hospital are between midday and two o’clock. You can go tomorrow. If you would like me to, I’ll telephone from the grocer’s to ask them to let her know that you’re back. Oh dear Jean, it is a great joy to have you back among us.’
*
We shall not describe in detail the reunions with Albert and Jeanne. Jean was shocked at how much they had aged in two months. He saw instantly that Jeanne remained shattered by events. She rambled sometimes, then realised what she was doing and sank into exhaustion. Albert was as proud as ever, but Jean guessed his distress. He talked about ‘the release of death’ before hostilities broke out again, which in his view was not far off. Monsieur Cliquet was still assuring him that what with the railways nationalised and the strikes and the sabotage, mobilisation was impossible. The government knew it and was playing for time. Captain Duclou was more optimistic: the French navy was ready as it had not been since the days of Louis XVI, its destroyer escorts and fast escorts would eliminate the German submarines within days, while British cruisers ensured the freedom of the seas. We are not going to rehearse in these pages the interminable conversations that took place after supper that evening in Monsieur Cliquet’s modest kitchen. They would testify too well to the blindness of an era. Let us instead return to Jean and Palfy, who spent the night at the rectory. Jean would have liked his friend to stay on for a few days, but Palfy was loath to stay still. He explained very clearly why.
‘You know, dear boy, being on the move is my only security. I have to stay mobile, especially when I sign bad cheques. It’s not hard to understand. A crossed cheque paid in the same day is cashed the following day in the worst case, within two or three days in the best. Without putting my liberty at risk, I can stay in one place for twenty-four hours, forty-eight maximum, three days if I happen to sign a cheque on Friday afternoon. Thanks to the weekend, it will only be paid in on the Monday. That way, at the end of the week I get a well-earned rest before resuming my getaway.’
Palfy explained the mechanism of his swindles so clearly, in fact, and with such frankness that it was impossible even for a mind as fundamentally honest as Jean’s to feel outraged. He found the looting of collection boxes in church more reprehensible than the bad cheques, promissory notes and worthless bonds. And even there Palfy had justified, in his way, his plundering of priests and the poor.
‘I admire,’ Jean said, ‘your ability to live in such perpetual anxiety.’
‘Anxiety? It is unknown to me. I live well, tell myself stories, dupe fools and enjoy myself without hurting anyone. For example, that cheque I signed at Deauville from the cheque book I found in the Bentley: I wrote the amount on the counterfoil. The owner, who is rolling in it, won’t even notice. When there’s a car involved, I always give it back it good condition with a full tank. As for the instability, it suits me completely. I can’t stay in one place. During my childhood my parents never stayed more than a month in the same place. I acquired a taste for travel. I love travelling. So do you, actually. You’ve got the bug. Don’t deny it.’
‘It’s true, and I don’t know how I’m going to satisfy it. Not like you, anyway. One of these days you’ll fall flat on your face.’
‘One day? Yes, perhaps, and I accept it. It can end well too. Certainties are as dull as ditchwater. Let us live in delicious uncertainties.’
Jean could not wait to introduce Palfy to Joseph Outen. After his visit to Jeanne he met his friend at the Café des Tribunaux and took him to Dieppe Rowing Club, where the Sunday morning team training had just taken place. Joseph emerged from the shower, his hair and beard damp, his face taut from the morning’s exercise.
‘Holy moly,’ he said, ‘I thought rowing had lost you for good, buried alive beneath the pleasures of the flesh and the frying pan. When do you start again?’
‘Tomorrow. Joseph, I’d like you to meet my friend Palfy, Constantin Palfy.’