‘He’s a wild boy. You need to make a bond with him.’
‘I’ll try.’
He turned his head impassively and lifted the curtain again. Albert was repairing his hosepipe with some rags and string. A few steps away, Jean was watching with his hand on his cheek. The slight movement of his shoulders gave away his stifled sobbing. Antoine’s silence conveyed to Marie-Thérèse that she should now do as he had asked.
He waited calmly, followed with an attentive ear the discussion between mother and son at the bottom of the stairs and their slow approach to the first floor, then listened, without attempting to work out their sense, to the excited whisperings on the other side of the door. Finally Marie-Thérèse must have managed to convince him, for Michel entered alone into the room with his father. He stood with his back against the closed door, his legs together, his head high. They exchanged a look and Antoine was glad to see that his son did not lower his eyes. They sized each other up for a moment in silence, the father almost startled to find his son good-looking — this boy he knew so little of — the son surprised that his father did not vent his anger straight away.
‘You’re really quite a handsome little chap!’ Antoine said.
It was true. At six years old Michel, slim and with long, well-muscled legs, square shoulders, a long neck, a well-defined profile and pale blond hair, was a beautiful child. Antoine felt he was seeing him for the first time. What sort of incomprehension had kept them apart for so long? He mused on this for a moment, distracted at first, then suddenly conscious of what was happening on the other side of the door, of a mute and fearful presence. He waited; there was plenty of time. It was Marie-Thérèse who, unable to bear the silence any longer, knocked, tentatively opened the door and put her head around it. Antoine smiled.
‘Don’t worry. I haven’t eaten him.’
‘But you’re not talking.’
‘We are communicating to each other matters that cannot be spoken aloud.’
Barely reassured, Marie-Thérèse retreated. Antoine listened to the sound of her feet going away downstairs and, without allowing vexation or irritation into his voice, said, ‘Aren’t we, Michel?’
‘What?’
‘I think you know what I’d like to talk to you about.’
‘No.’
‘Something about a headscarf and a hosepipe punctured with scissors.’
Michel breathed deeply, like a diver about to disappear underwater.
‘Don’t punish Jean,’ he said. ‘He’s only four.’
‘Because he did it.’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s very precocious, isn’t he? But I appreciate you taking his side. You’re a good-hearted boy.’
‘He’s a servant’s son.’
‘Jeanne is not a servant. I don’t like to hear you say that word. Jeanne is our caretaker and her husband is my friend.’
‘How can he be your friend? He’s a gardener.’
‘I prefer a gardener to many of the people your mother makes me entertain in this house.’
‘Anyway, Jean doesn’t know what he’s doing.’
‘Are you sure he did it?’
‘Yes.’
Antoine remained silent. He was discovering who his son was, and the discovery interested him. In one sense he was proud that the boy was sticking to his lie, knowing that his father knew. He allowed that he had courage, and a deep scorn for the truth.
‘I want to be sure that Jean won’t be punished, so I would like Albert to come up and see me. Would you be very kind and tell him?’
Michel’s hand was already on the doorknob.
‘Wait. Don’t be in such a hurry. Give me a kiss.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it will give me pleasure.’
Michel let go of the knob, walked over to his father, and gave him a cold kiss on the cheek.
‘Thank you,’ Antoine said. ‘Now you can go.’
He watched Michel run out and go to the gardener. Albert put down the nozzle of his hose, dried his hands on his thick blue canvas apron and limped up the avenue, trousers flapping around his wooden leg. He kept his back straight, and no one watching him would have felt under any obligation to show him charity or pity. He was a deeply accepting man, who offered his suffering to the cause of peace about which he spoke so often, with the fervour of a visionary. Antoine was very fond of him and discreetly let him know that he was, as is proper between men.
‘I’m interrupting your work,’ he said when Albert entered.
‘I’d finished, Captain.’
‘Captain’ had replaced the ‘sir’ of before the war. They had met in uniform, on leave, and from that moment on, master-servant relations had become impossible. Better to substitute their military ranks, which at least reminded them in a soulless peacetime that men might come together in a brotherhood of respect, without servility.
‘Have a chair. A small glass of something?’
‘I wouldn’t say no.’
Albert filled his pipe and lit it. The pungent smell of caporal tobacco spread around the room. He took the offered glass, which was not small, and dipped his moustache in it.
‘The 1920,’ he said.
‘Mm. The last carafe.’
‘It’s good.’
Antoine swallowed a mouthful. ‘Yes. Good, but no more. It hasn’t learnt how to age.’
‘You don’t ask that from calvados.’
‘Yes, I know. Albert, I asked you to come up because you slapped Jean this afternoon.’
‘He deserved it. The hosepipe’s buggered. I’ll have to get a new one.’
‘No, don’t. I’ll have it replaced.’
‘I said I’ll do it!’ Albert said bad-temperedly.
‘From the window here I saw Michel cut Adèle’s scarf and then puncture your hosepipe. He gave the scissors to Jean to hold and ran away.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Then I’ve made a bad mistake.’
‘Did Jean protest?’
‘No, Captain. The little fool!’
Antoine saw Albert’s discomfiture, which was not due to his remorse at having smacked his child but to the idea that an all-powerful Justice had been offended against. He would have liked to find a way to reassure his friend: all-powerful Justice was doing perfectly well (in men’s minds at any rate), despite the daily offences showered upon her. It was a pity that Albert didn’t possess a more relative sense of the great moral principles: he was storing up sad days for himself, disappointments and rages that would not be good for his health.
‘He didn’t say anything to me, he didn’t even try to defend himself!’
‘He’s still a very small boy. I’d like you to send him to me. I want to talk to him, but don’t tell him what it’s about. Let me deal with it.’
Albert downed his glass and left, looking thoughtful. A short time later Antoine heard a faint tapping at the door and called to Jean to come in. The boy entered, looking serious. His shorts were too long and covered his knees, and Jeanne, in her economical way, had studded his boots so that he slipped on the polished floorboards. He came to Antoine’s armchair and kissed him on the cheek.
‘Hello, Monsieur.’
‘I know who stabbed the hosepipe and cut Adèle’s scarf.’
‘Oh, you know!’ Jean repeated, smiling.
‘But I don’t understand why you didn’t say it was Michel who did it.’
‘If I had, he would have hit me, and anyway nobody would believe me. He’s your son.’
Antoine felt a gulf opening up in front of him. This small, sweet, discreet boy was showing him a world far more complicated than the one in which the du Courseaus lived so complacently. He grasped Jean’s hand and squeezed it in his own.
‘You see … I didn’t know any of that, and I’m very grateful to you for telling me. Do you like secrets?’