‘I live, and at that instant the century turns.
One feels the wind from an enormous leaf,
one of God’s and your and my written sheaf
that on high in foreign hands revolves.
One feels the radiance of a brand-new page
on which everything can still become.
‘How appropriate that is, and from a German too.’
One morning Laura telephoned from her office. Her department was moving out. Trucks were being loaded with the archives, under the protection of an armoured car. Jean dashed to the Étoile to find her. Alone in the square, she watched the procession of green vehicles moving out of the 16th arrondissement, heading east.
‘It’s a rout, Jean. I’m going to try not to follow and reach Gif on foot. They’re saying the Chevreuse valley has been liberated. I’m afraid for Jesús. Recently people have been turning their back on him, because of me.’
Jean was a better judge of the situation than she was.
‘You’ll make things worse. Don’t go. I’ll talk to the chief and you come straight over to Nelly’s, but for heaven’s sake not in uniform.’
‘I haven’t got anything else.’
‘Go to a shop now and buy something.’
She reached Place Saint-Sulpice at the end of the day, wearing a raincoat over her uniform. Nelly gave her something to wear. The short man in glasses came to fetch her and took her to stay at his command post.
‘Don’t move,’ he said. ‘I owe you an enormous debt of gratitude, but my powers are becoming limited. I thought I was the only one in the Resistance but I’m discovering that there are thousands, millions of us.’
Marceline, who was now constantly at his side, added,
‘At setting out we were five hundred, but being speedily reinforced
We saw ourselves three thousand on arriving at the port.’
‘Yes, Madame Michette, your quotation could not be more apt. Three thousand just seems to me to be something of an underestimate. We are living literature. Your passion for Corneille reminds me of my youth. The theatre of moral nobility! It’s certainly the moment for it. We shall badly need it …’
With Laura safe, Jean began to worry about Jesús. Borrowing a bicycle, he cycled to Gif with a safe-conduct in his pocket for his friend, whom he found, as anticipated, a prisoner of the FTP,35 locked in a barn with twenty other ‘traitors’. The safe-conduct was no magic wand. Three colonels wearing new braid discussed interning Jean. Fortunately the telephone worked. They called Paris. The messenger’s credentials were confirmed, and he was able to go to a devastated Jesús.
‘To me! To me, a Spanish man! Jean, you saved my life. Where is Laura?’
‘Safe. She was very worried about you.’
The local maquis controlled communications and vanished when a German convoy passed through. Jesús was given a hunting rifle. He was guarding the mairie by the time Jean reached Paris again, exhausted. At the beginning of September in Les Lettres Françaises he stumbled on an article devoted to two great painters of the Communist resistance: Pablo Picasso and Jesús Infante. There was talk of an exhibition. A photo in L’Humanité showed Laura kissing Picasso and described Jesús as a former Republican fighter living in exile.
Jean appreciated the honour. From the cell in which they had been ten men scratching, moping, exchanging their life stories, passing on rumours and hearsay, imagining Paris ablaze and the armies of Field Marshal von Rundstedt regaining the offensive and driving the Allies back into the Atlantic, he had been moved to solitary confinement. Through the cell bars he could see the prison yard and the circle of prisoners from whom he had been separated. The overcrowding, the chatter, the complaints of the weakest, the lofty contempt of the strongest and even the dignity of the best had robbed him of his energy. Ironically solitary confinement returned it to him. He resumed the exercise regime he had begun at Dieppe Rowing Club years before. Press-ups, sit-ups, warm-up exercises, shadow-boxing; his fitness began to return. It would have returned faster if he had been properly fed. He would have liked more reading material too. A book a week did not satisfy his craving. He paced round and round inside his four walls, attempting to recall every detail of the battle of Waterloo as Fabrice del Dongo had experienced it, or the scene of Julien Sorel reaching for the hand of Madame de Rênal. In between he recited to himself lines Nelly had taught him.
‘Your brown hair and shining black mantle,
Your hard bright eyes that are too gentle,
Your beauty which is not one,
Your breasts a cruel Devil corseted, perfumed
with musk as he did your pallor
Stolen from the moon at dusk …’
He regretted not being able to remember how it went. Another couple of lines,
‘Time for a greeting, all bedazzled
Time to kneel and kiss your slipper …’
But they had left him a notebook and pencil and he resumed his previous discipline, his daily habit of noting down his thoughts.
A lawyer had been appointed by the court, an intelligent and over-quick young man named Deschauzé. It was not his fault: Maître Deschauzé had thirty defendants like Jean to defend and mixed up their cases, histories and sometimes their names. His heavy briefcase was full of hot air.
The first visitor Jean was allowed was the little man in glasses, whose real name he learnt at last: Jehan de la Ferté-Mondragon. He arrived in the uniform of a cavalry major. The warder, impressed by his decorations, left them alone.
‘You see me as an officer for the first time. I’m leaving for Alsace tomorrow to rejoin my regiment. I thought I might be of some use in Paris, but life here is impossible. They don’t want me. They’re right. Officers are made to command soldiers, not to play at being a policeman during a purge. I had a lot of difficulty getting to see you, but I had a good excuse: to bring you the medal of the Resistance and tell you I’ve also proposed you for the Military Medal. Here’s your Resistance medal. Don’t chuck it down the toilet until I’ve gone. It would hurt me. Obviously I shall look after your interests as best I can. I may as well tell you it’s very difficult. You have, it seems, engaged in proscribed activities. I’m not asking you to tell me all your secrets. All I require is for you to assure me you have not worked against your country’s interests …’
‘Absolutely not.’
Jehan de la Ferté-Mondragon misunderstood him.
‘What? You can’t assure me?’
‘Yes. I can assure that I have not worked against my country’s interests.’
The major looked relieved. He turned his blue képi in his short, chubby fingers. Sweat beaded on his forehead and he wiped it away with the back of his hand.
‘It’s hot in your prison.’
‘Only in the visiting room. Lawyers catch cold easily. In the cells you have to break the ice to wash yourself in the morning.’
‘We didn’t fight for this. Full prisons, people condemned to death … torture … extra-judicial executions … I feel ashamed. I’m going back to the army.’
‘I hope you won’t feel ashamed of the army too.’