‘Come and have lunch tomorrow at one at Maxim’s,’ Palfy said.
‘Who with?’
‘Wait and see.’
‘Julius?’
‘Yes.’
Émile drove towards Porte Maillot. Palfy was silent, perhaps regretting having revealed more than he should.
‘Can you drop me at the Étoile?’ Jean said.
‘Of course. Where are you staying?’
‘At Nelly’s. But not for long. Jesús is lending me his studio in Rue Lepic. I’m moving back next week.’
He did not admit that he could have moved in immediately, and had returned to Nelly’s as much because he was unable to be miserable on his own as because he still found Nelly physically desirable.
‘I’m not sure I entirely understand you,’ Palfy said.
‘I’m not sure I entirely understand myself.’
‘Notice that Nelly has the gift — rare in women — of never being boring. She and Geneviève are the only ones I know who fall into that category. Having said that, don’t fall into her clutches. She’s rather a tough nut.’
Jean did not doubt it. On that point at least he had no illusions. But he loved Nelly, as a sort of incestuous sister who displayed such an appetite for life that one forgave all her inconsistencies.
They turned off before Place de l’Étoile, which was blocked by a line of police. A regiment was about to parade down the Champs-Élysées, led by its band. Émile stopped in Rue de Presbourg, outside Palfy’s building.
‘Can I offer you lunch?’ Palfy asked.
‘No thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow at Maxim’s. I’ll walk back. I need to walk.’
He had walked a great deal in the last few days, as a way of thinking and trying to understand what was happening. He was tired out by the time he reached Rue Saint-Sulpice and sat down to wait for Nelly. From there, at least, he could telephone the clinic. The supervisor answered irritably. Once, he had been put through to Claude, who had begged him to come, but the supervisor had come back on the line and repeated the doctor’s orders: no visits in the immediate future …
Beneath Pont des Invalides two men were sitting on the river bank, fishing. The other problem was Anna Petrovna. Cyrille would be unhappy with her. But what could he do? Jean had promised to take him to the zoo one day. More generous towards animals than mental patients, the Germans kept the zoo well supplied. When Jean had phoned the previous evening Cyrille had also implored Jean to come and fetch him, and Anna Petrovna had taken back the receiver and might even have smacked Cyrille. Two prison guards were denying him contact with the people he loved.
Coming off Pont de la Concorde to turn in front of the Chamber of Deputies, a bicycle-taxi took the corner too fast and overturned. The cyclist was thrown against the kerb and split his head open. Blood began streaming down his white face, its features drawn with exhaustion. A woman was calling from inside the canvas cabin. She crawled out, revealing her legs as far as her stocking tops. Passers-by ran to the scene. They sat the man on the pavement. He gestured to say he was not hurt then, wiping his hand across his forehead, brought it away covered in blood and sat still with his mouth open, staring at the young woman who was weeping with rage and pointing to her stocking, torn above her knee. She was young and pretty and held a crocodile handbag tightly to her side, repeating, ‘What about my silk stockings, what about my silk stockings, who’ll pay for them?’ People looked at her pretty legs, exposed by her rucked-up skirt. Jean swore to himself that he would never travel in a bicycle-taxi. Being propelled by another human being offended the idea of basic dignity he continued to maintain. At a pavement table at the Café du Flore he noticed Picasso, his wide eyes gleaming with mischief, and in front of the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés saw Sartre shuffling along, his nose red, a thick scarf around his neck, huddled up in a coat two sizes too big for him. Nelly had read The Flies, which was in rehearsal at the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt (now Aryanised as the Théâtre de la Cité).
‘For an intellectual,’ she had said, ‘it’s not bad to have written a play like that.’
In Rue des Canettes he bought their bread ration and two slices of pâté without coupons, and at the wine merchant’s a bottle of vintage Bordeaux over the counter that cost four times the price of vin ordinaire and was not worth it. Nelly’s mother sent confit d’oie, pâté de foie and truffles from the south-west by means of a network of railway workers that ended at Gare d’Austerlitz, where Jean collected the parcels. Her daughter was exasperated rather than grateful.
‘What’s she thinking of? I could get that from any of my admirers if I asked for it. What I need is steak and chips. There’s no steak, no potatoes, no fried food. What are we going to eat her truffles with? Swede?’
Unusually Nelly was waiting for Jean at her studio, when she should have been at the Français.27 Wrapped up in woollies, she was drinking a hot toddy.
‘Jules-who, you are making yourself desirable. When you’re not here it doesn’t suit me at all. I get impatient. When you’re here too, unfortunately. I have to conclude that sometimes, only sometimes, I love you. A bit. Where were you? I nearly died. You wouldn’t even have been here to hold my hand.’
‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘I might be getting flu.’
‘And you call that “dying”?’
‘What about my voice?’
He had not thought of that. She kissed him on the cheek.
‘Oh lovely, you’ve brought bread and wine. And pâté!’
She tasted it.
‘Utterly disgusting. Let’s dunk our bread in the wine instead.’
‘I prefer it in soup.’
‘Oh yes, I forgot, a peasant boy at heart. Like me. No soup without bread.’
She opened her pretty red mouth wide. Her uvula quivered delicately. She said, ‘Ah, ah … I’ve got a throat infection, haven’t I?’
‘Yes, give it to me.’
He shut her mouth with a kiss.
‘That’s all you think about!’ she said happily.
‘No, but I’d like to—’
‘Here? This minute?’
‘No, I mean, I’d like to think only of that.’ Nelly swallowed her toddy in one.
‘I drink to forget that you’re unfaithful to me. I get drunk with work for the same reason.’
‘Then you’re not so ill.’
‘Listen, settle yourself peacefully in a corner and be quiet. Dear old Michette’s coming to go over my lines with me.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Yes, the dear thing’s become passionate about Corneille. She’ll play Stratonice. With her Auvergnat accent she’ll be wonderful. Corneille must have written the part with an Auvergnat girlfriend in mind.’
They were dunking their bread in the wine when Marceline Michette rang the bell. The cold had given her ruddy cheeks, making her look more like a lady of good works than the patronne of a brothel. She, like Palfy, was at a turning point in her life, on the brink of a less profound but equally lasting transformation. She had become enthralled by the theatre since meeting Nelly and spending a fortnight in the studio looking after Claude and Cyrille. And she had embarked on another adventure too, a real one and a secret one, outlandish and yet plausible at this time. Yes, Marceline Michette really had become a secret agent. Don’t laugh! There were few more devoted to the task than she was. How had it happened? It is difficult to be sure. Probably thanks to her often mysterious demeanour, someone had noticed her, sounded her out, tested her. And gradually, smoothly, she had begun to work as a messenger for what people were already referring to as the Resistance. She was a good choice: was the patronne of a brothel not a person above suspicion, accustomed to remain as silent as the grave? In churches and Métro stations, booking halls and cinemas, Marceline received and handed on documents the meaning of which she knew nothing. She operated with relaxed courage. In this regard the reader will allow us to admire Palfy, who had only sought to amuse himself with her, who had played his cards randomly and purely on the basis of his fondness for mystification. With Marceline he had turned over an ace. Through her he began to prepare his exit plans. It seemed to be a stroke of genius, though in fact it was unpremeditated and the result of sheer chance. His luck had started to turn at last. The Croix de Guerre Marceline will receive soon after the Liberation will help Palfy to get himself off the hook and return to France after a prudent period of exile. Meanwhile, she was giving Nelly her line: