‘You were marvellous.’
Nelly was talking to her in the mirror, her face tense, smoothing her eyebrows whose natural arc emphasised her dark eyes.
‘And to think I’m a stationmaster’s daughter!’ she said.
‘My brother works on the railways too!’ Mauricette replied, folding a scarf.
They walked back to Place Saint-Sulpice together, arm in arm. Before leaving for the theatre Nelly had made a cold supper and they ate it on the kitchen table, he in his shirtsleeves, she naked under her dressing gown. The summer night, silent and heavy, drifted through the window, filling the studio. In bed, Nelly snuggled against him.
‘The time for admissions has come,’ she said. ‘I’ve been wanting to say it since yesterday. This is the situation, my scrumptious Jules-who: I believe I’m actually in love with you, though you don’t deserve it. At the same time I’m also attracted to Jérôme Callot. Why? I don’t know. Well, every night we play the most sublime love on stage so convincingly that I suppose some of it’s left behind afterwards. But he’s an awful dunce; he got married when he was twenty and has two kids and and is never going to leave his bourgeois wife for me. So we say nothing to each other except for the cues Musset gives us, like two old hams. And I hang on to you, like you hang on to me, in spite of your Claude. See? I’m more honest than you. Now let’s go to sleep, as if you were Jérôme and I were Claude. Marvellous, isn’t it?’
Nelly’s skin still had the sweetish taste of make-up and her make-up removers. He could never confuse it with Claude’s. She fell asleep immediately, like a child consumed by sleep, her fists clenched, surrendering to her dreams with the same passion as she surrendered to the theatre. Sometimes she lived her dreams so intensely that she slept panting and out of breath, or uttered disjointed phrases that Jean memorised so that he could repeat them to her next morning. But she remembered nothing. Jean tried to summon a memory of Jérôme Callot’s face. He had seen him on stage and once in the wings at the Français: his large, leonine head, his curly hair, his superb voice, an assurance borrowed from his characters and, underneath it all, more than likely, an enormous stupidity of the sort that only actors are capable of. Nelly was attracted to him, conscious of his vanity, but knowing he lived in her world and that they shared the same double life, and Jean would never be able to do as much. He was astonished that he felt no jealousy, only a vague fear that was hard to define, possibly the fear of finding himself suddenly alone at a moment when nothing had prepared him to be. But he would always love Nelly, in his way, and an immense affection would bind them that nothing would dislodge. He leant over her and murmured in her ear, ‘My little sister …’
She snuggled up tighter.
Jean had gone back to Portugal twice and each time had found Urbano at the border, waiting for him. The young PIDE inspector made no attempt to conceal his surveillance of Jean and had become increasingly friendly.
‘You know,’ Urbano had said at their last meeting, ‘I think you’re rather brave. You’re running definite risks. You could be murdered on the way; no one would ever try to find out where the shot had come from. With me at your side you’re in less danger, so long as my government doesn’t arrest you, but, as you must know, I don’t only work for my government. It’s a matter of material necessity. Dr Salazar is a great man and he intends to keep our country out of the war. Having said that, he’s also tightfisted. His prime ministerial salary is just enough for him to live on because he has very few needs, and he feels the servants of the state ought to follow his example. So everyone moonlights. I’ve resigned myself to it, like everyone else. A foreign power that I shan’t name asks me for information. When that information doesn’t compromise my country’s own affairs, I provide it. My superiors close their eyes, probably because they do the same. So I’ve been ordered to find out why you come here, and it may be that I know, but because I like you I’m taking this opportunity to warn you. I think it unlikely that you’ll complete a fourth journey. You probably won’t make it to prison; you’ll be liquidated before you get there. Who will protest? Not the Germans, you can be sure. Nor the Vichy government, who’ll know nothing about it …’
They had had dinner at Peniche before reaching Lisbon after nightfall, and this time had eaten not cod but perfect rock lobsters and drunk a vinho verde from Minho that had stripped away some of Urbano’s reserve. Jean listened to him, careful not to give anything away. He had been lectured too often by Palfy and Julius to be unaware that a policeman, however charming, convivial and cultured, is still a policeman, and the innocent ways of picking up an indiscretion are infinite. Yet he did not dislike the Portuguese man and it would not have taken much to make him feel friendship for him, especially as Urbano was also a foundling, adopted by a family of minor civil servants. He had finished his schooling with the help of scholarships and learnt English and French on his own. His talents and intelligence had raised him in the ceremonial and complicated hierarchy of Portuguese bureaucracy. One day he would be someone, and he had no doubt of his future.
From the restaurant terrace they watched the fishing boats coming ashore on the tide. Oxen towed them clear of the water and women with baskets on their heads unloaded their catch in an extended Indian file lit by acetylene lamps placed on the white sand.
‘It’s true that I’ve taken risks,’ Jean said, ‘but I’m just the messenger in these transactions. If anyone wants to take me out, that won’t make any difference to the people running the show. But … I hear what you’re telling me and I’ll give it some thought.’
‘I haven’t made you angry?’
‘No, no, not in the slightest. You’re doing your job, I’m doing mine. I absolutely have to have money … for reasons that might make a jury weep, but not a secret service. So I’m taking the risk. I’m too much on my own to have any other choice.’
‘Is it for your parents?’
‘No. It’s for a woman I love, who the Germans arrested and tortured. They drove her half mad and I’ve got no other way to protect her and help her get better than by putting her in a nursing home where she’s safe.’
Urbano was thoughtful for a moment.
‘The rule of my profession is never to believe what people tell me, and I don’t know why I believe you. You trust me; well then, I shall trust you, Jean. You must settle your business tomorrow at the earliest possible opportunity and get away without delay. Don’t stay in Lisbon a minute longer than you have to. You’ll be picked up, and I shan’t be able to do anything for you. As soon as you leave the bank, call me from a public phone box on a number I’ll give you before I leave you. We’ll meet at a place I’ll tell you and I’ll find a way to drive you to Vila Franca de Xira, where you’ll be able to catch the express without being followed. I can’t do more than that …’
‘You’ll be losing a fat bonus.’
‘It’s too bad. There’ll be others. Lisbon is teeming with people with something to hide. Anyway, money isn’t everything for me.’
‘You’ve got no reason to behave like this towards me.’
‘Very true!’ Urbano conceded with a smile. ‘But I do a job I don’t enjoy every day of the week, so perhaps this evening I’d like to make amends to myself for the bad aspects of my life. You make a good hostage. So I’m not just a policeman, I also have a friend …’
This had happened at the end of May, shortly before the events we recounted in the previous chapter. Jean had taken the card Urbano had slipped him under the table. It could have been a trap; it was like tossing a coin. But the man from the PIDE had been as good as his word and Jean had found himself back in France safe and sound, with a warning that a fourth trip would not be tolerated. Palfy was unsurprised.