‘No. Lovely and warm. I feel like diving in the sea.’
‘It’s not the time or the place. Stay where you are. I’ll come and get you.’
Half an hour later Théo was at the station, at the wheel of his wood-gas truck. They thumped each other on the back.
‘It must have caused you a lot of pain,’ Théo said.
And so Jean learnt that Antoine had died the previous day.
‘The doctor was too late. Antoine, he was red, all tensified. It looks like it was a stroke … We sent you a telegram straight away, but you never know nowadays if telegrams get there. It’s a real mess … Poor Antoine, he loved life, his Bugatti, Toinette … Ah my, Toinette, he adored her …’
Jean reflected that he had loved Marie-Dévote too and Théo had refrained from saying so.
‘Just yesterday, before it happened, he was fishing his long line in front of the hotel and brought back two rockfish. We’re having them for lunch. Can’t let ourselves go without, these days. The funeral’s at five o’clock. Have you got a black suit?’
‘No.’
It really was a day for wearing black. Antoine, now stiff and cold, had deserted Jean, and he could not stop the tears welling up in his eyes. He had come to talk to the man who had been his childhood accomplice, and for the first time Antoine had failed to be there. How could you believe in death on the shore of this lovely blue bay bordered by maritime pines under a bright and carefree sky? Antoine must have thought he would never die.
‘It happened so quick Marie-Dévote didn’t understand what was going on. She was sewing in her bedroom. He went up to see her for a chinwag and he suddenly said, “I don’t feel well.” She told him, “Lie down.” She went to get him a glass of water when he went all tense. Then he went red too. And that’s it, he was dead. Completely dead, just like that. He didn’t even say “huh”. All over.’
They buried Antoine that afternoon in the cemetery at Saint-Tropez. Théo had ordered a ‘mausoleum’ that would be ready in a week’s time. Until then a wooden cross, earth and armfuls of wild flowers picked by Toinette in the hills covered the body of this man who had chosen to live as he liked, scorning inherited wealth and the milieu he had been born into. Death had taken possession of him with a swift, neat discretion that was not its habit. Théo’s explanations notwithstanding, Antoine had probably succumbed while making love for the last time to the beautiful, voluptuous Marie-Dévote. A happy ending that mingled the heat of desire and the coldness of death.
Toinette had cried so much before the service that she remained dry-eyed and dignified at the cemetery as the coffin disappeared under the gravediggers’ spadefuls of earth. In her lovely, melancholy profile Jean looked for signs of the du Courseau line, but Marie-Dévote’s Saracen blood and Antoine’s Celtic blood had mingled so well that there were no individual traces left of either. Her grace was cooler than her mother’s, and at the same time it was possible to detect a more highly strung will than her real father’s. Several times during the ceremony Jean gave in to distraction, drawn by her faultless figure in black dress and stockings. He remembered by heart the note he had received in 1939 just after he had enlisted.
Dear godson, I send you my best warm wishes and a muffler. I hope it isn’t dangerous there, where you are. Don’t catch cold. Uncle Antoine sends you a thousand affectionate thoughts. He says you are his only friend. He kisses you, and I shake your hand …
He had been charmed. It would have been a pleasure to answer her if Antoinette du Courseau had not revealed the secret of his birth to him. And some invisible thread had, without question, connected them in the last summer before the war. Words had turned out to be futile. They echoed mournfully, no match for a secret understanding. When Claude had stayed at the hotel Toinette had remained in the background. Nearly indifferent. Spending almost too much time with Cyrille, as if Claude and Jean did not interest her. Now he could contemplate her only as a beautiful image, not without a hint of jealousy, for one day a man would come and carry off this happy creation of chance and pleasure. Selfishly he wished her a mediocre fate, one that would not fill him with envy.
That evening, after the funeral, a procession of neighbours dropped in at the hotel. Marie-Dévote had prepared for their visits. She set out glasses, wine and pastis on the table on the terrace. They talked in low voices, as though the dead man still lay in his open coffin in the middle of the living room and could hear them. The Midi accent lightened the tone of their condolences, and with the help of the pastis a note of cheerfulness permeated the conversations. Toinette disappeared and Jean led Théo out to the garage. He wanted to see the Bugatti again, still sleeping there, its headlights turned towards the sea. Antoine had left this place only the morning before: his large pipe lay on the workbench, a net was waiting to be repaired, and the car had just been wiped with a chamois leather, its chromework rubbed with oil.
‘He really loved it,’ Théo said. ‘Like a woman! One day I came here barefoot; he didn’t hear me: he was talking to it, he was saying to it, “My beauty. I’ll keep you turning over as long as there’s a drop of petrol left.” Hey … wait a moment. I’ll do it today. He’ll enjoy the music in paradise.’
Jean wanted to stop him. Théo had decided too quickly that he was master of all at last. But the Bugatti, which for three years had started at a tug of its ignition switch, refused his orders. The starter spun unresponsively. The motor shuddered and stopped.
‘It’s flooded!’ Théo said and moved around to open the bonnet.
‘Leave her. Perhaps she’s sad today.’
‘I tell you: you’re a sentimental one.’
Toinette appeared at the doors of the garage. Her face was tense, her eyes sharp and bright.
‘What are you doing here?’ she said to Théo.
‘We were looking at the Bugatti.’
‘You don’t touch it, ever, do you hear me? Ever!’
She turned on her heel, certain that she would be obeyed. Jean went after her. She had taken off her black stockings and was walking barefoot over the sand, still warm from the day. The singsong voices of visitors reached them from the terrace.
‘What do you want?’ she said to Jean.
He felt guilty.
‘I didn’t want to start the Bugatti.’
‘I know. Théo’s such a baby.’
She called him Théo, never Papa, and treated him harshly. They were walking towards the far end of the beach, where Antoine had gone so often to sit and smoke his pipe, watching the sea from the grey rock where he sat. Jean stopped to take his shoes and socks off and walked like her, feeling an inexpressible pleasure in treading over the warm sand.
‘How’s Claude?’ Toinette asked.
He told her what had happened, the arrest, the interrogation, her return in a terrible state, the madness that had taken hold of her. Toinette listened without comment, staring ahead as if she could see at the end of the beach the bulky figure of Antoine on his rock, lapped by the wavelets of the gulf. She was not interested in Claude.
‘Cyrille must be awfully sad. I hope you take him out for walks.’
‘His grandmother has custody of him. She doesn’t let me near him.’
‘What awful stories!’ she said suddenly, as though the little boy’s loneliness was the only aspect of the story that seemed sad to her.
Jean wondered if she knew everything.
‘It’s our second day without Antoine. I feel so unhappy.’
Her musical Midi accent gave the banal phrase a lightness that took away its sense.
‘Did he talk to you about me?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Often. He loved you … Oh, come on. I mean, I know … You’re his grandson and I’m his daughter.’