And so people will forgive the knickers and restore full conversation rights — this is long after the war is over, in the mid-1920s, in the Brasserie de la Paix on the Boulevard des Italiens — you’ll have to tell another story, Max, so come on, let’s have it:
‘Out of the question!’
‘Come on!’
So Max tells the story of the Pieds Nickelés, their last cartoon adventure in book form published before the war, in which it wasn’t Poincaré who replaced Fallières, it was the famous gang comprising Ribouldingue, Filochard, and Croquignol, the Pieds Nickelés became ministers under Fallières, they had the same slogan as Poincaré, Republic, Duty, Country, a landslide for the Pieds Nickelés in the elections, men in frock-coats prevaricate, great junketings, big spending, gambling, living like kings only more so, Fallières gets worried and Ribouldingue comes up with: ‘If Fallières tries to stick his nose in our affairs, we’ll fettle Fallières, him and his bally heirs!’
Fallières went away, goatee, lips pursed and pop-eyed and opened a tobacconist’s shop, leaving the Pieds Nickelés in the Élysée Palace to drink, thieve, and have lots of fun in frock-coats, this was late in 1912. Fallières and bally heirs. Ribouldingue, Croquignol and Filochard! If they’d stayed in power instead of Poincaré, there would have been peace.
‘No Max, a true story, not this kid’s stuff!’
‘We would also have had peace if that serious incident involving France and England in April 1914 hadn’t been speedily resolved.’
‘Max, where did that come from? Your fifth beer? There was no such incident.’
‘No, as true as I live and breathe, if a Franco-British stand-off had happened no one would have wanted war, a major incident of some sort, say a great dinner at the Élysée Palace, April 1914, King George having to lead off from the drawing room into the dining room with Madame Poincaré on his arm, and behind them would come the President and Queen Mary.’
Max lines up sugar lumps, one for each person, sets them out in a square.
‘And a couple of hours before the dinner, Queen Mary is heard to say, “Me? Walk behind that woman? Never!” Panic, they toy with the idea of letting the Queen go first, with the President, but that would mean a king walking behind a president, Madame Poincaré threatens to boycott the dinner and the talk in the Queen’s entourage is of bigamy, of getting back on the boat, you get the picture, a major incident, within an inch, France loses her alliance with Britain, therefore would tread much more carefully with Poincaré no longer telling the Russians to just go ahead. At the time, he kept saying “I intend to force the Russians to be less feeble.”’
‘Max and his “ifs”! If, my aunt! Perhaps the French would have been more prudent, but the Austrians would have been more aggressive, I don’t buy it, put those sugar lumps away.’
‘However that may be, comrades, we did avoid a Franco-British incident, by a whisker.’
‘How?’
‘I didn’t think you were interested, you really want to hear about my incident?’
Max reaches for the sugar lumps again and lines them up in a single row.
‘Very well, it’s very simple, in the Élysée, enormous double swing doors separate the drawing room and the dining room, all that they had to do was open both doors wide so both couples could go through abreast, though it’s not as straightforward as that, both the ladies, the Queen and the President’s wife, speed up, each trying to put a clear length between her and the other, so that the procession reaches the table at a canter.’
Max never liked Poincaré, he makes up all kinds of stories, yes, quite true, says Max, and I’ve changed my mind about Poincaré, I thought he wanted war and got it, I wanted a culprit, someone who’d betrayed his own side, Max, politics is primarily the art of betraying your own side, I know, says Max, and Poincaré is our collective sellout, remember Pio Baroja, hugely talented novelist, late 1916: ‘the French and the Germans are only fighting from cowardice; they are each under the thumb of a terrorist organisation and can do nothing about it.’
Max’s points his index finger at his comrades:
‘Robert, primary schoolteacher, Paul Robert, family holiday in the country, summer 1914, hot, only just arrived, 2 August, order for general mobilisation, had to leave his holiday cottage but the owner demanded payment of the full month’s rent. And Poincaré remains a terrorist.’
Three troops at full tilt, charging at German dreams. At first they ride recklessly towards the machine gun. Later they’re more careful. Charging dreams, their primary mission the Captain had said, the rumble of hooves, a rifle bullet in a horse’s flank, the horse twists its neck and withers, rears up, is still rearing up when its heart bursts, the sound of a lance piercing a body, the whistle of sabre blades as they charge those German dreams, another rider is down, the bottom half of his face flops on his neck, a slice of soft flesh, blood, spittle, the lower jaw gone, blue eyes, intensely blue.
They haven’t yet invented those marvellous operations for smashed jaws which will make the names of military surgeons famous, first remove a cutaneous flap two skin layers thick, from the top of the head, then bring it down and manoeuvre it over the lower part of the face, the quality of the skin taken from the scalp is far superior to that from the arm, which was previously used, the flap will be positioned over the damaged area, the patient can allow the hair of the flap to grow thus reconstituting an almost normal beard which will hide any scarring, though the effect is debatable from an aesthetic point of view. It’s better than nothing, the patient will say. In the clearing, the dragoons charge the machine guns which destroy their momentum.
Basically when I was with Hans, I was jealous. In the end I admitted as much to myself. At first I thought of it as a branch of gymnastics. Before Marie-Thérèse, when I woke up I’d feel washed-out but now the moment I stirred I could see her and felt alive, there she was before my very eyes, she’d be smiling at Hans, I knew she wanted to take him away from me, I’d hold out a cup of tea to her, I wanted to tip it all over her frock, pink Liberty print again, why didn’t she go, go away and wash and dry herself and change, and come back looking a fright, tipping the tea over her is so petty, if you really want rid of her throw it in her face, don’t worry whether it’s boiling hot or not, you’re dreaming you’re throwing tea in Marie-Thérèse’s face because you know you’ll never do it, whereas you could tip tea over the starchily creaking fabric at any time, and you tell yourself it’s petty, result: you do nothing.
Marie-Thérèse puts her hand on Hans’s forearm, like an old army friend. You could also take her to one side and threaten to kick her down the stairs if she touches him once more, you must smile at her, people are looking, they know everything and are enjoying it, dig your nails into her face, this new fashion is unspeakable, forehead uncovered on one side and on the other hair hanging down over the eyebrow, a sultry look for fast women, nails in the cheek, apparently if you use an ordinary lump of sugar to break the skin the scars never disappear.
What right did she have laughing like that? I knew she wanted to take him from me but I couldn’t do anything until she’d actually done it, people would have said I was hysterical; and Hans playing the innocent, my darling girl, I don’t understand why you don’t get on with her, she’d smile, she’d blush, she wanted to take him away from me.
Tell us what happened next, Max, not what really happened next, except for the death of that teacher Robert, tell us another story, Max, it’s true, instead make it the end of the story of the company officer who fought the duel, yes, the infantryman, I get confused with all these officers, cavalry Captain Jourde at Monfaubert, who was the infantry captain of Alain-Fournier who was himself a lieutenant at Saint-Rémy, those cavalry lieutenants at Monfaubert, the infantry CO with the name six and a half centuries old, the one Max later saw riding off to attack pillboxes with Lazare, the lad who liked sweets, yes Max’s major’s sister-in-law had told him the rest of the story of the duel when he saw her in Paris on a different leave, the lover who was no such thing, he had simply dreamed of being her lover, he used to send letters as if it had all really happened.