There were ants in the grass between the rails in front of the engine, Lilstein spoke in a cynical voice:
‘See? we’re like them, ants standing in the path of a huge railway engine, some have given up wanting to know and just haul their grain of barley without asking questions, other ants say I’m going to make the engine back off, others again say it’ll roll clean over me, there’ll always be some people who get it right, but with us it’s not the same. We’ve got the message: we play with model railways.’
Chapter 5. 1978, Rumours and a Pair of Braces
In which a man named Berthier goes hunting for moles inside, no less, the French Embassy in Moscow, in a manner prejudicial to the interests of Henri de Veze, whose love life is rocky, and also of Madame de Cramilly, who is bringing up a papyrus on her own.
In which de Veze remembers a voice crying ‘The Great Adventure is buggered!’
In which it becomes obvious that you’ve been Lilstein’s mole in Paris for a very long time and that you have the ear of the President of the French Republic.
In which it becomes clear that Michael Lilstein is in melancholy mood and has almost stopped believing in socialism.
During the course of his life, a man is required to be reborn several times, and all the help he gets comes from chance and error.
Paris, 4 June 1978
Henri de Vèze entered the room without knocking, he is France’s ambassador to Moscow, he was one of Free France’s youngest subalterns and, in 1942, at Bir Hakeim, he cleared a minefield, his chances were one in ten.
He doesn’t knock before entering a minister’s office, even though it’s now thirty-six years later, even though it’s the Quai d’Orsay.
The Minister does not bridle: always agreeable, thinks de Vèze, spine of an oyster, a man of the centre, de Vèze is very angry, and the more so because he can’t say why nor tell the Minister straight out that this meeting has forced him to abandon his mistress in the middle of a quarrel, twenty minutes it took twenty minutes for her to agree to give him back his braces, forced to negotiate with a harpy so he can be on time for a mollusc.
De Vèze and the Minister have known each other for ages, they joined the Foreign Office together in 1946 but not by the same academic route, the Minister sat the usual exams while de Vèze was entitled to attempt those set specially for ex-servicemen, for several years this did not matter.
And then de Vèze realised that he was not really part of the club, though not where promotion was concerned, no, they’d never screwed him around on that score, but when in certain meetings you’re practically the only one in the room who never went to their prestigious École libre des sciences politiques, it gets to you in the end, especially the way they go about making sure you’re not aware of it, sensitive people, uncivilised but sensitive, they take your coat while their chums look on because the secretary, bless her, has forgotten to do it yet again, and they oblige with that excess of attentiveness which proclaims that they’re putting on a show especially for you, your scarf folded neatly instead of being stuffed into one sleeve, and everyone knows that you know.
The Minister is with a man to whom de Veze takes an instant dislike, crewcut, thin lips, well-developed shoulders, the blue-eyed athlete of airport novels, though from the waist up only: below the belt, to speed things up, all parts have been shortened, more like a Mediterranean plumber, back bent and buttocks rounded, will never make second military attaché, talks like bursts of machine-gun fire with a strange rising intonation at the end of a phrase, to make him sound forceful, another one of those types who believe that being in charge means having to have a big mouth, a vulgar loudmouth, low-slung rear-end of a cockerel, how dare the Minister think he can lumber an ambassador with a jester like that?
And it was to be introduced to this moron that de Vèze walked out on his mistress this morning, bang in the middle of a big row, and they’d been back together again only a matter of days, they’re both very good at rows, first a fit of feminine sulks, just a small one, the corners of her mouth turn down, her oval face becomes hard, her nose grows more pointed, a not-speaking phase which drags on, he was careful not to ask her what the matter was but to no avail, because she asked first, softly, gently:
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You’re in a bad temper, I can feel it.’
‘Not at all, there’s nothing the matter with me.’
‘Yes there is, you seem to be in a hurry.’
That did it, the word ‘hurry’, it happened every time she says a word she doesn’t like, ‘hurry’, mentally you’ve as good as gone, de Vèze knew what came next:
‘Anyway you’re never here
Within seconds, they’d got on to the actual length of his stay in Paris, which was not certain.
‘Muriel, you know I can’t be away from Moscow for long.’
He was getting dressed, he added in one breath:
‘You misheard, darling, I never said one thing while meaning another, those two days in Dinard, it was just a thought, as you knew all along.’
He paused a moment, to let the words sink in, it’s true, Muriel does always know but she invariably acts as if she doesn’t, so that she can keep the argument going, put him in the wrong, it’s also true that he pretends to believe that he’ll have time to go to Dinard while all the time he knows he won’t, he makes much of it, he imagines going, but she also behaves as if it were true, and he cannot see why he should deny himself the prospect, and then when it all comes to nothing Muriel makes a meal of it, although she too had been looking forward to it. She seizes on his words:
‘Knew all along? I never know anything with you, it’s true, I never know a thing!’
She has raised her voice to him, she breathes in through her mouth, her voice drops:
‘But I’m not going to get angry about it.’
Her mouth is a scornful curve, then her eyes relax, she smiles, he’s been caught without his braces, he smiles, he’ll have to carry on the argument sans braces, she’s holding them in her hand, she has decided not to get angry, she’s just said so, he’d better believe her, she looks down at the braces with a smile, all maternaclass="underline"
‘You know, I think this red is far too lurid for braces.’
She laughs, shaken by two little ripples of laughter, but there is no real amusement in it, it’s to get what’s bothering her off her chest, she repeats ‘this red’, exaggerating the movements of her lips, dropping her chin, hollowing her cheeks, her voice scolds, mocks, ‘this red’, a woman giving a young child or an old husband a good ticking off:
‘And don’t tell me it’s maroon, maroon isn’t as hot a colour, and it’s more dignified, this is just red.’
She holds the braces up in the light streaming in at the window. ‘Bright red, so unflattering. At your age!’
A silence. She looks him up and down.
‘You wear braces when you don’t need to, and when you do wear braces you choose red, it makes you look like an ageing dandy trying to look like a young man.’
Another silence, it’s like an invitation, de Vèze says nothing, don’t answer back, look sad, sad at being forced to leave her when she’s looking so lovely, the crucial point is the meeting with the Minister, ‘ageing dandy’, ‘young man’, he doesn’t answer, her malice should take the sting out of her mood, her voice is softer as she amends her words:
‘Whereas you are neither one nor the other.’
She smiles, more relaxed now, her prettiness returns, de Vèze relaxes, armistice signed, she goes on: