The World at Night ns-4 Read online

  “So, once again, Santo has to run. We see him staring through the train window, watching the world of everyday life go by. Then he’s someplace, oh, like Beziers. Down to his last sou, he enlists in the Foreign Legion.”

  “Then Morocco.” Casson caught the waiter’s eye and raised two fingers.

  “Well, the desert anyhow. Last outpost at Sidi-ben-something-or-other. The white buildings, the sun beating down, the tough sergeant with the heart of gold.”

  “Camels.”

  “Camels.”

  A woman in a white cape swept past them, waving at someone, silver bracelets jangling on her wrist. Fischfang said, “Can we do anything about the title, Jean-Claude?”

  “It’s from Irving Bressler, at Paramount. It says ‘Foreign Legion,’ it says ‘desert.’ By the way, who are they fighting?”

  Fischfang shrugged. “Bandits. Or renegades. Not the good Moroccans.”

  “Where’s the girl, Louis?”

  “Well, if the fisherman’s daughter goes to Marseilles to be with Santo, she sure as hell can’t go to the desert. Which leaves the slave girl, captured by bandits many years ago …”

  “Kidnapped heiress. She’s been rescued and is staying at the fort …”

  “Native girl. ‘I’m glad you liked my dancing, monsieur. Actually, I’m only half-Moroccan, my father was a French officer …’ “

  “Merde.”

  “This is always hard, Jean-Claude.”

  They were silent for a moment, thinking through the possibilities. “Actually,” Casson said, “we’re lucky it’s not worse. Somebody in the meeting mumbled something about the hero singing, but we all pretended not to hear.”

  The waiter arrived with the Kirs. “Fort Sahara,” Casson said, and raised his glass in a toast. The sky was darker now, it was almost night. Somewhere down the boulevard a street musician was playing a violin. The crowd at Fouquet’s was several drinks along, the conversation was animated and loud, there were bursts of laughter, a muffled shriek, a gasp of disbelief. The waiters were sweating as they ran between the tables and the bar.

  “Ending?” Casson said.

  Fischfang sighed. “Well, the big battle. Santo the hero. He lives, he dies …”

  “Maybe with French financing, he dies. For Paramount, he lives.”

  “And he gets the girl.”

  “Of course.”

  “She’s the colonel’s wife …”

  “Daughter.”

  “Cat.”

  “Chicken.”

  8:30 P.M.

  Casson took the long way on his walk from the rue Chardin to Marie-Claire’s apartment on the rue de l’Assomption. A blackout was in effect, and the velvety darkness of the Passy streets was strange but not unpleasant-as though the neighborhood had gone back a hundred years in time. In some apartments there were candles, but that was typical French confusion at work: a blackout didn’t mean you had to cover the light in your windows, it meant you couldn’t turn on the electricity. If you did, it would somehow-one never quite understood these things-help the Germans.

  The walk to Marie-Claire’s took less than fifteen minutes, but Casson saw two moving vans working that night. On the rue des Vignes, three men struggled with a huge painting, something eighteenth century, in a gilded frame. On the next street it was a Vuitton steamer trunk.

  Rue de l’Assomption stood high above the Bois de Boulogne, and the views were dramatic. Lovely old trees. Meadows and riding paths. Marie-Claire’s horsey friends had their polo club in the Bois, Bruno served in some vaguely official capacity at Le Racing Club de France, there was a season box at the Auteuil racetrack, and a private room could be rented for late supper parties at Pre Catalan, the fin-de-siecle restaurant hidden at the center of the park.

  Casson paused at the entry to the building. This had been his apartment when he’d married, but it belonged to Marie-Claire now. Well, that was the way of the world. The history of ownership of apartments in the 16th Arrondissement, Casson thought, would probably make a more exciting epic of France than the Chanson de Roland.

  The concierge of the building had always loved him:

  “Ah, Monsieur Casson. It’s good to see a friendly face. What a day, eh? What a horror. Oh the vile Boche, why can’t they leave us alone? I’m getting too old for war, monsieur, even to read it in the papers. Let alone the poor souls who have to go and fight, may God protect them. What’s that you have there? A vacherin! For the dinner tonight? How Madame trusts you, monsieur, if I sent my poor-ah, here’s the old elevator; hasn’t killed us yet but there’s still time. A good evening to you, monsieur, we all would love to see more of you, we all would.”

  The elevator opened into the foyer of Marie-Claire’s apartment. He had a blurred impression-men in suits, women in bright silk, the aromas of dinner. Marie-Claire hurried to the door and embraced him, grosses bisoux, kisses left and right, left and right, then stepped back so he could see her. Emerald earrings, lime-colored evening gown, hair a richer blonde than usual, tiny eyes scheming away, clouds of perfume rolling over him like fog at the seaside. “Jean-Claude,” she said. “I am glad you’re here.” Something to say to a guest, but Casson could hear that she meant it.

  And if any doubt lingered, she took him gently by the arm and drew him into the kitchen, where the maid and the woman hired for the evening were fussing with the pots. “Let’s have a look,” she said. Lifted the lid from a stewpot, shoved tiny potatos and onions aside with an iron ladle and let some of the thick brown sauce flow into it. She blew on it a few times, took a taste, then offered it to Casson. Who made a kind of bear noise, a rumble of pleasure from deep within.

  “Ach, you peasant,” she said.

  “Navarin of lamb,” Casson said.

  Marie-Claire jiggled the top off the vacherin‘s wooden box, placed her thumb precisely in the imprint made by the woman in the cremerie, and pressed down. For his effort, Casson was rewarded with a look that said well, at least something went right in the world today.

  “Jean-Claude!” It was Bruno, of course, who’d snuck up behind him and brayed in his ear. Casson turned to see the strands of silver hair at the temples, the lemon silk ascot, the Swiss watch, the black onyx ring, the you-old-fox! smile, and a glass full of le scotch whiskey.

  Suddenly, the sly smile evaporated. The new look was stern: the hard glare of the warrior. “Vive la France,” Bruno said.

  They toasted the Langlades with champagne. Twenty years of marriage, of that-which-makes-the-world-go-round. Twenty years of skirmishes and cease-fires, children raised, gifts the wrong size, birthdays and family dinners survived, and all of it somehow paid for without going to jail.

  Another glass, really.

  With the exception of Bruno, they had all known each other forever, were all from old 16th-Arrondissement families. Marie-Claire’s grandfather had carried on a famous, virtually lifelong lawsuit against Yvette Langlade’s great-aunt. In their common history all the sins had been sinned, all the alliances broken and eventually mended. Now they were simply old friends. To Casson’s left was Marie-Claire’s younger sister, Veronique, always his partner at these affairs. She was a buyer of costume jewelry for the Galeries Lafayette, had married and separated very young, was known to be a serious practicing Catholic, and kept her private life resolutely sealed from view. She saw the plays and read the books, she loved to laugh, was always a charming dinner companion, and Casson was grateful for her presence. To his right was Bibi Lachette-the Lachettes had been summer friends of the Cassons in Deauville-the last-minute stand-in for Francoise and Philippe Pichard. Her last-minute escort was a cousin (nephew?), in Paris on business from Lyons (Macon?), who held a minor position in the postal administration, or perhaps he had to do with bridges. Bibi had been a great beauty in her twenties, a dark and mysterious heartbreaker, like a Spanish dancer. The cousin, however, turned out to be pale and reticent, apparently cultivated on a rather remote branch of the family tree.

  With the warm leeks in vinaigret
te came a powerful Latour Pomerol-Bruno on the attack. Casson would have preferred something simple with the navarin, which was one of those Parisian dishes that really did have a farmhouse ancestry. But he made the proper appreciative noise when Bruno showed the label around, and for his politeness was rewarded with a covert grin from Bibi, who knew Casson didn’t do that sort of thing.

  They tried not to let the Germans join them at dinner. They talked about the fine spring, some nonsense to do with a balloon race in Switzerland that had gone wrong in amusing ways. But it was not easy. Somebody had a story about Reynaud’s mistress, one of those what does he see in her women, ungainly and homely and absurdly powerful. That led back to the government, and that led back to the Germans. “Perhaps it’s just a social problem,” Bernard Langlade said gloomily. “We never invited them to dinner. Now they’re going to insist.”

  “They insisted in 1914, and they were sorry they did.” That was Veronique.

  “I don’t think they’ve ever been sorry,” said Arnaud, a lawyer for shipping companies. “They bleed and they die and they sign a paper. Then they start all over again.”

  “I have three MGs on the Antwerp docks,” Bruno said. “Paid for. Then today, no answer on the telephone.”

  This stopped the conversation dead while everybody tried to figure out just exactly how much money had been lost. When the silence had gone on too long, Casson said, “I have a friend in Antwerp, Bruno. He owns movie theatres, and seems to know everybody. With your permission, I’ll just give him a call tomorrow morning.”

  It helped. Madame Arnaud began a story, Bernard Langlade asked Veronique if he could pour her some more wine. Bibi Lachette leaned toward him and said confidentially, “You know, Jean-Claude, everybody loves you.”

  Casson laughed it off, but the way Bibi moved her breast against his arm clearly suggested that somebody loved him.

  “Well,” Marie-Claire said, “one can only hope it doesn’t go on too long. The British are here, thank heaven, and the Belgians are giving the Germans a very bad time of it, according to the radio this evening.”

  Murmurs of agreement around the table, but they knew their history all too well. Paris was occupied in 1814, after the loss at Waterloo. The Germans had built themselves an encampment in the Tuileries, and when they left it had taken two years to clean up after them. Then they’d occupied a second time, in 1870, after that idiot Napoleon III lost an entire army at Sedan. In 1914 it had been a close thing-you could drive to the battlefields of the Marne from Paris in less than an hour.

  “What are the Americans saying?” asked Madame Arnaud. But nobody seemed to know, and Marie-Claire shooed the conversation over into sunnier climes.

  They laughed and smoked and drank enough so that, by midnight, they really didn’t care what the Germans did. Bibi rested two fingers on Casson’s thigh when he filled her glass. The vacherin was spooned out onto glass plates-a smelly, runny, delicious success. Made by a natural fermentation process from cow’s milk, it killed a few gourmets every year and greatly delighted everyone else. Some sort of a lesson there, Casson thought. At midnight, time for cake and coffee, the maid appeared in consternation and Marie-Claire hurried off to the kitchen.

  “Well,” she sighed when she reappeared, “life apparently will go on its own particular way.”

  A grand production from Ponthieu; feathery light, moist white cake, apricot-and-hazlenut filling, curlicues of pastry cream on top, and the message in blue icing: “Happy Birthday Little Gerard.”

  A moment of shock, then Yvette Langlade started to laugh. Bernard was next, and the couple embraced as everyone else joined in. Madame Arnaud laughed so hard she actually had tears running down her cheeks. “I can’t help thinking of poor ‘Little Gerard,’ ” she gasped.

  “Having his twentieth wedding anniversary!”

  “And so young!”

  “Can you imagine the parents?”

  “Dreadful!”

  “Truly-to call a child that on his very own birthday cake!”

  “He’ll never recover-scarred for life.”

  “My God it’s perfect,” Yvette Langlade panted. “The day of our twentieth anniversary; Germany invades the country and Ponthieu sends the wrong cake.”

  Everything was arranged during the taxi ballet in front of the building at 2:30 in the morning. Bibi Lachette’s cousin was put in a cab and sent off to an obscure hotel near the Sorbonne. Then Casson took Bibi and Veronique home-Veronique first because she lived down in the 5th Arrondissement. Casson walked her to the door and they said good night. Back in the cab, it was kissing in the backseat and, at Bibi’s direction, off to the rue Chardin. “Mmm,” she said.

  “It’s been a long time,” Casson said.

  Bibi broke away in order to laugh. “Oh you are terrible, Jean-Claude.”

  “What were we, twelve?”

  “Yes.”

  Tenderly, he pressed his lips against hers, dry and soft. “God, how I came.”

  “You rubbed it.”

  “You helped.”

  “Mmm. Tell me, are you still a voyeur?”

  “Oh yes. Did you mind?”

  “Me? Jean-Claude, I strutted and danced and did the fucking cancan, how can you ask that?”

  “I don’t know. I worried later.”

  “That I’d tell?”

  “Tell the details, yes.”

  “I never told. I lay in the dark in the room with my sister and listened to her breathe. And when she was asleep, I put my hand down there and relived every moment of it.”

  The cab turned the corner into the rue Chardin, the driver said “Monsieur?”

  “On the right. The fourth house, just after the tree.”

  Casson paid, the cab disappeared into the darkness. Casson and Bibi kissed once more, then, wound around each other like vines, they climbed the stairs together.

  Suddenly, he was awake.

  “Oh God, Bibi, forgive me. That damn Bruno and his damn Pomerol-”

  “It was only a minute,” she said. “One snore.”

  She lay on her side at the other end of the bed, her head propped on her hand, her feet by his ear-her toenails were painted red. Once in the apartment, they’d kissed and undressed, kissed and undressed, until they found themselves naked on the bed. Then she’d gone to use the bathroom and that was the last he remembered.

  “What are you doing down there?”

  She shrugged. Ran a lazy finger up and down his shinbone. “I don’t know. I got up this morning, alone in my big bed, and I thought …” Casually, she swung a knee across him, then sat up, straddling his chest, her bottom shining white in the dark bedroom, the rest of her perfectly tanned. She looked over her shoulder at him and bobbed up and down. “Don’t mind a fat girl sitting on you?”

  “You’re not.” He stroked her skin. “Where did you find the sun?”

  “Havana.” She clasped her hands behind her head and arched her back. “I always have my bathing suit on, no matter where I go.”

  He raised his head, kissed her bottom; one side, the other side, the middle.

  “You are a bad boy, Jean-Claude. It’s what everyone says.” She wriggled backward until she got comfortable, then bent over him, her head moving slowly up and down. He sighed. She touched him, her hands delicate and warm. At this rate, he thought, nothing’s going to last very long.

  Worse yet, their childhood afternoons came tumbling back through his memory; skinny little dirty-minded Bibi, been at the picture books her parents hid on the top shelf. What an idiot he’d been, to believe the boys in the street: girls don’t like it but if you touch them in a certain place they go crazy-but it’s hard to find so probably you have to tie them up.

  But then, what an earthquake in his tiny brain. She wants you to feel like this, she likes it when your thing sticks up in the air and quivers. Well. Life could never be the same after that. “Thursday we all go to the Lachettes,” his mother would say in Deauville. His father would groan, the Lachettes bored him
. It was a big house, on the outskirts of the seaside town, away from the noisy crowds. A Norman house with a view of the sea from an attic window. With a laundry room that reeked of boiled linen. With a wine cellar ruled by a big spider. With a music room where a huge couch stood a foot from the wall and one could play behind it. “Pom, pom, pom, I have shot Geronimeau.”

  “Ah, Monsieur le Colonel, I am dying. Tell my people-Jean-Claude!”

  From the front hall: “Play nicely, les enfants. We are all going to the cafe for an hour.”

  “Au revoir, Maman.”

  “Au revoir, Madame Lachette.”

  There were maids in the house, the floors creaked as they went about. Otherwise, a summer afternoon, cicadas whirred in the garden, the distant sea heard only if you held your breath.

  “You mustn’t put your finger there.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to.”

  “Oh.”

  A maid approached, the Indian scout put his ear to the waxed parquet. “Pom, pom!”

  “I die. Aarrghh.”

  Aarrghh.

  Bibi’s head moving up and down, a slow rhythm in the darkness. She was coaxing him-knew he was resisting, was about to prove that she could not be resisted. Only attack, he realized, could save him now. He circled her waist with his arms, worked himself a little further beneath her, put his mouth between her thighs. Women have taught me kindness, and this. She made a sound, he could feel it and hear it at once, like the motor in a cat. Now we’ll see, he thought, triumphant. Now we’ll just see who does what to who. Her hips began to move, rising, a moment’s pause, then down, and harder every time. At the other end of the bed, concentration wavered-he could feel it-then began to wane.

  But she was proud, a fighter. Yes, he’d set her in motion, riding up and down on the swell of the wave, but he would not escape, no matter what happened to her. It was happening; she too remembered the afternoons at the house in Deauville, remembered the things that happened, remembered some things that could have happened but didn’t. She tensed, twisted, almost broke free, then shuddered, and shuddered again. Now, the conqueror thought, let’s roll you over, with your red toenails and your white ass and-