Five Quarters of the Orange / Пять четвертинок апельсина

“If I had contacts with the black market,” I said with a passable show of skepticism, “I’d make sure I got better stuff than a few old papers.”

Cassis looked stung.

“I can get anything I want,” he said quickly. “Comics, smokes, books, real coffee… chocolate-” He broke off with a scornful laugh. “You can’t even get the money for a rotten cinema ticket!” he said.

“No?”

Smiling, I took the purse from out of my apron pocket. I jingled it a little, so that he could hear the coins inside. His eyes widened as he recognized the purse.

“You little thief!” he breathed at last. “You rotten, bitching little thief!”

I looked at him, but said nothing.

“How did you get that?”

“Swum out and got it,” I answered defiantly. “Anyway, it wasn’t stealing. The treasure belonged to all of us.”

But Cassis was hardly listening.

“You bitching, thieving…” he said again.

Clearly he was disturbed that anyone other than he should obtain anything by guile.

“I don’t see that it’s any different from you and your black market,” I said calmly. “It’s all the same game, isn’t it?” I let this sink in before I continued. “And you’re just upset because I’m better at it than you.”

Cassis glared at me.

“It isn’t anything like the same thing,” he said at last.

I kept my expression disbelieving. It was always so easy to make Cassis give himself away. Just like his son, all those years later. Neither of them ever understood anything about guile.

Cassis was red-faced, almost shouting now, his conspiratorial tone forgotten.

“I could get you anything you liked. Proper fishing tackle for your stupid pike,” he hissed savagely. “Chewing gum, shoes, silk stockings, silk underwear if you wanted-”

I laughed aloud at that. Brought up as we had been, the idea of silk underwear was ludicrous. Enraged, Cassis grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me.

“You stop that!” His voice cracked with fury. “I got friends! I know people! I could get-you-anything-you-wanted!”

You see how easy it was to take him off balance. Cassis was spoiled in his way, too used to being the great older brother, the man of the house, the first to go to school, the tallest, the strongest, the wisest. His occasional bouts of wildness – his escapades into the woods, his daredevilry on the Loire, his small thefts from market stalls and shops in Angers – were uncontrolled, almost hysterical. He took no enjoyment from them. It was as if he needed to prove something to both of us, or to himself.

I could tell I perplexed him. His thumbs were digging so deeply into my arms that they would make great ripe blackberry marks on my skin the next day, but I did not show any sign of it. Instead I just looked at him steadily and tried to stare him out.

“We’ve got friends, Reine and me,” he said in a lower voice, almost reasonable now, his thumbs still gouging into my arms. “Powerful friends. Where do you think she got that stupid lipstick? Or the perfume? Or that stuff she puts on her face at night? Where d’you think we got all that from? And how d’you think we earned it?”

He let go of my arms then with an expression of mingled pride and consternation, and I realized that he was slick with fear.

13

I don’t remember very much about the film. Circonstances Attеnuantes, with Arletty and Michel Simon, an old film that Cassis and Reine had already seen. Reine at least was untroubled by the fact; she stared at the screen the whole time, rapt. I found the story unlikely, too removed from my realities. Besides, my mind was on other things. Twice the film in the projector broke; the second time the houselights went on and the audience roared disapproval. A harassed-looking man in a dinner jacket shouted for silence. A group of Germans in a corner, feet resting on the seats in front of them, began slow-clapping. Suddenly Reine, who had come out of her trance to complain irritably about the interruption, gave a squeak of excitement.

“Cassis!” She leaned over me and I could smell a sweetish chemical scent in her hair. “Cassis, he’s here!”

“Shh!” hissed Cassis furiously. “Don’t look back!”

Reine and Cassis sat facing the front of the auditorium for a moment, expressionless as dummies. Then he spoke, from the corner of his mouth, like someone whispering in church.

“Who?”

Reinette flicked a glance at the Germans from the corner of her eye.

“Back there,” she replied in the same fashion. “Some others I don’t know.”

Around us the crowd stamped and yelled. Cassis ventured a quick look.

“I’ll wait till the lights go down,” he said.

Ten minutes later the lights dimmed and the film continued. Cassis wriggled from his seat toward the back of the auditorium. I followed him. On the screen Arletty pranced and eye-fluttered in a tight low-cut dress. The mercury reflection lit our low-bent, running figures, making Cassis’s face a livid mask.

“Go back, you little idiot,” he hissed at me. “I don’t want you with me, getting in the way!”

I shook my head.

“I won’t get in the way,” I told him. “Not unless you try to stop me coming with you.”

Cassis made an impatient gesture. He knew I meant what I said. In the dark I could feel him trembling, with excitement or nerves.

“Keep down,” he told me at last. “And let me do the talking.”

We finally squatted down at the back of the auditorium, close to where the group of German soldiers made an island among the regular crowd. Several of the men were smoking; we could see dimps of red fire on their flickering faces.

“See him there, at the end?” whispered Cassis. “That’s Hauer. I want to talk to him. You just stay with me and don’t say a word, all right?”

I did not reply. I wasn’t going to promise anything.

Cassis slid into the aisle next to the soldier called Hauer. Looking around curiously I could see that no one was paying us the slightest attention except the German standing behind us, a slight, sharp-faced young man with his uniform cap tilted back at a rakish angle and a cigarette in one hand. Beside me I heard Cassis whispering urgently to Hauer, then the crackle of papers. The sharp-faced German grinned at me and gestured with the cigarette.

Suddenly, with a jolt, I recognized him. It was the soldier from the market, the one who had seen me take the orange. For a minute I could do nothing but stare at him, transfixed.

The German gestured again. The glow from the cinema screen lit his face, throwing dramatic shadows from his eyes and cheekbones.

I cast a nervous glance at Cassis, but my brother was too deep in conversation with Hauer to notice me. The German was still watching expectantly, a little smile on his lips, standing some distance away from where the others were seated. He held his cigarette with the tip cupped into his palm, and I could see the dark smudge of his bones beneath the glowing flesh. He was in uniform, but his jacket was undone and his head was bare. For some obscure reason, that reassured me.

“Come here,” said the German softly.

I could not speak. My mouth felt as if it were full of straw. I would have run, but was not sure my legs would carry me. Instead, I put up my chin and moved toward him.

The German grinned and dragged another breath from his cigarette.