The Mandarins

‘Do you think there’s any chance he did it on purpose?’

Sézenac shrugged his shoulders. ‘Maybe.’

‘And maybe no one asked him for his advice,’ Vincent said. ‘They’re far from stingy with human material, our generals. They’re great and generous lords, you know.’ In his sallow face, his bloodshot eyes looked like two gashes; his mouth was a thin scar. One failed to notice at first that his features were actually fine and regular.

Lachaume’s face, on the other hand, was at once calm and tormented, like a craggy rock. ‘It’s all a question of prestige,’ Lachaume said. ‘If we still want to play at being a great power, we must have a respectable number of dead.’

‘Besides,’ Vincent said, ‘disarming the members of the Resistance was a neat trick. But let’s face it. If they could be quietly liquidated, that’d suit the great lords even better,’ Vincent added, his scar opening into a sort of smile.

‘What are you trying to insinuate?’ Lambert asked severely, looking Vincent straight in the eyes. ‘De Gaulle ordered de Lattre to get rid of all the Communists? If that’s what you want to say, say it. At least have that much courage.’

‘No need for any order,’ Vincent replied. ‘They understand each other well enough without exchanging words.’

Lambert shrugged his shoulders. ‘You don’t believe that yourself.’

‘Maybe it’s true,’ Nadine said aggressively.

‘Don’t be silly. Of course it’s not true.’

‘What’s there to prove it isn’t?’ she asked.

‘Ah, ha! So you’ve finally picked up the technique!’ Lambert said. ‘You make up a fact out of whole cloth, and then you ask someone to prove it’s false! Obviously I can’t swear to the fact that Chancel wasn’t killed by a bullet in the back.’

Lauchaume smiled. ‘That’s not what Vincent said.’

That was the way it always went. Sézenac would hold his tongue, Vincent and Lambert would engage in a squabble, and then at the right moment Lachaume would intervene. Usually, he would chide Vincent for his leftist views and Lambert for his petit-bourgeois prejudices. Nadine would side with one camp or the other, depending upon her mood. I avoided getting entangled in their argument; it was more vehement today than usually, probably because Chancel’s death had more or less unnerved them. In any case, Vincent and Lambert weren’t made to get along with each other. Lambert had an aura of gentlemanliness about him, while Vincent, with his fur-collared jacket and his thin unhealthy face, looked rather like a hoodlum. There was a disturbing coldness in his eyes, but nevertheless I couldn’t bring myself to believe that he had killed real men with a real revolver. Every time I saw him I thought of it, but I could never actually bring myself to believe it. As for Lauchaume, he, too, may have killed, but if he did, he hadn’t told anyone and it hadn’t left any visible mark.

Lambert turned towards me. ‘You can’t even have a talk with friends any more,’ he said. ‘It’s no fun living in Paris, the way it is now. Sometimes I wonder if Chancel wasn’t right. I don’t mean getting yourself shot up, but going off and doing some fighting.’

Nadine gave him an angry look. ‘But you’re hardly ever in Paris as it is!’

‘I’m here enough to find it a lot too grim for my taste. And even when I’m at the front, believe me, I don’t feel especially proud of what I’m doing.’

‘But you did everything you could to become a war correspondent,’ she said bitterly.

‘I liked it better than staying back here, but it’s still a half measure.’

‘If you’re fed up with Paris, no one’s holding you here,’ Nadine said, her face twisted with rage. ‘Go on and play the hero.’

‘It’s no better and no worse than some other games I know of,’ Lambert grumbled, giving her a look heavy with meaning.

Nadine eyed him up and down for a moment. ‘You know, you wouldn’t look bad as a stretcher case, with bandages all over you.’ Sneringly, she added, ‘Only don’t count on me to come visiting you in the hospital. Two weeks from now I’ll be in Portugal.’

‘Portugal?’

‘Perron is taking me along as his secretary,’ she replied casually.

‘Well, well! Isn’t he the lucky one,’ Lambert said. ‘He’ll have you all to himself for a whole month!’

‘I’m not as repulsive to everyone as I am to you,’ Nadine retorted.

‘Yes, nowadays men are easy,’ Lambert muttered between his teeth. ‘As easy as women.’

‘You’re a boor!’ Nadine shouted.

Irritably, I wondered how they could let themselves be carried away by their childish manoeuvres. I felt certain they could have helped each other to live again; together they could have succeeded in conquering those memories that both united and separated them. But perhaps that was precisely why they tore each other apart: each saw his own faithlessness in the other, and they hated themselves for it. In any event, interfering would have been the worst possible blunder. I let them continue their squabble and quietly left the room. Sézenac followed me into the hall.

‘May I have a word with you?’ he asked.

‘Go ahead.’

‘There’s a favour,’ he said, ‘a favour I’d like to ask of you.’

I remember how impressive he looked on the twenty-fifth of August, with his full beard, his rifle, his red sash – a true soldier of 1848. Now his blue eyes were dead, his face puffy; when I shook his hand, I had noticed that his palm was moist.

‘I haven’t been sleeping well,’ he said haltingly. ‘I have … I have pains. A friend of mine once gave me an opium suppository and it helped a lot. Only the pharmacists won’t sell it without a prescription …’ He looked at me pleadingly.

‘What kind of pains?’

‘Oh, everywhere. In my head. And worst of all I have nightmares …’

‘You can’t cure nightmares with opium.’

His forehead, like his hands, grew moist. ‘I’ll be honest with you. I have a girl friend, a girl I like a lot. In fact, I’m thinking of marrying her. But I … I can’t do anything with her without taking opiates.’

‘Opium is a narcotic, you know. Do you use it often?’ I asked.

He pretended to be shocked by my question. ‘Oh, no! Only once in a while, when I spend the night with Lucie.’

‘Well, that’s not too bad then. You know it’s very easy to become addicted to those things.’

He looked at me pleadingly, sweat beading his brow.

‘Come see me tomorrow morning,’ I said. ‘I’ll see if I can give you that prescription.’

I went back to my room. He was obviously pretty much an addict already. When had he begun drugging himself? Why? I sighed. Another one I could stretch out on the couch and try to empty. At times, they got on my nerves, all those recliners. Outside, in the world, standing on their own two feet, they did the best they could to play at being adults. But here, in my office, they again became infants with dirty behinds, and it was up to me to wash their childhood away. And yet I spoke to them in an impersonal voice, the voice of reason, of health. Their real lives were elsewhere; mine too. It wasn’t surprising that I was tired of them – and of myself.

I was tired. ‘Immaculate kid gloves,’ Nadine had said. ‘Distant, intimidating,’ were Scriassine’s words. Is that how I appear to them? Is that how I am? I recalled my childhood rages, the pounding of my adolescent heart, the feverish days of that month of August. But all that was now of the past. The fact is that nothing was stirring inside me any more. I combed my hair and touched up my make-up. You can’t go on living indefinitely in fear; it’s too tiring. Robert had begun a new book, and he was in high spirits. I no longer awakened at night in a cold sweat. Nevertheless, I was depressed. I could see no reason for being sad. It’s just that it makes me unhappy not to feel happy; I must have been badly spoiled. I took my purse and gloves and knocked at Robert’s door. I hadn’t the least desire to go out.

‘Aren’t you cold?’ I asked. ‘Wouldn’t you like me to build a little fire?’

He pushed back his chair and smiled at me. ‘I’m fine,’ he said.

Naturally. Robert always felt fine. For two years, he happily sustained himself on sauerkraut and rutabagas. He was never cold; it seemed almost as if he produced his own warmth, like a yogi. When I return around midnight, he’ll still be writing, wrapped in his plaid blanket. And he’ll be surprised: ‘What time is it, anyhow?’ Up to now, he had spoken to me only vaguely of his new book, but I gathered he was satisfied with the way it was going. I sat down.

‘Nadine just told me something pretty surprising,’ I said. ‘She’s going to Portugal with Perron.’

He looked up at me quickly. ‘Does it upset you?’