The Mandarins

‘Yes. Perron isn’t the kind of person you pick up and drop as you please. She’s going to become much too attached to him.’

Robert placed his hand on mine. ‘Don’t worry about Nadine. First of all, I’d be very surprised if she became attached to Perron. But in any case, it won’t take her long to console herself if she does.’

‘I hope she isn’t going to spend her whole life consoling herself!’ I said.

Robert laughed. ‘There you go again! You’re always shocked when you think of your daughter sleeping around, like a boy. I did exactly the same thing at her age.’

Robert refused to face the fact that Nadine wasn’t a boy. ‘It’s different,’ I said. ‘The reason Nadine grabs one man after another is that she doesn’t feel she’s alive when she’s alone. That’s what worries me.’

‘Listen, we know why she hates to be alone. She can still see Diego too clearly.’

I shook my head. ‘It’s not only because of Diego.’

‘I know. You think it’s partially our fault,’ he said sceptically. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘she’ll change; she has lots of time to change.’

‘Let’s hope so.’ I looked at Robert pleadingly. ‘It’s very important to her to have something to do that really interests her. Give her that secretarial job. She spoke to me about it again just now. She wants it badly.’

‘It’s not very exciting,’ Robert said. ‘Typing envelopes and filing all day long. It’s a crime to waste her intelligence on a thing like that.’

‘But she’ll feel she’s being useful; it will give her confidence,’ I said.

‘She could do so much better! She could continue to study.’

‘Just now what she needs is to do something. And she’d make a good secretary.’ I paused a moment and then added, ‘You mustn’t ask too much of people.’

For me, Robert’s demands had always been a stimulant, but they only succeeded in discouraging Nadine. He gave her no orders; rather, he confided in her, expected things of her, and she played along with him. She had read too many heavy books when she was too young; she had been too precociously part of adult conversations. And so, after a while, she tired of that severe routine. At first, she was disappointed in herself, and now she seemed to enjoy avenging herself by disappointing Robert.

He looked perplexed, as he always did whenever he detected a note of reproach in my voice.

‘If you really believe that’s what she wants … Well, you know best.’

‘I do believe it,’ I said.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Consider it done.’

He had given in too easily. That proved that Nadine had succeeded only too well in disappointing him. When he can no longer give himself without reserve to something that means much to him, Robert wastes no time in losing all interest in it.

‘Of course, a job that would make her completely independent of us would be even better,’ I said.

‘But that isn’t what she really wants; she simply wants to play at being independent,’ Robert said sharply. He no longer felt like speaking of Nadine, and I was unable to kindle his enthusiasm for a project of which he disapproved. I let it drop.

‘I really can’t understand Perron going on that trip,’ he said in a livelier tone.

‘He wants a holiday,’ I replied. ‘After all,’ I added spiritedly, ‘he has the right to enjoy himself a little. He certainly did enough …’

‘He did more than I did,’ Robert said. ‘But that’s not the question.’ He looked at me intently. ‘In order for the SRL to get going, we’ve got to have a newspaper.’

‘I know,’ I said. Then I added hesitantly. ‘I wonder …’

‘What?’

‘If Henri will ever turn his paper over to you. It means so much to him.’

‘It isn’t a question of his turning it over to us,’ Robert replied.

‘But it is a question of his submitting to the orders of the SRL.’

‘He’s already a member. And it would certainly be to his advantage to adopt a clearly defined programme; a newspaper without a political programme just doesn’t make sense.’

‘But that’s their idea.’

‘You call that an idea?’ Robert said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘To perpetuate the spirit of the Resistance without taking sides! That sort of jargon is fine for some idiot like Luc. The spirit of the Resistance! It makes me think of the spirit of Locarno. But I’m not worried; Perron isn’t the kind to go in for spiritualism. He’ll end up by going along with us. But meanwhile we’re losing valuable time.’

I was afraid Robert was due for quite a surprise. When he’s deeply involved in a project, he thinks of people as mere tools. But Henri had given himself body and soul to that paper; it was his personal achievement and he wasn’t going to be casual about letting anyone dictate policy to him.

‘Why haven’t you spoken to him about it yet?’ I asked.

‘All Henri has on his mind these days is that trip of his.’

Robert looked so unhappy that I suggested, ‘Try to make him stay.’

For Nadine’s sake, it would have made me happy to see him give up the trip. But I’d have felt sorry for Henri; he was counting on it so much.

‘You know how he is,’ Robert said. ‘When he’s stubborn, he’s stubborn. I’d better wait until he gets back.’ He drew the blanket over his knees. ‘I’m not saying this to chase you out,’ he added cheerfully, ‘but usually you hate to be late …’

I got up. ‘You’re right; I should leave now. Are you sure you don’t want to come?’

‘Oh, no! I haven’t the least desire to talk politics with Scriassine. Maybe he’ll spare you, though.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ I said.

During those long periods when Robert shut himself in with his work, I often went out without him. But that evening, as I hurried into the cold, into the dark, I was sorry that I had accepted Scriassine’s invitation. I understood perfectly well why I hadn’t declined: I knew my friends much too well and I was tired of always seeing the same faces. For four years we had lived side by side; it kept one warm. But now, our intimacy had grown cold. It smelled musty and it benefited no one. I had reacted to the appeal of something new. But what would we find to say to each other? Like Robert, I didn’t feel like talking politics.

I stopped in the lobby of the Ritz and looked at myself in a mirror. What with clothes rationing, to be well dressed took a lot of doing. I had chosen not to bother myself about it at all. In my threadbare coat and wooden-soled shoes, I didn’t look very exciting. My friends accepted me as I was, but Scriassine had just come from America where the women always seem to be so well groomed. He would surely notice my shoes. ‘I shouldn’t have let myself go like this,’ I thought.

Naturally, Scriassine’s smile didn’t betray him. He kissed my hand, something I hate. A hand is even more naked than a face; it embarrasses me when someone looks at it too closely.

‘What will you have?’ he asked. ‘A martini?’

‘A martini will do.’

The was bar filled with American officers and well-dressed women. The heat, the smell of cigarettes, and the strong taste of the gin went to my head immediately, and I was glad to be there. Scriassine had spent four years in America, the great liberating nation, the nation in which fountains spout streams of fruit juices and ice cream. I questioned him avidly and he patiently answered all my questions. We had a second round of martinis and then we had dinner in a little restaurant where I gorged myself without restraint on rare roast beef and cream puffs. Scriassine, in turn, interrogated me; it was difficult to answer his too-precise questions. If I tried to recapture the taste of my daily existence – the smell of cabbage soup in the curfew-barricaded house, the ache in my heart whenever Robert was late in returning from a clandestine meeting – he would sharply interrupt me. He was a very good listener; he made you feel as if he were carefully weighing each of your words. But you had to speak for him, not for yourself. He wanted practical information: how did we go about making up false papers, printing L’Espoir, distributing it? And he also asked me to paint vast frescoes for him: What was the moral climate in which we had lived? I tried my best to satisfy him, but I’m afraid I didn’t succeed very well; everything had been either worse or more bearable than he imagined. The real tragedies hadn’t happened to me, and yet they haunted my life. How could I speak to him of Diego’s death? The words were too sad for my mouth, too dry for Diego’s memory. I wouldn’t have wanted to relive those past four years for anything in the world. And yet from a distance they seemed to take on a sombre sweetness. I could easily understand why Lambert was bored with this peace which gave us back our lives without giving us back our reasons for living. When we left the restaurant and stepped out into the pitch-black cold, I remembered how proudly we used to face the nights. Now, I longed for light warmth; I, too, wanted something else. Without provocation, Scriassine plunged into a long diatribe; I wished he would change the subject. He was furiously upbraiding de Gaulle for his trip to Moscow. ‘The thing that’s really serious,’ he said to me accusingly, ‘is that the whole country seems to approve of it. Look at Perron and Dubreuilh, honest men both, walking hand in hand with the Communists. It’s heartbreaking for someone who knows.’

‘But Robert isn’t with the Communists,’ I said, attempting to calm him down. ‘He’s trying to create an independent movement.’

‘Yes, I know; he spoke to me about it. But he made it perfectly clear that he doesn’t intend working against the Stalinists. Beside them, but not against them!’ Scriassine said crushingly.

‘You really wouldn’t want him to be anti-Communist, would you?’ I asked.