The Mandarins

All day long he had felt vaguely angry. But he had certainly chosen a fine time to blow up. He had been a fool to imagine that Preston would play Santa Claus. He was, after all, an agent of the State Department and Henri had been inexcusably naïve in talking to him as a friend. He stood up and walked towards the editorial room.

‘Luc, old boy, it looks like we’re going to have to do without a magazine supplement,’ he said, sitting down on the edge of the conference table.

‘No!’ Luc said. ‘Why?’ His face looked puffy and old, like a dwarf’s. When his plans were thwarted, he seemed to be on the verge of tears.

‘Because that Yank wants to keep us from opening our mouths about America. He practically offered me a deal.’

‘That’s hard to believe. He seemed to be such a decent chap.’

‘In a way, it’s flattering,’ Henri said. ‘We’re really being courted. Do you know what Dubreuilh suggested last night? That L’Espoir become the official organ of the SRL.’

Luc looked dismayed. ‘Did you refuse?’

‘Of course.’

‘All those parties that are coming to life again, the factions, the movements – we have to stay clear of all those things,’ Luc said pleadingly.

Luc’s convictions were so strong that even when you agreed with them you were sometimes tempted to harry him a little. ‘But it is true that the unity of the Resistance is nothing more than words now,’ Henri said. ‘And we are going to have to state our position clearly one of these days.’

‘They’re the ones who’re sabotaging unity!’ Luc said with a sudden burst of emotion. ‘They call the SRL a “regrouping”, but all they’re doing is to create a new schism.’

‘No, it’s the bourgeoisie who are creating the schism. And when you try to place yourself above the class struggle, you run the risk of playing right into their hands.’

‘Listen,’ Luc said, ‘as far as the paper’s political position goes, you’re the one who makes the decisions; you’ve got more brains than I. But hooking up with the SRL is another story. I’m absolutely opposed to that.’ His face hardened. ‘I’ve spared you the details of our troubles – financial matters and such – but I did warn you that things weren’t going too well. If we get hooked up with a movement that means damned little to damned near everyone, that’s not going to help things.’

‘Do you think we’d lose more readers?’ Henri asked.

‘Obviously! And then we’re done for.’

‘Yes,’ Henri said. ‘I suppose you’re right.’

Circulation had dropped appreciably, for as long as people were forced to buy minuscule tabloids the non-Parisians preferred their local papers to the Parisian dailies. But even if they could go back to the regular-sized format, he wasn’t at all sure that L’Espoir would regain its readers. In any case, he couldn’t afford the luxury of a crisis. ‘I suppose I am just an idealist!’ Henri thought. In arguing with Dubreuilh, he had raised the issues of confidence, influence, roles to be played. And all the while the real answer was plainly written in figures: they would go broke. It was one of those solid arguments that neither sophisms nor ethics could alter. He was anxious to use it.

Henri arrived at Dubreuilh’s apartment on the Quai Voltaire at ten o’clock, but the launching of his planned attack was delayed for a while. As usual Anne produced a light supper: Portuguese sausages, ham, a rice salad, and, to celebrate Henri’s return, a bottle of Meursault. They exchanged stories about their travelling experiences and shared the latest Paris gossip. To tell the truth, Henri did not feel very aggressive. He was happy to be back once more in Dubreuilh’s study, among those well-worn books, most of them inscribed by their authors, among the unpurchased paintings signed with well-known names, among the exotic curios acquired over the years in many travels. As an observer from the outside Henri could truly appreciate the value of that whole discreetly privileged life, and at the same time he felt those rooms were his real home. In the most intimate reaches of his own life, he was warm and comfortable there.

‘It’s really cosy here,’ he said to Anne.

‘Isn’t it? Whenever I go out, I feel lost,’ she said cheerfully.

‘I must say Scriassine picked a weird place to take us,’ Dubreuilh said.

‘What a dive! But all in all, it turned out to be a pretty good evening,’ Henri said. ‘Except for the end,’ he added with a smile.

‘The end? No, not the end. The moment I found particularly difficult was when they played Dark Eyes,’ Dubreuilh said with an innocent air.

Henri hesitated. Perhaps Dubreuilh had decided against bringing it up again so soon. It certainly would be a shame to spoil this moment; why not profit from his discretion? But Henri was impatient to confirm his secret victory.

‘You certainly did a good job of dragging L’Espoir through the mud,’ he said lightly.

‘Not at all,’ Dubreuilh replied with a smile.

‘Anne is my witness! Anyhow, I’ll admit that not all of what you had to say was wrong,’ Henri conceded. ‘And I do want to say that I’ve been thinking seriously about your proposition to tie L’Espoir in with the SRL; in fact, I even spoke to Luc about it. But it’s completely out of the question.’

Dubreuilh’s smile vanished. ‘I hope that isn’t your last word,’ he said. ‘Because without a paper, the SRL will never amount to anything. And don’t go telling me there are other papers; none of them really share our ideas completely. If you refuse, who’ll accept?’

‘I know,’ Henri said. ‘But let me tell you something: at the moment L’Espoir is in a financial crisis, like most of the other papers. I believe we’ll come out of it all right, but for a good long while we’re going to have a hard time making ends meet. Now the day we decide to become an organ of a political party, circulation will drop at once. And we just won’t be able to take it.’

‘The SRL isn’t a party,’ Dubreuilh said. ‘It’s a movement, a movement with a broad enough base so that your readers won’t be shocked by the change.’

‘Party or movement, practically speaking it’s the same thing,’ Henri replied. ‘All those Communist workers and Communist sympathizers I spoke about, they’ll willingly buy an informative paper along with L’Humanité, but they wouldn’t touch another political sheet. Even if the SRL walked hand in hand with the Communist Party, it wouldn’t change a thing. Stick a label on L’Espoir, and it immediately becomes suspect.’ Henri shrugged his shoulders. ‘The day we’re read only by the members of the SRL, we may just as well close up shop.’

‘But membership would increase enormously if we had the help of a paper.’

‘In the meantime, though, we’d have to ride out a long storm,’ Henri said. ‘It would be more than enough to sink us. And obviously, that wouldn’t help anyone.’

‘No … no, that certainly wouldn’t help anyone,’ Dubreuilh conceded. He remained silent for a moment, drummed on his blotter with the tips of his fingers. ‘Obviously there’s a certain risk,’ he said.

‘A risk we just can’t allow ourselves to take,’ Henri added.

Dubreuilh reflected again and then said with a sigh, ‘What we need is money.’

‘Exactly. And we haven’t got any.’

‘No,’ Dubreuilh repeated in a subdued voice. ‘We haven’t got any.’

Naturally, Dubreuilh would never admit defeat that easily; he still had hopes that it would somehow work out. But the argument had carried weight, and although Henri saw him frequently during the following weeks Dubreuilh did not broach the subject again. Henri, for his part, was determined to show proof of his good will; he kept two appointments with Samazelle, attended the meetings of the committee, and promised to publish the movement’s manifesto in L’Espoir. ‘Do as you like,’ Luc constantly repeated. ‘As long as we stay independent.’

Yes, they would stay independent; that at least was settled. But now the question was what to do with that hard-earned independence. In September, everything had seemed so simple: a little common sense, a little good will, and that was all that was needed; they would be all right. Now, however, there was an endless stream of new problems, and each one posed a new question. Lachaume had been so effusive in his praise of Henri’s series on Portugal that there was a good chance L’Espoir might be taken for an instrument of the Communist Party. Should he deny that? Henri didn’t want to lose the intellectuals who liked L’Espoir because of its impartiality, and neither did he want to antagonize his Communist readers. But in trying to please everyone, he merely condemned himself to vacuity, and thereby helped to lull people back to sleep. What to do then? As he walked over to the Scribe where Lambert was awaiting him for dinner, he kept turning the question over in his mind. Whatever he decided, he’d be letting himself be swayed by a mood rather than by any concrete evidence. Despite all his resolve, he was still back where he started from; he didn’t know enough, he didn’t know anything. ‘It would certainly be more logical to learn first, and to talk afterwards,’ he said to himself. But that’s not the way things happen. First, you’ve got to speak, because the matter is urgent; afterwards, events prove you right or wrong. ‘And that’s precisely what’s known as bluffing,’ he said to himself unhappily. ‘Yes, even I bluff my readers.’ He had promised himself to speak the truth, to tell his readers things that would enlighten them, that would help them think. And now he was bluffing them. What to do? He couldn’t shut down the newspaper, fire everyone, lock himself up in a room for a year with his books. The paper had to live, and to keep it alive Henri was forced to give himself to it completely, day after day. He stopped in front of the Scribe. He was glad he was dining with Lambert, but it disturbed him a little to have to speak to him about his short stories. He hoped Lambert didn’t take them too seriously. He pushed through the revolving door; once inside, it seemed to him as if he had suddenly been transported to another continent. It was warm here, the men and the women wore American uniforms, the air smelled of mild tobacco, luxurious trinkets were on display in glass show cases. Lambert, smiling and dressed in a lieutenant’s uniform, came to meet him. In the dining-room, reserved for the use of war correspondents, butter and very white bread were on every table.

‘You know, you can get French wine in this drugstore,’ Lambert said cheerfully. ‘Tonight we’ll eat as well as a German prisoner-of-war.’

‘Do you resent the fact that the Yanks feed their prisoners well?’

‘No, not especially. But as for the average Frenchman who’s living on air – it makes him sick. It’s just that the whole thing stinks – the way they handle the Fritzes, including the Nazis, with such consideration, and the way they treat the concentration camp prisoners.’

‘I’d like to know if it’s true that they’re keeping the French Red Cross from going into the camps,’ Henri said.

‘That’s the first thing I intend to look into,’ Lambert replied.

‘We’re not very hot on America these days,’ Henri said as he filled his plate with tinned meat and noodles.

‘And there’s no good reason to be!’ Lambert knitted his brow. ‘It’s just too bad it makes Lachaume so damned happy.’

‘I was thinking about that as I was walking over here,’ Henri said. ‘You say a word against the Communist Party, and you’re playing into the hands of the reactionaries! You criticize Washington, and you’re a Communist. Unless they suspect you of being a fifth columnist.’

‘Fortunately, two truths balance each other out,’ Lambert said.

Henri shrugged his shoulders. ‘Don’t count on that too much. So you remember how at the Christmas party we were saying we shouldn’t allow L’Espoir to become regimented? Well, that’s a whole lot easier said than done.’