The Foundling's War. Yasmina Khadra

      Graindorge heard nothing. His brain was no longer functioning. Palfy came to his aid.

      ‘I think he is a little overcome by the situation we find ourselves in.’

      ‘Overcome? What is overcome?’

      ‘The idea of dying.’

      Karl Schmidt roared with laughter and turned to the firing squad to explain in German that the Frenchman on the left was afraid of dying, then turned back to Palfy, whom he had identified as the leader of these outlaws.

      ‘My soldiers, they not fear to die! Heil Hitler!’

      The squad responded with a unanimous ‘Heil Hitler’.

      ‘Would you play us another piece?’ Palfy asked politely.

      ‘Shut up!’ Jean muttered.

      ‘Another? Nein!’ the Obersturmführer said contemptuously. Where did these bandits think they were?

      ‘Play for time,’ Palfy hissed at Jean.

      Picallon seemed lost in thought. He was praying. Jean envied him his ability to escape so far from the world, to see nothing of the scene that was unfolding: these soldiers in black uniforms that bore the silver lightning flashes of the SS, the lengthening shadow of the church, the swallows darting over their heads. It looked like a film set into which actors destined for other roles had strayed. Where had the real actors gone? The mayor with his tricolour scarf, the priest in his round hat, the teacher in his black jacket, the drummer in his blue shirt, the children in the choir, and the few scattered old men and women to occupy the benches that lined the avenue in the shade of the ash trees. Instead, an absurd misunderstanding, had placed, like a screen across the deserted square, still warm from the setting sun, a row of black statues masked by shadows, their lips tight and jaws tensed, stretching their chinstraps. The shadows of these men had in turn lengthened beyond the lead actor, violin in hand, almost to touch the condemned men. The real actors meanwhile wandered the roads, lost, crushed by fatigue more than sorrow, their feet bleeding, their mouths dry, their stomachs empty, driven by a fear whose incommensurable futility they were just beginning to understand.

      ‘Our comrade would like to take our confessions!’ Palfy said.

      ‘Confession?’ Karl Schmidt repeated, unfamiliar with the word.

      ‘Yes, before he gives us absolution. He’s a priest.’

      ‘A priest?’

      The SS officer looked Picallon up and down, staring incredulously at this emaciated beanpole who a few moments before had stood in front of him with his flies undone, offering a sight of his sleepy organ to all and sundry.

      ‘The pig is priest?’ he repeated.

      Picallon made a gesture as if to deny the description: he was neither a pig nor a priest, just a seminarian. Jean’s expression beseeched him to shut up as he knelt down first.

      ‘Listen to me, young priest,’ he said in a low voice, ‘first make the confession last as long as you can, then you’re to ask God to forgive me for two things: I caused pain to my father by joining up instead of deserting, and I caused pain to my dear guardian, the abbé Le Couec, by showing myself to be a very poor Christian.’

      ‘You’re already forgiven,’ Picallon said.

      ‘No, that’s too quick—’

      ‘Schnell!’ Karl Schmidt yelled.

      Palfy knelt down in turn and murmured, ‘You’re going too fast, you numbskull. We have to play for time …’

      ‘The ways of God are impenetrable.’

      ‘Shut up, for God’s sake, get down on your knees and let’s all pretend to pray together. That means you too, Graindorge …’

      ‘I’m … a … freemason!’ the surveyor stuttered.

      ‘That’s all we need!’

      The Obersturmführer was growing impatient. He summoned a grenadier, handed him his violin, and marched up and down in front of the firing squad, repeating, ‘Schandlichbande! Schandlichbande!’ Picallon got to his feet and smiled at him. He was ready.

      ‘It really upsets all my plans, having to die!’ Palfy said.

      ‘I’m starting to panic!’ Jean admitted.

      They lined up again in front of the Café des Amis. A gust of wind swept the square, raising a dry cloud of dust which got into Karl Schmidt’s eye. He called an orderly, who cleaned his eye with gauze. Rubbing it, the officer barked a rapid order at the Unterscharführer and walked back to his car with a disgusted expression. The grenadiers stood to attention …

      The French are very patriotic deep down. A few bars of a military march and their dormant fighting instinct is aroused. Clermont-Ferrand was throwing itself into the parade. Men unfit for military service wandered in the neighbouring streets, brooding on their shame, and were joined by a few stone-deaf pensioners. Palfy was walking briskly, Jean struggling to keep up behind him, his thoughts still on Place de Jaude where the woman in the lawn dress had vanished into the crowd. He was cross with his delicious apparition for letting herself be taken in by such a dubious spectacle. Did she have a taste for heroes? If she did, Palfy’s noisy interruption must have surprised her. Her amused smile when she had glimpsed Jean with the gardes mobiles in hot pursuit planted a hope that she had a critical turn of mind. If I’d had to, Jean mused, I’d have accepted a Croix de Guerre from her; her cool kiss on his cheeks was infinitely more tempting than the rough embrace of some colonel or general. But what chance did he stand of chatting her up on a big day like this, dressed in a ghastly pair of old corduroys two sizes too big and a rough wool shirt? Something about her reminded him of Chantal de Malemort: the outline of her figure, a neatness about her, her smile when she answered an unexpected question. But Chantal, gone to earth in Grangeville, was bringing in the harvest and Jean would never forgive her for having betrayed him.

      Palfy stopped. They had taken the wrong street. They retraced their steps, looking for a crossroads in the old town that led to where they had decided to go. A short, elderly man in an alpaca suit and a boater with a black ribbon, walking with the aid of two sticks, offered to show them the way.

      ‘Follow me – it’s a long time since I’ve been there, but I know the way. When I had my legs, I used to go there on Saturday nights. Around 1925 there was a Negress there, Victoire Sanpeur was her name; everyone in Clermont remembers her—’

      ‘Victoire Sanpeur?’ Jean asked.

      ‘Now, now!’ the old man chuckled. ‘Just listen to the youngster! My dear young fellow, in 1925 you were still suckling at your mama’s breast. Yes, Victoire Sanpeur, that’s who I said; everyone in Clermont remembers her. An unforgettable head of hair! She was here a year, before she was kidnapped by a député … I can’t walk very fast. It’s because of my arthritis …’

      Palfy winked at Jean and asked in a deliberately innocent voice, ‘Not because of an old dose of the clap, perhaps?’

      The old dodderer raised his stick.

      ‘You blooming rascal, you deserve a good hiding!’

      His anger was short-lived. The allusion to his past exploits helped him forget what a wreck he had become.

      ‘No, Monsieur, throughout my life I have only ever frequented establishments that maintained the highest standards of cleanliness.’

      ‘Never an honest woman?’ Palfy enquired politely.

      ‘Never! Honest women, as you call them, that’s where the trouble lies. No sense of cleanliness.’

      He stopped, gathered his sticks in one hand, mopped his brow, and blew his nose noisily before breathing again. Jean gave up being astonished. How did Palfy know Clermont-Ferrand? He was a vagrant who was at home everywhere: in London, Cannes, Deauville, Paris, and now in the Auvergne. In fashionable society or