The Foundling's War. Yasmina Khadra

luck ages people: they go grey, bags appear under their eyes, their shoulders droop, their legs become so thin they look like broomsticks. Handling Jesús’s series of drawings for La Garenne’s specialist clientele, she smiles unembarrassedly, observing how ‘saucy’ they are, which is the very least that might be said of them.

      In front of the building in Rue Lepic a German car was parked. Sitting on the bonnet, a blond soldier with soft features and cap at a rakish angle lit a cigarette and smiled at a girl who hurried on her way. Jean went up. Madeleine was sitting in the studio’s only armchair. Her elegance jarred with its tattered upholstery and missing foot, replaced by three books. She looked like Lady Bountiful, come to console a poor artist. Behind her back Jesús made a frustrated gesture of apology for Jean’s benefit. Since coming to Paris Jean had avoided Madeleine, who had called at Rue Lepic several times to try and find him. He hardly recognised her. She had taken full advantage of Palfy’s lessons and now knew how to sit in an armchair and smoke a cigarette with poise. There was no longer any trace of what had once been so garish about her: the handbag that was too big, the over-thick make-up, the jarringly jaded tone. She kissed Jean and he noticed she was wearing good perfume. There was an air about her, an attitude that suggested a deeper transformation. Perhaps it was the result of security, of a feeling that she had a strong, powerful man to rely on, who asked her only to be the woman she wanted to be. In a few sentences of conversation it became clear that, after years of unhappiness in a milieu in which she had felt fear more than any other emotion, she was suddenly blossoming at an age when Blanche de Rocroy was withering. She must have kept up her elocution lessons: her diction was smoother and her level voice had lost its vulgar cadences. Jean had been fond of her for her naturalness and generosity. The naturalness had gone but her generosity remained, and now with evident resources at her disposal she had not forgotten her friends.

      ‘I was beginning to think you were avoiding me,’ she said.

      He lied, assuring her she was wrong. She wanted news of Palfy. He briefly told her the story of their war, not omitting their encounter in the village square with Obersturmführer Karl Schmidt.

      ‘Ah, the SS!’ she said knowingly. ‘That doesn’t surprise me. Julius hates them …’

      ‘Who is Julius?’

      ‘Oh, you’ll meet him. You’ll like him instantly. He’s a big manufacturer from Dortmund. The Kommandantur has put him in charge of getting the French textile industry going again.’

      ‘We could do with that,’ Jean said, having managed with great difficulty to buy himself a suit.

      ‘Don’t be silly. If there’s anything you need, all you have to do is tell me. In any case tonight you must come for dinner – we’re going to Maxim’s.’

      ‘Dressed like this? They’ll turn me away at the door.’

      ‘With Julius? You must be joking. But if you feel uncomfortable, we can go to a bistro at Les Halles.’

      ‘Listen, Madeleine, I’m going to say no, for a simple reason that Jesús is already aware of. Very simple and stupid: there’s a woman in my life—’

      ‘Well then, bring her, you goose!’

      ‘She can’t go out. She has a little boy and there’s no one to look after him in the evening.’

      ‘You are disappointing. Isn’t he, Jesús?’

      Jesús raised his arms to the sky.

      ‘’E’s in love, Mad’leine, ’e’s in love!’

      ‘What about you? You could do with getting a move on in that direction.’

      ‘Never! I love the art. Is the only zing!’

      This made Madeleine laugh. She wrote her address and telephone number on a piece of paper.

      ‘Whenever you feel like seeing me, ring me. And now give me Palfy’s address. I’m going to get him an Ausweis.’

      ‘A what?’

      ‘An Ausweis, my little bunny … A travel permit. Do try to keep up a bit. Come down off your cloud. You’re still a good-looking boy. I’m very fond of you, you know.’

      Jean wrote down the Michettes’ name, but suddenly could not remember either the name of the street, or the number.

      ‘It’s at the Sirène, Clermont-Ferrand.’

      ‘The Sirène? A hotel?’

      ‘No. A bordello.’

      ‘Are you saying that he lives in a bordello?’

      ‘The patronne is a fascinating woman.’

      Madeleine looked baffled. She found it difficult to imagine ‘Baron’ Palfy in love with the patronne of a bordello. It was undeniable that in the new world born from defeat, old values had been turned upside down. She, for now, was at the top of the ladder. She supposed that since places were limited, it was natural that some were obliged to take a step or two down.

      Jean and Jesús stood at the window, watching Madeleine leave. The soldier opened the car door for her and, standing behind her, made an obscene gesture in the direction of her backside before she turned to sit down.

      ‘Respect is dead,’ Jean said.

      ‘You can say that again! And there are even some pricks who says no to dinner at Maxim’s.’

      ‘With Julius? You must be joking. I know exactly what that would be like.’

      ‘Madeleine ez an angel.’

      ‘Steady on. Let’s say she’s all right.’

      Thoughtfully Jean watched the car turn round and drive down towards Clichy. He thought how far Madeleine had come. Two years earlier she had been living in that same building and hanging out on the stairs in her dressing gown, with tired skin and breath soured by alcohol. She had led a wretched life until she met Palfy, who had offered her a lifeline before the ship went down. What would have become of her if she hadn’t met him? A new woman had been born out of those chance events. She still had much to learn, of course, and even if her destiny looked rosy she still ran the risk of committing some serious faux pas that would not escape a trained ear. What more reliable audience could she have chosen for her performance than an industrialist from Dortmund? Madeleine’s reappearance and her ascent in society, despite Jean’s efforts to ignore her, were a sign. At the age of twenty-one it is no easy matter to leave the past behind.

      He wrote to Antoinette. She answered him in a long letter which we shall quote in full.

      Jean darling, what a relief to have your letter. We have all been thinking of you. I ran up- and downstairs, shouting everywhere, ‘Jean’s alive, Jean’s in Paris!’ The only person to greet the news with no emotion was your father – well, I mean Albert, because I don’t know how you think of him any more in your heart. The fact that he isn’t your father isn’t really important in the end, is it? Our parents are the ones who bring us up. To tell you how he is, first of all: still working with the same fortitude and self-sacrifice, despite the arthritis in his hip that hurts him dreadfully. The abbé Le Couec says simply that he’s a saint. A cranky saint because we made him plant cabbages, potatoes and carrots in his borders. Yes, it’s not very pretty, but we have to make do as we can and we suddenly have a lot of new ‘friends’ who happen to drop in on Sundays, always around lunchtime, from Dieppe and Rouen. Maman bought some hens and rabbits and Michel came down from Olympus for long enough to build us a henhouse and some hutches out of wood and chicken wire. Oh yes – Michel’s back. He came back at the end of June, dressed as a farmhand … You know what he’s like: he took one look at our expressions and insisted that he was a gardener, not a farmhand, and quoted St John’s Gospel: ‘And they did not know he was Jesus … thinking he was a gardener.’ We’re no less complicated than before, as you can see. We had some difficulty getting him proper papers. The gendarmes at Grangeville claimed he needed to get himself demobilised at the Kommandantur. In other words, our poor darling