Occasionally, Lucien asks Hélène if she’d like to change her life, leave, close the bistro, stop breathing in the men’s cigarette smoke and listening to them rambling on, do something different. Occasionally, Lucien asks Hélène if she’d like to meet another man. One who’d marry her for real and whom she’d love for real. To which she replies, No, certainly not, you bring me luck.
In 1941, old Louis’s café still has its regulars. Most of the men are too old for compulsory labor. And all that remains of the trenches is their scars, their tremors, their wooden legs, and the war memorial erected on the Place de l’Église.
When the Germans turn up in the village, they requisition certain foodstuffs, but don’t settle there.
While they are around, doors and shutters are bolted. And then the men return to work on the land. And the very old men hit the bottle to drown their sorrows or wash down their meager meal, under the bright gaze of Hélène, who still patches up the holes in their trousers.
After three glasses of liquor, or five depending on the customer’s build, she fills the glasses with lemonade. The customers, thinking she’s taken the wrong bottle because she can’t read the labels, daren’t say a thing to her. They discreetly ask Lucien to re-serve them “properly.”
* * *
In 1939, Lucien had been called up to fight for his country in the “phony war.” He returned to Milly in June 1940.
The crossing of the Maginot Line by German forces brought most men back to their homes.
Just before he’d left, Hélène had discovered that Lucien hadn’t been baptized. She’d wanted to be his godmother, but Lucien didn’t believe in God and ridiculed the holier-than-thou. Which was bound to anger Hélène. She would tell him that he was blaspheming, to which he would reply: My blasphemy is you. Hélène implored him. Lucien agreed to be baptized. Now they just needed to find a godfather. It was decided that he’d be pulled out of a hat full of the customers’ names.
Lucien wrote all the men’s first names on identically cut slips of paper. That day, all the men of the village were present. Even those who normally drank only the water from their well. Jules, Valentin, Auguste, Adrien, Émilien, Louis, Alphonse, Joseph, Léon, Alfred, Auguste, Ferdinand, Edgar, Étienne, Simon. Hearing them reveal their first names was just as if they’d stripped off in front of each other. They were usually known by their nicknames—Titi, Lulu, le Grand, Quinquin, Féfé, Caba, Mimile, Dédé, Nano—or not named at all. Just hello and then silence. Only Baudelaire got a special “dispensation.” Lucien wrote “Charles Baudelaire” on the slip of paper.
It was Simon who won the title of godfather to Lucien. The others were a little disappointed: they’d lost in the good Lord’s lottery. They all went to the church. All without exception, because it was the first time they were attending the baptism of an adult.
Although Simon was of the Jewish faith, the priest turned a blind eye. It was a time of war: everyone turned a blind eye, even the Holy Ghost.
The priest doused Lucien’s head with holy water and said:
“Godfather and godmother, the child you are presenting, Lucien, will receive the sacrament of baptism: God, in his love, will give him a new life. He will be reborn through water and the Holy Ghost. Be sure to raise him in faith so this divine life isn’t weakened by indifference or sin, but rather, develops within him, day by day.”
The priest gave Lucien’s baptism certificate to Hélène on May 7, 1939.
Three days later, on the morning of his departure, Lucien woke to find no Hélène asleep beside him. That had never happened before. Lucien thought it might be an early sign of his father’s affliction. He rubbed his eyes for a long time. He looked for her, called out to her, in vain.
He finally found a sheet of white paper on the kitchen table. It was dotted with tiny holes, which Hélène must have done with a sewing needle. By passing his fingertips over them, Lucien read: “Come back, my dear godson, my gentle brother, my fine friend, come back.”
* * *
On the day the lots were drawn, Lucien had cheated. Hélène had seen the two berets. A first one to put all the men’s names into, a second one filled in advance with the name “Simon.”
Just before the lot was drawn, Lucien had offered drinks all around, and, during the hubbub, had sneakily switched the berets under the bar.
Hélène had plunged her hand into the second beret, and Lucien had pretended to discover the name of his godfather.
That evening, while sweeping up the sawdust, Hélène had found 29 “Simon” slips hidden behind some empty bottles. She hadn’t been able to read them, but had swept them up and made them disappear down the drain so no one would find them. What Hélène didn’t know was that the Nazis were in the process of doing just the same thing as her.
* * *
Simon had arrived one snowy day in 1938. He had entered through the wrong door, the back one, through the storeroom, the door for the apologetic. He had drunk some coffee and explained to Lucien, with a strong accent, that he had escaped from Poland to seek refuge in the land of the Rights of Man, and, since then, had got into the habit of not entering through front doors anymore. His only luggage was a case containing a violin and a jacket.
Simon was fifty years old. He was a violin-maker; his workshop had been ransacked and set on fire, and he had been left for dead, with an inscription cut, with a knife, into his forehead: zydowski (Jewish).
The scar was still visible. The “y” would reappear on his forehead when his skin caught the sun. He always wore a little hat that covered his forehead. He was tall and thin, with strong hands that contrasted with the rest of his frail body. And with his curly gray hair, the tiniest drop of water stood no chance of wetting his scalp.
Before speaking, Simon would smile. As if not a word could leave his mouth without being accompanied by a smile.
Lucien and Hélène suggested he stay for a few days, sleeping in the room of the child that was sure to come but was taking its time.
They offered him free bed and board, and in return he would play his violin in the café to entertain the customers, who had become morose with the threat of imminent war. But Simon was scared. Scared that the sound of his violin might attract malevolent types.
He took off his hat for the first time, rubbed his head, and suggested playing the violin for the two of them, just the two of them. Within hours, he became “our friend Simon.” A genuine friend, the sort whose kindly presence is a delight.
For Simon, Lucien was an intellectual whom love had turned into a barman. This tall young man could have been teaching rather than serving glasses of wine all day. But he had made the choice to have just one pupil, Hélène.
From the moment Hélène had leaned over Simon to darn his moth-eaten sweater, he had understood Lucien’s self-denial.