Neither of his children lived at home, now. The casual insolence with which schoolchildren popped off to Tunisia or Turkey had first appalled and then entertained him. Since going to their universities and vanishing from ken they had become more and more far flung, and the elder, supposed to be doing engineering at Besançon, spoke offhandedly of Leningrad and Montreal as though they were next door. Their extreme sophistication and bounding self-confidence had a charming innocence: their father, who had never been to America, was on this account treated as the most circumscribed of peasants.
Arlette was disoriented and unoccupied; her instinct for activity, described by her husband as the wish to ‘take cabs and go about’, was now harnessed by outside work. Two afternoons a week she worked at the local orphanage, and three evenings at the hospital. Having no ‘diplomas’ made her tetchy: other people were allowed to do things she could have done so much better!
‘Get a few diplomas then,’ Van der Valk, who had dozens of the idiot things, suggested. ‘They aren’t hard.’
‘I refuse. I’m like Malraux’s grandfather – too old to pass examinations or change my religion.’
‘Well then, eat it and like it. Valuable lesson in humility.’
‘I try to,’ said Arlette humbly. ‘But I lose my temper rather often.’
Tonight was not a hospital night. Goody – nice supper instead of something-to-warm-up. He recalled that she would not have gone anyway, because of the child. This child … was Zomerlust telling the truth, saying he had no idea who her father was? It had had the accents of truth. But why had he married Esther Marx in so uncharacteristic an outburst of quixotic romanticism? She had been a nurse – military nurse. Had the father been some comrade, perhaps in Korea? Who had perhaps been killed or something? He decided that he was constructing a tale he could shortly offer to a women’s magazine, and opened his front door upon a nice smell. Arlette, aided by Ruth, was making supper.
He was blunted by the day, and used to her talking French at home; she always did, to keep the boys bilingual. Undoing his shoelaces, he heard that the child not only understood but was replying. He rose as though he had sat on a pin and stumped into the kitchen.
‘Have you seen Mamma?’ asked the child at once, but he was prepared.
‘We’re both going to see her, tomorrow morning. But she may not be well enough to talk to us.’ Ruth, flushed and excited, seemed to be getting on well with Arlette.
‘I’m tired, thirsty, and want a glass of vino.’
‘May I get it for you?’
‘Sure, in the fridge, and take a kitchen glass.’
‘Madame talks French.’
‘Madame is French. So do you talk French – I hear.’
‘You do too! So am I French.’
‘Are you really?’
‘Is that all right?’
‘Pour one for me too,’ said Arlette. ‘You may have a small one if you like.’
‘I do like.’
The child had bad table manners and was over-excited. After supper Van der Valk conveyed by violent sign language that she must go to bed. Arlette made a teach-your-granny face and was away for a long time: a lot of noise came from the bathroom. Finally Arlette appeared, said she was mangled, and asked for a glass of port.
‘She’s had a rotten time. Needs a lot of warmth, a lot of affection, a lot of spontaneous enthusiasm. Been left alone a lot. She’s used to bottling it all in, and she has to learn to flood it all out. You can’t do that in three days. Do you know anything about it?’
‘Very little. The woman was killed by X with what appears to be an Israeli army sub-machine-gun. Her name was Esther Marx. Born in France of Jugoslav parents, it would seem.’
‘Israeli – Esther – Ruth – Jewish, you think?’
‘I don’t know,’ dully. ‘Has it importance? Did Jews shoot her?’
‘More likely Arabs – they ran away so quickly,’ said Arlette frivolously. ‘I think she guesses that Mamma is dead – they’re so sharpened to that. You saw the husband?’
‘A nice man. Says Esther never talked about the past and that he made a point of never asking. Now that I think about it I’m sure that it’s the truth and that what’s more it was damn sensible of him.’
‘No doubt, then? – something or someone out of the past?’
‘Perhaps – if only because she had so oddly little present. What did she do all day? We’ll hear from Ruth – eventually.’
‘Have you plans, for tonight?’
‘I want to have a look at the flat. The technical report tells me nothing. But I won’t be late.’
‘What are we going to do with the child?’
‘Keep her, for the moment. You don’t mind?’
‘I think I like it. You may find me asleep – she takes a lot of concentration.’
‘The husband’s family is hostile. He doesn’t know what to do with her.’
‘A very lucky thing that she speaks French. Does the poor little wretch get shoved off to the orphanage? I could help there, but so little.
‘I wonder whether one could adopt her,’ she went on vaguely. She looked at him, waiting for him to sort his mind out.
‘I don’t know – it seems to me that we could. This Zomerlust – he’s her legal guardian, of course.’
‘Think about it.’
‘Sleep on it.’