JEAN-LUC
Give a weak man a little bit of power, and he’ll abuse it. The gendarmes were a typical example. Jean-Luc was relieved to see Charlotte walking away, but now he had to deal with them. Even though they had no grounds for arresting him, he knew that what little authority they had would be wielded against him.
“Indecent exposure!” The one who’d stopped him laughed. “If we’d left them five minutes longer, we could have booked them for that!”
Jean-Luc took a pack of Gitanes out from his trouser pocket and offered it to the one who’d just spoken. “Well, if I’d been lucky, maybe you could have got me for that. But come on, this is France! It’s our duty to honor our women.”
The atmosphere immediately changed. The gendarme laughed, taking a cigarette, and Jean-Luc offered the packet to the other one, lighting up for both of them with the silver lighter he had inherited from his father. Then, to complete the unspoken pact of brotherhood, he took a cigarette for himself. “You can’t arrest a man for having a little fun, can you?” He paused. “I just got out of the hospital. Injury to the leg and to the face.” He touched his scar. “She was my nurse.”
“Nice!” The gendarme blew a puff of smoke in Jean-Luc’s direction. “I bet she took good care of you.”
“She did.” He laughed.
They joined in his laughter; then, after a little more banter about women, they sent him on his way. He glanced at his watch—almost another hour to go before curfew. That should give him enough time to walk home rather than descend into the Métro’s labyrinth of tunnels. He needed to think. Well, actually he wanted to think about Charlotte. Charlo-tte, Charlo-tte. He caressed her name in his mind, wondering what it was about her. Maybe it was the contradictions he saw in her: confidence laced with insecurity, naïveté tinged with bravado. He could sense a courage that had yet to surface. He imagined it had been stifled by a strict family upbringing where she’d had little opportunity to express her own thoughts. She was like a butterfly not yet free from its cocoon, its beautiful wings still curled up. She was full of something he felt he’d lost. Hope. The thrill of living. He could hear it in her voice when she talked to him. And she wanted to give it to him, place it in his unworthy palm, somehow expecting him to take it and fulfill it.
Then there was something about the way she held herself, something touching about the way she lifted her chin when she talked to him, trying to look more assertive than he knew she felt. He loved to look at her in profile. She had a perfect profile: an intelligent forehead, not too short and not too high, long, silky eyelashes flickering over eyes of the richest brown, only a shade lighter than the large pupils they encircled. Her nose was fine-boned, maybe just a little too long to be perfect, which only made her all the more perfect in his eyes.
He walked back across the bridge, turning right along the quai, glancing over at the closed cafés and bars. What was he doing wandering around like this? Was he tempting fate? Wishing to be arrested? Anything to get out of working at Bobigny. Now he had even less chance of finding a way out. He’d aroused suspicion, so he wouldn’t be able to do anything for a long while. He would just have to buckle down and get on with it. But was that possible? Should it be possible? Maybe he should just disappear; that would still be better than working for the Boches. He could escape to the countryside, try to find the Maquis, hiding out in the hills. With his knowledge of railways, he could help them derail trains. But then who would look after his mother? Who would provide her with a little money?
He soon came to Notre-Dame on the Île de la Cité; it gleamed in the dark, its timelessness indifferent to the war. He thought about going in and lighting a candle, but it was getting too close to curfew; anyway, he didn’t like those tortured gargoyles hanging on the walls, watching you as you entered. Judging you. So he kept walking. Tonight he felt like being alone in the dark, in this city that used to be his.