Labourdin laid his hands on the desk with the same contented air as he might at a dinner table when seeing a baked Alaska arrive. Mlle Raymond looked nothing like an ice cream, yet the image of the delicate golden meringue was not entirely incongruous. She was a peroxide blonde with reddish highlights, a pallid complexion, and a rather pointed head. Whenever she came in and saw her boss in this pose, Mlle Raymond would give a disgusted, fatalistic pout. Because as soon as she stood next to him, he would slide his right hand up her skirt in a gesture that demonstrated a surprising agility for a man of his girth and a skill he conspicuously lacked in every other domain. She would swivel her hips, but in this Labourdin seemed to have intuition that verged on premonition. No matter which way she turned, he always hit his target. She had come to terms with it, she would wriggle quickly away, set down the file and, as she left, give a jaded sigh. Her piteous attempts to prevent this practice (tight-fitting skirts and dresses), served only to heighten Labourdin’s pleasure. If she was a mediocre secretary when it came to shorthand and typing, her forbearance more than made up for her flaws.
Labourdin opened the file and clicked his tongue: M. Péricourt would be happy.
It was a fine set of regulations outlining “an open competition for designs from artists of French nationality for the construction of a memorial to those who died in the Great War of 1914–1918.”
In this extensive document, Labourdin himself had written only a single sentence. He had insisted on drafting article 1, subsection (ii) all by himself. Each carefully weighed word was his own work, every capital letter. He was so proud of it that he insisted it be set in bold type: “This Monument should evoke the painful and glorious Memory of our Victorious Dead.” Perfectly cadenced. He clicked his tongue again. Mentally, he patted himself on the back once more and then swiftly skimmed the rest of the document.
An excellent site had been found for the memorial, one previously occupied by a municipal garage—one hundred and thirty feet wide by one hundred feet deep—with the possibility of a garden surrounding the monument. The regulations required that the dimensions of the monument should “be in keeping with the chosen site.” To inscribe all these names would require a large surface area. The operation was almost settled: a jury of fourteen people, among them eminent figures, local artists, serving officers, representatives of families’ and veterans’ associations, and so forth, handpicked from among the many people who owed Labourdin a favor (being president of the committee, he held the casting vote). This highly artistic and patriotic project was to be among the defining achievements of his mayoral term. His reelection was almost guaranteed. The schedule had been determined, the competition was about to be launched, work had already begun on leveling the site. The announcement would be published in the major newspapers of Paris and the provinces; it was a triumph, one he had skillfully managed . . .
Not a detail was missing.
Except for a blank space in article 4: “the allocated budget for the memorial is in the amount of . . .”
This gave M. Péricourt pause for thought. He wanted something striking but not grandiose and, from the information he had received, such memorials generally cost between 60,000 and 120,000 francs, with certain well-known artists commanding as much as 150,000 or even 180,000. Given such a broad range, where should he set the bar? It was not a matter of money, rather one of appropriateness. He needed to think. He looked up at his son. A month earlier Madeleine had discreetly placed a framed photograph of Édouard on the mantelpiece. She had several photographs but had chosen this one because it seemed to her a “middle-ground,” neither too formal nor too provocative. Acceptable. Her father seemed strained by the changes in his life, and anxious not to overwhelm him, she moved tactfully, making small changes, a sketchpad one day, a photograph the next.
M. Péricourt had waited two days before moving the picture closer, setting it on the corner of his desk. He did not want to ask Madeleine when or where it had been taken; a father was supposed to know such things. To his eyes, Édouard looked about fourteen, meaning it would have been taken in 1909. He was leaning on a wooden railing. There was little background detail; it seemed to have been taken on the terrace of a chalet—Édouard had been sent skiing every winter. M. Péricourt could not remember where precisely, except that it was always the same ski resort, in the northern Alps, perhaps, or maybe the south. But somewhere in the Alps. His son was wearing a thick sweater and squinting into the sunlight with a broad grin, as though the person behind the camera was making faces. And this in turn amused M. Péricourt. He was a handsome boy, mischievous. Finding himself smiling now, so many years later, reminded him that he and his son had never laughed together. It broke his heart. Only then did he think to turn the frame around.
In the bottom corner, Madeleine had written: “1906, les Buttes-Chaumont.”
M. Péricourt unscrewed the top of his fountain pen and wrote: 200,000 francs.