MY WOUNDS HAVE HEALED and the moment has come when I must take my leave of the nurses in ward 11 at Saint-Gilbert where I have spent the best days of my life as a soldier. Mademoiselle Nancey entreated me to keep in touch: ‘Don’t forget to write to us. We like to know what happens to our patients after they leave us. And should misfortune strike you a second time, you know where we are.’ With uncharacteristic gravity, Nègre said simply: ‘Do your best to save your skin!’
We hear the familiar sound of the letterbox on the path opening and closing, and then a key turns in the door. Our father has come home for supper. Wiping his feet on the mat, as always, he asks my sister:
‘Is your brother back?’
I come out into the corridor.
‘There you are!’ he says. ‘We got your letter and we’ve been waiting for you every day.’
We embrace, somewhat ritually: a trial kiss, He must be wondering: has the war changed him? Our relationship has never been warm. My father expected better of me, and I expected better of him. I failed to pay sufficient heed to his advice, but then it seemed to me that the results he had achieved, with his much-vaunted experience, gave me the right to be wary. No doubt he loves me in his own way but unfortunately his manner of showing this when I was a child was never very convincing, and that impression stayed with me ever after. You could say we don’t understand each other. A father has to put a lot into it if he and his son are going to understand each other, to find a way across the quarter century that separates them. This did not happen. In 1914 we were more or less at loggerheads. But when war came we extended the spirit of national unity to our family. Decency demanded it, given the dangers I was going to face. And now I am back, after thirteen months’ absence and a battle wound, with the best intentions but still somewhat sceptical about the chances of finding a perfect accord.
We take our seats at the table, all in our former places, and I see that nothing here has changed. My father questions me:
‘Fully recovered then?’
‘I’m OK.’
‘Yes, you look fine. That life has done you good.’
He’s giving me a sly look and I realise, from the way he’s squeezing the piece of bread in his hand, that something is making him unhappy. I quickly learn what.
‘How did you manage not to get a single stripe?’
‘I’m not interested,’ I said, to cut it short.
‘Another one of your strange ideas!’
Whenever my father alludes to what he calls my ideas, it’s a bad sign. But he sticks to his guns and goes on:
‘Charpentier’s sons are pretty much the same age as you and one’s a sergeant and the other an adjutant. Their father is proud of them.’
‘It’s nothing to be proud of!’
‘Oh, of course, you’re above that, aren’t you! . . . Never been one to put yourself out to make anybody happy!’
My sister, fearing an argument where neither one of us gives way, butts in and changes the subject. They talk among themselves, leaving me out, about what’s happening at home, their friends, invitations, visits, whatever . . . They have the same petty concerns as they had in 1914 and when I listen I feel I only left them yesterday. They do not appear to have the slightest idea of what’s happening a few hundred kilometres away. And my father accuses me of egotism! Not that it matters. I am here for just one week – on convalescent leave, subject to immediate recall. But these people for whom I am fighting (for when all’s said and done I’m not fighting for myself!) are like strangers to me.
They are not even interested in the war. My father won’t condescend to ask me about it: that would mean admitting that a son can know more about something than his father. And that would be unimaginable for him; it is a very long time since anyone challenged his authority.
My father has arranged to meet me in the afternoon. I find him at the appointed time and I walk beside him along the crowded street where the window displays shimmering in electric light bring back scenes of pre-war life that I had forgotten. He has aged a bit since I last saw him and is now noticeably shorter than me. We are reaching that point where the father, diminished by age, shrinks, where the son gets taller and asserts himself. For a long time he seemed in my eyes to belong to the world of grown-ups, possessors of privilege, sources of all wisdom, and for a long time, too, I felt subservient to him. Today, I have a life of my own, beyond his grasp and out of his control. Faced with my growing independence, and my height, he shows a little more respect, while I more or less tolerate or ignore his unjust temper, now that I am free from him. There is a balance of forces, we treat each other cordially. But we are further apart than ever.
My father takes me to the brasserie where he meets his friends every evening. It’s in the centre of town, and in the main room the owner keeps a corner reserved for them to spend part of their afternoons. They’re in their sixties, businessmen and industrialists. Some have that troubled look that comes with ill-fortune and declining years, others on the contrary have the satisfied air of successful entrepreneurs. They’ve all known each other for nearly half their lives. This is where they enjoy their leisure, well away from worries and domestic acrimony, and live off an old fund of memories and jokes that they have dug up from their youth. They are used to each other and respect each other’s foibles, an essential condition for growing old comfortably in company.
They all look up when we arrive.
‘Let me introduce my boy who has just come out of hospital after being wounded,’ he says, shaking hands.
These important men interrupt their game of cards to greet me warmly:
‘Excellent! Bravo, young man!’
‘Congratulations on your bravery!’
‘I say, Dartemont, what a fine chap!’
Then they go quiet, not knowing what further encouragement to offer me. The war is out of fashion, people are getting used to it. Military men on leave are everywhere, giving the impression that nothing bad ever happens to them. And I am just an ordinary soldier, and my father’s business is hardly flourishing. These gentlemen have been generous to take such an interest in me.
They go back to their game: ‘Whose turn is it to cut?’ My father joins in. I stay alone at the end of a table, opposite an elderly gentleman methodically chewing gruyère and washing it down with beer. He looks at me for some time and I guess from his rather pained expression that he is trying to form a sentence. At last, with an engaging smile, he asks:
‘You have some fun out there then, eh?
I stare in shock at this bloodless old fool. But I answer quickly and pleasantly:
‘Oh, gosh, yes, I should say so, sir . . .’
He beams happily. I have the feeling he is about to exclaim: ‘Oh-ho, those good old poilus!’
Then I add:
‘ . . . We really enjoy ourselves: every evening we bury our pals!’
His smile goes into reverse and the compliment freezes on his lips. He grabs at his glass and sticks his nose in it. In shock he swallows his beer too fast and it heads straight for his lungs. This is followed by a gurgling noise and then a little jet of spume that he spouts into the air and which descends on to his stomach, in a cascade of frothy bubbles.
‘Something go down the wrong way?’ I inquire, mercilessly.
His body is convulsed with catarrhal rumblings and spluttering. Above his handkerchief I can only see his yellow eyes, streaming with tears. Behind my hypocritically concerned expression, my mind is beginning a savage, vengeful scalp dance.
We leave soon after. I know what the gruyère man will say the minute we go out the door:
‘I say, is Dartemont’s lad some kind of troublemaker? No manners at all, that boy, you know!’
‘I can’t imagine he gives Dartemont much to be happy about!’
‘Not a single stripe or medal after a whole year of war – makes you wonder, doesn’t it?’
They will shake their heads as if to say ‘everyone has his cross to bear’ and order another cold beer to buck themselves up. And then one of them will make a suggestion: ‘Are you all free this evening? I know a little place where we could have a bite of dinner and . . .’ Between men, they are proposing a little debauch for themselves. And if a pretty girl should pass by then, ho-hoh!, they’ll invite her to join them. They’re so terribly lonely right now, those little lasses. Obviously, they understand a bit about the aftermath of this carousing: the gout, the pains in the liver . . . But what the hell! Mustn’t mollycoddle yourself – everyone is suffering these days!
All’s fair in love and war, eh?
I have a week left to treat myself to some pleasure, to gorge myself on it, store it up to last me for many months. It may be my final pleasure, and perhaps these seven days will provide the last memory of my life. No time to waste, let us start the pleasure hunt, track it down, grab it.
But then, what is pleasure? Make a list of possible pleasures. Meals? No, they can only be an accompaniment to pleasure, a seasoning. The theatre? No again. Plays are empty and false given the reality that’s waiting for me. The joys of family life? A mother could perhaps understand me, make me feel I belonged, but I lost mine when I was very young. Friends? I would certainly like to see my friends again, exchange impressions as we go down our old paths. But my friends (I have three true ones) are scattered at the front; one was wounded in Champagne soon after me. The pleasures of vanity? It seems they exist. I don’t know where you find such things. In various salons no doubt, but I have no access to such places, and no desire to go there.
Which leaves, then, the pleasures of the heart. The term is too romantic. Let’s be accurate: a woman. I have known a few well, in various ways. But they were young and not very free. The first difficulty is to find them again, and then to revive their feelings for me, feelings that I have not exactly helped to sustain, for they spoke of eternal, absolute emotions and at the age of twenty, caught in the war, I could not sign an emotional pact binding for the whole future. I was thinking ahead, as often happens when you try too hard to act in good faith. So those possible lovers must have taken their hearts elsewhere. A woman’s heart cannot remain unoccupied for long. The younger the hearts, the more demanding, and the more rights they claim. I didn’t want to make any promises. Promising nothing, and being far away, I fear I’ve lost them all. Love is a transaction, at least of emotions in the rarest cases: you love to get something in return. Since I wasn’t there, I couldn’t give anything. And now I can only give seven days of an infantryman, whose life is at risk. Whose career has not begun and whose heart, it must be said, is unreliable. What woman would want me? To accept this gift, she would at least have to have known me before, kept a different image of me than the one I offer in the pathetic uniform that I was given at the hospital.
That leaves the pleasure that you buy, of inferior quality but pleasure nonetheless if you can afford the luxury version. Unfortunately I have very little money, enough to buy only cut-price pleasure, the pleasure of the poor, as loathsome as eating in a cheap café. What I need is a week of opulence and all I have ahead of me is a week of scrimping.
I take my chances; I go out.
I head straight for the places where, before the war, I was sure to find friends. I look in the cafés, go up and down the same streets over and over again. Everything that made this landscape familiar has gone, my city no longer knows me, and I feel alone. Once, in clothes of my own choice, I possessed a degree of confidence that my uniform has taken away. Women turn naturally to what is glamorous and elegant: all the officers, members of the General Staff, employees from military headquarters, in their fancy outfits, who can guarantee something lasting. I am afraid to approach a woman! Soldiers must go with soldiers’ girls, and everyone knows it . . .
I wander around, at a loose end, and without much hope. I’m beginning to realise that life here has taken on a new rhythm, from which we’re excluded and which leaves no place for one of those adventures I’m dreaming of. The women are beautiful, and have a more determined look than they used to; no trace on their faces of any secret sorrow. So where are all those lovers brought to despair by the separations of war?
I have the address of one of the young women I spent some time with in 1914. I decide to go and wait near the place where she lives in the hope of catching her coming in or going out. It’s a slim chance but I have no better way of finding her.
I met Germaine D . . . yesterday evening, the fifth day of my leave. About time! I paced up and down the shop windows of a gloomy street which I knew was on her regular route home. And suddenly there she was, illuminated by a gas light. In spite of the new cut of her clothes, I recognised her walk or the way she held herself, something at least which told me it was definitely her. I watched her stranger’s face coming closer, unaware of my presence, a pensive, inscrutable face which became distinct as she approached. I stepped out into the light. She stepped back indignantly – then blushed: it was her turn to recognise me. Without any reproaches, without showing any great surprise, she simply promised me an afternoon, this afternoon. Perhaps I could even see her tomorrow, too, but – ‘Not for long, we’ve got people at home, and I can’t do what I want.’
I took her to a pied-à-terre that someone had offered me. She was gracious enough not to look too closely at this makeshift flat, nor to criticise its dubious character and anonymity. She was gracious enough, despite my neglect, to give herself without hesitation, with that air of abandon and pleasure (at last!) of sensual women, grateful for what they are experiencing. By mixing our memories with the present, she had the skill immediately to re-establish an intimacy between us that cancelled out our year apart and naturally acquired the tone of our former rendezvous. And she had the generosity not to distract us from this precious time by complaining about my silence. She accepted me as she found me and saw me as she had before. It was that above all that I sought: someone for whom I was no longer a soldier. She left me with my little bouquet pinned to her coat. ‘I am very proud of my medal!’ she said.
I am in debt to charming, unaffected Germaine for the greatest joy I experienced during my leave: a few hours of forgetting spent in her company. In future, I will write to her.
Even the worst upheavals cannot change people’s characters. This seven-day leave proved to me that my father’s narrow-minded stubbornness would never alter, whatever I was doing. And what more could I do, today, than be a soldier? Being one, was I not completely satisfying public opinion and thus raising the standing of my family?
It is true to say that I’m a malcontent hero. If I am asked about the events of the war, I have the bad and unsociable habit of describing them as I found them. This liking for truth is incompatible with civilised behaviour. Those milieus where I was received and welcomed expected me to vindicate their smug passivity by my own optimism, expected me to display that scorn for the enemy, for hardship and danger, that good humour and spirit of enterprise that are legendary and so characteristic of French soldiers, the ones you see on the covers of almanacs, debonair and smiling in a hail of bullets. Civilians like to see the war as a fine adventure, an excellent distraction for young men, an adventure that of course has its dangers but compensates for them with the joys it offers: glory, romantic encounters, freedom from everyday cares. This convenient image tranquilised consciences, legitimised profits, and also allowed people to say, ‘our hearts bleed’ while living like pigs in clover. I have little faith in those hearts which feel the suffering of others so deeply. They must be made of some very rare material. You only truly suffer in your own flesh: in the ‘flesh of your flesh’ that suffering is already a lot less, except in the case of unusually sensitive souls.
I was well aware that it would have been polite, when offered a fine meal in a luxurious establishment, to put everyone at ease by declaring that we were on our way to victory and everything at the front was going along splendidly. In return for which they would have poured me a second glass of cognac, offered me a second cigar, while saying, in that indulgent tone that is reserved for soldiers: ‘Come on now, a poilu like you, you won’t get cigars like this in the trenches, so don’t be shy!’ In other words: you see, nothing is refused you!
But I did not tell of exploits where the Germans got a good hammering, I froze the most lively conversations. I was ill-mannered, I made myself unbearable, and people are glad to see the back of me.
My father has insisted on accompanying me to the station this evening. We don’t have much to say to each other. We walk along the draughty platform, waiting for the train. My father is afraid of draughts, he’s turned up his coat collar and I can tell he’s impatient.
‘Don’t wait. Why catch cold for a few minutes that won’t change anything?’ I say.
‘No, no, I’ll wait!’ he answers gruffly, like a man who has decided to set an example, to do his duty to the end, whatever the personal cost.
So we exchange a few unimportant words, and I notice that he keeps glancing furtively at the station clock. My departure is at an awkward time. I am aware that if my father leaves me soon and jumps on a tram, he can still meet up with his friends at the brasserie: Friday is their day. This is surely on his mind. Naturally I cannot mention the meeting without making him angry. We are standing side by side but our thoughts are far apart. A father and son? Yes, of course. But also, especially, a man going to the front and a civilian . . . The whole war separates us, a war that I know and he does not.
At long last the train arrives, one of those squalid, noisy army trains. Again I advise my father to go, on the pretext that it will take me some time to find a seat. He accepts a compromise:
‘Yes, you’re right, you’ll be better off with your pals!’
We embrace. He stays standing in front of me for a moment, indecisively. From the way he’s drumming his fingers in the air, I can tell he has something on his mind. He shares it with me:
‘Do try to get yourself a stripe or two!’
‘I’ll try!’ I say, being conciliatory.
‘So, farewell, see you soon, I hope . . . And don’t do anything reckless out there!’ he says, without much warmth.
We embrace again. He turns and heads off quickly. Perhaps to hide his emotion . . . Before going down the steps into the underground passageway, he waves me goodbye a final time, waves in the air, a vigorous wave: the gesture of a free man . . .
I stand alone on the platform, by the train. I’m alone, with my haversack with food for two days, my water bottle, my blanket, my wallet with a bit of money close to my chest, my watch on my left wrist, my knife in the right pocket of my trousers, secured by a chain, my pocket scissors – all my worldly goods . . . I haven’t forgotten anything.
I see the great, quiet city, sleeping – the city full of people who are not in danger, happy people and elegant, vivacious young women, who are not for soldiers. I can make out the streams of light of the main avenues of the city centre, where people are having fun as if nothing abnormal was happening.
The locomotive lets out steam and I can hear the guards’ whistles. So I jump on the train quickly, into the nearest carriage. Its foul, warm breath hits me in the face, the breath of a drunkard. I step over bodies and people grumble as I try to find a place for myself. I’m back in the war . . .