trust you, Madame, but I must ask you not to enquire as to the reasons for what we’re wearing. We are on our way back from an ultra-secret mission and haven’t yet been able to change …’
The reader will find his excuse less than subtle, but I ask him or her to remember the period. Over the next four years numerous people would live in disguise and under borrowed identities. The world would lose count of the colonels and generals who popped up like jack-in-the-boxes, only to disappear again immediately; of the bogus priests and phoney nuns concealing sub-machine guns or explosives underneath their skirts, and the inflated numbers of commercial travellers, an easy profession to assume for those who carried false papers. A great intrigue was on the wing, undertaken by amateurs who would dazzle the readers of adventure and espionage fiction. Madame Michette, ordinarily exceptionally sceptical and trained by years of experience at sniffing out men’s lies, felt so flattered by Palfy’s half-confidence that she instantly adopted an expression of complicity.
‘I promise you we shall say nothing.’
So they went through to the dining room, where the residents had already sat down. They stood up again as Madame entered, and for a moment Jean wondered if she was going to say grace. He and Palfy were introduced as ‘friends’ to Nénette, Claudette and one or two others. Indicating the young black woman, Madame added, ‘– and our black pearl, Victoire from Guadeloupe. Her real name is Jeannine, but the customers have such fond memories of the first black resident we had here that they demanded we call her successors Victoire as well. Since our motto has always been “put the customer first” …’
At the Sirène, behind closed shutters, life carried on in the glare of electric light. Jean noticed the poor girls’ anaemia, their skin coarsened by make-up, the rings round their eyes and their bodies’ lack of firmness beneath their thin dressing gowns. Their eyes were the only part of their faces that still showed signs of a life of joy and pleasure. They nudged each other and giggled, and there was general hilarity when Madame scolded Zizi for eating her asparagus in a manner that might have given pause to those with dirty minds.
Palfy liked to put his friends on the spot. Jean’s silence made him feel disapproved of, so he swung the spotlight back on him.
‘To be perfectly honest’ – he leant towards Madame’s ear – ‘I know Monsieur Salah very slightly. It’s more my young colleague who knows him well. Before this absurd war they saw each other often, in Rome, in London and even, I believe, at Grangeville in Normandy.’
‘And how old are you, young man?’ she asked Jean.
‘I’m just twenty.’
‘Twenty years old, and you’ve already seen the world!’
‘Not the world: only Italy and England.’
‘Well, I had to wait forty years before I went on a pilgrimage to Rome. That was the year I brought Maria back.’
Across the table from Jean a girl with brown hair and bright eyes smiled. Less pale than the others, she revealed behind her plumply rolled lips the compact teeth of a Roman she-wolf.
‘And do you speak Italian?’ Madame enquired, making at the same time a gesture to Nénette that she should extend her little finger when drinking her glass of wine.
‘Only a few words, but I speak English.’
‘Education always comes in handy. I say it again and again to my young ladies.’
The young ladies, who usually chattered non-stop at the arrival of a customer, whoever he might be, had understood that a certain decorum was called for at this lunch in the company of two strangers. Madame fortunately was well versed in the art of what she called ‘lathering’ her customers, and secretly hoped that the two messengers would take flattering reports back to Salah about the way her establishment was run.
‘Who knows where that man is now?’ she said with an anxiety that was only half feigned.
‘In Lebanon,’ Jean said.
Questioning looks were exchanged around the table, but no one dared ask where Lebanon was. Madame Michette’s anxiety was not allayed.
‘There’s no war there, I hope?’
‘Not yet!’ Palfy said with a knowing air.
Zizi, the establishment’s cook, had prepared a surprise: a chocolate gateau topped with whipped cream. Everyone clapped. Madame Michette injected a melancholy note.
‘Cream is getting hard to come by. Apparently the Germans are commandeering whole trainloads of it. If we let them, they’ll take it all. However, Monsieur Cassagnate, who is a little in love with our Zizi, has promised to keep some by for us. From his farm! Real cream.’
‘He’s such a sweetie!’ Zizi said.
‘A sweetie filled with cream,’ Nénette added.
Madame tapped on the table with her spoon.
‘Nénette always talks too much,’ she said. ‘When she was little her parents took her to pray to St Lupus, who cures the timid. He cured her too well.’
Palfy played up to her, listening attentively, and when the Bénédictine was served (what else, in such a right-minded establishment?) Madame Michette and her young ladies launched into stories of their favourite saints with healing properties: Saints Cosmas and Damian who would cure you of anything at Brageac in Cantal, St Priest at Volvic who restored the infirm (although, as Victoire observed, he had had a failure with Monsieur Petitlouis), Notre-Dame de la Râche at Domerat who was good for getting rid of impetigo, and at Clermont itself a pair of saints who were not short of work: St Zachary who restored the power of speech and St George who eliminated the harmful effects of embarrassing diseases …
Madame protested. They had no need of him at the Sirène. It was a decent establishment, very hygienic. The girls cleared the table and carried the dishes to the kitchen. In half an hour the first customers would be arriving. They had just enough time to make themselves up and slip on the négligées they wore for work. The assistant madam, who had received Jean and Palfy so disagreeably, appeared looking pinched and officious and summoned the young ladies. The bedrooms needed to be clean and tidy.
‘It’s Sunday,’ Madame explained to her guests. ‘And after that parade we’ll be seeing a fair few soldiers. Oh, if only Monsieur Michette were here …’
‘He won’t be long now.’
‘One often needs a man on such occasions. Military men are such children.’
‘My colleague,’ Palfy said, ‘has exactly the physique you require to preserve respect for the conventions. If he can be of any use to you … I can’t personally: I’ve a very hollow chest, and at thirty my reflexes aren’t as quick as they were.’
Before accepting his offer, Madame Michette again expressed her keenness to know more about the letter. Might she not just see the envelope? Palfy put his hand in his pocket and turned pale.
‘I had it a moment ago.’
Jean let him search for it. Madame Michette, her face flushed a little from red wine and Bénédictine, started to look suspicious. Palfy ran to the sitting room and Jean took advantage of his absence to get out the letter
