The Foundling Boy. Michel Deon
heart sank.
‘Come on, Papa, don’t be jealous!’ Théo, leaning over, muttered to him. ‘They’re not going to steal her from under your nose.’
Of all Théo’s jokes ‘Papa’ was the only one that irritated Antoine, especially in front of Marie-Dévote.
‘If you call me “Papa” again, I’ll break a bottle over your head.’
‘Keep calm, Antoine, I didn’t mean to upset you. You’re “Papa” because I think of you as part of the family.’
Turning to the two painters, who had stopped talking at the commotion, he added, ‘Antoine is a friend. Our great, great friend. He’s not from round here. He comes from the north where it’s cold and it rains a lot.’
‘I should like to point out,’ Antoine said, ‘that it is likewise raining here.’
The deluge was streaming noisily down the windows and obscuring the view of the beach. The sea was only thirty metres away, but it was impossible even to make it out.
‘We need the weather,’ Théo said. ‘Without it the plants, they all die, and it’s a desert. Even the cold. It kills the germs, otherwise you walk round knee-deep in them and pretty soon you die.’
His self-assurance had grown since his marriage, and Antoine suspected that he might even be reading the odd newspaper and picking up some basic facts there that he then passed off as his own knowledge. But Antoine’s problem was rather more pressing than the irritation he felt towards Théo. Inactive since his accident on the Tôtes road, reduced to the furtive kindnesses requested and received from Adèle Louverture in his room, where there was always the danger of being disturbed, and with his blood now warmed by pastis, rosé wine and Bénédictine, Antoine battled against the arousing effect of Marie-Dévote’s skipping around the room. From the corner of his eye he followed her bottom and legs as she moved rapidly between the kitchen and tables; he miserably failed to resist the temptation offered by the neckline of her blouse, and would have given anything to be the little gold crucifix that swung between her breasts on a black velvet ribbon and caressed each of them with every movement. Théo was not so accommodating as all that, and would certainly not have given up his siesta with his wife without a number of expansionary projects that had been evolving over recent months, all of them requiring Antoine’s patronage. Having left his friend in lengthy nail-biting anticipation, Théo suddenly announced that he was summoned to Saint-Raphaël and stepped outside to catch the bus that stopped in front of the hotel. The two painters, giving up hope of a break in the clouds, started a game of jacquet, and Antoine, successfully trapping Marie-Dévote in the hallway behind the door, at last placed her hand where she could measure the length of his admiration.
‘And who’ll do the dishes?’ she asked, in entirely token resistance.
‘Bugger the dishes.’
It is true that there are moments when the dishes are no longer of the slightest importance. Marie-Dévote did not need a great deal of persuading. And so they spent the afternoon together in bed, and I shall stop there, because this story already has many longueurs, and note merely that it was highly successful.
They slept for a time, and were woken by the sound of hooting as the bus returned from Saint-Raphaël. Marie-Dévote sprang out of bed and dressed in the twinkling of an eye to go and meet her Théo. Antoine’s mouth felt furry and his eyes swollen. He too got out of bed, walked down the beach, jumped into the sea, splashed around like a seal and came out breathless but rejuvenated. It had stopped raining, and one of the painters had set up his easel on the beach and was finishing a picture of Théo’s boat, beached on the sand. A soft orange-washed light spread from the horizon into a sky that was free of clouds. Antoine walked behind the painter and felt a shiver of delight. He knew nothing of modern art, but this painting, laden with primitive colours and an ample, sensuous reality conveyed in reds and blues, charmed him instantly.
‘Do you sell your work?’ he said awkwardly, not knowing how to go about such questions with an artist, without offending him.
‘From time to time,’ the painter said, cleaning a brush.
‘I mean: that picture.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Antoine du Courseau. But the picture will be for Marie-Dévote and Théo. They haven’t got anything for the walls of their dining room.’
‘Ah!’
The painter tidied his palette away and, folding up his easel, offered the canvas to Antoine.
‘Take it now. If you don’t I’ll change my mind. I’ll glaze it for you when it’s dry.’
‘But … I need to give you something for it.’
‘Of course … write to my dealer. I’ll give you his card. He’ll tell you how much. That’s his business.’
Antoine stayed standing alone on the beach, the canvas in his hand, like a stray object he had discovered on the sand. Dusk was falling. A cool onshore breeze began to blow and he shivered.
‘Saints! What’s up, Antoine? Are you dreaming?’ Théo shouted. ‘Come and have a pastis.’
He walked back to the terrace. The bottle was waiting next to the carafe of cold water. Théo poured pastis, then water. Antoine placed the painting on the table and drank standing up.
‘Do you like it?’
‘I suppose so. Hey … it really looks like it.’
‘To decorate your dining room.’
‘Nice. The boat looks as if it’s about ready to go.’
‘Are you fishing tonight?’
‘I’m thinking about it.’
It was part of the game. Antoine played with ill grace, and Théo brought it to an end by giving in, but only after enjoying Antoine’s discomfort. He left to go fishing with his lamp, and Antoine remained in the dining room with Marie-Dévote and the two painters, who acknowledged his shy nod with a smile. Marie-Dévote had rings around her eyes and the slightly too languorous and feline look of a woman who has spent the afternoon satisfying herself fully. Antoine still wanted her, but more calmly and deliberately this time, and as he sipped her soupe au pistou, served steaming in big blue china dishes, he felt to an extreme extent – to the point of oppression – the fear of loving and of experiencing an impossible passion for a woman who could never be his. It was a bewildering feeling, a feeling that, for all its desire, revealed the bitterness of a wasted life. He wished he had never met Marie-Dévote, and he cursed the appointment with fate that had driven him, on an August afternoon three years earlier, to this beach café where a young girl sat sunning her brown knees on the terrace. At the same time he was forced to admit that, in the absence of Marie-Dévote, these last three years would have been pitiful, without any grace, joy or happiness. Without any happiness at all. He looked up.
‘What’s the matter?’ Marie-Dévote said. ‘Your eyes are watering.’
‘The soup’s hot. I burnt myself.’
‘Oh good. I’m glad it’s nothing worse!’
She left to help her mother with the dishes and he turned to the painters, who were also finishing dinner, and raised his glass.
‘Why don’t you join us?’ the one who had sold him the picture said.
‘I’d be delighted.’
They questioned him diplomatically, and he answered without bending the truth. One of the two men knew Grangeville.
‘I was up that way last year. I rented a little place near the cemetery. Very soft light. Grey gravestones, white cliffs, the sea. One of those places you wouldn’t mind dying in. I came back with a dozen seascapes, but that’s not what the dealers want. The only thing they can sell is the sun. Isn’t that true, André?’
‘Yes. And we’ll