The World at Night

stood and extended a hand. “Jean-Claude,” he said. That was Casson’s affectionate nickname, in fact his first and middle names.

“Send a postcard.”

Fleischer was suddenly close to tears-didn’t trust himself to speak. He nodded, tight-lipped, and left the office.

“Good luck, Harry,” Casson said.

Gabriella stuck her head around the doorway. “James Templeton is calling from London.”

Casson grabbed the phone with one hand while the other dug through a pile of dossiers on his desk, eventually coming up with one tied in red ribbon. Mysterious Island was printed across the cover. The movie wouldn’t be called that-somebody else had the rights to the Jules Verne novel-but that was the idea. When their yacht sinks in a tropical storm, three men and two women find themselves … In one corner of the folder, Casson had written Jean Gabin?

“Hello?” Casson said.

“Casson, good morning, James Templeton.” Templeton was a merchant banker. He pronounced Casson’s name English-style; accent on the first syllable, the final “n” loud and clear.

“How’s the weather in London?”

“Pouring rain.”

“Sorry. Here the weather is good, at least.”

“Yes, and damn it all to hell anyhow.”

“That’s what we think.”

“Look, Casson, I want to be straight with you.”

“All right.”

“The committee met this morning, in emergency session. Sir Charles is, well, you’ve met him. Hard as nails and fears no man. But we’re going to wait a bit on Mysterious Island. It’s not that we don’t like the idea. Especially if Jean Gabin comes on board, we feel it may be exactly right for us. But now is not the moment.”

“I understand perfectly, and, I am afraid you are right. We are at a time when it doesn’t hurt to, uh, not continue.”

“We were hoping you’d see it that way.”

“Without confidence, one cannot move ahead, Monsieur Templeton.”

“Do you hear anything, on the situation?”

“Not really. The radio. Reynaud is strong, and we know the Belgians will fight like hell once they organize themselves.”

“Well, over here Chamberlain has resigned, and Churchill has taken over.”

“It’s for the best?”

“Certainly in this office, that’s the feeling.”

Casson sighed. “Well, thumbs-up.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“Mysterious Island will wait.”

“This doesn’t leave you-I mean …”

“No, no! Not at all. Don’t think it.”

“Good, then. I’ll tell Sir Charles. In a year we’ll all be at the screening, drinking champagne.”

“The best!”

“Our treat!”

“Just you try it!”

“Good-bye, Casson. We’ll send along a letter.”

“Yes. Good-bye.”

Merde. Double merde.

Gabriella knocked and opened the door. “Your wife on the line,” she said.

He always had a mental picture of Marie-Claire when he talked to her on the phone. She had tiny eyes and a hard little mouth, which made her seem spiteful and mean. Not a fair portrait, in fact, because there were moments when she wasn’t that way at all.

Of course-Parisienne to the depths of her soul-she made herself beautiful. She smelled delicious, and touched you accidentally. Had you in bed before you knew it, had life her way after that. Knowing Marie-Claire as he did, Casson had always assumed that Bruno, a pompous ass at the dinner table, was a maestro in the bedroom.

“The Pichards cannot come,” Marie-Claire said. “Yet Bruno insists we have this dinner. Francoise called and said that Philippe’s younger brother, an officer, had been wounded, near the town of Namur. A sergeant had actually telephoned, from somewhere in Belgium. It must have been, I don’t know, dreadful. Poor Francoise was in tears, not brave at all. I thought well, that’s that. Cancel the cake, call the domestic agency. But Bruno insisted we go on.”

Casson made a certain Gallic sound-it meant refined horror at a world gone wrong. Again.

Marie-Claire continued, “So, I rationalize. You know me, Jean-Claude. There’s an elephant in the hall closet, I think, oh some circus performer’s been here and forgotten his elephant. Now Yvette Langlade calls, Francoise has just called her-to explain why she and Philippe won’t be there. And Yvette says we are going to cancel, aren’t we? And I say no, life must go on, and she’s horrified, I can tell, but of course she won’t come out and say it.”

Casson stared out the window. He really didn’t know what to do. Marie-Claire had a problem with her lover and her circle of friends- it didn’t have much to do with him. “The important thing is to get through today,” he said, then paused for a moment. The telephone line hissed gently. “Whatever you decide to do, Marie-Claire, I will go along with that.”

“All right.” She took a breath, then sighed. “Will you call me in an hour, Jean-Claude? Please?”

He said yes, they hung up, he held his head in his hands.

He thought about canceling his lunch-with the agent Perlemere-and asked Gabriella to telephone, cautiously, to see if Monsieur Perlemere is able to keep his lunch appointment.

Oh yes. A little thing like war did not deter Perlemere. So the good soldier Casson marched off to Alexandre to eat warm potato-and-beef salad and hear about Perlemere’s stable of lame horses-aging ingenues, actors who drank too much, the Rin-Tin-Tin look-alike, Paco, who had already bitten two directors, and an endless list beyond that. A volume business.

Perlemere ordered two dozen Belons, the strongest of the oysters, now at the very end of their season. He rubbed his hands and attacked with relish, making a thrup sound as he inhaled each oyster, closing his eyes with pleasure, then drinking the juice from the shell, a second thrup, followed by a brief grunt that meant arguments about the meaning of life were irrelevant once you could afford to eat oysters.

Perlemere was fat, with a small but prominent black mustache-a sort of Jewish Oliver Hardy. Perlemere, Perlmutter, mother-of-pearl, Casson thought. Curious names the Jews had. “I saw Harry Fleischer this morning,” he said. “Off to MGM.”

“Mm. Time to run, eh?”

“Maybe for the best.”

Perlemere shrugged. “The Germans hit first. Now we’ll settle with them once and for all.”

Casson nodded polite agreement.

“What’d you do last time?” Perlemere demolished an oyster.

“I graduated lycee in 1916, headed for the Normale.” The Ecole Normale Superieure the most exclusive college in the Sorbonne, was France’s Harvard, Yale, and Princeton all rolled into one. “My eighteenth birthday, I went down to the recruiters. They asked me a few questions, then sent me off to install cameras on Spads flying reconnaissance over German lines. I changed film, developed it-really the war started me in this business.”

“Normalien, eh?” He meant Casson was well-connected; a member, by university affiliation, of the aristocracy.

Casson shrugged. “I guess it meant something, once upon a time.”