The World at Night

“Oh, it’s nothing. Twenty minutes with a doctor and I’ll be fine.”

“It won’t be a problem,” Casson said.

Well, he didn’t think it would be. What doctor? He only knew one doctor, his doctor. Old Dr. Genoux. What were his politics? Casson had no idea. He was brusque, forever vaguely irritated by something or other, and smelled eternally of eucalyptus. He’d been Casson’s doctor for twenty years, since university. One day Casson had noticed his hair was white. Good heavens! He couldn’t be a Vichyite or a Fascist, could he? Well, if not him, who else? The dentist? The professor at the Sorbonne faculty of medicine who lived across the street? Arnaud had once had a girlfriend who was a nurse. No, that wasn’t going to work, old Genoux would just have to do the job.

He worked his way through the medieval town of Dreux, intending to pick up the 932 that wound aimlessly into the Chevreuse valley. But then he somehow made a mistake and, a little way beyond the town, found himself instead on the N 12, with a sprinkling of early traffic headed for Paris. Well, all the roads went to the capital, the N 12 was as good as any other.

Going over a rail crossing, the springs plunged and the cargo gave a loud thump as it shifted in the trunk. The sergeant opened his eyes and laughed. “Don’t worry about that,” he said confidently.

An explosion, is what he meant. The shipment from England included radio crystals, which would allow clandestine wireless-telegraph sets to change frequencies, 200,000 francs, 20,000 dollars, four Sten carbines with 4,000 rounds of ammunition, time pencil detonators, and eighty pounds of the explosive cyclonite, chemically enhanced to make it malleable-plastique.

“The trick,” he added, “is actually getting it to go off.”

The town of Houdan. A place Casson had always liked, he’d come here with Marie-Claire for picnics in the forest-long ago and far away. They’d owned a set of chairs and a table that could be folded up and carried in the trunk of the car. She always brought a cloth for the table, he would pick up a pair of langoustes with green mayonnaise from Fauchon, and they’d sit by a field for hours and watch the day.

The road turned north, the sun was up now, light glistening on the wet fields, the last of the ground mist gathered over the streams. The sky had turned a delicate, morning blue, with a rose blush on the horizon. Something world-weary about these dawns in the country around Paris, he’d always felt that-well, all right, one more day if you think it’s going to do you any good. The next village on the road seemed closed up tight, the shutters still pulled down over the front of the cafe. Casson spotted a road marker and decided to take the 839. The town ended, there was a bridge, then a sharp left-hand curve through a wood, which straightened out to reveal some cars and trucks and guards with machine pistols.

Control.

They had a moment, no more. Casson hit the brake, rolled past five or six policemen who waved him on, down a lane formed by portable barriers-crossbraced x‘s of sawn logs strung with barbed wire. Coming up on the control, Casson and the sergeant had turned to each other, exchanged a look: well, too bad. That was all. Then Casson said, “Close your eyes. You’re injured, unconscious, almost gone.”

A young officer-Leutnant-in Wehrmacht gray appeared at the window. “Raus mit uns.” He was impatient, holster unsnapped, hand resting on his sidearm.

Casson got out and stood by the half-open door, nodded toward the passenger side of the car. “There’s a man hurt,” he said.

The Leutnant walked around to have a look, bent over and peered into the car. The sergeant’s eyes were closed, mouth open, head back. A bloody rag around his arm, a dark stain on the upholstery. The Leutnant hesitated, looked in Casson’s direction. Casson saw a possibility. “I don’t really know exactly how he got himself in this condition but it’s important that he see a doctor as soon as he can.” He said it quickly.

The Leutnant froze, then squared his shoulders and walked away.

The road lay in shadow-six in the morning, shafts of sunlight in the pine forest. Five cars had been stopped, as well as two rickety old trucks taking pigs to market. Amid the smell and the squealing, a German officer was trying to make sense of the drivers’ papers while they stood to one side looking sinister and apprehensive. By the car ahead of Casson, four men, dark, unshaven, possibly Gypsies, were trying to communicate with a man in a raincoat, perhaps a German security officer. Suddenly angry he yanked the door open, and a very pregnant, very frightened woman struggled out with hands held high in the air.

The young Leutnant came striding back to Casson’s car, a policeman in tow-an officer of the Gendarmerie Nationale, French military police with a reputation for brutality. The gendarme was angry at being asked to intervene. “All right,” he said to Casson, “what’s going on?”

“This man is injured.”

“How did it happen?”

“I’m taking him to a doctor.”

The gendarme gave him a very cold look. “I asked how.”

“An accident.”

“Where?”

“Working, I believe. In a garage. I wasn’t there.”

The gendarme’s eyes were like steel. Salaud-you bastard-trying to play games with me? In front of a German? I’ll take you behind a tree and break your fucking head. “Open the trunk,” he said.

Casson fumbled with the latch, then got it open. The intense odor of almonds, characteristic of plastic explosive, came rolling out at them. The Leutnant said “Ach,” and stepped back. “What is it?” the gendarme said.

“Almonds.”

The two valises were in plain sight, packed with francs, dollars, radio crystals, and explosive. Tonton Jules, just before they left, had tossed an old blanket over the two crates holding the sten guns and ammunition. Casson, at that moment, had thought it a particularly pointless gesture.

“Almonds,” the gendarme said. He didn’t know it meant explosive. He did know that Casson had been caught in the middle of something. Parisians of a certain class had no business on country roads at dawn, and people didn’t injure their upper arms in garage accidents. This was resistance of some kind, that much he did know, thus his patriotism, his honor, had been called into question and now he, a man with wife and family, had to compromise himself. He stared at Casson with pure hatred.

“You had better be going,” he said. “Your friend ought to see a doctor.” For the benefit of the Leutnant he made a Gallic gesture-eyes shut, shoulders up, hands in the air: Who knows what these people are doing, but it’s clearly nothing that would interest men of our stature.

He waved Casson on, down the road toward Paris.

Salaud. Don’t come back here.

10 June, 1941.

“Hello?”

“Good morning. I was wondering if you might have a life of Verdi, something nice, for a gift.”

“The composer?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not sure, we may very well have something. Can we call you back?”

“Yes. I’m at 63 26 08.”

“All right. We’ll be in touch.”

“Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

This time they met in the church of Notre-Dame de Secours, then walked in the Pere-Lachaise cemetery. At the gate, Mathieu bought a bouquet of anemones from an old woman.

They walked up the hill to the older districts, past the crumbling tombs of vanished nobility, past the Polish exiles, past the artists. They left the path at the Twenty-fourth Division and stood before the grave of Corot.

“Are you sure of the doctor?” Mathieu asked.